The party stayed bunkered down in the House that Sits High for several days. Though they were alone in a ruined town buried in the darkest of forests the rest did them much good and the time came when all felt ready to get back on course. They ensured their supplies were fully restocked and ventured down from the mesa and back to the route west for the temple.
AID YOUR ALLY (Bjorn, Wayfinder) - Miss with Complication (6)
UNDERTAKE A JOURNEY [7/10] (Luiden) - Weak Hit [8/10]
Whilst scouting ahead Bjorn spotted a shadow moving to his flank. Bow and arrow at the ready he loped after it using cover wherever he could. As he closed in he caught glimpses of a young woman in Ironlander garb running and giggling. Every so often she would peek out from behind a tree, catch eyes with him and make an expression of mock horror before darting out of sight again, like she was playing a game with him. Weirder still he thought he could see faint wisps of black smoke rising in her wake. Eventually he lost her completely and returned to the party, perplexed and disconcerted.
Later that day Tekhra halted the group's progress quite suddenly. She skulked forwards a little way and quietly climbed a mound to get a better look at something distant before returning. 'Stone circle up ahead,' she reported to a circle of blank faces. She explained the phenomenon - a formation of standing stones with sentience that craves all knowledge and secrets, the more obscure and esoteric the better. They were dangerous, cunning even, and struck horrible deals with the greedy and the unwary that invariably cost the knowledge-seeker more than was gained. They should take care to keep their distance and circumnavigate this ancient threat.
Williarth was more than happy with this recommendation, but Luiden was not. Fear and trepidation were no longer acceptable to him and he declared he would engage with the circle of stones, alone if need be. He strode off in the direction Tekhra had indicated, heeding none of her warnings. The rest of them followed, but kept their distance.
He made his way along a steep slope and at first couldn't see any stones at all. He began to think this was just some elvish folklore to impress the humans, but then as his hand reached to push aside a tangle of hanging vines his fingers hit stone within them. He pulled the vines away to reveal an eight-foot menhir of rough, cold stone. Deep grooves formed swirls and shapes reminiscent of rune carvings, but they had the look of something formed of natural erosion rather than any intentional sculptor. He looked all about him and began to spot others he'd missed. He had wandered into the heart of the circle - which now seemed to be more of a spiral formation - and disturbingly he must have passed straight by several of the other menhirs without noticing. Also escaping his notice until now was a thick, wet mist risen above his knees, soaking the scene in mystique and menace.
The others waited outside the perimeter with baited breath.
SCENE CHALLENGE - Circle of Stones (Dangerous)
Luiden addressed the central stone with the charm and cordiality of his former self. The gravitas this place commanded outweighed his petty indignation.
It felt absurd at first, but after a moments silence the air began to chill and the stone slowly morphed in form and hue until he found himself faced with an old elf sitting upon a humble wooden throne. The man was dressed in robes and looked ancient, which for an elf suggested a lifespan several times that of a human. Luiden speculated from the symbols on the elf's pendants and the scrolls in his lap that this was the presentation of a deeply learned individual. He looked about and saw that the other menhirs had morphed into similarly wizened old elves on thrones. Each head was a clear foot or two above his and they looked down upon the southerner down long noses with innate disdain and condescension.
Luiden's comrades observed no change in the stones nor heard nothing uttered by them. They waited with baited breath.
He beseeched the stones for wisdom concerning the Moonshard Stone - specifically what it would take to destroy it.
SECURE AN ADVANTAGE - Weak Hit
There was much murmuring and somehow they could all talk past and around Luiden without him making out a word. The central stone finally looked down upon him with a high disdain and announced that they held no such wisdom.
Luiden held firm and asserted that he was certain they must. He promised to trade well for it on condition that they give him the respect of honesty.
FACE DANGER [0/10] [0] - Miss with Complication (9) [0/10] [1]
ENDURE HARM - Weak Hit
ENDURE STRESS - Weak Hit
The central stone began to chuckle. It rubbed Luiden up right the wrong way, but before he could speak to it he felt the chuckling spread into the ground beneath his feet. The other stones started chuckling too and the tremor beneath grew and grew and reverberated through him to the core. He was thrown from his footing and slid down the slope, cracking his head against a rock before catching himself on a root.
As the quake subsided he pulled himself back up and made his way back to the central stone, angry as hell. He railed at the old elf, threatening to bring forces beyond life and death against them if they did not engage with his enquiries.
FACE DANGER [0/10] [1] - Strong Hit [2/10] [1]
The elf sage seemed thoughtful at his aggressive resolve, as if only now taking him seriously. Luiden could feel cold, psychic tendrils gently teasing at the edges of his consciousness as the stones tried to establish the veracity of this claim. He focused on his vow to the King of Death and the experience of facing him, making it nice and clear what he was referring to. After a long pause, the centre stone confirmed that they did know a great deal about the Moonshard Stone and what it might take to destroy it. Luiden requested proof.
FACE DANGER [2/10] [1] - Weak Hit [4/10] [2]
This was testing the patience of the stones and there was much agitated grumbling all about him. The centre stone hushed them all, sternly, then reached down to place a hand on Luiden's forehead. He received a sudden vision, a snapshot identical to this very scene but in his place stood a young elf boy holding the Moonshard Stone aloft as the centre stone addressed it directly.
Luiden was angered at this. That they had engaged with an entity responsible for so much death spoke volumes of their cold, unempathic nature and he didn't like it. And he told them so with aggressive, accusatory language. He made it very clear that there was no place in this world for neutrality in the face of evil and any attempts as such deserved nothing but the utmost of shame.
FACE DANGER [4/10] [2] - Miss [4/10] [3]
ENDURE STRESS - Miss with Complication (7)
The psychic tendrils stroked and pressed harder at his mind. They couldn't get in past the surface thoughts without his consent, that much was clear, but they could push and cajole his thoughts in directions they didn't want to go. He found himself reliving recent experiences of bodily harm - the gang fight at the Fortress, the hollow in the Bloodied Wield, the loss of his arm and the ritual of the Moonshard Stone. He felt the pain and the shock and the trauma all afresh, and all surrounded by the mocking faces of the elven perpetrators. The slow-burning mistrust of elf-kind that had been festering deep within him came boiling up and over into a full-on pathological hatred.
When the tendrils relented and Luiden's focus returned he realised he'd been weeping. The power and tricks of the stones were too much to cow into submission, he realised this now.
He bowed his own head in submission and made a heartfelt plea, fighting the bile rising within and promising to share his communion ritual in return.
FACE DANGER [4/10] [3] - Weak Hit [6/10] [4]
RESOLVE SCENE CHALLENGE - Weak Hit
There was some excited murmuring from the other stones, but the centre stone remained stoic. He pulled a scroll from some recess in his throne and perused it carefully through small reading glasses before returning it to its hiding place. He then looked over in the direction of the rest of the party, as if noticing them for the first time, and raised a boney, wrinkled hand to point that way. He declared that the trade would take place, but was uneven. Luiden must bolster his end with secrets from one of his allies.
Luiden protested but the old ones ignored him, each staring straight ahead in silence.
He returned through the pool of mist to the party and gave an edited version of the encounter, but including the requirement that one of them must also offer something. Tekhra was beside herself with ire - this was exactly the kind of crap she'd warned them about and she was having none of it. Williarth similarly wouldn't even consider it, whilst Kabeera was somewhat hesitant. Bjorn however, always desperate to prove his worth, volunteered with little reservation. Luiden took him back to the centre stone and the menhirs appeared to Bjorn in their elven form as they had with Luiden.
Without a word Luiden felt the tendrils once more, but this time they were pushing away his own thoughts and giving him new ones. He saw blacksmiths working tirelessly on a massive iron warhammer in a dark foundry and he somehow knew its name to be the Hammer of Reckoning. The view panned out to show the foundry was in a high cave overlooking tumultuous waters and he somehow knew this place to be the Lost Spire of Low Falls, situated far west on the Barrier Islands.
REACH A MILESTONE (Destroy the Moonshard Stone) - [3/10]
Bjorn had expected some discourse being required on his part, but apparently his very presence was considered complicity. The cold tendrils crawled in and started rooting around. It was an uncomfortable sensation, violating and incursive, but he was powerless to defy it. Everything within him screamed for him to run, get his mind away from this place and return to psychological and psychic safety, but not one limb would obey the command.
Then he heard the sickeningly-familiar snort of a bull.
He saw a vision of wisps of black smoke entwining with the psychic tendrils, wrapping around them and following them back to the source. It horrified him to learnt he demon had left a trace of itself within him and feared for what the implications of this would be, but it was nothing compared to the abject terror of the circle of stones. If the work of the demon was the destruction of memory then there was no greater threat in all the Ironlands to an entity that was nothing but the mass-culmination secrets and lore.
Luiden and Bjorn were violently released from the psychic grip with a chilling hiss of primal fear. They looked at one another with expressions of relief, but then the ground began to shake again - a tremor of fearful rage that threatened to tear the entire hillside apart beneath them. Even the three onlookers were nearly thrown straight off their feet and all around the surrounding area trees started to uproot and boulders began tumbling. All five turned as one and made a run for the summit of the slope.
FACE DANGER (Kabeera) - Weak Hit
FACE DANGER (Luiden) - Strong Hit
FACE DANGER (Williarth) - Miss
ENDURE HARM - Strong Hit
FACE DANGER (Bjorn) - Strong Hit
FACE DANGER (Tekhra) - Miss
ENDURE HARM - Weak Hit
Luiden and Bjorn had an easier time of it, perhaps by starting at the epicentre. Kabeera caught her foot on a root and suffered a twisted ankle, but otherwise managed to scrabble her way up without incident. Williarth, however, found his staff something of an impediment and in an attempt to use it for leverage against the rising tremors misjudged the physics of it and fell heavily backwards into Tekhra sending them both back down the slope. The staff came in handy though, wedging between two sturdy trunks and halting the bard's descent, but the elf fell further and took more of a battering before finding her own saving handhold on a root. The staff came into further use as a means of helping her back up the slope, which was rapidly becoming less and less shallow as the dislodged earth and stones tumbled in greater mass.
Eventually the five of them stood on the crest and looked back down. The circle of stones couldn't be seen through the mist and the dust, but the tremors were weak enough up here that they considered themselves thankfully safe from it. After taking some moments to digest and re-steel themselves they set off again towards the Chasm of Sundered Ash and the temple within.
AID YOUR ALLY (Bjorn, Wayfinder) - Strong Hit
UNDERTAKE A JOURNEY [8/10] (Williarth) - Weak Hit [9/10]
After another couple of days of hard going through the dense, damp forest there came an excited cry from Bjorn up ahead. They hurried to catch up, fearing what misfortune he'd found for himself this time, only to be greeted by the spectacular vista of the Chasm of Sundered Ash.
They stood at the edge of a precipice at the wide head of a deep and long chasm. Beneath them white-rock cliffs descended steeply hundreds of feet into a lagoon of mist that prevented any guess at the total depth. The only clue was the occasional penetration of treetops from below. Williarth called out and the echo took a good minute to recede out of earshot. The air was chill and the breeze strong and on it they could smell an earthy stench of decay.
They explored the cliff-top in both directions until they found a narrow and precarious path that traced a descending line round the north side of the canyon. In single-file they carefully trod the route, holding onto the cliff face as much as possible. One loose footing could be all it took to see one of them disappear forever. As they descended the smell grew stronger, the air wetter and the visibility poorer. The going was painfully slow and they were still going as the sun dipped beneath the treeline.
Bjorn called a warning and they looked out to see large black shapes gliding in and out of the mist lagoon. Tekhra shouted for everyone to brace themselves for attack. There was no mistaking the threat here - these were bladewings.
ENTER THE FRAY - Large pack of Bladewings (Extreme)
...[Heart] Kabeera - Strong Hit with Opportunity (3)
...[Heart] Luiden - Weak Hit
...[Heart] Williarth - Strong Hit
...[Heart] Bjorn - Strong Hit
...[Heart] Tekhra - Strong Hit
The open environment and their elevation gave them ample time to ready and brace themselves for the onslaught, except for Luiden who with only one arm fumbled a little in bracing himself against the rockface. Kabeera was fortunate to be near a bushy growth that she could hide behind and await the right moment.
Bjorn found himself a roomy ledge on which to line up his shot.
SECURE AN ADVANTAGE (Archer) - Weak Hit
CLASH [0/10] - Strong Hit [1.5/10]
He struggled to get a good lock-on, but seized the opportunity when one of the ferocious birds came rising swiftly from the mist. The arrow struck it firmly in the chest and it fell back down, instantly dead.
Williarth waited for one to draw near, staff at the ready. One came diving down at him, wings whistling through the cold evening air.
STRIKE [1.5/10] (Long-arm) - Weak Hit [2/10]
He brought the staff down on one of the great wings of the bird and smacked it aside before it could connect with him.
Meanwhile Tekhra made for the top of a boulder to give her two blades more room.
SECURE AN ADVANTAGE - Weak Hit with Opportunity (1)
CLASH [2/10] (Masked, Duellist) - Strong Hit [4/10]
She scrambled up to the elevated position but by the time her weapons were readied they were upon her. She sliced, swiped and chopped in a flurry of feathers and bird-blood, dispatching two of them. Her elevated position gave her full freedom of movement as well as attracting more attention from the rest of the group.
Luiden squatted and prepared for an incoming attack.
FACE DANGER (Skirmisher) - Weak Hit
ENDURE HARM - Weak Hit
CLASH [4/10] (Skirmisher) - Weak Hit [5/10]
ENDURE HARM - Miss with Complication (6) (Wounded)
He fended the shrieking bird off and at an opportune moment lunged to gouge a deep wound in its flank, but this left him open to another that came screeching in from the side. Its talons raked into his thighs and the beak pecked brutally into his chest. Batting it away he lost his balance and slipped from his position to go sliding quickly towards the misty oblivion below.
FACE DANGER - Weak Hit
His instincts saved him in the nick of time - he thrust the spear into the base of an earthy mound and cried out in pain as his arm halted his fall. He hung there over the precipice, bloodied legs dangling uselessly.
Kabeera was nearby and seeing that the great bird was about to take advantage of Luiden's immobility launched herself from hiding to strike from behind.
STRIKE [5/10] (Cutthroat) - Weak Hit [6/10]
Her blade sliced through its wing and sent it wheeling away from the rockface.
Bjorn lined up a shot.
SECURE AN ADVANTAGE (Archer) - Weak Hit
CLASH [6/10] - Weak Hit [7/10]
ENDURE STRESS - Weak Hit
As the black shape descended towards him and into his aim he heard it scream. The pitch and intensity grew quickly and he realised it was not a bird's voice but that of a human. What he didn't consciously realise was that it was his mother's voice - another manifestation of his abducted memories haunting him. The familiar yet unrecognisable sound of terror didn't deter his shot which ran straight through the bladewing's neck and killed it instantly, but it chilled him to the core and left him panting and panicked.
The last two closed in on Williarth, the only one not to have proven lethal to them, but Tekhra was bounding to his aid.
STRIKE [7/10] (Masked, Duellist) - Strong Hit [9/10]
END THE FIGHT [9/10] - Strong Hit
The twin swords whirled and stabbed. Her timing was split-second perfect and in scant few seconds of graceful sweeps and lunges the bladewings fell in pieces into the mist below. The group breathed a sigh of relief in the cold, damp silence before realising Luiden's predicament. They quickly fastened a rope around Bjorn's waist and Tekhra lowered him to pull the Skirmisher back up to the ledge.
FACE DANGER (Tekhra, Masked) - Strong Hit with Opportunity (5)
The elf had to dig deep to find the strength to pull them both up with little assistance from Bjorn. She felt the mask spike the blood in her veins with heightened adrenaline and bolster her muscles with fiery determination. She was even able to hold them long enough for the spear to be retrieved from the anchor-point, much to the skirmisher's relief.
Luiden was in a bad way and losing blood. Williarth prepared a salve for his injuries and as he went to apply it Tekhra held the skirmisher firmly against the rockface to prevent any sudden thrashing.
AID YOUR ALLY (Masked) - Weak Hit
HEAL - Miss
ENDURE HARM - Weak Hit
Luiden let out a scream of agony that echoed around the chasm for miles. A nearby flock of birds was shocked into sudden flight, which had Bjorn and Kabeera instinctively reaching for weapons thinking another avain threat was at hand. Luiden lost consciousness and Williarth and Tekhra quickly finished applying the salve and shook him awake again. He was weak and just clinging to life, but there was no turning back. The group gave him a minute and some rations to regain his composure and willpower before urging him to press on with them along and down the chasm trail.
REACH YOUR DESTINATION [8/10] - Strong Hit
The trekked on, much slower now, down into the mist and along the length of the canyon wall. Night fell and torches were lit - Luiden kept close behind Tekhra since he could not carry his own illumination. Hours later, shivering and soaked they came upon a cavernous opening in the rockface. All around the mouth of the cavern, even to the top of the lip thirty feet over head, were carved runes and esoteric symbols of unknown meaning. They looked centuries-old and was a sure sign this was the way to the forgotten temple.
Williarth stepped up and organised a camp in the mouth of the cavern (once sure that no threat dwelt nearby within it).
MAKE CAMP - Strong Hit
Tekhra tended her own wounds and Luiden indulged in some calming incense to keep him from descending into despondency. Then while the group talked around the fire of their accomplishments and other confidence-boosting subjects, Bjorn ventured into the cavern to get an idea of what they would be facing the following day. For the rest of the night they took watch in pairs and all slept heavily with aching bones and frayed nerves, knowing they were on the precipice of great evil and peril.