ForceUser
Explorer
They approached the crystal spire with apprehension. The gigantic bones which ringed the structure at erratic intervals seemed to be the ribs of some great creature—or a multitude of great creatures—stood on end, and seemed to serve no useful purpose other than to inspire dread. Closer to the tower, they could see beyond the ring of bones, to the grounds littered with debris and haphazardly piled mounds of earth. In the glow from the dying sun, the entrance to the hall, a single arch perhaps seven feet tall, seemed black and ominous from without the fossilized fence. From there, no heraldic symbols appeared to flank the entryway; no insignia of any kind marred the jagged, angular surfaces of the spire.
The companions spread out as they entered the yard, and under Stefano’s cautious admonition, Louis and Wigliff set off to circumnavigate the structure. In the midst of this foray, they discovered an oddity—a gigantic pile of icy gray earth next to an even larger hole in the ground, adjacent to the spire by some twenty feet, out of sight of the entryway. The gap in the ground yawned like the maw of some stony beast.
“What do you think?” asked the bard.
Wigliff pondered for a moment. “Something big.”
While the bard and the wizard’s apprentice studied the grounds, the others moved into the debris-littered yard with their torches thrust before them. Approaching the entryway, Einar recoiled and in a low voice growled, “Prester.”
Stefano stepped forward to see a portal that looked very much like a vertical, quivering pool of blood. It flickered brightly in sympathy with the fire from the barbarian’s torch. Beneath the reflective sheen, the surface devoured light. Stefano examined the portal closely, careful not to touch it. After a moment he said, “Ilse.”
The templar stood forth, holding Saint Carlo’s mace aloft like a holy beacon. Now the bloody pool roiled, reflecting the soft white radiance cast from the relic. Underneath, what was black became bright red.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I have never encountered the like,” replied the theurgist.
“What should we do?” asked Einar grimly.
“Wait for the others.”
Rurik, upon spying the portal, forced down the remains of his last meal which threatened to come back up, and stepped away from the spire. “I’ll…guard the approach until you get this sorted,” he announced.
Louis and Wigliff returned and reported.
“No other entryways? You’re sure?” asked Stefano.
“Near as can tell,” Louis replied breezily, “Just that big hole in the ground. Is that really a wall of blood? How marvelous!” He dipped his fingers into the wetly glistening doorway.
“Louis!” several of the others exclaimed in unison.
“Warm. Wet. Sticky,” he declared, withdrawing his hand. He sniffed his fingers, “Smells like iron. It’s blood. But it’s magical—it didn’t soil my glove. See?” He held up a grimy mitten, which appeared bloodless.
Einar scratched his beard. “So this is the entrance to the hall. There is no other way.”
“It’s an entrance,” replied Stefano, “but I’m not convinced that it leads inside. Who knows what’s on the other side of that…door?”
“What are you thinking?” asked Wigliff.
“It could be an extraspatial aperture. Or an illusion. Or a trap.”
“Sure. But it’s here, and we don’t know another way inside. Unless you want to try the hole in the ground, but we don’t know where that leads either. And whatever made it was pretty big, and could still be around.”
The companions stood in silence for a while, looking at each other, at the spire, at Rurik standing several meters away, trying to listen to the conversation without approaching too closely. Finally, Einar pursed his lips and whistled. “So…who’s going first?”
“Fine, I’ll go,” said Louis.
This led to a chorus of discussion from the others. “We can’t just stand here,” Louis sighed, “It’s remarkably boring. I’ll just pop through and see what I can see. I don’t suppose it would hurt to ward me first, though.” He posed dramatically and waited.
“You are such a fool,” said Einar.
“Pish-tosh. I don’t see you volunteering.”
“Because I’m not a fool.”
Louis winked at him.
Stefano laid his hand upon Louis’ shoulder, “I will cloak you from sight. Be quick, the spell doesn’t last very long.”
“Okay.”
“Ready?”
Louis turned to face the portal of blood, focusing on the concentric ripples in its otherwise placid surface. He breathed in deeply, exhaled, and ignored the small rational part of his mind which had begun to scream at him in abject terror. “Yes!”
“Animas occaeco!” Strands of mystical energy warped the visible spectrum of light away from the aelfborn, and he winked out of view. There was a momentary pause, and then a human-sized absence dove into the bloody passage, causing it to ripple and roil proportionately. At the same moment, inky clouds of blood exploded into the crystalline structure surrounding the portal, whorled below the surface like water trapped under glass, and dispersed upward into the spire.
“Oh, that can’t be good,” noted the theurgist.
“Aagghhh!” cried Louis as he stumbled across the threshold into what appeared to be an asymmetrical, crystalline anteroom. Invisible, he fell to his knees and fervently searched his body for puncture wounds. He felt as though someone had leeched him head to toe, and then ripped all of the leeches off at once. Woozy, he staggered to his feet and spent several long moments coming to terms with the experience.
“That,” he rasped to the shadows, “was awful! Owww! Sh*t! F*ck!”
Catching his breath, Louis realized that even with his keen aelfborn eyes, he could barely see five feet in front of him. Keeping to the wall behind him, which felt cool to the touch, he slid along its surface until he came to an opening. Beyond it was a larger chamber, and a vaulted ceiling which disappeared from sight overhead. From somewhere up there, dim reddish light flickered and refracted through the spire’s crystalline interior, which accounted for the red tincture that the dim light—such as it was—possessed. He took a deep breath, but smelled nothing except stale dry air and the dust of ages. He listened for a moment, heard nothing he could identify as recognizable sounds, and decided that the coast was clear. But the others were going to have to figure that out for themselves, because there was no way in hell he was going to jump back through that portal.
“He’s not coming back,” rumbled Einar.
Stefano closed his eyes, looking inwardly at the lattice of his dweomer, “Give him some more time. The spell has not yet…wait, never mind. It just faded. He is no longer invisible.” He opened his eyes and looked at the others soberly.
“Well,” began Ilse, “I guess it’s our turn.” Turning to Einar, she handed him one of her platinum rings and invoked the litany that bolstered his fortitude with her own. “Stay close,” she reminded him.
“Right. I’ll go next.” And with that, he leapt through the portal.
“Rurik!” shouted Wigliff, “Come on! We’re going in!” Gripping his wand of scorching ray in one hand and his wand of grease in the other, Wigliff dove inside.
Stefano grimaced, summoned the protection of the Celestine against Taint, and stepped through carefully.
Rurik hustled forward hesitantly, just in time to watch Ilse heft her shield and mace, lower her visor, and march through the wall of blood.
He stared at the quivering pool and vacillated—he had never wanted to not do something so badly in his whole life. The swirling portal terrified him in a way no foe had ever done—on the battlefield, everyone fought for a cause. Even ogres and giants, fearsome brutes whom Rurik had often faced during his service to the Earl of Rothland, served their own masters, and were fathomable in that way. But here was a thing beyond the scope of his experience which was undeniably alien and irrepressibly evil. Nothing he understood had prepared him for this, except his brush with Frostmourne. At the thought of that weapon, he recalled the death and suffering it had caused, which was somehow, he felt, linked to this ancient vampiric overlord, and he grew angry. Using his anger as a shield, he snarled at the sanguine aperture and charged.
As the others stood coughing or wheezing, holding themselves or leaning upon one another, Louis grinned and bowed, “Welcome!”
“Why…didn’t you warn us?” gasped Stefano. Ignoring the glowering barbarian, Louis retorted, “You’re joking, right?”
Ilse snapped, “Forget it. Let me have a look at all of you. Rurik, hold still!” The half-giant, nauseated, reeled upon the floor.
“Just give it a moment,” continued Louis cheerfully, “It’s positively the most unpleasant experience I’ve ever mischanced to have, but the sensation will pass.”
Einar spit invective at the bard and leaned upon his axe.
“Language!” Louis chuckled, “Really, I would have thought that you of all people would be able to deal with it. I’m surprised.”
Einar gulped down air and glared murder at Louis.
Steadying himself on his staff, Stefano peered around the interior of the spire. Ilse’s mace, still in hand, lit the crystalline walls with soft white radiance, which reflected and refracted throughout the chamber, dispelling the shadows. “Fascinating,” murmured the theurgist, “The entire structure seems to be composed of this blood crystal, inside and out.”
“Take a look in the next room,” suggested Louis.
Stefano did so, and nodded admiringly at the intense lattice of crystalline growths punctuating the great hollow interior of the spire. Lobes of crystal appeared at irregular elevations, suggesting more chambers. “Let’s spread out,” he said, “And see if we can’t find some way up. Given that this is meant to be a lord’s hall, it stands to reason that the most important rooms will be in the upper levels of the tower.”
They spent several minutes combing through the refuse-strewn lower floor, which was haphazardly partitioned with walls but not ceilings. Everywhere they went, the light from their magic items and torches cast deceptive and strange patterns throughout the tower, mingling and blending with each other as well as the faint red glow from above. It cast a weird kaleidoscope of colors onto people and objects, but the volume of light was low, resulting in a myriad of shifting shadows that confounded the senses.
Louis, picking his way through a debris-strewn room with Einar, stubbed his booted foot on something heavy, yet yielding. “What’s that?” he exclaimed reflexively.
Einar waved his torch over the object, “It’s…a dead mountain goat. A very large one.” He poked it with his boot. “Frozen.”
Eyes wide, they stared at each other for a moment.
“We should probably…”
“Where’s the prester?”
At that moment, a deafening bestial roar reverberated through the interior of the spire, which began to shake as though a jöten was hammering upon the wall with a club the size of Rothland itself. They heard their companions shout and scream, and then the hammering intensified—boomboomboomboomBOOMBOOMBOOM—as something frighteningly large bore down upon them with savage ferocity.
The companions spread out as they entered the yard, and under Stefano’s cautious admonition, Louis and Wigliff set off to circumnavigate the structure. In the midst of this foray, they discovered an oddity—a gigantic pile of icy gray earth next to an even larger hole in the ground, adjacent to the spire by some twenty feet, out of sight of the entryway. The gap in the ground yawned like the maw of some stony beast.
“What do you think?” asked the bard.
Wigliff pondered for a moment. “Something big.”
While the bard and the wizard’s apprentice studied the grounds, the others moved into the debris-littered yard with their torches thrust before them. Approaching the entryway, Einar recoiled and in a low voice growled, “Prester.”
Stefano stepped forward to see a portal that looked very much like a vertical, quivering pool of blood. It flickered brightly in sympathy with the fire from the barbarian’s torch. Beneath the reflective sheen, the surface devoured light. Stefano examined the portal closely, careful not to touch it. After a moment he said, “Ilse.”
The templar stood forth, holding Saint Carlo’s mace aloft like a holy beacon. Now the bloody pool roiled, reflecting the soft white radiance cast from the relic. Underneath, what was black became bright red.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I have never encountered the like,” replied the theurgist.
“What should we do?” asked Einar grimly.
“Wait for the others.”
Rurik, upon spying the portal, forced down the remains of his last meal which threatened to come back up, and stepped away from the spire. “I’ll…guard the approach until you get this sorted,” he announced.
Louis and Wigliff returned and reported.
“No other entryways? You’re sure?” asked Stefano.
“Near as can tell,” Louis replied breezily, “Just that big hole in the ground. Is that really a wall of blood? How marvelous!” He dipped his fingers into the wetly glistening doorway.
“Louis!” several of the others exclaimed in unison.
“Warm. Wet. Sticky,” he declared, withdrawing his hand. He sniffed his fingers, “Smells like iron. It’s blood. But it’s magical—it didn’t soil my glove. See?” He held up a grimy mitten, which appeared bloodless.
Einar scratched his beard. “So this is the entrance to the hall. There is no other way.”
“It’s an entrance,” replied Stefano, “but I’m not convinced that it leads inside. Who knows what’s on the other side of that…door?”
“What are you thinking?” asked Wigliff.
“It could be an extraspatial aperture. Or an illusion. Or a trap.”
“Sure. But it’s here, and we don’t know another way inside. Unless you want to try the hole in the ground, but we don’t know where that leads either. And whatever made it was pretty big, and could still be around.”
The companions stood in silence for a while, looking at each other, at the spire, at Rurik standing several meters away, trying to listen to the conversation without approaching too closely. Finally, Einar pursed his lips and whistled. “So…who’s going first?”
“Fine, I’ll go,” said Louis.
This led to a chorus of discussion from the others. “We can’t just stand here,” Louis sighed, “It’s remarkably boring. I’ll just pop through and see what I can see. I don’t suppose it would hurt to ward me first, though.” He posed dramatically and waited.
“You are such a fool,” said Einar.
“Pish-tosh. I don’t see you volunteering.”
“Because I’m not a fool.”
Louis winked at him.
Stefano laid his hand upon Louis’ shoulder, “I will cloak you from sight. Be quick, the spell doesn’t last very long.”
“Okay.”
“Ready?”
Louis turned to face the portal of blood, focusing on the concentric ripples in its otherwise placid surface. He breathed in deeply, exhaled, and ignored the small rational part of his mind which had begun to scream at him in abject terror. “Yes!”
“Animas occaeco!” Strands of mystical energy warped the visible spectrum of light away from the aelfborn, and he winked out of view. There was a momentary pause, and then a human-sized absence dove into the bloody passage, causing it to ripple and roil proportionately. At the same moment, inky clouds of blood exploded into the crystalline structure surrounding the portal, whorled below the surface like water trapped under glass, and dispersed upward into the spire.
“Oh, that can’t be good,” noted the theurgist.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Aagghhh!” cried Louis as he stumbled across the threshold into what appeared to be an asymmetrical, crystalline anteroom. Invisible, he fell to his knees and fervently searched his body for puncture wounds. He felt as though someone had leeched him head to toe, and then ripped all of the leeches off at once. Woozy, he staggered to his feet and spent several long moments coming to terms with the experience.
“That,” he rasped to the shadows, “was awful! Owww! Sh*t! F*ck!”
Catching his breath, Louis realized that even with his keen aelfborn eyes, he could barely see five feet in front of him. Keeping to the wall behind him, which felt cool to the touch, he slid along its surface until he came to an opening. Beyond it was a larger chamber, and a vaulted ceiling which disappeared from sight overhead. From somewhere up there, dim reddish light flickered and refracted through the spire’s crystalline interior, which accounted for the red tincture that the dim light—such as it was—possessed. He took a deep breath, but smelled nothing except stale dry air and the dust of ages. He listened for a moment, heard nothing he could identify as recognizable sounds, and decided that the coast was clear. But the others were going to have to figure that out for themselves, because there was no way in hell he was going to jump back through that portal.
~~~~~~~~~~
“He’s not coming back,” rumbled Einar.
Stefano closed his eyes, looking inwardly at the lattice of his dweomer, “Give him some more time. The spell has not yet…wait, never mind. It just faded. He is no longer invisible.” He opened his eyes and looked at the others soberly.
“Well,” began Ilse, “I guess it’s our turn.” Turning to Einar, she handed him one of her platinum rings and invoked the litany that bolstered his fortitude with her own. “Stay close,” she reminded him.
“Right. I’ll go next.” And with that, he leapt through the portal.
“Rurik!” shouted Wigliff, “Come on! We’re going in!” Gripping his wand of scorching ray in one hand and his wand of grease in the other, Wigliff dove inside.
Stefano grimaced, summoned the protection of the Celestine against Taint, and stepped through carefully.
Rurik hustled forward hesitantly, just in time to watch Ilse heft her shield and mace, lower her visor, and march through the wall of blood.
He stared at the quivering pool and vacillated—he had never wanted to not do something so badly in his whole life. The swirling portal terrified him in a way no foe had ever done—on the battlefield, everyone fought for a cause. Even ogres and giants, fearsome brutes whom Rurik had often faced during his service to the Earl of Rothland, served their own masters, and were fathomable in that way. But here was a thing beyond the scope of his experience which was undeniably alien and irrepressibly evil. Nothing he understood had prepared him for this, except his brush with Frostmourne. At the thought of that weapon, he recalled the death and suffering it had caused, which was somehow, he felt, linked to this ancient vampiric overlord, and he grew angry. Using his anger as a shield, he snarled at the sanguine aperture and charged.
~~~~~~~~~~
As the others stood coughing or wheezing, holding themselves or leaning upon one another, Louis grinned and bowed, “Welcome!”
“Why…didn’t you warn us?” gasped Stefano. Ignoring the glowering barbarian, Louis retorted, “You’re joking, right?”
Ilse snapped, “Forget it. Let me have a look at all of you. Rurik, hold still!” The half-giant, nauseated, reeled upon the floor.
“Just give it a moment,” continued Louis cheerfully, “It’s positively the most unpleasant experience I’ve ever mischanced to have, but the sensation will pass.”
Einar spit invective at the bard and leaned upon his axe.
“Language!” Louis chuckled, “Really, I would have thought that you of all people would be able to deal with it. I’m surprised.”
Einar gulped down air and glared murder at Louis.
Steadying himself on his staff, Stefano peered around the interior of the spire. Ilse’s mace, still in hand, lit the crystalline walls with soft white radiance, which reflected and refracted throughout the chamber, dispelling the shadows. “Fascinating,” murmured the theurgist, “The entire structure seems to be composed of this blood crystal, inside and out.”
“Take a look in the next room,” suggested Louis.
Stefano did so, and nodded admiringly at the intense lattice of crystalline growths punctuating the great hollow interior of the spire. Lobes of crystal appeared at irregular elevations, suggesting more chambers. “Let’s spread out,” he said, “And see if we can’t find some way up. Given that this is meant to be a lord’s hall, it stands to reason that the most important rooms will be in the upper levels of the tower.”
They spent several minutes combing through the refuse-strewn lower floor, which was haphazardly partitioned with walls but not ceilings. Everywhere they went, the light from their magic items and torches cast deceptive and strange patterns throughout the tower, mingling and blending with each other as well as the faint red glow from above. It cast a weird kaleidoscope of colors onto people and objects, but the volume of light was low, resulting in a myriad of shifting shadows that confounded the senses.
Louis, picking his way through a debris-strewn room with Einar, stubbed his booted foot on something heavy, yet yielding. “What’s that?” he exclaimed reflexively.
Einar waved his torch over the object, “It’s…a dead mountain goat. A very large one.” He poked it with his boot. “Frozen.”
Eyes wide, they stared at each other for a moment.
“We should probably…”
“Where’s the prester?”
At that moment, a deafening bestial roar reverberated through the interior of the spire, which began to shake as though a jöten was hammering upon the wall with a club the size of Rothland itself. They heard their companions shout and scream, and then the hammering intensified—boomboomboomboomBOOMBOOMBOOM—as something frighteningly large bore down upon them with savage ferocity.
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