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<blockquote data-quote="xnosipjpqmhd" data-source="post: 2891717"><p><strong>Unearthing the Past</strong></p><p></p><p>Thurven stumbled out of the cave to find a gentle snow coming down. He fled down the steep mountainside, eventually catching up with Ugo. The smith piled the wounded runecaster atop his cart, next to the carcass of the mighty bear, and hauled him back to Tonnsborg. That night, while Thurven recovered in the headman’s house, Ugo spoke with Hals and Cleaver in the long house. He offered them the floor of the long house for the night, if they earn their keep by chopping firewood the next day.</p><p></p><p>The next morning outside the long house, Hals and Cleaver prepared to chop firewood, but Thurven walked up and offered to share breakfast with them. </p><p></p><p>Before any lengthy introductions could be made, the trio saw a middle-aged man with a heavy fur cloak and an axe approach Tonnsborg, accompanied by a woman in a white cloak. The pair conversed briefly, then the woman pointed the man toward Thurven. </p><p></p><p>“I would have words with the headman of Tonnsborg,” said the stranger.</p><p></p><p>“I am the headman’s son,” answered Thurven. “My father was lost at sea.” </p><p></p><p>Thurven went on to break the news of Haraald’s death to the stranger, who introduced himself as Hrothgarn Goranthsson. Hrothgarn explained that his brother Hegobard was on the ship with Haraald and has most likely perished as well.</p><p></p><p>“What news do you have of a dvergar wanderer named Bjourn Anhaeymsson?” asked Hrothgarn.</p><p></p><p>“A dwarf named Bjourn? He was with me beneath Mount Frost,” Thurven’s face was grim, “but he was slain by huldr folk.” The young runecaster then recounted the tale of the door in the bear cave and of the bloody ambush in the tunnels beyond. Thurven declared that that the evil must be rooted out, and that he sought help. </p><p></p><p>Hrothgarn agreed to lend his aid to the cause. “My friend, Bjourn, sought the Crypt of the Trickster Prince, which is said to lie in ancient dvergar halls. Some scrap of knowledge may have led him to seek the prince’s grave within the halls beneath the mountain of which you speak. Can you lead me there?”</p><p></p><p>“I am glad to have your help in rooting out the evil and avenging the deaths of friends,” said Thurven. “and I will lead you to those dark halls if you are an enemy of the huldr.”</p><p></p><p> “Dvergar halls, eh?” said Hals. “I have heard of the dwarves’ love of gold and jewels. Perhaps the huldr have uncovered some of these lost treasures?” Hals joined the expedition with the glint of gold in his eye.</p><p></p><p>“Cleaver cut huldr,” grunted the trollborn, indicating his willingness to join the quest.</p><p></p><p>Hrothgarn handed each of the others a tiny stone urn stoppered with wood. “These healing tonics were prepared by the local drune. We may have need of them.”</p><p></p><p>The four heroes collected the rest of their supplies and headed off into the wilderness. As they stomped through the forests and heaths toward Mount Frost, a light snow continued to fall on them, and a chill wind blew from the north. Once out of the woods and past the snowline, the heroes reached the cave and entered cautiously. As they approached the chamber where Thurven said the ambush occurred, two white-maned huldr sprung forward to attack. Behind them was a figure nocking an arrow to his bowstring. </p><p></p><p>Cleaver did not hesitate. The trollborn warrior charged forward 30 feet right past the small huldr folk to the archer, who loosed his arrow and tried to flee through an adjacent door. Cleaver cut him in half with his broad axe before he could take two steps. The other three heroes cornered and killed the two huldr axe-bearers. Then two spear-wielding huldr appeared from a hallway beyond. Cleaver slew one of them, and the other turned and fled back up the hallway from where he had come.</p><p></p><p>The heroes regrouped. While Cleaver stood guard in the hall, Thurven examined the body of the archer. “It is the one who called himself Marsem,” he said. Among the archer’s things were a pouch of six runestones, a couple handfuls of gold coins. Thurven also took the man’s dagger, bow and arrows.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile Hals searched through the various boxes and barrels stacked in the room, finding some water, ale, food, and other supplies. Hals tested the half-full cask of ale and found it not as good as he had hoped. The other heroes refilled their skins in the barrel of water.</p><p></p><p>“Is this not the chamber wherein Bjourn fell?” asked Hrothgarn.</p><p></p><p>“It is,” confirmed Thurven, “but the bodies of he and my friend, Syr, must have been moved.”</p><p></p><p>Next the heroes found a small stone box. Inscribed on the outside were the words, “Herein lie the six keys of Anhaeym Sternhelm.” </p><p></p><p>“So it’s true then,” whispered Hrothgarn.</p><p></p><p>Thurven opened the box. The cloth-lined interior was empty but for the faint outlines of six large keys no longer there. He closed the box, and the heroes joined up with Cleaver on the other side of the door.</p><p></p><p>Thirty feet beyond the door, the hallway met another at an intersection lit by a sputtering torch in a sconce secured to the wall at waist height. Thurven grabbed the torch. The passage to the right appeared to be choked with rubble. Cleaver tested it gingerly to be sure. To the left, the heroes saw that the ten-foot-wide hallway turned left again in the distance. Ahead of the heroes, however, stood another very old door, this one barred on the outside. Cleaver lifted the bar, and Hals pushed the door open, his axe at the ready. A terrible stench wafted out into the hall. Thurven shone his light in, and Hals entered cautiously. </p><p></p><p>Suddenly Hals was beset by a slavering, fang-toothed figure with grey, rotting flesh. The heroes battled the relentless creature and eventually hacked it to the ground, turning it into a twitching pile of body parts. Whatever the creature was, it seemed to have been imprisoned in the room; there were no other exits.</p><p></p><p>Stepping further into the room, Thurven and Hals found two stone coffers. Inside were bones strewn amid ornate battle axes of good quality. They tested the axes, and each took one axe before leaving. Though old, the axes were not as decrepit and brittle as Hals had expected.</p><p></p><p>As the heroes travelled down the hallway that had been to their left, they suddenly heard the clinking of metal on metal from up ahead. Cleaver moved forward swiftly as the others brought up the rear. Without hesitation, the trollborn turned the corner, threw open another door, and stepped bravely into the room beyond.</p><p></p><p>With battle cries and shrieks, a troupe of huldr folk surrounded Cleaver, jabbing at him with their spears. The trollborn tried muscling his way forward, but the warriors kept the business ends of their weapons trained on him, stopping his advance. Hacking back at them, Cleaver eventually carved a path forward, dropping first one huldr and then another, while his allies spilled into the room to help. Facing off against one enemy, Hals swung his great axe with such ferocity that he broke the shaft. Hrothgarn and Thurven moved quickly to mop up the remaining huldr.</p><p></p><p>In the flickering torchlight, the heroes noticed some unusual engineering work in the centre of the room. A wooden platform hung on chains from a pulley; it seemed to be suspended above a large square hole in the floor. </p><p></p><p>Cleaver lifted the platform and peered down into the darkness below. “Someone down hole,” he grunted. </p><p></p><p>“Then let them stay there.” Thurven slipped the blade of Marsem’s dagger through the chains to keep them from moving. “I say we rest a while in this chamber, where our foes cannot come up and surprise us.”</p><p></p><p>The weary heroes began to bind their wounds. Cleaver and Thurven swallowed the healing remedies given them by Hrothgarn, and everyone refreshed themselves with food, water, and ale.</p><p></p><p>Standing watch over the others, Hals lamented his broken great axe, vowing to have it repaired when he got the chance. He carefully wrapped the axe head in some spare cloth strips and stowed it among his things. Then he hefted the battle axe he found earlier and swung it a few times to get the feel of it.</p><p></p><p>Before drifting off to sleep, Thurven examined the runestones he found on Marsem’s body. He recognized three of them, but the other three were a mystery. He awoke a little later when the chains jangled. There was a pause, and then they jangled again. Someone or something was tugging on them from below, but the dagger held them steady. He tried to get back to sleep, but nightmares of hoary huldr folk kept him up.</p><p></p><p>After several hours of rest, the heroes stood and made ready to continue. They switched from their sputtering torch to a fresh one, then clambered aboard the rickety platform. Cleaver held the chains while Thurven removed the blade that held them. Then the trollborn began lowering the platform through the hole in the floor. </p><p></p><p>The pit into which the heroes lowered themselves widened into a chamber. Torchlight shone on a bare room with a single hall leading out of it. </p><p></p><p>Hrothgarn held up his hand for Cleaver to stop lowering the chains. “We had best not go deeper until we know what lies on this level.”</p><p></p><p>Thurven inserted Marsem’s dagger into the links of the chain again to hold the platform still, and everyone stepped off. Cleaver led the way down the hall. At a darkened intersection, only one of the halls—the left one—had been cleared of rubble. There stood an archway, it’s ancient wooden door pulled from its hinges. The heroes approached cautiously.</p><p></p><p>The doorway opened into a room similar in appearance to the previous ones encountered, though quite a bit less tidy. Large mounds of rubble were piled haphazardly in the room, mostly on the left side. As Hals walked into the gloomy room, a figure sprang from behind the rubble and shot a muscled tentacle out of the blackness toward Hals. Hals called out and stepped forward to bring his battle axe against the creature. More tentacles lashed back at him. The other heroes rushed forward to fight as well. Soon the shadowy being lay dead in a pool of its own blood.</p><p></p><p>The heroes caught their breath as they looked quickly around to make sure there were no more foes. Seeing nothing else of interest in the chamber, they retraced their steps to the suspended platform and climbed back onto it. </p><p></p><p>Thurven released the dagger, and Cleaver lowered them deeper into the pit. Another chamber opened up around them, also empty and with a single hall leading out of it. This time, however, their foe awaited them.</p><p></p><p>Standing in the hall was a white-maned huldr wearing an ill-fitting suit of rusty chain mail. He swung his axe and bellowed in anger and desperation, but they were not impressed. Battle was joined, and the huldr was hewn down.</p><p></p><p>The hallway the creature had been guarding ended at another hall going left and right. At the end of the right-hand hallway was a door, and the heroes approached it.</p><p></p><p>Cleaver stepped up to the door and knocked it open with a single swift kick. Beyond the door was a slightly longer room than the others through which they had come. About 40 feet away stood a man clad in furs and tightly bound cloth leggings. His fur-trimmed cap was ringed with horns, giving the impression of a small barbaric crown. In his hand was an ironshod cudgel.</p><p></p><p>“Well,” began the stranger, but before any other words were out of the man’s mouth, Cleaver had charged across the room and buried his broad axe between the man’s neck and left shoulder. The axe bit deep, shearing bone and sinew alike. The man crumpled to the floor in a bloody heap, his cudgel clattering to the ground beside him.</p><p></p><p>Cleaver stood grim and silent over the dead body. Hrothgarn kept watch at the entrance, while Hals and Thurven approached. Hals crouched beside the body while the runecaster searched it. </p><p></p><p>The first thing they found was a roll of vellum marked with runes.</p><p></p><p>“They make no sense,” said Hals.</p><p></p><p>“That is where you are wrong,” said Thurven. “These are no ordinary runes. They hold some power, though I cannot say exactly what.”</p><p></p><p>Hals turned his attention to the ironshod cudgel. “This stout pole the man held also is etched with runes near one end.” He examined the thick ash staff and read the runes on it: “Aldin Trembor / master of beasts / son of Lestvar the Black Shaman.” He passed it to Thurven. </p><p></p><p>By this time, Cleaver had relieved Hrothgarn from his guard post near the door, and the older man wandered over to the middle of the room to see what Hals and Thurven had found. “Look,” he said, pointing to the floor of the chamber. The blood pouring from the dead man’s body had pooled in a slight circular depression in the centre of the room. From there it had been channeled into almost imperceptible grooves cut into the stones that made up the floor; a circular groove surrounded the central puddle of blood, and six straight grooves radiated outward from there. “Is it a rune of some sort?”</p><p></p><p>“None that I know,” replied Thurven, standing up to get a better look.</p><p></p><p>Hals pulled a wax tablet from the dead man’s satchel. He read the words on it: “My son seek out / the crypt of the / trickster prince / but beware of all / that lie within / instruct angmesh to / await you but send / maartan back with / the headmans prize.”</p><p></p><p>“What is the headman’s prize?” wondered Thurven aloud.</p><p></p><p>Hals shrugged. “I thought you were the headman.”</p><p></p><p>“It sounds as if Bjourn wasn’t the only one searching out the trickster prince,” said Hrothgarn.</p><p></p><p>“What do you know about the Trickster Prince?” asked Thurven.</p><p></p><p>“Bjourn’s father Anhaeym was a friend of Selgaard Frostrager.”</p><p></p><p>“My grandfather Selgaard?”</p><p></p><p>“Aye,” said Hrothgarn. “Both were mighty warriors in the service of a greater good, along with my father Goranth, among others. And both Selgaard and Anhaeym were slain in their quest against the white wyrm, Stormfrost, minion of the dreaded Ice Tyrant.” </p><p></p><p>The shadows in the room seemed to deepen, and the tone of the warrior’s voice made a chill run down Thurven’s spine. Hals glanced about, half-expecting to see enemies springing from the darkness.</p><p></p><p>Hrothgarn continued. “I am two score years old, and in the days when I was born, a band of heroes defended our people against the ravages of the Ice Tyrant and his evil armies. My father told me that Anhaeym was a prince of the dvergar folk, and he was also called the Trickster Prince. When he was slain, Zhamyl the Runecaster laid him to rest in a secret crypt where his spirit might guard something called the Rimerune Keystone, in order that the servitors of the Ice Tyrant should not get hold of it.”</p><p></p><p>The blood on the floor had now coagulated and nearly frozen, so cold was the air in the room.</p><p></p><p>“Am I the only one who notices the fell chill in this room?” asked Hals, shivering. His breath was visible in the cold air.</p><p></p><p>TO BE CONTINUED…</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="xnosipjpqmhd, post: 2891717"] [b]Unearthing the Past[/b] Thurven stumbled out of the cave to find a gentle snow coming down. He fled down the steep mountainside, eventually catching up with Ugo. The smith piled the wounded runecaster atop his cart, next to the carcass of the mighty bear, and hauled him back to Tonnsborg. That night, while Thurven recovered in the headman’s house, Ugo spoke with Hals and Cleaver in the long house. He offered them the floor of the long house for the night, if they earn their keep by chopping firewood the next day. The next morning outside the long house, Hals and Cleaver prepared to chop firewood, but Thurven walked up and offered to share breakfast with them. Before any lengthy introductions could be made, the trio saw a middle-aged man with a heavy fur cloak and an axe approach Tonnsborg, accompanied by a woman in a white cloak. The pair conversed briefly, then the woman pointed the man toward Thurven. “I would have words with the headman of Tonnsborg,” said the stranger. “I am the headman’s son,” answered Thurven. “My father was lost at sea.” Thurven went on to break the news of Haraald’s death to the stranger, who introduced himself as Hrothgarn Goranthsson. Hrothgarn explained that his brother Hegobard was on the ship with Haraald and has most likely perished as well. “What news do you have of a dvergar wanderer named Bjourn Anhaeymsson?” asked Hrothgarn. “A dwarf named Bjourn? He was with me beneath Mount Frost,” Thurven’s face was grim, “but he was slain by huldr folk.” The young runecaster then recounted the tale of the door in the bear cave and of the bloody ambush in the tunnels beyond. Thurven declared that that the evil must be rooted out, and that he sought help. Hrothgarn agreed to lend his aid to the cause. “My friend, Bjourn, sought the Crypt of the Trickster Prince, which is said to lie in ancient dvergar halls. Some scrap of knowledge may have led him to seek the prince’s grave within the halls beneath the mountain of which you speak. Can you lead me there?” “I am glad to have your help in rooting out the evil and avenging the deaths of friends,” said Thurven. “and I will lead you to those dark halls if you are an enemy of the huldr.” “Dvergar halls, eh?” said Hals. “I have heard of the dwarves’ love of gold and jewels. Perhaps the huldr have uncovered some of these lost treasures?” Hals joined the expedition with the glint of gold in his eye. “Cleaver cut huldr,” grunted the trollborn, indicating his willingness to join the quest. Hrothgarn handed each of the others a tiny stone urn stoppered with wood. “These healing tonics were prepared by the local drune. We may have need of them.” The four heroes collected the rest of their supplies and headed off into the wilderness. As they stomped through the forests and heaths toward Mount Frost, a light snow continued to fall on them, and a chill wind blew from the north. Once out of the woods and past the snowline, the heroes reached the cave and entered cautiously. As they approached the chamber where Thurven said the ambush occurred, two white-maned huldr sprung forward to attack. Behind them was a figure nocking an arrow to his bowstring. Cleaver did not hesitate. The trollborn warrior charged forward 30 feet right past the small huldr folk to the archer, who loosed his arrow and tried to flee through an adjacent door. Cleaver cut him in half with his broad axe before he could take two steps. The other three heroes cornered and killed the two huldr axe-bearers. Then two spear-wielding huldr appeared from a hallway beyond. Cleaver slew one of them, and the other turned and fled back up the hallway from where he had come. The heroes regrouped. While Cleaver stood guard in the hall, Thurven examined the body of the archer. “It is the one who called himself Marsem,” he said. Among the archer’s things were a pouch of six runestones, a couple handfuls of gold coins. Thurven also took the man’s dagger, bow and arrows. Meanwhile Hals searched through the various boxes and barrels stacked in the room, finding some water, ale, food, and other supplies. Hals tested the half-full cask of ale and found it not as good as he had hoped. The other heroes refilled their skins in the barrel of water. “Is this not the chamber wherein Bjourn fell?” asked Hrothgarn. “It is,” confirmed Thurven, “but the bodies of he and my friend, Syr, must have been moved.” Next the heroes found a small stone box. Inscribed on the outside were the words, “Herein lie the six keys of Anhaeym Sternhelm.” “So it’s true then,” whispered Hrothgarn. Thurven opened the box. The cloth-lined interior was empty but for the faint outlines of six large keys no longer there. He closed the box, and the heroes joined up with Cleaver on the other side of the door. Thirty feet beyond the door, the hallway met another at an intersection lit by a sputtering torch in a sconce secured to the wall at waist height. Thurven grabbed the torch. The passage to the right appeared to be choked with rubble. Cleaver tested it gingerly to be sure. To the left, the heroes saw that the ten-foot-wide hallway turned left again in the distance. Ahead of the heroes, however, stood another very old door, this one barred on the outside. Cleaver lifted the bar, and Hals pushed the door open, his axe at the ready. A terrible stench wafted out into the hall. Thurven shone his light in, and Hals entered cautiously. Suddenly Hals was beset by a slavering, fang-toothed figure with grey, rotting flesh. The heroes battled the relentless creature and eventually hacked it to the ground, turning it into a twitching pile of body parts. Whatever the creature was, it seemed to have been imprisoned in the room; there were no other exits. Stepping further into the room, Thurven and Hals found two stone coffers. Inside were bones strewn amid ornate battle axes of good quality. They tested the axes, and each took one axe before leaving. Though old, the axes were not as decrepit and brittle as Hals had expected. As the heroes travelled down the hallway that had been to their left, they suddenly heard the clinking of metal on metal from up ahead. Cleaver moved forward swiftly as the others brought up the rear. Without hesitation, the trollborn turned the corner, threw open another door, and stepped bravely into the room beyond. With battle cries and shrieks, a troupe of huldr folk surrounded Cleaver, jabbing at him with their spears. The trollborn tried muscling his way forward, but the warriors kept the business ends of their weapons trained on him, stopping his advance. Hacking back at them, Cleaver eventually carved a path forward, dropping first one huldr and then another, while his allies spilled into the room to help. Facing off against one enemy, Hals swung his great axe with such ferocity that he broke the shaft. Hrothgarn and Thurven moved quickly to mop up the remaining huldr. In the flickering torchlight, the heroes noticed some unusual engineering work in the centre of the room. A wooden platform hung on chains from a pulley; it seemed to be suspended above a large square hole in the floor. Cleaver lifted the platform and peered down into the darkness below. “Someone down hole,” he grunted. “Then let them stay there.” Thurven slipped the blade of Marsem’s dagger through the chains to keep them from moving. “I say we rest a while in this chamber, where our foes cannot come up and surprise us.” The weary heroes began to bind their wounds. Cleaver and Thurven swallowed the healing remedies given them by Hrothgarn, and everyone refreshed themselves with food, water, and ale. Standing watch over the others, Hals lamented his broken great axe, vowing to have it repaired when he got the chance. He carefully wrapped the axe head in some spare cloth strips and stowed it among his things. Then he hefted the battle axe he found earlier and swung it a few times to get the feel of it. Before drifting off to sleep, Thurven examined the runestones he found on Marsem’s body. He recognized three of them, but the other three were a mystery. He awoke a little later when the chains jangled. There was a pause, and then they jangled again. Someone or something was tugging on them from below, but the dagger held them steady. He tried to get back to sleep, but nightmares of hoary huldr folk kept him up. After several hours of rest, the heroes stood and made ready to continue. They switched from their sputtering torch to a fresh one, then clambered aboard the rickety platform. Cleaver held the chains while Thurven removed the blade that held them. Then the trollborn began lowering the platform through the hole in the floor. The pit into which the heroes lowered themselves widened into a chamber. Torchlight shone on a bare room with a single hall leading out of it. Hrothgarn held up his hand for Cleaver to stop lowering the chains. “We had best not go deeper until we know what lies on this level.” Thurven inserted Marsem’s dagger into the links of the chain again to hold the platform still, and everyone stepped off. Cleaver led the way down the hall. At a darkened intersection, only one of the halls—the left one—had been cleared of rubble. There stood an archway, it’s ancient wooden door pulled from its hinges. The heroes approached cautiously. The doorway opened into a room similar in appearance to the previous ones encountered, though quite a bit less tidy. Large mounds of rubble were piled haphazardly in the room, mostly on the left side. As Hals walked into the gloomy room, a figure sprang from behind the rubble and shot a muscled tentacle out of the blackness toward Hals. Hals called out and stepped forward to bring his battle axe against the creature. More tentacles lashed back at him. The other heroes rushed forward to fight as well. Soon the shadowy being lay dead in a pool of its own blood. The heroes caught their breath as they looked quickly around to make sure there were no more foes. Seeing nothing else of interest in the chamber, they retraced their steps to the suspended platform and climbed back onto it. Thurven released the dagger, and Cleaver lowered them deeper into the pit. Another chamber opened up around them, also empty and with a single hall leading out of it. This time, however, their foe awaited them. Standing in the hall was a white-maned huldr wearing an ill-fitting suit of rusty chain mail. He swung his axe and bellowed in anger and desperation, but they were not impressed. Battle was joined, and the huldr was hewn down. The hallway the creature had been guarding ended at another hall going left and right. At the end of the right-hand hallway was a door, and the heroes approached it. Cleaver stepped up to the door and knocked it open with a single swift kick. Beyond the door was a slightly longer room than the others through which they had come. About 40 feet away stood a man clad in furs and tightly bound cloth leggings. His fur-trimmed cap was ringed with horns, giving the impression of a small barbaric crown. In his hand was an ironshod cudgel. “Well,” began the stranger, but before any other words were out of the man’s mouth, Cleaver had charged across the room and buried his broad axe between the man’s neck and left shoulder. The axe bit deep, shearing bone and sinew alike. The man crumpled to the floor in a bloody heap, his cudgel clattering to the ground beside him. Cleaver stood grim and silent over the dead body. Hrothgarn kept watch at the entrance, while Hals and Thurven approached. Hals crouched beside the body while the runecaster searched it. The first thing they found was a roll of vellum marked with runes. “They make no sense,” said Hals. “That is where you are wrong,” said Thurven. “These are no ordinary runes. They hold some power, though I cannot say exactly what.” Hals turned his attention to the ironshod cudgel. “This stout pole the man held also is etched with runes near one end.” He examined the thick ash staff and read the runes on it: “Aldin Trembor / master of beasts / son of Lestvar the Black Shaman.” He passed it to Thurven. By this time, Cleaver had relieved Hrothgarn from his guard post near the door, and the older man wandered over to the middle of the room to see what Hals and Thurven had found. “Look,” he said, pointing to the floor of the chamber. The blood pouring from the dead man’s body had pooled in a slight circular depression in the centre of the room. From there it had been channeled into almost imperceptible grooves cut into the stones that made up the floor; a circular groove surrounded the central puddle of blood, and six straight grooves radiated outward from there. “Is it a rune of some sort?” “None that I know,” replied Thurven, standing up to get a better look. Hals pulled a wax tablet from the dead man’s satchel. He read the words on it: “My son seek out / the crypt of the / trickster prince / but beware of all / that lie within / instruct angmesh to / await you but send / maartan back with / the headmans prize.” “What is the headman’s prize?” wondered Thurven aloud. Hals shrugged. “I thought you were the headman.” “It sounds as if Bjourn wasn’t the only one searching out the trickster prince,” said Hrothgarn. “What do you know about the Trickster Prince?” asked Thurven. “Bjourn’s father Anhaeym was a friend of Selgaard Frostrager.” “My grandfather Selgaard?” “Aye,” said Hrothgarn. “Both were mighty warriors in the service of a greater good, along with my father Goranth, among others. And both Selgaard and Anhaeym were slain in their quest against the white wyrm, Stormfrost, minion of the dreaded Ice Tyrant.” The shadows in the room seemed to deepen, and the tone of the warrior’s voice made a chill run down Thurven’s spine. Hals glanced about, half-expecting to see enemies springing from the darkness. Hrothgarn continued. “I am two score years old, and in the days when I was born, a band of heroes defended our people against the ravages of the Ice Tyrant and his evil armies. My father told me that Anhaeym was a prince of the dvergar folk, and he was also called the Trickster Prince. When he was slain, Zhamyl the Runecaster laid him to rest in a secret crypt where his spirit might guard something called the Rimerune Keystone, in order that the servitors of the Ice Tyrant should not get hold of it.” The blood on the floor had now coagulated and nearly frozen, so cold was the air in the room. “Am I the only one who notices the fell chill in this room?” asked Hals, shivering. His breath was visible in the cold air. TO BE CONTINUED… [/QUOTE]
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