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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Archon Basileus" data-source="post: 6967549" data-attributes="member: 6855545">EVERYONEThe dark wood sprawls around under the conjunction of strange lights, sunrod and pyres resembling the angular gleam of mages’ respites. As the companions explore, they discover that the place seats on a vaguely circular flat area, sustained by stone bridges towards the walls. Between these bridges, water cascades down, through chasms that won’t give away their contents or their ends. They might do for an exit, in case all else fails.Twisting their way among the first samples of foliage, the adventurers realize that one of the pyres rests in a considerably higher ground than the others. Its solitary light looks almost like a beacon to them, and little effort is necessary to devise a tower that sustains it. Soon enough, sight can make out the shape of a keep, located in what seems to be the center of the wood. Behind it rests a mass of light and shadows, still unexplored. Either of them might hold some clue to a way out. Arvana glances at Reynard with a curious expression as she probes their near surroundings. She also takes notice of Reynard’s gesture, a note of concern attached to her figure as they advance cautiously. “We’re not in the clear yet… Still… Who exactly are you meeting?” – her manners betray concern, even though she tries to keep a casual posture.REYNARDBy the time the sailor went down the stairs, he still could overhear the screams of the disembodied shapes. They had become even louder after the companions hid behind the secret door. No sounds physical combat could reach the narrow stairs, though. Possibly those things can’t cause any kind of harm to the body. The soul, on the other hand… The screams and laments were almost like a coordinated effort, sounding a lot like a dialog at times. They could make one’s heart race in fear or bend in sadness, maybe make one’s mind twist under the sheer insanity of uncontrolled laughs. The battle above would be one of will and courage, probably. The most disconcerting thing about this, though, is the fact that those things might be capable of traverse physical barriers without limitations. Also, without knowing how they perceive the living, it is impossible to know if they won’t be followed… That is, if they haven’t been already.MARIUSUp above, the monk realized how strange the roars of the beast had become. Even though its brutal and impulsive advancement had hinted an irrational enemy, now it seemed almost as if the guttural rasps were bent to become words of a foreign language. It even resembled draconic, in a way, although no words could be recognized. Oddly enough, the cadence of noises made combat feel more like bravados and intimidation than a life and death struggle. Shocks could be heard, but sounded more as displays of strength, making the walls tremble as they went.After reaching the bottom of the stairs and observing the place, the monk easily finds a stick long and sturdy enough to serve his purposes. As he tatters his way through the area, he designs a vague map of the area in his mind. Sounds, light and tact join to show a disc-like garden, sustained upon a column of stone and surrounded by sparse bridges that link it to the walls around. Water runs copiously, probably dammed under the cliffs, separated from the sea. Given the situation, nothing in here could survive without magical interference. Maybe the samples come from another plane, maybe they are a mixture of species concocted by magic. Either way, if these things are as strong as they seem, they should probably end up covering leagues of land, maybe the entire Gaelia, eventually. And those moving things among the plants…At first, they do not seem to represent any sort of danger. They behave as small game, fleeing at the slightest sign of approach from the four. As for the vegetation, there’s no possibility of carnivore trees, and any toxins would have affected their bodies by now. Otherwise, all these things would probably have predated the little beasts – whatever they are – in such a closed space. Flora seems far more interested in competing with itself, as in any surface wood. The only difference seems to be the desired resources. Without light, whatever feeds these things seem to emanate from the area surrounding the keep in the center. All plants seem to somehow bend towards the center.MORGRYMBack at the mountains, one of the greatest menaces to herds are wyverns. The beasts are quite familiar to any shepherds, their claws rasping against the stones as the monsters  prepare to attack. Morgrym hears the same sound with every step from that beast, the same trick-track of claws upon stone. The weight of the strikes also suggests something with similar strength. Now that it walks on two legs, it is easier to imagine its size. The thing is bigger than a man, for sure. It might be as heavy as a horse, maybe more, and as tall as one of those half-giant abominations that sometimes roam the hillsides (six, maybe seven feet tall). Back in the day, when the dwarves were still fighting to keep mountain and valley under their dominion, the half-giants fought by attacking with naked hands, the sound of the beast’s attacks resembling the ramming punches of those savages. Still, the beast seems to have tougher hands and claws. Morgrym is almost leaving the matter to the spirits above, when all of a sudden he listens to an articulation from the primal roars of the beast. He could not make but the last phrase, an imperative he recognized from days long gone. He himself would not have heard it, but back in the time of Rhogar the Mad it was a common prayer rising from everyone’s lips in the mountains. Back then, many died to keep their lands. The survivors mourned their dead and feared their own fate. All men cowered, but not Rhogar… He had a way to solve everyone’s problems. Night after night he prayed to the gods below, until one of them answered his requests. He appeared to Rhogar and granted him the power to raise and command the dead. Those words, those very simple words, were all that a man invested with faith would need to command the deceased. Rhogar used his walking corpses to fright and submit all that would menace his kin. Word is that he even feasted and slept among the zombies he rose, driven insane by the dark arts.As the dwarf went down the stairs, he reminded himself of the sad fate of Rhogar. His master demanded his life after a great victory against a band of brigands from the valleys. He appeared in a cloud of fire and brimstone, snatched Rhogar from the ground in front of his men – living or otherwise - and flew away, laughing perversely. In the end, his master was no god…As the druid reaches the garden, his attentive eyes immediately understand that nature has been subverted. Somehow, species from the woods above have been brought here and twisted to the desires of a maddened mind. The garden seems harmless enough. Still, it has been kept in an ark, isolated from all the rest, up above. No one knows how it would relate to non-indigenous entities – such as the adventurers themselves. The behavior of the fauna is encouraging. It’s fleeing, not recoiling or advancing – and it is unlikely to attack. Nevertheless, any creature can become ferocious if cornered or discovered in it’s haven. The companions should thread carefully.As for the plateau where the garden rests, it seems it was shaped from the stone itself, almost as if some dedicated priest or sick druid had softened the earth to achieve his or her own ends. No dwarf had touched the area though: the hands that did the job were clumsy and careless, to the point that the formations look neither natural nor well-crafted to the trained eye. Clearly the stairs were not built by the same person that made the plateau.Morgrym’s sense of direction and experienced underground navigation also allow him to calculate how deep and how far into the land they are. Right now, they probably are a little beyond the walls of Maran, into the rocky fields. They should be a good deal below sea level, which would explain the amount of running water. Odds are that the garden can survive with salty water and life has ways of eliminating the excess of salt. Since all plants seem to thicken towards the keep in the center, the secret might be there… [MENTION=6801450]Trogdor1992[/MENTION] [MENTION=24380]Neurotic[/MENTION] [MENTION=6801311]KahlessNestor[/MENTION] [MENTION=6855130]Jago[/MENTION]</blockquote>

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