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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JollyDoc" data-source="post: 5357338" data-attributes="member: 9546">ENEMY MINEVarnhold was well and truly abandoned.  Building after building revealed the same.  No bodies, no signs of violence, save where the spriggans had been looting, and ultimately, no real clues as to what had happened to the townsfolk.  It was Tungdill who stumbled upon the first promising lead, and that quite by accident.  They were investigating a home with cheerful curtains in the windows, and a number of wooden children’s toys lying in the front yard.  As the others went through the motions of searching out the house itself, the druid caught a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye.  From behind the wood pile, a half-starved calico cat peered out at him, its eyes wide, yellow saucers.“Well now,” Tungdill said as he squatted down.  “What have we here?  Here, kitty, kitty.”He rummaged in his belt pouch until he found a piece of dried jerky.  The cat’s ears perked up, and it growled low in its throat.  Slowly, it crept forward on its belly and quickly snatched the food from the druid’s hand.  It started to back away again, but then its gaze locked with Tungdill’s.“There,” the dwarf said quietly, “now we have an understanding, don’t we?”He closed his eyes and chanted under his breath.  When he opened them again, the cat still stood, unmoving, in front of him.“Where are your people?” he asked.“They left in the red-sun time,” the cat replied.  To anyone else listening, the cat would have been simply mewling, but Tungdill understood perfectly.  “It was when they heard the new bird song,” the cat continued.  “I was busy eating a bit of fish, and did not follow them out.  My feeders did not come back, and I am now quite hungry!  Do you have more?”“Found a new friend?”  Stevhan asked as he walked up.“Whatever happened here, happened at sunset,” Tungdill replied as he scooped the cat up in his arms, “and there might have been some sort of music involved.”“So you’re saying some sort of evil bard was responsible for what happened here?”  the ranger asked.The druid shrugged.  “Just sayin’ what the puss told me.  I ain’t the brains o’this outfit.”_______________________________________________________The last building they came to in the empty town was the inn.  It was a two-story structure just off the village commons.  A sign above the door depicted a rider clinging to the back of a madly galloping horse with a green mane and a fish tail extending from its hindquarters.  The walls were painted a cheerful shade of yellow to complement the red shutters.  Scratched into the wood of the front door  was a single word… “NOMEN!”  Inside, the common room’s tables were still set with plates of rotting food.  In one corner, facing a paper-strewn table, a giant-sized spriggan stood, silent and perfectly still, a book clutched in one hand.  The back of his skull was a shattered mess of blood and bone, though his face betrayed no notice of the wound.  A shimmering nimbus of amber surrounded the spriggan’s unmoving form.“Fascinating!”  Selena said as she walked slowly around the spriggan.  “It’s a Sepia Sigil, a sort of warding spell that puts the target into a prolonged stasis.  Unfortunately for this fellow, it doesn’t protect you from physical harm.  My guess is that when the spell expires, he’ll be dead before he hits the floor.”“Tragic,” Mox sneered.  “I’m more interested in what the spell was guarding.  Let’s have a look.”The books stacked on the table included an assortment of esoteric titles such as Secrets of the Rashalka Mounds, Iobarian Prehistory, The Centaur Skyles of Central Casmaron, and The Untold Heritage of Taldan Armies of Exploration.  Among those works was an incomplete ethnography of the indigenous tribes of the Iobarian steppes, which speculated that a local tribe called the Nomens was actually an offshoot of the greater Rashalka population that broke away and relocated to the Varnhold area some time in the distant past.  Mixed in with the books were a number of charcoal sketches of a heavy jade bracelet that bore peculiar markings, attributed by the artist to the premigration Nomen centaurs.  It appeared that the owner of the books, as well as the artist, and author of the ethnography, was someone by the name of Maestro Ervil Pendrod.“I’ve heard of him,” Selena said.  “He’s an Iobarian scholar of some renown from Oppara’s Kitharodian Academy.  Strange that he should be in such a remote locale.”The witch found her question answered a moment later when they came upon a letter underneath the entire stack.  It was dated two months past, and was addressed to one Maestro Pendrod from Maegar Varn.  It described the discovery of a jade bracelet by a man named Willas Gundarson, Varn’s warden, on the banks of a “river of local prominence,” and requested Pendrod’s presence for further study of the artifact.A further search of the inn revealed that none of the guest rooms had been occupied at the time of the “incident,” save one…that of Ervil Pendrod.  Among his personal effects was a small library of further reference works.  None were particularly remarkable, but Selena plucked out a particular one that looked to be very old indeed.  It was created several centuries past by one Carmyn e’Brothasa, a chronicler of Taldor’s Third Army of Exploration into the north.  One passage had been marked by Pendrod:“And so it was, high upon the Torres and well above the Vale’s stairs, where rises from the high water a stony isle of dire report.  Known as Vordakai’s Island to those that do live thereabout, some legend of its name doth come down through the locals.  For they speak of a guardian that doth destroy all who would set foot upon its accursed shores.  They did name no fewer than a twelvecount of their hero-knights who had left their bones upon its rocky shores over the years after having tested their mettle against its dread warden, ‘til none would any longer go there for fear of its hidden terrors.  And the name of this terror was given unto this Island.”Pendrod had written in the margin of the text alongside the passage.‘Vordakai…perhaps a Nomen centaur god?’“It would seem all roads lead to the Nomen,” Velox remarked.“I agree,” Mox nodded.  “I can’t make sense of any of this.  We’ll set out at dawn.”__________________________________________________________There was nothing to indicate they had crossed into the centaur lands.  The landscape looked exactly as it had for the past three days of their travel.  Yet, within an hour of setting out from their previous night’s camp, Stevhan spotted a cloud of dust on the horizon, which quickly resolved itself into a warband of a half-dozen or more centaur warriors.  They whooped and shouted as they accelerated towards the companions, their faces painted in fearsome patterns, feathered and beaded spears held in their uplifted hands.  When they reached the travelers, they begin circling rapidly in ever-diminishing  spirals.  When they were mere feet away, they reared as one, their forelegs pawing the air.  One of them stepped forward and began barking at them in a foreign tongue.“We don’t understand,” Mox said calmly.  “Do you speak Common?  We are here on a peaceful overture.”The centaur scowled angrily.“I…speak…your tongue,” he said haltingly.  “You…not welcome…here!”“We bring a gift,” Mox said.  She nodded at Velox.The oracle pulled out the bow they’d found among the spriggan leader’s possessions.  The centaurs gasped as one and immediately began babbling excitedly.“You come!” the leader snapped, and then he and his warriors turned and began to gallop away, expecting the trespassers to follow.The Nomens’ camp sat on a low hillock surrounded by a sea of grass.  A large bonfire dominated the center, around which a number of female centaurs danced in a primal rhythm long lost to the civilized soul.  A scattering of open-sided hide huts numbering no more than five score were arranged around the hollow, inside which other members of the tribe congregated, ate or slept.  Everywhere, the heavily armed and armored centaurs sharpened weapons, tended to gear, or walked patrols, all with a feral economy of movement and sound.  These were the true inheritors of an age long gone, when the steppes rang to the thunder of their herds and the fury of their war cries, while the first inklings of civilization clung to shorelines and riverbanks like children to their mothers’ skirts, afraid of the dark wilderness and its wild masters.   The entourage escorting the six companions surrounded them as they trotted through the camp.  All around, eyes turned to stare at the outsiders with open hostility.  They were brought to a large tent erected near the fire, where a noble, savage-looking horsewoman presided over some sort of ritual before a moon-shaped altar.  Several minutes passed as she completed her observances before she turned to acknowledge the newcomers.  She remained silent, her face impassive as the patrol leader spoke to her in their own tongue, gesturing agitatedly towards the companions.  After a few minutes of this, she motioned him silent.  “Why are you here?” she snapped sharply.  “Do you seek your own deaths?”“We have come to beg your assistance,” Mox said as she stepped forward.  “I am the Baroness Mox of Kardashia, and we crossed the Torres seeking the answer to a mystery…the vanishing of our sister holding, Varnhold.  We come bearing tokens to prove our sincerity.”Mox nodded to Velox and Tungdill.  The dwarf unshouldered his pack and pulled out the tanned centaur hides they’d found in Varnhold.  The priestess’s face grew dark, and her hand tightened on her war spear.  Then Velox took out the bow, and the change that came over her was instantaneous.“Skybolt!” she exclaimed.  “How did this come into your possession?”Mox explained their mission and journey up to that point, leaving nothing out.  The centaur priestess listened attentively, her brow furrowed in concern.“I am Aecora Silverfire,” she said when Mox had finished, “War-priestess of the Nomen, and I bid you be welcome in our land.  I am sorry to say that I have no knowledge of your vanished holding, though our people bear yours no goodwill.  Ages past, the human kingdom of Taldor expanded into the ancestral lands or our people.  This led to many wars between your folk and mine.  Even as the domain you call Rostland was established, Taldan colonists ripped through our war herds, pushing them to the fringes of our former rangelands, and farther and farther from our traditional homelands.  So great were the effects of this war, that much of our lore and identity were lost as well.  Yet something that you mentioned in the books you discovered is not unknown to me.  According to our traditions, Vordakai is a slumbering warlord form the time of the mother tribes.  There is a place to the west called Olah-Kakanket, the Valley of the Dead.  It is taboo for our people, but our traditions also dictate that we must watch the valley for signs of disturbances or strange awakenings.  Recently, one of our huntresses claimed to have seen a strange and frightful shape lumbering amid the stones of Olah-Kakanket.  Perhaps the humans of Varnhold, with their insatiable curiosity and drive to expand and conquer, entered the Valley of the Dead and found their doom.  It would be fitting.”“I see,” Mox nodded.  “You have given us much, though you may feel it little.  We gratefully return your tribe’s relic, and the remains of your fallen, and thank you for your assistance.  Can you tell us how to find this valley?”“I can indeed,” Aecora said, “though I fear you  journey to your own deaths if you go there.  Still…,” she hesitated, her eyes downcast, “if it is your intent to undertake this foolish quest, perhaps I might ask a boon of you.  The huntress I mentioned before, the one who saw the shape in Olah-Kakanket, she is my daughter, Xamanthe.  She is headstrong, and stubborn…like her mother, and when she demanded to know more about the site, information I could not provide, she took upon herself to satisfy her curiosity.  That was several days ago, and she has not been heard from since.  If you…find her, or find any information as to what has befallen her, I shall be deeply in your debt.”“If she is there, we will find her,” Mox vowed.Aecora nodded solemnly.  “Now, I’m afraid I must ask you to leave this camp.  Though you have proven your merit, I’m afraid that old animosities die hard, and my people would not welcome you here.”“We understand,” Mox replied.  “We thank you again, and hope to meet again on better terms.”_______________________________________________________The journey far to the south and west where Aecora said the Valley of the Dead lay was going to be a long one, through lands both unknown and unexplored.  The companions were far from home, and completely out of their element.  Barely a day out from the Nomen territory, they found themselves in a strange landscape of huge furrows that scarred the grasslands, disrupted here and there by sinkhole-like depressions and mounds of earth and soil.“This isn’t good,” Stevhan said ominously as he reigned his horse to a halt.  “These are bullete burrows.”“Boo-what?”  Davrim asked.“A land shark, ya idjit!”  Tungdill barked.“Like what was mentioned on Varn’s map,” Velox said.No more had the words left his mouth, than a deep rumbling began shaking the ground all around them.“Dismount!”  Stevhan ordered.  “Clear the horses!”His companions hastily obeyed, dropping to the ground and swatting the horses on their flanks, sending them scattering.  What seemed like only a heartbeat later, the ground around them exploded into a fountain of earth and stone.  A creature the size of a cottage erupted, all claws and armored plates, like some hideous amalgam of an armadillo and a leviathan.  It leaped straight into the air, its razor claws flailing all around it, tearing into Velox and Mox, who happened to be standing closest to it at the time.  Mox was thrown clear, landing heavily on her back and forcing the breath from her lungs.  Tungdill stood over her, his hands a blur, the ancient words of the druids upon his tongue.  A black cloud formed above the bulette, and an instant later, a shaft of lightning stabbed down, sending electricity coursing over its armored hide.  The moment allowed Mox a chance to regain her feat.  She began her own spell, opening her mouth and breathing out a stream of acidic bile upon the behemoth.  The bullete bellowed and turned towards her, lowering its head to charge.  Stevhan lunged in front of her, his sword ricocheting off the beast’s hardened shell.  It leaped at him, ripping at him with its fore claws, and snapping its beak-like maw down upon his leg, snapping the bone in half.  The ranger felt himself being drawn into the air, but a moment later, another caustic spray struck the beast between the eyes, eating through its skull and into its small brain beneath.  It collapsed into a cloud of dirt, opening its mouth to let Stevhan roll free.__________________________________________________________Once Velox had tended Stevhan’s wounds, the companions were ready to continue on their trek.  Over the course of the next several days, their travels took them through ever more inhospitable lands, every day’s travel bringing greater dangers.  They ran afoul of a colony of enormous spiders, and soon after, a band of inept ettercaps that attempted to ensnare them in an ill-conceived ambush.  Further south, they skirted the shores of Lake Silverstep, so named for its distinctive claw shape, which legend held was the footprint of an ancient silver dragon.  The shoreline of the vast lake was a foul bog of volcanically heated mud, and as the companions waded through the knee-deep sludge, they were assailed by a number of man-shaped creatures apparently formed from the mud itself.  After a harrowing touch-and-go battle, they defeated the strange elementals, looking like mud men and women themselves by the time all was said and done.They began their long climb into the Tors of Levenies near a tall mountain known as Talon Peak.  As they made their way slowly up the craggy shoulders of the tor, they spied a lone tower, pointing like a bony finger towards the heavens, sitting atop the mountain.  Mox was intrigued.  While the ruin might contain some forgotten treasure or lore, she was more interested in the strategic aspects of its location should their kingdom continue its expansion eastward.  Via her magics and those of Selena, coupled with Tungdill’s shape-shifting, all six companions took to the air, angling towards the distant summit.  They had gone no more than halfway before they saw a vast, dark shape leap from the top of the tower.  “Gods!”  Stevhan exclaimed.  “It’s a roc!!”The great bird could easily have carried a full-grown bull elephant in its talons, and when it opened its beak to shriek its challenge, the sound buffeted the companions like a physical force.  Velox paused in his flight, hovering in mid-air.  His eyes flared with golden light as he summoned the power of Iomedae into his palm.  A ray of searing light stabbed out and caught the roc full in its breast, burning through feathers and skin.  Still, it continued its dive.  As it drew nearer, Mox breathed force an acidic cloud that the bird’s momentum could not avoid.  It emerged on the other side a bloodied ruin, yet death was still alive in its eyes.  Davrim struggled to draw his bow while simultaneously maintaining his wobbly flight path, but he was too slow.  The roc struck him like twenty battering rams, seizing him in one massive claw.  It banked, turning sharply on one outstretched wing, then beat both its pinions mightily, straining for altitude with its prey.  Davrim tried to free his arms so that he could reach his sword, but it was no use.  He was pinned.  Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of movement.  A small owl flapped its wings furiously, keeping pace with the great raptor.  Suddenly, it dipped and wheeled away, and Davrim knew that he should cover his eyes.  He tried to curl himself into as small a ball as possible.  A column of fire roared down from the sky, engulfing the roc, and a moment later Davrim was in free fall.  He checked his plummet, and quickly rejoined his friends as the bird’s remains tumbled towards the earth far below.When the six companions finally reached the summits peak and the tower itself, all they found there were four, very large eggs…</blockquote>

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