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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JollyDoc" data-source="post: 5369909" data-attributes="member: 9546">“YEA THO’ I WALK”The journey south dragged on, the gray, cloud-laden winter sky rarely allowing more than a pale, wan light through to the barren landscape below.  The companions had seen no sign of human habitation for days, but by no means was the wilderness uninhabited.  At one point, as they crossed a narrow valley through the foothills, a large, winged shape glided low above them.  The creature had a leonine form, but its head was disturbingly humanoid, and its tail sprouted a cluster of boney barbs, which it promptly flung at its prey as it swooped past.  A well-timed lightning bolt from Selena, along with Stevhan’s archery skills, however, prevented a second pass.  A day later, as the group threaded their way through a narrow, high-walled defile, three giant figures stepped from the rocks on all sides.  They stood easily ten-feet or more in height, but below their sloped brows, each had only one, blood-shot eye.  “Didn’t the centaurs say something about cyclops?”  Davrim asked as he gripped his sword tightly.“We must be getting close,” Mox replied.  “In any event, they don’t look very welcoming.  Let’s end this quickly!”The duchess conjured a ball of caustic green energy between her hands and hurled it towards two of the giants as Davrim rushed forward to engage the third.  The two cyclopses writhed beneath the acidic explosion, but as Selena followed up with a fireball of her own, both of the brutes looked directly at her, their eyes showing a brief moment of clarity as they both dodged nimbly away from the conflagration.  Davrim struck his opponent with a vicious slash, but the giant seemed hardly to notice.  Instead, it gazed unblinkingly at the inquisitor, as if assessing him for weaknesses.  Then, moving almost too fast to follow, it swung its massive axe across Davrim’s belly.  His eyes went wide as he gaped down at the vicious wound, blood pouring onto the ground.  He barely registered the other giants charge towards his companions…specifically Mox and Selena.  The witch and the wizard could do nothing to avoid the charge, and each of them was smashed violently aside as the cyclopses leveled their axes.  Mox rolled to her back, a spell on her lips.  She flung a second acid ball towards the pair, melting the flesh from their bones.  As Davrim could only stare blankly at the giant towering over him, his vision going dark, a column of fire roared down from the sky, immolating the cyclops instantly.“Ya owe me another one, boy,” Tungdill grinned, standing over Davrim as he collapsed.______________________________________________________“There’s something I need to tell all of you,” Mox announced suddenly during the middle of the day as they continued to thread their way through the mountains.  The others turned to look at her expectantly.“When we return to Veritas,” she continued, “there’s someone I need to introduce you to.  His name is Avashar, and he is my…protégé.”“And by ‘protégé,’” Selena smirked, “you mean…?”“I mean just that,” Mox kept her expression carefully neutral.  “He will be my assistant during my official duties, and from time to time he may accompany us on our endeavors as I deem fit.  Beyond that…well, that’s none of your concern.”“The country needs an heir, not a bastard!” Tungdill grumbled.Mox glared at the dwarf.“I’ll marry in my own good time,” she said, “but until then, my personal affairs are just that, and I have nothing more to say on the matter!”The rest of the day’s ride continued in tense silence._____________________________________________________  For a time, the game trail the companions had been travelling followed along the rocky banks of the Little Sellen River.  At one point the river narrowed as it passed through a gully between two steep hillsides, flowing around an oblong island thick with vegetation.  The island was narrow, no more than fifteen-feet at its widest, with the river also narrowing to little over five feet on each side of it.  The cliff walls rose steeply in the narrow defile, topping fifty feet or more at their peak.  Davrim took the point as the company was forced to travel single-file along the river bank.  His eyes shifted uneasily at their surroundings, imagining the place as perfect for an ambush.  Suddenly, as if his suspicions had summoned it, the plants in the center of the island erupted as a huge specimen, an enormous flytrap, reared up, one of its three mouth-like fronds clamping shut over the inquisitor with a loud snap.  The others started yelling and shouting as one, panic gripping the horses as they struggled to control the mounts.  Stevhan seized his bow, but before he could loose a single arrow, Selena, Mox and Tungdill struck as one.  The witch engulfed the island in roiling balls of flame, while Mox opened her mouth wide and exhaled a plume of white-hot fire, and Tungdill called down a holy pyre.  In a matter of moments, the island was a smoking ruin, the flytrap a crisp husk in its center.  Davrim burst out of the charred frond, scorched, his face blackened with ash, but still alive._______________________________________________________The entrance to the Valley of the Dead, when they finally reached their destination, was marked by a series of posts decorated with bones and skulls.  They were spaced every fifty to sixty feet, a wall of warnings erected by the Nomen that ran the entire six-mile opening to the valley.  The deeper in the companions moved, the more each of them felt a strange oppression fall over them.  Even the wind seemed oddly muted as it flowed through the trees and grass, the birds and insects grew quiet, and the unusually regular crags along the surrounding mountains seemed almost to crouch in expectation.  A mile past the last of the bone totems, the first of the gravestones appeared.  The ten-foot-tall stone steles were badly weathered, many partially or wholly collapsed, but each bore strange runes carved into their surfaces.  There were literally thousands of them leading to the farthest western point of the valley, where, as the ragged Tors of Levenies rose 300 feet above the surrounding foothills, a crack in the cliff wall allowed a wide stone stairway to wind up into the mountains.  There, the companions dismounted, tethering their mounts to graze, and then set their feet upon the oversized risers.  The stairway seemed to go on for miles, winding along a circuitous path higher and higher into the mountains.  At one point, as the companions rounded a steep turn, a large shadow detached itself from the deeper darkness several dozen yards further up.  At first glance, it appeared to be another cyclops, but as it stepped from the gloom, it became obvious that it was something far more.  Its flesh hung from its bones in tatters, its rotting entrails protruding from its open abdomen.  It clutched a pitted battleaxe in its hands, ancient bloodstains dried to brown flakes on the blade.  “Back off!”  Stevhan cried to Mox and Selena, who were crowded behind him.  The ranger loosed a shaft from his bow, sending it straight into the center of the zombie’s chest.  It didn’t react at all.  “You should know by now, Warden,” Mox grinned, “I don’t lead from behind!”The duchess began a choppy chant, then lobbed a ball of greenish-black acid at the horrid abomination.  The cyclops bellowed as even more of its flesh dissolved away, then lowered its head and charged.  Davrim stepped quickly in front of Mox, and so it was he that caught the full brunt of the zombie attack.  The inquisitor spun with the ferocity of the blow, but as he came around, his own blade was in motion, and he hacked into the putrid muscle of the zombie’s neck.  Despite its friable appearance, however, the creature’s hide was as thick as stone.  Davrim’s blade rebounded off, and struck him in his own forehead.  Dazed, he reeled backwards, the cyclops bearing down on him.  Suddenly, a flash of fur and fangs sprang over him as Wolf launched itself at the corpse’s throat.  The creature, already mortally wounded, did not rise again._________________________________________________________By the time they reached the head of the stairs, it was full dark.“We’ll set up camp here,” Mox said.  “We’re not going any further until we’ve got daylight on our side again.”The companions bedded down, save for Tungdill and Stevhan, who drew first watch.  Despite the sharp eyes of the ranger, and the acute senses of the druid, they never saw the creature until it was already too late.  It rose from the darkness like an inky cloud of smoke from which two, pale arms ending in murderous claws extended.  Unerringly, as if searching for her in particular, it rushed towards Mox and began savagely tearing at her while she still slumbered.  “No!”  Stevhan cried as he drew his sword and charged.Davrim sprang awake at the sound of the commotion, but as he leaped to his feet the horror back-handed him, sending him sprawling, and then turned its attentions back to Mox, who remained frighteningly still.  Stevhan reached the creature and slashed, his blade impacting solidly despite the thing’s incorporeal appearance.  A moment later, Davrim returned to the fight, adding his own might to the ranger’s.  Then, from two different sides, a blast of fire and lightning struck the apparition, one sent from Selena, the other a fiery serpent courtesy of Tungdill.  In an explosion of heat and light, the creature evaporated.  Selena rushed to Mox’s side, and lifter her in her arms.  The duchess remained limp, her eyes wide, staring, yet seeing nothing.“Her mind…,” Selena cried, “it’s gone!”</blockquote>

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