Shemmy's Planescape Storyhour #2 (Updated x3 10-17-07)
- Thread starter Shemeska
- Start date
Shemeska said:
I don't like that either so I shift the entire "how you meet" to the players. One of their duties before a campaign is to come up with a reason why they all know each other already. I think its especially reasonable that they already know each other if you are starting above level 1. Though I think I might try this tactic the next time I start a new campaign. Finished my PS game in June and started a "mundane" game in August (actually I am using the Shackled City Adventure paths so there is some plane hoping and 'lolths involved).
Out of interest who is playing who in this game from the original? I am quite familiar with the original characters and their players from SH1 due to the posters having the same names as their characters.
Clueless
Webmonkey
This isn't as rough as what my Shadowrun DM used to do.
"Here's your job - hey, you - you're playing the lead and face of this group right?"
"Yeaaah..."
"Here's the list of local hires. Go form your team."
*sigh* Admittedly, it was fun getting one of the characters shot at to test their response under pressure.
"Here's your job - hey, you - you're playing the lead and face of this group right?"
"Yeaaah..."
"Here's the list of local hires. Go form your team."
*sigh* Admittedly, it was fun getting one of the characters shot at to test their response under pressure.
Inconsequenti-AL
Breaks Games
Am eargerly awaiting the next installment of this story... Fine stuff!
Yoink!
Think I may have a winner for the intro to my next shadowrun game. Even got just the player in mind for this.
Clueless said:This isn't as rough as what my Shadowrun DM used to do.
"Here's your job - hey, you - you're playing the lead and face of this group right?"
"Yeaaah..."
"Here's the list of local hires. Go form your team."
*sigh* Admittedly, it was fun getting one of the characters shot at to test their response under pressure.
Yoink!
Think I may have a winner for the intro to my next shadowrun game. Even got just the player in mind for this.
Inconsequenti-AL
Breaks Games
Shemeska said:Shot at? The son of a b*tch actually shot him, in the chest, with a gel round.
That's just mean. Can ruin a perfectly good suit that way?
Personally, I liked my players use of a paintball gun to 'send a message'.
Shemeska
Adventurer
Velkyn yawned and shook Victor on the shoulder to wake him for the second watch. A few seconds later he woke Marcus up as well, with a sudden hiss and harsh whisper of ‘Arrghh! Warning next time!’ as Victor, unable to see in the darkness, conjured a ball of light without warning.
The half-drow’s eyes adjusted to the sudden contrast and he muttered as he entered his tent and closed the flap. Victor just shrugged over at his brother as Garibaldi and their guide both retired to their respective tents.
“Is Inva awake?” Marcus asked, glancing around into the cold, windswept darkness.
“Right here.”
A pair of red pinpoints stood out from the gloom at the edge of the firelight. They faded back into their normal hazel color as the tiefling stepped into view and her vision drifted back into normal sight. She was bundled in a thick blanket, and not entirely happy that the weather had taken a turn for the worse as night had fallen.
“Lovely weather.” Inva said as she kicked a pebble into the fire with a tap of a hoof.
“Your fault for wearing clothes like that.” Marcus said with a shrug.
“Like you’d ever complain about it.” She replied with a smirk. “Nice night though.”
The wind was picking up speed, causing the fire to gutter and spark, sending drifts of burning, glittering embers up into the sky like hellborn fiends racing up to clash with the few perfect, snowflakes drifting down from the stars like angels from on high. The fire and snow were only a distraction however from the shrill, haunting whistle of the wind.
“…did you hear that?” Victor asked.
…sethe hiiiriiik Nergaallll…
The tall grass that covered the mounds were rustling in the wind, hissing like low, far away voices. In the dry, cold air, it sounded almost like a chorus of whispering voices.
“It’s the wind.” Marcus said. “It’s creepy yes, but it’s normal for an open plain, and…”
…Maayak’te Imaaskariiii siressssethhhh Neeergaaaallll…
“And that would be the wind talking.” Inva said as she sat up straighter and her eyes drifted back to red, looking deeper into the gloom.
“Sssshhh…” Victor said softly, holding up his right hand to silence any further conversation, even as his left hand lifted his holy symbol to his lips reflexively.
The three of them sat, still and silent, as the wind whistled across the plain, carried from the north. Spontaneously, never constant, the wind carried whispers of words, fragments of some larger dirge or prayer. At times alternating between expressions of haunting sorrow and bitter, seething rage in its words, the language on the wind was unlike anything that they were familiar with. Whatever it was, it was alien or ancient, or both.
“I’ve never heard anything like that before.” Victor said. “It’s not one of the planar languages, either that I can speak, or that I’ve really even heard before.”
“I’m not sure if it’s even speaking.” Marcus said. “And the grass is hissing normally on the wind as it is.”
Victor just looked at his brother.
“Even if there’s something talking on the wind,” Marcus continued. “I can’t tell you what it’s saying and what just happens to be background.”
It was faint for the most part. That was certain. But as the wind continued to grow in pitch and volume as the night grew deeper and time passed, it became harder and harder to dismiss quite so easily as just the rustle of grass and the product of minds expecting to find the restless dead.
Two hours later and the hissing, whispering wind could no longer be ignored as simply a product of tired, overactive imaginations. They could have ignored the words carried on the wind as just the shifting of grass in the night, but not a cold, sickly light that began to seep up from the largest of the barrows.
“Do you see that?” Marcus asked.
“No, you’re crazy.” Inva said, pausing for a moment before giving a serious reply. “Yeah, top of the central mound.”
Marcus glanced over at his brother who was clutching his holy symbol and staring intently at the light. The glow spread across the surface of the barrow like flowing, phosphorescent quicksilver bleeding up from the soil, eventually rising up and coalescing into a number of distinct figures.
The first ghostly figures to emerge were human, each dressed in long kilts and carrying spears in their hands. They stood atop several of the smaller barrow mounds, and at the summit of the center mound, all looking down at a forming procession of other figures slowly making their way up the side of the main barrow.
Inva meanwhile had vanished back into the darkness without a sound, either not wanting to attract the attention of the spectral figures atop the barrow, or simply being antisocial. Victor looked around for the tiefling, shrugged, and went back to watching the figures on the mount.
The wind was silent now, and the figures went about their motions in an eerie, soundless vacuum devoid of the rustle of the tall grass.
“What are they doing?” Marcus asked softly, the silence of the cold night air making him sound louder than normal.
Victor hushed him, motioning to talk even softer.
“I don’t think they can see us, but I don’t know for certain.” Victor said. “I’m not even sure if they’re properly ghosts.”
The figures on the central mound continued their slow, winding ascent towards the top. Unlike the figures with spears, the members of the procession all appeared to be unarmed, dressed in the costumes of slaves, servants, and priests. All of them wore expressions of absolute depression and resignation: the servitors and faithful of a dead god reliving and recreating a shadow of things long past.
“It’s like the events of whatever happened here in the past are being recreated,” Victor said. “Not by individual spirits, but the mound itself manifesting the memory of a place.”
Marcus nodded and stood up to get a better view.
“But I wouldn’t take that as an invitation to bother them.” Victor whispered. “Or an invitation to draw attention to ourselves. Something has a history of killing people around here, even if what we’re seeing now isn’t dangerous.”
Atop the crown of the central barrow, the first figures in the spectral procession reached the top. They knelt in prayer or quiet misery, and waited. When the entire column of spirits had reached the summit, their overseers surrounded them, penned them in, and methodically slaughtered them.
“No one plunders a tomb if there’s no one alive who knows where it is…” Inva said, once again seeming to pop out of the darkness, though she’d been sitting there within a few feet of Marcus and Victor the whole time.
Victor gave a nod. “Plus, their deity was dead. They didn’t exactly have much to live for at that point, and they might have willingly gone along with.”
“Some didn’t.” Marcus said, pointing at one or two of the specters attempted to run from the summit. None of them got far before their executioners cut them down from behind.
“There goes that idea.” Victor said.
Still shrouded in cold silence as flurries of snow drifted down from the stars, the spectral figures faded back into the earth, only to reappear and repeat the exact same pattern of actions over the next hour. Like the first time, their actions were exactly the same, and they each manifested in the exact same place across the mound. Like Victor suggested, it was like the mounds themselves were showing off to the silence of the heavens their own memories of loss and bloodshed which had permeated them for millennia.
After the second pass of the specters, the night went still again, and the glow faded from the mounds. The cold wind from the north resumed, but it no longer seemed to whisper and call out in a long dead language; things returned to the cold, still normalcy of the Great Vale and they remained as such for the remainder of the second watch.
Marcus and Victor stoked the campfire and huddled around it for warmth as the wind only worsened the situation while the snowfall began to slowly increase.
“It’s cold and I’m wearing leather.” Inva said. “And while I’m fine with the darkness, the snow is more than a bit much for me. I’m turning in. Plus, my watch is over.”
Victor gave her a nod. “Wake up Phaedra if she isn’t already up if you don’t mind.”
Inva nodded and walked over to the sorceress’s tent. Phaedra woke up abruptly as she felt the cold flat of the tiefling’s tail spade tap against her left foot.
“Hells Inva! That’s cold!” Phaedra said, ever so briefly resuming her normal form and sticking out her tongue.
“Just like me.” Inva said as she tapped the spade against the tent. “But good morning, and welcome to your watch. I’m off and it’s your turn to replace me. Enjoy the supreme conversational skills of Marcus and Victor, and the bloody wind.”
Phaedra gave an exaggerated yawn and rubbed her foot, warming it back up.
“Couldn’t you have found another way to wake me up?” She asked.
“I’m sure I could have found another way to wake you up.” The tiefling quipped. But I don’t think that you’re that type of girl.”
Phaedra sputtered.
“Have fun on the last watch!” Inva said as she quickly retreated from the tent. “It’s too sodding cold, and I’m not dressed for the weather.”
‘Amusing little b*tch.’ Phaedra thought to herself as she dragged herself out of her tent and over towards the fire to join Victor and his brother on the 3rd watch.
The first forty or so minutes of the watch were fairly normal, filled with infrequent, largely banal conversation.
*clang!*
A distant metallic sound echoed across the still night air.
“…Guys? Did you hear that?” Phaedra asked as her ears perked and twitched, swiveling to locate the source of the sudden, out of place noise.
“Hear what?” Victor asked. “I haven’t noticed the wind whispering since before you woke up.”
“The wind was whispering?” Phaedra asked. “You never mentioned that. Is there anyone out there?”
“Not anyone alive at least.” Victor answered. “Ghosts, or something similar on the mounds, going through reenactments of their deaths when the barrow was built.”
Phaedra glanced warily up towards the looming bulk of the central mound in the distance. Her ears strained to find any further incidence of the metallic echo that she had heard just moments before, but all was silent but for the wind.
“Well, that might have been what I heard then.” Phaedra said. “But with what you said, I don’t think I’ll be going to check on it. Not till the morning.”
Victor glanced at her questioningly. “What did you hear?”
“Metal on metal, or metal on stone.” The half-‘loth answered. “It sounded like a single loud clang, like someone swinging a sword onto a rock. Over in the distance, maybe the top of the mound or on the other side.”
“I didn’t hear anything.” Victor said. “Let’s see if it happens again.”
The three of them sat around the fire in silence for the next half hour, straining their ears. Nothing. Beyond the wind, the crackle of their campfire, and the drizzle of snow flurries collecting upon and occasionally snapping a piece of tall dry grass, they heard not a thing from where that single errant clang of metal had occurred.
“Nothing.” Marcus said.
Phaedra nodded. “I must have just imagined it then. But I was certain of it…”
Marcus waved his hand. “Don’t worry. We’ll take a look in the morning and see if there’s anything there, or anything else in the immediate area.”
The remainder of the wee hours of the morning darkness passed without further incidence but for the cold chill of the air and the soft, ominous hissing of the grass.
Several hours later the eastern horizon was lit by the rising sun, and the central mound of the Great Barrow was crowned by a golden halo of light.
A slow chorus of groans drifted out to Phaedra, Marcus and Victor as the others woke up inside their tents. Victor smiled in their direction, but largely ignored them as he stepped away from camp and knelt in the grass, looking up towards the rising morning sun on the eastern horizon and saying his prayers.
Within a half hour they were all awake, at least nominally, and had each fully dressed in more appropriate clothing for the day’s likely work, all except Inva anyways. She was still dressed in the same tight dark red leather, but wearing an additional cloak and with a blanket draped over her shoulders as she sat next to the morning cookfire. She frowned up at the waxing sunlight and muttered something derisively in Abyssal under her breath.
“Likewise.” Velkyn said as he sat down next to her. The half-drow wizard rubbed a hand over his face as he squinted at the morning light, though perhaps owing more to racial traits than any personal aversion like the tiefling had.
“Mornings and are I not pleasant bedfellows.” She said to him.
“So I gather.” Velkyn replied. “Anything happen during your watch last night? I didn’t hear anything really during my own.”
Phaedra nodded to him from where she sat opposite Inva.
“You could say that.” She said. “But we’ll discuss everything over breakfast I figure.”
“After breakfast I’ll be leaving.” Grenevald, their guide, said as he held a flat iron pan over the freshly fed cookfire.
Victor, just returned from his prayers, glanced at the guide’s food, feeling a twinge of hunger as the smell of onions and ham wafted across the campsite. The guide had brought his own food, and it was considerably better than their own dry rations.
“Who wants something better for breakfast?” Victor asked, getting an immediate response.
“What’s the price?” Inva asked.
Victor shook his head. “No price. I’ll just need to say a prayer to my god. It won’t be quite as good as what our guide is making, but it’ll be better than the dry rations we brought along.”
“Go right ahead.” Velkyn said, putting away a wrapped bundle of bread and dry fruit.
“Besides,” Victor said. “I figure that we could use a good meal before taking a look at the entire complex of mounds.”
A half hour later they had finished their meal and were saying their goodbyes to their guide.
“Will I see you back my way along the Great Road?” Grenevald asked them as he packed his things back onto his horse. “Or will you be going east after you’re done here?”
“Yes. East.” Velkyn replied. No need to give him more details, especially when they’d be returning to places that he’d probably never even heard of before.
“We’ve appreciated the information about the area though.” Garibaldi said, speaking up for the first time that morning.
“It has been a help.” Phaedra said. “And I know that you think it’s a bit of a fool’s errand what we’re here doing. But we’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.”
And indeed he did feel that way; Phaedra had been snooping at his thoughts since she’d woken up that morning.
“Just don’t get yourselves killed.” Grenevald said. “I don’t want to feel like I’ve gotten you killed by showing you this place. People think that they’ll find a fortune here, but none ever have, and a fair share of them has never left at all.”
“We’ll be fine.” Victor said, trying to reassure him as he moved his horse into a trot.
“If things go bad, just promise me that you’ll at least consider leaving.” The guide continued, his last words as he left.
“We’re stubborn, but not stupid.” Inva called out, waving at him with her tail, not being able to avoid finding out his reaction to it before he was too far off.
She didn’t quite answer his question, and he paused at the sight before kicking his horse into a trot, shaking his head, uncertain or unnerved. Tieflings weren’t in any way normal for the region.
“Couldn’t avoid it? Could you?” Phaedra said as she reverted to her typical half-breed ‘loth and guardinal form. “I at least waited till he was gone. I’d give the poor sod a heart attack otherwise.”
“No, I couldn’t avoid it.” Inva said, quite self-satisfied. “There’s no fun otherwise.”
Phaedra just shook her head as their guide retreated on his horse back through the grassland of the Vale to the south, eventually to regain the trade road and travel west, they turned away from him and back to look at the Great Barrow in the full light of day.
“So what all happened last night?” Velkyn asked. And with their guide gone, frank discussion of their situation, and their goals both, were open to comment.
The next twenty minutes were spent telling one another of the ghostly whispers on the wind, the spectral emanations from the mounds, and the sounds that Phaedra could have sworn that she had heard from the other wise of the central mound itself. They had ideas, but in the end they were uncertain of what it all might imply. A day’s exploration of the area though, and another night’s observations might in the end prove as illuminating or more than the breaking light of dawn.
In the waxing morning light, the mounds of the Great Barrow were much more distinct, and much less ominous than they had been the previous night. The air was marginally warmer as the dawn sun broke upon the Great Vale, but it glittered upon a thin layer of freshly fallen powder snow that dusted the grass that grew to hip height across the expanse of the barrow. The wind was no longer as bitter as the night before, but it was still cold and it was blowing constantly, never wholly dying away, making eerie hissing noises as grass shifted against grass.
Stretching out from the massive, three-tiered mound that was the centermost barrow, smaller, secondary and tertiary mounds surrounded it in a trio of concentric rings like the ripples in a lake of dry, brown winter grass, with the tomb of Nergal beneath, a loadstone dropped into its depths.
The night before they’d had little chance to make observations given the dark and the cold, plus their general wise unwillingness to investigate unknown territory while audibly and visibly being aware that the ground was haunted by the restless dead. But dawn had broken upon the Vale, and despite the cold of the season, they had the opportunity now to gain an overview of the terrain and what they would be working with for days, possibly weeks ahead.
“So,” Velkyn said, brushing a few bits of snow out of his hair. “Just from where we are, does anyone notice anything about the mounds that sticks out as being odd?”
Looking out at the various rings of the barrows, they did notice a few distinct patches of dead, withered grass. While it was winter and the grass of the Vale was largely dry, some of it dead from the cold, very specific patches of the surrounding mounds were stunted and sickly.
“At least some of those spots are were we saw spirits rise up from the ground last night a few hours after midnight.” Victor said, pointing out to spots on the tops of several mounds where he had seen phantom sentries the prior evening.
“Alright.” Velkyn said. “It might be worthwhile to at least check the ground there and see if there’s anything peculiar.”
“We don’t even know where the Codex is, in terms of which mound it’s in, and even if we did, we need to find if they were built with entrances.” Inva said. “They might have just piled dirt over the top of holes in the ground, or there might be concealed entrances.”
“That’s one of the next things we should look for.” Marcus said. “For now though, let’s just get a good idea of the general lay of the mounds.”
Phaedra spoke up, suddenly remembering the noise that she had heard during the third watch.
“At some point I’d like to look around the eastern side of the mound.” She said. “Around four in the morning or so I could have sworn that I heard something from that direction, something like metal on stone.”
“Sure thing.” Velkyn replied.
“To start though, can I suggest that we take a look at the keep behind us?” Inva said. “At the least it’s a source of firewood, and shelter if the snow gets heavy in the next few days. Plus, I don’t want to leave it open in case there’s anything in the area besides us and the dead.”
“I hope it’s not infested with the undead.” Phaedra said. “Because a real building is going to be a hell of a lot better than sleeping in a tent for Gehenna knows how long.”
“You sound like your dad.” Velkyn said, poking her in the ribs.
Phaedra smiled and gave a shrug. “Sometimes.”
“As for the dead, they sound like they like repetition, so them I’m not worried about.” Inva continued. “But with those bodies that we found yesterday a few miles out, I’d like to see if we can’t get into the keep’s tower and use it for keeping a watch.”
“We should.” Victor said. “Especially after what we know about it courtesy of the legend of the place according to our guide.”
“Alright then.” Marcus said. “Pack up camp and we’ll take a look at the place before we get to the barrow mounds themselves.”
Some time later after stowing their equipment in their tents or under secured canvas tarps, they stroke away from camp and towards the land rise a quarter mile to the west. They said little as they approached it, and the wind provided most of the ambient sound, still hissing like serpents in the grass.
“Bigger than I expected.” Phaedra said as they neared the hill.
The keep of the Impilturan nobleman, Lord Elphras Barlow, a fortified manor house really, was a slowly crumbling structure of stone and wood rising up two stories above the Vale, situated atop a minor rise in the land on the periphery of the Great Barrow. The thin outline of an ancient road stretched up the side of the rise and to the front gates of the manor, and the snow dusted soil was only covered by patches of dry grass and a few weathered trenches dug into the ground perhaps months before, perhaps decades before, there was no way to tell how recent they were.
“Apparently someone spread rumors that this guy left behind a fortune buried under his keep.” Marcus said as they climbed up towards the keep. “Take a look at it.”
“Looks like it.” Victor said. “People probably consider digging around the keep fair game, and not in violation of whatever hallows, or profanes, the barrow complex.”
“Not that it seems to have prevented anything from befalling people who try.” Phaedra said. “You know, you’d think that if there was anything here that either someone would have found it by now.”
“The ghosts get hungry.” Velkyn said with a chuckle. “Not that the fact of this makes me any more confident.”
As they approached to within thirty or forty feet of the ruined keep, they could make out more and more details. The door to the keep had been ripped away in the distant past, and it lay face down a few feet away, bleached and weathered by long exposure to the elements. What few windows the keep possessed on the ground floor had all been shattered, and the main structure’s roof had numerous holes and several large sagging sections where its support beams had likely collapsed.
Next to the main structure of the keep was its single high tower that rose another story and a half above the manor. It was in better condition than the keep, with its stone seemingly heavier and having held up better to the freeze and thaw conditions of the long winters of the Vale. Turning their gaze upwards and towards its heights though, the tower’s parapet showed evidence of a lightning strike and fire years before.
“Hmm.” Phaedra said. “The tower might not be as suitable a spot for keeping any watches. If the interior was wood, that lightning strike might have burned out the interior.”
Inva shrugged. “I still want to take a look, if just to satisfy my own curiosity.”
They walked a few feet closer before they noticed a section of trampled grass on the eastern flank of the hill the keep sat atop, and a number of footprints partially covered by freshly fallen snow. The tracks were fresh, at least within the past day, possibly sooner.
“Someone’s been here recently.” Victor said, pointing to the tracks. “Did anyone decide to go exploring on their own last night?”
Silence answered his question and they all shook their heads. Someone outside of their own group had walked into the keep in the past day or so.
“I’m looking at you Inva.” Victor added after a pause.
Inva looked down at her hooves, then at the obvious footprints in the ground.
“I’ll spare you my amusement of saying anything to contradict you.” The tiefling said, flashing a self-satisfied grin before taking a closer examination of the tracks.
“They’re recent alright.” She said. “Though I really wish that our guide, whatever his name was, was still here. He’d be able to tell just how recently, or how many people were here. I’m not familiar with the type of soil here in the Vale.”
Phaedra gave a thoughtful frown. “Anyone want to bet that what I heard last night was the same person who left the tracks?”
“We’ll find out once we’ve checked out the keep certainly.” Marcus said.
And with that, they nervously stepped into the cold and drafty interior of the old manor house.
The entryway was heavily stained by centuries of rainwater and snow that had blow in through the open door and dripped down through cracks in the stone and holes in the roof. Wooden panels that had once covered the walls had long since rotted away, leaving only the rough and relatively unfinished stone behind.
“The ghosts stole his sense of decorum when they stole him and his family.” Marcus said offhandedly as they stepped through and into the interior.
“They must have stolen most everything else then.” Inva replied. “Because there’s precious little left.”
And indeed there was. The interior of the keep was nearly a shell. Only portions of the roof remained intact, and daylight streamed down in visible shafts and bright columns down through the dry, dusty air. The wooden floors of the second story had long ago succumbed to water and rot, and only their heavy support beams still remained intact and standing, looming over the rooms of the first floor.
After several centuries there was little left of the original grandeur of the building, and as they moved through the various rooms of the keep, they found only dust and a few broken pieces of ancient furniture. The furniture, and even some of the remaining paneling on the walls, showed evidence of having been hacked apart at various points in the past.
“We won’t be the only ones to use the keep as a source of firewood.” Velkyn said.
“The place is empty.” Inva added. “Well, empty of anything of value, empty of any sign that its currently in use by anyone alive, and they only company we might have if we stay here to escape the cold is this poor dead sod.”
The tiefling kicked a pile of refuse that had collected in the corner of one room, sending a human skull rattling across the floor.
Victor gave her a mildly disapproving look, to which she flashed a grin.
“He’s dead. He doesn’t care.” She said with a shrug. “And it’s not recent. He’s been here at least a hundred years or so.”
“So not one of the keep’s original owners.” Velkyn said. “Any idea of how they died? Victor? This seems to be your thing.”
Victor spent several minutes looking over the skeleton, but in the end he couldn’t find any obvious signs of how the man or woman had originally died.
“I don’t know how they died. There aren’t any marks of blades or blunt weapons on the bones, and there’s nothing to suggest overt magic. They probably froze to death, or died of starvation.”
“Or ghosts.” Phaedra said.
Victor nodded. “I can’t rule it out.”
“Other than our bleached and grinning friend here though, there’s not a thing of interest around here.” Inva said. “I do want to take a look at the tower though.”
The tower, despite its outward appearances, was in arguably worse shape than the main portions of the keep. The tower had indeed been struck by lightning at some point in the distant past, and though the spiral stairwell was constructed of stone, it had collapsed at roughly halfway up its ascent towards the parapet.
“Lovely.” Inva said, looking up towards the top of the tower.
“Up for a climb I take it?” Phaedra asked with a chuckle. The half ‘loth was hovering a few inches above the ground as she asked the question. Though she lacked the ability to fly that one side of her heritage had innately, heights were not an issue for her.
“A climb?” Inva mused. “Of sorts. Never do anything the hard way though. And watch this.”
The tiefling took out a small vial and held it up to see. Inside, a small but very obviously living spider danced around, tapping its legs against the glass.
“Hey Velk!” She called out, getting the other wizard’s attention just as she opened the vial and brought the spider up to her lips, giving it a kiss.
Velkyn, being half-drow, and incredibly divorced from the society of, and religious ideals of his mother, rolled his eyes as Inva kissed the arachnid a second time before swallowing it whole and completing her spell.
The tiefling winked at him before scuttling up the walls with the grace and adherence to the stone like the spider she’d just consumed. It was a useful spell, if a bit awkward in its material components. But it served her well as she soon reached the top of the tower and climbed up onto the largely intact room at its summit.
*Caw!*
A particularly large raven was perched on the stone lip of the crenellated edge of the tower. It squawked at Inva, staring at her for a few moments before fluttering its wings in irritation at her arrival and launching into the air, leaving her alone at the tower’s summit.
“Nice view.” Inva said. “Drafty and cold, but that’s my lot in life for the next while. But it’ll pay for a warm place and a good time once we’re done here. At the very least that’s what it’ll do, hopefully a bit more. Pilfering temples was amusing and profitable, and a god’s tomb has to be even better. It’s been too long since I had fun like that time.”
But outside of the view there was really little to be said about the tower’s summit. There was nothing of interest or value present, though the elevation did give the tiefling a larger scope of the barrow complex than she’d been able to see previously from ground level. One thing did stand out to her, and it was something that they’d not noticed earlier.
“So much for staying here out of the snow.” Inva said with a sigh as her tail lashed side to side in minor irritation.
The others were waiting for her as she climbed down the walls of the stairwell, not bothering to properly use the stairs as long as her spell was still in effect. With a bit of a show, she dropped down from the top of the entryway into the tower.
“Anything up there?” Velkyn asked.
“Nothing of worth.” Inva replied. “But, I did notice something while I was looking down from the top of the tower.”
“What was that?” Velkyn asked curiously, motioning for her to explain.
“There’s a fourth ring of barrow mounds.” Inva explained. “They’re subtle, and it’s damned difficult to see them from the ground. But they’re there. See where I’m going with this?”
Velkyn gave a chuckle and looked down at the ground.
“Oh geez…” Victor lamented as he realized what that implied.
“Do tell.” Marcus asked his brother.
“They built the keep on top of one of the mounds.” Inva said with a grin.
“Well,” Phaedra said. “Count out the idea of using the keep for anything then…”
“Lovely way to endear yourselves to the local malign undead.” Velkyn said. “Ever so smart.”
Stepping away from the ruined but seemingly empty, and entirely unremarkable remains of Lord Barlow’s keep, the group began their survey of the barrow mounds themselves. Starting at the mounds closest to the keep, they were each pockmarked by the weathered traces of past excavation attempts, though none of them seemed to have penetrated more than a few feet into the earth. None of those trenches and shallow holes seemed to lead anywhere than just hard packed earth; neither any different strata of earth, nor any evidence of hollows or buried stone structures were visible.
“This isn’t going to be easy.” Victor said with a sigh as he looked up from the map he’d been drawing of the mounds and their collective layout as they explored them.
“Well, we knew that before we agreed to it.” Marcus said. “It’s nothing more than what I’ve done at home. Commanding a ship on a trade mission isn’t any harder than this.”
“Our employers pay well. We can accept the cold and the bad food.” Inva said. “At least for the moment.”
The tiefling turned to look pointedly at Marcus for a moment.
“And just remember that you’re not commanding anyone here.” She said. “You’re in the same place as the rest of us.”
“Garibaldi,” Victor said, cutting off any friction between his brother and Inva, turning towards the templar. “Can you sense anything evil in the area?”
Garibaldi nodded. “I already tried, and there’s a blanket of it covering the area. It’s subtle for the most part, and not very heavy, but it permeates the ground.”
“For the most part you said.” Phaedra asked. “Where is it more than just subtle?”
Inva said nothing, but her tail twitched underneath the blanket she’d pinned into place as a second cloak.
“Yeah I know I do weird things to anything that detects alignment.” Phaedra said. “I show up as both good and evil at the same time. I blame my parents.”
She gave a grin and let Garibaldi get on with his task.
“A few of the mounds have a distinct glow to them. There’s something…” He had to think for what word to use. “… there’s something unique about them. But I can’t say what exactly.”
“Which ones?” Victor asked, sitting down and preparing to mark the spots on his map.
Garibaldi pointed to the mounds that they had explored to that point, and then pointed down to the map that Victor was working on. Three of the mounds had a distinct aura of evil to them, including one of them relatively close to their campsite, and the strongest one being from the central mound itself.
“Any ideas of what it might be?” Marcus asked.
“Spirits of the dead lingering on at the site of their deaths.” Victor said. “That’s one possibility I suppose.”
“It also might have been that the ground was simply hallowed in Nergal’s name.” Phaedra said. “Nergal wasn’t exactly a deity of warmth and happiness as I understand it.”
“Not in the least.” Inva replied.
‘Another time and another place I might have found reason to like the poor dead fellow.’ Inva thought to herself. ‘Not all that different from what I happen to be drawn to.’
The Sharran smiled outwardly and kept her thoughts to herself.
“It’s something to look at later.” Velkyn said. “It might be that those particular mounds might hold more important persons buried within, or they might have a greater lingering presence of… well… whatever happens to be lingering here at the barrow complex.”
“That’s probably something to do tomorrow.” Phaedra said. “We should just get a basic idea of the whole area today.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Victor said. “Though, if you don’t mind, I would like to see if there’s anything located at the spots in the grass, the withered spots, where we saw spirits manifest last night. It might be possible to put them to rest.”
The others nodded, but it was something that would only happen after they had gained a full overview of the mound complex. And, as the great barrow was spread over a large area of land, they would only stop to examine any particular feature for but a few minutes at a time; Victor’s request was likely to have to wait till the next day.
Several hours later they circled around the base of the central mound and onto its far easterly side, where the sheer bulk of the barrow had obscured their vision up to that point, they noticed that the same pattern of mounds, right up to their sequential placement in relation to the central held firm. Mound to mound they made their examinations, but as they came upon the second ring out from the center, they noticed several things immediately.
Portions of the grass on two mounds were heavily trampled down, with evidence of frequent foot traffic between them. The sides of both mounds had been scored with a series of three shallow trenches, and the work had been done recently, possibly within a few hours time.
“You weren’t just hearing the wind last night Phaedra.” Victor said. “Someone was digging last night.”
Cautiously, and with weapons drawn, they approached the first of the disturbed mounds. There was no sign of anyone currently in the area, nor were there any signs of a campsite or even a campfire having been made anywhere nearby. That was not however, what first struck their senses.
“…Uggghhhhh…” Phaedra said, reflexively wincing at a rancid smell of rot that lingered over the area of the trenches.
“Where the hell is that smell coming from?” Victor said before he covered his nose with the cuff of his vestments.
“There’s nothing in the trenches.” Phaedra said, still wincing.
Velkyn glanced around the area, remembering distinctly the scene that they had stumbled across a day before: goblinoids slaughtered by magic, several of them missing as if they had simply gotten up and walked away from where they had died, and a heavy aura of necromancy. Someone else was present at the Great Barrow, and rather than bringing their own work force, or intending to excavate the mounds on their own, they had found and made a workforce for themselves.
“Then they’re probably further off, maybe a few miles away in the Vale.” Marcus said. “They might not be willing to stay in close proximity. Or they’re aware that we’re here, and they’re taking steps to avoid being noticed.”
Velkyn softly began to whisper the words to a spell. His eyes glistened for a moment as the spell took effect, and then he quickly glanced around to find what he expected. There was something that had cloaked in a swathe of invisibility, an owl, likely a wizard’s familiar.
“But there’s obviously…” Phaedra said before Velkyn cut her off.
“We’re not alone.” The half-drow said softly. “There’s an owl perched on one of the mounds about ten feet away. It’s invisible.”
Phaedra nodded and reached out in the familiar’s general direction, feeling at the edges of the animal’s mind. There was something more than an animal intelligence in what she felt.
“It’s not a normal animal.” Phaedra said into the group’s minds. There’s definitely someone else watching us through it.
The half-‘loth’s mind reached out again, curling around the familiar’s senses and probing at the mind it was linked to. This time though, something vaguely noticed and there was a pause before a second familiar appeared in the sudden flash of a dimension door spell.
“Ok…” Victor said as he looked down at a blue/black raven that tentatively gave an animal caw as it returned his own stare.
“Sneaky son of a b*tch.” Inva said in irritation at herself. The raven standing before them was the same bird that she had seen briefly an hour or two earlier when they had been searching through the ruins of Lord Barlow’s keep. She mentally kicked herself for not having taken more notice of the raven at that time as being out of the ordinary.
“Greetings.” The Raven called out in heavily accented draconic. Having noticed a pair of wizards among them, the familiar’s master had figured it as a language that would immediately be of use in conversing, regardless of any other factors.
“It seems that we might be either allies or enemies.” The raven said with nearly human fluency. “It would not be wise to be the latter I assure you, but no reason to be rash for the moment. Who might you happen to be, and why are you here?”
The familiar blinked its dark avian eyes and waited for their response.
The half-drow’s eyes adjusted to the sudden contrast and he muttered as he entered his tent and closed the flap. Victor just shrugged over at his brother as Garibaldi and their guide both retired to their respective tents.
“Is Inva awake?” Marcus asked, glancing around into the cold, windswept darkness.
“Right here.”
A pair of red pinpoints stood out from the gloom at the edge of the firelight. They faded back into their normal hazel color as the tiefling stepped into view and her vision drifted back into normal sight. She was bundled in a thick blanket, and not entirely happy that the weather had taken a turn for the worse as night had fallen.
“Lovely weather.” Inva said as she kicked a pebble into the fire with a tap of a hoof.
“Your fault for wearing clothes like that.” Marcus said with a shrug.
“Like you’d ever complain about it.” She replied with a smirk. “Nice night though.”
The wind was picking up speed, causing the fire to gutter and spark, sending drifts of burning, glittering embers up into the sky like hellborn fiends racing up to clash with the few perfect, snowflakes drifting down from the stars like angels from on high. The fire and snow were only a distraction however from the shrill, haunting whistle of the wind.
“…did you hear that?” Victor asked.
…sethe hiiiriiik Nergaallll…
The tall grass that covered the mounds were rustling in the wind, hissing like low, far away voices. In the dry, cold air, it sounded almost like a chorus of whispering voices.
“It’s the wind.” Marcus said. “It’s creepy yes, but it’s normal for an open plain, and…”
…Maayak’te Imaaskariiii siressssethhhh Neeergaaaallll…
“And that would be the wind talking.” Inva said as she sat up straighter and her eyes drifted back to red, looking deeper into the gloom.
“Sssshhh…” Victor said softly, holding up his right hand to silence any further conversation, even as his left hand lifted his holy symbol to his lips reflexively.
The three of them sat, still and silent, as the wind whistled across the plain, carried from the north. Spontaneously, never constant, the wind carried whispers of words, fragments of some larger dirge or prayer. At times alternating between expressions of haunting sorrow and bitter, seething rage in its words, the language on the wind was unlike anything that they were familiar with. Whatever it was, it was alien or ancient, or both.
“I’ve never heard anything like that before.” Victor said. “It’s not one of the planar languages, either that I can speak, or that I’ve really even heard before.”
“I’m not sure if it’s even speaking.” Marcus said. “And the grass is hissing normally on the wind as it is.”
Victor just looked at his brother.
“Even if there’s something talking on the wind,” Marcus continued. “I can’t tell you what it’s saying and what just happens to be background.”
It was faint for the most part. That was certain. But as the wind continued to grow in pitch and volume as the night grew deeper and time passed, it became harder and harder to dismiss quite so easily as just the rustle of grass and the product of minds expecting to find the restless dead.
Two hours later and the hissing, whispering wind could no longer be ignored as simply a product of tired, overactive imaginations. They could have ignored the words carried on the wind as just the shifting of grass in the night, but not a cold, sickly light that began to seep up from the largest of the barrows.
“Do you see that?” Marcus asked.
“No, you’re crazy.” Inva said, pausing for a moment before giving a serious reply. “Yeah, top of the central mound.”
Marcus glanced over at his brother who was clutching his holy symbol and staring intently at the light. The glow spread across the surface of the barrow like flowing, phosphorescent quicksilver bleeding up from the soil, eventually rising up and coalescing into a number of distinct figures.
The first ghostly figures to emerge were human, each dressed in long kilts and carrying spears in their hands. They stood atop several of the smaller barrow mounds, and at the summit of the center mound, all looking down at a forming procession of other figures slowly making their way up the side of the main barrow.
Inva meanwhile had vanished back into the darkness without a sound, either not wanting to attract the attention of the spectral figures atop the barrow, or simply being antisocial. Victor looked around for the tiefling, shrugged, and went back to watching the figures on the mount.
The wind was silent now, and the figures went about their motions in an eerie, soundless vacuum devoid of the rustle of the tall grass.
“What are they doing?” Marcus asked softly, the silence of the cold night air making him sound louder than normal.
Victor hushed him, motioning to talk even softer.
“I don’t think they can see us, but I don’t know for certain.” Victor said. “I’m not even sure if they’re properly ghosts.”
The figures on the central mound continued their slow, winding ascent towards the top. Unlike the figures with spears, the members of the procession all appeared to be unarmed, dressed in the costumes of slaves, servants, and priests. All of them wore expressions of absolute depression and resignation: the servitors and faithful of a dead god reliving and recreating a shadow of things long past.
“It’s like the events of whatever happened here in the past are being recreated,” Victor said. “Not by individual spirits, but the mound itself manifesting the memory of a place.”
Marcus nodded and stood up to get a better view.
“But I wouldn’t take that as an invitation to bother them.” Victor whispered. “Or an invitation to draw attention to ourselves. Something has a history of killing people around here, even if what we’re seeing now isn’t dangerous.”
Atop the crown of the central barrow, the first figures in the spectral procession reached the top. They knelt in prayer or quiet misery, and waited. When the entire column of spirits had reached the summit, their overseers surrounded them, penned them in, and methodically slaughtered them.
“No one plunders a tomb if there’s no one alive who knows where it is…” Inva said, once again seeming to pop out of the darkness, though she’d been sitting there within a few feet of Marcus and Victor the whole time.
Victor gave a nod. “Plus, their deity was dead. They didn’t exactly have much to live for at that point, and they might have willingly gone along with.”
“Some didn’t.” Marcus said, pointing at one or two of the specters attempted to run from the summit. None of them got far before their executioners cut them down from behind.
“There goes that idea.” Victor said.
Still shrouded in cold silence as flurries of snow drifted down from the stars, the spectral figures faded back into the earth, only to reappear and repeat the exact same pattern of actions over the next hour. Like the first time, their actions were exactly the same, and they each manifested in the exact same place across the mound. Like Victor suggested, it was like the mounds themselves were showing off to the silence of the heavens their own memories of loss and bloodshed which had permeated them for millennia.
After the second pass of the specters, the night went still again, and the glow faded from the mounds. The cold wind from the north resumed, but it no longer seemed to whisper and call out in a long dead language; things returned to the cold, still normalcy of the Great Vale and they remained as such for the remainder of the second watch.
Marcus and Victor stoked the campfire and huddled around it for warmth as the wind only worsened the situation while the snowfall began to slowly increase.
“It’s cold and I’m wearing leather.” Inva said. “And while I’m fine with the darkness, the snow is more than a bit much for me. I’m turning in. Plus, my watch is over.”
Victor gave her a nod. “Wake up Phaedra if she isn’t already up if you don’t mind.”
Inva nodded and walked over to the sorceress’s tent. Phaedra woke up abruptly as she felt the cold flat of the tiefling’s tail spade tap against her left foot.
“Hells Inva! That’s cold!” Phaedra said, ever so briefly resuming her normal form and sticking out her tongue.
“Just like me.” Inva said as she tapped the spade against the tent. “But good morning, and welcome to your watch. I’m off and it’s your turn to replace me. Enjoy the supreme conversational skills of Marcus and Victor, and the bloody wind.”
Phaedra gave an exaggerated yawn and rubbed her foot, warming it back up.
“Couldn’t you have found another way to wake me up?” She asked.
“I’m sure I could have found another way to wake you up.” The tiefling quipped. But I don’t think that you’re that type of girl.”
Phaedra sputtered.
“Have fun on the last watch!” Inva said as she quickly retreated from the tent. “It’s too sodding cold, and I’m not dressed for the weather.”
‘Amusing little b*tch.’ Phaedra thought to herself as she dragged herself out of her tent and over towards the fire to join Victor and his brother on the 3rd watch.
The first forty or so minutes of the watch were fairly normal, filled with infrequent, largely banal conversation.
*clang!*
A distant metallic sound echoed across the still night air.
“…Guys? Did you hear that?” Phaedra asked as her ears perked and twitched, swiveling to locate the source of the sudden, out of place noise.
“Hear what?” Victor asked. “I haven’t noticed the wind whispering since before you woke up.”
“The wind was whispering?” Phaedra asked. “You never mentioned that. Is there anyone out there?”
“Not anyone alive at least.” Victor answered. “Ghosts, or something similar on the mounds, going through reenactments of their deaths when the barrow was built.”
Phaedra glanced warily up towards the looming bulk of the central mound in the distance. Her ears strained to find any further incidence of the metallic echo that she had heard just moments before, but all was silent but for the wind.
“Well, that might have been what I heard then.” Phaedra said. “But with what you said, I don’t think I’ll be going to check on it. Not till the morning.”
Victor glanced at her questioningly. “What did you hear?”
“Metal on metal, or metal on stone.” The half-‘loth answered. “It sounded like a single loud clang, like someone swinging a sword onto a rock. Over in the distance, maybe the top of the mound or on the other side.”
“I didn’t hear anything.” Victor said. “Let’s see if it happens again.”
The three of them sat around the fire in silence for the next half hour, straining their ears. Nothing. Beyond the wind, the crackle of their campfire, and the drizzle of snow flurries collecting upon and occasionally snapping a piece of tall dry grass, they heard not a thing from where that single errant clang of metal had occurred.
“Nothing.” Marcus said.
Phaedra nodded. “I must have just imagined it then. But I was certain of it…”
Marcus waved his hand. “Don’t worry. We’ll take a look in the morning and see if there’s anything there, or anything else in the immediate area.”
The remainder of the wee hours of the morning darkness passed without further incidence but for the cold chill of the air and the soft, ominous hissing of the grass.
***
Several hours later the eastern horizon was lit by the rising sun, and the central mound of the Great Barrow was crowned by a golden halo of light.
A slow chorus of groans drifted out to Phaedra, Marcus and Victor as the others woke up inside their tents. Victor smiled in their direction, but largely ignored them as he stepped away from camp and knelt in the grass, looking up towards the rising morning sun on the eastern horizon and saying his prayers.
Within a half hour they were all awake, at least nominally, and had each fully dressed in more appropriate clothing for the day’s likely work, all except Inva anyways. She was still dressed in the same tight dark red leather, but wearing an additional cloak and with a blanket draped over her shoulders as she sat next to the morning cookfire. She frowned up at the waxing sunlight and muttered something derisively in Abyssal under her breath.
“Likewise.” Velkyn said as he sat down next to her. The half-drow wizard rubbed a hand over his face as he squinted at the morning light, though perhaps owing more to racial traits than any personal aversion like the tiefling had.
“Mornings and are I not pleasant bedfellows.” She said to him.
“So I gather.” Velkyn replied. “Anything happen during your watch last night? I didn’t hear anything really during my own.”
Phaedra nodded to him from where she sat opposite Inva.
“You could say that.” She said. “But we’ll discuss everything over breakfast I figure.”
“After breakfast I’ll be leaving.” Grenevald, their guide, said as he held a flat iron pan over the freshly fed cookfire.
Victor, just returned from his prayers, glanced at the guide’s food, feeling a twinge of hunger as the smell of onions and ham wafted across the campsite. The guide had brought his own food, and it was considerably better than their own dry rations.
“Who wants something better for breakfast?” Victor asked, getting an immediate response.
“What’s the price?” Inva asked.
Victor shook his head. “No price. I’ll just need to say a prayer to my god. It won’t be quite as good as what our guide is making, but it’ll be better than the dry rations we brought along.”
“Go right ahead.” Velkyn said, putting away a wrapped bundle of bread and dry fruit.
“Besides,” Victor said. “I figure that we could use a good meal before taking a look at the entire complex of mounds.”
A half hour later they had finished their meal and were saying their goodbyes to their guide.
“Will I see you back my way along the Great Road?” Grenevald asked them as he packed his things back onto his horse. “Or will you be going east after you’re done here?”
“Yes. East.” Velkyn replied. No need to give him more details, especially when they’d be returning to places that he’d probably never even heard of before.
“We’ve appreciated the information about the area though.” Garibaldi said, speaking up for the first time that morning.
“It has been a help.” Phaedra said. “And I know that you think it’s a bit of a fool’s errand what we’re here doing. But we’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.”
And indeed he did feel that way; Phaedra had been snooping at his thoughts since she’d woken up that morning.
“Just don’t get yourselves killed.” Grenevald said. “I don’t want to feel like I’ve gotten you killed by showing you this place. People think that they’ll find a fortune here, but none ever have, and a fair share of them has never left at all.”
“We’ll be fine.” Victor said, trying to reassure him as he moved his horse into a trot.
“If things go bad, just promise me that you’ll at least consider leaving.” The guide continued, his last words as he left.
“We’re stubborn, but not stupid.” Inva called out, waving at him with her tail, not being able to avoid finding out his reaction to it before he was too far off.
She didn’t quite answer his question, and he paused at the sight before kicking his horse into a trot, shaking his head, uncertain or unnerved. Tieflings weren’t in any way normal for the region.
“Couldn’t avoid it? Could you?” Phaedra said as she reverted to her typical half-breed ‘loth and guardinal form. “I at least waited till he was gone. I’d give the poor sod a heart attack otherwise.”
“No, I couldn’t avoid it.” Inva said, quite self-satisfied. “There’s no fun otherwise.”
Phaedra just shook her head as their guide retreated on his horse back through the grassland of the Vale to the south, eventually to regain the trade road and travel west, they turned away from him and back to look at the Great Barrow in the full light of day.
“So what all happened last night?” Velkyn asked. And with their guide gone, frank discussion of their situation, and their goals both, were open to comment.
The next twenty minutes were spent telling one another of the ghostly whispers on the wind, the spectral emanations from the mounds, and the sounds that Phaedra could have sworn that she had heard from the other wise of the central mound itself. They had ideas, but in the end they were uncertain of what it all might imply. A day’s exploration of the area though, and another night’s observations might in the end prove as illuminating or more than the breaking light of dawn.
***
In the waxing morning light, the mounds of the Great Barrow were much more distinct, and much less ominous than they had been the previous night. The air was marginally warmer as the dawn sun broke upon the Great Vale, but it glittered upon a thin layer of freshly fallen powder snow that dusted the grass that grew to hip height across the expanse of the barrow. The wind was no longer as bitter as the night before, but it was still cold and it was blowing constantly, never wholly dying away, making eerie hissing noises as grass shifted against grass.
Stretching out from the massive, three-tiered mound that was the centermost barrow, smaller, secondary and tertiary mounds surrounded it in a trio of concentric rings like the ripples in a lake of dry, brown winter grass, with the tomb of Nergal beneath, a loadstone dropped into its depths.
The night before they’d had little chance to make observations given the dark and the cold, plus their general wise unwillingness to investigate unknown territory while audibly and visibly being aware that the ground was haunted by the restless dead. But dawn had broken upon the Vale, and despite the cold of the season, they had the opportunity now to gain an overview of the terrain and what they would be working with for days, possibly weeks ahead.
“So,” Velkyn said, brushing a few bits of snow out of his hair. “Just from where we are, does anyone notice anything about the mounds that sticks out as being odd?”
Looking out at the various rings of the barrows, they did notice a few distinct patches of dead, withered grass. While it was winter and the grass of the Vale was largely dry, some of it dead from the cold, very specific patches of the surrounding mounds were stunted and sickly.
“At least some of those spots are were we saw spirits rise up from the ground last night a few hours after midnight.” Victor said, pointing out to spots on the tops of several mounds where he had seen phantom sentries the prior evening.
“Alright.” Velkyn said. “It might be worthwhile to at least check the ground there and see if there’s anything peculiar.”
“We don’t even know where the Codex is, in terms of which mound it’s in, and even if we did, we need to find if they were built with entrances.” Inva said. “They might have just piled dirt over the top of holes in the ground, or there might be concealed entrances.”
“That’s one of the next things we should look for.” Marcus said. “For now though, let’s just get a good idea of the general lay of the mounds.”
Phaedra spoke up, suddenly remembering the noise that she had heard during the third watch.
“At some point I’d like to look around the eastern side of the mound.” She said. “Around four in the morning or so I could have sworn that I heard something from that direction, something like metal on stone.”
“Sure thing.” Velkyn replied.
“To start though, can I suggest that we take a look at the keep behind us?” Inva said. “At the least it’s a source of firewood, and shelter if the snow gets heavy in the next few days. Plus, I don’t want to leave it open in case there’s anything in the area besides us and the dead.”
“I hope it’s not infested with the undead.” Phaedra said. “Because a real building is going to be a hell of a lot better than sleeping in a tent for Gehenna knows how long.”
“You sound like your dad.” Velkyn said, poking her in the ribs.
Phaedra smiled and gave a shrug. “Sometimes.”
“As for the dead, they sound like they like repetition, so them I’m not worried about.” Inva continued. “But with those bodies that we found yesterday a few miles out, I’d like to see if we can’t get into the keep’s tower and use it for keeping a watch.”
“We should.” Victor said. “Especially after what we know about it courtesy of the legend of the place according to our guide.”
“Alright then.” Marcus said. “Pack up camp and we’ll take a look at the place before we get to the barrow mounds themselves.”
***
Some time later after stowing their equipment in their tents or under secured canvas tarps, they stroke away from camp and towards the land rise a quarter mile to the west. They said little as they approached it, and the wind provided most of the ambient sound, still hissing like serpents in the grass.
“Bigger than I expected.” Phaedra said as they neared the hill.
The keep of the Impilturan nobleman, Lord Elphras Barlow, a fortified manor house really, was a slowly crumbling structure of stone and wood rising up two stories above the Vale, situated atop a minor rise in the land on the periphery of the Great Barrow. The thin outline of an ancient road stretched up the side of the rise and to the front gates of the manor, and the snow dusted soil was only covered by patches of dry grass and a few weathered trenches dug into the ground perhaps months before, perhaps decades before, there was no way to tell how recent they were.
“Apparently someone spread rumors that this guy left behind a fortune buried under his keep.” Marcus said as they climbed up towards the keep. “Take a look at it.”
“Looks like it.” Victor said. “People probably consider digging around the keep fair game, and not in violation of whatever hallows, or profanes, the barrow complex.”
“Not that it seems to have prevented anything from befalling people who try.” Phaedra said. “You know, you’d think that if there was anything here that either someone would have found it by now.”
“The ghosts get hungry.” Velkyn said with a chuckle. “Not that the fact of this makes me any more confident.”
As they approached to within thirty or forty feet of the ruined keep, they could make out more and more details. The door to the keep had been ripped away in the distant past, and it lay face down a few feet away, bleached and weathered by long exposure to the elements. What few windows the keep possessed on the ground floor had all been shattered, and the main structure’s roof had numerous holes and several large sagging sections where its support beams had likely collapsed.
Next to the main structure of the keep was its single high tower that rose another story and a half above the manor. It was in better condition than the keep, with its stone seemingly heavier and having held up better to the freeze and thaw conditions of the long winters of the Vale. Turning their gaze upwards and towards its heights though, the tower’s parapet showed evidence of a lightning strike and fire years before.
“Hmm.” Phaedra said. “The tower might not be as suitable a spot for keeping any watches. If the interior was wood, that lightning strike might have burned out the interior.”
Inva shrugged. “I still want to take a look, if just to satisfy my own curiosity.”
They walked a few feet closer before they noticed a section of trampled grass on the eastern flank of the hill the keep sat atop, and a number of footprints partially covered by freshly fallen snow. The tracks were fresh, at least within the past day, possibly sooner.
“Someone’s been here recently.” Victor said, pointing to the tracks. “Did anyone decide to go exploring on their own last night?”
Silence answered his question and they all shook their heads. Someone outside of their own group had walked into the keep in the past day or so.
“I’m looking at you Inva.” Victor added after a pause.
Inva looked down at her hooves, then at the obvious footprints in the ground.
“I’ll spare you my amusement of saying anything to contradict you.” The tiefling said, flashing a self-satisfied grin before taking a closer examination of the tracks.
“They’re recent alright.” She said. “Though I really wish that our guide, whatever his name was, was still here. He’d be able to tell just how recently, or how many people were here. I’m not familiar with the type of soil here in the Vale.”
Phaedra gave a thoughtful frown. “Anyone want to bet that what I heard last night was the same person who left the tracks?”
“We’ll find out once we’ve checked out the keep certainly.” Marcus said.
And with that, they nervously stepped into the cold and drafty interior of the old manor house.
The entryway was heavily stained by centuries of rainwater and snow that had blow in through the open door and dripped down through cracks in the stone and holes in the roof. Wooden panels that had once covered the walls had long since rotted away, leaving only the rough and relatively unfinished stone behind.
“The ghosts stole his sense of decorum when they stole him and his family.” Marcus said offhandedly as they stepped through and into the interior.
“They must have stolen most everything else then.” Inva replied. “Because there’s precious little left.”
And indeed there was. The interior of the keep was nearly a shell. Only portions of the roof remained intact, and daylight streamed down in visible shafts and bright columns down through the dry, dusty air. The wooden floors of the second story had long ago succumbed to water and rot, and only their heavy support beams still remained intact and standing, looming over the rooms of the first floor.
After several centuries there was little left of the original grandeur of the building, and as they moved through the various rooms of the keep, they found only dust and a few broken pieces of ancient furniture. The furniture, and even some of the remaining paneling on the walls, showed evidence of having been hacked apart at various points in the past.
“We won’t be the only ones to use the keep as a source of firewood.” Velkyn said.
“The place is empty.” Inva added. “Well, empty of anything of value, empty of any sign that its currently in use by anyone alive, and they only company we might have if we stay here to escape the cold is this poor dead sod.”
The tiefling kicked a pile of refuse that had collected in the corner of one room, sending a human skull rattling across the floor.
Victor gave her a mildly disapproving look, to which she flashed a grin.
“He’s dead. He doesn’t care.” She said with a shrug. “And it’s not recent. He’s been here at least a hundred years or so.”
“So not one of the keep’s original owners.” Velkyn said. “Any idea of how they died? Victor? This seems to be your thing.”
Victor spent several minutes looking over the skeleton, but in the end he couldn’t find any obvious signs of how the man or woman had originally died.
“I don’t know how they died. There aren’t any marks of blades or blunt weapons on the bones, and there’s nothing to suggest overt magic. They probably froze to death, or died of starvation.”
“Or ghosts.” Phaedra said.
Victor nodded. “I can’t rule it out.”
“Other than our bleached and grinning friend here though, there’s not a thing of interest around here.” Inva said. “I do want to take a look at the tower though.”
***
The tower, despite its outward appearances, was in arguably worse shape than the main portions of the keep. The tower had indeed been struck by lightning at some point in the distant past, and though the spiral stairwell was constructed of stone, it had collapsed at roughly halfway up its ascent towards the parapet.
“Lovely.” Inva said, looking up towards the top of the tower.
“Up for a climb I take it?” Phaedra asked with a chuckle. The half ‘loth was hovering a few inches above the ground as she asked the question. Though she lacked the ability to fly that one side of her heritage had innately, heights were not an issue for her.
“A climb?” Inva mused. “Of sorts. Never do anything the hard way though. And watch this.”
The tiefling took out a small vial and held it up to see. Inside, a small but very obviously living spider danced around, tapping its legs against the glass.
“Hey Velk!” She called out, getting the other wizard’s attention just as she opened the vial and brought the spider up to her lips, giving it a kiss.
Velkyn, being half-drow, and incredibly divorced from the society of, and religious ideals of his mother, rolled his eyes as Inva kissed the arachnid a second time before swallowing it whole and completing her spell.
The tiefling winked at him before scuttling up the walls with the grace and adherence to the stone like the spider she’d just consumed. It was a useful spell, if a bit awkward in its material components. But it served her well as she soon reached the top of the tower and climbed up onto the largely intact room at its summit.
*Caw!*
A particularly large raven was perched on the stone lip of the crenellated edge of the tower. It squawked at Inva, staring at her for a few moments before fluttering its wings in irritation at her arrival and launching into the air, leaving her alone at the tower’s summit.
“Nice view.” Inva said. “Drafty and cold, but that’s my lot in life for the next while. But it’ll pay for a warm place and a good time once we’re done here. At the very least that’s what it’ll do, hopefully a bit more. Pilfering temples was amusing and profitable, and a god’s tomb has to be even better. It’s been too long since I had fun like that time.”
But outside of the view there was really little to be said about the tower’s summit. There was nothing of interest or value present, though the elevation did give the tiefling a larger scope of the barrow complex than she’d been able to see previously from ground level. One thing did stand out to her, and it was something that they’d not noticed earlier.
“So much for staying here out of the snow.” Inva said with a sigh as her tail lashed side to side in minor irritation.
***
The others were waiting for her as she climbed down the walls of the stairwell, not bothering to properly use the stairs as long as her spell was still in effect. With a bit of a show, she dropped down from the top of the entryway into the tower.
“Anything up there?” Velkyn asked.
“Nothing of worth.” Inva replied. “But, I did notice something while I was looking down from the top of the tower.”
“What was that?” Velkyn asked curiously, motioning for her to explain.
“There’s a fourth ring of barrow mounds.” Inva explained. “They’re subtle, and it’s damned difficult to see them from the ground. But they’re there. See where I’m going with this?”
Velkyn gave a chuckle and looked down at the ground.
“Oh geez…” Victor lamented as he realized what that implied.
“Do tell.” Marcus asked his brother.
“They built the keep on top of one of the mounds.” Inva said with a grin.
“Well,” Phaedra said. “Count out the idea of using the keep for anything then…”
“Lovely way to endear yourselves to the local malign undead.” Velkyn said. “Ever so smart.”
***
Stepping away from the ruined but seemingly empty, and entirely unremarkable remains of Lord Barlow’s keep, the group began their survey of the barrow mounds themselves. Starting at the mounds closest to the keep, they were each pockmarked by the weathered traces of past excavation attempts, though none of them seemed to have penetrated more than a few feet into the earth. None of those trenches and shallow holes seemed to lead anywhere than just hard packed earth; neither any different strata of earth, nor any evidence of hollows or buried stone structures were visible.
“This isn’t going to be easy.” Victor said with a sigh as he looked up from the map he’d been drawing of the mounds and their collective layout as they explored them.
“Well, we knew that before we agreed to it.” Marcus said. “It’s nothing more than what I’ve done at home. Commanding a ship on a trade mission isn’t any harder than this.”
“Our employers pay well. We can accept the cold and the bad food.” Inva said. “At least for the moment.”
The tiefling turned to look pointedly at Marcus for a moment.
“And just remember that you’re not commanding anyone here.” She said. “You’re in the same place as the rest of us.”
“Garibaldi,” Victor said, cutting off any friction between his brother and Inva, turning towards the templar. “Can you sense anything evil in the area?”
Garibaldi nodded. “I already tried, and there’s a blanket of it covering the area. It’s subtle for the most part, and not very heavy, but it permeates the ground.”
“For the most part you said.” Phaedra asked. “Where is it more than just subtle?”
Inva said nothing, but her tail twitched underneath the blanket she’d pinned into place as a second cloak.
“Yeah I know I do weird things to anything that detects alignment.” Phaedra said. “I show up as both good and evil at the same time. I blame my parents.”
She gave a grin and let Garibaldi get on with his task.
“A few of the mounds have a distinct glow to them. There’s something…” He had to think for what word to use. “… there’s something unique about them. But I can’t say what exactly.”
“Which ones?” Victor asked, sitting down and preparing to mark the spots on his map.
Garibaldi pointed to the mounds that they had explored to that point, and then pointed down to the map that Victor was working on. Three of the mounds had a distinct aura of evil to them, including one of them relatively close to their campsite, and the strongest one being from the central mound itself.
“Any ideas of what it might be?” Marcus asked.
“Spirits of the dead lingering on at the site of their deaths.” Victor said. “That’s one possibility I suppose.”
“It also might have been that the ground was simply hallowed in Nergal’s name.” Phaedra said. “Nergal wasn’t exactly a deity of warmth and happiness as I understand it.”
“Not in the least.” Inva replied.
‘Another time and another place I might have found reason to like the poor dead fellow.’ Inva thought to herself. ‘Not all that different from what I happen to be drawn to.’
The Sharran smiled outwardly and kept her thoughts to herself.
“It’s something to look at later.” Velkyn said. “It might be that those particular mounds might hold more important persons buried within, or they might have a greater lingering presence of… well… whatever happens to be lingering here at the barrow complex.”
“That’s probably something to do tomorrow.” Phaedra said. “We should just get a basic idea of the whole area today.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Victor said. “Though, if you don’t mind, I would like to see if there’s anything located at the spots in the grass, the withered spots, where we saw spirits manifest last night. It might be possible to put them to rest.”
The others nodded, but it was something that would only happen after they had gained a full overview of the mound complex. And, as the great barrow was spread over a large area of land, they would only stop to examine any particular feature for but a few minutes at a time; Victor’s request was likely to have to wait till the next day.
Several hours later they circled around the base of the central mound and onto its far easterly side, where the sheer bulk of the barrow had obscured their vision up to that point, they noticed that the same pattern of mounds, right up to their sequential placement in relation to the central held firm. Mound to mound they made their examinations, but as they came upon the second ring out from the center, they noticed several things immediately.
Portions of the grass on two mounds were heavily trampled down, with evidence of frequent foot traffic between them. The sides of both mounds had been scored with a series of three shallow trenches, and the work had been done recently, possibly within a few hours time.
“You weren’t just hearing the wind last night Phaedra.” Victor said. “Someone was digging last night.”
Cautiously, and with weapons drawn, they approached the first of the disturbed mounds. There was no sign of anyone currently in the area, nor were there any signs of a campsite or even a campfire having been made anywhere nearby. That was not however, what first struck their senses.
“…Uggghhhhh…” Phaedra said, reflexively wincing at a rancid smell of rot that lingered over the area of the trenches.
“Where the hell is that smell coming from?” Victor said before he covered his nose with the cuff of his vestments.
“There’s nothing in the trenches.” Phaedra said, still wincing.
Velkyn glanced around the area, remembering distinctly the scene that they had stumbled across a day before: goblinoids slaughtered by magic, several of them missing as if they had simply gotten up and walked away from where they had died, and a heavy aura of necromancy. Someone else was present at the Great Barrow, and rather than bringing their own work force, or intending to excavate the mounds on their own, they had found and made a workforce for themselves.
“Then they’re probably further off, maybe a few miles away in the Vale.” Marcus said. “They might not be willing to stay in close proximity. Or they’re aware that we’re here, and they’re taking steps to avoid being noticed.”
Velkyn softly began to whisper the words to a spell. His eyes glistened for a moment as the spell took effect, and then he quickly glanced around to find what he expected. There was something that had cloaked in a swathe of invisibility, an owl, likely a wizard’s familiar.
“But there’s obviously…” Phaedra said before Velkyn cut her off.
“We’re not alone.” The half-drow said softly. “There’s an owl perched on one of the mounds about ten feet away. It’s invisible.”
Phaedra nodded and reached out in the familiar’s general direction, feeling at the edges of the animal’s mind. There was something more than an animal intelligence in what she felt.
“It’s not a normal animal.” Phaedra said into the group’s minds. There’s definitely someone else watching us through it.
The half-‘loth’s mind reached out again, curling around the familiar’s senses and probing at the mind it was linked to. This time though, something vaguely noticed and there was a pause before a second familiar appeared in the sudden flash of a dimension door spell.
“Ok…” Victor said as he looked down at a blue/black raven that tentatively gave an animal caw as it returned his own stare.
“Sneaky son of a b*tch.” Inva said in irritation at herself. The raven standing before them was the same bird that she had seen briefly an hour or two earlier when they had been searching through the ruins of Lord Barlow’s keep. She mentally kicked herself for not having taken more notice of the raven at that time as being out of the ordinary.
“Greetings.” The Raven called out in heavily accented draconic. Having noticed a pair of wizards among them, the familiar’s master had figured it as a language that would immediately be of use in conversing, regardless of any other factors.
“It seems that we might be either allies or enemies.” The raven said with nearly human fluency. “It would not be wise to be the latter I assure you, but no reason to be rash for the moment. Who might you happen to be, and why are you here?”
The familiar blinked its dark avian eyes and waited for their response.
***
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And very nice, as always. Thanks for the mid-week fix.Similar Threads
