Phaedra left her father’s shop with something of a resigned sigh and a lingering smile. Her father was… well A’kin was A’kin and there was little else to describe. You had to know him. It’d been a productive visit though, and it was good to know that he was doing well for himself, quite well on a number of fronts.
She licked her lips and the front of her fangs, enjoying the last traces of the tea she’d sipped with him over the course of the past hour, trying to figure out the exact sort of flavors that he’d spiced it with. But more so, she was trying to mull over in her mind what he’d told her and what he’d actually meant, damned layers of subtleties and double meanings in how his caste spoke. She’d be pondering that for days probably, despite what she was and despite having grown up exposed to it. It wasn’t easy.
Phaedra chuckled as she walked off into the Lower Ward, away from the Friendly Fiend. She rubbed a sleeve across her cheek where she’d grumbled and finally acquiesced to a kiss goodbye before she’d left to meet up with her companions and their trip to Toril.
“I’m one of your kids and I still don’t know what to think sometimes…”
***
They arrived in northeastern Faerun shrouded in the fading glow of their planeshifting magic, standing on the shore of a rocky beach. Cold salt water lapped at the rounded pebbles under their feet, up to within a few yards of where a thick and dark evergreen forest rose up to greet the shoreline.
“And this would not be the Great Dale.” Phaedra said. She had already assumed the form of a human. She didn’t want to be too far out of place in a backwater region of a backwater prime material world.
“How keen of you to notice.” Inva said with a smirk as she took out a teleportation scroll.
“I wonder how far off we are.” Marcus asked as he looked around.
“You can just… stand off to the side there… as I read this and the rest of us hold hands then.” Inva said to him.
Marcus raised an eyebrow and joined hands with the others as the tiefling began to cast her spell.
“Think happy thoughts or something cliché like that.” Inva said with far too much perkiness in her voice before she finished the teleport.
There was a sudden sensation of weightlessness, darkness, and they reappeared in the middle of a vast and open grassland, the Great Dale, barely fifty feet from the edges of Eastwatch. It was a tiny settlement, little more than a wooden stockade and watchtower that surrounded a cluster of thatch roofed buildings and a stable built up around a single artisan well. The furthest outpost of distant Uthmere, it was a well-traveled stopping point for caravans departing east for Bezentil and parts beyond along the Great Road. That traffic was less for anything spectacular about the outpost itself, but the fact that it was there, it had a source of fresh water, and it had horses and other supplies for sale. Beyond that mercantile aspect of the settlement, it also housed a minor garrison of trained warriors and scouts that served to protect merchants and the far flung settlers and farmers of the Dale itself who lived out beyond the protection that closer proximity to the more settled western reaches provided.
A cold breeze drifted across the plain, tossing the grass towards the east in haphazard fashion. A few drifting flakes of snow fell down from the sky as well. It was late autumn, perhaps nearing winter.
“I’m glad I brought an extra cloak…” Velkyn said with harsh look up towards a sky that was gray and heavy with a coming snowfall.
“Son of a…” Inva said with a frown as she glanced down at her own clothing, or lack thereof. “Well at least I’ll look good while I’m cold.”
Phaedra laughed politely as they trotted up to the gate.
“If anyone asks, I’m an elf.” Velkyn replied as he activated the magic of a pin at his collar. His skin color faded into a light cream skin tone, not the dusky color of his drow heritage.
“And if anyone else asks,” Velk continued. “Victor is a cleric of… Lathander…”
“Excuse me?” Victor said. “If anyone asks who I worship, I’m not going to lie and…”
They were politely bickering as they approached the gate.
“Well met!” Came the shout down from one of the guards atop the palisade. One problem however: the language used wasn’t one they were familiar with. None of them had a clue what was just said.
“Greetings!” Victor called up to them, breaking off his talk with Velkyn. “Umm…we’re here to meet someone, a guide. They should be expecting us.”
They were met with silence.
“I don’t think they quite understood you Victor.” Phaedra said.
The gate was already opening though with the sound of some conversation on the other side.
“Guess someone did.” Velkyn said with a shrug before he adjusted his cloak.
“Marcus Grenevald.” The man said in a variant of the local trade language that was shaky but close enough to their own planar common to generally understand him. He smiled as he walked out of the gate and extended a hand to each of them.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance.” He said while gesturing them inside. “I’ve been expecting you.”
He was a fairly muscular man dressed in light chain armor and carrying a sword and crossbow. Nothing special by any means, but he had the look of a person who knew the region from long experience, oftentimes hard experience. Of average human height, he was well tanned from exposure to the sun and the wind of the open grassland of the Great Dale, but he was genuine in his greeting as he introduced himself. He wasn’t hardened to the point of being unfriendly, which was good. Their employers had chosen the right man.
“I take hope you haven’t been waiting too long for us?” Victor asked.
“Two Marcuses. This’ll be amusing.” Inva whispered as she faded like a shrinking violet into the background. Given the past history of the place, her heritage wouldn’t make her any friends.
“No actually.” Grenevald replied. “I wasn’t at all expecting you till tomorrow at the very least. I figured that you’d be traveling along with one of the trade caravans from Uthmere, and the next wasn’t scheduled for another twoday.”
Velkyn nodded. “So, we just know that our employers hired you to show us to the Great Barrow. How much did they actually tell you about us?”
“Not too terribly much.” He replied. “But they paid a substantial amount of gold compared to what I’d usually charge. Didn’t recognize any of the heraldry on the coins, but gold is gold.”
“Who actually spoke with you?” Phaedra asked. “Just out of curiosity.”
“Tall lass, bit of an odd accent like your own, with dark hair, almost blue, about down to her boots.”
There where some nods and smiles.
“Aspaseka.” Velkyn said. “She handles a lot of these things for us.”
“Well she paid me well, gave me instructions to see you to the Barrow and instruct you about anything local that I might find relevant.” He explained then glanced at their clothing. “You didn’t know it was nearing winter did you?”
“No, we didn’t.” Phaedra replied with a brief glance over at the pair of cloaks that Inva was bundled up under, hiding her status as a tiefling more so than from the cold.
Their guide nodded and glanced up at the sky.
“Well, it’s likely to snow within the next twenty four hours, I’ll give you that much.”
Marcus nodded. “How bad is it likely to get?”
“No way to be sure.” Grenevald replied. “But, based on the season and past experience, probably a few inches deep. Honestly it was good that you showed up now rather than a day or two later.”
“Oh?” Velkyn asked.
“We can see the road.” He replied. “And the wind can get hard in the open plain, kicking up snow if it’s a loose fall.”
“Could we get there tonight if we left now?” Marcus asked.
“Likely yes.” Grenevald explained, already tying down supplies to his horse. “If we leave in the next hour we’ll get there just before dark. And I don’t want to try to set up any sort of camp there after night has already fallen.”
“Why?” Phaedra asked.
“You’ll see.” He replied. “Trust me on this one...”
***
The sky seemed swollen and pregnant as they galloped away from the settlement and out into the open wilds of the Great Dale. The grassy plain extended north and south from the road, stretching to the horizon where it was marked by the borders of the dark Rawlinswood to the north and the great Forest of Lethyr to the south.
Flurries of snow drifted lazily on the wind as they rode at a fair clip to the east. The snowflakes which speckled their faces were slowly increasing in intensity as they progressed over the next hour, innocent harbingers of Auril’s wrath likely to burst free from its heavenly womb in the next forty-eight hours.
“Wait…” Phaedra said as she noticed something off to the north of the road, maybe a mile distant.
She called out to the others and drew their attention to it. There were birds circling in the sky over what she saw, scavengers attracted by a kill. Whatever it was, the grass in the area, as far as they could tell from the road, was trampled in a rough circle.
“Probably just some dead animal.” Their guide said as he took notice of the spot.
“That looks like many things killed many things.” Velk said warily. “If that’s a hunting kill, that's a pack. If that's a non hunting kill, that's raiders.”
“I’m still wary of the snow hitting before darkness.” Grenevald said. “It’s not directly on our way, and we’re perhaps two hours out from the Barrow as it is. But it’s your call.”
They glanced at one another as Velk took out a spyglass and focused it on the distant kill.
“Better enemies in front, than enemies in front and behind.” Phaedra said as she moved her horse off of the road.
“That’s not a dead animal.” Velk said. “There’re at least six or seven bodies out there. Some goblinoids, an ogre, and what looks like a human. Not pretty.”
“Human you say?” Grenevald asked with sudden concern.
“Aye.” Velk replied.
“Probably one of the homesteaders got himself killed by bandits.” Grenevald muttered with a sigh.
“There’s a hell of a lot of blood out there…” Velk said as he continued looking at the disturbed grass through the spyglass.
Indeed there was as they slowly and carefully moved off the Great Road and into the grass, moving towards the site of the kill. The ground was trampled and slathered in blood from a half-dozen goblinoid corpses that lay in the grass and the badly decomposed body of a single human dressed as some sort of hunter or woodsman.
Phaedra, Inva and Velkyn immediately glanced at one another as they stared at the bodies.
“These goblins didn’t die naturally, not all of them.” Phaedra said.
Three of them were literally hacked apart, and pints of their blood stained the ground a sticky reddish hue for dozens of feet. But one of them was nearly cooked, burnt black and smelling of ozone like a bolt of lightning from the heavens had struck him down. Two others and an ogre showed no wounds whatsoever, but their fingers and toes were black and elsewhere their exposed skin was uniformly covered in tiny star-shaped bruises, the hallmarks of frostbite and broken blood vessels from a sudden, traumatic and ultimately lethal exposure to cold.
“Those three there, they froze to death.” Velkyn said warily.
Their guide was trying to keep his horse calm as he approached the corpse of the dead hunter. The body swarmed with maggots and the flesh hung slack on the bones. Birds had already devoured the eyes, most of the nose and the soft flesh of the face. The body was falling apart in front of them as if it had lain exposed to the elements for weeks.
“Wait…” Victor said. “There’s something wrong here.”
“I’ll grant you that.” Grenevald said as he shooed a raven away from the human’s corpse.
“The goblinoids, they’ve only been dead for a few days at most.” Victor said. “But that human looks like he’s been dead for weeks. Maybe longer.”
“What’s more…” Inva said. “There’re four bodies missing.”
She directed their attention to four bloody spots in the grass, distinct and separate from where the other bodies had fallen. Each of them was roughly the size of a hobgoblin or ogre, but while they were covered in copious amounts of blood, there was no body left. In fact, it was almost as if the corpse had simply gotten back up and wandered off. There wasn’t a trace left of them to be seen.
“Probably devoured by something out of the Rawlinswood.” Grenevald stood and looked warily to the north.
The horizon was filled with the border of that blighted forest which had swallowed the ancient kingdom of Narfell. It was not dead though by any means, it was occupied by newer horrors, and even those lived in no small measure of fear about the things that still lay beneath their feet, tenuously bound and imprisoned of old.
“This man.” Their guide continued. “He probably was infected with the blight.”
“Blight?” Victor asked.
“The Rawlinswood.” Grenevald said with hesitation. “It’s cursed, diseased. Creatures that wander from there are dead while they still manage to walk, rotting from the inside out. Disease and dark magic.”
“Dark magic?” Marcus asked.
“The Rotting Man.” Grenevald replied in barely a whisper. “A cleric of Talona, and the ruler of the Rawlinswood. Some say he consorts with demons. Experience has told me it is probably more truth than rumor.”
Victor coughed, breaking the chill and nervousness that had seemed to descend over their guide. He was taking out a shovel and a vial of holy water.
“There’s something I need to do.” He said, motioning towards the bodies.
Velk shot him an impatient look. “Oh for… fine… go ahead. We’ll wait.”
Victor began to bless the bodies and dig them each a shallow grave. But as he did so, the others who watched him noticed a few other incongruities in it all. The goblinoids were carrying nothing beyond improvised or crude weapons, no food or water at all, nor any valuables. In fact it was almost as if they had been stripped of anything of value by whatever had killed them. It didn’t seem right considering what their guide was convinced had killed and perhaps devoured some of them.
Velk frowned and whispered the words of a cantrip. His eyes flickered red for a moment and the ground began to glow under his vision. The entire area was blanketed with the sickly glow of necromancy, especially potent on the corpse of the dead human, and on the four spots where corpses should have lain but were conspicuously absent.
“Nothing ate them.” Velk whispered to Phaedra. “They got up and walked away. Look at the lingering magic.”
Phaedra whispered the same spell, peered at the area and nodded in agreement.
“One problem though,” The half-‘loth said. “If they walked off, where’d they go? Their tracks away from where they died end after a few feet, no blood trail or trampled grass.”
Velk almost reflexively cast a spell to detect invisible creatures. His heart skipped a beat as he considered the possibility of the dead goblinoids and whatever had killed them waiting, lurking invisibly, ready to spring upon any others who came to investigate. But no, there was nothing to be seen, visible or not.
“Nothing invisible either.” Velk said. “There’s nothing there.”
“So what?” Phaedra asked. “Then where are they? Unless they just flew away or got yanked up into the sky.”
She and Velk slowly looked up, and for a moment the winter’s wind on their faces suddenly felt all the much colder…
***
Roughly an hour later, after Victor had buried the dead, the light was starting to fade in the eastern sky and their guide was growing more and more anxious to get back to the road.
“It’s not far now, but we don’t want to be caught in the dark.” He said as he kicked his horse into a gallop.
“Why?” Victor shouted to their guide. “You’ve made that pretty clear, but you haven’t explicitly said why. What about the Barrow and the dark are you worried about?”
“I don’t need to know exactly what is there to be frightened of it.” He shouted back.
Their guide’s worried expression was framed by the harsh violets and oranges of the setting sun’s rays as they raced west to east across the sky, to be swallowed by the rising tide of darkness on the eastern horizon.
“There’s a reason why people like you venture out to the place and yet no one has ever walked out with whatever might be buried there.”
He let the implications sink in as they approached closer and closer.
“The place is haunted, or cursed, or worse.” He explained. “Ever since Lord Elphras Barlow out of Impiltur claimed the region as his own some three centuries back, most folk stay away from it.”
“Was this the nobleman who built a castle on the edge of the place?” Velkyn asked.
“And then vanished in the course of a single night… aye.” Grenevald replied. “He vanished along with his entire family and a full staff of servants and guards. Not a trace left of them all then, and none has ever been found.”
“Vengeful dead?” Victor mused.
“Perhaps, but I don’t care to find out. But at the moment, you’ll have more pressing concerns. The temperature is going to drop in the next hour or two, and it may snow without warning. You’ll need a fire when we get to the Barrow, and you’ll need shelter.”
“Well, there’s a castle nearby.” Marcus suggested.
“Which I wouldn’t recommend, at least not on the first night.” The guide replied. “Camp on the edge of the barrow, but wait till light to explore the place. I’ll stay with you over the night, make sure you’re fine, and then you’re on your own.”
“Makes me sure feel safe when the guide doesn’t want to stick around.” Phaedra said to the others.
Ten jink says he thinks we’re brainless morons who’ll end up dead within a day by curse or exposure to the elements. She continued telepathically.
“Probably.” Velk replied.
“What was that?” Grenevald asked.
“Nothing.” Victor said. “We’re just anxious to get to the Barrow.”
The guide nodded and rode in silence for another fifteen minutes before slowing and pointing to the north. There was no mark in the road, nor anything visible in that direction but an endless expanse of high grass and steadily lengthening shadows cast from the tips of the tallest stands.
They followed his cue, and began a few miles trot across the open, windblown grassland. They soon felt it grow colder and a chill wind rose up from the same direction they rode in. Out of nowhere, even as they slowed their pace, the wind seemed to grow steadily colder as they approached two distinct objects on the flat, otherwise desolate plain.
Rising up to the northwest atop a small hill were the ruins of a stone keep and a single tower. A loose path led up to the hill, largely swallowed by the encroaching grassland, the telltale signs of abandonment. The door and windows were open to the elements and the roof was collapsed in places. Still, if need be, it might serve as a respite from the snow if there was a blizzard.
A short distance to the northeast though, there it was, the Great Barrow.
“That’s bigger than I expected.” Victor said bluntly.
It was massive. Each of the lesser mounds were at least a story or two high, and the central mound was more than double that, and probably hundreds of feet across from side to side. The light was fading quickly, but they could already see that there was nothing normal about the series of mounds. The grass that covered them was uniform but discolored as it swayed in the wind. The surfaces of the individual tumuli were smooth and largely undisturbed but for scattered spots that showed evidence of long past attempts at excavation, but no clues as to entrances or markers of who was buried there.
“This might take longer than we thought…” Inva said as she climbed down off of her horse.
The grass hid her hooves from their guide, but she kept herself wrapped in the pair of cloaks she wore, though in truth the cold didn’t honestly bother her in the slightest.
“Never want to ride a horse that long, that hard, ever again.” She said, rubbing her sore tail under the cloak.
Phaedra snickered slightly as she climbed down off of her own mount.
“There are benefits to being able to change your form.” She whispered. “All the benefits of having a tail when you want one, but none of the problems that come along with them the other times.”
Inva grinned and smacked Phaedra’s leg with the wind chilled metal of the spade on her tail as the half-‘loth passed her.
“What drawbacks?” She said as she moved past, grinning and waving the polished tip as she did so. “I don’t see any at all.”
They gathered their horses together, tied the reigns to a length of rope and staked them into the ground. For whatever reason though, the animals seemed spooked by something and tugged nervously at their tethers. There was just something about the place, the land, or the proximity of the barrow perhaps.
“This seems like a good spot to set up camp for the first night.” Grenevald said. “Pitch your tents and flatten out the grass, I’ll set up a campfire.”
“Sounds like an idea to me.” Velkyn said as he unrolled the heavy fabric and poles of his own tent.
“I’d suggest at least three watches,” The guide continued. “And you’ll probably just want to scout the entire area in the morning, starting with the keep over there. But at first light I’m gone. I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to.”
The area seemed colder by the minute, even more than expected as the light faded and night fell. The snow was still falling but the ground was too warm to allow it to accumulate, but the air was bitter as it whistled out of the darkness to the north.
“Is it just me, or is the wind here a hell of a lot colder than it was before we got to the mound?” Marcus asked.
“Not just you.” Victor said. “It’s much colder here than anywhere else.”
“So what?” Velkyn asked. “It’s night and it’s winter. The sun goes down and the temperature drops.”
“Oh, that’s normal. There’s always a cold wind about the Barrow.” Grenevald said. “It’s not just the darkness or the winter.”
He turned and looked at the shadowy bulk of the cluster of mounds that stood silhouetted in the moonlight.
“There is no wind blowing from the north to cause this, there never is. A mile away from the Great Barrow and there is no wind blowing towards us here. Understand that even in the middle of summer the mound is chill and the air of cold and alive about this place.”
***
Pitch black but for the embers of their fire and a pale sliver of a moon hung in the sky that illuminated the gently falling snow, the night settled down upon them and their camp nestled between in the ruined nobleman’s keep and the metaphorical shadow of the looming Barrow that rose to the east, blotting out a portion of the stars. On the second watch, the stroke of midnight, the wind kicked up and the grass began to stir. Shifting, rustling against each other, the wind and grass began to whisper…
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
