Session 218, Part Four - The Snowy North
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cBu3ZTWCbo
One of the ancient bastions of Drakr’s might, the city of Bhad Ryzhavdut and its famed tower fortress had for centuries guarded traffic along the Volgir River, where frigid mines in the Shawl Mountains fed ore to the eastern sea. The Avery Coast Rail Line had stolen some of the port city’s prosperity, but it still served as a bastion against potential invasion by frost giants of the north.
Some twenty thousand people lived in Bhad Ryzhavdut, many in subterranean compounds dug into the hills alongside the river. The highest hill rose five hundred feet above the river, and from its peak rose a two-hundred-foot-high tower fortress.
Many days earlier, shortly after the unit had received Vlendham Heid’s mystery box, Leon had sought to expedite their eventual journey to Bhad Ryzhavdut: he had teleported to Trekhom, using the Rumschatologists’ teleportation circle, then ridden all night on a flying phantom steed as far as he could to the north-east. And so it was that their journey began a two-day ride from the fort. Leon was required elsewhere (as was Uriel) so there would be no phantom steeds. Instead, they climbed into Rumdoom’s mechanical carriage. There was plenty of room. Of his retinue, Rumdoom had only brought along Thurgid (who was overjoyed to be serving his master once again) and Hildegaard. Thurgid rode on the roof, as did Uru, and so there was plenty of space inside for Gupta, Quratulain, Hildegaard, Korrigan, and Rumdoom himself.
The snows made everything brighter, especially when the Gyre was in the sky. The scenery was breath-taking – mountainous and forested and white. They had a surprisingly good time, ate well and played chess when they paused for a rest. All in all, it was a pleasing hiatus.
Perhaps if they hadn’t been having such a good time, someone might have thought to phone ahead?
Their approach to the old fortress was appropriately cautious. Some miles away they stopped, and Korrigan employed his newly developed psionic eye to look down upon Bhad Ryzhavdut and its surroundings.
Instead of the encamped army he had expected, he saw only the dark stain of its previous presence. There were no lights in the city. The gates were open.
They had arrived too late.
How had such a magnificent fortress fallen so quickly and easily?
Before entering the city they examined the camp. The score-marks of huge runners led away west, down the frozen Volgir towards Mirsk. The army had conquered Bhad Ryzhadut and moved on. There were gigantic hoof marks in the snow, too – and footprints so huge they must have belonged to fifty-foot giants. They counted five sets. … Lesser giants had been here too, along with dire bears, mammoths, and hundreds of dwarves and dwarven skeletons. All had departed on five huge sleds.
In the city they found thousands of frozen corpses. Few save the outer defenders bore any signs of violence. The entire population had been drained of life and lay where they had fallen – in the streets, in their homes, alone or in each other’s arms, men, women and children alike.
Cautiously, Uru communed with the spirits of the city. There were none; a void where they ought to have been.
Rumdoom declared that this ‘bad ending’ had been caused by Grandis Komanov. She had drained all of these people of life. Had she used the Stone of Not to do so? He could not be sure of the means. Gupta stared in wonder and focused on the whereabouts of the Stone. It was heading west on a vast ice sled.
While they kicked over the traces and looked for other clues, Uru went looking for Vlendham Heid. He did not find him, or Kvarti, but he did find ship-like vessels which the dwarves had brought into the fort for safe-keeping: stone ships that sailed the frozen Volgir on great runners. With the help of his ghostly entourage Uru prepared one for their immediate use and they set off in pursuit without further ado.
Since the battle aboard the leviathan, since the whole experience of fighting off the gidim invasion, and being steeped for several days in the aura of the psychic mesh, Korrigan had found that his burgeoning psionic abilities had been strengthened. Now he tried something new: to contact Vlendham Heid, hoping that he had somehow survived. Heid responded! His ‘tone’ was one of intense, almost tearful relief. In a fractured exchange, for fear of being discovered, this is what he was able to tell them:
Heid was now the captive of Grandis Kamanov, who now led her Doomsday army towards Mirsk on five gigantic sleds of ice. These sleds had been summoned into being by the five Lost Riders, who now took the form of gargantuan stone skeletons, sent to serve her at the behest of the Voice of Rot. The Riders now rode gigantic skeletal steeds; all save their leader, Nebo, who was mounted on the Frost Wyrm, Distemper.
It seems that Heid had been lured to Bhad Ryzhavdut under false pretences by servants of the Grandis, purely so that she could have the pleasure of explaining to him in person how she had perfected his philosophies, and bring him along as witness to that perfection. He was her constant companion, along with the rest of her immediate retinue: a deranged, mute lackey who served as the brunt of her continual spite, and a blindfolded half-giant that wielded the Kum Ruk Nazar. Grandis herself bore an even more powerful weapon, one that she had excavated from its resting place beneath the ice near the ancient fortress: a twelve-foot long, arcanoscientific ‘lance’ she had built around the missing eye of the Voice of Rot!
Long ago, it seems, a great hero had cut out the serpent’s eye in battle, and in doing so denied it dominion over spirits, ghosts and all incorporeal undead. (Uru ears pricked up when he learned that portfolio was vacant…) It was this terrible weapon that Grandis had unleashed on the population of Bhad Ryzhavdut, killing everyone within – sacrificing their souls in propitiation to the Voice of Rot. She had somehow spared Heid and Heid alone, and sent her minions in to bring him out to her. Heid did not know what had become of Kvarti Gorbartiy.
“I regret that we came too late,” Korrigan told him. “But we are here now, and we are in pursuit. We will do what we can to prevent further destruction.”
Heid then told them one more grim detail: it would appear that Bhalu had travelled north at Rumdoom’s behest and located Komanov shortly before she called her army to her. He had failed in an attempt to assassinate the witch, and had been punished by the agonising rite of the blood eagle, then kept alive through magic and mounted on a crucifix, to accompany her everywhere as a warning. His feeble groans were a continual torment to the philosopher, who had not slept for many days.
Korrigan ended their conversation by urging Heid to remain strong. Then he tried to contact Kvarti in the same way. There was no response.
End of Session