Coldest Trail, Part 3
EPISODE 2, Part 3
ART: GERMINUS, THOMAS; Source: New York Public Library
Blood and Frost
The trail is cold. Well - I mean the trail is fine, I just happen to be following it in a blasted frozen ice steppe.
Gods how can anything live out here?
Made camp high up and set up perimeter protections. Now, time to close my first full day in the field.
Thinking about my dreams, the black serpent that haunts them, the brotherhood that built the mausoleum I seek, and the expedition target within. This key made from bone from the great betrayer of one of these empires - it is both the target of my journey and also fascinates me. Someone made that. Venerated that. They took the ravaged corpse and sanctified it as a living sin. Of course there are references to cults here. The admirable aspect of fanaticism, its ability to drive unified action and the absolute greatest of its adherents. You can’t fractionate an empire and breed your own demise without passion and commitment.
We often remark “oh how fragile all this is.” I’m not sure.
Maybe the forces of chaos deserve more credit for the work they do.
Every now and then, i see a sign of the old priest. Ruin patches, faded stonework with symbols and faces that match my notes. More and more in these ruins shows the hand of Farrel
“”
“”
[CRACK! SKTHOOM!]
**
[a distant crash and an earth-shaking roar echoes in the corridor between the hills]
“Time to run.”
**
“What in the depths of ….
“A cataclysm in the snow”
[! CRACK! SKTHOOM!]
**
crushing footsteps reverberate throughout the woods. They slowly grow more distant. Something huge came from the mountains and made chase. I think it had been following me.
I’m hiding in the ruins now. Used up about all my tricks on that thing. I set up a wall of wood, one of ice, and spearmen illusions to distract it. The huge beast looked almost like a giant mountain made of bark. Something from Argoth but twisted, animated, and unstable. It kept growing as it destroyed each defense.
A race through a forest and into this maze of ruined blocks and stones where i now hide. It’s deep. I feel, i think 20 feet down a steep hill.
….
There are concrete houses, sepulchers. I think the beast is gone
…
The trail is still here. it’s scraped into the walls and the ceilings of these ancient buildings.
These are most certainly markings from his group. In the decade after they rose to power, driving their movement into the abyss of time, it looks like they retreated here. Hiding from the dark. From the cold. Evading these monstrous creatures that overran them in their mania. The records of this history are so poor. So many gaps. So much rumor and hyperbole. But step on the ice, walk these ruins, and more becomes clear.
That beast chasing me is huge. Moves and acts like an alpha predator. But there are smaller marks here. Weapon marks. Remnants from many species. Goblins, Orcs, Humans. But there’s something else here and there. Amalgams of bones that don’t make sense. They are human sized, but connected all wrong. Was the cult crafting skeleton art? That doesn’t make much sense, though i suppose i am searching for a gilded bone shard.
Here also, in the deeper places. More signs of encampments and travel. Some new markings from what i saw earlier. THese…these are stranger. Depictions no longer human. Something long. With teeth.
…
[shuffling sound. Raspy breathing]
[uneven dragging sound]
Shit. Something up there
…
…
…
It was an undead creature, or a disastrously worn man coated in rags. Murk dwellers. Claran you didn’t tell me about this!
…
…
…
I sent most of the murk dwellers over the bridge with two helices of lightning. The rag man i slowed by displacing it to the end of the corridor. There had been a great battle here, based on the wear and damage all around. Decades or generations ago. Skeletal remains under ebony armor that shone and reminded me of the dreams at sea. What is happening here??
But the ebony armor had a weapon, and so i was ready when the rag man shambled back to find me.
Gods, what do they live on so deep down here? The bones looked picked over but that can’t be the whole of it.
I’ve read of these knights. 6 in white armor, from the order of Leitbur. The ebony armor comes from their dark rivals, the Ebon hand.
Had they the chance I’m sure that they would have annihilated each other. This battle carries the signs of both training and bloodlust. Fate would have it different, though. both were too distracted by each other as to miss the real evil that lurked far deeper. For the white clad Leitbur it was Farrel. For the ebon hand, it was their fanatical devotion to sacrifice and death. I don’t know the details, but all hints of their history suggest an entirely self-made end.
There is always and end. Be it at the tip of a sword, an incantation, or drops in wine. And here, deep in these caves, we see the contortions that come when that end is near.
**
TO BE CONTINUED …