Coldest Trail, Part 5

EPISODE 2, Part 5

ART: GERMINUS, THOMAS; Source: New York Public Library

Catacombs Rummage Sale

The eater of the dead may be key to my escape. It’s mostly rubble, but I prefer it to massive systemic necrosis. I must be near the end.

Expeditions wear you down. I only have so many times i can quicken or haste myself before the tank runs dry. This is my last restoration. A few cantrips, one or two little combat tricks, but no more mirrors to beseech, no more avatars to entreat. I must be near the end.

**

I have it.

Just a femur. Buried in a small sylex of ivory ona makeshift throne of bone. Inscribed with the symbol from Claran’s notes. It’s been gnawed and parts are certainly consumed by the ages, but it is clean. But i thought it was to be gilded as a trophy of sorts?

Wait. no, not eaten. Carved. This bone is a key.

Beneath the throne; something unexpected; a small torn scroll parchment, marked by a writing. It almost…glows? It’s deep purple, almost to the point that it should register as black ink, but somehow feels deeper. Nothing i’ve ever seen like this. Claran mentioned nothing of this, but i have to take it with me. Gods only know what answers it could offer if I could decode it. For later analysis

**

I go deeper now to find the partner for this ivory key. The walls now are cold. There are torch holders and some fur mats, long eaten and decayed. Still, nice to know that someone spent enough time here to establish amenities.

**

I am looking at another ivory shrine, but this one more ornate. Each bone is carved, honed into a curved sharp point and almost appearing as liquid as layers of them overlap and cascade across armrests, legs, and a partially enclosed headrest.

At the head of its head, there is a small shuttered window chair, here’s the key’s home.

**

The key fit, but the chair was a distraction. When activated with the key, it actually opens a compartment behind the chair. IT opens into a small room and now i stand in the pit of the abyss before a meticulous, gold-adorned shrine. A place forgotten, protected, and deadly.

Here, halfway down to hell, is Farrel. Bones lovingly collected, posed, and maintained. He’s even here with his coterie : the skeletons of 8 robed figures are posed, aligned in a semi-circle, around Farrel’s mantled skeleton. What a macabre dollhouse. The cleric who turned on his people and drove a blade through the neck of an empire. A zealot; a charlatan; a megalomaniac. And now, a prize for wealthy collectors.

**

There’s chanting in the distance. Is there? This deep, running water and falling rocks are enough to make anyone start to hallucinating.

Poetry can wait. I am leaving. But i am leaving with the skull

**

[sound of bones falling]

[sound of a swarm of rats]

Shit. Fallen ones chanting. Carrion feeders must be noticing that the eater of the dead is gone, and with it their regular meal ticket.

**

TO BE CONTINUED …