Interlude 1

Once more within the waking world Syrzach and Dyrg quickly set to implementing the plan that they laid out while they had remained in that damnedable village. Dyrg usual placid nature had been replaced with a desire for bloody revenge and Syrzah… Syrzach had changed.

He had found some black sliverroot in the remains of a dried out lake. Chewing the desiccated tuber into a paste, he had prepared a salve for their wounds. While it had eased their pain and aided in the healing, it had had unintended consequences, their wounds had healed but in their place were scars that were black as subterranean water. Worse still was the fever that had wracked the Troglodytes body leaving him shaken and weak, haunted with visions, hearing the whispering voice of the Wings of Shadow.

That thunderous voice had softly talked to him, drawing him in, suggesting and guiding. That whispering song had shaken the world as it commanded him. In unremembered dreams it taught him three forgotten words of power and awakened in him an awareness of the Shadows that moved beneath the unblinking stars.

He felt consumed by a purpose and filled with a dark power to achieve it. He was a servant of the Wing of Shadows and all who did not bow to his lord would perish. He no longer wanted to return to his home and make a nest of the bones of his foes. He was beyond such petty desires. He was, the Voice of Shadows.

Dyrg had been concerned at the changes in his friend but in the twilight hours the pale troglodyte had whisper to him in a blasphemous tongue that would have shatter the mind of any born of man. Those words calmed his fears and promised him vengeance, power and protection from that he feared most. It had promised him blood.

* * * * *

Rising out of the brackish water of the Erl Fens, Syrzach looked at the camp that lay before him. He ran a clawed finger across the kern of skulls that had been placed as a warning to any who would dare encroach on the territory of the White Tongue Fang. To him it cautioned less than it invited.

A dike of swampbriar and strangleweed was subtly spun as a barrier to keep foes at bay. Anyone foolish enough to stumble into it would find their bones feeding the Erl. Unless you could sing the to it’s blood. Unless you to calm it’s hunger.

What lay beyond was a typical nest of the Finback. A large central nest surrounded by smaller nest of the worthy. A corral for slaves was nearby and judging from its size they were probably few and over used. Behind the egg ponds and the bone field was a small dwelling, adorned with skulls and symbols of power. There in was the old speaker, a servant of the Bonedrinker. He was ancient and his knowledge was substantial, his power was more so.

With the setting of the day fire, two additional patrols set forth from the camp. They didn’t see Syrzach, they wouldn’t. He turned and looked back the way he had come. Even though he couldn’t see Dyrg, he knew where his ally was. A simple signal conveyed his desire and a minute later the Barghest appeared at his side.

Syrzach pointed to the much-adorned structure and whispered to his friend. “Mark our destination and make yourself ready. When the blood sickle is at its zenith we go. We must be swift and silent for his power is great. Are you ready?” he asked with a long fanged smile. The beast grinned and he returned his eyes towards the camp.

* * * * *

The thin blade of the moon rode the night sky until she was ready to plunge down. Syrzach rose. “ Are you ready?” he asked. His canine companion nodded his head and bared his fangs. His black eyes deepened into pools of ebony as he grabbed the pale skinned troglodyte and stepped forward. Slipping between the waking world and the realm of shadows he slid, invisible, intangible across the moor, only to resolve himself with his companion at the entrance to the bone reader’s hut.

Syrzarch strode through the door with a reptilian arrogance as he confronted the elder lizardman. Before the former could act he spoke the first of the words of power that his master had taught him. The blasphemous utterance rocked the red scaled priest as he screamed in dismay into the void of silence that had descended around him.

Even so, he had not served the Bonedrinker these many years by being so easily overcome.

He called upon the Elements of Fire and wreathed himself in unforgiving flame whose heat alone began to set the interior of his abode to smoke and burn. He shaped the flame to a spear and stabbed at the intruder, barely missing as Syrzach dived backwards. A cruel smile passed his lips as he realized that the invader was not of his power despite the earlier evocation. Striding forward towards the skittering troglodyte, he raised his spear.

Dyrg acted less from courage then from an insinuated loyalty that overcame his terror at the sight of the towering immolation. He forgot his fear and the promises that had been made. Some remote beastal instinct of action propelled him forward.

The impact rocked the lizardman as he felt the Berghest’s taloned claws wrap around his throat. His terror at the growling mock face in front of him filled him with an adrenalin boosted burst of flame that consumed them both.

It was then that it became clear that Syrzachs promise that flame would shed from his fur like water was true. Pinning his foe by the throat he looked to his ally as he recovered. He grinned a grin that promised bloody death. By virtue of strength and leverage he forced the lizardman’s head up so the defeated priest had to look at the bone colored troglodyte one more time.

Eyes wide in terror, the bone reader watched the shadows that slid across the walls of his hut coalesce behind his foe only to flow with unnatural purpose and form into a pair of wings that spread wide and unaffected by flame across the burning ceiling, . To his horror he recognized the sign and knew the truth.

The Wings of Shadow were rising and all who lived would pay the price.

He didn’t feel the claws rend his chest.

He wasn’t aware that they broke trough his ribs.

His last thoughts were tormented with the nightmare of the shadows laughing at his failure and the acrid odor of sizzling blood as his heart was consumed by his own flames.

After finishing your explorations of the tomb of Alabain the Black Handed and the grave of his advior Thyric the Wise you found yourself confronting Syrzach and Dyrg again. When you refused to yield to their demands for the mace, they fled.

Then you found yourself engaged in a far tougher battle than all the undead who haunted the coast, figuring out how to get out free of the coast. Eventually you realized that the secret lay in walking around one of the ancient stone structure.

A thick fog had rolled in off the sea as through trial and error you found yourselves at the ring of standing stones that you had avoid exploring. As a group you walked around it and when that produced no results, you went winddershins. This time the fog seemed to surround you and after your third rotation you found yourselves under a clear sky, the stars shining down you.

A thrill ran through your heart as you realized that you were free. Your had escaped. It took you a minute to realize that not all of you had made it. Lakota wasn’t with you.

You turned, you searched but to no avail. You re-circled the standing stones but with no success. That night you slept under the stars to the reassuring sounds of crickets and night birds for the first time in over a week that you could remember but haunted by the feeling that it had been far longer than that. Your attempts at sleep were an exhausted collapse, tormented by the thought that LaKota had been left behind.

In the morning, Dr Varn seemed more like his own self as he summoned a vivamental and healed your wounds as best as he could. Even some of the horrors that had held your minds prisoners seemed to loosen it’s grasp under the clear light of day.

For the next two days you rested while you hoped in vain that your companion would reappear. The fair weather made it easy to explore the oddly unfamiliar terrain that had become so familiar without any of the well known landmarks. Your search turned up a few artifacts of the village, the foundation of the church with a tree growing within it, part of the fence that had surrounded the graveyard and the remains of the well.

You even explored the tor within which you knew was the barrow that had almost cost your lives. You knew it was within and yet you could find no sign of the passage that had allowed you access. Even so, you had no great desire to try too hard to uncover that now buried passage.

On your third night there the air grew a little chill and as the fog gathered around making you again feel isolated and trapped in the night when a figure emerged from the dark.

It was LaKota. A silver crescent softly shown like moonlight upon her brow. When you asked her what had happened, she just looked at you and said nothing. When the dawn came, all signs of the luminary marking was gone and still she refused to speak of it.

Now rested but with your bellies still tightly gripping your bellies you consider the question of where you are and more importantly, where do you go from here.

Mako stared at the charred ruins of the inn. This was twice he had burned it down along with its ghostly proprietress. Twice he had watched it consumed by flame. Twice he had struggled his way out of it’s burning frame but the taste of victory was turning to ash.

The first time it had happened, it set his heart pounding, dodging flying furniture proppeled by the skeletal visaged guardian. He had been the one to see through the illusion and he had been the one to destroy the necromantic trap. He had smiled as the the unseen pyromentals had crawled their way across the floors and walls, consuming all in their wake. The smoke had rose like a pillar in tribute to his success.

The second time wasn’t as satisfying. Not only had it felt like he had done it all before but there was the haunting realization that the inn would probably reappear again. There must be a way of destroying it for good but he had no idea how. Worse still was Cyric’s cryptic comments that indicated that everything he had experienced since he had awoke in the crematorium had happened before, that they were trapped in a cycle of events.

Whatever they had to do to escape, they hadn’t done it. Not yet, not this time. If they were repeating a cycle of events, it was clear that they had died before they had found a way out. That suggested that the barrow and it’s undead guardians might be the key. It was their that two of their numbers had already fallen, barely escaping with their life. If there was a deadlier location about, they hadn’t found it and by all measures, it was probably a good thing.

There was also the question remaining, what if they cleared the barrow and still didn’t find a way to be free, then what. They would have to ask themselves if their behavior was keeping them here. Was there something in their choices that was keeping them from the solution. Cyric’s refusal to go underground? LaKota’s refusal to talk about how she awoke or go near the site? Mako’s own dreams where he again and again had the sickening sensation of being immersed in ocean?

What hadn’t they done? What did they need to do? What if it didn’t matter and they were cursed to play the same part in this poor production, again and again and again?

Zhenais started to stir as the cold light of dawn crept over the horizon, its sickly yellow light revealed yet another slate grey day. Her night in the long sea grass and chill had left her joints screaming their displeasure. What little sleep she had got could hardly be called restful as it was haunted by dreams that were filled with disturbing images that are even now were slipping into the back of her mind like a harbinger of things to come. Even so, a night without night sweats where she woke chocking back a scream of being impaled upon a tree was a vast improvement.

As she wrapped her cloak around her she noticed that her nails were a blue grey like the cold ocean as it jealously clawed at the shore. Shaking her head she looked to her companions.

Lakota stood a little ways apart, keeping watch. The deep shadows under her eyes were a testament to the toll that this adventure was taking upon her. She knew that the archer was haunted by the whispered shudders and convulsive movements that haunted what naps she could get. Mako was sleeping relatively comfortably a ways away. Perhaps that was just his being Silvarrin or perhaps his capacity and (almost compulsive) tendency to set things aflame brought him comfort. Wylie was laying stiff as a corpse, tightly grasping his spell book to his chest. A cold sweat was clearly visible across his brow and his eyes twitched back and forth beneath his lids.

Finally her eyes settled upon Cyric Varn. Like everyone else he is gaunt and thin, showing the signs of starvation and malnutrition. His hair seems thinner and in the half light it seems to be showing touches of grey. His breathing was labored with a rattle that seemed to shake his frame with each gasp. How long had he been here she wondered. What had he been through? What had he seen?

Taking a minute she scanned the bleak, lifeless landscape they occupied. To the east lay the ridge where the remains of the deserted fishing village. Half of it had been consumed in flames leaving only charred and blackened fingers to point accusingly at the dismal sky above. To the south she could make out the where tumorous growth at the end of the ridge where the barrow lay. As terrifying as the wandering skeletons had been, the guardians of that ancient tomb were far worse.

Shaking off the chill that ran down her spine, she rose to her feet and looked to the west at the bone dry forest that stood like a wall trapping them along the coast. Somewhere amongst the brambles and the broken boughs were the Syrzach and Dyrg, no doubt licking their wounds and plotting revenge.

It was only by force will that Zhenais kept her eyes from seeking out the tree.

Her tree.

Her grave.

Her corpse.

Were the aches in her hands and feet echoes of spikes that had held her while the elements had stripped her flesh from the bone? Was the ache in her chest a memory of the broken ribs? The image of the skull transforming into a beak that so resembled her own flash behind her eyes and she had to look away.

To the north she could see a circle of standing stones and the hills that stood as a barrier between them and the view of the Grey Sea from which they had been cast out. None of it was encouraging. She had come to Pelenhar seeking new colors and instead had found herself trapped in a grey world with accents of crimson.

With the acrid stench of burning vines stinging your nostrils you carefully tread your way across what you now recognize as a dead river bed. The smooth stones slick with the grit of salt and sand slowing your passage as you follow the half concealed tracks of your quarry. Rising out from the ancient bank is a stone edged passage, beckoning you into the pit of stygian darkness beyond.

The memories of your recent, too close brush with death echo in the back of your mind as you contemplate the entrance before you, waiting quite as the grave. The hairs on the back of your neck rise as you realize that to pursue your foes, you must follow them into the darkness.

Still shaken by the events of the past day, the addled words of Cyric Varn echo in the back of your mind, ghostlike in their caressing the dread feeling that things have happened to you that you’d rather not know.

As you slipped out of the bone dry forest with it’s cloying branches that seemed to snatch at your cloak, you emerge into the narrow valley of long bladed sea grass that whips back and forth in the night. The dark grey sky above is haunted by the slight illumination provided by the hidden moons and the dying glow of the burning village that sits upon the ridge beyond. The smell of smoke and salt gently burn your nostrils and sting your eyes.

You scan about, seeking the restless dead you saw earlier only to realize to your dismay that they are no longer are in view. You look, desperately hoping not to see them and when this wish is granted, you slowly loose the breath that you had been holding in dread anticipation.

With slightly more confidence you make your way towards the mound that rises above the ridge and hope that you are correct that it is indeed the barrow you are seeking. As the clouds part to rain down the reddish glow of Elin’dyth as she flees Hullin beneath Anyarri’s eboned cloak, to your left one of your companions steps on a piece of drift wood with a crack that shatters the silence of the night.

You turn to caution him just in time to catch the sickly green glow in the darkened eye sockets of a rising skeleton as it emerges out of the long sea grass and lunges at at you with it’s claw like fingers.

Under the Ashen Sky

The icy cold kiss of the endless sea wakes you as it the tide tugs you back towards its depths. Despite the chill that cuts through your body you still feel warmer than you did when the tower of ice crushed the Wave Dancer and hurled your battered body into the frozen water that was filling the hold of the ship.

An oppressive grey sky casts a sickly light upon your surroundings as you rise to your feet The hushed clawing of the tide as it tears at the shore the only sound you hear as you take in your surroundings. The beach is littered with the castaway remnants of a dozens of wrecks whose age is marked with rot and decay. You observe that the beach is devoid of any sign of human trespass as you realize that save for the bone dry grass that stands barrier between the sand and what appears to be a deserted fishing village at the crest of the hill, there is no other sign of life. No birds float through the windless sky, no crabs play at the waters edge, no crickets play their melodies out of sight.

Your belly twists and with an ache like a sword thrust as thirst and hunger fill your mouth with the acidic flavor of want. Turning towards the skeletal remains of the village you force your feet to move. Stumbling up the hill you’re your bare feet and legs are deadened to the pains of the cuts and stab they encounter amongst the cloying weeds. You pray that your impression of the village is wrong and that beyond the ruins at the crest of the hill you will find it occupied.

That you aren’t alone in this lifeless wasteland.

As you stumble to the crest of the hill your heart sinks. The village isn’t just deserted, it’s in ruins. The skeletal remains of the buildings offer little of hope of life or promise as you look around. Doors smash asunder, roofs collapsed, nets cut to pieces, and the sun bleached bones whisper a quiet testimony to the savage murder that took place here.

From over near the shattered corpse of what had once been a chapel you hear a noise. Where there is sound there must be life so in desperate hope you shuffle around the ruins, taking in the tell tale signs of the flames that had claimed this building. Beyond it you find the village graveyard, score of white markers reach like the dead to the sky. Nearby is a fresh mound of soil with the contagious grass beginning to sprout from it. A rotted shovel driven deep into it, standing silent sentinel.

Fear fills your belly as you willessly move to further investigate.

Next to the pile of soil and sand, a grave is dug. and with a growing sense of dread you look to see what is held within it’s beshadowed grasp. At first you see naught but as you peer more deeply into it’s eboned depths you spot the battered remains of the cover of a tome half buried in the earth that has collapsed back into the grave. As you focus, forms slowly take shape and you realize that the tome is held in death grasp of a bony arm that lays across it. Above it you can make out the lifeless eye sockets of the occupants skull staring back at you.

Your eyes drift down again to tome and you feel the stirrings of recognition. It’s worn and battered cover is strangely familiar. A gasp of horror escapes your parched and cracked lips as you realize that you have seen this book before.

Reaching out of its grave, the skeleton is cradling your spell book.

Rise of the Sword Masters
Chapter 1, Sailing the Blackwinds

There are few ways to reach Pelenhar and none of them safe. It is said that great mages can summons the spirits of the air if they would risk the ever watchful eyes of the Dragons of Kirin Dor. It is said that the Elves can risk the Starlight Paths if they dare to risk the wrath of Isindarian, Shadow Lord of the Ilinsidhe. The truly desperate can perhaps risk one of the ancient gate. For all the rest, the is no choice but to board one of the red sailed ships of the Jyrindarin and cross the Endless Sea.

In Port Raninkor you boarded the Wave Dancer, a ship destined for Port Bragdin. She will be the last ship willing to risk the crossing this year. Captain Gorigrn assured you that he had made this run many times and while he couldn’t guarantee that it would be easy, he promised that his ship would be in Port Bragdin before the winter winds will call up the Ice Demons of Dorinjar. Truth be told, it hadn’t mattered, your business in Port Raninkor was done and you needed to be reach Pelenhar as soon as possible.

You find yourself staying in a partitioned section of the hold with the other passengers, mostly simple immigrants like Sarbik Bin, a farmer and his family or Davin Rikers an indentured carpenter. Others like the Allarian Royal Courier Nendra Dayn or the Khazdain Master architect Orthin Dun Kryn are destine for the court of Baron Erthin of Port Bragdin. Other’s such as the priest of the Wanderer Brother Holgrim Mor have been less clear on the reason for his journey.

And of course there was Doctor Cyric Varn a physician for Grunhelm who is coming to Pelenhar in search of lost secrets of Vivomancy. His outgoing personality has made him one of the most popular individuals on the journey. The small library he brought with him has provided many hours of diversion for the more scholarly of you.