[game-notes version here]

V.

Frostmere 16, Hearthday, Year 731.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Alric muttered in awe.

Alric had been shaken awake before dawn, and they’d all eaten their rations, prepared their travel packs, and studied the map in relative silence. Maelen didn’t say it aloud, but it was clear that she still worried the Lanternless and Sarin the Nightwight would seek vengeance for their fallen comrades. Yet other than the trill of morning birds and chirping of insects, it seemed to Alric that they were utterly alone within the forested hills. The morning felt peaceful, reverent, and clear of danger, and he found himself smiling in anticipation of the day.

They’d camped near the ridge of the Greenwood Rise. In only a few dozen steps they’d reached the crest, and it was as if they stood atop the world. Above them was the blue, clear dome of sky. Below them, as far as the eye could see to the east, fog blanked everything. Only the top of the great Argenoak was visible, like a leafy island amidst what seemed an endless field of snow.

Maelen stood at his shoulder and the two looked out over the soft expanse of whiteness. She said nothing and her face was as hard as ever, but he took her silence as shared awe. The moment lasted several heartbeats, and then Maelen asked him, “Ready?”

Alric sighed and turned his back on the field of fog. To the west stretched forested foothills, though it seemed their perch reached higher than any of the western hills. Well, all except Dragon’s Mount, which sat like a shepherd overlooking the other hills, far on the horizon. Alric’s eyes studied the view, comparing it with the mental image of his map. He pointed. “It should be there,” he said. “Perhaps two-thirds of a day at my pace, nestled between those two hills.”

Maelen squinted at the map, across the hills, and back a few times. “Good,” she nodded, and clapped him on the shoulder. It was a friendly gesture, but felt like colliding with a warhorse. “Vess will trail us again, keeping watch. Let’s go.”

With one last glance eastward over the fog-packed expanse, he slipped the rolled map into the scroll case at this belt, adjusted his travel pack, gripped his staff, and followed.

Traveling downslope at first seemed far easier than up, and they set a good pace. By midmorning, however, his knees ached, and he found that he must constantly watch his footing or stumble. When they took their first break of the day for water and rations, the forest had swallowed them, making it nearly impossible to discern the surrounding hills. He studied his parchment map, tracing a fingertip across their route.

Vessa took a long swig of water and asked, “We’re almost there, yeah? So are you going to tell us finally where we’re going and what we’re looking for?”

Alric looked up from the map, blinking. “Oh! Of course. This afternoon we’ll reach Thornmere Hold.”

Vessa and Maelen traded a glance. Vessa shook her head. “Never heard of it.”

“Ah. No surprise there. Long ago, it was a place where scribes of The Herald stored knowledge too dangerous or heretical to catalog in the Tower of Public Record. The Inkbinders Lodge has done its best to purge any mention of the place, but I found a scroll referencing it and was able to, eventually, uncover its location. It’s been abandoned for more than a hundred years.”

“What sort of dangerous knowledge?” Maelen said, her broad face dour. “What’s so scary on scrolls that they have to put it out here?”

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” Alric said excitedly.

“You don’t know?” Vessa asked incredulously.

Alric blinked again, confused. “It’s forbidden knowledge. How would I know?”

Maelen chuckled and Vessa shook her head.

“What?” Alric asked. “You seem disappointed.”

“We thought it was treasure, is all,” Vessa shrugged. “Should’ve known. The boy hires two blades for a scroll hunt.”

“What’s more valuable than knowledge?” Alric asked, genuinely baffled.

“Yeah, okay,” the thief rolled her eyes, stood, and stretched her back. “Let’s find it and get home, then. The day isn’t getting any longer.”

“But–” Alric sputtered. “You don’t understand…”

“Shut it, lad. It’s your coin. We’ll get you there and back to Oakton, your arms full of dusty, scary scrolls.” She raised her eyebrows at this last bit, mocking.

He kept his face still, but inwardly Alric winced at the words. What had he hoped for? That they would be so enamored with this quest that they wouldn’t demand the second payment when they’d returned to the city? For the hundredth time, his mind worried over how he would conjure forty silver thorns by the time they’d returned. He’d been so concerned they wouldn’t take the job with what he had to offer that he’d pushed the problem to later, a tendency about which his master at the Lodge had scolded him more than once. Yet his mind offered no answers. Every journey was simply a collection of steps, he reminded himself. Next step, find Thornmere Hold. He’d figure out something about the missing coin.

In the relative quiet of the moment, Maelen turned her attention to Vessa. “No sign of being followed, then?”

Vessa shook her head, running a palm over the stubble. Alric wondered, why had she shaved her head before their journey? He knew so little about these mercenaries he’d trusted to guide him through the wilds, and Vessa in particular was an enigma.

“But you marked where Old Yara said the camp was?” the hard warrior asked.

“Of bloody course,” Vessa said testily.

“Wait, why?” Alric swallowed. “You want to know where their camp is so we can avoid it when we return?” He looked between both mercenaries. They traded a look with each other, and Maelen smiled, the scar on her face tugging.

“That,” she said. “And Vess and I are likely to come back, looking for that buried treasure Sarin’s guarding. After we’ve taken you home, lad. Nothing for you to worry about.”

“But,” he found himself standing abruptly. “I told you: He’s a Nightwight! You can’t possibly hope to–”

“As I said,” Maelen held up a hand, her voice taking a keen edge. “Nothing for you to worry about, lad. Drop it.”

He did, and the beginnings of an idea began forming at the edge of his imagination. Perhaps he could avoid the second payment after all. Every journey is a collection of steps, he told himself again, like a mantra, and the next step is to find Thornmere Hold. But after that… Well, it might work. He felt a twinge of guilt but quickly pushed it down. One step at a time.

Without further discussion, they followed a valley between two low hills as it snaked westward. Though the canopy overhead kept the forest shadowed and cool, the blue sky peeked through above. Birds and insects filled the valley with sound while Alric’s shuffling steps and Maelen’s heavy stride rustled the undergrowth. Vessa, for her part, followed behind them, but even when he tried, he couldn’t hear her passage through the forest.

Sometime past midday, something in the woods changed. A hush fell upon them, devoid of any noise but their steps. Maelen stopped them, listening. Heavy silence hung all around.

“What is it?” Alric whispered. His heart began to pound, beating in his ears.

“Shh!” Maelen hissed angrily. Her eyes darted around the trees, which had grown denser, weaving together overhead like shuttered windows.

Vessa appeared at Alric’s shoulder, and he squawked in surprise. He would never get used to how she moved through the forest like smoke. Maelen shot him a poisonous look and then leaned towards Vessa.

“Predator?” the muscled woman whispered. Vessa chewed her bottom lip, her freckled face swiveling to look all around them, and shrugged.

Alric sensed a hum in the air, not a sound exactly, not anything perceptible by his human senses. But it was there, nonetheless. He closed his eyes, trying to still his frantic heart and labored breathing.

“Not a predator,” he murmured, reverent, but not soft. He opened his eyes to see Maelen and Vessa staring at him. “It’s magic. We’re here.”

“Lad!” Maelen barked at him in a harsh whisper, but Alric limped forward, leaning on his staff.

He looked down and smiled. Below one foot was a flattened, worn stone. A steppingstone, marking a path but barely visible amidst the fallen leaves and moss.

Maelen appeared at his side, and Alric had the sense she’d meant to drag him back. But she followed his gaze and widened her eyes. He smiled when she looked at him questioningly.

What remained of Thornmere Hold was nestled in a hollow glade where the earth seemed sunken, like the land itself had tried to bury the place. Once within the glade, the steppingstone path was more obvious and led to faint stone steps that descended from the forest’s edge into a ruin overgrown with vines, moss, roots, and black lichen. At the heart of the ruins, half-toppled, were a crumbled half-circle of standing stones. Beyond those lay a fallen obelisk, broken into three large pieces of stone. Something had been carved into the stone, but the forest and weather had obscured any details.

Alric stood at the top of the steps, marveling at the place. The magic here was like standing near the embers of a fire, but it wasn’t warmth he felt. It thrummed in his jaw, in the bones of his fingers. He swallowed, unsure whether it comforted or warned. Otherwise, there was simply silence.

“I don’t like this place,” Vessa said, standing at one of Alric’s shoulders and crossing her arms over her chest.

“Shut it, Vess,” Maelen grumped from his other shoulder. “Where are the scrolls, lad? What are we looking for?”

“I… don’t know exactly,” he said reverently. “But there must be a door somewhere.”

“Well, let’s go then,” Maelen said, stepping forward and taking two steps towards the sunken glade.

Alric and Vessa followed her lead. It was eerie in a place so quiet. The shadows in the glade felt deeper somehow. It must have been near midafternoon, yet any hint of the sky overhead had vanished. Instead, it felt as if Thornmere Hold was in a perpetual gloom of twilight.

They searched the glade carefully, making as little noise as possible. Without discussion, Maelen drifted right, Vessa left, and Alric middle. The deeper he stepped into the area, the more he felt as if the place was watching, waiting. Hungry, that was the word. Not for food. For something else.

At one point, he lost himself at the center of the fallen standing stones. Here, chosen scribes of the Inkbinders Lodge had performed rituals, discussed history, and defended the banished texts from outsiders. What must their lives had been like? How had they been chosen for this sacred task? Had the glade ever fallen under attack? And why had the place been abandoned, so many years ago? He sighed, yearning for the stones to speak to him and share their vigilant observations.

“Here,” Vessa’s voice broke the silence. Alric blinked and shook himself out of his reverie, searching for the source of the voice. The stubble-headed, lithe woman in leathers crouched just beyond the base of the fallen obelisk, rubbing at her nose and frowning down at something. He and Maelen picked their way through the clearing to her.

Vessa crouched beside a stone disk half-sunk in the earth, its face etched with runes worn smooth by centuries and swallowed by moss and black lichen. Had the carvings once been script or images, it was impossible to tell. The disk was wide, flush with the earth, carved into the hollow like a massive stone plug. Alric saw now that its edge formed a faint seam—not a true lid, perhaps, but a seal. Something meant to be kept closed.

“It’s a door,” Vessa said, pointing a thin finger. Alric supposed fine hands were good for a thief. “See here? There’s room to swing it aside. The scrolls must be below ground.”

Maelen grunted. “Think the two of us can lift it?”

“It’s sealed,” Vessa said, rubbing again at her nose. “And maybe trapped. I’ll take a closer look.” She dropped to her stomach in the grass, her face close to the stone.

For several heartbeats, Maelen and Alric stood mutely watching the woman as she squinted and touched the edge of the circular stone. For Alric, it meant constantly feeling the low hum of magic everywhere in the glade, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. It was both intriguing and maddening in equal parts.

Vessa crawled the perimeter of the door, grunting softly as her fingers traced the edge.

“Definitely trapped,” she mumbled. “Not mechanical. Magical, maybe? But they’d leave a bypass…” She grinned suddenly. “There. Got it.” Her tongue peeked from the corner of her mouth as she dug into the mossy ground, then paused to breathe deep. Vessa glanced up at them.

“You might want to step back,” she said with a wry grin. “Just in case.”

Alric blanched and shuffled backwards several strides. Maelen, frowning, took two cautious steps backwards but stayed closer to the door.

“You got it?” Maelen asked, voice low and taut.

The woman had fished some tools from a belt pouch and was digging at the same spot with them. “I got it,” she breathed. “Probably. Here goes.”

For a moment, Vessa’s face turned red as she struggled with something Alric couldn’t see. The moment stretched, quiet as breath. Then, with a sharp exhalation of triumph, she smiled up at them. The woman stuffed her iron tools back into the pouch, scrambled to a crouch, and dipped both hands beneath the stone. There was a crack and pop, like a wine flask opening for the first time, and then Vessa was pushing the stone with steady effort.

As she’d predicted, the stone door swung wide, scraping along the ground as it went. When Vessa had pushed it aside and stood, slapping dirt from her front and grinning, they all looked down. The door left a circular opening into the earth, still partially covered by the stone. Worn, stone steps led down. Shadows pooled in the stairwell, impossibly deep for daylight, as if night waited just below.

The accomplishment of what he witnessed overwhelmed him a moment. He’d done it. He’d found the right skills to get him here from Oakton, to find and open the vault. And here it was, waiting for him. Not just hidden knowledge, but perhaps a key to understanding the magic he felt just beyond his reach.

Thornmere Hold opened like a waiting mouth, silent and expectant, beckoning him forward.

Next: Into the Darkness [with game notes]