[game-notes version here]

XIX.

Duskmarch 24, Goldday, Year 731.

Maelen rubbed at her jaw, scowling. The rain continued in steady sheets, but she hardly noticed it anymore. She was soaked from crown to toe, past the point where a person could get any wetter. Instead, her attention was focused on the muddy ground where, less than a bell ago, a madman had butchered and arrayed dozens of corpses into a wide, arcane circle.

Except now, the ground was empty. No madman. No corpses. Not even blood remained, though the ground still showed the churned activity of boots and combat, the indentation of the bodies clearly visible until the rain soon washed it all away.

She voiced her thoughts aloud. “How is this possible, lad? What happened to them?”

Alric looked up at her, the top half of his face shadowed by the hood of his cloak. Something had been eating at the boy since their encounter with those damned wisps of gray light in the forest. He’d been more withdrawn, brooding.

He lifted one shoulder in a weary shrug. “Hadren cast something,” Alric said quietly. “Or, tried to. I don’t think the shadowed creature that you and Vessa described was his intent, or that globe of darkness. It’s like I told you, Maelen: The magic isn’t safe. It’s inviting a demon into you, every time. The ritual he and his followers used to open the Starless Rift must have made the forces even wilder, less predictable. Hadren paid his price for that.”

“Did he disappear, like in the Heart & Dagger? Or is he dead?” she asked.

The lad leaned onto his walking staff, sighing with a great cloud of mist in the cold rain. “I don’t know. What am I missing? Dammit all, I wish I understood any of this!” he burst out.

She saw the fingers on his hands turn white as he gripped the staff. Maelen approached, the churned mud sucking at her boots, and stood before him. She pitched her voice lower. “And the damned thing’s got its claws in you now, doesn’t it?”

Alric started, and this close she could see his haunted eyes within the cloak. He nodded jerkily.

“What happened to Hadren,” he said hoarsely. “It’s like a warning, Maelen.” The lad seemed like he was going to say more and then stopped himself with a shake of his head.

“You can’t destroy it? Leave it out here in the rain? Burn it?”

He swallowed. “I… I’ve tried. It’s demon-made.”

“Forget it, then,” she said with a swift nod. “Push those dark thoughts away, lad. Let’s go talk to Vessa and see about this crack in the ground, eh?” She clapped him on the shoulder. He stumbled, and she strode with purpose to Vessa. Her back was to them a bowshot away, standing at the edge of this Starless Rift that Hadren had opened.

As she approached, it was as if the sound of the rain noticeably lessened. More than that, actually… It was as if something pressed against her senses, muting smell, numbing her skin, smudging her vision. The rain became distant, like she’d stepped half out of the world. It was an uncanny feeling and reminded her of the moments before she succumbed to blackness with Sarin the Night Captain’s hand atop her skull. Maelen shuddered at the memory, gritting her teeth.

She checked over her shoulder to make sure Alric had joined them, and then said, “Well, that bastard Hadren took the bag of coin with him to the afterlife, if there ever was a bag. There’s nothing left from those cultists, and the lad doesn’t know where they went. What have you spied, lass?”

Vessa looked at them, her concerned eyes lingering on Alric beneath her own hood. “Not much to see, Mae. Just darkness. No telling how deep it goes.”

She examined the crevice’s edge. The earth around the deep crack was gone, exposing a black stone that shone wetly in the rain. Beyond the stone, there was simply… nothing. A yawning empty gash in the world. She could see no stairs or obvious way to descend the sides.

“Did you understand what he said, Alric?” Vessa asked. “About Saelith the Vanished?”

Maelen grinned. Vessa wasn’t the sharpest mind, but damned if she didn’t hear everything and never missed a detail. Her ability to recall those bits after hearing them, too, never failed to amaze.

Alric paused before he answered, tilting his head to consider it. “There is frustratingly little information about demons in the Inkbinders Lodge, at least the parts I can access. But the Tome mentioned them,” his fingers drifted to the closed satchel at his waist. “Orthuun’s generals. There are ten of them, it says, and they spread the Blind Sovereign’s will across the land. This Saelith must be one of them. Hm. Give me a moment,” he said, considering.

Maelen tried to catch Vessa’s eye, but the girl kept her attention on Alric tensely, like she was willing his brain to make the connections. So, Maelen waited quietly in the rain, looking out and over the broad gap in the earth. She wiped water from her face several times, trying to be patient.

Eventually, after enough time that Maelen became aware of her numb, cold feet, he cleared his throat. Hadren’s zombie had made his voice huskier with its strangling of him. “I’ll need to do some research back home to be sure, but I think the Lodge must have done battle with these followers of Orthuun many years ago. Thornmere Hold wasn’t built as a prison. It was a vault, for the Tome and your mace.”

“What does the mace have to do with it?” she asked, though she couldn’t deny the steady thrum of the weapon, growing as they neared this place. It had practically sung in her hands when she’d fought Hadren and his zombie. She could still feel it on her hip and hear its humming like a heartbeat in her ears, as steady at the patter of rain.

“You saw Hadren’s reaction. I think it must have been a weapon specifically used to defeat Orthuun and his minions the last time he plagued the Redwood Marches. Perhaps… Hm. Perhaps they were the ones who buried this Saelith the Vanished here. Perhaps there are more vaults, spread throughout the region, and more tombs. If that’s true…” his voice trailed off.

“Go on,” she prodded him.

“Can you imagine the implications? The Lodge spreading both the instruments of Orthuun’s return and defeat in hidden vaults? It… it boggles the mind.” It was the most animated Maelen had seen the boy in days, though it didn’t last. As soon as his enthusiasm had crested, it disappeared. He slumped his shoulders. “But again… I’m just speculating.”

Maelen was about to say something, but then he added. “I only wish… The blind seer, Wink… she said there were five books of Orthuun. Hadren must have possessed one of them, and that information was enough to locate this place and perform his ritual, but not enough to awaken the demon’s general. But what’s in the Tome that he needed? I wish we’d had his body… With a second book…”

“You’d be twice as cursed, lad,” Maelen said firmly. Alric straightened at her words but nodded slowly.

“You’re right, of course.”

“What now?” Vessa asked. “Why not throw the damned thing into the Rift and end this?”

“What?!” Alric choked, stepping back as if she’d struck him. “No– no, that would be catastrophic. We can’t bring Orthuun’s tools closer together.”

“Back to Oakton, then,” Maelen said with a shrug. “Damned waste of—”

“No,” Alric snapped, louder than she would have expected. “No. Thornmere Hold… there’s more there I didn’t read. And the forbidden stacks in the Lodge… I need access.” He thumped his staff into the mud for emphasis. His hood turned to the Starless Rift, staring down into its inky depths for several heartbeats.

For a moment, no one said anything. Over the rain and humming of her mace, though, she thought the lad was mumbling something. She took a quiet step closer, straining to hear.

“Don’t jump…” she could have sworn he whispered. It sounded familiar. Was it something the blind seer had said?

“Alric,” Maelen said slowly. “Lad? You’re not thinking of going down there?”

“It’s only…” he said, looking up at them. “If the sect of the Inkbinders Lodge truly banished Orthuun before and created these hidden vaults, wouldn’t it stand to reason that there’s more than just the tomb down there? Like Thornmere Hold, maybe there’s an instrument for defeating Orthuun. The Lodge may have spread these artifacts throughout the land.”

“Go down there?” Vessa half laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“Wait, lass,” Maelen held up a hand. “You think there might be more weapons? Chests of coin like the last vault?”

Alric spread his hands, another puff of mist as he exhaled. “I don’t know, really. It’s all just guesswork.”

“Mae…” Vessa said warningly.

“We may not walk back empty handed, is all I’m saying,” she said, rubbing her chin in thought. “Imagine the coin without our debts, lass.”

“Into the tomb of a… a… demon gang leader, or whatever?!” she pleaded in exasperation.

“Oh, Saelith is entombed,” Alric said hastily. “Saelith the Vanished should be no threat.”

“There, see?” Maelen grinned and began unshouldering her pack.

“It’s whatever’s guarding the tomb that’s the threat,” he added simply.

“This place was sealed in the earth, lad,” Maelen scoffed. “There wouldn’t have been any reason to post guardians too.”

Alric and Vessa exchanged a dubious look, but she ignored them. Instead, she began pulling gear from her travel pack. When she’d heard the name Starless Rift, she’d guessed they might be doing some climbing and had used the last of her coins for supplies. With calloused hands, unpacked coils of rope, rough iron pitons, a small hammer, and a grapnel hook—all cheap tools, but sturdy. She checked the rope for frays. “Good enough,” she mumbled.

Without further comment, she found a stable rock lip of the crevice and began driving pitons into the unnaturally smooth black stone, each hammer strike ringing strangely hollow. She winced at the noise. If there were guardians down below, they surely wouldn’t be surprised by their arrival.

“You don’t think there are stairs?” Alric said weakly as she began looping the rope through the pitons and tying a series of firm knots.

“Vess, see any stairs?” she answered without looking up.

“No,” she clipped back. Vessa was clearly unhappy about the decision to explore this place, but Maelen knew she’d accompany them. The thief was a mess in a lot of ways, but damned if she wasn’t loyal.

“There you go,” Maelen offered.

“But… what if there isn’t enough rope to reach the bottom?” he asked.

“Then we’ll climb back up and say we tried. Now shut up and let me work.”

She lost herself in her tasks, looping the rope into a harness that would bear her weight evenly on the descent, checking her knots and the pitons twice, and, eventually, lowering herself over the edge of the Starless Rift into the empty blackness below.

Maelen braced herself with boots against the wet stone and nodded at her companions. Vessa’s face had gone pale; she kept swallowing like she might be sick. Alric’s face was mask-still, drained of anything human, like he’d been painted into the scene.

“If you hear me yell, pull like the gods are whipping you,” she barked. “Once I’m down, Vess comes next.”

Without waiting for confirmation, Maelen began letting the rope out hand over hand, keeping her boots against the sheer stone wall, until the two companions had disappeared from view and the darkness swallowed her.

As she descended, the sound of rainfall ebbed quickly, replaced by the thrumming of her mace. The mysterious black metal practically vibrated at her hip, pulling her deeper into the crevice. The gray light of day shone from above, then that too was gone. Maelen paused, shifted her weight to pull out the torch she had waiting. Two strikes from her flint and the oiled end lit.

A few heartbeats later, orange light shivered across the black walls like something alive. How had Hadren planned to reach this place? Maelen snorted. He hadn’t been thinking clearly at the end. Faith made fools of men. In her experience, trust came in the form of a reliable weapon, of iron pitons struck into rock, and sturdy rope. What had the gods ever done for her?

Grimly, she continued down, moving more slowly now.

For a long while, Maelen lost herself in the rhythm of climbing. Step down, step down, let out rope and drop, look around, continue. No thoughts entered her mind other than ensuring her boots didn’t slip, her rope wasn’t snagging, her torch was held out and away from her. Eventually, however, she began to worry that perhaps she hadn’t bought enough rope, that her descent would end, dangling in emptiness, and they would all leave this place with nothing. Just as the worry began to build, however, her torchlight revealed a cavern floor below her. She grinned and eyed the remaining loops of rope, nodding to herself.

Her boots settled to the rocky floor. She untangled herself from the makeshift harness and tugged sharply on the rope. After several heartbeats, it began jerkily rising. Good.

The air was cool, and Maelen shivered. She was still soaked through from the rain, and though she wasn’t in danger of freezing to death, she had to clamp her jaw shut to keep her teeth from chattering. Would there be any wood down here, fallen from above, to build a fire?

Maelen slowly turned with her torch, getting her bearings. She’d set down upon a raised dais in the rock, not carved but a natural step, probably as wide as twice her height. There was a short, sharp drop off the dais to a wider cavern chamber beyond, and it was large enough that her torchlight didn’t show her its full size. The sheer, black stone wall she’d climbed down rose behind her. Maelen looked up, seeing a gray slice far above that was the clouded sky. It would be foolish to explore the cavern until Vessa and Alric had joined her, so she placed her back against the wall and waited.

Something moved in the darkness beyond, a faint snuffling, chittering noise. She froze and lifted her torch, her free hand pulling the mace from her belt as quietly as possible. Something was scampering around the base of the dais, quiet and searching. Slowly, slowly, she padded forward, mace in one hand and flickering torch in the other, towards the lip of the dais. The thing beyond had paused its movement. She heard the huff huff of what sounded like labored breathing. Perhaps it was a wounded animal that had fallen from the ledge above? But no, nothing could survive that drop. What could it be?

Her left boot slid slowly towards the edge. She leaned carefully forward.

With a high-pitched hiss like a teakettle, the thing below leapt at her.

Next: Frenzied Terror [with game notes]