[game-notes version here]

XXV.

Duskmarch 25, Hearthday, Year 731, the day of Sweet Requital in Oakton.

Maelen seethed. She would not survive floating eyes of death in the forest, face-eating skratt legions, insane cultists, and skinless nightmares only to be crushed in an earthquake. She would not die with coin-heavy packs that she never spent. Most of all, though, she would absolutely not watch more companions perish. Screw this Starless Rift! She wished she could punch Orthuun the Blind Sovereign square in the jaw.

With red mist clouding her vision, she roared forward, grabbing Alric by his oiled cloak and hauling him alongside her. Maelen’s boots hammered on the cavern floor, a rumble like thunder all around them. Debris skittered and danced, and rocks cascaded from above—at first smaller than a fingernail but soon as large as a fist. A stone glanced off her back and she shouted, “Go! Go!” to Vessa, three steps ahead of her, over the groaning earth.

The black mace’s handle slapped her thigh as she ran, its incessant hum in her ears. Maelen held her torch high, the speed of their flight and shaking ground making the light dance madly. She tripped briefly, her shoulder crunching into the jagged stone wall before rebounding. Yet she could feel none of her injuries as her panic-fueled rage grew.

By the time she’d reached the stone dais below the cavern entrance, Vessa was already climbing the rope hand over hand, her bow slung across her shoulders and heavy pack dangling from her back. She moved like a deer up a hillside, steps light and graceful despite the weight of her gear.

As she watched in horror, a rock from above bounced off the stone wall and struck Vessa hard, and for a moment Maelen thought she would let go and plummet to the floor. She hung limply by one arm, twisting above. Then the lass shook her head, grabbed the rope with her other hand, and repositioned her feet along the wall. Vessa continued upwards.

“Go!” Maelen said to the mage, tossing him bodily atop the dais. “Grab the rope and climb!”

“My staff…” Alric started, as Maelen vaulted to join him. The rumbling floor made even standing upright difficult now. She frowned when she saw the red and purple scraps of wet tissue littered across the dais, remnants of the first of those skinless creatures.

“I’ve got it!” she yelled. “Go!”

“Will the rope hold–?” he began, then saw the look on her face and paled. He turned, gripped the rope, and…

Climbed! Maelen always assumed the young man was weak because of his profession and lamed leg. Yet, she realized suddenly, she’d seen him again and again bash monstrosities with his staff and do real damage. And, she supposed, he compensated for his withered leg by bearing weight with his arms on that same stick every day. She’d never really considered that he might have some physical strength in that lanky torso of his. Without a second glance, the lad was pulling himself upwards, not as gracefully as Vessa but with steady, even movement. Maelen blinked, surprised.

Then something in the darkness crashed, like a boulder being pulverized, and she lurched into action. Maelen dropped the torch to the floor without looking back, picked up Alric’s staff and, in one clean motion, jammed it behind her, wedged between her travel pack and chain shirt. That done, she gripped the rope with thick, calloused hands, and pulled.

Alric’s question hadn’t been wrong. They’d descended one at a time, with lighter packs. Would the rope hold three of them, plus the treasure of the vault? She guessed they’d find out. With a vicious groan, she pulled, muscles bunching. Her boots found the cavern wall. She climbed.

The noise was deafening now, a combination of constant thunder and crashing stone. Twice, rocks as large as her head fell from above, one narrowly missing her arm and another glancing off her pack. Had either struck her, she would have fallen, head over feet, into the darkness. She assumed that Vessa had made it to the surface by the time she’d made half the climb, and soon after the light from above began reaching the glistening, water-stained rock all around her. Maelen was close. She yelled again, shoulders burning and hands aching, for what felt like days. Voices above her urged her on, though she couldn’t make out words over the cacophony of the Starless Rift.

Eventually, hands gripped her shoulders, pulling her upwards. Rain spattered across her face. And, just like that, she lay on her back, her panting breath making puffs in the cold winter air. Maelen wasn’t sure how long she lay there, every pain now flooding back, before Vessa called out.

“Look!” she croaked, the lass’ voice raw.

Like a turtle on its back, Maelen rolled awkwardly. She shrugged her shoulders in the steady rain to release the heavy pack and Alric’s staff so she could sit. Maelen glanced at Vessa, who sat three strides away on her knees, mouth open. The lad lay on his side between them, staring in the same direction. Maelen turned to follow their gazes.

The Starless Rift was sealing itself. The two sections of muddy plains now only lay a short leap apart. Even as she watched, still and stunned, the earth rumbled and groaned, each side reaching for the other. Over the next stretch of time—she couldn’t have said how long—the two sides met, the crack sealed. The rumbling thunder echoed across the plain, low and distant, and then fell silent. Only churned soil, the shape of a long crescent, remained.

In that moment, she thought of her mouse Tatter. The little friend had been with her for over two years and survived the worse this world could throw at them. When she’d scampered away in fear from the monstrosities in the shadows below, Maelen assumed they would find each other again. But now, with the Starless Rift closed, any hope of reunion died. The mouse was probably dead, in the darkness and offal stink of those caverns, and if not dead then trapped. A sob threatened to escape her mouth, but blind rage pushed it back. She struck the mud beside her with a fist and growled.

“What is it?” Vessa asked her.

“Get your asses up!” Maelen barked, pushing herself to her feet unsteadily. “We’re leaving this bloody place.”

“Mae?” her friend asked, but the warrior turned her back on her companions and stalked off in the rain, fuming.

She spoke little the rest of the day. It was impossible to know when in the day they’d emerged from the Starless Rift thanks to the steady storm, so she vowed to just keep walking north until it grew dark. Despite their injuries and exhaustion, she pushed them through the mud and rain, with far fewer and shorter breaks than her companions likely deserved. They didn’t push back on her militant march, though; Vessa and Alric were as eager to put distance from the Rift as Maelen.

As the journey lengthened, it became clearer that they’d emerged sometime in the morning. Was it the next day? Surely, they hadn’t spent more than that underground. Regardless, Maelen thought it made the accounting easier for when they’d reach waypoints and landmarks back to Oakton, assuming they made roughly the pace.

The longer they trudged across plains broken by low hills and dark, craggy rocks. As the miles dragged on, Maelen wondered at her own fury. Yes, she’d always been prone to getting into scraps, even as a young girl. But now the simple need for violence threatened to overwhelm her. Any increase in the rainfall, any unexpected slog of mud, any stumble by the mage—they all filled her with rage. Each slight complication, she held herself back from cursing angrily and often failed. Her fists bunched without her realizing it, tightly and painfully until her knuckles ached. Once, when Vessa whispered to her that she thought they should take a rest for Alric’s sake, Maelen barely avoided punching her friend in the jaw.

Was it the mace, she pondered? Surely the thing hummed to her in a tone only she could hear, and it seemed eager for combat. Did the weapon contain some sort of enchantment that manipulated her emotions? The very idea also made her want to strike something and smash it to pulp. But no, she thought the mace’s personality, if one could call it that, was much more jovial than destructive. Now that she considered it, the black weapon was like a mercenary companion of hers from years ago, even before the Larkhands, named Torin Bonebreaker. The man was crude, filthy, and built like a mountain, but always in uncannily good spirits. He looked forward to battle but wasn’t bloodthirsty for it. So too did it seem the mace was a humming, cheerful companion, happy to fight but otherwise just enjoying the traveling life in the beltloop at her hip. “If only it might rain more!” Torin would say if he were with them, “I don’t think the crack of my ass is wet enough yet!”

If not the mace, then why? It was the Starless Rift itself, and those skinless terrors, she realized. The utter wrongness of those creatures, combined with the oppressive darkness and bleak stone all around them, had triggered some animal instinct in her that she now found difficult to shut off. Like a cornered wolf, Maelen was snapping her slathering jaws at anyone who came near, even those meant to comfort her. She hated the uncontrolled feelings of it, but even as she spent the day grimly meditating on her emotions, could do nothing to erase it. Indeed, she almost wished the party would find more minions of Orthuun that she could destroy, that it would somehow purge her lust for violence.

They made camp in the rain, with little conversation amongst the three of them. Perhaps the only words spoken were when Vessa took inventory of their supplies and noted that they only had one more day of dry rations available, and only three torches that were both unused and had survived the constant wet. There was nothing to do about the torches, but Maelen told Vessa to keep an eye out for game on their journey, especially as they entered the forests of the Greenwood Rise. She must not have made the request respectfully, given that Vessa’s response was to spit and turn her back on her. Still, she felt confident that the lass would do some hunting, so mission accomplished.

Duskmarch 26, Stillday, Year 731

Shortly after setting out on the next day, the rain finally broke. By late morning the clouds had parted, showing cracks of blue sky and shedding the entire landscape in glistening, sparkling relief. The contrast from the previous day and horrors of the Starless Rift were stark, though it did little to lessen Maelen’s anger. For Alric and Vessa, however, the change seemed to allow for some light banter, and the two of them laughed several times at something Maelen couldn’t hear. Midday, after Vessa had crept away briefly to kill two chickens she’d spied in the long grass, the lad and lass sat closely and chattered while cleaning the animals. Maelen thought it was only a matter of time until Vessa bedded the mage and hoped she could wait until they’d returned to Oakton. The last thing Maelen needed was babysitting two lovesick kids.

Most of the day, they tromped through grassy plains stretching between occasional sandstone outcroppings. By mid-afternoon, the sky full of puffy clouds, numerous low ridges and scrub forests that preceded the Greenwood Rise appeared on the horizon. The trio topped a rise, and Vessa squinted, stopping abruptly.

“What is it?” Alric asked, looking at her with concern.

“It’s…” she licked her lips, sounding uncertain. “A tent, I think.”

Maelen shaded her eyes with one hand. Sure enough, far across the grasslands, near a low-lying ridge, was a structure that looked like a crude tent of some kind. White smoke rose from behind the tent, as if from a campfire. The more Maelen watched it, though, the less sense it made. The structure was somehow out of scale for the distance.

Vessa voiced her thoughts. “But it’s… massive.”

They ducked down in the tall, damp grass. Maelen figured that whoever set up the enormous tent couldn’t see them when they crouched, but equally there was no real place to hide their presence once they started moving. She swore, then tried to reign in her inner rampage.

“We’ve got two choices,” she said. “Backtrack and go a long way around, or head towards it and hope it’s someone willing to talk.”

“Perhaps,” Alric offered. “We wait to see if Vessa and her keen eyes can catch a glimpse of who might be setting up such a large tent in the wilds west of Oakton. Perhaps it’s knights of the Prince.”

“No banner that I saw,” Maelen shook her head. “You, Vess?”

The lass shook her head, rubbing at her bent nose in worry. “No. We’re carrying a lot of loot.” Her eyes scanned across Alric and Maelen. “And we’re awfully injured. We’ll look like easy marks to bandits.”

“But why such a large tent?” Maelen growled, her face a thundercloud of thought. “If you’re bandits, why make a bloody fire and announce yourself to everyone around?”

“It could be Saelith…” Alric whispered, and something prickled along her spine. Maelen still wasn’t convinced that a living being had escaped the Starless Rift, a general of a demon’s armies that was centuries old. But she’d also seen enough to make her cautious.

“Dammit all,” she scowled. “Let’s see if we can swing wide, then. Vess, you lead the way.”

The thief nodded and, still crouching, pushed back the way they’d come. Alric followed directly behind, bent awkwardly and his staff sticking up well above the waving grass. Maelen took up the rear and ventured a glance back towards the tent on the horizon.

Her blood went cold. A towering figure in furs and hides appeared from behind the tent, his head almost as tall as the structure. Even from this distance, Maelen could see that he was thick and heavy, his arms reaching down to his knees beneath broad shoulders. He walked with stooped, swaying steps to the side of the tent and paused, turning his slab of a back to them to look north, presumably at the Greenwood Rise.

“Giant!” Maelen hissed. “Keep your heads low!”

“Giant?” Alric paused, and Maelen shoved him forward. “Ow! Are there giants in the Redwood Marches?”

“There’s bloody one there now, you idiot!” she spat back.

Vessa, pushed her way through the grass, crouching and holding her bow low, leading them in a snaking pattern to a hill where they’d be unseen. It was maybe the worst possible position for Alric, whose lamed leg couldn’t support the crouch without the help of his staff. He fell several times, and each time Maelen unsympathetically dragged him up and barked for him to keep going. By the time they’d circled the low hill and paused, panting, even Maelen’s thighs burned with effort. A hundred bruises, cuts, and strained muscles protested as well. She groaned, stretching the leg and shoulder that hurt the most.

“Giant?” Vessa said, rubbing at her own wounded shoulder, the one struck by the rock. “You sure, Mae?”

She grunted in affirmation.

“It’s all Orthuun,” Alric panted, shaking his head.

“Drop it, lad,” Maelen admonished. “Not everything in the great wilds has to do with the bloody demon.”

“Don’t you see?” he said, a note of desperation in his voice. “Saelith the Vanished has arisen! He was one of Orthuun’s ten generals, to lead an army of darkness that will sweep over the land and destroy everything.”

“So?” Maelen scowled.

“So, a general needs an army…” Vessa gasped. “The giant is responding to… some kind of call?”

Alric spread his hands wide, as if revealing a magic trick.

“A general needs an army,” he nodded.

Maelen spat a particularly vile curse that surprised even her with its vitriol.

Next: The Rootmother’s Embrace [with game notes]