Tolð 16-20, 653 DR: Wherein Graiç unwittingly opened a hole into the foetid interior of the island and the camp was decimated by rampaging stones with a taste for blood. An offering was left in the last of the shrines, opening an ancient submarine tomb for the slayer of a great beast. The tomb however seemed to honor a different hero than the one that lay within. The raft was completed and the decision offered as to whether to leave or to delve into the wounded isle.

Continued from The Crawling Isle

Kændor, 16 Tolð 653

This is a long way from Taldàna, thought Ērēus. The twisting scrub trees were black under the night sky, obscuring the island slope to the beach far below. Ērēus had never seen trees like these, their limbs smooth and deep red rather than covered with bark. He wondered whether the beetles and the insects that plagued the forests, marshes, and beaches had simply chewed the bark away. He finished cleaning his armor and sharpening his sword before settling to sleep. On the hillside above his pallet stood the blocky sentinel Graiç, its wooden head creaking one direction and than the other as it held tireless vigil over the camp. It was a strange blessing to have found the helpful monster in the hold of Paldor’s ship.

Before drifting to sleep, the wooden construct let out a sound of splintered alarm. Zildara and Paldor raced up the hillside to investigate his cry. They tried to help the monster’s leg out of the hillside where it was standing with one leg sunken to the hip. As they pulled, the stones around Graiç fell into the hole and a foul odor poured down the ridge like a seeping cloud. The cloud’s rotting stench woke those who had not stirred before. The remaining Yrūn and Dorkun were not all who were stirred to action by the foetid stench. The rocky ground itself seemed to shift and move. A dark line along the forest’s edge stirred for a moment, and then dozens of small round shapes poured forward onto the barren hillside.

From a distance they appeared like low stones stampeding up the slope, but as they neared the moonlight revealed gaping maws and pinpoint glowing eyes. Small clawed hands and feet flailed forward as they ran, their gurgling mouths dripping with dirt and blood. Screams rose from the camp as the monsters rushed over it, people grabbing for what weapons and shields they could reach. Many of the living stones stopped to claw and bite at people’s legs, while others streamed unopposed toward the gaping hole where Graiç’s leg had sunk into the hillside. Farwin was the first to succumb to the greedy mouths and slashing claws, being dragged to the ground and swarmed by the ravenous creatures. Ērēus tried to reach the fallen man but was pulled to the ground by another, and then another. It was all he could do to fend off those who had stopped to gnaw on his flesh on their way up the hillside. Toward the hole, Ērēus could make out the shape of Graiç lifting the mauled body of Zildara into the air as the stone monsters swarmed between Paldor and it. To his left, the Ælyri “Tattoo” gave out a small cry as he too was swept beneath a torrent of gnashing stone teeth and pounding feet. Ērēus clutched at the pendant about his neck, hoping for Amra to guide his hand and choices but he remembering the quest he had been given and continued to hack at the biting stones. In minutes the last of them dove into the rotting hole, leaving the broken and torn bodies of five Yrūn behind them and a camp in splinters. As Ērēus looked around for more, he noticed with grim awareness that every stone on the hillside and the island itself could be the top of one of those monsters. Stepping gingerly, he and the others gathered the bodies of the fallen and tried to salvage what remained of the camp.

Following the fight, Zildara moved around the survivors laying heals on those she could help, and offering prayers over those that she could not. Dammon examined the broken stone monsters. They each shared the same proportions and were about the size of a soldier’s helmet. The bottom halves of the creatures were caked in a red mud that smelled like blood. Tressta turned to Edahyla to ask about the stone monsters. The changeling’s response was only that “Sometimes they shift places, but I’ve never seen them like this.” Dammon set one of the stone bodies back into the ground and noticed that every stone above the treeline could be one of these monsters. Lifting himself from the ground, Dammon commanded that people move away from the Graiç’s hole. Once everyone was clear, the tormented magician cast arcane missiles into the bloody hole followed by a rain of icy knives. Everyone watched and waited for a response but nothing happened. The magician continued to stare at the hole for sometime, conversing with his conscience on matters unknown. Everyone was shaken by the gruesome turn of events, everyone but Edahyla. Tressta walked to the hole’s edge with the changeling, who commented that the island was alive, and not to worry because the “dead will return”.

The remainder of the group gathered the bodies and moved them away from the camp. Gathering some wood from the forest, they built a pyre and burned the corpses. It was hoped that their charred bodies would not attract the bloodthirsty stones.

Malídor, 17 Tolð 653

The next morning, the group returned to the shore to continue work on the raft. As they gathered wood and vines for lashings, the raft began to take shape. Paldor stood to the side and shook his head. He was unhappy about their progress, and unhappy about their prospects on the high seas. Everyone knew their chances were slim, but slim chances were far better than what the island might offer.

In the afternoon Jak, Dammon, Zêla, Paldor, and Graiç returned to the lagoon in search of salvageable parts. They spent some hours trying to weigh the golem down with the thought that he could dislodge a sunken boat. Tried as they might however, they could not get the wooden construct submerged. After further thought, Dammon used his magics to transform himself into a Zultàya. Swimming to the lagoon’s bottom and he searched around and found an old anchor rope which he returned with to the surface. Unable to make more progress before nightfall, the group returned to the raft before nightfall. As the group returned to camp through the stunted forest, Jak and Dammon resolved to visit the island shrines and burn some offerings.

At camp, the group found Edahlya crying near the gory hillside hole. Dammon and Zildara approached her, to find out what was troubling the aloof changeling. Edahlya explained that she could hear sound from inside the island that she’d never heard before. She claimed that the island was singing to her, and that it sounded infinitely sad. The others listened at the hole but heard nothing. After a time, everyone returned to camp and another night passed.

Amdor, 18 Tolð 653

In the morning, Jak reconsidered the plan of visiting the island shrines and chose instead to help the others with raft building. Dammon, looking for something to do other than build the raft, convinced Edahlya to accompany him to the lagoon’s end where he’d seen a submerged shrine days before. At the lagoon’s shore he transformed himself into a Zultàya once more and the two slipped into the clear waters. They were careful to swim between the reaching the roots which grew on the lagoon’s edge. At the end of the inlet they found a shrine which had come to rest at the bottom of an ancient rockfall. It appeared that the shrine had once been positioned further up the mountainside, but had slid to the lagoon’s bottom in ages past. Dammon swam forward and found that the central opening was barred with a barnacled portcullis. After much effort he was able to pull the old gate up enough to slip into the darkness beyond. In the room beyond the gate he found that debris filled the old chamber. Content that they had found all they could for the day, Dammon and Edahlya carefully navigated their way out of the lagoon and returned to camp.

Late that evening, Dammon wandered down through the dark forest to the shores below. There he was met by a number of Zultàya ghosts. Again he tried to talk to them and again they could make no sounds. He tried to gesture a question or two but the ghosts looked blankly at him. Eventually, one of the Zultayan ghosts stepped past him and continued into the forest. Dammon turned to follow him up the steep wooded ridge until they came to the first shrine the group had found. Reaching the door of the shrine the ghost faded away. Dammon pulled a fish from his pouch and placed it in the shrine’s bowl. He waited, but nothing happened. Disappointed, the magician returned to camp.

Wōdìndor, 19 Tolð 653

Dammon returned to camp around Nightsdeep and sat down a small distance from the island hole. Quietly he watched the stony slope nearby. After a while, he noticed a hillside stone “stand up” and move deftly for the entrance. Before he could stand to get a better look, the stone creature had disappeared into the island’s gory interior. Intrigued by this he commanded his Conscience to look closer, but again the familiar expressed its displeasure in all things related to the island and especially its interior. Dammon stood and watched for more movement. Within the hour another of the stones “stood up” and started for the hole. The magician summoned a wall of air around the gaping hole and grinned as the stone thing collided with the barrier. As the creature flailed and struggled to reach the hole, Dammon unleashed a barrage of arcane missiles until the monster dropped, unmoving. Then using his hands of wind, he lifted the thing from the ground and drew it forward to examine it more closely. His magics had caused considerable damage to the thing’s shell, which cracked open within his magical grasp. The interior of the thing was revealed to be a bloody tangle of organic soup. These were not elementals after all. Dammon took the creature’s remains to Edahyla who looked unconcerned. The changeling looked at the monster and said only “it is dead, but it will come back”.

After a morning of raft building, the group decided to investigate the Shrine of the Squid on the island’s far ridge. Together, they headed north along the ridge, around the Talus Coast and then spent hours searching for the statue which marked the shrine’s location. Inside the small stone building, Dorkun located some loose stones. Once removed a familiar foul odor escaped from the island’s foetid interior. The opened hole was small and so Dammon asked his familiar to explore, but again his companion refused. Relenting, the magician shifted his form into that of a large bat and flitted into the tunnels below the shrine. In this form Dammon explored long and twisting corridors that ended in pools of stagnant blood. Finding his way back to the shrine the hole was sealed. The group placed a fish within the shrine’s bowl, but nothing happened and so they left before night could trap them on the island’s far side.

Iyldor, 20 Tolð 653

On the 20th of Tolð, the group made some finishing touches to the boat-raft. By the late afternoon the vessel looked as sea-worthy as they could manage. With the project finished, it was decided that they should visit the last of the island shrines. They reached the shrine with little difficulty and placed a fish upon the offering bowl. They stood quietly, waiting for a reaction, but none came. Moving back toward the camp, it was decided that they should make another attempt at the submerged shrine that Dammon and Edahlya had been unable to enter. That evening they took some of the changeling’s breathing potions and returned to the lagoon. Swimming through the ship wreckage they soon came to the fish shrine and found that the portcullis had been raised.

They worked their way deeper into shrine, down a flight of stairs, passing Zultayan statues, an inky cloud trap, and wonderful mosaics until they reached a burial chamber. In the chamber’s center lay a large sarcophagi, whose lid was carved into the likeness of a Zultàya warrior holding a harpoon to its chest. The crumbling domed walls and ceilings showed scenes of a great seaside battle between Zultàya armies and a giant sea beast. The central image, though man of the tesserae were missing, showed a Zultayan warrior bracing a long harpoon into the chest of the gigantic manta beast. While all of these images spoke volumes about the person buried within the sarcophagus, more telling were the fragments of painting showing through the crumbled tiles. What little that could be seen seen of the old walls showed Yrūn armies.

Jak moved toward the sarcophagus to look at the stone harpoon when bubbles filled the room and everyone was sucked toward its center. A pit had opened sucking volumes of water into its dark depths. Jak was pulled violently into the shaft and tossed and battered until the room filled again with water. Swimming up and out of the shaft, they puzzled at the reason for a pit trap in a submerged shrine. Bracing against the sarcophagus lid, they opened the tomb to find the barnacled skeleton of an Yrūn lying inside. A necklace of blue stones and a scroll case were removed. Leaving the tomb, they found a room filled with ceramic pots and amphorae, and a spear trap that missed its mark. Back upon the shore, Zêla examined the scroll and identified it as having three spells: healing, divination, and necromantic. With the stars far above them, the group returned to camp. As they walked Jak wondered about the central image of the tomb, that of the Zultàya warrior stabbing the great beast. He thought about the evidence they’d found that the island was alive, and wondered if the harpoon still existed.

Before committing himself to sleep, Dammon shifted into a bird and flew higher than he ever had above the night-clad island. From the dark sky he looked down at its shores and saw that its shape was that of the beast in the tomb mosaic.

Continued in Ūlaryalok, Part 1.

Characters

• Dammon Shroudson = 0 CPs
• Jak of Cænden = 0 CPs
• Tressta Drynsval = 0 CPs
• Zildara of Zalan = 0 CPs
• Balàdâsha (Cook) = 0 CPs
• Daemeda = 0 CPs
• Dorkun = 0 CPs
• Edahyla = 0 CPs
• Ērēus of Amra = 0 CPs
• Farwin the Daft: killed
• Familiar = Unkn.
• Graiç of Mazzam = 0 CPs
• Kavrus Karder: killed
• Lourn the Whaler: killed
• Paldòr Batrūlan (Ship Captain) = 0 CPs
• “Tattoo” Nilgyir an Tirwyn: killed
• Zêla ma Ler = 0 CPs

Played: 17 Jan 2004