You left the Sharde clan that same night, blindfolded, back toward where Jzhurte's band had met you. It was a rough journey in the pouring rain. Narak asked where you'd go next; how she could help; and you thought you'd accept her help to sniff out the Uz, which she thought were back west in the way you were headed anyway. You debated going to see Cjaek but it was out of the way. That night you couldn't hear a thing as you travelled, so loud were the calling frogs and toads. Once when you rested with blindfolds off, you saw the Giranois faces and they were wide-eyed and smiling with what seemed like joy(!)- an emotion Giranois almost never express, so far are they from that Hrestoli ideal (and even the Malkioni concept of Solace).
The next night, the Girainois escorts abandoned you in your camp. Miguel caught Jzhurte's eye as they left and received a look of disdain, disgust or disappointment. When morning came, you took your bearings and figured you were not far east and north of Fort Mudlark again, but also not far- and headed toward- the “New Tower” of the sorcerer/vampire and the old Library (shudder). Indeed, as Glut the pig and Narak led you onward, it was evident that you'd pass westward and between these two grim sites.
The Big Gunge presented you with one of its more common challenges: a horde of brownish, fist-sized beetles that erupted from seemingly everything around you. Narak and her pig ran off and escaped them, while Ahappi conjured his Plaston and brushed them off his belongings, and the rest of you were safe within Boamund's fire-ring spell. Later that morning, you left the Big Gunge into drier, higher ground but the storm was unrelenting so you did not find easy travel or drying of your clothes.
On a patch of hard ground, a strange thing happened. Four statues of ancient Middle Sea Empire/Old Seshnegi people rose up around you in a square, emerging as if the ground was not there. Once they fully emerged, they spoke at first together and then one at a time, in stern voices (Old Seshnegi; which Fraud criticalled and thus remembered/understood every word):
Together: A PROPECY OF THE HERO WARS!
i. The Ship in the Sky shall rise again,
Sailing on the River of Broken Laws.
Waertag is on it.
ii. The Waertagi shall come again,
Searching through the Fog of Broken Brithos.
Zzabur calls them.
iii. Zzabur shall come again,
Raising up the Land of Broken Dreams.
Dormal fears him.
iv. Law will sink the Ship in the Sky again.
Fog will overtake Brithos again.
The Golden Dream will break Zzabur's Curse again.
v. Together: ALL WILL BE AS IT WAS AGAIN.
THE LIVING WILL BE DEAD LIKE US. THE DEAD WILL RISE AGAIN.
BUT WHOSE CALLS WILL A BROKEN LAND HEED?
You were amazed, and discussed the meaning of this prophecy from the past-Ahappi thought the “Ship in the Sky” to be the much-discussed missing Boat Planet (“Diros” or other names) that had vanished centuries ago. The River of Broken Laws he'd just heard of elsewhere but figured must be a heroquesting path. Brithos was where the immortal first sorcerors lived, long now in hiding. Zzabur, the greatest sorcerer of all time (and pre-time), would be seeking them to raise the “Land of Broken Dreams” which must be Danmalastan, which spanned from Seshnela to the north, west and south back in pre-Time; a huge land of wizardry (Even connecting this land to Jrustela!). Vadeli had been among those that had shattered it in terrible pre-Time wars; the Ice Ages and more (“Lesser and Greater Darknesses”). Dormal, much later (just over 30 years ago), re-opened the world's seas that Zzabur's Curse of Closing had stopped at the end of the Second Age. The “Golden Dream” is unfamiliar. The “Broken Land” surely was Giraine. The rest didn't sound too good for most people…
You left the statues, which remained silent and still, and that afternoon had made it onto a high, sloping bluff with a fine view of the island around you; or what you could see of it in the pissing rain. From across the bluff soon came a band of Giranois; Sharde clansmen; and they were unusually friendly, hailing you and signalling peace. They were led by a curious chap named Murbb the war-leader (a junior to Jzhurte), who had been planning to do a contest of manly skills with his band but now saw an opportunity to challenge the famed Thralls of Granno instead. He invited 1-2 of you to partake in a hunt in the lowlands below the bluff, and Miguel accepted (Ahappi didn't see it as quite his thing; only a deer, not a monster, was the quarry). The race was exciting and close, but Miguel's exceptional skills prevailed in the end, surpassing an early lead that Murbb had. The latter's skills were not bad; he put Miguel to a good test; but your hunter proudly carried back his dispatched deer for you to eat. The Giranois ate theirs raw, hungrily, and so did you with the vital organs.
They made friendly conversation as you ate, and for once you felt truly accepted and even somewhat respected by the Giranois. Murbb was clearly a more open-minded and impressionable young leader. You parted as friends. Miguel was presented with a frog's skull on a necklace-cord, and Ahappi asked what way there might be to access the sorceror's tower that lay nearby; Murbb said that it was forbidden and these lands around here were not to be trifled with- bad things had been happening (no surprise as you were near that tower and the library now; the terrible Maggotweald forest was at times visible in the cloudy fog to the north).
You camped uneventfully that night. Narak was sure that your destination lay not far to the west; maybe another day or so. The next morning began your 8th day since you left Jett's camp. The storm's worst rages came that morning, with violent lightning crashing across the sky and even onto the island. One bolt hit a tree nearby and it came falling onto your path; you all dove out of the way and avoided trauma. The rain then ceased, finally, around mid-morning and with a clearer view you noticed that you'd passed into an ominous area of land, which seemed blasted and dead; nothing lived here, no birds or pterodactyls even seemed to fly over it, and you made haste to leave– with a prickling of your hairs hinting that there were lingering bad magics here, but they did not harm you.
A woman's cry for help echoed through the badlands and Boamund quickly guided you to her- it was a bedraggled Loskalmi who had been chased up a tree by two hungry wolf-toads. Ahappi bellowed a challenge at them and they backed off, eventually fleeing as the woman, who said she was named Skallia and was a survivor from Oyesteria Major (i.e. a Perfecti heretic), climbed down, almost collapsing from exhaustion. She had been on the run for many days since the Inquisition came to her town, and she recognized you from the time long ago when you'd saved the town from a madness-inducing plague of chaos-cursed iron. Fraud (and Boamund) felt particularly compelled to help her and you invited her to join your growing troupe. She said she'd been a duellist long ago, but as Perfecti were pacifists she'd abandoned that trade although its skills had helped her escape to freedom.
That afternoon, while passing through another area decorated with Giranois warning totems, suddenly the ground gave way underneath Fraud Shaven and he dropped into a dusty, dry stone shaft, where he dangled by his left angle which had caught in some tough roots, hanging him a few metres over the shaft's floor. Without hesitation, Ahappi leapt in to save his friend, but only landed atop him and their combined weight broke them free of the roots, sent them through a false floor to the shaft, and thence onto some large old spikes that pierced Shaven's wounded leg (leaving him maimed-note I was wrong, his Major Wound was not from the fall alone but from the first fall (4pts healed by Miguel) then the remaining 10pts from the fall+spikes) and injured Ahappi's chest. So much for returning a past favour and saving Shaven?
Ahappi remained conscious and discerned that the stone bricks here sparkled with golden flakes, and there were handholds in the shaft wall. Boamund threw a Glow spell down, and Miguel threw some rope. Together they struggled to pull the Baronet up, freeing him (with a brief moment of lucidity in which he woke and cursed them in dire pain as he was freed from the impaling spike) and pulling him up to the surface. Ahappi climbed up to where the false floor was and then spotted some loose bricks, which Boamund climbed down to investigate with him and found that the bricks could be removed, opening a hidden shaft that sloped downward to a deeper vertical shaft, which was disturbingly warm.
Ahappi climbed down this series of narrow shafts, followed soon by Boamund, arriving to look down from a small platform onto a larger room: the conical ceiling continued above, and below was a circular chamber strewn with debris and bones, with signs of charring. There were smallish Old Seshnegi statuettes and containers. Inspecting more closely, Ahappi broke the plane of the chamber and flames wreathed his body, momentarily disabling his chest but he mustered all his vigor and called on St Buquaim's spear-blessing to bolster him, so he did not succumb to the warding-magic. However, knowing his new body's weakness to flames he withdrew, seeing a ball of flame form down on the chamber floor, and how it moved with a life of its own… Boamund saw that there was golden script ringing the chamber, lit now by the new flame-thing, and it read that this is “the resting place of Duke Falmidrandigyrr, Lord of the Galloping Flames; Hero of Knights Ocular and St Gerlant”. You'd not heard of this Lord or his Knights but of course St Gerlant has been the main order knights of Seshnela since at least the 2nd Age. However, Boamund, much as the fire and perhaps gold drew him with its allure of saintly power, withdrew behind Ahappi, figuring that you could mark this spot and return some other day when fortune smiled more strongly on you.
And so you moved on, crafting a simple travois for the badly injured Fraud Shaven with Narak's help (she applied her healing talents to Fraud's wound, as did Ahappi with his Regenerate blessing), and Glut the pig's brawn to pull the burden as it snuffled onwards, searching for this secret of the Uz that it smelled.
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