by Jak Koke
Stepping through the jungle undergrowth and out into the bright sunlight, Duvan squinted as he approached the edge of the Underchasm. Even the dense Chondalwood foliage receded slightly from the cliff’s edge as if the thick jungle growth, normally a force of nature so daunting and formidable, knew when it was overmatched.
Shading his dark eyes with his hand, he stared out over the cliff’s edge. The jagged hole in the world was narrow here, the span speckled with motes-the islands of rock that floated in the air like stone clouds. Duvan could see the other side in the misty distance to the north. The bottom, on the other hand, could not be seen. The chasm merely disappeared into darkness far below.
It’s not really bottomless, Duvan reminded himself. The chasm ended in the Underdark-the homeland of the vile and truly monstrous, including the cities of the drow. Luckily, he wasn’t seeking the bottom. Not nearly. If Tyrangal’s maps were accurate-and they always were-there had been a citadel here, just along this edge.
There were telltale signs of an ancient structure along the ground by the cliff edge-mason-cut flagstones and a ruined stone wall pulled apart by years of jungle overgrowth. But the actual citadel had fallen into the Underchasm, landing on a ledge below where they now stood.
Duvan grabbed the rope he’d earlier tied to a sturdy banyan root thicker than his waist. He tested its fastness and, satisfied that it held secure and fast, he leaned out over the cliff edge and looked down. The citadel was still there, clinging to a ledge about two or three hundred feet down. The tower hung precariously on the broad ledge, its top jutting at an angle out over the fall.
Earlier, however, a manticore had been circling nearby, eyeing its territory for intruders and prey.
“Excellent,” he said. “Are we all ready to drop down?”
There was murmuring among the hired help behind him.
Duvan pulled himself back from the edge, pushing his long black hair from his face. “Well?”
Seerah, the pale, blonde woman in worn leathers, grinned. She didn’t speak much, and when she did, her northern dialect was difficult for Duvan to follow, consisting mostly of curses in a language that he only partly understood. She wore a crossbow on her back and a short sword at her hip.
As Duvan considered Seerah, the third man asked, “Do we really have to go down into the chasm?”
Duvan stared at the man who had spoken. Black eyes met his for a second before looking away. “Yes,” Duvan said. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s really not. We’re just going to the ledge to search the citadel tower.”
He regarded the slight and aging man. His deep brown skin was almost as dark as Duvan’s, and he was shorter than the woman next to him. Of the three, Duvan had pegged him as the most dangerous. His robes and the wand lashed to his belt named him a spellcaster even though he hadn’t yet performed any obvious magic.
Beaugrat scowled down at the man as if disgusted by his hesitance. Taller and heavier than Duvan, Beaugrat had a reputation for being quite the brawler in a scrape. His large frame carried plate armor as easily as Duvan wore his leathers. There was a custom-crafted gap in the right pauldron. It allowed the deep and jagged spellscar in Beaugrat’s flesh, which emanated heat, to cool in the air.
Duvan glanced at the spellscar, noting the blue tinge to the semitranslucent muscle there. A spellscar was caused by exposure to spellplague remnants. Only the extremely lucky escaped from the plaguelands with a spellscar. More often it caused another condition: death.
“Very well,” the sorcerer said. “If we’re all going down, I will go too. But just as far as the ledge.”
A few minutes later, Duvan and company were rappelling down the cliff face. Hot wind, laced with moisture, whipped up out of the Underchasm, carrying the smell of decay. Duvan looked up for a second as he let the rope slide under his hands to allow a controlled fall.
Above him, the bodies of his three hirelings descended with various degrees of awkwardness. He just hoped none of them fell on him. Making sure his feet were steady and solid against the pitted and jagged cliff wall, Duvan pushed off and rappelled down. Then he turned his attention to the approaching ledge below.
Thick wisteria vines covered the pitted black rock of the cliff face, runners from the jungle above seeking to invade the Underdark miles below. Pushing off of the black basalt, Duvan’s boots crushed green leaves and fluted purple flowers. Wind cooled sweat on Duvan’s neck as he let himself slide deeper into the chasm.
The cliff fell away as far as he could see, disappearing into blackness miles below. Pocks and hollows marred an otherwise sheer wall, but according to the old maps that Duvan had found in Tyrangal’s library, the treasure he sought should be in the ruins of the citadel perched on the ledge below.
The citadel below had long ago been part of a larger castle, according to the map-a castle belonging to one Baron Ryseleth at the time of the Spellplague. Built from granite bricks as tall on one side as Duvan, the structure looked only tenuously intact, having since mostly fallen into the chasm.
Slipping down along the rope, Duvan surveyed the ruins. The base of the main tower clung to the cliff face like a mushroom to rotting wood. The top of the tower canted dangerously, jutting away from the cliff wall like a finger sticking out over the chasm.
Duvan touched lightly down on slanted flagstones that used to be a courtyard. Up close, the ledge was much less substantial than he’d assumed from above. He tested his footing on the stone surface. The rock was damp with the windblown spray of the waterfall on the far side of the chasm, but vines and roots interlaced through the flagstones and provided purchase as well as structural support.
“Baron Ryseleth,” Duvan said, “what a charming home you have. I presume you won’t mind me taking a souvenir or two.”
It looked to Duvan as though about half of the original citadel had fallen away, but as the central tower remained, he figured their chances were good. He would just have to find Ryseleth’s own offices. The rest of the treasure hunters slid to the ledge beside him.
“Come on,” Duvan said, creeping across the courtyard to the archway that led into the crumbling tower. Ivy formed a disorganized crisscross weave up the side of the tower, blackening the large blocks where the vines had anchored themselves.
Behind him came the sound of stone grinding against stone. Turning, he saw Beaugrat and Seerah stumble offbalance as the flagstone under them loosened and shifted. Seerah leapt lightly to the side and landed on a more solid flagstone, but there was nothing agile about Beaugrat. He fell to his knees and waited for the rock to stop shifting.
Duvan looked up at the tower, leaning precariously out over the abyss. “You’d better hang back here, Beaugrat,” he said. “Seerah, you stay with him. The sorcerer and I will explore the tower.” To Duvan’s disappointment, the other man merely nodded, showing none of his earlier eagerness.
Pausing just outside the entrance, Duvan listened for the sounds of the manticore or other creatures whose intentions would be less than charitable. He also took a moment to check the masonry for the telltale signs of embedded traps. This building hadn’t been created as a vault, but checking for snares and triggers had saved him from pain or death on numerous occasions.
Even though Duvan did not fear dying, he was afraid of pain. Oblivion was far preferable than torture.
No danger here. Duvan slipped inside and waited in silence and darkness for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. When they had, he and the sorcerer made a quick tour of the four rooms at the base of the citadel.
One of the many things Tyrangal had taught him was how to make a quick assessment of the value of things. Duvan’s mentor and benefactor, Tyrangal was an unusual, copper-skinned woman of remarkable influence in the city of Ormpetarr. It was at her behest he had traveled across the Vilhon Wilds to the Underchasm, in search of Baron Ryseleth’s citadel.
“Let’s head up,” he said, finding nothing of value in these rooms. He sprinted up the spiraling stone steps, coming to an abrupt halt
when he came across a hole in the wall where a chunk of the tower had fallen away to reveal a fathomless drop into darkness below.
Duvan made sure the sorcerer had caught up before deftly skirting the opening and showing the man how it could be done. Up and up they went, until they found what must have been the baron’s offices. “We must be nearly to the top,” he said. “We’re looking for anything of value, but particularly any tomes or scrolls.”
The remains of purple velvet curtains still hung on the walls, tattered and moth-eaten. A quick scan of the remaining desk revealed nothing more than rusted styli and mold-eaten parchments. No books or scrolls of value here.
A sudden roar from outside sent a shiver up Duvan’s back. The manticore, from the sound of it, about two hundred yards to the south and slightly above them, likely riding a thermal out of the Underchasm. Duvan just hoped it wasn’t headed for this ledge.
“This place is cleaned out,” the sorcerer said. “Ransacked years ago, probably before it fell into the chasm.”
“Unfortunately true.” Tyrangal had been wrong. Still, if the book was going to be anywhere, this was the room it’d be in.
Duvan decided to make a thorough check for secret compartments and hidden doors the baron might have kept his treasures in. He ran his fingertips along the stone walls, ceiling, and floor, searching by touch and by sight. There was a window that looked toward the cliff face and through which shone the midday sun. A thorough search would take some time, especially since decay and time had cracked and crumbled the stones and masonry to the point that any unusual feature might just be a product of age and not design.
Outside the manticore roared again, closer this time. Too close.
Abruptly, the sky darkened as the great winged creature filled the window. Immediately, Duvan signaled to the sorcerer to hide, and while the man cast a quick spell, Duvan slid into the shadows of the tilted room.
As the mage faded from sight, Duvan fought against the natural instinct to panic. His heart leaped into his throat, but he focused on calming it and on taking steady, silent breaths. In moments, his calm returned, and he was hidden from sight. Both of them were hidden.
The creature was too large to fit through the opening, even folding its huge batlike wings. Spotted brown and black fur covered its great catlike body. Black spikes protruded from its spine and, most dangerously, from the stinger bulb at the tip of its tail. The creature bent its neck and stuck its head through the window.
Duvan had seen live manticores from a distance before, and Tyrangal had shown him a preserved head once. That one was larger than the one in the window here, but all things equal, Duvan preferred the dead one.
The head was hideous; its vaguely human face and eyes made all the more monstrous by the flat snout and the wide mouth full of dagger-sharp teeth. Head swaying to and fro, it sniffed the air.
Then, just as abruptly as it had appeared, the creature took flight, and with three heavy beats of its dragon wings, was gone. Duvan held perfectly still, his senses alert against the possibility that the creature would return.
Crouching silently in the shadows, straining for any telltale signs of movement, Duvan caught the impression of a panel in the corner of the long-deposed baron’s office. Something odd in the curve of the rock floor, an ever-so-slight deviation in the smoothness of the stone, drew his keen attention.
He ran his fingers over the stone. There was an indentation there-too even to be a product of nature. He probed the edges. Definitely artificial. He pressed down on the small panel.
The panel slid down into a recessed compartment, revealing a hollow space beneath. Duvan peered inside, checking for spring-loaded traps and symbols that would indicate magical warding. There was nothing … except a rusting iron handle embedded in the wall of the compartment.
“You had best remain hidden,” he whispered to the still-invisible sorcerer. “Just in case that beast returns.”
He tugged on the handle. In front of Duvan, a large stone shifted from the wall with a horrible screech, leaving about a three-finger-wide opening. He pulled the prybar from his pack and expanded the gap. The stone was on some sort of rail system, but the iron had long been rusted and yielded begrudgingly. But finally, Duvan could see what was behind-a hidden cache, undiscovered and filled with treasures.
Resting on top of a pile of ancient coins rested a heavy tome-a thick book covered in tough leather that looked like wyvern hide. Gilt Elvish script and platinum filigree decorated the cover. It matched Tyrangal’s description perfectly.
As he slipped the tome into his pack, the tower shook violently, knocking him over.
Behind him, the manticore slammed into the window arch, sending rocks flying into the room. The floor beneath him lurched as the tower groaned from the extra weight. The sun went dark again as the creature hit the wall once more, trying to dislodge the rocks around the window. Their chances of killing a creature of such size and power were slim to none.
Most of the time, Duvan preferred to be alone; everything was just better that way. But now he wished he’d brought more help. This was exactly the situation where a group of minions would come in handy. But alas, it was not going to happen. All he and the invisible sorcerer could do now was run and hope to not die.
“Run!” he called out. “Back down.”
With no cleric in sight, death held an uncomfortable degree of finality to it. Never his first choice.
For Slanya, staring into the blazing funeral pyre, death was a doorway to another realm. The flames danced their primal destruction on the pile of dead bodies-pilgrims who’d uprooted their lives to come here to Ormpetarr in search of promise and power, only to end up as fodder for this fire.
Slanya sensed madness lurking in the chaos of the fire, an unbound wildness raging just beyond the veil of flame. Behind the line of stones that clearly marked the edge of the fire pit, Slanya felt the heat coming off the burning bodies. It burned her skin even from this distance.
Despite her strict adherence to an ordered and controlled life, Slanya sometimes felt like a moth attracted to the allure of the fire. She never stepped through that veil into chaos, but some tiny part of her, in the very recesses of her mind, wanted to abandon all caution. The wild dance of the flames tempted her, daring her to approach.
“Sister Slanya?”
Slanya shook her head and stepped away from the fire. She took a deep breath, wrinkling her nose at the smell of charring fat and muscle. What had she been thinking? Death was not a wild and chaotic event. Kelemvor judged all souls who came through the veil. He balanced all the deeds of their lives and guided them on to the next stage.
“Sister Slanya,” came Kaylinn’s voice again. “Brother Gregor asked to see you.”
Slanya turned to look at her friend and superior. Kaylinn stood a full head shorter than Slanya, although she was not unusually short by any means; Slanya was taller than many human men. Where Slanya was tall and lithe, Kaylinn’s hips were wide and her breasts full.
Both their heads were shaved except for the characteristic sidelock, but while Kaylinn’s was long and auburn, Slanya’s blonde lock barely reached her shoulder. She kept it wrapped with the thinnest of white leather straps.
Kaylinn and Slanya each had a tattoo depicting the sign of Kelemvor-a skeleton hand holding a set of scales-at the base of the skull where it met the spine, Where Kaylinn’s was inked in simple blue, Slanya’s blue outlines had been filled with red and green and extended down her spine to to the spot between her shoulder blades.
“Yes, High Priestess?” Slanya asked.
Kaylinn dismissed the formality with a wave of her hand. Even though she was the head of their order here in Ormpetarr, she governed more by friendship and example than by dictate. Kaylinn’s nurturing demeanor gave her a comforting manner with the sick and dying, and she had a wealth of healing power granted to her by Kelemvor. While Slanya also prayed to Kelemvor to grant some small powers, her skills were predominately in combat and body c
ontrol.
Slanya gave Kaylinn a slight head bow. “Thank you for that news, sister,” she said, then turned away from the fire. Already the pile next to the pyre had grown by a few additional corpses. That afternoon’s dead, to be burned tomorrow.
“Brother Gregor is in his study,” Kaylinn said.
“Do you know what he wants?”
Kaylinn exhaled a laugh. “Nay,” she said. “But I do know that he’s meeting with that elf woman from the Order of Blue Fire.”
The Order of Blue Fire was a sect devoted to studying the remnants of the Spellplague. Most of the members she’d met seemed likeable enough, but she was the first to admit that she didn’t really understand why they were so devoted, so fanatical about the Spellplague and its remaining effects.
“I wonder what that’s all about,” Slanya said, lowering her voice.
“I’m sure Brother Gregor is just trying to help more pilgrims,” Kaylinn said.
Gregor was an alchemist of exceeding skill and power. He was not devoted to Kelemvor as were the majority of the priests and monks in the temple complex of Ormpetarr, but to Oghma, the god of innovation. Though, if Slanya allowed herself the thought, he seemed more devoted to his own ideas than anything else. His laboratory was filled with strange smells and noises at all hours of the day and night as he produced elixirs to test on the waiting pilgrims. Rumor was that one of these elixirs could prevent the changelands from causing illness and death.
That’s why they all came, masses of these desperate pilgrims, young and old, rich and poor, living and dying. They all wanted to increase their chances of surviving the exposure, to live through the baptism by blue fire that would give them their scar-and with that scar, their new power.
Sometimes the ability was minor, but most of the time the ability transformed the lives of those who survived. Most of the time, their spellscar gave them access to power and ability that would otherwise take years of training.