The Great Dream Archive

This is a collection of the dreams, interludes, and intros I have used at the beginning of most sessions. Since I didn't start printing them out until after the first Dinosaur arc, they start somewhat abruptly and don't cover the whole campaign. Also, I typed these out not intending them to be read, so there might be parts where I left gaps for improvisation, or notes I left myself for pronunciation or elaboration. It's all fairly rough and might be a little difficult to read, but I thought it might be interesting to go over some of this older stuff now that you've seen a lot of the foreshadowing pay off.

## Act I

Realistically this should be Act II, since there's an entire arc's worth of content that came before it. Oh well. It looks like I started typing these out not long after you met Kalak, but before you reached the Lament.

#### Interlude 1

A new vision, some time later. The Merry Men appear to have lost their mirth. They stand in a grim circle, over a hastily drawn map in the dirt. Each has a painted death's head grimace disguising their face. At some unseen signal, they draw deep hoods over their heads and vanish into the underbrush. The vision shifts and you see a parade of violent ambushes perpetrated by these Mirthless, night after night. Led by a giant brute, they wage guerilla war against the darker forces of the Lychwood. Shambling undead, bandit hideouts, twisted covens, all of them are overwhelmed with animal ferocity.
With each successive raid, you see more of the natural elements of the forest joining in to coordinate the attacks. Trees lash their branches, and bushes creep out to trip up the victims. The Wood begins to follow its spiritual guardians...and its guardians desire revenge. As the vision draws to a close, you see a final body sucked into a grinding pit of earth and stone and shredded. While echoed screams fade off into the distance, small woodland sprites creep out of the pit, leading streamers of the victim's entrails and winding them through the branches of nearby trees like daisy chains. A keening wind kicks up in the branches, and conveys—in an odd, alien sort of manner—a sense of twisted humor.
In a much quieter glade, in the remote and secret heart of the Wood, the remains of Robin Hood are lashed using vines to a great and ancient oak, his arms sprawled in a martyr's pose. His flesh untainted by rot, he is slowly being drawn in to the primal heart of this elder tree.
.-.-.-.-
In an ancient temple of carved and gilded sandstone, a young boy lies on a flat altar stone as if asleep. He is dark skinned and darker haired, and wrapped in a simple linen tunic. The room is filled wall to wall with thirteen elaborately robed clerics, each bowing and praying in a sort of rippling sequential pattern along each row of the clergy. Those not actively praying stare intently at the supine form. The priests serve in shifts, filling this chamber with light and prayer for every moment of every hour of every day. The Youth has not taken an unscrutinized breath for thousands of years.
On this day, under such intense observation, one of the divine fingers twitches. Nearly imperceptibly. One would have to have been watching attentively to catch it. And yet, the reaction from the entire room proceeded as though the boy had stood up and danced. Propriety cast aside, the priests bolt from the room, seeking to deliver this information to their own sect the quickest. Only one remains behind, a tall thin man with angular features and lazily curling hair. He stares at The Youth, looking not surprised or enraptured...but shrewd. Shrewd and anxious.
Outside the shimmering city in the sands sprawls an enormous, stinking encampment comprised of nearly all the continent's mercenaries. In a seedier burg of the tent city, four familiar figures sit around an unimpressive cookfire. A grim looking dwarf with an eyepatch is expertly weaving a semi-coherent complaint into a stream of inventive curses. They've sat far too long. What's the point of gathering such a huge army if they never get sent into the desert? Why let them rot here, draining the City coffers? They hadn't seen any ruins since the journey out here. The demons, though...they came skulking nearly every night. Sniffing around camp. Whispering. Enticing. The Dwarf trails off into uncharacteristic silence.
-.-.-.-.-.-.
The spires of a stout castle gaze imperiously over a countryside broken by jagged hills, which gradually smooth out into rolling riverlands. From each tower flutters the red and white lightning banners of the Peakes of Thunder Peak—banners which have adorned these halls since time out of memory. As the sun's rays swing low in the West, the banners are lowered one final time and replaced with the silver and green of Silvertree, a crescent moon silhouetting a mighty oak. A man wearing these same colors is peering into the Lord's chambers—chambers he will soon occupy. His gaze is an imperious blue, and misses nothing. A muscle on his jaw clenches visibly as he surveys the room. A bad habit. Behind him, the surviving members of the Peake household are being tended to by senechal who is in the midst of offering them exceedingly generous surrender terms. They are soon ushered on to their fate, and replaced in the doorway by several Silvertree bannermen.
Lord Silvertree finally turns.
“Thunderhead Keep was the last. The last of the Highland Lords who danced for scraps from the fat southron merchants in Kataleon. If they seek to contest us, they must leave their shaded villas and hike the wild uplands. Let it be known throughout the land—the Flint Hills bow to no one.”
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
A cold wind blows over the frigid northern marches of the Nederian Steppe, near its border with the Nedermark. A band of heavily armored Orc infantry stands back to back, a porcupine formation bristling with halberds. They are surrounded by lizardfolk nomad cavalry, sweeping in tight circles, feinting, harrying, and swooping in for a strike at the Orcs in plate. The cavalry are getting the worst of the exchange by far. Nearly every time a rider comes close, they are met with the sweeping blade or thrusted spike of a halberd. Those not immediately killed are often de-horsed, and finished while recovering. Several of The Folk carry bows, and use them to slightly better effect against the steel ranks. All the while, a shaman in the center of the Orc formation is chanting to a frenzied beat. It seems that each time one of their foes is downed, his chant swells for a moment, and the fallen lizard seeps a thick and creeping black ichor from its mouth, nose, eyes, and between its scales. This ichor slowly coalesces into a central writhing mass, floating overhead and growing larger with each death. Finally, the last remaining riders shriek in unison, jump from their horses, and rush the orcs in a final gambit. They manage to push the line inward, killing two orcs before being cut down. The battle formation spreads out over their corpses with the fluidity of long practice, and the ring inverts. They now face the shaman, whose chanting has drawn the writhing alien mass down to ground level. He thumps his staff into the dirt, shouts a final syllable, and the mass bursts into greenish flame, letting off an ethereal shriek as it withers and dies.
Several miles deeper into the Steppe, a camped band of nomads erupts into chaos. Screams can be heard as The Folk crawl out under the open sky, gasping and retching. Black smoke pours from between their scales and an inky fluid runs from their nose and eyes. With time, the fit passes. Some of the bodies do not stir, having succumbed to their agonies. Others claw themselves upright, blinking in shock. Too terrified to mourn, they gather their things with trembling hands and break North and West, away from the chaos of the plains. Away from the Parasite.

#### Interlude 2

The scene shifts to another, much larger room. It is completely dark, furniture visible only as hunched black shapes in the dark. There appears to be a bed, a desk, some chests, a wardrobe, and a stool. A thin figure creeps its way along the flagstones, navigating between these obstacles with spider-like movements. It soundlessly rears up over the bed before it produces a knife and strikes downward with sudden ferocity. There is a rattling of metal rings, a guttural grunt, and the sleeping victim surges to his feet with shocking abruptness, holding the intruder high over his head with a grip on its throat like an iron vice. The handle of the knife still protrudes from his chest, and you catch a flash of the whites of his eyes as his lips draw back in a snarl. He closes his fist, crushing the assassin's throat and ceasing its struggles. He uses his free hand to throw a cloak over his shoulders and drags his morbid prize out into the hall, pausing only briefly to regard the hapless man-at-arms. He examines his would-be killer under the wavering torchlight. It is a pale, twisted human covered in occult tattoos. It looks like some sort of assassin-thrall. Satisfied, Lord Silvertree swiftly turns and strides down the hall—still carrying the body—and leaves a trail of blood behind him, dripping from the rings of his mail tunic.
You see him next in the doorway of a much smaller chamber, rousing his chamberlain from sleep by grating out an imperious “Gather the bannermen. Start a fire in the Small Hall. Get me a shirt. In that order.” before continuing on without checking to see whether the man heard his instruction. The chamberlain blinks, blankets under his chin and mouth working soundlessly as he tries to determine whether or not he is dreaming. Was that a knife protruding from His Lordship's chest?
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
**Rasha and Ted**
Everything is white. Pure white. At first, there is only the color and the brightness, before the rest of your senses come back to you. Despite full sensory access, you are constantly nagged by a sense of bodilessness, as though you are merely an observer in a theatre, rather than controlling your movements. The next thing you notice is the scorching, dry heat. Followed by a lurch as though you're being smoothly drawn backward faster, and faster, and faster until a huge blue sky yawns into being around the sun, and finally towards the bottom of your vision you can see waves of pale sand rippling off to the horizon.
It is the Lament. A sight which fills you with both homesickness and apprehension. You recognize the geometrical labyrinthine ruins of Ankh-Khasut, the great ziggurat city with its nine altars. Before long, it is only a dot on the horizon.
When your sense of movement finally slows down, you realize that you are in the northeastern regions of The Lament, a part of the desert you both know fairly well. Your sight has come to rest looking down upon the ruins of Nazalbur, which in ancient times served as a small fortified waystation for travelers coming down out of the mountains. Its once immaculate walls are scrawled with daemonic graffiti and crude imagery, but here and there you can still see glints of the original gilded runework peeking between the stones.
All is quiet. It is day, and the unholy denizens of this place have retreated out from under the stern gaze of the sun. Slight wind gusts carry sprays of sand from dune to dune.
The stillness is shattered in a moment. There is an order bellowed in Draconic, and the fifteen dunes closest to the ruin's entryway explode with lizardmen wearing bronze centurion gear of a long-gone era, and bearing long spears with wicked cold iron pikes. At their fore looms a great, hunched figure. A huge tortoise knight, his ridged and spiked shell graven with runes glorifying the Sun. It sits on his body like plate armor. It bears a shield shaped like a giant's shoulderblade, banded with runic bronze. In his right hand he carries a sliver of the sun itself, a glorious shining blade. Despite his bulk, the turtle's long powerful limbs quickly send him barreling through the shaded archway, his lizardmen troops pelting in behind him. Your vision does not follow.

**Zyllarne**
You are in complete blackness. Without light, without sound, without form. In the deepest well of blackest black. Slowly, you begin to notice a slight lightening in the lower right corner of your eye. Looking down, you see a tiny shard of light, no bigger than a firefly, flitting around your right hand. As a passive observer, you watch it tug insistently on your arm, at first only lifting it, but then, slowly beginning to tow you behind it. You float like this for some time, the darkness around you seeming to recoil at the intrusion of this light. And yet, you can feel the weight and pressure of it bearing down on your soul, as though you were at the bottom of an ocean.
It is in the middle of this thought, that you hear sound for the first time. Thin, keening sobs. It comes from what you know instinctively to be the center of all this gloom. And you are being led to it.
The closer you get, the more you can discern of these sobs. They are a litany of words, phrases, being repeated over and over in torment.
*Dead, all dead...*
they were my Children...I failed my Children...
I was blinded, by my own light..
The moment you hear the word 'light,' the presence guiding your hand freezes in fear, and you feel as though you finally caught the attention of this miserable presence. The shadows around you begin to seethe in fury, and you are forcibly ejected from this place in a wave of wounded rage.

#### Interlude 3

The sun seems small and cold from the plains of the Nederian Steppe. The land is gentle and rolling in all directions, broken only by the occasional regiment of soldier pines, standing an ancient guard. The sounds of men and women at labor echo through the chill air, and your view focuses on the long low shape of Fjallbard, an Orcish Longhall. It sits upon a flat topped rise—the highest elevation in the nearby area. The structure is skilfully crafted, ornately engraved logs joined together neatly, and topped with wooden shingles sturdy enough to hold up piles of snow. There is a low palisade ringing the hillcrest, seemingly built on the bones of an old granite ringfort, dating from time out of mind. Stone spars cap the rise like the tines of a crown, many of them worn to roundness and others knocked flat. The palisade is built between these spars, using them for reinforcement. In the yard, Orcs of fighting age have separated out into various sparring groups. There seems to be no true military structure or rank, yet the warriors manage to organize themselves and practice enthusiastically, often drinking and joking in between bouts. There are three general groups the warriors rotate through: formation drills, 1v1 sparring, and axe throwing. While less common here than in the orcish villages, goblins can be seen bustling about doing chores and repairs.
This scene is interrupted by a tight knot of nervous looking lizardfolk making their way into the yard. The orcs stop what they're doing and look at them curiously. After some debate and uncertainty, a large orc pulls a sparring axe from a nearby stump and hands it to one of the lizards, before picking up his own. With the rest of the group looking on, they spar. It is a hard fought battle. The orc fights bravely and ferociously swinging his axe in devastating sweeps, while the lizard flows sinuously around the blows and darts in for return strikes. The bout finally ends with the lizardman using a cleverly timed tail sweep to knock his opponent off his feet.
The crowd goes wild, and the rest lizardfolk are quickly integrated into the combat exercises.
In a smaller cabin slightly removed from the main hall, a cowled and withered shaman piled high with furs sits in a pose of meditation, mouth hanging open in horror as his inner eye is overwhelmed with visions of spiders...
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
**Ted**
You are a fly on the wall for some sort of council meeting, in a luxurious and ornate stone meetinghall. The furniture is made of darkly stained wood inlaid with precious metals and upholstered with velvet. The walls are made of pristine whitewashed stone, over which hang a colorful variety of tapestries bearing sigils you don't recognize. Hanging over all of them, however, is one set of arms you are familiar with: The storm-tossed ship of the Kataleon Merchant Cartel, which flew over nearly every ship that plied the eastern trading routes you once serviced as hired muscle. [ED: Think East India Trading Company]
The merchants, for such they are, sit around an opulent round table. Each sits in front of their guild's coat of arms, looking positively nettled. Some of them are wearing only robes, as though they had been roused from sleep to attend this meeting. They all show signs of fatigue as they listen to the presiding figure running this meeting. He has been speaking for some time before the words become clear enough for you to hear.
“--all the downsides of having ordered it done and failed ourselves, and yet we are innocent of the deed! This Council ordered its members to refrain from assassination in attempting to deal with the Silvertree tyrant. We cannot risk open war. The economy will not bear it.”
“Well at least we didn't pay for the failed assassin. It would have been money poorly spent in any case.”
“Yet the cost to us may be all the more dear in the fullness of time...From our intelligence, this assassin was not associated with any of the professional guilds that service these regions. It was some cultist, potentially a thrall to a powerful magic user. Silvertree holds his council too closely to get any more information. We must know who ordered the hit, and why.”
“The why is the obvious part. They want us at war with the North. They want to break the Cartel with war, and swoop in to take our place and pick the corpses clean. We are dealing with vultures.
No, the real question is who. We all benefit from the current arrangement. Through cooperation, we have killed the old rivalries and become the economy. If any large scale or long distance trade is done anywhere on this continent, we see a profit. There are no outsider guilds looking to unseat us, no nearby cities to contest our claims. In fact, I'd say that we already have a list of the most likely suspects—they're all sitting in this room.”
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
**Zyllarne**
*It has been long since we last spoke.*
You are sitting upon the very top of The Spire, looking East. The land below is a shapeless blur in the darkness of pre-dawn. The moon has set, the stars are fading...
*You surprised me the other night. I did not know She would cause such trouble when I gifted her to you.*
You cannot see another figure in the darkness with you, only shadow within shadow, wrapped securely.
*Do you know who I am?*
You feel as though you are being stared at, this creature's scrutiny bearing down on you like a physical pressure.
~Player Interaction~
*You are my first champion in many millennia.*
~Player Interaction~
*I wanted the best for them. To make them strong...suffering makes you strong. I tended to my children for generations...little did I know that my true children—those born of my essence—would become so jealous...*
Just then, the first light of dawn begins seeping into the world. The figure next to you has vanished without a word. As you watch the sun rise, the blade in your hand begins to glow...like a small piece of the dawn itself, trapped in your grip.
You awaken.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
**Dys**
You spend the night riding a storm of vengeance. You sit behind the eyes of another, a passenger inside their mind watching their every action through a red-tinged haze. Riding their thoughts, even. You are propelled through dense forest on powerful limbs, aided by the might of the forest itself. Limbs bend to catch you, and swing forward to add strength and distance to your leaps.
You are hunting.
Your quarry darts between the trees ahead of you, nearly as adept in navigating the forest realm as you are. They are dressed in dark, shrouded gear. Bandits. Thieves. Murderers. Violators in your Wood. It must not be suffered to pass. From border to border, there must be a reckoning.
They flee from your wrath. So fixated on you, so terrified of you, they do not notice that you are slowly penning them in. Herding them. You drive them forward, and spring the trap. Wolves flood through the gaps between the trees, following your commands. Infected by your rage.
The intruders left with no choice. They must fight, or die.
Several wolves are slain before you land in the clearing, the earth shaking with your entry.
The intruders see your face.
They freeze. Drop their weapons. Drop to their knees.
They beg you to stay your hand. To remember your mercy. They offer supplication.
You take their lives instead.
It is only afterward, with blood pooling about your knees, that you bother to unmask them. You pull back darkleaf cloth to reveal Dokanni faces. Faces Dys would not recognize, but they are familiar to you now as the faces of friends. Your eye is caught by the light of the full moon, reflected to you in blood. And beneath, your face. The face of Little John. You watch as his mind fractures beneath the pain, and rage comes flooding in to fill the gaps. There is a howl to shake the heavens, but you do not stay long enough to hear it.
You awaken.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
**Rasha**
You tear your way into the world with a pair of long, sharp pincers. You find yourself on top of of a clutch of translucent orange balls, each straining with internal movement. Your surroundings indicate that you are underground in some sort of small cave or den. A scorpion's den.
At the mouth of the den, a female giant scorpion stands in an aggressive posture, facing down the hulking, jagged form of a stone giant with a satchel partially full of eggs. It bellows and swings its great club down at her, but she nimbly leaps to the side and returns with a series of stings. They glance off the beast's tough hide, enraging it further. You scuttle to the back of the den, trying to maintain a position where you can see.
She is clearly overmatched and outsized, and yet she fights ferociously. She cannot afford to lose.
The scuffle does not last long, before the giant finally finally lands a solid blow, caber tossing its club and splattering the scorpion's torso. It staggers up to retrieve its weapon, clearly weakened and dizzied by the poison leeching through several successful stings. As it bends over, it loses balance and does a little somersault, landing in the nest and on the satchel and getting covered in scorpion egg goop. It gets up and brushes off and mutters angrily, then drinks something putrid from a flask to steady itself. It decides that one prize is not much worse than the other, and—after slinging the greatclub to its back—trudges home dragging the dead scorpion by the tail.
You don't work up the courage to move until nightfall, when you come out and sift numbly among the broken eggs.

#### Interlude 4

You see a long ornate hallway of engraved tan stone, known informally as the Pilgrim's Path—the final approach to the holiest chamber in all of Lazar. It is brightly lit with recessed torches at even intervals, each containing a carved relief of The Youth in increasingly innocuous settings. The only doorways lie at each end of the long hall—one of which is raised on a small dais surrounded by nine candles, for each of the lost altars at Ankh-Khasut. Behind each candle stands one of the Blades of the Faith, the militant arm of the Lazarene Priesthood. Their armor is covered by loose silk wraps and baggy trousers, to help shade the metal from the bite of the sun. They bear great two-handed falchions, each incised with runes describing the weapon's name and centuries of its history. The Blades standing behind these candles also wear black veils, which you know is not a traditional element of these warriors' holy vestments.
Your view slowly pans to the other end of the hallway, where two non-veiled Blades challenge a single figure standing in the archway. It is a middle aged priest with tan, angular features and dark, loosely curling hair. The robes of his order hang loosely from his body, as though he had inherited them from an older brother. Buried in the excessive fabric are a myriad of holy symbols, beads, and written sheets of prayer waiting for the right time to burn.
He looks grave as the guards—these ones without veils—send him down the hall toward the ring of candles. He approaches alone, slippers scraping softly on the bare stone. As he begins interacting with the Veiled Blades, you feel as though the substance of your vision is fading. Everything is being hollowed out, swallowed by static. You are able to hear pieces of conversation—the guards rebuff his entry into the sacred chamber. The priests inside are having a holy experience, and must remain cloistered. The normal prayer rotations have been halted until further notice.
-.-.-.-.-
When your vision returns, you see this cleric again, speaking to a young warrior woman bearing the uniform of the Blades. She has short cropped dark hair, green eyes, and three parallel clawmark scars across her face. He is sitting in a gilded chair behind a heavy wooden desk, piled high with folios and loose leaves of paper. Several bottles sulk between the untidy stacks.
“What are the current numbers on the runaway mercenaries, Ziah? Did we lose any more to the desert last night?”
“Ah, yes, four or five this time, Elder.”
“Well, at least that's an improvement. More than sixty men went off wandering in the dark, just the night before. Four or five is negligible.”
“I apologize for my lapse, Elder—I meant four or five battalions.”
The older cleric pales and reaches instinctively for one of his many dangling holy symbols, before motioning for Blade Ziah to shut the door and absentmindedly pouring two tall glasses of Aqavit, a hard liquor favored by the Lazarene. It is some time before he speaks again.
“Like a cloud passing over the sun, I feel the Light draining away from us more and more each day.” He sighs and takes a very deep pull from his glass. “Would that it had come in someone else's time. I have never asked much from life, on the condition that it do the same for me. But this faction of Black Veils has begun to permeate our Orders...the Synods voted to call forth mercenaries like a swarm of locusts, proposing a crusade which never seems quite ready to begin...and to cap it all, I—an Elder of the Third Synod—was just barred from the Holy of Holies on a paper-thin excuse. Each of these in isolation would be cause for alarm, but together? I fear it is no mere cloud that obscures the Youth's Light. I fear the coming of a storm.”
He takes a shorter sip of liquor before continuing.
“I want eyes on the desert, Ziah. Your eyes. Tonight.” He sets a bulging purse on the desk between them. “Find me a light against this darkness.”
-.-.-.-.-.-
**Ted**
You find yourself a boy again, sitting in a small crowd huddled before a puppeteer's trifold miniature stage. They're showing a local favorite, the swashbuckling tale of how Baldur, Gryffon-King of the Pirates, swindled the Sea Dragon out of its den and made off with its riches. You're trying to pay attention, but you keep getting distracted by uncomfortable phantom itches on your thighs and forearms. You try to leave them alone, but they bother you so bad you can barely pay attention. So you keep scratching, until you begin to feel something strange poking through. You look down, and quickly cover your forearm in case someone else saw.
Scales. In public, this time!
You blush furiously and try to pull your tunic over the rough red patches. Being a desert lad, there isn't really much cloth to work with, and you begin feeling a little panicked. You look around to see if there's a way out of this crowd without drawing much attention to yourself. As you glance toward the stage, you are completely distracted by the bizarre turn of events in this very familiar play. King Baldur has been strung up on poles, and a haughty lizard chieftain is standing before a burning town, the marionette's movements being guided by oily black strings with purchase points between his scales. The lizard puppet beckons you, and only then do you notice similar webs streaming out from between your own newfound scales. These quickly pull taut and drag you bodily into the puppet show.
You find yourself somehow the same size as the other figures onstage, all of which now look completely true to life, albeit inert. Like wax figures gloved in skin. The head lizard, moving jerkily at the end of his strings, points you towards the only unburned building in this small desert settlement. You have no choice—you involuntarily bob along in that direction, body parts bouncing and wagging in time with the jerking strings. Briefly during your walk, your head lolls back, and you can see the apocalyptic faces of two enormous spiders hovering behind the clouds overhead. Their countless eyes pulse with immeasurable fury. They weave your movements with threads streaming from arching black segmented legs—webs of darkness drawn from their own essence. Then your head bounces forward again, sending the faces back out of view. You enter the stone building, your strings seeming to pass through the ceiling without issue.
You face a kneeling group of villagers, looking just like the people from back home. Some of them remind you strongly of people you've actually met in your travels. Others you remember seeing in the crowd during the first part of this dream. None of them have strings. Their cowering is voluntary.
You watch helplessly as your body bounces and jerks in a crude simulation of proper axe swings. Your blade hacks at the forms before you, while you watch. You feel the webbing digging deeper between your scales, twining with nerve endings...you try to scream, but produce only a hoarse, wailing hiss.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
**Dys**
Your awareness waxes gently into a meditative state of mind. You are sitting crosslegged, your entire existence melding with the rustle of swaying leaves. There are no other sounds—no birdsong, nothing.
You are in the Wood Between Worlds.
You know it without looking. A druid can read a forest the way others read words on a page, and each forest is unique. One comes to know them intimately, like knowing a song by the first few notes. And no true forest is like the Wood.
It is said to be where trees go to dream, yet some Druidic circles contest that trees themselves originated here, and from here it was that they colonized our world.
The Wood is pure, serene, unblemished. The trees are not crowded by underbrush or vine, but root down into a bed of soft green grass over dark and well drained soil. The sunlight comes down through the canopy in streams, suffusing the air with a sort of golden haze and glinting off the occasional clear pool. The trees are unmarred by insects. Birds do not roost here. If other forests are like open books, the Wood Between Worlds is an empty journal.
You finally open your eyes, meeting the gaze of a familiar forest spirit. A dryad, vaguely feminine in appearance, the same which aided your order in contacting you for your last solo assignment. She mirrors your crosslegged pose.
She does not appear tonight by mortal request. She does not speak. Instead, she reaches out a gnarled finger and touches the center of your forehead, setting off a balming ripple through your soul. Your awareness of the Wood fades. You are alone with this spirit, speaking soul to soul. Yet she remains quiet even on this level. Her essence reaches out to yours, a sort of hazy mist coalescing about a splinter of brightest light. She pulls you down. Through the cool surface of a forest pool, and then down, down, ever deeper. You do not breathe, or need to breathe, and you feel the watery coolness pulling you into its embrace.
What you experience next is beyond the scope of rational thought. You sense an energy, a spirit, in the shape of a great tree—so great, that the trees in the Wood above would be merely the twigged ends of its great limbs. If it existed in the physical realm, its bulk would be greater than the planet it rested upon.
Every inch of what should be bark on this great entity is composed of faces. Faces from every form of life, from the greatest to the smallest. In no particular order they are placed with a mosaic cunning such that every gap is filled. And you begin to sense that somewhere buried in this vastness a face is stirring to wakefulness. [ED: grandmother willow] Before you can begin to guess its location or identity, your mind is invaded with a vision.
*A herd of buffalo, circling together as they are set upon by lions. You watch them survive, by hoof and by horn.*
A different face stirs, and the scene abruptly shifts.

A group of unarmed captives, swarming their guard and beating his skull in with stones.
Another face, another vision.
*A swarm of insects issuing forth from a hive, stinging, biting, and driving back the paws of a foraging beast.*
They begin to parade past in a blur, images sharing the same theme: the weak and numerous banding together and driving out impossible foes. Before long, the thoughts are pouring in too fast for you to handle them. You feel like you are being overwhelmed, drowned by them, when you are finally yanked upward, like a fish on a line, back to your seat in the Wood.
The dryad gazes at you. You hear a whisper in your mind.
*The sentient races are deeply divided, even amongst their own.*
*You cannot survive this way.*
You are reminded sharply of the visions, of their theme.
*You are one. They must see this, before it is too late.*
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
**Zyllarne**
You dream yourself back on the Spire, the night Robin died. This time, however, Rasha, Dys, and Teddison are nowhere to be seen. You and Morghein stand alone in the common room of Izumo's guest wing, eyes fixed on the entryway. You have no time to look around—you can hear it coming. [ED: everything looks like someone fucked with the contrast settings on the dream. The shadows are sharp and vivid, yet every other color is pale and washed out.] You stand rooted with terror as the familiar silhouette of the bloated, crawling horror comes boiling down the hall, dragging the limp body of Robin behind it. You feel the fear as a physical knot in the pit of your stomach, clawing its way up through the tips of your limbs like a web of grasping tendrils. They pull at the skin on your neck, and the corners of your eyes and mouth. Every nerve in your body is screaming for you to flee from this beast wearing your face. It feels terrible, personal, like some horrible manifestation of the tragedies dogging your entire life. Like someone wrapped your unworthiness and doubt in skin and unleashed it upon—
*No.*
It comes from the back of your mind, faint, but insistent. You feel a warmth in your hand.
*Fear...is **death.** Doubt...is **death.***
The tendrils of fear begin to burn, lines of agony chasing them through your body, like fuses running back to their source. They trace their way down to your stomach, which bursts alight with painful radiance. The pain plateaus. Your senses return, hardened by the burning light within. The fear is gone. There is only resolve.
*You were Chosen...to **CONQUER.***
The beast is rearing up before you now, its powerful limbs positioning to strike. A black, milky drool leaks from the corner of its stinking maw, which gapes below the lines of what appears from this distance to be only a mask bearing the likeness of your old face. Your right fist blazes like a beacon, and you can feel a shard of pure light where your sword should be.
*There is light for you yet, Zyllarne, if you have the steel to claim it.*
You plunge your blade into the mask.
Everything is light. Like a camera flash stretched out over what feels like half a minute—enough time to realize that this is the first time that voice has uttered your name. When color seeps back into the world, the beast is gone. You see Morghein poking through the aftermath, looking wryly about. He has changed, since you first saw him in this vision. His skin now looks taut and waxy, and portions of his flesh end in ragged wisps of shadow to reveal clean bone beneath. He is ragged all over, but smirking nonetheless.

#### Interlude 5

The silence is heavy. The gloom around you has been pushed back just far enough to see ancient, dusty altars hunched in the gloom. The stonework looks both ancient and magnificent.
*WHERE ARE YOU?*
The Candle:
Melted Wax – Those alive today
Unmelted Wax – Those who have yet to be born into this world
The Singed Wax – Those who have passed and left their mortal shells behind
The Wick – The world, and the spirit which breathes its life into all of us
The Flame – The love created by those who live in the shadow of the dark
You hear twisted laughter echoing from deeper in the ruins, and your candle gutters out. The altars behind you begin to emit a baleful green glow, which slowly grows in intensity. One by one they begin to burst alight, until the room around you is revealed to be filled with shambling figures. These wear the ragged remnants of garb from another time, the faint glint of goldleaf cloth peeking out of dagged sleeves and wide hoods, with the latter occasionally topped by a wickedly spined bronze circlet.
Once they were the elite sorcerer-lords of Arkhenatelan, a land known for its verdant fields and dells as much as the wonders of its pyramid cities. Now they are dry shuffling corpses, entombed here since the Great Desolation 1,000 years past. They seem to be mimicking actions of their living years: coming and going from the great entryways, and circulating between the altars to offer prayers. Their devotions have not slackened since they were first raised into undeath. Unnoticed among them slink the sinister forms of daemons. As you watch, a small group of winged daemons begin pushing one of the zombified lords between them, cackling madly as it finally spills to the floor and thrashes weakly. They then take flight by launching off the shoulders of a corpulent daemon sitting crosslegged nearby. This beast mutters cryptically to itself, repeating the same phrases over and over. Its eyes look dull and unfocused, its mind driven to distraction by long years of separation from the forces which spawned it. The corpses seem to avoid it without actually acknowledging its existence.
Out from the milling crowds walks a regal figure wearing the same robes as the zombies, yet bright and clean as if they were new. The skin beneath is unblemished by age or rot, instead looking pale and smooth. You can only see the curve of his jaw under the folds of his dark purple hood, atop which rests a great crown of burnished gold, ringed with great curving spikes. The skin of his cheeks and neck is milk white, and covered with tendrils of purple which wind about like intricate tattoo-work. Pale silver locks tumble over his shoulders and down the front of exotically cut robes. He does not smile, or speak. He simply gestures you forward to the very center altar, which seems to gutter fitfully under his attention. Before you have the chance to process his intent, you find yourself suddenly standing at the altar, formed into a ring around it. The altar itself is composed of a squat stone plinth topped by a shallow bronze bowl incized with complex geometry depicting a great tree, its curling branches reduced to a multitude of polygons. Each of you gazes intently into its depths, watching the pale green flames gutter and finally die.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
**Rasha**
The green flames chase around the bowl eventually taking the shape of a face. Morghein's face. You are looking down upon him, sitting in a tight circle of sleeping forms. The patch of bare skull on the left side of his face catches the moonlight, looking slightly luminescent in the dark. He smokes his pipe thoughtfully and regards the campsite around him, which is populated by a mixture of lizardfolk, kobolds, and gnomes. You recognize a few of them from your time in the dream realm, including the two Lizard Patrolmen who took you to Baba Yaga's place. The Gnomish Cleric from previous visions is nowhere to be found.
A chill voice chimes in from just behind your ear: “*They seem a little lost over here...perhaps I should go find them? Show them the way?”*
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
You look down from above upon a camp in chaos. Reptilian forms are scrambling from their bedrolls in a confused rush, grabbing any makeshift weapon that comes to hand. The scene is lit only by the ambient flash of spells, most of which come from the upraised fist of a gangly, cloaked figure. The spells are all aimed at a single target: a writhing mass of limbs, faces, tentacles, and eyeballs, which thrashes its way through the camp with no apparent direction. It strikes off one way and then another, with no more thought or intention than a storm on the winds—though it does reach out to the living with tooth and claw, seeking to snare them as it passes. The scene comes to a grinding halt as the beast is outlined with a necromantic energy, and is dragged out in the open, seemingly by its very bones. The hooded figure seems to be guiding it with the clawlike fingers of his gauntleted left hand. Taking advantage of this opening, several of the nearby figures lob torches at the chaos monster, causing its flesh to burst alight as it melts into a puddle of gore.
The campsite finally lit, you are able to see two victims of the attack, already moaning in pain as their limbs warp and twist, elongating into new forms and erupting with growths. The others already know what to do. Taking great care not to touch the metamorphosing bodies, their former companions set them, too, alight. Horrible screams are wrenched from twisting throats, before abruptly cutting off.
You wake up.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
*Zyllarne*
You look into the altar's bowl, and the fitful green flames begin to swirl, forming an image.
An image of a girl's face. The recognition hits you like a fist to the gut, and you cannot look away, even though you would rather face anything than this.
She looks...exactly as you left her. Hurt. Alone. Clothes still ragged from the attack.
The sounds of this vision are muted, and play out almost like a montage—a string of significant scenes stretched over a long period of time.
You see her pacing through the ruins of the village, looking in every door. Not finding what she seeks.
You see her, that first evening, collapsing exhaustedly at the west end of the village with the sun sinking over the horizon. Her eyes look restlessly over the hills. She does not find what she seeks. She spends the first night in the cinders of her father's home, under the scorched remnants of a blanket. It's nearly all she has left in the world.
The next time you see her, it appears that time has passed. Her clothing is ragged and unkempt, but her wounds have healed. She is kneeling before the front gates of a monastery belonging to the Sisters of the Immaculate Youth, a burlap sack of belongings at her side. The nuns at the door share a look before tossing her a grey woolen habit and ushering her inside. That evening she stands atop the wallwalk, scanning the western horizon as the sun sets. She does not find what she seeks.
Some months later, you see her with clean hair and a neatly pressed habit. She's standing before the gates of the monastery again. The Mother of the monastery has her hand outstretched and waiting. You watch the girl lift a religious symbol over her head and drop it in The Mother's hand. Only then do you notice her stomach, swollen in the early stages of pregnancy. The nuns offer her a small bag of essentials, but no more. They do not shelter those outside of the order, and she no longer qualifies to join.
In this next scene, she is in the middle of a darkening wood, a pile of green branches by her feet. She kneels by the pile, pulls the first branch across her lap, and draws a knife which looks much too small for the job ahead. Upon drawing the knife, she seems to pause, looking at it almost longingly. She sits that way for a long time, with the light slanting through the branches and dappling her figure. She finally shakes her head, lifts the branch, and begins to strip it bare. The shavings go in one pile, the finished branches another. She creates a spine of branches, resting in a tree fork, and begins piling fir branches on top to keep the wind out. The sun begins to hit the horizon, and she pauses in her work. She scans the dim woods, looking west. Always looking west. Never finding what she seeks.
Another day, and you see her with the habit re-cut into a more workable garment—sleeves rolled up, skirt hemmed high enough not to impede her legs. Her stomach bulges a little more noticeably against the waist of the garment. She is poking about an abandoned, moss-eaten cabin somewhere in the woods. The chimney looks sound, and the frame is salvageable with a little trimming and sanding. She looks about in grim appraisal. She sets a twig-broom in a corner of the room and sets about clearing the floor of debris. By the end of the day, she watches the sun set from the porch of the cabin, covered in sweat and catching her breath. Her eyes search restlessly, until the light fades.
Years have passed. The cabin is cozy, and well provisioned in its own meager way. There is a fire burning in the hearth, thick quilts on the bed, and sturdy iron cookware where carved wood will not suffice. A young, fully human boy of two or three kneels on a tanned hide rug, playing some made-up game with stones. He's wearing one of Zyllarne's old tunics, which hangs down to his ankles like a dress. He is completely oblivious of his mother watching from a corner of the room, her brows slightly furrowed. She looks sturdier than she used to. There is a wiry strength and a set to her jaw that only comes from hard country living. The arms crossed over her chest are toned with muscle. As you look upon her, you can hear her thoughts as though they were spoken aloud:
“He never knew what I really needed, anyway. Vengeance didn't put this roof over my head. Vengeance didn't raise that little boy over there. Vengeance didn't keep food in our bellies, even in the lean years. I did that. I did it alone. Because I didn't fucking need your vengeance, Zyllarne. I needed a partner.”
## That night, for the first time, she doesn't stand her sunset vigil. She never does again.
From outside the vision, you hear a whispered voice very close to your ear.
*And who might that be? A friend? Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on her for you...*
You wake up.
-.-.-.-.-.-
**Dys**
Dys gazes into the altar flames, which begin to shift and take shape as a face...the face of Little John. He is contorted by rage, his eyes smoldering embers. You remember him looking mostly human, his divinity hidden to all but the closest examination. Now it pulses from him in waves, the energy tainted with malice. He stands in a clearing, ringed with watchers of the forest. Standing across from him is a figure nearly as tall as he is, clad from head to toe in enameled green plate armor, with a great rack of natural looking antlers poking out the top. The Green Knight bears a great sword forged of black iron, heavy and wicked. He levels it now at Little John, who roars ferociously in response and rushes forward, dual-axe in hand. The two clash, unbelievably fast despite their hulking size. They trade titanic blows almost faster than the eye can follow, sparks flying with each parry.
They fight for ages, evenly matched. Hemmed in by watchers who neither interfere, nor allow others to do so. The ring is sacrosanct.
The longer the fight runs, the more tired and pressed Little John becomes. Meanwhile, the Green Knight only seems to have increased in strength and timing—as if he were merely warming up. He begins to push Little John around the ring, the double-axe coming up to parry more and more slowly.
The Knight raises up his sword for another crashing blow, when the ring of watchers ripples with movement. They turn outwards, too slowly to hold back the tide of spiders. Man sized, with blazing eyes, they crash over and consume the unfortunate guards. The Green Knight finds himself fighting desperately to get clear, and loses Little John in the chaos. The spiders seem to be leaving Little John unharmed, but have wrapped him in a black, tarry silk, which they use to smuggle him rapidly from the clearing. Before long, the Knight stands alone in a grove full of carrion. It slams its sword into the earth, point down, and gazes off in the direction the spiders retreated. You cannot see its face to be certain, but the Green Knight seems troubled.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
**Ted**
The altar flames gutter and reform, seeming to take the shape of a face from your youth—the face of Mother Yen, the kindly woman who sheltered sorcerous orphans in the city. She does not look the same as you left her—the years have not been very kind to her corpse. Her skin is stretched taut, and there are empty, gaping sockets where once she had twinkling blue eyes. The empty sockets glow a baleful green. Mother Yen walks with the stilted gait of the dead. She is walking somewhere. Shambling, rather. Guided by a necromantic will.
She is not alone.
Your view slowly pulls back, and you see a caravan of the dead, shuffling over the barren sands, the Magi's Teeth framing the horizon. They march the long walk to Ankh-Kasut. Mixed among the dead are living mercenaries, deserters from the great encampment outside of Lazar. They walk along as if in a daze, as if sleepwalking. They do not seem to notice their grisly companions. They do not look around, or notice the Schirs goading them along, with whip and crook and claw.

#### Interlude 6

Leadership is never kind to those who understand the weight of responsibility it carries.
Before the gates, hands folded serenely over the pommel of his greatsword, stands the Green Knight, his distinct antlered helm visible even in the darkness. He calls up to the beleaguered Orc.
**“Knut. You are a good man, and so I hope that you will take my words to heart.**
**“Leave. Now.**
**“Gather your people from the eaves of this forest, and take them somewhere else. Anywhere else. Take them to the plains, where there is room to spread out and farm. Take them across the River Salve, whose ancient magicks still hold back the dark. The Lychwood has never been kind, but... there is a tide of darkness gathering that not even the boldest of us can turn aside. If you love your people, lead them from this place before it is too late.”**
And with that, the knight sheaths his sword and strides back into the mirk.
Knut curses, and throws his fist upon the ancient stone. He stands alone in the dark as the sky begins to weep down upon him. The Orcish man silently weighs the risks of the lizard-ravaged plains against the proud and capricious whims of the elves in the Northern Wood, knowing that both answers will bring little else but ruin to his peoples' way of life.
~.~.~.~.
Lord Silvertree stands in his stirrups, the spires of Thunderhead Keep glittering in the morning sun. The lord is wearing a simple suit of silvered steel, draped in a long cape of forest green. He stands before an army.
Several armies, really. All of the major factions of the Northern Hills gathered in one place. Lord Malakus's Thunder Riders, the Flint Hill-Men, the Iron-Shod Legions of Mirkling Rise, all stand prominent amongst rank upon rank of simple hillfolk. The product of the land—tough, hardy, stubborn folk. They did not function as a single unit—not yet. They would be forged anew in the flames of battle.
He scans the ranks critically before finally unsheathing his blade, Valorbound. A hush falls over the gathered force.
“SPLINTERED PEOPLES OF THE NORTH. YOU HAVE COME—SOME OF YOU FROM CURIOSITY, OTHERS FROM OBLIGATION, AND STILL MORE ONLY WHEN I THREATENED TO TEAR YOUR KEEPS OUT OF THE GROUND AND SALT THE EARTH THEY STOOD UPON.” At this last comment, he points his sword at the bulky figure of Lord Malakus, who is piled high with furs and rippling with tattooed flesh. The wild man guffaws loudly and begins to beat his shield in reply. His Thunder Riders, all mounted on stout, short legged, beastly looking horses, follow suit, raising a thundering wooden clamor—which from them, can be a battle cry or a salute. Often it is both at the same time.
Lord Silvertree grins wolfishly in response. He could joke now, but it had nearly come to blood between the two mountain lords: Lord Malakus had nearly ended this campaign before it ever began. Though they were the hardest to turn to Silvertree's purposes, now that they had joined these riders would be the hardest to turn from his side. These were the politics of the North, the politics of such men under his command. He would be sad to see the end of such traditions.
“THIS IS THE GREATEST WE HAVE EVER BEEN. NOT EVEN IN ANCIENT DAYS, WHEN OUR PEOPLE STRETCHED ALL THE WAY SO THE SEAS, HAVE WE EVER BEEN UNITED IN PURPOSE. IT HAS BEEN OUR WEAKNESS. OUR UNRAVELING. THE MEN OF THE SOUTH ARRIVED ON THEIR BOATS TO FIND US FRACTURED, AND SQUABBLING. THEY DID NOT BEAT US THROUGH STRENGTH OF ARMS, OR VALOR, BUT TREACHERY. THEY TURNED US ON EACH OTHER. BRIBED US. BOUGHT US, TO SPARE THEIR SCRAWNY NECKS FROM THE HARDSHIPS OF WAR. THEY GROW RICH ON THE LABORS OF BETTER MEN, SHUFFLING AND SELLING GOODS THEY COULD NEVER PRODUCE ON THEIR OWN.
IN THIS WAY, THEY PUSHED US BACK. YEAR AFTER YEAR. CENTURY AFTER CENTURY. AND HERE WE STAND. THE LAST OF A PROUD PEOPLE. SCRAPING OUT A LIVING ON BARREN, ROCKY PEAKS OF THE NORTHERN HILLS. KILLING EACH OTHER FOR GRAZING RIGHTS, FOR OUR THINNING HERDS. SURELY WE HAVE SUFFERED ENOUGH. SURELY THE PEOPLE OF KATALEON CANNOT WANT ANYTHING WE STILL HAVE.”
Lord Silvertree pulls a dagger from his saddle and holds it aloft. Few of the soldiers would be sharp-eyed enough to pick out the brown, dried blood on the blade. But every man present had heard of what happened the night this dagger was planted between his ribs.
“AND YET, I RECEIVED A GIFT FROM THEM. A PROMISE. IT IS NOT OUR LAND THEY WANTED, AFTER ALL. IT WAS NOT OUR RICHES, OR OUR FREEDOM. THESE FAT, POWDERED MERCHANTS HAVE COME AT LAST FOR OUR BLOOD.”
His audience had been captive so far, but there was a limit to how long these people could keep their tongues in check. They roared. They stamped their feet. They jostled their partners and pulled their hair in their fury. They were his.
“WE MUST BREAK OUR BONDS. WE MUST CAST AWAY THE FETTERS WE HAVE CLAPPED TO OUR OWN WRISTS. WE ARE MIGHTY, BUT WE ARE DIVIDED. NO MORE!!! THE NORTH IS GATHERING, LIKE A STORM UPON THE MOUNTAIN-TOPS. LET US ROLL THROUGH THE GREEN LANDS OF THE SOUTH, LIKE THE VENGEANCE OF OUR ANCESTORS. LET US CLAIM EVERY KNOLL AND VALLEY. AND WHEN WE REACH THE SOUTHERN SHORES, WE WILL PUSH THE PAMPERED COUNCIL AND THEIR PRECIOUS CITY BACK INTO THE SEA FROM WHENCE THEY CAME.”
The army's howls shake the very foundations of the earth. In the chaos, Lord Silvertree watches Lord Malakus shoulder his way to the fore, until his mount stands nearly nose-to-nose with Lord Silvertree's destrier. The dull bronze of Malakus's spiked and engraved armbands seems to drink in the morning light, as he pulls one of them off. The man begins to speak, his voice carrying out to the entire army.
“I WILL NOT BOW BEFORE A LORD. THIS WORD IS A SOUTHERN WORD, A TITLE FOR WEAKER MEN THAN WE. WE WERE A LAND OF THANES AND JARLS, ONCE. A LAND WHERE EACH MOUNTAIN HAD ITS KING. YOU SAY WE MUST SHIRK THE WAYS OF THE PAST, BUT I SAY AT THE VERY LEAST, THESE PEAKS DESERVE A KING ONCE MORE. I WILL NOT BEND THE KNEE TO A LORD, BUT I WILL KNEEL FOR ELLARD SILVERTREE, KING OF THE MOUNTAINS!!”
And with this, Lord Malakus places the bronze band upon Lord Silvertree's brow, the simple metal spikes forming a crude but striking crown. He then dismounts, and kneels before his new King. And one by one, the rest of the army follows suit. They rise, screaming. “KING OF THE MOUNTAINS!” “TO THE SEA, TO THE SEA!!” “KING SILVERTREE!!”
King Silvertree sits passively as the sound washes over him. Then he smiles.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
It is dark. You are all floating in darkness, each of you marked only by the tiniest sliver of light where your chest should be. You're arranged in a circle, each of you vaguely aware of the others' presence. You are, however, bodiless. You simply are. And with a gentle pulling sensation, each of you feels your little sliver slip free of your essence, mingling in the center of the space before you, circling each other a moment before blending into a tiny candle-like flame. The light forms a little hollow in the vast dark, like a bubble of air at the bottom of an ocean.
The silence is heavy. The gloom around you has been pushed back just far enough to see ancient, dusty altars hunched in the gloom. The stonework looks both ancient and magnificent.
*Where are you?*
You feel as though the dark around you is being probed intently, as though some outside force were battering upon the walls of your soul, trying to get inside.
You hear twisted laughter echoing from deeper in the ruins, and your candle gutters out. The altars behind you begin to emit a baleful green glow, which slowly grows in intensity. One by one they begin to burst alight, until the room around you is revealed to be filled with shambling figures. The force bearing down against you grows stronger, more insistent.
*WHERE ARE YOU?*

Out from the milling crowds walks a regal figure wearing the same robes as the zombies, yet bright and clean as if they were new. The skin beneath is unblemished by age or rot, instead looking pale and smooth. You can only see the curve of his jaw under the folds of his dark purple hood, atop which rests a great crown of burnished gold. He twists his mouth in a wry smile, and the force instantly doubles in intensity.
*WHERE ARE YOU???*
 ***WHERE ARE YOU???***
The dream evaporates around you, as though you'd been yanked out by an external force, just before this invasive force has a chance to probe your minds.
-.-.-.-.-
You briefly see Morghein, looking frantic. It's almost as if your connection is fading in and out, barely stable.

#### Interlude 7

The first thing you notice is the sun. Huge and white in an empty blue sky. Beating down on the crystalline sands, making them sparkle fiercely in response.
The second thing you notice is a lizard. It scampers over the sands in agitation—normally this time of day is a time of rest for such creatures. Normally, however, they aren't being poked with a stick. Which is when you notice a third thing. A boy.
He is barefoot, wearing nothing but a simple loincloth. His dark olive skin has been further darkened by a long relationship with the sun. His hair is a thick and shining black, uncombed but neat. His bright green eyes sparkle with mischief as he chases his quarry about the dunes. (ED: somewhere between young Link and Mowgli)
It is some time before he looks up, and you are struck by how disarmingly honest he seems.
“You need to come help me.” The Youth's voice is solemn, almost sad. It is a stark change from his previous playfulness. “Everyone else has failed. Come find me, please, before it's too late.”
He tries to say more, but the wind begins to stir. Only the brief stench of rotting carrion heralds a sudden, fierce sand squall. The Youth gestures frantically, but your vision is torn away from this scene in a rush of sand like tv static.
-.-.-.
And as the sand clears, you find yourself viewing a different scene. The landscape nearby is covered with crooked, claw-like trees and impossibly shaped hills, curled like beckoning fingers. Mist crawls through the valleys, nearly obscuring the lumpish shapes of scattered, disorganized headstones stretching as far as the eye can see.
This scene is watched over by a baleful moon, taking up nearly a quarter of the bruised twilight sky.
It is bright enough to illuminate the hunched figures of a small ragged band, standing together atop one of the ghoulish knolls. It is a weary bunch, composed largely of lizardfolk and gnomes. They gather behind a tall, gangling figure draped in a dusky purple robe which hangs open-fronted down to his thighs. He leans heavily on what looks like a scythe, made of a twisted tree bough grasping a blade of old bleached bone. Thin white tufts of hair whip raggedly about his face in the wind, nearly disguising the bare skull which mars the left side of his face.
Morghein stands before a tall figure in oily black plate armor shaped to resemble snarling gothic gargoyle features. A long, exotically curved two-handed sword rests upon his back, and a wide tabard gathers robelike around his legs, open in front to allow for movement. This black knight speaks with courtly grace:
“When I was told to seek you here, brother, I could not believe my ears.” The helm is removed, revealing long silvery hair and a face which looks startlingly similar to Morghein's. “What exactly have you been up to since you murdered our father?”
The sorcerer does not respond immediately. You remember an earnest Morghein. A charming, boyish Morghein. Neither of those men are here tonight.
This Morghein looks exhausted, and only your time together on the road allows you to catch the desperation in his voice when he finally speaks.
“Living, Wykim. Trying to atone. You should have done the same. You were finally free from father's hand.”
“Living? You reach in calling it so. There was never any world for us but the one Father built. It was only his strength which shielded us from the stakes and fires of those who hate and fear us. You ended that. And just how is it that you now live among these others? Like an invalid? Like a rat? You suffer in shame. You torment yourself with daylight. You suffer no close relations, for fear of being unmasked. You could have better. You could have more. Stop clinging to those who despise you so.”
“It's not like that, Wykim. You know it. We were born astride two worlds. We have a choice. You have a choice. Even now.”
Wykim widens his stance, smoothly drawing his great blade over his shoulder. It seems to emanate a dim purple glow, and you can see weeping ghostly faces occasionally pressing themselves against the metal from within.
“Tonight, my choices are irrelevant. There are powers rising which make Father and his kingdom look insignificant. You have drawn their attention, bumbling through the Outer Planes like an animal in the brush. You are lucky that I found you first. Because I, at least, love you enough to give you a choice. You made a mistake. Do not make it again tonight. We are claiming a place in the mortal world. You could have a part in it. A real part—not this...charade you've been-”
He is cut off by a scorching ray sizzling past his ear.
“God, Wykim. Cut the dramatics. You're not the first thing to find us. We've been here for months. And my decision is made.” Morghein throws his arms wide and fades into wraithlike insubstantiality, darting overhead to fire off two more searing beams in a howling rush. Wykim reacts with astonishing speed, dodging one beam and allowing the other to deflect off the flat of his sword. The black knight straightens himself, seeming to loom as he begins to emit a palpable aura of fear, his vampiric features seeming to distort into a demonic mask in the eyes of any who enter its reach. He strides menacingly towards Morghein's now cowering companions, blade drawn, only to be come up short when the earth beneath them lifts up to form an egg-like cocoon and rises into the air, where it remains.
“That's some real cowardly shit, Wykim. I thought this was supposed to be about us?”
“I will hit you anywhere it hurts, Morghein. Now stop running about and fight your brother.”
The two begin to fight in earnest. Morghein is on the defensive from the very first, unable to come within the reach of Wykim's great scything blade. He nimbly weaves through the air, slinging spells, only for most to be shrugged off or evaded. Twice, he seems to stiffen as the blade passes directly through him, escaping it only by becoming completely intangible with moments to spare. Each time this happens, he is noticeably slower afterward.
As Morghein begins to lag, Wykim lunges—only to find himself rooted in place by his shadow. He curses, raises a gauntlet, and cries out in Command: “HALT.”
Morghein jerks to a stop in midair. It is only a few seconds, but it lasts long enough for Wykim to send a wall of screaming flames through the earthen egg. The walls blacken and char, and soon the screams of the dying join the spell's unearthly howling.
As the flames dissipate, the egg crumbles into a pile of ash, dust, and bone. Silence descends.
Morghein, eyes ablaze, brandishes his gauntlet. Lines of black webbing shoot from the tips of his fingers to each of Wykim's limbs. Wykim grunts, the very bones of his body beginning to animate, rebelling against his will. His sword clatters to the ground, his fingers gone limp.
He haltingly draws a sleek looking dagger from his own belt.
The dark knight struggles as it is slowly raised to his throat.
His eyes grow wide in terror.
The abrupt slash that follows is only turned aside by a last minute exertion of will. Wykim drops to his knees, face cut open from cheek to cheek and drooling black blood. Wounded, but not mortally.
He chokes out a few parting words: “I know...a part of you...is grateful. For their deaths. A burden lifted. A part of you...is tainted. Just. Like. Me.”
Morghein's ethereal form swells, unleashing a wordless banshee shriek as he passes straight through Wykim, streaking away across the hills. Deeper into murk of this twisted landscape.
And down in his heart, a creaking, hateful voice whispers that it's going to be much easier going for him now.
The wind kicks up around his flying figure, and soon your vision is obscured by a windy rush of ash like tv static. It slowly turns from bone white to sandy yellow.
Everything changes again.
-.-.-.-.
The Youth is standing, tiny and frail, in the yawning mouth of a tomb. It is primal looking, angled deep into the earth. Its silhouette is marked only by a shallow rise in the dunes.
The stones of this place are as old to the pyramids as the pyramids are to us. From a time out of mind in a time out of mind. There is a primitive majesty to their shape, the architecture looming and hunched. Under your inspection, the foreign glyphs above the entry arch rearrange themselves to legible Common. It is ambiguous whether they spell out a title, a warning, or a name.
**TOMB OF HORRORS**
“I think I made it too hard. No one else could get through. But if you find this place, I'll guide you through myself.” He looks back at you, smirking again. “It'll be easy.”
You wake up.
-.-.-.-
Dys wakes up to a knife tucked away in his sleeping area. It is wrapped in a note, much like those he has found previously. ***KILL. THE. BOY.*** In a dark red ink.
-.-.-
**The tale of Nakish, Ahemat's Bane**
You see a stone forge, marked with glowing runes. It is flanked by three mages on each side, hands splayed, and chanting. The fires within burn a deep, bloody purple.
At the mouth of the forge works a human smith, wearing a simple wrap about his legs, a thick pair of scorched leather gloves, and closed toed boots. His brawny torso glistens with sweat in the forgelight.
He works night and day, as the sorcerers come and go in shifts. He is working on a single blade.
It takes shape slowly. Each layer seems to drink in the arcane fires around it, as the sword is folded again and again.
When it is complete, the smith quenches the blade a final time in a cask of strange, syrupy liquid.
He lays it out and examines his work, panting. The sorcerers have already retreated. The smith mutters to himself:
“I did not expect this blade to take so much from me. It will be my last, I think. And perhaps my best. It has a thirst all its own. A calling.”
The craftsman does not rest. He sets about buffing, grinding, and sharpening the blade. It would not permit him to wait.
-.-.-
You now see the blade strapped to the back of a soldier, wearing the ancient garb of Lazar. He is standing atop an enormous wall, spiked with fin-like pyramids jutting from the otherwise flat frontward face. The soldier trembles. Outside of a bubble extending perhaps a mile out from the city, chaos reigns. Black fire rains down from the sky, blasting the ground below into planes of chaotic glass. The fire itself howls, and swirls, with eyes and mouths peeking out from its depths to delight in the ruin it causes. It is impossible to tell whether anything yet survives anywhere else in the world. One does not dare to hope.
-.-.-
You see the blade, bright and shining, nearly the height of a grown man in length. This is the first time you have seen it unsheathed in all its glory, and you see now that it is inscribed with several lines of runes, telling its deeds. They run along the curved spine of the blade, which is wide and flat like the swords held by the Order of the Blades in Lazar.
The current bearer stands amid a pile of wounded men, fiercely keeping a platoon of Schir at bay. It is hard to tell whether it is his strength, or the strength of the sword that keeps him standing. It is one of many such tales in these dark times.
-.-.-
In the centuries following the Desolation, it was discovered that the sorcerer-kings who betrayed mankind were rewarded for their treachery. Granted new powers and new armies by the cataclysm, each set themselves in one of the ruined strongholds of the region, looking to dominate the others—and more importantly, the holdouts in Lazar.
It began as a besiegement of the city. Lapping hordes of demons crowded the desolate glass plains, clambering up and over the walls to get at those inside. The men and women of Lazar fought desperately, and the fighting forged them anew. What started merely as platoons of guardsmen on the walls grew into a fighting force feared by the demonic hordes. This was the beginning of the Blades.
As the decades began to pass and the Youth yet survived to hold the portals closed, the demons slowly began to thin in number. The Sorcerer Kings set their sights on the strongholds of one another, each thinking to conquer and consolidate the others into one army, and thereby take the City of Man. Their infighting only weakened them—only gave the Blades a chance to turn to the offensive. This, then, was the beginning of the first Crusades.
The Crusades lasted for over a hundred years. They began as a series of guerilla raids intended to provoke the demon factions into war against one another. As time passed, they gathered momentum, until the Lazarene armies found themselves toppling the Sorcerer Kings one by one. They fielded valorous, shining armies, which marched the desert to besiege great cursed ruins. They had not the resources to settle or fortify any of these City-Strongholds, and would leave them unmanned in favor of more sensibly sized forts and waystations.
As victory followed victory, It seemed that the bright spirit of man would win the day. That the guiding hand of The Youth would show them victory. It seemed too good to be true.
It was.
The Youth, in fact, was much too preoccupied to be guiding anything outside of the dream realm. There was another hand at work here. Ahemat, first and shrewdest of the Sorcerer Kings, had been using his own daemonic and undead forces to soften up the others. He would harry and torment the other daemon armies, leaving them overwhelmed and undermanned by the time the Blades struck. And as each of his rivals fell, Ahemat would gather what remained of their troops and pull them south. South, to the black stones of Arken—once the largest city in the Empire.
It was here that he would draw the armies of Lazar. Lure them into a false sense of security and victory, and overwhelm them when they came for his seat.
And so it happened. Or, it would have, if not for the bearer of Nakish, the bright blade of Ahemat's Bane. As the armies of Lazar were ambushed and encircled outside the black walls of Arken, this hero led a picked troop of warriors up into the city through its catacombs. He stormed the throne room, where Ahemat scried upon the battle through mirrors of crystal. The ancient hero managed to overcome the Sorcerer King in single combat, at the cost of his own life. His lifeless body was dragged from the city of Arken by his three sisters, the only surviving members of the troop he entered with. They bore him back to Lazar rallying what they could of the shattered Crusading Army as they went. Lazar would never regain the strength they had during the Crusades—but then, there was never again an enemy strong enough to demand it. Without the Sorcerer Kings to guide them, the daemon armies became more of a pest problem than an existential threat. And so the city returned to small scale raiding and patrols, and thus they continue into present day, where they mimic the glory of the Crusades with a ragtag mercenary horde at their gates.
-.-.-
You are in another vision. Following its victory over Ahemat, the blade Nakish is being placed back into its pedestal in the Chamber of Heroes at Lazar. A priest in gilded robes of the Third Synod gently slides it tip-first into the solid stone. It glows a deep, bloody purple, before darkening to reveal a new stanza of runes along its spine. The priest releases his grasp on the hilt, and sighs to the scribes behind him.
“It will rest, now. The blade will not be drawn again until an even greater shadow lays upon this land.”
He closes his eyes for a moment, and then turns to leave before his scribes have finished taking down his words.

#### Interlude 8

You feel naked before its power.
It waves its arm, and the altars begin to light, one by one. Soon, eight of the nine are lit, and a high, thin voice rings out through the chamber:
“Please!! Before it's too late!! You need to get to me before they do!!”
**THREE VIGNETTES:**
The sun rises full and red, glittering off the turquoise waters in the Bay of Lazar. Kalak, Blue Eyes of the White Dragon Clan performs the ritual sun salutation of his people. Once finished, he sheds his gear and slips into the waters of the bay with barely a ripple. It is some time before he surfaces, several wriggling sea bass in his jaws. He makes two more identical trips into the bay before carrying his haul back to a secluded glass cave hidden along the shore. It is split equally between himself, Petunia, and Markov. They eat it raw.
-.-
A bruised sun begins to set. Kalak watches it from the mouth of his hideout. He is hodded and cloaked, his face lit occasionally by the glow of his pipe. When dark finally falls, he stands up and taps his ash into the sand. He tires of waiting. His people cry out for aid. The rising frustration stirs his dragonblood, like ice spreading through his veins.
“Wait for me Gurthang,” he growls under his breath amidst the blackened dunes. “We will fight side by side again before this is over.”
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
It is midnight. Ziah sits crosslegged on the floor of a sparely furnished sleeping chamber. Nakish lies unsheathed across her lap. The warrior seems to be muttering under her breath.

“Why did you tell me to trust them? Their magic is wild, dangerous. Is that not what unleashed the Darkness in the first place?”
*YOU HAVE NO TIME TO QUESTION. IT IS LATE. LATER EVEN THAN YOU REALIZE. A NEW DESOLATION RISES, EVEN DARKER THAN THE LAST. IT IS YOUR DUTY TO SERVE ME IN THE RESISTANCE AGAINST IT, AND IN SO DOING SERVE ALL THAT LIVE AND BREATHE UPON THIS PLANE. THESE WANDERERS, TOO, HAVE SUCH A DUTY. THEY WERE MARKED BY THE WORLD TREE ITSELF, FOR THEIR ROLES IN THE CONFLICT TO COME. THEIR DESTINIES ARE SHAPED BY THE SHAPER OF THE LAND ITSELF, AND TWINED INEXTRICABLY WITH OUT OWN.*
*REMEMBER, ZIAH. STRANGE TIMES MAKE FOR STRANGE ALLIES. AND YOU SHALL SOON FIND THESE IN SHORT ENOUGH SUPPLY...*
“Is it true, then? The Black Veils plot to seize dominance of the Ecclesiarchy? Will it be war?”
The blade responds no further.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Under the oversight of Knut Gurdsson and the Minute Maids, a ragged column winds its way out from under the eaves of the Lychwood. Many of these hunched, pale and stocky forest folk have never stepped foot beyond its borders, and are dazzled by the light despite the overcast weather. You recognize Nit, looking uncomfortable to be so far from his swamp. Some others pause or stumble in amazement, looking terribly out of place in the open landscape.
Despite their fears and hesitations, they head west. The wood behind them boils over with a primeval darkness—it is no shelter for them now.
They are watched from the dark between the trees. Eyes, featureless orbs of glowing yellow, orange, and green peek out from simple wooden faces. The spirits of the wood wait in silent vigil as the mortals depart. It would happen now. Free of interlopers, the forest would go to war. For the first time in millennia, the fey courts would call their banners.
...for the rot which ate away at the heart of the Lychwood could be delayed no longer...

#### The Fall of Lazar

As you look down upon the Lazarene Gulf, it is easy to forget that the sparkling city on the bay could be the center of such strife. The waters of the bay glow an inviting turquoise, lapping placidly against ancient stone quays. You can see the temple city, the high walled core of Lazar which was built before the desolation. It is bulwarked by three huge pyramids, which jut from the wall's sheer face almost like fins—slanting outward from the wall, only the points sticking out above its crown. Inside this wall is a cluster of squarish, stepped pyramids built in tiers. At this distance, they have an almost hive-like appearance, each of them connected to those nearby via slim footbridges at varying heights. The Great Temple stands above them all, its domed top and great front stairway ornamented with gleaming bronze.
The outer city, despite the efforts of the Priesthood, has a much more haphazard, sprawling appearance. Most of the new construction is made of mud plaster, occasionally stiffened by wood beams—moreso closer to the wall. You see quite a few urban farms, as well as a sprawling wood harbor near to an open air bazaar. There is another wall circling this lower city, however the newer wall is made of carved palisade wood. The carvings are gilded and painted, and tell a pictoral history of the city's past. They are now, however, covered with black drapes.
Camped outside the walls is a disorganized mass of mercenary camps. There is no order or reason to the setup—it appears each individual band set up camp without any regard for their surroundings. The sky is smudged with oily smoke from peat, coal, or dung fires throughout the camps.
**The Meeting**
Just as dawn begins creeping in the windows, you hear a knock at the door. Ziah's voice calls through: “I am here to escort you to your meeting with Elder Keffir. I will wait outside until you are ready.”
“I am no spy, but a warrior. The Elder gathers information. I act on it. I can offer you this, however. The Black Veils seem to be...susceptible to temptation. It is not uncommon to find them indulging at taverns, or smoking lounges, even to the point of incoherence. These acts do not break any of our Codes, but they have long been regarded as...weaknesses. Perhaps you can utilize them.”
“The divisions here are much deeper than they seem. The Black Veils have had The Youth under lock and key for weeks, now.”
**Elder Keffir Threepwood's Office**
Dark wood, musky with incense, and covered with bronze knick knacks of indecipherable purpose. You are not sure whether they are scientific instruments or abstract art. There are shelves and shelves of books, with an incredible array of drawers and shelving available. This man seems to have marked every inch of open wall in his office for some form of storage—most of which is packed to bursting with notes, books, and ledgers.
The man himself is younger than you would expect. He is perhaps in his late 40's, with brown, curling, shoulder length hair. His features are narrow and pointed, giving him an air of vulpine mischief. He wears a large heavy necklace adorned with numerous recovered religious icons from the ancient empire.
“So...you probably have some questions. Save them. I am a desperately busy, desperately...desperate man. So I will try to lay this out as efficiently as I can. If you still have questions afterward, we can address them then.
“The priesthood of this city is fractured. We are in a state of crisis instigated by a political cabal calling themselves the Black Veils, with members drawn from most of the Thirteen Synods. They have sealed the Chamber of the Youth, claiming to be in the midst of an ongoing 'miracle' which must not be disturbed. They let no one but Black Veils in or out. It may simply be a power play, but my suspicions are far darker.
I need to find out what they are doing in there without provoking open war between the synods. I need someone who can infiltrate a guarded fortress undetected. You have met Blade Ziah. She is the best I have. She is intelligent, impeccably honest, and her sword comes down upon servants of the dark like a falling mountain. She is not, however, discreet. I hope you can be. Because I have reason to believe this situation may benefit us both.
Ziah dreamed your coming, before she ever met you. She saw you being led by the Youth himself, led to his very chamber to some purpose beyond her knowledge.
It seems you have a task of your own to accomplish therein.
And so we have it: I need someone in that room to unravel the plots of the Black Veils. You need a powerful patron to get you close. The inner city is riddled with wards and watching eyes, designed to foil any practitioners of pagan magicks.
I can keep Ziah and her blades nearby for support, but I cannot risk war if you are captured. This is, of course, is generally the case with spy work. War amongst ourselves must be avoided at any cost—if it breaks out, we may as well open the gates and let the demons walk right in. The foul creatures would seize it in the chaos regardless. So you see, even in winning such a war, we would still lose. It is not an option.
But I digress! Here is the deal: I can give you chambers within the temple complex and an alibi that will stand up to casual scrutiny, so that you may try your hand at espionage. Or, I can send you back to the outer city and leave you alone. Those are your options. Any questions?"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
**The End**
Everything grinds to a halt, and you find yourself in the Youth's chamber once more. The air is thick with the sound of tolling bells, which ring to greet the return of the Sun at the end of the Festival. You are surrounded by priests and Blades alike, all staring slack jawed at the altar behind you, where, for the first time in thousands of years, the Youth rouses from his slumber.
He rubs his eyes blearily, looking for a moment like the child he appears to be. But when his gaze fixes itself upon you, it feels heavy. Ancient.
“Who are you? What...have you done?!” It is all he has time to say.
The Youth's eyes roll back into his head, and his veins begin to run purple underneath his skin, widening and curling. They leave behind pale, waxy flesh in their wake. The boy howls in agony, doubling over as his bony fingers reach up to claw fruitlessly at his face. The surrounding priests begin to clamor and crowd one another, all trying to act at once, and each hindering the others.
They are reduced to silence once more as the Youth's struggles cease. The figure straightens, looking like a husk of itself. Familiar purple tendrils pattern his now milk-white skin. The Youth looks up with the darkling violet eyes which have haunted your dreams, enticing you toward the tainted altars.
Immodean. God of Corruption.
He raises one of the Youth's thin hands, and the room seems to pulse. The priests robes all crumple to the ground, emptied of their occupants.
**WILL SAVE**
You feel a presence batter your mental defenses, swatting them aside to plant its hateful voice inside your mind.
*I have no further use for you. Leave, or share their fate. The choice is yours.*
Then, as the plane-warping magic of this place recedes, you are afforded a brief glimpse of the world outside this chamber.
-.-.-.-.-
In the corridors of the Temple Complex, Blade clashes with Blade. As the first bells began to ring over the city, the black veils raised their weapons against their brothers and sisters at arms. In the initial confusion, it is a slaughter. In posts and barracks all over the city, swords ring out against one another as the black veils cut the legs from the city's defenses. They start with ranking officers, each kill calculated to cripple any forming pockets of resistance.
The bells toll on.
Your vision quickly flits from scene to scene, before settling on Ziah. She holds her blade Nakish aloft, and it glows defiantly in the darkness. She is surrounded by a group of wide-eyed soldiers and guards, as well as several other Blades. They are fighting their way towards the wall, gathering new fighters near as quickly as they lose them.
The bells toll on.
The vision pulls back. The slums are burning, a greasy column of smoke billowing into the stagnant air while outside the wooden ringwall sounds a chorus of axes biting into wood. You see the encamped army of mercenaries surging in towards the city, brandishing torches and axes, hacking wildly at the wooden walls. The walls splinter and weaken as fires begin to start along their perimeter. Breaches are worn through, and promptly flooded with mercenaries who sweep down the city avenues with fire and sword.
The bells seem more fervent now. In the center of the Temple Complex an eldritch wind begins to blow, crackling with power from another world.
In the shadowed dunes beyond the siege lines, the hunched figures of the undead shamble towards the city. They are lashed and goaded onward by the goatish Schir, who harry them into a lurching formation. They stretch in all directions, some clawing their way up through the sands, and others rising from the briny depths of the Bay. They remain outside the city's ring of light, empty eyesockets glowing balefully as they wait.
The bells stop. The wind reaches a fever pitch, before stopping abruptly.
**He is here. He is risen. He is come at last.**
And extending in chaotic tendrils from the city, the desert sand itself begins to turn black. You watch it spread across the whole region, like poison. Your sight wheels back as corruption spreads from the Magi's Teeth, to the Underbite, and across the Badlands to the Black Stones of Arken. From the mountains to the sea, the whole desert dons a shroud of mourning.
And as dawn comes, the Sun rises dark once more.