Answering Drake’s summons, the group gathered at his townhouse/apothecary shop by mid-morning. As they entered the still sparsely furnished living area the distant sounds of the Khundari masons, whistling their traditional working songs, could be heard on the cool mountain breeze blowing in from the east. While Brann frolicked in his enclosed garden, Drake seated his friends around the large dining table off the kitchen.
“I suppose it’s a good thing I sent my cousin up to the new manor, to help Erol and the lads get things in order, or I’d have had him start the fire in my room last night and most likely he’d have missed this,” he said, gesturing to a charred scrap of paper in the center of the table. “Apparently my uncle burned those of his papers that he didn’t carry away with him when he fled… but he was in a hurry, and several bits survived. None of any real interest, except this one…”
♦ ♦ ♦
It took the three friends and their newest ally, Korwin, several minutes to decipher the broken text, and come to the same conclusion Drake had already reached – Querdon Bartyne had discovered something that he considered potentially very valuable, and he wanted to keep it from his co-conspirator, the late Constable Ser Danyes and the Constables “masters.” That last comment alone might bear further thought…
“But who is this ‘Prince of the North’ he refers to,” Korwin asked. “I’m not terribly familiar with legends of the Outer Lands…” The others ignored this unconscious Imperial-centric comment, although Vulk did shoot him an annoyed glare.
“The name rings a bell,” Mariala replied, frowning into space. “But I’m not sure…”
“It refers to some ancient Khundari prince,” grunted Devrik, diffidently. “Back at the end of the Age of Chaos. He was some big master craftsman-type, and he and his older brother got in a tussle over who should rule what was left of their kingdom after half of it was destroyed in the Great Cataclysm. The prince eventually took off with a lot of artifacts and weapons and tools, and was never seen again…”
“That’s right, I remember now,” Mariala agreed. “The Lost Prince of Akazdurön, it’s a very popular legend among the more northern Khundari peoples. They believe this Prince… Dhaur’azym, I think he was named… will be reincarnated one day and lead his people to rebuild the lost kingdom. I don’t remember the details, I’m more familiar with the Khundari of the United Realms, I’m afraid.”
“I hadn’t put that together,” Drake said, “but now that I think about it, growing up I heard lots of tales about the Khundari… Dür was originally one of their outpost forts, and rumors of buried treasure always stick to places like this… one of the few memories I have from before my father died was me and Alakor digging up the garden, looking for Khundari treasure.
“Anyway, I remember hearing one tale about a great mason who made his hidden workshop here… he could supposedly make fortifications as indestructible as the Ancients’ own torlixam. We never gave it much credence, of course – the keep is very well built, and obviously by Khundari hands, but the stone is just stone. Well cut and fitted, but hardly indestructible. I mean, look at the repairs my brother is having completed right now.”
The group spent some more time discussing what exactly this fragment might mean, and what they should do about it. Some thought they should pursue this “traitorous cur” Rimbor, whoever he might be, while others thought it would make more sense to locate the “tomb,” if that’s what it was, that Querdon had discovered. In the end, it was agreed to search the basement for the implied secret entrance to the “escape route” mentioned.
Since Drake had removed most of his late uncle’s lab equipment (that’s how he liked to think of him, privately – as already deceased), the space was mostly empty, and it took Mariala very little time to locate the hidden catch in the stonework that opened a well-built hidden door. Devrik and Vulk each lit a torch, from the several piled in the corner, and the party entered the dark, dirt-floored passageway beyond the door. Devrik took the lead, with Vulk bringing up the rear, but when the cantor motioned Drake to move ahead of him, his friend just smiled and shook his head.
“Sorry, my friend,” he answered Vulk’s frown. “I’m out of this business, at least for now, so I have no need to force myself to go into that small, dark underground passage. But you enjoy! I’ll have a nice pot of chocolate ready for you all, when you return.”
Vulk tried to convince his friend that they needed him, that it was his uncle’s shit they were investigating, that it was perfectly safe… but with the others’ impatient calls to get a move on, and Drake’s adamant refusal to reconsider, he was forced to give it up and enter the passageway. Behind him, Drake spiked the door open with a sturdy shim and watched as the torchlight faded into the darkness.
Trudging back up the stairs from the basement, having left a torch lit in case his friends needed a beacon when they returned, Drake felt a monetary twinge of regret… he really did wonder what they might find down there, and a part of him wanted to throw caution to the wind and hare off after them. Caution be damned! But then the memory of a seemingly endless time trapped in darkness, not knowing if he was alive or dead, surged up and he shuddered. No, he never wanted to risk that sensationless void ever again!
It was at that moment, as he stepped into the kitchen to start the chocolate, that the world suddenly went black –
♦ ♦ ♦
Meanwhile, moving deeper underground, the Hand of Fortune found that the packed dirt floor and timbered walls of the narrow passage soon intersected an older, stone-lined passageway. The newer construction seemed to have broken into the older at some sort of juncture, with two of the three ways blocked by collapsed rubble. Moving forward, the remaining corridor of rough, dark gray stone sloped gently downward. Both the walls and rough-hewed stone floor were surprisingly dry.
After several hundred feet the passage ended in an opening into what was clearly a natural system of caves. The floor had been somewhat smoothed and worked, as had a few places along the walls, but for the most part is was as nature had made it. The sound of dripping water could now be heard, and the walls were moist with visible water. For the next two hours the group explored the twisting, turning passages of the cave system, and they soon came to rely on Korwin’s eidetic memory skills to keep track of where they’d been.
At one point, Vulk paused to consider the shifting, flickering shadows cast by the torches, thinking “Maybe we should stop and illuminate them to make sure nothing is hiding there.” As his friends quickly outpaced him, a voice in his head answered, “Yeah, right. What do you expect to be hiding there, ninja dwarves?” Scoffing at the ridiculousness of that idea, Vulk jogged ahead, catching up with his friends.
Going deeper, the walls and floors became wetter and covered in various slimes, molds and fungi. The footing was increasingly treacherous, and although passages would widened to a promising degree, they all soon narrowed again, eventually terminating in dead ends. The last one almost proved to be literally so.
Devrik, in the lead as always, jerked to a sudden stop just as he was about to enter a large cavern. Less than a foot in front of him the torchlight revealed a floor covered in a sickly pale mass of… something fungus-like. Looking up, he saw that the walls and even the ceiling of the cavern were covered in the same slowly pulsating, undulating mass. Small puckers in the surface were a sickly reddish-purple, like – well, the comparison was obvious and disgusting. Remembering the nasty spore-cloud that almost killed Drake back on Baylora’s island, he was disinclined to investigate any more closely. The others all agreed, and they backed slowly away from the potential death trap.
Moving back up through the cave system, they eventually came to a section of passages and small chambers that showed signs of recent activity. Various mushrooms and other fungi, as well as some molds and algae were clearly being farmed in this area – the growth was too regular and defined. They soon stumbled across various tools and gear that were clearly meant to be used in cultivating this underground “garden.” Korwin again proved, if not exactly useful, at least interesting, when he picked up a trowel and concentrated on it for several minutes.
“Psychometry,” Devrik explained to the others. “He was telling me about it the other day… sometimes he can “read” the history of an object, or see events that happened near it. It’s something he’s just learned to use, apparently, so don’t expect much.”
Despite his relative inexperience with the technique, Korwin did see an image: an older, sour-looking man with stringy dark hair and a pinched face, using the trowel to tend a row of mushrooms… of course, since no one in the group had ever met Querdon Bartyne, they couldn’t say if that was who it was. But the inference was clear – Drake’s unpleasant relative had been cultivating various sources for his apothecary trade down here, for both the legal and illegal halves, no doubt. Perhaps it was while doing this that he discovered… whatever he had discovered.
After more wandering through the twisting caverns of this underground labyrinth they came to a large chamber of several levels, with stone shelves acting as ramps both up and down, and a truly horrendous stench.
“Dear gods,” Mariala gasped, “what in the Void died down here?!”
But while Devrik was as repulsed as the others by the smell of rotting flesh, he was more concerned with the faint chittering and rustling sounds he could hear coming from the right… an all too familiar chittering, he feared. Drawing his sword, he moved forward cautiously, and after a moment Mariala shrugged and followed him. Neither Vulk nor Korwin seemed anxious to know what lay in the shadowy pit they could just make out.
Following the ramp down into the depression, maybe twelve feet below the level of the chamber floor, they found a recess beneath another shelf of stone, covered in closely set iron bars. The smell was far more concentrated down here, and both Devrik and Mariala almost gagged as he thrust his torch forward. In the flickering light they saw what lay beyond the bars – a nest of tolaxta, maybe a score of them, although it was hard to tell since they were all dead and mostly dismembered and chewed up. Dead, that is, except for two, who broke off their gnawing on the bones of their siblings while warily eyeing one another, to glare at the sudden light and movement.
Devrik was very much aware of how fast these damn Eaters of Eyes could move, so he was surprised at the slow dash they made towards the bars and fresh prey. It’s true, they moved faster than most creatures their size, even now, but it was nothing compared to what he and the others had faced in that Zalik-mal hideout in Zebarin. And they didn’t even try to leap, but instead bit and scrabbled at the bars, trying to get to him. His left eye twitched involuntarily, but he didn’t step back from the bars, even as Mariala did.
Eventually Vulk and Korwin joined them, despite the stench, and they briefly discussed the idea of killing the obviously trapped creatures. They guessed that, whoever was responsible for keeping this apparently common Vortex-related security system functioning, they had either died in the Dür massacre, or fled from it. In either case, the vicious little beasts hadn’t been fed in quite awhile, and had turned on one another, with only these two strongest surviving. Although not for much longer, from the looks of it.
Devrik wasn’t feeling too merciful toward tolaxta, and no one else wanted to linger, so the friends headed quickly back up the ramp to the main chamber, leaving the two animals hissing and snapping behind them. The last thing Devrik heard ask he walked away was a sudden squeal and a wet, ripping sound. And then there was one, he thought with a satisfied grin.
Now the group decided to take the upward reaching stone shelf/ramp on the left side of the chamber, and this soon proved to be what they’d been looking for. There were obvious signs of recent widening, and as the passage narrowed it began to slope steeply downward, coming to an end in a ragged hole that pierced a masonry wall of well-dressed stone. Stepping over the rubble around the opening, the group found themselves in a 10-foot wide corridor, with a barrel ceiling about eight feet high, stretching into darkness to both the right and left.
“This is the most ancient Khundari stonework I think I’ve ever seen,” Vulk whispered to his friends. The atmosphere of dignified age seemed to call for whispers…
After a brief discussion, the group turned right and made their way down the corridor to where it made a sharp turn right. An alcove near the bend had clearly once held a statue of some sort, but was empty now except for debris and dust. As the new corridor stretched before them they noted a carved frieze of stylized Khundari symbols running down both sides, near the base of the ceiling’s vaulting.
Eventually another sharp right brought them into a very large chamber, which even two torches could not illuminate completely. It seemed square, perhaps 70 feet across, with a large square column, 20 feet on a side, rising up in the center of the space, from floor to the barrel-vaulted ceiling, which was perhaps 20 feet high.
Deep shadows flickered around the group as they stood staring at what lay ahead of them, to their left: a stone dais, perhaps 20 feet wide, was set in the back wall, between two square half-pillars. Three steps, covered in a faded, torn, and rotting carpet, deep red with gold trim, lead up to it on three sides. In the center sat a great stone sarcophagus, carved with exquisite artistry.
“The tomb of the Lost Prince, I’m guessing,” Vulk said quietly. The others nodded silent agreement.
Around the walls of the room, including those formed by the great central column, a bas-relief frieze ran. It seemed to depict scenes from the life of an ancient Khundari people, with one figure always larger and more imposing than any other… the occupant of the tomb, perhaps. On the section directly in back of and over the sarcophagus the figure was posed majestically, his gaze looking out and up to some unknowable distance, a mysterious tool or artifact in each hand. Or maybe one of them was a scepter? Hard to say…
Mariala quickly cast a spell to detect any arcane energies that might be present, and got a strong sense of magic from the area of the sarcophagus, and a milder sense of power, very faint, from the central pillar opposite the dais.
“Obviously the death trap will come from the pillar, when you try to open the sarcophagus,” Vulk said, being careful not to get between the two.
No one seemed anxious to get too close to the dais and its contents, so they spread out around the chamber, examining it in detail. Devrik focused on examining the sarcophagus from the foot of the stairs, careful not to step on the wide ceramic tiles set there. Vulk kept nervously peering into the dancing shadows that filled the corners of room, while Mariala examined the frieze more closely. Korwin discovered a cache of tools and torches stacked up neatly against the central pillar, on the far side from where they’d entered the room (there seemed to be at least two other exits that they could see). Mariala picked up one of the piled torches and lit it from Vulk’s, to better see the friezes.
As they moved about the room they quietly discussed their course of action. Devrik observed seven circular disks of carved stone set along the front edge of the sarcophagus, just below the lid. The central one was large, and intact, but the smaller ones, three to each side, appeared to have been chiseled to pieces.
“The last seal?” he asked, as the others gathered around at his quiet call. Mariala pointed out that there was one more damaged seal on the short edge of the sarcophagus (head or foot?), at which point Vulk noted the ninth seal on the other side, also damaged.
“Yes, it seems likely that this is the ‘last seal’ that Bartyne wrote of,” he said. “The one he couldn’t break without whatever that Rimbor fellow had, or knew…”
“But he seemed to think he could break it, eventually,” Devrik pointed out. “If so, then we certainly can…”
“But should we?” Vulk asked, frowning. “This is a tomb, after all. I’m not at all sure we should try to open the sarcophagus.”
“When did you get suddenly squeamish about, um, ‘archeological excavation’?” Mariala asked in surprise. “We’ve certainly taken our share of valuables from buried temples, tombs, what have you…”
“I don’t think a Naventhülian temple or the crypt of some undead monster really counts for much, as legitimate resting places go,” he replied. “And the Ancients don’t count at all. But this is a different matter, even as old as it appears to be… If we can find treasure that was buried along with this prince, I’m all for taking that, don’t get me wrong. But I see no need to disturb his bones!”
There ensued a brief discussion about the differences between grave robbing and archeological liberating, during which Devrik quietly made an attempt to dispel whatever enchantment guarded the sarcophagus. He didn’t mention it to the others until Mariala decided to try and do the same, after getting Vulk to agree they’d just look, and not disturb anyone’s bones. When she failed, he shrugged and admitted that he’d failed as well, ignoring the irate yammering about unilateral actions.
It was at this point that someone realized the three T’ara Kul could try to pool their energies and perhaps succeed where no single one of them had. Vulk again raised his objections to opening the actual grave, and suggested they focus their efforts on the seemingly weaker magic of the central pillar. Agreeing that this made sense, (and thinking privately that if it worked there, they could always try it on the sarcophagus), the three mages turned to face the pillar.
With Korwin at the center, Mariala to his left and Devrik to his right, the they each concentrated on merging their powers. Vulk stood well to the side, beyond Devrik (and hopefully out of range of any unfortunate side effects that might be coming), as he began his ritual to call Kasira’s blessing down on his friends’ attempt.
It was a simple spell, really, even with the effort to channel their energies together, and it took only seconds to cast. Just as Korwin released the combined energies at the wall, there came a guttural, shouted “NO!” and the shadows around them came suddenly to life! From all sides the group found themselves facing five short, very solidly built shadows in the shape of men.
When the first one struck a blindingly fast blow to Vulk’s chest with his open palm, sending him reeling backwards, he realized they weren’t shadows; just men dressed all in black – no, not men, Khundari! Even their beards were wrapped in black cloth, braided to hold them tight and close, and they wore some sort of light breastplate, with bracers on their forearms, all a flat black that seemed to absorb the light, as did their black clothes.
Two of the mysterious figures were attacking Devrik, and one each went for Korwin and Mariala. Devrik suffered one blow to the thigh that almost staggered him, but his counterstrike with his battlesword sent the second figure crashing to the ground unconscious and bleeding. Mariala and Korwin both managed to avoid the blurred, open-handed blows that were aimed at them, leaping back in surprise.
Mariala quickly cast her go-to spell in these situations, and was glad for all the practice she’d had – her mind was clear and precise, despite the fear, and the Fire Nerves spell brought her attacker to the ground in a writhing heap. She was a bit unnerved, however, by the utter silence with which he suffered what she knew to be agonizing pain.
Korwin cast a Frostblade spell, causing a blade of shimmering ice to form around his hand, and lunged at his own attacker, who leapt back in his turn, avoiding the blow. Devrik turned his full attention on his remaining attacker, who also avoided being struck – the agility and speed of these Khundari was totally unexpected. Strong that race was, certainly, and powerful warriors… but this kind of fighting, these moves…
The remaining shadow fighters prepared to leap at their targets once more, but before they could a deep, grinding rumble drew everyone’s attention to the pillar in the center of the room. The side of the pillar facing the dais was swiftly sinking into the floor, revealing a dark passage ten feet wide, with steps going down. Even as they all watched a dim light began to glow somewhere within the opening, and it silhouetted a massive shape that was slowly moving up the stairs. As it stepped into the light of the three torches, now laying on the floor, the same thought crossed the minds 0f all present: oh shit!
The thing was easily 12 feet tall, and massive, both wide and thick. It was roughly humanoid in shape, but only roughly, as it lacked much in the way of detail. There appeared to be only two indentations where the eyes would be, although these glowed with a red light, and when the mouth opened in an almost subsonic roar, it was not more than a gash across the thing’s face. The hands had three thick fingers and a thumb, while the feet had three splayed toes and some sort of dewclaw. The creature’s hide was a deep reddish brown, and looked more like rammed earth than skin. As it moved, cracks appeared in that hide, and a glowing orange substance oozed up to fill them, quickly darkening and thickening to match the surface. The total effect was of a spider web of glowing fissures that moved in random patterns across the thing’s surface, like magma leaking up from beneath a crust of hardened lava. And heat rolled off it in waves.
In the instant it took for all of this to register on the Hand of Fortune, the shadow fighters leapt again to the attack. But not, this time, at the Hand. Instead, two of them leapt upon the lumbering creature, drawing swords from sheathes on their backs as they did so. One of the dwarven fighters was sent flying back into the shadows by a tremendous blow from one of those massive arms, but the other managed to carve a slice out of the creature’s hide before bouncing away again. But even as he touched down lightly on the stone floor, the glowing magma began to fill and repair the wound. The Guardian lumbered forward…
Mariala cast a spell of confusion at the beast, but it seemed to have no effect. Korwin, seeing an opportunity, slipped behind the behemoth as it moved past him, dashing down the stairs. Devrik, of course, leapt to the attack and aimed a mighty two-handed blow at the monstrous form. Vulk, realizing he was going to be of little use as a swordsman in this fight, darted to where the third Khundari was trying to stop the bleeding of his companion downed by Devrik. Recognizing Vulk’s offer, the warrior immediately dove into the fight, drawing his own sword as he went.
But the battle appeared very one-sided. For every wound they managed to inflict, the magma soon healed it, and a blow from those massive arms threatened to decapitate someone if it ever landed. The first shadow fighter came limping back into the fray as Devrik aimed another blow at the damned thing, only to miss as it began to turn away. Its counter blow, though glancing, clipped his hand, breaking bone, tearing open flesh, and sending his sword flying to land with a clang on the steps of the dais.
What caused the monster to turn was Korwin. In the small chamber within and below the central pillar he had found a stone brazier full of glowing pebbles, the source of the light from within, and a statue of a noble Khundari, holding a stone tray on which rested a single object. It was about 18″ long, a narrow cylinder of smooth, white metal that flared into a bell shape at one end. Without thinking, Korwin reached for it…
In that instant, two things happened. The Guardian stopped its forward march and turned back toward the chamber it had just left, moving to regain the stairs. And Kowrin felt a presence in his mind, an alien intelligence, not necessarily hostile, but definitely in opposition to him. His mind reached out and battle was joined…
Above, the Guardian moved to crush the threat to its Purpose… it had no thoughts, as such, and little that might be called a mind, but it did have a Purpose. Devrik, despite the pain of his damaged hand, attempted to cast a fireball at the behemoth. But his control was imperfect, and the damn thing misfired, exploding against his own breastplate. He cursed furiously as he scrambled for his sword.
If Mariala had not cast another spell of confusion at that same moment, it is almost certain the Guardian’s Purpose would have been fulfilled, and Korwin would have become a red smear. But instead the Guardian paused… it had no real mind to be confused, but it did have a Purpose, and suddenly that Purpose was… unclear… it shook its massive head… which way…?
in the chamber below Kowrin again reached out with his mind to force the intelligence in this Ancient artifact (for he knew now with certainty that that is what it was) to bend to his will. And this time, with a snap, it did. Suddenly he knew what it was and how to use it… At that moment the Guardian above shook off its confusion and took the first step down the stairs. Korwin aimed the device at the creature and issued the mental trigger.
Nothing visible happened at first… there was an unpleasant ultrasonic hum that set the nerves on edge, but no flash of light, no beam of energy. Then, as the Guardian lifted its foot for the second step, the hide on its torso, head and arms (which were reaching down for the intruder) began to turn white, as if all the color was being leached from it. In an instant the transformation was complete, and in that same instant Korwin realized he’d made a small tactical error. The upper part of the Guardian had been turned to torlixam, as he’d expected, but that meant it was much too heavy for the surviving lower body to support, and too unbalanced…
As the massive pseudo-stone corpse toppled down towards him, Korwin took a flying leap, got one foot on the head, and managed to roll across the back as the thing slammed into the floor. By the time his friends had moved past the steaming remains of the Guardian’s lower half and were able to peer down at him, Kowrin was posed jauntily on top of the fallen creature, his weapon held high and grin of triumph on his face.
♦ ♦ ♦
By the time they got everyone’s wounds tended to and everyone was able to breathe for a moment, things had calmed down enough for conversation instead of battle. The Khundari explained that they had been stalking the group, thinking they were the ones intending to desecrate the holy resting place of their Lost Prince. It seemed that an outlaw Khundari priest, named Rimbor, had discovered ancient clues revealing the location of the Tomb, and had shared that information with an Umantari who was in a position to help him.
Eventually, however, he had realized the man was of an evil bent; in the end Rimbor had balked at the final breaching of the wards, and fled from his patron. But he had feared the man would nonetheless find a way to breach that seal, and so had confessed his guilt to a priest of Gheas. When word reached the Prince of Dürkon, Rhogûn the Young, he had dispatched a squad of his most skilled Shadow Warriors.
Arriving under the cover provided by the Khundari masons, the seven members of the team had begun to reconnoiter. They knew it was an apothecary they sought, and fixated on Drake and his companions. They made there own way into the Tomb this morning, intent on putting an end to any plans to further desecrate the site. But on hearing the friends talk, they realized they were not the ones they sought, and so they waited, and listened further. Vulk’s clear respect for the dead gave them pause, and it was only when they realized that the group intended to open the Chamber of the Guardian that they had moved to try and stop them. They hadn’t known the precise nature of the Guardian, but they knew it would be powerful, deadly, and indiscriminate!
“But that artifact you hold,” Lekorm, the leader of the Shadow Warriors said, turning to Korwin, “is the rightful property of the heirs of Akazdurön. I cannot let you leave here with it in you r possession.”
Before his friends could say or do anything hasty, Korwin immediately handed the device over to the Khundari, with a bow and a smile. The Shadow Warrior seemed almost as surprised as the humans.
“Of course it’s yours,” Korwin agreed with a shrug. “I wouldn’t dream of trying to keep it from your Prince.”
“And I won’t mind being owed a big honking favor by the Khundari, either,” he murmured to the others as they all made their way back up to Drakes apothecary shop.
Along the way, Mariala pulled Vulk aside. “Lekorm said there were seven in his team,” she whispered. “But there are only five here. Where are the other two?”
