The Journal of Brother Solomon

Part 13

In which we encounter an evil Chaos snake, traces of long dead monks and a possible Thanatari Skull.

Waterday, Disorderweek, Earthseason, 613

Over breakfast with the Dwarves, George asks what I know about the Maenonite Order; unfortunately I don’t know that much. They were big in the Moon Age but were disbanded five or six hundred years ago. Another monk of my priory once said they’d almost certainly backed the wrong side in the Civil War. Rufus asks if that was with the Wraithe cult but he’s getting his wars confused. The anti-Wraithe crusades were at the end of the Dawn Age, whereas the Civil War was between rival factions within Moonguard at the end of the Moon Age.

George asks what the Maenonites were about – like we Cyriacs are focused on Spirit – but I’ve honestly no idea, probably some aspect of Moon or Illusion. I can see what he’s getting at – could they be necromancers – but I just don’t know. The only thing I do know is that they all took vows of silence. Monks of many Orders do this on an individual basis but the Maenonites made it a central rule. Ariella suspects the Maenonites couldn’t reconcile themselves with the new Moonguard government and/or Duke but she’s heard they may have continued underground.

So we say goodbye to the Dwarves, bidding them a safe passage back to Loonz. They once again thank Fatima for saving Hulkam. And we set off north.

By mid-morning the trees are beginning to thin out and I’m thinking we’ll soon be on the stony ground mentioned in the poem when George all of a sudden stops dead in his tracks. I ask him what’s the matter but he’s just staring ahead, smiling. I follow his gaze and find the object of his attention is a snake in a tree, nine or ten feet off the ground, about ten yards away.

No one likes snakes at the best of times but this one has two heads! May Azrael save us!

George seems completely enraptured but I’m not the only one who’s spied the threat; Rufus draws a tomahawk even as I draw my dagger and we throw in unison. Alas his throw goes wide and my dagger skips off one of the heads with a ching, leaving no wound. In return, that head spits acid at me, damaging my new vambrace, while the other gives Rufus a hard stare, making him sway on his feet. Argh! Chaos! Behind me, I hear Ariella cast a spell but I don’t know if it works.

Clearly, missiles and spells are not going to deal with this threat, so we draw weapons and advance. Bitey is just ahead of me, glancing back for reassurance that he’s not alone. Dewhurst is with us but from the way he’s searching about I can tell he can’t yet see it – it is well camouflaged. I draw my sword and cast Parry as I shift my shield to my arm. Behind us I can hear Rufus and Ariella scrambling in the leaf litter but I’m not sure they can reach it.

Acid hits Bitey in the arm while the other head gazes at someone behind me. Ariella shoots two arrows over our heads but both vanish into the trees. Rufus casts a Disrupt but the snake doesn’t react.

Dewhurst has now spotted the thing and his throwing axe hits a head. But then, close up, I can see the camouflage pattern on its skin is moving and pulsating. Bitey halts, open-mouthed; I can feel it in my head too but I shake it off and swing my sword, hitting its body, making it writhe in pain. Good!

Bitey is enraptured by its skin. It spits at me again but I manage to dodge this time. The other head stares hard at Bitey but I’ve no idea what it’s doing. I’m vaguely aware that Dewhurst has halted and is staring at it with a smile on his face, just like George and Bitey – so I’m on my own. I hit it in the body again – I get more weight in this time, but I think its hide is tougher than it looks.

Then Bitey shakes his head and he’s back with us but Dewhurst is still entranced. Ariella casts a spell (she later tells me it’s Demoralise, which hits, but it’s hard to notice any effect). The snake hits Dewhurst in the helm with its acid spit and the other head gazes at Bitey. Again I swing my blade but the snake is writhing and I miss – seconds later my sword gets that sheen from Bladesharp (I later learn that Rufus cast it for Dewhurst and me). But before I can use it again, Bitey swings his axe and the thing is dead!

Dewhurst and George shake their heads and look around, blinking – it’s as if they’ve just woken from a dream. The snake is thoroughly dead and doesn’t seem to be regenerating. The Beavers are all for burning it but that skin, while no longer hypnotic, might be worth something to a leatherworker. Dewhurst is the best qualified but unfortunately the skin tears to shreds as he skins the creature – well he’s used to butchering pigs, Chaos snakes obviously need more experience. We burn what’s left.

We carry on out of the wood but after a couple of hours Rufus complains that he still has a headache from the snake incident. Ariella is the most competent in Chaos Lore and her guess is that it’s a lingering effect from the thing’s gaze attack. Of course, we can’t know exactly what it did but she says such effects usually aren’t permanent. If the headache persists, when we get back to Loonz Rufus may need to visit the Luciferan hospital.

By now we’re crossing the ‘rugged country stone’ from the Poem. In the distance we see hills ahead, stretching off to the left. The poem mentions bones and a fort. Squinting in the bright sunshine, still hours away, we can just make out a tower next to a copse. Rufus thinks the hills are taller to the west with one that might be called a mountain if you’re being generous, though I’m sure Ariella would disagree.

Then a couple of the others spot that some of the ‘stones’ we’re walking over are in fact bones! They look badly broken and are quite dry and brittle – they must have been here some time. Rufus examines one and pronounces it human. He thinks this might be a battle-ground from a century or more ago. Someone else finds an old arrowhead, badly verdigrised. My guess would be that this is where the Chaos horde overwhelmed the military might of the local nobility, 130 years ago. But I could be wrong if the bones are yet older.

The weather remains bright, clear and cold, perfect for walking, and we reach the fort mid-afternoon. Close up, it’s clear it’s ruined. One tower has collapsed completely. A second still stands to full height but looks decrepit. It’s three stories high but the top two are open to the elements on one side [see sketch]. The top has a walkway without battlements and is capped by a conical roof.

It’s an odd place for a castle, right next to trees that must block the view for defenders. Bitey wonders if the copse may have grown up since but Rufus thinks the trees are old – they’re almost as tall as the tower. Personally, to me the lack of battlements suggests it was built more for comfort than defence. I’m from Grimpen, part of the Trollmarches, where functional defence has to be given priority over material comfort. Clearly, whoever built this place failed to recognise the proximal threat of the Chaos Zone. You’d think they’d have more sense but let’s face it, sense isn’t a trait of the Selenite mentality.

As we approach we see the missing stonework from the tower has fallen in a heap on that side, which means we’ll need to clamber over the spoil to enter the tower. There’s also a sort of lean-to on the far side, which looks like a later addition. We walk right round and find a wooden door that’s clearly more recent, well-made and very sound – and locked. Rufus knocks but there’s no answer. Bitey is all for smashing the door in but George persuades him to try the tower first.

Looking around, we find tracks of booted feet from within the last week but it’s hard to be sure on such stony ground. Dewhurst thinks the same boots went into the copse.

So we have to scramble over the spoil heap to get in the tower. I seem to have more trouble than the others but it’s easy once I get the technique right. From the top of the mound we can see right into the middle floor, which is the most open – nothing moves.

The ground floor of the tower was once two semi-circular rooms but the wooden partition wall has almost entirely rotted away. There’s a door on the far side which must go into the lean-to. There’s also a stair spiralling up the inside of the wall. Someone detects a trap right at the top of the tower (almost certainly a comment on unsafe masonry) but it seems safe enough down here.

We can’t hold him back any longer – Bitey axes the door, which doesn’t hold out long. Inside the lean-to is a single room. Boxes are stacked against one wall with bedding spread on the opposite side. The boxes contain non-perishable foodstuff: smoked fish, salted beef, etc. There are recent bootprints in the lean-to, none in the tower. George wonders if this might be Malotov’s lair – it would be wonderful if we found him alive after all this time.

Up the stairs, as expected we find less than half the middle floor left. There’s a weathered wooden table pushed against the remaining wall but nothing else. I’m no expert but I suspect it won’t be long before this and the floor above collapse completely. I hope no one’s in the lean-to when that happens.

The top floor has furnishings: benches, book shelves (but no books) and, strangely, a robe hanging on a coat-rack. The robe must be recent because it’s not at all weathered. What a strange place to leave it! Even stranger, it’s a monk’s robe, similar to mine under all the armour. But these colours are a dark purple and silvery grey, whereas my Order wears white. I seem to recall these are the colours of the Maenonites – so it looks like Ariella’s guess must be right, either that or some Selenite has become blessed into thinking he’s a monk.

George wonders if some remnant of the Maenonite Order may have triggered the latest wave of Adrasteian vengeance. Thinking about it, I’ve a nasty feeling the owner of that bedding downstairs is more likely to be Ghaunadowr ‘the Faceless’ (also known as ‘the Silent’), using the tower for his own ends. There’s a trap door leading up onto the walkway but we leave it well alone since Detect Traps hints it’s dangerous.

George suggests we follow the tracks into the copse. It’s still an hour to dusk so why not? It’s a very small wood, just twenty to thirty trees of mixed deciduous type (trees aren’t my thing). It’s easy to follow the tracks in the leaf litter and they lead us to a stone slab lying on the ground. It kind of looks like a grave but it’s too big to be a fallen gravestone and there’s no writing on it.

It takes two but we lift the slab to find a wooden trap door beneath, but the underside of the slab has runes incised – I recognise Death and Truth immediately (Humakt’s runes), but there’s two others. Ariella recognises Chaos, of course. Immediately I feel a cold dread come over me – the last rune must be Darkness!

My father was a bit of an after-dinner speaker but there were a few tales he liked to avoid. I only heard him mention it the one time but in his adventuring days he’d once been part of a team to take down a Thanatari temple in Sunbury! He said it was one of the most difficult operations he’d ever been part of. He said the sight of the runes always made him shudder – Death, Truth, Darkness and Chaos! And he had nightmares about insane spirits to the day he died!

Dear lord! We’ve stumbled over a Thanatari Skull! May Azrael preserve us!

The runes are old and crumbling with age – Bitey thinks they must date from the ruin of the tower. Dewhurst says the slab was last lifted weeks ago, it may once have been the other way up. We find no traps. The others want to explore. I confess I don’t but I have a duty regarding the cure of souls so I suggest that I go down alone with a torch to confirm whether this is a Thanatari temple. If I sense any insane spirits I’ll come straight out.

In the end they persuade me not to go in alone – and to be honest I don’t need much persuasion, but I insist on going first and that everyone be ready to run for the exit on my order. I lead the way with a lit torch. The stair is narrow and goes down about ten feet but it’s still in earth rather than rock (obviously why the trees have grown here in the first place).

At the bottom is a tunnel, well made with robust wooden props but the Beavers think they’re old. It goes back toward the tower. George thinks no one’s been down here for a long time.

We follow it about twenty feet when I spy something that makes my blood run cold – at knee-height to the right, in a niche, is a human head! I ask everyone to retreat back a few yards while I examine it. I cast Spiritscreen – it looks dead. I kneel down and bring the torch closer – and the eyes open and look toward me! It’s alive! The mouth starts mouthing words but I lurch back and away without trying to make out what they’re saying.

I warn the others. Rufus wants to kill it and bind the spirit but that would be foolhardy, not to mention immoral. Ariella suggests we mark the place on a map and come back another time and she’s completely right. I’ll come back when I’m a shaman! And for the moment we have a time-critical mission. We exit and drop the slab back into place but anyone can see it’s been moved.

After a brief discussion we camp in the copse at George’s excellent suggestion – I wouldn’t like to find something horrible attacking us in a place where the only way out is by scrambling up and over lose rubble. Since we really don’t want to be noticed, we forego a fire so dinner is cold meat sandwiches.

We set watches, of course, but the night is quiet – save for my midnight prayers, and my dreams…

Clayday, Disorderweek, Earthseason, 613

The weather is still bright, clear and cold, with little prospect for change, according to Ariella. Like the weather, breakfast is cold but a brisk march soon warms us up.

The poem says we head northwest for one more day. Looking ahead, we’re pretty much looking along the range of hills, especially that lone hill, bigger than the rest, almost a mountain, some might say.

Initially the going is a little rough, but then Ariella, Rufus and George spot an old road paralleling our course a hundred yards to the right, which markedly eases progress. This proves to part of a network of roads in a square pattern, which is markedly unSelenite. The roads were very well laid, which is why they still usable today – Dwarf laid, possibly? Actually Silverseam Dwarves have built a lot of roads, especially in the Trollmarches, greatly aiding logistics. (Sorry for the technicalities – this is what happens when you grow up in a family of Humaktis.) We pass occasional ruins, but these are little more than foundations – honestly, there’s not enough to trip over. I wonder who stole the building materials?

Despite our angst, the day passes without event; aside from the occasional bird or small game, the area seems bereft of life. The ground rises as we approach the hills. The closest hill is probably also the largest. On the nearest spur is a tor that looks remarkably like a low fort, complete with crenellations, but on reaching it we see it’s entirely natural – a gift from Azrael’s Mother. We find recent Dwarf tracks, which must be Dardak’s team, from some time in the last week. From the top we have a great view all around. If I recall the maps correctly, Prague is not far beyond the line of hills blocking our vision to the north – I’ve heard it’s a very beautiful city. Selenites have their faults but ugly architecture isn’t one of them.

The poem’s rhetoric isn’t entirely poetic license, for the tor does indeed look like a crown. On the west side, one of the ‘crenellations’ is very smooth on the inner surface. It looks almost polished but when I run my hand over it I can feel some sort of bas-relief. With some care I take a rubbing – I can’t make head or tale of it and I wonder if it is just a natural thing, like the tor itself, but then George and Dewhurst hold it up and point out various features in our line of sight – it’s a relief map of the local terrain!

The poem says the rising Sun of Windsday should reveal the old Dwarf mine – provided it’s the right week and season; we won’t know until tomorrow.

We set up camp – if anything comes at us in the night, at the least we’ve a superb defensive spot.