This campaign chronicles the adventures of a rag-tag group on their quest for glory, wealth and power. The place and time is the Hyborian Age, as described by the great sage Robert E. Howard. All REH wrote has happened and only his writings are taken as canon. Supplements of Mongoose Conan d20 RPG are used in the game. Anything originating from pastiches is open to slaughter and mutilation without mercy. So if you are familiar with pastiches or Mongoose Conan supplements, don’t be surprised if they have been used for inspiration but vastly changed.

The game takes place immediately after the Hour of the Dragon. The original player characters are Nemedian soldiers, who flee the battlefield after the final battle is lost. During their desire to survive and get back home, they become entangled with ancient, sorcerous plots. Heroes fall and new ones join the group in struggle against a faceless enemy. At the same time, fortunes are made, ancient secrets revealed and souls lost.

Mood of the game is sword & sorcery spiced with Lovecraftian horror, moral dilemmas (being a bad guy is just easier) and occasional (mostly unintended) comedy. Some things are blatantly ripped off from Call of Cthulhu. So far the character have steadily fallen towards corruption and madness, turning more in to Howardian villains than heroes… but find out yourself by reading the stories! Check out the various house rules in Wiki, if you want to know how we play. Feel free to leave suggestions, comments questions and requests! The campaign page is both meant to be a tool for the players and entertainment to the rest of you.

The battle was lost and the survivors fled the best they could. The file of Adventurers, already dismounted for combat, was broken under a charge of Aquilonian cavalry. Two men did exactly what their enemies did not expect – instead of running, they broke through the thin line of enemy troops. After running until their legs could carry them no more, they found themselves up in the mountains. Tyrus and Barathus were on foot, having lost their horses in the battle. They had seen others go the same way, mounted – well, now it was every man for himself. They stopped for a short rest, before they’d have to start jogging again. There were no signs of pursuit yet, but that didn’t mean they were safe.

Noam and Alcemides had been keeping watch on the flanks of the army, in case the enemy would try to encircle Nemedians. When they heard the inhuman cry from the hill where the tent of the sorcerer Xaltotun had been and saw the Aquilonian knights mow their way through Nemedian troops,they knew the day was lost. Making their way to the mountains, they stumbled upon the two resting Adventurers. Weapons were drawn, suspicious gazes and harsh words exchanged, but soon it became apparent that they were all on the same side. After a short rest, the march towards the passage through the mountains continued.

A day and a night passed, weary soldiers sleeping restlessly in a hidden camp amid jagged rocks. During the night, a group of armed and armored riders passed them, their identity impossible to discern in the dark. Another weary day of marching commenced, food already getting scarce. Then a lone rider approached – not from behind, but ahead. Getting closer, the men noticed the bright colours he was wearing. A Zingaran jinette, one of the mercenaries Conan had brought with him. The rider attempted to merely ride through the Nemedians, but Alcemides’ lucky shot from seemingly impossible distance brought him down. Now they had one horse.

The passage started to widen in to a valley and ahead glimmered a stream, flowing into a bright pond by some forgotten ruins. Thirsty and tired, the men staggered to drink and wash themselves, one keeping watch when the other three rested. It was then when four mounted men where sighted, this time coming from behind them. One of them turned and galloped back towards Aquilonia, while the three urged their horses onward. The Nemedians took refuge in the ruins, hoping the remains of the stone walls would negate the advantage horses gave their adversaries. Alas, jinettes, accomplished horsemen, merely urged their horses to jump over the walls. They had no intention of being stuck in melee – instead they tried to net their prey, pulling them with them on a galloping horse. Failing that, they had javelins. The fight was quick and brutal, but in the end, two of the jinettes had fallen and the third was galloping away. Three horses, four men – but at least they could now rest their feet in turns.

Knowing that the five jinettes they had seen had been just scouts, the men pressed onwards. Noam and Alcemides had spotted tracks – a large group of men, perhaps as many as a hundred, had passed this way a short time ago. Fleeing Nemedians, most likely, now hunted by the mercenaries on their way home. They pressed on, ignoring sidetracks and the harsh beauty of the mountains. Three jinettes they had been able to take – double the number might well be their doom.

The valley started narrowing to a passage again and rising steeply. The tired men staggered forward. They dared not to rest before a good camping site could be found, one they could hide. Finally, as darkness began to fall, they made a camp amidst jagged rocks, on a steeply rising hill. Their rest was soon interrupted, as the sentry heard a large group of horsemen moving slowly on the road. Noam and Alcemides sneaked to investigate – it seemed like a large number of mounted soldiers, jinettes perhaps, were leading their horses on foot. They had no lights and tried to move as silently as possible – perhaps hoping to surprise someone? It might be that the other survivors of the battle were closer than they had thought.

The main body of the horsemen was followed by a smaller group, perhaps securing the rear. Alas, as the scouts began to withdraw back to their camp, a loose rock clattered down the hill, hitting the trees. The noise was followed by the clang of a sword against stone, and the rear guard of the Zingaran mercenaries was alerted to their presence. One of thtem, apprentally a tracker, found with a lantern the tracks they had left moving to their camp site. Six of the enemies started climbing the hillside, lead on by their tracker, two staying behind to guard the horses. The Nemedians had now two choices – to fight or run. They decided to make a stand. That way, they might perhaps be able to run through a warning to the large group of their comrades, which the Zingarans seemingly sought to surprise.

As the Zingarans climbed up the hill, they were met by arrows from the undergrowth. All of the fighters were hampered by the darkness, but what they lacked in vision, they made up in ferocity. Soon the fight broke up into a series of duels, Barathus frustrating his opponents by striking blades from their hands through fancy swordplay. Bloodied and battered, the Nemedians held their ground. As Tyrus and Alcemides charged down the hill, hoping to capture more horses, Noam and Barathus gave chase to the last Zingaran, now trying to escape. Realising that he could not outrun the warhound on his trail, the mercenary throwed himself at his enemies mercy. A barked order from Noam stopped his hound just as it was about to sink its teeth in the mercenary’s throat. It took a longer while for Barathus to put down his sword. Tyrus and Alcemides had no success at the downhill – seeing enemies charging down the hill, the men left to tend the horses that had galloped away, taking the mounts of fallen men with them.

Wounded and tired from battle, the Nemedians began the grim business of looting corpses, the warhound keeping a watchful eye on their prisoner. It was then that the sounds of war started cutting the night air, not far away. It seemed that the Zingaran mercenaries had found their prey. Now the Nemedians would have to decide whether to hide or charge into the fray, perhaps only to die in vain.

The stillness of the mountain night was broken by the sounds of war. Somewhere, not far away, steel clashed with steel and men cried out, in rage and pain and fear. The four men assembled, arguing what to do next. Alcemides, bored of the discussion, slipped away to scout ahead and keep an eye on the enemies. The sounds of battle continued to ring in the air. Sliding in the forest like a true Pict, he suddenly heard a different kind of clamour ahead – sounds of an armoured man forcing his way through the rough terrain. Hiding in the bushes, he soon saw a pale man, wearing anancient scale hauberk, leading ahead a loaded horse, in a great hurry. Not taking any chances, Alcemides assaulted him, battering the man unconscious and then dragging both the horse and the stranger to the camp.

Tying up both of their prisoners, the Nemedians decided to move their camp to a better location and to try getting some rest. The sounds of battle were already fading – they had tarried too long. It would be better to rest to recover their strength, interrogate the prisoners and avoid detection. That said, they laid down to ease their aching bodies with sleep, dreaming of wine and women. There were no further distractions and the tired warriors rested late in the next day.

In the morning Noam and Alcemides went hunting, while Barathus and Tyrus set to interrogate their prisoners. The pale youth, alost a boy, turned out to be a Nemedian like them, Dionysos by name, sent to Aquilonia just a short time ago. Although arrogant and aggressive, he was capable of convincing the two men to let him free. He had been with the larger group of Nemedians, when they had been attacked by jinettes. As the battle seemed to be lost – they had been taken by surprise – he had fled with as much equipment as he could carry. The Zingaran mercenary, Valenso by name, promised that there would be ransom for him in the nearest town across the border. He did not know anything useful, other than local geography and did not seem like a bad sort of fellow – just a man down on his luck trying to earn a living. The hunters brought back plenty of meat and the party decided to rest a full day, continuing their journey come next morning. As the woodsmen sneaked to the battlefield, they found only stripped corpses.

The next two days were uneventful. The Nemedians marched ahead, dragging along their prisoner, in the trail of the Zingarans and their prisoners. Valenso willingly told that the mercenaries planned to sell the prisoners as slaves, to gain some extra silver to spend. The passage widened into a valley, dominated by tall conifer trees. There were remains of a road running through the valley, a memory of the time when Zingara was not embroiled in civil war and merchants used the pass to transport their wares. As they made camp, Alcemides found a cobbled road, almost completely devoured by the forest, as he hunted for food. Curious and a bit bored, the men investigated, finding a once magnificent marble building. Searching the ruins it became obvious the place had once been a temple or a tomb dedicated to some fallen hero of Mitra. Somewhat alarming however was, that the almost intact statues and carvings of the place had been desecrated only a short while ago. Someone or something had been poking around in the ruins, obviously looking for something – and vandalizing the mausoleum while at it.

In the morning, the men continued their journey, keeping a slow pace to avoid running into any rear guard of the mercenaries. The suggestion of Alcemides to stay in the forest for a few days was rejected by the others. Although hunting might yield food, they had little in the form of other supplies. Besides, there was still a faint chance they could rescue their countrymen. After a few hours of travelling, the trail split in two. The mercenaries had went right and on the left seemed to be a village – a silent village, with the air of something being terribly wrong.

Alcemides and Noam went scouting. The village, surrounded by a circular palisade, might have been inhabitated by fifty people but now seemed almost devoid of life. Near the great hall in the center there were three horses – two starving wretches and a black stallion, great and powerful, with saddle and bridle enbroidered with gold. Guarding the horses were three strange men. Two were clad in ancient scale hauberks made of bronze, their leather parts rotting away, faces hidden beneath equally ancient helmets. The third was a black man, dressed in rags and holding a big club, drooling mindlessly, a bronze slave collar around his neck. Tattoos of snakes covered his body. Alcemides thought of stealing the beautiful horse, but it seemed that the black man spotted him through some unearthly means, letting out a terrible wail. The strange armoured men searched the village, but the scouts eluded them. From insade the main hall a female voice barked orders for them in an unknown language. Shortly after, another female voice begged for mercy, pleas ending in a gasp of pain and gurgling sounds. The scouts had seen and heard enough.

The five Nemedians halted to argue what to do next. They could just bypass the village – but on the other hand, they were short on supplies and curious about what was happening in there. Finally a decision was made. Alcemides and Noam would sneak inside the village and prepare themselves for sniping, if things would turn violent. A little while later, the three other men would ride inside with full gear, drawing all attention on themselves. They would try to negotiate first – but if that would fail, they were ready for battle. After all, they were in a desolate mountain valley and people of the border areas were often both violent and treacherous.

The two woodsmen sneaked inside without any problems, soon followed by the three mounted men. The number of strangely armoured men had doubled to four. When the three men rode to the centre of the village, one of the armoured men shouted inside. A woman emerged, dragging with her a terrified peasant girl, her face frozen in an expression of horror. If the woman had had some more flesh on her bones, she would have been a beauty. But now her skin was tightened on her bones like parchment, making her look like a living skeleton. Her skin was pale and hair black – she was obviously of Acheronian descent. In her hand she had a dagger made of bone, wet with blood, which she carelessly wiped at the tunic of the girl. A Fifth armoured man came out with him, brandishing an ancient bronze greatsword decorated with alien patterns.

Words were exchanged, the woman talking with Barathus but her eyes locked on Dionysos. Then suddenly, another voice intervened – a voice of a child, screaming and begging for help from inside the great hall. For a moment, the world seemed to freeze. Then Alcemides and Noam let their arrows loose from their hiding place. The woman screamed for his men to kill the others, but take Dionysos alive.

The fight was a prolonged clash of fury and skill. The armoured men all wielded ancient greatswords and attacked with insane abandon. When their scale hauberks were punctured and their flesh cut, they did not cry of pain, but moaned in perverse joy and pleasure. Tyrus was the first to draw blood, beheading a foe with one mighty blow, but when he closed on the woman, she made him fall into a helpless trance with her inhuman eyes. Barathus was struck down, with Tyrus and Dionysos wounded. A strange thing happened as well, another feat of vile sorcery, when an arrow from Noam’s bow hit true at the skeletal woman. As the woman fell to the ground, her form shifted to that of the poor peasant girl and the men heard a pounding of hooves, realising the sorceress was already on her horse, galloping away. Finally, all the armoured men had been struck down. Pulling off their helmets revealed Acheronian features.

The black man had not taken part in the fight, just standing still and holding his club. Once the wounded had been tended to, the Nemedians cautiously approached him. As he didn’t seem aggressive, they seized the man and following a flash of intuition, removed his bronze collar. The strangers eyes rolled over and he fell, unconscious. Inside the great hall the warriors found terrible carnage. The air was thick with the smell of blood and decayed flesh, the great hall full of corpses of men, women and children, brutally slain and worse, there was evidence of cannibalism. Two children whimpered in one dark corner, a boy no older than eight and a girl perhaps ten or twelve years old. The warriors laid down to rest and loot, Alcemides and the revived Barathus trying to take care of the children, who seemed withdrawn and fearful. Nothing of value or use was found in the village, other than some dried meat and the two nags.

Later in the evening, the stranger came back to consciousness. It seemed he had no idea where he was, but as the Nemedians pressed on, finally started to tell his story. He introduced himself as Thothmekri, servant and spy of a Stygian wizard, sent to investigate the doings of Xaltotun and other Acheronians in occupied Aquilonia. Somehow predator had become prey and the Acheronians had captured him, putting him in a magical bondage of some sort. Quick-witted, Thothmekri offered the men a reward. He would arrange them a free passage on a ship to any port of their choice and a hefty sum of silver as well, if they would escort him safely to Kordova. Better yet, if they would help Thothmekri to track down and capture the escaped sorceress, then help to take her alive to Kordova, much more silver would be paid. Weighting their options, the Nemedians decided to accept, though still wary of the strange man. Still weak from the battle, they decided to rest in the village and in the morning start hunting for the sorceress. Alcemides and Noam were adamant on taking the children with them – to bring them to Zingara, perhaps giving them to some temple to raise, rather than selling them to slavery as Dionysos suggested.

Thus darkness fell upon the village, stained with blood – and with it rolled a wall of fog, descending from the mountains like a thick, wet blanket.

The morning was misty and silent. Thothmekri claimed that he had seen dreams of the time he was enslaved and now knew that the sorceress resided in some sort of tomb or temple, beneath the earth. The men ate breakfast in grim silence, mounted their steeds and prepared for the hunt. Alcemides and Noam set forth early to look for tracks, while the others stayed behind, scavening anything useful they could still find and turning the great hall into a funeral pyre for the dead villagers.

Alcemides and Noam followed the tracks, till they suddenly turned into animal tracks leading up towards the mountains. They waited there for the others, who left the village a few hours later. Together, the group set out to follow the tracks. As the path become steeper, the fog became thicker. Slowly, all sounds of life ceased and the horses started getting nervous. Some of the group heard malevolent whispering in the mists – too silent to hear words or meanings, but loud enough to make the spine crawl with cold fear of the unnatural.

Soon the trail turned in to a steep mountain path, too dangerous to ride. The men decided to leave the horses, children and the prisoner down while they would proceed ahead. The children were given poniards for self-defence and Noam left his warhound to protect and guard them. The thick fog made climbing the mountain path slow and tedious. Finally it ended on a small outcropping, where an entrance to a dark cave was visible. In the stone wall next to it was attached ancient bronze circles and to them tied two ragged, unkempt horses and the black stallion. The stallion seemed unruly and aggressive, so the men just crept on.

The cave was dark and the warriors proceeded carefully, their way lit by lanterns. The cavern seemed natural, continuing a short while downward before widening. There was evidence of digging – discarded tools lying about and a wall breached, opening into a gaping void. Apperentally the hole in the wall opened in the ceiling of a room with walls of worked stone and a floor full of sarcophagi. Soon enough all five were on the floor of the room, having descended there with a rope.

The room seemed to be an ancient burial chamber, now desecrated. Old bones were scattered about the room. Everything from walls to the ceiling was made of purple, almost crimson stone decorated with uncomfortable geometric designs. At the other end of the room were huge double doors, apparentally made of bronze. Tyrus and Dionysos deciphered the engravings on the door as a text stating the place to be a crypt and a temple, where an ancient Acheronian lord named Bhaal Xorat is set to “eternally guard the entrance to N’Kai”. Pressing onwards, the men arrived in a small corridor leading into a very large room. It was empty save for a hole in the floor with the likeness of a well, except no water was visible. Dropping a torch down it made it appear to be hundreds of feet deep – and the insides of the tunnel were decorated as well. The light of their lantern cast uncomfortable shadows on the strange architecture, giving the alien carvings a life of their own.

Carefully, the men proceeded to a staircase leading downwards. Now they heard chanting ahead, lead by a female voice. Alcemides sneaked to a door that was slightly ajar, spying ahead a room with an altar stone or a sarcophagus in a middle, the pale sorceress chanting near it, her back to the door. An attack plan was quickly formulated and Alcemides slowly opened the door… only to get hit by a greatsword, as an armoured Acheronian was standing in wait beside the door.

A fight ensued, a clash of steel and bone and fists. Thothmekri managed to knock his prey unconscious while the others fought with guards of the sorceress. Barathus and Dionysos were struck down, the other badly wounded – one of the Acheronians was left standing alone and yet almost defeated the brave group, enduring strikes that should have felled the man many times over. Finally a strong spear thrust by Thothmekri to his spine made the pale man fall, silently, without a sound – just like he had fought. It seemed they had won. The wounded were tended to and the area inspected. The altar was not an altar at all, but a huge sarcophagus, engraved with wicked runes and eldtrich symbols. In its open embrace was laid a skeleton of a very tall man, still draped in the remnants of rich robes and plentiful bronze jewelry. Around his neck was a bronze collar, identical to the one that Thothmekri had been forced to wear. In his empty eyesockets were two red gems, gleaming in the shadowy light.

Tyrus pried the gems off the skull, while Dionysos and Thothmekri started deciphering the runes on the sarcophagus. The collar of the corpse was as well removed. It seemed that the man lying in the sarcophagus was Bhaal Xorat, named as a traitor in the runes – cursed manyfold for untold sins and set in the chamber to guard the entrance to the temple of a great god, to wait the awakening of the deity in damnation. So powerful and wicked were the words that they might have made those faint of heart to shake in fear. Yet it seemed that there was a stairway in the room, leading downwards – two Acheronians had bursted up the stairs to join the combat. It was agreed that the badly wounded Dionysos and Barathus would stay behind to rest and guard the sorceress, while the other four men would descend the stairs.

The four men crept down the spiral stairs, which seemed to last forever. There was an unspeakable stench in the air, growing stronger by every step, faintly resembling that of a rotting corpse. Finally the stairs seemed to reach the bottom, leading to a corridor, and beyond that, a huge temple. Rows of stone benches lined the walls, enough to hold a hundred in some solemn ceremony. A huge brazier hung from the wall, it’s flame burning sickly green. Across the room was a huge statue of some forgotten god – a creature with toadlike features, squat and alien, like a twisted imitation of a human, covered with something that looked like short fur. Before the strange idol was a twenty feet wide pool of black, jelly-like liquid. On both sides of the statue was a doorway leading somewhere deeper inside the earth. The men stopped, looking at each other, then advanced slowly. When they came closer to the pool, the dark substance started to bubble viciously. They backed off and the bubbling ceased.

Finally, a jest lead in to another and soon Tyrus and Alcimedes were each claiming that the other would not dare to run across the room. Finally, when Tyrus bet 12 silver that Alcemides would not dare to do a such thing, the half-pict agreed. The other three men stayed back as he sprinted ahead. As he neared the pool it first bubbled – and then started moving. Tentacles and maws were growing from it, as it flowed from the basin, black as night and formless, some unnamed horror from times forgotten by men. They were all taken by a great terror – Thothmekri, Alchimedes, Tyrus and Noam, all four – terrified like hunted animals. Perhaps it was some racial memory from the time when the World was young, telling them to run and not look back.

They ran up the stairs and continued on, by their surprised comrades. Cursing, Dionysos and Barathus limped after their fellows, dragging the sorceress along. They did not know what the others had seen, but the look of horror on their faces was enough. They ran and clambered down the rope with the strength provided by pure terror. The Oothers continued on but some morbid curiosity made Tyrus stay back, on the edge of the cliff to see if something would come to the room below. It did not take long of him to run after the others.

They took the two horses, but didnt bother with the black stallion, as it was aggressive and would have required concentration. At the base of the cliff the four men who had been at the cavern forced the others to jump in their saddles and ride as fast as they could. The four of them all agreed that they would have to get as far as possible from the cave before darkness fell. They galloped like all the devils of Hell were on their tails and who knows – maybe they were.

Finally when darkness started creeping on them, Barathus made the others listen to reason. He convinced them that it would be better use the remaining light to find a good, defensible camp site in case something would come after than, rather than rush ahead in darkness. A camp was set up in the fog and this time, guards would do their duty in pairs.

Night crept on. As Dionysos and Noam were on the watch after midnight, the horses started getting restless. The warhound started growling at the darkness, although nothing was heard or seen by the sentries. Dionysos went to wake the other, but some dark slumber had taken over them. Barathus and Tyrus were awakened after much kicking and punching, but the others had been drawn to dark dreams that would not let their grasp loosen. The four men huddled together, drawing their weapons – and then they saw it, a tall, gaunt figure in the mist, walking towards them.

Terrible coldness fell upon them, all four. Dionysos, Noam and Alcemides fell at its grasp, collapsing as if dead. It was a large jagged rock that saved Tyrus and Barathus from the same fate – as they fell, they hit their heads against it, the sharp pain returning them to their senses. Seeing the gaunt figure approach they fled, sensing sorcery in the air. Barathus, seeing the sorceress tied on the ground, slit her throat with his dagger, hoping it to drive the apparition away. But alas, it was of no use and so the two half-naked men fled in to the dark forest, soon getting lost and leaving their comrades to their fates.

Morning came – first morning and then midday. Barathus and Tyrus wandered the woods, finally finding out where they were and heading back towards the camp. Back in the camp, the others awakened. They had seen dark nightmares they did not remember much of and were covered with frost, but were otherwise unharmed. In the middle of the camp site was a large chest, made of purple, almost crimson stone. Inspection revealed that it contained strange jewelry and black globes made of glass – and a silver mirror, decorated with snakes. It was Dionysos who said it aloud first – perhaps Bhaal Xorat was grateful to them, for some reason, perhaps they had released it from its servitude.

As the two missing men returned, the situation was assessed in detail. Tyrus noticed that the gems he had taken from the skull of Bhaal Xorat had turned to a fine dust. Barathus explained that the murder of the sorceress had been caused by sorcery, his hand forced by black magics. Thothmekri was furious at the loss at his prey – but then made a new offer. If the corpse of the woman could be transported to Kordova, he would pay half of the agreed sum as a reward. Strangely, two horses were missing. Alcemides and Noam followed their tracks a little while away from the camp, where they found the corpses. Two mummified remains of horses laid there, withered and dry, as if all liquids had been sucked from their bodies.

The men and two children moved onward, leaving the mummified horses behind. The loot from the mysterious chest was inspected and removed, after which they buried the stone container in the ground. There was no point in dragging such a heavy object along, even if it was valuable. They could come back to retrieve it later, perhaps. After a while, Alcemides and Noam managed to convince Thothmekri that the corpse of the sorceress would need to be gutted if they were planning to transport it with them. After some persuasion, the Stygian agreed and went on to perform the grim business with Alcemides.

The wide valley turned back in to a mountain passage. Cold rain erupted from the sky, soaking the group. In the coming days it turned in to sleet and then to snow. The Journey onward in the mud was far from easy, especially when the Nemedians had no proper winter clothing. Finally, as the snow turned back to sleet again, a ruined fort came in sight, marking the border of Zingara. The promise of civilization nearby lifted their spirits, and the group camped in the crumbling fortress. Tracks inside the walls told that the Zingaran mercenaries had come the same way a few days earlier, along with their Nemedian prisoners.

Pressing ahead, the travellers set their foot on Zingaran soil, once beautiful but now ravaged by the vicious civil war. During the days that followed, they saw signs of past prosperity everywhere around them. Once lush orchards and fields had been left untended for years, farmhouses were looted and villages burned. Finally, they arrived at the fortified town of Jerida, built on the bank of the Black River. The town had seen better days and it was surrounded by a pitiful refugee camp. Even with its crumbling walls and hordes of beggars it was still a welcome sight. The thought of a warm meal, soft beds and perhaps a drink or two was on the mind of everyone, even the enigmatic Stygian.

Pushing their way through the ragged beggars preying outside the city gates, the men agreed to hold on to their Acheronian tresures untill they reached Kordova. They had some silver to spend, but the jewelry and strange coins would only attract unwanted attention. Besides, the sorry state of the town seem to tell that they’d fetch a miserable price for their treasure here. The group set up in the local inn, then went off to see what the town had to offer for them.

A few days of heavy drinking and relaxation ensured. Eventually the men ended up watching the violent entertainment of a local arena. A drunken thought lead to another and soon enough Alcemides had signed up in the unarmed amateur fighting. Alcemides won his fight, earning a few silvers and cheers from the crowd. Next morning the men started planning the journey ahead. They decided to sell their horses and buy a passage with a river boat downstream to Kordova with the money. The ship, Hawk of Kordova, would leave in five days, so they’d have time to enjoy the joys of civilization for a bit longer.

A few days and many punches later, the arena life seemed pretty good for the Nemedians. Alcemides and Noam had both their share of bruises and punches in the arena, earning more silver to drink through bets and participation prices alike. Indeed, for men with less ambition, living as an arena fighter might have been a good life. With good luck in betting, throwing and receiving a few punches was after all worth enough money to spend two days in drunken revelry – not to mention gaining a name among the ladies.

On their last day at Jerida before the ship was bound to leave, the men decided to bet large amounts of silver on the arena. Alcemides, Noam, Barathus and even Thothmekri decided to fight in the hopes of earning more money for new equipment and travel costs. Through both luck and skill, all four won, earning considerable amount of coin through well-placed bets. Despite their best judgement, an evening of hilarity followed as the victors were drawn in to celebrating their success.

Later in the evening, things started getting out of hand. Dionysos provoked a local mercenary with his arrogant behaviour, punches were exchanged and soon the whole drinking den was turned into one merry barfight. Stools were flying, tankards used as weapons and even a whole table thrown against another brawler. When the city watch entered the scene, half a dozen unconscious men littered the floor. Only the verbal talent of Barathus, the least drunk of the merry group, along with the exchange of a hefty sum of silver prevented the guard sergeant from hauling off Dionysos and a few others off to the jail. Next morning, only throbbing headaches reminded of the fray – and the discovery that the Zingaran prisoner had managed escape with a pouch of silver while the men were drinking themselves senseless.

Morbid and silent, the men boarded the ship, Hawk of Korduva, greeted by the captain. Barathus had asked around after the missing prisoner and found out that he had been sighted in the harbour with some local lowlives. The mercenary knew of the treasures the traveller carried – it was possible, even likely, that the journey to Korduva would not be entirely peaceful.

The river barge floated downstream towards Kordova, carrying the quickly bored Nemedians onboard. The journey would take a week or so, as the ship had to anchor each night. The barge was transporting tin bars to the sea harbour downstream, her crew and captain happy to accept passengers for some extra coin.

During the first days of the trip, the Nemedians just let the days slip by, engaging in petty gambling and chatting. More out of boredom than true necessity, they started taking part in the night watches. The children stayed silent and closed, yet Alcemides was determined to take care of their well-being. Onboard, Thothmekri told a bit about himself and his past. He had been a street urchin and a thief, untill a burglary went wrong and he was caught. Instead of a gruesome execution he was taken as an apprentice and servant to a powerful wizard. In a few years, he had become the unnamed sorcerer’s assistant and spy in the World beyond Stygia. It seemed that the Stygian enjoyed his role as a proxy of some powerful master in shadowy games of espionage.

On the fourth night of the trip, Tyrus was sitting on the deck as a night sentry when he heard cries of help from the shore. An obviously female voice screamed for help, before being suddenly cut off. Sentries among the crew heard the cries as well, going to wake the captain. He decided that the trouble on the shore was not his problem. Worse yet, it could be some sort of trap by river pirates. Tyrus was not happy with that and instead went to wake up Noam and Barathus, explaining them the situation. They decided to take one of the ships rowboats and go to check the shore, something the captain grudgingly agreed to. They reasoned that Alcemides and Dionysos would not be interested in the plight of a stranger and went on their excursion without waking the two other Nemedians or the Stygian.

As they beached the boat, the trio almost immediately spotted a fire on top of a hill nearby. Against the flames three silhouettes could be seen, clearly visible in the dark night. Tyrus and Noam went sneaking ahead, Barathus following behind them in his brigandine. On the hill seemed to be a camp some sort, with three rough looking men with wild beards and dirty clothes sitting on logs. On the ground was laying a woman in colorful robes, tied and gagged with ropes. The three Nemedians decided to attack without a warning, making short work of the (apparent) bandits.

As they returned to the boat, carrying the gagged and tied woman with them, shadowy shapes followed. Just as they had started rowing towards the ship, crossbow bolts started raining after the men. Instead of rowing to safety, Barathus intimidated the others to turn the boat and return to the beach, setting himself in the front with his shield up. As they reached the beach, the three men and the wardog started giving a chase to elusive, ragged forms, of which some seemed to be women. The frustrating skirmish in the dark forest seemed to carry on and on, although they managed to incapacitate at least one of the attackers. Finally the three decided to retreat, instead of hunting bandits all night long and risking getting lost in unfamiliar terrain. Meanwhile, the sounds of battle had woken up everyone aboard the ship.

As the trio finally returned onboard, the woman was freed from her restraints. Untied, she turned out to be a stunning Shemite beauty. The woman explained that she was a priestess of Ishtar, who had been enjoying the hospitality of a local baron. As she went to the local woods to look for herbs, she was attacked by bandits. Only through sheer luck she managed to escape for a moment later on to shout for help when she saw the lights of the ship. She was not very fond of the baron however, and made it clear she would prefer to journey to Kordova with the boat. The captain was glad to grant her that request. Her presence seems to have an electrifying effect on all the men, and the captain invited her to reside in his personal cabin.

The next few days passed by as before, although the priestess wandering through the decks always caught the attention of the crewmembers and the Nemedians alike. It seemed she sought out the ones easiest to manipulate and then extracted information out of them – something that became obvious only later. The third night before arriving at Kordova the priestess announced that at midnight, a special ritual for Ishtar would take place. All of the group, except Thothmekri and Noam, made sure they were on the main deck as the midnight came closer. As the priestess started dancing, wearing only transparent silk, they forgot the absence of their friends – as well as the fact that no crewmembers seem to be in sight anywhere.

Suddenly Alcemides noticed that something seemed to be wrong. There were rope ladders set against the sides of the ship. Just as he started moving towards them, there was a glint of moonlight on steel and the first of the attackers jumped on the deck. Soon the “priestess” was on him, fighting barehanded like a devil and pricking his skin with a ring, armed with a hidden needle coated with poison.

A brutal combat ensued on the deck, which was soon slippery from blood. Attackers armed with cutlasses and arming swords swarmed over the sides, while the treacherous woman seemed as dangerous with her bare hands and feet as an armed man. Luckily, the noise awoke Noam and Thothmekri, who charged into the fray straight from their hammocks. Finally, Dionysos was reduced to a desperate measure, releasing his arcane energy in a shockwave of death, killing foes and Noam’s faithful warhound. As the remaining aggressors started to withdraw towards their boats, Alcemides and Barathus jumped on the other boat straight from the deck. At the same time Noam peppered fleeing enemies with arrows. As the bloody night was finally over, blood and corpses covered the deck. A few floated in the river, with arrows in their backs, including the corpse of the treacherous woman. Only a few attackers had managed to flee. Yet the Nemedians were badly wounded as well, especially Alcemides, who had become paralyzed by the poison coursing in his veins.

As the wounded were tended to and the fallen inspected, it became obvious that all of the crewmembers were missing. A quick search of the ship revealed that they were all unconscious, from a sleeping draught slipped in the wine barrels. The passengers had been saved from that fate, as they preferred to consume their own rations instead of what the sailors had to offer. The bloodied men were facing a new temptation. As the wounded, exhausted Dionysos said with a rasping voice, they could just slit the throats of the sleeping men and steal the whole ship. Surely it would net them a princely sum of gold and silver.

The moment of temptation seemed to drag on forever. Dionysos and Alcemides were especially keen to cut the throats of the unsuspecting crew and claim the ship for themselves. Finally, Barathus convinced them otherwise through simple logic – none of them were sailors. Thus the crew was woken up and the journey commenced next morning. After a few days, they saw the walls of Kordova on the horizon.

The city seemed exotic to the Nemedians, who had not visited other foreign countries than Aquilonia. Thothmekri seemed to be right at home after they had entered the capital of war-torn Zingara. The mysterious Stygian recommanded an inn for the weary travelers, promising to send some people for the corpse of the Acheronian sorceress and bring the silver promised. With those words, he disappeared into the crowd. Alcemides went forth to deliver the orphans to a local Mitraneum, paying the priests handsomely in exchange for promises of taking care of the children.

The Nemedians were soon taken in by the lures of civilization, busying themselves in whoring, gambling and drinking. The Stygian was true to his word, as the silver coins he promised were delivered to their inn by mute slaves, who took the corpse with them. The temple of Ishtar came especially familiar to the wanderers, thanks to its temple prostitutes. The priestesses claimed that they had never heard of the woman that had attacked the Nemedians aboard the river barge. Soon enough the Nemedians realized that they were both rich and poor at the same time. They had plenty of Acheronian gold from the chest they had mysteriously received, but exchanging such cursed currency to normal coinage would be hard. They’d have to find some way to pay for their booze and rooms untill the sea voyage promised by the Stygian would be arranged. Soon enough they were drawn in to fighting at a local arena for both glory and wealth.

The common fights went well and a local arena manager suggested that Alcemides would put together a group to take on a special challenge – a group of amateurs in unarmed match against a professional gladiator Thorviga the Red. The half-pict accepted, thinking of the glory and the possible wealth from betting. Alcemides had an idea – the group would fight dressed and painted like Picts for extra effect from the crowd, with the pale Dionysos being “an Acheronian Witch-king” for their amusement. He even hired a “shaman drummer” to pound Pictish drums in the background. Noam and Alcemides came up with an idea of seeking helpful herbs from the nearby swamp to use in the upcoming fight.

While the other prepared for the arena match, Dionysos had got himself acquainted with local nobility as he spent much time in the temple of Ishtar. A young Zingaran nobleman by the name of Korzetta seemed to know people interested in Acheronian coins. He spent all his days and nights in the temple, spending coin liberally on both lotus and prostitutes. He confessed that the rest of his family had left Zingara and he was the only one left after the family had abandoned their castle. Dionysos and the young Korzetta seemed to have much in common, at least in their decadence. Indeed, Korzetta came up with an invitation to “an interesting party” after the upcoming arena match, which he would come to watch. Dionysos even convinced him to arrange the bets for the group.

The Nemedians set themselves up for the upcoming match with great care. They had been promised a bonus if they’d put up a good show and they spent much of their wealth in placing bets for themselves. As the gates of the main arena opened, they were greated by thundering roars of the bloodthirsty audience. To their surprise, the gladiator they were supposed to fight with turned out to be a huge Nordheimer woman. Despite the odds, Thorviga wrestled and tossed the men around like children. Only after a heavy beating she did fall. By then both Dionysos and Alcemides were unconscious on the sand, the rest barely standing on their feet. Yet still, they had won and won both large amount of silver and the thundering cheers of the crowd.

A splendidly decorated carriage awaited for the victorious fighters. Dionysos and Alcemides were reinvigorated back to their feet. Korzetta joined the group , delivering them the silver they had won from their bets and congratulating them for their victory. The carriage started surprisingly towards the harbor instead of the more prestigious districts of the town, entering a shady harbor warehouse. Masked servants lead the celebrants to stairs that descended undearneath the city, into the infamous ruins known as the Pit. Yet the corridors they travelled were lit with torches and guarded by masked, armed men. Despite the ill omens, the Nemedians and the Zingaran nobleman arrived safely in a great underground, perhaps underwater, hall that was full of people dressed in rich livery.

Drink and food flowed freely in the party, which was not without its charms. Plenty of young noblewomen were interested in the exotic, victorious gladiators. Korzetta was happy to introduce Barathus and Dionysos to the local nobility. The party dragged on to the small hours. A veiled nobleman who introduced himself as Baron Castante showed special interest in the Nemedians, trying to loosen their lips on the subject of Thothmekri. However, the Zingaran was blunt in his attempt and the foreigners denied knowing the Stygian at all. The enigmatic baron invited the group to a party he would hold in his mansion in a weeks time and showed interest towards buying the Acheronian artifacts they possessed.

The morning was hazy and noisy, as the men tried to sleep off the unfortunate side effects of the party and the arena match.Korzetta met Dionysos in the temple of Ishtar and made him a very interesting offer, that would have more significance than either could even guess…

The young Korzetta explained that he was suffering from an ailment of some sort and did not expect to live longer than a year or so. There was, however a way to cure it. In the great Zingaran swamps lay the burned ruins of an old manor and in their grounds was a hidden tomb, untouched and unlooted. If the Nemedians could locate the tomb and bring a specific goblet for him, they could have any other items they could find – as well as receiving an invitation to a “very special party”, that would bring interesting opportunities for them all.

Tipsy and dizzy from smoking lotus, Dionysos accepted the offer. The Nemedians would need to find a Zingaran veteran, known for his crippled legs, who was supposed to have the map to the tomb. Thus, next morning, the men went off to scour the slums of Kordova looking for the man. Splitting into two groups, the Nemedians set off, questioning the orphans and beggars. In the evening they met again at the inn, sharing the information they had received. It seemed the cripple they were looking for had not been seen for a few days, although one old drunk had claimed to have seen him being abducted by armed mercenaries with a gilded palanquin.

Frustrated and empty-handed, the five men sat in sullen silence when a dusk-skinned messenger entered the inn. He had a scrap of parchment with him, the handwriting of Thothmekri easily identifiable. He asked to see them in a specific harborside inn and promised to help them in their troubles. Although suspicious of the good timing of the message, the Nemedians still made their way to the harbor. If nothing else, at least they could down a few ales tonight.

The seaside tavern was full of dirty men and loud noises. The tavernkeeper, a dark-skinned man of questionable descent, guided the group to the cellar of the tavern. Inside sat Thothmekri behind a wooden table, reading a papyrus. Wine and fruit were brought to the group as the enigmatic Stygian welcomed the men into his den. With hushed tones he explained that the offer Korzetta had given to Dionysos had drifted to his ears. The Stygian offered his help in finding the tomb, if in exchange, the Nemedians would arrange him to accompany them to the meeting Korzetta had offered as a reward. He would as well wish to see the goblet Korzetta wanted before it was given to the Zingaran.

After a short discussion, the Nemedians agreed. Thothmekri explained that the map they seeked was actually branded on the skin of the veteran and that the man in question had been abducted. A local noble, Don Estebio, was a man of questionable taste and unquestionable wealth. He had a strange habit, the collecting of madmen. The veteran they seeked was the newest prize of his collection. Thothmekri told that the Nemedians could either try to break in to his manor or try to convince him to let them see his collection. The fortified manor was located half a days ride away from Kordova on the seashore.

Leaving for their inn, the Nemedians started making plans for their trip to the Estebio Manor. Dionysos and Barathus convinced the others to choose a diplomatic approach, at least as a scouting foray. They would introduce themselves as foreign nobles interested in Estebio’s bizarre collection, while the others would play the part of their entourage. Next morning, they set forth from the gates, changing their travel-stained clothing in to court outfits once the manor was in sight.

The Estebio Manor had once surely been a magnificent sight – a walled manor of white stone surrounded by orchards and overlooking the sea from a high cliff. Now time had taken its toll and the walls were ruined, the manor itself obviously lacking in maintenance. Yet still armed men seemed to patrol the crumbling walls and the advancing Nemedians were soon challenged by the nobleman’s soldiers. Stating their wish to see the master of the manor, they managed to talk their way inside.

The splendid main hall of the manor did not share the disrepair of the outer walls, being full of finely decorated furniture and art. Don Estebio turned out to be an obese nobleman in his late fourties. His features had perhaps once been strikingly handsome, but now bore the marks of decadence and a touch of cruelty. After offering some wine to the Nemedians, he listened to their elaborate pleas and agreed to show them his collection. Taking the men upstairs, Estebio entered a room full of old pottery, glowing with pride. The confused Nemedians were taken to a tour of old pots, none of which seemed particulary valuable or exotic.

Barathus, Dionysos and the rest followed the noblemans tour politely, before finally admitting that they had come to admire a collection of another type entirely. Seemingly triumphant, Estebio admitted that he had been only testing them to see if they had come to appreciate true beauty. Almost dancing his way down, the Zingaran lead the Nemedians downstairs to the cellar and then towards stairs leading underground. The dark entry was guarded by two huge Shemites leaning on tulwars.As the nobleman opened the heavy gate leading downwards, shrill, barely human shrieks pierced the air. Obviously, the true collection was located there.

The stairs ended in to a huge cavern, only partially lit by torchlight. A strong smell of salt pervaded the air, suggesting that the cave was connected to the sea – although it was almost overwhelmed by the stench of unwashed human bodies. A few massive Shemites seemed to be guarding the cavern, on the walls of which were cell doors of reinforced wood. Estebio sat in a decorated chair in the middle of the room, declaring that he would spend a moment enjoying the music his collection produced. He invited the guests to take a look at his treasures through the viewing slots in the cell doors.

In each of the small cells was stuck one to three human wrecks, some free and others chained to the walls. Various maladies of mental nature apparentally troubled them all – some were shrieking madly, others sobbing in corners and one man was drawing furiously on the walls with his own blood. The Nemedians could hardly hide their shock and disgust from their host. Yet, in one of the cells they found a man matching the description they had been given. The men asked Estebio for permission to look at some of his prisoners more closely.

After some flattery, the Zingaran agreed and one of his minions opened doors to the cells the Nemedians wanted to inspect. Wishing to hide their intents, the men first spend some time with other prisoners. As they came to the veteran with the map, Dionysos and Barathus drew away the attention of their host while Tyrus quickly sketched the map burned on the back of the poor cripple. Leaving the mansion behind, the men stopped to argue on the way back to Kordova. Barathus wanted to go back, slay the collector and release his prisoners, but others convinced him that it could wait untill when they’d be ready to leave Zingara once and for all.

Trekking back to Kordova, the Nemedians planned their next move. They’d have to go to the ruins of a burnt out mansion located in the Great Swamp and locate the crypt following the sketches they had made. The men decided to leave fr the tomb right away and spend the night in the swamp. That way they could arrive at the ruins at dawn and have a full day at their disposal to rob the tomb. Looting the dead at night did not seem like a good idea to anyone. Crossing the Black River, the Nemedians headed for the swamps, marching until darkness fell on them like a black blanket. Taking the midnight guard shift, Noam was startled by a sound strange in such anenvinronment – the distant howl of a wolf. Yet nothing came from the darkness to interrupt the sleep of the weary travelers, other than tiny insects thirsty for their blood.

In the morning, the men continued their journey after a meager breakfast, dirty and itching from countless insect bites.In a few hours, they arrived at the ruins, now reclaimed by the swamp. Following the instructions on the sketch from the back of the madman, they soon located a sealed entrance to a family tomb, well-hidden among the trees of a deserted orchard. Forcing their entry with sledgehammers, the Nemedians descended into dusty darkness that had not been visited by mortal men in generations.

A steep stairway lead to a circular burial chamber with eight sarcophagi crafted from stone. Korzetta had instructed Dionysos that the first burial chamber would be a decoy and a secret passage would lead to the true tomb. After a few moments of rest followed by intensive searching, the men found that one of the sarcophagi could be moved. Contents of all were a disappointment – mere bronze jewelry, which the Nemedians nevertheless looted. Pushing the sarcophagus aside, they revealed another stairway descending into darkness. A putrid stench surged forth from the tunnel.

With a sense of dread, the tomb robbers proceeded now with weapons at hand. A narrow tunnel lead ahead, ending in to a sharp turn. The men pressed onwards and the two sorcerers were met by a disturbing sight. The walls, ceiling and even the floor of the tunnel were decorated with haunting, vile images of cannibalism. Both men and human-like monsters feasted on the flesh of the living and dead in unholy revelry. Tyrus managed to turn his gaze away, but Dionysos was filled with a strange sense of hunger and morbid fascination with the tasting of human flesh. Their companions, without sorcerous sight, only saw bare, dust-covered walls, listening to the description offered by the two sorcerers with unease.

The twisting tunnel ended at another sealed doorway. As Dionysos stepped forward to examine it through sorcerous means, a large slab of stone crashed down from the ceiling. Narrowly avoiding being crushed to pulp, he was still badly bruised. After a while, the slab rose back to the ceiling, pulled by rusty chains. Once his injuries had been tended to, the men decided to spring the trap again and this time cut loose the chains to prevent it from rearming. A new session of hammering followed, as the sealed portal seemed impossible to open without brute force.

As the pounding of sledgehammers faded to silence and the dust settled down again, the flickering light of their torches revelead to the Nemedians a hallway lined by recesses with an armored skeleton in each, eternally guarding a sacrophagus at the end of the hall. On each side of the sarcophagus there was a stone pedestal reminiscent of an altar. On the right was the dark goblet they desired and on the left a goblet made of silver. On the base of both goblets was a crown, on the left of black stone and on the right of untarnished silver – almost like the male and female version of the same item, one light and the other heavy and rugged in construction.

The Nemedians went ahead, eyeing the ages-old skeletons in their rusted gear warily. Suddenly Alcemides spotted a hidden figure, hiding behind one of the skeletons. As he cried a warning, a most unexpected sight stepped away from the shadows. An old woman, dressed in mouldy rags, peered at the men from the darkness. Speaking in broken Zingaran, the hag asked what the men were doing in the crypt. As the Nemedians expressed that they only wanted one of the goblets, the crone promised that they could have it and more – if they just left for the night and came back in the morning, allowing her and her “children” to leave the tomb. As the discussion carried on, Alcemides got too frustrated to merely wait and shot his crossbow at the crone. Springing to action, he rushed at the other altar, grabbing the black goblet in his sack.

As the crossbow bolt hit the old woman, blasphemous shapes stepped forth from the recesses they had been hiding in. Monstrous mockeries of the human form with canine-like faces and rubbery skin stepped forth, assaulting the Nemedians fiercely. Alcemides, Noam and Barathus were overcome by terror and fled, but Alcemides was caught in the slavering fangs of one of the ghouls, preventing him from fleeing. The hag herself laughed with an inhuman voice and ripped her rags away, revealing tentacles and a monstrous mouth in her belly, towards which the tentacles started dragging their unfortunate victims. The fight was vicious and seemed to be going against the mortals, until Barathus, overcome by shame, returned to the battle. Managing to free Alcemides the men fled as Tyrus beheaded one of their pursuers with a lucky blow from his greatsword.

Outside, the Nemedians tended to their wounds and planned for their next move. It seemed obvious that the abominations in the crypt would not come outside during the daylight hours. Thus, they decided to start jogging towards Kordova. With luck, they would have enough of a headstart before the monsters started to pursue them that they might just make it. There was neither time nor breath to lose – at least they had the goblet they had come for. With luck, they might yet have their skins as well in the next morning. Grim and silent, the Nemedians started marching away from the tomb that was left open, ready to belch its horrors to the World outside once the sun would set.

The weary men marched onward on the swamp road, racing ahead as the shadows grew longer and the night crept closer. Several times the sounds of the swamp were pierced by the howls of a lone wolf, a sound most strange in such environment. Speaking little, the Nemedians pressed onwards, followed by the stench of death and decay. They were a dirty lot, covered with tomb-dust, mud from the swamp and dried blood.

As the Nemedians arrived on the first wooden bridge crossing one of the many deceptively deep swamp streams, they noticed that it had collapsed. After a short discussion, the men decided to build an improvised bridge. Alcemides and Noam instructed the others in felling a few trees, which were then tied together with ropes and pushed over the stream. Luckily, the bridge had been short and they could cross the stream without problems. Yet manufacturing the improvised bridge wasted valuable time and sunset was closer still.

After an hour of walking the sun was about to sink beneath the horizon and the men reached another broken bridge. It was obvious that someone – or something – was moving ahead of them and creating delays. Noam leaped across the swamp stream to investigate the bridge, which had not been completely demolished, but had been broken off at the far end, leaving it halfway submerged. Leaning to inspect the damage, he noticed that the supporting pillars had been obviously cut with a tool – most likely an axe. As the woodsman was kneeling on the edge of the stream, a lean figure appeared from the bushes, bull rushing him over the edge and diving after him into the murky waters.

As the others rushed to the edge of the stream, Noam fought for his life, trying to reach the surface. The being that had attacked him swam away, nimbly avoiding the bolts launched after it. Finally the Nemedians managed to pull Noam away from the waters with the help of a rope and many pairs of sturdy hands. Luckily, the woodsman had not been wounded in the previous fight. Otherwise the murky water would surely have infected his fresh wounds with some wasting disease. Now keeping a close guard, the men once again constructed an improvised bridge and pressed onwards as the sun fell underneath the horizon. As the dark fell, the lone wolf howled again, somewhere out of sight.

The weary men were only an hour away from the lights of Kordava, when their pursuers caught up with them. Ghouls lunged from the undergrowth, some of them brandishing weapons, followed by the woman-like being from the tomb. Alcemides had barely enough time to shout a warning before the creatures were upon them. The sheer numbers of the beasts threatened to overcome the Nemedians, but all stood their ground, brushing off the horror caused by their inhuman enemies with sheer determination. Hard blows were exchanged and blood flowed, staining the road. As a lucky hit split the skull of the female creature, its body exploded in a fetid shower of rotten bone and entrails.Seeing the creature die by mortal hands, the ghouls lost their appetite for a fight and fled to the undergrowth. Honest steel had overcome the ancient horrors.

Resting their aching bodies, the Nemedians debated on what to do next. finally, they decided to head back to the tomb and loot it thoroughly instead of waiting for the next day. Setting their broken bodies back in motion, the men marched back to the entrance of the tomb, with their greed having overcome their pains. Descending back to the bowels of Earth, they pried forcefully open the sarcophagus in the inner chamber. Portrayed upon its lid was a fierce looking man with a long beard knotted in an eastern fashion – yet inside there was no corpse to be found. Instead they found an iron strongbox and a large plate made of silver. Inscribed on the lid of the box was a symbol the sorcerers recognized – the glyph of Skelos!

While the rest were searching the tomb for loot, Alcemides spotted a cool draft in the chamber. Inspecting further, he found a hole in one of the alcoves with the armoured skeletons, large enough for man to crawl in. As the Nemedians inspected it in detail, they noticed a horrid stench emanating from it, and the tunnel beyond seemed to continue as long as they could see with the light of their lantern. Dionysos spoke aloud what everyone thought: That the tunnel might very well lead straight to Hell itself. Not wishing to tarry any longer in a such accursed place, but neither wishing to risk hazards of the swamp in the dark, the Nemedians decided to barricade themselves in a hidden chamber within the upper tomb. Breaking open the iron box, the men found twenty scrolls in ivory tubes and another twenty covered by black leather. Ecstatic, the two sorcerers wondered if they had actually found the Book of Skelos. The rest of the night was spent in restless slumber, The very presence of the nearby tunnel creating an atmosphere of tension. Yet the morning came and the men left for Kordova, reaching the great city without further complications. A new kind of confidence bolstered their spirits – they had, for the first time, faced beings not born from the loins of a woman and bested them in mortal combat.

Reaching the capital of Zingara, the weary warriors bathed thoroughly and recovered from their wounds in the inn. Soon they received a message from Thothmekri, who was anxious to see them. As the Nemedians dragged themselves to the seaside tavern, the Stygian met them again in the dusty cellar. He asked to see the silver goblet and to investigate it for a moment in another room, while a servant would bring fruits and wine. Although suspicious, the men agreed and Thothmekri disappeared to another underground chamber behind a well-hidden doorway. After a while he returned, handing back the goblet. The Nemedians inspected it suspiciously but it seemed to be the same item. The Stygian spy instructed them to give the goblet to the young Korzetta as they had agreed – and reminded them again that he would need to come with the Nemedians to the mysterious meeting Korzetta was arranging. The Nemedians agreed to the plan and left for more rest – they had arranged another arena fight for themselves in a few days time and prepared to put all their coin in one great bet, in an effort to win great riches.

Next morning Dionysos delivered the mysterious goblet to Korzetta in the temple of Ishtar, where the young noble seemed to spend all his time. Obviously very relieved and happy to have the item, Korzetta was quick to agree to the request to bring one extra guest to the party. He told that there would be a week before the party would take place. Dionysos sweet-talked the nobleman, obviously distracted by the silver item, to promising to handle all the bets in the arena for the Nemedians, in such a way that they could bet large sums of money without drawing too much attention to themselves.

The Nemedians spent the following days resting and recuperating from their hardships, preparing for the upcoming fight. They would be facing a pair of fighters, a woman from the Black Kingdoms and a Shemite man who fought as a team. They had a reputation for acrobatic agility and dirty tricks. Dionysos and Tyrus concentrated on examining the mysterious scrolls. Although they had no time to decipher them at any great degree, they came to the conclusion that they had two of the six books of Vathelos the Blind in their hands. What the mark of Skelos on the iron box meant, they did not know, but even incomplete, the set of scrolls they had was priceless. The two scholars agreed that they’d examine the scrolls in more detail during the long sea journey from Kordova to Messantia.

As the day of the fight approached, Baron Castante renewed his invitation to the party that would take place in his manor after the arena events. Alcemides decided to bet all his money on the upcoming match, even loaning more coin from Dionysos and Barathus to make a greater bet. The othera put great sums of silver into play as well, but none as much as the half-pict. As the day of their battle came, the Nemedians had many reasons to feel excited. Not only were they going to step before a cheering crowd once more – they had a chance to make themselves rich.

Dressed up and prepared as in their last fight, the men stepped on a sand that had already been blooded by lions that had teared up prisoners before their match. Cheers of the crowds were loud enough to hurt ears, as five men prepared to face a man and a woman. Careful circling lead in to a fast exchange of blows, as their two faces tumbled with blinding speed through their rows. A quick kick by the black woman landed between the legs of Barathus, immediately removing him from the fight in a flash of pain. Yet Alcemides and Tyrus managed to maneuver the Shemite between them. The fists of the half-pict were guided by fate, as his stealthy attack brought the dark-skinned man down with one loudly cracking blow. The crowd howled in ecstatic cheers.

Fate seemed then to turn against the Nemedians, as the nimble woman landed blow after a blow, stepping aside from their attacks and even leaping over them in stunning jumps. Dionysos staggered and fell before her strikes, followed by Noam. More through luck than skill Alcemides and Tyrus brought the she-devil down, staggering and barely standing themselves, staying on their feet only through the last shreds of their willpower. The crowd greeted the victorious fighters with thundering roars, as the standing and unconscious gladiators alike were taken to the underground quarters to rest their injured extremities.

As the arena events were nowhere near ending, the fallen Nemedians had plenty of time to recover enough to rise back on their feet – yet all were badly beaten and barely capable of walking on their own feet. The exotic couple they had faced came to greet the victors in their quarters, congratulating them for a victory well earned. A more welcome visitor was the young Korzetta with several purses full of coin. True to his word, he had arranged bets for the Nemedians and they were now all at least a hundred silver richer. A black carriage decorated with silver awaited them outside the arena, sent by Baron Castante to take them to his mansions. Deciding to nurse their bruised bones with alcohol, the men climbed in the carriage, heading to one of the largest manors in Kordova.

The mansion of Baron Castante was a spectacular palace, surrounded by a large garden filled with rich and powerful guests. Exotic animals ranging from lions to hyenas and from zebras to strange birds were on display around the grounds. Drink flowed freely and inside, half-naked men and women shuddered on silk pillows in lotus-induced dreams. Strange and wonderful items were everywhere to be seen inside the mansion, ranging from strange, inhuman statues to ancient suits of mail on wooden dolls. Servants and slaves moved silently among the guests, providing wine and other, more depraved pleasures to the rich and mighty.

Alcemides and Noam dived in to enjoy the party right away, feasting and filling themselves with wine while Tyrus, Barathus and Dionysos went to discuss business with their host. The veiled Baron lead the trio in to a gallery of ancient statues, many of Acheronian origin, some perhaps from times before the oceans drank Atlantis. There, offering wine for his guests, he offered to buy some of the Acheronian coins the party had achieved earlier in the mountains. After a short negotiation, a deal was made and a hundred coins or so exchanged hands. Obviously pleased, Castante proceeded to entertain his other, more important guests. As the other Nemedians merely enjoyed the party, Dionysos did his best to find new useful contacts. It seemed that many powerful, important figures were present at the party, ranging from an envoy of a Messantian merchant house to the local high priest of Mitra. A hotheaded young nobleman tried to provoke Dionysos to a duel, but the crafty Nemedian managed to talk himself out of a situation that appeared to be some kind of set-up.

Many following days passed in idle recovery from the past challenges and the splendid party. The Nemedians realised that they were rich now – not only had they won considerable amounts of coin from the arena, they had also finally managed to exchange the majority of the Acheronian gold to usable currency. Many purses of silver were spent in a few days on better clothing, wine and temple harlots of Ishtar. The young Korzetta had told Dionysos that the mysterious party would be held in five days. Days of idle speculation followed. The two sorcerers spent much of their time investigating the scrolls they had recovered from the crypt and since identified as the writings of Vathelos the Blind – a work perhaps not as famous as the Book of Skelos, but as potent in its knowledge. However, it was obvious that they had only two of the six parts.

As the day of the mysterious party approached, a messenger arrived to bring six wooden masks to the inn the Nemedians resided in. They were made of white wood and were featureless save for eyeslits and a larger opening on the mouth. Among them was a note from Korzetta, instructing the men to cover their faces with the masks before stepping aboard a carriage that would be sent to fetch them from their inn after dark. In the evening, Thothmekri appeared, wearing grey, shapeless robes that covered his whole body. The Nemedians put on their best clothes, donned their masks and stepped inside a black carriage when it pulled to halt before the inn. Heavy shutters were pulled over the windows, blocking the view from the inside. A journey lasting almost an hour commenced, the carriage obviously moving in circles to make the passengers lose their bearings.

The five veterans and the Stygian spy stepped out of the carriage in a large stable, obviously somewhere near the sea. The smell of the sea was strong, but no sounds of the harbor could be heard. Men wearing black capes and masks of dark wood on their faces lead them silently onward, torches in hand. They marched downwards through a maze of stairs and passages, in the forsaken, sunken part of Kordova only know as the Pit, passing armed groups of similarly garbed men standing guard at regular intervals. Finally, they arrived at what looked like a market square swallowed by the earth itself. In its center was a well, towards which the masked men motioned the guests to go.

Climbing down a rope ladder, the six companions entered in to a huge natural cave. A few torches were lit on the walls, giving shadowy illumination to the part of the cave directly underneath the well. A dozen or so men and women milled about in similar masks, talking in low tones. They were dressed as Zingaran nobility, but showed no family crests. After a few moments of waiting, two men wearing vulture-like masks appeared in the light, lighting black candles on a large altar-like stone. Jewelry worn by the taller, thinner man hinted that he was Baron Castante or someone impersonating him. Soon, two other masked figures followed – a third, obese man in a vulture-like mask and a strange figure in shapeless robes, with a golden mask on its face.

A silence fell in the cave as the mysterious stranger with the golden mask stepped forth to speak. The robes hid its body so well that it was impossible to determine if underneath them was a woman, a man or something completely inhuman. The mask portrayed a flawlessly beautiful face with both female and male features. Upon its forehead was placed a strange triangular glyph, which seemed to swirl as the shadows played on it. The voice of the person, obviously a priest of some sort, was a booming wave of authority that echoed in the cave and yet, lacked any identifiable qualities.

The priest preached a booming welcome sermon of a god known as the Golden King and the benefits of worshipping him. The greedy would receive gold, the vain recognition, the ugly beauty and the lonely new friends. The Golden King was a true, present god with power over mortals, not a weak shadow like Mitra, Set and the other gods. By submitting before the Golden King the initiated would find great power and make others submit before them in turn. As the priest spoke, the symbol on the mask swirled faster and the power of his words seemed to multiply with each sentence. The Nemedians had to fight hard against a powerful sensation of belief that was slowly creeping into their very souls. Just as their willpower started to wane, the sermon ended. New torches were lit deeper in the chamber, where a long table brimming with food and wine was visible. The priests motioned the initiates to follow them and to feast for the glory of the Golden King.

A feast of strange but pleasant meat and thick, salty wine was offered to the initiates, with the three vulture-masks partaking eagerly and the robed figure with the golden mask sitting at the end of the table. The talk of the table soon revealed that the obese man was Don Estebio, the collector of madmen. Yet the identity of the third vulture remained a mystery – it seemed that Korzetta was not among the men around the table. Black-garbed servants moved silently among the guests, bringing more meat and wine for them to enjoy. As Alcemides and Noam observed the surroundings, it became obvious that there were at least a dozen masked men standing in the shadows around the table.

After each participant had drank a few cups of wine, the priest in the golden mask spoke again, asking each of the initiates to follow alone to the altar to speak about what the Golden King had to offer them. As the first of the Zingarans followed the robed figure into the dark, the Nemedians switched to speaking Nemedian among themselves. Masking their concern under cheerful tones, they agreed that Tyrus would go find out what the mysterious priest had to say. Yet they all agreed that they should leave somehow before the strange party was over – for it seemed likely that some sinister ritual would crown the event.

Tyrus returned from his talk with the masked priest in morbid silence. He hurriedly explained that the priest had a sinister sorcery of some sort working against the initiates and that they should leave as soon as possible. Thothmekri agreed with their proposal – yet leaving from the guarded table would be hard. Barathus insisted that the perverted collector had to die for the horrors they had seen in his manor.

Alcemides decided to take action, acting drunk and asking the masked servants to lead him somewhere to void his bladder. A lone man in a black mask lead him to a recess deeper in the cave, where an improvised privy had been dug. Still acting drunk, Alcemides suddenly pounced on the servant, knocking him unconscious with a swift blow. Then he hastily stripped the man from his mask and cape, revealing a rough-looking Zingaran armed with a short sword. Disguised as a servant, Alcemides returned to the table. While serving wine for the guests, the half-pict managed to gain the attention of Noam. The woodsman followed the example set before him and together the two men knocked another servant unconscious. Noam disguised himself as a servant and the two Nemedians agreed that Alcemides would go to scout the route back while Noam would tell of their plan to the others.

Alcemides sneaked back underneath the well and climbed to the top, surprising two men standing guard there with swift punches. Now armed with an arbalest and two shortswords, the half-pict silenced three more guards before returning to the well. Meanwhile, the Nemedians were getting restless. It was obvious that they could not avoid talking with the priest in the golden mask for long. A brief plan was formed using languages the Zingarans could not understand – Thothmekri promised to arrange something to deter pursuit, if a distraction of some kind would only allow them to flee the table.

Alcemides sneaked back to the cave, hiding beneath some rocks with a good line of sight to the table. With a loaded arbalest in hands, he considered his options. He sprung to action as one of the other guests left for the closet with one of the masked servants. Aiming carefully, he let loose a bolt that nailed the obese collector to the table, piercing his head and sending fragments of his skull flying. Thothmekri and the four other Nemedians jumped on their feet – this was the moment they had been waiting for.

A stunned silence turned to a sudden skirmish, as the men cut down who they could reach while bolting towards the rope ladder. As they reached the rope, a new sound emerged – a chittering call followed by crunches of breaking bone and bloodcurling screams from the dark. Thothmekri smiled cruelly, reminding the Nemedians that he had promised to arrange a distraction of his own. Climbing for their lives, all six managed to reach the top of the well and cut off the rope ladder right as their first pursuers were reaching their end. The Stygian started leading the men in the dark corridors, explaining that he knew most of the Pit rather well. The route they had taken would soon be blocked – they could only evade pursuit by disappearing in the oldest tunnels.

After hours of marching through the corridors, the men finally smelled fresh air ahead, appearing in the harbor of Kordova. They soon concluded that the obviously well-connected cult would be looking for them at their residence once they realized that the Nemedians had gotten out of the Pit. Thothmekri promised that he could keep him safe in his hidden shelter until the black galley would arrive in a few days time. Thus the Nemedians ran through the silent streets to get their belongings from the inn, bribing a few curfew patrols on the way.

Back at the harbour, Thothmekri lead the men to his hiding place, located beneath a shady tavern. As they could finally settle down and catch their breath, the Stygian explained that his worst fears concerning the strange cult had come true. Spies employed by Thothmekri had kept their eye on the cult for almost a year. Without going in too much detail, he told that they were a perverted lot that threatened not only interests of his masters but the well-being of all citizens of Kordova as well. He claimed that behind the golden mask was hidden the Argossean envoy from Castante’s parties. He and Baron Castante would have to die.

The flickering flame of a lone torch cast its light about a damp chamber below the harbour of Kordova. Grim men sat around a wooden table, concentrating on plans of murder. As the Nemedians sipped strong wine, Thothmekri explained that he had prepared for slaying Castante and his guest. The mysterious Baron rarely left his manor, so those wishing to kill him would need to break into his home. The Stygian had infiltrated the manor with one of his spies, who had provided rough sketch of the mansion and its grounds. The man inside would also leave one of the outer gates and one door inside unlocked for the killers to enter – but he could do little more than that.

An attack on the manor would not go unnoticed, however, no matter how silent the assassins were. Castante’s neighbours might be inclined just to enjoy the show, as many of them were his rivals and would love to see him brought down. However, the city guard would arrive on the scene in strength eventually.Thus a diversion would be necessary, something big that would attract official attention – such as setting a fire on the temple district.

Thothmekri explained that he needed the Nemedians to be one of the two parties – either entering the manor grounds to kill Castante and the Argosean nobleman, or to create a distraction elsewhere in the city. He would take the other role with his men, but the choice was up to the veterans. He promised that the men would be richly rewarded for their service – he was planning to begin the attack once the black galley his master had sent would be ready in the harbour. With these words, the dark-skinned sorcerer left the room to allow the Nemedians to discuss his proposal among themselves.

In an hour, all of the men agreed that they would take the offer and attack the mansion themselves. That way, they could loot the treasures of Baron Castante in the process. The questions of what to ask as a reward was more challenging to decide. Finally, Tyrus and Alcemides convinced the rest that they should ask Thothmekri for Stygian trading permits. That way they could sail straight to Stygia with the black galley, invest their newly found wealth in silk and outfit a caravan to take it back to Nemedia. They reasoned that going back home with a hundred gold coins was fine – but a thousand coins was even better. As the Stygian returned, he was a bit surprised to hear what the men wanted but agreed at once. His master could easily arrange such things for the services rendered.

A few days on intense planning followed. The information provided by the spy inside the manor allowed the Nemedians to draw a rough map of the manor and its surroundings. Castante had over two dozen men in arms, as well as a few bodyguards that were rumored to be exotic and effective. Many options ranging from inciting a slave riot to an explosive entry using flame-powder were examined and discarded. Finally, the men came up with a plan all could agree upon. It was a strange and daring plan, but one that might just work. Thothmekri gave the men two strange and beautiful daggers, which he instructed to leave in the bodies of their two targets. The weapons were decorated with gold and had likeness of a bird – the blade was like its beak, the handle its legs and body. Dionysos recognized that they had resemblance to the Ibis bird – it was obvious that Thothmekri wanted to frame the Cult of Ibis for the murders.

As the Nemedians prepared for the assassination attempt, one of Thothmekri’s men informed them that a group of slaves had been brought to Kordova for sale. Not just any slaves, but the very same Nemedians which the Zingaran mercenaries had captured in the rout from Aquilonia. The Nemedians were pressed with hard decisions – leaving the shelter would be an immense risk, as the cult was surely looking for them now and their attack had been planned to happen that very night. Yet Barathus insisted on seeing what they could do for their former comrades. He came up with a plan to disguise the men as lepers, whose presence everyone would surely avoid.

Thus five lepers dressed in rags appeared in the market square, begging for alms near the slave pens. True enough, each man recognized a few faces among the prisoners – although all the noble-born were missing, likely held for ransom by their families. Returning to their shelter, the men engaged in a heated debate. Barathus wanted to buy all of the prisoners their freedom, but others argued that they would have nowhere to go. The former Adventurer solved the problem by convincing Thothmekri to take the lot aboard the Stygian galley and with it to Messentia. Yet still the others refused to use their wealth for the freedom of their fellows. Finally Barathus alone spent the majority of his fortune on buying freedom for all of the prisoners through a proxy. Moved by his generosity, Alcemides and Tyrus spent some gold each to buy them provisions and equipment – but Noam and Dionysos would not budge.

As darkness fell on Kordova, the Nemedians were already on the move. A tunnel from the Pits allowed them to enter the manor district near their target. Followed by a dozen or so cutthroats hired through Thothmekri’s contacts, they slided from shadow to shadow. The five Nemedians entered through the side gate, which was left open as agreed, while the Zingaran scoundrels stayed to wait outside. Once in the garden, the five men split in two groups, silently wishing each other luck. Dionysos, Alcemides and Noam sneaked towards the manor while Tyrus and Barathus moved towards the animal shelter. Two poisoned arrows weighed heavily in Noam’s quiver. Thothmekri had promised that the dark liquid they had been dipped in would prove to be especially potent against sorcerers.

Tyrus and Barathus reached the animal shelter silently, swiftly striking down a lone guard sipping wine at the rear entrance. Inside, they threw drugged meat to the lions and other beasts held inside. After opening their cages they then raced to climb on the roof of the building. Soon enough, beasts of all kind, unnaturally enraged through the herbal poisons running through their veins bolted forth in the garden. Across the wide grounds, the Zingaran cutthroats entered the manor through an unlocked back door, falling on the surprised guards and servants alike in a whirlwind of bloodthirsty blades. A noisy chaos erupted in the manor grounds, as insane beasts, confused guards and greedy scoundrels hacked down whoever they could reach. In the horizon, the glow of a great fire could be seen against the night sky. Thothmekri and his men had completed their part.

Meanwhile, the two scouts and the sorcerer with Acheronian blood had climbed on the balcony of the second floor. Sneaking ahead, Alcemides peeked inside the windows of the guest suites, locating the Argosean nobleman. He was sitting in one of the rooms illuminated only by a lone candle, talking to a woman dressed in a robe-like outfit. The woman was black as night, from the jungles of the hot south. Neither seemed to notice that they were being watched from outside. The three men moved in to positions behind the open window. Alcemides jumped inside, two shortswords gleaming in the light, while Noam and Dionysos fired at the man, wounding him grievously.

Yet as the element of surprise ran out, both of the two defenders were quick to act. The black woman leaped at Alcemides like a striking serpent, stunning him with a quick kick in the groin and drawing two short, crescent-like blades from her long sleeves. Noam’s arrows narrowly missed the Argosean, as he jumped underneath his bed, pulling hastily the golden mask on his face. Just as the southern woman prepared to slice the half-picts throat, a lucky bolt fired by Dionysos hit her straight through the left eye, killing her instantly.

As Alcemides was returning back to his senses, the Argossean had managed to put the mask on and shouted for help in a familiar, booming voice. The Nemedians felt a strange force compelling them not to harm their target – the strange symbol on the golden mask whirled in the shadows, forcing them to submit before it. As the others stood back, Noam charged the bleeding man blind, stabbing him with a dagger with eyes closed until he did not move. Alcemides and Noam moved to investigate the bedroom that had turned into a slaughterhouse, carefully listening by the door. All they could hear was the sounds of fighting downstairs and the bellowing of the beasts on the grounds. As they stood their backs towards him, Dionysos stripped the golden mask from the dead man and placed it upon his own face.

Alcemides and Noam were surprised as Dionysos suddenly turned on them with his fell sorcery, the symbol of the mask twirling in the darkness. Together, they managed to wrestle the pale sorcerer on the floor and pull the mask off his face by force. Trembling slighty, Dionysos explained that something had taken him under its control through the mask and turned him against his fellows. Throwing the accursed golden item in a sack, the trio moved carefully onward, leaving the first of the Ibis daggers stabbed in the body of their target.

Climbing stairs up to the third floor, the Nemedians faced a new dilemma. Only two routes lead in to the chambers of Baron Castane – and both were blocked, in a different manner. The first route was guarded by a lion, which Alcemides saw through a keyhole – and the second was barricaded from within. Just as the men were preparing to take their chances with the lion, they heard approaching steps from the stairs. As they prepared to spring an ambush, they recogniced Barathus and Tyrus just before landing the first blows. The former Adventurers had managed to elude the chaos in the garden and followed the three men inside the manor. Together, the five men dispatched the lion with ease – the poor beast had no chance, as it was filled with crossbow bolts the moment it charged towards the opening door. Satisfied with their success, the assassins pressed onwards.

Moving quickly but carefully, the intruders entered a well-lit, luxuriously decorated room. Oil lamps and incense burners hanged from the ceiling, the floor was covered with oriental carpets and a beautiful map of Hyboria covered one floor. The desks, drawers and chests made it obvious that this was the study of Baron Castante – yet he was nowhere to be seen. An open hatch on the ceiling hinted where he had gone, perhaps just a moment before. Preparing themselves, the Nemedians started to climb up on the roof. Alcemides raised his head first, only to receive a glancing blow from a tulwar on his head, followed by a bright, burning flash that burned his eyes. Jumping blindly on the roof, he was followed by the other men under the night sky.

On the roof was standing three men – the veiled Baron eyed the Nemedians with nothing but contempt in his burning eyes. Between him and the intruders was standing two men, a young Zingaran wielding a dagger and an arming sword and a massive Shemite wielding an equally massive tulwar in his hands. Steel clashed with steel under starlight, and the men could clearly hear the marching sound of approaching soldiers on the streets below.

The fight ebbed back and forth on the roof. Barathus disarmed the Shemite with a cunning parry from his shield, only to be pushed off the roof by the Zingaran. Tyrus exchanged blows with both bodyguards in vain, while Alcemides recovered from his stunned state only to receive a handful of dust on his face, robbing him of his sight. While the Shemite hacked Alcemides with a handaxe he had pulled from his belt, the Zingaran sent Noam flying over the edge of the roof after Barathus. Yet he did not live long to embrace his victory, for the greatsword of Tyrus and Dionysos brought him down the very next moment.

Bleeding and stinging from the dust in his eyes, Alcemides still managed to charge the Baron blindly, grabbing him in a hold. Yet as Dionysos and Tyrus closed on the remaining bodyguard, Castante gurgled in inhuman voice and belched forth from his throat a torrent of spiders, whose stinging bites brought the blind and wounded half-pict gasping on the ground. Horrified, Tyrus and Dionysos pulled back from the biting swarm. Just as the dark might of the Zingaran warlock was about to smite the remaining Nemedians down, Noam charged back on the roof. His fall had been softened by skillfully sculpted bushes, sparing him of broken bones. Aiming more with instinct than his eyes, he let fly an arrow that hit Baron Castante in the throat, dimming the light from his eyes. The Shemite bodyguard jumped down on the balcony below and ran for his life.

The Nemedians quickly looted the corpse of their mark and left the last dagger stabbed in the cooling corpse. As a badly hurt Barathus finally reached the roof again, he was astonished to notice that badly maimed Alcemides was still breathing. Seeing a squad of Zingaran soldiers approach the manor, the Nemedians quickly climbed downwards. Having no time to pick and choose, Tyrus and Noam grabbed each a locked chest on their arms while Barathus and Dionysos carried their unconscious comrade between them. Now running, the men sprinted across the garden filled with gore just as the soldiers were breaking down the main gate. They ran like men fighting for their lives run, ignoring their wounds and burdens, until they had the black planks of the ominous Stygian galley underneath their feet.

The Stygian galley slid through the waves like a black serpent. The ominous pounding of its drums echoed far and wide, making fishermen on the shores shudder with fear in their sleep.Grim, silent Stygian sailors went about their duties on the deck, avoiding the Nemedians. They kept eyeing Dionysos warily, afraid of his pale visage. As the men were tending to their wounds, Thothmekri appeared on the deck, now wearing the robes of a priest of Set. A new air of confidence and authority around him, the sorcerer explained that the galley would sail straight to Messantia. There they would stay in port for a few days, letting the rescued prisoners on the shore and resupplying for the journey to Khemi. The former prisoners were staying in the fore hold and the Nemedians could sleep there with them or on the deck. However, they’d have no business going anywhere else on the ship. With that, Thothmekri left for the captain’s cabin, promising that he would introduce the men to Stygian customs closer to Khemi.

The following days passed slowly, as the galley followed the Zingaran coastline towards Argos. All other ships they saw circumvented the black galley from afar, fearful of the ominous pounding of its drums and the serpentine decorations on her decks. Barathus and Noam spent time with their compatriots,ho were lead by a grizzled Adventurer veteran by the name of Brocas. He had plans to take the rest of the men to Nemedia along the Road of the Kings or possibly by following the Red River if Aquilonia proved to be too dangerous to travel. Dionysos and Tyrus concentrated on investigating the books of Vathelos, though they were frustrated by their eccentric structure. Alcemides merely enjoyed the rest, recovering from his injuries. Breaking open the two chests taken from Castante, the Nemedians found the Acheronian gold they sold the baron, as well as precious stones from the south. In the other chest were placed twelve vials full of a translucent liquid, an ancient, crumbling map of an oval city and encrypted letters.

Weeks went by uneventfully. As the group did not trust their Stygian patrons, they continued to keep a night watch. To their consternation they noticed that Dionysos had taken the habit of sleepwalking – not just aimlessly, but always towards the hiding place of the golden mask. Every night, unless awakend, he would shamble towards the mask, trying in vain to put it on his face. Worried, the men started to wander if the mask was indeed cursed or worse. Noam demanded that they should throw it overboard or tell about it to Thothmekri, but the others insisted on keeping it. They argued that the mask could not do them harm at sea and they would get a fortune by selling it in Messantia. It was solid gold, after all, and the precious metal alone was worth hundreds of gold coins.

It seemed that nothing short of tying him down with ropes would stop Dionysos from sleepwalking. His nights were filled with strange dreams of ruined and destroyed cities underneath a blood red sky with a single bright star shining on it like the baleful eye of some nameless god. He could see generations of men and women passing by with the mask on their faces – but instead of wearing the mask, the mask wore the skin of their faces. Formless monsters hunted him on desolate plains under an alien sky. Discussing the matter with the other men, Dionysos found out that Noam had been plagued by nightmares as well. His had been different however – he had always seen the same city, ruined and rebuilt again and again with the baleful star glowing on a blood red sky, but nothing else. A wordless call came to him from the city, urging him to come to it. Dionysos speculated that his dreams were caused by the mask while Noam might have captured some eldtrich essence of Baron Castante as the sorcerer died by his arrow.

Time flowed slowly as Barathus, Noam and Alcemides had little to do onboard. The crew avoided the foreigners and the Nemedians had to entertain themselves through various small games. Bad luck seemed to plague Noam, as he was always losing in games of chance. Slowly the ravaged orchards, manors and farmlands of Zingara turned into dark and foreboding forests. The men had heard rumors in Kordova that in its shadows hunted manlike beasts known as corpse-eaters or ghouls. It was said that somewhere deep in the forest was an ancient city built before the fall of Acheron, where the ghouls prowled, worshipping their dark, nameless gods. The two sorcerers hardly noticed the changing landscape, as their interest in the scrolls of Vathelos the Blind was slowly turning towards obsession. Tyrus was struck especially hard by the desire to find the rest of the scrolls. He could feel that by combining together all six books of Vathelos he would find power undreamt of. Investigations of the two did not go in vain – in the weeks spent onboard they had learnt secrets of the Upas Tree and how its juice could be distilled into a potent poison against sorcerers.

As the ship was passing the forest, all wind suddenly died for several days, considerably slowing down the galley. A few days later a ship was spotted approaching the galley – a black ship much like the Stygian vessel, but of a thinner and longer build, a ship of the Black Corsairs. Having no time to wonder what a such craft was doing so far north, the crew and the Nemedians quickly started preparing for battle. Armed with khopesh swords and massive Stygian bows, the crewmembers readied themselves. Thothmekri stepped on the deck, explaining the Nemedians that they should join the combat should the ships lock together in a boarding action. The five Hyborians almost greeted the approaching corsair ship with joy, as a moment of mortal danger might drive away their boredom.

The two black ships approached each other, the pounding of their drums echoed on the empty seas. Suddenly the still air moved again, a strong wind appearing out of nowhere, blowing against the Stygian galley and propelling the corsair ship towards them at a ramming speed. Spitting foul curses, the Stygian captain barked orders from the aft castle. The ships kept closing, soon coming within the range of archers on both of the ships. Remembering the glass globes found in the Acheronian chest they had received in the mountains, Dionysos scrambled to get the large black orb that he had claimed as his. He had a feeling that it was a weapon of some sort, and that it might turn the tide of the battle to their advantage. He handed it over to Thothmekri, who had before shown his talent at launching projectiles through his sorcery, instructing him to lob it at the other ship. The Stygian agreed, saying that he would wait for a certain hit. Hopefully, the contents of the black orb were flammable or worse.

Closing fast, the drums on both ships started pounding in a manic speed, sending the black hulls almost flying above the waves at ramming speed. Arrows were let loose on both ships. Black shapes fell on the crowded deck of the approaching corsair ship, while their shots did little harm on the black galley. When the ships were so close to each other that the Nemedians could see the whites of the eyes of the corsairs, the Stygian captain barked new orders. Oars on the port side of the ship were swiftly pulled inside the galley and the black ship started to turn towards the side of the approaching corsair. The captain of the pirate vessel was either incompetent or taken by surprise and did not react swiftly enough. With a mighty crash of breaking wood, the Stygian galley smashed apart all oars on one side of the corsair ship, passing it very close. Thothmekri sent the large glass globe flying onboard the enemy ship with an arcane gesture. The orb crashed on the deck of the ship with little apparent effect.The few grappling hooks thrown from the corsair ship were quickly dispatched and distance between the ships grew again. Archers on the both ships fired as fast as they could, filling the air with whistling arrows.

Gaining more distance, the Stygian galley started to turn around, now taking advantage of the wind that had almost allowed the corsair ship to destroy it. The corsair ship was obviously in distress, trying to turn in vain with just one bank of oars intact. Thothmekri explained to the Nemedians that the captain would try to ram the corsair ship now that it had lost much of its agility. If the ramming hit would not cause enough damage, a boarding combat would most likely ensure. Indeed, the black galley started to surge forward towards the corsair ship, now powered both by oars and the strong wind.A few arrows were fired again, but most of the men aboard both ships soon started to brace themselves for impact rather than shoot at their enemies. As the galley neared the corsair vessel, the mast of the enemy ship suddenly fell without any apparent reason. The Nemedians had no time to ponder what caused the event, as the Stygian galley rammed the corsair ship full force, a deafening crash sending splinters of wood flying high in the air. Yet the hull of the corsair ship did not break from the impact and close combat ensued.

As the Nemedians had been near the bow of the galley, they were the ones to meet the onslaught of black pirates head on. They dispatched the first few corsairs with ease, but following them were massive black men with ritual scars on their faces and dreadlocks in their hair – cannibalistic black tribesmen from the continental south. Disturbingly, some of the ritual scars formed the same spiral-like symbol as on the golden mask. The men had no time to discuss geography as the black giants were on them, blades clashing on theirs. Behind them came a torrent of black corsairs. As the fight ebbed and flowed, short breaks allowed the Nemedians to catch glimpses of the corsair vessel. It seemed like some kind of mold was rapidly eating away at the hull of the ship. The glass globe they had thrown on the vessel had indeed contained a potent sorcerous weapon.

The black corsairs boarded the Stygian galley as one rolling black wave of human flesh, fighting with a savage ferocity born out of desperation. As Dionysos and Alcemides were brought down by the savage blows of the black giants, Brocas lead the most experienced former prisoners into the fight. The heavy arrows of the Stygian bows ripped holes in the corsairs further back on the deck. Thothmekri fought savagely, a cruel smile on his face and an aura of unexplainable terror around him. Soon enough no ordinary corsair dared to step close to the priest of Set, going as far as throwing themselves overboard to avoid him. Stepping near the most dangerous of the black giants, the Stygian sorcerer brought him down with a single sweep of his hand. As he smacked the giant with his palm, the tattoeed snake on his arm seemed to come alive and the Darfari fell, clutching his neck, the bite of a viper on it.

The fighting could not last more than a few minutes, but each moment seemed to drag on towards eternity, time slowing in a macabre dance of spilt blood and cracking skulls. Finally the Nemedians brought down the last of the black giants, sending a wave of panic among the remaining corsairs. Instead of facing the blades of their enemies, they now jumped into the waves, swimming desperately towards the shore. Barathus noticed that the strange mold eating away the corsair ship had reached the ram of the Stygian galley, stuck deep inside the other vessel. He ran towards the Stygian captain, yelling at him to get their ship away from the corsair hulk by whatever means necessary. At the same time, Tyrus and Brocas jumped down on the ram, trying to cut it off before the mold would reach their ship through it. Their final blow cut it off just as it was about to spread to the hull of the ship, allowing the rowers of the Galley to pull it free of the sinking hulk. Fierce determination frozen on his face, Thothmekri cut open the throats of the few wounded corsairs lying onboard the Stygian ship. Shouting in an unknown language, he then pulled from his belt an ivory amulet in the shape of a shark. Soon enough, fins could be seen approaching the swimming black corsairs on the waves.

As the fight died down, the Stygian galley kept rowing away from the corsair ship, now a rapidly sinking, slowly crumbling mass of rotting wood. Those with the necessary skills moved among the wounded, sewing up gaping wounds and bandaging scratches. Alcimedes and Dionysos were both bandaged and bought back on their feet, and corpses were thrown overboard for the sharks to feast on. The captain decided to give his crew a chance to rest and the ship was anchored in a nearby cove. Speaking to the Nemedians for the first time, the Stygian thanked them for their help and sent them bottles of Shemite wine from his private storage. Resting on the deck, the five Nemedian veterans speculated on the implications of the battle. All of them had their share of wounds and bruises, although Alcemides and Dionysos had taken a such beating that they could barely walk. They agreed that the attack was not merely a coincidence. Dionysos and Tyrus speculated that a sorcerer or devil of some sort was spying on them through the mask. As long as they had the golden mask, they would face more trouble. Noam repeated that they should just throw the cursed thing overboard, but others were overcome by greed. Alcemides came up with the idea of melting down the mask to a lump of gold – even if it did not destroy its magic, it would be unrecognizable when sold in Messantia.

Despite the objections of the other men, Barathus decided that he would tell Thothmekri of the mask and their beliefs concerning the attack. The former Adventurer found the sorcerer standing on the deck, staring at the sea with a contemplating look on his dark face. Upon hearing what Barathus had to tell, the Stygian gritted his teeth and his features turned into a mask of barely contained fury. Approaching thr rest of the Nemedians, he demanded to see the mask. As Tyrus presented it to Thothmekri, the sorcerer carefully avoided touching it while savouring every little detail with his eyes. Turning back to the men, he stated that they had two options – either leaving to ashore with the mask on the spot or throw it away and continue their journey aboard.

Despite his obvious anger, Tyrus and Dionysos managed to convince the Stygian of a third option, destroying the mask. Thothmekri told that they were free to try to melt the mask – if they did it on the shore. The Nemedians would take a launch to the shore and do whatever they wanted to with the mask. Should something unexpected and dangerous happen, the ship would simply leave without them rather than take any risks for their foolishness. If they managed to destroy the mask and return to the ship, the galley would continue. The Stygian ship would wait for them only for one full day. Having no chance but to agree, the tired Nemedians started gathering their equipment to leave for the shore at once. Noam decided to stay on board the galley. He proclaimed that the mask had been nothing but trouble to begin with and would do nothing but harm if they tried to destroy it. Trying to turns its gold to coin would not be that easy. Shrugging off his proclamation, the four men started rowing to the beach leaving Noam to look after them from the deck.

The four Nemedians built a firepit in the shadow of the ancient forest. While looking for wood, Alcemides spotted tracks that were left by beings thatn walked on two legs, yet were not men. Perhaps there were ghouls lurking in the woods, observing them even at that very moment. Hastening their efforts, the men had soon built a bonfire, upon which they left the mask to melt in a cauldron. None of them had any experience from metalworks, but they presumed that it would take at least a few hours for the gold to melt. Thus the Nemedians set up a little picnic, resting and sipping Shemite wine on the beach. After two hours Alcemides went to check on the mask – noticing to his alarm that it was completely uneffected by the heat. Touching it carefully, he realized that the mask was still cool, despite the heat from the fire.

Discussing the matter among themselves, the Nemedians speculated that the cursed item could not be harmed by fire. Frustrated, Alcimedes announced that he would just bash the damned thing apart with a rock. Afraid of the consequences, the three other men agreed, but only if they could first walk a hundred or more feet away, just in case. Hammering the mask with a large stone, Alcemides noticed that the item was much more resistant to blows than any gold should have been. Yet it was slowly bending, one blow at the time. Suddenly the mask bent on its own and the half-pict could feel a surge of power around him, like thousands of invisible eyes watching him intently.

Grinning madly, he struck the mask one more time, splitting it in two. A wave of invisible force struck him like a mallet, sending him on his back on the beach and striking down the other men further away. The world seemed to fade and twist, then turn into a thousand worlds at the same time, like watching the world through the shards of a broken mirror. All four men fell into a realm of insane nightmares, beset by visions their minds could and would not comprehend or retain in their memories. After lying on the sand for over an hour, hallucinating, they reginaed some of their senses, but not all. Giggling madly, they stumbled to their boat, recovering the two halves of the mask on the way. All features on it had simply faded away, leaving only two lumps of pure gold. Somehow, the four men managed to row their way to the galley, even though they had been robbed most of their sanity for a time.

From the Memoirs of Tyrus the First

Ah, I remember the first time when the scrolls shined their wisdom upon me and I truly understood their value. It was as if scales were lifted from my eyes and they were made to see the world as it is.

I felt certain that the forays into sorcery I had experienced in my childhood, the exile from my family, years in the army and even the great defeat which separated me from the rest of the army seemed to have a purpose. They were to unite me and the scrolls, and to grant me power unheard of.

And unlike the child of the tainted tree, Dionysos, I would be wise. I would not fall for hedonism and indolence – would not rot my brain on lotus and whores. Truly, I would master the scrolls, and not have them master me.

Yes.

Laughable, but such were my thoughts then. As all children, I would be proven wrong time and time again. Still, sometimes naivete has its place, as without integrity, one has no future. Even now, engulfed by the smell of lotus and surrounded by my concubines, I’d like to think that I’ve maintained at least some of that resolve. Though my body is old and weak, my mind is still my own, which I doubt any of my old friends can claim, wherver they now roam.

As the Stygian galley slid ever closer to Messantia, the coastline turned from dark forest to cultivated land, with farms and orchards. The men who had taken part in the destruction of the mask suffered from terrible nightmares, but were slowly recovering from the blow to their sanity. Yet it seemed that Alcemides and Tyrus had been affected by the forces from beyond more seriously than the others. A creeping terror seized Tyrus whenever he saw golden items, while Alcemides had been convinced that he was, in fact, invincible. Dark dreams of the ruined city devoured by sand and a baleful star glowing over it like eye of a great beast invaded Noam’s dreams again and again. His bad luck in games of chance and combat alike seemed to carry on with no end, finally leading the Nemedians to believe that he was, in fact, cursed because of killing the Zingaran sorcerer. Stygian sorcerers might be able to remove the curse – for a heavy price – once they reached the soil of that dark, ancient nation.

As the glittering spires of the City of Coin became visible on the horizon, Thothmekri visited the Nemedians again. He informed the men that the galley would dock at Messantia for a few days, receive replacements for crewmembers fallen in the battle and then continue off to Stygia. The enigmatic priest offered Barathus and Dionysos a chance to attend with him a business meeting that might offer them interesting opportunities. The two men agreed and decided to bring the other two with them. As the black galley approached harbor of the great city, the Nemedians were gaping at its splendors with open awe. Messantia, one of the richest cities in the World, was there, with all its vices, within their grasp for them to explore and enjoy. Leaving the ship, they wished the liberated prisoners good luck on their long journey home. Barathus spent more of his gold to buy Brocas and his companions supplies for their travels.

The Nemedians settled down in a magnificent inn, enjoying a well deserved rest. Dionysos went shopping for new, exquisite clothing, later joining the others in spending much coin on song, wine and women. The following day the men strolled streets of the city, filling up their supplies for the rest of the journey. Alcemides bough himself a finely crafted Akibatan shortsword, decorated with onyx and opals. There was still the matter of the golden chunks left from the mask to handle. Asking around from the local goldsmiths, the Nemedians were directed to an alley of goldsmiths. Entering one of the largest stores, they presented their golden problem to the guildsmen. Examining the chunks, the goldsmith offered a sizable sum of coin for the gold – but explained that he would not be able to pay it before next evening, after examining the precious metal in detail. Trusting that the guild would not cheat them, the Nemedians accepted a receipt for the gold and went off to enjoy vices of the city some more.

Rested and relaxed, the five comrades headed towards the guild in the evening, walking unknowingly towards an ambush. As they were walking down the alley, the men noticed too late that something was amiss – the reinforced oak door in to the goldsmiths store was hanging open on its hinges. Wagons came crashing at both ends of the alley and shadowy shapes sprung up from the roofs around them, the explosive clacking of arbalests soon showering the Nemedians with bolts. A single, piercing hit brought Tyrus down on the street, seemingly lifeless. Barathus covered Dionysos with his shield as they rushed inside the store. Inside was a mess of broken glass and jewelry spread on the floor, the goldsmith slumped dead behind his counter. Noam followed, releasing arrows at the assassins on the roof. Feeling certain of his invincibility, Alcemides did not bother with cover but charged towards other end of the alley, climbing on top of the wagon and starting to pull himself on roof of the building. Luck was with him, as a dozen bolts just whizzed by him, striking deep in walls around the half-pict.

Inside, Dionysos and Barathus raced upstairs, guessing that there should be some way to access the roof from the building. On the way they came upon more carnage, as the whole family of the goldsmith had been killed. Even his youngest children had not been spared. Noam exchanged fire with the assassins on the opposite roof from the doorway. They were obviously well prepared with loaded arbalests ready at their side to fire on the Nemedians. At the end of the volley, Alcemides struggled to climb on the roof, his grip constantly coming loose. As he finally managed to pull himself up on the roof, two disguised assassins attacked him with jagged scimitars. They had covered their bodies in wide, flowing capes and pulled scarves on their faces. Moving with the speed of a striking serpent, Alcemides dodged their blows, feinting and slashing at their throats, his new Akibatan blade feasting on blood for the first time.

Just as Dionysos and Barathus were about to reach the roof, Alcemides spotted another shadowy figure rising from the roof of a building a few blocks away. He waved a yellow flag a few times around his head before disappearing. The assassins immediately withdrew from combat, tumbling down on carts full of hay parked on the street below. They dropped their weapons, scarves and capes, having ordinary clothes underneath them and disappeared into the crowd. Alcemides ran after them in a fruitless pursuit, leaving the others behind. Investigating their fallen comrade, Barathus and Dionysos found that Tyrus was still barely alive. Luck had turned the bolt that had brought him down so that it had narrowly missed his heart. While they tended his wounds, Noam noticed that unit of Argossean guardsmen was approaching the alley. Barathus convinced the others that he could talk them out of the situation.

The patrolmen quickly removed the wagons from both ends of the valley and investigated the situation. A polite young lieutenant discussed the situation with Barathus, but insisted that the Nemedians would need to come with him to the nearest station to sort out the situation and where a doctor could be called for wounded Tyrus. Soldiers entering the goldsmith’s were horrified to find corpses of his family strewn around the building. The four companions muttered grimly among themselves – it was obvious that the assassins had been merely delaying them for a set-up. After Dionysos and Barathus insisted on it, the lieutenant sent some of his soldiers to search the roofs for corpses. They returned empty handed, increasing suspicions of the Nemedians. The three standing men were lead towards the nearest guardhouse with Tyrus carried behind them. Alcemides returned from his chase just in time to see the patrol and shadowed the group to the fortified building.

Inside, the four men were led to a sparsely furnished dining room inside the guardpost. They were told they would need to wait for hour or two, before a senior officer could be reached to come discuss the matter with them. Two armed guards stayed to stand watch by the only door, while there were probably over two dozen additional soldiers inside the building. Tyrus was revived back to consciousness and the others explained to him what had happened. An hour and then two passed in uncomfortable anticipation. Dionysos and Barathus speculated that the cult that had obviously framed them controlled the city guard as well. It seemed strange that they had found the Nemedians so quickly. Meanwhile, Alcemides stalked outside the guardhouse, wondering what to do. Not someone used to idleness, the half-pict decided to get his companions out. Walking casually among the crowd, he scouted a good position among the cobbled roads, clenching a flamepowder bomb inside his fist. Waiting for a group of nobles to pass by on horseback, he threw the bomb at the feet of their mounts, causing instant mayhem as the horses panicked from the sparkling boom.

Pandemonium broke out in the streets, as the panicking horses spread their terror to other animals. Merchants and commoners ran for their lives, while the riders struggled to stay on their mounts. Soldiers rushed out of the guardhouse to investigate the racket and while they were pacifying the area, Alcemides slipped inside. He quickly knocked the lone guard in the entry hall unconscious and sneaked in, finding the other Nemedians with pure luck. Quickly subduing the soldiers in the room, all five slipped out of the guardpost and ran. They spent a few silver to disguise themselves as peasants and sneaked to the black galley moored in the harbor. As the companions explained the situation to Thothmekri, the Stygian agreed that the whole mess was the creation of followers of the Golden Lord. He reminded the Nemedians that they had chosen to keep the golden mask, that obviously brought misery even after being destroyed. At least now the remains of the mask had been lost.

Alcemides went to investigate the aftermath of their escape the next day, while the others stayed hidden in the ship. It became obvious that the Nemedians were now wanted men in Messantia – not only for the muder of a whole family, but for public disturbance as well. The goldsmith’s guild had promised a considerable amount of silver for their capture. As the half-pict returned onboard, Thothmekri was preparing to leave. He explained Niccolo, the man he would meet, was one of the most prominent information dealers in the whole city. Reaching him was very hard and without Thothmekri, the Nemedians would have had no chance to ever meet him. They could accompany him, disguised, at their own peril. Tyrus was the first to say that he would come, as he wanted to ask the broker about scrolls of Vathelos the Blind. The mere thought of finding more parts of the book made his eyes gleam and hands shake. The others reluctantly agreed to accompany him.

A few hours later, the Nemedians were following Thothmekri disguised as servants. After reaching the large house of the information broker, they were taken in a richly decorated lounge by polite servants. Shedding their disguises, the Nemedians sat down to enjoy fresh fruit and expensive wines. A Vendhyan girl less than ten years of age sat in the corner, playing an ektara for their enjoyment. Thothmekri was lead in to inner chambers of the house – the Stygian said that he had business to conduct with their host before their presence would be requested. Sipping wine, the men discussed idly their situation. It was obvious that followers of the Golden Lord used Messantia as some sort of power base. Yet it seemed likely that they would never need to return to the City of Coin. They would merely go to Stygia, take a load of exotic goods to Nemedia and lead a comfortable life with their wealth.

More than an hour passed before the oriental girl left the room and then returned, motioning the five men to follow. They were taken to a huge study, richly decorated with mats from Iranistan and silk curtains from Khitai. Thothmekri was sitting in a beautifully engraved chair. On the other side of a massive table sat Niccolo, a pale Ophirian man with handsome face and dead, cold eyes. The Stygian introduced the men to the information broker, who greeted them politely. As they had been offered seats, he went straight to business, asking if there was something he could do for them.

A quivering Tyrus could barely contain himself as Dionysos and Barathus discussed with Niccolo about the followers of the Golden Lord. Their host evaded most questions, smiling wryly, but told that the cult had indeed a major network inside Messantia. Their influence had arrived in the city through eastern trade routs a decade or so ago, seducing young noblemen and the idle rich to its grasp. They promised power and riches to those who already had aplenty and used them to their own purposes. Finally, Tyrus could not contain himself anymore and blurted out if Niccolo knew something about the scrolls of Vathelos the Blind. Smiling, the information broker said that he had heard about the scribblings of the blind sage. In fact, for a right price, he could tell the locations of two parts of the book. Frustrated, Tyrus was not in a mood to negotiate. As Niccolo named his price – a bag of gold and a favor in the southern lands – he agreed, tossing a heavy sack full of coin on the table. Chuckling lightly, Niccolo told that a small temple of Ishar in Ophir, located in a border town near Aquilonia, had one set of scrolls in their library. The priests there did not realize what they had and stealing or buying it should be an easy task. Then he pulled a small, skillfulyl made wood carving from his pocket and threw it on the table.

The carving portrayed the face of a woman, obviously beautiful, but with passing features of cruel, disturbing effect. It was obvious even from the carving that she had Acheronian blood flowing in her veins. Still smiling, Niccolo explained that the woman in the carving was Nefertari, an old friend he wanted to locate. He had heard that the Nemedians were going to Stygia and had a reason to believe that she was there as well. Sipping dark red wine from jewelled goblet, Niccolo mentioned that he had a feeling the Nemedians would come across the woman in their travels. They only needed to find her and tell him were she was. He would then give them location of the second set of scrolls in return.

As Barathus asked why Niccolo did not request such service from Thothmekri instead, both men just shrugged and smiled. Dionysos and Niccolo kept eyeing each other in a way that was starting to disturb the other men. Discussion faded slowly in to a small talk. As Thothmekri and the Nemedians prepared to leave, Dionysos announced his intention to stay behind for a few sips of wine with their host. Shrugging and already used to lecherousness of their companion, the four others returned to the harbor with the Stygian sorcerer.

Dionysos returned in the morning as the ship was being prepared for departure. He was pale and drawn, as if his very life had been sucked out of his body. The young half-Acheroninan just went to sleep without a word. The others did not ask anything, presuming his weakness to be the result of some forbidden perversion. As the ship was readied for departure, Thothmekri paced restlessly on the deck, obviously waiting for something. Finally, a heavy carriage approached. Burly black slaves carried a large bulk covered with cloth from it, taking it to the cargo hold of the galley. As they were taking it below the deck, a breeze from the sea raised the cover for a moment. Underneath was a sarcophagus made of bright green jade, decorated with cryptic hieroglyphs and carvings of snakes.

From the Memoirs of Tyrus the First

As we were leaving in Messentia, I had begun to feel dissatisfied about my performance during the recent fights. Especially the ambush at the goldsmith had seen me merely catching bolts and not even delaying the enemy, while more seasoned warriors did their work. More specifically, the heavy army greatsword felt clumsy in my hands and offered little protection from arrows. I yearned a nimbler weapon, which would hinder hinder my mobility less and leave my other hand free. Unlike Alcemides, I wasn’t daring enough to go after archers without a shield.

I regretted that i had not had time to attend a fencing school in Zingara, but Barathus offered to teach me his elegant swordmanship. Luckily an officer on the ship traded my old equipment for a sturdy broadsword and a small shield, which enabled me to spar and train. I immediately felt more comfortable, and never looked back. Though it would be quite a while until I could beat Barathus in a duel, my self-confidence soared.

The Stygian galley sailed southwards, every pull of its long oars bringing it a little closer to the dark realm of fell sorcery and bestial gods. The terrain shifted from the orchards and fields of Argos to the fertile meadows of western Shem. Dionysos and Tyrus continued to spend their time drinking deeply of the wisdom of the blind sage, while trying their best to learn the rudiments of modern Stygian, a task made easier by their fluency in the related languages of Acheronian and Classical Stygian. Barathus, too, tried his best to learn some of the language of the country they would soon be spending time in. The rest of the men lounged about bored on the deck, one day to the next. Although the crew members and the captain were now more polite towards the Nemedians, after the battle with the black corsairs, they could still offer them little entertainment. Thothmekri spent most of his time out of sight, perhaps in contact with his dark masters through sorcerous means.

Bored and annoyed by the increasingly intense sun, Barathus, Alcemides and Noam spent most of their time engaged in idle games of chance, petty sums of coin exchanging hands each day. Strange dreams continued to trouble Noam’s nights – dreams where a baleful star shone on a blood red sky and civilizations were reduced to ruin and former humans reveled like animals, hunting and killing to satisfy their monstrous appetites. He also dreamt of a city, destroyed and rebuilt three times, each time devoured by the sands of a merciless desert. Under the baleful star its towers and palaces crumbled to dust and its citizens became bones bleached under the desert sun. From underneath the sands and the ruins he could hear a pounding sound, inviting and calling for him, summoning Noam to its presence. The dreams continued, more and more demanding each night. Slowly a name echoed through the mists to his mind – Pteion the Damned, hidden in the dark lands of Stygia.

The black galley continued its journey south. One evening a green glow was seen on the sea, slowly approaching the ship. The sight drove the Stygian sailors to a panic, causing a flurry of activity as the men fled under the deck. Approached by the worried captain, the Nemedians were explained that the approaching glow was that of a sea demon, a vicious creature that enjoyed confusing sailors and making them run their ships aground. He told that the only way to be safe from its evil influences was to be unseen, beneath the deck until it would get bored and go away. With those parting words, the captain turned and ran to his cabin, leaving the foreigners alone on the deck, with the eerie glow slowly enveloping the water around the ship. Arguing what to do, the Nemedians decided to inspect the phenomenon further. Dionysos and Tyrus bent over the railing, but their sorcerous senses did not register anything. The men lowered a bucket to the sea and lifted up some seawater. The water in the bucket glowed as the sea around the ship, although less intensely, but showed no other signs of something unusual.

While the others were examining the water, Alcemides sneaked in the deserted cargo hold where the sarcophagus had been taken to in Messantia. Pulling back the covering on the sarcophagus, the half-pict admired its rich carvings and occult decorations. It was obviously made completely from the finest jade and the snake motifs on its lid looked almost alive in the shadows of the hold. Dionysos joined Alcemides in admiring the sarcophagus, but upon seeing the face etched on to the lid the young Nemedian with Acheronian blood in his veins swore under his breath and fled to the deck. As he was explaining to Tyrus and the rest that the ship was carrying the remains of Xaltotun in its hold, Alcemides struggled with the heavy lid, finally pulling it slightly aside. Peeking inside he saw a curious sight – a shriveled mummy wearing fresh, new silken clothes and around its neck a golden pendant with a huge red gem that seemed to radiate a dim glow of red light by itself.

As Tyrus climbed down to the hold, Alcemides was busy trying to cut off the head of the corpse. The shriveled flesh proved to be surprisingly tough, making it hard for the half-pict to saw the neck with his blade. His attempts to open the golden necklace has failed, leading in to the next logical step – beheading the corpse. The eerie glow from the gem cast dark shadows across his scarred face, reflecting a manic gleam in his eyes. With great difficulty, the young sorcerer managed to convince him that beheading the mummy of an ancient wizard was not the wisest thing to do. Standing by themselves on the deserted deck, with an eerie green glow casting dark shadows around them, the Nemedians engaged in a heated debate about what to do next. Alcemides urged them to seize the chance, grab the splendid necklace and escape from the ship with a boat to the coast of Shem. Dionysos and Noam were against such deeds, albeit for different reasons. The Acheronian argued that the necklace was most likely cursed – and if they’d escape with it, the Stygian priests would send terrible spells after them, making their lives short and miserable. Noam decreed that it was his destiny, as it was revealed by gods in his dreams, to go to Stygia and visit the damned city of Pteion that was calling out to him. Besides, it was obvious that he was cursed by the sorcerer his arrow had slain in Zingara and in Stygia, a land renowned for sorcery, the curse might be lifted.

The arguments flowed high and loud back and forth, as Alcemides had been captured by the beauty of the red gem. Tyrus became convinced by his arguments of great wealth within their grasp – obsessed as he was, Tyrus started to think that by possessing the gem he could use it to find more scrolls of Vathelos the Blind. Considerate as ever, Barathus tried to calm the opposing sides in vain. Wrestling ensued on the slippery deck, as Alcemides proclaimed that he would go to cut the gem for himself and Noam pounced on him, attempting to prevent him from going in the cargo hold. While the two struggled, Dionysos did his best to convince Tyrus to abandon the idea of theft. He reminded Tyrus of the deal they had done with Niccolo and that the mysterious information broker would tell them location of another set of scrolls once they passed through Messantia again on their way back to Nemedia. Thus going to Stygia was a more likely way of obtaining another part of the writings than running through the meadows of Shem with ire of the serpent priests on their heels. As Alcemides subdued Noam with a deceitful kick between the legs, he learned that he had lost his ally in the argument, the spell of the gem broken with carefully placed words that flamed the sorcerers obsession.

No longer supported by any of his companions, Alcemides finally admitted defeat. Yet still he was unable to comprehend how the other veterans could miss such an obvious opportunity to gain great wealth. He proclaimed that by letting this opportunity pass by they would miss their one and only great chance of receiving great treasures and walking out alive with them. As the ship would reach Stygia, the sarcophagus would surely be taken away to be guarded with swords and sorcery beyond their ability to penetrate. The dark lands of Stygia would surely have nothing but trouble and curses in stock for them – and the city of Pteion that Noam so foamed about would turn out to be nothing but an abandoned ruin haunted by demons of the worst kind. The half-pict swore to the others that surely this was an opportunity set before them by gods of the forests and nothing else would ever be handed to them again. Only scars and memories of horrors beyond mortal comprehension would be their rewards from the journey that they would now take on – and they would perish before blades of broadswords and tulwars in some nameless hellhole, no richer than they were at birth. Silent and grumpy, the men separated and went to sleep amidst the green glow and the words of Alcimedes ringing in their ears with a prophetic echoes.

The green glow – demon or not – had disappeared as the dawn shone on the galley again. Journey towards the serpent of the south carried onwards under the scorching sun. With every passing day, other black galley become a more and more common sight. Finally Thothmekri approached the Nemedians again, telling them that the ship would arrive at Khemi in a few days. The Stygian held a lecture at the men, informing them of the religious taboos and curious customs upheld with draconian laws. The priest recommended the Nemedians to first spend several days in the foreigners island outside the city proper before using the permits awaiting them for the first time. Trading licenses of the kind they would receive were extremely valuable in the right hands and using them lightly might well result in their deaths. Learning of the hygiene habits of Stygia, the men decided to shave as well when the sailors started to shed themselves of bodily hair two days before their expected arrival. Noam and Barathus refused to shave themselves completely bald, and Dionysos would not part with his luxuriant mane, but others had no such objections.

Two days later, the galley approached the river Styx and the dark city of Khemi. The spires and palaces of the inner city loomed against the morning sky in the distance and behind them the Nemedians could see the vague shapes of huge pyramids, somewhere in the desert further away. The sea carried strange and exotic noises and smells from the city that was both familiar and alien in appearance and spirit. Raised as they have been to believe that Set was a demon of worst kind and the Stygians some form of human monsters, the apparent banality of the lives of the common people working on the fields and fishing on the sea challenged their prejudices. Yet still strange obelisks and huge statues of bestial, threatening gods could be seen looming among the buildings of the Stygian city. The galleon rowed its way to a military harbor, where dozens of black ships both similar and larger were moored underneath dark bulwarks. A group of muscular black slaves guided by half a dozen acolytes of Set were waiting as the ship slowly docked. As the slaves entered the ship and headed down to the cargo hold, Thothmekri approached the Nemedians with one of the acolytes. The young priest of Set handed two papyrus scrolls to the Hyborians while Thothmekri explained that they were the trading permits he had promised them. He told that a boat would take them to Tortoise Island, a place of residence for foreigners with no permit to enter the city itself. From there on the men would be on their own, but they could send word for him at the House of Healing inside the city if they wished.

The Nemedians bid their farewells to Thothmekri, making their way on a boat where a naked slave waited to take them to the island. As the slave rowed the boat towards the island, the Nemedians saw the muscular slaves carry the jade sarcophagus away from the ship, perhaps to disappear inside one of the many pyramids that had surely swallowed many wonders like it during their long existence. Soon enough they had again land underneath their feet, as they wandered the narrow alleys of Tortoise Island. Dirty, half-naked mercenaries slumbered in shadows under the scorching sun that seemed to threaten to burn Hyborian skin to cinders.Eventually the Nemedians found their way to the best inn they could find on the island – a dirty place called the Yellow Rose. The men spent a few days just relaxing after the long journey and getting to know the local regulars. They were a ragged bunch from across the Hyborian nations and further away – mercenaries and cutthroats from north, a tomb robber from Shadizar and a strange Shemite dressed as a Darfar, with empty eye sockets but acting as he could see and a huge, sweating and panting wolf always at his feet.

Making plans and discussing their options the Nemedians soon found out that the trading season was only beginning. Caravans with silk and lotus would start to arrive to Khemi in a week or two, leaving them with nothing to do. Unwilling or unable to stay idle, the wanderers came up with a plan – to seek their fortune in the swamps nearby in the form of black lotus. After all, how dangerous could a flower be? Surely the chilling tales of its dangers were merely tales spun by those who wished others to stay away from their sources of the fabled drug. Dionysos speculated that by drying the lotus in to powder they could make a fortune if they could take it all the way to Nemedia – perhaps hidden inside crates of silk. In a few days they had hired a Stygian lotus guide to take them to places where black lotus was to be found.

In the evening before their departure to their trip, Noam and Alcemides learned that the eyeless Shemite was a mad storyteller known as Tawil At’Umr. He had been part of a mercenary company on the southern border of Stygia and went missing a few years ago after the mercenaries had been attacked by Darfars. All his companions had thought that he had died, but the man had suddenly appeared in Khemi half a year ago, blind but yet somehow able to act as if seeing and accompanied by a wolf. Ever since he had claimed that he had been enlightened by a goddess and given knowledge of things past and present. The madman spread forth insane tales for anyone willing to listen – and held those interested in some sort of spell, for they never left without leaving enough coin to pay for his room and food. Intrigued, Noam approached the blind man and asked if he knew anything about Pteion.

Smiling knowingly, the eyeless Shemite started telling a story of ancient times when the serpent kin of Valusia called the world their own. He told of their rites to appease the Old Serpent and strange, alien cities built in distant and hard to reach places. With a singing, powerful voice he told of how Atlantis was taken by the waves and how the blood of Atlantis clashed with the blood of Valusia. A baleful star shone upon red sky as the serpent people were struck down and their realm cast in to forgotten ruins and whispered legends. The city of Pteion, as it was called, was cursed and devoured by the sands of the deserts, waiting for another time. The new time came with the people who built the realm of Old Stygia and the sands of the desert parted, revealing Pteion again. The city was rebuilt and populated, new buildings constructed over the warrens of ages long gone. Yet again the red sky came and the baleful star watched down with merciless eyes as Pteion again fell and the sands devoured it again, cursed for the second time. Then came the ancestors of the Stygians, conquering the Old Stygians and fleeing some dire catastrophe far east. The sands of the desert parted and for the third time, Pteion was built under the naked sky. Yet still what had passed would come again and the baleful star appeared on the sky, cursing the city for the third time. Now it again slept under the sands, Pteion the Thrice-Cursed, Pteion the Damned, a relic of times far older than what men could remember.

Still smiling, the storyteller looked Noam in to eyes with his empty eye-sockets and told that the fourth appearance and the fourth cursing of Pteion would soon come to pass. The baleful star would once more gaze upon the world and the horrors and wonders of the old world would be again unburied. He told that the Nemedians would find Pteion if the city wanted them to come to it – old roads would appear from the desert sand and they would find their way in to the city. Yet to visit the damned city would mean to become damned or enlightened themselves – and most men, weak of will and faint of heart, would die shaking and with a froth of madness at their lips if they experienced the glory of Pteion at full. One by one all the Nemedians had arrived at the table to listen to the powerful story and one by one they left, leaving silver at the blind storyteller. Night came dark, cold and sudden. Noam slept uneasily and in his dreams, a baleful star gazed down from a blood-red sky.

An Insert From the Journals of Dionysos Thaurian

What Alcemides fails to realise is that the thought of me dying with as much wealth as I was born with does not bother me in the least. Oh, those silly commoners.

Exploring the Lotus Swamps

Having secured the services of a native guide, the band of Nemedians took off along the Styx at dawn, abroad the skiff piloted by Kamoses, a weathered middle-aged Stygian of the labouring class. The expedition was planned to last for two weeks, with a provision for a few additional days, as long as the foreigners were willing to pay. Kamoses had many years of experience on braving the Lotus Swamps, which showed in the many scars left on his skin by the whip-like fronds of the Lotus. The men would have to spend several nights on the shore, making their camp well clear of the riverbank, lest they were devoured by beasts such as the famed river horse or the great Stygian crocodiles. As dusk turned to night on the second day of the journey, the camp was set upon by strange beasts with the body of a leopard and the head of a snake, though the aberrant animals, most likely driven to investigate the travelers out of curiosity, were promptly dispatched by Alchemides.

The Nemedians broke camp at dawn and headed off towards the swamps. The ruins of an abandoned Stygian city at the edge of the swamp piqued the curiosity of the scholarly Nemedians, who also persuaded Alchimedes and Noam to come along with the promise of possible treasures, disregarding the warnings of Kamoses. The ruins were mostly unremarkable, though they were assaulted by what appeared to be a large, mobile carnivorous plant of some kind. Fending off the creature with fire, the party explored parts of the ruined settlement, discovering ancient relics of Ibis worship and a pouch of seeds, which the scholars of the group suspected being the seeds of the infernal Emerald Lotus that had attacked them.

As the band was led deeper into the swamp by their guide, they finally came upon a number of Black Lotus plants. Trusting in the power of a wet blanket to guard their breath against the sophophoric miasma of the legendary blossom, the Nemedians set upon the mystical vegetation, and promptly fell fast asleep. After waking from a haunted slumber, the band reassessed their tactics. Cutting down even one fully grown Lotus plant proved to be quite the labour for the men, especially given the constant lashing they received from the poisonous fronds. Noam seemed especially resilient, as he would not fall down despite a score of wounds crisscrossing his body and limbs. The band, dissatisfied with their meager harvest, decided to stay for another day. Next morn, the group came across a very large Lotus-tree topped by a huge blossom and flanked by smaller Black lotuses. After a struggle of steel and sorcery, the band prevailed, and set off on the journey back towards Khemi. Along the way they were attacked by a huge crocodile, upon whose back seemed to grow an emerald-green plant like the one that attempted to exsanguinate the adventurers in the ruins two days before. After a fierce battle that almost saw Alchmedes meet his doom betwixt the jaws of the monstrous reptile, the Nemedians returned to Khemi, exhausted but triumphant. The lesser blossoms were ground up to be used in a smokable form, while the party decided to sell the great blossom to the temple harlots of Derketo.

From Dionysos

As I walked in the merchant district looking for a moneychanger, I noticed a richly decorated palanquin that appeared to be following us discreetly. Our curiosity aroused, I addressed the occupants, politely requesting that they inform us of their intentions and the reason for their surveillance. To my surprise I was met with the playful chuckle of a woman of refined bearing, and was given no further reply save a lotus blossom dropped at my feet. While we had been warned that such flirtations from a noblewoman might provoke the wrath of someone we might not wish to anger, I found myself oddly pleased and intrigued by this encounter.

Having decided that the best time to return home with our souvenirs was in a later season, and that we would be spending a significant amount of time in Stygia, I deemed it necessary to purchase a residence more befitting my worth. From the priests of Set I found a bargain, a house well-situated in an area inhabited mainly by the few other aliens allowed to reside within Khemi proper. The suite included a number of slaves and some furniture, which I found adequate for my needs and those of my fellow Nemedians. Using my Sight beyond Sight on a rack found in a hidden cellar room I discovered that whoever had dwelled here before had met his entertainingly painful demise at the hands of masked men bearing the mark of Skelos.

No sooner had we settled in that we were invited to festivities in the noble quarter of the City, by a noblewoman by the name of Yunet. My inquiries into her revealed that she was the wife of a Stygian prince, who apparently hunted her many lovers for sport. Intrigued by the possibilities inherent in such a potential resource within my grasp, I did not hesitate to graciously accept the invitation. The festivities were somewhat disappointing, as while the entertainment and refreshments were more than adequate, the highest-ranking local nobles proved quite distant and difficult to reach. The woman Yunet seemed to be quite besotted with me, and it was soon apparent that the soft, malleable wax of her heart stood no chance against my wiles; I was certain that she would prove to be quite useful while we remained in Khemi.

From the Memoirs of Tyrus the First

It had come to pass that we were invited to socializing occasion by Yunet, a Stygian noblewoman known for her influence. She had taken peculiar interest in Dionysos, perhaps for his Acheronian features. I have to admit, that the morbid sense of humor and sadism of the stygian culture did not bode well for the feast, but as the son of a merchant, I was more than aware that we should establish connections. Indeed, we had the trade permits, but using them might be difficult, had we no-one to buy from.

Evening came and we set foot to a lavish apartment. The food was good and wine plentiful, and I recall that no more than an hour passed by before Alcemides was blitheringly drunk. The entertainment consisted of erotic dances between snakes and women, and humorous plays by midget jesters that the locals found quite amusing. One of the midgets got bit and turned black under the very eyes of the crowd, but it seems I was the only one really bothered by this. Oh well.

Fed up with the entertainment and emboldened with the wine, Dionysos and I decided to talk to… and later interrogate Yunet. I was interested in the mercantile practices of silk trade, and once the wine got the best of me, also in Nefertari and Thotmekri’s master. Of the latter, I heard little, but I was told about Nefertari’s enigmatic cruelty and unusually large build. Yunet was a good listener and I have to say that conversing with her was indeed a rare pleasure. Perhaps a little too rare, as I tolerated her inquisitiveness about our past undertakings. Dionysos claims I slipped something about the scrolls, yet I can remember no such thing. That blasted fool probably couldn’t shut his mouth and tries to mount the blame on me. I shouldn’t have left him to the wiles of that wench, but tiredness was getting the best of me and I wanted to find Alcemides and Noam.

Had the pict passed out, it was only temporary. I found all the others in the lotus pit getting accustomed to a new vice. I had never tried the smoke myself, since they say that it rots the mind, but these accusations are false. Having the benefit of experience, I must affirm that Lotus brightens your spirit and awakens your inner strength. The smell is also quite enjoyable. If it only were cheaper, I might grow a habit.

Anyway, the smoke had gotten the best of Noam, and it seemed that the manhoods of both him and some turanian noble were being called into question. I feared that it would become a fight, but my intervention was not welcome and ‘everything was all right and friendly’. Both then proceeded to inhale the smoke in turns for quite some time. Before long everybody else had passed out and I didn’t fancy the streets alone at night. It was best to accept the hospitality of our hostess.

In the morning Noam displayed a gold ring he had supposedly won from the turanian. In my memory, it was more of a tie, but no matter. At least he wasn’t that as loud about his success than Alcemides. Which remids me that I have to reason with him about dividing the profits from the silk trade. That blasted pict has somehow hoarded more capital than the rest of us combined, but refuses to acknowledge that personal risk is an integral part of the investment.

From Alcemides

Bel’s balls, this was the most tiresome party ever. I don’t even know why we attend these things unless we’re planning to kill some stiff noble bastard. I got drunk on some Stygian hard stuff and my memories are somewhat shaky. I recall that weak-wristed Noam ripping off some Turanian lotus-fiend and taking his fat gold ring. I think I’ll add it to my collection later.

Previously in the Green Lotus, the Nemedians had met Petruso, a Zamoran thief and an expert in Stygian tombs. As Yunet had thoroughly seduced Dionysos, however much the young nobleman refused to acknowledge it, she had no trouble in persuading him to retrieve an item of interest to her, a jewel-encrusted mummified serpent, from the tomb of a high-ranking Stygian priest, with Petruso acting as the guide. Having been persuaded by the prospects of keeping any other treasures they might come across, the adventurers, less Barathus and Tyrus, set off back towards Tortoise Island, where Petruso was waiting for them with a small boat. For his own sinister purposes, Dionysos had purchased two mute slaves.

From a ruined keep between the Fangs of Set near the port, on a islet known as the Claw of Ishiti, the men sneaked down a hidden staircase that led to an ancient network of tunnels beneath Khemi. In passing, Petruso mentioned legends that the tunnels were older by far than Stygia, and were a part of an enormous maze of hidden underground passages that connected the secret places of the World. As the party moved in silence in the lightless depths, they witnessed from their hiding place a procession of priests, wearing carved masks of their bestial gods, moving in the opposite direction. After another similiar encounter, Alcemides, whether motivated by greed, curiosity or savage bloodlust, set upon the priests, and after a brief fight the Stygians were forever silenced. Hiding the corpses in an alcove, the tomb robbers continued their journey without further complications, with Alcemides proudly wearing his new Ape-mask, proclaiming it to be the countenance of Gullah, the Pictish gorilla-god.

Emerging near the burial grounds, with the great black pyramids looming menacingly in the moonlight, Petruso and the three Nemedians parted ways, with the Zamoran promising to meet the adventurers near the entrance to their point of egress. Darting from the shadow of one mausoleum to the next, the party halted as they heard the approach of a patrol of Stygian infantry. Though Dionysos failed to find adequate cover for his long frame, the soldiers were unwilling to investigate, no doubt fearful of tales of the restless dead and worse prowling the necropolis.

As the tomb of the priest had already been broken into previously, entry would not be a problem as such. At the door, Dionysos promptly sacrificed the two slaves, so that their life-energy would fuel his necromancy. He raised one of the corpses to act as a mine-canary of sorts, hoping that its shambling might set off any traps the previous thieves had not stumbled in or disabled. The robbers then walked down, after the shuffling corpse, mute even in death.

Inside the tomb, the party found the remains of one of the previous robbers, who had met a mysterious and gory death and had his mangled corpse set inside one of the sarcophagi. After exploring the tomb, finding many wondrous and terrible things befitting the final resting place of an accomplished sorcerer, Alcemides discovered a shaft, hidden behind a wall, leading downwards into a small chamber where the mummified serpent lay. Not satisfied by the trinkets they had recovered so far, and confident that the actual treasure chamber was yet to be discovered, Dionysos and Noam set about looking for it, while Alcemides explored the hidden tunnel. While the nomad and the nobleman struggled with false treasure chambers and their deadly traps and otherwordly guardians, Alcemides found an exit in the nest of enormous scorpions that opened into the necropolis beyond. At the lowest level, he also discovered an enormous Son of Set, resting upon a bed of countless bones. Only a well-aimed pouch of Black Lotus managed to confuse the great serpent long enough for the adventurers to make their escape into the breaking dawn. The party had failed to locate the primary treasure chamber, if there ever was one, but had at least lived to tell the tale.

Back in Khemi, the whole city was preparing for a great festival in honour of the lioness-headed goddess Bast. Hearing that blood-sports in her honour would be had, Alcemides became animated, wishing to test his mettle against great predatory cats. Even after witnessing the gory spectacle of lions mauling and butchering their human prey, the half-pict was undeterred, and proceeded to challenge one of the beasts with naught save his bare hands. At first, the uneven match proceeded as one might presume, with Alcemides inches away from a bloody end, but improbably, he was able to slay the lion, thrusting his fist down the bewildered animal’s throat, crushing the beast’s vitals. The horribly wounded Alcemides was tended to by the finest of Stygian physicians, so that he too, along with his companions, could spend the rest of the night in orgiastic revelry. A closed country though Stygia might be, the tale of this fantastic deed would precede Alcemides whereever he would set foot from now on.

From Tyrus

Watching Alcemides get mauled by the cats was unnerving. Many a time I discreetly set my evil eye upon the beasts, sparing his skin a lot of torture. Naturally the ungrateful brute refused to acknowledge my aid, just blathering about how “those tricks of yours are but skin deep”. I expected no less, but as remote as it may seem to the pict, someday he’ll overestimate his might again, and I won’t be there to help.

From Alcemides

So typical of those decandent scholars. They live in fear of beasts – and other men – and try to feel better by claiming other people’s conquests and spreading more fear.

I’ve seen the cheap tricks of conjurers, and some real sorceries too, and all I can say they’re cowards. Always trying some archaic and arcane deceit instead of confronting and conquering their opposition. My way is the way of Gullah, who lives on the moon. Their way is the way of serpents, sniveling and crawling through their miserable lives, full of alchemies and useless books.

Cut the snake’s head and rise, fools.

Also, the lion truly was an opponent worthy of a feast.

From the Memoirs of Tyrus the First

I was a bit put off for not being able to attend the tomb exploration trek the other day, but unaccustomed to both lotus and heavy drinking, the repercussions of Yunet’s party were so bad that I felt almost feverish. Luckily the symptoms subsided, the next day, and when Noam declared that he has another mission for us, I was fit to travel.

The witch who removed Noam’s curse had heard of an old artifact of power in Khet, a deserted sacred city of the scorpion god Selkhet. We had paid a hefty price for the removal of the curse, and the witch was prepared to refund our payment, should we fetch the artifact for her.

Preparations were soon done and we set out for the desert. Khet was only around four days away from Khemi. The trip was uneventful and quite comfortable, for we had prepared adequately. We arrived late in the afternoon, and headed out for the biggest temple of the area, where Noam assumed the artifact would be hidden. The temple had a large main hall circled with terraces on three stories. The horizontal architecture seemed strange and combined with the abundant engravings and arabesques, also very expensive. The ancient stygians didn’t seem to be short of coin.

We set camp and prepared to explore the temple, but were interrupted by a booming voice. On the terrace above us, loomed an apparition wreathed in blue flames. It demanded peace and our immediate departure on the pain of death, but naturally Alcemides only offered curses in return. As if waiting for this very response, we were met with a hail of arrows from the upper terraces. I got hit by a poisoned tip, and if not for Dionysos’s skills in healing, would surely be a dead man. After a long an bitter fight, my companions managed to drive the rest of the attackers away. When scouring through their remains, we found out that they were simple bandits who didn’t possess anything of significant value. The blue flames and the apparition were merely some alchemical powder and a puppet. Strangely some of the dead bandits were ravaged by an unnatural amount of parasites and diseases, which we found very strange, but couldn’t explain yet.

We climbed the stairs to the various terraces and finally to the topmost level. Everything had been througly looted dozens of times over and I begun to question the existence of the whole artifact. Hoever, the pict, with his good eyes, noticed an unusual crack in the wall of the upper sanctum, and led us to a small room. Stored under a heavy stone slab was the artifact we were sent to find.

I did not recognize the markings and engravings on the wall of the small room, and especially its resting place was strangely plain. Stranger still, was the artifact itself. Its form was that of a large ankh, around two palms in height and one palm in width, but the whole structure seemed to be knit from bone. You may question my words, but carved it was not. Upon touch, the ankh was dry and hard as rock, but it seemed as if the bones had once been malleable as wax, and twisted around each other like the strands of a rope. Noam seemed fascinated by the artifact and didn’t let me touch it for long. He said he felt the power in it, and even though I would prefer to call it evil, I was loath to deny his words.

After eating, we left the temple to explore the other ruins. Everywhere else the looters had been thorough and apart from clay pottery and the architectural wonders of the city, absolutely nothing was left. This bothered me, as it seemed extremely unlikely that the artifact would still be here, and so easily found. Just before going back inside, we noticed a something green to the east of the main temple. We got closer to find something magnificent.

Here, in the heat and drought of the desert, inside walls of twice a man’s height, was a lush and tranquil garden. Trees carrying apples, bushes full of berries and extraordinarily colorful flowers were growing in a dark, moist soil. Central to the garden was a fountain carved in the shape of a beautiful woman, with the hindquarters of a snake. That was Ishiti, the goddess of silence and tombs, whose power seemed to keep the garden alive. Before anyone could eat from the trees, Dionysos pointed out that the apples were those of Derketa, and immensely poisonous. We carefully collected a few, as they might come in handy later. Perhaps we could even sell them back in Khemi. Dionysos also noticed that he could not cast any spells in the garden, as the statue seemed to draw all the power from his divinations.

After admiring the garden for a while longer we explored the city a bit further, at which point lady luck decided to reward us rather generously. Half-buried in the fine sands of a dry riverbed, we found the remains of a caravan. Some dead camels and crates lay scattered in the ground without a soul in sight. Judging by the condition of the bodies, we were witnessing the remains of a recent battle, but for some reason, most of the remaining crates seemed untouched by robbers. Luckily Barathus noticed the similarities in the loot and some of the loot in the bandits’ remains. I and Dionysos then realized that their diseases were probably caused by curses set to the openers of the crates. Empowered with this information, we dragged the crates to Ishiti’s garden and opened them in the protection of the benevolent goddess. Most of the spoils were simple alchemical substances or clothing, but one of the crates revealed thirty-nine flasks of honey-colored, viscous substance. At first we were bewildered, but Dionysos recognized it as the mythical and valuable Golden Wine of Xuthal.

While we marveled our newfound wealth, the wind rose, and Noam told us that it would probably become worse. Knowing that a sandstorm would sweep over the city soon, we decided that it would be best to not face the desert under these conditions. The animals were also taken inside temple, and we were preparing to spend the night, when Alcemides suddenly became certain of having heard singing in the whistling winds. Before anyone could object, the pict left out to investigate, and I ran behind him.

Alcemides told me that the singing came further from the east. The coming darkness and blowing sand made it hard to see, but soon we reached the edge of the city. Still following the song, we planned to head for the nearby cliffs, but suddenly a trio of riders in heavy clothing came upon us. We were rather unprepared, but managed to drag one of the riders down from her horse just to notice that she was in fact a woman. This bewildering fact almost got the best of me, as I paused in hesitation and was severely wounded by a flanking rider. Fleeing to the narrow streets of the city, I saw Alcemides battling all three of the women and wounding one before retreating to the crumbling alleys himself.

Back at the temple, the others too reported having heard the singing. Dionysos was visibly distraught when we told him about the rider-women, and hypothesized that the incident was probably related to the ankh, which had seemed all too easy to find. We assumed that another fight would ensue, and used the opportunity to coat our blades with the apples’ poison. However, despite waiting and reinforcing our position, no attack came. The rest of the night was uneventful, and while the sandstorm lasted until next midday, we eventually packed our bags and set out to the desert.

Not far from the temple, we were charged by seven women on horseback. Their bladework was impressive – for women – and their mobile tactics frustrated us severely. The women augmented their fighting skills with sorcery. Many times a landing blow was stopped by a swift gesture, as if an invisible shield had blocked the blade. Finally the luck turned again on our side, as Alcemides pulled a passing rider from her saddle and stabbed her brutally to death. Apparent leader of the group was brought down by Noam’s arrow. The shot was so accurate that even a sorcerous gesture could not stop the projectile. It penetrated the eye of the woman and brought her down without a sound. Having lost their leader, with many of them wounded, the attackers retreated and we had no further trouble on our way to Khemi.

Much of the return trip was spend deliberating our future options. The wine was probably a present to the pharaoh or one of the high priests of Set. It was by far too valuable to leave rotting in the sand, so it was inevitable that someone would come looking for it sooner or later. Thus, it would also be challenging to sell it within Stygia’s borders, and excessive loitering in Khemi would risk us getting caught possessing the wine. All things considered, waiting for the silk trade season seemed less and less attractive by the moment. When Noam used this opportunity to yet again propose a quick visit to the hidden city of Pteion before crossing to Shem through the border city of Erkulum, we were much less resistant to the idea. So it happened that after four days in the desert, we simply set camp outside the city walls and quickly fetched our possessions before heading towards the eastern reaches of Stygia.

A Fragment from the Journals of Lord Dionysos

As dusk fell on the second day of our journey, we broke camp and headed off again. Some hours had passed, judging from the movements of the heavenly bodies, and the bright moonlight and the clear starry skies lit the desert as well as daylight. After a while we heard a strange ululation unlike any we had heard, and after a while it became apparent that it was emanating from a cyclopean tower some distance off to our left, seen as a black silhouette against the constellations. As we drew nearer to investigate, the howl seemed to intensify, as if whatever was making it had become aroused by our proximity. We noticed a circle of polished stones surrounding the tower, and I drew the conclusion that it was some manner of binding-circle, and we should leave whatever it was keeping at bay be. So, despite the protestations of Alcemides, ever the troublemaker, we headed back towards…

From the Memoirs of Tyrus the First

The journey east was swift. We had decided that it would be best to visit Erkulum for supplies first and then depart for the trackless sands. Nobody seemed to know where exactly Pteion was, but Noam was convinced that his visions would lead us to the city. Alcemides loudly stated that he didn’t believe in our sorcerous babbling and conjuring tricks, and that probably Pteion was just an old wives tale. He was perhaps right, but the mythical riches and knowledge buried within were so alluring that wandering a few weeks in the desert was an acceptable vexation, even if we found no city.

My mind was changed, however, when Dionysos begun to spend his nights having visions and dreams of the place, describing the ruins in great detail. Once he even showed the visions to us in the smoke of a fireplace, and we marveled at the streets of the desert city and the green stone used to build the largest monuments therein. Then, without warning, the vision was wrested from Dionysos’ grasp and the images in the smoke were sent violently tumbling through underground halls and corridors, before finally settling in close orbit around a dark, thumping heart. Dionysos confirmed that this was how his dreams always ended, and no matter how he tried, his third eye would be set upon the heart for the rest of the night.

The vision changed Alcemides’s attitude a bit, and instead of lamenting the fruitlessness of the expedition, he became sure that it would lead to our certain, untimely deaths. I also felt this to be a likely outcome, but didn’t raise my voice, as I still wanted to see the city in the sands.

We kept going upriver and the days were uneventful, until one morning Noam tried to kill us. We overpowered him quickly and seeing that he was under the influence of sorcery, bound and gagged him until the spell subsided. We didn’t get an explanation for this, until later when Dionysos tried the same. When he came to his senses, he told that the face of a priestess in the stream commanded him to murder his comrades. It seemed as if the rider-women weren’t short of tricks to get back the ankh. After contemplating we deducted that reflective surfaces were needed for the spell, and thus everybody drew water from streams and wells with their eyes shut from this on.

The concern of the priestesses’ sorcery was strong. When pausing to a city by the river, we asked the local priests of Set for a ward against sorcery and reluctantly traded a couple of vials of the golden wine for it. Dionysos assured that we were being swindled, but the priests accepted no smaller payment. Little did I know of their religion, as the children I assumed would help in the ceremonies, were swiftly sacrificed before our very eyes. We were splashed with their blood, and I wanted to protest, but the words stuck to my throat. The children were already dead, so what good would it do. I curse the wicked priests to this day. I may have gained the blessing of their god, but while I could wash away the blood, the shame would remain.

We expected a more serious confrontation with the priestess-women, but it didn’t come until later, when we set camp within a half day of Erkulum. I was asleep when the attack had begun. Alcemides told that he had been sprung over by something that was either a woman or a jackal or both. We barely managed to gear up before the riders rode from the night, surrounding us. They outnumbered us greatly, and I was sure my days were done – a state of affairs I found a rather just payment for the children’s lives. For one reason or another, this was not to be, as Noam pierced his palm with the ankh and bellowed an order to all the scorpions of the desert. Miraculously, the vermin heeded the call and came to help us in great numbers. The ground was alive with them, and they stung the horses and crawled over the women, almost tipping the fight to our favor. More strange things were about to pass, though, as our assaulters were suddenly themselves attacked by another form from the night.

One of the women was snatched from her horse and carried into the darkness. When the shadow came back for another, the priestesses fled. We assumed we would be saved, but the form attacked us too. It was lightning-fast and cold as ice, with a form of a ragged, pale man. It tried to grab Alcemides, who managed to wrest himself free of its grasp. It assaulted us repeatedly, racing to and from the darkness, clawing us on its way. There we stood, in a circle around the fire, waiting and fearing, until it came to me what I had to do. When the demon sprung again, I looked it in the eyes and unleashed my evil eye on its dark soul. Our wills wrestled while our bodies were motionless, and my companions sliced it with all their might. It managed to break away once, but the beast was as proud as it was evil, and would not leave its prey. Alcemides finally set the shadow alight with a demonfire, but not before it had tainted my soul with its dark mind.

Surely we were safe for a moment more, but unlike never before, I felt my sanity and rectitude slipping away. I felt despair and worthless, and my mind, which the demon had touched, saw dark dreams each night. I would have joined Alcemides and called off the expedition to Pteion, were I not certain its secrets could promise wealth… and salvation. The scrolls were constant, if my sanity was not. With the knowledge in them I might even cure myself, for what answers could you not find with such a power? Pteion would surely have a great library, which I merely had to find.

Thus, when morning came, we made our way to Erkulum for a well-deserved rest. It was a strange place obsessed with death and the cruel religion of Set. Giant snakes roamed the streets unhindered and we were told that they had the right to eat whoever they wished. We bought our supplies in silence from the timid citizens and resolved to leave first thing at sunrise. Unfortunately, as if there already hadn’t been a wealth of trouble, Barathus woke with a wish to cease his travels and worship the serpent goddess Ishiti. We loudly complained about the foolishness in this, but our friend would not sway an inch from his decision. Having no choice we divided from our wealth what was rightfully his, and left him at the gates of the temple. After that, it was the trackless desert under Noam’s guidance.

Now, let me warn you. Though our exploits may already sound sensational, this detour to the city of the sands will surely be the grandest yet. I admit that my words do not have the weight they need, as my companions in that damned place are long dead and the gems and gold we stole from the tombs have since been sold. Whatever your judgment on the truth of our words may be, I swear by all the powers under the stars that what I am about to tell is none less than the truth.

Almost a week went by before…

Five Nemedians had come to the silent city of Erkulum, but only four left towards the southern deserts. Strange madness had fallen upon Barathus, filling him with religious zeal. He spoke of portents and signs – how the snake-goddess Ishiti had saved them in the city of scorpions. In return, the goddess would require service. Barathus declared his will to serve the bestial goddess and no amount of convincing could change his mind. With heavy hearts, the other Nemedians left Barathus on the steps of an imposing basalt temple.

Journey south was hard for the companions. The days were filled with burning heat and the nights with freezing cold. The camels were strange beasts they were not used to ride or handle. Noam kept preaching about the wonders of Pteion till everyone else was tired of his voice. After five days of hard travel, the men arrived upon a desert oasis. Camping there was a small group of Stygian nomads. They turned out to be friendly enough after some bread was shared. Of Pteion, the nomads could tell little. They knew the place to be haunted and avoided it. Bravest of them had sometimes went close enough to see the area, which was but ancient ruins sunken in desert sands. Hyenas of considerable size patrolled the area. The nomads knew of a caravan mostly composed of foreigners which had gone the same way several weeks ago.

The following days were filled with anticipation and dread. According to Tawil At’Umr, the city was far older than people remembered. Once it had been the headquarters of the Black Ring. When the Hyborian barbarians attacked Stygia, the dark sorcerers unleashed terrible fury upon them. So mighty were their spells that the Hyborians were driven back north – and the very land around Pteion devastated. So the sorcerers abandoned Pteion and set west to Kheshetta. Yet before the Black Ring, Old Stygians had performed their unspeakable rites in there. Before the Giant-Kings, it had been sanctuary of the Snakes Who Walk. Perhaps even before the scaled folk, there had been a city in the very same spot, now buried under the sands of time.

After a windy desert night, the Nemedians found themselves camped right besides an ancient stone road. Sweeping winds had uncovered it and Noam convinced the others it was a sign. The city itself wanted the Nemedians to find it. After a half a days travel, the companions were standing on an ridge overlooking a plain filled with ruins. The ruins were surrounded by ancient statues, partly buried in the sand, arranged in a circle. As they passed between the statues, the sorcerers felt a jolt of power, as if they had passed an invisible wall. A few sections of the ancient city walls still stood erect. Behind them, only a handful of buildings had even one wall left. Hyenas, both small and very large, lazily lounged among the rocks and broken monuments. The sight was one of desolation and ancient tragedy, not splendor and riches Noam had described for months.

While surveying the ruins, Dionysos suddenly spotted a lonely rider speeding furiously through the desert towards northeast. It was too far to make out details, but the figure was riding away from Pteion, hard as if all the demons of hell were on his (or her) tail. A small argument broke out among the men – perhaps intercepting the rider would provide them with valuable information. Finally the Nemedians agreed to leave the lone rider in peace and instead investigate the city carefully. They suspected that the cult had reached the city before them and might have an ambush laid in wait for them.

Observing the ruins was fruitless. Thus the men decided to advance down to Pteion the Damned. Nothing moved among the broken stone, though there were signs of recent inhabitation here and there. From the most intact buildings the companions found camp sites. A large number of people had obviously stayed there just a day ago at most – and left all their things behind. In one of the buildings Alcemides found a bloody ritual altar and a room filled with the bloodless corpses of black men. A few had been dead for weeks, but the most recent a few days at most.

Among southern parts of Pteion the Nemedians found foundations of an ancient temple. A huge hole had been dug through the stone. An improvised ramp lead down into the darkness below. After a short discussion, the companions left their animals in an almost intact building. Then they collected barrels of water from the other camp sites and hid them with the animals. After having closed down the openings so no hyena could get inside, they descended down into the true Pteion. Then the darkness swallowed them whole.

Alcemides, Noam and Tyrus woke in pungent darkness, bodies aching like after a beating. Fumbling around with a barely controlled panic, they finally managed to light a torch. They were at the bottom of a pit and covered with fine, white mist. Dionysos was nowhere to be seen. Climbing out of the pit proved out to be bit of a challenge. Alcemides and Tyrus both slipped and fell back a few times. Finally Noam managed to scale the wall and pull the others up with the help of a rope. Soon the men realised they were lost somewhere in an underground warren they had never seen. Faded geometric inscriptions decorated walls of dark green stone. It was as if hours had been wiped clean from their memory. Perhaps Dionysos had lead them in to a trap.

Wandering through the corridors, the Nemedians suddenly heard distant voices shouting to each other in Zingaran. Guided by the echoes, they found a strange chamber. Two dozen Zingaran men labored weakly, building an idol of some sort from bricks piled against the wall. Several seemed too weak from thirst to do little but crawl – but they still tried to help. As the men stepped in the chamber, Noam and Tyrus were overtaken by a strange obsession. They charged to join the Zingarans in building the idol, suddenly working together as if they had been known each other for years. No amount of pleads, insults or threats seemed to return them to their senses. Finally Alcemides knocked both men unconscious and dragged them away from the chamber. Back in the hallway, they were free from the compulsion, but left with a feeling of unexplainable dread about the idol.

Whatever the purpose of the idol chamber was, it was luckily located near the ramp out. Climbing up, they realised the sun was about to set. They had lost most of the day – a gap in their memories which would never be fixed. Not wishing to brave the tunnels at night, the Nemedians made haste to their shelter. Inside, it was obvious Dionysos had been there. One camel and a large portion of supplies was missing. The Acheronian half-breed had taken a mount and left somewhere towards north, judging from the tracks. As the darkness was about to fall on them, the trio decided not to pursue him.

Night came and with it, the ancient city seemed to come back to life. Guards heard stranger and stranger sounds as the night went on. There was clattering of hooves, sounds of a busy marketplace and the noisy rumbling of chariots speeding through the streets – yet nothing was to be seen. Somewhere after the midnight the sounds became clearer – and were followed by movement. Standing guard on the roof, Noam heard approaching stampade of a marching military unit. Gazing over the ruins he saw an astonishing sight. A full phalanx of soldiers was marching down the street right towards him, breastplates and spear-tips gleaming in the starlight, banners fluttering in a wind he could not feel.

Noam quickly alerted Alcemides and Tyrus, who hastily armed themselves and joined Noam on the roof. As the phalanx approached, it seemed to age rapidly – gone were the banners, gone was the gleam from the armor, declining was their number. Instead it was a troop grinning skeletons in ancient equipment and before them ran for his life a naked black man.

From the Memoirs of Tyrus the First

When Dionysos left, I felt regret moreso because there would be less souls to share the risk, than for his supposed betrayal that Alcemides and Noam were fretting over. If Dionysos had truly planned to disappear or had become certain that Pteion would mean death for all of us, he would have taken the scrolls with him. There was no indication that the stash was even touched, so I was practically certain that the young pervert had merely faced some temporary obstacle. We would see him again, but under what terms and when, I didn’t know.

At that time, my mind was more focused on Nefertari and on how to beat her. It never crossed my mind that she could have left already, despite the bleak encounters with the statue-builders. Everything on the camp suggested that it had been used the very morning, and the vile trollop would probably ambush us in the corridors when we least expected it.

The coming morning and Dahab’s eyewitness account would change our minds, but it seemed that merely surviving the night couldn’t be taken for granted.

The night was alive with clattering metal, as the skeletons of ancient spearmen marched upon the Nemedians. It had been their task to defend Pteion from intruders and now they had been roused from their graves to do so once more. The Nemedians helped the Darfar on the roof without questions – now it was just the living against the dead, other things mattered little. Half of the undead marched to the edge of the building, harassing the Nemedians with ancient javelins. The rest marched straight inside and to their horror, the men on the roof heard the death cries of their camels and sounds of breaking wood. All attempts by the skeletal warriors to climb on the roof were defeated with great difficulty. Despite their skill in arms, the dead of Pteion were very fragile after centuries of dry desert air and their equipment brittle to the touch. After an exhausting fight, the undead were laid low. All of the living had suffered wounds, but the fate of their supplies was a far more serious concern. All of their mounts were dead and the ancient warriors had broken all the carefully conserved water containers. There was only enough water left to last for a day at most in the scalding desert heat.

While they rested, the Nemedians finally turned their attention to the Darfar. In broken Stygian, the large man introduced himself as Dahab, a hunter and skull-breaker from the south. He had been taken as a slave some time ago and sold to the Zingaran expedition. Dahab explained how the expedition had dug their way to the underground warrens of the city. There they had found a tomb with ancient sarcophagi, filled to the roof with gold and gems. Nefertari had betrayed the others there, summoning something to feed on their flesh. Dahab was the only one to escape. He had hid for two days among the ruins and seen her leave the day before. During the night, the dead of Pteion had come for him and their relentless pursuit drove him to the Nemedians.

Knowing that Nefertari had left Pteion was both a relief and a disappointment for the Nemedians. Yet the most important piece of knowledge the Darfar could tell was that the Zingaran cultists had found a water source somewhere underground. Dahab had never been there, but the Zingarans had brought fresh water from underground every day. No slave had been trusted with the location of the spring or stream. Thus the group agreed they would go look for the water once they had rested – though a gleam of avarice started to lighten the eyes of Noam and Tyrus when Dahab described the riches below…

The morning came, relentlessly hot. Strange sounds had continued to echo through the night, but no further patrols of dead soldiers attacked the living intruders. The men drank their last drops of water, gathered their gear and marched down to the pungent darkness of the underground. Wandering through the dark corridors, the heros descended deeper and deeper into the bowels of Pteion. The very stone around them changed to hues of green, with faint incriptions in Old Stygian on the walls. Sometimes strange, distant cries echoed around them. Several slopes leading downwards had been crossed with faint lines of silver the heroes dared not to cross.

Finally the four plunderers saw ahead a circular room illuminated by a faint glow from green stones within the ceiling. Three other doorways beckoned in the sides of the chamber. Middle of the room was a small altar completely covered by ancient coin. As the heroes stepped inside, the entrances were blocked by heavy pieces of stone. Dahab exclaimed this was the route to the great tomb, but nothing like this had happened before. The walls of the chamber were inscribed with strange, flowing script unlike anything the Nemedians had ever seen. On the door blocks was inscribed strange poems in Old Stygian. Each door had a small block of stone that could be pushed. Alcemides suggested they should push the blocks in a specific order. Small holes on the walls suggested that a wrong order would be punished lethally.

After longs moments on contemplation, Noam remembered details of the story told by Tawil At’Umr in Khemi. The idea proved out to be correct and after pressing the door blocks in order, they all rumbled into the walls. Once inside, Dahab showed the Nemedian the way through the labyrinthine tunnels. The walls on the way were of green stone inscribed with the same serpentine script. Illustrated scenes showed men with the heads of a snakes labouring among mountains and trees, the raising of strange buildings and strange temples. Scrawny ape-like men worked as their slaves and the creatures bowed before idols of a great snake. Then a strange star came to the sky, the same star which had haunted Noam’s dreams. Some of the serpent-priests bowed down before the star in secret and inscribed a familiar sign – the golden sign on their foreheads. Then came a war between the followers of the great snake and those who bowed before the star. The star shone on the sky and the great cities were broken in to ruin. Those of the serpent-men who bowed before the star masked themselves with the faces of men and stayed under the stars. The others fled the baleful star underground, turning away from it and the golden sign. The inscriptions left the men silent and thoughtful.

Suddenly the group found themselves in a great chamber glittering with gold. Sacrophagi of all sizes was stacked on the walls, decorated with gold, gems and precious stones. Yet the great chamber was a site of great slaughter. Corpses were tossed all around the floor – and even high on the walls. Many were ripped apart, cleaved in two, heads and limbs missing. All had small round wounds in their flesh and were in a state of advanced decay – far more rotten than corpses two days old should have been in the dry, cool air. The sight and the stench were terrible. Noam and Tyrus admired the treasures along the walls, barely noticing the carnage – but Alcemides and Dahab convinced them that water was a priority, so the four men left the chamber the same way they had come to seek the source of water.

Wandering through the dark corridors, the heroes quickly lost their sense of time. Only by thirst and hunger they knew hours must have passed – yet only empty chambers and tunnels could be found. Then a strange sound pierced the dusty air, hysterical laugher of a woman ending in loud sobbing. It approached from a slope leading somewhere down in to the dry darkness. Not wanting to meet the laughing creature, the heroes rapidly moved to the opposite direction. Yet the laughter and the sobbing followed them, the distance of the sounds only diminishing after a long burst of running. While the men stopped to catch their breath, Alcemides heard something extraordinary – the sound of a running water.

The heroes followed the acute ears of the half-pict to an underground orchard of some kind. Strange and fantastic fruit and vegetable grew in pots of green stone, among small channels of running water. The men quickly drank themselves full, then filled all their containers with water. Only then did they inspect the fantastic garden in detail, noticing how among the trees and gardens prowled small, venomous snakes. Picking a fruit from the garden might prove to be a fatal mistake. Moving among the channels and vegetation in awe, the heroes were suddenly startled by the sound of insane laughter close by. Sneaking among the pots, they saw a crawling, shaking figure blocking entrance to the garden. The laughing, sobbing creature had found them, but for some reason, would not or could not enter the hall. The men huddled together in fear, doubting the effect of steel on the abomination. Finally Noam became tired of the planning and simply charged forward with a demon-fire in hand. The bomb hit the perfect spot and the crawling horror exploded in a shower of goo. The heroes quickly fled, dragging as much water as they could with them.

Back on the surface, the men stashed most of the water in an intact ruin, then pondered what to do. Noam and Tyrus wanted to go to the tomb and loot gold and gems. Alcemides thought it to be madness. They had seen the corpses, they had seen what the Guardian could do. Looting the chamber would surely awaken the Guardian, he argued, resulting in the deaths of them all. They should just leave while they still could. Despite dark grumblings of the half-pict, the others decided to return to the chamber and in the end, Alcemides came along.

Back in the chamber, Dahab, Noam and Tyrus started to climb along the stacked sarcophagi and laborously cut loose golden ornaments and jewels. It was slow, dangerous and hard work. As time went on, a slowly increasing sense of dread fell on the heroes. Alcemides wanted no part in looting and instead paced on the floor of the chamber like a caged beast. Finally he declared he would not stay in the chamber to be killed with the rest. He would go to the surface and wait for the rest near the water stash. If they were not back before sunrise, he would leave without them. With those words he left alone.

After a while, distant sounds of struggle carried to the chamber. The plunderers left their tools to investigate and found Alcemides naked and paralyzed on the ground. His clothing and equipment was laid neatly on the ground near him. Several bitemarks adorned his body. There were puddles of blood around, but no sign of the attackers. The others carried Alcemides back to the chamber and continues the looting while he recovered. The half-pict claimed he had been attacked by serpent-men and one of them had been about to devour him alive, when sounds of the approaching heroes had sent them fleeing. The others continued looting and, as the sense of growing dread was becoming unbearable, decided they had enough. As they prepared to leave, Dahab heard muffled cries from a sarcophagus on the floor level. The men pried it open and from inside burst forth a weeping Korzetta.

Mewling and gibbering, the young Korzetta had been obviously driven insane by what he had seen. With froth on his lips, the Zingaran rambled on about the Guardian of Pteion and how Nefertari had given the cultists to it in exchange for ancient tablets of stone. He laughed and gurgled about the Golden Lord and how the stars would soon be right again. Pus trickled down his forehead. Interrogating him provided little, but the heroes nevertheless decided to take him to the surface. Just as they were gathering the loot carved from the sarcophagi, the bronze double doors at the end of the hall were blasted open. Forth beyond the doors blew a black wind, bringing with it dark dust and a terrible stench. While the others hurried to gather as much loot as they could carry, Alcemides noticed how the golden sign had formed on Korzetta’s forehead. Not wanting to take any chances, he stabbed the man in the heart. As the corpse hit the ground, it began to writhe and pulsate, as if something was trying to break through from within. The heroes now had two good reasons to run and so they did, like they never had before.

Luck or fate guided them through the labyrinthine tunnels, the black wind blowing at their back and brought them on the surface. It was evening and the ruins were silent. Hurrying, the heroes headed for the edge of the city. There they realised the city limits were now blocked by packs of hyenas, seeminlgy on purpose, as if the animals were guided by some malignant intelligence. Alcemides, who had taken nothing from the ruins, simply walked past the animals, which were content to sniff his clothing and then step aside. After a moment of consideration, Dahab threw his portion of gold and gems on the ground and followed Alcemides. When Noam and Tyrus tried to follow him, they were immediately attacked and had to retreat. As night started to fall, Alcemides and Dahab camped on the ridge outside the city, while Noam and Tyrus pondered their next move. They were obsessed with their newly gained wealth and not willing to leave it. The two Nemedians camped on top of an ancient wall, where Tyrus sought power from the hallucinatory stupor of the black lotus. He hoped that the drug would give him the strength to break through the hyenas in the morning with his sorcery. The dead of Pteion helplessly patrolled the streets for the night, unable to find a way to reach the top of the wall.

As morning came, Noam and Tyrus made a run for it. Tyrus summoned a clying stench from the underworld around him, which kept most of the common hyenas in bay. However, the larger ones attacked through it, assaulting the two men viciously. They had to fight their way every step and soon had deep bites over their bodies. Finally Dahab charged to help his companions, later followed by Alcemides. The heroes managed to fight their way on the ridge, but not without losses, as a large hyena severed the leg of the Darfar with a mighty bite. Dahab was left dying in the desert sands, the others running for their life. As the three men reached the statues marking the boundary around Pteion, the last curse of the damned city was released upon them. A black, howling wind launched from the ruins and whipped them with its foul touch. All three could feel their flesh rot and muscles wither, as the wind drank their very life. Yet still they managed to stagger past the statues and the wind of death died away. They had escaped the grasp of Pteion the Damned and left it howling in impotent rage for months to come, echoing in the ears of every sorcerer in the know through the whispers of the night.

Drunken ramblings of Alcemides

After a pointless trek through the Stygian sands we finally reached Noam’s goal, the sandy demon’s asshole called Pteion. I was forced to visit this cursed city because of Noam’s feverish babblings. I think I had gone somewhat mad from his yammering and stories about scorpions and power, but I hoped my months-long suffering would now stop and he would realize his own foolishness.

All we could see was forgotten ruins in the middle of demon-haunted nowhere. Seeing the anticipation of my mentally decayed companions, I could only think of my own death in the claws of some nameless beast.

We found some remains of other fools and looted their water before entering the bowels of curse-ridden stone arse. I don’t remember much of what happened after that because I woke up in a dark, deep pit with Noam and Tyrus. I felt like two Stygian ships had rammed my head from opposite sides – not that I was really surprised. At least I was still alive. I wish not to describe all the death-traps, monsters and even sorcerous wonders we saw there but the end of our visit started with us standing knee-deep in scraps of dead men in a room filled with treasure. I took no part in plundering and just wanted to finally leave. I walked out when Noam and Tyrus had totally lost their senses and pried off gems from some sarcofagus.

Sneaking up the corridors, I met a strange woman called Red Sonja. It was confusing – I had met her once in Stygia, I knew she was a mercenary but there was no way she could’ve come this far – so this was most likely a ruse. I don’t remember all the things said and done but when I finally tried to cut her down she was lightning-fast and hard to hit. In combat she showed her true face, that of a serpent, and I was soon surrounded by similar creatures. Fighting off the walking snakes felt like a lotus dream. I cut them down in dozens but they kept coming and finally their poison drained my strength and I fell down senseless. I woke up naked with Tyrus and Noam looming over me. I don’t think they bought my serpent-story even though I never lie about my accomplishments – I have no need to!

The two oafs helped me up and took me back to their beloved abattoir. They had found one live Zingaran noble from some sarcofagus. He started sprouting tentacles or oozing slime or something other suspicious so I struck him down. I think this was the last straw as it sent Noam and Tyrus running for the surface. Outside the ruins were besieged by giant hyenas, some of them larger than full-grown bulls. I ran through the pack and they fearfully bowed down as I was not a soft-headed witch. Tyrus and Noam feared the beasts and they remained inside for one night. I waited for them one night with a runaway slave we found earlier. He was ripped in half in a battle the next day when I liberated my companions from the hyenas.

Even while running away from Pteion we were pelted with curses and death-spells. I must thank my forest-bred vitality for surviving the barrage of sorcery. Surprisingly Noam and Tyrus survived too. No matter, I thought to myself, and led them toward Shem.

From the Memoirs of Tyrus the First

Though we had barely survived Pteion and were ecstatic with the wealth we gathered there, the journey through the desert was not easy. We no longer had our camels and thus the only water we had was what we could carry. It was not easy making it last for the week’s worth of desert on foot.

Each day we slept under makeshift tents and each night we walked as far as we could. When I closed my eyes, the serpent-men from Alcemides’s testimony visited me in my dreams and demanded the return of something Nefertari stole. In return, they promised limitless wealth and services from the vaults of the city in the sands. I did not talk of the dreams at first, and when the distance to Pteion grew, they decreased in frequency and intensity. I don’t remember anymore whether I had any intention of heeding these visions, as the desert was much greater an adversary.

Many were the complaints of Alcemides and just as many were the encouragements of Noam. All the water had been spent and we were almost sure our days were numbered, before we saw the first signs of human life. Huddled around a small desert oasis was a nomad camp. The last steps were almost the hardest, for we feared that the oasis would prove a mirage. Fortunately, this wasn’t so and we reached it just as real as it had initially seemed. Not all was right with the scene, however, as the camp was abandoned. We found signs of struggle, but no bodies of men or animals were around, which was quite unnerving. Content with the luck we had had so far, we decided not to push the issue, and to this day I do not know what had happened to the camp. After filling our waterskins, we immediately headed to Erkulum, which we knew should be only a little more than two days away.

Erkulum was as quiet and morbid as always, so we did not stay for long – just enough to buy supplies and spend one night under the roof of an inn. The following morning we bought horses, for we didn’t plan on crossing any deserts in Shem, and no-one preferred the company of camels any longer.

Due to the stress and paranoia we felt about looting the city of the sands, I have little memories of the initial days after crossing the river north. Shem seemed less prosperous than Stygia, and the contrast was almost uncanny. I have to admit that the presence of filth and lepers on the streets and whores on the corners was shocking for me, as the few months in Stygia had accustomed me to the unnatural cleanliness and order of the southern kingdom.

Wanting some distance between ourselves and the desert horrors, we soon left northwest, for we dared not sell the gold and gems so close to the Stygian border. The days of the following week were spent briefly stopping at villages and smaller cities, where we slowly materialized our loot and bargained for the prize of raw gold. Little could be done, however, before we reached the city of Eruk, which was rumored to be a merchant’s paradise. Indeed, it had all the services and disservices of a large city, and we settled for a longer while, enjoying our life and newfound coin. Noam and Alcemides spent recklessly on clothes, jewelry and lavish decor on their weapons and armor, but I tried to preserve most of my wealth, for I would surely have an use for it in Nemedia. I eventually invested in weapons and fine wine, which I believed I could sell for profit at home, but was rather skeptical on whether I could transport all of it through the countless miles north.

Granted, the tranquil days of my recent life have been scarce, and so were these. Not a week had passed when three gifts had been left at our quarters in the inn. On each of our beds, lay a large yellow flower with a long stalk. No matter who we asked, we couldn’t find out who had left the gift and what it meant. Alcemides of course merely assumed that his manly reputation had preceded him and aroused the interest of some local girls. The detail didn’t bother me initially either, but no continuation to the mystery ever came. We finally livened up when Noam rushed to the inn and told that he had seen Dionysos on the busy streets, riding on a carriage in the company of Tawil At’Umr.

It was of course of great interest to us what the young pervert was up to, and was he perhaps following us. We set out to turn every stone to find the young noble, but no matter how much coin we spent and how many locals we questioned, no-one could or would not provide any insight to the whereabouts of either Dionysos or the wandering sage.

Overcome with these mysteries, we eventually turned to the temple of Bel, whom Alcemides had bargained with while liquidating most of our more precious gems and art objects. The priests of Bel proclaimed they had arranged a meeting for us with a third party who had something important to tell us. We were taken to an underground chamber, where thick steel bars separated us from another chamber. A priest intoned the place was sacred and no blood should be shed, then left the room. A booming voice greeted us from the other chamber.

Three figures, shrouded in shapeless robes, set a torrent of overflowing praises on us in Stygian. After flattering our manliness and bravery for a long while, they proclaimed we were favored by Yajur the Red-Handed, the god of stranglers. We had been chosen to become the next sacrifice, which was marked by the flowers. In 30 days time, the sacrifice would be commenced. Then the three figures left their side of the chamber, unmoved by the insults Alcemides hurled after them. As we hungered for more knowledge, the acolytes directed us to the temple of Nergal, which had influence in the city and surely also priests capable of scrying for us.

The priests of the death god likewise offered little help directly, but advised us to seek the guidance of a Child of Nergal, which we would meet in the desert just outside the city gates after sunset. The encounter was indeed an interesting one, as the child was no man and not of entirely ordinary wisdom. The information came with a prize and we bargained extensively, eventually agreeing on the seeds of the emerald lotus we had found in the Stygian swamps. To this day I rue myself for by poor judgment on the trade, for the Child would not settle for half the seeds, instead wanting all of them, no matter how many we had. I am certain that the it had no true need for all the seeds, but gained greater delight in seeing us part with them. Had I separated the seeds into two bags, giving the other would surely have sufficed.

Bad bargain or not, the Child told us many things. It had almost intimate knowledge of Nefertari and the exploits and nature of this mercenary-vampiress. We were to beware, as Nefertari was as selfish and cruel, as she was strong and cunning. The Child assured us that she would never ultimately work for anyone but herself, and the co-operation with the cult was but temporary. Having told further about the scene in Pteion and my dream-vision of the snake men, the Child was sure that Nefertari had betrayed the cult there. Whatever she had stolen was merely for her own use.

Of the masks, the Child told that they originated from the east. It believed that they were from as far as Khitai, and that the religion of the mast was self-sustaining and purely a product of the masks themselves. Whoever would put on the mask would become its slave, and the masks shared the power in the cult themselves. Of their eventual motives, it claimed to know nothing, and I can not rightly say whether it was lying. However, as far as I have been able to later confirm, the Child of Nergal was truthful in all of its accusations and histories, which never ceases to amaze me, considering its nature.

The Child told that the Red Hands of Yajur were an assassin cult from Vendhya. Whoever received the flowers would be attacked by the cult after thirty days had passed, as would be also our fate. It would best set our affairs in order, for it was extremely rare to survive the attack. However, such a thing had come to pass, and whoever survived, could themselves use the services of the cult.

I don’t remember anything other very significant, but naturally we discussed Shem and the cults there. We even asked about Nergal, but he was a simple god, and there was little to discuss. In the end we returned to the issue of the Red Hands, as it was of greatest importance. Unfortunately the Child could not offer a lot of wisdom on beating the assassins, but death and blood amused it greatly, leading it to chronicle about Xaltotun, the war we had lost and the Heart of Ahriman. Of course every wizard worth his eyes and words has heard of the artifact, but truthfully the Child knew much more than most. What I’ve told of the artifact earlier in these pages largely comes from its mouth. Strange thing was, that no matter how garrulous it were, the Child dared not speak about Thoth-Amon, and we departed soon after we asked about the famous wizard.

With heavy hearts and the doom of the strangler cult looming above us, we returned to the city and decided to leave Eruk behind us. I don’t recall our exact motive, but remember that we thought facing the assassins in the open wilderness would be better than fighting in the confines of a busy city. We were sure they were following our every move and in the open ground, we might spot them and strike first. Things would again turn against our expectations, but we wouldn’t know it until later.

A story whispered by Ditrius Bartol

The Red Hands of Yajur… yes, I have heard of them before. Seen them too, back south, in Shem.

Selcides and I had been left in Eruk by the caravan from Stygia. With us was the mute Darfar and the girl Selcides had adopted in Stygia. They followed him like dogs. It was up to me to make all the decisions, as usual. Stygia was a strange and haunted land, filled the sorcerers, ruins and snakes, but at least you always knew where you stood there. You could count on the dark nature of the priests of Set and decadence of the nobility. Shem is different. There all words are covered with honey, even as the speaker plots to part a man from his coin or life. The men of Shem are all liars and the women…they are much worse.

It was thus a great joy to hear my favorite language of the world – Nemedian – in the inn we stayed for the night. I met Alcemides, Noam and Tyrus there for the first time. The two, at first, were a sight hard to miss, dressed as they were in gold and silk. Noam’s attire was especially outlandish, with a huge silk turban decorated with a golden scorpion with small rubies for eyes. His insane obsession with scorpions became clear during the following weeks – perhaps the desert heat had boiled his brains. I had seen it happen to men often enough.

Still, we – Selcides and I – thought them to be amiable enough. We found out they were just about to leave Eruk for Akbitana and then proceed west to Messantia. It was agreed we would travel together, for there was safety in numbers. Tyrus warned us that a powerful enemy had sent assassins after them and thus their company might not be very safe. I cared not about such trivial matter and Selcides agreed that Mitra would protect us. No barbarian heathen from the dark east could harm one protected by true faith.

The journey to the City of Steel was dusty and uneventful. Asshuri patrolled the caravan routes and no bandits troubled us. Our new companions were paranoid to the extreme. They kept eyeing every passer-by suspiciously and insisted on keeping double guard at night. Yet no assassin troubled us and if we were followed, our shadows were very stealthy and unnoticeable.

The City of Steel was just another Shemite city-state to me. Stout walls, hedonistic temples, shining ziggurats, exotic gardens and glittering bazaars – the details vary, but the noise, the filth, the strange smells and sights always remain the same. Merchants from far and wide had come there to bargain for the famous weapons. There was even a group of merchants from the mythical land of Khitai camped outside the city proper. Our new companions declared they would stay in the city for at least two weeks. For reason or another, they had decided to face the assassins in Akbitana instead of the open road. Alcemides used the time to order a customized sword from the master smith, spending a whole bag of gold as payment. I agreed that we had time to stay with them, for my own reasons.

The Khitan merchants interested the trio very much. They sought their aid against the assassins. Indeed, the merchants had a very rare poison – purple lotus, I was told – in their possession. However, they demanded outrageous sums of silver to part with it. Much to my amazement, Noam and Tyrus each bought a dose, for over a thousand silver each. For two hundred gold, they could have hired a company of asshuri to guard their backs, instead of oriental cantrips of questionable effect. I still thought them wise to trust their sword-arms rather than hired foreigners.

Thus their next decision appalled me somewhat. In the same inn with us stayed three strange Hyperboreans, two men and a woman. Two of them – a man and a woman – were cold and featureless creatures, the infamous Witchmen. The third spent his time completely drunk, but was still in command of the others. It turned out he was waiting for some special delivery to complete, something to take up north to the cold, dark realm. I don’t know who came up with the idea, but the trio ended up hiring the Hyperboreans as their bodyguards. I can see it was a good deal for their leader – he would have more money to drink without losing anything. Ever since then, the two cold human-shaped creatures followed us everywhere we went. Strangest still was how Alcemides seemed to quite fancy the cold, hostile woman.

Yet time passed and the assassins did not come. Tired of waiting for them, Alcemides, Noam and Tyrus finally ventured out on the streets again. It must have been what the Red Hands had been counting on all along.

The thirty days of preparation were about to come to an end. Nervous and – in the case of Alcemides – excited, the Nemedians were preparing to face the oriental assassins. They double-checked their weapons every day and night, slept with a sword in hand and inspected every drink with the fear of poison in their mind. Noam and Tyrus had bought doses of purple lotus, hoping the expensive toxic might give them an edge. Ditrius and the Hyperboreans followed the men wherever they went, guarding their backs.

Tired of waiting, the Nemedians sought ways to find the assassins and take the battle to them. Yet all tries to locate the killers proved futile. No amount of streetwise, no amount of gold and bribery achieved anything but false leads. Finally Noam had a strange idea. He announced he would spend a day doing nothing but smoking black lotus. Surely the lotus dreams would bring him insight in to the nature of their enemies, for he would be guided by his powers as the Scorpion King. The others thought Noam had finally went completely insane, but could do little but give him his portion of the lotus.

After spending an entire day in the caress of the lotus, Noam approached the others again, red-eyed and giggling. He gave a detailed account of three assasins he had seen in drug-induced visions, one for each. An assassin assigned after him was incredibly fast and impossible to fool by stealth or guile, striking swiftly with cutting blades. Tyrus was targeted by a woman, who flew through the skies like a lightning bolt striking from a clear sky. Alcemides was threatened by a bear-like shadow, a hulking brute, who would rip his limbs apart and break his spine like a twig. Although the others did not believe Noam completely, he seemed convinced of the accuracy of his vision.

The days dragged on. Alcemides continued with his blunt attempts to seduce the Hyperborean sorceress, but she only ignored him with the determination of an iceberg. After a week of courting, she asked Noam and Tyrus to accompany her to “special entertainment”, as if to spite the half-pict. The two men followed her, but Tyrus quickly returned with a look of disgust on his face. Noam came back with the cold woman, much later and with a strange gleam in his eyes. Finally exactly 30 days had passed from the challenge of the Red Hands. The Nemedians fortified their room in the inn and stayed inside first for a day, then two. Ditrius and the Witchmen kept guard in shifts. Yet the assassins did not come. After staying indoors for several days, the heroes decided they had enough. The attackers were obviously trying to break their spirits. The heroes decided to set an ambush instead.

Tyrus went for a stroll in the city, while Noam and Alcemides followed covertly. Soon enough Tyrus noticed he was followed by a shadowy figure. He took a turn for an alley, which was suddenly blocked by a very large man. Behind him appeared a Shemite woman in long, flowing robes. They had succesfully lured out two of the assassins. The brute stayed in place, while the woman charged Tyrus in a whirling fury of striking feet and hands. She was quick as a cobra and the Nemedian couldn’t even scratch her with his sword.

As Alcemides and Noam appeared on the scene, the brute turned and fled into the busy streets. The nimble woman followed, but with three Nemedians on her tail. She ran swiftly, but not swiftly enough for Alcemides and Noam. They drove her into a cul-de-sac, an inner wall of a garden blocking the route. Yet the woman did not stop, but ran up to the wall at top speed. Realising she was trying to scale the wall, Noam drew an arrow poisoned with the precious purple lotus. Just as he was about to let loose the shaft, a buzzing insect flew straight in to his eye, jerking his aim so the expensive arrow went flying high on to the sky. The assassin cleared the wall in one amazing leap and the Nemedians gave up the chase. Defeated for now, they returned to their inn.

The day passed uneventfully as the men pondered their next move. They finally decided to stay in the inn for now. They went to sleep with one of the Witchmen standing guard at their door. Little did they know this was the night the assassins would strike. At midnight, on Noam’s guard shift, a faint scratching sound from the closed window alerted him. The archer barely had time to shout a warning to his sleeping comrades, when the windows burst open. Inside fell a glass globe, exploding in a sputtering cloud of blinding smoke. Noam was unable to do little but cough, while three figures jumped in the room. Alcemides and Tyrus had luckily woken and grabbed their weapons, facing their would-be killers wearing naught but loincloths.

The familiar woman vaulted past the other men and landed next to Tyrus with a stunning kick on his jaw. The others had little time to help him while he was being beaten senseless, as the two others assassins had not been idle. Noam was assaulted by a strange small man with a face completely covered in dirty rags. He was armed with claw-like blades on each hand and attacked with blinding speed, flaying his target with sadistic fervor. The hulking brute grabbed Alcemides in a deathly embrace, twisting the half-pict’s spine to breaking point, with an ecstatic smile on his thin lips.

The attack was quick and it was over even quicker. Several deadly blows were dealt in an instant. Tyrus recovered from the onslaught of whirling feet and fists just in time to remember the lotus poison on his dagger. With a lucky thrust he managed to scratch the female assailant and she fell on the floor, instantly paralyzed. A second strike struck her heart. Meanwhile, the female Witchman burst through the door, her right hand appearing icy as morning mist in the far north. She struck the muscular wrestler in the back with her open palm and the huge man went down, dead before he hit the floor, with a frozen frostbite in the form of an open palm on his skin. Alcemides was left breathless on the floor, spine aching and only a moment away from death. Meanwhile, in the other corner of the room, swift fist-blades struck their final blows and Noam collapsed on the floor, his throat cut from ear to ear.

Quickly charging back into the fray, Alcemides struck the last attacked down, stabbing his lungs while he was fending off the Hyperborean woman. All three attackers were dead by the time Ditrius and the other Witchman charged in. Yet Noam had been struck down and there was nothing the others could do to revive him. All that was left was to arrange a burial and move on with heavy hearts.

From Tyrus

I remember how Alcemides lamented Noam’s poverty when we were splitting his possessions. Of course he was right, as except for the gold from Pteion that Noam had already spent on weapons and clothes, our fabled scorpion king was as poor as a beggar. Eventually we settled on a split that gave me Noam’s gold-buckled belt and the Ankh, while Alcemides took pretty much everything else – especially the golden trinklets that I felt uneasy with. The large turanian gold ring, along with all of Noam’s weapons, we left to the grave.

Perhaps I could have negotiated for a better split, as mere possession of the artifact was enough to stain my dreams with detailed histories of its crafting. Such visions were almost untolerable on the first night, fortunately fading to merely very unpleasant on the tenth. The Ankh promised might to anyone willing to submit to its power and embrace its philosophies, but after witnessing Noam’s spiral into madness, I wanted none of it. My main interest was in the monetary value of such might. The Ankh would surely be invaluable to the scholars of Belverus, and if I couldn’t bear the burden so far, no doubt also in Messentia. Patience and guile would multiply my profits, as always.

Dionysos was woken by the orange glow of the late morning sun reflecting off plain white walls, filtered through a curtain of some fine fabric. The air was warm and dry, and the sounds of traffic and tongues unknown to him carried into the chambers he lay in through an open window. There was also the sound of steady breathing, of others still slumbering, in his chambers. He lay on a luxurious bed, his naked, youthful body wrapped in a thin sheet of silk. His last recollection was of descent into the depths of the cursed city of Pteion, followed by darkness and vague, uneasy feelings of confusion, helplessness and frustration. The young noble chanced a glance around himself, and found his bedmate to be a woman, older than himself but still attractive, very tall and thin yet voluptuous, with an unusual complexion he could not quite place. In an adjacent corner, sleeping on pillows, were three servant-girls of mixed breeding, their musical instruments close by. Half-empty amphorae of wine and bowls of fruit lay scattered about in the opulently furnished, yet oddly plain and simple, room. Gingerly, Dionysos eased himself out of bed of obviously foreign design, and tiptoed as silently as he could over to a small wash-basin in the opposite corner. Observeing his reflection in the water, he noted that his face still bore make-up in the Stygian fashion. As he splashed water over his face and drew his hands through his hair he felt something odd. Looking down at his hands, he noted that a single joint was missing rom the least digit of his left hand. Dumbfounded, Dionysos stared at this desecration of his body. The wound was no longer painful, indeed looking as if it had been healing for weeks. “Fhtagn” , he silently muttered. As if in reply, a husky voice from behind him, soft and pleasant, yet with a hard and eerily sinister edge to it, inquired, in the toungue of his father’s people, “Lord Bhaal? Is something not to your satisfaction, my husband?”.

Bewildered, but determined to gather his wits, Dionysos looked around the apartment, which seemed like a suite in some expensive inn. He entered another chamber, apparently converted into a makeshift alchemical laboratory, the strange occupants of which were already awake. “Dare not disturb the works of Basil, you lame fool!”, exclaimed one to the other, who merely lowered his gaze meekly in response to the abuse. The more assertive alchemist was, like the strange woman claiming to be the wife of Dionysos, improbably tall and thin, as if stretched on the rack, with pale skin and and uncanny features. The other was a hunchback, with Zamoran features, his face pockmarked with burns. All of the strangers Dionysos had seen in this place wore items common to the spider-worshippers of Zamora. Yet, from what he had seen and heard, he was certain that he was not now in that shadowy land. “I see that Lord Bhaal has decided to grace us with his presence”, said the tall alchemist. “Shall we be making our leave of this place soon, then? Are we to proceed as planned?” Deciding it best to play along until his head cleared, Dionysos responded, as authoritatively as possible, “Yes, as soon everyone is prepared. Refresh my memory, where were we headed next?” Seemingly without hesitation, the weird figure replied, “Why, to Stygia, of course. To purchase some rare chalks of great potency.” Nodding, Dionysos exited the room to find something to eat, deciding that it was best to listen to the Zamorans before making any further inquiries. Behind him, he heard a faint chuckle, pregnant with malign ambition, “Excellent…”

Telling his servants he fancied a walk, Dionysos headed outside, into the heat of a bustling Shemite city. Weighing in his mind the potential benefits of either running away or trying to pass himself off as whoever his new followers thought he was, at least until his memory returned. Turning a corner, he was suddenly faced with a wrathful Tyrus and Alcemides, their weapons drawn. Of Noam the Archer there was no sign. “Give me one reason not to skewer you on the spot, perfidious worm of Acheron!”, Tyrus hissed. Alcemides merely looked on with a passive expression of bemusement, though Dionysos knew better than to underestimate the deadliness of the half-savage. Thus cornered, Dionysos decided that to tell the truth was the wisest course of action. At first his former companions were intensly skeptical of his professed ignorance of what had transpired after the band entered Pteion, but the young witch pleaded them to follow him to his residence, where his story would be confirmed by the Zamorans present. In fact, he suggested that Tyrus might better be able to extract information of what had happened to Dionysos from the Zamorans, without unduly alarming the spider-cultists, who apparently mistook the noble half-Acheronian for someone else.

Tyrus and Alcemides were introduced to the Zamorans as former acquaintancies, to be trusted and treated as welcome guests. After a while of politely questioning Luba and Basil, Tyrus had formed a rough picture of what had happened to Dionysos in the past months: He had apparently traveled from Pteion to Yezud, in Zamora, impossibly fast, introducing himself simply as “Lord Bhaal”. He had impressed the priests of Zath, and traded with them for the hand of Luba in marriage and the serveces of his brother, who, it seems, were not wholly of this Earth, but formed of a union between humans and the denizens of the Outer Dark. From Zamora he had travelled back south again, through Koth, where he had met the famed sorcerer Pelias. Beyond that the Zathians knew little, but Dionysos was determined to find out what had happened, through Lotus visions and Dreams of Prophecy, should all else fail.

Eventually, Tyrus was, though still cautious, satisfied with Dionysos promising to do what he could to bring back memories of what had happened in the past three months, and that he was not likely to blame for the misfortunes that had fallen on the band of Nemedians, or the fate of Noam. Dionysos was introduced to Selcides and his guardian, Ditrius. Well into the afternoon, the small caravan took leave of Asgalun, leaving on the road to Messentia, not too far from western Shem. The new followers of Dionysos included his new wife, Luba, a former sacred dancing girl of the spider-god Zath and her brother Basil, an alchemist formerly serving the cult. Additionally, his retainers included a couple of guardsmen, a Zamoran assassin, an alchemist and a scribe, musicians and household servants. Dionysos found himself riding a fine Balkhanan stallion, a warhorse of inestimable value, though he seemed to have lost the trading licence to Khemi granted by Thothmekri as reward for his services to the House of the Black Ring.

Musings of Alcemides

I was not disheartened by the unexpected disappearance of Dionysos in the least and thus felt no need to utter a rebuke for leaving us in Pteion. He seems to have done well for himself in his absence.

After weeks of exhausting riding, the travelers reached Messantia, the City of Coin. The rest of the journey through Shem had been uneventful. The Nemedians had become acquinted with the entourage following Dionysos. Most of them still called him Bhaal, a mysterious and powerful sorcerer. Basil, the Zamoran alchemist, turned out to be very interested in ancient history. He spent much of the journey interrogating the others about Pteion and other locations of interest.

The Nemedians entered Messantia disguised with great care. They were wanted men in the city, framed by the cult of the Golden Lord as murderers and robbers. Worse yet, the city was one of the main bases of the cult. Being identified would mean immediate retaliation, both by the city guard and cult assassins. The Zamoran entourage proved out to be a great boon. Luba and Basil were not known in Messantia and could handle all business. They rented a house for “Lord Bhaal” and the entourage, with a plan to spend a few days in Messentia. While there, the Nemedians would sell the rest of their loot from Pteion. They planned to sail home along the river Tybor. Ditrius and his group found quarters in the local Mitraneum. Selcides departed soon after, eager to see an old friend.

A few days passed. The Nemedians stayed indoors, resting from the journey, while Luba sold most of their loot. Alcemides and Tyrus slipped out once, disguised from head to toe, for some shady business. Then, one early morning, Ditrius and Selcides returned to their companions. The friend Selcides had looked forward to meeting had disappeared. Ditrius suspected that he had been kidnapped. Tranicos was the librarian of the main Mitraneum and had lately been acting strangely. He had disappeared several times before and returned with no memory of where he had been. Ditrius thought eldtrich forces were afoot and asked the others to help him. They reluctantly agreed.

The group entered the local Mitraneum, hoping to find clues about the disappearance. Castel, the assistant librarian did his best to assist the men in their search. He provided them with access to the personal quarters of Tranicos. Dionysos secretly pilfered a magical link from the beddings, hoping to locate the man through sorcery. Meanwhile the others scoured the rooms for clues. Alcemides noticed a hidden space behind a heavy desk. In it were several old scrolls, a curious statue and a diary. The statue stood up to the knee of a grown man. It was made of green metal and portrayed a hideous creature with features both human and bestial. Dionysos mentioned in passing that it was a god or goddess of ancient Acheron. The scrolls showed a map through the sewers underneath the city – and the old tunnels beneath. Apparently the librarian had traced a route to the fabled Tartarus, an Acheronian city Messantia was built upon. The diary was filled with the scribblings of a madman, describing nightmares and hallucinations, and revealing memory lapses of ever increasing length.

Dionysos voiced suspicions that Tranicos had been taken by the cult of the Golden Lord. While he could not claim certainty, madness seemed to follow the cult everywhere. He set his third eye upon hairs of the priest and was sure he was still alive, albeit wounded, somewhere underneath the city. After a brief discussion, the heroes agreed they would seek answers in the sewers.

The Nemedians, Sergei, Basil and Luba followed the map to the nearest sewer entrance. Dionysos hypnotized the sewer workers and made them provide the heroes with appropriate gear. One whiff of the terrible stench was enough to convince Luba it was better for her to stay behind. Thus only the six men entered, covering their faces with scented cloth. Even thus prepared, they were struck nearly delirious by the nauseating fumes on their way down. Its force felt like a physical blow to the head, numbing the senses. The sewers seemed oddly empty of workers. Silently, the men made their way ahead in the shadowy corridors with just an occasional cough or gag. After a tiresome walk, the men finally located a secret door in a sewer wall. Behind it descended steep, slimy stairs into ominous darkness.

The stairs finally ended in to a corridor with a very low ceiling. Basil and Dionysos had trouble moving due to their tall build. Suddenly the corridor opened in a hall with several doors. Flickering candlelight illuminated one of the doorways. Beyond it was a room filled with rotting barrels. Alcemides found another secret door, opening into another steep stairway. As the men descended, the walls surrounding them turned to red Acheronian stone. Dionysos sensed ahead with his third eye and felt the priest closer. They were on the right track.

The stairs lead into a circular chamber with three doorways. Two of them had been sealed, but the third one was broken open. The walls were inscribed with people and creatures cowering at the feet of Acheronian witch-kings. The air was stale, but still pervaded with the stench of decay. Wandering through the deserted corridors, the men heard distant sounds of metal hitting stone. Ditrius suggested that it meant a mining operation was nearby, strange as it was in the surroundings. The first hall the group entered was filled with obscene inscriptions. The walls showed humans, animals and demonic creatures copulating. Women then gave birth to terrible abominations, which were worshipped by human figures. Above the calamity stood an imposing witch-king. Alcoves within the walls were filled with statues of abominations, similiar to the one in the quarters of the missing librarian. One of the alcoves was empty.

At the far end of the hall, the floor had collapsed. Somewhere underneath loomed a huge cesspool, where a broken sewer pipe flowed in a waterfall of disgusting slime. Poised over the edge of the pit was a huge statue of black basalt. It was an image of a terrifying female thing with scores of horns, mammaries, tentacles and limbs. Smaller statues of horned children and tree-like things were placed in reverie at its feet. The mere sight of the obscene goddess filled the men with dread. Dionysos muttered that his aunt back in Nemedia talked of a similar divinity and advised the group to leave the hall.

The men quickly retreated back to the corridors, now following the sounds of labor instead. They entered a series of corridors illuminated by fresh torches. On the way towards the noise, Alcemides spotted an interesting chamber. It was furnished as a temple, with a small round pit in the middle. On the floor in the pit was inscribed the sign of the Golden Lord, in pure gold. The gold in the sign was worth a fortune and on an altar nearby was a huge gong. Deciphering the incriptions on the walls, the scholars came to a disturbing conclusion. Apparently even the Acheronians had worshipped the Golden Lord in some capacity. Written on the altar stone were instructions for summoning “enlightenment”. A simple ritual had to be performed, the gong struck thrice and a supplicant standing in the small pit would find wisdom from the stars. Basil was disturbingly interested in the possibility, but Ditrius convinced the others to leave the chamber alone. They could return later to retrieve the gold. Alcemides sabotaged the gong briefly, in case someone would use it to summon something while they passed on.

Heading along, the intrepid adventurers found another set of stairs, though the corridor continued on. The noise came from the stairs. Alcemides sneaked ahead to have a look. The stairs ended suddenly in a dark room filled with the living dead. A dozen corpses were chiseling pieces of the red stone from the walls, chipping them into blocks and stuffing the blocks into wooden shipping crates. The undead did not react to the presence of the living men, even when they were shoved around. The corpses simply carried on in their duties. Most were relatively fresh and dressed in dirty rags. The heroes decided to leave the corpses alone for now – the noise of their work would cover the sounds of their approach from their master. Now sneaking, the six men climbed the stairs back up and carried on along the corridor. They entered a hall filled with high pillars incribed with demonic forces. At the far reaches of the huge room stood a silent figure wrapped in tatters of yellow silk.

The man approached the intruders with a gleeful cackle, advising them to step forth in Nemedian. With a sardonic bow, he introduced himself as a priest of the Golden Lord. From among the yellow tatters, the heroes could see flesh terribly ruined by leprosy. As Alcemides promptly charged ahead with a sword in hand, not interested in parley, the cultist reacted with sorcery. With a flick of a wrist and a strange, coarse scream, he conjured a strange phantom in midst of the men. It was the Golden Sign, but as a floating, wavering apparition, which danced in the air. Its mere sight paralyzed many of the men, forcing them to stare at it in rapt silence. Basil resisted the sign and launched two globes of demon-fire at the sorcerer, but they both exploded against the tall pillars. Luaghing with insane glee, the cultist let forth a wailing, undulating shout, which caused the flesh of the men to bubble and blister, as if it wanted to dance with the sound. Paralyzed by the sign and mauled by the strange, blubbering song, the heroes seemed to have to have reached the end of their journey. Alcemides saved the day by shaking himself free of the paralysis. His savage attack ceased the wavering song and forced the sorcerer to retreat to an inner chamber. Alcemides pursued and ran him through with his blade.

Several of the heroes had been badly hurt by the sorcerous maladies of the dead priest. Sergei had fallen on the floor and appeared comatose, his soul wracked by the power of the Golden Lord. Investigating the chambers revealed a box full of letters, some alchemical ingredients and a little gold. Upon the person of the priest Alcemides found a signet ring belonging to a local merchant house. The dead priest was obviously well connected. Behind one pillar Dionysos finally found Tranicos. The librarian was naked, tied up, gagged and unconscious, but physically unharmed. Upon his back was branded the symbol of Skelos, but the mark was obviously at least several months old.

The men left the sewers, dragging the unconscious assassin and librarian with them. They encountered no obstales on their way back to the rented house. Ditrius summoned Selcides, who tended to the unconscious priest. Finally he woke up and was able to tell a short story. The librarian had simply woken up in the sewers, tied up by the leper sorcerer. He had no recollection of other events. The leper had interrogated him on his interest in the ruins below, then knocked him unconscious with alchemy. Ditrius and Selcides escorted Tranicos back to the Mitraneum and left the others tend their wounds.

Next morning Ditrius was back, knocking furiously on the door. As servants of “Lord Bhaal” escorted him inside, the Nemedian produced a burst of profuse oaths. The librarian had gone missing again, this time obviously kidnapped. Castel, the priest who had helped to find him, was missing as well. Ditrius asked Dionysos to seek them out with his sorcery. Enjoying the chance for attention, the Acheronian-blooded set about to conjure visions. Surprisingly, he could bring forth naught but dark mist and chanting in a guttural, primitive voice. Frustrated by the obstacle, Dionysos used the hair of the librarian to gauge his state of mind and body. He declared the man was not a prisoner, but traveling rapidly upstream of his own volition. The Nemedians considered riding after the river ship, but abandoned the idea after a short discussion. Catching up with the ship would be very difficult and they had barely recovered from the fight in the sewers. They would seek Tranicos on their way upriver, later on. Alcemides suspected the librarian had been swallowed by a snake-man, who had stolen his skin. The others were, for the most part, amused by the notion.

The rest of the day was spent in idle slumber, repairing damaged equipment and tending wounds. The letters retrieved from the leper sorcerer seemed to be describe a large scale shipping operation. The blocks of Acheronian stone from the sewers were packed aboard ships in Messantia, whence they traveled to Zingara, Ophir and Zamora. Three men had corresponded with the leper in arranging the shipments – a Korzetta of Zingara, Z. from Ophir and Zevras from Zamora. Obviously the cult had a longer reach than the Nemedians had dared to suspect before. Among the letters was a crude map of the known world. Over it had been drawn a giant V with red ink. It covered the western coast from Zingara to Messantia, then reached up till Shadizar in the northeast. Seeing the symbol filled the men with strange dread, but meant nothing at the moment. As the night fell, their dreams were invaded by the glow of a baleful star, alone in the crimson sky. Meanwhile stealthy feet padded on the roof of the house and steel glinted in the moonlight.

From Tyrus

After reaching Messentia, I and Alcemides spent a night confirming what the Child of Nergal had told us about the red-handed assassins. As told in a letter we had received after the attack, one of the dock warehouses concealed a secret entrance to a simple negotiation chamber. An envoy of the assassins greeted us there, telling us much of what we already knew. In addition, we each were given the possibility of learning about one other negotiation place. I chose Belverus, and Alcemides chose Kordova. With cities so far apart, we would at least have a reasonable distance to any one of them, no matter where we would travel. However, Belverus was the only meeting place which I assumed would ever get used.

Silent shadows skulked on the roof of the house rented by “Lord Bhaal” and his entourage. The guards and servants downstairs were fast asleep. The decision of the killers to strike through the windows saved their lives, or at least prolonged it for a few minutes. Steel glinted in the moonlight as blades were covered with poison. Silent nods were exchanged and the attackers slipped through the flimsy window covers with murder on their minds. They made their way through the main hallway of the second floor and divided into pairs. Motivated by greed and bloodthirst, the cutthroats crashed through doors into the silent bedrooms of their prey.

Alcemides was awoken by the racket and was on his feet just in time to see two assassins burst through the door. Tyrus, who shared the room with the half-pict, had barely woken up by the time one attacker died with a shortsword in his heart. Meanwhile Dionysos and Luba were struggling with another pair of killers, who grievously wounded the Acheronian-blooded sorcerer. Blinded by a stinging dust thrown in his eyes, his only chance to prevail was to use the chamber pot to wash out the alchemical weapon. Only in the room of Basil there seemed to be no struggle, only two silent thuds. A moment later, the alchemist stepped out, brandishing a sceptre-like staff inscribed with black spiders. Their momentum and the advantage of surprise lost, the attackers were quickly brought down. Luba saved the life of one assassin with timely first aid, while the others were left to die. The heroes decided to stay up for the rest of the night and move immediately for another place to stay come dawn. The corpses would be left in the house – it had been rented under a false name in any case.

The morning came without further incidents. The Nemedians and the Zamoran entourage slipped away, carrying an unconscious prisoner with them and acquired another house in a less respectable part of the great city. After they had settled down, Dionysos proceeded to interrogate the prisoner. Eventually the hypnotic powers of the young sorcerer overpowered the will of the assassin and he fell to a dominated trance. The assassin turned out to be just a small-time crook from the harbor districts: A thug for hire, who had been paid to murder merchants. He knew nothing of the cult, but could provide a name. Publio, a fence and a dealer in poisons and drugs, had hired the cutthroats to attack the house. The thug knew not where Publio lived, but told of a seaside tavern and brothel he frequented. Apparently the fence used the place as his office, meeting clients and minions inside. He was on good terms with pirates of the Barachan Isles and always kept half a dozen corsairs around as bodyguards. Having combed the thug’s brains for every ounce of information, Dionysos sacrificed him for sorcerous power, enjoying the thrill of cold-blooded murder with a thin smile on his pale lips.

The men decided to send Luba to gather information on the streets, while they sat down to consider what to do. Finally they decided to go after the fence, capture him and then extract any information he might have. Alcemides mumbled grimly about pirates and how they were his only equals in the art of sudden death, but the others paid little attention. In the evening Luba returned with little news. The city guard and the guilds were not looking for them for now, so whoever had sent the assassins also wanted the presence of the Nemedians to remain a secret. Dionysos suspected the attack was retaliation for the events in the sewers, but only finding Publio and forcing him to talk would confirm it.

As night fell on Messentia, the men disguised themselves in rags and made their way to the shady parts of the great harbor. Drunk pirates brawled on the streets amongst prostitutes and dealers of lotus wine. The few guards were more interested in harassing the street girls for discounts than maintaining order. Even before they reached the tavern, Alcemides got bored and attacked a street dealer peddling lotus and opium. He threw the man in the murky waters of the harbor and confisticated a satchel of drugs. The others didn’t even bother to ask him why, as the act of random violence seemed to improve the half-picts mood considerably.

Finally the men made their way in to the tavern/brothel called the Purring Mermaid. It was a rowdy, dirty place where sailors and soldiers came to look for cheap trollops and cheaper wine. Publio had a room in the back, separated from the common room by a thick curtain. After waiting for the previous client, a dark-haired man with a huge beard and the bearing of a pirate, to leave, Dionysos brazenly entered the booth. He intended to immediately subjugate the fence with his hypnotic gaze, after getting up close under the pretense of using his services. Yet as Publio saw the young sorcerer, he immediately jumped up and ordered his bodyguards to attack. Three brawny pirates assaulted Dionysos with cutlasses, forcing him out of the room.

The other heroes charged to aid the nobleman and more pirates joined the fray. As blows were exchanged, drunk tempers flared all over and the tavern was soon engulfed in chaotic bloodshed. Someone set the building aflame and the heroes barely managed to fight their way out before general panic turned the fight into a stampade. Alcemides sneaked back inside through a window and found that the fence had fled through the back door. Before leaving the burning building, he picked up the cup of wine the man has used, bringing it to Dionysos for sorcerous uses. Then the half-pict faded into the night, declaring that he would go “milk the tears of sailors”.

The others made their way back to their base and treated their wounds. Dionysos used the cup of wine and the saliva within to locate the fence through sorcery. He saw the man aboard a ship about to set sail despite it being a night. It seemed the fence was so terrified by the men he was going to flee the city. Seeing little else they could do, Tyrus used the cup to lay down a barrage of curses upon the man. At least he would be plagued by ill fortune for a year and a day. Alcemides returned after dawn, beaten black and blue, but with a happy grin on his mauled face. During the day, Dionysos cast divinations upon the fence again, becoming certain he was headed towards Kordova onboard a pirate ship.

Once again, the men were at a loss at what to do. The librarian was now too far away to pursue and the fence was beyond their reach as well. Alcemides suggested that they cut their losses and leave Messantia with the next ship, but the others wanted some tangible benefit before leaving. Finally Basil convinced the others to make another trip underneath the city. He suggested that the huge golden mark on the roof of the ritual chamber could be broken up and looted. They could also explore the stairways and tunnels they had previously seen. Promises of pure gold quickly convinced Dionysos and Tyrus. Alcemides and Ditrius tagged along with less enthuism.

Despite the death of the sewer mage, the sewers were still curiously empty. The heroes had no trouble reaching the chambers underneath the sewers. The undead miners were still hard at work, suggesting some other force than the dead leper had created them. Alcemides prooceded to cut them in to ribbons and the risen dead did naught to resist. Meanwhile the others tried pickaxe, sledgehammer, acid and brute force on the golden symbol in the ritual chamber. No amount of force or skill would even dent the stone. Frustrated, Dionysos finally proclaimed the symbol to be obviously somehow an enchanted tool in itself. Breaking it would require sorcery and the destruction would undoubtedly strain the walls between realities. It would be easier for them to scour the tunnels and seek something else to loot. Ditrius and Basil both seemed very pleased with the proclamation.

Moving through the old tunnels, the heroes found more obscure, blasphemous incriptions on the walls and eventually a set of wide stairs leaving somewhere deeper underground. A strong stench of carrion assaulted their noses. Alcimedes sneaked ahead and when descending the stairs, noticed many, many marks of clawed feet upon the stone. He could hear distant tittering, growling sounds echoing from somewhere afar. Alarmed by the report of the half-pict, the men decided to turn around and search other tunnels. Dionysos giggled with a mad gleam in his eyes about the hungry ones chewing the bones of the very world in hidden tunnels.

Finally the plunderers found a hidden stairway leading deeper in to the catacombs. Climbing down, they found a hole in the stairwell, leading in to a natural cave next to the stairs. Curious as ever, Alcemides went in to investigate and came back to tell the whole cave was filled with human bones. Dionysos and Tyrus waded around in the bones, confirming they were human in origin. All had toothmarks on them and most were broken and the marrow within missing. Stumbling among the bones, Tyrus kicked something hard. Among the bones was a gilded helmet with a high horse hair crest. Basil recognized the helmet as one used by the Royal Guard of Ophir several centuries ago.

Underneath the stairs, the men were assaulted by a stench so terrible it made them gag and puke in helpless revulsion. They had found the huge cesspool they had observed from above. Peering up, they could see the huge god-figure above, leaning dangerously towards the chasm. Peering down, they saw a ledge underneath opening into a large hall. So great was their revulsion that the men had to flee the stench. Still determined to find something valuable, Dionysos suggested to soak straps of cloth in perfume and cover their faces with it. Thus prepared the men went back, again hit by the terrible stench, but now at least able to stay on their feet. Using a rope, they descended on the ledge below, hands shaking with the staggering assault of the stench. On the edge of the cesspool was a winch and a bucket, which seemed fresh and working, as if someone occasionally dipped in to the disgusting muck below and lifted up whole buckets of it. The hall seemed to be a dining room, with silverwares incribed with scenes of murder and cannibalism. All but Alcemides were deeply disturbed by the implications. The half-pict proceeded to merrily loot the silver, caring little for the strange stains on them.

Staggering in the stench, the men made their way through the hall to the corridor beyond. It ended soon in a place where the roof had collapsed. The eastern side of the corridor opened to a chamber with a pile of corpses covering the floor. In the roof was a hole from which the corpses had obviously been dropped. Some were clothed, some naked, all in advanced states of decay. On the western side was a curtain of stained silk. From behind it emanated a glow of candlelight and low muttering, occasionally broken with smatterings and clicks. While the others pondered their options, Basil pulled the curtain aside.

Behind the curtain was a large chamber illuminated by a few black candles. Everywhere it was covered with scrolls neatly laid in piles and pyramids. At the back of the room was a rack on which large pieces of leather were stretched to dry, perhaps to be used as vellum. A huge creature, at least seven feet tall, stood beside a stone pedestal. It was covered with a dark stained robe which left only large, clawed hands visible. The creature was constantly writing a scroll of some kind and although it acknowledged the presence of the men with a nod, it never ceased to write. With a gurgling, smattering voice, it invited them to step in and asked what brought them in the catacombs.

Somewhat surprised by the behavior of the creature, the men nevertheless engaged it with words instead of swords. The creature explained it was a scholar and a librarian interested with local history and tasked with guarding something underneath Messentia. Basil, Dionysos and Tyrus asked many questions and learned much about the catacombs around them from the being. It already knew the leper sorcerer had been killed and congratulated the men for the deed, warning them of the ghouls prowling in the tunnels. As the scholars portrayed interest in Tartarus, the creature told how to enter the sacrificial pit which would lead to the tombs of the witch-kings, though he warned the men of the dire forces guarding the death-slumber of the Acheronians. As the other men left the chambers, Basil stayed behind for a few moments and emerged cluthing an old scroll. Back on the ledge, the plunderers decided they had had enough.

The Nemedians made their way back towards the surface. When they reached the secret door hidden in the wall of the storm drain, the party was alerted by the sounds of men issuing nearby. The most silent and swiftest of the adventurers, Alcemides sneaked ahead to investigate. Rounding a corner, he witnessed members of the sewer worker’s guild, armed, unloading corpses and living prisoners off a shallow skiff, chaining the sullen wretches to the wall. One of the prisoners still living was a young female prostitute. Before the others became aware of what was happening, Alcemides charged the messentians. Unfortunately, the half-pict, his wits clouded by his bloodlust, stepped in a puddle of filth with a loud splash, and the three sewer workers turned in unision to face the savage, who froze in his tracks. Witnessing the spectacle of Alcemides, half-naked with his sword drawn, one of the men fired his arbalest, striking the Savage Dancer in the chest. Alcemides fell back, without uttering a sound, and lay still with the heavy bolt portruding from his sternum. The sewer workers were still standing still, shocked, as the others rounded the corner, and seeing their comrade laid low, charged without asking questions. The workers in the skiff met terrible deaths as they drowned in sewage, pushed off their flimsy skiff, though one worker managed to flee, ducking bolts, as the Nemedians were slowed by their armour. As the adventurers checked to see if their fallen comrade had finally failed to cheat death, they were amazed to discover a faint pulse. The bolt had missed his heart and arteries by a hair, and had merely disturbed some nerve that had knocked Alcemides senseless. The men freed the girl chained to the wall, though she could say nothing on why she was bought here for her trivial offense. Limping back to the surface, the men realised that when they would next head below the city, the sewer guild would undoubtedly double their efforts at security, dictating even greater caution and secrecy. They returned to the rented house and spent the rest of the day bathing, trying to scrub off the terrible stench. Yet now they had a new goal – the tomb of the Acheronian witch-kings.

From the Memoirs of Tyrus the First

One of the days we spent at the inn, I inquired Luba about the military presence in the city and the actual status of the warrant on our heads. From what she had gathered, the search was no longer very active and I would probably be safe on the streets with a modest disguise.

Encouraged by this, I took it upon myself to visit good old Niccolo. As a man of my word and as repayement for the information I had bought, I told him everything I had learned about Nefertari. The man seemed visibly amused. By the tone of his questions, he seemed much more interested in the vampiress than I had initially assumed. Even though our debt was now settled, Niccolo even rewarded me with a nominal sum of silver. Perhaps out of principle.

The information dealer was also interested in everything I could tell about Pteion, but not enough to offer a reasonable prize, so we let the matter be. When I was leaving, he stopped me one last time to hand me a stone tablet decorated by his family signet with a request to break the tablet when I would finally meet Nefertari. I accepted, for the man had been nothing but fair, and I was certain that our paths with the vampiress would yet cross.

I remember thinking about the possible effects of the tablets, and believed that there existed a sort of feud between Niccolo and the hag. From what I could gather, perhaps the tablet would unleash a curse, or perhaps it was some kind of a tracking spell. If either of these was true, I could only deduct that Niccolo did not expect us to survive an encounter with Nefertari. I would later prove him wrong, but not in the sense that I then assumed.

From the Memoirs of Tyrus the First

I have to admit that my taste for ancient sepulchres had waned a lot since Pteion, but the other group members except Alcemides were determined in their resolve to visit and loot the tombs of the witch-kings. The pict was very pessimistic about our chances of survival, and I was partial to his opinion, but in my calculations, I was still quite a bit short of the necessary investment for any meaningful title. This would surely be the last time. Once I had the money, I surely wouldn’t risk my life so easily, and the money from the nobility would allow me to copy the sets of scrolls in Belverus’s university library.

Anyway, Dionysos had probed the tombs with his minds eye. The insides of the actual tomb were off limits to his sight, but as we had expected, the way to the entrance resided behind one of the large statues we found while searching for the librarian. Thus, we knew the easy way in and wouldn’t have to wander the streets of Tartarus excessively. A welcome change.

After a couple of days of preparation and planning, we descended into the darkness. Unable to find any opening mechanism from the statue, we were forced to soften the thick and hard stone with the Atlantean Stone Eater before finally breaking through. The broken doorway then revealed an endless, fifty foot wide pit with ledges spaced evenly each sixty feet of depth. About three ledges down was the entrance we were looking for. Corridors extended in both east and west, and since the former one supposedly lead to the tombs, and the other to a chamber filled with treasure. Even though it seemed too good to be true, we decided to investigate the treasure chamber first.

The western corridor was long and narrow, and Alcemides, with his eyes of a cat and sharp reflexes, was advancing first. Dionysos remained in the main ledge to guard our backs (or perhaps just out of cowardice), and Ditrius chose to remain in the inn, choosing not to abandon his charges, should he perish.

Here, even the traps were lavish and displayed elegance. The first one Alcemides avoided, and a whole barrage of demon-fire dropped harmlessly on the floor. The second he missed and I accidentally activated it. My face was sprayed with the maddening gray lotus dust. I remember little of the consequences.Basil and Alcemides later told me that I had lunged around ravenously, almost blinding Basil and killing Alcemides. Fortunately Basil had managed to restrain me, but how the scrawny weakling had managed that, I never found out. Alcemides shrugged at his wounds and we kept on, avoiding a falling slab trap and finding a yet another door, which seemed suspiciously cold to the touch. When thinking about the matter and the validity of Dionysos’s visions in general, the whole door seemed suspicious. Alcemides knocked the slab, and from the echoes, claimed that the room was probably filled with water. Sensing a trap, we struck my climbing cleats into the wall and tied Alcemides to them before returning to the ledge and opening the door.

As expected, a thousand barrels of water rushed through, safely draining to the bottomless pit. Alcemides had weathered the flow hanging on to his rope and came back to inform that the door simply revealed a round room with a modest altar. As if to mock us, on the altar was placed a pile of copper coins, and we found nothing else despite our best efforts. Stranger yet, the room was both dry and nowhere big enough to hold the torrent of water that had supposedly gushed forth from it. The coins were stamped with a face of asexual beauty with a throughly amused grin. Dionysos later speculated the coins to be a jest or a taunt by a guardian demon set to watch over the tombs and had the likeness of the creature.

Back at the main intersection, I chose to descend the ledges a bit. At around two hundred feet, our ropes fell short and the ledges remained plain and uninteresting. When dropped, the waning light of a torch revealed little about the depth. Bewildered by this, I left the matter be and climbed back up. At the time, I understood nothing about the purpose and means of construction of such pits, and it suffices to say that its scale was truly disheartening. It is fortunate that I had other matters to think about, as my present knowledge suggests that spending such a long time in such pits is not the best of ideas.

When I returned, my companions had pried open a couple of coffers that decorated the walls of the crypt entrance. None of them contained any valuables, but did have mummified husks of ancient warriors in deteriorated pitch-black plate mail. When investigated closer, the tongues and eyes of the mummies proved to be in perfect shape and as moist and colorful as they probably were in life. Wary of this discovery, Alcemides pried open all the coffers and threw the lifeless bodies into the pit. We then proceeded to break the crypt door with picks and acid.

The first chamber merely contained a carriage, built of strangely well-preserved wood and generously decorated with gold and silver. At first it seemed that this would be a treasure in itself, but Basil, with his knowledge of alchemy, knew from weight that the metal parts were merely gold-plated steel. There had to be another treasure, and thus we pushed forward.

The next door was easier to open and revealed an extremely large chamber that contained a miniature of an entire city. The phallic architecture led us to believe it to be Tartarus itself, and I must admit that the craftsmanship was extraordinary in both scale and attention to detail. While such a find would be completely invaluable to a historian, even the prettiest temples would be difficult to pry out and transport to the surface, and thus it was without value to us.

A more through search of the whole room revealed a lot of writing in the south wall and more on a terrace circling the whole chamber. Suspecting it to be important, both I and Dionysos spent some time investigating the acheronian writing. Such it was, indeed. The engravings confirmed what the scrolls had previously hinted about the insignificance of the brief rule of man in this world, and the true masters of cosmos that would come both before us and after us. Even though this was merely writing on the wall by long-dead madmen, through the connection with the scrolls, I was filled with utter certainty that it was true. Such knowledge shook me to the very bone, but for some reason I can’t really understand, the revelation did not make me lose hope. In Dionysos’s eyes, I saw the comforting and engrossing gleam of madness, as surely the same knowledge had crushed some of his humanity.

The young pervert snapped out of his trance when Alcemides came to tell us that he had found a new path. In the east wall, there was a concealed door that opened into a surprisingly large, well-preserved corridor lined with torches, which still proved to be in operational condition. The corridor led to a smaller door, behind which bellowed the noises of a lively ball with countless nobility chattering and dancing to their hearts content. This insanity stopped us on our tracks, but Alcemides braved the mirage and soon instructed us to follow. While inside the room, its reality was revealed, and the mummified corpses of an acheronian court were found sitting in tables and benches on the walls. the room was large, but again seemed to just have a single exit to a narrow stone corridor, whose ending finally revealed what we were looking for.

The tombchamber of the witch kings was a septagon-shaped room with one face relief-encrusted door on each of the walls except for the entrance. The center of the room was decorated by a man-sized phallic obelisk the likes of which we had already seen in the city miniature. All seemed to be in order and soon the whole entourage was inside discussing the next move and deciphering the names of the six witch-kings. A moment later we were again surprised by a trap.

In my recollection, we had taken the utmost care in our each step, but alas, I was not swift enough to notice the lowering door. Alcemides dove to safety, but the rest of us were trapped when water – yet again – begun to pour from the ceiling. As if to mock us, the trap had been designed to kill slowly and minutes would pass before we would be left out of breath. We searched for an exit feverishly and Alcemides tried everything he could to break the door. However, it was extremely thick and even the stone eater would not help him to save us in time. Suddenly Basil formed an idea about pushing the images of the witch-kings in sequence, and guided by some clues neither I nor Dionysos saw, proceeded to guess the combination and disarm the trap. The water drained away almost instantly, and Alcemides joined us in looting the tombs.

We decided that it would be best to be as quick as possible. Each chose a chamber and grabbed as much as he could. For some reason, I seemed to draw the short end of the stick, as the tomb I chose was simply filled with utility articles made out of bones and human skin. Despite feeling that such items would be almost completely without value for everyone except the most deranged collectors, I grabbed numerous examples and managed to find precious stones lodged into some of the most delicate ones. There was also a small locker that contained a silver box with a large black pearl. Unable to find anything else, I took another door and saw a completely bare chamber with an incredibly large set of armor and weaponry resting behind three barrels. The armor was worn and way too large to transport, but the set had two jewel-encrusted scabbards – one for a poniard and one for a longsword. The poniard proved to be missing, but the longsword was present, though broken in half. It still seemed incredibly decorated and valuable, and the blade was made of strange metal. Even with half of its length missing, the blade was long enough to be used by a man of my size.

Delighted with finding the pretty scabbards, I broke the barrels which would surely be full of valuables. Unfortunately, I found just ash. I couldn’t believe my eyes and dug inside the ash for anything, but found only child bones and more ash. I broke the other barrels and fell them to the floor, but the contents were similar. The room had no sarcophagus, no lockers and nothing else of value. Almost furious by such mocking trickery, I ran to a third door, but opening it revealed a revolting mess of mummified human organs and bones knit and molten into impossible constructions. I again use these strange words, but they are the best ones I can fathom as behind the door was the tomb of the Boneweaver. She had apparently built a lot more than the Ankh, as the chamber was filled from ground to roof with such contraptions. In the light of my lantern, I saw many precious gems and trinklets, but simply couldn’t bear to enter. An unnatural sense of dread and despair forced my shaking hands to reseal the door. The others found me collapsed from its base and motioned for departure. I saw Basil open the door slightly and reach for the darkness, but even he seemed unable to enter the room and recoiled shortly thereafter. From what I gathered, the others had been luckier than I, with the three other chambers practically filled with riches and elegant art objects. Dionysos was also carrying three large tablets of gold that were completely covered with small, strange inscriptions.

The road back to the corridors of the buried city was uneventful. Dionysos kept on hurrying us, as he had experienced a vision of something rising from the pit. Nothing came, however, and when ascending, we also saw that the roof was designed to be able to crush climbers, but it remained as still as the pit. Either the mechanism had rusted shut, or we had somehow failed to activate it, which seemed a welcome twist of fate. However, it seemed as if misfortune accompanied good fortune as readily as itself, as our troubles seemed to be far from over. The corridors above were crawling with ghouls.

At first, we were able to avoid the corpse-eaters even though they blocked our original exit route. We tried a couple of staircases and uncertain corridors, but each seemed to be a dead end. Desperate, we settled on the other route to the sewers that had previously been used as the docking place for the feeding raft, and miraculously the ghouls were not present. However, once we begun to scale the actual sewer corridors, we noticed that the place was crawling with bandits from the sewerworkers’ guild. Dismayed by the discovery, we weighted our bets and chose to face the ghouls, as they were both unorganized and fearful of light. If we killed a few, the others would probably flee, and such a route would be much less risky than facing two dozen men with crossbows.

How wrong we were. Immediately after facing the scouts in the wine cellar entrance, we knew that these ghouls would not be just some rabble. They fought ferociously, with great skill and without fear. We couldn’t hold our own against their superior numbers, as they forced us to retreat back downstairs, and soon thereafter, into the far rooms of the cellar. We managed to block the doorway with some debris and hold a defensive line in a narrow entrance, but the ghouls were relentless and completely oblivious to their losses – we must have killed more than a dozen before they finally retreated. The reason for their restraint soon became apparent, as an old ghoul clad in tattered silken robes approached with an imposing guard of hulkish ghouls clad in ophirian gold-plated ceremonial armor. Deep down, I was certain that this would be the end of us, and considered a prayer to Mitra, that my parents used to worship.

We endured the stalemate for a while, as the ghouls seemed content to smirk and howl at their cornered and wounded pray. The sorcerer seemed reluctant to sacrifice any more of his kind, and eventually, to the revel of its subjects, it spoke the first words of great necromancy. I recognized the spell that beckoned the bodies of the recently dead, and instantly knew what to do. Placing a bolt on my crossbow, I took quick aim and pulled the trigger. The bolt hit the ghoul in the shoulder, causing it to lose control of its conjuration. The revitalizing energies of the words turned against their speaker, and the sorcerer and its nearest guards were putrefied and turned to ash in an instant. We were hit by a black shockwave that tried to desecrate our bodies and snuff away our breath, but further from the focus of the blast, we survived. The ghouls, seeming to lose heart, turned tail and fled.

It was a bitter victory. Our skin was black where the shockwave had swept over it. My hair was falling off in tatters and Dionysos’s fingernails were brown and rotting. Nothing but the surface mattered now. We ran and leaped through the corridors in the familiar route, wishful of rest and care. Yet there seemed to be no respite for us, as in the sewers, we were ambushed by the men of Kostokos. We repelled the first scouts and staggered back into the sewers, but hope was scarce.

Kostokos had accompanied the men himself and demanded everything we had in exchange of our lives. Granted, we were wounded and tired, completely without a chance of victory. The sewer king outnumbered us greatly, but Basil’s bitter resolve saved the day a bit. Not willing to give up his newfound riches, he screamed that if the sewer whore wanted everything, he would get nothing. We would rather throw everything in the sewage cleft or the ghouls than give up now. So sincere was the bargain, that to this day I do not doubt his resolve, and neither did Kostokos. He settled for the gold plaques Dionysos and Basil had found in the other tombs. To my utter surprise, the king was a man worth his word, as after given the plaques, we were allowed to leave in peace.

Rarely have I felt that the bed of an inn would be as welcome, and as rarely have I felt my life to be as cheap. Countless times in the last days could I have lost it, but somehow I still had it. Such happiness could not be bought with money, but perhaps my newfound wealth could buy what I truly wanted. I would be happier still when the blackness would peel off to reveal pale and healthy skin, and in a couple of days, I could brush my head to find fresh stubble.

More trouble would follow us, eventually. Especially the evil of the witch-kings would reach much further than we expected. I wouldn’t know of it until later, though, and for the first time in a long while, it felt as if everything was locking into place. I was content.

From the Chronicles of Lord Dionysos Thaurian

I was bitterly disappointed that whatever was guarding that accursed tomb would manage to frustrate me so, even distorting the dreams brought to me by the Blossoms of the Black Lotus. In retrospect, I should have spent more time researching what Amenkhun had used to subdue the demons bound to the site. And I shall not rest until I have feasted on the soul of Sergio Kostokos. Oh yes, Messentia has not seen the last of me.

With their cover blown, our anti-heroes decided to leave Messentia. The priests of Mitra would not give the reward they had promised earlier, as the cult of the Golden King had gotten away with Tranicos. They would, however, write a letter of recommendation which might assist the Nemedians in their quest for the Scrolls of Vathelos, one part of which was held in a temple of Ishtar in an Ophirean town on the banks of the Red River.

They faced a dire dilemma, however: Exiting the city of coin could prove hazardous, as they were now hunted by both the city militia and guild mercenaries. As the men weighed their options, a shadowy messenger arrived on their doorstep. Niccolo, the purveyor of information the Nemedians had previously dealt with, offered to arrange the men safe egress from Messentia. In return for the bone Ankh that had damned Noam the archer, the men would be driven to the Ophirean border in covered wagons, eblazoned with royal heraldry, ensuring safe and uninterrupted passage. Grudgingly, the adventurers accepted the offer.

Planning ahead, Tyrus and Dionysos decided that they would try to reach the Nemedian border before the weather worsened, as entry into Nemedia lay at a point where the Border Range melded into the Karpash range, and snowfall wound be a great hindrance to the large group of travellers. Should the internal strife in Ophir cause great trouble, the men would chance a crossing into Aquilonia, though still following the river: Aquilonia would still be in turmoil after the war, and the Road of Kings could be hazardous, especially now that the Nemedians were cursed with ill fortune.

Basil proposed a different route, suggesting the band take a detour into Koth, stopping to pay tribute to Pelias, the new master of the Crimson Citadel, whom he much desired to meet. He enticed Dionysos with the prospect of learning what had transpired during the time he was known as Lord Bhaal, and what purpose this “possession” had served. The others dismissed this idea, as it would mean prolonging the journey by at least another six months.

Reaching Lodier in Ophir after nearly two weeks of travel, the band found the local temple of Ishtar empty. The locals were in turmoil, and were about to burn a number of witches. They planned to burn the temple next, as the Mitran majority blamed the followers of Ishtar of sorcery. Tyrus and Luba went to witness the event, relishing in the irony of the situation, with the only withces present at the witch-burning being in the crowd of jeering savages rather than on the pyre. They came away disgusted and saddened, as it was obvious that the poor wretches were merely scapegoats for the misery that the civil war had inflicted on the community.

After some inquiry, the travellers learned that the staff of the local temple of the Ivory Goddess had fled to a fortified temple on an island upstream. After a night spent in a mediocre inn, the party took off upriver, leaving the majority of the band behind under the charge of Luba. In a curious turn of events, as dawn broke, Basil began to walk towards the river, as if in a state of somnambulism. He managed to wade into the river, with the water reaching his waist, before Alcemides forcefully removed him from the chilly embrace of the Red River.

Reaching the crossing post to the temple, the band, accompanied by Gabai Av Pteor, an itinerant champion of Ishtar alarmed by the odd occurances in the area, found a single small raft. It was incapable of bearing the weight of their horses, which the men were then forced to leave behind. Cursed as they were, the young witches and the half-savage were certain that they would not see their mounts again. The temple had thick stone walls with ramparts, but seemed poorly defended, with only two guards, who let the foreigners through when shown the letter given by the scholarly priests of Messentia. Inside the walls was a magnificent garden where grew both the Upas-tree and, somewhat surprisingly, the tree which bore the Apples of Derketa.

The men were eventually brought before a grotesquely obese man with the mixed features of a Kothian, by the name of Khossus. The Nemedians introduced themselves as travelling students of the arcane, interested in obscure scrolls in the possession of the temple. Tyrus presented the letter of recommendation, which the priest read without much enthusiasm. Obviously a very corrupt man, he was quite visibly elated by the gift of lotus and gold the Nemedians gave him after deciding that another approach was needed, and promised them full access to the storerooms the scrolls were held in, though they would have to wait until the next day due to festivities taking place that night. Inquiries about the priestess in charge of the temple raised some alarm in the adventurers, as Khossus told them she was last seen leaving the island in the company of a tall, pale woman matching the description of Nefertari, the Stygian vampiress. The men were led to their chambers, where they set about plotting their next move nervously. Alcemides would have none of it, and took off to explore the monastic fortress alone.

Meanwhile, a thick fog was raising from the river…

Thick fog engulfed the fortified temple island, suppressing sound and sight alike. The inner yard was silent and deserted. No guards walked on the battlements. The few awake had taken refuge from the wet darkness in the bastions. Alcemides explored unobserved and unopposed, seeking excitement and loot. The few buildings around the garden seemed empty and deserted. Peeking through windows, the half-pict only saw an alchemical laboratory in one of the buildings, with an ancient crone hard at work. The building where Tyrus and Dionysos met Khossus was locked and silent. Strong iron bars in the windows prevented entry and the iron-shod door was barred from within.

Pressing ear against the door, Alcemides could hear faint sounds of rhythmic chanting. It echoed from somewhere far away, perhaps from the corridors underneath. As he turned to return to his comrades, the savage was faced with an imposing sight. Suddenly, middle of the fog-shrouded courtyard stood a huge tree with great many branches. No such tree had been there before. Crouching in the wet darkness, Alcemides heard the sound of distant wings and rustling of leaves, as if something large had descended to rest upon the stout branches. The half-pict skulked away to fetch the sorcerers.

Meanwhile, the others engaged in idle planning. Gabai, unaware Alcemides had left to skulk around, was trying to convince the others inspect the buildings. He was alarmed by the secrecy and suspected the high priestess was held captive in the compound. Just then Alcemides entered with an incoherent story about huge trees appearing from the mist and a stench of carrion in the air. Motivated more by boredom than alarm, the others followed the half-pict in the deserted courtyard. No tree was to be found where Alcemides had seen one. Inspecting the ground, Alcemides swore the tree had stood where now was but an old well. Peering inside, the men found the well to be empty and very deep. Even the night eyes of Dionysos could not see the bottom. The young Acheronian decided to summon a crow and send it down to inspect. The bird came from the mist and disappeared in the well, never coming back.

Others wanted to climb down the well to investigate or break in to the main building and follow the ritual sounds. Tyrus was strongly against such actions. He reminded Dionysos they were on the island for the Scrolls of Vathelos and nothing else. Tomorrow Khossus would take them to the scrolls. They would need to act nice till then or risk losing their objective. Dionysos and Tyrus managed to convince the others wait and the men returned to their quarters. As the night progressed, the thick fog trickled down in to the corridors. Distant sound of ritualistic drumming echoed occasionally through the island. The dreams that night were dark, vivid and fearsome, where the gods of old returned to haunt the mankind.

The mist had not dissipated in the morning – if anything, it had only grown thicker. Alcemides reminded Tyrus of the strange fog they had encountered in the Zingaran mountains. Expecting the worst, the group was summoned to see Khossus. The obese priest met them in the courtyard, where two servants attended his breakfast. Khossus devoured obscene amounts of half-cooked meat, grease and blood pouring down his chin. Between mouthfuls of meat, the man managed to tell Dionysos that an acolyte would guide them to the underground vaults. The men followed a young priest to the main building and down long stairs in to bowels of the island. The acolyte, obviously drugged, merely shambled ahead, eyes wide and frozen.

The rocky island turned out to be honeycombed with ancient tunnels, tombs and shrines. The acolyte led the group through a maze of silent tunnels. Occasionally open doorways allowed glimpses into workshops, living chambers and ritual rooms. Most were empty, some occupied by sleeping or drugged priestesses. Finally, after another stairway, the men were led in the lowest vaults. The acolyte motioned the men to continue to the chambers ahead. Then he left without a word. Unable to control their enthusiasm, Dionysos and Tyrus charged ahead. The chamber inside contained a Stygian sarcophagus, rotting chests and an iron-shod crate. The crate was engraved with the rune of Skelos and Tyrus dashed right to it, ignoring the sarcophagus. He pulled the crate open with shaking hands and saw inside the writings of Vathelos. Unfortunately, attached to the lid of the crate was an alchemical firebomb. Opening the crate released the bomb. Time seemed to slow to crawl, as Tyrus watched the bomb fall towards his precious treasure. Fate smiled upon the Nemedian, as he lunged forward and managed to cup the bomb in his hands. Miraculously, it didn’t ignite from the impact and the scrolls were saved.

While Tyrus nurtured the scrolls like a lost child, the others inspected the sarcophagus. It was of dark stone and engraved with serpentine images. Dionysos set his third eye upon the sarcophagus and declared it resting place of Nefertari, who had obviously set the alchemical trap. The men readied their weapons and pulled the sarcophagus open, but it was empty save a few clay tables and old documents. The documents followed bloodlines of a Nemedian noble while the tablets contained notes in Old Stygian. Dionysos looted the contents and joined Tyrus in examining the scrolls just as a loud rumbling echoed through the vault. Alcemides and Gabai ran to investigate and soon returned with alarming news. The way inside was now blocked with a massive stone block. Digging through would take days. They would need another way out.

Wandering aimlessly through the corridors, the men found all three exists blocked with stone blocks. Finally they chose the thinnest block for their escape attempt. Tyrus spent some of his waning reserves of the Atlantean acid and the others attacked the stone with rotting tools they scavenged from ancient storage rooms. Finally, after several hours of uninterrupted work, the blockade yielded to their efforts. Stumbling through the dust, the adventurers found themselves from a deserted corridor. Gabai heard a distant sound of running water and the heroes headed towards it with parched throats. Soon, the corridor descended in to a natural cave. The cave was filled with mist from the river. Doorway to the cave was covered with silver dust and protective runes. Two longboats were drawn on the ground by the water, but upon closer inspection, both had several holes. There were planks and tools nearby, but none of the heroes were skilled in woodcraft.

Moving carefully through the fog, Alcemides found a hidden alcove leading to a narrow passage. Others followed him through to an ancient room with a dark altar in the middle. Faded inscriptions on the walls hinted at ancient, obscene deities long forgotten. Tyrus and Basil deciphered the ancient runes on the altar, but dared not to share their findings. Meanwhile, Alcemides and Gabai found another concealed alcove opening in to a steeply ascending staircase. As Alcemides tried to enter, he felt as if hitting an invisible wall. Basil and Dionysos managed to pass through, but the other were stuck. Finally Tyrus managed to dispel and break the compulsive enchantment, which some unknown sorcerer had left to guard the stairway.

The stairs climbed up and up, before finally ending in to a cold stone wall. During their ascent, Alcemides thought he heard the sound of wet, bare feet behind them, but the others paid no attention to his warnings. Basil quickly found the mechanism controlling the secret door. It opened in to a shadowy hallway. After peeking through windows, the men understood they were inside the outer walls of the monastery. The mist made it hard to see and it had poured inside the corridors from the arrow holes.

The heroes decided follow the wall inside till they found the gatehouse. Suddenly Alcemides, moving as a scout ahead, heard coarse voices from a chamber he was passing. The half-pict opened the door a little and saw inside five strange men. They were very muscular and large, dressed in ill-fitting robes of Ishtarian acolytes. The brutes were taking turns to sip from a cauldron filled with deep yellow liquid. Suddenly one of them turned around and saw Alcemides.

The five brutes charged immediately, with a froth of mad rage pouring from their mouths. Gabai and the Nemedians ran to aid Alcemides, who was hard pressed to avoid being torn apart. Despite being unarmed and outnumbered, the brutes fought with mad rage, inhumanly strength and showed no fear. They had to be hacked to pieces before the last gasps of life left them. Wounded and exhausted, the heroes had a short rest, preparing to face more foes. Yet none came, even though the racket of battle had echoed through the halls. There was only mist and silence – whether it was night or day, none could say.

Finally the six men reached the gatehouse. The doors were barred, but unguarded. Remains of an unfinished meal remained on a table and the floor was covered with puddles. Basil noted the water smelled like the sea. After a few moments of hard work, the heroes unbarred the outer gate and made their way slowly down the steep, slippery stairs. At the shore, the fog was almost too thick to see anything at all. There was no raft to be seen and the rope to the mainland had been cut loose. There was nothing to do but return to the boats. Once inside, all men now heard the sounds of wet feet on hard stone, running closer. Unnatural dread pressed on them and they decided to dash through the courtyard rather than head back to the underground harbor. As the adventurers jogged through the wet grass, great wings could be heard overhead in the mist…

The heroes retrieved their belongings from the guest quarters and headed back to the tunnels. On the way towards the staircase, Basil heard a gagging sound from a room nearby. Inspecting closer, he found a brute similar to the ones they had just seen, laying on the floor. He appeared to be drowning. The fiend-blooded alchemist crept closer and stabbed the man with his stiletto. Unfortunately his strength was insufficient to even pierce the skin. Only with the fifth stab, the helpless man finally died. Black seawater burst forth from his mouth and nostrils, slowly forming a reeking puddle mixed with blood. Basil speculated the water was offshoot of an Atlantean sea creature, stalking in the temple slaying the cultists. The others were too busy mocking the strength of his arms to listen.

Descending back to the underground labyrinth, the heroes found their way to the first stone block barring entry to the vaults. On the way, they saw no signs of life, but the stench of sea water was everywhere. Finally, it seemed they had only two routes towards the river – a deserted corridor where led several wet footprints or a stairway, from which ominous chanting echoed. The heroes decided to rather face the cultists than whatever it was with the stench of stagnant sea water. Sneaking up the stairs, the adventurers reached a balcony circling around a humongous temple. They could see another corridor on the other side of the balcony. Peeking at the room below, they spied a strange and elaborate ritual.

Over a hundred men stood in the temple below, dressed in dark yellow robes. Thirty among them were shaking, growling brutes, alike to the ones recently slain. Khossus led a strange ceremony on an altar of Ishtar, stained dark with fresh blood. Upon the altar stood a golden peacock, moving up and down its wings in rhythm with the chanting. Priestesses and acolytes of Ishtar knelt chained before the altar in a drugged haze. Sneaking around the balcony, the heroes found the corridor lead to the tunnel to the riverside cave. A set of stairs lead down to the temple chamber. Others wanted to go straight to the boats, but Alcemides would have nothing like it. He returned to the balcony, with Basil in tow, while the others waited in the tunnel.

The half-pict and the alchemist crawled to the edge of the balcony, peering down. In the temple chamber, Khossus was taking the ceremony to its climax. The priestesses were forced at the altar and ritually slain, their blood pouring over the peacock. The unnatural bird seemed to absorb the blood and with every drop, the gold of its feathers shone a little brighter. Grinning, Alcemides prepared his crossbow and spent a moment to aim carefully. Then he hit the peacock straight in the head with a well-placed bolt, splattering blood and brains all over Khossus. Corpse of the peacock seemed to shimmer and change in to a broken mask of gold… Basil bolted towards the corridor, while Alcemides stood up on the ledge. He waved his crossbow and shouted “I’m Alcemides of Nemedia!” at the enraged mob below… who soon charged towards the nearby stairs with bloodthirsty howls.

From the Memoirs of Tyrus the First

Seeing the grand secretary of Ianthe lying in a pool of his own blood made me ponder whether our intended actions had been just or unjust. Perhaps the man had been used by the cult, and discarded, or perhaps the servants of the masks were merely extremely indifferent to the fates of their kin. Regardless, his death was slightly too premature to ease my curiosity, and conveniently for our adversaries, we were caught red-handed at the scene of the crime.

We quickly fled the manor through the windows and climbed down the walls using the ropes we had set earlier. Our horses were waiting downhill, behind the estate grounds, and a frenzied escape ensued. The Ophirian guard outnumbered us greatly and we saw a number of them approaching the ridge. We steered away from the city into the river, but it soon became evident that we didn’t have enough of a head start to get a ferry across. Eventually, when were just about to get caught, Dionysos called upon nature and raised a thicket between us and the pursuers. This bought us time to leave our horses and scatter into the city limits. An agreement was made to meet tomorrow in one of the dock taverns.

I went to the slums with Basil, and even though we managed to find a shack to spend the night in, our troubles were not over. In the morning mist, while navigating towards the docks, we stumbled upon a guard patrol. To our distress, the men immediately recognized us, even though I had attempted to change my attire and I presume Basil wasn’t even well known in the cult ranks. This did not bode well, for it probably meant that we had been spied on for a prolonged time.

We fled, but it soon became evident that the horsemen would circle ahead and trap us. I already considered resigning to my fate, but Basil chose to demonstrate that he was more than a mere alchemist. He turned to face the riders, and unleashed a blast of gale, which swept both man and beast off their feet. We didn’t stop to see the damage, but instead bolted for the alleys and zigzagged towards the docks. In the tavern, we learned that Barathus and Dionysos had not faced difficulties. Alcemides was wounded and muttered something about soldiers in full plate armor. I never told anyone of Basil’s actions, for he had chosen to remain silent of his abilities and I honored this.

A whole day was spent hiding in a low-key inn, while Luba and Ditrius spent the day securing transportation. Under disguise, we boarded the raft and advanced upstream. In the first larger town, we again switched to horses, for the raft was slow and we feared the guard would eventually catch us on it. Constantly buying new mounts begun to seem a tad expensive, for now that I recall, I had abandoned a horse in Zingara, gotten my camel killed in Pteion, deserted another in Messentia and then again in Ophir. This would be my fifth one, and it turned out I wouldn’t be able to hang onto it very long either.

Advancing towards the Ophir-Nemedia border was relatively hasty. The countryside was ravaged by civil war and mostly desolate, but even though armies were moving in the area, we faced none and suffered no delays. I felt sorry for the husks of men huddling in burnt farmsteads and hanging onto their diminishing food supplies. I could do little to ease their plight, but when we bought cattle for slaughter, I made sure to pay a little extra. Speaking of slaughter, our entourage seemed to waste a lot of meat, but I soon learned that almost all was spent on Alcemides’s worryingly disproportionate appetite. That was the least of our problems, however, for we soon became plagued by other scourges.

About a week after leaving the raft, when darkness fell, distorted women with leathery wings and scorpion tails descended upon our group. They fought with bites, claws and stingers, but didn’t ultimately seem interested in an all-out conflict. When we felled one, the others lost heart and turned tail, though the reason for this probably was that the sorcerous poison from their tails was far beyond the ability of Luba to cure, and they saw no need to risk further casualties. Were I not well-versed in annulling curses, Basil and Dionysos would surely be dead.

After the night, Luba and the rest of Dionysos’s entourage separated from ours. We feared that we could not protect them from the demon women, and were certain that the beasts were sent after us by none other than the cult of the Golden masks. Ditrius weighted his options for a while, but eventually chose to join Luba, taking his charges with him. Dionysos was a little fearful of the separation, but we saw no other way. Later on the speculation proved correct, and when we met again on the Nemedian border, Luba told that they had not faced the beasts.

Many similar attacks happened in the weeks that followed. The matters seemed to be partly tied to the wretched luck that we had been experiencing since our visit to Tartaros, and whose exact manner we had so far been unable to decipher. I consulted the scrolls for answers and found that disturbing the peace of the witch kings indeed commanded dire consequences. Misfortune would follow us and our brethren for seven full generations. In addition to this, breaking the peace of any of the individual chambers called upon the wrath of a different king and of different sort. With respect to this, I studied further the banes of all of us, and learned the following.

Dionysos and Basil were marked by a baleful star. Sepulchral liches and nocturnal demons would be drawn to them like moths to a flame, and their flesh would be especially tasty to all the horros that feasted on men. Alcemides was plagued by the hunger of the ghouls, yarning for raw meat and carrion. In time, he would shed his humanity and become a beast himself. The pict also said that he saw visages of the witch-king in the night, stalking and taunting him. For my part the warrior king had cursed me with weakness of the blood, yearning to see my life depart through battle and witness my fluids streaming into the ground. I and Basil, who had tried to enter the tomb of the Boneweaver, were also plagued by an unknown curse, the manner of which I could not decipher. This unnerved me the most, as what I did not know, I could not be watchful for. Finally, Dionysos claimed that he was cursed with a lust for corpses, but hadn’t that always been the case?

For many a night I worked on undoing the curses, but with little success. Removing the weakness of blood seemed easy in comparison, and I suspect that the witch-king in question had been more interested in battle than sorcery. Also Alcemides’s yearning for raw flesh began to wane after I unraveled the webs that were laid upon him. The other curses I could not touch, and each time I tried, they seemed to slip further from my grasp. To my horror, this was not merely my imagination, as the scrolls revealed that even curses could be cursed. Each time I tried to fight them, they learned from it and became stronger, accustoming to my attacks. I despaired, for my ignorance doomed myself and my colleagues. The curses were now beyond my power to remove.

While I battled with the hexes, the attacks of the women, whom Dionysos finally recognized as Byakhee of the outer dark, continued. They were wary of human settlements and we avoided some trouble by sleeping in abandoned granaries and stables. However, one night they killed our horses, and on another they set the roof of the building on fire. We fought them on multiple further occasions, but they seemed even less interested in combat and mainly used hit and run tactics, acting as a nuisance. Each morning after their departure, we found symbols and arrows made from hay and twigs, all pointing towards the forests in the west. Bewildering as they were, we never found exactly the true meaning of the signs, for none were interested in following them. Basil recalled that the woods were supposed to be home to a great witch, and suspected that perhaps the byakhee were sent to guide us there. The attacks might merely have been caused by the mark of horrors that they were unable to resist.

Regardless of the reasoning, we continued onward and disregarded the creatures as best we could. As we neared villages, their visits grew infrequent, and we never saw them when many other people were present. We took advantage of this by taking asylum amongst peasant refugees attending a strange religious assembly near a local keep. To discuss what happened there, it’s better to begin a new chapter.

From the Memoirs of Tyrus the First

The keep was surrounded by a low palisade which in turn was surrounded by a large, unkept refugee camp. After talking to the local baron, Barathus managed to secure a corner of the courtyard for our horses. The encampment also had a small inn, so we didn’t need to sleep outside with the peasants. This chance for refreshment was welcome, and everybody enjoyed a respite from the attacks that had plagued us on the way.

This far from the capital and heavily weathered by our trip, we didn’t need to be as careful about our appearance, so we took upon ourselves to move a bit among the refugees and buy more supplies. Alcemides reported something strange about the religious ceremonies taking place in the camp, so I took upon myself to attend one of the services, which proved to be of fairly insidious nature.

The stage was large and sturdily constructed, with large contrast to the tents and shacks of the refugees. It was used by a disgustingly obese priest, who furiously paced it while almost shouting. Even though the priest holding the sermon was influencing the people by using mitran methodology and mannerism, it soon became evident that he served someone else entirely. He preached about the corruption of the world and its coming end through Mitra’s fury. Even though I wasn’t religious, it was clear that a priest of Mitra would never say such things, and the false priest was merely sowing despair into the hearts of the people. This scheming insincerity in his thoughts was almost audible, yet the ignorant masses parted with what little they had, carrying generous tribute to his greasy, waiting fingers.

The scene disgusted me, and the others felt the same. Talking to the locals revealed that likewise apocalyptic sects were appearing in the wake of the civil war and operating throughout the Ophirian countryside. Barathus consulted the master of the keep, who also felt the presence of the priest to be a nuisance, giving us his blessing to dispose of the sect by any means necessary. By now it was clear to us, that at least this false prophet would feel the wrath of the god whose words he was distorting. Alcemides volunteered to strike him down, but the twisted mind of Dionysos came up with a deliciously wicked plan.

In the coming night, we sabotaged the stage by sawing hand-sized holes in the floor. Then we bought a bull from the nearby countryside, killed it, painted it white and coated the carcass with oil. The next day, when the sermon was being held, Barathus rose up and engaged the priest in a religious argument. Intensely tutored by Zaphmed about mitran dogma and aided by his skills in rhetoric, Barathus easily cornered the priest and caused dissent in the people. While the speakers were shouting, the plan moved to the second phase. Dionysos breathed false life into the corpse of the bull and set the oil aflame. Amongst the uproar, the bull then appeared to the scene. Barathus proclaimed it to be the worldly avatar of Mitra, coming to strike down this blasphemy.

Though I didn’t see it directly from under the stage, the others told me that the face of the priest was unforgettable. He couldn’t do anything but sweat and stutter weak excuses, while the crowd loudly disowned him and his prophecies. I used his stupefaction to my advantage, and reached from the holes in the floor to draw the strenght from his limbs. Paralyzed, the priest fell off his feet, ready to be trampled by the burning bull. Dionysos then guided the beast into the depths of the river, having it disappear as suddenly as it appeared. Ignited by the oil, the stage burned to the ground. We left chuckling, while the crowd was none the wiser.

Before departing, we looted the belongings of the priest, finding alarming objects. Buried under silken robes was a wooden replica of the golden masks. The connection did not seem obvious. At first I thought that the tribute might be used to further the economy of the cult, but the peasants were poor beyond belief, and the priests’ coffers had little more than would be needed for his own lifestyle. Thus, it seemed as if, for some reason, the masks saw benefit in advancing the culture of fear and chaos that Ophir wallowed in. Troubled by this knowledge, I felt it imperative to tell someone about what we had learned.

Even though Dionysos and Alcemides thought it unwise, I used Barathus’s influence to arrange an audience with the military officers of the keep. I told them about our encounters with the cult of the golden masks and how they seemed to have enclaves in all important cities of the civilized lands. I told about the strange tower in Ianthe and the manner of stones, which were used to build it. I also told about the murder of the grand secretary, and what we suspected the golden masks had in store for Ophir’s royalty. Finally, I told what we found in the priest’s belongings, and pleaded them to contact their superiors before more harm could be done.

It was clear that at least the officers understood the threat and believed in my sincerety. From my story, the lot recognized us as the fugitives the royal guard was looking for, but opted not to force an arrest. I do not know whether my words had any consequences, or whether they were ever heard by anyone of significance, but at least we were allowed to leave in peace, and the soldiers gave us enough of a head start that we never saw them again.

The road worsened in the borderlands, but we were propelled by the thought of our homes. After our long journey, we were finally about to reach Nemedia. Little of importance happened in the remainder of the trip, except for a brief foray into a small temple in the mountains. The temple itself and what we learned there proved to be quite important, though.

From the Memoirs of Tyrus the First

The roads got constantly worse as we reached the foothills, but as if compensating for this, the skirmishes with the Byakhee seemed to stop. Thank the gods for small favors. Crude mountain paths still existed, so we weren’t forced to abandon our horses entirely. We had to leave them temporarily, however, for they couldn’t follow us during the climb to the temple of the long-lost goddess.

I remember Alcemides being skeptical about the existence of the temple itself, and quoted numerous occasions wherein our lotus dreams had been merely dreams. Fortunately Dionysos was particularly insistent, and the climb wasn’t long, so convincing Alcemides to guide us wasn’t too difficult.

I had hoped that the endeavor would remain uneventful, but on the first night Basil alerted us of landslide just in time. We quickly relocated our camp under a ledge, but it soon became apparent that we weren’t alone. Basil recalled stories of grey apes in the Zamoran mountains, which used to hunt by triggering landslides and crushing their prey. Fair enough, the suspicion was immediately confirmed, as two such creatures stormed the camp.

The battle was quick. Dionysos was caught in a deadly embrace and almost crushed to death, but Alcemides jumped on its back and stabbed the creature furiously. It immediately fell limp, grasping its bleeding neck. When the other creature saw this, it abandoned the fight. We never met it again. Inspecting the carcass, we found remains of broken manacles its limbs. Where the creature had escaped and why someone had brought the beast here, we never found out.

The temple wasn’t as high as we had expected, and we actually reached it the next day. It was barren and thoroughly looted, with walls so worn that one couldn’t tell what god it had been built for. A headless statue of an nondescript female faced us from the back wall, and Dionysos’s visions told that one had to grab its hands and close ones eyes to attain enlightenment. So I did. At first nothing seemed to happen, but then a stinging headache of images and visions rushed from the statue and ripped into my mind. I wrestled to control them, and just as I felt I was gaining an upper hand, an image of a lonely citadel on a steep cliff formed before my eyes. Instinctively I knew that it would house the fifth volume of the scrolls of Vathelos.

When I came to my senses, I found Dionysos and Alcemides still in stupor. The pict recovered first and held his temples, asserting that the statue must have been coated with cheap poison. Dionysos was nonsensical for a long time, but eventually returned with a vision of the scrolls of his own. He proclaimed that another set could be found from Ong, the City of Pain in Zamora.

We discussed about our individual visions and soon became convinced that mine depicted a scene from the shores of the great Vilayet, but from exactly where, we did not know. Such a citadel would be a clear landmark, however, and the answer would surely be found in Turan.

Meanwhile, Basil, who claimed to not have touched the statue, pointed us towards a narrow crack in the wall. In had probably once been a secret passage, but now lay breached. Behind it, we found a small room with a sacrificial altar and a well. The well seemed impossibly deep, and before we had time to study the room in more detail, Alcemides had chosen to drop a torch in it. We never saw it hit the bottom, but from the well boomed a sound we’d heard long ago in another temple. I must admit that my sanity left me, and my next recollection was from the foot of the mountain. Luckily, our horses were still safe and sound.

We decided to continue through the mountains, as circling them would have been too troublesome. As if to confirm that homecoming wouldn’t be too easy, we then faced the Byakhee once more.

They appeared in the middle of the night while we were camping on a desolate ledge. This time they came in greater numbers, and were accompanied by a large example of their brethren. Their big sister was terrible to behold – it was as large as two men, and fought with powerful signs of sorcery. We fought valiantly, but even though we could harm the smaller byakhee, their big sister shrugged off our blades and bolts with ease. It was then that Alcemides drew the atlantean blade I had loaned him and thrust it against the beast, piercing its skin. The creature let out a horrible wail and immediately grappled Alcemides, wresting the blade from his grasp. We tried to stop it, but it managed to rise to its wings, certainly willing to steal the blade or throw it down from the ledge. I would not stand for it, and collected all my remaining power, calling for skin-flaying pain to strike the creature. For once, my sorcery didn’t fail me, and the beast fell to the ground, staggering. Dionysos then cleaved the creature with his all his might, seriously wounding it. When Alcemides dived for the atlantean blade it had dropped, the beast lost heart and the flock vanished into the night.

After licking our wounds and struggling with the byakhee’s poison, we descended the slopes and reached the pass that would lead us into Nemedia. Ditrius and Luba were waiting for us at the border and after some hassle, the border guard allowed us into the country. We immediately set our sights at Belverus. What followed would become the most important attainments of my yet short life. They were set into motion by unforeseen events, which revealed rather interesting facts about our friend Ditrius and his entourage.