Rostok.
The ghost town.
And there underneath the fire burned. A consuming of the blackstone, the everburning furnace fueling itself in the copious deposits of the tunnels. An accident which years ago sparked the lasting flame.
Toxic gas seeped up from those depths. Wisps and great plumes alike filtered through the cracks in the cobblestone roads and through the floorboards of houses long abandoned and through the fissures in the land itself. A lingering of the gasses like a constant fog. The town choked in a perpetual, deadly haze.
The Stalker of Minds awaited in Rostok, veiled by the hazardous mists. A thing whose many limbs were thin and long, whose tight leathery skin was a sickly beige, whose mouth was forever twisted into a sinister sneer baring teeth. A thing which lacked eyes and breathed not the poisonous air.
It, and the smaller creatures like and subservient to It, subsisted on one thing.
The horror of nightmares.
Yet this monster was not the only thing to be found in Rostok.
Down with the relentless fires in those cavern tunnels, something formed. An everburning orb born of a confluence of magic and environment had coalesced into being. A powerful catalyst in the right hands, this artifact. This for the time it would exist upon Arethil before it dispersed from Magic's End.
Its existence was sensed and scried from the town of Grishino across the Sayve River. It was given a name.
The Burning Heart.
Thus far, none who tried to claim it returned from Rostok.
What a day.
Zael woke up, went through the usual morning routine, got to his first class and was immediately pulled out. For what, he had thought, goddamn for once I didn't even do anythin yet. He thought it for good reason, because it was long, tall, and ugly himself, Proctor Kimble, who had pulled him from the class.
Out in the hallway of Building A, Proctor Kimble stared him down until he felt Zael was compliant enough to be worthy of being told anything. The veil of the Revolution had been draped over the Academy in these days, but in Proctor Kimble's eyes all the piercing intensity of the old way was there. Much of that pain had come from Kimble's own icy hands, and he was all too willing to be given the excuse to do it again to Zael.
Zael straightened up. A statue of discipline, his recalcitrance forced down with all of his will. The ability to do that was the only reason he was still alive, and not disposed of by Kimble or any of the other old Proctors.
"Collect your gear," Kimble said levelly. His inner thoughts he kept well concealed. "You're going to Epressa."
Epressa? Fucking hell, that's new.
Kimble didn't bother to elaborate further. He just escorted Zael out from the Academy and over to Anir Square, where, goddamn, one hell of a convoy of carriages and wagons was being assembled, and he told him to check in with Caravan Mistress Sarah Heartworth and then left. Heartworth was middle-aged with curls upon curls of red hair down to the middle of her back, and, belaying her disarmingly easy-going demeanor, she had a massive triple claw mark scar disfiguring her face.
Zael liked her. She gave it to him straight: an Anirian benefactor was putting together an expedition to a dangerous place in Epressa called Rostok. There was an artifact there called The Burning Heart, and Zael's primary purpose (besides the obvious) was to be the carrier of it.
"Oh," said Heartworth. "And we've got a special guest coming too."
Zael cocked his head curiously. "Who?"
Olvir
The ghost town.
And there underneath the fire burned. A consuming of the blackstone, the everburning furnace fueling itself in the copious deposits of the tunnels. An accident which years ago sparked the lasting flame.
Toxic gas seeped up from those depths. Wisps and great plumes alike filtered through the cracks in the cobblestone roads and through the floorboards of houses long abandoned and through the fissures in the land itself. A lingering of the gasses like a constant fog. The town choked in a perpetual, deadly haze.
The Stalker of Minds awaited in Rostok, veiled by the hazardous mists. A thing whose many limbs were thin and long, whose tight leathery skin was a sickly beige, whose mouth was forever twisted into a sinister sneer baring teeth. A thing which lacked eyes and breathed not the poisonous air.
It, and the smaller creatures like and subservient to It, subsisted on one thing.
The horror of nightmares.
* * * * *
Yet this monster was not the only thing to be found in Rostok.
Down with the relentless fires in those cavern tunnels, something formed. An everburning orb born of a confluence of magic and environment had coalesced into being. A powerful catalyst in the right hands, this artifact. This for the time it would exist upon Arethil before it dispersed from Magic's End.
Its existence was sensed and scried from the town of Grishino across the Sayve River. It was given a name.
The Burning Heart.
Thus far, none who tried to claim it returned from Rostok.
What a day.
Zael woke up, went through the usual morning routine, got to his first class and was immediately pulled out. For what, he had thought, goddamn for once I didn't even do anythin yet. He thought it for good reason, because it was long, tall, and ugly himself, Proctor Kimble, who had pulled him from the class.
Out in the hallway of Building A, Proctor Kimble stared him down until he felt Zael was compliant enough to be worthy of being told anything. The veil of the Revolution had been draped over the Academy in these days, but in Proctor Kimble's eyes all the piercing intensity of the old way was there. Much of that pain had come from Kimble's own icy hands, and he was all too willing to be given the excuse to do it again to Zael.
Zael straightened up. A statue of discipline, his recalcitrance forced down with all of his will. The ability to do that was the only reason he was still alive, and not disposed of by Kimble or any of the other old Proctors.
"Collect your gear," Kimble said levelly. His inner thoughts he kept well concealed. "You're going to Epressa."
Epressa? Fucking hell, that's new.
Kimble didn't bother to elaborate further. He just escorted Zael out from the Academy and over to Anir Square, where, goddamn, one hell of a convoy of carriages and wagons was being assembled, and he told him to check in with Caravan Mistress Sarah Heartworth and then left. Heartworth was middle-aged with curls upon curls of red hair down to the middle of her back, and, belaying her disarmingly easy-going demeanor, she had a massive triple claw mark scar disfiguring her face.
Zael liked her. She gave it to him straight: an Anirian benefactor was putting together an expedition to a dangerous place in Epressa called Rostok. There was an artifact there called The Burning Heart, and Zael's primary purpose (besides the obvious) was to be the carrier of it.
"Oh," said Heartworth. "And we've got a special guest coming too."
Zael cocked his head curiously. "Who?"
Olvir
