After spending entirely too much time trekking through the underground, the party emerged into a lush valley high in the mountains. Keolah extinguished her flame-light and took a good look around. She had to raise a hand to shield her eyes from the sun hanging low over the cliffs to the west, making it seem later than it actually was. Green plants flourished all around, more than she would have expected without any elves nearby. She shivered involuntarily — it was also surprisingly cold up here.
“Are we staying here for the night?” Delven asked.
Hawthorne nodded. “The tunnel out is even longer, and I haven’t been through it nearly as many times.”
“Let’s set up camp, then.” Keolah found a circle of stones around a small pit that Hawthorne must have used for campfires herself in the past. She raised a hand and sent a gush of green flame into the pit.
“You know, Keolah,” Hawthorne said. “As fancy as your green fire is, can we have a normal orange one to huddle up around tonight?”
Keolah snorted softly. “Just toss in some wood, then, and it’ll turn orange when it starts burning something other than my own mana. It’d spare me some energy, anyway.”
Delven had unrolled his bedroll, and Keolah put up her hammock. Hawthorne looked over at both of them plaintively. Keolah dug out the hammock she’d taken from Hawthorne’s room and tossed it over to her.
“Oh, thanks,” Hawthorne said, grabbing it and hugging it. “I kind of forgot to ask you to grab some supplies for me.”
“One of us, at least, was thinking ahead.” Keolah chuckled.
“I didn’t exactly intend to get betrothed to my second cousin overnight,” Hawthorne said.
Delven threw sticks into the fire. “Out of curiosity, was the fate that was in store for you worse than running off into the wilderness with people you’ve known for a week?”
“Yes,” Hawthorne said flatly, glaring into the fire as red sparks started to emerge from it.
“It’s okay, she didn’t come alone,” Zendellor said. “She brought her faithful steed, and he’ll kick anyone that causes trouble.”
He transformed into a horse again and settled onto the ground. At least one of them didn’t require a bedroll or hammock.
“I’ll show you all around this valley in the morning,” Hawthorne said. “This was my favorite place to come when I was a kid, but it’s creepy enough when the sun is up.”
“What’s creepy about it?” Keolah asked.
“You’ll see.”
Come morning, once they’d eaten and the sun had broken over the eastern clifftop, Hawthorne led them out deeper into the valley and away from the tunnel they’d come in by. Past the lush highland trees, a wall came into sight, or at least what was left of one. Unlike the ones down in Rascalanse — assuming they weren’t still technically inside the borders of Rascalanse, at any rate — it was built not of tan mud bricks, but of gray stone blocks stacked on top of one another. The wall blocked off a part of the valley that narrowed, leaving its gateway as the only way to proceed further north.
“Huh,” Keolah said. “What is this place?”
“An old fort, I think,” Hawthorne said.
The gateway was still intact, although Keolah felt a little nervous about walking underneath the archway that had managed to remain standing despite the damage to the rest of the wall. The doors that the wall had once supported lay rotting in the dirt outside the gateway.
“Who lived here?” Keolah wondered.
“Humans, I assume,” Hawthorne replied. “Beyond that, no idea.”
“Let me see if they left any markings or writings,” Delven said. “I might recognize the language.”
Much of the fort was still intact, albeit covered in lichen, and Keolah had to wonder why it had been abandoned. Someone could have still been living here. The elves could have come to live here and left Rascalanse alone. The cooler highland temperatures would have appealed more to the northern elves, too.
A swirl of cyan mana surrounded the hilt of Hawthorne’s sword, and she removed it from the sheath without touching it directly, flipped it over, and guided it down to grab it with her hands, all in one smooth motion.
“Nice trick,” Delven said.
“Do you expect trouble?” Keolah asked. “Does anything still live here?”
“Rats, mostly,” Hawthorne said. “Sometimes I’ve run into bats and big worms, but since it’s day, the bats probably won’t bother us unless we go into the warrens.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Delven said.
As they entered one side chamber, they spotted a trio of rats the size of cats. In startlement, Keolah scorched one of them into charcoal, and Hawthorne sliced through the other two with her sword.
“Was that really necessary?” Delven asked. “I think they were just running away.”
“Maybe,” Hawthorne said. “Some of them are diseased though and will attack anything on sight. I didn’t really want to take the chance. I got sick here once after an animal bit me and my parents had to call in a Healer from Lolonder to cure me. They grounded me for a whole month after that.”
“Well, crap,” Delven uttered. “I’m not a mage and I don’t have a weapon. What am I supposed to do? Play my lute encouragingly?”
Keolah took a long look down at the charred and bisected rat corpses, stepped outside and took a deep breath to calm herself. “You’ve been fighting giant rats since you were a child?”
“Those weren’t giant rats,” Hawthorne said, coming out behind her. “Those were just slightly big rats.”
“I hate to see what you actually think are giant rats, then,” Keolah said.
“And no matter how many of these things I kill, they keep coming back,” Hawthorne said. “I’d imagine they’re breeding like, well, rats, somewhere that elf-sized people can’t reach.”
“Great,” Keolah said with a sigh. “Well, I guess I can keep incinerating any that bother us.”
“Delven, there’s a room with weapons a bit further on,” Hawthorne said. “They looked pretty shitty, though.”
“Let’s take a look, at any rate,” Delven said.
Hawthorne led them into another room, where again they dispatched a few rats. Courteously, Hawthorne kicked the corpses outside so that they didn’t have to look at them while perusing the room.
Racks covered every wall, many of them still holding old weapons made of some strange metal the color of rich walnut wood. Some vertical racks held pole weapons with wooden shafts, in most of which the wood had rotted away badly enough that their heads now lay on the floor next to broken bones and pieces of skeletons.
“I see what you mean when you said this place is creepy,” Keolah said, uneasily eying the bones, presumably human bones.
Delven picked up a short sword from a rack and examined it thoughtfully. “This is bronze.”
“Like I said, a piece of shit next to a crystal elf-made sword,” Hawthorne said.
“Well, I don’t have a crystal elf-made sword.” He tested the edge. “Not as sharp as a fine steel blade might be, but it’s in surprisingly good condition given how long it’s probably been here.”
“Will it kill rats, at least?” Hawthorne wondered.
“Let’s find out, shall we?” Delven brandished his ancient weapon. “I shall protect you, my lady.”
Hawthorne giggled and snorted. “Okay, brave bard, let’s do this thing.”
Over some of the doorways, some words in a language Keolah didn’t recognize had been carved. The alphabet was the same as that used by the local humans, but she couldn’t piece together any of the words. “Delven, can you read that?” She pointed.
“Hmm,” Delven said, peering up in that direction. “Let me see. Yeah, that’s an ancient dialect of Albrynnian. It says something like ‘weapon room’.”
“So the people who lived here were Albrynnian?” Keolah asked.
“Seems likely,” Delven said. “Probably dating from the time of the Empire. I’ve never been in an actual imperial fort before. I doubt there’s many that haven’t been thoroughly looted by now. This one was probably spared by its remoteness.”
“The tunnels leading up here aren’t easy to find,” Hawthorne said. “I always had to wonder how whoever built this place found them in the first place.”
“If this place was so well-protected, though, what killed them?” Keolah gestured toward another cluster of skeletons that looked like they’d died huddled up together.
“Maybe it was too well protected,” Delven said. “Did you see the doors? They haven’t been broken in from the outside. They’ve just fallen off. It’s possible they were under siege or cut off from supply lines and couldn’t get food or water.”
“Did they not have endless water enchantments?” Keolah wondered. “Those are really simple. There’s nothing easier to conjure than fire and water.”
“Can you conjure water?” Hawthorne asked.
“Well, no, but I’ve got a canteen that does,” Keolah said.
“All you elves learn magic as you’re growing up,” Delven said with a chuckle. “We humans don’t. They might not have had any mages with them here at all.”
“No mages?” Keolah’s eyes widened. “You mean, not even anyone that can use even a little magic poorly?”
“Not even that,” Delven said.
“Wow, humans must really suck,” Hawthorne said. “I’m so shitty with magic I wouldn’t really call myself much of a mage, but I can still use magic.”
“You can draw that sword without decapitating yourself,” Delven pointed out.
“So I guess if they didn’t have any mages, they wouldn’t have been able to fast-grow food plants, either,” Keolah said.
“Right,” Delven said. “A group of elves could probably survive anywhere there’s enough mana.” He headed off further into the fort. “The group here must have run out of food or water, or both. Let’s see if we can find a well or cistern.”
“So… where would a well get its water from if not from magic?” Keolah wondered, following after him.
“The ground, my dear,” Delven said, chuckling.
They continued to explore the grounds, slaying more large rats as they went, and came to a round hole in the ground leading far below, with stones stacked in a neat, low wall around the edge. Keolah leaned on the edge and peered down, but couldn’t make out much from here. She conjured a ball of flame above it, and thought she could make out the gleam of water far below. And… something just moved down there? She frowned.
“How in the Abyss would they have gotten water out of there?” Hawthorne wondered.
“I’d imagine there was a rope and bucket, at one point,” Delven said. “They probably didn’t survive the past millennia.”
“If the people here were hungry or thirsty, and they couldn’t get more food or water, why wouldn’t they just leave?” Hawthorne asked. “The tunnel wasn’t collapsed or blocked or anything.”
“Maybe they couldn’t,” Delven said. “Maybe what they potentially faced outside was worse than hoping the food would last.”
Hawthorne paused thoughtfully. “The monsters.”
Delven nodded. “Not too unlikely.”
Keolah paced across the courtyard, looking over another pile of bones stacked in a corner. How many people had those shattered fragments of bone once made up? Had they huddled up in the high mountain fort for days upon days, waiting in terror and hoping that the monsters did not find them up here, only to find themselves victims of cold and hunger instead?
“So if the people here starved to death, what are the rats eating?” Hawthorne mused.
“There’s plenty of vegetation and small animals outside,” Keolah said. “And in here, for that matter.”
“And this makes no sense,” Hawthorne said. “If it were me, if I were holed up in this place and I knew a small army of mutant monsters were after me, I would have sealed off the tunnels.”
“They wouldn’t have been able to leave, then,” Delven said.
“At the very least, I’d have put gates over the tunnels.”
“Maybe they did.” Delven shrugged.
“Those two tunnels are the primary defensive points in this area, not the narrow valley where that fort gate is,” Hawthorne said. “They had to have kept them open to allow people to flow through from Rascalanse into Hannaderres, or whatever they might have been called at the time. But if I were so afraid of some monsters, I would have sealed them off anyway.”
“Maybe they did seal them off and someone or something opened them up again?” Delven suggested.
Keolah went back over to the well and shone a flame down into it again. Definitely something moving down there. “Guys? I think there’s something in the well.”
Delven leaned over and peered down into the shaft. “I don’t know, maybe, I don’t see anything. Do you have a rope?”
Keolah pulled her rope out of her pack, and Delven brought over a bronze helmet.
“This doesn’t make for much of a bucket, but it’ll have to do,” Delven said. “Let’s see if we can collect a sample of the water from the well, at least.”
Hawthorne set aside her sword and took the rope, and carefully lowered the makeshift bucket into the well. Keolah kept her flame steady to let them see what they were doing. The helmet reached the bottom and sank beneath the water. Something shifted in the water, splashing and hissing.
“Pull it up!” Keolah cried.
Hawthorne yanked up on the rope, not being particularly careful about keeping anything held inside the helmet, but it looked like something had come up with it anyway. The bronze helmet was full of some sort of blue slime, and it was writhing. When it got close enough, Hawthorne reached toward it. The slime snapped back, and a shimmering ward blocked it from touching her.
“Abyss!” Hawthorne jumped away from the well, winding up dumping the contents of the helmet onto the ground. “Hadis’ balls…”
At first it had looked like a puddle of slime, but now that it was free and in sunlight, it was clearly a distinct creature, albeit a translucent one. Zendellor neighed in alarm and shied away. The little monster uncoiled blue tentacles and struck at Keolah, catching her on the leg with a burning sting. She cried out in pain and put her hands together and channeled a gout of green fire into the creature. It rapidly shriveled up and let out a high-pitched whine as it died.
“Keolah!” Delven ran up to her. “Are you alright?”
“It burned—” she gasped, and clenched her teeth. “It still burns.”
“Let me see,” Delven said.
Keolah slumped down to the ground heavily and pulled up the hem of her robe to expose her shin. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to see it herself.
“I think it’s venom,” Delven said.
“I have a curing potion in my pack,” Keolah said, fumbling for it. “It’s—it’s the green one.”
Delven sifted out the appropriate potion vial from her pack and popped the stopper, and poured it into Keolah’s mouth. After a moment, the magic of the potion did its work, and the pain eased.
Keolah breathed a sigh of relief. “What was that thing?”
“New theory,” Hawthorne said. “The imperials here didn’t starve. They were poisoned.”
“Right, I’m starting to think this wasn’t quite so simple as them just running out of resources,” Delven said.
Keolah flattened out her leg and leaned over to take a closer look at where the tentacled creature had stung her. Just a small, red welt. Hard to believe that such a tiny thing could have hurt so much. With the poison neutralized, it would probably be fine, she figured.
“Right, let’s not mess with the well anymore.” Keolah rose to her feet and brushed off her robes.
“Not gonna argue with that,” Delven said.
“If you tied the rope around my waist, you could lower me into the well so I can stab whatever is down there,” Hawthorne suggested.
Three sets of eyes glared at Hawthorne. “No,” Delven and Keolah said in unison, along with a snort from Zendellor that was probably negative.
“Alright, alright,” Hawthorne held up her hands.
“Let’s take a look around some more,” Keolah said.
“Your leg okay?” Delven asked.
“I think the potion did the trick,” Keolah said. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Hawthorne scooped up her sword. “Onward, then!”
“Lead on, bold lady,” Delven said. “I’m right behind you.”
Hawthorne led them off toward a series of caves at the far end of the fort. A cloud of bats burst in front of their faces, and Keolah raised her hands to conjure fire, but they didn’t attack. At least some of the local wildlife was sensible.
“I’ve never been this far in,” Hawthorne said. “Maybe we’ll find treasure!”
“Or monsters,” Delven added.
“Or clues as to what happened here,” Keolah said.
Zendellor whickered.
Under the glow of green mage-fire, they traveled down into a lower level through corridors that had been carved into the rock. The place grew dead silent but for the sound of their foot and hoof steps, no longer echoing with the scurrying of rats. They came to a room with a stone workbench in the center, a skeleton slumped over next to it. Laid out on top, Keolah recognized alchemical implements. A stone mortar and pestle, a bronze cauldron and scales, some glass vials that were even still intact in addition to the shards scattered on the floor.
“wonder what this guy was up to,” Delven mused, circling around the table. “Or lady. Is that a lady pelvis?”
Hawthorne shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I don’t even know what that word you just said means.”
“The bone around your middle,” Delven said, gesturing to his hips, and to the skeleton’s pelvis. “Sorry, I don’t know the elvish word for it.”
“I wish he’d left some intact notes,” Keolah said. “But it’s a bit much to expect them to have survived the past however long.”
“And I thought you said humans couldn’t do magic and there wouldn’t be any mages here?” Hawthorne asked.
“I said humans don’t receive magical training by default, not that there are no human mages,” Delven said. “This fort, apparently, had a mage, or at least a budding alchemist.”
“But what was he doing here?” Keolah wondered.
“Check this out.” Delven gestured to the cauldron, peering inside.
Keolah leaned over. The bottom of the cauldron was filled a number of small spheres immersed in a slimy residue the same translucent blue color of the tentacled creature they’d fought. Hawthorne pushed past to take a look herself.
“Distrae’s fist,” Hawthorne swore. “Eggs? Keolah, can you burn this cauldron clean?”
“They’re just babies,” Keolah protested.
A burbling sound emerged from further down the corridor, followed by repeated squelching sounds that kept getting louder.
“I think they heard us,” Delven said.
Keolah sent a puff of flame down the corridor, aiming at the ceiling. Taking up two-thirds of the corridor, a pulsating tentacled creature bulged into view, gleaming teal in the green light.
“Uh…” Delven’s eyes widened.
“There’s only one thing to be done here,” Hawthorne declared, raising her sword.
“Run away!” Keolah exclaimed.
Delven and Zendellor didn’t need to be told twice, and hoofed it.
“I’ll hold it off while you guys make your escape.” Hawthorne faced down the slowly approaching monster.
“Run away!” Keolah repeated, putting a hand on Hawthorne’s shoulder.
“Right, running away now.” Hawthorne lowered her sword and followed Keolah and the others back down the corridor.
Fortunately, the tentacled creature didn’t follow them much past the alchemy room, but they didn’t stop running until they were out in sunlight again. Once outside and Keolah was sure they were safe, she couldn’t help but double over in laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Hawthorne wondered.
“Well, we were looking for adventure, right?” Keolah asked.
“Something like that,” Hawthorne said.
“Shall ‘run away’ be our new motto?” Delven suggested.
“I hope this heralds the beginning of a long and profitable career of running away from things,” Keolah said.
Hawthorne giggled. “Well, I guess we solved the mystery of what happened here.”
“Or at least we have a reasonable hypothesis,” Keolah said. “And no particular desire to delve more deeply into the subject due to the presence of venomous tentacle monsters.”
“Why don’t we collect the treasure and get out of here?” Delven suggested.
“What treasure?” Hawthorne said. “We didn’t even find any treasure!”
“We found a whole trove of bronze weaponry,” Delven said.
“But they’re junk!” Hawthorne protested. “And like, thousands of years old or something! Why would we want to haul around a pile of shitty old human weapons?”
“Hey, Zendellor, what do you think?” Delven asked. “You want to take some of the treasure, or just leave it here to keep collecting dust?”
Zendellor turned his ears over toward Delven.
“We can sell them and use the money to buy lots of horse treats,” Delven added.
Zendellor nickered.
“Oh, fine, but you’re going to carry it,” Hawthorne said.
Zendellor stomped a hoof on the ground.
“Ugh, yes, I know, you were going to be carrying them anyway,” Hawthorne said.
“I’m glad at least one of us here speaks equine,” Keolah commented.
They headed back to the armory and sorted through the old bronze weapons, and awkwardly piled up as much of them as they could onto Zendellor’s back using their packs, the best they could manage with the equipment they had on hand. With that, they headed out of the ruin and back to the campsite to set up for the night again.
“If it’s all the same to you ladies,” Delven said, “and gentlehorse.” He pulled the weapons off of Zendellor’s back for the night. “I think we ought to keep watch.”
“Probably wise,” Keolah said. “There’s no sign those tentacled creatures followed us out, but best not take any chances. If we spot anything odd, we’re going to want to be able to run away on short notice.”
“And leave behind the shitty ‘treasure’?” Hawthorne sneered.
“We could always come back for it once we know nothing is going to kill us,” Delven said.
“It’s never come out of the ruins before, that you know of, though,” Keolah said. “And certainly hasn’t gone down the tunnel into Wishingsdale.”
“But we’ve never disturbed it before,” Hawthorne said. “Maybe we should collapse the gate, just in case.”
“It’d be a shame to do more damage to the place than has already been done to it.” Keolah reached over and grabbed a bronze sword, and examined it in the firelight. “I suppose I should claim one of these for myself, though. We have plenty of them and it can’t hurt having one on hand.”
“I wonder how much we can sell them for,” Delven mused. “I’ve never looked into the prices on old bronze weaponry. Nobody’s making them anymore.”
“Can’t imagine anyone would pay for them,” Hawthorne said.
“Seems like a shame to sell them all,” Keolah said. “We should take some of them and put them in a big building where people can look at them and other old things, kind of like a library, but for stuff. Then people can look at them or take them out to use without having to dig around in a ruin full of weird monsters to do it.”
Hawthorne picked up one of the swords herself and wiped it off. “I guess they are kind of neat to look at, just for the novelty, even if I still don’t think they’re really useful. I guess everything doesn’t have to be useful.”
Delven tapped his stubbled chin thoughtfully. “I’ve seen galleries of paintings and libraries full of books, but I don’t think I’ve seen a building displaying old weapons and artifacts before.”
“I wonder if anyone ever killed anyone with this piece of shit?” Hawthorne turned the blade this way and that in her hand to examine it, orange firelight gleaming off its sides.
“Could be,” Delven chuckled.
“Do you suppose there are other places like this around the world?” Keolah asked.
“Of that, I have no doubt,” Delven said.
“We can explore, have great adventures!” Hawthorne said.
“Learn about people and places,” Keolah added.
“And we can collect all their garbage and put it in a building to show everyone,” Hawthorne said. “We can call it ‘The Junkyard’.”
Delven snickered. “That wasn’t the first word that would have come to mind for me, but whatever.”
“Junkyard it is, then,” Keolah laughed softly.