Book-X Called to Action Once Again, a Dread Foe Waiting

 

Being the Chronicle of Cadan Dalmas, Knight

BEING   a  BEGINNING  to   BOOK  X

 

 

Failure always comes at a cost, but success too  can have consequences.  Our deeds at long lost Phandelver had not gone unnoticed; heroes who triumph once, can hope of further victories in the future. Well, if the Fates prove kind.   

 

Chaos constantly lurks in the Shadows; the Outer Darkness waits for us all. My Order of Athene and Dain’s august Brethren were both invoking our services once again. My own summons was short and to the point, Dain’s call to action owed something to every treasured saga of Dwarf Kind.

 

^{Dain Rocksmiter greetings}

We observed your actions at Phandelver with pleasure.

We know you for a Cleric of Pious Heart and a Warrior of prowess and resolve.

 

We have a further urgent task, for you, a quest you may not survive yet must endure.

You already know the name of the Enemy 

dread Tharizdun,

The Ebon God,  The Darkness Visible, The Chained Beast, The Eater of Worlds.

 

You know this monster lies in a place beyond our existence, bound fast by his fellow Gods lest he rent our earth asunder simply for sheer delight in destruction.

 

We have word his acolytes are gathering once more.  They must not open a gateway to the outer darkness, they must not summon the risen dead.

 

We do not send you lightly out onto the sea, we know this is no natural place for any dwarf, yet this task is urgent and you remain our best hope.  Few Dwarven Clerics share your devotions, you honour the harvest and are wise  in the ways of beasts; we hope these practices will serve you well.

 

An alarming manuscript has come to our attention.  A copy is enclosed.  You will soon see why.

 

Remember Cleric Rocksmiter , you have trusted comrades at your side.

 May your actions bring honour on your Order and your Clan.

 

“Cattle die, kinsfolk die, we ourselves must one day die, only the glorious deeds of Heroes live Forever”

 

Thorald Strakeln

High Priest of Marthammor Duin

Finder of Trails, the Watcher over Wanderers

I have little time left.  I write while I still can.

I have no hope, not any more, there is no longer any chance of escaping them.

I simply write to warn others, I write to stop myself screaming.

 

I was not mad once, despite taking that tiny boat. Only a lunatic sails vast oceans in a pinnace more fitted for a quiet stream on a summer’s day.  Yet what else could I do?  The corsairs who seized my ship were only waiting till dawn.  Only a few of us were still alive, I saw how what those corsairs did and how long they took with their sport. I could wait and die in torment or lower a small boat and hope for some miracle.

 

I was free, but without astrolabe, chart or compass I could only guess my position from the stars. The sun burnt down by day and I froze each night, weeping with terror each time some huge creature surfaced near my little craft.  I drifted aimlessly,  helpless and lost upon this vast ocean.  I had provisions for only a few days,  My time had come.

 

The change happened whilst I slept. I was utterly exhausted yet still plagued by fitful dreams.  I went to sleep floating upon the sea, yet when I woke my tiny boat was grounded on a slimy expanse of black mud a desolate land which stretched for as far as I could see.  How in the name of reason could this be possible?  Both the air and rotting soil reeked of decaying fish. There was nothing within hearing and nothing within sight, just the vast reach of black slime surrounding me in every directions.  I covered my eyes like a child, I hid my face in absolute terror. No words of mine can truly convey the experience.

 

I could only imagine one explanation.  Some volcanic upheaval had surely thrown part of the deep ocean floor to the surface, land which had never seen daylight before. For hours  I sat brooding in the boat, the only shade I had.  The stench of dead fish was revolting but the ground appeared to be drying.  Could I walk now, could I?  If I left my only shelter I would be taking my life in my hands, but how could I survive if I simply sat and waited?  I had grown more used to my surroundings.  Far, far off at the very edge of sight, I thought I spied a small mound, the only mark at all on this featureless plain.

 

On the third morning I found the soil dry enough to support me. At last I found the nerve to leave my small boat.  All that day and the next two following I plodded onward hoping against all reason, hoping to find salvation even now. I camped, slept fitfully, woke and walked onward. By the fourth evening I attained the base of the mound which proved to be far higher than I ever expected. I was too weary for anymore, I slept in the shadow of this hill.

 

Maybe the moonlight roused me.  For that I was grateful, since my dreams were so wild and fanciful.  I was chilled by perspiration, my heart racing,  sleep should be kindly and restful, no sleep should ever contain such images, such sounds.  Pitiless moonlight picked out every angle of rock or earthen mound. I shivered with the cold, I could not sit still anymore.  At least I could climb now without the glare of the sun.  I picked up my bundle and began my ascent. Time meant nothing now, all I could do was keep reaching over my head and pull myself ever higher.

The unbroken monotony of the rolling plain was sinister enough; but my horror was even greater when I gained the summit of the mound and looked down the other side into an immeasurable pit. I felt myself on the edge of the world; peering over the rim into a fathomless gulf.  As the moon climbed higher in the sky, I began to see that the slopes of the valley were not quite so perpendicular as I had imagined. Ledges and outcroppings of rock offered the hope of footholds. Despite my fears, some impulse drove me onward.  I started the descent. I gazed down, down,  deep into a place no light had ever penetrated before.

 

All at once my attention was captured by a vast and singular object on the opposite slope, which rose steeply about a hundred yards away; an object gleaming like old bone under the moonlight. It was merely a gigantic stone. That was all it could be,  I assured myself of that. Ocean currents leave their mark, with enough time even granite is worn away. The silence still pressed around me. I was alone, utterly alone, but I was drawn closer all the same, drawn towards that towering monolith despite my dread.  The truth left me gasping with sheer terror.  This huge stone had been sunk deep beneath the sea since our world was young, yet this stone had clearly been carved and shaped by intelligent hands.

 

The moon, now near the zenith, shone weirdly and vividly above the towering steeps that hemmed in the chasm, and revealed the fact that a far-flung body of water flowed at the bottom, winding out of sight in both directions, and almost lapping my feet as I stood on the slope. Across the chasm, the wavelets washed the base of the Cyclopean monolith; on whose surface I could now trace both inscriptions and crude sculptures. The writing was in a system of hieroglyphs unlike anything I had ever seen before. Around the inscription were carved fishes, eels, octopi, crustaceans, mighty whales, and the like.

 

These aquatic pictures held me spellbound. Not all were fish or molluscs. Not all had fins or tails. Of their faces and forms I dare not speak in detail; for the mere remembrance makes me grow faint. They were  huge and so human in general outline despite their webbed hands and feet, lipless mouths  glassy, bulging eyes, and other features less pleasant to recall. Curiously enough, they seemed to have been chiselled badly out of proportion with their scenic background; for one of the creatures was shown in the act of killing a full-grown whale almost the same size as himself. 

 

I could not miss their grotesque appearance and strange size; but after a moment I decided that they were merely the imaginary gods of some primitive seafaring tribe, whose last descendant had perished centuries ago. Some cataclysm had raised the deep ocean bed around me; some volcanic turmoil must simply have sunk this same land many lifetimes ago. I stood musing whilst the moon cast queer reflections on the silent channel before me. Then the light shifted, then I suddenly saw the greater pattern, the jagged spiral that surrounded the stone.  My jaw gaped in terror, the breath died in my throat. I saw who these giant creatures of the Deep had worshipped.

 

 

 

Of my frantic ascent of the slope and cliff, and of my delirious journey back to the stranded boat, I remember little. I believe I sang a great deal, and laughed oddly when I was unable to sing. I have indistinct recollections of a great storm sometime after I reached the boat; at any rate, I know that I heard peals of thunder and other tones which Nature utters only in her wildest moods.

 

I awoke in this monastery for seafarers, barely alive, barely more than yellowed skin stretched taut over bones.  A storm driven trader had found me lost and alone on the wild ocean. Without their kind care I would never have seen my homeland again.  I had been unconscious for days, unconscious or screaming in my sleep until these kind clerics placed me in this tiny upper room. From here, my delirium cannot disturb the other patients, from here I can hear the lapping waves of the gentle sea.

 

It is at night, especially when the moon is waning that I see the thing.  No poppy juice, or priest can help me.  The monks  smile and are kind but I simply stare back without speaking.  One image never leaves me, that jagged spiral rune.  I knew that terrible symbol, the Spiral of Decay,  I know the Chained One who waits in the Shadows,  waits for his chance to come again.  The Dark One is chained but his servants still walk. If that Deep Land rose before will it rise again; are those terrible creatures looking, and will they find me?

 

 

 

 

 

We never learnt the narrator’s name.

He felt safest if no one knew his identity.

 

Alas, his precautions did not save him.

 

We found his body, most of it, one dark winter morning.

Daylight had not returned soon enough to save him.