BECMI Chapter 506 – Decades are Centuries

The Other Shore...

Daskad Grundisson was an Urtho warrior of great skill and fame, even if his people were not widely respected in the greater world.

It had been over a thousand years since half of the tribes had betrayed Grimr and driven the true believers away to the north and across the seas. Harsh, dangerous years, that had made them a strong and tough people, worthy of the name of Grimr’s own, and slowly they had begun their own expansions out into the world.

The Bright Empire was seemingly run by the same warlords who had once driven the Urtho forth, only now they were called an Emperor and Empress. The Urtho sneered at the very idea that such could be the same folk, for the Immortals would not tolerate their own ruling mortal empires, or so the priests said, and these could not be the same Thor and Sif who had turned against Grimr.

Warily and carefully, the Urtho had come back exploring, making contact with ships of the Bright Empire… and had learned very quickly that the men of that land had a ferociously dim view of piracy, access to many ships that could fly above the waves, and no respect for those who thought sea-raiding was a fine way of life.

Much of that first generation had died learning the lesson that the Bright Empire was not putting up with their traditions at all, and would sink every Urtho ship upon the waters to display their irritation with such actions.

The Empire didn’t care if the Urtho hacked into one another, but their eager willingness to take on anyone who picked off their shipping bordered on zealotry. The Urtho learned that dealing with them honestly and openly saved a lot of lives, and careful and fair trade could actually get them much of what they desired.

Daskad had sailed his longship around the great southern peninsula of the Empire, into the Sea of Strife where a dozen empires and kingdoms clashed here and there in the wake of the Crimson Cataclysm rewriting shores and island holdings… but they did not bother the Bright Empire’s ships.

He had sailed up the long and steaming River of the Steaming Rose, put in at Drakkunport as all adventurers had to, and then he had taken up his Axe with those of his fellows and ventured into the famous Dungeon Doomrose.

Even after all this time, the city called Doomroot about the base of the mountain palace of the Witch of Darkmoor was not very large, as folk simply weren’t allowed to settle there in numbers. There were dragons in the sky, many of them of great size and age, such that in any direction you turned, you could see a Wyrm somewhere.

Above doors that could admit Great Wyrms and Titans rose the mountain that was Castle Doomrose, woven about by great thornstalks wider than a house that intertwined as they grew towards the distant castle so far above. The vines seemed carved of stone, yet leaves bloomed, thorns sprouted from them, and great blossoms of weeping crimson and deadly black, with rare palest white, unfolded from them here and there. Sometimes the flowers bowed and emitted streams of water, or firefalls, or liquid mists, sometimes they simply sang in the endless winds further up the mountain.

In the sky, lightning the colors of the northern auroras crackled from cloud cover that seemed more like an eternal night sky of stars, and magic hung thick and heavy above the great rings of molten lava that divided the three layers of unnaturally steep and sharp Dragonfang peaks, every single one home to not merely one, but whole families of dragons!

The Dungeon Doomrose, the most exciting source of adventure in all the lands, known among the skilled and valiant for a thousand years and more, had finally been reached by the Urtho, to test their skill and steel against it and claim their place among the great heroes!

The first thing they had found out was that the great tales told about it weren’t exaggerations. If anything, they tended to be incredibly bluntly accurate about its dangers, its denizens, and the fate of those who didn’t take it seriously.

The second was that it was addictive and fun as Hell!

Always a foe to fight! Always spoils to win! Always treasures to find! Always new sights to see, areas to unlock, quests to undertake, strange creatures to meet (and often, but not always, battle and overcome!), and deeds and tests of skill to accomplish to go further, to advance, to explore!…

But Daskad’s heart was restless, and it was not hard for him to realize why.

He was treading ground trod by many, many heroes before him.

The libraries of Drakkunport had whole volumes of tomes and records about each and every quest, every encounter area, the unique treasures to be found in places and off beasts conquered and met, every further area opened and ready to be seen… and the tactics that might prove useful in besting the encounters.

There were even ratings for danger levels! It was a strange and seemingly foolish, cowardly thing, but if you didn’t pay attention to them, it was so very easy to wander into a fight you would be horribly bloodied by, if not killed!

Those countless heroes had left their knowledge behind, and if you ignored it, well, the Dungeon was perfectly happy to feed you to its minions, as you fed on them!

Daskad had seen wonders, things he couldn’t really believe existed under a mountain. Fortunes had trailed through his hands. He now wore items wrought with magic finer than the kings of the Urtho back home. He had done battle with creatures he once would have scoffed to think they even existed!

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It had all been done before. There was nothing unique or special about the accomplishments of he and his kin at all. Indeed, the delvers of Doomrose tracked the progress of those who went through them, measuring them against those who had gone before, and were going now.

The Urtho were nothing exceptional, although by steel and sinew they had clawed their way up the rankings to nigh-Master Level, sitting at Twenty-Six on average and being among the most accomplished warriors and priests alive!

The other teams didn’t begrudge them any of it, but neither was their respect overt. There were many, many teams who had reached this level over the centuries, even in the last decade. They were not held back, not mocked… but they did not stand out among the crowd, either.

And Daskad dearly wanted to stand out!

He was looking at the sky when it rumbled. The very stars in the sky seemed to dance around, and multiple meteors shot across the distant heavens before his wondering eyes. Lightning crackled and shot in all directions and in countless hues, vanishing over the horizon, and it seemed that all of magic trembled and shook, the very rings of fire igniting with a hundred fireswirls rising up on the river of lava about Castle Doomrose.

Every Blossom on the tower lit up with a golden glow, and as one, the great flowers larger than a man and seemingly carved from living stone fluttered, bent, and all of them began to pour out a stream of silvery water from their petals, cascading freely down and along the black vines towards the burning magma below.

Daskad did not know what had happened then, and the gossip of Immortals trying to urgently find the source of the event told the mortals below nothing, nor was there the slightest word from the ancient witch atop her Castle. The dragons naturally said nothing to the mortals.

The dream that came to him a month later was something very different.

It was startlingly clear and direct. Away to the north and west, atop a plateau in the middle of lands held by primitive savages and monsters, stood a circle of standing stones, a henge of seven monuments around a central altar.

Symbols glowed on those henges, and doorways beckoned for the powerful to dare and test their might within them.

It was a place that had never been explored before, never been discovered, and it was waiting for him!

Daskad had woken from his sleep with a cry, literally leaping from his bed as his heart thundered in his chest. When his clansmen came racing to see what he was shouting for, his wide smile as he told them he had received a vision straight from Grimr was beaming and infectious!

They would be the first ones on this new adventure! The glory and the first tale to be told of it would be theirs! Perhaps they would tell others where they found it, perhaps they would not… but Grimr had given them a task to fulfill, and they would do so!

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The expedition was hard-fought and well-earned. They had to circle around the eastern sides of the outer Dragonfangs and press north. The land was heavy with powerful creatures, for the dragons of the Ringlands enjoyed challenges and didn’t begrudge powerful meals moving in around their territories. They had to fight giants and chimerac beasts, then the mutant things and tribes of morlock-blood savages who regularly battled them, earning their passage in blood and combat, in the manner of true sons of Grimr!

But Daskad’s vision held true, for the plateau had risen before them after weeks of overland travel in this dangerous land, and there was the cave at the cliff that would lead them to the top! Immortal magic covered the whole to the eyes of his Clansmen, but his vision was true, leading him directly to the hidden cavern, and he dragged his battle-brothers through the illusion and into the place.

Soon enough the cave led to a central chamber, wrought in a strange style and with ancient runework about it telling tales of great foes vanquished and bound. A floating disk led them to the surface, and there was the septahenge, exactly as had been described, the vari-colored lights within each dolmen promising a land of adventure and glory behind them!

Daskad led the way into the first one, the empty symbol of a cup carved above its arch, ready to take on all within!

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“No…” Daskad uttered, as the shadowy lights of the staff played across him and his brothers. They seemed to glow and coalesce as the reptilian creature, some bipedal creature equal parts serpent, lizard, and ancient raptor dinosaurial, waved the Staff in its hand.

Glowing, and condensing into bloodless, pale-skinned, blank-eyed copies of the Urtho warriors and priests opposite them.

Daskad locked on his own duplicate, an urge to fight impossible to resist welling up within him, knowing he could do nothing but kill this mockery to himself, this foul undead copy.

He saw that the spell may have made an unliving double of him, but it had not replicated his equipment, so he had that edge.

But there were a dozen of the lizard-like things about the room, hissing with laughter, and he knew, he just knew, that they were under no such compulsions to hold back while the Urtho fought their undead doppelgangers.

They were all dead men…

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The Carnifex arcanist reached down into the pouch of the leader of the metal-clad apes, slain by his lightning in the midst of his duel with his Death Clone, taloned fingers finding their targets and pulling them out immediately with a minor exercise of magic.

The glittering black diamonds, incredibly rare and touched with Immortal Power, glimmered darkly in anticipation on his scaled palms.

The diamonds embedded in the Staff on his other hand were drained white and powerless… enough to open the Portal that would free them and make Death Clones of these hapless fools, but no more.

With the additional fuel, the Portal would stay open easily, and they could wield the Staff to make Death Clones of all their enemies as they wished!

He waved at the Death Clones to strip the equipment from the dead men for themselves, fully replacing their living originals. They could still raise their corpses as powerful undead, of course, and indeed planned to do so. But these apes had been remarkably skilled for their unscaled kind, so the Death Clones were going to be absolutely loyal and useful to their conquests!