conversation.
23
Your weapons cut a swathe through the nightmarish creatures, their twisted bodies crumbling to dust around your feet. From the remains a ghost of each asynjur rises into the air, their tattered robes fluttering in an unfelt breeze. Then, one by one, they vanish – leaving only black whispers of smoke to trail away into the gloom.
Rummaging through their dusty remains, you discover one of the following rewards:
Sinner’s shroud
Eir’s treads
Voice of Var
(head)
(feet)
(ring)
+1 speed +1 armour
+1 speed +1 armour
+1 brawn
Ability: bleed
Ability: heal
Ability: blood oath
With the asynjur defeated, you approach the base of the tree. Straight ahead the ground drops into an uneven slope, leading into an earthen tunnel. To your right a series of knotted roots form a makeshift pathway, winding up around the trunk.
Will you:
Enter the tunnel?
418
Follow the winding roots?
372
24
Quest: Tar and feathers
The sky is a vast grey emptiness, barely touched by the dawn light. Frost cracks underfoot, dripping from the links of chain and iron struts – and the hundreds of cruelly-barbed spears that block your way. With a cry from one of the soldiers, there is a grating rumble as some hidden mechanism is activated and the chains clatter back through their ring loops. A moment later and the spear walls are lowered, one by one, like waves of grass, beaten back by the wind. And there, ahead of you, across a mile of iron-worked bridge, is the country beyond the rift. Skardfall.
The cart horse whickers nervously as Kirk leads it across the bridge spanning the eerie emptiness of the Great Rift. He is a short, well-built man, with a pug-nose and permanently disgruntled expression. He reminds you of a pit dog your brother Malden once owned, its face crumpled up into a mass of nostrils and teeth. Further ahead, silhouetted by the light, is a taller soldier, all lean muscle and sharp angles. He looks back at you, his hooked nose the only thing visible beneath his dark hood. Lawson, the other soldiers had called him. A short-tempered man and not one to be easily crossed.
You follow at the rear, with two fresh-faced recruits – Mitch, a young farm boy, enrolled in the army to earn coin for his family. He is thin and gangly, constantly on edge, as if at any moment he might bolt into hiding. Your last companion is the stark opposite. Confident and assured. A female knight fresh from the academy, her burnished armour the only bright thing on this sullen day. Her name is Henna,and aside from the briefest of greetings, she has been content to maintain a dutiful silence.
Looks like you’re in for a fun day.
Loaded into the back of the cart are twelve barrels. Everard wants them filled with tar to help bolster the keep’s defences. As most of the horses won’t stand to be near the acrid-smelling pits, you’re going on foot – save for the cart horse, which Kirk insists won’t shirk away from anything. He tugs roughly on the reins, muttering curses as he attempts to coax the horse across the bridge. Evidently, heights didn’t factor into his decision.
Not the best of starts, but you won’t let it dampen your spirits; after all, this is your first chance to get out and explore the untamed wilderness of the north. The land of the Skards.
Once across the bridge, it proves a little disappointing. Bare rock and loose stone litter a featureless plain, occasionally zigzagged by crevasses and impassable ridges. Negotiating it with the cart is both tiresome and frustrating.
After several gruelling hours the land finally dips, bringing you into a valley of wind-sheared pillars and canyons. The ground is smoothed stone, occasionally forming shallow basins of still grey water. Kirk insists this area was once covered by ice, back in the day. But every year, the ice has crept a little further north, leaving channels of ice-melt in its wake.
A cold air gusts along the narrow gullies, pulling at clothes and biting at skin. Its
23
Your weapons cut a swathe through the nightmarish creatures, their twisted bodies crumbling to dust around your feet. From the remains a ghost of each asynjur rises into the air, their tattered robes fluttering in an unfelt breeze. Then, one by one, they vanish – leaving only black whispers of smoke to trail away into the gloom.
Rummaging through their dusty remains, you discover one of the following rewards:
Sinner’s shroud
Eir’s treads
Voice of Var
(head)
(feet)
(ring)
+1 speed +1 armour
+1 speed +1 armour
+1 brawn
Ability: bleed
Ability: heal
Ability: blood oath
With the asynjur defeated, you approach the base of the tree. Straight ahead the ground drops into an uneven slope, leading into an earthen tunnel. To your right a series of knotted roots form a makeshift pathway, winding up around the trunk.
Will you:
Enter the tunnel?
418
Follow the winding roots?
372
24
Quest: Tar and feathers
The sky is a vast grey emptiness, barely touched by the dawn light. Frost cracks underfoot, dripping from the links of chain and iron struts – and the hundreds of cruelly-barbed spears that block your way. With a cry from one of the soldiers, there is a grating rumble as some hidden mechanism is activated and the chains clatter back through their ring loops. A moment later and the spear walls are lowered, one by one, like waves of grass, beaten back by the wind. And there, ahead of you, across a mile of iron-worked bridge, is the country beyond the rift. Skardfall.
The cart horse whickers nervously as Kirk leads it across the bridge spanning the eerie emptiness of the Great Rift. He is a short, well-built man, with a pug-nose and permanently disgruntled expression. He reminds you of a pit dog your brother Malden once owned, its face crumpled up into a mass of nostrils and teeth. Further ahead, silhouetted by the light, is a taller soldier, all lean muscle and sharp angles. He looks back at you, his hooked nose the only thing visible beneath his dark hood. Lawson, the other soldiers had called him. A short-tempered man and not one to be easily crossed.
You follow at the rear, with two fresh-faced recruits – Mitch, a young farm boy, enrolled in the army to earn coin for his family. He is thin and gangly, constantly on edge, as if at any moment he might bolt into hiding. Your last companion is the stark opposite. Confident and assured. A female knight fresh from the academy, her burnished armour the only bright thing on this sullen day. Her name is Henna,and aside from the briefest of greetings, she has been content to maintain a dutiful silence.
Looks like you’re in for a fun day.
Loaded into the back of the cart are twelve barrels. Everard wants them filled with tar to help bolster the keep’s defences. As most of the horses won’t stand to be near the acrid-smelling pits, you’re going on foot – save for the cart horse, which Kirk insists won’t shirk away from anything. He tugs roughly on the reins, muttering curses as he attempts to coax the horse across the bridge. Evidently, heights didn’t factor into his decision.
Not the best of starts, but you won’t let it dampen your spirits; after all, this is your first chance to get out and explore the untamed wilderness of the north. The land of the Skards.
Once across the bridge, it proves a little disappointing. Bare rock and loose stone litter a featureless plain, occasionally zigzagged by crevasses and impassable ridges. Negotiating it with the cart is both tiresome and frustrating.
After several gruelling hours the land finally dips, bringing you into a valley of wind-sheared pillars and canyons. The ground is smoothed stone, occasionally forming shallow basins of still grey water. Kirk insists this area was once covered by ice, back in the day. But every year, the ice has crept a little further north, leaving channels of ice-melt in its wake.
A cold air gusts along the narrow gullies, pulling at clothes and biting at skin. Its
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