The Scouting Mission (April 835)

1

After a winter of preparation, it was almost time for the amassed group to head out. Before sending over 100 men on their way, however, it was decided that a scouting party should be sent to determine where the army was going, and what it would find once it got there. 

For this purpose a group, led by the Rangers Aitun and Pebble, was formed to go scouting in the Valdres, the best-known destination of the Orcs of the Defiler. Joining these rangers was the Warrior Temuchar, and, for stealthier approaches, the Rogue Yargachin. As winter just starts to fade, this group departs Nestic for the wilds of the Valdres.

The journey started rough, as their first stop was in the village of Alger, where they were unwelcome--locals were quite suspicious and withdrawn against these strange travelers, especially since they'd been having recent issues with wolves attacking their flocks, making the winter difficult. The party departed early the next morning, unable to restock or obtain information from the locals.

Riding north on their horses, they did not manage to find any trace of their quarry, despite journeying until nightfall. Come dusk, they attempted to enter the forest, seeking shelter from the harsh snow and winds--at which point the horses rebelled, fearful of the forest for no (discernible) reason. However, with some effort, the party was able to get their mounts into the forest and camp safely for the night without much incident. [NOTE: Was it a night without incident then the next night was the zombies? I believe so] The next day they continued northward, and finally headed east into the forest once they got close enough to their destination. Later that day, after making their way into the forest for several hours, they again made camp in the relative safety of the forest.

That night, strange things seemed to be afoot. While standing watch, Aitun managed to spot a [CROW THING NAME HERE] watching over their camp, which he made Pebble's bird catch to scare away. Later that night, he heard an incoming flock of crows, which proved to be an early warning of an incoming horde of undead. He roused the rest of the party, who set themselves against the threat. They managed to make it through the battle, but lost all but one of their horses, and Aitun sustained a serious wound from one of these undead. Luckily however, upon examination these did not seem to be minions of the Defiler, and so the scouting mission chose to continue onwards.

Later the next day, the group managed to find some temporary safe shelter in the form of ancient Torman standing stones, where they spent the next night sheltering from the sounds of more undead activity outside the perimeter of the stones. The next day they cautiously departed in an attempt to reach their final destination--the mountain of _MOUNTAIN_--by that evening. As they neared it, they encountered a giant aggressive bison in their way, who nearly attacked the party. However, by communicating with the creature they were able to calm it down--but quickly discovered the cause of its distress, as a pack of wolves appeared around it. As the bison fled, harried by the wolves, Pebble saw an opportunity to benefit from this, and began shooting down wolves for their pelts and teeth. Despite some minor struggles, this proved to be successful, and the party continued onwards with some additional resources. 

-- TO BE CONTINUED - NEED TO WRITE ABOUT ORCS --

2

We encamped with the Greenskins at the foot of the mountain as we waited for the Flesh Priest to complete their arcane convening. Evidently, this Holy Mastication was an attempt to divine the intent of the One Mighty Gut, should their hosts flee further west or strike back against the abomination in defiance of his cruel designs.

The Warrior Prince, wounded greatly though he was, set himself to persuading the gathered chieftains to join our war party. While they spoke and ate, Temuchar and I climbed up into the windswept crags above. The steep paths we followed twisted back and forth across the granite face, interrupted periodically by ancient standing stones.

A short way into our assent, we came to a bizarre ossuary. Hundreds of bones lay scattered about a small plateau, we counted fifteen skulls among them. They were ancient and appeared untouched by the likes of Gristle. For his part, my companion refused to approach the ossuary, aligning on a nearby ledge and fidgeting nervously. Temuchar expressed a belief that this could be a place of ancient sacrifice, a belief bolstered by the large basin carved from the living rock of the mountain that stood on the far side of the bone field. The wall above the basin was carved in two rune panels, old Torman writing, according to Temuchar, though how she could distinguish between the various squiggles of men is beyond me. A trickle of ice wound between the two panels. Frozen though it was, it is difficult to imagine it being enough to fill the basin on its own. Temuchar believed the basin was meant to collect the blood of man, and I am inclined to believe her.

After an hour more of climbing, we found ourselves at the edge of a vast slide of scree saddling two peeks. Across the scree, I could make out the form of more standing stones and pillars, silhouetted against the setting sun, perhaps the entrance to a long-lost temple. Beside us on the cliff ledge were five cairns, one with a rusted sword raised above it. We left that place feeling unseen eyes upon us, and returned to the camp below.

That night, I was awakened from my sleep with a passionate, yet pungent kiss from Chin. A tempest raged around us. The winds howling and whistling tore at the lovesick rogue’s possessions as he screamed in vain for them to return his precious pages. The rest of the group appeared to be in various stages of sleep-paralysis, perhaps the doings of whatever creature had called up the wind.

Once Chin had secured the tattered remnants of his book beneath a sizable cairn fashioned from any and all heavy objects he could find strewn around the Greenskin’s camp, he beseeched me and the others to climb the mountain with him to recover his wind-stolen property. He babbled that the wind had taunted him “come under the moon and I’ll sell it back to you”. Whether or not this voice had really spoken to the addled rogue, I didn’t much relish the thought of him climbing the mountain alone and at night.

Not content to wait until morning, he set out immediately into the cold night above, and I followed him. What we saw upon that mountain, what words were spoken and to what sort of being, are best left between Chin, myself, and the Howling Sky. We descended enriched, indebted, and bearing a present for the young Mallard. I hope dearly he will enjoy the gift, for the cost of acquiring it was certainly beyond measure.

The next day, the Flesh Priests at last emerged from their catacombs, bringing confusing tidings to the assembled hosts. The Great Maw had remained shut, the Gut did not rumble. Thankfully, Eitan had managed to convince a few of the warlords to join our cause, promising six-score battle-tested warriors in the spring. The leader among the gathered chiefs, Graz, agreed to join us as well, his prowess and might will certainly be a boon to those on the front lines.

Before we bid farewell to the gathered council and returned to the wood, the most wizened of the flesh priests shared with us the origins of the Abomination.

Many years ago, the Spawn Eater, it seems, was once a flesh priest. A cunning student, a voice called him to pilgrimage beyond mountains. When he returned he brought the tainted flame in his soul. His voice changed and he spat prophecy about the end of the world. He turned against the Flesh Priests and slaughtered his tribe, devouring his children and growing stronger. Recently his minions have been preying on the western tribes, taking captives. He calls himself a god and some join him willingly. The fire within his soul powers and corrupts him, if it could be extinguished he would be destroyed.

As we left, the words of the Flesh Priests hung heavily upon my soul, nearly driving away thoughts of the strange apparitions of the night before.

Eitan bid his farewell at the forest’s edge, taking our remaining horse and the amulet and making haste for Mallard and our assembling forces. We turned our sights on the Wall and the blaze that lurked beneath its unbroken ridge.

The Rustlands were much faster going than the dense, suffocating wilderness of the Valdres. We followed the Old Road as it wound its way between blasted bluffs and across desiccated riverbeds. By the end of the second day, we spotted a small wood upon the horizon before us. Small shapes moved between the trunks, at our distance, i couldn’t quite make them out, but they lumbered with the hunched posture and resolute inattentiveness of trolls.

Approaching slowly from the east, we crept into the wood. A small, crumbling keep sat on a small hillock in the center, on the opposite end of the glen, in view of the towering ridge of the Wall, vile creatures labored to fell trees. My hunch was correct, they were indeed trolls, though as we drew closer, crouching among the moldering stones of the keep, we could see that their flesh hung from them in ribbons. Eyes milk-white and glossed over, they shambled with the same disassociated drive as the swamp things from the forest that had beset us on our first night. The zombified trolls, eight of them in total, were overseen by a taskmaster orc, still very much alive, but groggy and road-weary.

Behind the trolls, we could at last clearly make out the Wall. A large expanse of blasted rock and prairie stretched to meet its rocky slopes. To the south, a small creak tumbled down its face and wound lackluster through the scree at its base. The old road we had been following left the wood, continuing for the Wall. Along its length, standing stones lay shattered and toppled, looking not unlike a row of broken teeth. The road continued to the base of the mountains before zig-zagging up toward a black opening in the rock.

From that orifice issued a black, vile cloud of smoke and ash. Deep in the belly of the mountain, some devilish fire was alight, and as we watched, the trolls began bundling the felled trees and dragging them off, up the old road, toward the hole in the rock and the pyre below.

We resolved to stay the night in the keep, observing the comings and goings of the taskmasters and their zombified chattel. They returned again and again, cutting more of the forest to fuel the fire in the mountain. At times, a pinpoint of fire could be seen, hovering above the trolls, as though some roving, flaming eye was watching their work.

The plains that stretched between the woods and the Wall were empty, no sign of an army or encampment to be seen. The only movement were the processions of tree cutters, shambling out toward the forest and hauling their loads back along the Old Road.

We decided to make our move around midnight. We were to break southwest, following the small creak and climbing into the mountains south of the billowing smoke, making for the mountain pass and safety beyond. We were almost to the feet of the Wall, when Gristle shrieked, dived, and swooped off, alighting up the cliff face and out of sight. Not a moment later, the same ball of fire we had seen above the trolls descended before us, blocking our way. In its center was a black shard, the same blasted obsidian that had protruded from the eye sockets of the brutes I had put down the season before.

The eye, for indeed it was an eye, spoke to us. You have inconvenienced me greatly, there is only one law in this world, strength. As it spoke, billowing clouds of choking smoke issued from it, engulfing us in a cocoon of constricting caustic ash that lashed at us as though with unseen knives.

In that blackened hell, the eye summoned up unspeakable beasts of flame and soot. It was only by the workings of our frostmage that we were able to escape relatively unharmed. If ever we encounter the eye again, i will endeavor to pierce it with an arrow, for i believe, unless the obsidian core is destroyed, nothing can extinguish its terrible fire.

We beat a hard retreat into the mountains, not stopping until well after the sun had risen behind us, and the blasted plateau was out of sight.