I did not know precisely where I was. I assumed correctly that I was somewhere in Uazica, a continent somewhat mysterious to a man from Chassudor, but beyond that I could not say. Rhadoviel had many maps in his library, and I had spent much of my time perusing them, but I admit my imagination had always been far more enthralled by Obai, the land north and west of Uazica.
Not that I believe youthful map-gazing would have served me well in my trek through the deep jungles. Landmarks were few and far between, settlements even less common. Now I know that I had been wandering through what is known in the local language as the Axoxcan, or the Green Ever. It is an endless jungle that takes up much of the land mass's southern and eastern area. Though I traveled through it for numberless days, I know now that I only skirted its very edge. There are mysteries in the deep jungle that will never be seen by Rhandonian eyes.
At this point in my journey, I had strayed into to the Kingdom of Lixha, a small country on the northern edge of the Green Ever. I was only aware of this thanks to an increasing number of smoke columns on the horizon and the occasional village nestled at the tree line. I avoided them. Something kept me from seeking out my fellow human beings. Shame, perhaps, at my diminished state or a surrender to my newly savage lifestyle.
I found myself retreating south, where the trees grew taller and thicker, away from the settlements I periodically encountered. I slept high in trees, and though I hoped to encounter another dryad, I did not. I kept her seed close to me and wondered if I would ever plant it. Of course, I would, but not for many long years in a home I did not yet have.
I had become quite lost when I happened upon the city of the dead. In the middle of the jungle, forgotten by time, the stone city waited as though for me to find it. Trees grew upon the buildings themselves, the roots joining stone to produce a structure that was not quite natural, but not quite unnatural. It was the beauty of both, and yet, the city carried a sense of foreboding that I could not escape. The patterns of the roots over the stone disturbed me for reasons I could not name.
This did not drive me away. I have spoken many times of my restless curiosity, and here it gripped me. I could not leave such a place unexplored. With Ur-Anu in hand, I cautiously made my way onto what had once been one of the main streets of this dead city.
I quickly noted that many of the streets were not overgrown, and were pockmarked with heavy footprints. Perhaps I would not have noticed this without Chala's tutelage or my own experience in the wilds. I had become an adequate tracker, enough that I knew these prints came from creatures that walked upright but whose feet were like nothing I had seen.
The city had once been a bustling metropolis. I found homes, an amphitheater, a dry aqueduct. Much of their buildings were great four-sided pyramids with stairs running up the outside. I started to think of these buildings as temples, though I could not point to a holy aura. Bas reliefs peeked from between roots, speaking to the foreboding beauty of this place.
As I neared the west side of the city, a scream sliced through the air.
I did not hesitate. I moved swiftly through the streets in a low jungle-lope, heading directly for the sound. A second scream cut through the air, giving my steps wings. As I emerged into a plaza, where a great statue was being split by a massive tree, I saw the source of the cries.
A woman, tied to a pole being held between carriers, screamed in terror. She was slender and tall, with smooth brown skin and long black hair. Intricate tattoos ran down one arm and one leg. She wore only a golden belt with a long loincloth that hung in front and behind. Her breasts, high and round on her chest, were bare.
I do not believe her captors cared one way or the other for her near nudity. They were not even close to human. A race I had never seen before, I would later hear them called chaldum by the ghouls, who knew them as enemies from somewhere deep within the earth. In the ghoulish mother tongue, the word means
rotkin
, and never has there been a more appropriate name for any being.
Each one was more than a head taller than me, and had the bulk of a gladiator, with a body heavily laden with both fat and muscle. Their flesh was wet and glabrous, pale as death with the green undertones of decay. Bristly hairs erupted in irregular patches. Each sported four powerful arms with three fingered hands, tipped with hard black claws. They wore harnesses of leather, but no other armor. I would find that their bulk served admirably to protect their small vulnerable spots. Most carried three weapons, a two-handed axe or polearm, and a pair of smaller blades.
The most loathsome part of them was their heads. Round and hideous, they had multiple eyes, one pair huge and insect-like, the other three pairs, arranged about the larger, looked almost human. The only other feature on the face was a circular mouth that unfolded into a meaty sphincter ringed with jointed chelicerae.
The overpowering urge to kill them, to erase these abominations from the face of the world, held me in a steel grip. They were filth incarnate, and I nearly charged across the plaza to slay the lot of them.
As though to convince me of the folly of this impulse, Ur-Anu showed me the threads of battle. In every one of them one of the awful things struck me down. I pulled the weave of Fate, but none of the threads gave me what I needed. I grit my teeth and stayed where I was, watching the rotkin carry the screaming woman into one of the stone pyramids.
When the last of them vanished into the building's dark doorway, I jogged across the open plaza, my senses keen for signs the rotkin detected their pursuer. As I neared the cool darkness of the temple, I caught my first odor of the creatures. It was a ripe stench, like maggots on rotten meat. My loathing only intensified.
I paused just inside the entrance, the dark hungry. My eyes adjusted, and I was able to see my surroundings. The interior of the pyramid had been destroyed by the roots of long dead trees. The edges of crumbling floors stretched up to the apex. The center had been hollowed out, a pit dug in the center of the building down into the bedrock. A pathway with numerous switchbacks led down into the brightly scented earth.
The column of rotkin headed below, where fires flickered hellishly. I followed, even as the evil stench enclosed me, for I could not stand to live in this place where these monsters lived. I had never felt a loathing so intense, nor so devoid of any higher reasoning. I hated the Heacharids for their deeds, and though I knew these rotkin had no noble motivations for what they would do with that woman, my hatred burned far too brightly.
I followed them into the bowels of the pir. It appeared that they had hollowed out the area beneath the city, forming a warren. Great open spaces took the center, with smaller chambers at the corners.
The central area was filled with irregular spires of something, shiny like wet bone. As I approached, I could see suspected in them the remains of animals, of tools, of scraps of armor. Each spire was unique, and in its uniqueness was a fresh horror.
Gardens of foul fungus, shedding a fitful white-green glow, sprouted here and there. Rotted carcasses of human, animal, and unrecognizable parts, fed them.
The column of rotkin disappeared through an archway. The woman's screams echoed through the subterranean necropolis, her terror scraping over my bones. I paused at the spire closest to the archway. Within the slick resin, a terrified face silently screamed in mine, the flesh partly rotted, one eye still crazily wide.
I found a chamber beyond, where the rotkin had begun to gather. A low chant came from them, the sound sibilant and nauseating. At the far end of the room was a dais, with stairs leading to an altar. The remains of a floor above now ran around the perimeter of the room. Corpses, most unrecognizable, were webbed to the wall with patches of resin and overgrown by the glowing fungus. The room was bright with its sickly light.
A sound echoed behind me. More rotkin filed in from other areas of the city, likely lured below the soil by the blasphemous chant. Soon they would catch me in the open, pinned between them and the group already in their foul temple.
I looked about, my attention landing on an adjacent tunnel. I ran down it, slipping into the dark before the first of the disgusting monsters found the entryway. I crept into the dark, the tunnel sloping upward. The chant found me, echoing down both ends while it hummed through the wall. Halfway in, a stinking corpse lay next to the wall, encrusted in the white-green fungus, shedding enough light to see by. More of the deposits, the same material as the spires, punctuated the walls in fat deposits. Ahead, a powerful glow called to me. The end of the tunnel yawned open ahead, the white-green bright.
I dropped to all fours, gripping Ur-Anu in my hand as I crawled to the lip at the end of the tunnel. The broken floor formed an irregular balcony over a central chamber, giving me a perfect view of the chamber.
My initial impulse had been correct. It was a temple. I knew that, even though it did not look like a holy place of any race I could imagine. The dais and altar were formed of the resin of the spires, and I was certain this revolting substance came from the rotkin themselves. The woman was upon the altar, her wrists and ankles secured to it with more resin. Three rotkin stood by her. The rest of the faithful ringed the room, pushing close together, shoulder to shoulder to shoulder.
The awful chanting filled the air. My loathing was a physical force, demanding that I strike these things down and save this woman from her fate. Ur-Anu sensed my desire and it showed me threads of my choices. Each one ended not in my death, but in pure darkness, cold and burning. I could not see the blow that ended me. I shuddered, never having felt that before. Ur-Anu had given me my warning, and I would heed it.
