Jake and the Opals

The orc's eyes widened when he recognized the glyphs as those that had been on the obelisk. He was amazed that she could remember the glyphs so precisely. "How can you remember them so well?"

The sorceress shrugged as she rose to her feet to stand beside him. Her eyes surveyed the glyphs once more before turning to the orc. "It's nothing. Part of my training as a priestess was in bringing memories back to the surface. It was important to be able to remember things correctly after hearing or seeing them only once. Great knowledge has been lost due to small errors."

The sorceress dusted off her hands. "Still, remembering what the glyphs were is not the same as understanding them. For that, I believe you may have to help me."

The orc looked startled. "Me? I can't read any of this stuff."

The sorceress cocked her head thoughtfully to one side. "Perhaps," she began, "but then again, I suspect that the tales you do know will help unlock the meaning of those glyphs and symbols which I presume to be orcish in origin, which in turn will help unlock the meaning of the obelisks overall."

The orc looked doubtful but was unwilling to disagree with the sorceress. "We should break camp and move on."

Morgan nodded in agreement. "Yes, and as we go you can tell me the tales you know of this place. And perhaps together we can decipher the mystery of the obelisks as I am certain that they will be of great import to our journey."

The orc said nothing in reply, but began gathering up his belongings while the sorceress brushed the ground to erase the glyphs and drawings she had made. Taking up the glimmering elven blade the orc peered at it in the dim morning light. Even in this damp cold light the blade seemed to shine forth a silvery fire, as if challenging the cold dead land. The orc even felt heartened by the feel of the grip in his hand, but shook that off as his imagination.

Resting the blade lightly on his shoulder the orc rejoined the sorceress who was already waiting for him at the edge of the shelter. With a nod from the orc, they resumed their journey along the stone pathway and deeper into Gothmordra.

Jake's tale begins...

Long, long ago, back in the days when men did war upon orc and orc did war upon man with much more frequency than these relative days of peace, far to the north and west of the orcish lands of Shargoth, there existed a cult of necromancers intent upon the discovery of dark secrets. The secret they pursued with the greatest vigilance was that of immortality. Among their ranks were some of the most powerful necromancers, sorcerers and mages ever known in their time.

Their experiments were most foul and served only their own dark desires. They served neither orc nor man. At the height of their power, and in their most nefarious ritual, a circle of thirteen of the most powerful necromancers together cast the spells meant to transform them into immortality.

Despite their great wisdom and power, their spells went awry from their dark plans. Seven of the necromancers were destroyed instantly. Dark powers too powerful to control swept over them and consumed them, erasing them as if they had never been. Of the remaining six, most were struck down, more dead than alive as the dark energies unleashed by their ritual escaped their control and began to feed upon the land surrounding their dark fortress.

In days that followed, waves of death extended out for leagues from the fortress, darkening the sky, killing the land and its denizens slowly and inexorably. Trees withered and became grey, their leaves falling to the ground never to be replaced. The stone of the buildings and roads crumbled and fell. The servants of the necromancers were swept under by the creeping death spreading out from the dark fortress. Those that fled screamed of darkness, terror and death. Most of the servants of those dark necromancers died within days of relating their harrowing escape from the land that the orcs began to call Gothmordra, the "Place of Death." Their limbs shriveled and decayed, while their flesh turned grey and fell from their bones. Their minds dwindled until they were gibbering idiots that spent their short time screaming and weeping from haunted dreams.

Word reached more than the commanders of the orcs, for a hardy few of the escaped servants reached the Sovereign Kingdoms and passed the news on to the humans.

Gravely concerned about the news, the human lords gathered a council of their wisest leaders, spellcasters and generals. Together they conferred and debated whether this "land of darkness" offered a threat to their domains. Their seers and soothsayers viewed the portents and read the stars looking for answers. Their generals and lords argued about their inability to fight off an intangible threat. Scouts were sent out to investigate for themselves this dread phenomenon. Those that returned bore dire news as the region of death grew larger with each day, as if the death was feeding the energy of the effect.

One daring scout, a veteran tracker who had ranged the orcish borders for nearly two decades, even risked entering the shadowed land itself. Nearly dead upon his return, with his skin pale and mottled, and his eyes red and wounded, he reported that all was not unmoving within the shadow. No, he reported, instead, that which had lived was now dead and yet still walked.

He spoke of walking corpses that ranged aimlessly about, attacking anything alive they chanced upon. He told of skeletons, their flesh completely stripped from their bones, and yet still roamed the land, alive with some vibrant energy. Shadows clung to the land and hinted at even darker things hiding within the confines of the growing shadow.

One of their wisest mages asked him of the fortress at the center of the shadow and had he reached its perimeter as well. Did he know if the the dread necromancers that had caused this great calamity also still walked.

The tracker dropped his head low and confessed that he had been unable to reach the central fortress. The numbers of walking dead were too many for even he to reach so far.

More troubled than ever before, the leaders of the Sovereign Kingdoms debated how to address this threat. Many argued that they would undoubtedly join forces with the age-old nemesis, the orcs. An allied force of walking dead, as well as orcs, trolls and their kin would be an unstoppable force.

The old veteran tracker spoke again, raising his now frail voice against the voices of the generals and wise men. "Nay, it is not so, these walking dead do not appear to be allying themselves with the orcs. Indeed, it seems the orcs fear them even as we do. Have you not noticed that the orcs have withdrawn from the borderlands? The orcs rally even as we do to contemplate how to meet this dark threat."

The generals argued against this. "It's more likely that the orcs and their foul brethren merely seek to confuse us and are rallying their forces for a joint invasion into our homelands."

A wise man, a mage from far to the south spoke then. "Nay, have you not heard the reports? Even the orcs and their kin require food. True it seems they thrive in their barren wastes of rock and plain, but even the orcs must have farms. Run by slaves they may be, but food they must have. This darkness which our scouts report of kills all. There are no farms, nor fields, nor woods where the shadow has fallen. No, this shadow is no ally of the orcs. They too must fear its incursion."

All agreed that the wise man spoke true, and so none could refute his words.