Well well well...

The heroes turn as one and face the four blade-wielding blue-grey creatures. Dirk and a couple of the others take a few hurried steps into the temple ruins to get away from the danger on the street. The distant look disappears from Dua’s face and is replaced by a look of enlightenment.

“Aha! I know what these creatures are, I know I’d seem a picture of them before somewhere.” The others listen intently while the four creatures take slow tentative steps towards them, swinging their blades menacingly.

“They are called Bladelings and come from the plane of Shavarath, the Battlefield. Legion upon legion of them fight in an eternal battle there. They are the foot soldiers of much more powerful entities. Considered weak but trained to kill all the same. Perhaps I should try summoning one one day? Yes, that would be an interesting experiment.”

With the Bladelings closing the distance to a mere twenty feet, they stop their advance and one of them screams some words in the common tongue at the group.

“This town ours!!! You leave, now or die!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Dua, acting as spokesperson for the group, agrees but says that they need a moment to gather their belongings. The Bladelings look agitated but hold their advance while the heroes hurriedly whisper a few words of exchange.

“Shall we leave then?” Asks Dua.

“We came here for a reason, and I’m not sure we should leave until we have fulfilled that reason” replies Vaelas. Janin nods and adds his thoughts.

“If they are bred for battle and from a plane known as the battlefield, then it could be that a fight is inevitable, no matter how hard we try to comply with their wishes.”

The Bladelings exchange a few words with each other in a foul-sounding tongue before screaming for blood and charging at the temple. A brief and vicious fight ensues, with all four Bladelings dying and the heroes only taking a few wounds from flying shrapnel again.

They loot the Bladeling bodies and find 53 gold pieces, four long swords and a scimitar. The scimitar and one of the long swords are of Masterwork quality. Vaelas replaces his own scimitar with the Bladelings one, and Hawk replaces his long sword too.

“Right,” says Avalon, “shall we resume our quest to follow the map? Assuming that this town represents the column symbol, then the next symbol is the strange triangular one. We suspected that that represented a temple, but it would appear otherwise. Shall we split up and see if we can find the symbol anywhere else in the town?”

Everyone agrees and they all head off in various directions to search and scour as best they can. Vaelas manages to find three arcane scrolls stashed in the crevice in a wall, which he gives to Dua.

Dua is the one that eventually has the break-through and finds the symbol. He shouts to summon the others and let them know of his success.

“Look, here is the symbol, carved into the brick that makes up this well wall. I say carved but I don’t really think it is. The inside of the carving is as smooth as glass, it’s certainly not been created by any chisel like hand tool. If you give me a moment…..hmmm, it’s not magically created either” he declares casting a quick cantrip on it.

Peering into the well, they quickly spot some steps thirty foot down that they presume represent the next symbol on their map. The steps look to descend ten foot before stopping at the bottom of the now dry well.

“Grab a rope, lower me down and I’ll have a look what’s down there.” Suggests Dua. “I can see fine in the darkness at the bottom, it will save us using up a charge from the Darkvision wand if one of you guys went down.”

They all agree and Dua is gently lowered thirty foot down the well until he comes to rest on the top step of the stairs winding around the inside of the well.

“It doesn’t look very stable down here. I’ll not shout just to be on the safe side. Keep the rope handy and be ready to pull me up in a hurry!”

Trying to ignore the well walls that look like they might collapse any moment, Dua descends the ten steps and is soon stood on the dry earth at the bottom of the well. The inside of the well is comprised of very old, average-quality stonework. The mortar between the stones is missing in many places. In front of him he spots three eye symbols carved into three different stones of the well wall.

Dua examines the three stones as carefully as he can, noting that the eyes are carved as smoothly as the previous symbol they found on the outside of the well. He ascends the stairs and gives a tug on the rope to be winched to safety.

Once back on the surface he relays what he found to the others. Various ideas are discussed, the favourite being that pushing or pulling the third, or right-most stone with the eye on it, will open a door in the rest of the well and reveal to them their next stage of the map.

Another point that the group agree on is that moving the wrong stone with the eye on it could easily lead to the well walls collapsing and the person at the bottom being buried alive. Not a pleasant thought!

Being small, nimble and quiet, Avalon suggests he might be the best person to go back down the well and attempt to reveal the next stage of their quest. Dirk, eager to avoid the duty himself, quickly adds his support to the idea, and before long Avalon has a Darkvision spell cast on him from Dua’s wand, and he is being lowered into the well.

Avalon tries out a few cunning ideas on the stones, including putting his eye close to the etching on the stone, and even trying to look through the eye symbol. With no luck though he eventually resorts to pushing the stone, which doesn’t move, and then finally pulling the stone free of the wall.

There is a moment of fear as the stones in the wall above it all shift, descend slightly, but thankfully wedge into new positions without collapsing entirely. Letting out his breath, that he hadn’t realised he was holding, Avalon peers into the hole where the stone was.

Inside he spots a folded piece of parchment. He takes it and is quickly winched out of the well where everyone gathers round to read it.

***

I pray to Il-Yannah that the person who finds this and reads it has the presence of mind to realise its' importance, and the strength of soul to care of the danger. An unlikely outcome considering the location it has been stowed. Hopefully the obscure placement will mean that only a fellow Atavist, whom we will try to leave a coded-trail for, will find this and deal with it appropriately.

My partner and I have followed our orders and have successfully intercepted the knowledge crystal as ordered. Unfortunately I believe we triggered some kind of psionic trap in the process.

My partner has been distant since the past four days and I feel little mental support from him even when in immediate proximity. He has trouble resting, and appears distracted. I fear that a malevolent Quori has established some kind of link with him, one he remains too confused to notice himself.

As such I have been forced to effectively work alone and have not yet even told my partner that I stashed the crystals two days ago. He did not notice. Even now he raises no questions when I declare my intent to descend into a well in the middle of Darguun. I harbour a distant hope that he is choosing to remain disinterested in an effort to conceal his thoughts from the Quori. What he does not spot, they cannot take from him.

The trail that I will leave continues a days travel north of here. When you encounter a vast canyon in the landscape then resume following the map that led you here.

Our hope to reveal the invaders plans to the various Khorvairian monarchs look likely to fail at this stage. Even if my partner can rid himself of this mental assault, and we successfully return to claim the crystals when it is safe, then I doubt that they will heed the warning of outsiders like ourselves.

I fear for the citizens of Khorvaire, if they truly knew the danger they were in, the eternal thraldom that looms over them, and the truth behind their Last War, then even the lowliest thief would surely heed our warning.

We can but hope, Il-Yannah watch over them all…

***

“What is a Quori?” asks Hawk.

“What’s an Atavist?” asks Janin.

“Where’s the treasure?” asks Dirk. Vaelas fields the first question posed by Hawk.

“I believe that a Quori is either a ghost-like being that possesses people, or a giant slug from beyond the stars. It depends on which tale you listen to.”

Janin smiles at the image conjured by the Elfs’ description. “It’s actually a bit of both, somewhere in between. Quori are outsiders from the plane of Dal Quor, the dream realm. Legend has it that they long ago learnt how to project their will into beings on this plane. It may only be a legend though, I’ve never heard of such a thing actually occurring, and I’d like to consider myself at least reasonably well educated on matters of possession and the planes.”

No-one seems to know what an Atavist is. From the information contained in the note though they conclude that an Atavist must be a Kalashtar agent of some description. Presumably working to a good or worthy goal.

“If the two Kalashtar that we found killed by the bandits are the two that left this note,” suggests Janin, “and if they were undergoing some kind of mental assault, or even fighting each other, then it might explain how the bandits managed to overpower them so easily.”

A thought occurs to Vaelas and all colours vanish from his face. “My friends, there is something that I haven’t told you. In Vathirond, when we first met, I was…mentally contacted by…something. It offered advice on our escape and appeared to be offering help. I wonder now if it too may have been a Quori? Even in my head its’ voice was slurred and whispering, it definitely didn’t sound human.”

Vaelas pauses for a few more moments thought while the others exchange worried looks. “It could be even worse, perhaps it is me that has been stealing our food each night? Who knows what else I might have been doing. You should keep a close eye on me for now, I will search my thoughts and meditate on the matter too.”

With sombre thoughts and a grim mood the group head north out of the ruined town and attempt to find the canyon mentioned in the note. Moving slowly in an attempt to cover their trail from and remaining Bladelings in the town, they make slow progress for the first hour.

Just as they are about to increase their speed and stop covering their tracks, Avalon looks back and spots the movement of a single small dark dot about a mile behind them. Even from that distance he recognises the slinking style and sneaky-gait of a goblin. His many years of tracking them in the Talenta Plains giving him expert knowledge of their preferred techniques.

“Friends, I believe I have spotted our night-time food thief. A single goblin about a mile back appears to be following us. I can’t see him now, but he was definitely there for at least a moment.”

Dirk spits and mutters something about foul, stinking, goblin thieves. They continue their journey northwards at normal speed, unsure what to do about the goblin, if anything at all. Night falls before they reach the canyon and they decide to simply follow the same routine as previous nights; keeping watch, two at a time.

Before bedding down, Hawk scrawls a note on some parchment and puts it in one of the saddlebags on the pack mule, where the food is kept. It reads…

“If you need food then take some and leave a single pebble as payment. Good luck from a fellow traveller.”

When morning arrives no food is missing and Hawks note is still there. Unsure what to make of the lack of food theft, they continue northwards and find the canyon within an hour.

The canyon is about one hundred yards across and deep, and about a mile long. They do a quick search for some more stairs, which they assume is the next symbol on the map. They don’t find any stairs and resort to travelling the length of the canyon, descending where the canyon dwindles, and searching the inside length of it.

After a brief search of the entire inside of the canyon, all they have found is a couple of entrances to a small cave network. Some brown hairs caught on the rocks outside and some bear-shaped footprints give them cause for a few moments pause.

“I’ll go and have a look inside, I have a way with animals. We understand each other,” declares Hawk proudly.

“I bet.” Retorts Janin.

Hawk slowly advances into the gloom of the cave and retrieves some of his trail rations from his pouch, to use as a peace token. He soon finds a large bear inside the cave, it is awake and sends Hawk a clear message by snarling at him. Hawk slowly wafts the food around whilst making soothing noises, hoping that the bear will understand. The bear momentarily pauses its growling and sniffs the air.

Hawk gently tosses the dried meat stick forwards for the bear to eat. It seems that Olladra is not smiling on Hawk though as the trail rations fly forward and poke the bear in the eye sending it into a furious rage.

The bear rears up onto its hind legs, standing nearly ten foot tall and lets out a terrifying howl that sends Hawk fleeing back to his companions outside the cave.