You awaken in a dark cavern, yet it seems far more open than any cave you've seen.
Skaar wakes with a gasp, immediately feeling for his own form and looking around. I'm not dead - that's good.
The big Orc climbs to his feet and tries to get his bearings. "Where the hell am I?"
A light cackling can be heard in the darkness and Skaar spots the dim glow of a lantern. "So someone's let the shadows out..."
"Who's out there?!" Skaar roars as he spins to find the source of the mysterious cackling. "What shadows?"
Slowly, he moves his hulking form to stand guard over the still unconscious godswife.
A withered old man steps into view, holding up the lantern with an arthritic hand. "One of Zahvroma's many curses. The angels kept them at bay, locked them in the earth."
Dismissing the old man as not a threat, Skaar relaxes. "This place has more f+&%in' curses than I can count."
"Where are we?"
"Betwixt the Material and the Shadow," the old man answers.
The old man's answer is more or less lost on the hulking greenskin but he undoes the buckle holding the mace at his hip. He frees the weapon from its hardness and brandishes it overhead, seeing if its light can cut the clinging darkness.
The club fares no better at piercing the darkness which seems to feed off the light shed by the weapon.
"That'll do you no good," the old man cackles. "Come, let's go somewhere safer. Things will be around soon."
Skaar tucks the mace away and effortlessly picks up Nicatha's limp form.
"What kinda things?" he asks as he looks to the old man for direction.
"Things that like killing," the man says, shining his light on a stack of bones, slicked with blood and gore. "This place is full of them."
He guides Skaar to a small building, lanterns hanging from all corners. The orc can barely see the faded blue of the tiles on the roof "Here."
He pushes the door open and holds it for Skaar. "It's not much, but it's all there is for miles."
Skaar didn't like running, especially from an opponent he'd never met at the advice of an old man he'd just met, but Nicatha was still out and if the fighting got too intense he wouldn't be able to defend her. He lumbers along, pausing when the hut comes into view.
"What keeps 'em outta this place?" he asks as he steps inside with Nicatha.
"Nothing," the man admits, setting his lantern on a table. "Perhaps the gods just think it's funny to keep me around."
After finding someplace clear to rest Nicatha, Skaar returns his attention to his mysterious guide.
"What's your story? How long you been down here?" the big Orc grunts as he studies the hut's interior suddenly finding himself wishing he had a mug of Hadrinn's ale in his hand.
"I think I was a farmer once upon a time. It's been many years, I've lost count" the old man wheezes. "Hells, I don't even remember my name."
Skaar stares at the old man in disbelief. "What do ya eat?"
"Whatever I can find," the old man answers, taking a bottle out of the cabinet. "You can cook just about anything when you need to."
Skaar watches the old man work, thinking briefly about his friends back in Ashford. Were they safe or were they down here too?
”When the shadows drag people down here, do they all end up in this spot?” the big Orc grunts. ”When we were taken there was others with us – most of ‘em girls. Have ya seen many others?”
"You're the first I've seen in ages," the old man replies, pouring some dusky liquid into two small clay cups. "If the shadows are active again, whomever they catch end up somewhere relative to where they were taken. So if your companions were caught, they'd end up near where you awoke."
He gives a cup to Skaar. "This'll sharpen your senses."
He drinks the liquid in one swig, letting out a long exhale. "Ah, that's the stuff."
Nicatha comes back slowly to her senses. Hearing a voice she does not recognize causes her some amount of alarm.
She tries to keep her breathing regular and her eyes closed as she listens to Skaar and the unknown man speak for brief moment.
"What happened?" She asks trying to keep the fear from her voice. Last thing she remembered she had been exploring Ashford.
Skaar sniffs the cup and shrugs. If he was meant to die down here, he would have died already. The hulking Orc puts the cup to his lips and tips the contents back.
”You said there’s others down here – miles away? You think they might know a way out?” he asks with a glance toward Nicatha.
She’ll know a way out.
”We were swallowed up by some kinda shadow-monster”, Skaar explains. ”It s!%# us out down here. This old man says we’re stuck ‘between’ now – don’t know what he means.”
"I have no idea yet where we are or how to leave this place. I can commune with the spirits of the night to perhaps guide us, but I need to know more."
"Between?"
"You're in the thin barrier between the Shadow Plane and the Material Plane," the old man reiterates, pouring another drink for himself.
"A dangerous threshold, I'm surprised it be stable. Shadows do not often linger. Please give me a moment."
Nicatha gives a silent prayer for Drago's safety. She had done her best, and she was worried what would happen to both their fates.
,
Skaar extends his empty glass. It was going to be a long day.
"I fear there be no easy answers to this puzzle, Skaar. The spirits either cannot or will not tell me how far this threshold extends. We must be careful and cautious. Though my blessings cannot lead us home directly. I can hide us from any undead shadows that lurk here."
Turning to their fellow traveler, Nicatha offers food and water from her pack. "My name be Nicatha. Who are you? What can you tell us of this place?"
"A way out?" the man asks, incredulous. He laughs for a good minute, before coughing and wheezing. "If there were a way out, you think I'd still be here?"
He turns to Nicatha. "Well met, Nicatha. I don't remember my name anymore, it's been ages since I last used it. As for this place, it is a tent in the sandstorm. I don't go far and I scavenge what the beasts leave. Some days, you can see the lights of a town. Many of them. Perhaps if you follow them, you can find someone who knows more."
”A town?” Skaar grunts. ”It’s better than waitin’ here to die I ‘spose.”
”You should come with us. You know this place better than us and you should be around other people. Hidin’ in here alone’s gotta be worse than dyin’.”
"Ha, I don't even know if people live there," the old man says, settling into a chair. "If the end comes for me, I wouldn't mind it. Been here too long anyway."
Nicatha nods. "Leaving here may doom us, but it be also our only hope for more. Please point us to where you have seen these lights."
The old man nods and walks out the door. He points to some faint blue lights in the distance. "There."
The big Orc shakes his head. The world was full of people that were afraid to die - or maybe they were afraid to live. Either way, he had no intention of being trapped forever and he assumed Nicatha felt the same way. This town, if it was occupied, was their best bet.
Skaar dumps out his pack to assess his supplies. It wasn’t much. Ashford hadn’t been far and, for all its faults, Zhavroma had always been good for foraging. He sets the chunks of jerked meat and waterskin aside, reassembles his pack, and then tucks his foodstuffs away.
”Tell us what ya can about survivin’ outside. If there’s scavengers out there, they’re scavengin’ something – there’s gotta be something that’ll keep our bellies filled.”
”The lil’ ‘Nara would know what to look for. He's good at this s&$~.”
The old man grins. "You learn to stop questioning what you find after a while. The smell tells you all you need to know. As for what's out there, I've never seen anything up close, but I hear screeching every so often."
Skaar grunts unhappily but nods in understanding.
Trusting to her blessings and her dark vision, Nicatha leads the way towards the lights. The prayers necessary to protect from the undead close to her lips.
Skaar bids the nameless old man farewell and follows the mysterious oracle.
As Nicatha leads the way, the path before her and Skaar twists and turns in an almost senseless manner. Rocks change formation in their peripheral vision and the dead trees which little the landscape seem to dance. Nicatha catches the sound of wings beating against the air coming closer.
Skaar growls reflexively at the hostile unknown.
"And I thought Zhavroma was bad..."
As Skaar plods forward alongside Nicatha, his thoughts wander toward his friends back in Zhavroma. Was it random chance or had the shadows that dragged them to this hellish place been after him? Were they agents of Sefirous?
"You think this place is connected to what's f%**ing up Zhavroma?"
"All things be connected, Skaar. What holds this land together be a tapestry of curses hung over a ruin of ancient majesty. Watch the sky. We should not be taken unaware."