Fort Gunnlaeif Dungeon

As 'fine' for 'invading' his throne room, Baron Raknar the Crayman had a job for the party in the dungeons under his fort in Stjordvik.

All party members were sworn in as húskarls to the Baron by Cardinal Assessor Stor Nuren so they are prohibited from sharing anything they learn while in his direct employ. Then it was explained to them that something in the dungeons under the fort is powering certain magical defenses.

Eldron was handed a wand by Magister Ildool Illeon which he is to use on an altar in the dungeons to strengthen the fort's defenses. It will also point the route through dungeons as the rooms seem to change locations on every visit. A large wooden cage is lowered down a stone shaft to deposit the party into the dungeons.

Altar Room

You enter a room carved out of some kind of blue stone. A midnight altar, wrought from some superterrestrial metal, stands at its centre. Faint lines of golden energy radiate from the altar into the floor and walls. A spectral apparition hovers over the altar, free of it from his knees up. He wears a feathered headdress, a loincloth, and a linen cloak intertwined with multi-colored threads. He mutters in a language unknown to you but still you understand his words. “I curse your name, Uyots! I rue the day I became yours!”

In conversation the party learns that the man's name is Tizoc and that he has been bound to the altar by his god Uyots, he was his head priest many, many centuries ago. The altar and the former building around it was one of the four bulwarks against something called The Desolation. Tizoc requests to be freed from the altar; he can slowly struggle free over a period of many years but the wand Eldron carries is always used to bind him back in. He thinks that once free he'll finally die and will then be reunited with his little girl, Yaretzi, in the afterlife.

When touching Tizoc you are flooded with memories:

At the far end, dim in the shadows, a light disappears round a corner as if someone is preceding you. You do not want to follow, but your dream has filled with foreboding. Follow, or else the sacrifice that has to come might be your own.

You are walking up spiral stairs, past guttering crimson candles. Something like a moon is visible through tiny, leaded windows. There are tracks in the dust, as if a serpent had slithered up the steps ahead of you just a moment ago.

Now you are climbing rough stone steps in the blazing sun, to the next sacrifice. Below you, a crowd waits. Your feathered headdress sways and bobs with your steps.

The stone knife is hot in your hand. The red bird waits high in the sky. You are a priest. Its priest. You are doing what must be done.

You start to walk up the steps. The stone is worn by uncountable footsteps.

You take a turn, and then another, and then the sun comes out and blazes down on you, and the jungle flowers around you, and you are holding the stone knife.

The red bird drops from the sky to meet you at the top of the steps. Feathered snakes twine around your neck. They whisper in your ear.

The sun's heat is uncomfortable, as if it's being focused on you through a vast lens. It has a sense of presence, purpose; the heat you feel is not just light, but attention.

You look up into the face of a snake. Its swaying ruff of feathers filling the sky. Venom drips from its fangs and seeps into your eyes. Your vision swims, precariously.

When you blink, you see the world around you crumbled into ruin. This pyramid reduced to a pile of cracked stone, a place of living ghosts. The people, decaying underground, wandering like a shadow among the ruins, trailing rags, dry as the dust they will crumble into.

After a long discussion the party decides to use the wand but promise Tizoc they will see what can be done about his release.