Post
by waysoftheearth » Mon Sep 13, 2010 3:53 am
waysoftheearth wrote:
The greetings are... various... but friendly, and soon it is agreed that Andaros shall stand as the 15th member of the company.
Now your eyes are cast forward where the ruinous works are still four score yards ahead, and a dozen or more yards above your position on the canyon floor. With dusk a scant hour away you press on in the hope of locating somewhere safe to set camp. Within a quarter hour the light of day is all but gone on the canyon floor, though the stone-works themselves -- now just twenty yards ahead and above -- are yet illuminated by the pale orange-grey light of the wintery dusk.
Beneath your feet the going is awkward, for the ground is mostly a bed of rocks and pebbles, and is littered with the ancient detritus of a once wider river. There seems little sign of any safe haven in which to overnight, and you are about to give up finding any such when Olaf makes a grim discovery.
Among the various river flotsam are included the remains of Men! These are in various state of age and decay. Most are just jumbled old bones, but here are there are several fresher litters of most awful bones and sinew crawling with weevils and maggots though the flesh of them is mostly devoured.
"Look there!" warns Padrig, and the sharp eyes of Anwyn, Olaf, and Thorgrim immediately spy what he points out. The others have to squint in the gathering gloom, but soon everyone makes out a short run of roughly hewn stairs ascending some ten feet to a narrow landing along the left hand canyon wall where it appears there is a partially concealed door of rusted iron.
The bridge and stoneworks on the western side of the canyon appear to stand 20ft above concealed door...