CHAPTER I: AND THE BAND PLAYED ON. . .
Kastilus: "Here we are gentlemen. That special feeling of mine prevailed, I simply knew we would locate the Ziggurat by dusk!" Excitably, the finely dressed archeologist in royal hues stepped just a arm's length too far our from the sparse forest clearing by which the company rest. Without a moments warning the nape of his collar his pulled taut and the spindly older man is nigh pulled to the ground; robbed of the majestic yet mysterious sight of the ancient structure, replaced instantly by the figure of a camel and its rider.
Ashür: "Do not make a move 'lest we say as such." So speaks the dour-eyed brigand amidst the band, releasing his grip upon their tag-along who gently scoffs in response, now wrapped tightly in a sellsword-blanket. "Be not hasty." He adds.
Kastilus: "And how could I ever?" Their current employer replies, dusting himself off and continuing just as effervescently, "This, dear friends, is a grand discovery! The lost Zagrosi Ziggurat's store untold riches deep within their vaults. Nay, not just so! The knowledge of golden ages long past as well. . ."
Ashür quiets the man down with a mere glare and insinuation toward the hilt of his blade. It has been three days and three nights trek through the rocky dunes of Zagros far to the south-east, near the Akkadian border. Now that the company happens upon this small scrub-land, they take full advantage of its bounty; beating the sand out of their boots and languring yet cautious beneath the shade of bao-bob trees.
Ruins dot the sun-baked grassland for miles, whether they be ancient towers of limestone or the long-rotted carcasses of vanished villages and huts. Beyond that a plateau of stone still standing tall beneath the rising peak with nary even the first signs of crumbling away to dust. Together these facts speak not only to the majesty of ages past, but to the mystique of these mountain foothills, for no man dwells there yet longer, it is no cradle of civilization, but it seems a graveyard. . .
Yet so, the marks of life are strong within this place. It is not long before the Hellions' succor 'neath the trees comes to an end, marked by a low croaking chant that builds and rises, carrying itself well across the foothills with a mighty echo. The roar and crackle of flame is set; the baseline to the chorus.
Ruins dot the sun-baked grassland for miles, whether they be ancient towers of limestone or the long-rotted carcasses of vanished villages and huts. Beyond that a plateau of stone still standing tall beneath the rising peak with nary even the first signs of crumbling away to dust. Together these facts speak not only to the majesty of ages past, but to the mystique of these mountain foothills, for no man dwells there yet longer, it is no cradle of civilization, but it seems a graveyard. . .
Yet so, the marks of life are strong within this place. It is not long before the Hellions' succor 'neath the trees comes to an end, marked by a low croaking chant that builds and rises, carrying itself well across the foothills with a mighty echo. The roar and crackle of flame is set; the baseline to the chorus.
Ashür: "That awful sound; merchant, what do you see. . ?" His voice is that of a whisper now toward Zarif and Salador, and the company's movements still, unwilling to snap even a twig in the thicket.
Squat, gangrenous blue men draped in mops of seaweed-like hair and just as slick dance and sing a mournful song around the base a growing flame as the Sun begins to set. It is difficult to pick out beyond the slatted walls of pitched rock, but the stench filling the air for miles makes it clear. A mound of azure corpses of the little men, bled out and dismembered take well to the flame. Their oily bodies and filthy mops casting a smoke so foul as to choke the life out of a full grown man about the foothills.
Ashür: "Disgusting. This is no lost ruin. . ." The bandit's disdain grows clear as day, perhaps even the lightest hint of a popped vein makes itself known in his temple. "Yeeks." He says, naming the creatures beyond without even witnessing their warty blue skin. "You didn't mention there'd be beasts as these about. . ." Ashür adds with a foul taste upon his tongue.
Kastilus: "This is precisely what I hired you for. Think twice before you speak." He takes a bit of a whiff, that stench on the air. "I can tell they are immolating their dead, this is the perfect chance to finish them off and secure your pay."
