They’d been in the tunnels under the Adgharhin temple for hours now. The thick smoke rolling off the torch was beginning to severely irritate their eyes, which already struggled in the darkness, as well as their throats. They had no idea what exactly they were supposed to be looking for in the cramped tunnels. Rumor held the sword was somewhere, but where? The tunnels seemed to stretch forever, in a twisting maze that doubled back on itself time and time again. Somewhere in the darkness they heard a thud. Thud, thud, thud.
Reinolt turned to his companion and in a voice barely audible whispered, “What do you suppose that is?”
Grathe, mumbling between lips forced into a smile, “I suppose we should go check it out.”
“That seems like the worst possible of all the choices we have open to us.” Indeed, the Remnant were known to employ strange, dark magics. Happening upon one of their creations unprepared did not usually end well.
“What choices? We’ve been down here for hours. We have no idea where the sword might be stashed, and everything looks the exact same. At this point, if we wish to retrieve the sword, this is our only option.” Though truth be told, Grathe considered ordering his captain in front as they approached the noise.
Thud, thud thud.
They inched their way closer, Grathe, uncomfortably in the front. His torch he carried in one hand, and his sword in the other. In front of them a large stone door, not unlike the one of the surface, stood in front of them.
Thud, thud, thud.
The sounds were muffled behind the stone, though the door shook with a visible force, and dust unlodged from overhead.
Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud.
The noise grew increasingly intense, the reverberations from the pounding on the other side of the door could be felt through the boots. Grathe handed Reinolt his torch.
Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud.
With sweat trickling down his face in a steady stream, and hands slightly shaking, Grathe reached to trigger the counter weight.
Thud, thud, thud thud thud thudthudthudthudthud. Click.
Absolute silence, except for the grown of the counterweight as the door slowly creaked open. The tension seemed to make the moment stretch the seconds into hours. The door, opening inch, by agonizing inch. The torch, did little to illuminate what was beyond. What had made the noise? It could be anything, though Grathe only imagined the worse. Perhaps an Ogroc stood in ambush. Or an entire army of Remants, hidden down in their labyrinth under the temple that once stood for their worship by the Archaconians.
Then! Chaos! A black mass leapt out of the darkness beyond the door and straight into Grathe, slamming him against the wall, causing him to drop his sword. Reinolt immediately jumped into action, the torch thrown against the wall as he charged forward with his own sword. In the chaotic, bouncing, flickering light, Grathe could make out a human face, half sagging and the other half appearing bone white. Teeth went for his neck, clawed hands flailing at his sides, trying to rend flesh from bone. It was all Graeth could do trying to keep this thing from disemboweling him.
Reinolt drove forward with his sword, plunging it straight into the beast. It continued the frenzied attack on Grathe. Again, and again, and again he drove his sword in. As he tried to hold the thing at arms length, Grathe could make out his attacker. Half the face appeared bone white, because it was bone. The other half decomposing flesh. A Returned!
“The torch! The torch!” He gasped struggling for his life.
Reinolt franticly picked up the torch, shoving it flame first into the undead man. For a second, all three figures were completely submerged in complete darkness. Then, with a howl, the Returned burst into brilliant flames, like a pile of dried pine needles. With a final push, Grathe threw it off of himself and rolled away. The flaming monster rolled across the floor, to little avail, before finally settling into a smoldering, twitching, pile.
Graeth lay a few feet away, bleed and covered in deep scratch marks from his tussle. “Well, that could have gone worse.”
Reinolt looked over, uneasy, at his liege, not buying into the facetious nature. “I know who that was.”
Grathe, with his chest still heaving looked over incredulously. “Yeah, a Returned…I could tell.”
“No, not what, who. I was that bastard Dormondt. I could tell.”
Looking over at the pile of ash and bone Grathe seemed skeptical that anyone could recognize who that creature might have been. It would have been poetic justice though, had it been Dormondt Lankmere. Once the leader of the Adgharhin Way, turned into an undead tool by those he worshipped, kept captive under his own home. A tool for what though?
“Help me up Reinolt.”
On his feet, clutching his side with one hand, and leaning against the wall for support with the other, Grathe walked toward the opened door.
“Are you sure that is a good idea?”
“No, bring the torch.”
Reinolt nervously stepped in front of his liege with the torch, both men peering beyond the precipice to see what else had been held behind the great stone door. Preparing for the worse, they shuffled in with the torch in front and….nothing.
The room beyond was filled with old scrolls piled against the walls. Most of them seemed crumbled beyond repair. The Returned had not waited patiently. At the far end of the small chamber a great wooden table, gouged with claw marks.
“We risked our lives for some destroyed scrolls left by those Remnant-worshipping fools?” Reinolt sounded defeated.
Graethe shambled into the room, looking around. A glint caught his eye amidst a pile of shredded scrolls behind the table. Grimacing, he stumbled forward towards the pile. Reaching down, he swept the top half of the pile to the side, with exaggerated effort. There! There it was! The sword!
It did not seem like a legendary sword, but there was no mistaking it. It fit the description passed down in the Geg clan to a tee. A bastard sword, wrought with an iron cross hilt, loosely crafted to resemble the wings of bird. On the blade, inscriptions in the language of the first men, etched with incredibly fine detail. Not a drop of rust to be found. The Adgharhins referred to it as Lyonnhar’s sword, but Grathe knew what it really was, a relic stolen from his people. A weapon crafted to fight against the Remnants.
“This is what we were searching for Reinolt. This is the symbol. With this we shall unite the island and drive out the Remnant once and for all. We must go and prepare the Isle.”
