Spoiler: Chapter Fourteen: The Gallows Gap
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December 1114

Valentine is summoned to meet with Dave Nash, the businessman whom Kim had dealings with over the matter of Noboru’s estate some months prior. They drink expensive liqueurs in an overly hot office; Nash apologizes, for there is something stuck in his ventilation system.

He has a proposal for her, he has learned of a lost treasure, and he will give it to them with no strings attached. His only ask is that they return to him a small pink stone which lies within, a historical trinket that he would like to present as a gift for his sister.

She tries to wheedle as much information out of him as she can, but he will not agree to give over the exact details until a deal has been struck. Once hands are shaken, Nash tells Valentine that he has learned of a young dragon that has built its lair beneath a place called the Gallows Gap, and that the stone is within the beast’s hoard.

Valentine consults with her group, and Sonya tells her that she has read much about the Gallows Gap, it is a sacred cave within the centaur realm of Lyre Wood, home to savage horsemen who are known to abduct travelers, assault them and sacrifice them to their strange gods. They defend the sacred cave and toss offerings into it.

Kim adds that, typically, things only become sacred after generations of having a practical reason to avoid them. She also thinks it an odd name, there are no references to anyone ever being hanged there, and there is no word in the centaur tongue that sounds like gallows.

Before they go, they meet with Sammy Whin to buy potions for their journey. Aurora is hesitant to deal with him, but the old man gives her a small charm in the shape of a cat, and tells her that if she returns it to him, he will provide her with a proper spell book to record her incantations in, rather than simply holding onto a jumble of notes and scrolls she has stolen from Titania.

Lyre wood is peaceful, if somewhat bare and cold this time of year, and the group has no trouble making the trip on horseback. But, when they approach the Gallows Gap itself, they hear the thundering of hooves and a chorus of war whoops; a centaur war party has come to protect their sacred ground!

Kim reacts by commanding rock walls to arise on either side of the chasm, funneling the centaur into a kill zone. Krystal slips through the hell realms and hides in the foliage on the far side, using the Black Flame blade to turn the centaur’s momentum against them, disemboweling no few of their warriors as they gallop past.

Most of the centaur stall when they come to the gap, easy pickings for Quincy’s rifle and Sonya’s pendant, but their war-leader leaps straight over, driving his lance into Kim’s shoulder despite the heavy adamant plates that guard it.

Feur rushes to her aid and the two of them manage to dispatch the mighty horse-warrior, and after his death most of his followers flee. While Aurora tends to Kim’s wounds, a young colt stays behind, one wearing the headdress of a priestess in training. She asks the outsiders why they have come to defile this sacred ground, and Valentine explains to her that an evil creature has taken up residence within, and they have come to remove it.

The girl curses the lack of communication on both sides and the meaningless deaths that resulted, and tells them that she will do nothing to hinder their quest, but warns them to hurry, for she cannot guarantee that her people will not amass in larger numbers to avenge the fallen to drive the interlopers from their lands.

Kim cannot quite explain the geology of the Gallows Gap. It is earthen and twisting, with many branching paths. It almost looks like a gigantic tree once grew here, and these tunnels are what remains of its root system after it was yanked out by some impossible force.

They descend through the narrow twisting paths, seeing only by Valentine’s halo, but soon realize that there are many forks and turns, and Kim summons her old elemental spirit, bidding the demiurge find them the fastest route to the bottom, a task which it accomplishes swiftly and with no great enthusiasm.

As they descend along the path of the elemental's choosing, they come to a point where their road is blocked by what looks like a large leafless tree, its grey trunk standing out oddly deep beneath the Earth. Kim moves to investigate when its branches shoot out, wrapping about her throat, cutting off her breath and pulling her closer. Quincy acts quickly, tossing a grenade amongst its roots, and the thing is blown to pieces.

After Kim catches her breath, the group investigates the grisly remains, and determines that the creature is some sort of giant hydrozoan, a normally tiny anemone-like creature often found in freshwater streams. Krystal wonders why they would encounter a sea monster so far from water, and what it eats down here to have grown so large.

It is far from the only one of its kind however, the lower tunnels are full of such creatures, some blocking their path, others tucked away in alcoves and quiet corners, lashing out at the intruders as they pass. Without the element of surprise, these beings are of limited danger, many Kim can simply wall off by commanding the tunnels they inhabit to collapse, and Quincy’s grenades are of special deadliness to creatures that cannot move out of their radius. All in all, they slay perhaps a dozen of the creatures which choke the passages with their strange colony.

At one point they find a raised tunnel shrouded in darkness, and Sonya can sense magical energy above. They boost Krystal up, and she goes alone to explore, but then disappears into the darkness.

Nobody hears a sound for a long moment, and an icy panic descends upon the group. When Kim finally gets up her nerve, she clambers up the embankment and peers into the darkness, quietly calling Krystal’s name. Suddenly, a grinning skeleton lunges out of the darkness and wraps its bony hands about her neck, and Kim falls backward onto the ground, flailing at her undead attacker.

The panic is broken by Krystal's laughter, and everyone can see that the skeleton is inanimate and long dead.

Krystal found it up there, clutching an enchanted crossbow and overgrown with strange ferns. She assumed it was some long-ago explorer who got injured by the monster’s tentacles and crawled in here to hole up and await a rescue that never came.

Kim takes the ancient fedora it was wearing for her own, saying she finally looks like a true archeologist, and Feur makes a joke about Krystal’s pranking, and how one day he is going to catch her red-handed.

Their laughter soon turns to coughing as they are overcome by a thick cloud of yellow spores that wafted up from the ferns when the corpse was disturbed.

Further down, they reach the lair of the colonial queen of the strange polyp creatures that the lumberjacks sometimes call “roperites”. It is massive, thicker than an old oak, and the walls of its chamber are covered in its spawn. Again, the group wonders what sort of fare these creatures feed on, and what sort of strange current brings it this far underground.

They have little time to ponder though, for once the massive monster spies them, it launches dozens of tendrils in their direction, binding their arms and legs and drawing them closer to its crushing maw. Quincy is all out of grenades, and they fight desperately for their freedom, but are pulled inexorably forward. Only Krystal can slip free, and rather than cut her companions loose, she turns her wrath on the monster, the Black Flame Blade practically singing in the dark as she tears the behemoth to pieces with stroke after well-placed stroke.

They bind their wounds and carry on to the dragon's lair. It lies in a thermal cavern far beneath the landscape, so far down that it grows hot and pockets of liquid rock ooze slowly from the Earth.

The dragon itself is only small in comparison to others of its kind; it is by far the largest opponent the mercenaries have yet faced. Though Bertha the mosasaur was longer, it was nowhere near as massive. The creature is stout, with four legs and stubby wings, covered in horns and cobalt blue scales that glimmer in the gloom. The monster’s broad head and short neck give it the impression of a giant horned toad, and if it can speak, it chooses not to. Instead, it casually raises its head and arcs its napalm breath over the invaders.

Nobody is directly hit, which is fortunate, for they would not have survived. But Valentine, Aurora, and Sonya are all touched by drifts of flaming venom, and their hair, clothes, and feathers go up like torches. Kim has her work cut out for her, warding them against heat before they can be consumed, and then raising magical stone walls to shield them from the dragon’s continued wrath.

At the same time, Feur charges forward, eager to do battle with the beast, but is casually tossed aside, rolling into a patch of sticky magma, and Kim must quickly divert her attention before he can sink below the surface and be incinerated, casting a spell to transform the burning lava into a smooth patch of heated rock that resembles asphalt on a sunny day.

Krystal takes the opportunity to dart forward, stabbing at the creature’s flanks with her enchanted blade, but does little. The beast almost seems to enjoy battling with the rogue, stalking her through the shadows like a massive cat seeking a terrified mouse. Time and again Krystal attacks, but does little damage before she must again retreat into the darkness lest she becomes a victim of the dragon’s teeth and claws; she would not survive a direct hit.

Quincy takes this opportunity to load the vorpal bullets they looted from Valen’s assassins, and he fires them at the distracted dragon. His heavy rifle easily punches through the monster’s hide, and now that it realizes its foes can actually hurt it, it stops playing around and turns deadly serious, crashing forward through Kim’s hastily erected barricades. Five of Quincy’s six shots find home, each punching a gaping hole in the beast’s carapace, oozing steaming blood onto the sulfurous rocks below. While he tries to reload, the monster's jaws snap shut round him.

Before Quincy can be swallowed whole, Krystal uses this opportunity to teleport herself above the monster, and she deftly runs along its spine before driving her magical sword into the place where the dragon’s neck meets its skull, piercing it with all of her might.

The dragon drops to the ground, regurgitating Quincy in its death spasms. The former dragoon is not in great shape, having been pierced by the dragon’s teeth in several places, and his ankle mutilated by Krystal’s sword as it caught him in the dragon’s throat.

Feur watches in awe as a wave of golden light floods out of the dragon’s body with its last breath, but he is the only one who can see it.

Once Aurora is done tending to him, Quincy deftly skins the monster, taking the metallic blue scales with the greatest of care. Much later, he will turn them in to the bounty master at Balthazar’s garrison, along with a half dozen centaur tails. Though they normally only work in manargus carapace, they will send it to their armorers in the East, and they will return to him a suit of dragonhide armor in the colors of Balthazar, along with the title of Dragon Slayer. But that is later, now he is in a stinking cave, attempting to work through the pain.

Valentine scours the treasure horde. It isn’t what she expected, instead, it simply resembles a heap of nick-nacks, various figurines, and shiny stones, gizmos and religious icons, coins of various eras and denominations, and costume jewelry. It is more like the bottom of a wishing well than a dragon’s hoard, and she suspects that the centaurs have long been tossing offerings into the Gallows Gap for luck, and somehow they have all found their way down here. She can’t help but wonder if human or animal sacrifices were among them.

Sonya can pick out the pink orb, about four inches across made from smooth glass, radiating strong primal energy. Valentine carefully hides it away, well aware of how much Krystal disdains giving over anything without compensation.

They take what they can carry and begin the long climb up. Once at the surface, they find Esper waiting patiently, and they tie his master to the saddle before beginning the long journey back to Golgotha.

As they travel, Feur, Quincy, and Sonya all feel strange. Quincy complains about how badly his companions' smell, particularly Valentine, while Sonya feels like a monster is stalking along behind her and always watching her back, but hiding before she can turn around, and Feur senses a dark demonic presence hanging over the group.

That night Quincy is on watch when he spies the most terrifying thing he has ever imagined. A vast shape floating through the air like a living kite, its long underside pierced by rips that rip from its flesh and undulate like dozens of bony legs, its gaze burning as it searches the lands below, tears of flaming oil dripping from its blazing eyes. He awakens his companions with a scream, but none of them pick out the shape amongst the scattered clouds, even when Valentine takes to their air, against Quincy’s urging.

The next morning, Sonya sees a column of Imperial knights mounted on elephants sinking into the surface of the old Imperial highway like it was made of tar, but her companions see nothing and assume that she is hallucinating or has gone mad.

But when they arrive back in Golgotha, there are more horrors to be seen.


Sorry it took so long to get this one up, August has been just about the busiest month of my life.

I have three more sessions played and mostly written up, so expect more updates soon (knock on wood), along with some lengthy OOC musings that have resulted from tensions in my group both new and old.

We are in the home stretch here!