Chapter 35: Lastwatch Hold
The three adventurers descended the shaft in near darkness, the sweltering heat in the claustrophobic pipe made their sweat slick the iron rungs of the ladder they climbed. The way was long, but eventually Peculier called that he had reached the bottom, and Honeydew and Xephos soon were standing beside him at the end of a long iron corridor, a huge window in place of the end wall behind them.
"This place, this world beyond. . .it is not what I expected." Peculier said as he looked down the corridor, a long and dark tunnel. Sweat glistened on his face behind his corinthian as he stared ahead. "Corridors of metal? Strange machines?"
"No, it's not. I expected this:" Honeydew pointed to the window. They looked through the thick glass and out into the world beyond, a chaotic cavern of red rock, magma-falls running off the edge of cliffs and into a huge lake of molten rock that the corridor seemed to be suspended over.
"What kind of place is this?" Peculier asked.
Xephos turned away from the window and led the way down the corridor. "We had a theory that Israphel and his minions were using these portals as a way to get around the Overworld quickly, so this place might be a facility that he keeps the portals in." he said.
They followed the hallway at a brisk pace, becoming increasingly damp due to the heat. The way soon became a crossroads between another corridor, and the three would have been at a loss as to which way to take if the left and right had not been blocked by a cave in and a stream of magma melting through the ceiling and floor respectively. They went straight on, their footfalls echoing before and behind them as Honeydew led the way, his dwarven eyes reading the dark corridor as they followed it.
"There's a room ahead." he announced. They group slowed warily, hands hovering above their weapons. The room that they entered was circular, a large open wall to the left was bare to the heat of the Nether, and the floor was covered in a light dusting of sand which seemed to stem from an empty portal of obsidian in the right wall.
"Oh my gods, there's a portal in here." Honeydew said as the others stepped into the room, the only light coming from the opening in the wall.
"Ah ha!" Peculier cried.
"It's not on, but it does seem to be intact." Xephos said, examining the frame. He stood and went to the gap in the wall where Honeydew was stood. "What's out here?" he asked.
"It's just. . .the Nether." Honeydew said. They looked out over the magma lake that the facility hung from the carven ceiling above. On a cliff across the lake there sat a huge cube of iron, likely another building, and spanning the gap between it and where the opening they stood in was, there was an immense chain, each link the size of a large wagon and cast black.
"Well, there's nothing to lose." Peculier sighed from across the room. "Dwarf, can you light it?" he asked.
"I can. I have my flint and tinder here. I haven't used them in a while." he said as he strode across to the portal. He reached down to the two pouches hanging from his belt above either hip. He withdrew from them his coveted flint and bryne-steel tinder. He took a moment to turn the tinder in his fingers, admiring the form of a dragon it was cast in. Taking the tinder in one hand, he pinched the flint between thumb and forefinger and standing just out of the portal frame struck the two together. The power of the bryne-steel tinder sent forth a gout of sparks into the frame, where they hit the bottom of it, and suddenly a curtain of purple light was conjured before them.
"I hope this wasn't a bad idea." Honeydew said as he stared uneasily at the portal.
"Let's see where this leads." Peculier stepped forwards.
"I guess it can't be any worse than this." Xephos said.
Honeydew moaned. "You say that. . ." he said.
"Alright then." Peculier breathed. He started for the portal. "Follow me!" he cried as he walked calmly through.
"Through we go." Honeydew smiled wanly as he followed Peculier, Xephos close behind.
They emerged into a small crater, the portal sitting in the center of it with sand all around, the sky dark above them as the moon stared down.
"Where is this?" Xephos asked as he climbed out of the crater. Peculier was already standing at the top.
"Some kind of harsh deserted desert landscape." Honeydew stated as he and Xephos stood beside Peculier.
"Where are we? Beyond the Wall?" Peculier wondered.
"Probably." Xephos said. Sand reached for miles all around, and spattered in copses around the portal were spindly forms of sandstone, petrified trees, bare of any leaf. "There's weird sandy trees all around the place. Where the heck are we? Can your eyes see anything, Honeydew?" Xephos asked.
". . .Yeah, there's something over there." Honeydew said. He pointed left of the portal, where between two groups of sandstone trees some large grey structure sat on the flat dunes. "It looks like there's a flag." he said, starting for it. They walked with caution across the sand in the light of the moon, passing between the two copses and towards the mass of crumbling grey stone. "Is it ruins?" Honeydew asked as they neared. They approached a broken wall, the stumps of stone towers and a keep behind it. From the top of the wall there hung a banner, stirring in the wind. On it was the crimson cross of the Templars, bleached by the sun and torn woefully. Below it a set of badly corroded bronze plaques were bolted to the wall, identical to the ones outside Verigan's Hold.
"Oh no. . ." Peculier gasped at the sight of the flag.
"What." Honeydew said. "We're not at Verigan's Hold are we!?" he cried.
"No, wait." Xephos said as he pulled from his pocket his pebble of glowstone. He held the light over the shadowed signs, and read them. "It's not Verigan's." he sighed. "It says something else; Lastwatch Hold."
"Lastwatch? So it's another hold." Honeydew said, turning to Peculier. "Are there are a series of holds? Did this one fall?" he asked.
"Lastwatch." Peculier asked. "It cannot be!" he yelled.
"Wait, if this is a castle on the Wall, where's the Wall?" Xephos said as he looked beyond the wall for the huge in a landscape totally flat save for the petrified trees. "Oh shit, has it fallen here already?"
"No," Peculier said firmly. "Lastwatch was the only Wall Bastion to exist beyond the Wall rather than behind it. It served as a dispatch for scouting parties into the sands."
"So the Wall is that way?" Xephos said, turning and looking away from the flag. "Oh, I see the Wall there, just over the treetops!" he said as he saw the merlons jutting over the branches of the sandstone trees, the Wall itself far distant.
"It's intact then?" Peculier asked.
"It looks to be so." Xephos nodded. "Oh gods, there's a massive mountain of sand up against it though." he said. Through the gaps in the trees saw in the distance a huge dune rising up to the top of the Wall, rearing like a beast, frozen in time.
"Amazing, we have traveled a thousand miles in only a few moments." Peculier sighed as he stared towards the Wall. "Looks like were were too late to stop the sand getting past the Wall here."
"Are you okay, Peculier?" Xephos asked.
Peculier stared at the Wall for a moment, then turned to face Xephos. "I came here once. Long ago." he said.
"Oh, the memories." Honeydew said.
The old man looked up at the flag, lit by the light of the moon. He shrugged off the cold air of the desert night, then looked back at the Wall. "Lastwatch was one of the most important Wall Bastions. I cannot know if or when it fell, nor if it was still in use, or abandoned like so many other of the Bastions. But now the whole castle is beneath our feet. If we do not stop Israphel, the whole world will look like this, millions will suffocate to death under the sand." he said, taking a seat at the foot of the wall bearing the flag. "Heroes, I must rest a moment, but I shall tell you my story of what took place after I left you at Mistral and then again after we saved the Wall." he breathed out deeply, removed his helmet and stared into space. Xephos and Honeydew sat too upon the coarse sand in the moonlight as Peculier began his tale. "You two have done what I could not, you have united the four map fragments."
"Well, we had some help along the way." Honeydew said as Xephos shushed him into silence.
Peculier continued.
"I am sorry for keeping this story from you, and you deserve to know it. Ever since Daisy was taken from me that night in Terrorvale months ago I have been different. My heart is like shards of glass in my chest, but I now have a new strength, and also an understanding. But in order for me to tell this tale in full, I must start at the beginning."
My sister Isabella and I never knew our parents. Not really. Out father was a City Guard in Mistral, but we lived away from the city and he was often away from our home defending the town. But our mother I am only able to remember in flashes; dark-haired, kind, and very loving. But it was on one fateful night in out coastal home that everything changed."
I was only of four years old, and all I can remember is driving rain, lightning and a terrible pale face. He took our mother that night, took her into whatever dark place he inhabits. Soon after my father left us too. I can only assume that he tracked Israphel back to the portal that we found below Mistral, and there went after him, destroying the portal from the other side."
We were left in the care of Adaephon, but his duties as a Templar were too trying on him, and he entrusted us to the care of Gwendolyn Bacon, or as you know her, Granny Bacon. She raised my sister and I well, but I was forever haunted by the image of the pale face that I saw in our home the night our mother was taken. I vowed to find out what had happened to our parents, and I traveled the length of the Wall, asking at each of the seven great Wall Bastions, finding nothing, but eventually learning the story of Verigan Antioch, and his sacrifice to save the world, and his son Karpath, who vanished after setting up the Templars."
Xephos gave a start when he recalled the vision they'd had aboard Isabel's ship, in which Verigan had said that Peculier was his descendant. He remembered he and Honeydew's decision to remain quite about it, and hoped that the dwarf remembered it too.
"The years passed and the trail of my father, already cold, grew frigid. Here was the time that I began to age unnaturally, and was held in the grip of paralysing nightmares. I found myself growing weaker and weaker. Finally, weary, old beyond my time and barely able to wield a sword, I fled to the town of Terrorvale to live out the rest of my short days as a lowly innkeep. There, unexpectedly, my life turned around for the first time. I fell in love with a young blacksmith, and for a time the nights were not as cold."
But it appeared that I was unable to escape my past, and Israphel was not done taking the ones I loved from me. Before long people started disappearing from the tiny town, many of my friends were among them. The reverend, who we now know was in the service of Israphel, named his son after his master, and the child vanished soon after. The nightmares returned soon after too, worse then ever, and I started to loose hours of my time, sometimes days, to my confusion. Daisy grew distant from me, and I began to grow paranoid that I was being controlled by him, and was responsible for the disappearances. I then made the most cowardly decision I've ever made. To end my miserable life. I brewed a potent poison, and wandered outside of the town to kill myself. But before I could drink it, you two arrived."
"Woah, what!?" Honeydew cried. "You were about to poison yourself!? I thought that you just hung out by the entrance to greet people! What the hell!"
"You saved my life by appearing when you did. Remember I took you back to my inn? Well, at first I though to poison the fermented milk I gave you, so frantic was my paranoia. But, I realised that your hearts were too pure to have been tainted by the power of the pale faced man. Instead, I helped you as I could to rid Terrorvale of the corruption. But just as my spirit was returning, something so terrible happened that my heart shattered like glass. Daisy. . .was gone." he sighed. "He had taken her, just as he had taken my mother. It was then that I understood. I understood everything. I cast away the poison and followed after her. Until then I had hated my father for abandoning us, but now I felt as he had when our mother was taken. He too had lost the love of his life to the darkness. Since then I have been different, I have understood what had driven my father to search for her, and what is worth dying for."
We chased Israphel through the tunnels below Terrorvale to the portal near your home, but at our arrival, you two were put to sleep and before my eyes fell through a fissure in space to a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. Unable to follow either you or Israphel through the portal, I sought the help of Lysander in Mistral City. I convinced him to use his airship to help us to scour the land in search of you. We had no luck, but then the freighter airship the Militans returned to Mistral, and brought news of a tiny island in the South-East Seas where it'd seen two figures waving up at them, begging for help. I pressed them for descriptions, and was sure that this was you two that were being described. Lysander and I set out in the Celaeno to rescue you, crossing over the Sands, where we found you on that tiny island beyond the shores where the ocean meets the desert. You will remember the storm that blew us off course and around Mistral, where we crashed near your home, recently destroyed."
I then guided you on our journey to Mistral City, but my weakness returned on the journey, and you saved my life a second time by seeking out the wizard Fumblemore for a potion that would return my strength. You risked your lives and dignity to gather the ingredients, and shamed me for my cowardice. But there it did not end, for you helped me to recover my father's blade, venturing deep into the catacombs under Mistral, where we found the portal that he had entered and destroyed. When we uncovered my father's note, I felt great sadness, but also immense purpose. My father was dead, but I could avenge him by seeking out the portals of Israphel and shut them down, lest their taint spread to all that is good in this world."
I knew then that I must seek out Adaephon, and that is when I left you, amidst the burning ruins of Mistral. I do not know what it was that you found in the crumbling ruin of the Old Castle, save one thing, a fatal blow to the Enemy's plan: the first piece of the strange map. I sought out Adaephon at Verigan's Hold, but the news was little better than the sight of Mistral City burning; it was under siege by the undead! I fought alongside Adaephon, but in hearing that the Wall had been breached, set off and left instructions with him to send you after me when he found you. The Wall was damaged badly, and I had barely managed to make sense of how it happened when I was beset upon by creatures of the night. I took refuge in an abandoned guard tower to tend to my wounds while awaiting your return. I shan't recall the Battle of the Breach, for I am sure that you remember it well."
After we parted ways again, while you sought additional pieces of the map, I traveled to Icaria, in search of Fumblemore, who'd taken up residence there after the Fire of Mistral. He was the only one who was old enough to remember the construction of the Wall, and therefore may be able to enlighten me to how it may have fallen. Fortunately he was in one piece after the Fire, though little to say for hie tower, which he managed to spirit away from the city, albeit upside-down. He told me of the pact that Verigan made with the dwarves of Stoneholm. I traveled there immediately, but was captured by the corrupted dwarves."
"Good effort." Honeydew chuckled.
"They held me for weeks before you two arrived, but I remained vigilant, and at long last you two found me." Peculier said with an air of finality. "And yes, we may have defeated Finbar, but now that Wall has fallen we need to pull this weed out by it's roots. But entering the desert here will do us no good. We need supplies; food and water, and also Adaephon, to restore the map."
"We need to get to Verigan's then." Xephos said with a yawn. "I'm sorry, but if we don't move soon, I'll fall asleep. All that time sleeping properly in Skyhold has ruined my ability to stay awake for ungodly times on end."
"Come then, we must return through the portal and find another." Peculier said. His speech over, he stood, put on his helmet and began for the portal, purple light glowing across the plain of sand. "What are you waiting for? The world isn't going to save itself!" he called. Honeydew and Xephos leapt to their feet and raced after Peculier, the banner of the Templars flapping from the fallen walls of Lastwatch as they leapt back through the portal, the icy eye of the moon staring down.
Author's Notes:
This one is really short due to the majority of the episode being a massive monolog by Peculier in the desert, but as compensation the next two episodes are 24 & 32 minutes each, so they'll be properly long.
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