A caravan of horses steadily made their way across the desert, heading north. Ioanna looked up from atop her steed, and couldn't help but shield her eyes. The crystal blue sky was cloudless and clear: strangely beautiful, but provided them absolutely no respite from the blistering desert sun. The indistinct outline of rocky outcroppings just ahead were barely visible through the heat haze. Only silhouettes of the jagged knife-like spires of the mountains beyond managed to rise above the shimmering air, with the immense volcano far, far to the north towering above all.
"How much further, y'think?" Jamila called out from a spot ahead of Ioanna.
"Probably a half day's ride," came Jakkad's reply. "We should arrive at the wall of broken pillars, and the edge of the desert, by nightfall."
"The 'edge' of the desert?" Hunter Ophelia asked.
"There is... it's like a line, just beyond the wall." Jakkad said simply. "The sands abruptly give way to grasslands and... trees. Even the temperature drops sharply. It is unnatural."
"Like everything else in the Exiled Lands," Samar muttered out with a grim laugh.
"Do we even know what's waiting for us out there?" Ioanna asked. She glanced off to the side, where Tuera's horse was keeping pace. The raven-haired woman didn't look like she was paying attention, and was instead focused on a piece of parchment in her hands.
"Death, most likely," Shevatas grunted. "The nordheimer barbarians who've laid claim to those forests didn't take kindly to desert rats, last time I ventured that far north. Haven't been back since."
"Don't forget the undead!" Monty piped in from his spot on Tuera's back. "It's the ancient battlefields we're trying to find, after all. I think we'll have more to worry about from those bony bastards than any humans, no matter how uncouth or belligerent."
An uncomfortable silence snaked its way through the group at this outburst from the staff. No one said anything for quite some time, and the only sound was the steady trot of hooves upon stone. But then:
"What's that smell?" Obsun asked, loudly sniffing the air.
At first, no one but Tuera knew what he was talking about. But then an extremely pungent odor reached the rest of them, just as the convoy approached a nearby ridge. It was a truly foul, repugnant stench, like the stink of rotten eggs, and it heralded the arrival of a strange tree. It appeared out of nowhere in front of them through the heat-haze, and was a twisted, gnarled, bone-white thing. Thin branches, like stretched out fingerbones on the end of twisted and broken arms, splayed out from the trunk at ugly angles. It looked like someone had tried to burn the tree to ash, but it stubbornly refused to crumble into dust.
"We're close to Shattered Springs," Jakkad said from his spot at the fore, as the group climbed higher and higher up the ridge. "From here, we'll head northwest, through the canyons and past the wall."
The convoy of horses crested the ridge, passing the dead tree, and the group were greeted by the source of the smell: dozens of large pools flooded with scummy, yellowish-green water filling a flat basin, separated from each other by jagged clusters of rocks sticking out of the earth. The ground itself looked cracked and sunken, as if a giant of immense stature had simply reached in and scooped out large chunks of the earth. It gave this field (easily a mile wide in diameter) a subtle basin-like shape. Thin clouds of gas – the same swirling colors as the water in the pools – hung heavy in the air and shimmered in the heat. And the tree from earlier was not alone: the field was littered with them, each one more twisted and malformed than the last.
"What did you call this place?" Ioanna asked weakly, covering her nose and mouth with a hand to try and block the awful stench.
"Shattered Springs," Jakkad replied. "Though, I have heard some call it a petrified forest. Because of the trees..."
"They're not trees," Tuera said, finally looking up from her parchment and drawing the attention of everyone. "Look close. They have faces. These were people."
Ioanna's eyes went wide, and she turned to look back at the nearest "tree." At first, she couldn't tell what Tuera was talking about... but then, she saw it. It was faint, but she could almost make out shapes within the stony bark: indentations for a mouth and a pair of eyes, wide open, as if silently screaming. It was mangled, almost melted, half-hidden by striations in the... she couldn't really call it bark anymore, could she? She tried to dismiss it as a trick of the light, especially since she saw more than one face in the tree...
Tuera, meanwhile, had no doubts in her mind that these were bodies. This whole place – this fumarole field sitting in an obvious crater – reminded her of that final confrontation with her father, when she finally killed him for good. Fighting him after he'd been brought low and made mortal once again, ripped out of the god he had tried to become, surrounded by the calcified remains of what had once been his flesh. These bodies had been flash-fried by something immensely powerful, fusing them together, preserving these pour souls in their final moments of terrified agony for all time.
"She's right, y'know!" Monty blurted out, red eyes flashing with every syllable. "Unless I'm much mistaken, this is the site of a very one-sided battle from the old war." The snake staff paused, and then started laughing to itself. "Well, I say 'battle' but it was more of a massacre, really! My old masters had mustered an army of slaves, and they didn't even get halfway to where they were going before they were wiped out to a man!"
"What even happened here?" Shevatas asked, staring out at the field with a worried expression.
"No one knows!" Monty said, his cheery tone a sharp contrast to the implied slaughter ahead of them. "There weren't any survivors to explain what happened. Even the Triumvirate were stumped when they heard about it. The three of them tried to cover it up, of course. Called it a 'natural subsidence of the earth' or some such nonsense, and 'don't ask questions.' But that's because they were terrified."
"We shouldn't linger here too long," Tuera interrupted the staff on her back. "All this hydrogen sulfide in the air is dangerous." At this, nearly everyone turned, giving her odd looks of confusion.
"What?" Ioanna asked, and Tuera cursed under her breath. The words had just slipped out, before she could stop herself. So, Tuera started to rack her brain, trying to think of what the people of the Hyborian Age might call this particular chemical...
"Brimstone," she settled on eventually, after a brief hesitation. "That's what's causing the smell in the air, that rotten egg stench." She gestured with her hands, a bit unnecessarily, as if wafting the air around her face. "It's a dangerous gas in high concentrations. Poisonous. Corrosive. Highly flammable. If we're not careful, a single spark could probably set this entire field alight."
"We should probably keep moving, then," Obsun grunted. A chorus of agreements followed, and soon the convoy of horses started to skirt along the outer edges of the crater.
"So, you say no one knows what happened..." Tuera eventually said, turning her head to face the snake staff strapped to her back. "But what do you think happened?"
"It's like I told you before, I don't know..." he began.
"I didn't ask what you know," Tuera said firmly. "I'm asking what you think." Several of the group – Shevatas in particular – turned their heads to listen in on the conversation. Not that they were trying to be quiet, anyway.
"Well..." Monty began, drawing out the syllables of the word. "The Witch Queen of Lemuria was powerful. An incredibly powerful sorceress, on par with my old master. Possibly even surpassing him in many respects. And the thing is, she never really 'cast spells,' so much as 'committed atrocities.' When she used magic, everyone would know about it. It was the sort of magic that always ended with hundreds dead and a national day of remembrance!" The snake staff started laughing. "So, casting some manner of spell to wipe out an entire army in a single act? Yeah, that certainly tracks with her M.O., and it isn't out of the question..."
"But?" Tuera asked, guessing there was more to the story.
"... but it wasn't the magic of the Witch Queen that won the war against the Giant-Kings," Monty said, in a tone that had suddenly become serious. "Oh, no. It was the 'strange sciences' they brought to the table. The weapons of war they built, which far outclassed anything the Triumvirate brought to bear. It's entirely possible that this army was wiped out by one such weapon..."
A hushed silence fell over the group once more, as their horses pressed onward.
"What... what manner of weapon could do... this?" Ioanna asked, looking out with renewed horror at the thousand year old crater filled with petrified corpses once again.
Tuera knew the answer, of course. There were many weapons and explosives she could think of – even off the top of her head – that might produce a result like this place. Plenty of spells that could do the same thing, as it happened. But she said nothing... because none of those options were local. At least, as far as she knew. If Monty was correct, and these "weapons of war" were what she thought they were, then not only was it possible the Witch Queen was more powerful than anything else she had seen or encountered thus far in the Exiled Lands, but it also meant the Lemurians were far more technologically advanced than the time period would suggest. And both those thoughts just raised more questions.
"This Witch Queen..." Tuera began, slowly pulling at an errant thread in her mind. "Is it possible that she's still alive?"
By now, even Jakkad had turned his attention toward Tuera and Monty. Everyone was urging the horses forward, practically on instinct, as they listened.
"Anything is possible, certainly..." Monty said with a chuckle and a flicker in his crimson eyes. "How likely it might be is another matter entirely. On the one hand, she was a Lemurian. And at the end of the day, that's just a fancy name for another tribe of you humans. Kind of like the Atlanteans. They may have built a civilization in the ocean, but physically? They're the same as the rest of you apes. And a thousand years is a bit of an ask for any squishy mortals, no matter what they choose to call themselves..." Monty started chuckling to himself.
"But she was the Witch Queen," Tuera said, saying aloud what was clearly on the minds of everyone. Monty's laughter continued.
"She was, indeed. And we both know that there is plenty of magic out there that can extend one's lifespan long past the natural expiration date." A grim silence fell over the group, as the implication began to sink in... but then: "All that being said, I doubt she's still alive!"
"How can you be certain?" Jakkad asked, narrowing his one good eye as he spoke.
"Because I remember the Witch Queen well, as I said!" Monty laughed again, his words taking on a slightly salacious air. "Oh-hoh, yes! She was powerful and beautiful... and not opposed to the occasional orgy! I remember some of the rituals she performed... writhing naked upon the altar of Dagon! Her followers, all of them, giving themselves over to the rites of ecstasy! Her firm grip upon my shaft during those blood-soaked moments! Oh! Stiff and unyielding to her sorcerous ministrations! Oh, gods!" The voice of the snake staff seemed to quail with delight, until:
"Rein it in, loverboy," Tuera said with a firm annoyance, and Monty suddenly realized that everyone was still looking at him. Slowly, and with obvious embarrassment, he tried to calm himself down.
"I... er... uh..." The staff coughed awkwardly. "Forgive me. Got a bit caught up in the moment, there!" He coughed again, trying to hide it with a single chuckle. "Look, the point is: that sultry minx was never one for subtlety. And I am... fairly certain... that if the Witch Queen was still around? Chances are, we'd know about it already."
The further north the convoy traveled, the more the landscape began to shift. At first, the sands of the desert gave way to jagged rocks and narrow, twisting canyons, leading them higher and higher. But through the cracks in the canyon, they started to see far more plant life: grasslands to the west, dense shrubs, and far more trees than they were used to. It would've almost reminded Tuera of savannas like the Serengeti, if it weren't for all the yucca plants. They looked like Joshua Trees – the specific breed of that plant that could only be found in the Mojave desert – and their presence here just raised even more questions in her mind, to go with all the others. Just one more oddity in this place.
Eventually, the canyon opened up, and deposited the group at the base of a large wall of nighted stone: exactly like the walls surrounding the Giant-King's capital city. The edifice was broken and crumbling in places, and the few giant statues were worn down from a thousand years of neglect. A curved arch, decorated with hieroglyphs and pictograms, was built into the side of the wall, creating an entrance to a tunnel which led to the other side.
Most striking of all, however, was the stelae situated on top of the structure. It was unmistakably one of the boundary markers for the ghostfence Tuera had seen so often here in the Exiled Lands... but this one was different. It was destroyed. The massive stone marker looked like it had been roughly broken in half, with huge chunks of stone scattered at its base. More than that, she could not see the shimmering green energy barrier anywhere nearby...
"We should set up camp, before it gets too dark," Jakkad said, scanning the area with his one good eye as he spoke. "There: that tunnel should provide decent shelter."
One by one, the group dismounted their horses and started to settle in. After some time, however, Tuera noticed an absence among their number: Hunter Ophelia was nowhere to be seen. The horse they had been riding was here, tied up with the others, but they were suspiciously absent.
"I'll be back soon," Tuera said aloud, moving away from the campsite towards the north end of the tunnel. "I'm going to scout ahead, see what I can find." She didn't even wait for an acknowledgment before turning on her heel and making her way to the exit... and when she arrived at the other side, the sight before her brought her to a sudden stop.
"... huh," she said aloud. "When Jakkad said it was like a line where the desert suddenly ended, he really wasn't kidding, was he?"
The landscape beyond the wall looked like a forest of conifer trees. Instead of sands and dry stone, there was dark soil (still damp from a recent downpour) and rocky terrain covered in mosses, lichen, and many ferns. Even the temperature was significantly lower than it was on the other end of the tunnel – less than 50 meters away – and there was a tangible moisture lingering in the air, making it seem even colder. Patches of heavy fog lingered in places, and seemed to only get thicker further off in the distance.
"Yeah, this place can certainly be wacky, can't it?" Monty said with a laugh from his spot on her back.
"If I wasn't trapped here, this place would be fascinating," Tuera said, looking around with bemusement as she continued forward. "I mean, I've seen this sort of sharp delineation of biomes on other planets before, and the causes never seem to be the same. If I had to guess, I'd say the leylines underfoot you mentioned the other day are responsible. Either that, or the sandstorm has something to do with it. Maybe both, but..." she paused, shaking her head. "Ugh! If only I had access to all my equipment and my spells! I would love to study this place!"
She trailed off, examining one of the nearby trees. Like so many other things in the Exiled Lands, it was familiar: it looked like some breed of larch, but there was something about it that was subtly off in ways she couldn't pin down. As she reached out to run a pair of fingers across a patch of fungus growing out of the knot-free bark, a noise caught her attention: soft footsteps. Careful, but swift. It was the sound of someone well practiced at remaining hidden. She looked over her shoulder, and sure enough: there was Hunter Ophelia, heading towards the tunnel with something large and furry slung across their back.
"Oh, there you are!" Tuera called out. "I was wondering where you'd disappeared to."
At first, Hunter Ophelia said nothing; they just stared at Tuera from behind their mask with those strangely piercing hazel eyes. But after a minute, they shrugged.
"Found a boar," they said. "Figured Obsun could use it."
"I'm sure he'll be delighted," Tuera said with a laugh, leaning around to get a better look at the surprisingly large beast. Or did it just seem big compared to the one carrying it? "Now I know what you were up to, I'm honestly surprised you're back so quickly! These belligerent little sods will usually put up one hell of a fight." Hunter Ophelia shrugged again.
"Not if they don't see you coming," they said. "Anything dies quick if you stab it in the head. Why do you think I'm called Hunter?"
"I thought that was your name?" Tuera asked, furrowing her brow.
"It is," they said, matter-of-factly, before quickly moving on. "But the boar wasn't all I found."
"Oh?" Tuera asked, as the two of them made their way back into the tunnel and toward the camp.
"There are some ruins to the north," Hunter Ophelia gestured with their head back the way they came. "Not Giant-King. Human. Half sunken in a shallow lake. And I think they're occupied."
"Are you sure?" Tuera asked, ignoring the excited exclamations from Obsun as he was handed the dead boar. "How could you tell?"
"The glow of campfires in the distance," Hunter Ophelia said simply. "Might be a problem." Tuera nodded.
"I agree," Tuera nodded with a smile. "What are we waiting for?"
The two of them set off immediately, leaving the rest of the camp to drool over the descriptions of the many things Obsun was going to cook for them with the dead pig. And at first, neither of them said anything; Tuera was letting Hunter Ophelia take the lead, and kept a hand resting on the hilt of her sword in case they were heading into trouble. But a question was scratching at the back of Tuera's mind, and she decided to take this opportunity to ask.
"So... do you ever take off your mask?"
Hunter Ophelia came to an immediate halt, and looked back with suspiciously narrow eyes.
"Why." The inflection in their voice made it clear that this wasn't a question; it was an accusation.
"Oh, y'know, no reason, really, just... curious," Tuera said quickly, giving a dismissive wave with both hands. "I just... I don't think I've ever seen you take it off, that's all. Even when we're sitting down for a meal..." Several memories flashed through Tuera's mind: when Obsun brought the wine the night after the jailbreak, the breakfast the morning after, the feast at the Waterside Tavern after their return from The Capital... it suddenly hit her that she really had never actually seen Hunter Ophelia so much as eat or drink anything, to say nothing of removing their mask. And, all at once, it struck her as odd. "So... do you?"
Hunter Ophelia continued to stare at Tuera silently for a moment. And then, finally:
"Only around people I trust," they said. And with that, the two of them continued forward.
Tuera started turning this answer over in her mind as they walked. Something about it was compelling her to pursue it, but she did not fully understand why. After all, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable justification. They'd known each other a grand total of... what? Two days? If that? Their only real connection was the same as everyone else on the team: a shared desire to escape the Exiled Lands. And considering how hostile everything in this madhouse had proven, this was a prudent course of action on their part.
Still, something about it was vexing her. Maybe it was simply because, out of everyone Tuera had collected since arriving in the Hyborian Age, Hunter Ophelia was the most secretive. They hardly spoke to anyone, they stuck to the shadows quite often, and anything beyond the most surface-level details was a complete mystery. Tuera didn't even know if they were a man or a woman or...
And at that moment, Tuera came to an abrupt halt, as her mind made a connection. Her eyes went wide as that connection grew into a coherent thought, and then a question. She looked at Hunter Ophelia again, this time with that single question roaming before her:
Are... they like me?
Just as suddenly as it had appeared, she shook her head, and tried to discard the thought. No, she thought. You, of all people, should know not to do that. Trying to guess that about someone from only visual cues and circumstantial evidence – that could barely even be called 'evidence' in the first place – is wildly misleading, extremely insensitive, and usually inaccurate anyway as a best case scenario. And it was usually never a 'best case scenario.'
Don't make assumptions just because you want it to be true.
"Something wrong?" Hunter Ophelia asked, when they realized Tuera had come to a halt.
"Oh! Sorry, sorry," Tuera said, trying once again to wave it off. "Just... lost in thought, you know how it can be, sometimes..."
An awkward silence filled the air between them.
"Hrm," was all Hunter Ophelia said, before they continued forward again.
After a short time trekking through foggy, forested wilderness, the two of them finally got close to the ruins Hunter Ophelia had spoken of. Collapsed stone walls, covered in moss, rose out of sunken pools of inch-high water. All around, the fog seemed to be as thick as the mud beneath their feet. The two of them were surrounded by an overwhelming color palette of grays and damp greens, punctuated by the occasional (and supernaturally vivid) red of a crimson lotus blossom growing out of the ground.
In the center of these ruins was a single campsite, and a man sitting at a bonfire. Hunter Ophelia had vanished into thin air as soon as they got close, but Tuera strode towards the man, hand resting on the pommel of her sword and oozing with confidence. If worse came to worse, she would act as a decent distraction. It's not like she couldn't take a hit, after all. Especially since this man beckoning her forward looked like a normal human being.
Whoever he was, he was sitting on a stump by the fire, completely unbothered at her approach... likely due to his hand resting on the hilt of a truly ridiculous claymore perched atop his shoulder. His square-jawed face was framed by a tousled mane of curly, untrimmed black hair, and he looked at her with a pair of steely blue-grey eyes.
"Greetings tae ye, stranger," the man said as he leaned back in his seat, his deep voice accented by a thick brogue. "An what brings ye tae this gods-cursed corner o' th' world, Exile?"
"Looking for a dead man," Tuera said. The man sitting on the stump let out a hearty guffaw, set a hand on his knee, and stood up to face her.
"Oh, ye will find plenty o' dead men, 'ere. This land is an ancient battlefield. Th' crimson lotus that blossoms in the soil would be proof enough that blood was once spilled 'ere in great quantities... and th' presence o' so many wights stalkin' these lands only confirms it. Though, somethin' tells me those are not the dead men ye are looking tae find."
"I certainly hope not," Tuera said with a chuckle. "My name is Tuera. What's your name, stranger?" he grinned broadly back at her, his mouth a mass of crooked teeth, and adjusted the hold on the claymore resting on his shoulder.
"My name is Braga. I an' me kin hail from the Lowland Clans of Cimmeria."
"Cimmeria, huh? You are certainly far from home..." Tuera said, only guessing that was the case; she wasn't entirely certain of the geography. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a pair of hazel eyes suddenly appear out of the darkness in one of the many ruins behind Braga. A pair of wicked looking daggers swiftly followed, held by this walking shadow of a person. Tuera quickly shook her head as stealthily as she could, and made a subtle gesture with her hand, waving them off; Hunter Ophelia nodded back from the darkness, and seemed to vanish just as swiftly as they had appeared. "So... how did you end up here? If you don't mind me asking."
"An army've Aquilonians dragged us 'ere," Braga sneered. "One day, our neighbors to the south sent a messenger. Said th' lands me clan an' I had been livin' on fer generations were inside their borders... an' we needed to leave. There was a war. We lost. Those've us who survived got clad in these shackles..." he held up his left wrist, showing off a serpent bracelet. "...an' they shipped us off 'ere." Braga snorted, shaking his head. "An' now, ah feel as if ah'm th' only one left still holdin' on tae sanity."
"Only one left? What do you mean?" Tuera asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion. Braga screwed up his face and gestured out to the hills. She peered around him to get a better look, and through the fog she could make out even more ruins, and the faint glow of many more campfires off in the distance.
"Behold!" he growled out in an exhausted tone that seemed to only hint at his true frustration. "The pride of Cimmeria: a pack o' soft-minded, goat-livered idiots, who all think we've died, an' gone to Crom's realm! Naer mind that we marched through a desert tae get here! Naer mind that we still take pleasure an' pain in equal measure! Oh, no! Clearly, we must be in th' afterlife... because et's foggy!" Braga scoffed loudly and shook his head. "Bloody fools..." He looked back up at Tuera with a smirk on his face. "But, somethin' tells me ye aren't 'ere tae listen tae my struggles. Why are ye here?"
"It's as said before," Tuera said with a shrug. "I'm looking for a dead man. A dead king, specifically. I've learned of a possible way to undo the magic of the serpent bracelets trapping us here..." Braga's eyes went wide. "...but several artefacts need to be found first, in order for the ritual to work. One of them – the Diadem of Giant-Kings – is supposedly with the dead king who fell in these lands, centuries ago."
"Dead king..." Braga repeated aloud thoughtfully. He furrowed his brow and started rubbing the stubble on his chin. "Perhaps ets th' tomb ye are lookin' fer?"
"Tomb?" Tuera asked.
"Aye. Ah dinnae know if it has a proper name, but..." He looked off to his right and gestured with the bottom end of his claymore to a spot in the distance. "There is a tomb, built in th' side've a mountain, sealed with a huge stone door. It's the only thing ye will find in th' west, b'fore ye reach th' cursewall. Ah tried tae get inside, but..." He shook his head. "The door is covered in runes. There is some manner 'o spell or curse which prevents entry, an' th' door is sealed. I dinnae hold with witchcraft, so I left it."
"That does sound promising..." Tuera said, a grin appearing on her face. Braga snapped his fingers.
"Oh! B'fore ah forget: ah seem tae recall, there was a dead man at th' entrance. Not ancient, like th' wights, but... recent. It looked as though he was tryin' tae get inside, when he was stabbed in th' back. Perhaps his spirit would have tales tae tell?"
"Perhaps it will..." Tuera said aloud, a plan formulating in her head. And then: "Would you care to join us on this quest?"
"Eh?" Braga looked confused.
"I'm not the only one out here, looking to bring down the cursewall, you know. I'm actually traveling with a party of..." mercenaries "...adventurers. Would you care to join us, and lend that claymore of yours to our cause?" She smiled. "When we do finally lift the curse, you'd be among the first to know. What do you say?"
Braga was silent for a moment, and looked away, deep in thought. But he eventually looked up, and shook his head.
"I... no. Th' offer is tempting, but... ah cannot leave my people. They may be fools tae a man, but, they're still me kin. Ah hold out hope that, one day, ah can convince them tae give up their delusion. Ah'm sure if ah keep at it, they will eventually come tae their senses, an' we can make a plan tae escape this empty place." He let out a heavy sigh. "But ye have no obligation tae me, or my people. An' if what ye say is true, then..."
"I understand," Tuera nodded, holding out her hand. "Good luck, Braga. I do hope you find a way to talk some sense into your clan." Braga looked down uncertainly, before shrugging his claymore off his shoulder, and burying the blade point-first in the damp soil by his feet.
"Good luck tae ye on yer journey, Tuera," he said, firmly grasping her hand with both of his. "Find a way tae bring th' cursewall down. Free us all."