What is the purpose of the collection spell? What use could the trinkets, salvage and trash be to those that live there?

"None. The dregs of mankind were meant to be collected there so that they would not fall into Dark. It was a responsibility of the City."

Was the original owner of the Old Leo Ring and the Dragonslayer Spear also a Lion Clan Warrior?

"Yes. One of the golden warriors, the tribal chieftains."

Perhaps the War God, in addition to dragonslaying and dragonriding, had a penchant for dragonbreeding?

"Well, I can't say with confidence that the family of half-dragons didn't originate from his mighty spear."

We thought we would have to fight through the whole castle, but we found a shortcut in one of the buildings standing apart. It was a chapel, almost wholly ruined so that we could see nothing of the gods that had been worshiped there. On the rooftop, we found a mask resembling a crow's beak and a crescent medallion.

More importantly, we found the elevator which should have descended into the Shrine of Amana. We rose to Syan's balcony and followed the path back into the castle. I didn't realize it yet, but walk that path backward yourself. Doesn't it resemble the other path, to the Church at the bottom of the Heap?

Rising up from a crypt. Taking the narrow path over the swamp. The golem-knight and his lightning in place of the statue of the Lord. The kneeling knights with their polearms held high. The sign of greenery. The caged songstress.

Part of the chasm had broken through the castle here. Instead of the actual elevator in the castle, there was a larger, older elevator like the one which leads to the Undead Crypt. It took some work to unjam the mechanism, but the chains were still good. After a quick inspection, I found it was fit for service. The only problem was that we could only send one squad up at a time. And it was a long ride.

This wasn't the sort of geography we saw when I was with the King. Certainly not his own castle, but no truly small indoor areas or necessary elevators. This sort of thing would have completely crippled his attempt. For us, it was only a minor inconvenience. Was that also the magic of the Dreg Heap?

I went up first, along with Vid the Gyrm, a couple of heavily-armored guards, a sorceress, and an "acrobat" who definitely wasn't a catburglar. Togther, the team would be prepared for whatever was up there. If the elevator broke down midway through, I could perform an emergency stop by whatever means.

Now, the elevator itself was fine. We reached the top without issue, not even whiplash from stopping too quickly. We emerged into a cage, but the gate was open. Carefully, we followed a spiral stair upward, the stone wall of the structure having given way to expose the open air far above the sea.

We emerged into a small field with a higher hilltop. Another cage was dug into its side, but there seemed to be nothing there. We rose to the top, under an old, dead tree. There was a firepit in the center and a lonely, cold bonfire.

It was either a godsend or a devilish trap. I sent the burgl– acrobat back down to summon Mytha and the rest of our forces. I took the time to look around. On one side was the open sea, and on the other was an aqueduct like the old Heidish ones spread across Drangleic. It stretched up along the side of the heap and led into further ruins.

The sea wind whipped at me, and the sun glinted over the top of the Heap. It almost felt like home. Like Majula. Imagine my surprise when I turned to the lower ruins adjacent the aqueduct and found my old home street. The real Majula had ended up in the Heap, crushed into the side of this cliff ruin.

I passed word to my adjutant and spent some time in the ruins of my parents' home. I collected my father's tools – or what was left of them – and sat there at the forge. Eventually, Mytha came to find me.

"I suspect you are not merely inspecting the premises," she said.

"This would have been mine one day," I told her. "I only had sisters, and they weren't exactly thrilled to learn the trade like I was." I thought for a minute before saying, "I was lucky, I guess. I never had to worry about being married off or anything.

My old man would have liked you. He wasn't an inventor by any means, but he was clever about what he knew, and he always put in the extra effort. Mama… well, she made sure we didn't lose any fingers." I took a breath before finishing, "I never found out what happened to them."

"That is nothing appropriate ingenuity won't solve," she said as she tucked her spear under one arm and gave me a hand up. "We merely need to coerce the brightbugs to show us the path to that past."

Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. This sounds like an "I want you to ask my father's permission to marry me," and it might have subconsciously been. A little. But Mytha and I weren't together yet.

That said, we'd definitely gone something like six months spending every day together without sleep. We could probably finish each other's sentences at that point. Mytha was a little clingy, as I've said, but it wasn't like we were stuck together, and we didn't always get along. Like that time she wasted two weeks carving a new statue of the God of War instead of doing anything useful.

"Nonsense," Mytha says, crossing her arms. "If I had been slain without leaving behind such an icon, then the image of Lord Dragonborn may have passed from the world altogether. Even the lion clan did not recall his appearance after so many generations. The knowledge was obscure, even in Shulva's great libraries before its collapse. Surely, you do not agree with the Nameless Moon's historical reductionism."

"No, you're right. Losing too much history is part of why the level of technology regressed so much from the so-called gods' time. It just felt a little frivolous when we were preparing for a small war. You could have at least made it a golem. I don't think the God of War would have minded a statue that could also do battle."

"Dear, you know that would have increased the production time far more than we could budget."

"Yeah, fair."

Well, after talking, we headed up the aqueduct. The passage was too narrow and low for even the smaller siege devices we'd brought, so I and Vid used some very carefully placed blasting charges to blow the top off. It's not like anybody needed the water at this point.

From there, the lion clan carried our devices up the stairs, and we continued beneath a giant circular wall carved into the cliffside. That is to say, there was more than one "ringed city." Rather, that was the norm at one point.

Well, whatever the town was, it had been filled with the poisonous gases of Harvest Valley. Most of the hollows there couldn't endure it and had already collapsed. We were able to pass through easily, only having to fight some of Aldia's "enhanced undead." We encountered a few sorceresses and undead taskmasters who were amazed to meet the real Queen Mytha after so long. We were hesitant, but we ultimately allowed them to join us.

We climbed to the top of the wall, where the new sorceresses warned us that a terrible dragon of flame awaited. Turned out, it was just a wyvern. It even looked suspiciously like one of Aldia's. Well, it wasn't much of a problem. I ordered my team to set boltstones, and we opened fire. The overgrown lizard didn't last one volley.

Beneath its perch, we found a bonfire, and we all attuned to it. The bonfire happened to be beneath a statue of a mother and child. The mother wore a tiara, and the child clung to a sword. I didn't pay it any attention, but Mytha paused and stared at the worn features.

"Berengel?" she said. "This isn't Venn. What is this place which would have a statue of her?"

"Are you sure?" I asked. "An ancestor, maybe?"

"If it is, the resemblance is uncanny. I rarely admit to this, but I was older than I looked, even before my transformation. The thin dragon's blood in Shulva's line grants us longevity to guarantee twelve decades or more. Berengel should have been the natural-born daughter of the old King of Venn. Yet, I wonder."

I shrugged and threw my hands up: "Well, now you'll have something in common beyond a husband if you ever speak with her again."

Mytha snorted and let the topic drop as a commotion broke out among the lion clan. We headed out to an open courtyard which overlooked the Heap below. On top of the wall here, the poison was either thin or gone. There were hollows in the yard, but they were all at rest. Some were praying.

Sure enough, on a pedestal in the center of the balcony was a broken statue of the God of War. The lion clan, having seen "signs" of the god all throughout the journey, were ecstatic and so would be useless until they calmed down.

"We're taking a break!" I yelled. "Perform routine maintenance on all equipment!"

We weren't exactly operating with the discipline of a professional army. Our "troops" each had their own culture. It's not like we were paying them or had any power over them. Aside from the manikins, they were all here for their own reasons. We'd done exercises to make sure they didn't accidentally kill each other, but that was the extent of it.

It didn't take me any time at all to review that my equipment was in order, even the new prototype I'd been saving for a special occasion. Mytha was leading the lion clan in a more formal prayer than they were used to, while Aldia's team were scavenging for anything which might actually be related to the god. The remainder were either continuing maintenance or resting their feet.

I spent some time walking about. There was a pile of stones near the broken statue – probably a grave marker. Stuck in between some of them was a large, bright red feather. Since this place was already long lost, I didn't imagine anyone would be visiting the grave again, so I took the feather.

By then, Mytha's sermon had ended, and she gave me a disapproving look. I twirled it once in my fingers and extended it to her.

"Oh, no. It's for you," I said. "Better for you to have it than some forgotten warrior. Don't you think it'd look striking as a hair ornament? You're still one-hundred percent green on green. I know there's no need for armor with your scales, but I'm surprised you don't have any accessories."

"How true," she said, taking it. "I may be royalty no longer, but I suppose I have forgotten that presence is a worthy skill of its own. My thanks, for your thoughtful gift."

She tucked the feather in her hair, and we ordered our small army back to its feet. Fighting our way through the ruined grounds of what seemed a church was no great issue. There were hollow knights, their limbs bound together with stray roots of the great tree which runs through the Dreg Heap, but their numbers were few.

More importantly, I had been here before. There was a bell in that church steeple, one the King had to ring. Or… there had been, when the church still had a steeple. It seemed that Earthen Peak had slammed down on top of the building. It was anyone's guess how the church remained standing under the weight. Maybe the tree roots helped.

Well, I would have expected that we'd have to fight some horrid force of bellkeepers, mad and terribly powerful servants of Ferran from his days as a prince. When we entered, there was no trace of them, nor any sign the King had been there. Was that also part of the magic of the Dreg Heap, to just swallow everything that didn't belong?

We climbed the church and up into the real windmill. The manikins of course fell in line when their mistress ordered, more than replacing the losses we'd suffered. We even got a few more sorceresses. With these sorts, you can never really trust their priorities. I think most just latched onto us as a means of escaping the Heap.

At least one did seem earnest – Zoey, I believe. She'd even developed a new pyromancy she was proud of showing to the famous Mytha her foremothers had worshiped. It was refreshing to see someone from the Heap who wasn't already half-hollow. Her naive need to prove herself was cute.

There wasn't really anything in the tower that we needed, so we continued upward.