Book 9: Chapter 2 - Lost Isle of the Necromancer

After a brief discussion, the Ravens made their way down the tunnel. Eventually, it led to a set of stairs heading up, a set of stairs that ended inside on open sarcophagus in the middle of a sealed crypt with only one other exit, a door sealed with some sort of wax. The air was stale but breathable and the party began investigating the room, starting with the rune-marked door; all of the symbols appeared to have been inscribed by a different hand.

The arcane symbol for “portal” was etched next to the symbol for Eox the Dead, the once-thriving world separated from Golarion by the unimaginable void of the night sky. (legends said that Eox had been destroyed when a magical war led to the destruction of the very air they breathed); above that was the Darkland warning for “bad air” and a rune once used by an ancient seafaring nation stating “All Dead Here.”

After finding a collection of magical candles that offered protection, they unsealed the door and found themselves standing on the edge of a world that had had the very life sucked away from it. There was no air and the sun was a small yellow sphere on the horizon.

A circle of engraved silver that marked a boundary roughly twenty feet away from the walls of the crypt. Outside of that circle, ravenous zombies and blue-boned skeletons roamed the blasted landscape, thousands of them milling around, undead dinosaurs and giants looming over the rest. Everything was eerily quiet and subdued, even the moaning of the undead was hushed.

They spied a small stone building on the other side of a dry riverbed about a quarter mile down a gentle slope. There was no way to count how many undead stood between them and the building but the space immediately surrounding it looked clear of danger.

Using magic to disguise themselves, the party began making their way through the blasphemous mob. Totally ignored by the mindless beasts around them, they were halfway down the slope before a larger, more dangerous undead creature caught sight of them; flying overhead, a black shadow that resembled nothing less than a gigantic manta ray made of darkness began moving closer.

The Ravens were able to make it to the open area at the base of the hill; some type of magic kept the undead at bay but hungrier dead were beginning to test the magics that protected them. Luckily, the door to building was not locked, revealing a second crypt identical to the first, except that the stone coffin here was covered by a heavy stone lid.

Isa's strength easily moved the lid aside; a heady gust of wind blew out from the sarcophagus, each person smelling something different in the breeze. Beneath the lid was another set of stairs leading down.

The stairs and tunnel here were another mirror-image of the first ones they had traveled through; a set of stone stairs ended at a patch of velvet darkness, a tapestry of shadow. Beyond that darkness, according to the inscriptions on the top steps, was “Aucturn the Strange,” the furthest world from Golarion, and a world that is supposed to be unreachable from any other world. Other symbols promised danger and death at the inhuman hands of the Great Old Ones.

With an army of undeath waiting at their backs, the Ravens moved through the darkness, stepping out into a desert of black sand.

It was impossible to tell if it was day or night; what first looked to be the moon may have been the sun; a tiny and pale circle barely lighting the sky. Off on the horizon, a huge blue moon; a very large moon was brighter than the distant star. The sky seemed to ripple and tear like cloth. They tasted the colors behind the tear and felt their minds start to shut down against the impossibility of it all. Averting their eyes, they saw strange mountains in the distance but they looked...wrong...as if the shadows had more substance than the stone they mountains were made of.

Trying to ignore the madness creeping at the edge of their vision, they saw a stone tower about half a mile away; a flicker of light flared at the

top, possibly a torch or campfire in the distance.

Making their way across the desert was like walking through a nightmare. Dengar jogged ahead, only to find himself behind the rest. The breeze that blew across the desert smelled of the ocean but there was no water in sight. Echoing across the sky was the sound of distant fluting. Things seem to shift beneath the sand, moving out from beneath their feet as they walked. A huge patch of sand to their west sank and dance, a portion of the horizon shifting slightly as something seemed to descend. Bizarre jellyfish seemed to swim through the air, attacking the few clouds above, then disappearing into gaps in the sky.

Finally, they reached the tower; it was encircled by a ringed stairway that led up and up. The black, onyx-like stone of the tower seemed to be subtly moving, as if taking a breath and a deep pulsing, like a heartbeat, seemed to thrum through the stone.

At the top of the tower, a heatless torch burned next to yet another sarcophagus, this one without a lid. As before, the floor of the coffin was a stairwell.

The Ravens descended.