The Vault of Kós Athar, Act I

Sky Day, Virgo 13th, 576CÆ, Year of the Tiger

Players: Rathar the Brash (Carolingian Frank, Berserker of Krimmr), Iodas (Ixian, Barbarian), Frakki (Viking, Shaman of the Musk Ox totem), Aeltrin (Viking, Assassin of Rel), Wulfweard the Sly (Anglo-Saxon, Legerdemainist of Rel)

The clerk at Rook & Rook did not ask questions. One look at the party, one look at the jetton, and she brought them through without a word. Golnai was already seated at the far end of the room when they walked in. He looked at each of them once, the way a man confirms an inventory, and waited until they sat.

The warehouse was settled, he said—his problem resolved. That was the whole of it. The song had done its part, and now he had a job for them.

Fifteen miles into the Forest of Crows there was a pool—black water, perfectly still, no reflection. Beneath it, a vault. His sage had identified it as the Vault of Kós Athar: a Hyperborean scholar whose name appeared in certain texts alongside references to a sealed place, a kept thing, and a threshold built to remain closed. The jewel inside was the size of a baby's head. That jewel was what he wanted. Everything else was theirs. Four hundred gold pieces each on delivery.

Entry was described in a fragment. The original Hyperborean called the pool a veil of inversion, a threshold at which the world folds back on itself. The text's instruction: "give the water everything; the dark does not take the unwilling." His sage had three interpretations of what the author meant by everything. He was not confident in any of them. There was nothing in the texts about how to exit. That was something they would have to determine on the other side.

He set a folded paper on the table—a star-chart bearing and rough map, the best his sage had found. He gave Aeltrin a small red chip with white lettering: a contact in the Crabback, a man named Venkoll. Then he pulled a cord near the wall and the elderly woman reappeared in the doorway and the meeting was over.

The party split. Aeltrin found the Crabback's narrow streets by the chip's mark—a dark shopfront called The Calcine, smelling of sulfur and lamp oil. The proprietor, Venkoll, examined the chip without comment, locked the door, and showed Aeltrin to a back room. He had antitoxins for the giant widows and necrosis salves for the bites that lingered. He also offered to silver weapons, two to three days' work, depending on the number blades. Aeltrin discovered he was short of coin and Venkoll told him to come back in the morning. He did give Aeltrin six globe-shaped collection vials before he left—spider venom, he said, would be worth bringing back.

Rathar brought Iodas to the Proved Iron. Fjölmódr fitted Iodas for new studded leather and sold him two Viking broad swords. Rathar laid the Hyperborean great axe on the counter alongside Brúnn's battle axe and the gladius taken from Haas. Fjölmódr let out a slow whistle at the axe head—at least a century old, possibly more, exceptional even by Hyperborean standards. The gladius he handled more carefully, turned it over in the light, said it was the oldest thing he had ever held—whether that made it Old Earth Roman make he could not say with certainty, only that it was very old, and whoever had been keeping it had done a poor job. Rathar stored the great axe at the Proved Iron. Fjölmódr said he might do a little research. Professional curiosity.

Frakki went to the Fane of Xathoqqua. Oblate Renkell led him back through the tallow-dark to the manuscripts without much ceremony. The history of the Zangerios Islands had nothing useful. The scrolls were more interesting. In the margins of a commentary on pre-Atlantean sorcerous orders, a single line in an unknown hand listed the School of Kós Athar among scholarly traditions that had turned their work toward containment rather than use. A third scroll, badly fire-damaged, referred to Kós Athar directly in the context of the Serpent Men—she had looked upon the works of the Scaled Ones and understood what they were built for. What followed was mostly illegible. One phrase survived: the closing. No elaboration.

Wulfweard found Kersésuchis at her stall in Sigurtz Bazaar. He told her the party was working with Golnai. She set down what she was working on and looked at him. What does he want, she said—not Wulfweard, but Golnai, already looking past him. When Wulfweard explained it was his own initiative, she asked why he was telling her. She said Golnai was not aligned with the Chainless, called it an "interesting wrinkle", and declined to elaborate. Wulfweard inquired about a sage they might meet with to learn more about this vault they were tasked with robbing. She told him to come back tomorrow.

After meeting back at the Golden Lamprey, Rathar led the group across the city to the Lantern Court. He had hopes to speak with Daivorá, who had told him the story of the pool weeks ago. She did not remember the name of the man she had heard it from and had nothing more to add.

They reconvened at the Golden Lamprey. Notes were compared over dinner. The plan: one more day in Port Zangerios—return to Venkoll in the morning for the antitoxins and silvering, Wulfweard to meet with Kersésuchis, then the forest.

At some point in the evening Rathar handed Frakki the battle axe from Brúnn to examine. The moment Frakki's hands closed around it he was somewhere else—a village at midnight, buildings burning, figures in the firelight, screams of terror. He came back to the table almost immediately and sat with it for a moment. When he described what he had seen, one detail stood out. Whoever had been holding the axe then had been chasing, not fleeing.