The three souls wait in the dark, squeezing out the last light they have and reserving it, wondering what happens if the party that's left doesn't get back.
After a day, Lothar wakes on his side. About twenty inches from his gaze, as he opens his eyes, he sees a thin blue flame rising about an inch above the surface of the stone, slowly dancing in place. It is no more than three inches high.
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I stay very still, observing the ghostly flame.
As you watch, it seems to become more and more humanoid, until the flames seem to take the shape of dancing limbs and head. You're not sure if you're not just supposing you're seeing it.
You don't feel any sense of being mesmerized or controlled. You feel perfectly able to close your eyes or change your position.
Fascinating. I continue to watch out of sheer curiosity, attempting to commit to memory as much detail as I can.
As you watch, minutes pass. You see the shape become increasingly more humanoid. It seems to grow a little larger, then bent over, as though it were growing exhausted. It doesn't change its position, but now the dancing begins to look like a slow, suffering walk, from the left to the right.
You sense it is in pain. It seems to shake from being struck from behind. It keeps looking back, over and over, each time a shock wave rolls through it.
There's a tremendous amount of detail, now. You can see the pain in its face. You can see the twisted shape of its limbs; the flame seems more solid, more physically there, but still it is just an inch from the ground, and three inches tall.
Oh no. It's the shade or spirit or something of one of the poor souls forced to march to their deaths along this path, sacrificed to the toad king! I continue watching, now very concerned.
The shape will take the position of having fallen on its knees (still floating), turning to Lothar and beseeching him.
It almost feels like you could touch it.
I reach toward the figure to pick it up.
It does not resist or pull away. As you reach your hand out, it climbs onto your fingers and then melts into your palm, disappearing.
And BLAM, you get an image. You see a wall, of a particular shape; and a rune upon the wall; and a means to manipulate that rune, and step through the wall.
Then you see an enormous, frozen lake, from the top of a cliff looking down. The lake is inside a black cavern, but it glows with a whitish-blue hue. You feel yourself falling forward ...
And the vision is gone.
You're completely sure that the wall, the rune and the lake are past the throne room that you've see. The wall will come first, and the lake long afterwards.
You also know how far away it all is ... but I will reserve that until the rest of the party returns.
Naturally. Oh man, we're definitely going to have to destroy that ring as well...
Wow.
Did the lake in the vision glow with the same color as the flame-spirit? And how does it match with the stone in Embla's ring?
It matches quite closely to the ring. The flame would have been a different blue.
Oh jeez. Now we get to face a whole frozen lake of tortured souls... I don't think Engelhart's high enough level to have a ceremony for that...
Fjall will ask, "What's wrong, Lothar?"
"The ghost flame, I saw it. I saw it too. And I watched it, it's not just a will-o-wisp, it was the spirit of a man who was forced down this passage by the frogs. It showed me the way forward, and what lies beyond the throne room. A giant frozen lake, that I think contains the trapped souls of countless sacrifices. I think he showed me so that we can free them from their torment. I don't know exactly how, but we must do so."
"Freeing souls from torment? How does one even go about such a thing?"
Doesn't sound profitable, but if it makes the place more habitable, that's enough for me to be willing to assist.
No profit in saving souls? Maybe not in gold, but in the hereafter...
I think we'll need to get an Archbishop involved, but I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to convince one. Perhaps Engelhart would know one.
Isn't Stavangar Lutheran? No Archbishops as far as I know.
Lutherans have bishops.
It's a clerical level thing anyway.
[OOC: You learn something new every day. Guess 8 years of Lutheran education failed to stick.]
Guess I'll have to apologize to Rob, it wasn't a hallucination.
I was raised a Lutheran. Confirmed at 15, by the Bishop of Calgary. Incidentally, Mormons have bishops too (or used to, in the 1970s). We lived next to one when I was a child.
I wasn't doubting you at all. Just had no idea.
Fjall will ask, "Does that mean we want to give this up?"
"I don't see why we'd give up. Engelhart may be up to the task, and even if he isn't, clearing out the area has its own rewards. I know the past few days have been miserable, but come on, a long-forgotten foe, a frozen lake of tormented souls and rare metals? Sounds like something you don't see every day."
I've got no desire to give up. We'll scout it out, see what there is to see, do what we can, and what we can't take care of we'll find the right people to take care of it. And just because Pandora couldn't cram all the demons back in her box doesn't mean we shouldn't try. We opened this box, and we shouldn't have. Saying 'sorry' only carries so much weight; picking up after yourself goes a lot farther. And now, with who knows how many souls being tormented for a thousand years that we might be able to release, well, that's doing some right in the world.
[Here, by the way]
[Here. Waking up]
The next post is up.
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