[i]The world had changed. The river valleys of the old world had been washed away in a raging torrent of flood waters, and the once fertile kingdoms became the Sunken Realms. History became Legend, Legend became Myth, and as the Dragon Lords came and burned the old forests, and the Outsiders invaded in their ships of silver, when the Lizards-That-Walk devoured the southern tribes whole, still remnants of the land before lingered. Always did men pick up the pieces and rebuild, for it is in their nature to cling onto life as if it were a mother's skirts. The knowledge of civilization crept back into the world, and the Age of Calamity was replaced by an Age of Bronze and Silver, of Iron and Myrrh, and all that was once lost seemed to be found. However, life is not all men cling to, and some things that are better left forgotten, are uncovered and unbound once again...[/i] 

The jungle was stifling, relentless. The branches of the trees reached over their boats, vines draped into the water like hangmen's nooses in the wet, sultry air. All was quiet, save the screeches of the jungle and the palpable uneasiness of the accompanied men. Rolgo Sunder twitched from the fat mosquito bite, cursing under his fetid breath. The squat coxswain's eyes shifted constantly, at times so focused on his suspicions that he forgot to squash the insects that preyed on his blood. He glared daggers into Beren's back, but the monk ignored him. He was too occupied with maneuvering the longboat, keeping his front foot stable on the bow. Behind him, the golden haired lady Nestepah watched the jungle and her men in equal measure, severe as an eagle. 

The jungled island hugged the northern coast of the burned land, Theas. It was a part of a small, western archipelago that had not been mapped for centuries. Not since the lizards-who-walk had slaughtered most of the southern cities, save a few hermits seeking solitude or sea brigands that used them as lairs. People who ventured here disappeared, swallowed by some unknown evil, or perhaps a myriad of them. The seas had been exceptionally beautiful, but the sun was merciless, nearly burning through the mogshade of the canopy, which kept it just hot enough to form the suffocating steam. Strange furred beasts, small parodies of men Beren knew to be 'apes' screeched and cawed with undulated hoots.  

"Captain, we are being watched! Look!" Iakovos's hoarse voice cutting through the pregnant silence. He was a bronzed man, similar to Beren in that way, but judging from his name, they were of different people. Iakovos hailed from the last isle of his ancient nation, Xykonos. All eyes followed his pointing hand to the treeline on the northern shore. Beren's eyesight was keen, but he could not make out any shapes in the impenetrable jungle, until his breath caught. The figure of an enchanting woman stood frozen, stricken, watching them from the shallows. It took him another look to realize it was naught but a bas relief, albeit of exquisite design despite the wearing. It was plastered onto a perfectly square block of basalt. Vines and ferns draped across the body of the block. 

"We're getting close," Nestepah stated approvingly, but the icy woman rarely smiled. In fact, in the two weeks Beren had known her, he had only seen it once: When he acquiesced to go on this expedition. She glanced his way, and he nodded. 

"Those eyes are made of jewels," Rolgo rumbled greedily. 

"Agates, I think." Finley replied, the red haired fellow a keen lookout in the crows nest. It seems he had a fine eye for more things that ships. A few of the men looked at one another, but Nestupah gave them a 'sst!' that drew their attention. 

"Eyes forward, lads! There will be plenty more where that came from once we find the Temple." She reminded them, and her assurances were enough to turn their talk into whispers and sly looks. For her part, she turned to Beren as if in confirmation. He gave her a broad shouldered shrug. "As far I know, but I've never been here before, you understand." He reminded her. "Besides, the Lugal will pay you and your men regardless, right?"

"Of course," she purred, noncommittally. The sly woman turned, her caraco jacket long since removed, her blouse gently stained with sweat. "But the more we bring back for his collection, the more he stuffs their pockets with the reward. Think of it as... commission." Weeks ago, they had come to his small island in the Neheoul Sea to seek his knowledge of ancient languages. Initially, when they had first beached on isle of the lonely minaret, they had been skeptical of his expertise due to his apparent youth, and bade him translate a rusted sword inscribed with Theonic runes. Despite his success at the task, he had gathered they had only accepted him because Nestupah and her men were desperate. He had to admit he was desperate too. His monastic order was dying, the great lugal kings of the remaining citadels too busy with their wars and their trade to preserve knowledge. If this expedition was successful, Nestepah and her Lieutenant, Ishkur, had assured him they would tell their king a Sanguken monk had been pivotal in their efforts. 

"Captain, more busts!" 

"I [i]said[/i], keep your eyes on the-" Her words died when Beren heard whistling, and he turned just in time to see a massive sailor from Ubta catch a dart in his huge neck, his eyes bulging. He swayed, and pitched over into the water with a wet slap. "Shields!" Nestepah raised her khopesh, and as one her men raised wicker shields and the occasional hoplon as arrows and darts sailed across the lazy river with the relentlessness of steady rain. Beren ducked under a javelin, spying a naked man in red warpaint staring at him from two dozen meters away. "Row!" 

What men that did not carry shields worked the oars with fervent abandon, speeding their journey upriver as war cries and hoots followed them. Two arrows clunked into the boat inches from Beren's arm, nearly skewering his hand. He pulled it back as he watched crocodiles sliding into the water to devour whatever meat fell into the stew. A few of the Ubtar expedition shot arrows back with their composite bows, but there were too few to make a difference, and the foliage masked any damage they might have inflicted from their eyes. Their harassment lasted minutes, until they found themselves rowing under a vine laden archway made of unknown material Beren did not recognize. On it, a serpentine dragon snaked across the arch, clinging to it as if it were a nest. It's head arched away from it, towards the boats, its maw open and its irises like a cat's. 

It took Beren a moment to realize the battle cries and the missiles had suddenly ceased. 

The sign of the architecture, along with their apparent safety, was a boon to the morale of the men. They breathed easier, and even Nestepah seemed to relax, albeit only just. He knew he should feel the same, but despite himself, the monk felt a vague sense of impending doom. 

It wasn't long until they began to see broken pillars and small, ruined structures half sunken in the murk of the river. Evidently long abandoned. Even the birds and insects had grown quieter here. Beren clutched the pendant at his chest, muttering a small prayer for safety and guidance. The river had grown slimmer, the longboats now a stride away from one another. Past the next copse of trees, the scattered, broken ruins gave way to a large, stout Temple. Entirely formed of black swampstone, despite its symmetrical design and geometric shapes that adorned the open doorway, it seemed a derelict, organic thing, as much a part of the land as any tree or mudbank. An exquisitely carved processional entryway poured from the oblong entryway and into the murk of the water. 

Twin obelisks framed the entryway, made of mudbrick, shaped with algebraic twists that teased the senses. Upon each was carved an enchanting woman. On the left, she smiled sweetly, as if to welcome them to her home. On the right, her face was twisted, caught between a terrible transformation into a demon. Her mouth was open too wide, his teeth sharpe, her eyes bulbous, yet they knew it was the same woman.

"It's the woman from the relief," Beren remarked to himself. His voice had broken the silence. The large warrior Ishkur turned his way, and one of his warriors, an aga-ush, asked Beren who she was. 

"I don't know..." He said, shaking his head. "A local deity. I can find out more once we get closer." 

"Don't have to tell us twice," Nestepah remarked, ordering the five longboats to beach in the canal just to the right of the great structure. As their boats sank into the wet mud, they saw pilasters along the breadth of the walls, carved to reveal the event of a great battle. Sunbeams of light struck the figures, each pilaster a different deity, and over them, an great form cloaked in power just beyond an eclipse. 

They stepped off the boats as steadily as they could, spears and axes of iron in their hands. Ishkur sent his men to form a perimeter as the others went to look for extra openings to the temple proper. Nestepah and a few select warriors stepped lightly to join Beren at the processional rampway, between the great obelisks. The door itself was old, heavy, made of cedar and bronze. The color had long since faded, but running his hand over the slabs showed him it had once been painting. Now, he had to decipher which grooves in the doorway were glyphs, and which were ornamentation. Ishkur placed his great shoulder into the door, pushing with all of his considerable might. He grunted, but it did not budge. 

"It will take all day to break this open." The warrior told Nestepah, chewing on his bottom lip. 

"Get your men to carve out a ram," Nestepah started, but Beren held up a hand. 

"Wait!" He bade them, his eyes never leaving the doors, hands still caressing the etchings along its breadth. He recognized the glyphs to some degree, but they were queer, alien in some capacity. He could not guess. Perhaps it was a liturgical form of the old Xerubian script. He swore he could translate it to a rough degree, if he only had the... 

"Aidkhul... Yek jaharat fi... alwahli... wadai alakharn yiasuni." 

The sudden grinding caused the onlookers to flinch back, drawing their weapons defensively. Beren held his hands out disarmingly, though it was a gesture that was aimed at the doorway, as if it were a stray dog that would cease doing tricks if he spooked it. Inexorably, the doorway opened inward, and refreshing, cool air hit their faces. That was odd. Beren had expected the air to be musty, but there must have been ventilation elsewhere, cleverly implemented to keep whatever worshipers there were cooled from the elements. Beren breathed out, letting his shoulders ease, before a sudden pain exploded in the back of his head, and he knew no more. 

[hr] 

He dreamed untold hours had passed. So long, in fact, that when Beren woke, the day had fled, and the night had been all but spent. There was a wan light from the doorway, he could have sworn, but when he truly woke up, he knew it was the same day, perhaps less than an hour later. The pain still felt fresh, albeit it had evolved into a dull ache. Someone had contemptuously tossed him off the entryway into the soft, fern covered earth beside the stone. No doubt they had assumed they had killed, or permanently damaged Beren. Unbenknownst to them, he was made of sterner stuff. 

Groaning, he reached up to grip the edge of the stone rise, slowly pulling himself onto more solid ground. He heard no voices, and did not have it in his mind to check the boats. Instead, he gathered himself and rubbed his face, taking his staff in his hands and leaving his bag of scrolls within the drier lobby, by the entryway. As he stepped in, it was ensconced in gloom, but the light, the light of his dream, was still there. As if no matter how much shadow there was, you had enough light to spare your vision to some degree. 

That was how he discovered the first eight corpses. They lay scattered in the lobby, skewered by arrows. It made no sense, he couldn't guess where they had come from. No native bodies were amongst the dead, and the arrows looked more sophisticated than the ones Beren had seen from the shoreline. One man lay with an obsidian arrowhead lodged into his eye, his other orb staring at the inner corridor that led further within. He looked, and the light poured out as if fire from the throat of a dragon. He squared his jaw and stretched his neck, before taking a tentative step onto the stairway that led deeper within the inner sanctum. 

In the next room, he found more corpses. It looked akin to a small tomb, two stone dog-headed demon sentinels stood, four arms crossed, gripping scimitars in each clawed paw. Aside from that, and further bas reliefs of ancient conflicts of gods and men, there was no sign of danger. Yet Iakovos had lost his head, the man's torso draped onto a sarcophagus, his neck severed by some unseen blade. Seamas lay broken across the floor, his body twists, shattering clay pots from whatever had thrown him bodily. Four men had joined them in death, their wicker shields cloven and their bodies hewed bu mighty blows. 

Every room was the same. There was a corridor with a walkway across water as black as ink, blood staining the stone. A library of ruined tomes, each corpse found mummified as if his blood had been forcefully drained from his body. The mausoleum, the shrine room, even the larder, everywhere he went, there were men who had been brutalized by mysterious guardians. He had begun to wonder if he was the last man alive, until finally he stepped into an immaculate antechamber, adorned with exquisite pottery featuring the likeness of the same goddess, great brass statuettes of sinuous drakes clutching crystalline orbs of swirling darkness, the walls adorned with tapestries of great heroes he swore he could recall, had he not been so enthralled and horrified of the past hour. The doorway past the room was encrusted with emeralds, rubies, lapis lazuli, and semi-precious stones that glinted tantalizingly. 

He was ripped out of his contemplation when he heard cackling laughter from within the next room, echoing into the antechamber. Beren rushed through the archway, and found himself in a great hall of dazzling beauty, piles of golden coins from before the written histories had been penned rolled across the floor like distant hills. Xiphos and Khopeshes encrusted with jewels lined the walls, suits of armor glittered from unknown material, and at the furthest end of the warmly lit room, Nestepah, Ishkur, and Rolgo Sunder stood, gazing up at a scepter that lay clutched in the talons of a Bagrada, a poisonous serpent of massive proportions that rose above them like a vengeful god. 

The woman, covered in blood and ashes from breeches to blouse, ascended the stairway as the two men watched. She stood tall, but to Beren she seemed positively puny before the massive figure of the serpent. 

"Wait!" Beren cried, echoing his words from hours ago. 

All three spun to regard him. Rolgo bared his teeth, having never hidden his hatred for Beren, jealous of the ladies apparent favor towards him. Ishkur sneered, hefting his massive axe, while Nestapah seemed more impressed he had been able to follow them so far. 

"I knew I should have hit him harder." Ishkur remarked blithely. 

"Well done!" Nestepah called over her shoulder. "It was out of respect for your lore-keeping that I kept Ishkur from cutting you down. Now stay out of my way, and you may yet get your endorsement." 

"I said wait!" Beren roared, his voice reverberating powerfully. For the second time, Nestepah looked at him, and this time she was none too pleased. Beren did not care. He held his hands up, dropping his staff. "If you touch that scepter, we will all die! It has been written! I saw it!" 

"Silence, whoreson!" Rolgo snarled. 

"Why?" Nestepah asked. 

"It is not for you." Beren told her, and as the words left his lips, it was the wrong thing to say. She gave a laugh, and he recognized it as the cackle from earlier. "It is for those with the will to take it! Ishkura, make his death quick." 

"As you say, lady." The big warrior replied casually, grinning at the chance to fight once again. Apart from a large scar across his shoulder, he had managed to delve into the Temple depths unspoiled. Beren sighed, and waited another few moments before he reluctantly pulled off his monastic robe to reveal a surprisingly muscled torso, nearly bursting out of his white top. A few scars covered his arms. His dark blue salvar breeches seemed to absorb the light that glinted from the gold. Ishkur seemed surprised, evidently thinking he was merely a scholar. 

The brute should have done his homework. The Sanguken had been demon slayers before the world had changed. He would be no easy prey. 

Unfortunately, before the two men could clash in a feat of arms, Nestepah decided to reach for the scepter. 

"Lady, I beg you!" Beren cried, reaching out as if that could make any difference. 

"Silence!" She screamed, ripping it out of the clawed grasp of the Bagrada, greed in her green eyes. Ishkur was charging him now, but he did not notice. Instead, he backed away slowly, before sprinting out of the room. Even as he passed the archway, he saw the bronze statues begin to melt as if super-heated upon the surface of the sun. He gave an unceremonious 'shit shit shit!' as his long legs carried him, scooping up his staff as he ran. He heard Ishkur's cry of 'coward!,' yet before it had ceased to echo, it was followed by the accompanied screams within the vault. He heard a final, soul wrenching "[b][i]NO[/i][/b]!" from Nestepah, before all was drowned out by the sound of the world breaking.

Stone walls cracked, the stone floor sundered, every piece of bronze and brass began to melt, and to his horror, within the cracks he saw brilliant, fiery light. Magma. It seeped out of the walls, and the floor behind him in the corridor gave way, revealing the very heart of hel, lava crashing into the stone like waves in a squall. In the mausoleum, the stone guardians had fallen, broken upon the floor. He vaulted over one and continued his mad dash, hoping to all that was good he could make it. He leaped out of the last doorway before the great stairs, and lava poured out from behind him, nipping at his heels as he sprinted across the stone walkway, the black water having disappeared to reveal an endless chasm. Beren was brave. Almost fearless in fact, but that had limits. He felt some shame when he cried out in denial as the slim stone walkway broke beneath his feet, and he plunged into the endless nothingness of the abyss below. 

[hr] 

This time, he truly did not know how long he had been out, and this time, he felt far worse than he had at the front of the temple. Yet he was alive, as painful as a comfort that was. He slowly opened his eyes, and miraculously, there was dim light, albeit from far, far above. He glanced up, but even that gentle light seemed blurred to his eyes. He must have received a minor imbalance of his humors within his skull. 

"Blessed Oghru, why am I not dead?" He asked aloud, weakly. Better to have died in the fall that starve as he ceaselessly wandered whatever cavity he now inhabited, trying to find a way out. He reached up and held his forehead, glad to not feel anything more than a small knot when his fingers reached the back of his head. Groaning was now an old friend, and he slowly sat up, his world spinning gently. Blinking, he tried to see where he lay, likely in some massive, useless cavern. His surroundings did not disappoint, meeting his exact standards. It seemed almost like a wound in the stone, massive and bulbous, like one of the domed towers of Sagrahad. However, oddly enough, there was sign of ancient habitation. Broken amphorae and small, lesser coins lay ubiquitously on the expansive floor, and to his surprise, he found his staff a dozen meters away from his position, laying atop a mound next to a shattered urn. 

"Of course..." He breathed, sarcastically. Beren would never have guessed he would have seen the woman again. Yet for the first time, he beheld a life-sized statue at the center of the light from above. It was formed of strange material. It was as black as the abyss, likely sculpted from black chlorite, he reasoned. Her body was lithe, shapely hip cocked, her bosom plump, and her limbs slender. Her body swathed in an ancient kalasiris. He was not a particularly lecherous man, he would have enjoyed seeing the head, yet it was missing. That, and her left arm. He got to his feet, somehow curiously possessed at viewing the thing. He stepped closer, and noticed both the head and the arm atop the central mound. 

"Well, least I can do." He remarked, sardonic now that he really felt he had no chance of escaping. Yet he could not leave something of historical significance so broken, and so he took the head in his hands. Her hair was coiled in a ponytail, her eyes sharp and wickedly cruel, and her rosebud lips were pursed as if all before her was found wanting. Even with such a look, she was lovely, heart shaped face accentuated by her cheekbones. Whoever had sculpted this had been a marvelous talent, he thought. Gently, and with great care, he placed the head back onto the neck. To his surprise, there was no flaw after he had done so. Beren had thought some edge would have been missing, but it looked as if it had never been broken. The arm would be more tricky, he realized, and decided to at least see if it could still feet. He took the supple limb in his hands, and gingerly placed it upon the stump. "Huh, it fits." He said, and gently pried it away. 

Until he realized he could not. 

Beren blinked, but his thought process was broken again by yet another rumble of the surrounding area. He looked left and right and up. It seemed he was cursed from one catastrophe to another, and he backed away from the statue. At least, until he realized the rumbling came from the statue itself, and nowhere else. 

He back away more fervently, and he began to run, until he realized there was nowhere left to run to. Little did he know what would happen next would change his life forever...