Confusing Signals

Confusing Signals

Together, the nascent adventurers and the sagely Rintaron step by step, progressed up the mountains. Kaelen could feel the burn in his knees as they walked well into the encroaching dark with the daystar fallen behind the mountains until even Tajan’s fireball wasn’t enough to see the path well.

“You see that crest up ahead?” Rintaron yelled back to them all through the wind, “that is Knob Hill, there is a trail hut there that we can spend the night in. It's rough for four but we will be warm.” The idea of spending the night next to this snow covered older healer, “He looks at least 35,” Kalen thought, was not exciting but the idea of not walking anymore and being warm was encouragement enough to hasten his steps to the hut.

Blena kicked in the door of the isolated hut as if there were a secreted sabermaw inside waiting to devour them and said, “Looks clear.”

“Well it's not likely that it wouldn't be way up here,” Kaelen said, letting her know that he appreciated her over zealous caution but found it just a little bit of overkill.

Kaelen surveyed the hut and saw a pit and funnel for a fire and turned to Tajan raising an eyebrow. “Already on it”, she said. The room was suddenly lit with flickers and shadows and welcome warmth.  Kaelen found enough room to lay out around the fire and encouraged the others to do so too. Alster handed out some dried and salted tree turnips and the group turned their capes into blankets and closed their weary eyes.

The next morning Blena was up and moving about. Her opening the door to look outside was the reason they all woke. The mountain air was clear now that the blizzard had settled and the snow-laced peaks glistened in the sunlight. They looked magnificent, though they felt really cold. Kaelen stood to stretch his legs and sore knees and took a few steps into the snow. The crunch underfoot made him recall how much he missed the beaches of Thaloria.

The path to Fool’s Gap lay ahead and from there down the valley and up to Alfadin Tower. It seemed really far when they spoke about it and the journey along the mountain pass stirred a doubt within Kaelen about always being too quick to lead. Once when he was a child he had organised a game at the beach with a group of children to run between two sand embedded rocks between incoming waves. The children were fully clothed and wearing boots.  Eventually they had fallen short of their goal of landing on the rocks safe and dry and were soaked by the incoming water but they laughed and had so much fun. That was until they all saw the winning tide and the inevitability of getting wet and gave up and just played in the ocean like wet dolls. Some of the children’s parents saw them and were furious that they had ruined their clothing and shoes and they blamed Kaelen for leading them all astray.

“There are other ways of proving myself he thought as he looked up the path and he felt this was just the beginning of a very long, cold quest. He turned and went back inside.

After a delicious breakfast of ...yet another helping of dried salted tree turnip, Kaelen could see this getting nauseous really quickly, they set off. Cold seeped into his bones by midmorning, prompting him to ask Tajan to summon a heat spell as he walked. A fiery gas enveloped his boots and gloves, warming them without burning. Tajan was indeed clever and Kaelen was glad she was there but he knew power crystals could lose their charge and he shouldn’t ask for their use unless he must.

“I should have specialised in fire!” Kaelen said as he smiled at Tajan in gratitude. “Don’t worry, I am sure there are things an earth mage will come in handy for.” She replied.

Fool’s Gap was a marker that let them know that even if they wanted to go back it would be closer to the Alfadin Temple from that point on than going back so they pushed on through the shadowed and even somehow colder pass that led to the temple on the other side.

The Alfadin temple was considered a holy place and many pilgrims visited in the summer but there was no one on the path at this time of year. The stoic wooden temple doors were closed when they arrived so they walked out onto the stone balcony that overlooked the valley and Monolith Peak. It was a remarkable sight that Kaelen had heard about before and he was so grateful to actually be there. He could see how the immense grey granite rock that towered into the sky was the source of inspiration to mages and healers alike as they journeyed to this place. “That is one big hunk of granite,” Blena said, breaking his reflection. “Yep, sure glad we are not headed up there though. See that tower up on the right below the observatory..that is where we are headed next.”

He knew that as soon as he had said that, that Blena was making plans on how to get from where he was to there and was probably thinking about getting something for them to eat along the way so they wouldn't kill Alster for handing out more turnip.

Rintron had obviously seen Monolith Peak before and unimpressed had walked over to a side building with a golden dome next to the temple and knocked on the weathered wooden and brass door. After a moment it creaked open to an old monk busily wrapping his shoulders in a fur. He recognized Rintaron and embraced him, pulling him by the forearm into the room that radiated heat in waves out the door. The rest of the travellers all naturally didn’t wait for an invitation, the warmth was enough for that and they went inside the temple complex by the side door.

Trishsern was one of 11 monks that lived at the temple. Each crestrealm was allowed to nominate one monk to serve and study there until their death when another would be chosen. The bodies of the previous monks were never buried; rather they were cast off the balcony and onto the shadowed rocks below where time and the creatures of the mountains were allowed to reclaim them.

"Morbid story,” Blena spoke quietly to Alster as they heard about the practice from the monks around a meal of some sort of soup, salty like the turnip but it had some sort of meat and that was so much better than the chewy fibres of the last few days. Gu the monk from Thalorian Tide recognise Kaelen's garb and offered words of wisdom. "The journey is long and fraught with peril, but remember, you are never alone.” The power of Aethoria will always be with you."Kaelen smiled and thought that it seemed like a generic thing a monk might say but could also feel his warmth and kindness he accepted it as sincere. The monk dressed in elegant purple and pink silk robes from Sylvan Watch asked Rintaron. “That tower is pulsing and shining and falling silent and then it starts again. Is that why you bring these 3 strangers here in the winter Rintaron?”

“I witnessed the anomaly and sent a message and the Heartwell Council sent a message back that I should meet and guide these young things to the tower and Gertina was adamant that I follow their instructions to the letter. I can’t believe she is gone.”

Many of the aging monks dropped their heads in prayer at the mention of a veylborn returning to their own world but Trishern was poised and certain when he responded...

“Fear not young man. Investigate the tower, just in Aethoria, she will take care of her children and you will see Gertina again.”

“Great! That was easy. Everything is solved then,” said Alster, “We can go to the tower and everything will work itself out.”

“Sarcasm Alster? How unlike you, said Kaelen who loved to poke fun at Alster even though he was a year older.

When they arrived at the tower, almost a full day later, they found Gertina at the locked door in obvious distress.

Rintaron rushed up to the ghostly figure...“Gertina, thank the Velyborn! You are alright..You disappeared and I thought that was it. I am so glad you are here.” She was completely obsessed with trying to get into the tower. “Shut it off, shut it off!” She screamed...but there wasn’t any mechanism that they could see to open the door from the outside and they had no idea why it was on and why it must be turned off.

Alfadin tower stood tall and imposing, made of white stone, similar to the granite that formed Monolith Peak that seemed to shimmer and sparkle in the afternoon sunlight. Forty steps lead up to the massive doorway, where the top of the tower is level with the mountain peak obscured by clouds. The great sides of the tower meet above the inset doorway and the gaps between the stones are impossibly small, creating an almost seamless surface.

"Oh.. This is Gertina," Rintaron says, worry still on his face as he turned to the group. "I don't know what's gotten into her. She's never acted like this before."

Kaelen was taken aback by seeing a veylborn in person but knew they did no harm. He stepped up beside Rintaron's veylborn friend as she moaned and flickered in and out of view. “Too much power,.........interuption... they must stop!” Gertina was not even aware that the Aethorians were by her side. They examined the doors, laden with ancient writing. Alster stepped up beside Kaelen, his tattooed hands running along the squiggly grooves in the stone. "This is a pre-sundering language. This symbol here means two … and I think that one means mountain? But I can’t read the one between them or these after it.....I guess, I should have spent more time on languages than herbs. Maybe it means ....A mountain divided in two or seeing two mountains.. Something like that?”

“That can’t be an ancient language..those markings were not on that tower last time I was here,”....Rintaron said as he frowned, he thought for a moment. "Two mountains....if it is two mountains it might be the Monolith and Pinault Mountain you can see them both from the steles. In fact if you line them up they sit between the spaces in the steles. They are on the other side of the valley near here, back across the river, to the east, up on that hill."

“Back?....did you say back? Alster said almost in surprise ... “We should have just stayed at the monastery.”

“What? And eat salty mystery meat soup and miss out on all this fun Kaelen quipped.

"Maybe there's a clue there that'll tell us how to open these doors," Tajan said, trying to bring focus back to the tower.. I think we have to work out how to shut this tower down...You feel that rumbling? She said...it is coming from under us.....under the tower and it is really messing with this veylborn, I mean with Gertina..sorry Rintaron.”

Kaelen, Blena and Alster all tried with force, mechanism, crystal powers... nothing was having an impact on the door and hours were passing. They looked up at high windows and imagined ways to get to the top of the tower but nothing was working. Gertina flashed into vision and disappeared, still in distress repeating the same message...”too much power...it must stop......”

Kaelen eventually gave up.. “This door seems it’s made of wood but it holds as if stone and part of the walls... I think we need to follow this idea of a message giving us a key... but it's a half day walk from here."

Then I'll go with you.” said Belna, ready for the next stage of the day.

If Gertina is determined to get in the tower I will stay a while to see if I can do anything, we'll just have to get this door open, one way or another," Rintaron added.

“And then what would you do? Flick the turn off mechanism and it would stop?” asked Alster facetiously hoping logic might convince Rintaron to come with them.

Rintaron ignored or perhaps was just too worried to hear that and went on.. “I can meet you back at the monastery if the tower remains closed at sunset,.. I just can’t stand seeing her like this.”

Thy Quests
The group discovers that an old system is failing, but no one fully understands the warning signs at first. Where do we see this in the real world, when people notice signals of a bigger problem before they understand what is really happening? Explain your connection and how the characters’ choices compare to what people should do in that real-world situation.