After the disaster in the depths of the Riddermound, dawn finds two battered survivors huddled in the antechamber beneath the hill. Luna and Thromli have escaped the slaughter in the Dragon Knight’s tomb, but only just. Around them hangs the stale air of the mound, the smell of old earth and dried death, and beyond the oak doors lie the bodies of Ruskin, Silas, and Gildhared, left in the dark with the dead they came to plunder. It is a bleak end to a desperate expedition, and for a time the Riddermound feels less like a place of treasure than a grave intent on keeping what has been brought into it.
Rescue comes from above in an unlikely form. A trio of scholars crossing the Misty Vale catches sight of the standing stones on the hill and the open slab at its summit, with a rope hanging down into the earth like an invitation or a warning. They are led by Buba Teekin, a halfling animist with a pointed hat, a meticulously braided white beard, and robes in the colours of bark and soil. With him are Veth, an elven elementalist in green-brown robes carrying a staff tipped with a white gemstone, and Prometheus Bilk, a wiry human scholar in a yellow overcoat and deep red robes, looking for all the world like a man who has walked straight out of a half-forgotten marginal note in an old book.
Their voices drift down the shaft, and from below Luna and Thromli answer. What follows is a grim exchange shouted between worlds. The scholars on the sunlit lip of the mound, the survivors below among broken doors and old crowns. They hear of Ruskin and Silas, of the elven knight Gildhared who came to help and died for it, of the wight in antique plate, and of the Lady whose ghost turned wrathful in defence of the tomb. Yet the scholars are not frightened off. Lore, treasure, and the great buried story of the vale have drawn them here too. One by one they descend into the shaft and join the survivors in the antechamber, and there, in that cold earthen chamber beneath the hill, a new company is formed from the remnants of the old.
Before they go deeper, there is the practical matter of the dead. In the guardhouse beyond, where two mummified sentries still stand with long spears in their hands and the great black portcullis remains rusted immovably in place, Ruskin’s body lies beyond easy reach. With care, patience, and no little nerve, Buba manages to recover the map and the black statuette fragment the warrior had carried. That single piece now matters more than ever, for the truth of their quest is becoming clearer with each encounter. Four pieces of the dragon emperor’s statuette are needed to open the hidden crypt beneath the ruined temple in Outskirt, and there lies Um-Durman, the sword forged eight hundred years ago when dragons and demons warred openly across the world. In the right hands it is a weapon against ancient evil. In the wrong hands it becomes a tool of tyranny. Sathmog’s return is no longer a rumour, and the old stories are beginning to move again.
From the guardhouse the party heads east into the family crypt. The chamber is as mournful as it was before. Seven stone sarcophagi set against the walls, some opened and violated, some still holding their dead in a little dignity. The goblins who came before have already done their work, but the place is not empty. Another giant spider comes skittering out of the dark tunnels, and with no true armoured warrior left among them it falls to Thromli to stand in front. The bard, scarcely built for such work, finds himself there anyway, one hand on weapon, one eye on death, trying to hold a line where Ruskin once stood. This time, though, the party has other strengths. Buba’s animist arts, Veth’s crackling command of flame, and Luna’s bow make quick work of the beast. After the horrors of the previous foray, it is a sharp, heartening victory.
That success gives them just enough courage to try the thing that killed their friends. They turn towards the Lady’s Hall.
The chamber is eerily unchanged. The torches burn with their strange steady fire. The oak table stands in the middle of the room. The mummified woman in gilded chainmail still sits at its far end. Thromli’s hands on the warhammer Fiendcrusher reminds them of what they took last time that provoked her wrath. Behind her, the silver-marked oak door leads to the Dragon Knight’s tomb.
This time the party does not rush. When the Lady rises in her faint blue shimmer, Buba is able to understand her ancient speech. He speaks to her in turn, and what follows is a negotiation across centuries. He tells her that Sathmog has risen again, that the old enemy is moving in the vale, and that what lies in this mound may be needed once more in the war between corruption and cleansing fire. The Lady understands that name all too well. She agrees, with grave reluctance, to speak to her husband on the party’s behalf.
When Thromli opens the door to the crypt, the wight appears once more in all its terrible weight. Horned great helm, ancient plate, the scrape of metal on stone announcing every heavy step. The Lady turns to him and pleads for him to lay down his burden. She asks him to relinquish the crown and let these living souls carry what is needed against Sathmog. But the Dragon Knight is beyond persuasion. He answers her with violence, and husband and wife, bound together in life and death and duty, turn on one another in the tomb.
It is a tragic and brutal sight. The Lady fights to hold him at bay while the party joins in. Veth hurls fire into the gloom, and the light splashes over the cracked stone and the fresco of the dragon-rider on the far wall. Prometheus comes terrifyingly close to being cut in half for his trouble and must be dragged back from the brink. Thromli, with Fiendcrusher in hand, steps fully into the role the party has forced upon him. He is no mere entertainer now. He squares up to ancient things beneath the earth. While the Lady spends herself buying the others their chance, Veth strikes with one last blast of fire, and together with the hammer’s magic and Buba’s banishments, the party finally brings the wight down for good.
The victory comes at a cost. The Lady pays for it with her final unmaking. Whatever fragile remnant of love or loyalty kept her anchored there is burned away in the struggle. When the Dragon Knight falls, so too does the last of her long watch.
After the silence settles, the survivors take stock of what remains. From the Lady’s corpse they recover the gilded chainmail, still light and supple despite the centuries. From the wight they take the great helm, grim and splendid in equal measure. Yet the true prize of the crypt is smaller and stranger. A gilded crown lying within the shattered sarcophagus, beneath the fresco and beside runes that warn of holy wrath against those who would touch the emperor’s gift. When the crown is lifted, hidden blades burst from the tomb in a flash of old malice. The party throws themselves clear, only barely escaping the trap.
That is when the whole mound begins to die. The floor shudders. Dust falls from the ceiling. Stone groans against stone. Whatever ancient balance held the Riddermound together has been broken now that its guardian is destroyed and its treasure taken. The party flees with all the speed exhaustion allows, scrambling back through the hall, the crypt, the tunnels, and the antechamber as the hill shakes itself apart. They haul themselves up the shaft into daylight and stumble clear just as the mound starts to collapse behind them, the buried kingdom swallowing its own dead once more.
Only later, once breath and wits have returned, does Prometheus have a chance to study the crown properly. The runes reveal its virtue. It is warded against demons, halving the harm they can inflict upon its bearer. That discovery sharpens the shape of the wider struggle before them.
Prometheus claims the crown. Thromli, for his part, takes the gilded armour and the great helm, and so settles into the odd but undeniable truth of his new role. He is becoming a frontline bard whether anyone planned it or not.
The journey back to Outskirt is slower and gentler than the mound deserves. Along the road the party meets Farmer Oda and his grown son Medvin travelling with wares for the village market. They ask to share camp and the company agrees. There is a plain warmth to the pair, a homely steadiness after all the tombs and ghosts and demon-talk. Over breakfast the next morning, the adventurers speak a little of what they have been doing, though not of every treasure they carry or every secret they now know. Thromli, meanwhile, has already begun work on a new song. By the fire and on the road he shapes a boastful ballad of crowns won from ruined crypts and of his own bravery in the deep places of the vale. It has the unmistakable shape of a future tavern favourite.
By the time they return to Outskirt, the village feels half refuge and half crossroads. They go straight to the Three Stag Inn and find Vagnhild amid its warmth, smoke, and noise. They tell her some of what happened at the Riddermound. Enough to satisfy curiosity. Not enough to empty the tale of its mystery. Thromli sings once more before the assembled patrons, but this time the performance carries two notes at once. One is the boastful music of the crown’s recovery. The other is a sadder song for Ruskin, Silas, and Gildhared, whose bones now lie beneath the earth. The room listens. Even in Outskirt, where every smile may lead to gold or death, people know how to honour the fallen.
Watching from the inn is the same sour, evil-eyed mallard the party has noticed before. He gives them long, uneasy looks over his drink, and their own attention keeps drifting back to him. Before long Alfilia Shadowleaf approaches their table. The knight of the Keepers of the Immaculate Flame is still gruff and watchful, but their victory at the Riddermound and, perhaps, their open grief over the dead, seem to have softened something in her. She speaks more fully now of what she knows.
Long ago, she says, the sword Um-Durman was forged by Eledain, blade of life and balance, a weapon against dragons and demons alike. After Eledain’s death it was hidden in a crypt beneath the ruined temple in Outskirt, sealed by the four-piece statuette. Sathmog has now reawakened Azrahel Koth, and the demon sorcerer seeks the sword for his own ends. The island in Mirror Lake is the entrance to his prison, but the mist surrounding it devours life. Only strong anti-demonic power could open a path. Alfilia suspects Um-Durman may do exactly that. She also warns them that Azrahel Koth has agents in Outskirt. She has seen demonic bats crossing the roofs at night, serving as messengers between the village and the enemy beyond the lake.
The party, perhaps warmed by song and ale and a rare sense of trust, tells Alfilia more than they once intended to. They reveal that they possess one piece of the statuette. In return she confirms more of their fears and suspicions. Leanara warned them once of dragon-worshipping knights seeking to restore tyranny, but now the party is beginning to wonder whether the Truth Society and the so-called Knights of the Sacred Flame are masks worn over deeper motives. Who exactly serves whom in the Misty Vale is becoming harder to untangle.
They also speak of the mallard. Alfilia gives him a name at last: Quasimund. He and his thugs are trouble, and more than trouble. She has kept her eye on him for a reason. Together they begin to suspect that the demonic bats and the bitter mallard may be threads in the same web.
The conversation ranges further. Alfilia mentions trouble in the Kummer Mountains, where the old dwarven lodes are said still to hold treasures from the days when Bothild the Vile and Greedy dug too deep and brought nameless horror into the world. Somewhere in the far southwest, so the stories say, heaps of gold, emeralds, and crystals still lie buried. Another path, another rumour, another promise of danger.
Yet it is a different lead that captures the party’s attention first. Thromli recalls a rumour of Road’s End Inn by the edge of the Haunted Marshes, where guests have been disappearing without trace, among them a child and most recently the shepherd Antelia. Something is wrong there. Something close to the marsh, close to Outskirt, and very likely close to the growing dark. Thromli, diplomat now as well as bard-warrior, persuades Alfilia to accompany them when they go.
While the others talk at the inn, Buba heads to Master Ulvar’s shop to lay in extra supplies. There he finds not only goods but opportunity. Ulvar’s son Jory is present, restless as ever, clearly more interested in swords than stock-keeping. Buba speaks to him of treasure, danger, and a life less dull than measuring sacks and minding shelves. Jory needs little convincing. He has been training with Hardy, thinks himself handy with a blade, and seems delighted by the chance to prove it. Soon enough he is signed on for a share of whatever may be found.
The party buys what they need, rests as best they can at the Three Stag, and plans to leave at first light.
Morning comes, and with it fresh trouble. As they head from the inn past the village square and towards the northern gate, Quasimund and his cronies step out to block the way. Whatever mask he has been wearing is gone now. The evil-eyed mallard has decided on open violence.
The fight in the street is swift, messy, and loud enough to wake half the village. Thromli, clad now in the spoils of the Riddermound, throws himself against several of Quasimund’s rabble at once, holding them back in a clanging knot of steel and bad intentions. Veth answers the mallard himself, hurling fire until Quasimund is left scorched and smoking on the ground. Jory, hearing the uproar as he hurries to join the group, dashes in with more enthusiasm than precision. His swings carve plenty of air but precious little flesh. Luna fares little better for once, her arrows going wild in the confusion. Prometheus, having slept in, misses the whole affair and arrives only after the excitement has already burned itself out.
Even so, the outcome is clear enough. Quasimund lies dead, and the remnant of his posse flees rather than share his fate.
After that the party decides not to press its luck. Wounds are bound. Breath is caught. The morning is spent recovering in the village rather than hurrying straight back into danger. By midday, though, thoughts have turned again to roads, rumours, and unfinished work. They now hold one piece of the statuette, a demon-warding crown, and a little more truth than they had before. They have seen the shadow of Sathmog stretch further into the vale. They know the sword Um-Durman lies beneath Outskirt itself, waiting on the recovery of the remaining fragments. And now, with Alfilia and Jory added to their ranks, they turn their eyes towards Road’s End Inn and the troubles brewing by the Haunted Marshes.
The Misty Vale, as ever, offers them one more road.
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