Chronicles of Fnord - the Black temple in the wastes

[nazgulking]

Here is the entry of Erif, priest at the services of the Queen of the elves.

The increasing threat of skeleton cult, in light of the recent incident, have force the Queen to form a group of valuable people. They are addressed to investigate the evil that is incubating in the east.
The group is composed of six elements: two Elves, two Ursans and two Avians.

I am one of the elves of the group, while Zan is the other. Zan is one of those elves that embraced the way of the sword, trained by Skav himself in the group of the reborned Knights of Cydonia; he could be the next leader of the Knights.
Scar is a pandian bear that spent all his life gaining expertise in the field of creating armours and weapons. Son of one of the components of the Ursan circle of the Mighty, his ability are unmatched.
Wood is a bear that spent his life in the city of Oasis among the Avians. He is probably the only bear that undertook this way not by the desires fo the greediness. He was a natyral talented bear in the use of bow and searched, all his life long, to be the best archer among his race. His teachers are very confident that he reached that ambitious goal.
As many bears, they took their name a while after their birth; thier parents chose their name after some particular trait and it obvious which one have inspired their respective parents.
Blackbeak is one of the few black Avians that "were there" when the Great Exile took place. He is very short worded and just says the necessary things and nothing more. Very good marksman and especially good in finding the trails of his preys.
Av'ial is one of the few Avians that retain the naming convention before the Great Exile. Son of an important leader of the Avians, which was the leader of a city-state before the "Ancients" came. He a great attitude at the swordmanship and seek to find his enemy in the open, even if he does some tactics before just bashing in the battle.

These are the members of a group, a fellowship, whose task is to find answers to many questions: "What does the skeleton cult wants to do with the orb the have stolen?", "Can they achieve their goals?", but more importantly "What does this Fnord land yields?".

Our first destination is the old homeland of the Avians. From the annals of the elves it said that it was there that the portal between the plane of Cosmos and Void was open and it is there that we have to begin our investigations.
The more eagers to get there were the Avians for obvious reasons. While Blackbeak wanted to seek revenge, Av'ial was just curios to see the place his ancestors were calling home!

Before entering the wastes of the east, we took some time to get supplies for the ongoing travel in the city of Oasis. All the Avians greeted us and held a wonderful party as a good omen to our voyage. We took our time to relax and I have to say that the bears were the ones that took literally that word.
Only Blackbeak was ever vigilant, trait of his people from the ex-city state of "Crow Beak".

The day after we began our march into the unknown. The more we were getting near our goal we felt the air was getting thick and unbreathable. It took an entire day to get used to the stink that was all around us. And finally we arrived.

The name really gets you a picture of the place. The apocalypse that the "Ancients" unleashed on these lands were obvious and unbearable at the same time. It was clear the growing rage and anger that was growing among the two Avians. After days of silence Blackbeak telegraphically said: "They are going to pay for this!" and then continued.

The Queen of the Elves gave us a map of the last know position of the portal. Ironically it was in the middle of Golden beak itself.
In the distance there it was. The glory of the old empire of the Avians in the east was but a distant glimpse, in front of the destruction that was ahead of us. The giant towers of the city were nothing more that flaming matchboxes. The eldest of the Elves remeber the glory of those towers giving the merchants the sign they were approaching the great city of Av'ian. Now Golden Beak was a bunch of little mountains of ashes. More strangely the same ash that was littering the ground was still raining from the clouded sky.

At first seemed nothing more than a humming in the distance. The more we approached the center of Golden Beak, where the portal was located, the humming become more like a chanting. It was not understandable by our ears. Actually it seemed a completely new language. Near the closed portal there was a tall misterious figure with a black cloack and a hood. Around him there were other "beigns" smaller than him but wearing the same clothes. They were in a trance like state. Agitating their heads in circle they were making a strange ceremony in a even stranger black tongue. I think they were trying to activate the portal.

We needed to act as fast as we could. Wood understood the situation was a very good one to snipe them from afar. "I think we need to strike them from the distance. Here and now! We may have only this chance to do it while undetected. What do you think?"
We were looking into each other think what was the best option.
"What are we waiting for? I am with you, Ursan" Blackbeak said.
In the end we all saw there were no other option and agreed with the plan of Wood.

Blackbeak and Wood, quietly approached a smoldering ruin near enough the black circle. They were aiming at the big tall figure, which seemed to be a leader to what seemed to be the skeleton cult. They were about to strike when, all of a sudden, all the figures in the main plaza of what was Golden Beak stopped immediately. They were like wax statues in a dark musuem, those so real that are able to scare you. Only difference was those were not statues, but were scary as hell!

The tall figured target at us and pointed us with his violet and burning eyes:
"You fools! I am Nargel, Fifth great Priest of the cult!
You think with your mighty armours and pitiful weapons are able to smithe us"
We were there petrified by his words, like if a spell was put on us and prohibiting any move
"You are too late, foolish creatures. We have created the last throne in the black temple at the center of Fnord.
We will re-open the passage for our master and will make the Eclipse come to this world!
You are Doomed! DOOMED! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"

While laughing we could saw his teeth, sharp a razors and long as the swords of the humans.
In that moment the once closed portal a bright violet light began to burst into the magical artifact.

"Go my acolytes, we need to make the last arrengements for out Master arrival.
If you are brave or foolish enough to follow us, I dare you to come to Fnord.
Try to stop us if you can! HAHAHAHAHAH"

While he was talking the acolytes were crossing the gates of Fnord and when the last one disappeared in the whirls of the unknown he liquefied himself and disapperead in a ghastly laugh that was so eerie that we felt our faith in the mission was failing in that moment.
"What we are supposed to do now?" was the common question. Even the strongest components of the group were shaking by what happened.
"I will not return back with my tail between my legs! Also because it is too short to do so..." Scar said to extinguish the silence that was reigning.
We all smiled at the joke that he made and at the same time thought that he was right. We don't have time to go back to call for reinforcements or to ask assistance.

We are the frontlines of hope and we shall go forth!

We were all confident once more and we crossed the cursed portal unaware of the perils that were awaiting for us...

Here is the end of the entry of Erif, priest at the services of the Queen of the elves. It will continue Av'ial the next entry of our voyage in the unknown dark world of Fnord