Sleeping Giants Game 12

Intro

Something Stirs in the Deep

It must be the smell that triggers the memories. That dank earthy odor of age and sin. The tunnel walls are ragged with the movement of nature, the rending and shearing of stone across stone in a single swift crack of the planet. Jordan removes a gauntlet and runs his calloused hand across the jagged rock wall, and it comes flooding back to him.

—

He is young again, barely twelve, not yet a man, walking down the long dark unhewn halls somewhere beneath Skyhammer. His father leads him from behind, guiding him from the dark as Jordan walks through halls he has never seen before, guided by the golden holy light of the Hammer of Thalos his father has made him carry. The child knows not their destination, but he dare not ask before the answer is offered.

Further they move down a seemingly endless tunnel of ragged walls and low ceilings, descending further beneath what he assumes is Skyhammer Church, but his bearings are lost. They may very well have extended beyond the boundary of the crater valley and now walk under the base of the Skyhammer Mountains. More questions he dare not ask his silent guide.

Hours pass by the steady golden light of the Hammer, and Jordan’s legs are aching with exertion. He can hardly keep his back straight and is reaching out to the rough rock wall for support every dozen steps. The Hammer has long grown heavy and his forearms strain with the weight of the weapon as large as his own torso. Still he walks just a step ahead of his father who moves upright and effortless as though just setting out on a stroll. The strength of the man puzzles the boy, who prays every morning to Thalos that he will one day earn his place beside his father, and inherit his strength of body and force of will. He must try harder. He must keep quiet and walk on.

How much time has passed? Hours? A day? He has missed dinner, perhaps even several meals, and his stomach aches like it did when he was eight years old and his months of fasting began. He is reminded of the second Psalm of the Descent of Thalos, and repeats it to himself in his head:

“Thalos descended the cave to Abaddon for six years, moving to the Abyss as a bead of water moves along the back of a serpent.”

Six years. Impossible for a regular mortal man, and yet Jordan is willing to bet his own iron practice hammer that his father could make the journey.

Finally, as though his father were reading the boy’s mind, the man speaks up as he walks. The sound of his voice booms and echoes through the craggy tunnel in infinite directions.

“Jordan,” the man bellows from behind the boy, “it is time we unearthed your true nature. Do you remember your psalms?”

The sudden sound breaks the hours-long rhythm of their footfalls and shocks Jordan into a flinch. Afraid that his father was reading his own mind and he had remembered the Psalm incorrectly, the boy stammers out a quiet “Y-yes, father…” and awaits his punishment.

But none comes. Instead his father bellows again, this time reciting the very same Psalm that Jordan had recalled.

“Thalos descended the cave to Abaddon for six years, moving to the Abyss as a bead of water moves along the back of a serpent.” Jordan is elated and his soul shines within his small frame, but he dare not show it outwardly in a sign of weakness. He clenches the tight leather wrappings around the golden Hammer of Thalos, and listens on.

His father continues. “They came to the doorway to the Abyss beyond which was a starless void black as pitch.” As though revealed by magic, the tunnel ahead of Jordan closes toward him, and into the golden light comes a heavy wooden door, closed shut with the weight of centuries. Above the door is carved strange claw-like markings and symbols in the ancient stone.

His father moves past him toward the door, and continues reciting as though incanting a spell: “Above the door beheld a carving in the stone in the language of fiends, ‘Abandon your hope, you who enter here.’ And Virgil, guide of Thalos, said unto him, ‘Thalos, remain steadfast in your faith and hold close your hammer of gold, for fiends of all sizes and temperaments stalk the void.’”

Jordan’s father reaches forward and grips the massive iron handle on the door. He heaves it forward and for all his strength he pushes it open only slightly, the movement creaking, groaning, and scraping iron on stone. He motions for Jordan to enter the darkness beyond, beckoning him to reveal the inner sanctum by the Good Light of the Hammer of Thalos.

As the young Jordan crosses the threshold he is met with a wave of cold air that carries with it the stench of urine and rotting meat. His nose turns and he recoils at the smell. He looks back to his father for a brief moment and is met with only a steel glare in the glowing gold light of the Hammer. He turns back to the threshold and presses in. The arch of the heavy door gives way to a low rocky ceiling dripping with condensation, and all around him are walls that extend beyond the light. The air in here is heavy and wet. From what he can see, the walls are lined irregularly with heavy rusted chains, bolted to the wall on one end, and tipped with manacles on the other. Beneath the chains are puddles of dark liquid, the closest of which appear to be writhing with insects.

His eyes roam around the darkness, examining the rough work of the walls in this oasis of penance sat within a tunnel desert. He shifts his gaze across the middle of the room and, just at the edge of the light, sees the shadowy knees and hands of a young boy his own age, strapped to a wooden chair. The boy is half-awake and shivering, and when the Hammer’s light meets his face his eyes squint with pain. Then he adjusts as his gaze meets Jordan’s, and terror wracks his face.

How long has he been here, in this darkness?

From across the room the boy stammers to Jordan, “S-s-sir, sir! P-please set me free!” His forearms thrash within the wraps that hold them in place, and his starving legs kick wildly. His ribs are showing through the taut flesh of his chest, and his cheeks and eyes are sunken into his skull. Jordan can only guess how long he has been down here.

To another child from another part of the world, perhaps this scene would be thought of differently. But to young Jordan, the freezing, emaciated boy who suffers before him is deserving of the cold stone imprisonment to which he was brought. Jordan trusts the purpose of this room because his father trusts its purpose, and the Will of Thalos, Right Hand of Erathis, flows through his father, Jostan Steingard. Therefore young Jordan was brought here to serve the purpose of the room itself.

Penance.

Jordan turns back to his father standing in the mouth of the door and, perhaps for the first time he feels and understands a bond of purpose, not as a child, but as a man. “What is his sin?” Jordan asks.

Jostan’s expression is unchanged as he responds, “he stole from the Church.”

Jordan’s soul alights with fury and he turns to the boy in the center of the room. As he approaches, the Hammer’s light brightens the gaunt features of his face and deepens the jagged shadows of his skull. The boy is losing his hair and insects are crawling across his scalp to escape the light. “What did you do?” Jordan demands with a vigor renewed since the hours-long journey to this place.

“I-I-I…” the boy stammers, squinting again in the light, “I gave some food to a stranger. H-he said he was hungry and he asked me for it, a-a-and I took some and gave it to him.” For a moment the boy’s eyes soften from their pain and meet steadily with Jordan’s. Eye-to-eye, Jordan can see he is nearly the same age as the boy in the chair, and his face looks familiar. And in that moment, Jordan feels the pang again in his gut; the feeling he had before, so many years ago in the agoge…

The boy in the chair cuts into Jordan’s thought, “Y-y-you would have done the same…”

In that moment, Jordan catches that feeling that had been welling and strangles it with his grip on the Hammer of Thalos. He strangles it, and he buries it deeper within himself, beneath a face of steel and a life of servitude. He speaks plainly to the boy in the chair, “You and I are not the same.” As the boy’s eyes widen, Jordan raises the hammer above his head, and recites the Psalm he remembers from his training:

“The Garden of Strength must be watered with the blood of warriors… and the weeds of Pity must be pulled by the root.”

With a thundering crack, Jordan wrenches the hammer down onto the boy’s left hand, crushing the bones and mangling the flesh in a single blow.

The boy shrieks in untamed agony. “W-w-why… would you…?!” he begins to whimper, as Jordan raises the hammer again, and again slams the Hammer of Thalos down onto the boy’s other hand, matching agony with agony.

The boy can no longer speak through his pain, and can do nothing more than cry. He sits there with his arms bound to the arms of the chair and his broken hands shaking uncontrollably, his head hanging down to his chest as it heaves with weeping sorrow.

Jordan brings the Hammer up before him and the light illuminates his face. “Consider your penance to Thalos paid,” he says before turning his back to the boy and leaving him in the darkness of his own torment once again. Behind him echo the weakened cries of a child, and the sound of it dies as his father closes the door behind them.

On the journey back through the tunnels Jordan and his father walk in silence, and Jordan’s own soul lays the final shovel of dirt atop the grave of his pity. But just before tamping it down for good, Jordan remembers the face of the boy in that room. He was a trainee like Jordan, and they sparred together on the floor of the agoge.

—

Jordan Steingard comes-to as though from a daze, and pulls his calloused hand back from the lacerated rock wall. For a moment he gains his bearings and stares at his hand. He moves the fingers and watches them move, full of life. His fingers did not ask to be moved, but were willed. They did not have a choice.

He feels it again. Something stirs in the deep grave of his steel gaze and his life of servitude.

Should he have killed the boy? Should he have given him release?

It stirs.

Here come Lyla and Nil.

Jordan puts his gauntlet on again.

Recap

Recap notes, by Laura

"DAY 4 ~1PM: 1/6/513"

• OPENS with backflag of Jordan in some kind of trial/test with his father - he ends up breaking a child's hands who he was told stole from the church.
• Meeting back in the hallway/rift
• Lyla informs the group of the fire snake, stated she was able to scare it off
• Ana checks needle. We head in the direction (hall) in which it's pointing. Ends in a closed stone door, on obvious way to open it... push open?
• Jordan attemps pushing it open, fails and then falls
• Stratton succeeds, Jordan takes this opportunity to trip him after Stratton walks over him to enter the room. Mosaic tiles. Dragony related.
• Nil notices the cloth covering a rusty statue of a red dragon. The cloth is draped over a tray in the dragon's mouth - divination
• Nil lifts up the cloth and puts it on, asks Lyla how it looks? ...looks alright? It's a "cowl/mask". Nothing seems to happen - she puts it in her bag.
• Ana checks needle - it's pointing NE...
• Party heads back to the door in other room with door unexplored in needle's direction... as we walk needle changes direction, we decide to enter another door instead.
• Ford listens at door. Hears distant sounds of movement, not directly on other side of door.
• Checks for traps... none found? Opens into a small 10'x5' long hallway ending in another door.
• Continue until we find a room with 2 doors - one has sounds behind it. Jordan jams this door and we enter through the other door to find an octagonal room. Many growths appear scorched. Lots of holes throughout the room. Looks like an older version of the fire snake room Lyla & Nil found. They let the group know.
• Stratton goes to a hole