Tales of Amra - The Gates of Bardin

“Alright Will, careful now,” Gerard Arcus said. He stood over his latest project with his arms outstretched, an intricately carved oak mantle held in taut suspension over an equally intricate set piece. Beneath him, a young William scrambled to fit the retaining bits into the mantle so that the piece would solidly lock into place.

“Got it,” William yelled as he wiggled the last bit into place. Gerard grunted his confirmation and slowly lowered the mantle into place. William watched the piece just long enough to ensure that the bits were settling into the right place before he rolled out from under the work bench. He was dusted with wood shavings when he stood up and wasted no time in shaking and slapping himself to get it all off. Opposite him Gerard released the mantle and, when it didn’t topple over, stepped back and looked the entire piece over with a critical eye.

“You missed a bit,” the woodsman said tersely. William froze and looked at the carving in horror. His father was a master craftsman and the pieces of the pedestal were carved so neatly that once the mantle settled onto the retaining bits in the base it would be almost like the entire thing was carved from a single block of wood. There was no going back now that his father had fitted the two together. And William had been so sure that he’d done his job right this time.

“W-which bit did I miss?” he asked hesitantly, a sinking feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.

“You missed this bit,” his father replied, reaching out to ruffle the shavings off the back of William’s hair.

It took the boy a moment to understand that he’d been duped, but then he let loose with a laugh of pure delight as only a child could. His father joined with his own chuckle and the two of them went back to examining the wooden pedestal.

It was a massive thing, nearly four feet tall and equally as wide across, and Gerard had put over forty hours of effort into shaving and sculpting the precisely dictated reliefs around the base and over the surface. The exact nature of the work had been dictated in exhausting detail by Gerard’s client, the exiled noble Sado Fendrel. Even in exile the name of House Fendrel held respect, and a project of this nature would bring a lot of business to Gerard’s doorstep.

William helped Gerard put the finishing touches on the pedestal, polishing and wrapping the piece in oiled wool before transferring it to the plain wooden box which would protect the pedestal in transit. Finished, the two of them slumped onto the bench just outside Gerard’s shop to watch the afternoon sun move lazily towards the treetops.

“So what story do you want today?” Gerard asked, letting the stress of the job slowly ebb from his sore muscles. It was a ritual of theirs that William would help Gerard with his work and then the two of them would sit and William would get to ask his father for a story. It worked out well for Gerard, who didn’t begrudge any time spent with his boy, and it worked equally as well for William, who not only got to learn the family trade, but got to learn a little bit more about the outside world with each passing day.

“I want to hear about the Gates of Bardin,” William said excitedly, wasting no time.

Gerard gave a gruff grunt of acknowledgment and then slumped down onto the bench, putting his arm out around William. “The Gates of Bardin, eh? Alright, that’s a good one.”

“So this story takes place a long time ago … “

This is a tale of the times before.

“Before what?” William blurted, interrupting immediately. Gerard stopped and looked sideways at William, a frown of disapproval turning down the corners of his mouth.

“Before what? Before everything, boy. Now do you want me to tell you the story or not?” William clamped his mouth shut and nodded at Gerard with wide, eager eyes. Gerard cleared his throat and shot William one more look, though this one was decidedly more lighthearted.

This is a tale from the early days of the land, when the name Amra wasn’t even a ripple downstream in the river of time. These were the days when the spirits lived in harmony with everything that dwelt beneath their knowing eyes. These weren't the spirits that you would recognize today. Ours are foul things, tricky and guarded. But these spirits were new. They were young and trusting things. Their light and laughter causing the soil to burst forth with life and the waters to run icy cold, pure and sweet.

And living beneath the spirits beneficial arms were the first people of the land. Yes, there were people here long before the land was even itself. And like the spirits of then and now the first people were a far cry from the people of today. The first peoples built their cities high and open to anyone who wished to come and go. They had no walls, for they never warred, and they had no need of taxes or tolls, because whatever they needed was freely provided by the land itself.

The first people spent their days laughing and living their lives as all men were meant to, free from worry and want. Their greatest loves were for learning and creating, taking everything that the spirits had to offer and using it to enrich everything around them. And they were apt pupils, growing far and wide to cover the land that loved them.

It is said that a rising tide raises all ships, but no tide could raise the first people because they were already at the top.

“But there’s a problem with being all the way at the top, Will. And do you know what that is?” Gerard asked.

William shook his head in the negative, still unwilling to speak lest he lose the rest of the story.

“The problem, Will, is that nothing lasts forever. And though you have nowhere to raise to when you’re at the top, you have everywhere to fall.”

One day the land was as it had always been, and the next the elder evil was there.

The violence of the elder evil’s arrival wounded the land in a way that it had never known before. Merely existence in the presence of the elder evil was anathema to the spirit realm. The echoes of its arrival were a blighted wound that devoured everything which came near it. Where there had once been only light and harmony, now there was chaos and death.

“And physically,” Gerard gestured while William watched enraptured. “Physically the land buckled and cracked under the weight of the elder evil’s arrival. The smooth lines of the land and the cities of the first people shattered and crumbled, only to be thrown up once more into what we now call the Stryoss Mountains.”

“Where the Gates of Bardin are!” William shouted, his excitement overriding his earlier fear. But this time Gerard didn’t scold him, instead matching the boy’s enthusiasm with his own.

“Exactly,” he said. “But not yet, that comes later. Much later.”

But though the elder evil caused such devastation on its arrival, it did nothing more than lay at rest in its mountainous cradle after that. As powerful as it was, you see, the elder evil was only a babe. It rested, dormant and hungry, devouring everything that came near it, but nothing more. There were many, both spirit and man, who sought the elder evil out, hoping to learn from it as they had learned from all things before. Those who ventured too close were never seen again, and even those few who turned back were changed by the experience.

The damage of the elder evil had been done, and the golden age of man and spirit had come to an end. The spirits were no longer the carefree generous beings that they had been, the elder evil’s presence had changed them. They were skittish things now, and no longer provided endlessly for those living beneath their watch.

The first people were likewise affected, now both by the elder evil and by the way that the spirits changed. Faced with a new mortality, humanity had to learn to be selfish and cruel. Learning and creation were no longer the favored pastimes, at least not for those who wanted to eat. Working in the fields became the new way of life, the remnants of the first people each looking to ensure that they had enough even if it meant that their neighbors didn’t. The beautiful cities and wide open lands became a thing of the past.

This was the way of things for a long, long time. Humans struggling to survive amidst the ghost of their former glory while the spirits of the land hid themselves away. And this is how it would likely have stayed. But then the Old Masters arrived.

William nodded eagerly. He knew many of the stories about the Old Masters and the strange powers that they’d commanded. Of course he’d heard this entire story a dozen times before, it was one of his favorites.

“You have to remember that the Old Masters might have looked and acted a lot like us, but they weren’t human,” Gerard continued. William grinned. Though he’d had his father tell him the story a dozen times, there remained a magical fascination that made each telling feel like the first.

Because they looked so much like us, our ancestors thought that the Old Masters were the same. Some tried to attack the newly arrived strangers, but those who did died in strange ways. Most simply ignored them, concerned more with their own lives than with the comings and goings of strangers. But when the Old Masters claimed that they’d come to study the elder evil, everyone laughed. There was no studying the elder evil, the people knew that. A nothingness worse than death awaited those who tried. But the Old Masters demanded to be taken to the elder evil’s resting place, and gathered thirteen of our ancestors to show them the way.

These thirteen people wept and cried out in fear, for they knew what the elder evil would do, but the Old Masters commanded them and they had seen the horrible things that happened to those who defied them. Knowing they had no choice, they left to show the Old Masters the way.

“And when I say that they had no choice but to lead the Old Masters, I mean that they had no choice,” Gerard said. He turned to William and gave him the intense, frightening look which another adult would immediately read as an over-dramatization, but that children believed with all seriousness. William played his part, shrinking back onto the bench and shivering, unable to take his eyes off his father’s.

“It is said that two of the humans even tried killing themselves to escape from the Old Masters but that the Old Masters powerful magic kept their spirits from leaving and brought them back to life. According to what the Old Masters believed there was a special power in the number thirteen, and they wanted all thirteen people of the land with them when they went to see the elder evil.”

Still, all of the people of the land were expecting to vanish into nothingness, as all who had sought out the elder evil had before them. They were this land’s children and if the land would not defend its children from the elder evil’s hunger, then what chance did these foreign sorcerers have?

“As it turned out,” Gerard said, “The Old Masters held a secret that the people of the land did not know. For the Old Masters, with their mysterious and powerful magic, had created the elder evil.”

The sun, in its slow march toward the evening horizon, was just now reaching behind the tops of the trees. The light pushed long, grasping shadows out towards William, emphasizing the dark words that his father spoke. Even though it was a coincidence that the story had just reached this point, William still saw the twitching finger branches as proof that he wasn’t the only one listening to Gerard’s words.

“It seems incomprehensible that mere creatures like the Old Masters, even as gifted as they were, could create something like the elder evil,” Gerard went on, drawing William out from under the hypnotic grip of the shadowy claws. “But know that no matter how powerful you think the Old Masters were, they were even more so.”

It had happened during one of their experiments that the Old Masters had been able to open our world to the space beyond space. When they looked out into that open vista they were surprised to discover that, like everything in the land, the stars themselves had spirits.

Spirits possess great power. And the stronger the spirit, the more focus that has been put into it, the more power that spirit will possess. And the stars are among the greatest of these. The Old Masters knew a terrible magic that would bind a spirit to their will, and with this power they opened the space beyond space and stole the very spirits from the distant stars.

But hunger begets hunger, and in their desire for more power they turned to the spirit of an ancient star on the verge of falling into death, for even the stars must die. And so it was that at the exact moment of this star’s fall, the Old Masters reached out and bound its spirit with their magic. However, even as a newborn, the elder evil was stronger than the Old Masters had expected, and it tore free from their grasp and plummeted into the space beyond space, tracking the Old Masters trail back towards their world, our world.

But the elder evil stumbled and came to rest in its cradle rather than the land of the Old Masters. It had taken the Old Masters a long time to track the elder evil down, but they finally had, and now they were prepared to use their magic to capture it and to add its terrible power to their own.

The legends say that at the moment the expedition broke the threshold between the end of the land and the place of the elder evil they were set upon by its terrible hunger. They felt the cold numbness pulling at the very core of their presence threatening to consume them in a way that would go deeper even than the destruction of their souls. But despite their fears the thirteen guides did not vanish into nothingness. Using their mastery over both the physical and spiritual realms, the Old Masters wove a barrier between themselves and the elder evil.

“They used pneumancy, didn’t they,” William asked, breaking the flow of the story. Gerard paused, caught between the flow of telling the tale and the abrupt nature of having to turn his attention to his son. William laughed at the funny look that came over his father’s face.

“Not exactly,” Gerard answered finally. He shot a playfully annoyed look at the boy. “The magic of the Old Masters was the precursor to that evil magic, but even the greatest of the Soul Lords couldn’t compare a single one of the Old Masters.”

William looked skeptical, as he always did during this point of the story. The Soul Lords of Amra had been powerful enough to challenge the God-Spirits in their heyday. Each one commanded enough spiritual energy to almost make them gods themselves. It was hard to believe that the Old Masters had really been that magically powerful.

“Anyways,” Gerard said, smiling fondly at William’s familiar reaction. “It’s getting late, do you want to hear the rest of the story before your mother calls us in for supper?”

“Yes, sir,” William replied instantly.

“Then you’re going to have to stop interrupting me.”

“Yes, sir,” William said again and dutifully hunkered back down into the corner of the bench.

The expedition slowed to a crawl once they passed the threshold. Though the elder evil had lain dormant since its arrival sheer violence of the event had broken the land. The entire space was filled with molten earth and pathless mountains. Every step of the way had to be marked and smoothed for the passing of the sensitive alchemical equipment that the Old Masters had brought with them. Focused as they were on shielding themselves from the elder evil’s hunger, the Old Masters were forced to rely on lesser means for making their way across the shattered landscape. Our ancestors.

Gerard paused his tale as he looked out into the fading light. “It was in this way that the first seed of Amra was planted.”

Days passed, then weeks, and then months as the expedition toiled ever onwards. Every mile carved into that hellish place was done so through the sweat and strain of the thirteen. But the people of the land were tough, and once they knew that the elder evil’s hunger wasn’t going to be able to claim them they drove themselves forward in a pace that even the Old Masters found surprising.

“Why?” William asked.

“Huh?” Gerard stopped speaking and looked at the quizzically.

“If the Old Masters knew so much, how could the thirteen surprise them?”

Gerard paused, considering the question. Many of the William’s questions were rote, a practiced part of telling the story between the two of them. But this was the first time that William had asked him this particular question. His boy was growing up, he reminded himself with a momentary pang of sadness.

“Well I suppose it was because to the Old Masters the elder evil was simply a curiosity, an experiment of theirs that had gone wrong. But to the thirteen it was a part of their life, a threat to their families and to the land they lived on.”

William’s small face scrunched up but he nodded. His father nodded in turn and continued.

Buoyed by the Old Masters’ magic, the thirteen remained alive and healthy. The first days were the hardest for them, for though they were used to working long days growing crops or hunting the beasts of the wilds for sustenance, they were unused to the toil of forging a path through an unyielding land. But soon enough the hard work toughened them physically, shaping them into creatures of hard muscle and strong bone. No matter how hard they drove themselves, the magic of the Old Masters buoyed them back up, healing them and making them that much tougher. In time they strove hard from sunup to sundown, working ceaselessly to bring the Old Masters to their prize.

And just as their bodies became honed by the Old Masters’ magic, the thirteen found their minds being honed by it as well. They watched the Old Masters workings with secret intentions, and though much of it escaped their understanding enough of it got through. It was a slow process, as slow as the forging of their bodies in the Old Masters’ crucible, but after a time the thirteen began to understand the most basic of the Old Masters’ magic and the way that they commanded the very spirits of the land to do their bidding.

This was the beginning of Amran pneumancy, the blighted magic which commands the spirits of the land to do its master’s bidding.

The thirteen broke their backs and wet the earth with their sweat as they toiled, month after month, to finally bring the Old Masters to the resting place of the elder evil. But as tough as the strain on their bodies was, the strain on their minds was much greater. They were forced to observe the Old Masters for only the briefest of moments at a time, and then to take those brief glimpses and to learn from them in secret. And all of this required thinking in new and abstract ways, ways in which the thirteen had never thought before.

While the Old Masters commanded the spirits to do their bidding, acting as the masters of all they touched and saw, the thirteen spoke quietly to the spirits as equals. They bonded with the spirits over their mutual tie to the land and though the spirits were reluctant to dally with the thirteen, they came to be steadfast friends and allies.

“But if the elder evil consumed the spirits around it then who were the spirits that the thirteen talked to?” William asked.

Gerard had to stop to think about the question. It was another new thought in his boy’s repertoire and he was forced to admit that his boy was growing up. He found it was quite a bittersweet concept. Still, the question was a good one, one that he’d never himself thought to ask when his own father had told the story to Gerard. He’d never thought to ask where the thirteen’s friendly spirits had come from. It was just the way that the story had always been told.

“I suppose they were the spirits that the Old Masters brought with them. If their magic could protect the thirteen then it must have been able to protect a handful of spirits,” Gerard said hesitantly. Despite this, William nodded in satisfaction and settled back to continue listening. After all, a father’s word was law.

“Anyways,” Gerard coughed feeling slightly embarrassed at having to make something up for William on the spot.

Even with the aid of the spirits the thirteen found their progress to be slow. The influence of the elder evil’s touch had twisted the very rocks of the earth and the clouds in the sky until up was down and down was up. But eventually the twisted land gave way beneath the will of the thirteen and the people of the land at last brought the Old Masters to the resting place of the elder evil.

“Supper is ready!”

Gerard paused again, a mock look of exasperation on his face. He was beginning to think that the land itself didn’t want him to finish his story.

“On our way,” Gerard called back.

“But what about the rest of the story?” William asked, his voice a low whine when he realized that his father wasn’t going to continue.

“Don’t you worry,” Gerard replied. “I won’t leave it there. But you wanted a long story and that’s got to come with a price. Now go on, boy. Go wash up and help your momma finish setting the table.”

William frowned but did as he was told, jumping off the bench and racing towards the cabin. Gerard leaned back and watched the last of the light struggle to reach him through the trees. William was a good lad, but he was also quite talkative. It left Gerard without much in the way of a moment’s peace to himself.

A warm breeze rustled the leaves around him, surrounding Gerard with a low, pleasant hum. It was the type of sound which could lull an unwary man to sleep. But Gerard wasn’t quite there yet. He had a lot of thoughts on his mind, not the least of which was William. He was still Gerard’s little boy, but he was starting to ask questions, which meant that he was beginning to see the world in his own way. Where would that go and what would it lead him to? Gerard watched the fading light as he wondered.

“Would that the spirits of the land still watched over us,” he whispered to the flighty wind.

The call for supper came again and this time Gerard rose to join his family.

“Can you finish the story now?” William begged. The boy was fresh faced and in his light sleeping blouse. Gerard eyed William and then looked to his wife. It always came down to her say-so in these matters. Shar rolled her eyes at the two of them, but gave an approving nod and a pleasant smile. Gerard sighed at William and gestured for the boy to come sit and warm himself by the hearth. William was only too eager to comply.

“Alright, alright,” Gerard said once William had finished wiggling into place beside him. “Now where were we?”

“The thirteen had just brought the Old Masters to the elder evil’s cradle,” William answered excitedly.

Across the room, Shar’s smile turned into a sharp line. Gerard returned a sheepish grin at her. He knew that the Tale of Bardin’s Gate wasn’t a tale that she particularly enjoyed. He often wondered if William’s love of this particular story was only because his mother disliked it so much.

“Ah, uhm, yes,” he said with a cough. “So the thirteen used their newfound kinship with the spirits to bring the Old Masters to the cradle of the elder evil.”

The elder evil was an immense creature of hunger and power. But even so it was still a young creature, barely more than an infant. And though it was a creature of unfathomable size it held no form that the thirteen could recognize. As for the Old Masters, well, I can’t say for certain how they perceived it. Still, even the Old Masters were hesitant around the elder evil, something that the thirteen had never seen before.

With little use for the thirteen once their quarry had been reached, the Old Masters pushed them aside and set to studying the elder evil. From their vantage places the thirteen watched the Old Masters work their magic and learned. Most of that magic was beyond their ken, but the thirteen had learned enough to increase their own understanding tenfold. But even their newfound power couldn’t prepare them for what came next.

The Old Masters had finished their preparations and were ready to wake the elder evil from its static slumber. As powerful and hungry as the being was, the Old Masters knew that their magic was stronger. The thirteen had no way to know, and no way to prepare for the onslaught. It was simply that one moment they were watching the Old masters for something new to learn and the next the elder evil was striving against them with a vast hunger which sought to consume all existence.

“Pride,” Gerard said. He said it in the tone of voice which told the boy that that his father was gifting him something important. A lesson which he would not understand now, but that would become invaluable to him should he remember it when he himself was an adult. William nodded sagely, the requisite response to such things.

“Pride,” Gerard said again, a harsher emphasis. “It’s a trap, boy. One that ensnares both the lowest cropper and the most skilled craftsman. Bondsmen and kings have fallen to its lure, time and again. Even the Old Masters, wise as they were in the ways of this world and beyond, couldn’t escape the grasping fingers of pride. Prides going to kill you as sure as any blade to the heart or magical fire, if you let it.”

A bemused wrinkle cut across William’s brow. “But aren’t you proud of your work, papa?”

Gerard grinned, knowing that his son had led him to where he was going. “That’s the tricky part, isn’t it? Sure, pride’ll build you up. Make you stand that much straighter and your hands work that much cleaner. But pride is like that powder we got for you from the witch just outside Lammsford. The one you had to take when the red fever got into you. You remember that?”

William grimaced and nodded. He would never be able to forget the sour taste of the yellow powder that his parents had made him choke down, he thought. It was the worst thing that he’d ever had to eat, and one time he’d gotten into the compost heap when he’d been young and had had a sour stomach for three days afterwards. But he’d rather go through that a dozen times than have to take the witch’s yellow powder again.

Gerard chuckled, reading the expressions on William’s face as cleanly as an order from a client. “Even though you hated it, the medicine helped you out. It killed the red fever. But even though the medicine made you better the witch warned us against giving you too much of it. Said it would cook you just as sure as the red fever would have.”

“That’s pride. It can make you better in small doses, but if you’re not careful with it it’ll blind you and burn you out. It’ll take all the strength it gave you and then some. But it’s a subtle poison, taking all that from you all while it makes you think you’re invincible.”

“Just like the Old Masters?” William questioned.

“Just like the Old Masters,” Gerard confirmed.

Fully half of the Old Masters were consumed the instant that the elder evil awoke. It rose like a specter, a terrible wave of nothingness from which even the light of the sun could not escape. It reached for the Old Masters, one by one, with hands that warped the very space of the world around it. The Old Masters had sought the infant that they had birthed from a dying star but had instead found a creature weaned off the life of a thousand thousand souls.

Hands of darkness reached first for one Old Master and then another. Each time it fell the Old Master vanished, consumed completely by the elder evil’s hunger. Caught unaware, the remaining few could do little but try to protect themselves. Words spilled from the rest of their flock. A hundred words and incantations were shouted in an arcane tongues. Ice and flames coalesced from nothingness at the will of the Old Masters, as did more esoteric things like purple starlight and living dolls made of pure thought.

As they had when the people of the land first attacked them, the Old Masters directed these manifestations of their power against the elder evil. They fought and strove to keep it at bay, to drive it back to its slumber, drawing power from the places dark and unfamiliar. But all of this was for naught as the elder evil consumed everything the Old Masters attacked it with, growing ever stronger even as it continued to snuff them from existence.

The thirteen watched with horror as one by one the Old Masters disappeared and knew with certainty that the end of the land, even the end of the world was upon them. But even as they saw this they recognized something familiar within the elder evil, something that they and it shared in common. You see, the land had raised the thirteen, molded and shaped them. It was because of the land that they’d grown strong and able. And as it was with them so it was with the elder evil.

When the elder evil had fallen, it had come to rest in the land and the land had provided for it. Like the thirteen the land had fed it and nurtured it, allowing it to grow strong. For, you see, the land does not judge. It does not pick and choose favorites among its children. It gives all who live in it opportunity, the good and the bad, and bids them to take what they need and to grow. Everything in the land was one and the same.

This was the truth that the thirteen had learned from the spirits, and it was in this truth that they found a way to stop the elder evil.

The thirteen had toiled together side by side across a harsh, warped landscape. They had spilled sweat, blood, and tears together. They had grown strong and smart together. They were closer to each other than they were to the families that they had left behind. Closer than parents. Closer than sibling. Closer than lovers. They were of one mind, and of one soul, and there was no hesitation among them. They all knew what had to be done to stop the elder evil.

We say that we call them the thirteen because their names are lost to time. Because they gave up their lives as individuals to join something greater. They gave up their names to be one with the land. But that’s not true, because we know one name, a name that still carries weight to the people of Amra.

That name is Bardin.

Alone amongst the thirteen, Bardin faced the elder evil. He approached the thing as the last of the Old Master broke and fled. Bardin called upon his brothers and the spirits of the land to connect themselves to him, and through them he felt the land itself lending him aid. And on the other side of the land he felt the elder evil, nothing more than an endless hunger.

The elder evil turned on Bardin and reached for him as it had the Old Masters, seeking to consume him. And as it touched Bardin he used the power that he had stolen from the Old Masters, tying himself to the elder evil and it to him, binding them together through their shared link to the land. And as he did so, sacrificing himself to chain the elder evil he spoke these words…
William spoke the words in rhythm with Gerard, his eyes alight. “I bind you to myself. I bind you to the land. I bind you to my brethren. Nhullus, I name you, and Hunger. And I bind you until the end of days.”

Silence fell between Gerard and William, broken only by the pop of the firewood and the sound of Shar cleaning up the next room over. They watched each other for a moment, their faces both locked in a mask of stern silence. Then they both broke out in laughter, deep and rich. When they had composed themselves enough, Gerard continued.

With the elder evil bound the land returned to normal, no longer twisted by its corrupting evil. The thirteen returned to their people and brought with them the knowledge of spirit magic and that Bardin had sacrificed themselves for him. The shattered land where the elder evil fell became the Stryoss Mountains, and the trail that the thirteen had forged through them became the Gates of Bardin which separates eastern and western Amra. And legend tells that somewhere in the Stryoss Mountains, near the Gates of Bardin lies an immense black stone, the remains of Nhullus, the Hungerer, bound in eternal sleep my the spirit of Bardin himself, who keeps all travelers away from the unholy site so that his sacrifice can never be undone.

“And what about the Old Masters?” William asked. “The ones who fled?”

Gerard thought for a moment. “Story tells that only two of the Old Masters escaped, a sorcerer and his bodyguard. They fled the land, never to return. Some say they’re waiting outside, kept at bay by the fear that Nhullus will wake again should they return. Others say they destroyed themselves with their pursuit of a way to control Nhullus, victims of their own pride.”

“But what if they do come back?” William asked.

“I don’t really think that’s likely,” Gerard laughed. “I told you that this all happened thousands of years ago, before Amra was even an empire. Wherever the Old Masters went, we needn’t fear them.”

Gerard yawned and stretched his back with a sigh. “Besides, it’s time for you to go to bed.”

William frowned and started to voice a complaint but Gerard stopped him with a warning grunt and a stern look. William let out a frustrated sigh of his own and got up, shuffling toward the cubby where his linens were kept. He settled in and watched the shadows of the fire burn low across the outside his sealed little world. In no time at all he was drifting off, and in his pre-slumber dreams he watched the figure of a hero stand against a terrible beast in the shadows.

Name of Thread: Tales of Amra
Type of Judgement: Workshop Submission

Rewards:

Revenant receives:
4186 EXP
273 GP

Inclusive of Althanas Festival bonus at 1.5x.
Cost at 2 AP for Workshop to be deducted.

“The revenant, he knew, searched for him.”
― Michael Punke, The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge
[couldn't resist]

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