Book III: The Lost City of Atlantis
Chapter 19: Civilization's End
Day 1:
Midsummer draws near. The heroes'
quest for lost Atlantis has brought them to the very end of civilization. At the western border of Aquilonia, in newly-settled land wrested from the savage Picts and tenuously held by a fort that was still some miles before them, the adventurers follow a fresh cut trail through forests thick, quiet and primeval. Deep within the green dark walls that flank them, the sound of a twig snapping underfoot! Suddenly, a Pict
ambush is sprung! A life and death
battle erupts! The ambush reaps a
cruel harvest. Suddenly, the tables turn and the fight becomes a
slaughter. The massacre turns more gruesome as the adventurers harvest
scalps for Aquilonian silver. The butchery complete, the adventurers press on through the primeval wilderness. Before sunset, they reach the furthest edge of civilization,
Fort Tuscelan. The Pict scalps
smooth their path among the Aquilonians as they explore the
outpost, its
inhabitants, news and
rumors. A tense
standoff earns one swaggering Aquilonian soldier the
enmity of Cruloc.
The distant drumming of the Picts is the last thing they hear before they succumb to exhaustion. Night
passes uneventfully at the frontier's edge.
Day 2:
Dawn comes sharp and early to the trumpeting of horns! A wake up call sounds at daybreak to signal the first formation in the great courtyard. The adventurers cannot sleep for all the racket. Contrary to last night, the frontier outpost is as
industrious as an ant colony. The adventurers take a day to
rest and recover in the bustling microcosm of civilization surrounded by a forest primeval. Before sundown, they are already
planning their leave. They
restock their provisions in preparation for a swift departure.
Decius' scouts agree to row them across. Under cover of darkness, they push the long canoe out onto Black River. Mid-stream the stillness is suddenly
broken by the nightly talking of the drums, from deep within the forest! Grigor chants a gypsy prayer, the scouts withdraw their oars, and the river current
takes them. They speed southward and run aground on the western shore of the Black River.
And so the adventurers
steal into Pictland. Leaving the livid scouts in the longboat, they splash ashore, crunch across the short pebbly beach and take cover within the dark treeline. All is still save the distant, unrelenting drumming of the Picts.
Suddenly, a
cry of death pierces the night! Then comes defiant yelling from the direction of the river. It abruptly ends mid-shout! A terrible silence follows and Grigor breaks it, calling the savages down upon them! Merciless
arrows fly from the darkness in wave after
wave! The four warriors make a mad, desperate
charge west, into a storm of unyielding shafts! Suddenly a Pict lies face down with a shattered skull, his fingers spasmodically clawing at the grass! Another savage is dead before he knows it, Dahinna's blade deep in his back! A
maelstrom of slaughter and arrows and cries from Pictish reinforcements! Amethu unfurls the brittle, dusty Papyrus of Uthoth from the fabled Treasure of Xuthalhotep and reads aloud its arcane hieroglyphs, placing a ward of protection upon Grigor! Arrows descend upon him with no effect! The superstitious savages
retreat in bewilderment and fear before the powerful black magic of the intruders! The adventurers
plunge headlong through the darkness after them! When they burst from the treeline at the river, the Picts are some dozen feet from land, paddling furiously in their canoes! The adventurers
attack the fleeing savages. The surviving Picts escape to spread the word of the invaders' supernatural might. Then the explorers set out into the wilds of
Pictland.
Day 3:
The stars have not yet paled for dawn when they startle a herd of
deer and press on until
morning.
Chapter 20: The Forbidden City
Day 8:
After days of travel across a wilderness untamed and primeval, the adventurers
discover that which the Picts call the Forbidden City of the Dead, and what they believe to be
Thracia, the lost colony of Atlantis! The explorers circumnavigate the dizzying rim of the canyon to a path of descent, a
gateway to a distant age long gone by.
They descend into antiquity upon a thin and perilous path carved into the towering cliffs. Halfway down, they hear a
song, haunting and beguiling. Like sailors drawn to shipwreck by the sirens' call, the men
cannot resist. Roped together, they plummet reckless and eager down the narrow cliffside path until Kiri
plunges from it! The adventurers pull themselves back up onto the precipice as horrors rise from below and sweet melody turns to inhuman
screeching! A wild battle
erupts and Kiri becomes ensorcelled by the filthy, winged harridans! By steel and shaft and flame, the adventurers
drive off the last of the insidious vulture-women!
The explorers descend the treacherous cliff-path down into distant antiquity. There sprawls the ghost of
Thracia. The heroes survey the
corpse of empire. As the sun sets, they
enter the monumental vestige of lost Atlantis. By nightfall, the explorers reach a ruined temple of the ancient world and warily
approach. They cautiously peer within and discover the temple to the gods of Atlantis has long ago been
defiled. The explorers brush back the cobwebs and
trespass upon the hallowed ground of the crumbling temple ruins. Learned Amethu carefully studies the ravaged murals that
speak of an older world than recorded history knows.
As they sleep, the adventurers are seemingly
cursed by the strange gods of Atlantis for their hubris! Before dawn, gigantic sinister spiders
descend from the shadows onto their waking, scrambling
prey! Gnasher and Grigor succumb to insidious spider venom! In alarm and desperation, the besieged party
fight for their lives against the vast, crawling horrors! Two creeping terrors are swiftly slaughtered and a third flees up its web! They tend to their fallen and discover Grigor and Gnasher are not dead but in the grip of some insidious
paralysis! Soon they are free of it. Among the cobwebs and debris is discovered an arcane
tome of ancient, forbidden sorceries of lost Atlantis, which Amethu reads until dawn.
Day 9:
Discovered beneath a loose paving stone is a rope ladder that plunges down into darkness. Zahra
climbs down and discovers a door at the bottom, and a
stairway beyond.
Chapter 21: The Caverns of Thracia
Day 9, continued:
The explorers
descend into the black depths of the mysterious underworld. Primitive murals depict the dark Thracian epoch after the fall of Atlantis. At last they reach the bottom of the steps and find a great cave and a
rope bridge extending out across an abyss. Grigor sprints across the suspended slats and
gigantic bats descend upon him without a sound! The gypsy priest cuts one from the air as another knocks him off balance! Alone on the swaying spindle-bridge, Grigor regains his balance and
fights! The others come to his aid with
disastrous results! Grigor hacks the giant bat asunder in mid-air, and then the explorers are attacked by
spears from the darkness!
With missiles
shrilling through the air, a savage fray
erupts! The adventurers
charge the Thracian spearmen that hunger for their deaths!
Steel, fire, spells and
blood! On the eastern front, the battle becomes a slaughter. At the northern front, Grigor
charges in to fight two foes
alone in a grueling
death by a thousand cuts. He
falls beneath Thracian steel!
The adventurers are
victorious. The bridge is taken. But all around them looms the ominous darkness of the caverns of Thracia. The party
recovers from battle, searches the dead, interrogates their prisoner, and
explores. With eerie calm, their captive curses them with the vengeance of Thanatos, the Atlantean God of Death. At a stone altar, Grigor is
set upon by a swarm of gigantic bats and
retreats!
Grigor opens a door onto an
ambush of Thracian swordsmen! Cruloc and Kiri
slam the doors, and Kiri seals them with magic! Then a pack of murderous war dogs are
upon them! A harrowing
fray of
fangs and
steel ends as quickly as it erupted!
With a sickening splintering and a savage cry, the great door is
rent asunder and the merciless fight is
joined again! Instantly, two Thracians and Grigor are
cut down, and
Iago almost with them! Beset on all sides, the wounded adventurers are determined not to die without a
fight. But Iago is the next to fall. Suddenly, a
stranger joins the fray! A
Pict savage fighting on the side of the adventurers! The
cursed heroes
fight for their lives and are
victorious. They momentarily
recover from the harrowing battle, and then
advance, discovering a rotunda holding a basin of skulls, and a column of black drapery. The adventurers
retreat, yielding hard-fought territory won with sweat and blood. They
hide and
recover from their nigh-fatal wounds for
two days.
Chapter 22: Underworld
Day 11:
The invaders of the distant, timeless past steel themselves anew and
descend once more into the cavernous abyss. On the rope bridge across the bottomless pit, they are besieged by
gigantic bats that are quickly
cast down into the abyss! They cautiously advance and discover that all the corpses they left here two days ago are
gone, and the temple of Thanatos is
defiled. Searching the ruin, they find a
reliquary door in the base of a broken statue. Trying to open it, Dahinna is
stabbed by a poisoned, spring-loaded needle and her life is
saved by Amethu and Cruloc! The reliquary is emptied of its
treasure.
The explorers venture
deeper, to the bat-infested cavern! The whirling vortex of wings and fangs is met by unerring arrows and unyielding steel that
carves a trail of crimson through the air! The screeching maelstrom
lacerates their flesh! The giant airborne creatures are
cut asunder mid-flight in a
harvest of gore and blood!
The adventurers cautiously
explore west and north. They cross a bridge of the ancients that spans a bottomless abyss and discover a
stairwell descending into mystery. They retreat and find an empty
pen of the Thracian's domesticated wolves.
The explorers withdraw and follow the rope bridge eastward into a third immense
cavern, the largest yet discovered! Cruloc, Dahinna and Torix step off the precipice and follow a precarious path in the cliff face toward a dark portal cut into the naked rock! Suddenly, enormous black
shapes descend in silence from the cavern's shadowed vaults! Unerring archery
feathers the winged beasts with arrows!
The tethered scouts reach the distant
doorway and discover its dark
twin. They divide their number and brave the crypt-like regions of the Death God, discovering an unwholesome subterranean
growth that has taken root. Suddenly, from it, some half dozen ghastly figures
rise! Horrifically, their bodies are infested with the unnatural fungi! The adventurers
battle for their lives by
spell and by
sword and
prevail. But Dahinna is
poisoned by the insidious spore clouds and
paralyzed! The explorers rest, hoping she will recover. Amethu delves the
secrets from the reliquary of the shattered icon of Thanatos. At what might be dawn, Dahinna awakens, the explorers
prepare, and Amethu wonders what dread necromancy awaits them.
Chapter 23: The Grave of Empire
Day 12:
That morning, the explorers plunge anew into the silent, black
unknown. Through winding catacombs and supernatural darkness, they discover the
Oracle of Thanatos and dare ask it
questions!
Intrigued by her strange prophecies, the adventurers backtrack and
search the poisonous, subterranean growth, finding a stone
casket crudely carved with the unholy symbols of Thanatos! Cruloc throws it open and discovers within, atop a mound of gold and silver coins, a skull-headed obsidian
wand! After an
argument, Dahinna is caught
stealing and deftly smooths things over.
The explorers continue
onward into the eerie catacombs, finding a
tapestried chamber with pews of
worshippers in bone-white shrouds! Grigor dares find out what lurks
beneath. Suddenly and without warning, the desecrators of the temple are seemingly stricken
dead by the God of Death!
Dahinna is plunged into
darkness! She gets a torch alight and beholds one of the shrouded worshippers, returned from death! It asks her to accept her
fate. She falls to her knees and
bargains not for herself, but for others. But the charnel horror offers only death. Suddenly, it lunges at her!
Dahinna evades its grasp and
wounds it! It seizes her and Dahinna feels a piercing chill; cold like never before and an all-consuming emptiness as it
devours her very soul. All hope is lost. Death is
near. But Dahinna will not yield. Impossibly, she
triumphs over the ancient horror!
Recovering from the crucible, she
discovers Cruloc still draws breath! Miraculously, all her companions yet
live! They are
reunited, seemingly beyond the grave. After regrouping, they press on,
westward.
No sooner does Grigor pass through a door when he is suddenly
besieged by something unseen and inexplicable! A glistening, nigh-invisible wall fills the winding hallway! The looming, eldritch thing crawls forward and
absorbs the stricken gypsy priest into its vast protoplasmic form! Its once-transparent mass horrifically blossoms with a ghastly cloud of crimson as it starts the unspeakable process of
dissolving Grigor's flesh! By arrow and sword, the otherworldly thing from darkest nightmare is mortally
wounded and loses all physical cohesion, instantly melting to the ground in a splatter!
After
recovering, the explorers venture north through the unlocked iron door. Suddenly,
wind, darkness and
chaos descends.
Chapter 24: Domain of the Dead
Day 12, continued:
The explorers push through the gale and the blackness to discover a
spectral figure awaiting them! Revealed to be a statue, suddenly the wind dies as secret doors yawn wide all around them, and from their black maws burst a legion of
dead Thracians from beyond the grave! Grigor is the first to fall beneath the
merciless onslaught! The shrouded corpses from the Chapel of the Dead rise from the dead and join the massacre!
One by
one, the adventurers fall. A
doom certain closes in upon the bold raiders of Thracia. And Thanatos has come for their souls. Desperate, Torix makes a volcanic lunge at the fearsome statue beside him, toppling it! It shatters and the gale force wind returns in a sudden blast! And with it, all the living dead instantly
fall lifeless!
Grigor and Kiri succumb to their grievous wounds. The raiders of Thracia rest and
recover.
Day 15:
The survivors of the doomed expedition
flee the Forbidden City with their lives.
Day 16:
Zahra passes away in the night. But Kiri has
returned from the grave!
Chapter 25: Tooth and Claw
Day 17:
At dawn, the adventurers set forth into a
primeval, savage wilderness untamed by Man and his quaint notions of civilization.
Player Resources:
An Age Undreamed Of (maps and realms of the World of Hyboria)
Men of the Hyborian Age (races of men)
Hieroglyphs (the story so far, in images)