Gren seeks out any remnants of the coastal dwarf clans on the Ninth and tries to convince them to build him a boat and even help him sail on east to Eversummer.
A handful of dwarves had chosen to follow Gren, despite the dangers. Among them were a small number of coastal dwarves, one of them a boatbuilder and a few sailors who had escaped the tsunamis that had crushed the majority of their people. This proved fortunate, as when they reached the coast and began scouring it Gren soon realised that Udil had indeed managed to summon every last dwarf to his city.
After nearly a fortnight of trawling the coast and the sight of ruined coastal village after village, Gren and his companions came upon a sight to sore the eyes. They climbed a hillock to get a better lay of the land and were stopped dead in their tracks. The stench of rot assaulted their nostrils before the vision did their eyes, an overwhelming wall of miasma that struck the nose like a prizefighter's fist. Stretched out in front of them, all the way to the horizon, grey foetid swamp merged unpleasantly with dull grey-blue sea. Everything in the swamp was dead or dying; trees were covered in mould and mushrooms, not even insects buzzed through the air. Most distressing of all were the ruined stone peaks that still drove up through the marsh, like broken tombstones to what had stood before.
Fifty years before, Gren Garnsson had come to the city of Skengrad a hero, watched the bright towers raised to celebrate the dawning of a new dwarven age. Now he returned a vagabond and scavenger, and naught remained of that jewel of the coast but dregs.
Gren's crew spent the better part of another week combing the ruins. They found the mostly-intact hull of a fishing boat early on and were able to scavenge enough parts to repair and reinforce it. One of Gren's companions died from a swamp fever. He was entombed in one of the few dry chambers above water, a stone carved to mark his memory. They christened the ship Zuglar in his honour. When he felt the new ship was secure, Gren loaded it up with supplies and set sail west, trying to follow a waterlogged map they had found (it was perhaps the very water that had preserved what little of it remained from the rot).
Nine weeks later Gren steered the Zuglar single-handedly onto a sandy beach in Eversummer. Half the crew had died from sickness and malnutrition, half-starved from the lack of fish in the waters and the limited supplies on their voyage. The other half were still crippled with disease. Gren scouted until he found the remains of an old cluster of fishing huts, then carried his surviving crewdwarves to the huts and did his best to care for them. Once they were stable or doomed regardless, he left enough food for them and the most salient member in charge, then left lest he doom the rest.
The continent was drier than that of the ninth, but Eversummer's rolling green plains had turned into oppressively hot wasteland. The sun did not penetrate the ashen skies, but the divine heat of the continent continued to dry up the land where plants no longer held it together. The ground grew hard and cracked with drought, and in places had begun to accumulate small drifts of sand. Food was scarce, and Gren would travel days before finding an edible root or small creature he could catch. His supply of plump helmets continued to dwindle.
The plains were littered with the burned out shells of homesteads and villages, the fields turned to cracked hard earth or sandy patches of desert. The bright stone Hadrian roads stood out among the desolation, well-made enough to survive even the dying of the world. Gren made good time once he found one, following it to yet another ruin, this time of a city.
This ruin was older than the rest. It too had been destroyed by fire, but long ago. Even the stones had burned and melted in this place, swum together like poorly spun glass. Gren searched the ruin to little avail; everything had been sealed shut by fire or long since looted. All he found were scraps of surviving writing on the molten faces of stone buildings, mostly tombs, with the repeated word again and again; "RIAT".
Gren journeyed on, seeing for the first time something other than the occasional bird. A herd of what at first he thought were bulls, then riders, clattered along the road. The karas approached him with alarming speed, but to his relief the herd was if not friendly then not hostile. After some terse, broken conversation in what little Gren knew of spoken Hadrian, they ascertained that despite his armour and weapon he was of no threat to them. Gren journeyed with the karas herd for a time, asking them what they knew of the gods.
Gren received little in the way of useful answers. The karas had once a creator-god, Thaneos (Gren remembered his involvement in some way in Udil's last crusade), but he had been slain in a battle among the gods. The karas had no love for gods, nor desire to deal with them. Aside from passing mentions of the Red Sisters, some sort of bloodthirsty cult, and some terrible creatures they called the Fallen Sisters (they would not speak a word of them), the karas did not know of other faiths or gods in Eversummer.
The karas were able to graze on foods Gren could not, though, and he spent a time travelling with them as a guard against raiders since he did not impact upon their food supply. It was not long before members of the herd began to grow sick. By the time Gren slipped away more than half the herd was wracked with illness and karas were already starting to die.
Gren travelled on through the ruins of Hadria, occasionally fighting off scattered raiders or scavengers with his steel and (where not sapient) killing them for food. Sometimes travellers would take him in for a time; he would abandon them once they began to grow sickly. Cruel as it might have been, the long solitude made Gren hunger for contact more than he cared for their sufferings. He even once fended off an attack by a crazed woman in red cloth and tattered armour, backed up by a handful of thugs, who tried to kill him and drink his blood in some sort of psychotic sacrifice ritual. She screamed the name "Vanidia" over and over again until Gren's axe bit her in the leg and she and hers limped away.
If this was the nature of Vanidia's worshippers, Gren had no desire to try and contact such a god. On the other hand, every shrine or ruined temple he passed was dedicated to the same dead gods; Thaneos or Az-Sho. Most of the towns and cities were looted clean, home only to bandits and scavengers, but Gren continued to check them for what information he could and continued to stay with and sicken those who would take him in.
At last Gren came upon an old temple of a much older ruined city, different in style to that of either Thaneos or Az-Sho. Gren climbed the steps of the temple and found that a heavy stone slab had been laid over the doorway. It took the better part of the day and a found pickaxe to break the slab and gain entrance, but Gren managed.
Dust and old death escaped the temple as soon as its seal broke. Gren recoiled instinctively, then continued clearing stone until he was able to enter. The temple lacked windows of any kind, so Gren lit a scavenged candle from the city to investigate. The inside of the temple was dry as a bone, but dust had gathered on the floor. No footprints betrayed any previous adventurers; the temple had been abandoned for a long time. The main atrium resembled a tomb as well; plain stone walls filled with stone shelves packed with urns. Gren gingerly pulled the lid off one to discover, rather than ashes, a scroll! He could not read the writing within, and the ancient vellum crumbled beneath his fingers, so he replaced it.
Gren continued exploring the temple complex by candlelight. From what he could tell there had once been a monastery of some sort; there were kitchens and pantries (the contents long since dried to husks), quiet study rooms with desks and chairs and libraries. The temple sported nearly a dozen libraries, all filled with urns of scrolls and stone tablets. The resemblance to a tomb would have been uncanny were it not for the fact that there were, in fact, tombs.
The crypts were all over the temple, dug into the ground with craftsmanship that would have made a dwarf proud. They were mostly open, or sealed with easily shifted stone slabs that moved on grooves cut into the stone flooring. Within were caskets, as expected, but also more and more urns and scrolls. Gren did not bother to investigate either, having heard children's stories of the dead rising and of late being rather inclined to believe fairy tales. He continued on through the temple complex until he reached the deepest level and the last, sealed room.
The chamber appeared to be a shrine, simple and straightforward like the rest of the complex. A small raised circular altar stood upon a raised stone platform, surrounded by small stone prayer 'mats'. A statue of a crow in onyx stood upon the altar, its head cocked inquisitively at Gren. The room was otherwise devoid of furniture and especially of scrolls or urns. It did still possess a corpse, laid against the altar. Gren held his breath and kept his hand on his axe for a good minute before he felt reasonably sure neither body nor statue were about to move. He approached it with cautious steps and took a closer look.
The skeleton looked to be of human proportions, save that the back of its head seemed grossly enlarged to the point of disfigurement. Its clothing had survived, long after the flesh had gone. It had been simple, rough cloth, but woven through with silver thread along the hem, collar and cuffs. The skeleton had worn a necklace bearing the icon of a silver crow, still clutched in one bony hand. The other hand pointed to the crow and to six stone tablets beneath the statue.
Four of the tablets made no sense to Gren. The fifth he recognised having seen some of the style of writing amongst the Children of Az-Sho once, but knew none of what it meant. The sixth was written in Hadrian, which he could read with passing fluency.
This is the final testament of Ustir, Mentor of this temple and last of the Crowblessed. I leave this in the hope that someday another may come to see it read.
We were an order of scholars, blessed by the crow god Corvus with the gift of memory. He made us greater than ordinary men, yet no stronger or faster, nor even sharper or more cunning. He made us custodians of his knowledge and we toiled our lives to convey the truths he had imparted to us. We built two temples, one here in Spireright and one in Snakepeak to aid the Children of Az-Sho. We have not had word from the Snakepeak temple in many years. I pray to Corvus that they have survived as we have not.
We were perhaps too focused on our task, too focused on conveying knowledge and transcribing it for those who come after, too focused on caring for the next generation for there to be a next generation. How to describe our lust for knowledge, for teaching, to one who is not Crowblessed? It is a greater appeal than companionship, than lust, than procreation. So our numbers dwindled, as much through disinterest as anything else. We did not preach, we merely worked, and so the people of Spireright came to see us as an oddity rather than a useful tool or beacon for Corvus' light.
Our numbers dwindled, and we began to inter our dead within the temple, their crypts open and filled with that knowledge that they most treasured and revered - those pieces that they discovered for themselves. We hoped that it might inspire the future to learn from our examples. Perhaps it still will, but not today.
The Shattered have come to Spireright, terrible creatures who can shift their forms at will, can be anyone or anything. One got into the temple in the form of a Brother, slew most and injured me. I killed him, but the damage was done. The Crowblessed are no more; I am old and cannot hope to live long. No others remain. I have entombed them with what was precious to them and have sealed the temple with stone to prevent it being destroyed by Shattered or ravaged by looters. I dearly regret that I cannot have the peace of knowing that I shall be interred.
I leave that legacy to you, who have come so far and at last. I do not know what tongue you will speak. I can only hope that you may read, so I have written in every language I know that can be writ. Remember us, reader. Remember us to the world, and remember us to Corvus. May He forgive us for our failures.
Gren put down the tablet and wiped the sweat from his brow. He found it cold against the back of his hand. Another god, one whose followers cared even if He did not. Was Corvus even alive? Had he died in the battle of gods, as Az-Sho and Thaneos had? Or had he died long before, when his cultists wrote their last?
A despotic god of wrath. An arrogant and unpredictable god of beasts. A god of mad, bloodthirsty crones. A careless god of scholars, in all probability dead.
Gren knelt before the statue and took out his belt knife. With care he cut the palm of his shield hand and dripped blood upon the altar, praying to the least of the evils.
"Corvus, God of Crows, hear my prayer. I know not if you live. I know not if you listen. I know not if you have power, or are nothing more than a voice upon the wind. I stand in the last sanctum of your followers on this world of such Despair. I stand by the body of the last of your Crowblessed, who was faithful to you until the end. He is nothing now but dust and bone and words upon stone. Soon our world may not even be that, and now I learn that an even greater terror haunts the skies, one that even gods fear but mortals might not. In his name, in the name of Ustir, last mentor of the Crowblessed, I invoke you, Corvus!
"I call upon you for succour. Help me save this world, help me put an end to Despair, and I will lay down my life to stop this terror you so fear. This I swear by Ustir's name and his memory. Help me."Gren Garnsson reaches Eversummer by ship, travelling through it for some months and spreading disease and death wherever he goes. He comes at last to the abandoned temple of the Crowblessed and prays to Corvus for succour, offering a pact to aid the gods if he will provide assistance to Despair.
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