Journeys in the Fairworld: The Gatekeeper.

Harin's Vault

The party had gathered outside the house of the Wogs, who had at last assembled their accoutrements for the adventure ahead. They made for a wickedly eccentric appearance, tightly girded in studded coats of plate topped with helmets like broad brimmed steel hats (one painted yellow, one green, and the other red) beneath which the Wogs' mule like ears drooped comically. Each wore a bulging pack on his back and a mixed assortment of tools and weapons dangling from their belts, and each carried a stout looking staff tipped with a nasty blade consisting of an ugly array of prongs, hooks and curved edges. Overall, they presented a comfortably ferocious impression which was some consolation to Lindsey in light of the unknown threats ahead of them.

The Bird began his usual procedure of tracing an outline into the ground, though the verdant grass clung to itself annoyingly well and it took a disgruntled shove from Ursilda to get the ragged square of sod to fall through the portal in the ground. One by one the adventurers dropped through. Ursilda was first, as no one wanted to be on the other side when she came tumbling out of the sky, which was just as well as the great She-Bear had some difficulty navigating the hole and became stuck halfway through, and it took the collective efforts of everyone else to shove her through the rest of the way.

Lindsey was the last to go. She sat down on the grass, swinging her legs into the hole, and prepared to jump.

A movement to the side caught her eye, and Lindsey twisted over to one side and looked.

It was nearing sunset by now. The deep green of the trees was turning to bright limes and cool olives as the leaves bathed in the passing gold of the fading rays, and the tiny road was turning into a river of brass in the final glory of the day.

And upon the road, standing at a bend not far away, was a large man in a homburg hat silhouetted against the brilliant light, watching her.

From the hole below her, Ursilda's sonorous voice could be heard, still berating the Bird for not having made the hole big enough. Lindsey was debating whether to get up and confront the man or tell the others when Ursilda called up to her to stop dithering and dallying, and Lindsey was promptly yanked down the hole by an impatient iron paw. Upon landing Lindsey scrambled to her feet and spoke.

"Hey, before you pulled me down I saw someone up the road. He was watching us."

"Pah! Neighbors. Those Rabbits are always being nosey."

"It wasn't a Rabbit, it was a man."

"Impossible."

"Yeah, and so am I. It looked like a man, anyway."

The Bird clicked thoughtfully. "Might have been one of Gurth's agents. Better close up right away."

The Bird began fanning his wings at the fading hole above them, which then began to disappear a bit faster.

"If he is one of Gurth's, he'll be warning the others that we're now here at Mount Vorn. There is little time to lose. Come, the vault is just ahead."

The landscape about Mount Vorn was freakish and marvelous. It couldn't have been very far from the home of the Wogs, no more a few tens of miles perhaps, for the sun was still only just above the horizon. It's leisurely descent spread rays of brilliant gold across a landscape of wild stone pillars of variegated red bursting forth in every direction from a maze of meandering ruts and gullies, some clogged with mud and slag, others grown over with rich grasses. Above all was the great peak of the mountain itself, a visage of brooding serenity awash in the molten gold of sunset.

The Bird flew ahead and perched on a rock pillar, calling the others to follow him. And so they made their way.

The terrain was rough and tortuous, filled with jagged obstacles and dangerous slides and all manner of impediment. Here and there were the remains of mining implements; bits of wagons, scaffolding, and other flotsam sunk and settled with age, their iron rusted and wood bleached and splintered. The Wogs explained that this face of the mountain had not been actively mined for some time, the operation having mostly shifted to the opposite face many years ago. The wild landscape was the result of the mining techniques, which were to artificially erode the mountainside by cutting sluices into the earth and flooding them with fast moving water, or drilling narrow wells and filling them with water until the mounting pressure at last shattered the surrounding rock. Though the mountain was less bountiful these days, at its height the Wogs said that the operation produced over ten thousand Drixi pounds of lucrative tin every year.