During the first night of the party’s second stay at the Hall of Seven Pillars [**Book 3: Run to the Light**, *Interlude*] , Thoth granted Menka a vision in dreams.
Menka was at the top level of Guldar Heel’s tower, standing before the huge mirror the party used to teleport to the desert south. In the room with him, oddly, was a larger-than-human-sized Ibis [**Book 8: Monsters and Madmen**, *Divine Minions*] . The bird towered over Menka, yet Menka felt only a sense of wisdom and awe in the presence of the creature. It nodded toward the mirror, and, seemingly with its mind, placed the blocks used to operate the magical mirror in the slots in matching holes at its base. The mirror crackled, and a familiar, desolate desert scene appeared in the mirror. The Ibis nodded toward the mirror and Menka and the ibis stepped in.
Menka felt the hot blast of wind on the desert plains. The Ibis nodded north, and human cleric and bird seemingly covered miles in mere seconds, north across the burning sands.
Here, the desert sands were broken by ruins, seemingly the ruins of a large city, overtaken by the sands, the once mighty structures reduced to crumbling blocks, rubble and sand-blasted shells of buildings. In the midst of this was a large empty space of sand. The grounds rumbled, shook, the already crumbled stone buildings surrounding this space of sand trembled, and some crumble further - and suddenly, rising out of the sand was a great temple, which came to the surface. Atop it were two monuments, pillars 40’ in diameter, fully 200’ tall, covered in old hieroglyphs, flanking a statue, which Menka knew to be of Thoth.
The towers rested on a monument base, nearly 400’ feet wide and 200’ tall. A stairway rose to the top of the monument base, beneath the enormous bronze statue of Thoth, and there were two large alcoves, containing elaborate, tall statues of priests, again of Thoth. The statue, building and towers appeared sandy, but in excellent condition, in contrast to the surrounding ruins.
The Ibis nodded toward the ruin again; somehow Menka knew the bird indicated beneath the temple. And Menka heard sounds, distant, faint, yet unmistakable: slithering, whispering, galloping, wings beating, tittering laughter, claws raking against old stone, but deep below the earth, not at or near the surface, far below. The Ibis did not speak, but made certain Menka knew this. The cleric knew this was a sacred place, to Thoth and to the Gods and their favored dead who have been buried so deep below, and something deeper has begun to befoul, defile and contaminate those who have been interred below. Menka knew he was asleep, but his heart beat rapidly, he was sweating, there was a feeling of dread. Menka looked around for the Ibis and it was nowhere to be seen.
There was disturbance, and from behind one of the Priest statues, two figures exited, stumbling - one was a man, a warrior, a sword in his right hand, he was a man of the southlands, dark-skinned, armored, helmet missing, his wounds visible, as was the look of raw panic on his face. His left arm was wrapped around a woman, robed, perhaps once she was a dusky beauty, also wounded, skin torn, barely conscious, one side of her face covered with a bluish pus, the skin red and welting and swollen beneath, head lolling, vomit staining her chest. He dropped her to the ground, removed his backpack, dug into it, gems and coins scattering around him, some rolling down the tall stairs, and pulled out a potion. He frantically attempted to pour its contents into the open mouth of the comatose woman, as the precious liquid soaked into the sandy stone around her head.
Behind him, something emerged. Not from the alcove from whence the man and woman rushed forth, but from a corner outside that alcove, on the stone frame surrounding the alcove and Priest-statue. It materialized first as smoke pouring from the corner, and finally a head emerged followed by a body, which Menka’s mind struggled to define. Was it made of flame, or clouds, smoke perhaps, covered with wet fur? How had it erupted from a corner? Whatever it was, it was lean, and long, and vaguely canine. Menka discerned perhaps paws, and hollow eyes, which he noted (with some relief) were trained on the man and woman, not on himself. It was covered with a blue-ish pus, with long, hollow tongues or probosci emerging from the “head”, quivering and shivering with what the cleric somehow knew to be excited hunger.
The man shrieked, high and loud, and began laughing and muttering, tittering almost. He dropped the woman and swung his blade, but his feet were not set, his eyes were wild, he emitted an almost coughing, desperate laughter while he half-heartedly waved the blade at the beast. It paused momentarily, predatorily, then was on him, sharp claws tearing, the probosci plunging into his throat, the man’s skin burned visibly as the blue pus came in contact with him, he howled again, frantic, keening, his body visibly draining, quivering. The screaming lasted too long, but then stopped, the man stopped moving, his face a mask of horror, his eyes staring. The beast - whatever it was - dropped him, and moved towards the woman’s inert form. And it stopped, the tongues/probosci somehow sniffing the air around them, searching for something that it knew was there - searching for Menka!
The human cleric panicked, tore at his own chest with his nails; he knew he was sleeping and must awaken before it saw him, before it knew him, because it would never stop once it does, and suddenly he was awake - was he screaming? - sitting up in the bed of the small room of the Halfmoon Inn, soaked with sweat, his skin raked and bleeding where he had scratched yourself awake, the smell of hot sand and dry air still in his nostrils…
While resting and recuperating at Creel’s Tower [**Book 4: Into The Void**, *Interlude*] , Thoth granted Menka another vision. A glimpse into current affairs.
Menka found himself in a long, dusty room that extended in each direction out of sight, lined by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, with countless books and scrolls, as far as his eyes could see. Above him were multiple terrace levels, also lined with shelves, all filled with countless volumes. The entire area was pleasantly lit.
While this area could hardly be called a room - it was more akin to an eternity of shelves - in the center stood a raised, dias-like desk area - a librarian’s desk, if you will - atop which sat a harried-looking humanoid, with spiky, light brown hair, spectacles sitting on a long, crooked nose, prodigious sideburns, a suit and tie and hooves for feet. It peered disapprovingly at the inhabitants of the endless room.
And, indeed, scattered around all of these areas were tables and desks, some deep within alcoves, sitting at which - in some - were humans and other beings reading various volumes and scrolls, engrossed in the reading, taking zero notice of the cleric. Here and there were giants, or devils, or winged, shining beings whose nobility was nearly blinding, or cube-and-triangle-like beings sitting at a table in neat rows, three to a side, turning pages in unison. Most of these figures were hooded, but some were much bigger than human, some serpentine, or possessed of multiple limbs, some with multiple heads, others not humanoid at all. At one table appeared to be a slime or pudding engrossed in a treatise of some kind. At another, a hooded, smoking figure with a familiar beard and hooved feet, who seemed to smile and nod almost imperceptibly at Menka as he read.
At another table is a tall woman dressed in celtic garb, whose beauty was almost mind-alteringly dazzling to Menka, and whose red hair was not only flame-colored, but seemed to almost burn with fire. She read a scroll, smiling, and then leapt to the top of the table and recited lyrical verse, words and music almost erupting from her, and Menka was rapt. When it was over, he cannot recall its content - something about someone named Bridie, and something called a Funky Ceili, words Menka does not know, but the entire room watched her silently, and when she finished, the librarian hissed “Shhhhhhhh!”, and she tossed her flame-hair haughtily, and walked out of a door that had not been there seconds before. Somehow, Menka knew her name was Bridgit, and she was something of great power.
Slowly about these tables hovered several tall Ibises, moving regally from table to table, shelf to shelf. One of them approached Menka. It did not speak. It indicated a small rug, and stepping upon it, indicated for Menka to follow. Menka did so.
The rug rose into the air rapidly, seemingly past hundreds, perhaps thousands of levels of terraced bookshelves, into the night air. Below was Creel’s tower and grounds. Menka noted the stars above, the moon empty from the sky. Menka knew this was real, was now, felt the night air. The rug raced across the sky - Menka seemed to know instinctively south, many miles - and stopped above a town, which the Ibis indicated silently to Menka. To the town’s north, a huge river flowed. A walled keep with a small town within presides over the Town, some distance from the rest of the larger half of the town, downhill and east of the keep - this lower town gathered around a stream which flowed south from the river into the dusty land. Palm trees rose above the buildings, a few of which were taller than the trees. The Ibis indicated a squat, walled tower in this lower town, and south and west of it a larger building. Menka knew this town to be Ruatha, and the latter building to be the Temple of Thoth in that town.
The rug raced further south, across rough, dry terrain marked by hills, rocks and light vegetation, and only scattered signs of habitation, and over mountains, rocky, seemingly impassable, heavily wooded in places - and south of these mountains stretched a desert, dry, featureless, seemingly lifeless. The rug slowed, and perhaps a few miles south of where the mountains ended and the desert encroached, the Ibis stopped the rug and indicated what appeared to be the remains of a city, little more than thousands of sand-covered large blocks and heaps of stone in the lifeless desert. In the center of the City lay an empty stretch of sand. The Ibis indicated this.
The ibis then directed Menka’s attention to the sky. There was no moon. Menka then saw the Waxing Crescent moon: A small sliver of the Moon became visible, and the illuminated portion was increasing. He then saw the First Quarter moon: Half of the visible surface was illuminated. Soon, it was a Waxing Gibbous moon: more than half of the Moon was illuminated, and the illuminated portion continued to grow. Then, a Full Moon: the entire visible surface of the Moon was illuminated. Following this, Menka saw a Waning Gibbous moon: the illuminated portion was decreasing after the full moon. This proceeded into a Third Quarter moon: half of the visible surface was illuminated again, but it is the opposite half from the first quarter. Next, a Waning Crescent moon: less than half of the Moon was illuminated, and the size of the illuminated portion continued to decrease until it became a new moon again - gone, not visible to Menka, where the process started. The same process repeated - Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous and then Full Moon, and the Ibis directs Menka’s attention down again - as the full moon rose, a temple to Thoth began to rise from the sands. Menka had seen this temple before, in a dream, and some of the horrors that are within. He felt dread. The Ibis pointed again at Menka, and at a door visible at the top of pyramid-like steps onto the Temple. The message was clear.
The Ibis then indicated upward, at the full moon, and as the Temple sat in the ruined city, the phases of the moon repeat - and as the full 8-phase cycle again ended, and the full moon again rose, the Temple sank beneath the sands, gone, as if it had never been. Menka felt the heat and dryness of the desert now, and looming terror. He awakened, soaked with sweat and horribly thirsty.
Menka hails from the City of Thebus, which lies on a dusty riverbank in the northern, populated land of Stygios, but not far from where the Sea of Dust encroaches on what remains of that ancient civilization.
The priest knows that the ruins of the once-mighty city of Ande’ril - which he saw in a dream-state some time ago - lies far northwest of Thebus, within the northern reaches of the Sea of Dust. To attempt to travel to Ande’ril directly from Thebus across hundreds of miles of forsaken desert would be difficult, and almost certainly deadly. Menka has seen old maps of the empire of Stygios before the gods struck it down, and just north of the remains of Ande’ril are the Qeb Mountains. Beyond the mountains of Qeb, to the north, are the southern reaches of the Achean Plateau, and the border-town of Ruatha. Ruatha, Menka thinks, may be the closest civilized place to the Ruins of Ande’ril.
The fortress town of Ruatha was constructed in ancient times, and is in the southern reaches of Achea, more specifically the Achean Plateau (#3 on the world map) bordering the Qeb Mountains (#6A). The region where Ruatha sits is a borderland known as “The Warrens”. The fortress here protects the southern frontier of the territory that Achea (loosely, as is the case atop the Achean Plateau) controls.
Ruatha guards the only known ford across the “Great Source” River, a large, fast-running river which runs south from rivers flowing from the Nyr Geneve, a huge lake far to the north. While not as large as the Acheron River, which flows east from the Nyr Geneve, the Great Source River runs generally southwards from the lake, cutting a pass through the fearsome Qeb Mountains. In days of yore, this pass linked the empire of Stygios (#6 on the map), when that empire was fertile and prospered and included the land now known as the Sea of Dust (#5). At that time, Ruatha was more populated, and a significant bulwark against the power of Stygios, and a bustling trading hub.
In the ancient history of the fortress town, three Stygian invasions had been repulsed from the South as they attempted to cross the Great Source River which is about 11/2 miles across at the ford Ruatha controls. The last of these invasions came when the Sea of Dust enveloped the once-fertile land of Stygios, and an army from the south sought to lead its desperate people north, to more fertile lands. The Northerners were having none of it, and the Stygian army of refugees was slaughtered to a man by the Achean host based in Ruatha.
Since that ancient battle, and the envelopment of the Stygian empire by the Sea of Dust, Ruatha’s importance as a major southern border town and trading hub has diminished considerably. It now stands as a remote fortress town of the far-flung hinterlands, overlooking the southern shore of a river which is the absolute southern border of Achean civilization. To the southeast, the river flows south into a mostly-disused pass into the Qeb Mountains which divides Achea from the Sea of Dust which has enveloped Stygios’ former glory. The Great Source itself flows into the pass and, it is said, dissipates into the mountains before reaching the desert, likely flowing underground and into the Underdark - although this is not confirmed, for the mountain pass south and east of Ruatha is a dangerous one teeming with dangerous wildlife, giants and hostile humanoids. Menka knows enough of the geography of this area to believe that there may be one or more other mountain passes, not far from Ruatha, that would lead to the northern portion of the Sea of Dust where the ruins of Ande’ril lie.
Menka has not ever utilized any such mountain pass to the Sea of Dust- when he visited Ruatha, it was via a trade caravan which traveled to the town through another pass, far to the southeast of Ruatha. But if anyone knows how to locate and/or traverse a mountain pass to the ruins, they are in Ruatha, the closest civilized place to the pass, and to Ande’ril.
Menka came to Ruatha as a young Priest to train, and to spend time proselytizing to the populace of the lower town of Ruatha. There is a Temple to Thoth in Lower Ruatha. The head priest at the temple was Mulai the Secretkeeper, a distant, studious high priest of Thoth who had little patience for training or interacting with acolytes, or anyone who could not provide him with knowledge, in particular the ancient, forbidden knowledge, the study of which he specialized in. Menka was generally supervised by Father Arrot-Amon, a lieutenant of Mulai, who, while stern, was more outgoing and willing to train, guide and share knowledge than the High Priest.
Menka’s time in Ruatha - a year of study and service, as required by his faith - was spent all in Lower Ruatha, working at the temple, studying, working with, providing knowledge to, and (sometimes even healing) adherents in the lower town, mostly Stygian immigrants who worked farms for native Acheans on the outskirts of Ruatha, or undertook the dangerous work of fishing on The Great Source. The farms around Ruatha, and the bounty of the river (and the spears and bows of some far-ranging hunters who were known to enter the mountains of Qeb for game), is what feeds most of Ruatha, and over the years immigrants from Stygios have left their parched land and come to Ruatha to settle and work. They are now largely tolerated by Ruatha, and make up a large portion of the population of the lower town. However, Ruatha is an old, place steeped in ancient ways and enmities, and old rules remain - Stygians are disallowed in the Upper Town, Stygians may not use the ford to cross the river to the northern side to enter Achea, and some in the Upper Town still treat them harshly, fueled by ancient prejudices.
The walled Fortress-town itself - the “Upper Town”, is situated on defensible high ground bordered by the river to the east and sheer cliffs to the north, south and west. The Upper Town is old but well-maintained. It is very much a borderlands keep, ruled by the Earl of The Warrens, a local lord, and the upper fortress-town itself is closed to Stygians, a holdover of ancient hatreds and enmities between Achea and its southern neighbors. Thus, Menka has never been allowed to enter the Upper Town. Ironically, the dogmatic, militaristic folk of the Upper Town of Ruatha, while they seem to loathe Stygians due to said ancient enmities, are more tolerant of dwarves, elves and even some humanoids and, it is said, ogres and giantfolk who live within and help guard the town from danger, including that of their kin. This is not unusual on the Achean Plateau, where large humanoid populations still hold sway, and while most tribes of humanoids and giants are steeped in wickedness and almost always hostile to men, dwarves and elves, it is not unknown for some borderland communities to show tolerance to some humanoids, and use some less-than-normal-yet-still bloodthirsty Ogres and Giantkind as guards and, if necessary, militia.
So what Menka mostly knows of Ruatha is of the lower town - a mostly wooden series of alleyways and plazas, buildings and huts, with a few stone structures which serve as taverns, smithys, guildhalls, shops and homes of boatowners who run the fisheries that launch from the docks of Lower Ruatha to fish the Great Source River. Menka does remember a tall stone tower jutting up from a walled compound in Lower Town - the largest structure other than the temple - which was reputed to be a school of wizardry, teaching Southern magicks, unknown in the north, heavily guarded and avoided by the townsfolk of Lower Ruatha, who often theorized that missing pets and children would end up there, used for experiments, food, slaves or worse. But of course this was rumor, and unconfirmed, as the Thoth-Priests would laugh, the foolish tittering of fisherwives.