WOT Adv 30

--- The Wheel Turns ---
After a few hundred paces, you, Maeslyn, and Keb come to a rectangular platform on which rests a pedestal. You can see branching off from the platform are about six pathways.

Maesyn approaches it and asks Keb to hold the torch nearer. She examines the runes that cover the pedastal, spelling out words in some ancient tongue.

"What is it?" Keb asks, curiously.

"It's a marker." Maeslyn replies, tracing the vine-looking runes with her fore finger.

"Can you read it?" Keb asks again.

"Somewhat. I've always been facinated with ancient languages and old documents. So when I was at the White Tower I fell in love with the tomes written in the Ogier tongue. I spent my years there learning how to read their writing. But I can't really speak it."

"What does it translate into?"

"It gives directions. It says to go to the stedding we seek in the Almoth Plain to take the third marker on the left." Maeslyn responds.

You head over to the pathway, and can see that it spirals downward out of sight. On either side of it is what appear sto be endless darkness.

"What is out there?" you query. "Out in the darkness?"

"Nothing," Maesyn responds. "A bottomless void. wall-less and ceilingless as well. Legends say that if you fall, you can fall forever." After letting that sink in, she adds, "So watch your step."

"Such an-- uh-- interesting place." Keb replies nervously sticking close to you. She doesn't sound very convinced.

"Come on. We have many more miles to go," Maeslyn says. "If that's how you want to think of it." And she leads the way.

After about a half hour of walking Keb's torch starts to sputter and goes out, plunging you all into pitch blackness. You hold your hand an inch from your face and can see nothing.

"Uh, someone have a light?" Keb asks with a tremor in her voice.

"We will save our torches for now." Maeslyn responds. "In case something happens and we need to conserve our light."

Then a pale glow shines and grows brighter lighting the way with about as much illumination as the torch did. But the glow comes from a fist sized ball of superatural light that hovers above Maeslyn's hand.

Keb's eyes go wide and she takes a step back. "So, how long does that last." Keb asks.

"Until I need to rest. Let's keep moving."

You travel for what seems to be an interminable amount of time. Without the sun, moon, or stars or anything that you normally rely on to tell the passage of time, it's simply impossible to judge distance or time.

After travelling for what must be hours in a steady downward slope, you come to another large rectangular platform with another route marker. Maeslyn examines it for a while, nods in satisfaction, and then announces, "We will set up camp here. Remember, we left in the middle of the night, and I'm sure we're all quite tired. We will use the lanterns while we rest." Maeslyn nods at you.

You unpack the lantern, pour the pint the oil in and soon have some natural flame burning from the wick.

"I shall continue to light the way when we travel, but I cannot hold the weave and rest my mind and body at the same time." Maeslyn's light disappears.

The sole latern light does little to ease the oppressive feeling you have of the darkness closing in around you. The group huddles around it, as if seeking warmth from its light as well. Soon the bed rolls are out and after what again seems like an interminable amount of fitfull wakefullness, your eyes eventually close.

A gentle shake on your shoulder awakens you from your slumber and you sit bolt upright. You can see the lantern's oil is empty and Maeslyn is standing over you, the ball of light in her hand. "Come it's time to continue."

After a cold breakfast of rations. You head out. Again, time passes without sense or meaning as you trudge along in that empty place. Another marker greets you. Maeslyn, pores over it, chooses a path, and again, more walking, and then another cold lunch. And more hiking. All the while you move in a downward direction.

At one point while walking along, you pass over a narrow walkway where large chunks of rock are missing. Below you is endless emtpiness.

"What happened to the pathway?" you ask, "I notice that the rock is crumbling."

Maeslyn nods sadly. "Yes. Some say The Ways are dying. Some say it's a corruption that comes from the taint caused by the male half of the One Power. But no one really knows. The ancient Ogier tomes tell of the ways as once being green and beautiful, each marker having a well groomed lawn about it. But no longer."

And again you move out. After more hours of travel, the bed rolls eventually come out again, and another pint of oil is used, and after a cold dinner you all drift off to sleep once more.

The next day 'dawns' much as it did the previous one: In pitch darkness. The route you take moves neither up nor down, but seems to follow a winding up and down course. The day passes much as it did before.

The sameness of travelling lends itself to the need to talk. Maeslyn doesn't say much unless asked a question, but Keb tells you about herself. She has fended for herself since her father passed away when she was thirteen. Sent to live with an aunt and uncle who ran a small roadside inn, Keb soon learned she had more in common with travellers and would-be adventurers who frequented the inn than the other serving girls who worked there. For two years, Keb befriended any of the inn's regulars who would teach her the ways of the world. Finally, she set off on her own, making ends meet through a combination of odd jobs and the occassional bit of petty thievery. She seems an affable travelling companion, although you get the sense that she's out to prove something about herself.

The evening passes again, with cold meals.

The third morning starts again. For another day you travel and the lack of any real change in the 'countryside' soon has both you and Keb on edge. The same trail, the same embedded white stripe, the endless bridges and platforms that seem to be both above you and below you and sometimes now where at all.

Keb starts to argue with you about men and women. You expalin about the Spear Maidens, and she gets uptight and excited, wondering who would best who in a fight, between Aeil Warrior or the Spear Maiden. You shrug saying the women are just as competent fighters and many of the interclan wars have proved as much. That seems to calm her down a bit. An odd woman. But then again, you sort of think all women are odd.

Again, the bedrolls come out, the lantern is lit, and sleep eventually overtakes you all again.

The forth day continues much as the other days except you get an odd feeling that something or someone is near. You get a queer feeling, like you're beeing watched almost.

"We must be off," Maeslyn tells you quickly in a terse voice when Keb has a boot off and is massaging a tired foot during one of your rest stops. "We shouldn't linger."

"But--" Keb starts to argue.

"No buts. Back on with the boot, quickly." She glances nervously about.

But the feeling eventually passes and you travel on and Maeslyn visible relaxes.

Near the 'end' of the day you come to another platform, and Maeslyn looks at it and then brushes some lose hairs from her face, "This can't be right," she says with frustration.

"What?" Keb asks.

"The marker says that to go to the Almoth Plain we have to go back the way we came."

"Maybe it's wrong." Keb says.

"No. This one is quite clear. I must have misread the old one." She sighs and sets up bedroll. "Nothing for it but to go back the way we came on the morrow."

You awaken in the middle of the night from a piercing scream. Sitting bolt upright, there is nothing but darkness; for the lantern must have gone out. All of a sudden a light blinks into existence you see Maeslyn sitting up the globe of light hovering above her left palm, a dagger in her right. "What was that?"

You peer anxiously about and can see Keb tossing in turning in what appears to be a nightmare. You move over to her and gently shake her. "Keb! It's only a bad dream... It's only--" she sits up instantly awake, and you feel the point of a dagger in your ribs.

"Back!" she yells fiercely, "Get back or I'll skewer you! I'm not for the taking!"

"It's me!" you sputter.

"Keb," Maeslyn is there too. "Easy. Easy, Keb. It's us. It's just Maer and Maeslyn. Remember?"

Her ragged breathing calms and the wild look leaves her eyes. She sheathes the dagger and puts a hand to hear head "I'm sorry. It's just this place. Some memories seem to come back more vivedly than others."

"It's all right," Measlyn puts an arm around her and rocks her until she falls back asleep. You crawl back to your bed roll wondering what that was all about. Then sleep takes you.

The next day you spend a good portion of it backtracking to the other route marker.

"Ah a simple mistranslation of left to right." Maeslyn nods in satisfaction once she re-examines it. "I apologize, but this is bound to happen when you're dealing with languages that are centuries old."

You travel without incident. Until evening.

"Uh Maeslyn," Keb asks that night. "Didn't you say this would be a three day journey."

"Well, usually that's what it takes. But it varies. I've only travelled the Ways once before about a year ago. I guess you could say that it's a three day journey on the average."

"How much longer?" she queries.

"Probably sometime tomorrow. But one can never tell for sure. We'll know when we get there."

And soon you all fall asleep.

Maeslyn's assumption was correct. The next morning, after taking another pathway and travelling a couple of hours, you finally arrive at another set of large double doors. Maeslyn spends a good five minutes feeling and looking at the doors until she finally moves the Avendesora leaf. The double doors grind open.

"It looks like we made it," Maeslyn sighs with visible relief and replaces the Avendesora leaf. "Quickly now, before it closes." Anxious to be free of the place, you all exit the way gate without having to be told twice, passing through the oily icy black film that hovers between the door posts.

You step out into a bright sunshine in a secluded wood, somewhere on the Almoth Plain and the doors grind shut behind you.