“Torment, not Death! It’s called Valley of Torment!” Foxy told him for the third time

“But, if you say both in Elvish, they are almost the same. If you put the accent at the beginning it’s Torment, if you put it on the second syllable, it’s Death. See?”

“But they are different words!”

“Yes, and if you put another letter in mom, and change three others, you get beer.” Mini stopped the argument “The whole thing is stupid and boring!”

It was two days after Prof left the dungeon, and the party just approached the border post on the pass.

After returning to Deadbranch Prof managed to sell the loot for only thirty-five silver after taxes. Changing the hafts of his axes cost him another one, and he was lucky, because the carpenter doing it gave him a discount for bringing him a lot of raw material from the dungeon. Prof was absolutely certain that he was swindled again, his [Valuation] Skill told him that even paying taxes the cost for the whole haul should have been around forty-five silvers.

But at least he was done with the Domain, he wasn’t planning on returning for a long time. The two new mules he bought cost him a total of twenty-five silvers, another few silvers was spent on necessities and a few books. The book on Elven Etiquette was a purchase long overdue and probably redundant at this point, the cook book, another on medicine and first aid and a third on traps were more useful.

Shinead also managed to find some information about Guillermo and the band of Humans he was travelling with. Not much was gleaned about his past, but it looked like he was born to a Blue Elf father and a Garuli woman, and he probably grew up in the Gerulian Federation.

That was the collection of city-states South from the Bergian Kingdoms.

Why he left the Federation and how he managed to get a sponsorship from a Shadowgrey Elf was unknown. According to some unreliable information he was after an ancient relic that was left behind when the Valley of Torment came into existence. If he was paid by the Shadowgrey to retrieve it or if he wanted it for himself, was not known.

The patrol on the border post just waved them through – it was easier to leave the Domain then to enter it. On the other side of the pass the geography changed abruptly. In contrast to the widely spaced mountain chains East of the last range, there were no other mountain to the West, the ground lowered itself gradually down into the valley.

Normally, one would expect a wide horizon from so high up, but the air was quite humid in a somewhat yellowish, sick way. All that was seen from the pass was the uniform deep green coverage in the valley, shifting to grey in the distance before not even large shapes could be discerned. The old road, leading down into the valley was nothing more than a trail, the passing of the Human band a few weeks back already almost grown over.

“Remember, stay close together.” Foxy warned them “As I warned you, distance and space is relative and weak here. You could walk a few meters in a direction and never find the road again. It is said, that the Valley is around five times as large on the inside than it looks like from the outside. We will be lucky, if we were able to find this Guillermo.”

“I have brought a magical compass, it should point us in the right way.” Shinead said.

“Yes, but it only indicates direction, not distance, nor does it indicate the shortest way to the mark.” Foxy warned. Prof got it. The shortest way from A to C was not necessarily through B but working your way up the alphabet from the other direction.

“No need to chance to get lost. I will hold on to you and Prof!” Mini volunteered. She was in one of her “adventurer’s” garbs again, sandals, red yoga-pants and a black button-up shirt three sizes too large. She didn’t bother with buttoning up the shirt – obviously she was hanging out with Elves for too long.

The little caravan started to descend into the valley. Shinead, as the best tracker they had with the magical compass in the front, followed by Foxy, than Sharpclaw, leading the donkey and one of the mules and Prof with the other two mules. The rear was bought up by Mini, riding Binky. A few hundred meters down from the pass – in distance it was more than a dozen kilometres – the road left the scattered pines and entered the forest proper.

From one step to another, the thick forest blocked the view of the mountain, and when Prof walked back to the place, where previously he could see the range, he was greeted only with thick forest as far as he could see. Distance and space was really finicky in the valley. From what he could guess, they were already days away from the pass – or just a few steps if they made the steps in the right direction.

In the early afternoon they found an abandoned campground, with some detritus scattered about and two graves on one side. Behind the graves, a cairn was built from field stones.

“Usually, expeditions leave these behind for the later investigators.” Foxy clarified “There is probably a logbook placed inside.”

“Should we search the graves?” Prof asked

“And what if someone is at home?” Mini was horrified “You don’t just dig up someone’s home and make it off with his stuff! Even if you re-kill him, his family and estate would be probably furious!”

“Oh, undead… Sorry to bring it up. That was insensitive from me.”

“Hey, I was just joking! If no one was at home or you are able to re-kill or rob him, that would be the right of the stronger. No one would have much of a problem with it. Only the guy you re-killed or robbed. Always make sure you properly re-kill someone!”

Prof’s impulse to do archeology already went out of the window, Mini joking about robbing some innocent undead who just wanted to have a nap destroyed his last inclination. It was on some level disturbing, that folks in Forestdeep considered graves as resting places – as in homes – and found it all right to rob and re-kill the owners. If only the robber was strong enough.

Sharpclaw, on the other hand, was not interested in philosophy or the difference between archeology and grave robbing and enthusiastically started digging.

Foxy and Shinead meanwhile inspected the cairn. It indeed contained a logbook from the expedition, unfortunately it was mostly coded. Only one page was written in plain Elvish. According to the note, it took the band a whole week to reach the campground, and they have already lost half of their man; either killed by monsters or gone missing. Foxy pocketed the logbook but put the accompanying letter back into the cairn after making a note in it that it took less than a day for them for the same distance.

Sharpclaw’s excavation was successful; she found two decaying corpses, but without much in the way of grave goods. Both were Humans as far as the party could guess, one obviously suffered a violent death, losing one’s head wasn’t possible in a peaceful way, but they couldn’t determine the cause of death for the other. The few thing in the grave were not worth much – probably this is why they were buried with the owners and not looted – so they left them with the dead and closed the graves.

Visiting the campground and resting for a short while was enough to lose the trail they were following. Where previously there was a faint trail, now only forest waited for them. Thankfully they bought their animals with them, so at least they didn’t lose their equipment.

“Wait!” Foxy stopped them “Let’s get back to the campground, but follow you footsteps there! Sooo… We entered the grounds from there but tried to leave that way. We should try to retrace our steps from where we entered.”

They did so, but neither arrived in deep forest, nor found they the trail. Instead, they arrived at a grassy field, with some overgrown ruins in the middle of it. If the ruin was once a tower, a castle, a mansion or something entirely different, they could not say from the few stumps of masonry sticking out of bushes and debris. The party approached to have a closer look.

“Definitely not Elvish” Foxy concluded “Too much stone for that.”

“But I have seen stone structures previously” Prof interjected “And it’s old, maybe the old Elves built differently! Who else could have built this?”

“How high is your [Architecture]? If I remember correctly, below 50%, no? Did you notice all those wooden supports and base structure? If Elves build from stone, the supporting structure is still wood. Heavily enchanted wood. The stone would wither away faster than the wood.”

“Old Elves?” Shinead snorted “The Valley came into being barely two generations ago, not much changed in that time for Elvenkind!”

“So, if it was not Elves, who else could have built this? The Greenskins or the Lizards? Humans?”

“No lizzzardssss. No usssse sssssso lot sssstone” Sharpclaw informed him

“I don’t know much of the architecture of the Greenskins, but it doesn’t really fit either. And it’s probably no Human-made, I think. See those regular blocks? Bergians definitely don’t use such, and as far as I know, other people neither. But… hmmm… this reminds me of something…”

While Foxy thought hard, the others poked around a bit. What remained from the structure was built entirely out of uniform square blocks of stone, and despite the destruction still looked sturdy. Details were, however, washed away by time.

Back on Earth Prof visited a few archeological sites, and he got an impression that the ruins were made by a high culture that has mastered building stuff a long time ago. Even the Colloseum in Rome did not give the feeling of such skill, maybe the indestructible might of the Great Pyramids came close. Something wasn’t right.

“We should leave. I haven’t got this feeling since I visited Kaa’Raa’Taak” Mini was unusually subdued.

“Kaa’Raa’Taak? OF COURSE! Move your asses! We shouldn’t be here!”

“What’s the matter?”

“Precursor ruins, that’s the matter! MOVE!”