The Ageless Promise

The group spends the night in the depths of one of the burial mounds in the ruins of a great Horselord city, under the protection of Miur, their guardian spirit. Sif’s sleep, however, is disturbed by the usual insidious presence trying to extract information from her dreams; this time, though, Sif was ready: in a clash of wills inside her dream she manages to drive it back for a while, and realises that she can use part of the attacker’s power to her advantage even while awake. The group wakes up and, after a few moments of fear because they thought they had been shut inside the mound, the door magically opens.

Freya receives a message from Bite telling her to avoid Molthune and pointing out a pass in the mountains. The group starts heading in that direction, but before long they are caught up by a creature, an abomination that has been chasing them. Sigurd immediately recognises Yalma, the old woman of the Horselords they helped: she has been transfigured into a monstrous being, half horse and half person. Shocked and bitter, the Wolves are forced to put her down and move on. Near the spot indicated in Bite’s message they see a mountain stream that runs into a low cave in the side of the mountain and, although there is an easier road leading to the border with Oprak, they decide to follow the river, because of the patrols and checkpoints on the road.

Inside the cave the surroundings soon give way to worked stone: ancient, partly collapsed corridors and lit torches. Traps already sprung line the corridor, along with new ones, freshly set, and after reaching a room that looks like a prison several invisible people attack them. After a short fight the Ulfar notice that one of these people was holding a cage in which a small fairy was imprisoned. Astrid, helped by Sif and Alrik, carries out a long and difficult surgical operation to free the dying little creature from its cage. The pixie is in a very bad state: her wings are broken and she seems to be alive by pure chance. Even so, her only concern seems to be another prisoner, held in a cell in the room. Repeating the name “Julian”, the fairy draws the Winter Wolves’ attention to the prisoner: a child between 8 and 12 years old, dressed in a filthy rag, with his head trapped in an iron mask. After freeing him and reuniting the fairy with the child, the group loots the enemies’ bodies and finds some interesting items. Looking further down the corridor they see more corpses, but this time they are Iron Dragons, killed no more than a couple of hours earlier. The group then tries to calm the pixie and the child, who are obviously in shock, but the only answer they get is the child’s name: Julian Ton Vallemar.

NPCs

Miur, Bite, Yalma, Dolly, Julian Ton Vallemar