Hey hey hey, like being stoned.
8
AUG/20
The Master Walder and his apprentice FastStaff stopped at the base of the ziggurat that lead to the temple at the top. They looked up to the climb that awaited them and FastStaff sighed.
“Catch your breath for a moment, I know you are tired.”
They had been travelling for weeks now, making their way towards the temple all the while being pursued by agents of Tiamat. Master Walder looked back, not expecting to see their pursuers yet relieved anyway when they were not yet in sight.
“Just the two of us left now.”
“Soon to be one.”
“Yes. It’s been a privledge.”
The other just nodded, the smallest of tears forming, yet suppressed.
“Let’s get on with it.”
The two started up. FastStaff lost himself in the memories of his visions as he climbed.
Backov.
That was the name that came first. He had been dreaming of a great desert. Terrible worm monsters, large numbers of spiders and man named Backov. Well, maybe not a man, but Backov is what FastStaff heard, although it came through faintly while the sounds of a howling sandstorm raged in his dream.
After a few nights of the same dream he began to see writing, but it too was faint and hard to read, obscured by blowing sands and erosion, but he thought he saw.
Meanmo
Deme
Dianjo
“That’s when you truly will start to see.” Master Walder spoke, perhaps having read his thoughts, but FastStaff appeared not to hear, still lost in memory.
He had seen himself kneeling while being turned to stone.
He had seen Master starving to death holding the scroll that would free him, trapped behind the fire and ice and lightening.
Most importantly he had seen that the agents of Tiamat would accept this as the end of the Order of the Double Octogon.
They reached the entrance of the temple. They had climbed more than 200 feet up so they took a moment to look around at the landscape from the new vantage point. Lush jungle stretched in every direction. They could see the other ziggurats and pyramids in the distance. They also noticed the odd pockets of dead vegetation.
“The jungle is changing.”
“Just like the elves and the halflings and the…” He trailed off.
They stayed and admired the few a while longer. Before too long they saw figures emerge from the jungle.
“Here they come.”
“Let’s go inside…and fulfill our destinies.”