Reliquary of Cairne

The Tortured Stars...

watched their party unload the dogsleds and set up the tents and campfire. It was bitter cold, and the hike to the water was long. Hamerber had insisted they camp at least a half mile away from the water's edge at every stop they made.
Luui and Pulwen had simply done what the old man wanted without being asked. They had been on these trips before with him. Hamerber might have the mythical reputation of the great guide with the outside world, but the residents of Sigurd's Craw, the Izotza people all knew the Wastes, her stories and the unyeilding rules for survival in it's depths.

by Terry Cassis using Imagine AI

The camp setup tonight was further away from the Reliquary than Jewel had anticipated. The old man obviously didn't want them too close. He had taken one look at the arcane portal then moved them the regulation half mile away, just as though it were water, though it wasn't. Not even a little bit.
It might have been the tortured stars that bothered him so.
They were glad for their guide. The old man had kept them alive so far, and there had been challenges: a geyser of boiling water and fire, a tornado of ice, even an attack by a young male Izotz Lehoiak. Not that the "adventurers" had been delinquent in pulling their weight. Jewel's deadly accuracy with her bow and arrows had given them time to prepare for predators on more than one occasion, and Orion had proven that his nickname "the Butcher" had a thorough grounding in skill. The short thin human looking man with wire framed glasses seemed scholarly on the surface, but there was nothing scholarly with how he used those cleavers.
They had finished setting up camp and eating a warm meal when Orion stood up. "No point in putting this off," he said grimly.
Three of them hiked back the half mile to the mountain of fire and the reliquary - Orion, Jewel and Hamerber.
The reliquary was huge, the portal opening almost half the height of the mountain. A fierce gale force wind swirled across the surface pushing them back. Massive stones and chunks of ice occasionally passed in front of them, caught in the hundred yard no man's land between them and the pitch black area where the flickering stars trailed their substance into the sky.
Orion stared seemingly transfixed at the sight of those tortured stars. The molten stone mountain didn't seem to bother him, nor the sheets of ice beneath his feet nor even the bitter cold wind that whipped his badly overgrown hair into tangled strands that struck at his cheeks and eyes. No, it was not the harsh magic-riddled land that he stood on that inspired the glassy stare and unconscious rubbing of his left palm with his right thumb. His gaze was on what the portal revealed of the other side.
"Having second thoughts?" asked Hamerber. "You don't have to go. I can tell the others you died getting here. You can disappear into the unwashed masses and he'll never know."
Orion shook his head. "No, that's not it. Well, it is, but not how you are thinking. I'm just working through it. You took three days to prepare before we started out. This part won't be any easier and there are things I need to think through."
"No magic!"
Orion lifted his hands and twiddled his fingers at his guide, then laughed uproariously as the old man looked about startled and anxious. Jewel smiled broadly.
"Haven't you figured out that I can't do magic yet?" Orion asked, wiping his eyes.
Hamerber shook his head sheepishly, then asked curiously. "Why not? You're not human."
Orion was startled, then made a teetering gesture with his hand. "That's not what I do."
An expression of skepticism passed across Hamerber's face. Jewel made a gesture and Orion made one back. It didn't seem impolite.

by Terry Cassis using Imagine AI

"No, really. I have friends who do magic, but it's not my thing. I've a strictly human relationship with it. The magic I have picked me, not the other way around - at least according to my friend. Anything that requires Sorcery is something I have to get help with."
"Whatever you say. So... when are we going in?" asked Hamerber.
"You're not going," Orion shot the old man and his mentee a warning look. "I am. I don't need to keep track of you in there."
"Of course not. It was just a turn of phrase. What do you need? Anything I can help with? An ear while you sort through those thoughts of yours?"
Orion looked at him contemplatively. "Maybe." He looked off again at the monsterous portal framing the tortured stars.
"The reliquaries aren't all the same. These," he indicated the cleavers at his side, "came from Ergela. That reliquary has a huge number of arcane tools that the humans at the University of the Arcane and Magetown had created. It's like the concentration of human magic has formed pockets in the weave, and the reliquaries are like cave openings into them. It's... odd inside one. Dark, but not cold, and the stars were like those." He pointed at the portal. "They're being ripped apart, and they..." his eyes grew distant remembering, searching for a word. "They scream. They were everywhere. It may have been the University. Or echos of it. And they're all alive."
"What's alive? The stars? The people?"
Orion searched Hamerber's face, his own face scrunched up, thinking. "Maybe that's it. That wasn't what I thought, but you could be right. Maybe the people and the items ended up..." he interlaced his fingers together and closed his hands into a fist.
"You mean like the Izotz Lehoiak? Two living things that the leys formed into one?"
"I don't know what I mean - you just thought of it. But it isn't creatures. It's the magic items. They're alive. And they aren't friendly, at least they weren't before. I'll ask though if I can find one that's half way sane and not actively trying to kill me."
Hamerber looked uncertainly at him and Jewel. "What are you looking for?"
"The 'It's knot.'"
Hamerber stared at him in astonishment. "I didn't think that was real."
"Define real." Orion shrugged. "Whether I can find it and whether it will come with me are the questions."
"You're sure it's in there?"
Orion made that teetering gesture with his hand again. "It should be. That's what I've been told." He sighed. "Enough of this. The less time we spend here in Cairne the better. I need to get on with this. Wish me well."
Jewel reached out to him and grasped his arm, then offered him a small pouch. He took it and tucked it inside his fur coat.
Hamerber gazed through the portal, then back at the young man. "Luck. May the fireley heat your way, and the waterley quench your thirst."
Orion nodded, then turned and faced the maelstorm.
He ducked, then stepped forward into hell.

How Did we Get Here?

And Then What Happened?