For as long as anyone can remember, the stairs of Beldestan, located at the top of the peak of the same name, have been a site of pilgrimage, a direct route from dusty earth up to the heavens, where enormous creatures soar and carry sacrifices up to the gods. Its base is well known for the efficacy of the invocations offered there, but very few other than the most faithful dare venture up the stairs themselves: enormous eagles, howling winds, and various inimical undead make the stairs a place that few find congenial for long.
Those who climb the full height and return, however, are favored in the eyes of the gods, and certainly accomplishing such a feat is a daring and worthy endeavor. Many have set off for the heights, and but a few have returned, somewhat scarred and sometimes wiser for the effort.
Ascending the stairs of Beldestan is a brutal climb against gravity: from a mountain base to the rarified and chilled air at five miles up, more than 31,000 feet high...
