Mill of the Gods

Avbrienne in all of her faculties and functions to date had been a person of reliable sense and calm bearing. But the bleached grins of leering giants sapped her as the sun saps soil of water, leeching away all reason until she could only wail:
What kills a godling? What fells a giant? What devil calls for me?

It is little wonder that those who call The Endeavour home have such a romanticized fascination with stories when one learns of the great, lore-inspiring mystery in their backyard. In the southern reaches of the Grove of the Cat, where the trees near the barrier where ice reigns and The Maw begins, a great cataclysmic graveyard waits, baffling historians and scholars with how startlingly little is understood of it.

Titans at Rest

Where the trees give way to cold, hard-packed ice, a collection of massive skeletons lie in various states of battle-posed abandonment, corpses left from some unfathomably large battle. Some of the skeletons are of creatures known to scholars: a Tarrasque; massive dragons (presumably Ancient before their demises). Others, are less known, such as a 30-foot-tall skeleton of what by all accounts seems to be a spider (ignoring the obvious point that spiders do not have bones). The sinuous snake-like form of something thought to be a linnorm. A purple wyrm. A storm giant. A roc.
In addition to the skeletons, there are any number of large constructs or golems, long abandoned and reclaimed by ivy and grass.
Scholars have little understanding of the conflict, including what caused it, how such large creatures from all different biomes gathered together, or even who was fighting whom. If there was a winner, there's no sign of it or if it left, where it could have went.
The skeletons are all stripped perfectly of any long-dead flesh or sinew and bleached by the sun overhead but otherwise are unmarred. No signs of damage to their anatomy to indicate a cause of death can be found and they defy attempts to take a specimen or indeed cause any damage to them. Where the golems of the battleground are largely reclaimed by the earth, the skeletons remain preserved and unblemished. A superstitious person would say this is as a warning, a memorial, a reminder; scientists and scholars have little better to offer as explanation, landing on something to do with weather phenomena or perhaps whatever brought them there and keeps others away.

Defenses

Scholars who research The Mill ascribe to it some sort of anti-memetic shielding that deters visitors. Anti-memetic describes things that are, by nature, meant to be forgotten...or at the very least, not shared freely. Theories include a sort of magical aura that makes visitors forget (though one would expect forgetting a trip to be something people talk about, aware of the gap if not what once filled it or some sort of illusion or charm that dissuades perceiving the area (though this would not explain why those who do visit don't discuss their findings).
(Of note: There are precious few scholars who make themselves known to be prioritizing this area, perhaps because of said "anti-memetic" shielding.)

History

The very first scrolls logged in the Scriptorium Soiram contain no mention of this gargantuan arboreal tomb, and yet all evidence dating the bones suggests they must have been present then. Certainly there is no documentation since the founding of the archives that details a battle happening to produce such corpses, and there is no doubt that such a battle would have been unignorable and highly worth documenting.

Avbrenne

The first documentation of the location was in 344 PB, where a character in a short story (labeled as fiction) mentions "the large bodies in my dreams" and described the area with great detail. This story, The Unknowing of Avbrienne (author unknown/anonymous) would go on to describe the titular character, Avbrienne, haunted by corpses as large as cities that threatened to crush, after an excursion too deep into the woods led to her reaching the location, presumably the first to have ever found it.
The story ends with the main character returning to the landmark and folding herself into the open maw of one of the skeletons. Here, she falls asleep and seemingly disappears.
This story is also where the name "Mill of the Gods" comes from, specifically a passage near the end of the story when poor Avbrienne is nearing a state of complete incoherence.

"The teeth, the claw, the crushing coils!" She cries, rending at herself. "The Mill of the Gods grins as it runs me through, my bones their bones, their teeth my teeth. I am ash and aether and they will feast on me e'ermore and the breathless lungs they make from me will fill with flame to birth their plans. Grin and grind and flame and fete and tear and toil and break and best, I will fill them as they fill me and the mill will churn once more."

Scholars at the Scriptorium keep their primary copy of this story--presumably the original--in restricted access due to its rarity as one of the only surviving documents relating to the Mill. Visitors can read a transcript of the story upon request, but it is rarely requested (perhaps because of how few people know to ask for it).

Tourism

The Mill of the Gods is regarded as one of the most haunted, cursed places in Ostelliach and as such, is given a wide berth by locals and any they host. Some in The Endeavour even require a sworn vow of avoiding the place in order to receive a room while staying in the city. The gap in perception around it, the complete lack of stories for such a place rich for tales makes those in the area vehemently disavow it.
That said, there will always be daredevils, creatives, curious scamps that feel more pulled than ever when told to avoid something. The occasional travelers venture into the place, although how many or what they do or see there is difficult to know, as few discuss upon their return and even fewer document it in journals, letters, stories, or scholarship.

RUINED STRUCTURE
??? PB, at least 750 years before.

Type

Graveyard

Parent Location

Grove of the Cat

Characters in Location

• Divaia

Related Report (Primary Locations)

• Session 19: Are you there, God? It's me, a fungal owl.

Related Report (Secondary Locations)

• Session 17: Into The Maw, Hands Held Tightly