Wayfare Shrines
Day 32 of expedition:
They told me not to come here, the air is hard to breathe. Foul, stale, there isn't any wind, stagnate existence. Still, I trudged on, I was an explorer, and I would be damned if I allowed those sanctimonious fools of the Guild to stop me. It was just a place, a ruin, a realm left behind from times before, it couldn't hurt me. It couldn't possibly. Trudging up the hill, nothing but grey skies, dead trees, dry grass and burned soils. I couldn't help but wonder what happened here.
The food I had brought with me had gone rotten days ago, still, I stoked a fire and cooked it regardless. Foul, bitter, unpleasant to say the least, there was nothing to hunt here, nothing to forage, this place was dead. Yet, I ate my rotten food. I did laugh at the fact that the only thing that seemed to thrive here was mold. My food never had flies, never had maggots, only mold and foul smells. I thought back to what that Guild Master told me, this place was called The Burned, he said they were cracked planets. He wouldn't explain when I pressed him.
That night I snuck past the guard, passed the Wayfares operating that Portal Nexus. A few smoke bombs, a couple of flash bangs and I had access. That rune structure I stole from their archives, placed it in the Nexial core and opened the portal to this place. Odd, the portal gate was different, instead of the blue and shimmering surface like it usually had for anywhere else you wanted to go. It was grey, sickly green at the edges. I couldn't stop, jumped in before the authorities grabbed me. I heard that God's Eye's bleat out "Stop! DO not enter that portal!", before everything changed before my eyes.
Setting my rough wooden bowl down, I saw it too was covered in mold as well. The exhaustion was starting to get to me, leaning back against that dead tree, I was out before I even finished closing my eyes. Dreams filled with strange shapes, colors I couldn't have imagined. Strange voices echoing out from the dark, calling to me. I woke with a start, rubbing my eyes with my hands as I sat up. The low glow of the coals at my feet, the only light source besides the stars in the sky. Something glinted in the dark, swiveling around I could have sworn I saw a pair of eyes staring at me.
Shaking my head, I told myself that this place was dead. There was nothing alive here besides me, me and my own foolishness. I didn't sleep well that night, I didn't dream again, only hear indistinct voices calling to me, refusing to let me drift into a peaceful rest.
Day 45 of expedition:
Those voices wont leave me alone even when I'm awake now. They tell me things I don't understand. Who is this "Great Mother" they keeping talking about? Why do they want me to breath deeper, they even started telling my to open my throat to let in more air. I don't understand... They talk about a Sacred set of Scales, some golden sword... I don't understand. All thing moldy air is probably starting to get to me. But, I need to see this shrine I read about in that damned book, I need to. I cannot rest until I see it.
I keep seeing things on the edges of my vision, my skin has started turning pale in these over cast skies. This sickly purple crawling up the veins of my arms. I cannot turn back, I can't. I sit down today to eat the last scrap of my food before I'll be forced to eat the leather bag I brought, possibly my own boots as well. I remember looking back at that portal gate empty behind me when I came here. It was odd, the portals always stayed open, I tried for three days to get the gate to operate again, but nothing worked, even when hooked up the Arcane Charge Crystal I brought specifically for this reason.
"A shrine of the old Guild. Abandoned, for reasons we will not tell you. There are somethings you are better off not knowing, Taylor. Do not pursue this 'adventure' as you call it. It will kill you." That's what that Wayfare told me, I pressed and pressed and pressed only to get such a paltry response. the only other thing he told me was that the old Shrine was a mural. Stained glass, of a winged woman holding a sun. Built into the archway of an old Portal Nexus. He refused to tell me anything about this woman, but....
I had come to the conclusion that this place was once something very different. I reached the ruins of a city days ago, built of metal and stone I didn't recognise. Only that this place had been burned, no. Burned was the wrong word, the stone melted, the metal warped, everything covered in ash. This place was incinerated with a force I cannot understand...
I must stop writing. Those voices are growing louder again... I regret coming here.
Day ??? expedition..
Found... shrine. Glorious, that Shadow found me too. Brought peace. Changed me, told me job was to open portal again. Find the Elsewhere. Find the Queen. Kill her. Shadow gone. Gave me gifts, claws to dig deeper into the city. New lungs to feed off the mold. Took my stomach, not hungry any more... I found the shrine, I did what I set out to do. Back to digging, flesh gone from fingers, but I don't care...
-Journey of Dram Taylor, Explorer. Found by the Riders of the Distant Storm to put him down, after he had reopened the Portal Nexus to Hurion and let loose a massive blast of Miasma into the heart of the City. He had written his own name in blood into the archway, as well as the symbol for the Blade of Syn. History
All Wayfare Shrines are the pervious Portal Nexus of The Quartet that allowed warping from planet to planet. Much more robust, much more powerful versions that those that are built on The Cradle. These places are treated with an extreme caution by the Guild, keeping them secret to even the governments of the world. While yes, they are extremely resource rich, they hold the collective wealth of all the growth the Children had accumulated over Eons. But the cost... there has never been a living soul capable of returning to these places without an immense amount of protection. Protection that only the Soldiers of the Elsewhere have. Rebreathers, potent warding spells, the luck of divine providence, as well as the capability to fight off indescribable powers of the eldritch nature of the Shadows.
They are all abandoned, with precious few excursions to collect information. They are all quarantined, all disbarred from any public knowledge. The Wayfares never expected a human man to be able to gain access to one of the burned to find these site. They also didn't know how a human would be treated by the Shadows that still hunt these burned planets. They hunt them simply because they too seek any information they can find about where the Elsewhere is. To complete their war... They learned that day, that the Shadows will still make Vestiges out of modern incarnations of Shadow Touched Children if it suits them.
Oh this is stunning