The Sculptor
The city of Kaluswind was built along the northeast corner of the ocean shore. Nestled into a fertile patch of land between The Kallus Cliffs and the Shatterfrost Sea the walled city of fishermen and farmers was no stranger to hardship even before the war started. A long, jutting expanse of land to the north of Astoria lurked behind the cover of the Northern Astoria Mountain Range, and the uncivilized men and monsters who made that wild land their home hardly let more than a handful of winters pass between each of their raids. This, the ice cold sea water that was the city's lifeblood, and the particularly harsh bite of winter made Kaluswind an unpopular place to for people to visit, and a downright miserable place for anyone to live.
Even worse, there was a heavy, miserable fog hanging over the city of Kaluswind as of late. The kind of miserable thing that sulked into the deep corners of one's mind and sat there - sulking like an impetuous child - so that even if the more resilient of Kaluswind's residents had gathered the will to force a artificial sense of cheeriness they would have only done so with the uncomfortable certainly that they were in fact... anything but cheery. Which made sense considering that the people in Kaluswind had very little to be cheerful about lately.
The sugar rations had once again been lowered this winter and any hopes that the enforcement of quotas on meat and salt being released were quickly dashed with the recent news from the warfront. The Cascadians had routed The 3rd Fleet and now any hopes the city of Kaluswind had of resupply from the Shattered Coast were dashed. It had been a hard winter for Kaluswind - not that there was any other - and there had even been some hope of things changing with the arrival of Spring just a dozen days earlier. This hope too was dashed - as the miserable fog had settled down into the old bones of the city on the 3rd of Spring and had shown no interest in dislodging itself from it's wretched perch between the damp wooden houses and cobblestone pathways. The fog was easily the densest that anyone still living in Kaluswind had ever seen, although an old sailor at the South Pub boasted loudly about a deeper fog he saw in Rystanburg thirty years prior to all who would listen. The fog in Kaluswind seemed unnaturally stubborn. It would form thick opaque walls in whatever direction you seemed most interested in travelling - seemingly always no more than four feet in front of you. It gave the air a strange metallic taste and took on an penetrating chill in the evenings that somehow ignored however many layers of furs one stacked up against it.
The citizens of Kaluswind knew their city of course, so it was rare for anyone to get turned about for longer than a few minutes, but the think trickle of traders and merchants who dared brave this close to the warfront were often swallowed whole but the fog only turn to up disheveled and disoriented a few hours later on the other side of the city. A glassblower's apprentice even vanished one evening on his way home from the tavern. He and two lads from the docks were dousing their frustrations and worries with wine and lagers before the trio split up to return home a few hours before the morning horn. The marshal searched his home and found no evidence of foul play - but the apprentice's landlord insisted she never the young man return in the evening. The man's sudden disappearance was of course an incessant source of gossip and rumor for the entire city. Word was that even Lord Sheffield had taken a lordly interest in the boy's disappearance, although the disappearance of someone trained in a trade like glassblowing was perhaps something a lord should be doing.
A search party was formed for the lad, nearly half of the East District had turned up to volunteer, and they combed through each district, street, alley, and corner of the city of Kaluswind for the better part of three days. However by the end of the week though the excitement and mystery of the glassblower's disappearance had faded away, and the excited theories of Lycean manstealers and Kaldari Recruiters all faded away with the accepted reality that the Glassblower had simply died in the middle of the night and the damn fog made it so hard to see that nobody had found his body yet. By the start of the 1st day of the 3rd week of spring hardly anyone who didn't know the glassblower was even thinking about him anymore. Attentions turned once again to recent news from the warfront and the more recent grossips that snaked thier way through Kaluswinds.
The fog stayed heavy over Kaluswind deep into the 3rd week of spring. Across the gloomy city of damp stone and timber the citizens bustled and worried each day the same way they had the day before - hardly any time to stop and cherish the fleeting years of their mortal human lives. No, life in Kaluswind was far too loud and too busy for that.
It was precisely because of this that nobody could hear the Glassblower's Apprentice scream.
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Deep beneath the musky wooden building of Kaluswind and the tangled connection of piping and sewers beneath it rested the old catacombs. A half collapsed network of subterranean hallways and narrow jutting nooks, the catacombs were "old" long before the first human settlers in the valley had settled here - likely constructed millennia ago in the age long before humanity first sprouted from the banks of Astorian River. The catacombs had been discovered well over a century ago but pure happenstance. A sudden unsettlement of earth beneath the city was discovered by some workers during an expansion phase of the city's sewer system. It had exposed the upper portion of a heavy metal door with what had likely been intricate carvings on it's heavy iron face but were now erased by an age and a half of attrition and sediment.
Despite the barriers dilapitated state, it took four strong men armed with iron spikes to pry the heavy door from its hinges - exposing the narrow, twisting hallway that opened up deeper into the belly of the earth. The discovery was of course of immense excitement to the fledging city - who hoped that such an exciting archelogical find would at last put their lackluster home on the maps. The lord of Kaluswind ordered the selection of an excavation and exploration team to explore the depths - eager to reveal the lost fortunes and sunked history beneath their city. The explorers spent the next week in a nearly constant stake of discovery, dislodging dirt and debris to reveal even more corridors, welded doorways, and shattered statues of unrecognizable origin.
The entire city was still holding its breath in excitement, the building sense of discovery only growing with each passing day - when word reached back to Alvantes. Intrigued by the discovery a group of Kinderstarke arrvied from Stolzetrum in short order. Half a dozen Kinderstarke men and women who carried with them the sort of patient wisdom that only an immortal archeologist could wield with such casualness. They spent little more than a half week investigating the catamcombs while the Kaluswind residents who had been previously plunging into it's depth waited anxiously outside - their presence an unwanted distraction to the formal inspectors. In the end the team returned and revealed that the "ancient" discovery was anything but - merely a millenia old foundational substructure for a long forgotten Kinderstarke palisade. Nothing of value was inside, however they did determine that the catacombs were dangerously unstable and it was only by the Goddess' mercy that the cavern had not collapsed on the clumsy explorers who had preceded them. At the Kinderstarke Expedition's request, Lord Sheffield banned any future explorations of the catacombs and with the assistance of Stolzetrum they capped the entrance to the catacombs off with a heavy iron door, sealed and protected by a set of powerful arcane enchantments.
This of course took much of the excitement and mystery out of the old Kaluswind catacombs and the city's gossip quickly turned to new topics of excitment and intrigue (The Lord Sheffield's nephew had been caught with an uncomfortably young girl and word had gotten out despite the noble family's best interests.) Some of the more stubborn or conspiratorial human's refused to move on form the subject of the catacombs. Instead they spread rumors and theories of Kinderstark gold being stolen by the "dwarfs bastards" from under their very nose, or even outlandish theories of ancient dragon skeletons being discovered in the catacombs. The exact treasure being stole or hidden changed with each retelling, but in the end the legend of the catacombs took on a life of their own after this event - being retold and revised with each passing generation so that now almost two centuries later the humans in Kalusiwnd still exchanged stories of the ancient treasures locked in the vaults beneath Kaluswind.
There was of course, absolutely no treasures locked in the catacombs of Kaluswind. Not unless you counted privacy of course - which The Sculptor did in fact count. It was because of the catacomb's near-mythic nature and presumed inaccessibility that Gregorovich had chosen them as the location for his current workshop. He had been working from the side-basement cellar of an old farmhouse in Central Highland Region of Kaldaria before coming here. The farmhouse had been mostly suitable - the farm's owners were too old to tend to their homestead now and any children they may have had showed little interest in their familial estate. He had originally intended to set up in the farmhouse for a few weeks - a month at most - but the inattentive nature of the caretakers was a surpising boon for Gregorovich. He ended plying his art in that dank moldy basement for two winters before being discovered. He had no idea what brought the old man to venture into the basement for the first time in two years, but when he heard the horrible sound of the old man's shuffling steps outside the shed's door he had little choice but to ensure the old man's silence. His arrival had surprised Gregorovich more than it should have. He was unfortunately deep in concentration working on a particularly obstinate piece at the time, so he didn't hear the old man until the last second and in his panic he had lashed out with the only thing he had in his hands. The sculptor had knocked the man into a loose heap with a single blow with the mallet in his hand. The second blow ensured the injury was fatal. The third blow was mostly born of frustration.
So The Sculptor left the farmhouse cellar and gathered his things to head north. Another winter was calling quickly on Alwaus and Gregorovich could already feel the deep cold begin to settle into his bones. He was hardly a young man himself anymore and the each winter seemed to hit him harder than the last. He had grown particularly frustrated last winter when they cold settle tightly into the knuckles of his liver-spotted left hand - causing a deep shaper pain whenever he tried to grip his tools too hard. He tried various remedies for the sensation, even trekking out to the nearest market city to inquire about more portent alchemical tonics. The apothecary was quick to offer suggestion and take The Sculptor's silver but in the end the perfumed chalky oil had done little to relieve the arthritis. Gregorovich had little interest in reliving the sensation for a second winter, so he took the incident with the farmer as an indicator it was time to move on.
The Sculptor moved north for the next year, stopping at various cities and locations of interest - always watchful for new inspirations or locations to set up a new (hopefully more permanent) workshop. Gregorovich even took the opportunity to meet with Kosutic, a long-time associate and fellow sculptor. It had been nearly ten years since the two men had last seen each other, and despite finding Kosutic in a new condition the two quickly fell into old steps with other - laughing and reminescing with old stories from when they were much younger men.
Art was so often a lonely affair, their sculptures more so than most, so the two old scultpors decided that perhaps it would be best if they moved along together now. The needless competitiveness that had existed between the two of them for most of their lives had long faded with their advanced age, and the simple pragmatism of a partnership now seemed far too appealing to give up for the sake of petty ego. Both men had their best years long behind them now - physically at least and Kosutic most of all - and a partnership now seemed the best chance for both men to at long last complete the masterpieces they had been chasing for their entire lives.
So it became that the two Sculptors joined together and continued their journey north into the Cascadian Peninsula in hopes of a suitable location large enough for their ambitions while discreet enough for the two old human men to avoid unwanted attention. They set up a few workshops over the next few years, plying their craft in various corners of the peninsula but careful never to stay rooted to a location too long. Inspiration was a fickle mistress during those years and it seemed to both men that a seditary nature was likely stifling their creativity. For weeks at a time the two men would stare at whichever uncarved canvas they have selected, discussing between the two of them the best additions and substractions to achieve the results the men wanted. Kosutic had become a refined minimalist in his winter years, and seemed to always suggest shaving, carving, or outright chopping in certain places that Gregorovich would have never considered worth note. Gregorovich, on the other hand, had only grown more ambitious as the years passed, and on more than one ocasion Kosutic had to veto the addition of a set of bat-like wings to a piece. It was a tumultuous partnership at times - one that neither men could have tolerated in the heat of thier youth - but they both saw the beneifts in the arrangement. Gregorvich was in fact producing some of the best woks of his life - even to his own ever increasing standards - and he found himself desperatley plunging deeper and deeper into the heart of his art, desperate to produce his masterpiece before his lifetime ran out.
Rumors of the catacombs in Kaluswind had reached Gregorovich around this time, and with some gentle persuasion Kosutic agreed to uproot his post in Cascadia and explore the rumors of the catacombs for themselves. They took no stock in the rumored treasure of course - both men were well educated and far too sensible to believe that the Kinderstark would have ever left anything of worth behind when they sealed the tunnels. Instead, what attracted the men to Kalusiwnd was the idea of an untouched, forgotten, and most importantly private area where they could set up their workshop and really focus on their craft. No disturbances, no distractions but with a bustling metropolitan just above thier head. A place where they can resupply, research, and most importantly acquire new canvas.
It didnt't take long for Gregorovich to find the entrance to the catacombs nestled deep in the city's feculent sewer system. The heavy iron seal the kinderstarke expedition had left on the access nearly two centuries prior still blocked the entranceway. It was a massive iron plate at least a foot thick that jutted deep into a heavy grove in the stone floor of the sewer - it's grimy surface carved with the emblem of Stolzetrum and the words "Dangerous - Do Not Enter Under Pain of Death" carved into it's face in deep, perfectly carved letter.. While the enchantments protecting the plate from the grime of elements had long since given way, the protective enchantments still prevented the worst of any would be Kaluswind treasure hunter from breaching it's archway. There was some heavy scratches cut deep into the sit of the plate near where it melded with the stone walls around it as if someone have tried to wedge a spike into the space where the seal met stone but the tooth was unable to find purchase - not that it would have done the intruder and good. The arcane enchantments placed on the seal would have stopped anything short of an ironclad from breaching it's iron face with brute force. Instead The Sculptor took a more delicate approach.
The enchantments placed on the seal had been powerful at one time - at least considering what they were designed to protect - but nearly two centuries of attrition had worn away the magical protections to the point that Gregorovich's cunning mind was able to dismantle them in the lesser part of an hour. He worked slowly as he peeled each layer of the magical propections back, careful not to disturb the delicate arcane sigils and holographic runic texts. Twice he had to stop and reference the collection of books he had brought with him into the sewers in order to ensure his pathway through the convoluted maze of kindertarke enchanting was at least pushing him in teh right direction. Once he had even stumbled into a portion of the code that jerked awaked from it's century old slumber - alerted to The Sculptors clumsy attempt at intrusion. Gregorovich didn't know what sort of retaliation he coudl expect from the old 'dwarfin technology but for a breif moment he felt certain that the enchanted defenses had been alert and he was about to face a sudden and painful death. Much to the sculptor's relief however, the old defenses had eroded away to the point that they either didn't notice the sculptor's intrusion or simply didn't care - and shortly afterwards Gregorovich was rewarded for his efforts with a slight crackle of static eletricty in the air between him and the Iron plate before it's heavy iron frame dislodged from it's century-long home in the stone frame with dramatic snap-hiss.
With a groaning roar the hear iron plate counter-clockwise spin on it's edge, filling the reeking tunnel with the unbearable sounds of iron scrapping and rolling alon unfinished stone. Gregorovich covered his ears with his hands to protect them fro the deafening clamour half-concerned that the sound would reverberate along the snaking stone sewer system and out of the crowed streets of Kaluswind above. But after a few seconds the plate rolled to a stop and the dank, dark sewer system seemed strangely quiet in the absence of the grinding iron plate. Before Gregorovich the section of sewerwall that the plate had been protected was now exposed. A series of brings can be broken away and removed from the wall; exposing the dark dry soil beneath it's stone facade beneath. A few strings of dead fauna clung desperately into the side of the soal, weaving in and out of the copper-red dirt like a set of infesting worms. But in the middle of the stone, soil, and roots was a crooked gash in earth - a dark jagged oval about 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide at it’s largest point. From within this hole came the stench of stale air.
Gregorovich smiled. For the first time in nearly two-hundred years the catacombs beneath Kaluswind were finally open.
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The two sculptors spend the next few weeks clearing out their space in the catacombs and moving their supplies and projects through the swersystem in the dead of night to be snuck through the jagged opening in the catacombs below. The two were careful to avoid the watchful eyes of the town guards and on more than one occasion they were forced to spend several hours waiting out stubborn patrols or even traverse a few miles further down the district to a less convenient but also less populated access point to the sewers. Gregorovich had to do most of the heavy lifting, as Kosutic’s days of physical labour were now long past him - a situation that would normally have caused Gregovich a great deal of annoyance at one time. But Greogrovich found himself unusually festive and hospitable during these weeks. The discovery of the catacombs had been encouraging and exactly the sort of breakthrough in fortune that the two had needed to find for their work. But the trip through wartorn Cascadian had and through to Kaluswind has been difficult for Gregorovich, and hauling their supplies through the disgusting miles of human shit and piss seemed to take an even larger tool on him still. He was becoming increasingly aware of how old he had become in these last years - and how precious little time was left to finish his masterpiece.
In the end though, the two sculptors were able to set up the finest workshop either of them had ever worked in. The catacombs themselves were mostly a jutting, half-collapsed section of corridors and hallways, but they chose the largest and most stable-looking of the remaining rooms to function as the workshop, while a smaller odd shaped room deeper in the ruins served as a bedchamber for Gregorovich, while Kosutic’s lack of need for any real privacy meant he could simply reside in the workshop full time.
The workshop was sectioned off into separate areas, the library and dry storage sat along the back left wall and quickly filled with the bland grains and dried vegetables that the sculptors subsided off of (their work had a habit of killing the appetites of most men and the two of them were no exception), while the immediate left to the entrance way was the curtained off area where Kosutic matriculated. The wall to the immediate right was of course a selection of coldboxes and wet storage, as well as the reserve apothecary supplies that was needed for the men’s work. The rest of the room was dedicated to work space: a wide unbroken series of carved stone tiles that quickly became sectioned off with cotton curtains and heavy wooden tables and platforms as the men set hungrily to their art.
It was here that the sculptor Gregorovich worked around the clock, stopping only to defecate, sleep, or eat when the pangs of hunger grew too much for the old man to bear. Time lost all meaning for the man in a way that it can only for a bemused old artist working a hundred feet underground. He measured time only in provisions, as the lamp and heating oil would need to be resupplied from the merchants in Kaluswind every second week or so. Their supply of food seemed to be surprisingly resilient however, and The Scluptor quickly lost tack of the last time he needed to resupply on the musky oats and moldy rations the two men had acquired.
Gregorovich had arisen earlier than usual that morning - or whatever could be considered morning down here. He had the rather urgent need to urinate, a urgency that his body had felt worth awakening him over. He lit a bent shriveled candle to give his old eyes some light and shuffled over to the grass chamberpot in the corner of his room and began to relieve himself. The stream was spurting and pitiful and much to The Sculptor’s dismay blood red.
He had first noticed the faint red tint to his urine the week they arrived in Kaluswind. He had arisen in the morning unusually early (much like this) and relieved himself against a young deciduous tree near their camp. The sharp pain in his groin is what initially caught his attention that morning, and a closer examination of his stream revealed a subtle pink discoluraton. He had written it off as merely the physical strain of travel on his old body - an idea that was only reinforced by the darkening of the stream a few weeks later when they finished setting up the workshop. But now Gregorovich found himself urinating blood more often than not in the mornings, and it didn’t take a man with as much medical training as Gregovich to know that was not a good sign.
The old scluptor sighed and tucked himself back into his robes. He shuffled down the broken stones of the catacomb hallway to the workshop. There he grumbloed a morning salutation to the muttering Kosutic behind his curtain before refilling the old oil generator, setting some water to boil and (when he was positive Kosutic wasn't paying mind) uncorked a vial from a vial and pouring the last remenants of it's contents down his throat. The tonic was a cold, thick liquid that tasted like a salty slug slowly slurping it's way down his throat. He had procured the tonic from an apothecary on his last trip to Kaluswind in the hopes of correcitng wahtever imbalance was causing the bloody urine. There was plenty of medical conditions that could cause persistent hematuria and Gregorovich knew most of them off hand (he had been a doctor in another life). If the alchemical remedy he had been taking for these past two weeks had worked he could have written the condition off as a mild infection or perhaps even the early signs of glass-stones. But as the last of the salty tonic washed down his throat it settled in his stomach accomanied with a freshly renewed sense of dread and anxiety.
He was running out of time.
Gregorovich dragged the drawknife lengthwise down the side of his most recent sculpture. The edge of the tool was razor sharp (Gregorovich had learned long ago the importance of taking care of one’s instruments), and with each long stroke of the blade the sculptor removed a thick layer of material from the sculpture - a footlong strip of material so thin it threatened translucence. Each long stroke produced another thin strip from the mantle’s side to float airily down.
Gregorovich dragged the drawknife lengthwise down the side of his most recent sculpture. The edge of the tool was razor sharp (Gregorovich had learned long ago the importance of taking care of one’s instruments), and with each long stroke of the blade the sculptor removed a thick layer of material from the sculpture - a footlong strip of material so thin it threatened translucence. Each long stroke produced another thin strip from the mantle’s side to float airily down.
Gregorovich - the flesh scultopt Kausutic obezglavljivanje - head in a jar Kaluswind Shattered Coast Cascadian Peninsula 3rd Fleet The Sheffield Family of Kaluswind The Kallus Cliffs - Eastmost Mountains of the northern Astorian mountain range catacombs of Kaluwind Astorian River - birthplace of humanity. Kaluswind Sewer System Kaluswind Catacombs
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