The Fall of Rune (Foreword)

The Fall of Run is set in world that is neither the world of Shroud of the Avatar nor the world of Earth. It does tie in to my character's back story and present a history that I will carry with me into New Britannia. This is the first part, a Foreword, to introduce you to this world and to lay the groundwork for the beginning of the actual story. When I have a new section of the story prepared to share, I will post a link to the new section in the previous section's thread, so don't forget to subscribe if you want to follow the story!

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Tar burns blacker than pitch.
The weight of spades falls hard on clay.
The Shadow roams the Lost City
where the sun-baked dome is cracked.
There is no rest in Dol'Garab.
Beware the lordly host.

~ The Prophesy of the False Seer

FOREWORD

The lowlands of Dei are dark and full of monsters.

It was just so for Sir Gordon Branch, sweating between the heat of his torch and the heavy, humid air of the Black Swamp. Fifteen feet above, an ashen cloud hung low in the afternoon sky, casting a dark shadow in all directions as far as Gordon could see. The local people of Frits had named it the ever-night, and it was new.

The letter had come to Sir Branch bearing the familiar crimson and silver seal of the Grand Academy. It had been Gordon's dream for many years to receive such a letter, but the contents of this letter were unexpected. It was an invitation, only not to the royal city of New Reid. Instead, the invitation explained that ruins had been unearthed, and that the research effort could very much benefit from his most impressive expertise. As a scholar of history, under other circumstances, Gordon might easily have overcome his disappointment with pride and curiosity. Whatever inspiration he might have felt, though, vanished instantly when he saw the where. Frits. Westreach. The Black Swamp.

That memory hung from Gordon's memory like a ribbon taunting a kitten, tormenting him with the thought that he could have--should have--refused. Now there he was, dripping with sweat and sweating still, wandering a boundless swamp in complete darkness with only a torch and his forty-stone canvas pack. Alone.

What Sir Branch did not (and could not) realize is that the swamp itself was hardly infinite. It reached across maybe fourteen miles of the lateral Westreach countryside, and of width it was hardly seven miles at its widest point. Having walked for two days without sleep (for all swamps are said to be haunted by hungry spirits, making them inappropriate grounds for sleeping) had weakened Sir Branch's cognitive abilities and delivered him squarely into a state of terrible indecision, whereby he had not a chance of realizing that he must have walked at least so far as to reach one of the swamp's other sides. That the heavy darkness of the swamp weighed upon him like a suit of tar the entire way weakened him only further. All around him for thirty-two hours and in all directions there had been nothing and no one, and the hours had robbed him of his ability to consider that anything was especially wrong. It was solely for the sake of his exhaustion that Gordon Branch collapsed, and it was for the sake of collapsing that he slept, soaked and soaking in the rotting stench of stagnant water.