Arden Vul Session 12 & 13
A Song of the Ardent Fools
Date: Jun 22, 2026
Party: Florian (bard), Lorez (wizard), Cedric (Fighter), Johannes (cleric), Runner (Ranger)
See the whole thing on my Arden Vul campaign page.
A skald settles by the fire in the beastmen's camp, tunes a battered lute, and fixes Marcus with a grin before beginning.
Hear now, Marcus of the Tagma, what became of your Ardent Fools in the two turnings of the moon since you watched them descend your stair.
Down they went, down the Long Stair, and the road was kind to them, for once, no ambush, no misstep, only the dust of an easy road and the gate of Gosterwick opening at dusk to swallow them whole.
And oh, Marcus, what fools' luck found them there. A pouch of dust that made men sneeze and choke, sold for near a thousand in gold to a goblin who calls them by name now, the Ardent Fools, he says, as if it were a title of honor and not a warning. And the archer's dagger, the plain thing he carried unknowing through blood and fire, woke under a wizard's eye and showed itself for what it always was: an ibis-blade of the old empire, hungry still for secrets carved in flesh. Two hundred pieces of gold each man carried home that night, and songs sung of your swordsman's deeds in a common room that had never heard his name before.
But gold loosens tongues, Marcus, and tongues speak of stranger things than coin. They heard that the old kings of this place buried their bones in secret groves beneath the very stones you walk. They heard that something with scales and cunning holds the deep halls below, and worships a serpent larger than any snake should grow. They heard the name of a devourer from the pit below all pits, a thing of salamander and elephant both, that the Hoppers who broke your people's rule once tried to call up from the dark. Take this warning as you will.
Then came the second dawn, and with it, honesty and its cost. The priest-of-blood spoke true words to a temple that did not want them, and was turned away with a curse on his back for daring to serve dogs and beasts before men. But another road opened where the first one closed, a task, whispered by a servant of the temple's own Lady: find the cult that should not exist, and know how deep its roots have grown. The wizard sent word through the old formulas, five vials of the poison's cure, bought and paid.
And so they climbed back to you, Marcus. Climbed the stair they once walked blind, and found, where your men should have waited, nothing. An empty cave, a secret door unguarded, and five adventurers standing in the silence wondering what had moved you. You had only shifted your camp, as it happened, fifteen paces and no more, but silence like that breeds worse stories than the truth, and I tell you plainly, they did not like it.
Three vials of the six they carried, they gave to you, and kept the rest close, trusting you only so far as trust has been earned between your peoples. You paid them well. You warned them well, too, of the green terror that rules the broken stones above, the one whose name is a curse on the wind after dark. Craastonistorex. Say it soft, Marcus, even here.
And then, fools that they are, fools that they will always be, instead of resting on your goodwill, they climbed higher still. Up past your walls, into the shattered gate at the top of the world, where two towers stand like broken teeth against the sky. They looked. They listened. The hound smelled murder waiting in the dark of a doorway, and rather than walk into it, they burned it, a gout of fire down an ancient hall thick with web and dust.
Out came the spiders, Marcus. Three of them, goat-sized and furious. Your swordsman took the first alone and paid for his boldness with a single drop of blood, a fair trade for a monster left twitching in the ash. Your archer loosed two arrows in a breath and struck the other two hard, though neither yet has fallen.
And there the tale breaks off, Marcus, mid-swing, mid-breath, two spiders still living and five fools still fighting. What happens next, even I do not yet know. That is a song for another night.
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