“This is it lads,” Gorend said. “We’re rich!”

  The dwarf stood up from where he had been crouched by the fire, his hands sooty and black from digging around in the ashes. Avaricios and Osric looked over from where they were keeping watch by the door, awaiting any sign of the wayward Wiskin. When they looked at the dwarf, his fist was closed around something in his hand. He walked over to them and opened his fingers after a dramatic pause, revealing five gold coins in his palm.

  “Fortune and glory,” Osric muttered as the grinning dwarf handed them each a single coin, pocketing three for himself. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure the Wiskin gets his when he returns,” the dwarf said, turning once more to examine the walls of the cave.

  “What is he doing up there?” Avaricios wondered aloud, craning his neck to peer around the opening of the cave, gazing up toward the statue of Arden. The climber had been gone for some time.

  Vargr was wading through the chest-deep foliage behind Arden’s neck, one hand braced against the cliff and the other against the statue as he pushed his way through the narrow crevice. He was elated: the golden rod he had found was safely stored in his pack, and its weight on his back was like a reassurance of comfort, of relief. The rod itself was about an inch and a half in diameter and fifteen inches long, and it was without a doubt made of solid gold. It weighed some twenty-odd pounds, and every ounce of it was a promise of wealth and luxury.

  At the thought of selling it however, some doubts crept into Vargr’s mind as he worked his way along the crevice. It was certainly out of place here, and its craftsmanship was too pristine, too... He was unsure, but something told him this rod had a larger purpose than being purely a commodity to be sold off to the nearest buyer. He had examined it for any engravings or symbols, secret latches or devices, but had found nothing. Perhaps Osric would be able to identify its purpose, he thought, before pushing it to the back of his mind and forging onward through the foliage, making his way over to Arden’s huge right pauldron, the westernmost point nearest the falls.

  His clothes, already wet from the moisture that misted over the vegetation, were soaked through with ice-cold water as he reached the statue’s right shoulder and gazed upon the torrential downpour of the Long Falls. Looking closely, even from this vantage point, he could see no evidence of hidden passageways, nor any further entrances or crevices to reach. From where he rested he could even see behind the waterfall, but there was no visible path. Perhaps with enough time and equipment he could scale laterally across the cliff behind the waterfall, but the risk, even for Vargr, was far too great.

  He tensed as he saw something silhouetted through the water. Somewhere on the opposite side of the falls there must have been an unseen opening in the cliff, and Vargr could just barely discern the shape of some large creature emerging from the mouth of a cave. It stepped out and waited there for a moment, perhaps surveying the land below, before it settled down to rest. Its shape was too obscured by the falling water to clearly be identified, but Vargr was certain of one fact at least: whatever it was, it was large, much larger than a man, and from the easy confidence of its movements he marked it as a predator.

  There was nothing further for him on this side of the statue, so he sank back into the cover of the foliage and receded once more into the shadow. His years spent working his trade had more than once taught him the importance of knowing how to disappear. The footing was uneven as he navigated his way back to Arden’s left pauldron where he had left his tether and he tied himself once more to the line before scaling back up.

  From where he stood on her pauldron, her massive helm loomed sternly above. Looking down at her empty palm, he traced a path to and from it, seeing the trailing vines that reached down to it from the growth that covered much of the statue. Some of them may have proved sufficiently sturdy, but without testing them it was hard to know for certain. He wrapped a handful around his fist and gave some hard, sharp tugs. He considered for a moment, looking at the long drop below him, then picked up another handful of vines. He glanced up and saw his three companions edging out of the mouth of the cave looking over at him, and he gave a morbid smile, then began his descent.

  His safety line was still tethered around his torso as he leaned more and more of his weight on the vines, walking backwards down the arm of the statue one step at a time. The vines seemed to hold his weight, but eventually the last of his safety line ran out. As he felt the line grow taut, Vargr looked over his shoulder. He was halfway to her palm.

  “May the fates take me as they will,” the Wiskin swore under his breath. He untied his safety line and put his full weight on the vines. Every muscle in his body tensed like a spring, but the vines held his weight. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, tightened his grip on the vines, and continued down. The last six feet was not covered by the vines, but when he reached it he sprang down and landed nimbly as a cat. He straightened slowly and looked around him. He had made it to the palm.

  The three others watched his descent from the platform. Of course, now that he had made it, none knew what exactly he planned to do from there.

  Vargr, it seemed, didn’t know either. He surveyed the mosses and lichens that had grown across the wet stone, thriving in the cracks in her stony fingers and the pitted crevices of centuries of erosion. Her hand was bare, and the creases in her stony flesh, though worn, were masterfully rendered. Vargr looked out over the valley below. He could see the ruined watchtower where Yrtol the Hungry dwelt, and much further, at the very edge of the horizon, the smoke curled from the furnaces and smithies and cook fires of Gosterwick.

  Gorend watched this for a few minutes, his mouth a grim line, before he turned away and looked up at the switchback that continued above them. It seemed that the spray from the basin did not reach the further sections, so the rest of the way up would be much safer. He reported this to the other two on the platform.

  Avaricios nodded and rubbed his chin as he kept a wary eye on the Wiskin perched on the statue’s palm. “Now the trick is getting Vargr back in one piece.”

  All at once, echoing across the valley, each of the companions heard it: the distant hoots of some kind of large primates.

  Vargr thought immediately of the silhouetted creature he had seen through the falls, and felt a twinge of fear when he heard multiple hooting voices cry out in response, coming from some opening in the cliff they had yet to discover. The adventurers tensed at this and each surveyed their surroundings, their eyes keen for any threats. Osric, puffing on his pipe once more, took a single step back into the cave they had found, and all that could be seen was a reddish cherry glow and a wisp of silver and gray as he smoked in the darkness within.

  In the meantime, with renewed urgency, Vargr investigated the hand. He searched the palm for any sign of wear, trying to determine if she had once been holding something. He searched the vambrace, where the hand met the forearm, for any sign that indicated moving parts. He squinted up at the rest of her arm, seeing if he’d missed anything on his descent down to the palm, and it was then that he noticed the seam. The gap was incredibly fine. It was in the crease of Arden’s elbow, and Vargr discerned that it was deliberately constructed, possibly indicating a point of articulation.

  He called out to his companions on the landing above. “Arden’s elbow has a seam! Can you see anything from where you are?”

  His shouts were immediately answered by more hooting from somewhere out of sight, and Avaricios twisted around to search the surrounding cliffs to try to locate their source, but the echoing voices were too difficult to track. Then, a movement: it was so quick it made his head twitch to the side. On the cliff face above—he thought it might have been mist from the falls—he swore he saw some sort of white furred animal disappear directly into the cliff. He couldn’t be sure of what he saw, but a knot of unease turned inside him.

  “I saw something,” he hissed to Osric and Gorend, pointing above. He gestured at Vargr, making a negating motion with his hands and pointing up the cliff. Vargr frowned, then nodded, scanning the stony wall above them for whatever had startled the priest.

  Osric stepped out from the mouth of the cave, a fog of smoke trailing him as he emerged. He tapped the stem of his pipe to his lips as he looked at the seam Vargr had indicated, musing aloud: “Was it attached at a later date? Is it a hidden entrance perhaps, or does it indicate a point where the arm could pivot, or move?”

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  He squinted at the structure. From this vantage the mage could see that the entire arm, all the way up into the recesses of the pauldron itself, was not of one piece. It was unattached to the cliff face, and indeed, it looked as if it might, conceivably, be able to move.

  Osric waved to get Vargr’s attention. The Wiskin watched the mage’s pantomime for a few amusing seconds as Osric attempted to silently demonstrate his theory.

  Vargr stood there for a few moments, hardly moving. He looked at the palm. He saw no slots into which he could place the golden rod. Were they even related? he wondered. He looked at the crease in the arm, and he turned his face up toward the sun which was beginning to disappear behind the plateau above. He looked down at the valley floor below. Finally, he looked at the kneeling statue of Arden, considering her pose, her positioning. A strange idea began to form in his mind. He felt a little embarrassed, but something occurred to him which he felt an unexplainable urge to try.

  He knelt on the palm, his left hand extended outward, his palm facing up, mirroring the colossal swordswoman’s pose. Falteringly, his voice called out: “Arden, bless me!”

  There was the briefest of moments where Vargr felt like the most foolish man alive. Then, with a roar and rumble of ancient, shifting stone and the grind and tremor of huge, hidden mechanisms, the statue began to animate. From the pauldron and the elbow seam stone chips and dust exploded outward as the structure started moving after untold centuries laying dormant. Vargr nearly spilled over the edge in shock and he held on tight as the palm began to shudder and move beneath him, and loud cracks of shifting stones boomed out over Burdock’s Valley. Ever so slowly, the arm was raising.

  The three companions stood aghast as they watched the palm begin to rise towards them. By the time the palm had raised to the level of the landing they were standing on, they seemed to snap out of the trance they had fallen into and Osric, unhesitating, leaped onto the palm. Gorend was right behind him, and Avaricios said a rapid prayer to Lysseon under his breath and followed too, and the other three helped drag him to safety as the palm continued to rise, up, up, and up.

  The adventurers stared around them in stunned silence as the hand lifted them towards the top of the plateau. As they were being raised they saw a number of white-furred baboons peering out of a crevice in the rock, and as the creatures saw the party they bared their fangs and started screeching at them, making futile snatching gestures and howling savagely. As the hand passed safely out of their reach, their screams turned to fear and they retreated into the cave, disappearing into the cliff. The hand continued rising until the party was level with the plateau. As it lurched to a stop at the top they saw the massive, sprawling ruins of the great city of Arden Vul spread out before them.

  Vargr turned to the others with a smug expression. The others stared at him mutely for a moment, then Avaricios clapped him heartily on the back and all broke out into fits of laughter, blending exhilaration, incredulity, and relief. It was some minutes before they collected themselves and they lapsed gradually into a solemn silence as they looked out over the city that lay ahead.

  They had arrived at the southern side of the city, and to their right they could see where the switchback ramp would have led them eventually, had they continued along that route. All along the edge of the plateau were the remnants of a wall that lined the cliff, and there were a number of ruined towers at regular intervals along the length of the crumbled wall. As they looked over the city itself, there were a number of significant structures that dominated their field of view. The first that immediately drew their eye was a massive four-sided stepped pyramid off to the north east, close to the center of the city. Osric waved the stem of pipe at it and told them that this was the fabled Pyramid of Thoth he had heard of, and without realizing it the mage’s voice was low, as if they were in a hallowed space. This was apparently the place that would provide the most immediate access to the caverns and halls beneath the city of Arden Vul. Also poking up out of the ruins were two obelisks; one was not far, directly north east, and another was to the north west. Expanding to the west was a wide swath of marshland which was dominated by a lake, and the river that flowed out of this lake led down to the edge of the plateau and crashed over the edge, forming the Long Fall. The lake was fed by a long winding river that flowed from the north, and where that river split into two and reformed there were two islands in the middle. The northernmost island held the ruins of some kind of grand fortified structure, and upon the southernmost island sat the crumbled remains of a luxurious palace. To their right, the eastern side of the city was more intact. There was a sizable thoroughfare that led directly north from the switchback through the heart of the city, and directly to the Pyramid of Thoth.

  One by one, the adventurers stepped off the hand of Arden and into the city. The sun was well past its zenith and as they bore witness to the entire sprawl of the city spread out before them, an almost reverential hush fell over them.

  Osric eyed the row of crumbled watchtowers to their right, those fallen sentinels that once kept watch over the valley below, dissuading any invaders from attempting to scale the cliff. Now the party picked their way over what was left of that wall, feeling with every step more like the unwanted guests in a haunted dwelling place. The mage, staff in hand, gestured at the towers and the main thoroughfare beyond them. “I say we walk along the wall and see what lies within these towers on our way to the main road.”

  “I agree,” said the priest. “I don’t much care for a trek through a bog at the moment.”

  Gorend seemed more doubtful. “Why waste time searching the above ground ruins of the city itself? Is not every stone at this point already picked clean?”

  “It’s a place to start,” the mage returned with a shrug. “I’m not of a mind to suggest that we go straight to the pyramid and make our way down; I think we should make our way to the inn that Avaricios has told us about on the northern outskirts of the city. But along the way, what’s the harm in a little poking around, eh?” A glimmer twinkled in Osric’s eyes as he looked at the tower. “Who knows what secrets we might uncover within?”

  “Alright, then enough talk,” grumbled the dwarf. “Let’s get on with it then.”

  They turned east and set out. They trudged through the tall grass and wildflowers humming with bees and insects, and Avaricios swatted a mosquito on his neck. The priest glared at the swamp behind him, muttering something about filthy bogs. There were few trees in their immediate vicinity, but low shrubs and bushes were plentiful, interspersed with bracken and heather. Despite themselves, the companions felt already a little more at ease in the quiet ruins, with only the distant bird song and the humming of insects to trouble the silence. Nature had reclaimed this side of the city.

  The nearest structure to them was a round tower some twenty-five feet wide and thirty feet high. This one appeared to be mostly intact compared to the other towers in their field of view. There were no windows they could see, but the walls were peppered with arrow slits. What was once a tiled, conical roof had since collapsed, and a ruined door stood in the threshold. As they approached, the sound of the falls dwindled behind them, and the clear sky was suffused with warm sunlight. The only thing that broke the quietude was a low, whining buzz that could be discerned, coming from somewhere within the tower.

  “It seems some bees have taken roost,” Vargr said, his voice low as he watched the arrow slits.

  Avaricios cocked his head, listening. “If those are bees, they are like none I have ever heard.” He shook his head in wonder. “Whatever creatures are making that noise, they are very, very big.” He looked around at his companions. “If you want to go in, be my guest. I don’t recommend it.”

  “Afraid of a few bugs?” Gorend grinned.

  Vargr considered the tower for a moment, then said: “I think we should smoke them out,”

  “I was about to say the very same thing,” said Osric, nodding enthusiastically. “Let us gather some kindling.”

  “Excellent,” said the dwarf, rubbing his hands together. “Bundles of green grass make plenty of smoke.”

  “Yes!” Vargr clapped the dwarf on the shoulder and the three of them set to work on their scheme. Avaricios, a little baffled at their strange ways, took a sip from his flask and joined them.

  Despite some twelve-hundred years of abandonment, few trees had taken root in this area of the city. The only trees they could see were some distance away, and they lined the main boulevard that bisected the city. Brush, scrub, gorse and grasses dominated this area, and though it was dry this far from the swamp, its presence was still felt in the drifting fetid smells, buzzing flies, and patches of swamp grass. These wetter, green grasses were the ones the companions tugged from the earth, gathering material to burn. Considering what they would do if something—or multiple somethings—were to emerge from the smoked-out structure, they prudently assembled a makeshift blind to conceal themselves. It was half an hour’s work and all were sweating by the time they finished.

  The blind was in place. As quietly as possible, they had piled their gathered foliage around the broken door. They retreated behind the blind and each looked at the other, silently wondering who would volunteer to light it. Not only to light the fire, but to stay near the door to fan the flames, to ensure the smoke was drawing into the tower.

  “I will do it,” Osric said, taking a torch from Avaricios. As he lit the torch, the other three drew their weapons. All looked toward the tower, and all heard the low whining buzz emanating from within.

  Osric stood, the torch held high, and prepared to run.