Shadows & Sorcery #26
Welcome to the twenty-sixth edition of Shadows & Sorcery! Now, this week’s edition is a paid subscriber one, but free readers can avail of not only the first story in full this week, they can grab a 7 day free trial granting access to all 100+ stories in the archive! If you like what you see, and want more, you can message me on here or over on Twitter about grabbing one of the last few free paid subs!
This week’s edition contains tales of primal faiths, frightful keeps, strange sorcery, and a great and terrible scourge…
This edition’s stories are:
Plateau Altar
Mountains of the Night
Consumed Pilgrim
Fortress of the Sorcerer
Archdragon Chasm
Plateau Altar
You wouldn't know it to see it, but its inhabitants will rush to tell you. The plateau is massive, with steep, inaccessible cliffs rising straight from the earth, save one side, where the land is just sloped enough to allow for arduous travel. These days of course, the residents of the city of the Great Altar have made travel up that slope far easier, perhaps even pleasurable, and the outskirts are festooned with small shrines and temples to the nameless, dim divinity that this entire plateau once served as altar to.
The topside city itself is organic and labyrinthine, slim streets with sunken cobblestone open onto wide courts of cyclopean stone before plunging again into a tangle of winding streets. Even during the night hours, the city bustles with countless reverential locals, bells toll through the warm air, and songs and prayers float amongst the thick coils of incense. Royal reds, golds and purples dominate the colours in flags and banners and murals, contrasting finely with the brilliant dusty white stone of the buildings. It is said that no action in the city is performed without consideration for the divine force that looks down upon it. As such, there is little in the way of traditional crime, but zealotry is rife, and fits of it are what the town guard, a clerical order, have to deal with.
In an age beyond reckoning, a tribe of colossi wandered the earth. In communion with the supreme power of the universe, they heaved the plateau from the earth and laid the bones of world-wyrms upon it in a display of strength and valor. What happened to the giants, or to the world-wyrms, none can say. Likely the beasts were all slain, as the deepest foundations of the city have hit upon the merest fragment what seem to be gargantuan bones. But the giants are a mystery. Common belief is they became the surrounding mountains, lain to rest, or perhaps only slumbering, in sight of their holiest of holies.
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