The royal envoys had been gone for three days, but their visit left a lingering tension throughout Fort Marrow. Kael noticed the change in his people's furtive glances, hushed conversations that ceased when he approached, a new wariness that hadn't been present before.
The steward's thinly veiled threats had not gone unheard, and many feared the consequences of failing to meet the Crown's demands.
Kael chose not to address these fears directly. Instead, he focused on action by continuing the irrigation work, strengthening the fort's defenses, and fulfilling his promise to Elara by helping her establish a proper herb garden near the infirmary. Let the people judge him by his deeds, not his reassurances.
On the fourth morning after the envoys' departure, Kael stood in the courtyard with Sergeant Garek, reviewing plans to repair the fort's eastern wall.
"We'll need more stone," Garek observed, gesturing to the crumbling section where mortar had given way to time and neglect. "The old quarry's been picked clean."
"What about the ruins to the south?" Kael suggested. "The abandoned settlement Tomas mentioned in his scouting report."
Garek's expression grew guarded. "Stonehollow? The locals avoid it. Say it's cursed."
"Cursed with what?"
"Bad luck, angry spirits; the usual tales." The sergeant shrugged, though his discomfort was evident. "What matters is no one goes there, not even the bandits."
Kael considered this. Superstition was a powerful force, especially in frontier lands where hardship bred a need for explanation. But stone was stone, and the March's needs were practical.
"We'll investigate it today," he decided. "Assemble a small team: you, me, Corporal Tomas, and two others with strong backs."
"And weapons," Garek added grimly.
"Always," Kael agreed.
As they prepared for the expedition, Elara emerged from the infirmary, a basket of freshly harvested herbs in her arms. She had settled into life at Fort Marrow with remarkable ease, establishing routines and earning respect through her unwavering competence.
The wyvernrot outbreak was now fully contained, though she continued to monitor the recovered patients for lingering effects.
"Stonehollow?" she repeated when Kael mentioned their destination. "I've heard the whispers. Something happened there, generations ago. Something the locals prefer not to discuss."
"Have you heard anything specific?" Kael asked, checking the edge of his sword before sheathing it.
"Only fragments. A settlement that failed overnight. Bodies found without marks or wounds." She set down her basket. "I should come with you."
Kael raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were a healer, not a treasure hunter."
"I'm a pragmatist," she corrected. "And if there's something at Stonehollow that killed an entire settlement, I'd prefer to identify it before it follows you back here."
Her logic was sound, and Kael had already come to value her analytical mind. "Very well. But stay close to the group."
They departed an hour later: Kael, Garek, Tomas, two soldiers named Bren and Dorn, and Elara. The journey to Stonehollow took them south, toward the hazy boundary where the March gave way to the Desolate Wastes.
The landscape grew increasingly stark as they rode, the already sparse vegetation thinning until only the hardiest scrub remained, clinging to life in the parched soil.
"There," Tomas said eventually, pointing to a cluster of stone structures nestled against a low ridge. "Stonehollow."
From a distance, the abandoned settlement appeared almost peaceful, a collection of simple buildings arranged around what might once have been a central square.
But as they drew closer, the wrongness of the place became apparent. No birds circled overhead. No small creatures scurried among the ruins. Even the air felt different, it felt heavier - as though reluctant to be breathed.
"No signs of violence," Kael observed as they dismounted at the settlement's edge. "No collapsed buildings or burn marks."
"That's what makes it strange," Garek replied, his single hand resting on his sword hilt. "The place was just... abandoned. Food still on the tables, according to the stories."
They secured their horses and proceeded on foot, moving cautiously through the silent streets. The buildings were simple but solidly constructed, their stone walls largely intact despite years of neglect. Doors hung open on rusted hinges, inviting yet ominous in their surrender to the elements.
"We'll check the structures one by one," Kael instructed. "Stay in pairs. Elara with me, Garek with Tomas, Bren with Dorn. Look for usable stone, but also any clues about what happened here."
The first few buildings yielded little of interest; empty rooms filled with sand that had blown in through broken windows, furniture reduced to fragments by time and pests. But in the fourth house, Kael and Elara made a discovery that sent a chill down both of them.
A table set for a meal, plates still in place, cups positioned as if waiting for lips that never returned. The food was long gone, consumed by insects and rodents, but the scene was unmistakable: a family interrupted in the midst of daily life, never to return.
"They left in a hurry," Elara murmured, examining the arrangement with clinical detachment. "Or they didn't leave at all."
Kael moved deeper into the house, his senses alert for any danger. In what appeared to be a bedroom, he found more evidence of abrupt departure: clothing laid out on a bed, a child's toy dropped in the middle of the floor. But no bodies, no blood, no signs of struggle.
"Sir Kael!" Garek's voice called from outside. "You need to see this."
They emerged to find Garek and Tomas standing before a larger building at the settlement's center. Unlike the simple homes, this structure bore carvings around its doorway symbols that Kael didn't recognize but that triggered a sense of familiarity nonetheless.
"Some kind of meeting hall," Garek suggested as they approached. "Or a temple, perhaps."
The building's interior was a single large room, its ceiling supported by stone columns. At the far end stood a raised dais, and upon it, an altar of black stone that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. The floor around the altar was stained dark, the discoloration spreading outward in a pattern too regular to be natural.
"Blood," Elara said quietly, kneeling to examine the stains. "Old, but preserved somehow. The pattern is deliberate: a ritual of some kind."
Kael studied the altar itself, noting the shallow basin carved into its top and the channels that ran down its sides. "Sacrifice?"
"Yes, but not the kind you're thinking." Elara traced the edge of the stain with her fingertip, careful not to touch it directly. "This wasn't about killing. It was about... opening something."
The hairs on the back of Kael's neck rose. "Opening what?"
Before Elara could answer, Bren called from a side chamber. "Sir! We found something!"
The chamber proved to be a storage room of sorts, its walls lined with shelves that still held clay tablets and scrolls protected from decay by the desert's dry air. Bren and Dorn had uncovered a chest, its lid thrown back to reveal contents that gleamed dully in the light filtering through the dusty windows.
"Records," Elara said, examining one of the tablets. "And old ones, judging by the script."
Kael turned his attention to the chest. Inside lay objects that seemed out of place in this simple frontier settlement: a ceremonial dagger with a blade of unusual dark metal, a set of scales made from the same material, and most striking of all, a mask fashioned to resemble a human face contorted in agony.
"These aren't frontier craftsmanship," he observed, carefully lifting the mask without touching its inner surface. "These came from somewhere else. Somewhere with advanced metalworking."
"The northern kingdoms, perhaps," Garek suggested. "Or the eastern coastal cities."
But Elara was shaking her head, her expression troubled as she examined more of the tablets. "These records mention 'the Cradle' repeatedly. And something called 'the Sundering.'"
The terms stirred something in Kael's memory, fragments of fireside tales he'd heard during his years as a soldier. The Cradle was said to be the birthplace of magic, a mythical region now lost to time. The Sundering was the cataclysm that had supposedly drained the world of arcane energy, relegating magic to legend.
"Myths," Garek dismissed. "Drunkards' tales."
"Perhaps," Kael said, though he wasn't so certain. The objects in the chest radiated a wrongness similar to the altar, a sense of displacement, things that didn't belong in this world, or at least not in this time.
"We should take these back to the fort," he decided. "The tablets, scrolls, and chest contents. They might help us understand what happened here."
"And the stone?" Tomas reminded him of their original purpose.
Kael glanced around the building, assessing its structure. "We'll take what we need from the outlying structures. This building remains untouched."
They worked efficiently after that, dismantling two of the smaller buildings at the settlement's edge. The stone was of good quality, well-cut, and largely undamaged by time. They loaded as much as their horses could carry, along with the artifacts from the temple.
As they prepared to depart, Kael felt a familiar warmth spreading through his chest the system activating in response to their discovery.
***
[Historical Discovery: Stonehollow Artifacts]
[Knowledge: Ancient Practices (Restricted)]
[Warning: Potential Hazard to Territory]
***
The assessment was unusually cryptic, offering evaluation without explanation. Kael filed the warning away, adding it to his growing mental catalog of the March's mysteries.
Their return journey was uneventful, though Kael noticed how the mood lightened as they put distance between themselves and Stonehollow. Even the horses seemed to move more easily, as though escaping some invisible weight.
At Fort Marrow, they unloaded the stone in the courtyard, where it would be used for the wall repairs. The artifacts were taken to Kael's quarters for safekeeping until they could be properly examined.
That evening, Kael, Elara, and Garek gathered to study their findings. The tablets proved difficult to decipher; the script was similar to modern writing but contained characters and formations that had fallen out of use. Elara, with her educated background, made the most progress in translating them.
"This appears to be a record of experiments," she said, frowning over one of the tablets. "They refer to 'thinning the veil' and 'drawing essence across the boundary.'"
"Boundary between what?" Garek asked.
"It doesn't specify. But whatever they were doing, it involved blood. A lot of it." She set the tablet aside and picked up another. "This one mentions the Desolate Wastes, but by a different name, 'the Verdant Fields.'"
Kael looked up sharply. "The Wastes were once fertile?"
"According to this, yes. The writer describes 'the transformation of bounty to barrenness' as a consequence of their work." Elara's expression was grim. "I think Stonehollow wasn't abandoned, Sir Kael. I think it was sacrificed."
"Sacrificed for what purpose?" Garek demanded.
"Power," Kael said quietly, the pieces falling into place in his mind. "They were trying to reclaim magic after the Sundering. To reopen whatever had been closed."
Elara nodded slowly. "And they used blood to do it. The blood of an entire settlement."
The implications hung heavy in the air between them. If the records were accurate, the Desolate Wastes had once been fertile land, transformed into a lifeless expanse by the same ritual that had claimed Stonehollow's inhabitants.
"Could this be connected to the well poisoning?" Garek asked. "Some continuation of whatever they started?"
"It's possible," Elara acknowledged. "The contamination had alchemical properties I couldn't fully identify. If someone has knowledge of these ancient practices..."
"Then we have more to worry about than bandits and tax collectors," Kael finished.
They agreed to keep their discoveries private for now, sharing them only with those who needed to know. The artifacts were secured in a chest in Kael's quarters, the tablets and scrolls carefully preserved for further study.
Later that night, as Kael stood on the fort's walls gazing south toward the Desolate Wastes, he felt the system activate once more.
***
[Quest Discovered: The Sundering's Legacy]
[Objective: Uncover the connection between Stonehollow, the Desolate Wastes, and the March's decline]
[Reward: Unknown]
[Warning: High Risk to Territory Stability]
***
The assessment confirmed what Kael already sensed: they had stumbled upon something far larger than a simple abandoned settlement. Something that might explain the March's seemingly cursed nature, and perhaps offer a path to its redemption.
But for now, there were more immediate concerns. The wall repairs needed completion. The irrigation channels required extension to reach more distant fields. And according to the system's countdown, the Sandblight bandits would make their move in less than three weeks.
The mysteries of Stonehollow would have to wait.