Winter in Hieron 18: Try to Live Normally

Living Blood of Fire,

As my second reported, and I have confirmed, the first threshold has been sealed. I have walked the remains of that twisted museum myself, through the wing of turned mirrors, under the second sky, past the... chaos. It was chaos there, Fire, nonsense, impossible to comprehend. I reached for a goblet that caught my eye, and when I lifted it, it turned to a leaf. Whatever the star-fiend did there burned more than just wood and brick. It put torch to the real.

I tell you this because there was a new incident. I'm writing from Wharfhurst, a trading post south of the city. The locals—dwarfs, mostly—talk of a tower rising "higher than Hieron itself." I see no such thing, and yet... another threshold is near, I feel it in my blood. We must trust the blood.

Unfortunately, early efforts to find it have gone poorly. One scout dead. The other barely make sense. Rul says that they found a path, but that "it did not want them." Genev says nothing now, but when she first arrived she handed me the goblet from the museum. "Drink," she said. "You need to drink." But it was empty. Once they recover, I will send them again, with fire and rope. As is the way.

Justiciar-Captain Stornras Unblooded

This week on Friends at the Table: Try to Live Normally

You are not the ranger and the woods are not stone, you will neither walk first-path through trees nor will you break them with hammer. You are justiciar—find tainted blood. Track it. It is always as simple as that.

Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Featuring Ali Acampora (@ali_west), Art Martinez-Tebbel (@atebbel), Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart) and Andrew Lee Swan (@swandre3000) Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west)

Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)

Episode description by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt

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