Stone of Life :|: Act II - A Many-Legged Question

River Falls is located upriver from the mighty waterfalls. You carefully move up toward the Finger, south of River Falls. They call the place the Finger of God. It is a sight to be seen, for sure. In that one place, the two largest rivers in the four kingdoms, the Faeduin and the Esme, pour down into a massive gorge. To the east lay Fallen Guard and Waconda. To the south, the seat of power Three Rivers.

The majesty of the Finger cannot be easily understood. It takes all that you are and makes it feel tiny—insignificant. Water roars down from the Finger in violent white water. But not today. Today, the dry stones of the once mighty Faeduin lay bare for all to see.

Tracing the path Piper used to escape, you descend into the Finger’s basin. Off in the distance, to the south and west, you can just make out Moonglow Spire rising from the dark green of the Blackwood.

Already, the basin is drying up. The water is already a woman’s height under the moss-line. Trees and other flotsam create a surface over what water remains. You step carefully down the rocky slope.

Curiously, you have yet to encountering any of your crustaceous friends. In fact, if the river wasn't dried to your right, and the sun wasn’t cooking you in your armor, and the wind wasn’t hot and smelling of too-green insect goo, and if you didn’t have this weird feeling you were being watched, it might be pleasant. The Finger no longer feels otherworldly. It feels tainted. Feral. Every step becomes more difficult. You don't want to go farther down. The place feels sacred and your intrusion wrong. Fear begins to creep along the edges of your mind. Thoughts of death and sacrilege hunt you. But, on you step. Slowly. Carefully. Down.

Something doesn't feel right. You had heard tales of bad fortune, but nothing like what Piper described. There is something sinister here.

Off to the right, in the direction of the cave, you can hear rustling–the movement of dry underbrush and the clicking of Stalker claws.