2022.02.28, Nikonai Nikanios

First expedition into the High Wilderness, report by Nikonai Nikanios

It was Emery, Mortred, Castille, Cassandra, Cassidy and me. We punched the same numbers we tried the first time into the portal. After crossing it, we found ourselves at the top of a ziggurat made of a strange dark material, the portal we came from was still there but inactive. There was a road and an abandoned village leading down from it. The sable compass pointed roughly to the right of the way the road led, so we took that direction as our north. The road extended westward. Cliffs to the east, south, and about half a mile to the north leading to a seemingly endless abyss. We couldn’t find any people or wildlife around the village, or any reason for it to be deserted. The houses were made of cobblestone and rotten wood, barely any of them had so much as a roof, all lost to time. The village extended west along the road until both turned into nothing but plains and hills.

To the west we found a forested wetland. There, hidden under the ground there’s these possibly predatory slugs that maybe trap their prey with their proboscis? Mortred killed one, roughly the size of an arm (not measuring the proboscis), but Castille and I managed to capture a smaller one. The water in the wetlands turns into a waterfall down into the abyss, and beyond the waterfall the land continues southwest and into an area where we found a lighthouse.

The lighthouse seemed to be in a similar state as the houses back in the village. The door was jammed. There was a large nest protruding from it, and we had to fight off these large birds. None of us were hurt very badly. Castille bashed the birds into the lighthouse so many times and so hard that there’s several dents on it now and also the jammed door was blown completely off its hinges.

After we cleared the area we made camp at the foot of the lighthouse. Castille prepared some of our newly acquired fowl. The meat itself was a little tough and tasteless but the meal was great.

After this, we rested. Here we noticed that there’s no day/night cycle in the High Wilderness. There’s no sun either. There is a moon though, stars too. Despite the lack of sun, it wasn’t specially cold. Makes me wonder whether this High Wilderness is anywhere close to Arden Eld.

Some time later (can’t really say it was the morning after) we decided to go into the lighthouse. Cassidy said these birds aren’t the sort to have… like… reinforcements. Very isolated, though we might have to deal with more of them coming to claim their territory in a few weeks. We reached the top of the lighthouse. The lenses were broken and we couldn’t find a light source for it. We did find a staff that might somehow work.

Emery did some weird magicks and had a few minutes of screaming. After that he did a drawing, which we believe might be the shape of the landmass we’re currently in. Nobody’s quite sure. Pretty cool stuff.

What was the lighthouse for? Was there a sea in the High Wilderness before, or maybe the land used to be down in the sea before it started floating? Or was the lighthouse built for airships? Maybe something else? Maybe it’s not a lighthouse at all?

After this we followed our tracks back to the village and the ziggurat. There I cut a corner of that strange dark material with my sword. It was pretty tough. Inside the material was different, less smooth, though after some time it turned into exactly the same material as the rest.

The portal seemed to recharge, we pressed a button next to it, and made it back to the temple.