Postby Topaz » Sat Nov 05, 2022 8:54 pm
Snowskull
There is a legend that in the western mountain passes, a hermit cleric once made his home -- not Jensen, known to all who travel those passes, but some other cleric. Call him Osborn.
Osborn was well liked by those who came to shelter in his cave. They often shared meals with him, and almost always paid something in return, either in coin or in produce, although Osborn never asked for such.
I say he was well liked by his lodgers, but there was, alas, one exception. A man called Axim -- a fellow cleric -- looked at Osborn with suspicion. He saw the coins and occasional jewels that adventurers poured into Osborn's hands, and wondered where it all went. He even asked Osborn as much, and Osborn told him that it went to feed travelers and keep his fire with sufficient wood and himself in enough furs to stay warm. Anything beyond that, he donated to the temples in Milltown or Dundee.
But Axim did not believe him. He became obsessed with the idea that Osborn was hoarding coins and jewels and riches somewhere. He began to spend more time with Osborn, and that open-hearted man was glad of the company and thought no evil of his fellow cleric.
One day a crowd of adventurers came to warm themselves at Osborn's fire, laughing and telling tales of battles and mysteries and far-off places. They offered him a leather bag to pay for their hospitality. It looked heavy and made a clinking sound. "May the mighty gods bless you, Osborn," they said, "and may these coins do good for you who do good for all, and may nothing but ill come to those who wish you ill."
They threw the leather bag at Osborn's feet and went on their way. Osborn did not even look at the bag, but went to his altar. He was still murmuring gentle prayers when Axim quietly picked up a hammer and struck him down dead.
Axim stepped over his dead host and eagerly picked up the bag. It was indeed heavy with silver, gold, platinum, and two or three diamonds. He threw it into his pouch and began a thorough search of the cave for more riches he believed were hidden there. Finding none, he decided to dispose of the body and then come back and dig up the floor of the cave.
Axim was a strong man and Osborn was not large, so Axim bundled the body in his cloak and started off for the snow-covered plateau, where he planned to hide it. A snowstorm started to blow as he left the cave, but Axim was used to the mountain climate and well wrapped in wool and furs. But this seemed to be the mother of all snowstorms. The snowflakes were huge and seemed to have a strange shape.
As he struggled up the plateau, he seemed to hear the wind howling, "Osborn! Osborn!" He put his hands up to his eyes for a moment's respite from the wind, and this time he could clearly see snowflakes on his hands and arms.
They were shaped like skulls. Cold little skulls looking back at him as they disintegrated on the backs of his hands.
Axim might have screamed then, but his voice would have been drowned out by the wind. He might have tried to struggle back to the safety of the cave, but he could not keep his bearings on the plateau, blinded by the blowing snow.
But we will never know. All that is known is that no trace of Osborn was ever found, but some time later, a group of adventurers found the frozen body of Axim on the plateau. Unlike most people who die of cold, his face was not peacefully sleeping but twisted with fear. They left him buried in the snow, for they feared that he was cursed after they searched him and found a bag of coins -- silver, gold, platinum -- all of them stamped, not with the sigils of Valorn, but with the face of a skull. And three diamonds, all shaped like small skulls.