-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ 55] Scorn: Intersection of Ley lines Thu Jul 22 08:41:49 1999 To: all -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After several weeks of hard travel through rough wilderness the old man arrives at a small valley, encircled by low-lying hills, with a towering snow-girdled mountain dominating the landscape to its north. Near the center of the valley is a gently sloping circular mound and the sight of this small hill with the volcano smoking in the background hits him like a flash of memory, though he's never been near here. He walks up the mound, looking in fascination at the ancient and now ruined stone monuments left by some long dead followers of the currents. This mound is covered with ancient works of stone, some so weathered as to make their age unfathomable. Some of the stone monuments encircle the cap of the hill like a crown, like giants caught dancing in some arcane celebration and turned instantly to stone. Clearly some culture ancient beyond reckoning was aware of the conflux of lines of power and built here at the focus, but their temples are ruined now, a tangle of stolid stone blocks and slabs. He takes some time to study the jumble of rocks that once formed a temple near the hilltop, and then begins to attempt to reassemble it. By nightfall his brittle back aches and his fingernails are split and bleeding, but a short section of the ancient temple wall stands again after thousands of years. On the second day he continues at this labor, but around midday another walks up the hill, a tall dark man with the same purposeful stride. The newcomer takes some time to examine the setting then also begins to arduously shift the huge old stones of the temple back into place, and without the need of communication or agreement they continue the rebuilding until they collapse exhausted with the sunset. The next day a woman trudges up the hill following another line entirely, an elf with no aptitude for shifting stones but a marvelous knack for matching ones which previously went together, using the inscriptions and remnants of paint still visible on the old stones. Slowly an ancient temple of megalithic stone begins to take shape, and on the horizon other figures can be seen approaching from different vectors, moving steadily and purposefully as they are drawn along the paths of eolic current to the intersection at the top of the mound.