The Heart
The
House of Stone on Isis
The view of the HOS from a hill not
far away.
"At first there is nothing unusual looking about the pastoral scene
before you. It is only in the details that things begin to look amiss.
The river Hooto winds it's way around a rise in the ground that leads
up to a very large hill. The land between the river and the hill are
cultivated, but there is something wrong about the look of the farm
below other than the absence of houses nearby. Even the thick fog that
completely obscures the top of the hill seems like a simple freak of
the
atmosphere. The land is green, fertile and quiet. Perhaps it is a bit
TOO quiet. Birds can be heard, but there is little of the rustling of
leaves in the trees and she whooshing of the wind through the crops one
expects. Although the fog at the top of the hill moves first one way
and then the next, there is little or no wind that can be felt.
Through the shifting fog, nothing can be seen of what it hides at
first. But every so often, a wisp of fog is torn from its place by the
imperceptible wind and the top of a strange tower can be seen. It seems
to be made of solid blocks of stone. It is made not of
mortared
or close fit cut rock but rather of monolithic stones one would expect
to
see only in a holy stone circle like Stonehenge. The rock tower is a
dark weathered gray with streaks of deeper gray, almost black running
through it. At the top is Tower a 15' high shaft made of some strange
black
metal. It is topped with something that can only be seen from a
distance with a telescope. A black, clenched fist tops the grim tower.
Once every few hours, a bolt of lightning appears from nowhere in the
cloudless sky and streaks down to strike the clenched fist of the tower
with a crashing, rolling boom of thunder." Anyone flying
above the HOS have a 10% chance of being struck by one of these bolts
of lightning. A save VS reflex at a DC 18 cuts the damage in half.
If your eye travels down to the flat lands near the river, you will see
planted crops. But instead of the regular, ordered, parallel furrows of
a normal farm, you see meandering intersecting rows of crops as if
plowed by a drunken farmer. Furtive movements can be seen, but the
reason for the movements is concealed by the planted crops.
To the west of the fog appears a forest, but only a skilled eye will
tell that the forest is an overgrown orchard of fruit and nut trees.
Occasionaly a strange sound is heard. It is almost a human scream. Only
those
familiar with animal lore can tell the cry comes from a goat that must
be in mortal pain to loose such a wrenching cry.
The last thing you notice is the smell. It is a horrible over note to
the smells of river and hill. Mixed with these wholesome smells are the
smells of decaying flesh and a musky, fertilizer smells.
There is some connection between the House of Stone and Beourn. He
doesn't understand it yet, but it can't be coincadance that the HOS on
Isis contains his heart. The Heart was moved into the HOS and it isn't
clear why. Actually, there are two hearts in the HOS. The Heart of
Beourn is guarded there by the malignant heart that contains the soul
of the house itself.
