Topazal » Hibernal Den » Aten

Aten

(#87015551)

2nd Gen Barghest - Ankh/Scarab

Familiar

Tinder Toy

Energy: 50/50

Personal Style

Apparel

Skin

Scene

Physical Attributes

Battle Stats

Measurements

Length

29.6 m

Wingspan

16.87 m

Weight

6151.16 kg

Genetics

Obsidian
Savannah

Dirt
Constellation

Beige
Capsule

Hatchday

Jun 21, 2023
(11 months)

Breed

Adult
Imperial

Eye Type

Light
Common

Level 1 Imperial

EXP: 0 / 245

STR

AGI

DEF

QCK

INT

VIT

MND

Lineage

Parents

Ankh
Scarab

Offspring

none

Biography

A T E N

BARGHEST LORE AND LINEAGE PROJECT

GENERATION II
ANKH | SCARAB’S LINE

"Quote"

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The entry is written in faded ink, a date scrawled at the top of the page next to a short title that reads “Mirages”. It is the account of one Jason Blackwell regarding a recent trip across the Carrion Canyon.

“I’ve been traversing the desert for a long while now, more than 40 years if I had to put a number on it. I take the occasional job guiding travelers across the sands, but more often than not I’m out there alone. Lots of folks get lost and while it might seem a bit morbid, I go out searching for anyone who doesn’t return. I suppose most often it’s because they were carrying something of value.

I’m allowed to keep whatever I find that doesn’t pertain to the person or item I’ve been tasked to recover. Usually, it’s just rubbish, but occasionally I’ll find something a little more interesting. Anyways, the most recent job I took on was to find a lost caravan that’d been crossing the Carrion Canyon. I’d say most caravans go around the Canyon given how perilous the crossing is, but this group had taken a gamble.

It was a typical job and I set off in the early summer, following a crude map of the route the caravan had taken. The first few days it was just dunes; the familiar expanse of sand stretching out in a vast ocean as far as the eye can see. A few storms rolled by and I remember it was raining as I finally came to the edge of the great Canyon. Many who haven’t seen the place in person imagine that it’s a dark trench carved into the land, but it’s actually surprisingly bright in some areas. Despite the depth, it’s as if the sunlight concentrates and beams down, reflecting off the rocks with a radiant intensity. It seems contradictory, but these parts of the Canyon are safest to cross during a storm when the clouds block some of the light.

I found traces of several recent camp fires at the edge of the canyon and a trail leading down into its depths. It matched the route the caravan had taken, so I was encouraged they’d made it this far. I waited for the storm to intensify and I set off on foot down the trail. An entire caravan is pretty easy to track and I followed the stampede of footprints and wagon wheel skid marks down into the depths of the Canyon.

Now this is where it got a bit strange because the tracks began to diverge from the map. There was a marked trail around a two days journey from where the group descended, but they had passed this by, venturing instead further into the depths of the Canyon. The strangest thing was that the trail leading up out of the ravine was clearly visible, yet the entire group had seemingly missed its presence. I followed the tracks onwards.

After three days, I noticed that the tracks began to dwindle. I never passed any discarded goods or missing persons, but the number of tracks I was following was certainly decreasing. I fully expected the deep gouges from the wagons to remain longest and yet, by the fifth day in the ravine, there were no wagon marks at all. Only five sets of footprints remained out of the initial thirty. It was then that I found something laying across the trail.

It was a small leather-bound book. A journal. I picked it up and dusted off the cover. Several of the pages were waterlogged from the recent storm, but many of the entries were at least partially legible. I skimmed through a few recent pages, gleaning that it indeed belonged to a member of the caravan. The journey down to the Carrion Canyon had gone accordingly, but the later entries were certainly. . . Strange.

“It seems that our maps must be incorrect. The path up out of the Canyon was not where it should have been and though we continued for several days, there was only a treacherous and steep incline. Our rations are now dwindling. . . And the mirages are getting worse. We were warned about the Canyon’s intense heat and with little water remaining it seems that many are succumbing to madness.”

That entry confirmed my suspicions that the caravan had missed the trail. The entries after were written more frantically, scrawled in barely legible print.

“The mirages have taken another. They say they see such fantastical places and I thought surely they were going mad. I believed they just ran away out of delusion, but there were never any tracks and now I understand! Those mirages are real! Real worlds awaiting! My time is coming. Soon I too will be saved.”

Ultimately the journal was the only trace of the caravan I could find. After another day, the remaining footprints stopped abruptly without a trace. There was simply nothing else to recover - no remains or treasures to be found. Perhaps, however, my own mind had become a bit unhinged traveling in the trench for so long. As I stood over the last of the prints and at the end of the great ravine, there was a ripple in the distant air before me. I wouldn’t say that I saw another world, but for a moment the mirage took on the form of some great beast. It looked like one of the coyotes that sometimes scavenge the desert with a gaunt form made of heat rippling on the air. I can tell you with certainty that it was real.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

We attempted to follow up regarding Jason’s report. We did indeed find records of a thirty person caravan scheduled to carry several valuable treasures across the Carrion Canyon. The caravan never reached their destination, although all reports of their whereabouts are inconclusive.

We inspected the journal as well and it did indeed belong to a member of the caravan, one Isaac Lee. Interestingly on further review of the journal, there was one additional entry after the written log. On two random pages midway through the diary was a crude ink sketch of a coyote.

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