Kehahn/Places: Kehahn: The Impregnable Fortress, Sealed With the Blood of Many

To the rest of the world, Kehahn is the stuff of legends. It's an ancient myth, they say, that somewhere in the Western Wall Mountains there's a valley, enclosed on all sides and all but inaccessible. Somewhere in that valley, there is a giant archway, taller than ten men, and closed by a great stone door, a door made of the red stone men call True, that cannot be worked or shattered.

If you could ever get past that gate, you'd be in a tunnel defended through slots in the high arched ceiling and hidden in the walls. And if you got past the iron gate at the end of the tunnel, you'd find yourself on a narrow winding path that climbed the side of a mountain, stone towers at every turn to defend the way.

At the end of the path, they say, there is a great wall, one hundred or more times the span of a man's arms. It is a perfectly smooth wall, but it is also cursed, so that any who touch it writhe about on the floor and scream. The wall reaches high, higher than three men, and there are no doors. Any ladder placed against it would instantly burst into flames. The only way in is through a cage lowerd from above, and the rumours say that there is no way out.

If you did manage to enter Kehahn, the Impregnable Fortress, you'd be inside a mighty cavern hollowed out of the living rock. None can say how the cavern was made, but within it no living thing can grow: no plants, no animals, only people.

If the rumours are true, the fortress was built by gnomes or dwarves, the small creatures who are sometimes seen atop the mighty towers. Once every moon-turn, they say, the People of the Plains send a tribute of food to the fortress, as they have since time beyond memory; once a year they send also humans who become slaves, or sacrifices, or food: no-one knows, since none ever come out of the Fortress.

The People climb the Winding Path naked and barefoot, carrying the tribute in their arms, place it in the cage and leave, all in silence. Any meat is skinned before it is sent, for it is forbidden by ancient law to give to the Fortress any item of clothing, rope, leather, metal or even bone. When human sacrifices are sent, they must go naked too. Since nothing can grow in the fortress, the people within have no knowledge of clothing; nor have they anything to use to tan leather from human skins, nor any wood or cloth: all within is cold hard stone.

Those who believe the rumours and tales about Kehahn are held as fools, for no place could be so full of evil and without hope. And yet each year the tribute is paid.