An ancient civilization at its nadir makes bloody sacrifices to appease its terrible gods while it battles "barbarians" from all sides. What its leaders and its people don't know is that their world imprisons powerful, malign creatures who are desperately seeking a way to escape.
The old capital sits at the base of a volcano. It's built of heavy stone hauled in from quarries several miles away; the rock is chiseled from old limestone deposits and hauled across roads paved with granite. The plentiful obsidian, harvested from mines -- some in the heart of the city itself -- decorate signs and statues; it also tops fences as a crude form of security, while many households use the sharp, glassy rock for household chores where a cutting edge is handy.
But visitors to the capital most vividly remember the altars -- the gory altars, where deep russet bloodstains are evidence of what happens there. The high priests -- who often double as civil leaders -- round up slaves, criminals, dissidents and sometimes enemies every full moon and sacrifice them to the city's terrible gods. The blood is supposed to keep their wrath at bay; the rain god won't wash away crops with flooding, the sun god won't beat down during the summer, the wind god won't scatter seeds during harvest time -- and most importantly, the god of the volcano won't drown the city in lava.
The city leaders are most worried about that last possibility. Evidence that it's happened before are plentiful -- old, ropey rock has been trampled down in the oldest parts of the city, and carbonized bone or housewares are found in the volcanic soil further afield.
In recent decades, another problem has arisen -- barbarians from all directions have mustered up the courage to fight the city's standing legions. Their gods -- hopelessly debased from the city's leaders' point of view -- don't partake of the blood sacrifice, and refuse to call back their peoples. This has proven disastrous for slave stock; the city's soldiers are now killing enemy warriors rather than capturing outside slaves. Increasingly, sacrifices have come from the city's citizens.
Beyond all of this, the volcano's god has shown worrying signs of displeasure -- gouts of steam and black clouds of ash are becoming more common.
Amidst all this chaos, the priests find themselves contending with one last worry. A pernicious story, no doubt picked up from some outisder slave or brought back by some turncoat soldier, insinuates that the volcano's god cares nothing for the blood sacrifices, making it no better than the barbarian gods. The story says that, in the distant past, the volcano's god erupted with mighty fury, and had to be battled and restrained by the combined might of the surrounding nations; only after they subdued it could the renew the bindings that kept it locked deep in the bowels of the earth. Those who repeat this story often find that a soft knock comes at their door during the next full moon ...
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