Asuun Saar is an abandoned Aruhvian monastery perched high on the windswept Saar Ridge, far to the east of Mordikhaan’s heartland. Among mercenaries it is known as “the furthest eastward point before Tharta that most dared to reach” — a crumbling grey shell of a building where the gold-leaf murals of saints have long flaked away from the walls. By the time of the story, a single monk remains: Jacaobe, the last of the Telurite order, who tends the ruins alone and guards a secret he has carried for decades.
What Lies Beneath
Hidden far below the monastery floor is a subterranean vault — one of the most extraordinary feats of engineering and dark magic in Mordikhaan’s history. It is the prison of the Elder Norn: the ancient witch who is mother to the Thartans.
The Elder Norn does not simply lie in a cage. She lies in a casket set upon a black Firg steel dais, surrounded by towering Firg steel pillars, massive iron chains, and Thyral stone inlaid in ghostly white runic patterns across the floor. As Jacaobe explains: “The whole mountain ridge works to hold her and direct her potency against her children.” The containment system did not suppress the Elder Norn’s power — it redirected it, turning her own immense magical force into the invisible boundary that sealed the Thartans inside their mountains for forty years.
The entrance to the vault was disguised as a monastery cemetery, a deliberate misdirection by its architect. Anyone searching for the prison would see only graves.
Why Parsifus Built It Here
The prison was constructed by Parsifus — the Queen’s enigmatic Chamberlain — working alongside a Firg smith. Parsifus chose Asuun Saar for its remoteness and its religious cover: an Aruhvian monastery would attract no military attention, and the cemetery disguise would “fool anyone looking for her, fool the Thartans if they ever found a way to come back.”
The monastery’s location on the Saar Ridge also mattered physically. The mountain itself became part of the prison — the ridge’s mass contributing to the containment, so that collapsing the vault would mean burying the casket under the weight of an entire mountain rather than simply breaking a structure.
After completing the work, Parsifus disappeared. The secret passed to Jacaobe, and the world forgot Asuun Saar existed.
The Thartan March
Asuun Saar is the Thartans’ ultimate objective. Everything they do in the story — their eruption from the mountains, their march across Mordikhaan, the tide of Thralls they drive ahead of them — is aimed at one goal: tearing the monastery apart and freeing their mother from her casket. Once the Benefactor‘s cursed ring breaks the magical boundary sealing them in, the Thartan army begins moving toward the Saar Ridge without hesitation.
Khe at Asuun Saar
After fleeing the Thartan borderlands, Khe makes for Asuun Saar seeking high ground and shelter. Jacaobe reveals the truth of the prison to her — and almost immediately the failing containment system gives way. The Elder Norn, sensing the Thartans’ release, reaches out through the weakening barrier and possesses Jacaobe, twisting the old monk into a monstrous abomination with black claws and yellowing fangs.
Khe kills the creature by driving a shard of Thyral stone into its skull. Then, understanding that the Thartan army is coming for the Elder Norn, she makes a calculated choice: rather than let them walk in, she destroys the vault herself. Using the massive Firg chains, she shatters the black steel pillars and brings the subterranean chamber down, burying the Elder Norn’s casket beneath tonnes of collapsed rock. The Thartans will still be able to dig — but it will take far longer.
She escapes the collapse and heads west, carrying a shard of Thyral stone, toward what becomes the climax of the novel at Paglin’s Tor.
Significance
Asuun Saar is the hinge on which the entire plot turns. The Thartan threat only exists because the prison held for forty years; the story’s crisis begins the moment it starts to fail. For Khe, the monastery is the point where she transforms from a mercenary trying to survive into someone making choices that will determine the fate of Mordikhaan. For the Thartans, it is the only thing that has ever mattered.
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