Chapter Three: The Last Dream of Mirza Horgul

"The Squalid Sett has a queen, I guess," Zora says. "Everil had a lot of names for her: Queen of Rot, Lady of Filth, things like that. Mostly he didn't like talking about the Sett, though. Only brought it up to tell me how sorry I'd be if I ever wandered into it."

Zangua stops, turns his head. His glance passes over Leth and he can tell from the ranger's expression that he heard it too: echoes of a heavy thunk and a scrape on gravel, somewhere in the blackness of the cavern far behind them.

Octo, based on the damage we (mostly Everil, yes) did to the Implacable before, does Mordred have the sense that it's badly hurt, or did we just scratch the surface?

Everil got some good hits in but the Implacable wasn't, like, smoking or leaking oil or falling apart or anything, so it's hard to say what % of HP got taken off. And yes, you guys are walking and talking.

"What were his words...he woke me up before sunrise, told me to dress right away, that I had to go into Sthombo with the morning traffic and make myself ready for a long journey alone. He said this society he belonged to, years ago, made him steal the Iron Sphere, but that that was all they could make him do...they could make him steal it, but he wasn't going to give it to them. He said it was 'safe from them.' And he told me he was going to be arrested, and he showed me the six-pronged crown, and he said that was their sign, and he said they were very dangerous and that they'd be after me to try to find the Sphere, and that I had to get to Hazard as quickly as I could, without anyone seeing me, and that I had to deliver that tile to..." she trails off. "...To, uh, the owner of a trading company who supposedly will know what it means and what to do about it."

She walks in silence for a moment, pulling herself up an incline using a thick stalagmite for a handhold.

"He said one last thing, just before I left Greenbower. And, I don't know why exactly, but something about the way he said it...it scared me. He said, 'Zora, you have to do this. You have to reach Hazard before they find you. I think you are the woman in the last dream of Mirza Horgul.' And he kissed me on the forehead and told me 'go, now!' and...that was it. I went. I didn't even dare stop and ask him what it meant." She turns to look at you all. "Do any of you know?"

Mirza Horgul?

Vad knows that name. It's been a long time, to be sure, but years ago, over a pot of perpetual stew at a roadside inn, a fellow sorcerer he'd chanced to meet had told him all about a particular obsession of his: an obscure prophet and seer who'd lived in Hazard in distant antiquity, whose writings caused quite a stir several hundred years after his death, when it was noticed that certain major events in the Werld seemed to have been foretold by his cryptic prophecies.

Mirza Horgul.

The sorcerer had shared some details of the prophet's life and the particular visions that came to pass, but Vad couldn't remember any of those now, just that eventually the prophetic hits stopped coming and Mirza Horgul fell back into obscurity. Nearly a century had passed since then, and only a handful of scholars and believers kept his memory and writings alive now.

Late into the night and into his cups, Vad had been offered the chance to examine a rare volume of Horguliana that the sorcerer was especially proud to own, and Vad politely declined. A small thing, it seemed at the time, but he can't help but regret it now...

Zora looks nonplussed. "That's...unexpected," she says. "Dad never had anything good to say about so-called prophets."

You all hear a metallic scrape and a clunk, clunk, clunk sound coming from somewhere behind you.

Based on our path through the tunnels, is it surprising The Implacable seems to be tracking us with ease, or are we taking an obvious path? I'm wondering if we could try to lose it or hide from it, or if it seems to have some sort of magical tracking ability.

Based on what happened at Five Stones, it seems like the Implacable has, a the very least, some special ability to track Zora.

Zora makes a face. "I don't think we're all that close to Hazard yet."

You are currently in the middle of a wide-open cavern and are heading south. You could theoretically proceed in any direction. If the sounds you're hearing are the Implacable, it's a few hundred yards behind you.