Chapter 1: A Wizard's Amulet

After what he just witnessed, Nebbleshuven obeys Ryenne. He runs back to the camp to alert the others, calling out to them, mentally cursing himself for falling prey to the foul beasts' trickery.

"Back, creature of Chaos!" Ryenne commands, as she herself starts to retreat to the camp. Careful not to fall over a root or rock, she steps. Her eyes are trained on the creatures, waiting to see if they will charge into the camp proper.

As others are being raised from their slumber, the larger of the two beasts seems to recognize the growing danger. It stops making the crying sound and instead calls out in a language most foul. The smaller creature turns to listen, then returns to the larger; likely its mother. The two flee into the night, and silence reigns once more.

The party is roused from their slumber to discover the creatures have already fled. Luckily, they had only just fallen asleep and will likely find sleep easy to find once again. Corian grumbles about being scared of shadows and deer, though you are all pretty sure he isn't fully awake at this point. Galdar lays out his shield and sheathed blade next to his bedroll, not wanting to miss a moment to fight Chaos should the opportunity present itself once more.

"SNORT!" snorts the gnome as she rolls to her other side and makes strange chicken noises while she settles.

"Don’t chastise yourself too much." Ryenne speaks quietly to her watch-mate. She binds her arm as she does so.

"Some day it will be a child. Some days it has been. We were right to check. It’s just one of the many abominations that wizards cook up in their towers, believe me."

"Nonetheless, I am sorry. I am relieved that your wound isn't worse than it is or that there weren't more of those creatures. A pack might have been bolder then a mere pair." After a moment, he continues, "How ghastly does a wizard have to be to create a creature that mimics the suffering of a child to lure prey to their doom."

When Nebble started yelling, Faionn's blood froze. She watched Ryenne and Nebble retreat into the circle of firelight. She couldn't tell what they were running from, except that it was dangerous enough to leave Ryenne injured.

Slowly, the knot of panic in Faionn's gut begins to unwind. "Are you two alright? What happened out there?"

"We heard what sounded like a crying child." He gazes down at the ground. "It was a trap, and Ryenne knew it. It's my fault that we went to investigate." He leaves it at that, then checks the firewood supply.

"The work of an arcanist, surely." Ryenne says, clapping the man on the back.

Or the vile imaginings of some mad Druid…

She watches out the rest of her watch in relative quiet. When it’s time, she rouses the next watch from their rest, and takes her leave for the evening. She sleeps with her mace close, and her arms stiff from its bindings.

The Wizard's Amulet
Grand Duchy of Reme
Somewhere on the Tradeway
Mid summer, some days later
Early evening

Today’s travels were a pleasant change from the previous four days. You even found some fresh blueberries and two of your group downed a small deer. You make camp in the open, near a copse of trees, and bask in the warmth of the late afternoon sun with full bellies and dry clothes. You figure your party is still four days travel from Fairhill.

As the sun drops below the horizon and the fire dims, Corian asks you all to gather. You have been waiting for Corian to explain more of his purpose behind the formation of your group, wondering at his true motives. Before tonight, he has always rebuffed your questions, saying that he will speak further when you are far from prying eyes and ears in Fareme. It appears that time has come.

"During the final days under my uncle’s tutelage, my master (my uncle) and I had traveled to the library of Feriblan the Mad in the city of Reme. I have never been pleased to visit Feriblan, for while there I was always forced to have contact with Vortigern, Feriblan’s apprentice, and his loathsome raven familiar—Talon. Luckily for me this day I managed to avoid Vortigern. While perusing mundane documents in an outer sitting room as my master and Feriblan studied ancient scrolls, I nervously fiddled with a clasp on the back of a small reading stand. Quite to my surprise, a secret compartment opened which contained a small, bound piece of parchment and an item wrapped in silk cloth. Checking to see that my actions were unobserved, I slipped both items into the folds of my robe. The parchment proved to be the letter Eralion had left for Feriblan on his last visit before his ritual, and the item wrapped in the silk cloth an amulet of some unknown design.

Freed from my apprenticeship, I returned to Feriblan. Taking the risk of asking a direct question of the addled wizard, I learned that Eralion was nowhere near powerful enough to become a lich. "Eralion! A lich?!" the old wizard exclaimed. "He was no apprentice, my son, but neither was he a mage with the mastery of the eldritch powers necessary for such a dangerous undertaking! If you have heard such rumors, boy, I shall put them to rest. The magics required for such a transition were far beyond his grasp." Once on the topic of his old friend, Feriblan spoke at length, though in a disjointed fashion. He told me of Eralion’s keep near the village of Fairhill. Feriblan made reference to a staff that Eralion possessed which apparently had magical powers. He also mentioned that Eralion had never returned several valuable magical tracts and spell books. I left the old wizard determined to find this tower and the items it contained—for if Eralion was not a lich, the items should be there for the taking!"

Stopping now to take a breath, Corian hands you the letter that he had found and allows some time to read it and digest the content.

My Dear Feriblan –
I must confess to you—my closest friend—that I was not entirely truthful with you at our last meeting. I feel compelled now to tell you of it, as this may be the last time I write with mortal hands. Do you recall our discussion some months past regarding liches and how users of the arcane arts might achieve that particular state? I must admit to you that the topic for me was not entirely scholarly, as I led you to believe. And for that I am sorry.

I know that you, my friend, have gazed into darkness in the name of knowledge. That is why I sought your learned counsel. For I too have gazed into darkness. And like you, I found knowledge— knowledge beyond imagining. From the demon-lord Orcus I have wrested the secret to lichdom, and I plan to move beyond scholarly talk and bring myself immortality. Imagine it, my friend! An eternity to study the arts, to master arcane power!

As I pen these words I have arrayed before me unguents and phials, instruments and tomes, all necessary for my transformation, save only one—an arcane phylactery of elaborate design. The ingredients for that item will bring me once again to your city. By the time you read this letter, I shall have retrieved the necessary items and shall be on my way back to my keep. Yet, as I begin to prepare my mind for my wondrous fate, my thoughts turn to you, my oldest friend. Accompanying this missive there is a small silk pouch. In that pouch is an amulet—an amulet I have created for you. I know of your thirst for knowledge. With this amulet, you will have access to my keep where I shall reside in immortality. If you wish to learn that which I have learned, you may visit me.

Long have others of our kind called you "mad." Perhaps it is I whom they will now call mad. But I do not care for their appellations. Let them say what they will. I have won something far greater than words— I have won immortality, and with it, power. I shall share that knowledge with you, my friend. Visit me soon. Gaze into the darkness again.
— Eralion

Corian explains his reluctance to give the full story to the party, not because of lack of trust in them but rather because on more than one occasion he has seen Talon, the raven familiar of Vortigern, peering into his chambers. Corian is certain that the wicked bird saw the theft of the amulet and letter, and the risk of further discovery was too great while still in Fareme. Who knows what spells Feriblan or Vortigern might have at their disposal to read thoughts or hear words? So after setting out from Fareme some four days ago, with light hearts and heavy packs— and harboring the nagging fear that Vortigern and his loathsome bird would somehow know of your goal: Eralion’s keep and its unguarded treasure.

Just before Corian finishes speaking, one of you notices that you are not the only listeners. About fifteen feet away is the largest raven you have ever seen, and its eyes glow with red fire. You jump up, frightened, as the raven flies off into the night with a shriek. This must be Talon, the familiar of Corian’s nemesis, Vortigern. You fear that your enemies are near at hand!

Monaghan's mustaches quiver with unease.

"I do not like that great, dark, hideous thing at all. It has an evil look about it," he whispers intensely, hand tightening on the grip of his bastard sword.

"On your guards, lads and lasses! If the vermin's master is about, let him not catch us with our breeches about our ankles!"

Nebbleshuven turns to Faionn. "Please forgive my ignorance, but being a priestess of nature, do you have any power over that raven?"

Now Olaf of Two Brooks is not the sharpest pick in the mine. He slept through the entire encounter with the bizarre, child-wailing, demon-badger stag thing, and doesn't even really try to piece together the whole story Corbin ("Corian," someone says!) tells. The letter is a non-starter, as the man doesn't read!

What Olaf does hear is mention of a loathsome bird... so he points, with his axe.

"Wha, li'tha'?" he asks, gesturing to the raven as it takes flight.

As Faionn listens to Corian's story, she begins to grow uneasy. Just what had this naïve wizard gotten them into? Faionn didn't know very much about the powers of Law and Chaos—she wasn't devout the same way truly holy people were—but she had an idea what Chaos could do not just to the body, but to the immortal soul. The visit from the raven—ostensibly Talon—only heightens her fears and confirms the worst. In the silence after, she calms down a bit—wasn't this kind of mortal peril what they signed up for in the first place?

At Nebble's question, she replies, "No need to apologize; you were right to ask. Much of my order can communicate with animals—and more, but it would be unwise to share those secrets. Personally, powers are a bit lacking—I am still undergoing training—but there is at least something I can do."

Faionn gestures to where the raven flew off. She lowers her voice then. "If we are ever worried that the beast is spying on us once more, I can momentarily feel out its presence. What comes next, catching it or following it—" Faionn shrugs. "That would be another story."

Datura does a double take as the red-eyes raven sqwaks, her eyes huge with excitement!

"That's the bird from the story that you said might be spying... And it was! Just like you said! What a terrible time to be right!"

"You mean… to carrying us into a Lich’s lair and steal arcane secrets? Feriblan The Mad?" she laughs then.

"Corian the Foolhardy is a more fitting title. I thought only a fool arcanist would litter his tower with the dead. Now I find the wizard is death, itself?

We shouldn’t have come. Corian… a Lich’s power surpasses all of ours combined!"

The wizard's eyes snap back to Ryenne. His face shows the look of someone who thinks they know more than you. "No, no, nothing like that! Like my mentor said, Eralion had not the power to become a lich. And the magicks he would have attempted for such a thing would have unmade him. It is likely a tower filled with paranoid traps, and shadows of things not to be." He nods, satisfied with himself.

The warrior-priest sits closer to Ryenne. "I agree, this is a foolish quest. But my goddess has sent me here for a reason. Perhaps something lies within the tower that I must face. The whims of the gods are fickle, and I do not pretend to know them." One hand rests on his sword, while the other traces the red sword pendant he wears.

"Well SOMEONE controls that evil bird we just saw so it's safe to assume that they know we're coming. This will be fun!"

Datura looks for reassurance from Corian but the wizard is too busy being proud of himself.