I Am Sylvana

I am Sylvana. Some people call me a Ranger. That had been my trade since I was a youth, and I am still the surest shot with a bow you will see this side of the Westerlandes, but my travels with the group that was eventually known as the Helinikan Company exposed all of us to many skills that we shared and learned from each other – our survival depended on it. I and others learned a certain amount of magic from our sisters and brothers who were trained in the magical arts. We all had to learn hand-to-hand combat and weaponry from our skilled warriors. And I who lived closest to the land shared my knowledge of herbs, medicine, and archery. Together, we created a community in the Forbidden World where our divisions based on class and skill had to be broken down so that we could survive there. And then we did more than survive. We built a garden in a land of brimstone. We tamed or exterminated the terrible creatures that threatened us, and we converted the ruinous, lava-strewn landscape into something beautiful. We even started to befriend some of the Dragoon communities who are native to the Forbidden World. Our community started to thrive … until three of us were cast out. It is now my quest to find the other two and combine our magical skills to return to the Forbidden World – to return home.

## The Fall of the Helinikan Empire

I was born and raised on the outskirts of Lycea which is in the Trintha Realm of the Helinika Empire. My family lived very close to the Shavanoth Forest before the barrier was closed between Trintha and Shavanoth. As a little girl, I remember frequently playing with Elves in the clearings of the forest and learning about their unique connection to the land and to the trees. The Great Tree, which is the central tree of Shavanoth – so large that the base has been hollowed out to contain the capital city of the Elves – always held a fascination for me, and I was naturally drawn to the magical connection we can have with life, land, and all growing things.

As I neared adulthood, I was lucky enough to train in archery with the Marksman Feraldan, and I made a good living employed by the Lycean Monks keeping the imp population as far from the city as I could. I knew the outskirts of Lycea better than anyone, and my youthful playtime with the Elves made both my eyes and my intuition as sharp as my arrows.

Our town was also the birthplace of the great Empress, Vella Trinth. Her reign was legendary for being a time of peace between all the Realms of the Empire and of great prosperity. There was always employment, the Wildernesse was largely safe (partly because she encouraged the hire of Rangers like me, but also because of the bans on dark sorcery and the Academy programs to teach our youth all manner of modern, civilized ways), and trade flowed freely from all parts of the Empire from the Keshak Fiefdoms in the north to the wealthy Urlani Marshlands in the west, and all throughout Trintha and the Shavanoth Forest in the east. When I was 22, Empress Trinth was contacted by the Sultan of a territory in the Westerlandes. Prosperity and peace had endured for so long, that the Empress was enthusiastic to start diplomatic relations to the far off and nearly inaccessible Westerlandes. The mountains between the Westerlandes and the Helinikan Empire are far too rugged to traverse. There is an ancient tunnel between our lands in the Keshak Fiefdoms and the West, but it was sealed off long ago during the darker times of war, and the secrets to opening the pass’s gates were lost to history. There is also a treacherous waterway in the far south of the Urlani Marshlands where the ocean churns so roughly through a rocky mountainous pass that few competent sailors have dared to navigate over those borders. Empress Trinth assembled the best ships and the best seamen in the Empire and set off on her diplomatic mission to the West. She and her envoy were never heard from again.

The years after the disappearance of Empress Trinth affected my family little differently than it affected others. Within a year, the imp population was nearly impossible to keep up with. The Wildernesse was becoming more unsafe by the day. A year later, the Academy Tower was closed after many children from Lycea and Rivercross went missing. What happened to them, we never found out, but we fear they were subject to experiments in dark magic. Even the Elves were suffering. Foul creatures started populating previously safe areas of the forest and spilling out into all parts of the Wildernesse. Most people rarely left the walls of their cities. Trade ground to a halt. The gate at the ancient Wargen Keep that separated Trintha from the Shavanoth Forest in darker times was closed once more to try to stem the flow of dark creatures into Trintha. That was a mistake. The Elves suffered miserably, barricaded in their Great Tree of Shavanothia. The Academy Tower was overrun by a new breed of Lizard Mages that had never been seen before. Kobolds overran the mountains, and goblin breeding pits sprang up all over the south of Trintha regularly running raids on the beautiful city of Rivercross. Port Yester had to be closed when an enormous mutant cyclops took up residence in the port’s lighthouse. Over in the west, where there were always a small number of undead creatures lurking in the marshlands, the great, wealthy city of Urlopolis was completely overrun with skeletons and zombies. No one knew why their numbers had grown so dramatically or why the Urlani Clerics were suddenly failing to keep them at bay. The erstwhile sacred Pi-yun Temple was infested with Spectres, and the Clerics took flight. There were regular kidnappings from Urlopolis, and many were taken to the Curzon River Caves where the Fungal Broods had previously lived in peace, but now had formed a strange allegiance with the undead and were feeding their Human victims to the Mother Fungus to create fungal warriors and mutant fungus keeper creatures. Up north, the Dwarves of the Keshak fiefdoms had heard of the troubles in the south but had not yet been affected as we had been. Baron Vloyansk of the Blue Tower of Keshak spread the word among the Dwarves that the stories and pleas for help coming from the south were no more than “southern trickery” designed to rape the northern fiefdoms of their riches. He encouraged the Baron Gurnstaad to seal the Glacierway and cut the south off from further trade with the north. Not until much later was it discovered that the Baron Vloyansk was possessed by a Wraith who, after the Glacierway was sealed unleashed a White Dragon on the northern lands, quickly destroying most of the Dwavern population that had been so prosperous. He started breeding Ice Goblins, Ice Trolls, and Yeti in the dwellings where the Dwarves had previously thrived.

Times were very hard. Most thought that the times of peace, safety, and prosperity belonged to a past that could never return. It was actually the Lord of the tiny city of Rivercross who sparked the idea for the allegiance eventually known as the Helinikan Company. He sent out pleas to all the cities of the Empire and offered gold for warriors and mages to come help hunt Gorba – the newly self-proclaimed Kobold Overlord that had taken up residence in the barrier caverns at the foot of the mountains just east of Rivercross. Gorba was riling up the kobold population and providing a home base for their operations in the caverns. Eventually they were raiding Rivercross nightly. No one had ever heard of a Kobold population ever setting up a government of any kind, but it seemed to fit with the growing evil that the entire Empire was experiencing. I cannot say why the plea of the Lord of Rivercross got the attention that it did, but he was the first to reach out to the other cities across the Empire for help, and warriors responded.

## The Helinikan Company

Sir Rugnar, the Knight of Rivercross was hired first, soon joined by Lady Alwyn, a great warrior from Lycea that I had heard of but never met. Borakash who was previously known as a lone barbarian living in the foothills of the mountains at the southern end of the Shavanoth forest arrived and offered his help, and he had met Oloman, a mercenary for hire from the great western city of Urlopolis and convinced him to join in the quest against the Kobolds as well.

My teacher Feraldan and I both responded, and I was honored beyond measure to be working alongside him again. Gorlok, the well-known mage in Lycea offered to travel with us as well. A rogue and skilled archer called Pardah whose son had disappeared from the Academy Tower also joined us as we traveled south to Rivercross. Even the Padishah of Urlopolis sent a trained assassin called Grath and a Necromancer called B’Az Aptar to investigate and report back on the evil infestation in the east.

Tazatar the Conjurer who was born in Urlopolis but spent most of his childhood among the Dwarves in the Keshak Fiefdoms was traveling near Bridgetown in the north of Shavanoth when he heard the news from the Lord of Rivercross, and since he could no longer go back home with the Glacierway sealed, he set out southward as well. Finally, we were joined by the great Druid Gaelabeth. Never before had I seen any Human or Elf so connected to the essence of the life and the land, so intuitive and skilled was she! We developed a close friendship, and most of the magic that I have acquired along the way I have learned from her. I miss her so.

We twelve assembled in Rivercross where the Lord of the town bade us to enter the Barrier Caverns and fell Lord Gorba. Our company was not without strife, though. The ways of the Necromancer B’Az Aptar and the Rogue Pardah seemed strange. Especially to Gaelabeth and to me who had lived so close to the natural magic of the land, their methods seemed contrary to the essence of life itself. Many of us traveled with the aim of serving the Empire and the Empress, but others were along for the journey solely for their own self-interests. We bickered as we traveled toward the mountains, and some of us were doubtful that we could survive even the Kobold quest without doing each-other physical harm.

In battle, it was a different matter. No one could have expected that this rag-tag band of people skilled in so many different arts and in so many contradicting ways would work so well together. Gaelabeth and B’Az Aptar formed a strange alliance between her love of nature and his knowledge of the undead arts. They both used similar magics to unleash an essence of fury in our warriors that proved difficult for our enemies to withstand. Feraldan learned some of this magic to create a fury in himself that resulted in a rain of arrows toward our opposition. Lady Alwyn learned how to use magic in her voice to paralyze enemies so that the Rogue and the Assassin could strike unseen from the flanks. I was able to learn healing magics from Gaelabeth and she tried to teach me a perverse psychic assault magic, that I never got particularly good at. Gaelabeth was extremely intuitive in her knowledge of what actions and creatures were acting against nature against whom perverse magic could be used. I have more respect for her and her connection to the essences of life than I can muster to say.

The Kobolds had no chance.

Gorba was eradicated, and the Kobolds scattered throughout the foothills and raided Rivercross no more. Our success was so quick and so complete that the Master of Port Yester quickly offered to hire us to disrupt the activities of the Goblin Breeding Pits that had sprung up to the west of the city and to evict the Cyclops from the lighthouse and marina so that the port could reopen to trade. We traveled south. We discovered that the Breeding Pits were being overseen by a pair of Goblin Kings who had obviously been mutated by dark magic. It took planning and several journeys back and forth from Port Yester and the Wildernesse to overthrow the Kings and disrupt the breeding of foul goblins. The strangeness did not end there. The band of Cyclops at the marina were few in number but were huger than any beasts of their kind any of us had ever seen, and again we suspected that forces beyond the usual evil of beasts was responsible. We received an ample reward for our efforts to free Port Yester from the grip of the oppression it had suffered over the recent years.

Gorlok, Feraldan, and I resolved to return to Lycea and advise the Monks of the evils we had witnessed. It was not easy to convince the rest of our party to return with us, though. Gorlok ended up promising payment to the party for returning with us to Lycea. It was lucky for him that he never ended up needing to make good on that promise. I firmly believe that he would have been murdered by the mercenary Oloman for the deception.

The Monks of Lycea confirmed our fears. They had detected the influences of dark magic coming from all directions across the Empire, but they also gave us a spark of hope. Their meditations had revealed that Empress Vella Trinth was still alive! The Monks told us that the secret to unlocking the gates to the ancient Western Passage was not lost after all but was guarded very closely by trusted servants of the Empire. The gate would only operate if 4 enchanted jewels known as the Exis Keys were fitted into receptacles within the gate’s door. The Monks were in possession of the Red Exis Key. The Forest Chieftain Elf was the keeper of the Green Exis Key, the Padishah of Urlopolis was entrusted with the Yellow Exis Key, and the Baron Vloyansk of Keshak was the guardian of the Blue Exis Key. The Monks bade us visit each of these protectors, obtain the Exis Keys and reopen the Western Passage. Their meditations revealed that the Sultan who had contacted Empress Trinth would have information about her whereabouts.

We were overwhelmed by the seriousness of the situation and the immense danger of the quest we were being asked to undertake. The gates at Wargen Keep between Trintha and Shavanoth had been closed, and it was rumored that Trolls now occupied the structure and surrounding lands. The undead menace plagued the Urlani Marshlands across the sea, and the Glacierway to Keshak had been sealed. This was to be no easy task.

We spent days considering our lot, what we knew of the dangers, and our victories together, but it was eventually unanimously decided that we, skilled women and men from across the Empire, would undertake the quest and would be known as the Helinikan Company. We were presented with the Red Exis Key and were commanded to set off at once toward Shavanoth.

The journey was not easy, and I will not go into intimate detail of every part of the quest.

We battled Trolls at Wargen Keep and reopened the passage from Trintha to Shavanoth. When we traveled to the forest, we discovered that many of the trees were dying. The Forest Chieftain Elf told us that the Elves had detected dark magic coming from the Academy Tower and that he would present the Green Exis Key to the party who discovered the source of the magic that was killing the forest.

The Academy Tower, as I mentioned before, had become overrun by a race of Lizard Mages. Tazatar strongly suspected that the missing children had been mutated or merged with lizard creatures to form this new, aggressive race. Sir Rugnar underestimated their speed and magical abilities and was very nearly killed. If it were not for the combined efforts of my herbal knowledge and the healing magic of Gorlok and Gaelabeth, I am certain that it would have been a party of eleven to leave the Academy Tower.

All areas of the tower were given over to the instruction of dark arts to the likes of Kobold Mystics and Goblin Shamans, and on the roof garden of the tower there sat a quartet of Lizard Magi chanting to an idol glowing green with the reverberance of their sounds. Many of us were overcome by a sensation of draining life-force in that garden, and it took all the focus we could muster to be present enough to do battle with the Lizard Magi. Borakash sang an ancient Hymn of Focus into Gaelabeth’s Circle of Purity, and the combined magics allowed us to withstand the life-draining forces of the idol and its servants.

We smashed the idol and returned its pieces to the Forest Chieftain Elf. Oloman and Pardah were outraged when the Chieftain Elf told us that his nation could not reward us with gold for undertaking the quest, but he graciously handed over the Green Exis Key.

By this time, news of our successes had reached many cities of the Empire, so it was not as difficult as we had expected to charter a ship to take us across the sea to the Urlani Marshlands. Not even the seas of the Empire were spared from the proliferation of foul creatures in the wake of the Empress’s disappearance. Sea monsters, larger and in greater number than ever seen before infested the waters, and sailors mostly remined landlocked for fear of a quick death at the claws and tentacles of the beasties. An arrangement was made with a captain and crew – they were to handle navigation, and we were to handle defense. My connection though was with the land, and I had never been to sea before. I am embarrassed to say that stepping onto the ship was far more frightening to me than the battle with the mutant Lizard Men, but I was relieved to hear that I was not the only one who had misgivings about the sea. Tazatar, who had frequently sailed between Keshak and Trintha was a great comfort to many of us. Gaelabeth and I shared a cabin, and she explained to me that the sea was a natural extension of the land and that the same life force that flowed through the trees also resided in the waters -- this was an important lesson for me.

So the company made our way to Urlopolis to gain an audience with the Padishah.

Even reaching Urlopolis was a challenge. When we docked our ship, we were not met by Urlani port workers. We had to fight our way out of the harbor port, as it was absolutely infested by Zombies. We were almost not granted access to Urlopolis at all, so much fear and mistrust of outsiders had bred in the years of being cut off from trade and travel that the dark-skinned Urlani guards did not want to admit our largely light-skinned company into the city, even though Grath and B’Az Aptar had been sent by the Padishah himself! Tazatar, who was born in Urlopolis still had his Urlani family sigil which was finally enough to convince the city’s security to allow us entrance and gain an audience with the Padishah.

We could see skeletons just beyond the walls of the city, and the Urlani people were frightened. We were weary from our journey and just wanted to have rest before getting on with our quest, but hospitality was limited in the city and the Padishah did not have good news for us. The Yellow Exis key had been moved from city security to the Pi-Yun Temple so that the Clerics could maintain watch over it, but the Temple had been abandoned months ago when it was overrun by Spectres. The Padishah summoned a former clerical student into the audience, and he informed us that the Temple’s gates contained a magical lock that could only be undone by a senior cleric, and he did not have the knowledge or ability to help us. He was aware that the clerics who were not killed outright in the defense of their Temple were taken to the Curzon River Caves in the south of the Urlani Marshlands four months ago when the Temple had finally fallen to the Undead, and no one knew what became of them.

In the morning we set out south. The journey was the roughest yet. Many of us took injury during the skirmishes with the Undead. Grath and Lady Alwyn fell seriously ill by eating infected fruits and berries growing in the Marshlands. Gaelabeth and I tended to the ill with our combined knowledge of healing magic and herbs. Intuition and skill were our guides, and I am certain that if it were not for Gaelabeth’s teaching me to be more in tune with the magic and lifeforce of the land we would have lost at least one of them.

The Curzon River Caves were known to be inhabited by the Fungal Brood. Not much was known about them, other than that they were a race of lower intelligence sentient fungus-based creatures that kept to themselves and left other life in the area well alone. Certainly, they had never troubled the Urlani before, so it was with dismay that we heard that the combined forces of the Fungal Brood and the Undead had kidnapped many Urlani citizens who were caught unawares outside the walls of the city.

The stench from the caves was nearly unbearable. The air hung thick with fungus spores which made it difficult to breathe and made many of us dizzy. We quickly learned that the Fungal Brood was no longer a peaceful race that kept to itself. We encountered spore creatures wielding thin, sharp blade-like appendages, giant mushroom creatures that spawned tiny extensions of themselves which scurried into the party and stung and ate at our flesh, and worst, creatures that had obviously been Human but who were infected and mutated by funguses that had changed their bodies and minds into unspeakable, evil, unthinking horrors.

Deeper into the caves we battled. Occasionally we had to set up camp in areas with running water to rest and to heal. It was dark, the air was oppressive, and more than once we were ambushed by Fungal creatures or giant, mutated spiders with poisonous bites. On the third day, or so we assumed, as through long battles and tedious trekking through narrow, cavernous corridors we had lost track of the natural turning of day into night, we made a disconcerting discovery in a depression in a wide, deep cavern. Stairs. There was a set of stone stairs leading down to a door set into the wall of the cavern. These were not creatures who should have been able to construct such things.

Beyond the door was a stone chamber and a host of skeletal Undead creatures. We were weary from battle but managed to defeat the Undead host and gain entry into what was clearly a prison for Humans in the new regime of the Undead. The prisoners were hysterical. They told us ghastly stories of their kidnaps, of how they were forced to watch as their brothers and sisters were transformed by fungus and by magic, and how many smaller Urlani, even the children, had simply been fed to the Mother Funguses so that they could continue to give birth to the next generation of the Brood.

A single Urlani Cleric was still alive.

Old and frail, we tended to his injuries and his hunger, but we could not help him to forget the things he had seen his fellow Urlani suffer at the hands of the Undead. We led him out of the Caves and he led us back to the Pi-Yun Temple. He recited the incantation that opened the gates, and then he and Grath returned to Urlopolis together.

The feeling that overcame us when we entered the temple was one of intense cold. The light seemed darker and thicker, as if the air were water at the bottom of a deep, dark lake. Every shadow seemed to move of its own accord, and all feelings of hope and confidence in our quest were diminished. The presence and power of the Undead seemed to surround us and engulf us. We felt frozen with fear and despondency – it was difficult even to move.

Again, Gaelabeth and B’Az Aptar were our saviors that day. She had enough presence of mind to cast a Circle of Purity, and B’Az Aptar with his unique knowledge of the magic of the dead combined her energies with his own to spread her natural magic throughout the Spectre-infested Temple enough so that the emotional fog lifted and we could move freely again.

On the upper level of the Temple, we discovered Wraiths. Horrible undead creatures were pouring over enchanted maps of the Empire. B’Az Aptar divined that they were funneling life energy from the prisoners in the Curzon River Caves and directing it toward two different locations in the Keshak Fiefdoms far to the north. He located the blockaded Glacierway on the map as well as another area farther inland as the recipient lands of the mutated life energies being stolen from the Urlani prisoners. Tazatar identified the inland area as a training and proving ground for young Dwarves. With this knowledge, and with the Wraith and Spectre threat evicted from Pi-Yun, B’Az Aptar set demon fire onto the enchanted maps, breaking the bind between Curzon and Keshak. We could all feel a sudden release when the parchment was reduced to ash! Gorlok located the Yellow Exis Key in a magically concealed chamber next to the Wraiths’ make-shift evil workshop.

With our mission in the Marshlands complete and the grave news of the state of his lands, we returned to the Padishah. He mandated a month of mourning for his kidnapped and tortured people and bade us travel with haste to the Keshak Fiefdoms to discover what evils were being unleashed on our Dwarven friends. Our chartered crew was reluctant to head north, and we had to promise a significant sum of gold to convince them to make the journey.

The cold was bitter. Gorlok, Gaelabeth, and I tended to several sailors suffering from illnesses and frostbite before we even reached the Glacierway.

Tazatar spotted the problem first. We should not be able to see Gurnstaad Citadel from the sea, he said. The Glacierway should entirely obscure the view of the Citadel and the lands beyond, and last we had heard, the Dwarves had sealed the Glacierway. We should not have been able to see anything! Not only was the passage open, but the Glacierway itself was melted down so that the snowy lands of Keshak and the Gurnstaad Citadel could be seen clearly from the sea. Tazatar wept and described how beautiful the Glaciers had been.

We were not sure what kind of reception our party of southerners would receive from the Dwarves. Dwarven skepticism of the honesty and integrity of Humans is legendary, but the Baron Gurnstaad welcomed us to his Citadel. We and our chartered crew were thankful for the hospitality and the opportunity to rest ourselves from battle and travel. The Baron and his court described to us how the Dwarves had received the news of the spreading evil in the south and had called a Confluence of Barons to debate their options. He told us that Baron Vloyansk had lobbied to seal the Glacierway and ignore the pleas from the south citing the many wrongs done to Dwarvenkind at the hands of Human southerners. His message had appealed to the Dwarves, and the Glacierway was sealed. A deep shadow passed over Baron Gurnstaad’s face as he spoke and told us what a grave error sealing of the Glacierway had been and how now he suspected that Baron Vloyansk was somehow involved in the propagating evils across the land, as many of the creatures now roaming the Fiefdoms seemed to be coming from the direction of the Proving Grounds as well as from the Blue Tower where Baron Vloyansk lived and ruled. With tears running down the Baron’s beard, he told us that of the dozens of cities and settlements across the Keshak Fiefdoms, only two remained. Gurnstaad and Vloyansk were the only ones left aside from homeless bands of Dwarves now seeking shelter in caves. We described our journey and the horrors we had seen so far in the southern Realms, and the Baron was touched. With his blessings, the Gurnstaad armory was opened to us and we prepared for the confrontation with Baron Vloyansk by arming ourselves with the finely-crafted Dwarven wares offered to us by the Baron.

Before traveling to the Blue Tower, B’Az Aptar and Tazatar convinced us to investigate the Dwarven Proving Grounds, the second site in Keshak where the foul undead energy had been directed. We met Ice Trolls, Yeti, and Blue Goblins by the dozens along the journey and saw the burnt and smoking remains of villages across the tundra, but no one was prepared for what we saw in the sky as we approached the Proving Grounds.

Soaring high above us, I spotted a creature that I had only heard tales of before. A creature that many people didn’t believe existed or was a relic of an ancient and darker past. A Dragon was bearing down on us! Gorlok raised his staff and sent a Flame Chant into the sky to meet the icy gaze of the beast with silvery scales and bright, glowing, yellow eyes. I gathered close to Feraldan and we together readied our arrows. We shot! And a rain of arrows bounced off the tough hide and were sent careening back towards our party. The beast opened its maw and sent a blast of ice and flame across our path. I was hit, and I fell, bleeding in the snow. I could not move my arm and would be useless in battle. I saw Tazatar summon Yeti of his own to do battle with the Dragon. I saw B’Az Aptar’s eyes glowing with devastation as I could feel him trying to draw out the Dragon’s life force. I saw brave Lady Alwyn wielding the Hammer of the North given as a gift to her by the Baron Gurnstaad and taking chunks out of the Dragon’s steel-hard scaly skin. I saw Borakash take a talon to the back as the Dragon swooped across our heads and he fell face-first into the snow. Grath sent poison needles and flaming oil at the Dragon’s face which stuck it directly in the eyes! Now injured and nearly blind, the Dragon lashed out and pounded into Grath with its rock-hard tail, and he flew many yards before crashing down into a field of boulders where he landed, unmoving. But his blow was what turned the tide. With the Dragon now thrashing frantically and at random, Gaelabeth was able to use her Psychic Assault to bring it to the ground where it was finished by all four warriors together.

Feraldan had moved Borakash next to me where we both lay bleeding, and Sir Rugnar retrieved Grath from where he had fallen into the rocks. I had deep gashes to my shoulder and I could feel that something inside me had torn. Borakash was sliced from neck to hip by the Dragon’s talon, and Grath had many broken bones. The party did their best to gently move us into the Proving Grounds where the Dragon had set up its lair. The place was strewn with bones and rotting flesh, but the cliff face the grounds were built against shielded us from the bitter winds, and the fires started by Tazatar helped to keep us warm. Between my own skills at healing and the assistance of the Mages, I had recovered enough by the second day of our encampment to devote my energy to helping heal the others. It took another four days of rest and healing magic before Grath was well enough to move. We were exhausted, and only slightly uplifted by the fact that the Dragon was stopped before all the Dwarves of the Keshak Fiefdoms had become homeless.

We trudged on through the snow toward the Blue Tower. During our journey I overheard B’Az Aptar and Gaelabeth quietly discussing the evil magic that we had hitherto encountered on our quest. Magics that none of our mages had ever seen before. Mutated magic against nature and far beyond the necromantic arts. B’Az Aptar had a feeling that what was waiting for us at the Blue Tower was something horrific, and he and Gaelabeth spent the evening camps of the journey quietly chanting together, merging their magics and planning our defense against whatever unknown horror might await us at the Blue Tower. I tried to listen and to understand what their magic was doing, but it was far beyond me. Gaelabeth and I had formed a natural bond because we both work with the energies of nature. Now Gaelabeth and B’Az Aptar seemed to be forming a bond based on their completely opposite but complementary forms of magic. I wished I could understand.

B’Az Aptar expected something horrific, and he was not wrong.

The dwarves guarding the entrance to the tower did not look much different from those we had met at Gurnstaad, but their speech and manner were very strange. Their eyes seemed dark and clouded, and their invitation for us to come into the tower for an audience with the Baron Vloyansk seemed most ominous. Gorlok silently whispered an incantation and passed the word among us that our hosts were under some kind of mind control.

With trepidation we were led up the tower. Nearing the top-most floor, we were led into a vast chamber lined with statues and suits of armor displaying the workmanship of the Dwarven masters. Carpets of finely dyed wools decorated the floors, and banners proudly displayed the might of the house of Vloyansk. At the far end of the chamber sat the Baron, and as we laid eyes on him and began to take in the reality of what we were seeing, we heard the crash of the chamber doors behind us being slammed shut and barred from the outside.

The Baron, tall for a Dwarf, was seated on an audience throne, and as we approached we could see that he was horribly disfigured. He had sunken eyes that nevertheless burned with fury. His hair and beard were wild and looked singed at the ends. His body was skeletal in parts where flesh was torn away from his frame, rotting at the edges. And yet he moved and spoke with a slow, clear, commanding voice full of malevolence.

“You seek the Blue Exis Key. You will not have it, but my master will appreciate that you have delivered to us the other three. Our entrance to the Westerlandes will be sooner than anticipated, but first you will die.”

I spotted Pardah slipping into the shadows and at the same time we saw a dozen Spectres emerge from between the statuary and armors. A sneer wrinkled the deformed face of the undead creature that had once been Baron Vloyansk.

Pardah appeared suddenly behind the Baron and shot an arrow point-blank into what was left of the creature’s neck. The Spectres were taken by surprise, and one of them quickly descended on Pardah engulfing his body, a look of intense horror on his face. At the same time Gaelabeth and B’Az Aptar linked hands and chanted a unified incantation into the echoes of the chamber. Their voices were unnaturally loud, and the air seemed to shimmer with light and sound as they chanted, song-like into the chamber. Pardah fell to the floor as the Spectres seemed to solidify and then to tear apart. Their hideous screams sent Sir Rugnar and Tazatar to the floor, on their knees as if begging, with ears covered against the sound with terror in their eyes. Lady Alwyn and Borakash surged forward and engaged the Baron with their mighty blades. I shook my head from the echoing discord of our mages’ chanting and the dying screams of the Spectres, and I readied an arrow to aim at the Baron’s ugly head. But it was over almost as soon as it had started. It felt like it took a long time for the Spectre scream and the echoes of the incantation to fade away as the rotting body of the undead creature fell to the floor, sliced in three by the strength of the warriors. A momentary silence engulfed us, and then a sickening crunch reverberated about the chamber as bones and rotted flesh hit stone. I lowered my arrow and breathed a sigh of relief. Borakash and Lady Alwyn fell into each-others’ arms, Sir Rugnar and Tazatar remained trembling on the floor, and Pardah was lying where he fell, unmoving behind the throne.

I moved towards Pardah, but Gaelabeth pushed me backwards and commanded me to help Sir Rugnar and Tazatar instead. I bent toward Tazatar and started reciting my nature magic to remove afflictions of body and mind. Slowly, he stopped trembling, and was able to stand. He took a moment, then he thanked me, and together we tended to Sir Rugnar. Gaelabeth and B’Az Aptar were huddled over Pardah who they feared had taken some of the essence of the Spectre inside of him before their incantation had shredded their forms.

The other mages approached, and they were discussing what could be done in low voices when we heard motion from other parts of the tower. There was a clamber at the door! Feraldan and I stood together and readied our arrows. Lady Alwyn and Borakash broke apart and raised their weapons once again, and we waited. We heard the scraping of the blockade against the door, and then it was flung open.

A host of astonished Dwarves stood on the other side and gazed in upon the wreckage of the throne room and on the dismembered body of their disgraced, mutilated, and fallen Baron.

A Dwarf in the middle of the throng shouted, “These Southerners have released us from the mind control!”

A tumult of cheering echoed through the chamber! Sir Rugnar approached to speak to the subjects of Vloyansk about our quest.

The Dwarves were hospitable; they gave us chambers in the Blue Tower and prepared a feast to celebrate their release from the control of the undead -- as well as to mourn the state of the Keshak Fiefdoms. They told us the tale of how emissaries from the South had come to Keshak to beg the Dwarves to come help fight the evils that were besetting the lands below the Glacierway. Baron Vloyansk had taken an audience with Kroga Trinth, and then soon thereafter convinced his constituency that the pleading was no more than Southern trickery to avoid paying the Dwarven communities properly for their superior craftsmanship. Mighty suspicious it seems now, but eventually the Glacierway was sealed using the ancient frost magic of the Dwarven elders to keep the marauding southerners out of Keshak. And then the Dragon appeared, foul, mutant frost creatures started breeding, and most of the servants of Vloyansk were enchanted to serve the undead.

Kroga Trinth was a name that most of us had not heard in a very long time. The empress’s younger brother had attended the Academy Tower to learn the magical arts but disappeared from public view before he reached his qualification, and most people thought of him no more. The ne’er-do-well brother of the great Empress Vella seemed unimportant when the Empire was so prosperous. No one had ever heard of Vella sending her brother as an emissary to foreign leaders, but the Dwarves, being so remote in Keshak, did not find it suspicious until much later, and after the Glacierway was sealed, there was little they could do about it anyway. This was a subject of discussion among our party for the rest of our stay at the Blue Tower.

Pardah slowly healed, but B’Az Aptar expressed concern that he might have lingering effects from the momentary possession of the Spectre into his body. The mage’s tone was ominous and full of suspicion.

Among the late Baron’s effects, we were presented with the apologies of the House of Vloyansk, very fine quality Dwarven arms and armor, some gold, and the Blue Exis Key – completing our set.

And so, with the company of a Dwarven guide, we made our way toward the Western Mountains where the Western Gate had laid concealed for over a century.

The Western Gate is a thing of beauty. Ornate carvings of men and women, Humans and Elves and Dwarves, legendary Oliphants, and other creatures I did not recognize. The sun and the moon, and symbols of a language long forgotten were all carved with exquisite beauty. And in the very middle, four round indentations of the same shape and size as our Exis Keys. Our guide told us very little that we did not already know – that the passage is one of the only two ways to travel between the Helinikan Empire and the Westerlandes. That the Westerlandes were uncivil and harsh of climate, but that very little else was known – or had been forgotten -- of the people and the environment there. It is rumored that when the Western Passage was built, the ancients of the Westerlandes and the Eastern Wildernesse that eventually became the Helinikan Empire had been friends and trading partners through this very gate, but then the wars happened, the gate was sealed, and what little was known of the West was lost to legend and ancient history.

With excitement and trepidation, Sir Rugnar approached the gate with the Exis Keys and fit them into place within the door. At first, it was silent, and then a rumbling could be felt within the ground and the surrounding lands, and something heavy sounded like it dropped into place within the mountain face above the enormous door. Sir Rugnar pushed the door, and it swung inward. The Western Passage was reopened at last!

## The Westerlandes

The Western Passage is miles long, and travel through it took us many days. At last we reached a door identical to the one which had accepted our Exis Keys. I was the first to reach it, so I pulled on the door’s fixtures. It swung open easily, and a blast of hot air met our faces. Gaelabeth later told me that the expression on my face at seeing the Westerlandes for the first time was humorous, but I’m sure that none of us were prepared for what was on the other side of that door.

We found ourselves standing at the foot of an enormous craggy mountain stretching north and south as far as we could see with a vast ocean of sand dunes and scraggly-looking bushes rolling out before us to the west. It was hot, hotter than the Urlani Marshlands in summertime, and we began to sweat at once in our heavy cloaks and armaments. Gorlok thought he saw a structure off in the distance, and we made toward that direction, but it was soon clear that what he thought was a small building was a massive beast eating from the vegetation growing on the dunes. Its four legs were like trees, its body the size of an Elven hut with enormous sail-like ears and a long snout like a giant serpent. Tazatar’s mouth fell open with his exclamation – “An Oliphant!”

As a young girl, I was told tales and legends of sandy wastelands populated by brown-skinned Humans like the Urlani. We were shown drawings of creatures like Oliphants, and Wildcats, but I didn’t think that anyone other than the most superstitious believed that they could exist in our world.

Tazatar told us of the legends he had heard as a lad in Urlopolis about how the Urlani’s ancestors had been a mixture of the darker-skinned peoples from the Westerlandes and the lighter skinned people from the southern areas of Trintha. The Urlani, who were proud of their dark skin, he said, had not much thought about from where it came until knowledge passed into legend and was forgotten.

Not wanting to disturb the massive beast and not much knowing which direction we should travel, we veered away from the Oliphant toward the north and set up camp in an area slightly denser with thin-trunked trees. We shed as much of our protective clothing as we dared, and we soon feared that water was going to be a problem.

At camp, Gaelabeth encouraged me to use my connection with the land to discover where there might be Human settlements. I was astonished that she would turn to me for that kind of magic, especially since the lands we were in were so foreign and strange. I knew the trees and the forest and nothing about the desert. She told me that it didn’t matter, just as it hadn’t mattered on the ocean, but I was concerned. If my intuition about the land were to be wrong, I would be leading our party into a slow, hot, painful death from starvation in the blazing sun of this wretched place. I sat and meditated, but frustration and feelings of foreignness crept in on me and I eventually wept in misgivings and fear. I peered up and saw Gaelabeth deep in conversation with B’Az Aptar while Feraldan and the warriors discussed the rationing of our meager supplies. Tazatar approached and told me that he could feel my dismay, and he sat by my side and laid a hand on my arm. He told me more stories from his childhood in Urlopolis and of his family’s travels to Keshak. He told me about how foreign he felt as a dark-skinned Human in the snowy Dwarf-ruled tundra of Keshak and how that foreignness was a source of strength to him when he eventually studied at the Academy Tower in Shavanoth. His stories were touching and frequently amusing. And his words and presence by my side there in the darkest corner of our camp were a great comfort to me.

I took his hand, and we meditated together. I could feel his energy flowing through me, and mine joining into his. Our thoughts and emotions swirled around each-other and combined so that I at once understood all of Tazatar’s struggles at being moved from Urlopolis to Keshak to Trintha to Shavanoth and the compassion for and understanding of all people that his experiences had taught him. And I knew that at the same time, Tazatar was experiencing my youth on the outskirts of Lycea among the Elves and our connection to the land and all growing things. Our minds and feelings were laid bare as they folded into each-other! We immediately experienced all of each-other’s victories, defeats, loves, despondencies, desires, and resentments at once. I was overwhelmed with senses of vulnerability and wonder, but I realized that those feelings were also his, and we were feeling them together as a single, combined entity.

Our senses of foreignness, past and present, were put aside as our consciousnesses combined further. I lost myself entirely in the feeling of our mingled beings as our joined life forces experienced our surroundings together. Our spirit, now with each of our separate understandings of the world combined into one, spread out across the sand dunes.

We felt the presence of our ten companions and their fear and misgivings about our quest and our prospects for surviving in the desert.

We spread ourself out farther and felt the presence of a pack of Wildcats not very far off to the east.

We reached north and discovered more Oliphants here and there across the dunes, but also felt the spark of something more. Our single intuition brought us north and west where we could feel much more activity of spirit, and then we found it. Hundreds of Human lives, living, thriving!

We broke apart.

A sudden feeling of aloneness engulfed my spirit as I gasped and opened my eyes. I looked at Tazatar and saw more than felt that his hand was still clasped in mine. Something had changed in me. I knew beyond doubt, though, that the vulnerability and intimacy that we had shared had been just as unique and powerful to him as it was to me. We sat there for a long time.

In the morning, we traveled north and west, giving Oliphants a wide berth, until we saw it. Rising from the heat haze over the sand was the most spectacular looking city any of us had ever laid eyes on. Nestled in a valley surrounded by low, craggy sandstone hills, was a walled city of exquisite beauty. Towers with curved tops covered with tiles of reds, blues, and golds flanked the great copper gates of the city. A palace with many vaulted archways and windows and domed roofs could be seen rising in the center of the city beyond the walls. The colors and the architecture were stunning and spoke of great wealth, great power, and a very different civilization. This was at great odds with the stories of the uncivil Westerlandes we were told as children in the east.

A small group of guards with dark skin, although not as dark as the Urlani, could be seen at the gates and along the walls of the city. They were wearing light robes decorated with dramatic designs in bright red colors. They saw us approaching and stood at arms against the enormous closed copper gates. When they could see us more clearly though, their expressions turned from suspicion to wonder.

“Are you easterners?” asked the foremost guard.

As Gorlok and Sir Rugnar explained our quest, I reached out toward the guards with my mind and I felt their astonishment and excitement. I glanced at Tazatar who smiled at me and nodded, and I knew that he was also reaching out towards the guards and experiencing the same emotions as I was. I couldn’t suppress my delight that we both had found a new skill that was not only useful but also connected us to each-other as well as to our fellows and made us feel less foreign.

“Easterners! Welcome to Teshvar! Your coming was prophesized by the Seer and is anticipated by the Sultan. You are welcome here. Quarters will be prepared for you and an audience will be arranged with the Sultan.”

Teshvar was enormous and glorious in its design. Gardens and waterways intermingled with houses, temples, and public buildings decorated with tiles and mosaics of bright colors. In the very center of the city was an arena where gladiators would do battle with Wildcats and other beasts for the entertainment of the people. And immediately behind the arena, the vast palace with domed roofing and ornately carved archways sat beside its gardens and pools, majestic and inviting.

We were given needed rest and relaxation in the days before our audience with the Sultan. The city was comfortable, and we were treated like celebrities. I did not care for the food in Teshvar, however, as everything was flavored with strong, unfamiliar spices. Tazatar told me that there were still tales of spices such as these told by the Urlani, but that didn’t make them taste any better.

After 3 days, we were summoned to the palace. We were led through the vast complex to a room dominated by colorful rugs and cushions where we were told to wait for the Sultan. An entourage preceded the Sultan into the chamber who instructed us in the proper etiquette for bowing to and addressing the Sultan, his Majesty of the Pajoon Desert.

The meeting was very formal. The Sultan commanded us to tell every detail of the history of the Helinikan Empire and its fall and of our quest. He listened patiently, and we were occasionally asked by the Sultan and his Seer to clarify certain points of our story. When the Sultan was satisfied, he whispered to his Seer and then rose. We all stood up and bowed to the Sultan as we were instructed, and he left the chamber. The Seer and one of the Sultan’s palace historians then spoke to us. We learned that the Westerlandes were divided into several kingdoms just as the Helinikan Empire was. We were currently in Pajoon which was the largest kingdom of the land. To the west where the desert ended, was a mountain pass that led to the less-settled territory of the Thowan Moors. Off the southern coast of both Pajoon and the Thowan Moors were the islands that made up the nation of Illstock, and farther across the sea to the southeast was the ancient kingdom of Shuunia which used to rule all of the Westerlandes before the wars. These days, each of the kingdoms largely governed themselves with Pajoon usually considered the strongest and most profitable of the four. We learned that the Sultan had not sent an emissary to Helinika as was commonly believed, but that Kroga had arrived at Teshvar with his sister Vella several years ago. The Seer gave us the impression that he believed Vella to be travelling with Kroga against her will, and when he questioned Kroga more deeply about his reason for being in Pajoon, he became violent and he insulted the Sultan and his kingdom. The two were forcibly exiled from Pajoon and were rumored to have traveled to the Illstock Isles and were never seen again in Teshvar.

Our appropriate reverence of the Sultan, his kingdom, and his subjects did not go unappreciated. We eventually received word that the Sultan would provide us a guide to bring us to the southern port of Pajoon and a ship and crew to give us passage to the Illstock Isles.

I cannot give adequate description of the plants and creatures we encountered in Pajoon and later as we sailed through the dense Illstock Isles. The Isles were forested, but not with trees the likes of which I had ever seen. I was in wonder as I reached my mind out toward the Isles to take in the plants with gigantic leaves and colorful flowers. Gaelabeth frequently found me seated on the bow of the ship, deep in meditation. She smiled and commented on how much I had developed my intuition during our quest. Her accolades filled me with pride. Sometimes Tazatar would join me on the bow of the ship so that we could experience and learn this new landscape together. We had formed a bond so like my treasured bond with Gaelabeth, yet different and deeper in very personal ways.

Tazatar and I sensed the sparse populations of Humans scattered among the islands, and we eventually directed the crew to sail south to a large island where we had sensed a combination of Human and unnatural energies. B’Az Aptar confirmed that he could again feel a strong Undead presence as we moved farther south.

Our crew knew the island we were approaching as Blayside. There were many villages across the island, but Telden’s Landing, they said, was the most populous and civilized township of all the Illstock Isles, and its famous Blayside Citadel stood on the eastern coast. As we neared the shore, however, we could see smoke rising from all parts of the island and fear started to grow among the crew. I could feel the change in them from smug confidence to alarm and suspicion, and I was afraid they would desert us on the island as soon as we landed.

The site was horrific. The Citadel was in ruins save for one central tower, and the neighboring village was burned to the ground and still smoking in places as if it had been burned again just to be sure it would not be rebuilt anytime soon. The charred remains of people and animals could be seen littering the roads and the gutted buildings. Our crew moored the ship and reluctantly stayed and waited for us -- Lady Alwyn’s promise to stay with them to help in case of attack was the only thing keeping them there. As we approached the Citadel I reached out toward the structure and then stopped in my tracks. I glanced up and saw that Tazatar and B’Az Aptar had also stopped moving, and B’Az Aptar called for the rest of the party to halt. We felt immense, unnatural, evil essences within those Citadel walls, but Tazatar and I had also felt the presence of two weak Human spirits.

We retreated and set up camp on the far side of the ruined village so we could conference and prepare. Borakash practiced singing his Hymns of Focus, Defiance, and Anger into Gaelabeth’s Circle of Purity. Gaelabeth also practiced her Psychic Assault magic and she asked me to join her. She said that she was certain that with my growing intuitive powers, this kind of magical defense would be good to know. I had no problem feeling the life essences around me but taking any sort of action to either heal or harm them seemed like a big step that was somewhat out of reach. She encouraged me to keep practicing. B’Az Aptar and Tazatar developed a magic that they thought would drain the Undead life spark out of a creature at a touch. Feraldan, Pardah, Grath, and I went over flanking plans to corner enemies and protect the others. We did not know what we would be facing, but we felt rested and as prepared as we ever would be. We approached the Citadel.

At the gates of the only remaining building, we were taken by surprise by sentries made of animated stone as they stepped away from the walls and attacked. Sir Rugnar took a blow from a stone arm to his helmet and was knocked to the ground. He quickly got to his feet, but I sensed that he was not clear of mind any more, and I was worried. Our weapons were little use against the stone skins of these creatures, but Gorlok was quick thinking and he animated stone and earth of his own and set them to flank the creatures while Tazatar and Gaelabeth worked their way in and out of the melee shocking and paralyzing the creatures. Some were frozen where they stood like stone statues and others were reduced to rubble with the combination of magic and the sheer force of the blows landed by Sir Rugnar and Borakash.

With the Stone Guardians behind us, we moved into the interior of the Citadel. As the gates were pushed open, we heard a sound that made our hair stand on end. A wave of cold swept over us – we felt chilled to the bone, and deep despair hung like a cloud over our minds and spirits. It was a roar like we had never heard before -- a wretched, rattling, wheezing sound that permeated our souls and made us feel weak and useless – hopeless. I could feel that most of us were about to retreat.

“NO!” I shouted. “We will not be affected this way!”

Borakash and Gaelabeth stepped up to my side and we joined hands. Borakash chanted his Hymn of Defiance, I added my incantation against afflictions to his song, and Gaelabeth intoned her Circle of Purity. The chamber shimmered with magic, and the fog lifted. I could still feel the fear of our party, but the hopelessness no longer weighed us down nor encouraged our retreat.

Clearer of mind, we moved forward, and as we rounded the stone walls toward the courtyard of the Citadel, we saw the creature making the horrible sounds, and its wretched head swiveled around and fixed its blackened gaze upon us. It was black, scaly, and huge. Unmistakably a Dragon, but with withered scales and dead, cold, black eyes that made it look all the more menacing.

We were clear of mind, and we knew what we had to do. The four archers dispersed and laid down a fire of arrows to distract the beast from our spell-casters and warriors. The Dragon raised its ugly head and let out a whining, wheezing roar that pierced our ears and chilled our spirits. Feraldan shouted, “Fire!” but I saw Pardah falter and sink to his knees. Feraldan, Grath, and I closed the gap and fired, and the Dragon swung its head directly toward Grath. Gorlok moved to the back of the chamber and chanted his Incantation of War that he had been working on for days, and we all felt a surge of unnatural strength and resilience. I felt that my arrows could pierce the stones! Sir Rugnar and Borakash rushed forward and laid blows on the Dragon’s flank! It wailed and swung its mighty tail around to knock Feraldan and me off our feet, but we did not feel hurt. Gaelabeth turned and locked eyes with Tazatar. Her eyes glowed red with an Essence of Fury, and Tazatar seemed to grow and shiver in her gaze. The Dragon lashed out with a taloned claw toward the warriors. Borakash and Oloman darted out of the way, but the enormous scaly foot struck Sir Rugnar in the chest, and his face contorted with pain as he hit the ground. Gorlok and Gaelabeth then turned toward the Dragon and together incanted a Flame Chant which conjured jets of fire streaming toward the Dragon’s backside. Tazatar, with an utterly wild look on his face, rushed toward the Dragon who had swung around to roar at its fiery attackers. He raised his hand toward the Dragon, and I could see it sparkling with lightning. He thrust his hand onto the Dragon’s scaly neck, and the lightning spread through its body as it rasped with a deafening, soul-crushing roar. Oloman and Borakash ran forward. Oloman was knocked aside by the Dragon’s thrashing head, and an enormous fang grazed his face. Borakash sunk a spear deep into the Dragon’s neck, Feraldan and I sunk arrows into its flanks, Grath used Flaming Oil towards the beast’s head, and B’Az Aptar raised both hands toward the Dragon and as he incanted his Soul Draining magic. The Dragon wheezed, slowed, and fell to the ground with a stone-cracking crash that knocked most of us to the floor.

I think we laid there for several minutes before anyone spoke or moved. As the magics faded, all I could feel was fatigue, and as I reached out to the rest of us, I knew that we were all exhausted and some of us were hurt. Oloman’s face was bleeding, and I feared that the wound was also poisoned as he was uneasy on his feet and looked very pale. Sir Rugnar was unconscious and barely breathing. Pardah was curled up on the ground, shivering. He was not touched by any attack, but I felt that his mind was a long way away. I approached Oloman and used my enchantment to remove afflictions on the wound on his face. His color immediately returned, his posture straightened, and I could feel his energy returning and his gratitude, even though he did not say anything. Gaelabeth and Gorlok were bending over Sir Rugnar, removing his helmet and chanting softly as they moved their hands over his still body. B’Az Aptar was sitting with Pardah, a hand on his shoulder and his eyes closed.

Tazatar and I found each-other and I could tell that we had had exactly the same thought at the same time. We were remembering that we had not only felt the presence of the Undead, but weak Human spirits in this place.  Feraldan and Tazatar went to explore what remained of the Citadel.

After only a few minutes, Feraldan came running back into the courtyard shouting, “It’s Her Majesty! Empress Vella has been found!”

## The Wayward Brother

When we returned to the ship, we found that a Stone Guardian had attacked there as well, but that Lady Alwyn had very effectively slowed it down with her vocal magic which she was calling a Shriek of Terror, and that she and the crew together had pounded it to rubble. Pardah had slowly come back to himself, but Sir Rugnar was still in very poor shape, and he was laid down in his chamber on the ship where Gorlok continued to look after him. Empress Vella and the Lord of Telden’s Landing were both held captive in the Citadel by the Stone Guardians and the Undead Dragon.

Empress Trinth told us that she had received what she thought was a message from the Sultan of Pajoon. A single emissary had crossed the treacherous Southwestern Pass and made his way to Helinika Castle to deliver a message from the Sultan to Her Majesty the Empress. The clerics of the Castle questioned the emissary and informed the Empress that he was genuine. The Empress told us that she now suspects that the emissary was a Urlani citizen under a very well performed mind control enchantment. Her envoy of ships was attacked in the rough seas of the Southwestern Pass and they were boarded by a hoard of Undead creatures led by her wayward brother, Kroga. The Empress’s crew was slaughtered, and the Empress was taken to Teshvar. She believed that Kroga had had accomplices in Pajoon who were supposed to be sowing seeds of discord in Pajoon, but that they had already been apprehended by the Sultan and his Seers. She told us that Kroga was surprised that the Sultan did not consent to hold the Empress in Teshvar, and then had become angry. They were ejected from the city and escorted back to their vessel on the southern shore of the Pajoon desert.

“Kroga was a talented mage,” the Empress told us, “but had always preferred to experiment in darker arts than were allowed at the Academy Tower. We had not known where he had gone after leaving the Academy, and now at our unfortunate reunion, he was not the brother I had known. He was transformed. Physically he looked much like my brother, but there was a change in his face and in his manner that were not familiar.”

She told us of how his power over the Undead was uncannily absolute and how she had gathered that he had been putting plans into place for years designed not only towards the fall of the Helinikan Empire, but for much more nefarious ends. Empress Trinth told us that she had overheard Kroga and his Undead Lords discussing the ancient and powerful Trinexus which, before the wars, had linked the Eastern Wildernesse with the Westerlandes by magic, and that she feared that he had been using it to populate his Undead armies across the entire world.

“When Kroga discovered that I had overheard his discussion of the Trinexus, he became violent. He beat me unconscious with his hands and with his magic, and when I had awoken, I was in the prison at Blayside Citadel along with the Lord of Telden’s Landing and the Undead Dragon was guarding over us.”

Sir Rugnar slowly recovered from his injuries as we sailed back northward. I could feel the misgivings of my sisters and brothers of the Company. We felt our quest was rightfully at an end with the rescue of the Empress, but that the present danger to the Empire had not yet been eliminated. As we neared the southern shore of Pajoon, the Empress made our decision for us. She told us that her family and the Empire would always be in the debt of the Helinikan Company but that she needed to employ us to continue our quest by finding Kroga and preventing him from using the Trinexus to reconnect the corners of the world and populate it with the Undead. She laid out a plan.

We would return to Teshvar and beg the Sultan’s assistance. Empress Trinth would return to the Empire escorted by the Sultan’s guards. Now with the Western Passage reopened and the Undead Lords across the Empire defeated by our Company, the long journey back to Helinika Castle would be much less risky. Our Company was to sail with the Sultan’s armada to Shuunia where the legendary Trinexus was supposedly invented and used centuries ago by the ancient mages. We were to learn if it still existed and to find it – and Kroga – and defeat him for the greater good of both the Empire and the Westerlandes which had been ravaged by his foul magic and Undead armies.

I had misgivings about approaching the Sultan again, but Empress Trinth, with an appropriately diplomatic supplication, quickly convinced him that her plan would bring peace, prosperity, and great recognition for Pajoon, Teshvar, and his own Sultanship. The Empress was given a ceremonial escort of 3 dozen guards, bards, animal handlers with 2 Oliphants, banners and standards of Teshvar and Pajoon, and the Sultan’s own Seer to accompany Her Majesty with much ceremony back to the Western Passage. From that point, 20 of the guards would continue to escort Empress Trinth all the way to Helinika Castle.

Our company would sail to Shuunia in an armada of 5 ships manned with seamen, historians, and military personnel. Their mission would be to learn about the history of the Shuunian people and the Trinexus and ultimately to aid the Helinikan Company in finding Kroga Trinth and putting an end to his allegiance with the Undead.

For 5 days we prepared. The celebration of friendship between Pajoon and the Helinika Empire was colorful, noisy, and full of electric anticipation. I could feel the excitement of the people of Teshvar all around me as the Sultan spoke of friendship and prosperity from a balcony of the Palace. I stood next to Tazatar as we watched the Empress depart from the city with her extravagant escort. I touched his hand, and I could feel Tazatar’s happiness at the safety of the Empress, hope at the new relation with the Sultan and the Westerlandes, and deep foreboding at what we might find in Shuunia and beyond. He gripped my hand. I reached into his feelings and laid my own emotions open to him so that he knew that I felt the same as he did. But I also showed him that I had an optimism at the growth our Company had experienced over the last year, at all we had learned together, and at the power we had unleashed by combining our skills to succeed in our quest and defeat our enemies. The image of the Undead Dragon filled my mind, and I could feel Tazatar take my optimism as his own as he looked into my face, and we silently stared into each-other’s eyes as Vella Trinth’s procession snaked out of sight across the sand.

~~~

The Company sailed with our armada south and east toward the ancient land of Shuunia. On the journey, we relayed the events of the past year to the Sultan’s warriors. Sir Rugnar, Lady Alwyn, and I frequently attended their training exercises. We were joined by the Captain of the Guard, the mages, and Feraldan as we developed and practiced battle plans and discussed what combination of might and magic would be likely to overcome the mutant dark forces and Undead threats we were likely to face.

We landed on the shore of the Shuunian lands and we were greeted as friends by a half dozen of the darkest-skinned humans any of us had ever seen. The Shuunian people were far darker than the Urlani, and I could feel Tazatar’s curiosity and delight as our party disembarked and approached the gates of the city. I could feel that he was wondering if these people were among the ancestors of his own Urlani, and I smiled at his wonder. An exceptionally beautiful woman with obsidian flesh and deep, sparkling eyes approached us. She was tall and fine-boned wearing a robe of forest green and a chain of gold around her long, smooth neck. Her manner was calm as she welcomed us to Shuunia. I reached out toward her and her companions, and I felt mostly calm curiosity along with some excitement at having foreign visitors after a long time of solitude.

Along the sandy beach we could see tall, thin trees with leaves that looked like ferns bearing large fruits with the color and texture of carved wooden spheres. There was a village with no walls a short way off the shoreline – family dwellings made of mud and clay bricks, market stalls shaded by dried leaves and reeds, and a simple temple with beautiful carvings on its walls standing by a small lake. The elders of the village welcomed us and we told them of our quest.

With the mention of the Trinexus, I could feel a wave of misgiving and fear spread among our hosts like ripples of a stone cast into water. The village elders would speak of it no more but accompanied us to the chief township of the Shuunian Kingdom just 20 miles to the northeast.

The elders called a confluence. At the next dawn, our Company sat in a meeting hall with the Captain of the Sultan’s Guard while the crew of the armada spent time researching the Shuunians, their geography, and their legends.  The elders entered – 12 people, all as black as midnight, and sat at two long tables on either side of the hall, our company seated at smaller tables in the center. Our quest was described, discussed, and debated in great detail. We learned that the elders were aware of the existence of the Trinexus, but that most believed it had been destroyed in the wars of a century ago. The swamplands to the north of the Kingdom had long been inhabited by dangerous beasts, but the Shuunian clerics had been reporting to the elders that Undead things and large, unknown creatures had been sighted in the areas around the swamps in recent months. As the sun was setting on Shuunia, the gathering dusk blurred the outlines of the elders, blending their rich mahogany complexions into the shadows being cast on the meeting room walls. The elders recalled that some of the legends about the Trinexus told of it being used by the clerics of Ubon Castle in the far north of Shuunia. Ubon Castle had become Ubon Fortress in the time of war, was mostly destroyed, and had been abandoned in the times of peace thereafter. The lands between the villages of Shuunia and Ubon Fortress became disused and when the tides changed they had flooded, and a swampland was left in its place. The elders concluded that if the Trinexus still existed, the evidence pointed to it being in Ubon Fortress or the swamplands around it. They ruled that we were to be given passage and escort out of the villages to the north, but that no Shuunian citizen would be allowed to enter the swamps, so from that point on we would be on our own.

Our company was grateful for our time in Shuunia, as the people there lived simply and were both friendly and curious about our ways. The Sultan’s Guard entertained people in the village with tales of the vast, walled city of Teshvar and with displays of their sword and spear work. Tazatar put together a show of magical fireworks that both delighted and alarmed many people in the village. I shot arrows with many of the villagers, some of whom were accomplished archers themselves, and my light skin and red hair were a continuous source of amusement to the Shuunian children. They lived their lives close to the land and with the changing of the seasons, and that made my heart happy. I frequently spotted Gaelabeth in conversation with citizens and market vendors when she was not busy with preparations for our journey, and I could feel her happiness as well, mingled with her feelings of worry and firm determination for our quest. How I admire her will, her spirit, and her resolve!

When we reached the swamplands in the north, we all expressed our gratitude for the hospitality and kindness of the people of Shuunia, and our escort started back southwards.

Progress through the swamps was slow, dreary, and wearisome. The swamplands were narrow, meandering strips of land interconnected like a spider’s web and surrounded by muddy pools the surfaces of which had grown green with the scum of weeds. Limp grasses and reeds loomed up at the edges of the rotten pools and a foul-smelling mist hung in the air which made the shadows look ominous and threatening. Bats fluttered here and there through the vapor and fed on the many insects that made their nests in the reeds and on the algae-covered surfaces of the foul pools. Camps were difficult to make on the sparse solid ground, and guards who were caught unaware of their footing and slipped into the pools took ill quickly and required healing and rest.

Gaelabeth suggested that Tazatar and I meditate on our surroundings and see if we could learn the direction of Ubon Fortress and whether there was any sign of inhabitants there. That evening, Tazatar and I made our way to the most solid peninsula of land we could find on the outskirts of our encampment. We sat facing each-other and joined hands. I reached out and drank in his dark eyes as I felt his essence combining with mine and our being experienced joy at its joining. Our life force spread out across the dank swampland and took in the drudgery being felt by the Sultan’s guard. Our soul probed northward and felt apprehension. There were creatures here, but they were not animal and they were not undead – nothing in our mingled experience could identify the life forces we were feeling in the swamplands barely a mile north of our encampment, and our spirit was afraid. We moved farther north and west and we found the sea and the presence of the strange life forms diminished greatly. We were reluctant to move back eastward into the swamps again, but our spirit braced itself and spread eastward to discover what lay ahead of us. The strange life essences dotted the swamplands and became stronger and more numerous to the northeast. On the eastern edge of the swamps nestled up against the mountains we found a strong congregation of Undead and even more of the unknown forms, and we were certain that would be Ubon Fortress, but fear engulfed us.

We were slow to disentangle our soul. Our being was at once trying to make sense of the forces we had glimpsed and to hold on to the feeling of being melted together for just a moment longer. After a few minutes, or maybe an hour, I could feel Tazatar’s hands in mine. We reached out towards each-other and sensed that we were both feeling the same happiness from the melt and fear for the future of our quest and our Company.

In the morning, we set off north and east. Tazatar and I continued to reach out across the swamps so that we could avoid confrontations with the strange life forces we had felt. We ran into Undead things and creatures made of magically animated swamp plants intent on blocking our path, but our warriors were efficient and had trained together well. On the third day of our trudge through the mists and foul vapors, we started to be able to see the mountains rising in the distance through the haze off to the east. That day, during our morning meditation, Tazatar and I felt the presence of one of the unknown life forms very close to our party. We pulled ourselves out of our trance and alerted the Captain of the Guard and Sir Rugnar at once!

We peered through the mists in the direction we had felt the life form, and we waited. I could feel the creature moving slowly closer, and I knew beyond doubt that it also knew we were here. I glanced at Tazatar who nodded that he knew as well, and he whispered to Gorlok.

Just then, a tongue of fire split the vapors and struck one of the Sultan’s guards in the chest. With a quiet yelp, he fell to the ground and slid into one of the swamp pools. The others around him ran to the pool’s edge and started to climb downwards toward their fellow when another jet of fire streaked through the mist and struck another guard in the back. She collapsed onto the solid ground and did not move.

Gorlok shouted, “Nobody move!” His voice sounded magically amplified and echoed all throughout our encampment. He thrust his staff into the ground and jets of frost spread out from where it had cracked the land. Icy waves filled the air and we could feel blasts of intense cold moving outward in a wide circle around our camp with Gorlok at the center. The pools nearest us started to freeze over, the body of the guard grotesquely suspended in the muddy, half-frozen waters. Gorlok turned to Tazatar, his eyes aflame with magic and rasped, “Now!”

Tazatar placed his hands below Gorlok’s on the staff feeding icy magic into the ground, and again I could see the crackle of lightning dancing around his dark fingers. Shocks of energy surged through the icy tendrils in the land and the air crackled with electricity. I reached out all around us, feeling for the locations of our own people and for the presence of that alien form. For a few seconds, the air was thick with frost and lightning energies. I could feel the tense, anxious energies of our own forces, and then suddenly, I sensed the pain of the unknown creature. I pointed toward the southeast and shouted, “There!”

Our four warriors, Gaelabeth, Feraldan, Grath, and I along with a group of 5 of the Sultan’s guards moved in that direction. We saw a creature through the mist, standing at the opposite edge of a pool. It stood on two legs, the height of a shorter a human, but had a wide, stocky body. Its head was oddly rectangular and bulbous with skin the color of dark, purple grapes, and it had two stub horns protruding from bulges on either side of that wide, thick head. It wore a cloak of creamy white and held a wooden staff in its thick, stubby hand. It stared at us over the muddy water with opaque black eyes, flecked with streaks of gold. I could feel that it was in pain, having been struck by the electric frost of our mages.

And then it spoke, in a croaky, heavily accented voice, “The Dragoons serve Kroga now. And you are the enemy.”

I felt its energy shift from pain and shock to aggressive determination and I shouted to our small group to take cover. It quickly raised its staff and another tongue of fire lapped across the pool. Lady Alwyn raised a shield and deflected the jet into the side of the pool where it hissed and bubbled. Sir Rugnar, Oloman, and the guards moved off in opposite directions around the pool as Feraldan, Grath, and I raised bows and arrows. Gaelabeth straightened her arms toward the ground in front of her, and then the grasses and reeds on the other side of the pool started to shake and move. Their roots slithered out of the cracked ground and began to wind themselves around the feet and legs of the creature before us. She then held her arms upward, and a half dozen bats in the air around us responded to her and dived at the creature’s head. We fired our bows! The Dragoon parried, knocking Feraldan’s arrow into the pool, but Grath’s struck its shoulder and mine struck its leg. More jets of fire spilled from the staff, and one of the bats at the creature’s face fell to the ground aflame. The being pointed its staff directly across the water, and shot fire at Gaelabeth, her arms outstretched towards the sky. She moved, but not in time, as the flame glanced off her shoulder and sent a shower of fiery sparks behind her. She collapsed to her knees, but the distraction had been enough. The warriors had reached the Dragoon creature and engaged with swords and spears. I saw a guard take a blow to his head from the thing’s staff, and his helmet glowed as if it had been thrust into a forge’s fire. The man howled and tried to grip at the helmet, but it burned his hands, and he fell to the ground, screaming. The creature was already wounded by magic and arrows, though, and it was dramatically outnumbered. The warriors cut it down, and it fell with a heavy thump onto the land beside the pool.

I rushed toward Gaelabeth, who was breathing heavily on the ground. Her robes were burned away at the shoulder, and her flesh was singed, but she was not injured too badly. I retrieved some arnica herb from my satchel, laid it on her shoulder, and whispered healing incantations into her skin. Oloman and the guards approached the fallen guard who was moaning and screaming on the ground. They removed his helmet with difficulty, and we saw that his hair and skin were burned away in several places, his face blackened and bleeding. He was carried back to the encampment where Gorlok and I tended to his burns.

Gorlok told us that he had heard tales of Dragoons, but they were mostly considered the stuff of legend and active imaginations. The stories told of a race of beings who were very intelligent, capable of magic, willing to join forces with creatures they deemed their equals but only when it was beneficial to them, and ruthlessly aggressive toward any they considered inferior or who got in their way of attaining their goals. With so little known about the Dragoons, if they were in Kroga’s pocket we were in a lot more danger than we had even imagined.

I reached out through the mist, and I felt Tazatar do the same. I could now recognize the feeling of the Dragoon’s life force, and we could sense just a few more moving slowly around the swamplands, and a larger number of them clustered together with Undead forms closer to the mountain. Doing our best to avoid the Dragoons in the swamps, we trekked on toward the Fortress. On the second day, as light began to fade and darkness engulfed the vapors, we could make out the outline of a tall stone castle nestled into a valley between two outcroppings in the foothills of the mountains.

The climb up to Ubon Fortress was dreary and ominous. I could feel the trepidation of our party and was somewhat relieved that they could not feel what I could – the presence of about a dozen Dragoons within the fortress along with very strong Undead forms. The Fortress was an ancient structure made from stone, a formidable structure, looming and oppressive in the mist. The enormous gates of the Fortress swung open with a creak when the Captain of the Guard pushed on them. The corridors of the place were empty, and a pervasive chill hung in the air. Gaelabeth gathered us all into the large chamber just inside the gates and cast her Circle of Purity. I could feel the spirits of the Company and the Guard lift a little as the magic engulfed us all.

Tazatar pointed to a door to our left and looked at me. I nodded and grimaced. Beyond the door was a long hallway, at the end of which we could see a red glow through an open door. As we moved down the hall, we could hear a low, menacing chanting, and a wave of despair crashed into our Circle of Purity. I could feel the emotions of our party battling with themselves, desperately trying not to give in to the overwhelming negativity coming from the open door.

As we crept toward the door, I looked at Tazatar. I knew that he could feel the same as I was feeling, and he was just as surprised and disturbed by it. There were Dragoons and at least one Undead creature in that chamber. There was no indication that they knew we were here at all, and there was a sense of ambition and accomplishment, as if they had been waiting for this ritual for a long time.

Pardah, Feraldan, Borakash, and I approached the door with B’Az Aptar just behind us. The circular chamber was glowing with hundreds of candles. There were intricate symbols carved into the floor which were glowing red and pulsating with the chanted words being sung towards its center. Around the enormous glyph was a circle of creatures -- about a dozen Dragoons, but also a few Skeletons, one of which wore blood red robes and carried a staff with a crystal mounted at its tip, also glowing red. On the wall behind the robed skeletal mage were two large wooden doors between which was mounted a cage made of iron bars. Chained into the cage was a body with a crown upon its head. It looked like a corpse, long dead and buried, except that it writhed and struggled against its entrapments. It was wearing robes of intricate and colorful silks around its emaciated body and its wrists and ankles were bound with chains to the bars of the cage hanging there on the wall. It looked like it was in terrible pain.

B’Az Aptar whispered to us, “This is a Lich. We will need to go after the crystal on that staff. Then do not engage with him – leave him to me.”

Borakash turned to me and started to whisper, but I could feel what he wanted to do, and I nodded quickly. He very quietly sang a Hymn of Focus directly into my ear. I slowly exhaled and allowed his Hymn to fill my being. I felt alert and steady, as if time had been slowed and all the nerves of my body were hyper-aware of every sensation. I raised my bow as I saw the crystal on the top of that staff pulsate with energy.

I shot. The crystal shattered! There was an ear-piercing scream, and then all hell broke loose.

The red glow faded, and all eyes turned toward us as the Company rushed into the chamber followed by the Sultan’s Guard. B’Az Aptar skirted around the edge of the chamber and ran straight toward the Lich, and the melee ensued. We rained arrows down into the broken circle. The Dragoons raised their staffs, and jets of fire sprayed toward us. The Guard raised their shields and deflected much of the fire storm. The warriors engaged the Dragoons and the Skeletons. The mages cast powerful spells into the fray. I could see the electrical energy of Tazatar’s magic, Gaelabeth’s protective charms engulfing our party, and Gorlok fighting fire with fire as he threw enormous balls of flame toward our attackers. Grath sent flaming oil into the air, and the entire room was dancing with fire, smoke, and shadows as the odor of burning cloth and flesh permeated the air.

The Dragoons were caught unaware. We outnumbered them, and many of them fell quickly. A few of the Sultan’s Guards were hit by Dragoon flame and fell to the stone floor. The Sultan’s Guard very swiftly cut down the Skeletons, as the Company engaged with the remaining few Dragoons. Borakash, Lady Alwyn, and I were locked in battle with two of them. Borakash turned toward Lady Alwyn and sung a Hymn of Anger. Her eyes widened and she moved her Dwarven war hammer with incredible speed and accuracy between the two foes. She dodged a double jet of flame, then slammed her hammer into the staff of one of the Dragoons. It snapped in two with a loud crack, and her hammer rebounded off and connected with the shoulder of the other Dragoon. It staggered sideways and Borakash stepped forward and ran it through with his spear. The disarmed Dragoon recovered quickly and ran towards me, arms outstretched. I raised my bow just in time and sunk an arrow into the chest of my attacker. It continued forward and lashed a heavy, purple hand toward my throat, my arrow protruding from its heaving torso. The talons on the end of those thick fingers grazed my neck as its other hand closed around my shoulder with crushingly brutal force. I pulled a dagger from my belt and sunk it deep into the flesh of the Dragoon’s own neck, and I felt the grip on my shoulder weaken a bit. It turned toward me and stared into my eyes, a look of intense anger and rage on its bloody face. I froze with fear as its eyes connected with mine, and then Lady Alwyn’s hammer came down on its bulbous head, and it fell to the floor. The feeling of terror lifted immediately. Borakash and Lady Alwyn smiled at each-other, and I looked around to survey the rest of the battle. Feraldan and members of the Guard were finishing off one of the Skeletons while Gorlok, Tazatar, and Sir Rugnar battled the last of the Dragoons. B’Az Aptar and the Lich were locked in a magical duel that was sending sparks and flame dancing around the chamber. B’Az Aptar was bleeding from his shoulder and his robes were burnt and torn in several places. I saw the Lich reach toward him with a bony hand engulfed in a green glow and make contact with his shoulder. B’Az Aptar reached both hands forward and grabbed the Lich around the torso, and the body of the Lich started to glow white. It would have looked like some kind of grotesque performance dance were it not for the intense despair and sensation of draining life force coming from the pair. The Lich hissed and screeched, and the rest of us were mesmerized by the sound and the energy coming from the magical battle. B’Az Aptar lurched and threw the glowing green hand off his shoulder, his hands still clenched around the creature’s middle. He made a groaning sound which grew into a roar as he brought his head up so that his eyes met the Lich’s empty, vacant skeletal face. We saw Spectres take form in the shadows above us, and streak into the Lich’s body. The white glow around B’Az Aptar’s hands became so bright that it was difficult to see the movement, but the Lich’s body went limp, and B’Az Aptar picked up the skeletal frame of the creature and threw it with a mighty force into the door at the back of the chamber. The bones of the creature broke apart, and B’Az Aptar collapsed to the floor.

I looked at Gaelabeth whose gaze was moving back and forth between B’Az Aptar and the skeletal creature locked in the cage above where B’Az Aptar sat. The thing’s painful movements had stopped, and its skeletal frame hung limp against its bonds. She warily moved forward toward the two figures. She kneeled and took B’Az Aptar’s hand. He looked up at her, a weak smile on his face, which she returned.

Tazatar and I were reaching out toward the figure in the cage, and its presence was not menacing. It was full of fear, but also relief, and we slowly approached it. It looked up at us which made most of the rest of the party jump backwards in alarm.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The figure took a long, rattling breath, and spoke with great difficulty. “I am…or I was…Lotho…Lord of Ubon Castle.”

“He speaks the truth,” Tazatar said, and more of us approached Lord Lotho so that we could hear his soft, trembling voice.

“Kroga and…and the Lich called me back…back from my tomb. They…they tortured me…tortured what’s left of my body…and they attacked my mind. They made me tell them how to reactivate…reactivate…” Lord Lotho’s head hung limp on its rotting, skeletal frame, as it drew breath in wheezing, rattling gasps. He looked up with resolve, and continued in a stronger, more determined voice.

“They forced me to give them the knowledge of how to reactivate the Trinexus. The Trinexus! The magic device that connected the world but failed to connect men to other men. Such wars we fought, such foolish conquerors were we! But Kroga! Kroga reconnected the Westerlandes to the Wildernesse and he sent Undead creatures out into the world, but I fear that his goals are far more nefarious. He is a powerful mage, and I saw him create mutant creatures and send them into the Trinexus. His magics combined and merged good and living things with the Undead and created mutant monsters supplicated to his power.”

He coughed and gasped for breath, and I could feel fear welling up inside his frail form. He looked up and gazed at us from between the bars.

“He tortured me. I could not control it. He forced me to tell him everything I knew and everything I guessed about the Trinexus. He used…” his words trailed off and I felt him steel himself and gather his courage.

“He used his magic to alter the Trinexus. We…we were the Lords of the Westerlandes. Our mages had always thought that the Trinexus could not only be used to connect distant parts of this world, but also to connect this world with others. Kroga spoke of the Forbidden World. The Forbidden World of legend!”

“He said it was real!” he shouted, and then whimpered, “and I think he was right. He and the Lich altered the Trinexus…and they called the Dragoons here. They called the Dragoons here. The Lich trained them in its awful magic, and Kroga disappeared. He disappeared. I hung here in this cage, and I could only watch as the Lich imbued the creatures with magic. You are powerful, though. You are powerful. You are powerful, but I am not so certain that it is not too late. I fear Kroga is in the Forbidden World preparing to unleash armies of Dragoons and Heliopaths into our world. He is evil…and he is strong…”

I felt something snap inside the lifeforce of the poor reanimated man.

His head snapped upright again, and there was a new fervor in his voice. “You must go! Before the Lich reforms! Through this door to the Trinexus – use it to enter the Forbidden World and find Kroga. Find him! And then I will rest in peace again.”

## The Forbidden World

The Captain of the Guard and several of his lieutenants attended the bodies of the two warriors who had fallen in the battle. Gaelabeth and I tended to the wounded. B’Az Aptar busied himself with pulverizing and scattering the remains of the Lich to slow its eventual return. Sir Rugnar and Gorlok freed Lord Lotho from his cage and carried him to a bedchamber on the upper level of the Fortress. Lord Lotho believed that if Kroga were defeated, the magic binding him to the mortal world would be broken, and he wished to rejoin the spirit world in comfort and upon his own bed. They soon rejoined us, reporting that the Lord had given them much information about how to activate the Trinexus and was resting as comfortably as he could, and we approached the door at the far end of the chamber. Beyond it was a short hallway where paintings of ancient battles hung on the walls. At the far end was another door flanked by ornamental suits of armor. Above the door there hung a tapestry, faded and tattered with age, but clearly showing a representation of the Helinikan Empire and the Westerlandes depicted together in a circle of golden light. Gorlok asked Tazatar whether he could sense any further life beyond the door at the end of the chamber. Tazatar looked at me, and I shook my head. Neither of us could feel any further sensations of life within the Fortress. Gorlok opened the door.

The passage opened onto a room that looked like an amphitheater. Stone stairs, arranged like benches, descended onto a central area at the middle of which stood an enormous dais decorated with ornate carvings of trees and vines. On top of the raised stage, there was a circle of carved stone, wide and tall enough for two men to walk through and decorated with elaborate carvings. It looked like words from a long-forgotten language and was adorned with symbols representing women, men, land, oceans, stars, plants, and animals. Next to the stone ring there was a raised plinth on the top of which was a flat circle of stone carved with a glyph identical to the one on the floor of the room where the Lich was conducting its ritual. We slowly descended into the room and circled around the dais. To our right, stairs ascended so that the stone ring and platform could be reached.

The mages ascended together and examined the circular stone structure and the carving on the platform. The rest of us rested on the stone benches surrounding the dais – we were exhausted, and many of our injured still required care. My supply of healing herbs was running low, and I could feel the fear and misgivings our people were feeling about what now had to be done. The mages worked in shifts, trying to decipher the magic of the Trinexus, while many of us slept. I fell asleep where I was preparing herbs and applying them to the wounds of two of the Sultan’s Guards. Tazatar came and rested next to me at one point, and I awoke and reached out to him. He reached back to me and I understood that the mages were deciphering the magic of the Trinexus and that Gorlok thought that he nearly understood how to activate it. I could feel his misgivings that even if we succeeded in activating the Trinexus, it might be difficult to control its destination. We were both exhausted, and when he put his hand in mine we immediately fell asleep resting against the hard stone benches behind us.

When we awoke, Gorlok was on the dais, his hands cupped around a glowing blue-white orb that was hovering above the glyph circle, and he was chanting. Borakash and Lady Alwyn had removed most of their armor and were huddled together on one of the stone benches on the other side of the chamber from where I was lying with Tazatar. B’Az Aptar was sleeping against the side of the dais and Gaelabeth was in conversation with Sir Rugnar. I watched as Gaelabeth ascended the stairs of the dais and whispered to Gorlok. Gorlok nodded and focused on the orb hovering within his hands.

Suddenly, the entire chamber was alight with blue-white energy. The orb sparked and crackled as an arch of energy surged between the orb hovering over the stone disk and the enormous stone circle. The ring glowed gently then emanated a wave of light and energy. The room felt suddenly warm, and anyone who was sleeping or resting was instantly on their feet. An arcing tendril of magic connected the hovering orb with the stone ring, and it grew in luminescence. As all eyes turned toward the dais, the center of the ring erupted with an energy that distorted the air around it. It was as if silver-colored turbulent waters filled it and flowed within the stone circle. It flowed vertically, but nothing spilled out; it remained upright inside the stone ring, bubbling and undulating with the waves of energy filling the room.

Gorlok turned to Sir Rugnar and said, “I believe I have connected Ubon Fortress with Helinika Castle. We need to test that I have done this correctly before we connect with the Forbidden World. Lord Lotho has given us an incantation a mage can use at the point of arrival to return back to this place.”

Tazatar squeezed my hand and started to rise.

“No!” I shouted to him in horror, for I was connected to his mind, and I knew what he was about to do.

He looked into my eyes, and in an instant, we absorbed each-other’s fear and determination. I understood his plan, and I knew that he was right. Likewise, he understood my misgivings, and I understood his, and we both knew that that bonded us even closer together.

“I will travel through the Trinexus to Helinika Castle,” he said. “Sylvana will know if I have arrived in the correct place. I will seek an audience with the Empress, and then I shall return.”

Gorlok and Tazatar practiced the incantation given to them by Lord Lotho until Tazatar understood it. Then he took a bracing breath and approached the Trinexus. I could not suppress the fear in my heart as I reached out to him. He felt my touch and he reached back. We reassured each-other that our bond would be strong as long as both of us were in the same world, and he stepped into the undulating silver light. It engulfed him, and it shone more brightly for a moment. Then he was gone.

I gasped!

I had not realized how accustomed I had become to being connected to Tazatar at just about all times. We nearly always had some tendril of mind and emotion twined together, but at the moment he stepped through that portal, I felt our connection slither apart, like wet hands slipping through each-other’s grasp. I felt suddenly cold and alone.

I am sure my face looked horror-struck as I glanced around wildly and saw all eyes turned in my direction. Gaelabeth walked toward me and put a gentle hand on my arm, but I shook her off.

“Wait!” I shouted and turned away. I shivered as an icy chill spread through my body and I tried to breathe through my incomprehensible aloneness. I did not want the entire party staring at me now.

I reached out across the room and I felt the sudden fear of my fellows. I am sure that the look on my face as my connection with Tazatar snapped alarmed everyone. I pressed outward through the walls of the chamber, and I felt Lord Lotho lying in his bed, despairing at being forced to aid the growing evil of Kroga and the Lich, but I also felt his hope that our party would be successful at ending it. In my desperation, I spread myself out farther, and I felt the Undead creatures and a few Dragoons in the swamplands. Something had changed in the Dragoons, though, and where there used to be a feeling of determined resolve, there was now mistrust and misgivings. I recognized a sense of anguish and foreignness in their presence here, and I lingered for a moment with a group of two or three of them. There was anger and there was resentment in their group, as if someone had played on their emotions to get them to take actions that were not ultimately in their interests.

I took a deep breath, and I returned my essence to the Fortress. I again felt the presence of the Company – fearful, but strong and supportive. I cannot say what exactly it was about the changed spirits of the Dragoons together with the unvoiced feelings of support I felt from everyone physically around me, but I suddenly felt less alone. I breathed deeply, and I pushed out far.

I moved my spirit out of the Fortress and out of the swampland, soaring eastward across the impenetrable mountains. There were lifeforms here – small animals making their homes in the vastness and safety of the craggy rocks and snowy peaks. I passed them by and stretched farther, farther across the enormity of the mountain range.

And then I felt him. He was reaching westward, and our essences entwined! Our aloneness faded as our spirits mingled and we realized that we had both experienced the same separation and frantic search for reconnection, and it was like a homecoming. We mingled for a few moments, and then mostly pulled ourselves back, but keeping a tendril of spirit stretched out across the vast distance and wound tightly around each-other.

I opened my eyes and found that I was still turned away from the party. Gaelabeth was the only one who had seen the smile appear on my face, and she smiled back at me.

“Tazatar is on the Grand Isle just outside Helinika Castle.”

The party roared and cheered.

Now that we had found each-other, Tazatar was able to comfortably start making his way to the Castle to ask for an audience with the Empress. Over the next few days, we continued to rest and heal. Gorlok kept to tending the energy fueling the Trinexus and practicing the magic that would connect it to the Forbidden World. Tazatar and I checked in frequently, and I learned that he had gained an audience with Empress Trinth. Through him, I could feel her shock and dismay that Kroga had accessed the Forbidden World and was transporting beings back and forth from there. The Empress had only just begun the long task of healing the Empire and bringing order back to the chaos that Kroga had left in his wake, but she pledged what she could of the services of the warriors and mages that were still loyal to her.

Tazatar ended up making many trips back and forth through the Trinexus as he escorted twelve Imperial Warriors and three of the Empress’s own mages through the portal to Ubon Fortress. We then spent the next several days spread out across the Fortress doing training exercises. The Imperial Warriors worked hard with the Sultan’s Guards and our Company’s own archers and warriors to bring them up to speed. Our mages traded magical knowledge with the Empress’s mages, so they would be aware of the evil mutations we were sure to be facing in the Forbidden World. We were now a party of 38, and everyone was working hard. Now that there was movement and action happening, I could feel that there was anticipation and excitement coming to the surface of most peoples’ emotions, masking the oppressive feeling of fear of the unknown that had pervaded our party since we entered the swamplands.

On the second day of our preparations, Feraldan and I were training with the Empress’s archers on top of one of the towers. One of them spotted three figures through the mist, moving across the land toward the Fortress. I looked down and reached out toward the them, and then immediately reached through the Fortress to Tazatar. They were Dragoons.

I mentally brought Tazatar up to speed on my encounter with the Dragoons’ essences while I was searching for him after he had first traveled through the Trinexus, and as we were sharing experiences, he made his way to the tower and looked down upon the trio with me. We reached out toward them together, and we agreed that a profound change had come about in their feelings. Their thoughts and emotions were still quite foreign to us, but where we had only felt simple aggressive determination and rage in them while we made our way through the swamps, this group had deeper feelings of regret, resentment, anger, and betrayal. Tazatar and I glanced at each-other; we were both feeling that these sensations of anger were not directed at us.

Our party was nervous, and it was not easy to convince them not to attack on sight as the Dragoons approached us. I offered to meet the creatures at the gates of the Fortress, and Gaelabeth, Tazatar, and Sir Rugnar said they would join me.

The Dragoon party knew very little of the common speech, but Tazatar and I were able to read enough of their emotions to help add language to their story where it was lacking. We learned that Dragoons were not the only intelligent race in the Forbidden World, but they were the dominant one. Their race was strong of will and ruthless in their dealing with what they called “lesser beings”. Their leaders succeeded where others had failed because they were not afraid to take what rightfully belonged to Dragoons, being naturally stronger of body, mind, and will. They were intelligent but seemed an aggressive race with little empathy for their own, and intense mistrust of others.

We surmised that Kroga had first visited their communities in the Forbidden World a year ago. He told them that the stronger and more intelligent communities of Humans were on the brink of dominating the lesser beings of his own world, that the Dwarves, Elves, and lower-class Humans had been oppressing the strong and the users of magic for centuries through unfair laws and ridicule, but that was coming to an end. He said that he had already been working towards building new communities of powerful beings that would live and thrive as they should, and he offered the Dragoons a place in that world. He spoke of a kinship between the strong, and an alliance between the rightful rulers of both worlds. Humans like himself would come to the Forbidden World where they would exchange knowledge of their magical arts with each-other, and Dragoons could have the opportunity to colonize and tame the Wildernesse and other parts of his world. They told us that the idea was appealing to many in the Dragoon communities Kroga touched.

They told us that their communities had already been working with a local powerful entity that we understood as “Mlonix” to help Dragoons spread their population more effectively across the harsh lands of the Forbidden World, and this offer of easy colonization was too good to refuse. Kroga and Mlonix spent time together and eventually started sending Dragoons back to Ubon Fortress where they took up lessons in magic with the Lich.

These three Dragoons had surmised that our party had defeated the Lich, that they had been enchanted into servitude, and that the enchantment had lifted at the Lich’s defeat. Their personal honor had been desecrated and the nation of Dragoon people violated. They now feared that not only had Kroga been dishonest from the start, but that Mlonix was not spreading Dragoon power across the Forbidden World for the good of Dragoons but for some other end of his own, and that he had seen in Kroga a tool to further his own ends even beyond the boundaries of the Forbidden World.

Our three visitors spent the next few days in training with us. They were strange to us, and I felt in them the contempt that held for some of our ways. The Helinikan Company and our cohorts were intent on Kroga, and the eradication of his influence in the Human world. The Dragoons now aimed to bring the truth back to their communities and rally their support against the alliance of Kroga and Mlonix so that they could continue to expand their power and influence without interference from entities with ulterior motives. Our goals were not really the same, but we all realized that if both the Humans and the Dragoons were to achieve their individual goals in this new quest, the other party would also benefit. And so, an unexpected alliance was forged, and we prepared for war.

Tension was high as we gathered in the Trinexus chamber. The feelings of nerves and anxiety coming from everyone felt like electrical shocks to me, and I had to pull back to prevent being overwhelmed by their emotions. I stood between Tazatar and Gaelabeth as Gorlok chanted the incantation to reactivate the Trinexus and connect it to the Forbidden World. I couldn’t possibly be prouder of the Company and of the people we had become over the last couple of years, and I couldn’t imagine being in a community without these eleven who had become both my friends and my family. Gorlok warned us that without someone here to tend the energy of the Trinexus, we might not be able to return from the Forbidden World. We all knew this, but we were intent on our unity and our quest. Every one of us had felt foreign and un-belonging in various ways throughout our previous lives, but the urgency and importance of our tasks during these years had drawn our incompatible ways together such that we shared each-other’s knowledge, victories, and hardships equally, and that bonded us all together like family. This is what we had signed up for, and no one among us could fathom returning to a life from before the Company.

The Trinexus surged into life. This was it. Tazatar grasped my hand.

~~~

We were standing on a dark and foreboding landscape. The first impression was similar to the Pajoon desert we had found ourselves in upon first entering the Westerlandes, except that the sands here were black, and here and there among the dunes there were smoking pools of sludge form which jets of flame spouted intermittently. The scent of burning sulfur hung heavy in the air, and the sky, where it was not filled completely with smoke and fumes, was a burnt orange color giving the dark landscape a glowing, ominous, fiery feeling. There were caves off to our left that looked like they were carved out of a huge outcropping of sharp, craggy, lava rock rising at an imposing angle out of the jet-black dune.

Our Dragoon guides recognized this place and seemed pleased at our arrival location. This was one of the entrances to a middle-sized Dragoon community who had been among the less enthusiastic about the influence of Mlonix and Kroga in their affairs. We were escorted inside. A network of stone bridges spanned chasms in the stone and led off in all directions into caves of various sizes, both natural and hewn. We crossed enormous basins of water at times that looked like they were being fed by underground aquifers. At other times, we felt intense heat as we crossed over pools of slowly swirling molten rock. The air felt somehow thicker and was strangely scented, but most of us became used to it quickly, and breathing was not too difficult in time.

I was walking at Tazatar’s side, and as I touched his hand, I reached out into our party. Many were nervous – there was a degree of fear there, but most of us found ourselves in a state of wonder at the marvel of being in a world that almost no Human had ever seen.

A lot of what happened over the next few days was a mystery to the Humans. We met with a group of Dragoons our hosts had called the Onmoeh. I got the impression that this title referred to anyone performing a task of leadership for the community rather than a specific individual, but it was difficult to understand the structure being used in this very foreign community. The Dragoon language was strangely song-like, and I eventually discovered that many words would change based on the emotional meaning they were conveying. Tazatar and I continued to do our best to provide as much translation as we could between our hosts and the leaders of this community. I started to learn a bit of the Dragoon language, but other than our three hosts, neither the Onmoeh nor the Dragoon population would speak with me. We were mostly stared at in equal portions of mistrust and wonder.

Plans were being made. Emissaries were sent from this community to others, and news was returning from afar. Our party continued to train for war, as the Dragoons slowly assembled an army of their own. Joint training between the Humans and the Dragoons was minimal, and we largely watched as the Dragoon war machine grew in size and power. Their speed, their physical and magical power, and their resolve toward achieving their goal was extremely impressive.

Within a week, or so it seemed, as the time between each rising of the orange light from the pitch blackness of nights dotted with jets of fire felt somewhat longer than we were used to, our hosts told us we were ready to move.

Our three ambassadors had learned more of the common speech now, and they were sent to us to deliver a message. “At night this begins. The skills of the woman Sylvana and the man Tazatar are required by the Onmoeh.”

Sir Rugnar asked Borakash to go with us so we would have a warrior along and also so he could report back to the Company, so we three walked with our hosts to a chamber where we had met with the Onmoeh on several occasions. When we arrived, there were no preliminaries. A shorter, darker purple Dragoon stood and addressed us directly.

“You will find Mlonix,” he said, and it was a command. We were startled as much by the fact that he spoke to us at all as by the fact that he issued the order in our language.

“Sylvana and I must speak,” Tazatar replied, and he and Borakash and I moved to the side of the chamber.

“Are you reading the feelings of the Onmoeh?” he asked me.

I had developed the habit of keeping my senses reached out to those around me on a constant basis over the last few months, as it gave me an incredible intuition in both battle and conversation to know what others were feeling before they acted, but now I reached out more deliberately toward the six Dragoons in the chamber with us.

“Our three hosts are just as confused as we are. The other three are nervous … full of trepidation … but also hopeful. Their desire to govern themselves … is stronger than their mistrust of the foreigners,” I said, and I looked up at Tazatar. “That’s why they spoke directly to us. They want to break down that wall so that we will help them. This is significant for them.”

“I agree,” Tazatar told me, and he turned to look into my eyes, “and I think we should help them. I have the feeling that it will be important for both of our peoples. If I am wrong, though, it could be disastrous – especially for us.”

We absorbed each-other for a moment, and then I turned to Borakash.

“We are of one mind,” I said.

“How is that different than usual?” Borakash asked with a grin.

“Borakash,” Tazatar said, “will you please report back to the Company that Sylvana and I will try to help the Onmoeh to locate the enemy.”

Borakash gave us a bow and departed, and Tazatar and I returned to the Onmoeh.

“We will help you.”

Tazatar and I were brought to a chamber that was obviously reserved for members of the Onmoeh. This was the first time we had seen any type of decoration in any of these underground chambers. This room had smooth walls hewn into a hexagonal shape with sigils and glyphs carved into stone tablets that were hanging on each of the flat surfaces. There were several Dragoons here, performing some kind of magic together in the center of the chamber. The shorter one who had addressed us previously spoke with the Dragoon mages for several minutes as we watched and felt the mounting hope and anticipation of the group. Tazatar and I were given maps of the area and we were shown several places where the Onmoeh expected Mlonix might be – Dragoon communities that were more aligned to the regime that he and Kroga had begun to establish together.

Tazatar and I sat facing each-other in the center of the room, and the Dragoon mages formed a circle around us. I took a deep breath as Tazatar took both of my hands, and we reached out together across the landscape of the Forbidden World. Once again, our spirits mingled twined together so completely that we were a single life-force probing the land with our combined energies and experiences. I lost all semblance of self, and, for we were one, I knew that Tazatar was lost within our combined being as well. We knew and experienced together with a single mind and soul, and we focused on our task. There were many unfamiliar life-forms spread across the land, mostly animals of some sort, but a few that had a higher order intelligence that were banded into small groups here and there in-between the Dragoon communities. Our essence focused in on the larger communities where Dragoon messengers had told the Onmoeh that Mlonix had been seen recently. There were enormous cave complexes like this one where hundreds of Dragoons lived as well as smaller ones with bands of only a dozen or so. Our spirit probed through many communities, but we did not really know what we were looking for.

Until we found it. Most communities had only the familiar life forces of the Dragoon population and small animals, but in a large city barely a dozen miles from where were sitting, there was something different. Something enormous. Something powerful. There were Dragoons here, at least a hundred, but in the middle of their life forces, there was an essence so powerful that it overlapped and engulfed the presences of many of the Dragoons around it. As our essence approached, we also felt a more familiar energy – something like a Human presence, but also different. We realized instantly that this must be Kroga and that the stronger essence nearby was almost certainly the Mlonix we sought. We probed closer to Kroga who seemed at ease and unworried, focused on some task at hand. This gave us comfort, for we were sure that his emotions would be different if he knew we were planning on mounting an attack this evening. There was no frantic preparation or anger or worry. We probed closer to the Mlonix life force, and then something happened that our combined experiences had never seen or felt before. We felt constricted, like there were ropes tied around our soul, binding it to the spot, and getting tighter. We tried to pull back, but we could not withdraw our mind from that enveloping force. And then pain! Agony like ropes of fire searing into all parts of our body, and just as we were feeling that our soul must suffocate or be burned out of existence, we remembered the feeling of aloneness that engulfed both of us when Tazatar stepped through the Trinexus for the first time, and our single mind knew what needed to happen. We disentangled our souls, pulling back hard from each-other with everything we could muster. Our souls slithered apart again, like a clutch of snakes escaping from a larger predator, and we were free of the psychic bond. We gasped in unison as our bodies collapsed onto the floor of the chamber. We were exhausted and shivering with cold sweat, but we knew we must warn the Onmoeh. And quickly. Mlonix had felt us and had attacked our spirit.

Preparations happened quickly. Sir Rugnar and the Onmoeh poured over maps together as we planned the route between the two craggy cave formations rising from the black dunes. We had the higher ground, as there was a cliff face overlooking a plain of sand and fire-pools between the two communities. The Dragoons assembled, warriors and mages, and tension and excitement mounted. The Dragoon resolve to regain autonomy over their world and to repair the honor of their people was impressive. As I reached out across the assembling Dragoon army, I couldn’t help but think that the strength of that drive would give them an edge over the enemy. And then I realized that this was the brink of a civil war, and that our part in the coming bloodshed would be merely a footnote in the Dragoon history that would be decided tonight. That the Dragoons cared little that the fate of two worlds was hanging on the upcoming battle was a strange feeling for the small handful of Humans fighting alongside them. We had little choice, though, then to throw our lot in with these strong people and to rally around their fervor to live free of outside control. It was all we had, and I hoped it was enough.

~~~

We marched in silence, except for the clatter of arms and armor, 38 Humans and about 200 Dragoons. When we reached top of the cliff we could see for miles in every direction, and we could see them coming. Plans had been made for groups of fighters to take paths down either side of the high ground to flank the advancing enemies. Some magic users would be in both groups, and some would remain with the group of archers stationed on the highest point of the cliff face for the best vantage point to mount attacks into the advancing hoard. The Onmoeh requested {rather than commanded) that Borakash, Tazatar, and I stay with them on the top of the cliff both to help fight any enemy that might gain the peak and to use our intuition to understand the enemy’s movements. I dared not reach out too far for fear that Mlonix would sense me and be able to understand our plans. Tazatar said that he agreed, but I also felt in him the desire to understand more about the essence our soul had been attacked by earlier that day. I wrapped my spirit around his, and I felt his mind hard at work trying to unlock the secret of the psychic attack we had faced.

Except for the three of us, the Helinikan Company, the Sultan’s Guard, and the Empress’s forces, a tiny army of our own, joined the smaller of the Dragoon squadrons descending the rockier path to the left. Borakash readied spears and stood with the Dragoon archers. Tazatar and I reached out as far as we dared into the advancing army. There were over a hundred Dragoon fighters, but unless there was another platoon in reserve, we were certain we had them outnumbered. At the very back of the advancing army was Kroga with several Undead forms around him. We did not feel Mlonix anywhere. I could feel Tazatar push farther out toward the city, and I became afraid. He comforted me with a tendril of his spirit, and I joined with him and we reached out together. With our combined spirit, we could sense the Mlonix essence near the city entrance. We got the feeling he was also reaching out toward our group, learning our positions and communicating with magic users in his own group. We pulled back immediately and separated. Tazatar nodded at me. We knew now that Mlonix believed the soul that touched him earlier to be that of another single, powerful being – and that was an advantage for us.

And it began.

We saw a jet of fire sail across the gap separating the three armies, striking the Dragoon forces on the right, and one of the front line fell. First blood had been drawn by the enemy. Volleys of fire fanned out across the divide. The Dragoon squadron on the right met the advancing enemy first, and there was a tremendous roar of fury and a clatter of steel as weapons and shields clashed. Tazatar and I reached together out beyond the advancing forces and saw that Kroga and his Undead host along with a small squad of Dragoon soldiers had hung back and were veering to the left. We broke apart, and I felt Tazatar seek out Gaelabeth. He was trying to send her a message! I also reached out toward the Company, and realized that she must have felt him, because the Company had broken away from the Dragoon squadron and were advancing to meet Kroga and his guard. The Dragoon squad on the left reached the front lines, and their mages shot jets of fire into the melee. I saw at least 5 of the enemy fall on the spot, but I also felt the rage the attack had unleashed in their warriors. In their fury they connected swords and hammers with our forces, and the black sands glistened with the pools of blood surrounding the battle. The archers and magic users on the clifftop sent arrows and flames over the advancing troops into the enemy’s secondary. Tazatar pulled back into himself joined the Dragoon mages with a Flame Chant of his own that crackled with electricity. The Dragoon squadron on our left was taking heavy casualty, and the sands grew wet with their blood.

I could see Kroga now, at the back of the advancing army. He wore robes of blood red, and carried a long, black staff. He felt Human, but there was something else there, mutated and strange. His face was deformed. His skin was red and had grown taught on his face. Small appendages like tentacles framed his eyes there were black streaks across his bald head where his hair used to be. The feeling and sight of the Empress’s brother, mutated by his own magic, made me shiver.

The clatter of battle on the rocky slopes to the left made me come back to myself, and I readied my arrows. I heard Borakash chanting his Hymn of Focus behind me which turned into a Hymn of Anger and Defiance, and then he streaked past me toward the oncoming attackers. His arms were a blur as he struck at the enemy forces and dodged their blows. Tazatar had moved in the blink of an eye to the side of the hill, just out of sight, where I could see him sending lightning charges at nearby forces. The Dragoon archers and I shot together as the enemy crested the hilltop, and most of the front line fell from the combined attacks. We crouched down and readied more arrows as the mages shot jets of fire over our heads. I reached out toward Tazatar and felt him reaching into the Dragoon attackers before him. Together, we felt that the enemy Dragoon forces were rallying around a single Dragoon bringing up the rear of the group. Tazatar focused his energy on that individual and sent a magical Void of Insanity into the life essence of the leader. The Dragoon stopped moving and fell to the ground. The fighters around him faltered and I struck three of them with arrows. The jets of fire coming from overhead were relentless until the remaining few soldiers who had crested the hill had laid down their arms.

I focused my attention back toward the battlefield and the Company. Our forces on the right were skirmishing with the advancing enemy in the plain. The Onmoeh commanded the surviving members of our force from the left flank to join the back of the flank on the right.

The Company had just reached Kroga and his guard. Lady Alwyn struck first, cleanly taking down the Wight in front of her in a single blow. Kroga lifted his staff and sent multiple jets of flame surging down on the Company. Feraldan was hit and staggered backwards to the ground. Oloman appeared from behind Feraldan and plunged a thrown dagger into Kroga’s side which made him flinch with pain. I saw Gaelabeth conjuring her Circle of Purity as Gorlok chanted a Time Prism magic that caused all the Undead and Dragoons around Kroga to move in slow motion. Kroga was unaffected by Gorlok’s spell, and he turned his staff onto a Dragoon soldier near him. The Dragoon’s body swelled for a moment, and then sunk in on itself so his bones could be seen through his skin. He turned glowing eyes on Pardah and Grath who appeared to be frozen in place on the spot. The mutated Dragoon stuck at Pardah, and Grath came back to himself enough to cast flaming oil onto their attacker. Sir Rugnar and Lady Alwyn focused on the remaining Wights as Kroga turned his staff toward B’Az Aptar who doubled over instantly in pain. Gorlok thrust his staff into the ground sending an Ice Blast toward Kroga and the Dragoons. The Dragoons sent jets of fire toward Gorlok, but the distraction had been enough. B’Az Aptar recovered and countered Kroga’s attack with a life-draining magic of his own. Gaelabeth cast an Essence of Fury toward Lady Alwyn whose eyes grew wild with anger and determination. B’Az Aptar and Kroga remained locked in an energy-draining duel, as Lady Alwyn’s hammer connected with Kroga’s head. Blood poured out of his wound, but he threw her off with hands that erupted in fire and burnt Lady Alwyn’s hair and flesh, and she landed next to a boulder with a thud and did not move. Gorlok sent his own jets of fire at Kroga and the Dragoons at his side, and the Dragoons fell back. Kroga’s face was wild with rage, and he pointed his staff at another of the Dragoons. The mage mutated, and charged toward B’Az Aptar, but the other Dragoon raised his own staff at Kroga, who was hit with a jet of fire. It connected with Kroga’s upper arm and burned flesh could be seen through the torn and singed robes. Kroga brought his staff down upon the Dragoon who fell instantly dead, but Gaelabeth, Gorlok, and Sir Rugnar had now surrounded their distracted enemy. Sir Rugnar’s sword sunk deep into Kroga’s chest and Gorlok funneled an Ice Blast through the weapon and into the enemy. Gaelabeth raised her hands toward Kroga’s deformed head and shouted a Psychic Assault that made Kroga freeze in place, his wild face and eyes lifted to the orange-black sky, and then slump into the hilt of the sword holding him upright. Sir Rugnar withdrew the weapon, and Kroga collapsed to the ground, a heap of burnt, mutilated, and lifeless flesh.

For a moment, I felt joy, and then I felt cold. An essence approached, and I turned my attention outward. Mlonix was approaching, and his spirit was burning with fury. Tazatar returned to my side, and we joined spirits. As our recombined soul absorbed each-other’s experiences of the last few hours, we knew what to do, and we reached our combined essence out toward Mlonix. As our spirit spread out across the plain, we felt paralyzing fear from the Dragoons still fighting there. I separated from Tazatar enough to shout a message to the Onmoeh.

“We need as many Dragoon mages as we can get advancing on Mlonix!’

I instantly recombined with Tazatar and lost myself in our combined spirit as our single mind prepared for battle. We felt the Dragoon mages on the hilltop with us making their way down to the plain, and we waited. The Mlonix moved rapidly toward us, and we feared that there would not be enough time. The mages reached the skirmish and delivered the message. We felt the magic users break off from the battle and move left toward the advancing threat.

Mlonix lashed out. Waves of energy landed in the dunes making craters in the ground and sending explosions of rock and sand into the air. Fighters of both armies were thrown off their feet and careened for yards before crashing down onto the ground.  The Dragoon mages ran for cover, and then continued their advance. Again, blasts of invisible energy toppled fighters in the field, and a green glow appeared in the sky overhead. An orb formed, green lightning flashed and flickered and struck fighters down, one by one, to the ground.

The group of Dragoon mages was now close enough to see Mlonix. It was now or never.

Our combined soul surged forward and plowed straight through the Mlonix essence! The distraction was enough, and the green orb faded, but he sent more energy blasts to rend the sand dunes and topple soldiers. The Mlonix turned its focus toward us and lashed out. It felt like a hot whip snapped across our soul, and we plowed our spirit straight through the Mlonix again. We felt rage and confusion as the entity searched around for who, what, and where we were. We felt the mages approaching Mlonix with fear, and we again moved our soul directly toward the Mlonix essence. As our spirit touched his and we felt the hot whip of energy, we split our souls apart; I moved back toward the Dragoon mages and Tazatar moved forward behind the Mlonix. We felt his confusion, and the mages shot multiple jets of fire toward Mlonix. He staggered for a moment, and then rallied. His green orb appeared in the air above and lightning flashed down into the group of mages where two of them dropped to the sand. Tazatar and I rejoined our souls and as our essence touched Mlonix again, we summoned the Void of Insanity. We felt Mlonix’s pain, and the hot whip lashed out again. Mlonix was hit with more jets of fire, and the green orb continued to flash its lightning. We reached over to the mages and felt that there were about ten of them left fighting Mlonix. We intensified the Void of Insanity, and we felt the spirit of Mlonix writhe inside ours as flaming tendrils enveloped us and lashed throughout our spirit. It was agony. And then the constriction started. Mlonix grabbed at our soul and squeezed as he had done before. Chains of fire were crushing and burning our spirit out of existence. We felt that we were surely going to perish, joined together, sent into oblivion. The Dragoon mages sent jets of fire at Mlonix’s body, and he staggered backward again. The orb flashed, and mages fell. Just as we thought our soul could no longer survive the crushing bonds, we broke apart. Our individual souls slithered through our bonds and soared away from Mlonix. We then circled back toward him and surrounded his essence. As each of our spirits touched Mlonix again, Tazatar called the Void of Insanity, and I called a Psychic Assault. The remaining mages shot jets of fire, and the green orb flickered out. Mlonix grabbed at my spirit, and I felt the crushing fire all around me. I joined with Tazatar, and the bonds broke. Our united spirit, now one again, called our combined psychic attacks, and we felt the enormous power of the Mlonix entity flicker and shrink. The Mages advanced and fired again, and his spirit faltered. We felt him grasp at our soul, and the crushing feeling returned as the essence of hot whips grazed our spirit. We flickered apart, sent our individual psychic attacks into his essence, and then rejoined again. Lightning shot from Mlonix’s hands, and more mages fell. We could feel ony a few Dragoons left standing. The mages sent jets of fire and beat on Mlonix’s body with their staffs, making sparks of energy fly in all directions. His essence was much smaller, and we enveloped it within ours. We called our combined psychic forces together and bonded him. We felt hot whips on the inside of our soul as the entity struggled. The mages advanced, two jets of fire hit Mlonix, one staff made contact with his chest, and he fell. The spirit we held tight within ours flickered…and then was no more.

For a moment, confusion. Then our soul felt the triumph and the sadness and the pain and the loss and the hope for the future from the Dragoon mages near us. We lingered for a moment, and then we broke apart and collapsed onto the ground.

~~~

I awoke and found that I was inside. I began to sit up, but every muscle of my body was in pain, and I collapsed back into the bed of sand. As I moved, I discovered that Tazatar was lying next to me, and he was awake. I tried to reach out to him, but the effort that had been so automatic for months made my head throb with pain.

I heard Gaelabeth’s voice from above us, “You’re finally back with us, Sylvana. Welcome. We were worried. You and Tazatar have no bodily harm to speak of, but B’Az Aptar and I suspect that you both have psychic injuries that may take some time to heal. You have done very well, Sylvana. We all have.”

I learned that Tazatar and I had collapsed on the hilltop after Mlonix was defeated. The three remaining Dragoon mages had understood that they were being aided by our psychic attacks, and they returned to the hilltop to report our success to the Onmoeh who carried us back to the caverns where we remained unconscious for the next two days and nights. Tazatar had just awoken a few hours before I had.

Three of the Sultan’s Guard and five of the Empress’s forces were lost in battle along with dozens of Dragoon fighters, and the Onmoeh was planning a sacred ritual to honor the fallen.

We learned that Feraldan and Lady Alwyn had taken serious injuries in the battle with Kroga and they were being tended to by Gaelabeth and members of the Onmoeh. Lady Alwyn especially was in very serious condition, and Borakash was keeping vigil and reciting Hymns at her bedside. I tried to rise to offer my healing skills, but I could not move through the pain. Tazatar put his hand on my arm though, and I was comforted by his physical touch, even though I could not bear the strain of reaching out through spirit.

Gorlok told us that the Dragoon communities had called counsel to discuss the treachery of Mlonix and Kroga, to discuss the future of their population and government in the Forbidden World, and to discuss us. Yesterday, he had tried to reopen a portal to Ubon Fortress but was not able to connect to the Trinexus. With no one to tend the device back in the Shuunia swampland, it would need to be reactivated there again before a portal could be conjured here. The news was dreadful, but it should not have been unexpected. I had not given much thought to the realities of what might happen after we completed our quest, and this felt like another blow to my soul. I could bear no more news, and I fell asleep with Tazatar’s hand still on my arm.

## One Year Later

The Dragoon communities were more generous than we had expected. The Company and our remaining Guard were given land by the Onmoeh. For the most part, Dragoons and Humans did not much mix, but a few now knew some words in our common language, and I was doing my best to learn the song of the Dragoons. Those closest to us were decent neighbors, and as I reached out into the communities, it felt like the walls of separation were slowly being broken down.

Skirmishes between different Dragoon communities were not uncommon. Differences over land rights, government, and colonization continued to plague the population as they ever had, but the 30 Humans kept completely out of local politics.

We worked hard. I made it my job to connect to the land, as I had in my youth, and learn the ways of the water and the fire, and about what sparse plant and animal life existed here. Over many months, we observed what animals the Dragoons hunted and discovered what plants were edible and could be encouraged to grow, and we built a garden in the black sands of our land. Several families had developed among the Sultan’s Guard and the Empress’s people. One of the Empress’s mages had already given birth to a boy and Lady Alwin was great with Borakash’s child.

Gaelabeth and B’Az Aptar had endless conversations about the nature and forces of life between the worlds, and Gorlok interacted with the Dragoon mages as much as they would let him. I enjoyed merging with Tazatar, and we frequently sent our spirit out across the Forbidden World in exploration.

On one evening over a year after the defeat of Mlonix and Kroga, just as the orange sky started to fade to black, Tazatar, Borakash, and I were walking on the outskirts of our community where we met three Dragoon mages. I reached out to them and was alarmed at the animosity in their hearts. Borakash greeted them, and I felt their anger rise. They began speaking to each-other in their own language, and I understood phrases like, “helpers of the Onmoeh,” “lesser beings,” and “desecration of honor”. Tazatar and I looked at each-other, perplexed, and began to prepare to defend ourselves.

The mages raised their staffs, and as we tried to dodge the inevitable jets of fire, a green glow surrounded the three of us. It felt as if our bodies and souls had been rent apart, and then everything went black.

~~~

I awoke in a forest. This was not the Forbidden World, and I was afraid. I could not see or feel Tazatar or Borakash, and I felt alone. I reached out through the forest, and I felt Elves not far from me. Elves! I started to breathe heavily in my fear, for I was lost and weaponless. I made my way toward the Elven presence, and I hid where I could see them. These did not look like the Elves of Shavanoth. Their dress was different, and they were moving back and forth between houses built into the trees. This was very foreign. I was trembling with fear, but I did not feel that these people were aggressive, and I really had no other choice. I hailed the Elves who were startled at my presence but welcomed me and took me into a nearby treehouse. I was relieved that they spoke the common tongue, and I did my best to explain who I was and how I had come to be in their forest. I reached out into the group who had taken me in, and I knew that they did not believe me, for my story was so strange. They had not heard of Shavanoth or Trintha or any part of the Helinikan Empire, but they gave me food and said that they would allow me to rest with them for the night.

But I did not sleep. I reached out frantically across the land, and I felt animals and Elves and Humans, but there was only one Human that I sought. I may have been too afraid to cry, and I was certainly too terrified to stop searching. As dawn started to break and I could see blue sky from the door of the treehouse, I made contact. Another spirit searching – searching for me! And we twined together. I had no idea where he was, but Tazatar was here, in whatever this world was, with me. Somewhere!

I silently made my way out of the Elf village in the direction of Tazatar’s energy.

I have no idea where I am or how far away my companion is…

But I must find him.