Gathering

Surya and Hildraft stared out from the walls of the Dragon's palace in disbelief. At some point during the night, the entire remnant of Varkar's Dragonarmy remaining in the fallen dragon's erstwhile capital had simply packed up and left. The city below was deserted. Gozan Vraspan, greatest general of the Kin, had led his armies southwards, presumably to launch an attack on the Elves as they tried to make the Desolation habitable again.

The dwarf was thoughtful. His God had come to him in his sleep, and had issued instructions which brooked no denial; Hildraft, and his companions, must meet up again in the city of Karennal, once capital of Trialt. Kord had been unclear about the reasons, which almost certainly meant that he was in oppositon to one or more other Gods and unable to act very directly.

Surely there must be a connection between this and the inexplicable attack of two days ago, when a mixed group of vampires and strange, dark-skinned, pale-haired elves had penetrated the traps and wards Hildraft had set on the castle and jumped them in one of the darker corridors. Vollun Crusher, faithful acolyte, had died in that encounter, and the pair were intent on finding out what was behind it. Simple treasure-hunting didn't quite fit, somehow.

Kobort stood looking across the desert. His main purpose in coming here was accomplished; the bad blood between himself and the Dust hero Dakhair Ashkari was settled. However, the strange happenings in his native land had opened a whole new series of puzzles; and the overwhelming visions of the night before had shown him that this was no localized phenomenon. This peculiar and unfounded hatred of the elven race that was filtering down from Ashkari to all his followers was not just the tool of an ambitious man striving to become Jerfaya-khan, Khan of all the Khans; it was something bigger and not natural.

He saddled his splendid Dust stallion and swung up. Karennal was a long ride north.

Sack sat looking at the sword in puzzlement. Before his very eyes, the blade weakened, dissolving into powder and a little vapour, and was gone. Each item of the strange elf-creature's gear had done the same, with the exception of the strange oval sigil brooch, adorned with a cruel black mace. The night before, he and his fellow members of the Renders of the Dark had followed the trail of some of the vampires who were plaguing Karennal in such numbers to a tavern in the Downtown, the Tinker and Dagger. Surprised by a much bigger group of foes than they'd expected, the Renders had taken several casualties before besting the nightcrawlers, and Sack himself had slain their companion, a peculiar creature rather like an elf, but with satin-black skin and white hair. The leader of the group, a High-clan vampire, had eluded the half-orc and escaped.

Sack had retrieved all the dark elf's equipment, and returned to the Renders' headquarters on Overway to examine them and show them to the Order's local leader, Kelson. To their amazement, however, all the equipment decayed and disintegrated within a few hours in the daylight.

The half-orc was convinced that Mazahir Daywalker was somehow behind this; he just couldn't work out how, exactly. Complicating matters was the letter he'd received, left on the doorstep of the Renders' house by no-one they had seen - an achievement, as the Renders of the Dark were not usually taken by surprise.

Click here for Mazahir's letter!

(City of Karennal, Trialt, 10^th January, 1601)

Gathered in the common-room of the Renders' HQ, the four companions studied the collected evidence and considered its' possible meanings. They decided to split up, and see what information they could glean in the city before deciding what to do. Kobort went to secure lodgings, and the others set to work. Sack took the letter and headed over to the Thieves' Guild behind Night Street. Entering the building, he was greeted cheerfully by the usual burglars and alleybashers, returning from an active night. As he passed, he took a glance in the Daybook, and found that Surya and Hildraft had been noted passing into Karennal by the northwest gate. The thief who'd made the note had observed that the two looked as if they might have worthwhile plunder, but might also be a bit too tough for it to be worthwhile boosting them. Sack added some notes; he marked the pair as off-limits and confirmed their dangerous status. Not really expecting results, he also scanned through for sightings of Mazahir. Much to his surprise, he found an entry from three days ago, which although not a perfect match seemed to indicate that the Daywalker was in the city as well.

He then sought out the retired Master Thief Voladran, who now specialized in forgery, and handed him the letter to analyse. The old man pored over it for a while, and told the half-orc that the letter had been written no more than 48 hours before, and was on locally-produced paper. Using the Guild's logs as a starting point, Sack then reconstructed Mazahir's movements across town until he reached the Red Light district, ironically the easiest place for him to get information, where the last sighting of Mazahir placed him just after dusk. Balked, the half-orc scaled a suitable building up to the Thieves' Highway - the rooftops - and settled down to wait for evening. Meanwhile, Hildraft, who, like Sack, had been in Karennal before, went to seek out the Temple of Kord. As he walked the streets of the city, he noted that the former Dragonarmies were still firmly in control; he and Surya had been stopped and checked at the gates when entering, and regular Dragonarmy patrols were stopping people routinely on the streets and those without satisfactory ID were hustled away. He himself seemed to be getting very noticeable hostile looks, presumably because of his being a dwarf; certainly he seemed to be the only dwarf in the city. Reaching the temple, he found it - like all the others - closed and bricked up. The only exception to this was the Temple of Pelor, the largest, which had been converted for the use of the Cult of the Dragon, though congregations appeared to have been falling off lately... Calling on some of the powers granted him by Kord in reward for the Dragonslaying, the dwarf shifted himself to the Ethereal plane and walked in through the temple wall. Inside, he found the place dark, dank, cold and dusty, with some damage obviously caused by the forces of the Dragon, but also showing signs of having been closed down and abandoned in a planned fashion. The aura of the place revealed no desecration, and Hildraft paused a moment to renew the temple's consecration before moving on. Checking the standard place, he found the majority of the important altar pieces safely hidden away, and left them there as insurance against better days. Surya had set off into the Old Town as well, with the aim of finding places of learning so as to do a little research. He entered one of the more impressive-looking scholae, or colleges, and loomed over the clerk at the desk. The little man looked up at him - then up a bit further - then up and down. "Yes... sir... what can I do for you?" he said, clearly a little dubious that such a martial figure would have wants he could satisfy. "I want information on these topics," said Surya, placing a scrap of paper on the desk with the words Tormentor, Erelhei-Cinlu, Fae Mhor and Kingmaker written on it. "Well," said the man slowly, "I suppose, we might..." Surya weighted the scrap down with a neat stack of golden coins and the clerk's attitude changed noticeably. "...should have no trouble at all." he finished. From the depths of the library he summoned the venerable Brother Hieronymus, who tottered forward to take the paper and frowned at it for some moments. Straight away, he was able to say that he'd vaguely heard of Erelhei-Cinlu - some traveller's notes or other said it was a place to avoid, "underground, yes, definitely underground," he added; Tormentor, "as everyone knows,", was a terrible black sword of evil taken from its' original owner by the Elven Hero Galoriand back in the time before human history when the Elves had extirpirated most of the worst banes and monsters from the world. Unable to trust any other with the burden of keeping it from falling into the wrong hands, Galoriand carried it himself, never drawing it, for more than a thousand years before he fell in combat with Varkar Barduric at the destruction of Londannath. At this point, Hildraft caught Surya up, and joined him in looking over the information gathered. Among the papers of the traveller who'd been to Erelhei-Cinlu, which was definitely indicated as the city of the Fae Mhor, was a scrap of parchment which the sage offered to the pair, confessing that not only couldn't he read it, he didn't even know if the markings on it were actually writing. Hildraft looked at it, and - because of the effects of the Dragonblood - was able to read it without difficulty. It was writing, in some very debased and corrupted dialect of Elven, and appeared to be a religious service of some sort, worshiping someone called Lolth. Memorizing it, he handed it back, pretending incomprehension. Deeper in the archives, Hieronymus found more details, and gradually a picture emerged. Over the last couple of thousand years, the Elves appeared to have gone to great pains to obliterate any knowledge of the existence of the dark elves, destroying evidence and suppressing memories where required. Leaving the schola, the two made their way back to the Renders' safe house, where Hildraft once more called on his magic to place him in communication with Cardinal Axedge back in Kobur. The old dwarven priest was pleased to hear from his most famous pupil, and told him what was going on in Kobur. The new King, Berrin Ironfist, had succumbed - unlike his brother Dwarven monarchs - to the widespread antielven feeling, and was mustering an army to march on the Desolation. The Goldeneye in Gloiran had suddenly sprung to life again, speaking prophecy for the first time since its' meeting with the Dragonslayers, and had spoken the Kingmaker Prophecy to the startled dwarves. Axedge was eager to pass this on to Hildraft and rather startled to hear that he'd already heard it. He was much more surprised to hear Hildraft's news that the Demon Lolth was probably somewhere behind all this martial fervour. When Hildraft urged that he try and delay the dwarves from launching their attack, he looked dubious - he was a priest of a war-god after all - but promised to see what he could do. Next, the dwarf contacted Elverandil the Smith, who he found working in his forge making mundane things like ploughs and wheel-rims for the new elven capital. He was sceptical at first, but after Hildraft recited some of the Service to Lolth in the original language and Surya displayed the salvaged sigils of the Fae Mhor he'd slain in Vorsand, the Mastersmith blanched and turned pale. Begging Hildraft not to do that again, he became more forthcoming, and revealed something of the history of the Dark Elves. As the companions had suspected, the Eldar had fought a great civil war against the Fae Mhor in the prehistory of the world, defeating them utterly and driving them from the surface into the dark caverns below the world. The grim sword Tormentor had been wrested from the dying hands of the Fae Mhor hero Thoklal by Galoriand, greatest of the bearers of the Six Swords of the Noldor. Elverandil revealed that Galoriand had come to him and begged on his knees for Elverandil to destroy the weapon and put him out of his misery, but the smith was unable to do so, and Galoriand was doomed to carry Tormentor for the rest of his life. He warned the pair never to underestimate the dark elves, who he described as "evil upon evil." Of Tormentor, which he clearly suspected them of having found among the Dragon's effects in Vorsand, he would only say that it was "cursed with great power". He also told them that, peculiarly, the Elven gods had not passed on the Kingmaker Prophecy to to them. Later that afternoon, Surya wandered out into the city, racking his brain for memories of Mazahir's favourite haunts. Drifting with Hildraft from tavern to tavern, he was almost unsurprised to come across the Daywalker, leaning against the bar of the Reaver's Revenge almost as if he were a normal customer. They greeted each other, and the pair did their best to get some more information out of the vampire. Mazahir readily confessed to having been only slightly trusted by the High Clans and not at all by the Fae Mhor - even before his defection - and as such his knowledge of the Kingmaker was very minimal. He was unclear as to what the Kingmaker actually was, but he'd overheard conversations indicating that it was definitely responsible for the otherwise inexplicable crusades against the Elves. He also explained that the Kingmaker was only the first phase of the plan, and that step two involved some sort of assault on the sun, so as to bring Darkness to the surface world, laying it open - assuming the destruction of the Elves - to a joint invasion by the Fae Mhor and the High Clan vampires, and the enslavement of the other races under this axis of evil. This plan was what Mazahir had forgone his ties to the High Clans for - though he didn't say why he found it so unappealing - and it was also apparently the foe the Gods had selected the Dragonslayers to face. Later that evening, Sack saw Mazahir pass below his perch. The vampire paused, smiled to himself, and set off down Arch Street. Sack dropped some small items of debris to let Mazahir know he was aware of him, and climbed down to street level. Sack ushered the Daywalker towards a nearby inn and bought a bottle of wine, red of course, and then indicated that they should settle matters between them; Karennal was as good as any place to die - again. Mazahir accepted the offer of a drink, and tasted the wine with evident enjoyment. In response to Sack's more aggressive signals, however, he held up a hand. "I don't know why you are so intent on killing me, " he said, "especially when I'm risking so much to try and warn you. Your friends will tell you more, I visited them once I'd discovered they were in town and explained some details of what is happening. Maybe one day we'll cross blades, but not today." The half-orc was not buying this today, however. With a growl, he kicked over the table, drew the Blade of the Sun, unleashed the Sunburst and plunged into battle.