Written by: Reginald of Clan EpiK

  Twas a calm and peaceful day in the town of Lin. I looked around from my favorite perch upon the top of the the armor shop. Faintly, through the roof I could hear the hammers bending and shaping metal and the sounds of the shoppers as they exclaimed over one find or another. Peaceful, that is the way I like my town. There is order here, and in order comes serenity.

  Then through the ether, perhaps a trick of the mana currents, a voice came to me. This happens often, yet it is as if it is coming from a very great distance. I do not understand how this all happens, my limited knowledge of the magic of this strange realm is still far from perfect. However I have managed to master the art of talking in this same form and so it was that I replied to the voices now sounding in my head....

  There were two distinct voices calling out to me. One I recognized instantly as belonging to that feisty young sword swinger Barry the Baptist. The other, while it too spoke to me in a strange accent, was not quite as familiar. I had met this particular person very few times before, so it took me awhile to link the accent to the name of the up and coming mage...Cheung Vader. (On a personal note, I feel a dark presence brooding in this Vader. I will have to watch him more closely, he is frantic, always wanting more and more power...and that way only leads to the dark side.)

  The voices were imploring me to quest with them for the elusive mind focusing stone. It appears that they had found the skull of a lich and were eager to descend into the depths of the mines of despair to test their mettle and gain the coveted focusing stone. Knowing that they would need the mighty axe of Rhodimus if they were ever to survive the ordeals they would soon be facing I agreed to come along on their quest. With a whispered incantation I moved myself from the comfortable and serene environs of Lin to the more wild slopes near the Aluvian fortress in the direlands....Fort Tethana.

  From here in the northern reaches of the direlands, an old friend came to greet me. Leung Cheung appeared and told me that he knew of the quest I was soon to be departing on, and he could give me a portal to meet up with my friends and questing partners. A mumbled incantation later and a spinning vortex appeared and I hopped in, riding the nauseating tunnel until at last I was on firm, solid ground again. There I was, inside a small foyer and in front of me were Barry the Baptist (from now on known as BB) and the strange mage Cheung Vader (from now on known as CV).

  So it was that we began the quest for the stone of mind focusing. A company of three stalwart fellows....little did we know what awaited us, but we were eager to find out. The mage CV began to consult his maps, maps he had painstakingly gleaned from some otherworldly source most likely. I have a feeling it is a mage place as he would refer to it as...'The Hall of Lore'. Now if that isn't a mage term or mage house I don't know which end of an axe to swing !!

  Soon we were descending through the dank hallways of this abandoned mine. The mage had procured keys for several of the doors, and we were fortunate enough to run into another adventurer down there that apparently knew the secret of the switches for opening even more doors on the path to the focusing stone. Liches, undead, and skeletal warriors all fell before my mighty flaming axe. As we walked through this ancient tomb a feeling of confidence began to grow in us. Nothing could stand in our way !! The mood even turned from seriousness to joking as we realized that we had nothing to fear in this dungeon. BB began to complain that by single hitting most of the creatures in the dungeon, I was taking away his fun.

  Down and down we went till finally we came to a room unlike any we had seen before. At the rear of the room was a great steel door and in the center of the room what one could almost describe as ribs growing up out of the floor. It was in the center of this room that our foe stood...the Lich Overseer (I think that was his name...I fear that with age my memory is starting to go.). The mage CV kept warning us of him..."A mighty foe" he would say..."Be careful of his magics.". I had waltzed through this entire dungeon up to this point and I was bound and determined to show these youngsters what a true warrior was made of...so in I darted. I ignored the henchmen and instead went straight at the Overseer....one....two...three swipes of my mighty axe and BB and CV were looking stunned. Neither one of them had even been able to engage the foe before he was dead. And so our confidence level grew. Somehow the foul creature kept returning from his dead/undead life and each time my mighty axe would cleave him in twain ere my comrades could even begin to get into battle mode. Mysteriously, each time he 'died' he would drop a small whitish stone which by some force of nature, you could only pick up once. So, once the three of us had our stones we turned to face the large steel door to the rear of the chamber. The mage's notes from his mysterious 'Hall of Lore' apparently indicated that through here we must next go and that this would be our greatest challenge.

  Through the door we advanced to find a portal of swirling energy, a vortex that would take us down deeper into the foul reaches of this place. We dove through the portal and again found ourselves within the gut wrenching tunnel space that indicated a transportation field in this strange realm.  Once we had arrived at the other end of this portal we took stock of our situation. There was a mysterious green gas, almost choking us with the denseness of it, yet quickly we found an exit from this gaseous area. It
was strange....it appeared that the gas was confined within metal chain link walls, how the gas did not permeate the rest of the room I am not sure, I can only assume that it is some magic with which I was unfamiliar. Consulting his notes once more the mage informed us that we would be facing more undead and the possibility of some golems...apparently these were to be unstable magma golems of which I had heard but never seen up close.

  Taking my orb in hand I began the laborious process of providing protections to both myself and BB. CV was content to apply his own protections and thus I left that to him. Once we had applied all of our protections we began to work our way down into the depths of this abandoned mine. Our first foes were our old friends the granite golems. I am not sure their purpose here, but possibly they were to act as a deterrent against the weak from entering the lower portions of the mine. With a few swings of my mighty hammer I quickly dispatched one and then the other of these foes, however neither of them left any of the coveted pyreal motes
which are said to serve as the brain of these magical creations.

  Onwards we advanced, encountering new undead types that I had never seen before. Out came my mighty fire axe to slay these decaying warriors from a bygone age. Fortunately, they seemed to know that I was the true power to be feared in our small little group and thus turned their attentions to my comrades first, apparently thinking to slay them quickly and then surround me. They did not however, count on the ferocity of my axe as I laid into them and quickly dispatched them wherever we found them. Battling along, we son came to a rickety looking wooden bridge. At this point CV again consulted his mysterious notes and informed us that we needed to jump off this bridge and skirt the very edge of the pit below. Apparently, if we strayed into the middle, we would activate the unstable magma golems that resided under the bridge like the trolls of yore.

  Taking a deep breath we leaped off of the bridge and into the pit. It was a small jump and we all managed to land without incurring any damage. Looking around we were in a hellishly hot place and it was easy to see that magma golems would like this place. However, listening to the notes that CV had gleaned from his mysterious 'Hall of Lore' we clung to the sides of the pit as if our very lives depended on it. At last we found an entrance to a corridor. We had not advanced far into this corridor when we found the body of a slain adventurer not unlike ourselves. From the singe marks on his body, we assumed that he had had a bad encounter with a magma golem since none of the undead we had encountered so far had used any type of fire weapon. Carefully we began to advance down the hall, unsure if the instrument of this adventurer's demise was still within the corridor. It seems like no more than 10 feet down the corridor we found it....a huge creature is the magma golem, glowing and radiating heat from it's very body. Quickly I pulled out my Atlan axe, the cool frost dripping from it's blade comforting against the heat being radiated from the monster ahead of us. Having been forewarned of the possibility of an encounter such as this, I had already applied my magics to this blade and I jumped to the fore hacking into this foul creature with all the force of my arm. Once, twice, three times I hit him...then with the fourth hit we discovered why they are called unstable. With the departing of the life force imbued into this creature, he .... exploded. We were showered with chunks of flaming magma causing no small amount of damage to our party. Quickly we bound our
wounds round with bandages and soon felt good enough to continue on into this strange and hellish place.

  The corridors we now found ourselves advancing through glowed with a strange reddish light and it wasn't long before our way was blocked by a new adversary. These were the fleshless warriors that we had been warned of by the mysterious notes from the 'Hall of Lore'. These foul creatures seemed to have both the power of magic and steel. Their blade dripped with an acid like venom that stung the skin and could melt right through armor. The causticness of this acid was apparent as just the nearness of it made
our eyes water and sting. Like their cousins whom we had already slain, these warriors seemed intent on cutting down the weaker members of the party first. However, these fleshless warriors were carrying shields, and as they engaged both BB and CV I circled around behind them and quickly cut them down from the direction where their shields could do them no good.

  And so it went, as we advanced these warriors would engage my companions and I would circle around and cut them down from behind...until we were at the entranceway to the final room....our destination as reported by the mysterious writings of the 'Hall of Lore'. It was here, that the fleshless warriors decided to make a triumphant stand to deny us the prize that we had worked so hard to obtain. And unfortunately, in one respect they were successful. We were fighting at the bridgehead when BB suddenly exclaimed
that he could feel the presence of a sturdy iron key. These keys are prized by the denizens of this world as they have the capability of unlocking fabulous treasure chests. Apparently BB has some kind of 'sixth sense' for detecting treasures like this and possibly it was his excitement over the find that made him let his guard down momentairly. For twas mere moments after his exclamation that one of the warriors let loose with a mighty slash of his weapon...we heard the sound of its acid hissing on the breastplate of our companion. The fleshless warrior, knowing that it had struck a mighty blow continued to press the attack against BB and once more
swung his mighty blade at our comrade who was already reeling with the pain of the last assault. Perhaps it was luck, for I would hate to think that these molding collections of bones were that skilled with a sword, but it managed to land it's blade in the exact same spot on BB's armor which had already been weakened by the acid. This time, the armor was unable to stop the force of the blade and it's caustic payload. The sword cleaved through the armor of our comrade and laid him low. With a cry of rage at this
untimely death, CV and myself quickly finished off our foes and began to attack in earnest against the vile creature that had felled our companion.

  Soon all was quiet...the quiet of the tomb as we stood over the body of our fallen companion. Yet through the miracle of the Life Stones on this strange world, he had survived. Temporarily weakened and without the proper keys for this godforsaken dungeon he was unable to rejoin us at this time, so CV and I decided to continue on and claim the prize that our companion had given his life for us to obtain. We advanced into the final room to find it guarded by two more of these fleshless warriors. Both of these went straight for my remaining companion and I was able to circle around behind them and swiftly relieve them of their un-life. With the battle over, we stood at our destination. It was a mighty swirling vortex of mystical energy surrounded by small stones with strange markings. Quickly we used our trophies obtained from the Lich Overseer on this vortex and somehow it imbued them with a strange essence. Perhaps of itself, perhaps of the pure mana streams that seem to cover this world, I do not know. The ways of magic are familiar, but yet strange to me.

  As we stood marveling at our new acquisitions, we did not pay heed to the warnings from the writings of the mage's 'Hall of Lore'. And so it was that we were caught unawares as reinforcements from whatever plane of the damned these fleshless warriors were spawned. Quickly they advanced on CV, thinking to cut him down quickly and mercilessly. With their attention thus distracted from me, I once more set to cutting them down from behind.  But this time the foul beasts showed us that they too knew the mystic arts.
While one of the warriors engaged CV from the front, another made him vulnerable to the acid of his brother's blade. I heard CV cry out as if mortally wounded as I hewed into the foe attacking him. With a whispered incantation CV was gone and now the foul creatures turned their attention to me. I glanced quickly around the room and saw that I was outnumbered. I decided that advancing to the rear was called for and began to strategically reverse the path of our former advancement. It was then that
I realized how much time had passed while we contemplated our trophies...for the undead had sent in many waves of reinforcements for their slain brothers. Everywhere I turned there seemed to be more and more of the foul undead. Knowing that they were not that smart, I realized that my only hope was to divide and conquer.

  Quickly I ran across the bridge at whose head our first companion had met his demise, many of them followed me and I was able to re-cross the bridge, trapping the stupid creatures on the other side of the chasm, unable to figure out how to cross the bridge. However, there were still three on my side of the bridge and it was at this point that felt the protections that I had laboriously cast upon myself earlier starting to fade. I knew that those protections were all that stood between myself and the fate of my companion BB since the foul undead had already begun trying to weaken them by making me vulnerable to their blades and their acid. With no other options in sight, I managed to get my back into a corner, forcing the creatures to attack me from the front where I stood a better chance of evading their blades. I knew I had but one hope...whipping out a roll of bandages, I bound all of the wounds I had thus far taken and quickly brought out the staff that provides my focus for the mystical energies of this world. As I readied myself and cleared my mind for casting, I could feel the blades and the acid of these foul demons taking their toll on my body and armor. With a whispered incantation I felt the mystical energies surround me and pull me into the vortex that I have grown to know so well
since my advent into this strange world. It still makes me queasy to enter that vortex, but this time I knew that it was saving me from an untimely and forced trip through that same energy vortex. And it was, with a sense of relief, that I found myself standing at the Life Stone that grows down the hill from Fort Tethana. Once again I was in the direlands.

With a heavy heart for the fate of my comrade I returned to my quiet little town of Lin. There I once more ascended to the spot from which I contemplate this new world that I have found myself in. The sounds of the forge below me, the bustle of a thriving economy, the sounds of the birds and even the occasional mournful howls of the wolves in the distance helped me compose my mind. Tomorrow would be another day and possibly another adventure.

Reginald of EpiK