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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Andrew D. Gable" data-source="post: 1495139" data-attributes="member: 4144">Satisfied that his guests are comfortable, Tiberio sets down his wine.  He peers at Santoro with a smirk on his face.  "There is no hiding the truth from the likes of you, I see.  Aye, Drusus killed the king, in a manner of speaking.  Old Cantallo, now, he was as mad as they come.  He was obsessed with the question of immortality, and was loath to consider that his kingdom might fall to his grasping and unfit son Amalrus.  Many a time had he expressed despair at Amalrus' weakmindedness.  It was not just overt cruelty for which Drusus was punished.  One of the victims of his rages was a shaman of the hill tribes, one who supposedly knew a way to make life eternal and unending.  So Cantallo made a deal with Drusus."'Now, Drusus, you shall aid me if you wish to live,' said he. 'I have recently procured a copy of the fabled Book of Skelos and in it is an invocation to bestow immortality upon the user.  You shall help me do this ritual, Drusus, or, make no mistake, I order my guards to kill you now.'  Needless to say, Drusus agreed readily.  Foolishness though it was, he would help Cantallo in these black arts.  So Cantallo led him into the South Peristyle, in which he had all the accoutrements of a mage assembled.  After preparing as necessary, the king unfurled the scroll and began reading."Perhaps before I go on, I should explain to you why I know this.  For you see, at the time I had not yet been granted my lands by the king, and I was a guard in the Ianthium.  I saw the whole thing occur with mine own eyes, unbelievable as it may sound."After nearly a half an hour, during which Cantallo called upon the most fearful of the old gods - Set himself, Shuma-Gorath, Varnae, and others too foul to mention - a mighty wind stirred over Ianthe.  Great gusts of wind tore through the peristyle, and then... then a brazier overturned.  Then all became dark - horribly, terribly dark, the kind of darkness that is practically palpable - then I saw it!  Two great yellow eyes, shining like those of a cat in the dark.  As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I saw that it was Drusus, but yet... he was changed somehow.  His countenance was crueller, more feral."'Cantallo!' he yelled.  'You offered me life, and life I shall receive!'  Then the horrid thing that was Drusus laid open the king's throat with one swipe of its talon.  And we guards, hardened by years of battle, fled for our very lives."Finally morning came.  Of the nearly score of guards who were in the Peristyle that eve, only myself and four others survived.  That morning, the palace was a ghoulish slaughterhouse.  And there, in a wine-cellar, we discovered the body of the Drusus-thing.  The king's son, Amalrus, instructed us to take it away, and so we did."From old books in the city's libraries, we learned that creatures of the sort Drusus had become were incapable of crossing running water.  So we knew what we had to do with the thing.  We hauled the stone box in which the thing was encased and loaded it on a riverboat, and went to an isle in the Red River.  When we got to the isle, twilight was falling.  Till we got the sarcophagus off the boat, the first inklings of night were reaching over the horizon.  And then the thing came out of its box..."  Tiberio shudders, and takes yet another glass of wine.</blockquote>

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