Struggle and Strife- A scarred lands storyhour
- Thread starter Lars Frehse
- Start date
Lars Frehse
First Post
Glad to see you back, Snoweel. The answer to your question will come right now, in the next post. (I wanted to post it earlier, but couldn't...)
Lars Frehse
First Post
Shadow of the Slarecians, Part 2
“None of your business, now let me pass.”.
The dwarf sneered:” You know, I don’t like your face. So I am making this my business”.
Suddenly, the dwarf threw a punch at Niklas, but the monk’s training kicked in and he moved his body out of the way, and all the attacker hit was thin air. Niklas hit back, using the palm of his hand to knock out the air out of the dwarf’s lung, but the sturdy humanoid was tough- usually a punch like that would have stunned any opponent, but the dwarf merely sneered and punched him into the stomach.
Noticing the commotion, the hooded humanoid started to run down the snow covered alley, and Niklas, intending to keep up with him, tumbled past the dwarf, who had pulled out a dagger by now.
Niklas ran after the man with the dwarf in hot pursuit, but as the cloaked man reached an intersection, he feinted to run left just to jump right as Niklas eyes were still looking where he expected the man to be and not where he actually was.
The short diversion was enough for him to hide in the shadows somewhere in the dark alley, and before Niklas had a chance to check out the several doorways and side alleys, the dwarf had kept up with him.
He was panting heavily, and charged Niklas with his dagger. Turning around, the monk didn’t sidestep fast enough and was cut into the arm. Seeing that there was no point in running on, Niklas faced the attacker and covered him with a flurry of blows. Without getting injured any further, he beat the dwarf unconcious and hoping that his friends were at the Wench, he slung the bully over his shoulder and went back to the Tavern.
The others had already made it to the back entrance, and after Niklas had told them what had happened, they went to the junction were Niklas had last seen the hooded man. It had been a day since it had snowed the last time and there many feet had stomped it solid. However, Torn managed to find tracks which were fresher than any of the others.
They followed the tracks, which ended in front of a small house. Assuming that their target had resumed his flight on the roof, Niklas and Torn climbed up where they indeed found footprints in the snow.
Guiding their friends from the rooftops, the monk and the rogue followed the tracks. From time to time, they had to jump over small alleys, and once Torn slipped and fell down, but since the ground was covered with snow and he was able to lessen the impact by rolling with the fall, he didn’t hurt himself and continued the chase.
Eventually, with their friends far behind by now, they reached a part of Shacktown where some buildings had collapsed into the ground. Apparently, the ground under the houses hadn’t been solid enough and it had fallen into a crater. The ruins had been stripped of all materials that could be used to build new houses in the chaotic mass of shacktown, and all that was left was a circular, rubble filled ditch with a radius of about thirty feet.
This is where the tracks lead. They climbed down into it, and saw that the tracks lead into a small opening and beyond it, a corridor.
Under Mithril, there was a net of catacombs. Years ago, they had been used as a burial ground for the dead. However, the Penumbral Pentagon, a sinister organization of shadowmages, had used it as their base from where they were plotting the downfall of Mithril. They were eventually stopped by the then young Paladin Barconius, but the known entrances to the catacombs were sealed of as a matter of precaution.
But here, in the middle of a district where hardly a Paladin was ever seen, they had discovered a new entrance to the catacombs, and it was clear that they would have to go into it. After a short exchange, they decided that Torn would carefully scout ahead- his orcish darkvision gave him a valuable advantage here, while Niklas would run back and lead their fellows to the entrance.
Once he was past the rubble in the entrance, Torn saw that the catacombs were mostly intact here. He could only hope that the builders over the parts he would come through were more thorough then the ones who had caused the collapse.
The catacombs were a real maze. Fortunately, there was merely one set of tracks- it didn’t look like there were many people down here. And since there were occasional puddles of water, following the wet tracks on the dry parts was easy.
Eventually, Torn reached a thirty feet chasm. Twenty feet below, there was a sluggish mass slowly drifting by, and by the foul smell of it, the halforc could easily guess what that mass was. The chasm was bridged by a long plank of wood, and there was a corridor on the other side.
Carefully, Torn tested the plank with his foot, and seeing that it could carry his weight, he walked onto it. Then, as he was about in the middle of it, he felt a sensation of vertigo. Everything was spinning around him and he felt sick, but he willed himself to keep on standing upright. He was just about to feel better again, as a hooded figure stepped out of the shadow at the other side of the chasm and kicked at the board.
Immediately, the board fell into the chasm, and Torn fell into an ice cold mixture of feces, urine and water. He completely submerged in the sewage, and when he resurfaced, he couldn’t say whether the stink or the cold was worse.
He swam to the wall and climbed out of the chasm, pulling the weight of his wet clothes with him. Then he stood in the corridor again, dripping and stinking. He turned around, but there was no sign of the hooded man anymore.
“None of your business, now let me pass.”.
The dwarf sneered:” You know, I don’t like your face. So I am making this my business”.
Suddenly, the dwarf threw a punch at Niklas, but the monk’s training kicked in and he moved his body out of the way, and all the attacker hit was thin air. Niklas hit back, using the palm of his hand to knock out the air out of the dwarf’s lung, but the sturdy humanoid was tough- usually a punch like that would have stunned any opponent, but the dwarf merely sneered and punched him into the stomach.
Noticing the commotion, the hooded humanoid started to run down the snow covered alley, and Niklas, intending to keep up with him, tumbled past the dwarf, who had pulled out a dagger by now.
Niklas ran after the man with the dwarf in hot pursuit, but as the cloaked man reached an intersection, he feinted to run left just to jump right as Niklas eyes were still looking where he expected the man to be and not where he actually was.
The short diversion was enough for him to hide in the shadows somewhere in the dark alley, and before Niklas had a chance to check out the several doorways and side alleys, the dwarf had kept up with him.
He was panting heavily, and charged Niklas with his dagger. Turning around, the monk didn’t sidestep fast enough and was cut into the arm. Seeing that there was no point in running on, Niklas faced the attacker and covered him with a flurry of blows. Without getting injured any further, he beat the dwarf unconcious and hoping that his friends were at the Wench, he slung the bully over his shoulder and went back to the Tavern.
The others had already made it to the back entrance, and after Niklas had told them what had happened, they went to the junction were Niklas had last seen the hooded man. It had been a day since it had snowed the last time and there many feet had stomped it solid. However, Torn managed to find tracks which were fresher than any of the others.
They followed the tracks, which ended in front of a small house. Assuming that their target had resumed his flight on the roof, Niklas and Torn climbed up where they indeed found footprints in the snow.
Guiding their friends from the rooftops, the monk and the rogue followed the tracks. From time to time, they had to jump over small alleys, and once Torn slipped and fell down, but since the ground was covered with snow and he was able to lessen the impact by rolling with the fall, he didn’t hurt himself and continued the chase.
Eventually, with their friends far behind by now, they reached a part of Shacktown where some buildings had collapsed into the ground. Apparently, the ground under the houses hadn’t been solid enough and it had fallen into a crater. The ruins had been stripped of all materials that could be used to build new houses in the chaotic mass of shacktown, and all that was left was a circular, rubble filled ditch with a radius of about thirty feet.
This is where the tracks lead. They climbed down into it, and saw that the tracks lead into a small opening and beyond it, a corridor.
Under Mithril, there was a net of catacombs. Years ago, they had been used as a burial ground for the dead. However, the Penumbral Pentagon, a sinister organization of shadowmages, had used it as their base from where they were plotting the downfall of Mithril. They were eventually stopped by the then young Paladin Barconius, but the known entrances to the catacombs were sealed of as a matter of precaution.
But here, in the middle of a district where hardly a Paladin was ever seen, they had discovered a new entrance to the catacombs, and it was clear that they would have to go into it. After a short exchange, they decided that Torn would carefully scout ahead- his orcish darkvision gave him a valuable advantage here, while Niklas would run back and lead their fellows to the entrance.
Once he was past the rubble in the entrance, Torn saw that the catacombs were mostly intact here. He could only hope that the builders over the parts he would come through were more thorough then the ones who had caused the collapse.
The catacombs were a real maze. Fortunately, there was merely one set of tracks- it didn’t look like there were many people down here. And since there were occasional puddles of water, following the wet tracks on the dry parts was easy.
Eventually, Torn reached a thirty feet chasm. Twenty feet below, there was a sluggish mass slowly drifting by, and by the foul smell of it, the halforc could easily guess what that mass was. The chasm was bridged by a long plank of wood, and there was a corridor on the other side.
Carefully, Torn tested the plank with his foot, and seeing that it could carry his weight, he walked onto it. Then, as he was about in the middle of it, he felt a sensation of vertigo. Everything was spinning around him and he felt sick, but he willed himself to keep on standing upright. He was just about to feel better again, as a hooded figure stepped out of the shadow at the other side of the chasm and kicked at the board.
Immediately, the board fell into the chasm, and Torn fell into an ice cold mixture of feces, urine and water. He completely submerged in the sewage, and when he resurfaced, he couldn’t say whether the stink or the cold was worse.
He swam to the wall and climbed out of the chasm, pulling the weight of his wet clothes with him. Then he stood in the corridor again, dripping and stinking. He turned around, but there was no sign of the hooded man anymore.
Lars Frehse
First Post
Shadow of the Slarecians- part 3 of 4
There was nothing left to do but return to the entrance where his friends had arrived by now. He was shivering badly in the cold, but Trepat used magic to clean and dry him. They put the tied up and unconcious dwarf into the entrance where they wrapped him up with his coat. Then, they entered the catacombs.
They reached the chasm unchecked, and after some looking, they found metal rods sticking out of the stone on both sides, which may have been used as a foundataion for a small bridge before. Using Lassos, they crossed the gap, and entered the corridor on the other side.
After a while, the corridor’s ceiling sloped down to five feet high and a cold breeze blew out from the cramped passage ahead. Moving into the corridor, they noticed that there seemed to be an unnatural darkness ahead, swallowing the light of their lantern, and then the breeze blew out the light itself.
Now, they were stuck in darkness, and even Torn wasn’t able to penetrate the blackness ahead. Suddenly, a bolt flew out of the darkness towards them, and hit Jan in the shoulder. Without waiting any longer, Torn charged into the darkness, expecting the attacker to be hiding in there.
However, after he had just taken a few step into the darkness, he fell for the third time that day- suddenly, there was no ground under his feet anymore and he stumbled into water. As he resurfaced and pulled himself back onto the stonefloor, Trepat and Niklas went down to their knees and carefully crawled into the magical darkness.
Meanwhile, every few seconds, another crossbowbolt flew through the corridor, endangering the friends. Since they made too good targets and the corridor ahead was crowded now anyway, Ben and Jan retreated to the beginning of the corridor, where they relit their lantern, listening for any signs that indicated that their help was needed.
Torn carefully groped for the wall to his left, and as he heard the sound of a bolt missing his face by just a quarter of an inch, he felt that the wall was as rough as the ones he had walked past before. Carefully, he raised himself to a halferect position- the ceiling was too low for him to fully stand up here.
The wall offered enough footholds for him to climb along it, and after he tenderly put his foot down after twenty feet to see whether he was still over water, he felt the solid ground again. All the time, at the rate of one man shooting a crossbow, bolts flew through the darkness, sometimes hitting one of the friends.
Torn stumbled along the corridor, and all of a sudden, there was light again. He could now see the corridor’s roof rising up again, and behind a small, three foot tall wall stood a slender humanoid with a crossbow in his hand. The man was tall and thin, and he had long, pointed ears and almond shaped eyes. He reminded Torn of one of the henchmen of the piratewoman they had encountered offshore Thalien. This humanoid seemed to belong to the same species.
There was no time for musings at the moment: Torn jumped over the wall, striking at the humanoid with his spiked chain. As the humanoid pulled out his rapier and Trepat and Niklas, who had taken the same way as Torn, emerged out of the darkness, something strange happened. Instead of attacking, the man jerked his head in direction of the floor, as if he wanted Torn to take a look at something. His eyes were pleading for mercy and help, and so Torn took the risk, and as he looked down, he saw something he hadn’t seen in months: the shadow of the man didn’t look like his shadow at all. The shadow had a long neck, and on his top there was a long head with a ribbed forehead. It was a Slarecian shadow.
Torn nodded, and as Niklas and Trepat moved over the wall as well, he shouted: “SLARECIAN SHADOW!”, and lit up a sunrod. His friends understood right away and did the same.
Suddenly, the eyes of the man lit up as he realized what his attackers planned, and he too pulled out a sunrod from his coat, but before he could light it, something happened: He screamed out in pain, and sank down on his knees, holding his head in his hands.
They fought the shadow with their sunrod, the way they did in the Kelders, and again, they suceeded in burning away parts of his darkness. After a while, the humanoid got back on his feet, and even though he seemed weakened and confused, he helped the friends.
Eventually, the shadow fled down the corridor the friends had come from. Remembering that his brother and Ben were still back there, Niklas shouted them a warning, and Jan lit up a sunrod while Ben held his lantern ready.
Then, suddenly, the shadow slid over the floor of the corridor towards them. Ben and Jan tried to hit him with their rays of light, and the Paladin envoked his holy power to smite evil along with it, “burning” away another part of the shadow.
The shadow slid over them, and as it did, it shortly lingered on Jan. Immediately, the Paladin felt how his strength got drained from him, and while the shadow fled over the chasm Jan was left behind, barely able to support his own way.
It turned out that there was a little walkway over the waterpit that could be lowered with a lever. Ben and Jan, who was supporting himself by resting his right hand on the halfling’s left shoulder joined up with their friends, who were by now interrogating the humanoid.
His name was Shyle Dow, and he belonged to a species called Vertigen. They were the last race of titanspawn created by Mesos, and their creator had granted them the gifts of fluid grace and agility. They were also able to induce vertigo in others- as Torn had noticed when he crossed the beam over the chasm. Before Mesos could tell his creation what their reason of living was however, he was destroyed by Corean and other gods. Ever since, they lived mostly as thieves and assassins, using their abilities to survive by all means possible.
While Shyle was able to tell the history of his people with ease, he had problems when it came to his reasons of aquiring the book. He turned to Niklas, scratching his head:” Did I steal it from you?”
“No, but if you give it to me, I will return it to it’s rightful owner.”.
“Good. You see, I can hardly remember anything about the last days… There was this pain in my head when I lit that rod… The shadow…”
He lead them into his hideaway behind a door in the corridor, where he told them what he remembered. It seemed that many of his memories were destroyed when he attacked the Slarecian Shadow.
“I had this shadow for quite some time, I think… For some time, it was simply there, but then, it made me do things… After a while, I knew what it wanted and then… I don’t know… But I remember it wanted me to get this book. And I remember that when I didn’t do what it wanted, I felt weak, and it took me days to recover.”
He opened a chest from which he took the book. He handed it to Torn and continued:” It seems like I did get it… Fortunately I got rid of it and the shadow now.”
Niklas said:” Looks like it is not your fault you attacked us… But do you remember hiring a dwarf?”
“Oh, yes, there is Graff, a guy with whom I work from time to time!”.
Niklas told him that he was laying outside in the corridors, and Shyle came with them to pick up his friend.
There was nothing left to do but return to the entrance where his friends had arrived by now. He was shivering badly in the cold, but Trepat used magic to clean and dry him. They put the tied up and unconcious dwarf into the entrance where they wrapped him up with his coat. Then, they entered the catacombs.
They reached the chasm unchecked, and after some looking, they found metal rods sticking out of the stone on both sides, which may have been used as a foundataion for a small bridge before. Using Lassos, they crossed the gap, and entered the corridor on the other side.
After a while, the corridor’s ceiling sloped down to five feet high and a cold breeze blew out from the cramped passage ahead. Moving into the corridor, they noticed that there seemed to be an unnatural darkness ahead, swallowing the light of their lantern, and then the breeze blew out the light itself.
Now, they were stuck in darkness, and even Torn wasn’t able to penetrate the blackness ahead. Suddenly, a bolt flew out of the darkness towards them, and hit Jan in the shoulder. Without waiting any longer, Torn charged into the darkness, expecting the attacker to be hiding in there.
However, after he had just taken a few step into the darkness, he fell for the third time that day- suddenly, there was no ground under his feet anymore and he stumbled into water. As he resurfaced and pulled himself back onto the stonefloor, Trepat and Niklas went down to their knees and carefully crawled into the magical darkness.
Meanwhile, every few seconds, another crossbowbolt flew through the corridor, endangering the friends. Since they made too good targets and the corridor ahead was crowded now anyway, Ben and Jan retreated to the beginning of the corridor, where they relit their lantern, listening for any signs that indicated that their help was needed.
Torn carefully groped for the wall to his left, and as he heard the sound of a bolt missing his face by just a quarter of an inch, he felt that the wall was as rough as the ones he had walked past before. Carefully, he raised himself to a halferect position- the ceiling was too low for him to fully stand up here.
The wall offered enough footholds for him to climb along it, and after he tenderly put his foot down after twenty feet to see whether he was still over water, he felt the solid ground again. All the time, at the rate of one man shooting a crossbow, bolts flew through the darkness, sometimes hitting one of the friends.
Torn stumbled along the corridor, and all of a sudden, there was light again. He could now see the corridor’s roof rising up again, and behind a small, three foot tall wall stood a slender humanoid with a crossbow in his hand. The man was tall and thin, and he had long, pointed ears and almond shaped eyes. He reminded Torn of one of the henchmen of the piratewoman they had encountered offshore Thalien. This humanoid seemed to belong to the same species.
There was no time for musings at the moment: Torn jumped over the wall, striking at the humanoid with his spiked chain. As the humanoid pulled out his rapier and Trepat and Niklas, who had taken the same way as Torn, emerged out of the darkness, something strange happened. Instead of attacking, the man jerked his head in direction of the floor, as if he wanted Torn to take a look at something. His eyes were pleading for mercy and help, and so Torn took the risk, and as he looked down, he saw something he hadn’t seen in months: the shadow of the man didn’t look like his shadow at all. The shadow had a long neck, and on his top there was a long head with a ribbed forehead. It was a Slarecian shadow.
Torn nodded, and as Niklas and Trepat moved over the wall as well, he shouted: “SLARECIAN SHADOW!”, and lit up a sunrod. His friends understood right away and did the same.
Suddenly, the eyes of the man lit up as he realized what his attackers planned, and he too pulled out a sunrod from his coat, but before he could light it, something happened: He screamed out in pain, and sank down on his knees, holding his head in his hands.
They fought the shadow with their sunrod, the way they did in the Kelders, and again, they suceeded in burning away parts of his darkness. After a while, the humanoid got back on his feet, and even though he seemed weakened and confused, he helped the friends.
Eventually, the shadow fled down the corridor the friends had come from. Remembering that his brother and Ben were still back there, Niklas shouted them a warning, and Jan lit up a sunrod while Ben held his lantern ready.
Then, suddenly, the shadow slid over the floor of the corridor towards them. Ben and Jan tried to hit him with their rays of light, and the Paladin envoked his holy power to smite evil along with it, “burning” away another part of the shadow.
The shadow slid over them, and as it did, it shortly lingered on Jan. Immediately, the Paladin felt how his strength got drained from him, and while the shadow fled over the chasm Jan was left behind, barely able to support his own way.
It turned out that there was a little walkway over the waterpit that could be lowered with a lever. Ben and Jan, who was supporting himself by resting his right hand on the halfling’s left shoulder joined up with their friends, who were by now interrogating the humanoid.
His name was Shyle Dow, and he belonged to a species called Vertigen. They were the last race of titanspawn created by Mesos, and their creator had granted them the gifts of fluid grace and agility. They were also able to induce vertigo in others- as Torn had noticed when he crossed the beam over the chasm. Before Mesos could tell his creation what their reason of living was however, he was destroyed by Corean and other gods. Ever since, they lived mostly as thieves and assassins, using their abilities to survive by all means possible.
While Shyle was able to tell the history of his people with ease, he had problems when it came to his reasons of aquiring the book. He turned to Niklas, scratching his head:” Did I steal it from you?”
“No, but if you give it to me, I will return it to it’s rightful owner.”.
“Good. You see, I can hardly remember anything about the last days… There was this pain in my head when I lit that rod… The shadow…”
He lead them into his hideaway behind a door in the corridor, where he told them what he remembered. It seemed that many of his memories were destroyed when he attacked the Slarecian Shadow.
“I had this shadow for quite some time, I think… For some time, it was simply there, but then, it made me do things… After a while, I knew what it wanted and then… I don’t know… But I remember it wanted me to get this book. And I remember that when I didn’t do what it wanted, I felt weak, and it took me days to recover.”
He opened a chest from which he took the book. He handed it to Torn and continued:” It seems like I did get it… Fortunately I got rid of it and the shadow now.”
Niklas said:” Looks like it is not your fault you attacked us… But do you remember hiring a dwarf?”
“Oh, yes, there is Graff, a guy with whom I work from time to time!”.
Niklas told him that he was laying outside in the corridors, and Shyle came with them to pick up his friend.
Lars Frehse
First Post
Shadow of the Slarecians part 4 of 4
As they went back to the entrance, Jan checked Shyle Dow's aura again, and he found no evil in it. The Vertigen liberated the dwarf, who was shivering and had regained his conciousness, and after he had grudgingly congratulated Niklas on his combat prowess, the friends decided to let them both go. After all, they had regained the book, and there was no real harm done.
The dwarf and the Vertigen returned into the depths of the catacombs, and the heroes crawled out into the darkness. Back under the nightsky, everything in the crater was covered with snow and bathed in the pale light of Belsameth's moon. Trepat turned around to take one last look at the entrance, and as he glanced past Torn, he saw that the long shadow the half orc was casting did not look as massive as it should. The elf stopped dead in his tracks, and as he pointed to the shadow and lit his sunrod, no words were needed anymore.
They surrounded Torn's thrashing shadow and fought it with light. It fought back, and each time it hit one of the heroes, the victim felt weaker. It stayed attached to Torn, and after it had hit the already weakened Jan, the Paladin crashed to the ground, and he needed all his strength just to keep on breathing.
After a while, only Niklas and Torn were left standing. Their friends were too weakened, and they had retreated, fearing that one more hit might suck the last strength of life out of them. One of the arms of the shadow lengthened in order to touch Niklas, but the monk had learned to rely on his reflexes instead of armor for protection, and he easily avoided the arm. This gave Torn the opening to hold his sunrod into the centre of the shadow, which at last dissipated, leaving nothing behind but the mundane shadows cast by Belsameth's moon.
Now that everything was sad and done, the friends helped Jan getting back to temple city, where he had to report to his superiors. There, the priests cast lesser restoration on them to help them regain their strength in time.
On the next morning, they returned the book to Azatan. The Calastian welcomed them in his store among his books and cats, and hewas eager to listen to their story. As a reward, he procured a small chest with two scrolls and a wand that could cure wounds.
There may have been more Slarecian shadows or other spawn of that mysterious race in Mithril, but for now, the friends were just happy that they had survived it all unscathed. However, they told Azatan that keeping the book would probably only spell trouble for him in the future. With a heavy heart, the merchant decided to get rid of it.
"But at least, it wasn't stolen", he told them and let the friends know that if they were looking for any information in the future, they should get in touch with him.
One week after that, Torn had his exam at the guild of shadow, the local guild of wizards, and on the same evening, he was allowed to call himself "apprentice wizard". And a few days after that, they all received invitations to the new-years ball that was to be held at the estate of Barconius.
As they went back to the entrance, Jan checked Shyle Dow's aura again, and he found no evil in it. The Vertigen liberated the dwarf, who was shivering and had regained his conciousness, and after he had grudgingly congratulated Niklas on his combat prowess, the friends decided to let them both go. After all, they had regained the book, and there was no real harm done.
The dwarf and the Vertigen returned into the depths of the catacombs, and the heroes crawled out into the darkness. Back under the nightsky, everything in the crater was covered with snow and bathed in the pale light of Belsameth's moon. Trepat turned around to take one last look at the entrance, and as he glanced past Torn, he saw that the long shadow the half orc was casting did not look as massive as it should. The elf stopped dead in his tracks, and as he pointed to the shadow and lit his sunrod, no words were needed anymore.
They surrounded Torn's thrashing shadow and fought it with light. It fought back, and each time it hit one of the heroes, the victim felt weaker. It stayed attached to Torn, and after it had hit the already weakened Jan, the Paladin crashed to the ground, and he needed all his strength just to keep on breathing.
After a while, only Niklas and Torn were left standing. Their friends were too weakened, and they had retreated, fearing that one more hit might suck the last strength of life out of them. One of the arms of the shadow lengthened in order to touch Niklas, but the monk had learned to rely on his reflexes instead of armor for protection, and he easily avoided the arm. This gave Torn the opening to hold his sunrod into the centre of the shadow, which at last dissipated, leaving nothing behind but the mundane shadows cast by Belsameth's moon.
Now that everything was sad and done, the friends helped Jan getting back to temple city, where he had to report to his superiors. There, the priests cast lesser restoration on them to help them regain their strength in time.
On the next morning, they returned the book to Azatan. The Calastian welcomed them in his store among his books and cats, and hewas eager to listen to their story. As a reward, he procured a small chest with two scrolls and a wand that could cure wounds.
There may have been more Slarecian shadows or other spawn of that mysterious race in Mithril, but for now, the friends were just happy that they had survived it all unscathed. However, they told Azatan that keeping the book would probably only spell trouble for him in the future. With a heavy heart, the merchant decided to get rid of it.
"But at least, it wasn't stolen", he told them and let the friends know that if they were looking for any information in the future, they should get in touch with him.
One week after that, Torn had his exam at the guild of shadow, the local guild of wizards, and on the same evening, he was allowed to call himself "apprentice wizard". And a few days after that, they all received invitations to the new-years ball that was to be held at the estate of Barconius.
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