Jamison and Kizzlorn separated and went back to recovering the remains of the Spellforge family. Jamison saw something by the corner of the room, and went to investigate it. It was small, black, and shiny. “I think I found someth… oh.” It was the same purple-black stone that had turned him evil. “Guh, HUHH, NOOOOO!!” Jamison pinwheeled his arms and fell backward, kicking his legs to push himself away from the horrid little thing.
Vek approached. “Gregg, what is it?”
“Th-that…” he pointed, his hand shaking. He whispered so Oaken, who knew Jamison only as “Gregg Flamebrow”, wouldn’t overhear. “That’s what I found in the Crater Ridge Mines. It’s an artifact of the Temple of Elemental Evil. It’s what turned me into a murderer and fiend.”
“It doesn’t look so dangerous.” Vek bent to pick it up.
Jamison’s hand gripped Vek’s bony forearm, stopping it just inches from the stone. “No. Don’t touch it.”
Vek laughed. “J… Gregg, nothing can affect the mind of a creature whose brain has long since rotted away.”
“Trust me,” Jamison said. “It doesn’t affect your mind. It affects WHAT YOU ARE.” His lips were quivering.
Vek straightened. “Fine, then. Use a spell to move it into a container of some sort, and we’ll destroy it when we get back to the Keep.” He wandered off and knelt by another object on the floor of the cavern.
Jamison moved the fist-sized stone into a sack as slowly and cautiously as he could. His hands shook from the fear he was feeling.
Oaken approached Vek, who was placing something into his own bag of holding. Oak sighed in frustration. “I came here for something, and cannot find it. I need to know where the dragon kept his horde.”
Vek closed the bag and said “Let’s ask him, then.” He cast a spell on Acessiwal’s corpse and said “Ask your question, and he will answer it.”
Oak asked “Where is the Key of Thuriaq?”
The dragon’s mouth moved, though his eyes were glazing and dead. ”I… DO… NOT… KNOW.”
“Isn’t it here?”
”NO.”
The horde was located at the northwest corner. It was a small room, covered with a sheet of ice. Kizzlorn melted the ice away with a fire spell and walked inside. Treasures and riches lay everywhere. The Knights began loading up their sacks.
Oaken walked to the back and saw the pedestal of ice where the key should have lain. There was a hemispherical depression in the top of the pedestal, of the perfect size, and empty. “Damn!” he shouted before leaning on a wall and sliding down to sit. His white eyes darted back and forth as he cursed.
Kizz looked over at him. “Oak? What’s wrong?”
He sighed. “The Key. The last Key of Thuriaq. It’s not here… which means my order has failed.”
“What is the last Key of Thuriaq? Sounds important.”
Oaken ran his hand through his white hair. “Thuriaq is an ancient demon. A doomsday titan. It was defeated, but could not be destroyed, so it was locked…”
“I’m sorry,” Kizzlorn interrupted. “Did you say ‘titan’?”
“Yes. Why?”
Kizzlorn sat nearby, looking very worried. Snooky climbed out of the knapsack and into her arms. “No reason. Go on.”
“Thuriaq was locked away in a hidden tomb. A prison beneath the ground. Seven keys were forged of crystal to lock him inside. These keys were then scattered across the Flanaess, and the knowledge of their whereabouts entrusted to a devoted handful of druids like myself. Since they can’t be discovered by any spell’s detection, it was vital that we keep tabs on them. We listen to rumors and voices on the wind, and go to keys that are in danger of discovery, moving them to safer areas. Over the last two decades, these keys have been disappearing, with no knowing who took them or how to find them again. This was the last one. One or two is a coincidence, perhaps. Losing six in twenty years is conspiracy.”
He paused and looked at her. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? Someone means to unleash the most dangerous creature in the world. It will destroy us all. There isn’t anything that I know of, short of a full-grown dragon, that can stop it.”
Kizz scratched Snooky’s ear and was silent for a moment, then spoke. “We’ve been on the trail of… something… that seems to be freeing ‘titans’ from prisons in the earth. We may be searching for the same villain.”
Oaken looked relieved. “That is very good news. At least now we have a trail to follow.”
“What does this key look like?”
Jamison interrupted. “It’s a milky white crystal sphere, with pastel colors swimming on its surface.” He walked inside and addressed them with a grim face. “I think I can find it for you.”
Oaken jumped to his feet excitedly. “You can? How? This is of dire importance, Gregg.”
“My name isn’t Gregg. I’m the one who hid the key. I took it from this place and brought it somewhere else.”
He told Oaken everything about his past, and told them both of how he stole the orb from Acessiwal’s horde and hid it somewhere, but had forgotten until he’d heard Oaken talking just what the orb was used for.
“So. Jamison…” Oaken said, still adjusting to the idea of traveling with one of the world’s best-known mass murderers. “Where did you hide the orb?”
“I don’t know. Yet. My memory is still very fuzzy on that count. It’s there, on the tip of my memory, but it skirts out of reach whenever I come near.”
“The fate of the world may rest on this,” Oaken warned.
“I know, I know. I’m trying to remember.”
“Trying may not be enough. We will have to take action.”
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind for now… this isn’t the place to discuss the matter. Let’s finish what we’re doing here, and I will accompany you to your home, and help you carry your goods.”
“No matter,” Vek laughed as he entered the cavern. “We’ve got the world’s biggest pack mule waiting in the other room.” He gestured grandly, and Jamison, Kizz and Oak looked out to see Acessiwal’s glistening, freshly-stripped skeleton standing there. Mounds of flesh lay in steaming heaps all around it.
Kizzlorn laughed. “That’s disgusting, Uncle Vek!”
“Yes, that’s an unfortunate side effect of making a skeleton out of something. The flesh just sloughs off like bread dough. Pity.” He called out to Grumbar. “Grumbar! Load that dragon meat into a bag of holding, and we’ll have dragon steaks for months, and fine new dragonskin cloaks.”
Grumbar licked his lips and went to work stuffing the large slabs of meat into a bag.
Kizzlorn stood up. “Looks like we’re about ready to go. Do we have the remains of my family and their friends?”
“All except for Kyla,” Vek said sadly. He held out a golden medallion, in which was pressed the design of the sun god Pelor. “I found this. It’s called ‘the Glaring Sun’, and it was hers. It looks like her body may have been… if you’ll pardon my saying so… eaten, Kizzlorn.”
Kizz furrowed her brow and slipped Snooky back into her knapsack. “That’s a shame. Nothing like that should happen to a warrior who saved the world.”
“At least you have your parents, Kizz.”
“I know. You’re right. Are we ready to go?”
They packed their bags and goods onto Acessiwal’s skeleton, went outside to retrieve the horses (who were almost frozen to death, except of course for Tsunami). The horses trailed behind as the Knights of Spellforge keep rode the undead corpse of their draconic enemy, on their way home.
EPILOGUE
“We give their bodies to the oerth, and pray Pelor give them peace. Go in light and truth, Katya and Rafflorn Spellforge.”
The caskets lowered magically into the ground. The Knights stood around the graves of Katya, Rafflorn, Rowan, Taigiel, Jettok, and Kyla’s memorial, behind Spellforge Keep, beneath a huge willow tree. The setting sun cast a rosy light into the misty hills for miles around, and all seemed right in the realm… if just for an evening. Nearby, Shade’s ashes had been spread over a memorial to him. Further back, the graves of the people who’d died in the Keep by Acessiwal’s claws lay in rows among the grass and trees. Jo’nas and Orthos had graves side by side, symbolizing the strong friendship they’d found in life. Grumbar had poured a mug of fine dwarven ale into the soil above their resting places, weeping softly, the day before.
Kizzlorn sighed deeply as the graves were filled. Vek put a hand on her shoulder and said “You’ve made them proud, no doubt. You honor them.”
She hugged him. “Thank you Uncle Vek.” Hugging a lich is an odd thing on the best of days, but today she hardly noticed the smell. “I just hope I can continue to honor them. They saved the world, once. Will I?”
“I’m sure you- WE- will. Together.” He left her there and walked toward the Keep.
He came around to the front of the castle and saw that several Verbobonc children were climbing on the dragon’s skeleton. He waved to them. They waved back and laughed as they swung from the white dragon’s ribs and wing bones. “Such a fine lawn ornament you make, Acessiwal,” Vek joked to himself as he crossed the drawbridge.
Inside, a man in a red cape greeted him. “How are you feeling, Captain Metus?”
“Better, and thank you, my lord.”
“No thanks are needed, my friend. You’ve been a loyal and dutiful servant of Wee Jas. You deserved no less.”
“Being raised from the dead seems an odd thing. I still feel very weak.”
“It will pass. Take care.”
“I will, my lord. Good evening to you.”
Vek walked on, and passed the kitchens. Inside, Horacio the chef was toiling to prepare a side of dragon meat that must have weighed almost a hundred pounds. Grumbar had demanded that Horacio be among those blessed with a return from death. The chef’s cooking really was quite excellent, and with all this succulent and tender dragon meat to cook, the hungry half-orc wouldn’t trust the job to anyone else. Horacio cursed as the entire slab of meat fell off the table to the floor. Vek suspected the grouchy chef was perhaps happier among the dead.
Vek opened the door to his dungeon and walked down the stone stairs to the dank depths he inhabited. The deadly traps that Acessiwal had torn through were now rebuilt, and his phylactery was replaced in its secret location. Vek sidestepped all the traps and walked through the halls. His footsteps echoed eerily down here in the darkness, which was just the way he liked it. He reached the door to his private chambers and stepped inside.
“What are you looking at?” he asked with a chuckle. He stood and looked at his newest prize, which sat in a wooden chair in a corner of his study. “It’s your own fault, you know. No, don’t give me that.” He laughed louder this time. “What? What was that? You don’t deserve this? Oh NO? Perhaps you should have considered this when you failed to invite me to fight the dragon, you elitist sheep. A curse on you, and all Pelor’s flock.”
Vek cackled with laughter as he sat down to study an ancient tome of yellowing arcane lore. In the corner, Kyla Spellforge’s skeletal corpse watched from the chair she was propped up in, saying nothing.
NEXT: REMEMBERING
