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Together in Eclectic Dreams

To truly understand a person, you must first walk a mile in their mind.


Together in Eclectic Dreams is the eighth questing area in the game and becomes available when all sub-quests and boss encounters have been completed on at least normal difficulty in Subterranean Depths.


← Subterranean Depths Together in Eclectic Dreams The Dragons' Claw →
Dreams of the Dragon-Rider | Lucian's Lessons | Marcus' Case | Medea's Song | Reality


Note[]

Achievement[]

Title Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6 Level 7
Better than a Dream
(Complete Together in Eclectic Dreams on Nightmare difficulty.)
Acv dreams 1
1
25 AP
Acv dreams 2
5
50 AP
Acv dreams 3
10
100 AP
Acv dreams 4
25
250 AP
Acv dreams 5
50
500 AP
Acv dreams 6
100
1000 AP
Acv dreams 7
250
2000 AP

Pre Lore[]

Lore
Brightness washes over you like a glorious golden river, made into a physical thing by the warmth that accompanies it. The sun greets you as an old friend the moment you step from the cave mouth, beaming down on you from a limitless expanse of soft blueness - not a single wisp of cloud dares intrude on the reunion. Now that you stand once more beneath its beautiful rays, the luminescent lichen and crystals, flaming torches, and even sorcerous light you encountered in the subterranean realm seem like poor things indeed - the faintest echoes of a grand symphony, drops of sweet wine diluted in a pint of water.

In your elation you can't resist looking up at the shining orb, so long hidden from your sight. You meet its potent, urning glaze, an hold it for a moment. Then you look away and close your eyes, relishing the colorful afterimages that glow before you.

Surrendering your sight for a time, relinquishing it to the medley of dark and light that dances on the inside of your eyelids, you take a deep breath – filling your nostrils. You laugh, wondering how it is that you've never noticed the smell of the surface until now, one which seems in this moment as distinctive as a coat of arms upon a noble's shield.

Behind you there's a trill of joyful harp music, like the song of a dozen birds greeting the dawn in perfect harmony.

"Nothing like daylight after a long spell underground," Roland says. "One of the best parts of adventuring -- stepping out of a cave or dungeon, weighed down by all the treasure you've found.“

"But where have we stepped out into?" Aesa asks.

At that, you open your eyes. The bright purity of the light, the freshness of the air, distracted you from that rather important question. You look around, blinking away the lingering traces of the sun's gaze.

A lush plain stretches away in all directions, its green mantle studded with whites, yellows, and pinks where wildflowers have laid their claims. The verdant grass is evidence that this place must receive plenty of rain in spite of its present cloudless warmth. Far ahead of you it yields to the edge of a forest, a dense mass of tall conifers that stand as though in battle order.

"A warband's marched out from here," Marcus says. "More than two months ago, by the look of it."

You nod. The traces haven't escaped your eyes either. Ever resilient and regenerating, nature has reclaimed the ground -- overlain the damage with fresh greenery. But there are still signs of the trampling feet that churned up mud which has long since dried and hardened. And there are gaps in the forest undergrowth, where paths must have been forced through the foliage by the same creatures.

"There were beastmen," one of the elven scouts says. She's in a low crouch, inspecting the ground with intent gaze and roaming hands as she moves over it. Then she comes to a stop, and looks up -- her surprised eyes meeting yours as she makes her next pronouncement: "And a dragon."

There's a murmur of disquiet and confusion as the news ripples out behind you, where the troops are still emerging from the cave mouth.

"We've been moving west," Roland says. "That would put us somewhere in the eastern part of Stromhamre. But-"

"But no dragon attacks have been reported from this region," Lucian says. "Not since we left Fallows, at any rate."

He's right. If a dragon passed this way months ago, having emerged from the same passage which brought you to the surface, why was there no word of it? If it had attacked any settlement of note, messengers and refugees would surely have carried their tale far and wide.

"You're sure they're drake tracks?" you ask.

"I'd be a poor scout if I couldn't tell the difference between a kobold's tracks and those of a gigantic lizard." She rises to her feet, and shrugs her shoulders. "There are a few other creatures which might leave similar signs. A wyvem, perhaps. But this monster walked on four legs -- wyvems have only two. And the tread isn't quite right for a basilisk. If it wasn't a dragon, I'll give up scouting and become a fishmonger."

There are mumbles of discontent from a few of the troops, and among their number you recognize a spearman who was a fishmonger before he found his way into your ranks. He and the others appear less than thrilled at hearing their profession deemed suitable for an inept scout. But the other scouts, who are now poking around the area themselves, nod their support for the woman's words. In truth, even to your untrained eye the tracks seem clear enough where you can make them out beneath the grass and plants. There's little room for doubt.

You scan the crowd arrayed before the mouth of the cave, until your eyes fall upon one of the druids -- a woman with unkempt brown locks that match her robes in hue.

"These plants..." you say, gesturing at the expanse of grass and other vegetation with a sweep of your arm.

The druid nods in understanding, and kneels on the ground. She closes her eyes, and begins to chant under her breath -- in words rendered unrecognizable to your ear either through their quietness or by the language in which they're spoken. The warriors around her move away with looks of trepidation on their faces, leaving her alone at the center of a widening circle.

After a few moments her chant stops, and a soft green glow mirroring that of the grass appears around her hands. Her eyes flick open, and she presses her palms against the ground.

"No magic was worked here," she says. The glow fades away, and she gets to her feet. "This grass... these flowers... were grown by nature, alone and unaided."

Then it's true - the dragon and its minions went over this ground months ago. Plenty of time for them to have been spotted and for a report to have reached Fallows before you embarked for the frozen north. Subterfuge, an attempt to obscure their tracks through eldritch means, would have provided an explanation. Instead, the mystery as only deepened.

"There are villages in these forests," a gruff voice says from the throng of troops.

Your comrades part, allowing the speaker to come to the front. He's a knight, dressed in grim but ornate black plate that's almost Ruthic in its design. One of the men who joined you before you set out for Nordent. His armor and the cast of his features mark him as a native of Stromhamre.

"Too small to appear on most maps," he continues. "Small enough to disappear without anyone knowing for a long time."

The knight's features are impassive, but you detect a vague twitch at the corners of his eyes.

"It's possible," Marcus says. "A warband that knew what it was doing could surround a village and make sure no one got out. And there's plenty of forest for even a dragon to lie hidden in..."

He trails off, but his unspoken thought is clear. What would a drake have to gain from destroying a few villages, and then lurking in the woods of Stromhamre instead of either assaulting a more significant target or joining up with one of their other armies?

An ominous chord drifts from Medea's harp as you look at the trees once more, wondering if a wyrm still stalks their shadowy depths.

"Solus..." you say.

There's no need to continue further. As always, he knows your mind, understands your intentions as well as you do.

"I will scour the terrain as best I can," the blue drake replies.

He springs upwards, launched by the powerful muscles that twitch beneath his scales. Then a flap of his leathery wings captures the air, and sends him soaring. His azure body soon disappears, consumed by the lighter blue of the heavens.

---

The sky has grown dim. Its cyan vault is overcast, smothered and strangled by masses of dark grey clouds that fill its expanse like smoke billowing from by masses of dark grey clouds that fill its expanse like smoke billowing from a city put to the torch. A distant rumble heralds the beginnings of rain.

"Drink?" Roland asks.

You accept the flask from his hand, and relish the warmth of the metal as your grasp closes around it. You lift it to your lips, and take a long gulp. Then you grimace. It tastes like someone set fire to a peat bog, and doused the flames with briny sea water. But the heat it spreads down your throat is welcome enough, once the taste has settled.

"Solus can handle himself," the adventurer says, as you pass the potent beverage back to him. "And the others know what they're doing."

You murmur words of agreement, but still you gaze at the looming clouds which shroud the sky, watching with troubled eyes and mind.

Some minutes after the drake flew off, you gave the order for your companions to rest and have a quick meal. When the better part of an hour had elapsed, and the weather grew cold, you gave them permission to brew drinks and soups to warm themselves -- reasoning that Solus had traveled far afield in search of his quarry. But as the minutes continued to crawl by, the sky yielding nothing more than massing clouds, a feeling of disquiet began to take hold. That was when you sent scouts into the forest - to follow the paths smashed through the foliage by the beastmen, and search for signs of either those creatures or of Solus himself. Over an hour has passed since the scouts departed, more than two since the blue dragon took to the skies. And still not one of them has returned.

Your gaze falls upon the conifers. Like the sky, they too appear sinister now - dark and foreboding. The forest seems a lurking beast, an immense monster that's swallowed your scouts with its vast maw and hidden their bones deep within its guts. Just as the heavens have swallowed Solus.

Marcus appears beside you, and he too looks towards the trees with a furrowed brow.

"Do you want us to dispatch more scouts?" he asks. "If so, I'll accompany them."

"Thank you," you reply. "But if we have to send anyone else into those woods, I'll lead them myself."

Not for the first time, you wish you'd mounted Solus before he flew off. On a scouting mission your human eyes would be worthless compared with the piercing orange orbs of the wyrm -- fashioned by nature to scan the ground from a lofty height, and spot movement far below. But if some danger has befallen him, you should have been there to fight at his side...

Several more minutes drift past. And though your eyes remain fixed ahead of you, they become unfocussed as your mind is swept along by disturbing thoughts. Thus you don't notice the figures emerging from the trees until a sharp blast of harp music draws you from your reverie.

Your reawakened gaze sweeps across the scouts as they run towards you. Their movements speak of fatigue suppressed in the name of desperate haste. But all are present, and none appears wounded. If they encountered combat, they either bested their foes or secured a safe withdrawal.

The elf-woman who first alerted you to the dragon's tracks is fleetest among them, and she darts across the plain with the silent swiftness of a jungle cat. Her face is flushed, her chest heaving with exertion as she stops in front of you. But her voice betrays only the barest hints of breathlessness.

"We found the enemies. And Solus..."

Her tone is somber, and you feel your body tense. Your companions move closer, as though so desperate to hear her words that they're unwilling to allow even a few feet of air to intervene.

"ls he alive?“ you ask.

"We... We don't know."

The trek through the forest passes in near silence, save for the rustling of leaves, the creaking of branches, and the clanking of armor -- sounds which fall into the background for one accustomed to marching at the head of a column of armed men and women. Even Medea's harp music seems noiseless, though at certain moments you detect the softest hints of soothing chords.

Your scouts lead the way, guiding you unerringly along the routes the dragon's minions took. You note in passing that the trail is sometimes clear, where a larger creature -- perhaps an ogre -- forced its way through the undergrowth. In other places it's concealed from your sight, though still visible to eyes trained to perceive such things. But the thought only drifts across the surface of your mind. Your thoughts are occupied, the tale the scouts told you continuing to revolve within your mind.

It's only as the trees comes to an end, and give way to undulating hills that in tum yield to distant mountains, that you truly focus on the world once more.

"Gods..." Aesa mutters. The shaman traces a warding symbol in the air.

Medea's song slips into a single long, drawn-out note -- as though the very music is stunned by what it's discovered.

The scouts told you what you would find, answered all the questions you and your companions put to them. But even so, your foreknowledge has little effect on the bizarreness, the eeriness of the scene you're now witnessing. The world before you is... frozen. No other word can describe it.

A tall, dark tower looms on a nearby rise, a sentinel gazing out across hills and forests alike. Its design is both haphazard and ornate -- the broad trunk embedded with jutting slabs of stone and wood, its lofty spires fashioned to resemble claws scraping at the sky. It's a mages' dwelling, if ever you saw one. And any doubt would be banished by the little robe figures visible on the balconyithat rings the place where the structure narrows into its slenderer upper reaches.

The mages' arms are raised, as though at the climax of the arcane motions which usher in a powerful spell. But the limbs are motionless, each wizard as still as a statue. Even their clothing is static, impossibly so -- not a single robe flaps in the wind.

Arrayed on the sloping grass before the arcane edifice, their backs to you, are your foes. There are beastmen, kobolds, and ogres - creatures by now as familiar to you as elves and gnomes. And there's a hulking white form, that of a winged beast covered in long, thin scales which look like savage spikes of bone. The dragon and its bestial forces are sculptures made of flesh and fur, as lifeless as the sorcerers atop the tower. Some are in mid-run, their legs raised as though they were charging towards the tower - and have instead been left to balance on one limb for all eternity.

Some distance away, facing the white dragon's flank, is Solus. His azure body is still, his head frozen at a tilted angle, in a look of curiosity that's echoed in the orange eyes that stare from his face - focused and yet somehow unseeing.

You move, about to run towards your ensorcelled friend and... do something... anything -- if only to touch his scales and feel for any sign of life in his motionless flesh. But a powerful hand grabs your arm before you've made a single pace, and drags you back with irresistible force.

"No!" Roland says, as you try to pull free from his muscular grasp. "Blundering into danger isn't going to help him."

You stop struggling, and the aged adventurer releases your arm.

"He lives," a voice says.

You turn, and see the druid who examined the ground outside the cave with her magical touch.

"I can sense his life-force. They're alive -- all of them. But..." Her brow furrows. "It's as though their spirits are... quelled? I can't explain it. But it's like when someone meditates, and their soul is... wandering?"

"A kind of enchanted sleep?" Lucian suggests. "The mages may have used it to protect their tower."

"No sleeping magic would affect this many creatures for so many weeks," Aesa replies. "Making a single maiden slumber until she's molested by a prince... Perhaps. But nothing like this."

"Besides," Medea says, "most creatures don't sleep standing up. Any normal sleeping spell would have made them collapse. But it's easily put to the test."

The bard sweeps her right hand across her harp's strings, her slender fingers a dexterous blur as they pluck and caress and strum.

A glorious burst of music rolls out across the hills and trees, a forceful piece that seems to scour the landscape with its beautiful insistence. Medea's voice joins with it, singing out far louder than the restraints of flesh should allow, spiraling through the music like a piercing lance whose point you long to be transfixed by.

The song continues for a full minute, before the elven bard's voice falls silent and her strings slip into a quieter, softer tune.

"That would have brought an end to enchanted slumber," she says. "Whatever holds them in its grasp is something far greater."

"I suggest firing an arrow at one of the beastmen," says Lucian. "Whatever happens, we may glean something from it."

You nod to Marcus, and he gestures to one of the nearest archers. The goblin scurries forward, readying his bow and notching an arrow to the string even before he comes to a stop.

"Which one?" he asks.

"Take your pick," you reply.

The goblin lets fly, and his arrow shoots off towards the band of enemies. Then it stops.

"That doesn't normally happen," the archer muses.

The arrow is several feet away from the back of the ogre's neck which it appears to have been aimed for. It's mired in the air as though encased in glass, neither advancing nor spinning nor falling.

"That's shown us the edge of the spell's effect at least," Lucian says.

You call to one of the mages, and an arcane missile of pulsing magenta energy flies at a beastman. But the eldritch projectile suffers no better than its wood and metal predecessor. The moment it passes through whatever invisible barrier marks the spell's boundary, it halts -- and remains frozen in the air.

"Can we dispel it?" you ask.

"Whatever did this is powerful," Aesa says. "But we can try.“

"More arrows," Roland shouts. "Show the casters exactly where it ends. We don't want any surprises."

Your archers move to comply, and in moments a number of shafts are suspended in the empty air -- revealing that the strange sorcery has a rounded edge, like that of a dome. With the tower at its nexus.

Aesa and a group of casters approach that established edge, and begin to work their craft. Glowing symbols appear in the air in the wake of the shaman's darting fingers, hands glow in a range of arcane shades – from fiery reds to subtle violets. But the details of their spellcraft escape you. Your eyes are fixed on the motionless form of the blue drake.

Many minutes pass, as the magic-users ply their sorcerous arts and babble about things no one else can understand. But at last they come back towards you, and you drag your gaze away from Solus.

"We believe it's a form of banishment spell," a grey-haired mage says.

"Similar to that used to send demons back to the infernal realms.“

"How's that possible?" Roland asks. "Fiends can be banished because they don't belong to this world. Their bodies are filled with hellfire and whatnot. But dragons and beastmen are from our realm."

"Their souls aren't," Lucian says. "None of our spirits were conceived on this physical plane."

"Quite so," the hoary mage replies. "The spell has sent their spirits into the... Well, it's complex. To simplify matters, let us call it the magical realm. It's-"

"This isn't the time for a magic lesson," you say. "Can you break the spell?"

The man frowns at having the flow of his didactic eloquence curtailed.

"The spell cannot be ended from this side, southlander." Aesa raises her hand to forestall the frustrated outburst you're about to deliver. “But it may be possible to unravel it from within."

"If some of us pass through the barrier," a half-elf sorceress says, "and resist the spell's influence, the magic won't be able to sustain itself."

"Solus..."

"He'll return to his body," she says. Then she gestures at the white dragon and its horde of minions. "And so will they."

You tum to Roland.

"If I don't make it out, you're in command."

The adventurer hesitates for a moment, and you sense the words of disagreement rising onto his tongue. If you're to face danger, you know full well that he wants to face it with you -- to bring all his years experience, all his skills to bear against it. But it's those very skills which you want available to the rest of your companions if something goes wrong.

"I'll do whatever needs to be done," he says.

"I won't ask anyone to come with me," you say.

"Spare us your tiresome nobility, human.“ Medea's harp gives a musical sigh. "We all know that you won't have to walk alone."

With that, the elven bard strides towards the border marked out by the suspended arrows.

"l'm with you," Marcus says.

"And I," says Lucian. “My knowledge may come in useful. And if I may say so, I am rather proficient at-"

The scholar's words are lost in a chorus of offers, as dozens of voices cry out in support.

"A few of us will be enough," you say. You pause, and wait for the murmurs of disappointment to die down. "The rest of you should stay ready..."

You point towards the white wyrm.

"...for when they wake up."

You, Marcus, and Lucian head after Medea - leaving Roland issuing orders as he prepares the troops for battle.

The four of your pause at the edge of the spell, close to where Solus stands, and you glance at your companions' faces. Many words fight their way up your throat. But now isn't the time for talk.

You nod, and they echo the gesture. Then you step forward.

A potent sense of anticlimax washes over you when nothing happens.

"Shouldn't it-" you begin.

Then the universe falls away.

Quest Lore[]

Dreams of the Dragon-Rider[]

Pre Lore[]

Lore
You were toiling in the fields when they came, a lowly farmhand earning a meager living through the might of your thews and the sweat which dampens your brow and tunic. Your life was one of arduous labor, battling the earth until it deigned to yield the sustenance you and your fellow townspeople craved. Such things as wyrms and ogres were the stuff of children's stories, and nothing more.

When they came? When who came? And... wyrms and ogres? Now why did such things fill your mind?

"Is it a time for daydreaming?" a voice cries out, tearing your reverie asunder like a monster's claws.

"I-" you begin. Then you shake your head, willing the last fragments of clinging, half-forgotten dream to fall from your mind. "I thought I was-"

"Leave the thinking to the scholars!" Josan replies. The farmer grunts, and prods you with his pitchfork -- causing you to stumble backwards. "I'm paying you to deal with the turnips. Get your cursed carcass where it's meant to be! They're about to attack!"

Quest Lore[]

Killing Fields[]

Z8 a1 q1
Lore
The ground trembles beneath your feet, the earth grumbling as it always does before an attack. Even after so many grueling years in the fields, you can't decide whether it's warning you of danger or else growling a threat -- filled with savage anticipation at the thought of your destruction.

Your grasp tightens around the shaft of your trusty pitchfork, clinging onto it as though to salvation. You step forward into the circle, taking your place alongside the farmer and the other doughty farmhands.

"Be strong!" a woman shouts. "The gods will bless us for our courage!"

A dozen mouths cry out in support of her words, and you lend your voice to the warlike roars.

"For Burden's Rest!"

"This night we sup on turnip soup!"

But a shriek pierces through the clamor, a wail pregnant with terror.

"No! By the gods, no!"

A boy dashes out from the circle, and his pitchfork drops from his shaking hands. It's Eustache, Josan's son. A lad no more than fourteen summers old, taking his place in the turnip field for the first time. His soft face is pale, as drained of blood as that of a desiccated corpse. Water fills his eyes.

The rumbling is louder now, almost muffling the boy's words.

"I don't want to die!"

He runs, sprinting towards the sanctuary of the distant town. Then a tremor undulates across the field like an earthen roar, and he stumbles -- falling to his hands and knees.

"Eustache!" the farmer shouts.

All around the field patches of ground bulge like the boils and pustules upon a plague victim's putrid flesh, rising and enlarging into great mounds as hidden forms thrust their way up from beneath. The soil falls aside in great waves of dirt, revealing bulbous white and purple bodies, and glaring black eyes.

Your crop. Your prey. Your foes. Turnips.

Better Part of Valor[]

Z8 a1 q2
Lore
"Help!" Eustache wails. "Help!"

The boy cowers on the ground, a trembling arm raised in a pitiful defense.

The turnip looms above him, its gaping maw stretching across its entire bulk like a vast wound as it widens in anticipation -- ready to gobble its victim.

Not while you draw breath...

You dash across the field, leaping over one of the many holes that mar its surface, and draw your pitchfork back.

The turnip's mouth is descending, promising a horrific demise to the cowardly youth. Even in this moment, when death gazes down upon him, Eustache can do nothing but moan and shield his face -- as though the voracious vegetable could be warded away by so pathetic a gesture. He's like a child hiding away under the blankets to escape the shadows that haunt his bedchamber. But the vicious turnip is no imagined phantom, and the boy's cowardice won't protect him.

You lunge, driving the pitchfork with all the strength of your arms, thrusting against the ground with your boots -- throwing the entire weight of your muscle and bone behind the blow.

The turnip rises to meet your attack, black eyes filled with fury and bloodlust. But it isn't swift enough.

The prongs plunge into its body with a wet crunch, and its eyes glaze over in the acceptance of doom.

"You're a farmer's son," you say, gazing at the boy's frightened face. "It's time you proved worthy of it."

Josan throws himself down at Eustache's side, kneels in the dirt, and wraps his arms around the child. The boy returns the embrace, his young body shaking with the force of relieved sobs.

"Thank you! Thank you!" the farmer murmurs, his words subdued as though the breath has been sucked from his body.

You nod, and walk away -- leaving father and son alone.

"A fine harvest," another farmhand says. "We'll be eating well this season."

"The gods provide," you reply.

You toss your pitchfork aside. The weapon's grim work is done, the carnage for which it was fashioned has been wrought. Now it's time for the cart to be laden down with the meat of your kills -- that it might ferry the dead vegetables to the town's cooking pots. And so you stride to the edge of the field where the contraption stands waiting.

For a moment you imagine the victory celebration that's sure to take place in The Plundered Dungeon tonight, and can almost taste the ale on your tongue.

Then you hear the screams.

You look back to where you left Josan and Eustache, and stare into the abyss.

Two headless bodies sprawl on the ground, a man and a boy still locked in their final embrace. A fearsome creature towers above them, a hideous monstrosity with the shape of a man and the flesh of a lizard. He grins below glowing red eyes, his sharp, vicious teeth gleaming like savage sword blades. A severed head hangs from each of his scaly hands, grasped by their hair -- newly dead faces frozen in rictuses of utter horror.

More of the creatures loom up behind him on either side, emerging from the darkness...

Darkness? But it was...

The sky is as black as the depths of a tomb. Night casts its mantle over the world.

Night? Wasn't it...

The monsters' crimson eyes burn like malevolent torches as they advance, murderous gazes piercing the shadows and transfixing their prey.

There are more screams, as farmhands die beneath teeth and claws and blades -- their bodies torn into quivering chunks and scattered across the soil amidst the corpses of the turnips.

Two red eyes bore into yours, and your gaze focuses on one of the creatures who stands amidst the slaughter, his green scaled hide splattered with scarlet. The rest of the bloody tableau fades into the background, thrust into the periphery of your senses by that terrible stare.

The monster screeches, and thrusts a clawed finger towards you. Your heart palpitates, and such is your dread that for a moment you think it's already been pierced, that your lifeblood will splash out upon the dirt. But reality returns as the other kobolds look up from the mutilated corpses of their victims, and glare at you.

For a single moment you stare at their blazing eyes. Then you run into the night, sprinting for all your lungs and thews are worth.

Hisses, screeches, and roars fill the world behind you.

Strangers in a Strange Land[]

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Lore
Pain racks your lungs, as though a pair of clawing hands have burst through your ribcage and seized each organ in a cruel grip. Sweat plasters your grimy, turnip-splattered tunic to your chest, till it clings to your flesh like a parasite. Your legs burn, your joints groan each time your boots thud against the stone floor.

Stone floor...

Pounding footfalls sound behind you. Saurian voices hiss and cry words of death that are all the more frightening in their incomprehensibility. The dungeon passage echoes to the din of your pursuers, your coming doom, your inescapable death, your inevitable fate.

Dungeon passage...

No. This isn't right. You weren't in a dungeon. You were... You don't know where you were. But...

Images flash across your mind in rapid succession: a field, a keep, a forest, a hilltop, a cemetery, a snowy plain, a crystal-studded cavern. Each one slips away the second your mind focuses upon it, and when the last one vanishes you can't remember anything you've seen. But the knowledge that you saw something is enough.

Blackness appears at the edges of your vision, expanses of shadow... No. Not shadows. Gaps. Tears rent in the fabric of the world itself.

That understanding frightens and fascinates you in equal measure.

You focus on one of the gaps, on the darkness so pure it makes night seem a tawdry harlot in comparison. It widens beneath your stare, the void gaping at you -- threatening to devour you.

You look ahead, down the dungeon passage, and the blackness retracts -- becoming a slender vertical sliver at the border of your perception once more.

The hissing behind you intensifies. It's louder, nearer. Scaly hands are reaching for you...

To stay is to die. To leave is... You don't know. But you have to take your chance.

You focus your eyes, your mind, your being, on the tear in the universe -- and hold its gaze until the void swallows your soul.

---

You open your eyes, but nothing happens. The darkness remains unbroken and engulfing -- a blackness so total in its finality that it seems to smother you, to crush you beneath an unfathomable weight.

You try to move, to struggle, to pull yourself free from the encaging dark. But your limbs don't respond. Dread crawls over your mind as you realize the terrible truth... You can't feel your body at all. You're paralyzed -- your flesh frozen and powerless.

No... Epiphany strikes, a revelation of such magnitude that it rivals the blackness itself -- shatters your mind like a wine bottle hurled at a stone wall. Your body isn't paralyzed. You have no body. No eyes, no ears, no tongue. Your mind is adrift, untethered amidst perpetual nothingness.

Despair's tentacles slither across your consciousness, wrap themselves round your nonexistent brain.

Anguish deepens further still as you try to cast your thoughts back, to understand how you came to be in this place that isn't a place. You know nothing. Where you were... who you are... Forbidden knowledge you know you'll never glimpse. Memory and identity have been stripped away, torn from you, ground into oblivion by the pressing mass of the void. You try to scream, but even that release is denied you.

There's only nothingness. The void. And you drift.

Wait... There's something. Something else drifting on the invisible currents of perpetuity. No, not something... Someone!

Your mind shudders with the force of that realization. There's another person here, a fellow prisoner in this oblivion -- their intellect a tiny spark in the middle of an immense black ocean.

They sense you too. Their presence is faint and far -- untold leagues away. But in this void the simple fact of their existence, however distant, is like a shining star. It beckons you, warms you, promises you salvation.

You crawl towards them, your consciousness struggling, swimming with limbless strokes. And they're coming towards you, fighting, thrashing -- as desperate to touch you as you are to touch them.

Hours, days, weeks, months... perhaps years. Endless lifetimes pass with each inch of movement. Frustration grips you, squeezes you. But it cannot eclipse hope, the determination of twin souls alone in all the universe.

The spark becomes a torch, piercing the darkness as you draw near to it. Lashings of thought flick across your mind, like the fingers of a drowning man reaching out for a savior's hand. And with them come fragments of knowledge, little pieces of understanding. Your fellow prisoner is a human, like you... Cast out from his body and flung into this strange void.

The torch becomes a roaring fire. Your twirling thoughts catch his -- entangling each other like a million coupling serpents. He's a warrior, like you. An adventurer, a hero. His mind is strange, and yet... somehow familiar. A strong feeling of comfort washes through you.

The fire becomes a blazing pillar of light as your invisible hand clasps his, and your intellects flow into each other like two seas hurled together by mirrored tides. You roam across his thoughts, picking your way through the masses of memory with an insatiable desire to see, experience, and understand. And you feel him running through your consciousness in turn, laying open all that you are or were.

A million images flow before you, so many and so vast that you can only focus on the greatest among them. You see a girl with a laugh on her lips and strange weapons in her hands. And then a boy, a mere child filled with strength and courage far beyond his years. There's a powerful warrior, a man muscled like a Nord berserker, who smiles, and drinks, and kills. And... a golem? An elegant being of metal, his wonderful, deadly body shaped by an artist's hands. Each of these people is a beacon of strength, and you sense their remembrance empowering the stranger.

Above them all is a woman, towering over his turbulent memories like a goddess standing vigil -- a lynchpin holding his entire universe together. Worlds, and moons, and stars dance behind her, framing her and glittering as though they exist for no other purpose but to glorify her. She's beautiful, a radiant vision that shines in his mind like diamonds. But so much more as well. She's a leader, one whose courage, determination, wit, and wisdom can command legions. She inspires loyalty with a gaze, and binds people to her as she in turn is bound to the people of the kingdom... no... empire... she holds so dear.

As your mind focuses on her, on her bright and dazzling eyes, you sense the man gaining mastery of this thoughts and recollections. He knows who he is, senses his place and purpose. He knows what he must do.

And so do you.

Memories appear and harden in your consciousness, responding to the man's probing thoughts as his did to yours. You remember everything -- your entire life fastening into place like the stones of a castle.

The forest, the tower... Solus frozen in place. Passing through the barrier. And then everything which followed, the strange visions of a place where mind and magic meet. You withdraw from the man's consciousness, and he from yours -- tendrils of thought parting company with a soft caress, a bittersweet farewell.

Then he's gone, flying through the void on his way to his destiny. And it's time for you to do the same.

You focus your thoughts, and drive them through the blackness like a luminous lance.

There, untold millions of miles away, is a glimmer -- the doorway through which you must return.

You swim towards it.

Awakening[]

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Lore
Light blazes through the gap, a tear in the fabric of nothingness. It widens as you approach, splitting open until the entire horizon is a searing expanse of flameless fire.

The light draws you into its embrace.

There's a panorama of whiteness, a glory as enveloping and encompassing as the blackness of the void you've left behind. Then it passes, and you feel hard stone under your boots. The jarring solidity almost makes you tumble, like a novice sailor on the deck of a ship tossed by a furious ocean. But the sensation passes in a moment, as your mind becomes accustomed to controlling flesh once more.

The kobolds stumble to a halt several yards ahead of you, wide red eyes staring from startled reptilian faces. They're looking at you in amazement, in wonder... in fear.

You glance down, and see that you're no longer wearing the dirty, sweat-soaked, turnip-stained tunic. You're dressed in armor, your limbs and torso encased in a resplendent panoply of metal plates that gleam with an almost blinding light. Clutched in your right hand is a sword, its broad, brilliant blade shining like the noonday sun.

You look back up at the frightened kobolds, and smile. Then you attack.

Boss: Hargamesh[]

Lucian's Lessons[]

Pre Lore[]

Lore
A most dreadful experience, not unlike that of excessive inebriation followed by a meal consisting of the ingestible foodstuffs with which drunkards are wont to fill their stomachs. But your disconcertion at your rather disagreeable means of conveyance from one realm to the next becomes inconsequential compared with the realization that your thoughts are proceeding along rather unusual lines. It's as if they're voyaging through the cerebellum of another, shaped and altered by that individual's cogitations.

Most peculiar.

It occurs to you that your eyes are at present closed, and you determine that opening them would be a sensible step in establishing the exact nature of your situation.

"Lucian!"

That word, spoken by someone as yet concealed by your eyelids, prompts the aforementioned folds of skin to part -- unsheathing your vision like a falchion flashing from an ardent warrior's scabbard.

If your friend and colleague Lucian is here, then it behooves you to locate and aid him forthwith.

As though the unfastening of the gates of vision have unbarred your mind to a torrent from each of your other senses, it's only as you open your eyes that you realize you're sitting down. An uncomfortable slab of wood appears to be beneath your buttocks. And another slab of that arboreal matter is beneath your forearms. Ah... A desk.

Fresh from that splendid epiphany, you direct your field of vision around the room. There appear to be many such desks, arranged in geometrically precise rows. Each is tenanted by a young man clad in a dark blue gown and mortarboard. You're evidently ensconced within a classroom, a chamber of learning. This comes as little surprise. Lucian is a scholar, and thus his mental perambulations are rather likely to have fashioned an academic environment around his person.

You scan the classroom with a rigorous gaze, in search of your scholarly companion. But he doesn't seem to be present. There are only schoolboys, their faces unfamiliar to you. And their features somewhat odd, now that you dwell upon it. It appears that Lucian's realm has been crafted in accordance with his artistic tastes, though your own understanding of such matters is far too limited for you to identify the artist or artists whose work might have inspired it.

If your companion's persona in this arcane dimension is that of his younger self, as he was in his schooldays, and is further distorted by the curious aesthetics of this realm, his appearance may be substantially different from that to which you're accustomed. That plausible explanation seems to elucidate your difficulty in identifying a person with whom you're so familiar. Perhaps a more careful inspection would reveal-

"Lucian! Boy!"

The grinding voice, reminiscent of a toothed blade working upon a sturdy tree trunk, saws its way through your cogitations and draws your attention. And you recognize the efficacy of paying it heed. After all, if this fellow is addressing Lucian it would be logical and sensible for you to ascertain upon whom he's directing his attention. The mystery of the scholar's identity would thus be solved.

Hence you look to the speaker, a middle-aged gentlemen of angular build who stands at the front of the chamber. His location and his black gown are sufficient to identify him as a schoolmaster. No doubt he's calling upon Lucian to ask him a question, in the manner of the professional educator. And yet for some reason beyond your comprehension he's staring at you with eyes that seem to bore into your skull like gimlets.

"How dare you sleep in class!" he says.

A perturbing notion occurs to you at this moment, and you look at the pair of hands which lie in front of you upon the desk. They're not your own. Of that you're quite certain. If one might proverbially know something like the back of one's hand, it stands to reason that one would scarcely forget the appearance of that particular body part. And the hands before you bear no resemblance to those with which you're so intimately acquainted. Yet you have to confess that their presence at the ends of those particular forearms gives you pause. For the forearms in question are connected to upper arms, as is usually the case. And those upper arms are quite evidently connected to the shoulders on either side of the torso beneath your head. Thus they do indeed appear to be yours at the present time. Yes -- the fingers are responding to your commands in the customary fashion.

"Lucian! Look at me when I address you!"

You meet the form master's gimlet eyes once more.

As bizarre as the situation is, there can be little room for doubt or error. It doesn't require an erudite scholar to deduce what is by now rather obvious. It seems that your intrusion into this dimension has inadvertently caused you to stray into Lucian's mind. You are, at the present time, for all intents and purposes, him.

Most peculiar. Most peculiar indeed.

Quest Lore[]

Construe![]

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Lore
"The form room is no place for unseemly somnolence!" the schoolmaster intones. "Take a thousand lines!"

"Where should I take them, sir?"

The flippant response flies beyond your fence of teeth as if of its own accord, propelled by the mischievous instincts of the impertinent schoolboy you once were. When confronted by an irate pedagogue, it's remarkable with what swiftness those old manners of thought and articulation return.

There are gasps around the chamber. It seems that your compatriots on this educational odyssey are unused to hearing their master addressed in such a fashion. That knowledge causes your mouth to twitch in mirth. You did always rather crave attention in your youthful days, and the intoxicating thrill that accompanies the admiration of one's peers.

"Boy!" the form master fumes, his countenance twisting into a convincing simulacrum of a fiend from the deepest depths of the abyss. "I shall impress upon you the folly of jesting with your form master!"

The angular educator seizes a cane from his high desk, and flourishes it as if it were a mighty weapon of bellicose design. The sight of that considerable length of wood inflicting a cutting stroke upon the air is sufficient to banish all merriment from your face. Corporal punishment was seldom the order of the day in the little school in Burden's Rest. It seems that Lucian enjoyed, or perhaps failed to enjoy, a significantly different mode of learning at whatever bastion of scholarship he attended.

"Stand out before the class!" the grinding voice commands.

Your initial thought is to disobey -- to remain seated, or flee the classroom, or else bludgeon the form master to death with your inkwell. But second thoughts, proverbially the best, intervene.

In your previous place of imprisonment, that fashioned in accordance with your own nature, traversing a dungeon and slaying the foe at its termination enabled you to secure your freedom. But Lucian is a scholar, not an adventurer. For one such as he, perhaps some form of academic triumph might be required to break this dimension's manacles. And it seems unlikely in the extreme that murdering a teacher would be conducive to such an end.

So you ascend from your place, navigate the aisle between the rows of wooden desks, and stand before the vengeful form master.

"Bend over that desk!"

He gestures with a bony digit.

You do as bidden, though not without considerable misgivings filling your breast. You recall hearing tales of the dubious activities which take place at the scholastic establishments to which wealthy men send their sons...

When the implement of educational enforcement swishes through the air, there's a momentary flicker of relief at the confirmation that you're merely being struck instead of subjected to anything less pleasant. This feeling of contentment lasts for but a moment, however.

"Aaargh!"

"Silence!"

How the angular form master can generate such muscular impetus from his gaunt frame is an insoluble mystery. But that he can is indisputable. Your hindquarters feel as if they've been obliterated by a mighty lambasting from Terracles' fabled club. Were it not for the indescribable agony which confirms their continued presence, you'd believe that they had been knocked from your body and sent flying through the heavens to land in some distant place where they might befuddle the local peasantry who discovered them.

"Return to your place!"

You stumble away, reeling from the aftermath of your castigation. In the material world you've received blows from towering ogres, and borne them with quiet and dignified fortitude. Yet compared to what you've just experienced they were as moonlight unto sunlight, as water unto wine. If you had been subjected to such ruthless treatment at your own school, you would have endeavored to become the most perfect of pupils.

You collapse onto the unforgiving wooden seat like a wounded soldier seeking a suitable location in which to perish. Then you spring up once more.

"Boy! Resume your place at once, or I shall cane you again!"

With feelings too deep to be expressed by any but the most profane and blasphemous of utterances, you sink down -- and grit your teeth to stifle another exclamation.

Humiliation clothes you as a garment, and your face burns with the ridiculousness of it all. You're a warrior, an adventurer, a hero! And you've been subjected to a chastisement befitting a troublesome child!

For several minutes you alternate between pondering the direness of your circumstances and suppressing the groans which yearn to pour from your mouth in sympathy with your wounded rear. The world around you is neglected as a discarded trinket, the voices of master and pupils passing you by like the idle wind which you regard not. But then the grinding, saw-like voice pierces your globe of misery and vexation.

"Lucian! Construe!"

The gimlet stare transfixes you.

If you've ever encountered the word 'construe', you don't recall where you happened upon it or what strange properties it might have possessed. Thus what the glaring form master is demanding of you is far beyond your comprehension. But that he desires you to do something is quite clear, the imperative having been driven like a spear aimed at your solar plexus.

He brandishes his cane, now a fearsome implement of torture and perhaps execution in your eyes. And you're left with no illusion concerning what a failure to meet his demands will entail.

But fortune smiles upon you, and understanding surfaces in your mind -- drawn from the inner recesses of Lucian's knowledge.

You're being impelled to transfer a passage of text from the murky depths of an unintelligible foreign language into the sunny expanses of a comprehensible one.

Your gaze falls upon the tome open before you on the desk. Familiar characters sprawl across its pages in alien assortments, bespeaking an ancient language that shares the alphabet of the common tongue.

"Construe!"

You scour the enigmatic pages with frantic eyes, trying to remember where the last pupil relinquished the task that's now been thrust on you in so unwelcome a fashion. But inattention has shrouded it from your mind, concealed it like a long-forgotten artifact buried far beneath the surface of the earth.

"Lucian! If you do not construe this instant I shall send you to your headmaster for a flogging!"

"Eran saba trachala!" the boy beside you whispers.

There! Your eyes fall upon those very words, nestled at the foot of a page as though entombed beneath the crushing mass of their predecessors or else concealing themselves in an effort to thwart you.

"Construe!"

Not Playing the Game[]

Z8 a2 q2
Lore
An intolerable gulf of time elapses, during which your eyes clamp themselves on the unfathomable script with manic intensity -- as if pleading with the despicable letters to rearrange themselves into something decipherable instead of the gibberish they're presently choosing to inhabit. You curse the long-expired, thrice-damned people whose tongue this was, and charitably hope they suffered tremendously during the destruction of their accursed civilization.

But at the very moment you anticipate the form master's cane descending upon you with the full force of scholastic wrath, the clouds of ignorance are parted by a ray of glorious, incandescent perspicacity. Middle Balaric! Your assumed knowledge, the counterfeit education you've pilfered from Lucian, asserts itself in your brain. Or his brain... The biology involved is inconsequential, and may be ruminated over at some later date if at all. For now, the day belongs to linguistics and philology -- and it's time to acquit yourself on those bloodstained fields of academia.

A halting, hesitating translation tumbles from your lips -- with the determined ineptitude of a parade of lemmings plummeting to their doom off the edge of a precipice.

"Terrible!" the form master says, in a voice reminiscent of stone blocks grinding against one another. "You have neglected your preparation. I can only assume that you've been devoting your time to your absurd thesis instead! Perhaps you consider those foolish scribblings on the slaying of monsters to be more important than the language of the ancient scribes?"

The rhetorical question hangs in the ether, almost challenging you to answer it and thus bring the vials of wrath down upon your head once more. But twinges of pain in your hindquarters restrain your tongue like bands of triple steel. Moreover, something within your consciousness latches onto his words in the manner of an octopus snatching at a shipwrecked man with its tentacular embrace.

A thesis on the subject of monster slaying... Aggressive cryptozoology, to bestow upon it the more erudite title so beloved by Lucian. It's that very field which the scholar has made into his life's work, and extensively pontificated on in that delightful red-bound book which he keeps close to hand during almost every waking moment. That must surely be the focal point of this realm, the task to which you're obliged to attend if you wish to tear its walls asunder and depart for less ridiculous climes. The thesis must be completed, and subjected to whatever strange and inscrutable processes are customarily inflicted upon academic works!

That comforting, illuminating notion fills your cranium. Until the grinding, sawing voice perforates it.

"I was certain my colleagues had erred when they allowed you to select such a dubious subject for your research. And it is now proven that your ridiculous forays into that laughable sphere are detracting from your absorption of genuine learning. I shall put a stop to this!"

The form master turns to one of the other pupils.

"Algernon! You will go to the study you share with Lucian, remove his thesis, and place it on my table. And don't dawdle!"

The boy, Algernon, regards you with a sympathetic and indeed apologetic look, and seems to hesitate.

"Go!" the schoolmaster roars, brandishing his buttock-slaying cane.

Algernon leaps up from his place, and scurries from the form room. He mouths the word 'sorry' to you as he passes.

"But, sir-" you begin, attempting to master your wrath and moderate your tone to one better suited to the halls of academia in spite of your desire for rough and rude violence.

"Not another word!"

He punctuates the statement with a ferocious sweep of his arm, sending the vituperative cane crashing against the nearest desk. The pupil sat there jerks back in alarm as the slab of wood gives way with a horrendous crack. The cane itself appears undamaged, that academic implement apparently as indestructible and unyielding as the finest of magical swords.

You stifle your tongue, and seethe in silence. After some minutes Algernon returns, and resumes his seat. He comes empty-handed. Evidently the table upon which the thesis now languishes is in another room -- no doubt the form master's study.

The ringing of a distant bell soon heralds the end of this sliver of scholarship, bringing about a collective exodus from the chamber -- reminiscent of rats fleeing a doomed maritime vessel in a pressing, pushing mass lest they be drowned in the briny deep.

The schoolmaster turns his back on the general evacuation, and fiddles with the piles of parchment on the high desk. His movements and ministrations bring to mind those of a ghoul picking away at a corpse in search of a choice organ which he might pluck out and consume.

"Sir..." you say.

He looks over his shoulder, and subjects you to a penetrating, almost eviscerating glare from his gimlet eyes.

"About my-"

"Your thesis shall remain in my possession until you demonstrate an improvement in the rest of your academic work! Now leave the form room before I'm forced to deliver further chastisement!"

Your mind is awhirl as you stumble from the room, and contemplate the complexities of your rather disagreeable situation. With inexplicable yet invincible certainty you know you must bring that thesis to fruition. But now it's been confiscated by that tyrannical pedagogue!

"Sorry, Lucian, old fellow."

Algernon appears beside you, a look of sheepish consternation writ upon his visage.

"Come to the study," he continues. "I've got some jam tarts for tea."

You give an absentminded nod, and allow him to lead you onwards. Marooned in this strange place of learning, utterly unsure of where you should go or what you might do, that path of least resistance seems most tolerable at present.

The two of you ascend a staircase, and perambulate along a number of dusky, door-lined corridors that blend together into anonymity. An indeterminate amount of time later, you find yourself outside a door which seems no different from any of the myriad you've already passed.

Algernon rotates the knob, and pushes the aged wood -- revealing a small room almost entirely filled by the table and chairs, bookcase, armchair, fireplace, and cupboard which adorn it. The lattermost of these stands open, and a set of flabby features appears around its door.

"I say, you fellows..."

The boy is one of those you saw in the classroom, an almost inconceivably rotund individual whose voluminous blue gown might serve as a marquee. His expression and mannerisms are furtive, betraying that he has no right to be in the location in which he's been discovered. A veritable wasteland of pastry crumbs and smears of jam around his mouth seem to validate that impression.

"I... I didn't eat your tarts! Ask Toddy -- he saw me! I mean... he didn't see me! That is... It was the housekeeper's cat! You know how he's always getting into the studies!"

"Gunther, you pernicious porpoise!" Algernon howls.

"I... I think I hear Toddy calling me. I'd better... better go."

The obese pilferer rolls towards the doorway, unease and trepidation plastered across his countenance along with the remains of his stolen snack.

Unfortunately for Gunther, he's caught you at a most inopportune time. Your rage at being so ill-used by your form master boils over like the cauldron of a careless alchemist, and this dissembling pilferer is as good a victim as any.

You step forward, and slam the top of your skull into the boy's pig-like features.

There's a most satisfying crunch as hard cartilage yields to far harder bone. Though judging from Gunther's squeal, he finds the experience neither grateful nor comforting. But in an imperfect universe it's impossible for everyone to be satisfied.

The boy's flabby hands clasp his ruined nose, and crimson gushes through his fingers -- staining his gown. You step aside, allowing him to roll from the study like a damaged barrel. The squeal he gives as he retreats is so convincingly porcine, and so utterly in keeping with his hog-like appearance, that he's sure to be slaughtered and placed in an oven should he cross the path of a shortsighted chef on his flight.

"I don't think that was-" Algernon begins. He breaks off as he regards the expression on your face. "I... I think I'll go have tea in the hall."

He withdraws, closing the door behind him -- leaving you alone to deal with the cognitive maelstrom that crashes through your mind.

You hurl yourself into the armchair, wincing and swearing as a twinge of pain flashes upwards from your buttocks.

What are you going to-

Your thoughts are interrupted when you feel something beneath your rear -- an object sufficiently hard and inconveniently placed to reduce your comfort quite considerably. You reach a clawing hand under yourself, and yank it free. It transpires that the offending object is a slim volume of some kind. You're about to toss it aside when the golden words on the cover catch your eyes: 'Darkfriars School Thesis Rules and Regulations'.

You stay your arm, and open the slender tome.

After several minutes of perusing it, your face lights up.

---

"Enter!" the sawing, grinding voice commands.

You open the door, and traverse the threshold into your form master's study in the manner of an ancient general marching his legions past the point of no return. You reach behind you with your left hand, and close the door without turning around. Your right hand remains firmly behind your back.

The chamber is oppressively scholastic, hot and stuffy -- its temperature raised to positively infernal levels by the blazing fire. Bookcases line all of the walls, surrendering space only to the fireplace and the large window at the opposite end of the room, behind the big oaken desk.

The schoolmaster -- Gulch, as you've now discovered him to be named -- is sitting at that substantial piece of furniture, his back to the window. He glares at you with piercing, penetrating eyes as you cross the floor towards him.

"Lucian! I wish to hear no foolish protestations concerning your thesis. If such is your purpose here, you-"

His eyes widen, and his face twists into an expression of incandescent ire as your right hand emerges into his view -- revealing the long wooden article that has until now been concealed behind your person.

"Boy! Have you lost your senses?" he roars.

You remain silent, and assume a two-handed grip upon the leather-wrapped handle of the sporting implement. The exact purpose of the device is entirely unknown to you. But when you saw it in the corner of your study, you determined that its thick wooden body would prove more than adequate for the enacting of physical violence. The form master leaps up like a bestial predator preparing to spring upon its prey. You swing the bat at the same instant.

The Scholar, In the Library, With a Candlestick[]

Z8 a2 q3
Lore
You crouch beside Gulch's inert form, worry clouding your brow. But the rise and fall of his gaunt chest, along with the soft yet perceptible expulsion of circulated air from his nose and mouth, reveals that he still lives. You breathe a sigh of contentment and relief.

The little book you consulted prior to commencing this foolhardy operation was quite clear on one point: a pupil who at any point slays his form master will have all academic awards and attainments stripped from him. Why the scholastic powers felt the need to enshrine that in ink is a mystery to you, but you suppose that they considered it judicious for one reason or another. And in truth, even a non-scholar such as you can appreciate the undesirability of having disgruntled schoolboys slay their teachers.

But as the prostrate form master is yet breathing, the initial phase of your stratagem has proven successful. And so you proceed to the next phase.

You seize a slender knife from Gulch's desk, which you hope he kept at hand for the opening of missives -- rather than to express his displeasure of unruly pupils through the medium of perforation. Thus armed, you engage in the industrious task of cutting strips of black cloth from his gown. Once suitable numbers and lengths of these strips have been procured, you set to work binding his wrists and ankles -- and gagging his mouth.

You rise, and survey the fruits of your labor. The bonds seem adequate. You doubt Gulch will be able to release himself unaided.

Next you rifle through the draws of his desk, until doing so reveals a collection of parchment pages in a hand you recognize. With that thesis in your possession, and the bat under your arm, you stride from the study -- stopping only to remove the key from the lock.

Once on the other side of the door you pull it closed, insert your newly acquired key, and turn it until there's the click of a substantial piece of metal sliding out to secure the portal. Then you withdraw the key, slip it inside a pocket concealed within the folds of your gown, and walk down the passage.

A short distance away, as you'd already discovered, are the double doors leading to the school library. You enter those hallowed precincts, and begin to roam the rows of dusty shelves like an erudite phantom.

Some minutes later you're ensconced at a remote table, its surface covered with hefty tomes, pages of parchment -- both inked and blank -- a quill, a large bottle of ink, and a lit candle perched atop a weighty brass holder.

It's time to finish Lucian's thesis...

Oral Examination[]

Z8 a2 q4
Lore
For better or worse -- most usually the latter -- Lucian has ever been fond of regaling you with scholarly discourses on the nature of monsters. And whilst you've always endeavored to ignore his words whilst masking your disinterest with polite nods and mutterings of insincere appreciation, much of what he's said now floats to the surface of your mind. Furthermore, the fact that you're presently inside his body -- or at least its magical simulacrum -- grants you some degree of access to his own store of erudite learning.

Armed with these tools, supplemented by the existing pages of scrawled text, the school's substantial literary stockpile, and your not inconsiderable experience in the encountering and exterminating of monsters, the task at hand proves far less challenging that you'd feared it might.

Ink dances over page after page, fashioning a work which -- at least in your hardly disinterested opinion -- is rather superb.

Whether time is elapsing differently in this realm you cannot say. Its passage escapes your notice as you continue to add to mankind's weight of academic knowledge. But when you lay your quill aside at last, and look with pride upon the intellectual aristeia you've wrought, you notice that the candle hasn't even burned halfway.

Most curious.

You gather up the completed thesis, and leave the books lying on the table in your haste. You have no time to return each tome to its proper place upon the labyrinthine shelves, so you instead leave that task to the hirsute -- indeed, almost simian -- librarian you encountered upon entering. Once out in the corridor, you saunter past Gulch's study. To your immense pleasure, you discover that the door remains locked. Your dark -- though immensely enjoyable -- deed has apparently gone unnoticed.

You whistle a merry tune as you wind your way along the dim and dusky passages, to yet another chamber the location of which you thoughtfully ascertained prior to your assault on the form master.

Its doors yield to your touch, revealing a lofty circular chamber. Beneath windows set high in its walls are two rows of seats that curve in concentric semicircles around the further portion of the room. They're tenanted by a number of hideous humanoid creatures, some more akin to demons than men, orcs, orocs, or any other natural race. Their eyes focus on you with inimical stares.

Another person, no more human in his appearance and equally repulsive, stands on the raised circular platform surrounded by those seats. He wears a black mortarboard, and a grimy, ragged gown emblazoned with a range of symbols from some mysterious tongue or other. The beady eyes set in his ugly face, one half-hidden behind the cloudy glass of a monocle, glare at you like those of the chamber's other denizens.

"Who presumes to interrupt this meeting of erudition and majestic scholarship?" the man rasps.

"My name is Lucian, headmaster. And I'd like to present my thesis."

You stride towards him, enduring the combined stares which seem to lance and flay you, and thrust the thick stack of parchment pages in his direction. He snatches them from your hand, and gazes at the topmost page. A pink glow appears across the surface of his monocle.

For several minutes he remains locked in his posture of inspection, staring at that single piece of parchment. At last he looks up, and the glow fades from his glass-covered eye. "Impressive!" he says.

The monstrous faces arrayed above him are nodding in approval.

"But a thesis cannot be accepted until it has been properly defended!" he continues. "Let the questioning begin!"

Boss: Headmaster Grimsly[]

Marcus' Case[]

Pre Lore[]

Lore
Rain lashes down from the dark sky, each drop striking the gray stone streets like a curse. Maybe the gods are trying to scour this town clean, to wash away the wickedness and sweep it into the sewer drains along with the rest of the filth. Good luck to them. But it would take their thunderbolts to get the job done. No, the gods can't save Fallows from what lurks in the shadows -- from evil men and women who stare at the world through the savage eyes of predators looking for victims. The gods can't, but a guardsman can.

Understanding knocks on your skull and pull open the door, letting it totter in like a drunken lover so it can mutter in your ear and breathe its stale breath on your neck. You're Marcus, and these are your streets. You're their guardian, one of the men and woman who encase your flesh in steel and leave only your souls to be wounded and eaten away by what you see in the town's grim underbelly -- the world the fat, rich merchants and pampered nobles don't realize festers within the same thick walls that encircle their mansions and gardens.

You stride through the downpour, the rain pattering against your armor like the tears of weeping widows and running in rivulets across the bronze-colored metal. Patrol routes are fixed in your mind as if they were carved on the surface of your brain with a mutilating blade. And you follow them, boots splashing through puddles with every footfall and scattering the reflected moonlight.

the way out of Marcus' realm, the triggered release that'll throw you back out into the arcane tides, won't be found among the stacks in a dusty library like Lucian's was. No... it's somewhere out here, in the rain-swept streets. Criminals are at work tonight, creeping through the shadows like vermin looking for things to gnaw and snatch. But a guardsman is at work too, stalking them with justice in his mind and his scabbard.

You're Marcus, and this is your town.

Quest Lore[]

Thief-Taker[]

Z8 a3 q1
Lore
The wicked flee when no man pursueth. Your mother... no... Marcus' mother... taught you... him that. Damn it! You need to be back in your own accursed head instead of sharing your companions' minds like prisoners locked in the same tiny cell.

But whoever's mother she was, the dame knew what she was talking about. The girl you're staring at now is proof of that.

You see her long before she sees you -- a thin little waif with drenched black hair matted against the sides of her face like the halves of a split veil. Her knee-length tunic is just as soaked, and has been patched so many times that it reminds you of a flesh golem stitched together from dismembered body parts. But the work was done with a neat and careful hand, borne of either a mother's love or the girl's own defiant pride.

Her arms are drawn close to her body as she runs, the pale wet flesh at the ends of her sleeves clasped to her bosom -- bulging with the shape of the object hidden between hands and heart.

She looks over her shoulder, such a sudden jerk of her head that it's a miracle her neck doesn't snap. The street behind her is empty, and there's a gleam of relief in her bright eyes as she learns that.

A novice thief who's just snatched her first treasure. A woman not yet hardened into confidence and nonchalance by a lifetime of criminality -- her movements and mannerisms screaming the guilt that a true rogue would bury deep inside her flesh. That's the judgment of a guardsman's gaze. Like hundreds of people before her, she's taking the first steps along the dark road that might end on the gallows or the point of a sword. Unless a bronze colored-gauntlet grabs her, and drags her back before it's too late...

When her eyes finally fall on you, the sudden rush of panic sends her stumbling -- and only some lucky footwork keeps her from planting her face on the cobbles.

You step towards her, your mouth already opening to deliver either soothing words or a command for her to stop. But that choice is left unmade, thrown onto the big heap of indecisions that sits in the corner of your mind to mock you when you drink or dream. To a frightened thief, the sight of a guardsman's armor is like a vision from hell -- a grim promise of justice and punishment, of urine-soaked cells and brutal beatings. So she starts running again, turning her stumble into the beginnings of a brand new flight.

This time a man does pursueth.

The Body[]

Z8 a3 q2
Lore
The girl's fast.

In the slums of Fallows children start running for fun, dashing around as part of their games like boys and girls in just about every corner of the world. But they keep running for survival -- the good ones to escape the bad ones, the bad ones to chase the good ones or to escape the guardsmen. Everyone runs, and the slow ones are taken out of the picture soon enough. Only the fast ones get to grow old.

The two of you run down narrow deserted streets and along empty alleyways, like you're the only two people left in this dark, wet town. Perhaps everyone else got the message and moved out -- leaving the place for the gods to ravage with their torrents and thunderbolts. Or maybe they're just smart enough to stay out of the rain.

Desperation, the last friend of both the brave man and the fool, keeps the girl ahead of you for a long time. She pounds across the cobbles, splashes through the puddles, and weaves her way through the twisting, turning passages that cut through the ramshackle blocks of buildings like veins through a piece of flesh. But you're stronger, fitter, better fed than she is. Your guardsman's body was shaped and honed for the fight and the chase. And you start gaining on her.

Scared eyes look back from over her shoulder, between swaths of soggy hair. The girl sees you're almost within arm's reach, and she finds the breath to gasp in fright and the strength to accelerate. The frantic burst of speed puts her further ahead of you. But she might as well save her energy. It just means she'll be more exhausted when you catch her.

She makes a sharp turn, almost throwing her body like a bullet from a sling, and leaps into a vaulted passageway to the right -- an arched alleyway that ploughs through the guts of an old building like a killer's sword.

The girl screams, a banshee shriek that almost stops you in your tracks.

You turn into the alley, and see her standing there -- her flight abandoned. On the ground a short way ahead of her, sprawled on the flagstones, is a woman's body. It looks like this night has brought you something worse than a thief.

The girl looks round when she hears your footsteps, and remembers that you exist. She gasps, and presses her back against the grey stone blocks of the wall. "It's okay," you say.

You raise your gauntlets, palms outwards in a soothing, peaceful gesture. Your movements, your tone, your expression calm her down. A tool in the guardsman's arsenal -- one the others sometimes forget. You can't solve everything with a sword. Not if you want to avoid an official reprimand, anyway.

The girl steps away from the wall, and practically falls into your arms. Must be the first body she's seen. Or at least the first one that looks like it should be hanging in a butcher's window. Now that she knows you're not going to hurt her, your armor is suddenly a source of comfort -- a symbol of law and order, of justice and protection.

After a moment she pulls away. Wet steel doesn't make for a warm embrace. But the coldness seems to have done her good. She's calm now.

"What's in your hand?" you ask.

She hesitates. Then she shows you the bulging velvet pouch in her pale palm. There's a design sewn onto the purple fabric -- a golden goblin's head. The goblin is winking, and a ridiculous crescent grin splits the lower half of his face. You've seen that symbol before. It's Hobbo the Gobbo's crest. That's what people call him, anyway. A visiting merchant from Dracoshire who's been in town for a week and has managed to make himself known to just about everyone in that time. Hated by most of them too.

"He..." The girl trails off. But the mixture of shame and anger in her eyes finishes for her. "Then he wouldn't pay. Said I wasn't good enough. So I snatched his purse on the way out."

"You know where the guardhouse is?"

Her eyes widen, and she takes a quick step backwards.

"Don't worry -- you don't need to mention the purse. Hobbo won't blab to anyone, and no one would care if he did. Just tell them about the body, and let them know that Guardsman Marcus is on the spot."

The girl nods, shoves the pouch down the neck of her tunic till her breasts grab hold of it, and runs past you. You follow her with your gaze until she disappears round the mouth of the alley.

The rain has stopped now. Either the gods have abandoned their plan to wash the town clean or else the heavens have no tears to shed for the murdered woman. You turn to the body. Now that the living are dealt with, it's time to give your attention over to the dead.

The woman's dress is cheap but pretty. Like she was, before the murderer's knife did its work. It looks like it was cut to show flesh in all the right places. But the killer wasn't satisfied, and tore it further along the lines of indecency.

Her eyes are open, staring the eternal stare of death. There's nothing you can do about that. When you... Marcus... found your first body, you tried to close its eyes out of respect. But they just flicked back open again. Only an undertaker's gum can seal them now. All you can do is meet her unseeing gaze, and promise her justice.

You crouch down beside her. The woman's tongue is silent, lost in the biggest sleep of all. But she might still have a story to tell...

Clothes Maketh the Murderer[]

Z8 a3 q3
Lore
Your examination is over long before the others arrive.

"Good work, Marcus."

Three guardsmen are at the mouth of the alley. Two wear bronze-colored armor, like yours. Their faces are practically engraved with disrespect for the third man, who stands in front of them. That one is dressed in a silver panoply so finely decorated it looks like it was banged against the side of a Stromhamren cathedral until it took on the shape of the Ruthic carvings.

Guard Captain Verus Bloodwyn. Son of the town's mayor, and perpetual pain in the rear-end of every decent man and woman in the guard. Not someone you've ever laid eyes on before. If he was there during the Battle of Fallows, fighting on the wall a lifetime ago and a world away, he escaped your attention. But Marcus knows him well. And what he knows isn't to the man's credit.

"We can always rely on you people to sniff out a corpse," the captain continues.

It takes you a moment to realize what he's talking about, for the information to slip from your companion's memories like a card dealt from the bottom of the deck. Marcus' skin is the same color as that of the cannibal tribes of Vash.

"What brings you out here on a night like this, captain?" you ask.

Verus' eyes narrow slightly. On the nights when he graces the guardhouse with his presence, he can usually be found in his chamber next to a roaring fire -- with a goblet of wine in his hand. He only comes out onto the streets when there's glory to be snatched away from worthier hands. You know it, he knows it, the men behind him know it. But all the same, he doesn't like the implication of your words. Too bad.

The captain pushes past you, and walks further into the alley. He stops beside the corpse, and nudges her with the toe of his boot.

"Looks like she was stabbed to death. Quite a common occurrence in this part of town, I believe."

You move to his side, the other guardsmen following close behind.

"She was strangled," you reply. "You can see the bruises round her neck. The knife wounds were made after she was dead."

Captain Verus glares at you. Then he smiles.

"Well noticed, guardsman. But strangled, stabbed... It all amounts to the same thing. She probably came into the alley with one of her customers, and he stabbed... strangled her."

"I don't think she was killed here. Otherwise there would be blood on the ground. She was more likely brought here after she was murdered." "Are you a necromancer, Marcus?"

"Excuse me?"

"I didn't think so. Unless you raised her as a zombie and had her spit the tale in your face, I don't want to hear it. Put her on the corpse wagon when it arrives, and get back to your patrol."

---

Your gauntleted fist bangs against the door.

Captain Verus' dismissal of the murdered woman seemed normal enough to you. The nobleman might like to strut around in a guard captain's armor, but he's his father's son -- a pompous, arrogant bastard who would be more outraged by an overcooked steak than a murdered whore. But you felt a faint suspicion hardening at the back of Marcus' mind.

An insistent niggling in your thoughts brought you to this doorstep after you left the alley, and when you saw the sign that's hanging above your head you began to understand what your companion was thinking.

You bang on the door again.

"One moment! One moment!"

There's the grating noise of bolts being pulled back. Then the door is drawn open, revealing the beady eyes and aquiline nose of Giuseppe -- Fallows' most celebrated tailor. The polite smile on his lips dies as he sees you. He was probably expecting a well-dressed servant, here to collect a garment for a wealthy aristocrat. He has no smiles or politeness to waste on a mere guardsman.

"Yes?"

"Marcus, of the town guard. I'd like to speak with you if I may."

Giuseppe snorts, the gesture making his hooked nose tremble. But he steps back into the shop, allowing you to enter.

"My work is expensive, guardsman. Perhaps one of the seamstresses in the marketplace would be more suitable for you."

"I'm not here as a customer."

The tailor snorts again.

You open the small pouch at your belt, and take something between your forefinger and thumb. You hold it out to Giuseppe.

"I found this thread of material under the fingernails of a murdered woman, perhaps clawed from the clothing of the person who killed her," you say. "I'm no tailor, but even I can see that it's not from any common cloth. And if the garment was made in Fallows, perhaps you know whom it might belong to."

He seems surprised, but there's a genuine glimmer of interest in his eyes as he holds out his palm. You place the thread in his hand, and watch his face as he moves it closer to a nearby candle and inspects it.

You were going to mention this discovery to Captain Verus, along with the other thing you found hidden beneath the woman's nails. But something held your tongue.

After several moments, the tailor turns to you, and shrugs his narrow shoulders.

"I'm sorry, guardsman, but I can tell you nothing. This material never passed through my hands."

You meet his stare for a long second.

"Then please forgive me for bothering you at this late hour."

You accept the thread back from his hand, place it in your pouch, and move towards the door. Your work here is done.

---

A few minutes later, the door of the tailor's shop opens. A little boy emerges, and runs down the dark street.

You watch him from the shadows, and smile. Then you follow.

Beast in Velvet[]

Z8 a3 q4
Lore
The boy is quick, but unsuspicious. He doesn't know that his steps are being stalked by a guardsman, and doesn't hear you following him close behind.

His path is no surprise. He's heading deeper into the opulent part of town, the place where men like Giuseppe live on the periphery -- given just enough of a taste to make them haughty, to lift them above the dregs, but not so much that they'll ever forget their station. It's a place where broad streets glow in the light thrown by magic-filled orbs, running alongside huge buildings surrounded by beautiful gardens -- little parcels of land to shield the great and the good from the rest of the world.

The boy reaches a wrought iron gate that towers at least ten feet above his head, and calls out. A man in servant's garb approaches him from the other side, illuminated in the ghostly glow of the lantern that swings in his left hand. In his right is a bludgeon, ready to crack the skulls of unwelcome strangers.

The two exchange inaudible words for a few moments. Then there's a clink as the gate is unlocked. It swings inwards and the boy enters. He runs down the long, winding path on the other side, and disappears among the trees.

The servant is pushing the gate shut when you dash across the street and shove it open. He curses as the metal bangs against his face.

"Guardsman Marcus. Here on official business."

You walk past him, and start making your way down the path. But you turn when you hear the hurried footsteps behind you.

One gauntleted hand catches the descending bludgeon. The other smashes the gatekeeper in the face. He falls, and hits the ground like a sack of potatoes. You nod at your handiwork. By the time he wakes up, it'll all be over.

You wind your way through the trees until the looming mass of a building appears in front of you as you -- a great big pile of stone as old as the town itself. It sits in the darkness like a monster, dark windows like dead eyes staring into the night.

You stop at the end of the path, step into the shadows of the nearest tree, and wait for a few minutes.

The boy comes out of the house and runs back along the path. He passes without even noticing you. But he notices your handiwork. You hear his gasp through the trees, and know that he's found the gatekeeper. Then the running footsteps continue. He may be a well-to-do tailor's lad, but he has enough street smarts to make himself scarce when he sees something like that.

You move out from behind the tree, then jog across the open space and up the steps leading to the house's big door. Justice doesn't use the servant's entrance.

You bang on the hard wood, and the door opens almost instantly. A plump butler stands in front of you, staring with all the laughable disdain of a rich man's servant.

"Yes?"

"I'm here to see Mayor Bloodwyn."

"His lordship is unavailable at present."

His snooty voice makes it clear that he'll never be available -- not to the likes of you, at any rate.

You push the butler aside, and step into the hall.

"Sir! I must protest!"

"Protest all you want, but stay out of my way."

You walk across the long hall, your trained stare taking in and then ignoring all the lavish paintings and coats of arms displayed on the walls. He's in here somewhere...

"Help! Help!"

Footmen in fancy uniforms appear from one of the side passages, answering the butler's girlish screams. They come to a stop when they see that it's an armed and armored guardsman standing in front of them, not some urchin who's snuck in to steal the silver.

"Seize him!" the butler yells. "Seize him, or I'll have you both discharged!"

The servants decide that continued employment is more important than a few bumps and bruises. They throw themselves at you. A punch apiece is enough to put them down. Just enough so they can pretend to be out cold, and stay on the floor instead of taking a proper beating.

You're about to move deeper into the house. But instead you turn around, walk back to the screaming butler, and thump him a few times for good measure. The unconsciousness you leave him in is no sham.

Your steps take you down a broad corridor, past a number of doors that you open in turn. Each one reveals a room larger than a peasant's hovel, but all are empty. "In here, guardsman."

The voice comes from behind the door at the far end of the passage.

You push it open and step into a shadowy room, lit by the glow of a fire and the moonlight that cascades through the latticed window and stretches across the floor like a body. A man's leaning against the mantel. A plump, peacock-like figure you recognize. Aurelius Bloodwyn.

Boss: Rift the Mauler[]

Medea's Song[]

Pre Lore[]

Lore
So where are you now on your dreamtime odyssey?
What clues lie around you, whatever can you see?
You're in a small chamber with a narrow little bed,
Out beyond the window is a sunlit forest spread.
Wait just a moment, just one second -- something's really wrong...
Why in the name of all the gods are you thinking this in song?
It seems quite unnatural, quite absurd, really rather dire,
Your head is filled with awful rhymes -- you'd rather die in fire.
You're no poet, you're no minstrel, these verses are quite poor,
And unless you miss your guess, you'll have to endure more.
A looking glass is shining in a pretty golden frame,
So you step before it, though you know who's to blame.
Yes, as you suspected -- an elven face does gaze,
You've ended up as Medea, in her childhood days.
Oh, that's just perfect, just so great,
You think you'll do a dance.
Actually, you're quite irate,
And feel no urge to prance.
Wait a second -- that's not right...
The rhyming scheme has changed...
Couplets are gone from your sight,
You're feeling quite deranged.
You're no singer, not a bard,
Well, only when you bathe,
If you're alone, your fun not marred,
By someone who might scathe.
Yet even so, you're not a fool,
You've heard good bards play,
You know that rhyming has a rule,
Else the muses would not stay.
And there's something called a meter,
With importance unsurpassed.
That makes you a cheater,
Your verses quite miscast.

CHORUS

Stop whining human, just accept your fate,
Shut up and sing,
Shut up and sing,
Or you'll be trapped forever in this state.

MEDEA

Now I'm hearing voices! Could things get any worse?

CHORUS

Depending on your point of view, we're a blessing or a curse.
We're the fabled chorus, the spirits of this realm,
And we see the human mind that's at the elf girl's helm.

MEDEA

Tell me what to do so I can leave your world behind,
We're really not made for one another as I'm sure you'll find.
Singing's not my forte, I don't know how to rhyme-

CHORUS

That we know full well -- your lyrics are a crime.
And hear what you've done by your very presence here,
You've corrupted our own song,
Made it sound quite wrong,
Now our precious dimension's tunes are painful to the ear.

MEDEA

Then let us out, back to our realm -- the place where our friends wait,
Why keep us bound in this strange place, when my singing you do hate?

CHORUS

If we could do that, we'd grasp at the chance,
We'd kick you out, and then have a dance.
We could sing proper verses, melodious tunes,
Instead of sounding like drunk tavern loons!
But your egress is determined by the deeds that you do,
No one else can end our suffering -- no one but you.

MEDEA

Very well, as you wish -- I'll do as you've asked.
I'll find a way from this place, as I did from the last.
[The chorus hums in contentment, a sweet and friendly tune,
A delightful little ditty from the raw essence of music hewn.
It fills you with confidence, and a feeling of inner calm,
That diminishes your urge to inflict actual self-harm.
You start to ponder your next step, deciding what you should do,
When someone taps upon your door, and makes the choice for you.
The portal swings open, revealing a boyish elven face.
Medea's mind names him Xalis, her best friend in this place.
Now that thought spawns another, like a hydra's new-grown heads,
Providing you with knowledge that helps connect the threads.
This is a bard's academy, the place she learned to play.
Perhaps with a few lessons here the chorus will not say,
That your rhymes are so atrocious, your singing from the abyss,
Your tunes and words so much worse than a serpent's fatal kiss.

XALIS

Medea! Why are you waiting here? We have no time to spare!
Songmistress Laethra's trial soon begins and we're not even there!

CHORUS

Now look at that, human soul,
See what you have wrought.
Xalis sounds like a fool,
Not singing as he ought.

MEDEA

Yes, I understand -- I get the point.
Why repeat yourself?
In this realm, our singing's joint,
And I've broken this elf.
His tune is bad because mine is,
His lyrics a disgrace.
The fault is mine, it isn't his,
Away his talent I have chased.
But hold one second, what is this?
I think I'm quite confused.
I'm addressing you in front of Xalis,
And he's not at all bemused.

CHORUS

First let us say, with wholehearted accord,
Rhyming 'this' with 'Xalis' is quite a stretch,
But let that be ignored.
When you speak to us, dear human wretch,
The thoughts you sing are for our ears alone,
A private conversation between our minds flown.

XALIS

Come, Medea -- don't delay!
We have to be on our way!
Take your harp, and then let's run!
If we're not there we'll be undone!

Quest Lore[]

Battle of the Bards[]

Z8 a4 q1
Lore
[You grab Medea's harp, its strap you don,
As Xalis takes your arm and drags you on.
Down stone passages the two of you dash,
Barging past servants and hearing them crash,
As they tumble amidst knife, fork, and plate,
They shouldn't get in the way of musicians so late.
At last you arrive at a musical door,
A portal that hums with its own subtle score.
Xalis whistles a note, it opens to him,
Revealing a small theatre and a musical din.
Up on the stage two elven youths do stand,
A boy and a girl, forming a band.
The first plays a flute, the latter a harp,
She also sings, with notes ever so sharp.
Below the stage is a grey-haired elf,
Observing the duo and humming herself.
She turns as you enter, and fixes a stare,
When she sees who you are, it becomes quite a glare.]

SONGMISTRESS LAETHRA

Medea! Xalis! Where have you been? You've caused me much delay!
Hurry and get on the stage, else you'll lose your chance to play!
[You move to the stage, climb the stairs,
And notice the other elves' mocking airs.
Your rivals they are, opponents and foes.
Only one pair may triumph, as everyone knows,
And earn the right to play on that grandest of days,
To summon the Sisters of the Song and revel in praise.]

CHORUS

The Sisters of the Song, musical queens,
Patrons of this academy, behind the scenes.
The songmasters call upon them, to harness their might,
And put on performances for those ladies' delight.
The best of the students, the choicest young bards,
Go to the great hall, and sing till the shards,
Of the universe quiver, and then do align,
And the Sisters appear beneath their sign.
[Thus informed by the chorus you take up your place,
Wondering how you could win a contest of musical grace.
You really can't sing, you can't play a harp.
What could you possibly do to make the songmistress carp?
But you have to do something, for you have no other choice,
If ever you're to leave this place, you must win with music and voice.]

Stealing a Song[]

Z8 a4 q2
Lore
[Stage fright grips you in its sinister grasp,
You open your mouth, and emit just a rasp.
But then something takes over, something inside,
Medea's talent engulfs you -- and you swell up with pride.
Your fingers stroke the harp's slender strings,
And the instrument revels, dances, and sings.
A glorious tempest of musical might,
Fills all the heavens and shrouds your sight.
To this your voice is added, now like a goddess' own tones,
Your muscles tremble, there's a shudder in your bones.
For all of her sarcasm, her coldness so hard,
Your elven companion is a magnificent bard.
The song brings water to the corners of your eyes,
A sublime melody at which the universe cries.
Xalis' own playing melds with your song,
His notes joining yours in a celestial throng.
It's the most beautiful thing you've ever heard,
Or for that matter seen, as every word,
Creates wondrous splashes of color and light,
Brilliant tapestries that the heavens excite.
But your adversaries are not quiet, they don't let you play,
They create quiet a riot, as your tune they try slay.
The flute and the lute give out their bawl,
Along with their elf-girl's sonorous call.
Their song clashes with yours in great aural war,
Notes doing battle with notes, amid blood and gore.
For many minutes the melee does rage,
Till Songmistress Laethra comes on the stage.
She holds up her hand like a regal decree,
And the music withdraws like the tide of the sea.]

SONGMISTRESS LAETHRA

A marvelous effort, a tremendous display!
Perhaps the best I've seen all today.
But only one pair from each year may go,
Upon the grand stage with the school gathered below.
One single pair to summon the Sisters,
And fill the air with their glorious vistas,
Of symphony and melody, harmonies true-

MEDEA

If she doesn't reveal the winners, her throat I will chew!

SONGMISTRESS LAETHRA

Medea and Xalis, your song was ever so fine!
But Thea and Nardin's was like the sweetest wine!
It captured my soul, delighted my heart.

MEDEA

Thrice-damned bitch! I'll tear her apart!

CHORUS

Well, that was unexpected, and also sad,
I imagine it makes you murderously mad.
For whatever it's worth, though that may be naught,
We thought your sound was perfectly wrought.
Perhaps this songmistress has inferior taste,
Or else has some bias that's causing this waste,
Of your superior talents, the best we have heard.
Alas, she cannot hear us, so we can't say a word.
Else we would tell her that she needs a good slap,
And perhaps something harsher so her bones will snap.
[Thea and Nardin, your victorious foes,
Stick out their tongues, and she turns up her nose.
Oh how you wish to smash that lute upon her head,
And stick his flute in a place that's better not said.]

---

XALIS

I have a plan, a strategy cunning,
Something to bring our deserved glory running.
[So Xalis says as the two of you sit in his room,
Bemoaning your fate, wrapped up in gloom.
Your fingers drift across the harp at your side,
A habit adopted from her in whom you abide.
Music comes forth, an echo of sorrow, bitterness, and rage,
A perfect accompaniment to your emotional cage.
But Xalis' new words bring a trill of curious delight,
Does he know something to set the world right?
For it seems clear to you, based on experience and intuition,
That your music you must prove to bring your escape to fruition.]

XALIS

What if the two of us venture into that most ancient hall,
And summon the Sisters of the Song with our clarion call?
To do that alone, just us two, with no one to help,
Would prove our ability -- the songmistress will yelp!
[Your eyes light up at the thought of his plan,
A way to break out of this realm if only you can.]

MEDEA

But there's one problem that you seem to have ignored,
We know not of the music that might secure that great reward.
Only the songmasters have access to the score,
And they keep it sealed in magic vaults its safety to ensure.

XALIS

Ah, Medea, I've thought of that and I know just what to do,
Listen close and hear me out while I explain it all to you.

---

SONGMISTRESS LAETHRA

Play the music set before you, master all its chords!
Your playing must be perfect 'fore you tread the ancient boards!
[The songmistress' voice is somewhat muffled,
But the words are clear the tones unruffled.
Xalis smiles in gleeful delight,
Knowing his plan is about to prove right.
A wonderful strategy, you have to admit,
A product of cunning, conniving, and wit.
Here under the stage, hidden from their eyes,
Crouch two sneaky bards, musical spies.
Thea and Nardin will play o'er your head,
Drawing on the music that they've newly read.
The sheets you can't see, but that's quite all right,
Because hearing can make up for lost sight.
Your task is quite simple, though at the same time a test,
To capture the music they play, draw it deep in your breast.
Recognize each note, so must you do,
And seal it on your head, with memory true.
You close your eyes, and focus your mind.
This is your chance, your exit to find.]

Breaking Bounds[]

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Lore
[The music flows into you, a mighty epic score.
Hexameters aplenty, a tale of love and war.
Dactyl, dactyl, spondee, spondee -- running through your head.
Dactyl, dactyl, spondee, spondee -- a song of hope and dread.
And somehow through all of this Medea's mind is sharp,
Grabbing every single note with silent strums of harp.
When at last the bards leave off, and silence fills the hall,
The whole song's inside her brain, and her fingers' crawl.
You know that you can repeat it, with voice and with string,
When you stand upon the ancient stage, the music you will sing.
You crouch and wait until all are gone, then the two of you emerge.
Xalis gives a whoop of joy, for now you're on the verge,
Of utter glory, victory sweet, a complete and utter win,
And moreover the way back home, to where you left your skin.]

---

MEDEA

Xalis are you sleeping? It's time to be awake!
But keep your lips silent, for heaven's sake.
Curfew has descended, the students all in bed,
And if the songmasters catch us, we'll be better dead.

XALIS

Huh? Oh... Sleeping? Was only resting my eyes...

MEDEA

Just get out of bed right now, and stop spewing lies.
If we want to reach the ancient hall,
Where the great performances take place,
We need to sneak and dodge and crawl,
And through the darkness race.
Oh great, just look at that -- my couplets have all gone,
And I really much prefer them, since not much can go wrong.
Ah, no wait -- they've returned to me.
So much better, as you can see.

CHORUS

Yes, do stick with couplets, our unmusical human friend,
They can be rather childish, but at least you can depend,
Upon their simple rhyming scheme, which an idiot could follow,
Far better for an inept bard than in complex meters to wallow.
[Together with Xalis you leave the room,
And creep through passages quiet as the tomb.
You reach a window, with strong ivy beneath,
This gift to mischievous students did nature bequeath.
The two of you clamber down, and drop on the ground.
But one more challenge in the dark can be found.
In the dimness and shadows, the pure country night,
There are glowing specters, objects of magical might.
Musical golems, beings fashioned from song.
They patrol the academy, lest foes come along.
If they spot you it's over, the masters they'll wake,
So you must be ever so careful on the path you will take.]

The Performance[]

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Lore
[You slip through the shadows, avoiding a golem,
Both your faces are pale, your expressions solemn.
But somehow you make it, avoiding detection,
And you're at the ancient hall, the place of perfection.
In this hallowed place the greatest music is played,
Songs for the ages at the feet of the muses are laid.
The door is not locked, it never shall be,
For music is unbound, the muses are free.
The two of you enter, and breathe sighs of relief.
Then you scarper down the aisle with the tread of a thief.
Beneath stained glass windows, works of sumptuous art,
You climb on the stage and prepare for your part.]

XALIS

Are you ready, Medea? There's no turning back.

MEDEA

To hell with the rules, let us make our attack,
On this most difficult piece, that would make others shudder,
But we're the best, though the laurels were given to another.
Let's sing and let's play here, in the place we deserve,
Show the gods all our talent, and the songmasters our nerve.

XALIS

Well spoken, my friend, the hour is nigh,
It's time to begin, for music to fly!
The Sisters we'll summon, their blessing we'll take,
The ashes of inferiority will Thea and Nardin then rake.

Boss: Sisters of the Song[]

Reality[]

Pre Lore[]

Lore
You're falling through endless infinities, hurtling through impossible expanses of eldritch existence. And yet your mind cries out in elation and the gloriousness of it all.

Nothing's rhyming! You're thinking in wonderful arrhythmic prose -- good, honest words that don't feel any urge to couple with one another in lascivious unions of sound.

There's no grim cynicism in your head, none of the bleakness of Marcus' magical realm -- a place fashioned from the darkest aspects of his mind and memories. Only your usual level of sarcasm and world-weariness swim within, like old friends awaiting your return so they can start complaining about things.

You're not being drowned beneath the weight of words you barely recognize, smothered by academic jargon and whatever one might call the curious language of Lucian's mind.

You're free! Just you -- wonderful, unique, and perfect you!

The fall comes to a sharp and sudden end. There's a momentary sensation that's almost indescribable, and the nearest you can come is to say that you feel like hot liquid being poured into a vessel -- splashing against its inner surface as you take on its shape.

The feeling passes after a second's queasiness, and your mind plunges happy tentacles into the flesh of your brain as it renews control of your body. It's a blessed homecoming, that of a sailor back after years at sea, a soldier returned from a decade-long war.

In the moments before your senses reassert themselves, and your understanding of the universe is once more bound within the familiar restrictions of sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, equilibrium, and intuition, there's one last paranormal realization of the world around you.

Your companions are stirring as well, the threads of their minds adopting the confines of flesh as are your own. Lucian, Marcus, Medea, and Solus are all about to experience their own awakenings. But so are the others...

Across from you, the white wyrm's malevolent brain is beginning to twitch and spark with the force of its thawing fury. His beastmen minions are regaining true consciousness and the savage thoughts which were severed in mid flow by the spell that sent you all wandering in magical realms.

No, your adventures today aren't quite over...

Quest Lore[]

Unfrozen Arrow[]

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Lore
In the very same instant that your body regains motion, breaking free from the invisible prison of the spell, you see the arrow.

One of the shafts fired by your archers when they tested the magic's sphere of influence, that hung suspended in the air as though robbed of its power. But with the spell lifted, its flight resumes -- and it's heading straight for Medea.

You lunge towards her.

Welcome Home[]

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Lore
"You idiot!" Medea shifts and struggles under you, but somehow still manages to send an angry blare screaming from her harp. "Get your carcass off me! Do you think I need your help to dodge an arrow?"

You begin to lift yourself off her, and she squirms out from beneath -- pushing you aside with a sharp elbow as she scrambles to her feet.

The rest of the arrows nearby have landed harmlessly on the grass. But your enemies have fared less well. A few of the beastmen are stretched on the ground, and a third staggers around, howling in anguish, with a shaft protruding from his eye.

There's a second of collective uncertainty, another frozen moment as everyone assess the situation they now find themselves in. The white dragon's eyes gleam with the realization of its reawakening. The beastmen shake the cobwebs from their mangy heads.

Then war cries, howls, the flight of arrows, and the fizzing of spells fill the air.

You hear Roland's shout as the rest of your companions rush forward -- no longer held at bay by the magical dome. Arcane light glows at the top of the tower, the mages renewing the fight as if they had never left it.

The beastmen seem confused by the sudden presence of new foes, but the dragon's roars inspire them to action all the same. Some charge towards the tower, continuing their interrupted assault. Many move to meet the attack from the bulk of your companions, recognizing them as the greatest threat.

But your presence doesn't go unnoticed either. A band of bestial foes charges towards you, swinging their swords and spears amidst animal roars.

Your nearby companions, sharers of the arcane odyssey, line up beside you without a word. Perhaps their minds are still shaken from your recent presence, but they fall into battle order readily enough. Marcus is there with his sword in his hand, an unflinching sentinel. The annoyance has left Medea's face, and her harp is singing a martial tune -- though her voice hasn't yet joined it. And Lucian...

"Where did you get that bat?" you ask.

"I'm not entirely sure. It was in my hand when I regained consciousness." He raises the weapon in a two-handed grip, as though it were a sword. "I'm not usually a devotee of personal violence, but I feel a sudden urge to crack an adversary's skull open."

There's a loud, reptilian growl as Solus' big blue mass moves alongside you.

"Thank you," he says.

Then the enemies are upon you.

Ogres Abound[]

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Lore
Your muscles seem to cry out in rapture as you move them through the familiar dance of strength and steel. After what seems like an age outside your flesh, as a dancing sphere of consciousness or else bound within the eldritch imitations of bodies in the magical realm, the old routines of combat are like a blessing from the gods.

The others seem to feel the same way. Marcus is laying about him with his blade, hewing limbs from shoulders and heads from necks. His blows are untiring, as though he were a war golem and his body fashioned from bronze. Near him Medea weaves a triple song -- harp, voice, and sword joining together in a beautiful symphony of sound and slaughter. Her weapon darts in time with her music, and finds its crescendo in the flesh of her foes. Even Lucian is fighting as you've never seen him before, the bat he apparently brought back from the magical dimensions breaking bones as though it were made of the heaviest metal instead of wood. And as for Solus, he's rampaging through the enemies with a ferocity that would have put his black-scaled father to shame.

The beastmen may have thought themselves lucky when they were sent against your little group, instead of at the tower or the massed ranks of your comrades. Now they're dead or dying on the ground. Such are the ways of war, when heroes join the fray.

But a second wave is coming, albeit too late to save their butchered brethren.

Three ogres have detached themselves from the enemy horde, and are now rumbling towards you. Fat undulates around their plump bellies, wobbling with each footstep. But the hulking brutes' arms and chest bulge with powerful blue-grey muscles and the promise of brutality.

Music Missile[]

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Lore
An ogre howls and squeals like a wounded hog. He's grappling with the azure mass of dragon that pins him to the grass, thrashing as he tries to hurl the drake off. But his limbs are splashed with crimson, the muscular flesh torn and ravaged by draconic claws -- robbed of their strength. Solus' mouth clamps around his neck, and the squealing ends. It gives way to a splatter and a crunch.

Another ogre lies prone on the ground, his flesh carved with so many red wounds that they look like some form of savage war paint.

The third lives, though perhaps he wishes he didn't. He's on one knee, his slab-like hands clamped to either side of his head. Dark blood trickles from beneath his palms. Medea stands nearby, gazing at him through grim eyes as she twangs her harp again and again -- each motion creating a thundering dirge that makes your teeth and skull shudder.

Marcus steps towards the brute, and ends his suffering with a well-placed sword thrust. The creature's eyes are almost grateful as he collapses. A chord reminiscent of a shrug drifts from the bard's instrument.

As your own portion of the fighting draws to a close, you look across the field and see the greater part of the battle. There packs of beastmen are crashing against your companions' ranks, and are being cut down for their trouble. You glimpse Roland and Aesa in the midst of the melee, they and the others carving a gory swath though their enemies.

The white dragon is at a distance from the clash, looking on with gleaming eyes -- bellowing commands as its minions perish. Then it turns away, as though choosing to avert its gaze from the carnage. And its wings unfurl.

The great beast rises into the air, huge flaps of its leathery appendages taking him aloft. Cries come from your companions, spells and arrows shower upon the drake's hard, spiky scales in an effort to stop him. But though he bellows in fury and pain as a fireball bursts against the side of his neck, still he ascends as though intending to flee -- leaving his minions to perish beneath steel and spell.

"Solus!" you shout. "Medea!"

The drake is at your side before his name leaves your mouth. The elven bard's harp gives an interrogative twang, but she too darts towards you. For all her cynicism, however infuriated she might sometimes be with you, when it comes to battle Medea trusts your orders without question.

"Get on," you say, as you leap upon Solus' back.

The elven bard raises an eyebrow, but again she does as bidden. Her lithe body moves in front of yours, straddling the drake's neck. Your wrap an arm around her waist to keep her steady as the dragon takes off, and grab the reins with your other hand. Those equestrian articles are unnecessary when it comes to guiding Solus -- for the dragon needs no urging. But when you're flying far above the ground, it never hurts to have something to grab on to.

You press your face close to Medea's, putting your mouth by her ear.

"Bring him down!" you hiss.

The elf nods, and smiles.

In the fight with the Sisters you sensed something shifting within her, abilities that even she never knew she possessed until the two of you were forced to bring them to bear against those musical monsters. You know what she can do now, as well as she does.

Solus soars heavenward, towards the hideous white form of the enemy wyrm.

The beast isn't trying to escape, it seems. He's flying towards the tower -- to bring his wrath down upon the mages. You can see them on the broad balcony, abandoning the spells they were hurling at the beastmen below and focusing on the dragon that swoops towards them.

A torrent of luminous green flame gushes from the dragon's mouth. But the eldritch fire breaks against a glowing purple barrier that appears before it -- bursting apart like waves crashing around the spur of a towering cliff.

The flaming torrent continues to pour from the monster's maw, its great bulk hovering in place as its wings claw at the air. And the magical shield trembles beneath the assault.

But you're close by, ignored and unnoticed by the white wyrm.

"Move in close," Medea shouts. "Near its head."

Slender elven fingers hover over her harp strings, poised and ready to descend.

Boss: Mardachus the Destroyer[]

Quest Zones

Burden's Rest |  Faedark Valley |  Fallows |  Ryndor |  Vornstaag |  The Last Titan |  Bludheim |  Subterranean Depths
Together in Eclectic Dreams |  The Dragons' Claw |  Scrolls of Dahrizon |  Peril of the Pumpkin Patch
Tales from the Pumpkin Patch |  Sanguine Stories |  Crypt of Caracalla |  A Tale of Two Swords |  My Name Is...
Far From Home |  Whispers |  Under the Hood |  Fog of War |  All Roads Lead |  Crimson Shadows |  Uncharted |  Thresholds
Shadows of the Past |  Hymn of the Bell |  Escape from Yeurfrost |  Spirits of the Pumpkin Patch |  A Heart of Snow
Cryptic Tales

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