Once attached, he would manipulate the elf to say certain things among certain groups. He would then leave them the next night, leaving no trace of his presence beyond a mild headache and a faint feeling of forgetfulness. He also speaks of Morvule's personal involvement - of his impersonation of more notable figures among prominent Illistim families for brief amounts of time, of his investments into the right factions and causes, of his subtle manipulations, which ultimately brought the Illistim army to ShadowGuard.
The reasoning for this, Nershuul explains, was twofold - they had gotten wind of someone discovering the sword piece either directly in the area of ShadowGuard or within Ta'Illistim's walls itself. The second was that they encountered a number of issues with transporting their forces to the eastern side of the DragonSpine. They would require more forces, and Morvule's solution for such was easy - more corpses.
~1~
They also began planting seeds of discord throughout the north, near Ta'Vaalor, by bolstering some of the local outcasts, specifically necromancers and other such pariahs, in order to keep split Ta'Vaalor's normally unified forces with seemingly random incursions.
Regardless, through these various manipulations, Illistim's political climate was raging, and the political factions behind the primarily non-magical military ached for an enemy on which to prove their newest training regimen. They found this enemy when Morvule finally revealed a small band of undead near ShadowGuard's borders.
The response was massive - the full force of the political movement which had built up for months was behind the plan to send a quarter of Illistim's military might to meet the threat. The Vaalorian forces consented to such a thing, as there was very little need to mobilize their own army to deal with such an insignificant threat.
~2~
The Illistim army was slaughtered in a single night. Nershuul speaks with delight on the transgression - all of the assembled Illistim were raised as undead to join the fight and the search. A small outpost keep was taken over as their base of operations, and for a time, Nershuul was allowed to take part in the outright battle during one of the four's absence, serving as a general of the undead forces.
This, as expected, unified the elven forces against a common threat. The four had apparently spent weeks preparing the grounds for an extended siege as this had one singular purpose - to force the Vaalor to act and keep their attention focused there.
~3~
With the Vaalor forces split between defending their own homeland and dispatching the threat to the rest of the Elven Nations, the Four began to search among Ta'Illistim's borders in a very discreet fashion. The free agents of Lornon were tapped heavily during this time, and they were directly competing with those of Ulstram in the search.
We must digress here to discuss some of the political ramifications of the search for the pieces coming to the eastern side of the world - while, generally the western side of the continent is rather used to those termed 'adventurers,' for the most part, the elves of the east had only recently become inundated with their kind. Whereas help from these generally good natured adventurers was often accepted in the west, in the east, such efforts were thought as an affront to the ability of the elves to take care of their own problems. This caused strife among the followers of Ulstram and, specifically, the Vaalor elves.
~4~
The Vaalor's disdain for the westerners eventually brought a number of conflicts between such two vastly different ideologies. What they did do that most of Ulstram's group agreed with was execute and banish the free agents of Lornon when they appeared to vocally support the Dark Alliance. The Illistim elves, on the other hand, were fairly apathetic and would do no such thing - the reasoning being that there are generally a number of outright supporters of Fash'lo'nae's ideals -- such as us, of course -- among prominent political groups, and while Illistim elves are generally ambivalent, they find such widely discriminatory actions reminiscent of the Rysus Codex in the Turamzyrrian Empire, which they absolutely abhor and consider barbaric. As such, save for acts of aggression or outright treachery, the free agents of Lornon were not persecuted within the walls of Ta'Illistim.
~5~
It was also a time when Eryael was able to freely torture the minds of several members of Ulstram's Resistance - with two sword pieces fueling the connection between this plane and the locale of the Black Temple, his efforts into maintaining the link were drastically reduced. He had already turned one of their kind from Ronan to Mularos - Tierus Morvaenus - and he aimed to continue the trend. His workings in Ta'Illistim eventually would lead to a minor cult springing up in his wake, a decadent house of debauchery meant to lure those to the hidden shrine below it. It exists still to this day, even without Eryael's hand to guide it.
This also marks a time when both the stratagems of Ulstram and the Dark Alliance changed slightly - Ulstram realized the need for an inner circle of trusted companions, and he and Kendryth provided sanctuaries accessible only to those who bore a relic of their creation.
~6~
The Four agreed that the free agents had become useful over time and rather than risk another possible betrayal by a questionable allegiance, they attempted to solidify their connections by allowing them access to that which they'd never seen before - The Black Temple. Given relics by Eryael, they were soon able to traverse the planes with little difficulty -- while they knew very little of where they were exactly, they were given access to sacrificial altars that allowed them to bolster the power of their respective patron priests through bloodletting.
~7~
It was at this time that the various independent outcasts of Ta'Vaalor began to make their presence known - random forays along their borders began to show an inherent flaw in Ta'Vaalor's usually flawless strategies; their army was stretched thinly across two mounting fronts.
~8~
Realizing this, the Vaalor created two special divisions of the military that were rather historically ground breaking - they allowed elves of other Houses to join, as well as Vaalor elves which, for whatever reasons, had been born abroad or were simply out of touch with their heritage over the recent years. These two groups would be known as the Crimson Ravens and the Golden Hawks and would eventually play a prominent role in foiling part of the Dark Alliance's plans. The campaigns launched by both groups eventually felled a local sorcerer contracted by the Dark Alliance to create a number of undead, destroyed several enemy camps, and halted the infestation of a strange new type of undead creature called the Overseer; a sessile slime-like creature anchored within a network of caverns.
~9~
Nershuul explained the Overseers briefly when pressed - apparently a creation of Morvule, the Overseers take a large amount of time to ramp up to anything usable, but their main strength is in the fact that they are rarely detected until they have a sustainable amount of lesser undead to protect them. Essentially, the Overseers are a collective intelligence trained by their creator to perform certain duties. They are attached to a locale where there are a number of living or dead things - they then passively attract and entrap local creatures or absorb the previous dead matter and convert such resources into a simple undead construct. These constructs are then directed by the Overseer to harvest new and better living materials and the process snowballs. Once suitable constructs are able to acquire sentient resources, there is usually a sufficient horde of simple undead to provide it adequate protection.
~10~
Eventually, once the resources within a certain area become depleted, the Overseer then begins to convert the simplest of undead into another copy of itself, splitting the souls instilled into it and its creations to form a new Overseer, which is then transported farther and farther away. This process continues until a large area is seemingly randomly infested with the undead.
Such plans were laid to rest when the newly founded Vaalorian military groups destroyed the original Overseer's lair. They then eventually tracked the source of these beings to a sorcerer, whose lair was within a tower near Ta'Vaalor. Having been a local outcast for centuries, he had been little more than a hermit until the Dark Alliance gave him the knowledge to create various types of undead.
~11~
These victories grated on the non-elven supporters of Ulstram - they desired to help the cause, but were continually rebuffed by the Vaalor elves. The guards of Vaalor openly mocked such efforts, calling the various military groups from the west little more than mercenary bands seeking to plunder the spoils of war rather than actually fight for the protection of the Vaalor homeland. This would lead to a number of conflicts amongst the westerners and the Vaalor elves - including several which lead to bloodshed and arrests by local law enforcement.
The culmination in the frustration of the Westerners would come in the form of a suicidal dwarf named Kahrla Kahram - she was the leader of the Second Militia, a small band of adventurers of all races who upheld the Vaalorian military's edicts voluntarily.
~12~
While largely ignored by the city during their inception, they were cast in the same lot as those who came from the West, and the unending stress of such attempts to make the Vaalorian's see past their own arrogance was too much for her, and she proceeded to kill herself. This only further complicated matters between two groups with generally like-minded goals.
In Ta'Illistim, however, the climate was different - while frustrated with the lack of progress, the apathy of the Illistim elves against the threat was made clear through conflicts with vocal supporters of the Dark Alliance, bloodshed, kidnappings, and other such acts that were played out on a near nightly basis on both sides. With the introduction of Eryael into the foray, the anger in supporters of Ulstram only grew deeper.
~13~
It was at this time that several new faces came upon the scene. Harith Caerines, self-proclaimed Whip of Mularos and a powerful psionic who was corrupted and then raised to power by Eryael. She began to infest the local mental channels of Ta'Illistim so often referred to by Westerners as 'the amulet,' a term derived from the common magical devices which allow otherwise non-magical users to tap into the thoughts of others.
At first seeking to simply disrupt the thoughts of Westerners that would use such means to communicate and strategize, Nershuul informed us that once the true extent of Harith's powers were tested, a plan was eventually formed to overtake, or simply destroy, the minds of several prominent Illistim mages, whose sole duty was the control of transportation magic through the city.
~14~
The ultimate goal of her presence there was to disrupt the wardings which protect the city from a massive incursion via teleportation spells and simply phase their armies within the walls of Ta'Illistim itself. As she continued to dominate the networks of thought, another rather surprising ability became apparent - she could give rise to undead creations of a serpentine nature - apparently a skill bequeathed to her by Morvule, and send them forth to attack anyone tapped into the thoughts she reigned.
Before such plans could be followed through with, the joint efforts of both the Golden Hawks and the Crimson Ravens produced Harith's location - Arelyth Keep, an abandoned military base of the Vaalor.
~15~
Converted into use as a discreet base of operations by the Dark Alliance, Harith was guarded by a number of fairly powerful undead that the two companies had to fight through. Nershuul tells us that the discovery of Harith was completely unexpected, and Eryael rushed quickly to her aid, but he was not fast enough. Darvas Vashdar of the Golden Hawks managed to strike the killing blow. Facing increasingly powerful waves of undead, the Hawks and Ravens beat a hasty retreat. Once she was struck down, they believed her fully dead - shadows bled over her body and eventually encompassed it, her corpse fading into the blackness. This was not to be, as Morvule had placed a teleportation enchantment on her should she ever die, and even as Eryael was rushing to her rescue, Morvule had already begun the preparations for what was to happen to her after her death.
~16~
Shortly before Harith's arrival, another prominent figure rose to recognition among the conflict in Ta'Illistim - Maluverre Sil'Andruthile. While initially neither our channels of information nor the Dark Alliance's could produce anything of use on his background, it became clearer and clearer he was not simply an eccentric scholar seeking enlightening conversation with both Ulstram's supporters and those of the Dark Alliance. He would become a bridge of information, a secondary source to Ulstram and a rallying point for those who sought a neutral stance on the goings-on. Later, once his past was revealed, he would play a vital role in the sword's ultimate fate.
~17~
Yet another name would be spoken with reverence or disdain among those who waged war over the sword - Chaeye Larrinthe. Rumoured to be chosen by Ronan to fight against those who would encroach upon his realm, Chaeye provided the supporters of Ulstram an outlet for their righteous anger - where Ulstram preached understanding and tolerance, Chaeye rose up to speak highly about the struggle and the fight against those who would sink them into darkness.
Shortly before the Dark Alliance's incursion into the East, Chaeye broke free from an institution in Ta'Illistim, where she had been sent for study. Apparently a young up-and-comer in the Vaalorian army, she inexplicably murdered her commanding officer and would have suffered death were it not for her family's prominent background.
~18~
Condemned to an eternity in a ward of an Illistim research facility focusing on broken minds, she had, according to their diagnosis, gone insane with visions of Ronan. Her supposed insanity was disproved the night she escaped - apparently disappearing from a heavily warded cell with no reasonable explanation.
While she and Ulstram differed philosophically, they regarded each other quite civilly, if not outright friendly, and worked with one another against the Dark Alliance.
Chaeye would eventually recruit a number of warriors within her fold - among those being Arimantis, Errethe, Evelith, Guarrin, Ichiko, Ilvane, Kabriel, Kresl, Kylinarr, Lumaco, Malikary, Maricc, Morgiest, Purplenyte, Shirkon, Silverphenix, Sylviana, Tebon, Xanthias, and Yviara. Their first act of aggression towards the Four would be the construction of massive statues that revealed the free agents of Lornon and stopped them as they attempted to gain entrance into Ta'Vaalor.
~19~
They would be set against many battles in the future, all the while under Chaeye's guidance.
In ShadowGuard, the battle raged on ceaselessly - most Westerners, and, indeed, most pure-blooded elves of the two cities only heard brief snippets or updates of what had occurred. Nershuul describes the difficulties of contending with the Vaalorian army as he led the hordes of undead against them. While their search continued unabated, the numerous incursions and raids set forth by the Vaalorian armies were an annoyance, and he struggled to maintain the borders of their hold on the land.
At times, one of the Four would arrive to provide reinforcements, but mostly, their concentrated efforts were set on the search - during this time, they had been hoping to use the both the hilt and the quillions in their possession to home in on the remaining pieces.
~20~
This effort was ultimately fruitless, and new rumours begin to surface regarding the fate of the third piece - tales of a badly burned Illistim soldier, a survivor of the ambush the Dark Alliance had laid months ago, holding onto something powerful, traveling toward his homeland after a terrifying ordeal of survival.
As the search surrounding the lands of ShadowGuard had been completed with absolutely no sign of the sword piece, the Dark Alliance would now need to focus their search on Ta'Illistim exclusively. Nershuul describes the painstaking details of the ruse to make the Vaalor elves leave - several constructs of both himself and generals that had become notable among the Vaalor elves were created. Following the faux generals' insertion into several elite units of the Dark Alliance's forces, a number of situations that appeared as decisive victories for the Vaalor elves were set in motion.
~21~
Through careful planning, it appeared as if the Vaalor elves had crushed the Dark Alliance utterly. Confident in their ability to clean up the remaining pockets of seemingly uncontrolled undead, the Vaalorian forces began to withdraw to their homeland.
It was at this point that Morvule, Draezir, and Zerroth joined the battle personally, leading hordes of undead and living soldiers they had brought with them against the remaining Vaalorian companies. The defenses that had been set up were summarily obliterated as the Dark Alliance's renewed armies began to march toward Ta'Illistim. The mages of Illistim began preparing defenses, and the Vaalorian guard arrived to reinforce the walls, as the best they could hope for was an extended siege. The Illistim elves, ambivalent toward Western help, consented to their offers of aid and Ulstram helped smooth over any tense relations.
~22~
What this generally amounted to was the Illistim elves keeping to themselves in regards to their plans of defense and letting the Westerners act autonomously as long as they didn't specifically get in the way of said defenses. It was an absolutely positive situation given what had occurred in Ta'Vaalor.
It was then that the prolonged siege began. The Dark Alliance's hordes began to infest the outlying provinces of Ta'Illistim, and a blockade was established. The initial defenses of the Illistim mages held, and while the Vaalorian forces were in abundance, their focus was in fortifying their own stronghold should any misfortune arise in Ta'Illistim. The Illistim elves eventually accepted the offer of aid from the Ardenai elves, and several companies of their archers arrived to blanket the most heavily infested areas with defensive fire.
~23~
Nershuul explained that the Dark Alliance's aims were not to take over the city, but merely search the outlying areas. The Four were counting on the elves' infighting, specifically Vaalor's xenophobia and the Illistim's ambivalence to keep most reinforcements away, but with the limited aid from both the Ardenai and the Vaalor, they began to suffer difficulties in the search. It became necessary for Zerroth and Morvule to personally be involved in some of the battles surrounding Ta'Illistim, while Draezir plagued various decision-makers in the elven Houses with nightmares. Eryael also began to take a hand in the proceedings, attempting to corrupt various elven politicians with honeyed words and pleasures.
Such efforts would be in vain when further rumors, uncovered by both Ulstram and Maluverre, pointed that the sword piece had indeed been recovered and was within the walls of the city itself.
~24~
Draezir and Chaeye began scouring the tormented dreams of those within Ta'Illistim, and Nershuul reports of several skirmishes between the two on the dreamscape, with neither really hampering the other.
It was at this point when the Dark Alliance switched its tactics. The Four came to the agreement that actually laying siege to the city with all of their combined efforts would be long, drawn out, and could possibly have the unwanted result of unifying the elves against them. Throughout the various mana foci surrounding Ta'Illistim, they discreetly built shrines similar to the sacrificial altars. These shrines, once activated, would sap away the life energy from the surrounding areas and provide anchors for what was to come.
~25~
Nershuul divulged that these shrines were connected wholly to the sacrificial altars within the Black Temple. The free agents of Lornon were instructed to offer their blood even further - among those who remained upon bent knee night and day at such altars were Naamit DMonica of Mularos, Ysharra Nagorn of V'tull, Aramana Leirath and Angelrise Viviiont of Sheru, and Licel Lotanfa of Luukos.
Foreseeing what the Dark Alliance sought to do, Ulstram set in motion a plan to gather components from across the continent in order to combat the new threat. He also divulged the use of the shrines to those who would listen, and they sought to destroy as many as they could find. The Resistance began its search and eventually gathered all that was needed. Using the gathered ingredients, Ulstram crafted three blades - again, a product of his prophetic visions. He only had a vague idea of what might be coming, but it disturbed him deeply.
~26~
Nershuul spoke of their ultimate plan, kept secret save for only a few of the highest-ranking members of the alliance. They nearly thought it impossible, an undertaking rivaling the building of the Black Temple, and to accomplish it, all four of the priests needed to be completely and utterly focused on channeling their power toward its creation.
What they would ultimately create is a historical precedent in necromantic magic: The Miscere'Golab.
~27~
Nershuul described the process: Draezir scoured the nightmares of thousands to create the creature's body, to give it form and a terrible intelligence; Zerroth was bound to its very creation to serve as an engine of rage and fury, giving it the strength to destroy all in its path. Eryael led the mass sacrifice of living recruits from all of the four's armies - they suffered beyond all measure before their ultimate death, maximizing their usefulness to Morvule, who gathered their souls and flesh using the power of the shrines set up across the borders of Ta'Illistim and created the construct, infusing into its dead flesh a method of control.
We will include a separate report of what Nershuul knows of the processes used to create this construct - he's a wealth of information, and such advances in necromancy are positively mind-boggling.
~28~
Three eyes crowned the creature's head, its long maw lined with boulder-sized teeth, while its torso looked vaguely humanoid, its lower body split into a mass of tentacles. Its size dwarfed mountains and had it reached the city of Ta'Illistim, there would surely be lasting scars to this day, if the city stood at all. It was held aloft by six bat-like wings, and each time they beat, they sent storms across the countryside.
The creation was birthed near the foot of the DragonSpine mountains and took flight shortly after. There are numerous accounts of its creation as it was very hard to miss. The surrounding armies of Ta'Illistim were merely swept up into the sky and added to the shifting mass of flesh and bone, and it formed in mere minutes, purportedly blocking out the light of day with its six huge wings.
~29~
There were several reports of small settlements and villages that were instantly wiped out as the creature made its way towards Ta'Illistim, either burned away by a swipe of a tentacle or a shower of acidic rain that simply melted everything in its path.
Here we revisit Maluverre's presence in events. While he sought the company of both sides of the conflict so long as civility was maintained, he remained decidedly neutral and quiet in larger matters, seeking to serve as a well of information for any who would listen. However, his deep love for the Shining City lead him to act when all seemed irrevocably lost. He took to the air in his small airship and along with it those who sought to stop the Dark Alliance.
Ulstram also prepared those who would board the airship for what was to come - he bequeathed the weapons he had fashioned prior upon three of those going - Kinshack Starblade, Kadesha Yrmehiah, and Tebon Hawggweiler.
~30~
Once within range, ropes were lowered, and the assembled combatants were free to roam the beast's body, seeking out several orbs of power, which apparently were intrinsic to the beast's design and function. Crawling across the skin of the massive construct and seemingly springing forth from within its mass were thousands upon thousands of undead creatures, hampering the efforts of the fighters. Shattering these hidden caches of collected power, the defenses of the beast were dropped, and it suffered severe wounds as a result.
As soon as all were back on board, Maluverre crashed into the creature's head, where the assembled descended into its maw even as it reached striking distance of Ta'Illistim. There, they tore into its heart chambers, and the three blades given to those assembled by Ulstram were put to use. Stabbing them directly into the fibrous columns of flesh, the magic imbued within the daggers began to destroy the very makeup of the beast.
~31~
Quickly making their way back to the airship, the Resistance beat a hasty retreat as the power of Ulstram's daggers worked its way into the Miscere'Golab. Eventually, as it reached the city, the power completely permeated its massive body, and it disintegrated in a blinding flash of light.
However, during the ensuing panic within the city walls itself, the soldier who was rumored to have found the third piece surfaced. Stricken by the visions of war and the terror from the massive beast in the skies, the soldier took to the streets along with many other of his kin, seeking a way to flee the city. This was one of the many contingencies of the Dark Alliance's plan, Nershuul explained; no matter the fate of the creature the Four had created, its goal was to either cause the bearer of the third piece to surface, or to destroy him and the city of Ta'Illistim with it, leaving them a very convenient smoking hole of debris to sift through for it.
~32~
As neither side detected that anyone had claimed or touched a sword piece, the Four's plan hinged on the assumption that it had remained untouched. They had been fighting a war of attrition for many months and could do nothing else save something as drastic as the Miscere'Golab in order to achieve their aims in the Elven Nations.
The soldier was summarily slaughtered by a free agent of Lornon - Maimara Andriatti, servant of Mularos - and the assumption the Dark Alliance had counted on was indeed true. Being badly injured and burned, the soldier was prone to wearing thick clothing and gloves to hide his scars and had summarily stashed the sword piece away in a small leather sack - and the pommel itself was encased in melted rock.
~33~
As soon as it was known she bore the sword piece, Maimara was whisked away to the underground temple of Luukos in Solhaven. Nershuul tells us that it was almost his duty to guard over her, but it was instead given to a wraith - Xavean - whose service in the Luukosian Order was quite long and illustrious. Apparently once a Lorminstran priest, Xavean was torn from his order during an ancient battle and sacrificed within the heart of a Luukosian temple, his soul forcibly bound to the form of a wraith.
However, the Four had remained somewhat drained and nearly incapacitated after their efforts with the Miscere'Golab. Zerroth in particular was forever scarred by his efforts - he remained connected to the beast as it died, blinded by rage, and it took the combined power of the three others to pull him back. Eryael in particular took the brunt of his suffering, which nearly destroyed him in the process, and summarily made him utterly useless for several weeks.
~34~
While Morvule and Draezir prepared for the ritual to convert the pommel of the sword, Eryael and Zerroth recovered, unable to do anything but struggle back to life.
Meanwhile, the schism that had been growing between Ulstram and those who would fight with him was widened even further to the point of nearly outright hostility towards his seeming inability to attain a sword piece or lead his allies to one. Faced with near rebellion, Ulstram and Chaeye began to speak more directly in terms of aiding one another's goals. Realizing he had to take the fight to the source of the entire conflict, Ulstram devised a plan to strike at the very heart of the Dark Alliance - its four leaders.
~35~
Before such a plan could be enacted, Zerroth recovered and began to rage across Solhaven with his armies. Rumors of another piece surfacing in Zul Lugoth and finding its way to the Freeport had already begun to surface on the black market, and the Dark Alliance wasted no time in pushing forward with their plans to capture the last piece. Zerroth, in particular, had changed due to his involvement with the Miscere'Golab - his arms were transmogrified into something wholly different. They resembled rocky, burnt basalt shot through with cracks of liquid flame. This did not seem to disturb him at all as he personally tore through the city streets, using his beastly new hands to conjure up massive conflagrations that seared all in his way.
~36~
Zerroth's armies were relentless, striking quickly and then disappearing back into darkness. The Barony of Vornavis once again opened its gates to those who could not defend themselves and dispatched soldiers of its own to aid against the threat, but they were hard pressed to push back the invaders.
Ulstram and Chaeye, however, were deep in planning in order to halt all the incursions in one fell swoop. Sources close to the two speak of their difficulty in blending their respective schools of flow magic together - Chaeye provided a gateway into the minds of the priests, but Ulstram's immense holy power was able to sustain it and shield her from any possible dangerous backlashes should the Four become aware. The Dreamwalker's wary attitude did not let down, however, and she was always vaguely hesitant about being the link between this world and the world of the dreaming.
~37~
The first to be struck at would be Zerroth, and plans were laid in deep secret. Once all was prepared, the two met with the trusted group of warriors in Ulstram's inner sanctum. The Dreamwalker explained that within the minds of the priests were their innermost thoughts, dreams, and desires. She went on to assure the adventurers that everything there was not real, and in order to keep the Four unaware of their presences, they may have to play into certain things which they may find objectionable in reality. However real the events might seem, they were merely illusion and in no way real.
She also explained that while things in a dream may not be real, they can still harm things that are real within it, and thus she cautioned all to be wary, as the minds of the Four were akin to massive traps of fatal fantasies. She explained that she could not come with them, as her power needed to remain anchored in reality to keep the way open for them to return.
~38~
Bequeathing one of the chosen with a golden orb, Ulstram informed them that they should seek the heart of the dream - that which ties the fantasy to the reality of the mind of the dreamer. Then the gateway was opened, and the group stepped inside.
They were met by clouds of swirling ash and soot and a blackened landscape. Finding a massive coliseum of basalt, they were met by an imp who seemed to expect them. Opening the gate, the imp informed the group that there were matches to be fought and lead them to the heart of the coliseum. There, they were told to pick a champion to battle the lord of the ring.
~39~
This process continued for nine levels of the coliseum - among those that Nershuul professes to remember as being on 'a list' that Zerroth mentioned a few times in his presence were Silverphenix Luminasa, who defeated a large black beast, Jacinto Quetzal, who defeated a wispy black sandling, Charna, who defeated a skeletal golem. And they fought on still - Tebon Hawggweiler defeating a massive bloodshot eye, Fizzan Wheinm defeating a massive ice construct, Atlanteax Grandeur'Scipio felling a massive column of lava that Murp Grunthop perished from. As soon as one of the dream creatures was dispatched by one of the warriors of Ulstram and Chaeye, the entire structure would open up to another subterranean level, leading them down a pit that would eventually take them to the core of the world - a flaming hell storm of magma and rock. The very heart of the world was guarded by a flaming black beast, who Kinshack Starblade battled against and eventually won.
~40~
Within that furnace of volcanic heat pulsed a massive heart of glaes, its very veins coursing with flames. The bearer of the orb, Kerl Argonus, shone its power upon the heart, and the very dreamworld they were within collapsed as Zerroth was plunged into an inescapable coma.
The group was transported back into reality even as Ulstram and Chaeye struggled to pull back the bond with Zerroth as his mind crashed around him. They had been successful - while they had not destroyed Zerroth's mind as originally intended, they had been able to plunge him into a deep slumber from which he would not wake.
~41~
Nershuul speaks of their complete unpreparedness for this. The one most equipped to deal with such a situation - Draezir - was alongside Morvule in the Sea of Fire, searching for the sword piece on a vague hint of information that it might be there.
While Draezir did eventually examine Zerroth, there was nothing he could do - he was an expert in disassembling minds through dreams, not repairing them. He instructed the two remaining of the Four on how to best defend against such an attack. While Morvule gleaned valuable information from such lessons, Eryael seemed unworried, confident and flippant, as was his usual demeanor, Nershuul noted. Draezir eventually began to actively ward both of their minds using his own power, which would prove to be a great challenge to Ulstram and Chaeye even as they prepared the next assault.
~42~
Following the collapse of Zerroth's mind, his generals and followers retreated back to their sanctums, hoping to arouse him from slumber through bloody sacrifice and battle. Even Morvule, who summarily slaughtered several of his more insubordinate of minions in a display of cold, ruthless command, failed to rouse them from their ritualistic battles in order to use them in their campaign. Nershuul informs us they were eventually left to their own devices as Morvule tired of snapping their necks in order to convince them.
In the interim, however, Ulstram had been working on a near impregnable method of defense - he raised a golden barrier over the city of Solhaven, impeding all but the strongest of the Dark Alliance's minions. Eryael, who had been rarely seen since the death of Harith, appeared then. His strongest trait was not his armies, but his personal involvement and penchant for torture.
~43~
It was at this time when Harith briefly returned in Solhaven, having been raised as a banshee by Morvule. Nershuul explains that Naamit DMonica was used as an anchor to bring her back into the world, and after several months of recovery, she was thought to be useful once more. She sought out Tierus Morvaenus due to her past dealings with him - she could not feel pain, being bound into a non-corporeal form of a banshee and sought to remedy this lest she go insane.
An Erithian by the name of Deshian, however, found her completely fascinating, attempting to delve into the mystery of her return, and grant her the corporeal form that would allow her to feel pain once more.
~44~
Through numerous plots of deception and murder, a ritual was eventually undertaken to transform her back into something that could feel. Using Tierus as an anchor, Harith sought to become whole again, however, Jacinto Quetzal realized the flaw in their plan and killed Tierus, destroying Harith through her link to him in her fragile state, before the ritual could be completed.
Nershuul responds to this by saying Morvule was not outwardly disappointed by this, but he had sought to make Harith one of his more elite minions. While he expected her to go through some mild form of insanity due to her reliance on being alive, he had hoped she would simply shed her mortal wantings and use her gifts effectively. He chalked such an incident up as culling the weak from the herd - if her dependency on pain lead her to seek it out to the point where she destroyed herself over it, then so be it.
~45~
It was here that another faction on the side of light appeared - Ablen, a champion of Phoen. He had honed his skills through years of training and battle and was granted the title of Solar Templar. He would lead many in direct battle of the mounting waves of the armies of the Dark Alliance and would provide key defenses to the Resistance's military campaigns.
Meanwhile, Maluverre, the Illistim elf who had helped those against the Miscere'Golab, would find himself in Solhaven as well - on a holiday, as he termed it. While he maintained his civility and neutral stance, he quietly aided both sides by providing seemingly innocuous information regarding whispers he heard on the black market. As Eryael arrived at Solhaven, another rumor surfaced - that the last piece of the sword had been seen, encased in rock, by a miner in Zul Lugoth and summarily purchased by someone. It had purportedly been briefly shopped around on the antiquities black market by an anonymous source.
~46~
This rumor would ultimately prove true, but finding the source of the seller would prove to be quite elusive to the Dark Alliance. Ulstram, however, had already found the man and had enforced a home arrest, concerned for the man's safety and conflicted on his duty to the world and his morals. He spent many days in talks with the merchant, who would simply demand treasures, land, and women for his find. He was quite a shrewd man, hiding the sword piece within a massive vault underground, which would collapse should he ever die, consigning it to be a secret forever buried.
Nershuul describes the involvement of the Painlord after Zerroth's slumber -- Eryael often went back and forth from flippant youth and domineering overlord, but the loss of Zerroth and Harith weighed heavily on his mind. Morvule consented to his plans to take over where Zerroth had started in the search for the sword piece and the demoralization of the populace.
~47~
Eryael started his campaign of cruelty by abducting defenseless citizens over the course of an evening and creating what he'd term an artistic display of beauty. These generally involved nailing, hanging, or somehow affixing these still-living citizens of the Freeport to various architecture in various states - broken limbs, peeled-back skin, or severe scarring were among the many adornments with which he would leave them. They would often be left in a local shrine or temple of Liabo.
Eryael would also begin to directly lash out against those he deemed to punish, whereas often there would be a long period of psychological breakdown and torture, his methods were far more direct at this point in time. He appeared several times to the Resistance in between his abduction and torture sessions, inviting them to lash out at him.
~48~
When those who were incensed by his actions were eventually taunted into attacking him, his wounds would simply undergo a scarification process instantaneously, leaving him terribly mutilated but never killing him. It was thought this strengthened him. He seemed to be mad with an euphoric suffering, and the anger of the populace only made him commit more atrocities night after night. As the Dark Alliance gradually came to know by means of information leaks and other such methods that Ulstram had come in contact with the last bearer of the sword piece, Eryael would see fit to guilt him to revealing the merchant's location by dedicating his acts to Ulstram's unwillingness to end his people's suffering. Ulstram, while pained by such acts, ultimately would not falter and never surrendered the location.
~49~
Thus concludes the second compendium of the war of the Griffin Sword.
~50~
The reasoning for this, Nershuul explains, was twofold - they had gotten wind of someone discovering the sword piece either directly in the area of ShadowGuard or within Ta'Illistim's walls itself. The second was that they encountered a number of issues with transporting their forces to the eastern side of the DragonSpine. They would require more forces, and Morvule's solution for such was easy - more corpses.
~1~
They also began planting seeds of discord throughout the north, near Ta'Vaalor, by bolstering some of the local outcasts, specifically necromancers and other such pariahs, in order to keep split Ta'Vaalor's normally unified forces with seemingly random incursions.
Regardless, through these various manipulations, Illistim's political climate was raging, and the political factions behind the primarily non-magical military ached for an enemy on which to prove their newest training regimen. They found this enemy when Morvule finally revealed a small band of undead near ShadowGuard's borders.
The response was massive - the full force of the political movement which had built up for months was behind the plan to send a quarter of Illistim's military might to meet the threat. The Vaalorian forces consented to such a thing, as there was very little need to mobilize their own army to deal with such an insignificant threat.
~2~
The Illistim army was slaughtered in a single night. Nershuul speaks with delight on the transgression - all of the assembled Illistim were raised as undead to join the fight and the search. A small outpost keep was taken over as their base of operations, and for a time, Nershuul was allowed to take part in the outright battle during one of the four's absence, serving as a general of the undead forces.
This, as expected, unified the elven forces against a common threat. The four had apparently spent weeks preparing the grounds for an extended siege as this had one singular purpose - to force the Vaalor to act and keep their attention focused there.
~3~
With the Vaalor forces split between defending their own homeland and dispatching the threat to the rest of the Elven Nations, the Four began to search among Ta'Illistim's borders in a very discreet fashion. The free agents of Lornon were tapped heavily during this time, and they were directly competing with those of Ulstram in the search.
We must digress here to discuss some of the political ramifications of the search for the pieces coming to the eastern side of the world - while, generally the western side of the continent is rather used to those termed 'adventurers,' for the most part, the elves of the east had only recently become inundated with their kind. Whereas help from these generally good natured adventurers was often accepted in the west, in the east, such efforts were thought as an affront to the ability of the elves to take care of their own problems. This caused strife among the followers of Ulstram and, specifically, the Vaalor elves.
~4~
The Vaalor's disdain for the westerners eventually brought a number of conflicts between such two vastly different ideologies. What they did do that most of Ulstram's group agreed with was execute and banish the free agents of Lornon when they appeared to vocally support the Dark Alliance. The Illistim elves, on the other hand, were fairly apathetic and would do no such thing - the reasoning being that there are generally a number of outright supporters of Fash'lo'nae's ideals -- such as us, of course -- among prominent political groups, and while Illistim elves are generally ambivalent, they find such widely discriminatory actions reminiscent of the Rysus Codex in the Turamzyrrian Empire, which they absolutely abhor and consider barbaric. As such, save for acts of aggression or outright treachery, the free agents of Lornon were not persecuted within the walls of Ta'Illistim.
~5~
It was also a time when Eryael was able to freely torture the minds of several members of Ulstram's Resistance - with two sword pieces fueling the connection between this plane and the locale of the Black Temple, his efforts into maintaining the link were drastically reduced. He had already turned one of their kind from Ronan to Mularos - Tierus Morvaenus - and he aimed to continue the trend. His workings in Ta'Illistim eventually would lead to a minor cult springing up in his wake, a decadent house of debauchery meant to lure those to the hidden shrine below it. It exists still to this day, even without Eryael's hand to guide it.
This also marks a time when both the stratagems of Ulstram and the Dark Alliance changed slightly - Ulstram realized the need for an inner circle of trusted companions, and he and Kendryth provided sanctuaries accessible only to those who bore a relic of their creation.
~6~
The Four agreed that the free agents had become useful over time and rather than risk another possible betrayal by a questionable allegiance, they attempted to solidify their connections by allowing them access to that which they'd never seen before - The Black Temple. Given relics by Eryael, they were soon able to traverse the planes with little difficulty -- while they knew very little of where they were exactly, they were given access to sacrificial altars that allowed them to bolster the power of their respective patron priests through bloodletting.
~7~
It was at this time that the various independent outcasts of Ta'Vaalor began to make their presence known - random forays along their borders began to show an inherent flaw in Ta'Vaalor's usually flawless strategies; their army was stretched thinly across two mounting fronts.
~8~
Realizing this, the Vaalor created two special divisions of the military that were rather historically ground breaking - they allowed elves of other Houses to join, as well as Vaalor elves which, for whatever reasons, had been born abroad or were simply out of touch with their heritage over the recent years. These two groups would be known as the Crimson Ravens and the Golden Hawks and would eventually play a prominent role in foiling part of the Dark Alliance's plans. The campaigns launched by both groups eventually felled a local sorcerer contracted by the Dark Alliance to create a number of undead, destroyed several enemy camps, and halted the infestation of a strange new type of undead creature called the Overseer; a sessile slime-like creature anchored within a network of caverns.
~9~
Nershuul explained the Overseers briefly when pressed - apparently a creation of Morvule, the Overseers take a large amount of time to ramp up to anything usable, but their main strength is in the fact that they are rarely detected until they have a sustainable amount of lesser undead to protect them. Essentially, the Overseers are a collective intelligence trained by their creator to perform certain duties. They are attached to a locale where there are a number of living or dead things - they then passively attract and entrap local creatures or absorb the previous dead matter and convert such resources into a simple undead construct. These constructs are then directed by the Overseer to harvest new and better living materials and the process snowballs. Once suitable constructs are able to acquire sentient resources, there is usually a sufficient horde of simple undead to provide it adequate protection.
~10~
Eventually, once the resources within a certain area become depleted, the Overseer then begins to convert the simplest of undead into another copy of itself, splitting the souls instilled into it and its creations to form a new Overseer, which is then transported farther and farther away. This process continues until a large area is seemingly randomly infested with the undead.
Such plans were laid to rest when the newly founded Vaalorian military groups destroyed the original Overseer's lair. They then eventually tracked the source of these beings to a sorcerer, whose lair was within a tower near Ta'Vaalor. Having been a local outcast for centuries, he had been little more than a hermit until the Dark Alliance gave him the knowledge to create various types of undead.
~11~
These victories grated on the non-elven supporters of Ulstram - they desired to help the cause, but were continually rebuffed by the Vaalor elves. The guards of Vaalor openly mocked such efforts, calling the various military groups from the west little more than mercenary bands seeking to plunder the spoils of war rather than actually fight for the protection of the Vaalor homeland. This would lead to a number of conflicts amongst the westerners and the Vaalor elves - including several which lead to bloodshed and arrests by local law enforcement.
The culmination in the frustration of the Westerners would come in the form of a suicidal dwarf named Kahrla Kahram - she was the leader of the Second Militia, a small band of adventurers of all races who upheld the Vaalorian military's edicts voluntarily.
~12~
While largely ignored by the city during their inception, they were cast in the same lot as those who came from the West, and the unending stress of such attempts to make the Vaalorian's see past their own arrogance was too much for her, and she proceeded to kill herself. This only further complicated matters between two groups with generally like-minded goals.
In Ta'Illistim, however, the climate was different - while frustrated with the lack of progress, the apathy of the Illistim elves against the threat was made clear through conflicts with vocal supporters of the Dark Alliance, bloodshed, kidnappings, and other such acts that were played out on a near nightly basis on both sides. With the introduction of Eryael into the foray, the anger in supporters of Ulstram only grew deeper.
~13~
It was at this time that several new faces came upon the scene. Harith Caerines, self-proclaimed Whip of Mularos and a powerful psionic who was corrupted and then raised to power by Eryael. She began to infest the local mental channels of Ta'Illistim so often referred to by Westerners as 'the amulet,' a term derived from the common magical devices which allow otherwise non-magical users to tap into the thoughts of others.
At first seeking to simply disrupt the thoughts of Westerners that would use such means to communicate and strategize, Nershuul informed us that once the true extent of Harith's powers were tested, a plan was eventually formed to overtake, or simply destroy, the minds of several prominent Illistim mages, whose sole duty was the control of transportation magic through the city.
~14~
The ultimate goal of her presence there was to disrupt the wardings which protect the city from a massive incursion via teleportation spells and simply phase their armies within the walls of Ta'Illistim itself. As she continued to dominate the networks of thought, another rather surprising ability became apparent - she could give rise to undead creations of a serpentine nature - apparently a skill bequeathed to her by Morvule, and send them forth to attack anyone tapped into the thoughts she reigned.
Before such plans could be followed through with, the joint efforts of both the Golden Hawks and the Crimson Ravens produced Harith's location - Arelyth Keep, an abandoned military base of the Vaalor.
~15~
Converted into use as a discreet base of operations by the Dark Alliance, Harith was guarded by a number of fairly powerful undead that the two companies had to fight through. Nershuul tells us that the discovery of Harith was completely unexpected, and Eryael rushed quickly to her aid, but he was not fast enough. Darvas Vashdar of the Golden Hawks managed to strike the killing blow. Facing increasingly powerful waves of undead, the Hawks and Ravens beat a hasty retreat. Once she was struck down, they believed her fully dead - shadows bled over her body and eventually encompassed it, her corpse fading into the blackness. This was not to be, as Morvule had placed a teleportation enchantment on her should she ever die, and even as Eryael was rushing to her rescue, Morvule had already begun the preparations for what was to happen to her after her death.
~16~
Shortly before Harith's arrival, another prominent figure rose to recognition among the conflict in Ta'Illistim - Maluverre Sil'Andruthile. While initially neither our channels of information nor the Dark Alliance's could produce anything of use on his background, it became clearer and clearer he was not simply an eccentric scholar seeking enlightening conversation with both Ulstram's supporters and those of the Dark Alliance. He would become a bridge of information, a secondary source to Ulstram and a rallying point for those who sought a neutral stance on the goings-on. Later, once his past was revealed, he would play a vital role in the sword's ultimate fate.
~17~
Yet another name would be spoken with reverence or disdain among those who waged war over the sword - Chaeye Larrinthe. Rumoured to be chosen by Ronan to fight against those who would encroach upon his realm, Chaeye provided the supporters of Ulstram an outlet for their righteous anger - where Ulstram preached understanding and tolerance, Chaeye rose up to speak highly about the struggle and the fight against those who would sink them into darkness.
Shortly before the Dark Alliance's incursion into the East, Chaeye broke free from an institution in Ta'Illistim, where she had been sent for study. Apparently a young up-and-comer in the Vaalorian army, she inexplicably murdered her commanding officer and would have suffered death were it not for her family's prominent background.
~18~
Condemned to an eternity in a ward of an Illistim research facility focusing on broken minds, she had, according to their diagnosis, gone insane with visions of Ronan. Her supposed insanity was disproved the night she escaped - apparently disappearing from a heavily warded cell with no reasonable explanation.
While she and Ulstram differed philosophically, they regarded each other quite civilly, if not outright friendly, and worked with one another against the Dark Alliance.
Chaeye would eventually recruit a number of warriors within her fold - among those being Arimantis, Errethe, Evelith, Guarrin, Ichiko, Ilvane, Kabriel, Kresl, Kylinarr, Lumaco, Malikary, Maricc, Morgiest, Purplenyte, Shirkon, Silverphenix, Sylviana, Tebon, Xanthias, and Yviara. Their first act of aggression towards the Four would be the construction of massive statues that revealed the free agents of Lornon and stopped them as they attempted to gain entrance into Ta'Vaalor.
~19~
They would be set against many battles in the future, all the while under Chaeye's guidance.
In ShadowGuard, the battle raged on ceaselessly - most Westerners, and, indeed, most pure-blooded elves of the two cities only heard brief snippets or updates of what had occurred. Nershuul describes the difficulties of contending with the Vaalorian army as he led the hordes of undead against them. While their search continued unabated, the numerous incursions and raids set forth by the Vaalorian armies were an annoyance, and he struggled to maintain the borders of their hold on the land.
At times, one of the Four would arrive to provide reinforcements, but mostly, their concentrated efforts were set on the search - during this time, they had been hoping to use the both the hilt and the quillions in their possession to home in on the remaining pieces.
~20~
This effort was ultimately fruitless, and new rumours begin to surface regarding the fate of the third piece - tales of a badly burned Illistim soldier, a survivor of the ambush the Dark Alliance had laid months ago, holding onto something powerful, traveling toward his homeland after a terrifying ordeal of survival.
As the search surrounding the lands of ShadowGuard had been completed with absolutely no sign of the sword piece, the Dark Alliance would now need to focus their search on Ta'Illistim exclusively. Nershuul describes the painstaking details of the ruse to make the Vaalor elves leave - several constructs of both himself and generals that had become notable among the Vaalor elves were created. Following the faux generals' insertion into several elite units of the Dark Alliance's forces, a number of situations that appeared as decisive victories for the Vaalor elves were set in motion.
~21~
Through careful planning, it appeared as if the Vaalor elves had crushed the Dark Alliance utterly. Confident in their ability to clean up the remaining pockets of seemingly uncontrolled undead, the Vaalorian forces began to withdraw to their homeland.
It was at this point that Morvule, Draezir, and Zerroth joined the battle personally, leading hordes of undead and living soldiers they had brought with them against the remaining Vaalorian companies. The defenses that had been set up were summarily obliterated as the Dark Alliance's renewed armies began to march toward Ta'Illistim. The mages of Illistim began preparing defenses, and the Vaalorian guard arrived to reinforce the walls, as the best they could hope for was an extended siege. The Illistim elves, ambivalent toward Western help, consented to their offers of aid and Ulstram helped smooth over any tense relations.
~22~
What this generally amounted to was the Illistim elves keeping to themselves in regards to their plans of defense and letting the Westerners act autonomously as long as they didn't specifically get in the way of said defenses. It was an absolutely positive situation given what had occurred in Ta'Vaalor.
It was then that the prolonged siege began. The Dark Alliance's hordes began to infest the outlying provinces of Ta'Illistim, and a blockade was established. The initial defenses of the Illistim mages held, and while the Vaalorian forces were in abundance, their focus was in fortifying their own stronghold should any misfortune arise in Ta'Illistim. The Illistim elves eventually accepted the offer of aid from the Ardenai elves, and several companies of their archers arrived to blanket the most heavily infested areas with defensive fire.
~23~
Nershuul explained that the Dark Alliance's aims were not to take over the city, but merely search the outlying areas. The Four were counting on the elves' infighting, specifically Vaalor's xenophobia and the Illistim's ambivalence to keep most reinforcements away, but with the limited aid from both the Ardenai and the Vaalor, they began to suffer difficulties in the search. It became necessary for Zerroth and Morvule to personally be involved in some of the battles surrounding Ta'Illistim, while Draezir plagued various decision-makers in the elven Houses with nightmares. Eryael also began to take a hand in the proceedings, attempting to corrupt various elven politicians with honeyed words and pleasures.
Such efforts would be in vain when further rumors, uncovered by both Ulstram and Maluverre, pointed that the sword piece had indeed been recovered and was within the walls of the city itself.
~24~
Draezir and Chaeye began scouring the tormented dreams of those within Ta'Illistim, and Nershuul reports of several skirmishes between the two on the dreamscape, with neither really hampering the other.
It was at this point when the Dark Alliance switched its tactics. The Four came to the agreement that actually laying siege to the city with all of their combined efforts would be long, drawn out, and could possibly have the unwanted result of unifying the elves against them. Throughout the various mana foci surrounding Ta'Illistim, they discreetly built shrines similar to the sacrificial altars. These shrines, once activated, would sap away the life energy from the surrounding areas and provide anchors for what was to come.
~25~
Nershuul divulged that these shrines were connected wholly to the sacrificial altars within the Black Temple. The free agents of Lornon were instructed to offer their blood even further - among those who remained upon bent knee night and day at such altars were Naamit DMonica of Mularos, Ysharra Nagorn of V'tull, Aramana Leirath and Angelrise Viviiont of Sheru, and Licel Lotanfa of Luukos.
Foreseeing what the Dark Alliance sought to do, Ulstram set in motion a plan to gather components from across the continent in order to combat the new threat. He also divulged the use of the shrines to those who would listen, and they sought to destroy as many as they could find. The Resistance began its search and eventually gathered all that was needed. Using the gathered ingredients, Ulstram crafted three blades - again, a product of his prophetic visions. He only had a vague idea of what might be coming, but it disturbed him deeply.
~26~
Nershuul spoke of their ultimate plan, kept secret save for only a few of the highest-ranking members of the alliance. They nearly thought it impossible, an undertaking rivaling the building of the Black Temple, and to accomplish it, all four of the priests needed to be completely and utterly focused on channeling their power toward its creation.
What they would ultimately create is a historical precedent in necromantic magic: The Miscere'Golab.
~27~
Nershuul described the process: Draezir scoured the nightmares of thousands to create the creature's body, to give it form and a terrible intelligence; Zerroth was bound to its very creation to serve as an engine of rage and fury, giving it the strength to destroy all in its path. Eryael led the mass sacrifice of living recruits from all of the four's armies - they suffered beyond all measure before their ultimate death, maximizing their usefulness to Morvule, who gathered their souls and flesh using the power of the shrines set up across the borders of Ta'Illistim and created the construct, infusing into its dead flesh a method of control.
We will include a separate report of what Nershuul knows of the processes used to create this construct - he's a wealth of information, and such advances in necromancy are positively mind-boggling.
~28~
Three eyes crowned the creature's head, its long maw lined with boulder-sized teeth, while its torso looked vaguely humanoid, its lower body split into a mass of tentacles. Its size dwarfed mountains and had it reached the city of Ta'Illistim, there would surely be lasting scars to this day, if the city stood at all. It was held aloft by six bat-like wings, and each time they beat, they sent storms across the countryside.
The creation was birthed near the foot of the DragonSpine mountains and took flight shortly after. There are numerous accounts of its creation as it was very hard to miss. The surrounding armies of Ta'Illistim were merely swept up into the sky and added to the shifting mass of flesh and bone, and it formed in mere minutes, purportedly blocking out the light of day with its six huge wings.
~29~
There were several reports of small settlements and villages that were instantly wiped out as the creature made its way towards Ta'Illistim, either burned away by a swipe of a tentacle or a shower of acidic rain that simply melted everything in its path.
Here we revisit Maluverre's presence in events. While he sought the company of both sides of the conflict so long as civility was maintained, he remained decidedly neutral and quiet in larger matters, seeking to serve as a well of information for any who would listen. However, his deep love for the Shining City lead him to act when all seemed irrevocably lost. He took to the air in his small airship and along with it those who sought to stop the Dark Alliance.
Ulstram also prepared those who would board the airship for what was to come - he bequeathed the weapons he had fashioned prior upon three of those going - Kinshack Starblade, Kadesha Yrmehiah, and Tebon Hawggweiler.
~30~
Once within range, ropes were lowered, and the assembled combatants were free to roam the beast's body, seeking out several orbs of power, which apparently were intrinsic to the beast's design and function. Crawling across the skin of the massive construct and seemingly springing forth from within its mass were thousands upon thousands of undead creatures, hampering the efforts of the fighters. Shattering these hidden caches of collected power, the defenses of the beast were dropped, and it suffered severe wounds as a result.
As soon as all were back on board, Maluverre crashed into the creature's head, where the assembled descended into its maw even as it reached striking distance of Ta'Illistim. There, they tore into its heart chambers, and the three blades given to those assembled by Ulstram were put to use. Stabbing them directly into the fibrous columns of flesh, the magic imbued within the daggers began to destroy the very makeup of the beast.
~31~
Quickly making their way back to the airship, the Resistance beat a hasty retreat as the power of Ulstram's daggers worked its way into the Miscere'Golab. Eventually, as it reached the city, the power completely permeated its massive body, and it disintegrated in a blinding flash of light.
However, during the ensuing panic within the city walls itself, the soldier who was rumored to have found the third piece surfaced. Stricken by the visions of war and the terror from the massive beast in the skies, the soldier took to the streets along with many other of his kin, seeking a way to flee the city. This was one of the many contingencies of the Dark Alliance's plan, Nershuul explained; no matter the fate of the creature the Four had created, its goal was to either cause the bearer of the third piece to surface, or to destroy him and the city of Ta'Illistim with it, leaving them a very convenient smoking hole of debris to sift through for it.
~32~
As neither side detected that anyone had claimed or touched a sword piece, the Four's plan hinged on the assumption that it had remained untouched. They had been fighting a war of attrition for many months and could do nothing else save something as drastic as the Miscere'Golab in order to achieve their aims in the Elven Nations.
The soldier was summarily slaughtered by a free agent of Lornon - Maimara Andriatti, servant of Mularos - and the assumption the Dark Alliance had counted on was indeed true. Being badly injured and burned, the soldier was prone to wearing thick clothing and gloves to hide his scars and had summarily stashed the sword piece away in a small leather sack - and the pommel itself was encased in melted rock.
~33~
As soon as it was known she bore the sword piece, Maimara was whisked away to the underground temple of Luukos in Solhaven. Nershuul tells us that it was almost his duty to guard over her, but it was instead given to a wraith - Xavean - whose service in the Luukosian Order was quite long and illustrious. Apparently once a Lorminstran priest, Xavean was torn from his order during an ancient battle and sacrificed within the heart of a Luukosian temple, his soul forcibly bound to the form of a wraith.
However, the Four had remained somewhat drained and nearly incapacitated after their efforts with the Miscere'Golab. Zerroth in particular was forever scarred by his efforts - he remained connected to the beast as it died, blinded by rage, and it took the combined power of the three others to pull him back. Eryael in particular took the brunt of his suffering, which nearly destroyed him in the process, and summarily made him utterly useless for several weeks.
~34~
While Morvule and Draezir prepared for the ritual to convert the pommel of the sword, Eryael and Zerroth recovered, unable to do anything but struggle back to life.
Meanwhile, the schism that had been growing between Ulstram and those who would fight with him was widened even further to the point of nearly outright hostility towards his seeming inability to attain a sword piece or lead his allies to one. Faced with near rebellion, Ulstram and Chaeye began to speak more directly in terms of aiding one another's goals. Realizing he had to take the fight to the source of the entire conflict, Ulstram devised a plan to strike at the very heart of the Dark Alliance - its four leaders.
~35~
Before such a plan could be enacted, Zerroth recovered and began to rage across Solhaven with his armies. Rumors of another piece surfacing in Zul Lugoth and finding its way to the Freeport had already begun to surface on the black market, and the Dark Alliance wasted no time in pushing forward with their plans to capture the last piece. Zerroth, in particular, had changed due to his involvement with the Miscere'Golab - his arms were transmogrified into something wholly different. They resembled rocky, burnt basalt shot through with cracks of liquid flame. This did not seem to disturb him at all as he personally tore through the city streets, using his beastly new hands to conjure up massive conflagrations that seared all in his way.
~36~
Zerroth's armies were relentless, striking quickly and then disappearing back into darkness. The Barony of Vornavis once again opened its gates to those who could not defend themselves and dispatched soldiers of its own to aid against the threat, but they were hard pressed to push back the invaders.
Ulstram and Chaeye, however, were deep in planning in order to halt all the incursions in one fell swoop. Sources close to the two speak of their difficulty in blending their respective schools of flow magic together - Chaeye provided a gateway into the minds of the priests, but Ulstram's immense holy power was able to sustain it and shield her from any possible dangerous backlashes should the Four become aware. The Dreamwalker's wary attitude did not let down, however, and she was always vaguely hesitant about being the link between this world and the world of the dreaming.
~37~
The first to be struck at would be Zerroth, and plans were laid in deep secret. Once all was prepared, the two met with the trusted group of warriors in Ulstram's inner sanctum. The Dreamwalker explained that within the minds of the priests were their innermost thoughts, dreams, and desires. She went on to assure the adventurers that everything there was not real, and in order to keep the Four unaware of their presences, they may have to play into certain things which they may find objectionable in reality. However real the events might seem, they were merely illusion and in no way real.
She also explained that while things in a dream may not be real, they can still harm things that are real within it, and thus she cautioned all to be wary, as the minds of the Four were akin to massive traps of fatal fantasies. She explained that she could not come with them, as her power needed to remain anchored in reality to keep the way open for them to return.
~38~
Bequeathing one of the chosen with a golden orb, Ulstram informed them that they should seek the heart of the dream - that which ties the fantasy to the reality of the mind of the dreamer. Then the gateway was opened, and the group stepped inside.
They were met by clouds of swirling ash and soot and a blackened landscape. Finding a massive coliseum of basalt, they were met by an imp who seemed to expect them. Opening the gate, the imp informed the group that there were matches to be fought and lead them to the heart of the coliseum. There, they were told to pick a champion to battle the lord of the ring.
~39~
This process continued for nine levels of the coliseum - among those that Nershuul professes to remember as being on 'a list' that Zerroth mentioned a few times in his presence were Silverphenix Luminasa, who defeated a large black beast, Jacinto Quetzal, who defeated a wispy black sandling, Charna, who defeated a skeletal golem. And they fought on still - Tebon Hawggweiler defeating a massive bloodshot eye, Fizzan Wheinm defeating a massive ice construct, Atlanteax Grandeur'Scipio felling a massive column of lava that Murp Grunthop perished from. As soon as one of the dream creatures was dispatched by one of the warriors of Ulstram and Chaeye, the entire structure would open up to another subterranean level, leading them down a pit that would eventually take them to the core of the world - a flaming hell storm of magma and rock. The very heart of the world was guarded by a flaming black beast, who Kinshack Starblade battled against and eventually won.
~40~
Within that furnace of volcanic heat pulsed a massive heart of glaes, its very veins coursing with flames. The bearer of the orb, Kerl Argonus, shone its power upon the heart, and the very dreamworld they were within collapsed as Zerroth was plunged into an inescapable coma.
The group was transported back into reality even as Ulstram and Chaeye struggled to pull back the bond with Zerroth as his mind crashed around him. They had been successful - while they had not destroyed Zerroth's mind as originally intended, they had been able to plunge him into a deep slumber from which he would not wake.
~41~
Nershuul speaks of their complete unpreparedness for this. The one most equipped to deal with such a situation - Draezir - was alongside Morvule in the Sea of Fire, searching for the sword piece on a vague hint of information that it might be there.
While Draezir did eventually examine Zerroth, there was nothing he could do - he was an expert in disassembling minds through dreams, not repairing them. He instructed the two remaining of the Four on how to best defend against such an attack. While Morvule gleaned valuable information from such lessons, Eryael seemed unworried, confident and flippant, as was his usual demeanor, Nershuul noted. Draezir eventually began to actively ward both of their minds using his own power, which would prove to be a great challenge to Ulstram and Chaeye even as they prepared the next assault.
~42~
Following the collapse of Zerroth's mind, his generals and followers retreated back to their sanctums, hoping to arouse him from slumber through bloody sacrifice and battle. Even Morvule, who summarily slaughtered several of his more insubordinate of minions in a display of cold, ruthless command, failed to rouse them from their ritualistic battles in order to use them in their campaign. Nershuul informs us they were eventually left to their own devices as Morvule tired of snapping their necks in order to convince them.
In the interim, however, Ulstram had been working on a near impregnable method of defense - he raised a golden barrier over the city of Solhaven, impeding all but the strongest of the Dark Alliance's minions. Eryael, who had been rarely seen since the death of Harith, appeared then. His strongest trait was not his armies, but his personal involvement and penchant for torture.
~43~
It was at this time when Harith briefly returned in Solhaven, having been raised as a banshee by Morvule. Nershuul explains that Naamit DMonica was used as an anchor to bring her back into the world, and after several months of recovery, she was thought to be useful once more. She sought out Tierus Morvaenus due to her past dealings with him - she could not feel pain, being bound into a non-corporeal form of a banshee and sought to remedy this lest she go insane.
An Erithian by the name of Deshian, however, found her completely fascinating, attempting to delve into the mystery of her return, and grant her the corporeal form that would allow her to feel pain once more.
~44~
Through numerous plots of deception and murder, a ritual was eventually undertaken to transform her back into something that could feel. Using Tierus as an anchor, Harith sought to become whole again, however, Jacinto Quetzal realized the flaw in their plan and killed Tierus, destroying Harith through her link to him in her fragile state, before the ritual could be completed.
Nershuul responds to this by saying Morvule was not outwardly disappointed by this, but he had sought to make Harith one of his more elite minions. While he expected her to go through some mild form of insanity due to her reliance on being alive, he had hoped she would simply shed her mortal wantings and use her gifts effectively. He chalked such an incident up as culling the weak from the herd - if her dependency on pain lead her to seek it out to the point where she destroyed herself over it, then so be it.
~45~
It was here that another faction on the side of light appeared - Ablen, a champion of Phoen. He had honed his skills through years of training and battle and was granted the title of Solar Templar. He would lead many in direct battle of the mounting waves of the armies of the Dark Alliance and would provide key defenses to the Resistance's military campaigns.
Meanwhile, Maluverre, the Illistim elf who had helped those against the Miscere'Golab, would find himself in Solhaven as well - on a holiday, as he termed it. While he maintained his civility and neutral stance, he quietly aided both sides by providing seemingly innocuous information regarding whispers he heard on the black market. As Eryael arrived at Solhaven, another rumor surfaced - that the last piece of the sword had been seen, encased in rock, by a miner in Zul Lugoth and summarily purchased by someone. It had purportedly been briefly shopped around on the antiquities black market by an anonymous source.
~46~
This rumor would ultimately prove true, but finding the source of the seller would prove to be quite elusive to the Dark Alliance. Ulstram, however, had already found the man and had enforced a home arrest, concerned for the man's safety and conflicted on his duty to the world and his morals. He spent many days in talks with the merchant, who would simply demand treasures, land, and women for his find. He was quite a shrewd man, hiding the sword piece within a massive vault underground, which would collapse should he ever die, consigning it to be a secret forever buried.
Nershuul describes the involvement of the Painlord after Zerroth's slumber -- Eryael often went back and forth from flippant youth and domineering overlord, but the loss of Zerroth and Harith weighed heavily on his mind. Morvule consented to his plans to take over where Zerroth had started in the search for the sword piece and the demoralization of the populace.
~47~
Eryael started his campaign of cruelty by abducting defenseless citizens over the course of an evening and creating what he'd term an artistic display of beauty. These generally involved nailing, hanging, or somehow affixing these still-living citizens of the Freeport to various architecture in various states - broken limbs, peeled-back skin, or severe scarring were among the many adornments with which he would leave them. They would often be left in a local shrine or temple of Liabo.
Eryael would also begin to directly lash out against those he deemed to punish, whereas often there would be a long period of psychological breakdown and torture, his methods were far more direct at this point in time. He appeared several times to the Resistance in between his abduction and torture sessions, inviting them to lash out at him.
~48~
When those who were incensed by his actions were eventually taunted into attacking him, his wounds would simply undergo a scarification process instantaneously, leaving him terribly mutilated but never killing him. It was thought this strengthened him. He seemed to be mad with an euphoric suffering, and the anger of the populace only made him commit more atrocities night after night. As the Dark Alliance gradually came to know by means of information leaks and other such methods that Ulstram had come in contact with the last bearer of the sword piece, Eryael would see fit to guilt him to revealing the merchant's location by dedicating his acts to Ulstram's unwillingness to end his people's suffering. Ulstram, while pained by such acts, ultimately would not falter and never surrendered the location.
~49~
Thus concludes the second compendium of the war of the Griffin Sword.
~50~