Trisha Yearwood

November, Albanus 1

The spirit before them was Tannarek, son of Tannis -- the Rose Knight from Leyna's vision.  And the band had a thousand and one questions for the ancient spirit.

How were these vaults made?  That seemed to shock Tannarek.  The vault was not made -- merely strengthened.  It was a holy site, blessed by the Gods.  And there was only one:  this one.  But wasn't there a vault in Tell Barrak, the capitol of Vesterix?  No... said the ghost.

"Idiot!" hissed Severillia.  Marius and Micarius, who had true seeing running, could hear her.  "Yes there is."  Well, could Severillia tell them how many vaults there were?  "Five.  Of course."  Quickly they listed off the ones they knew of:  the Holy Mounds, the Holy City, Tell Barrak, Viridistan... and the fifth was?  "Where do you THINK it is?" Severillia screamed at them.  "Fools!  Where do you THINK she took them?"  The party decided she must be raving about Loviatar -- the fifth vault would then be in the mountains west of Viridia, where the undead queen watched over the Sebetu for millenia.

Turning back to Tannarek, the band asked about the vault's protections.  Were they intact?  Yes, he was certain of that.  In fact, that was one of the reasons his spirit lingered here:  to watch the vault's wards and invoke its lillendi guardians should anything go wrong.  Were they strong enough to hold a Sebetu?  One, yes.  Definitely.  Two for a time... but not forever.

Did he know of any way to destroy the Sebetu?  There, Tannarek sighed.  No.  When he died, they were still desperately searching for some way to do that.  The sky had shattered, Vesterix was lost... but the demon they raised was truly bound here.  Queen Loviatar and his mother Tannis had managed to destroy the Sleeping God's physical form, once.  But it was already reforming.  He knew that Loviatar intended to sever the God's soul into "sebetu" (seven pieces) and that she'd gone north to the Elves to speak about this.  His mother, meanwhile, had sought an answer in the First Forest (the home of the lillendi;  the otherworldly paradise of the Elves).

And she'd returned, with... something...

Most of the vault was jammed with books on theology, magic and history.  There were only two other items of note.  A small ebon-wood box and the cloak-wrapped object which Leyna had seen in her vision.  That, Tannarek said, was what his mother brought back from the First Forest.  She'd left it here for safe keeping and gone to find Loviatar.  She never returned.  And unfortunately, he didn't know what it was.

As Severus unwrapped the cloak, Marius and Micarius were nearly blinded by the wild, chaotic energy that poured from the object within.  Scintillating lights filled the vault, and even the lillendi shielded their eyes.  The cloak held a box made of a luminous golden wood -- solindarien, one of the sacred trees of the Elves.  Opening it, they found a dragon's tooth.  Plain, unworked, unadorned.  Identify failed to reveal its nature.  Marius suggested it might be a tooth from one of the Prismati, the mythical dragons who created the world.  But what was a Prismati tooth good for?  Much thought and musing passed, but the only thing they were sure of was that it could only be used once.

The next problem was, how to store and hide it?  The cloak concealed it completely -- and appeared to have odd powers of its own.  When Corvina and Severus wore it, their alignments appeared to be mildly good.  It had no effect on anyone else's apparent alignment.  However all of the wearer's magical items looked non-magical.

Could the tooth be safely put inside a bag of holding?  The band asked Ancilla -- she being more familiar with such creatures.  With a look of angellic innocence, the lillendi replied, "Yes, the Maker's Tooth can be stored in a bag of holding."  Maker's Tooth?  Did she know what this item was?

At that, Severillia lost her temper and began screeching at the band.  "Of course!  Any idiot knows what that is!  It's a tooth from the dragon that made this world!"

"What are you doing, answering a question addressed to her?" Marius snapped back, pointing at Ancilla.  Severillia crouched, hissing.  Reining in his own temper, the young cleric re-phrased his question.  "How can you answer a question addressed to her?"  A good question, since the spirit of a Council Blade was forbidden from volunteering information.  The sick lillendi's tail lashed back and forth for a moment, and then she wailed, "I don't KNOW!"  With that, she hunkered down behind Titus, as if trying to hide.

Ancilla confirmed, more placidly, that this was indeed a tooth from the dragon that created this world.  And though she could not be too specific on what it was used for, she could confirm that the various parts of a dragon's anatomy did different things.  Claws created, teeth... destroyed, the party guessed?  The lillendi nodded.  Could the fang banish something from this plane?  Possibly, Ancilla replied.  For the time being, the band placed the tooth in their bag of holding to hide it.

There was one other thing inside the solindarien box:  a scrap of paper (torn from a mundane letter, it appeared) with a hastily scrawled note on its back.  Written in a woman's handwriting, it read, "The world is given into the hands of the Children.  Let our elders tremble in their blindness."  No one was sure what this meant.

That left the small ebon-wood box.  Opening it, they found a heavy necklace whose disc showed five roses, arranged in a pentagram.  Linking each rose was a "line" of thorns.  The Knights of the Rose had five "companion" weapons, Tannarek explained.  A priest or holy warrior could use this necklace to receive a vision of where that companion was -- if it still existed.  Each rose had a label.  "Breath of Heaven", Tannarek's mother's sword, gave no vision;  clearly, it had been destroyed or released.  Soul's Hammer and Reaver were both also dark.  However two roses were more informative.

"Dawn" showed a man in a dark ravine, through which a peat-black river poured.  Before him, a narrow cataract of black water cascaded down the cliff.  Suddenly swarms of bats poured up the gorge behind him, swooping down to transform into vampires.  The warrior drew his sword, spoke a word... and brilliant sunlight poured into the canyon around him.  The vampires screamed and withered under its touch.  But as they did, a skeletal figure stepped out from behind the waterfall, chanting dire spells.  The paladin screamed in agony and collapsed.  His blade slipped from his fingers and toppled into the dark river.  The party surmised that this was the infamous First Cataract of Fransk -- the entrance into the Valley of Ancients, where the Liche-Kings dwelled.

The last rose was labelled in Elvish, not Vestran, and read, "Starlight on the First Waters".  Touching it, Leyna saw a woman dressed in thick white furs, making her way across a snow-filled plain with the help of odd wooden sticks strapped to her feet.  Behind her, eight dogs dragged two other fighters on a sled.  In the distance, eight white dragons appeared, closing.  The woman fired at the foremost one -- and the moment the arrow hit it, the dragon plummeted to the ground.  It appeared unable to regain the sky, and was forced to gallumph across the snow on foot.  In a fierce battle, the three warriors managed to kill the dragons.  But at the moment of their triumph, a great white wyrm dropped out of the sky upon them.  Leyna saw the bow drop from the woman's hand, as the dragon carried her body off into the sky.  This vision, the party guessed, took place in the snowy wastes of Verchmai, to the far north.  But where, they had no clue.  Curious, Gaius took the amulet from Leyna and tried to see Starlight's tales.  And, indeed, this worked:  rangers, it appeared, were "holy warriors" too.  The ranger memorized the mountains of the vision as best he could.

Having learned all they could quickly, the party turned to their next problem:  storing the Sebetu.  Tannarek's spirit could not remain inside the vault with a Sebetu;  it would corrupt him.  He was loathe to leave the Vault, for inside it, no time appeared to pass.  He knew he could be moved to the Temple proper.  But out there, time moved normally.  If the party did not return for him, the passage of time would drive him mad.  Could he be moved to another vault, since his spirit was tied to his bones?  The guardian wasn't sure.  Marius reminded the uneasy spirit that all of them risked their souls in this venture, and that the Gods themselves had directed the band here.  Sighing, Tannarek bowed to his reason and agreed to risk moving to the Outer Temple.  To help re-assure him, Severus cursed his bones.  Should all hope fail, they would rot away, releasing his spirit.

While they waited for their wind-walk spells to refresh, Severus opened an enormous can of worms.  Tannarek's mother was Tannis, yes?  Had she had him before or after becoming a paladin?  After, Tannarek replied, a little confused by the question.  So Vestran paladins married, and had children?  Well yes, of course, the ghost said.  Excitement and consternation broke out.  Questioning revealed that the blessings of Vestran paladins matched, very closely, the blessings of Rostillan paladins.  And Ancilla confirmed that the Gods did not demand celibacy -- only the Order did.

"Is Ancilla going to castrate you if I get you in trouble with the Order?" Corvina laughed at Lucellus.

"Why would you... oh.  Oh!"  The brawny knight blinked several times as he realized what the sorceress meant.  Then suddenly his broad, handsome face lit up.  Drawing himself to his full (and rather imposing) height, Lucellus said, "Corvina, would you marry me?"

"But.. but.. you'd have to leave the Order!"  Nonsense, the paladin replied.  If the Gods didn't care about it, he didn't see why he should.  And dammit a man tried, but celibacy was just too much to bear.  If Tinnius wanted to boot him out of the Order he could do it -- but he saw no reason why he should leave on his own.

"I would love to marry you," Corvina whispered, "but I can't -- without Severus' permission."  Beaming, Lucellus hurried off to get her brother's blessing;  Corvina, meanwhile, slunk out to the Temple steps so that she didn't have to watch his hopes get dashed.

The conversation got off to a poor start.  Lucellus bounded up to Severus and said, "Um, look, Count Surrexus..."

"King Surrexus," Severus corrected him.

"Right.  King.  Sorry -- I'm terrible with etiquette.  Look, would it be alright if I marry your sister Corvina?"

"And what would you bring to this match?"

"Well, I've got a Council Blade -- and they're quite nice."

"And would this Council Blade be at my disposal?"  Severus cocked an eyebrow.  "Would it guard me?  Or would you wander across the land, wherever the Gods directed you?"

"Well, I do have to go where the Gods direct me of course, but..."

"But?  That means you bring nothing to the marriage."

"But I love your sister.  And she loves me.  Or, I think she does," Lucellus amended himself.  "At least she's very fond of me.  I mean, she did agree to marry me -- and you've rather got to like someone to say yes to that."  Severus replied that love was irrelevant;  several influential men, such as Magister Oshan and Count Corresanti's son, were interested in her hand.  "That's an awfully cold way to treat your sister," the paladin grumbled.  In the end, he did get Severus to promise that if nobody else wanted to marry Corvina, he could.

And Severus held out one last scrap of 'hope':  "Bring me my aunt Surilla, unconscious, and I'll let you marry her."

As Lucellus wandered off, Gaius turned an eye on his cousin.  "You can't make Corvina marry someone she doesn't want," he said.

"Yes, I can," Severus replied.

"What makes you think that?"

"Because she gave me her word on it," the count replied.  "Even if it tears her soul apart, she'll marry the man I choose.  For our family."

Corvina was despondant when Lucellus told her what Severus had said, but the big knight held her hand and urged her not to despair.  "All I have to do is kill your aunt.  Or make sure no one else wants to marry you."  Every now and then Lucellus started and muttered "ow"... generally a sign that Ancilla was nipping him.

The next morning, half the party wind-walked to the Holy Mounds and retrieved the Sebetu of Pride from its hiding place.  That evening they returned it to the Dus lands and placed it inside the fortified vault where -- they hoped -- it would be safe.