Break 5 - Mortan Osserfid

...And rule beneath the Last Eclipse.

Mortan sat in the room he had rented at the local inn, rereading the journal he had acquired before he and his companions had left the safety of Lionne and made their way through the accursed desert towards Den'Mezzier, where they were currently recovering. The trip had been long and painful, and on more than one occasion Mortan had found his path, both figuratively and literally, left up to those he traveled with. He didn't like that feeling and getting back to something he excelled at put an ease to his troubled mind.

It hadn't been just the desert itself, though the winds, sun and their unfortunate experience with the sandstorm had not been easy. There was something else. A constant nagging at the back of his brain as they had proceeded through the sands. He knew that particular feeling and had cast a few perfunctory spells to determine the influence of negative energy in the area. Each time his divinations had returned without a trace, though they always seemed somehow tainted.

And then there had been the small town, and the strange creatures who collected tribute from its few residents. Dark skinned orcs and imps, infernal and fiery, had set upon them. His group had managed to cut them down, with only a few townsfolk casualties, but the battle had not been easy against the accursed beasts. Certainly, there was something more going on in the desert.

The thought of having to return shortly on the road in the blistering heat made Mortan sigh as he returned his focus back to the book in front of him. Running his small hands along the bindings of dark leather gave a small measure of peace, something reassuring in the pages; a chance, a direction, knowledge.

Flipping through page after page, making note of the flags and sidenotes he had scrawled at the edges, he could only assume the dark elf, named Ilirair, had driven himself to madness. Many of the sentences in the journal's twenty seven written-upon pages made no sense. They weren't written in any discernible order and worse, many of them weren't even complete thoughts. It was as if a thought would cross the elf's mind and he would simply open a page in the book and write. There were, however, a few interesting passages that gave some insight.

There was a mention, only once, of a man named Deldier Cain, in a town called Andisine, who had been sending Ilirair directions to some sort of castle or entrenchment in relation to an Order called the Brotherhood of the Last Eclipse, which seemingly Ilirair was either a member of himself or at least favored by. Very little about the Order itself is stated however, so Mortan had no way to tell how involved the dark elf had been. The destination was somewhere in a place called Dornheim, though where that might be Mortan had no idea.

Also, handwritten into the front of the book, was some form of dark prayer. The words themselves gave the small gnome a bit of unrest and if he was anything of a scholar, the implied meaning was even worse:

The Mistress shall arise again,
Awoken from her mortal den.
Her words and will shall rise to power,
To signify the final hour.
Those who walk in light are doomed,
Forever dark, the sun consumed.
To taste the poison of her lips,
And rule beneath the Last Eclipse.

Things did not bode well in this land. Evil seemed to run rampant everywhere and the forces of Good had taken to hiding themselves inside the safety of their walls.

The balance was off. The Gods feuded. Mortan frowned and continued his studies, breathing a soft prayer to Gharlamaal for protection in doing His work. Things did not bode well, indeed.