Surya Home

Amethyst

Surya had thought for a while he needed to find a place in my kingdom to carry out some of my darker arts. A place where he could keep his dragon and nightmare for prying eyes. And place for entertaining the darker creatures that seem to visit nowadays.

He recalled his initial expansion plans, and the quest for Gold, Silver & Adamantine mines. He dug out the reports and started to explore for suitable places to explore for his new, Dark Home. After a few days of pouring over maps and field reports he found just the place. Down south, almost on the Elven border, he found a little village, barely mounds in the grass now, once a small mining town. A single hill, nearly a mountain, lifts away from the trees behind the village, and a mine drives into the side of it. Entering the mountain just above the tree line, the workings travel almost vertically, following the seam towards the peak, shaft interspersed with chambers, and ending not very far from the summit, within reasonable reach of the surface. Here the gems gave out and the mine was already dying when the Desolation killed all the crops and drove out the last population. Now no-one was likely to remember it was even here. The mine, and the village were named after what it produced. Surya road out to see the place for himself, perfect he thought, welcome to Amethyst and his new dark home.

Surya soon got back in to the usual regime of running his kingdom. There was always much to do New Tellare. His duties as a father, husband and a king kept him busy and out of trouble for much of the time. Though Surya did find some time for himself. The refurbishment work on his secret retreat at Amethyst had started and he also honed is fighting skills, based on the hellish experiences he recently had.

The Demonomicon of Iggwilv

A couple of days after his return, one evening late in his arcane tower, a tiny sound attracts his attention. Looking around, he thought, 'surely that book wasn't there before'...

It wasn't, not one of his books. After a very cautious examination, Surya realize it's was spell book, and there's was a slip of parchment inside marked with Orcus' emblem. The heavy, brass-bound cover was marked "The Demonomicon of Iggwilv", a name of dark aspect. Was this the reward Orcus had given some thought too.

The first five pages were blank, but radiate power; they were not just paper. Reading further, he found several spells hitherto unknown to him and the final pages where list of fiendish names…

The Hammer & the Brazier

It was far too late to start investigating this book, and his library was certainly not the place to dabble with such thing. Unable to sleep, his thoughts turned to Xanavan's brazier which he had brought back from Thanatos. He had stored the thing in the forge for safe keeping.

He had identified it as Alaren's Brazier of Sequestration and knew it worked on a similar principle to the bag of holding he carried. He was also aware that the elemental plane of fire had something to do with the working of the devise, so he enlisted the help of Talamos. The Iron Golem should not be effected by any fire that this might produced, if fact Surya knew it was quiet beneficial to his helper.

But how to get in and what secrets does it hold. There was no obverse method of access to the brazier but the references he had suggested a command word.

Surya lit the brazier and observed, but nothing happened. Then Talamos stuck his arm in to the flames and searched around for a while. He withdrew it to reveal nothing. Then he reached a little deeper. This time his fist tightened into a grip that, in other circumstances, Surya would have expect him to be holding a forging hammer, and Surya could feel some sort of magic working. The Golem's hand suddenly seems to go in further, there was a moment's pause, and then he brought it out. Surya stare in shock.

From elbow to fingers, Talamos' arm glowed with heat. The metal was white-hot in places, and the air shimmered around it. Surya was forced to step back from the heat as it was so intense. Talamos seemed to have taken no damage from the flames, although if it were possible for him to be surprised then he would have been.

The coruscating fingers slowly open, to reveal an object lying in his hand. A hammer, black as midnight, utterly unaffected by the heat, short-helved and heavy-headed, a forging hammer.

To the accompaniment of the pings and clinks of cooling metal the Iron Golem's arm returned to normal, Talamos laid the hammer on the workbench of your mage room. Surya wince, but the wood was untouched, the hammer was cool, unheated even by such extremes.

Surya cast as spell to identify the hammer and also on the brazier to learn further secrets of these items.

The spell identified the new item as Tauragon's Hammer. It transpired, after further research that, Tauragon had been an Elven smith, back in the Age of Legends, and may perhaps have been contemporary with Forlendel, the last Crysmage. Tauragon however specialized in forging arms and armour. His hammer appeared to bears some of his power. Surya thought he might take it to Elverandil on his next visit to the House of Swords.

As to the brazier it was not giving up it secrets so easily. Surya scoured his books, but no further information about Alaren or his works comes to light. Maybe he wasn't human, or from this plane. Surya used the iron golem once more to extract any further items from the brazier, but to no avail.