Blackstaff

Raegar muttered. Nameless trilled in agreement, with just enough doubt to make the rogue worry. Sandrew said, "His hand is in this, as well as other gods, and we may have some amendments to the Coda soon, Lorebinder willing." Nameless swooped near one of the small silver ground fires and landed. He sniffed at them, purred curiously then leaped into the flames. Raegar and Sandrew leaped forward too late to stop him, and he barreled into them, his fur wreathed in fire. Despite Raegar's efforts to keep him at bay, the tressym batted both men with his wings. He tagged Raegar's head and the small of his back, leaving small silver flames burning on the man. As Nameless batted at Sandrew's robes as well, the flames coalesced into an aura of light flames around Raegar and eventually Sandrew. The priest gasped as the fire partly brought him into the links among the central circles.

"It's all right, Raegar. The golden fires unleash the poisons, while the silver fires protect us from them. The toxins are drawn to the center." Sandrew spoke aloud, as he doubted Raegar could hear the magical voices without his circlet. "They make of the lich a forbidden binding-a repository for all things foul, vile, and corrupted."

Sandrew marveled at the ideas and thoughts in his head, shared from those already in the working. "Just as we might have once bound a corrupt man in with his own lies or books of evil intent and set it afire… The Frostrune will be forced to take on the blight that was the Killing Storm and the venoms it left behind." "Fascinating, but what am I supposed to do?" Raegar asked, while Nameless enjoyed setting small bushes aflame and fa

Yaereene stood alone and ill at ease atop a tall spindle of rock.

In a deep trench below and around her were a large number of sharn that hewed away at the rock. Miles to the west, she saw the plumes of energy rising into the sky-the central casting. "So I am to be of the Fourth Circles… what shall our tasks be?" Behind her was the vast Highstar Lake, a sight she'd not seen in over a century. She clutched the gold seal given to her by Khelben as she looked at the golden ring on her finger. She knew this was a ring for an acolyte of Windsong Tower in fabled Myth Dra

Would you trust this if Malchor Harpell stood here rather than me?" "I would," Kroloth said, "for he is a friend of Neverwinter's elves. He and I have spilt blood together and shared honors. I trust him, yet I know not you. I am here as honor demands and at my cousin's request.

You shall pay for that slight, pallid-" Yaereene interrupted him. "No he shall not, Kroloth. He plays a role just as we do, and he too has reason to mistrust the Blackstaff. Yet there he stands, ready as called. Tel'quessir dare do no less." As she spoke, light sparks rose between the seal she carried and the rings on everyone's fingers.

"Place the seal at the center of our stone pedestal here, osu'nys,"

Ynshael said. "I think I see the pattern that is to come, both from my studies and from the ring… and this." She stooped and picked up a rusted and shattered sword, its pommel gone as was much of the blade's point. It too crackled with energy due to the proximity with the rings. "Are you sure we're not supposed to wait for those fires to reach us?" Nain asked. "Khelben's workings tend to be rather stingy where it comes to bending the rules." The three elves all said simultaneously, "Magic happens in its own time, and it is never anything but the right time." They smiled, and Yaereene placed the thick gold seal on the ground. A light shimmer made each of their rings glow and chime, sending shivers down everyone's spines. Ideas lit inside their eyes, and they relaxed into their individual work.

Ynshael and Nain surprised each other by saying, "The staff goes next…" Nain raised the blackstaff and stabbed it down hard upon the gold seal. The staff suffused with light and energy, and magical power lanced upward. "Now, the blade," he whispered. Kroloth unhooked the moonblade-still scabbarded-and looked at his cousins. "For the People." Nain, Yaereene, and Ynshael corrected him, "For all people."

For the first time in nearly two thousand years, an Ilbaereth drew the family's moonblade from its scabbard, its dead blade cracked instead of rune-marked. Kroloth swung the sword toward the glowing blackstaff, but energy erupted when his blade hit the surrounding light. The sword and the scabbard were wrenched from his grasp, and both hit the blackstaff from the top, shattering it into four long pieces. Each piece fell as a shower of energy and engulfed each of the four assembled there. The blade seated itself in the scabbard magically, and both buried themselves hilt deep into the center of the stone pillar on which they stood. Magic coruscated from the entire circle, and Ynshael yelled above the roar of ancient power, "Once I add this to the pillar, we must all grasp hands!" Ynshael picked up the rusty shard, kissed it once, and tossed it into the conflagration. She grabbed for Nain's and Kroloth's hands as thunder slammed into them all and the powers boomed both above and below. The power among them was contained by their hands, and they all watched as some magic rose from the shards of the blackstaff and focused into a tiny gem. The gem swirled about in the maelstrom of magic then quickly flew off to the west, faster than a rage of dragons. The casters knew that gem had something to do with the central casting, but their rings told them to concentrate on the pommel of the blade. As they focused on the embedded sword, the earth shifted beneath them. They kept their balance, as where they stood was stable and rising. All four knew the legends of Cormanthor and recognized it as a variant ritual to summon a tower beneath them. They were only barely aware that the shift had dislodged the stone walls that made their location a peninsula. The waters of the lake were no longer held back, and it began flooding the trenches carved around the pillar where the quartet stood. Nain smiled as Highstar Lake swelled into a new lakebed. Earlier, he had asked Malchor what work Khelben had him doing with Sememmon and Ashemmi, and the elder wizard grumbled, "I've had to build a lake bed without letting a lake into it. Hard enough working with that former Zhent, no matter what Khelben says, but harder still as he and his mistress challenge each other with creative uses for earthquake spells…"