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Chapter 3:
When it was over, Ploog vanished in a puff of smoke, his carefree song and laughter fading into the wind. I went over my own protection spells just to gain some peace of mind. If Ploog was ready to come for my and mine, I would not be such easy prey as Dominus was. After a few weeks, I could find no sign in my scrying bowl of the Lich. He was back to protecting himself from viewing and my knowledge. I did notice that the edges of the bowl had turned to a black as dark as night. It was if blackness had entered the edges of the world. I didn’t know what it meant until it was too late.
Instead, as luck would have it, one of the many rangers and creatures of the forest had given me enough information to discover that another one of the kingdom’s enemies had resurfaced. Auriel the Mad had chosen a cave south of Oberin City as a base of operations for his next diabolical plot. Most likely another raid on town by his friends the lizardmen. Of course, we would shake it off like so much lint and go about our lives. But, something strange happened to me. I don’t know if it was lingering admiration about the way Ploog handled his enemies or that I had been antsy for a battle of my own. In the end, I concluded that the citizens of Oberin City had been through enough over the years and it had to end here and now. I left the castle and went to confront Auriel.
He never saw me coming. I was able to approach to within a few feet of him without my presence being felt. I called out to him and told him this madness had to stop. He twisted around and shot a cold hard stare with a twitching grin at me. Then he fired.
The scrolls always depict the brave wizard or fighter standing proudly with his chest puffed out accepting the electricity of the lightning bolt with hardly a grimace. His face etched with grim determination as if the bolt was nothing more than water striking him from a waterfall. Let me correct that myth. Lightning bolts are extremely painful and one can lose feeling in all his extremities after just one. It takes a practiced hand to be able to cast any magic after being hit by such a force, which I did, numerous times. I had no idea why Auriel had chosen to fight to the bitter end. During combat, he was muttering to himself (in between curses about my parentage) about how this was all a mistake and how I should beg him for forgiveness. I shrugged it off and completed my task, secure in the knowledge that I was meting out justice long overdue.
As I stood over the burnt and smoking corpse of the Mad Wizard, I could only feel pity for such a pathetic twisted figure. I did what had to be done, I said to myself. In his pouch, I found a crumpled up piece of paper. I tried to deduce the meaning of the words with little success. Something about how Ragnarak was nigh and how the Jester would steal the thorny crown while the dead would sing dirges in the dark. I dismissed it as the ramblings of a madman and started to dig the grave.
While I dug deep into the ground and kicked his body into it, my mind couldn’t stop spinning his last words around and around. When I was finally able to connect the dots, it was too late. I cast the spell just in time to see that my late friends son friend spirit floating towards the Elysium Fields. How could I be so blind!
