Chapter Six: Siege of Saragost - A Message

Early on the morning of April 2 (the day the Duergar are supposed to arrive) you receive a message written in Celestial in Lady Arigane's hand. It is delivered by a scruffy young man of no account who hands over the message and flees.

My research has finally begun to bear fruit. As you must be aware by now, you are each far from being normal members of your race. Your presence here, at this time, is more than fortuitous; it was ordained. This battle, monstrous though it is, is only the first skirmish on the road to something far greater. If you are to know the full truth about yourselves and fulfil your destiny, then you must walk that road to its ending. In order to realise who you are, you must first recover the legacy of who you were – or, more correctly, who those people were who went before you. Each of you has a birthright, an item that belongs to you by cosmic law and is, in a sense, an aspect of your soul. Without those items, whether you wield them or not, you are incomplete. Since they were last held in Starborn hands, they have become scattered. Some have been stolen, some kept secure. This much we know – they have not gone more than four hundred miles from the site of the last battle, where Starkweather John fell. There is only one being who can tell you precisely where these items are now. He knows, because he was there at the time of the last Equinox. He is one of your kind, though he is greatly changed. It has been many centuries since he walked the earth as an elf. Though he was once a hero, we cannot now tell what he has become. Seek him in the Temple of Kharad, in the marshes to the west of Crescent City, where he has slept for many ages. He had another name once but now you may know him as the Ragged Man. Whether or not the Enemy prevails here in Saragost, you must seek he who dwells in Kharad's Temple. Almost all of the ships have fled the harbour, fearing the battle to come. Look for a barque named the Elensil. She is mine. I entrust her and her crew to you. They have been told to obey your orders as they would obey my own. You may go whither you will in her. Crescent City, the port they call the Thieves' Kitchen, should be your first destination. After then, I cannot say. I pray that you will bring the Elensil back home safe to Saragost one day, though I sense in my heart that I will never sail in her again. I have divined the future for you and it is dark. There are, yet, some points of light; some gleams of hope, some stars to steer by. For me, I go to prepare the Sanctuary for what is to come. Even if the grey legions of our enemies defile or tear down every other sacred place in this city, the Sanctuary shall stand. - Arigane

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