Chapter 4 - Letter on a messageboard

This was an In Character post I'd made for an event announcement. It describes an event I did in the past to obtain the focus Gaze in character, and asks for help in order to obtain the staff Deathwish in a similar way.

To my fellow Detachment members,

A few months ago, while I was still part of my previous warband and the Mercenaries of Tyria, I had heard rumours of a collapse of a section of a wall belonging to an old ruin in the Plains of Ashford. Curious as to what it might have uncovered, I went there and found several members of the Durmand Priory already present. What was uncovered was a small room, now covered with rocks, but still mostly intact. The Priory members mistook me for a colleague of theirs, so they let me in. Even with them around, I was still able to find an old tome, which I managed to take back with me.

This old tome was filled with research of an Ascalonian Necromancer called Ashlyn Thorne, who appears to have died before The Foefire. After her demise, her apprentice had taken the tome with him. He had left the tome at the location I found it, but not before adding some things to it himself.

There are a few interesting things written in this tome.

Firstly, he writes that Ashlyn Thorne carried a skull with her through which she channelled her magic. According to the Apprentice, it was no ordinary skull. No, according to him it is the skull of her former husband who had died fighting Grawl. She had already dabbled in Necromancy before that, so, being stupidly overcome with grief, she attempted to resurrect her fallen husband.

What exactly happened the tome does not say, except that the ritual, obviously, failed and that an enchanted skull was the result. Even though the resurrection did not succeed, the power that the skull contained afterwards allowed Ashlyn to cast powerful spells that she previously had not been able to.

The second interesting thing in the tome is that the Apprentice describes the location of the Crypt where Ashlyn Throne was buried. He also claims that the skull was buried with her. This crypt appears to be in the Sunken Halls of Clement, located in the Iron Marches. After a quick recon, I learned that the crypt was used as a base of operations by a group of Separatists at the time.

The more I read of the tome, the more I felt the need to obtain that skull myself. Still, I couldn't very likely go there by myself and retrieve it. I therefore requested aid from a few members of my warband and the Mercenaries. We reached the Crypt and eliminated the Separatists present there. We found the coffin of Ashlyn Thorne and the enchanted skull was indeed buried with her.

While carefully experimenting with the skull on my own, I learned that it did not increase the user's power, but instead allows a necromancer to more easily channel his or her necromantic arts through it in order to cast spells. After a bit of practice, I was able to do just that while I had trouble doing the same thing with a more common focus.

Afterwards, I continued to read further into the tome and have now discovered the location of another item of Ashlyn Thorne, her staff. From what is written in the tome, I can make out that it performed a similar task as the enchanted skull did. Meaning, it enables a necromantic user to more easily channel his or her power through it to cast certain spells. I myself am having a few issues with exactly that, which is why I intend to obtain this staff as well.

According to the tome, Ashlyn Thorne travelled to Orr in order to get access to the Orrian libraries. She managed to get in high standing with a few of the nobles there and they gave her a few assistants to help her in her research and experiments.

For several years that went on without any issue, except for one. However much she tried, Ashlyn Thorne was not able to rightly focus enough to channel her powers through a staff properly. Theorising that she likely needed a staff that functioned similarly to her enchanted skull, she prepared a ritual.

Her assistant knew nothing of her plans and had been sent off somewhere else. He returned earlier than planned, though. When he entered Ashlyn's workplace, he found her sitting in front of a heap of bones. He thought it odd that the assistants were not there. As he walked a little further and noticed that she was busy carving the flesh off of a bone, which she threw on top of the heap when she was done. Then he saw the clothes lying on the floor just a few meters away and stood frozen in shock, horrified at his realization.

Ashlyn either didn't notice the Apprentice or just ignored him. She went on carving off the flesh of another couple of bones. When she was finished, she stood up, closed her eyes and started an incantation. Any specifics of the ritual, the Apprentice was too terrified to speak of in his part in the tome, but at the end of it, most of the bones had turned into a black-green ash. Within that heap was lying a staff, albeit, the staff was formed out of two bones, probably formerly belonging to an arm, with a couple of spines coiling around it with the three skulls bundled at the top.

The Apprentice explains that the staff indeed functioned as was intended and that Ashlyn was able to learn to cast spells by channelling her powers through it. Even so, soon after one of the nobles challenged her to a duel. If he won, he wanted to get the staff. If she won, however, she would get possession of the noble's entire library, which was quite extensive. Foolishly she believed she was unbeatable now and accepted the duel. However, she failed to realize that even though the staff helped her focus on channelling her powers, it did not increase her powers. As such, she lost the duel and the noble claimed the staff.

I myself have done some research of my own and learned that the noble with the staff is most likely buried beneath the Plaza of Lights in Malchor's Leap. Obviously, I will require a bit of help in order to retrieve the staff for myself. As such I request the help of any of you who is willing to do so.

Signed,
Greva Emberbone
Ember warband
Ash Legion