Valistair was reclining in the sitting room of Master Inoullius’s home. Uriel was pacing. The room was dimly lit. The eerie light of the moon shined through Master Inoullius’s narrow windows. The many colors of the moonlight seemed to dance across the floor to Val’s blurry vision. The blues, greens, and oranges of the moonlight, all tinged with an unnatural silver, beckoned Val to sleep, but he resisted. Master Inoullius had asked them to wait for him as he went to talk to Elder Korbin and Ordamir about what had happened.

Val watched the demon charge down the unsteady Deckard and knew Deckard to be too weak to defend against the powerful demon, but Val could see the crystals affecting them both. They strengthened the demon and weakened Deckard. Val’s sword flew through the air at the demon’s head, crossing its line of sight and causing it to stop. It laughed at Val’s miss before the sword could complete its trajectory and bury itself into one of the large crystals, shattering it totally. The demon screamed in pain again as the magickal network of the crystals weakened and compensated for the loss. Val took his shield and hurled it at the crystal closest to him along the wall. As it shattered, Deckard seemed a little surer of himself and the demon seemed even more furious.

A civilization of people resembling fish more than hume, the icthaylians use the waterways of the world to maintain their trading empire. Their presence here proved that the icthaylians were capitalistic enough to go where rivers and streams did not. Other creatures had traveled far from the north and west to buy the goods of the dwarves. The honor-bound ranines possessed the head of a frog, but wielded weapons as large as they and heavy armor—all of dwarven-make. Even in heavy armor, their ability to jump and climb was peerless. The immaculately dressed minotaurs from the northern mountains were an astonishing site for the group. Over eight feet tall and well over four hundred pounds of muscle, the minotaurs were covered head to toe in thick fur and resembled nothing so much as bipedal bulls. Their dress and equipment were intricate things that belied their bestial visage. One of the more common races they saw looked to be a cross between Maryl and a dwarf, and Maryl explained they were rock gnomes, cousins to the gnomes of the forest.