"Before I Leave This World"

We made our way to the East exit and stood in the hub.

"Let's try the North door," Bran suggested.

Carlagnios tried to open the door, but it would not budge.

Kale sighed. "To one side, Dragonborn. Let me examine this door."

He looked it over carefully for several moments. "There is a magical force that holds the door closed," he declared. "The key to the door is an amulet."

"I have an amulet," said Firinne, approaching Kale. She handed him the Quartermaster's Amulet that she had received long ago. "Will this work?"

"Well," replied Kale, "it's not the same amulet. But there are some faults in the enchantment, so perhaps I can make this amulet open the door. Stand back now, and see what a powerful Mage can do."

He spent several minutes fiddling with the amulet and the door. Nothing happened.

"Do you need help?" asked Ryn.

"I can help as well," offered Garg.

Together, Kale, Ryn, and Garg tinkered with the amulet and the door for several more minutes. But the door still remained shut.

Tiny rolled his eyes. "OK, guys, it's not hard." Tiny effortlessly unlocked the door with the amulet and went inside.

As we followed him in, Kale explained, "Well, I can usually break these types of enchantments... It must have been some bad luck that made this fail."

"Uh huh," said Carlagnios, seeming unconvinced.

The door led to the Hall of Records. The room was filled with scrolls and books. Most of the parchments had crumbled to dust.

Of the scrolls and books that had survived, we found:

• a scroll that captured the account of the bribery of Shabriri

  
  Ores had negotiated with Shabriri and convinced him to do a job.



• the proceedings of the Council of the Centenarch

  This included a debate on moving the Centenarch from the world to here — 99 voted for this, and 1 was opposed



• notes about the Assassin (Brother John)

  
  This included a field report when Brother John was captured and tortured. Under duress, he revealed that he was the Assassin, but he was sworn not to reveal his name.

  He was in the Centenarchy, spying on the 100, when the Ritual of Immortality was cast. This explained why he became immortal and why he was known as the 101.



• a ritual of simple finding



• an account of how they caught the Whale

  Ores used the Seed of Contradiction and wore the Mantle. When this happened, he multiplied. (He was able to keep his copies from going into other worlds.) He was a powerful warlock, so once there were enough copies of him, he could reach the Whale.

It had been a while since we had rested, so we decided to go back to the room with the sunken circle to rest.

Kale thought that it would be a good precaution to disable the runes. He had the scarab that we had used to disable arcane devices before. But there was no place to attach the scarab in the sunken circle.

In the end, we decided to sleep around the circle. Ryn stood guard while we slept.

After only an hour, animata suddenly appeared in the room and began to attack us. We scrambled into the sunken circle, and the animata stopped attacking.

"Why did you attack us?" Carlagnios demanded.

The animata replied, "I know you as Logrid. How are you named?"

"Named? I am Carlagnios. Who are you? And why do you attack us?"

"I only exist to serve. You and the 100 use this circle to transport yourselves to your rooms."

"Well," Carlagnios started. He thought for a moment. "Can you use this circle to take us to my room?"

"Please step inside the circle. Keep away from the edges."

We followed its instructions and, in a flash of light, we found ourselves in what appeared to be Logrid's bedroom. It was an irregularly shaped room. There was a cloakroom with hooks, a chest, a bed, and a writing desk. Beyond the desk was a large window. From that window, we could see that the room overlooked a forest. The forest was shrouded by dark fog. There was also a sunken circle in the room -- a circle that seemed to have the same arcane runes.

As we moved closer to examine the chest, Tiny stopped us. "There is a trap. We will spring it if we open the chest."

"That's no problem," declared Bran. "I'll disarm the trap."

He took out his tools, fiddled with the lock, and deftly ... triggered the trap. With a puff of gas, Bran was knocked unconscious.

"We really don't seem to be having very much luck today," observed Firinne.

"Speak for yourself," quipped Tiny.

In the chest, we found a locket with a picture of Brother John. Kale carefully examined the locket. "This appears to be an amulet of opening."

The chest also contained a letter. Kale took several minutes looking over the letter before shrugging. "I can't understand it. It is written in a script that is not familiar to me."

Carlagnios scoffed. "Give me that letter. I'll read it."

Kale fought to keep from laughing out loud. "Really? Carlagnios, can you even read?"

"I can read this," Carlagnios answered. "It is from Logrid. It is her final message before she left this world for ours."

"Hmmm, perhaps it is written in a script that only the 100 can read," surmised Ryn.

Carlagnios continued, "'Before I leave this world, I shall take the tree and kill it. I will prevent others from becoming the 100. We are to be exiled from our world. I leave behind this key to the armory. The armory contains a powerful weapon.'"

"Key?" I asked.

"The locket," suggested Kale. "This must be the key to open one of the other doors."

Bored with the discussion, Carlagnios tossed away the letter and moved to examine the sunken circle. As he stepped inside, an animata appeared before him.

"Greetings, My Lord," it said. "I live to serve."

Carlagnios snarled, "That's nice. I hate you. Goodbye." He stepped back out of the circle, and the animata disappeared.

We decided to rest here in Logrid's room for the night. We fell asleep to the sounds of rustling wings as bats flew past the window outside. Tomorrow, we would continue our exploration of the Centenarch.