The Mantle of Ores

"Warriors!" snarled Carlagnios "Attention! Stand all in a line!"

The sworn warrior quickly lined up.

"Step forward!"

They all took a step forward.

"Step back!"

They all took a step backward.

"At ease."

The warrior relaxed their stances.

"What next?" asked Tiny. "Tell them to put their left foot in and their left foot out?"

"Sir!" shouted one of the warriors. "We have waited a long time for your return. Have you come back to fight the Chimera?"

"Who is the Kai-meh-rah?" asked Carlagnios.

Kale let out a long sigh and explained the Chimera to Carlagnios.

"Right," muttered Carlagnios and turned back to the warriors. "Do you need food or water?"

"No, sir. We can take care of those ourselves."

"Are you ready to fight the Chimera?"

"No, sir. We cannot leave here."

Carlagnios growled impatiently. Kale whispered to him, "Tell them we are here for the weapon."

"We have come to retrieve the weapon," announced Carlagnios.

One of the warriors produced a knife and handed it to Carlagnios. "This is the weapon -- the knife of Ores."

Kale examined the knife. "This is an Exodus Knife. You use it to trace the outline of a door, and you can open a door to another place."

The warrior continued. "This was Ores' knife. He left instructions. You are to take this to Ores' chamber, move the dresser, and use the knife of the wall behind the dresser."

"Good," grunted Carlagnios. "We shall go there now. What about you?"

"The enchantment keeps us here. We are bound to stay here forever."

"That doesn't seem like a life worth living," noted Kale. "You know, if you want, we could just kill you."

"Yeah," agreed Garg, "I have no problem with that."

Tiny and Firinne paled.

"That won't be necessary," snarled Carlagnios. He turned to the warriors. "We will see you in the future."

And with that, we left and made our way back to the room with the sunken circle.

When we entered the circle, the animata appeared. "Would you like to go to your chamber?"

"No," replied Carlagnios. "We would like to go to Ores' chamber."

The animata paused. "That is an unusual request, sir."

"We have the knife of Ores, and we need to get something from his chamber."

"Oh," said the animata, "why didn't you say so in the first place?"

And in a flash of light, we found ourselves in the chamber of Ores. The room was filled with indoor plants. There was a path through the plants. Bran carefully checked for traps and found none.

An animata appeared in the distance. It carried a light bucked and headed toward us.

"You there," called Carlagnios, "where is the dresser of Ores?"

The animata ignored him and continued on.

"We need to figure out how to get there," said Garg. "Can you determine the right path?" he asked me.

Unfortunately, my sense for nature was terribly off at this point in time. Fortunately, Kale was able to find the path to a small cottage.

"We should be on our guard," noted Tiny.

"Oh, right," said Ryn. "We were attacked by a Kraken in a room. Perhaps in this cottage, we'll be attacked by a giant squid. Or crocodiles."

We entered the cottage and found an animata setting the table with food. The animata had also started a fire in the fireplace.

We discovered a sword hanging nearby. Kale examined the sword and declared that it was a magical sword with the ability to cause different types of damage -- a Dynamic Longsword. "Who wants the sword?"

"Why should we take the sword?" growled Carlagnios. "It is not ours. Let's ask the animata who the sword belongs to."

The animata did not respond.

The dresser was full of old, disintegrated clothing. We moved it out of the way to reveal the wall behind it.

Kale took the Exodus Knife and carved the outline of a door on the wall. He opened the door, and the Mantle of Ores was hanging there before us.

"So this is the Mantle," said Kale. "The Mantle that hid Ores from the Stone Men, so that he could steal the Seed of Contradiction."

We now had the Mantle and the Seed. All that we needed were the instructions.