Mandras scratched his head for the umpteenth time – the stubble felt good, the thoughts though were still fuzzy… His last recollections were of leaving Castle Amber with his colleagues and returning to Yeoldlands… yet it looked nothing like this. Little was familiar, trails and paths had gone, forests were denser in areas.
Rarder thought they had travelled back in time. A hike to the elven tower showed not a ruin but an active little fortress with elven guards dressed in archaic armour. Efforts to communicate with the latter led to Mandras having a conversation in archaic Common with a stunning elven woman, who may have been the Castellane here. It confirmed the passage back in time and made the party aware that the Amber family, toying with powerful magic a decade ago, had created an environmental catastrophe that was still causing strife in the region. Ten years ago, coincided with when they had disappeared from here.
Rarder showed her the note that the party had found. Much of it was puzzling, but it became clear that the party would be on a geas to clean up the Amber mess, if they wanted to return to their own time. What was initially certain was that the magical sword, one of four items sought, was in this tower and that the only chance to get it would be in exchange for killing a magic user that had over reached himself – if we could find him.
Refusing to allow the adventurers to use the Elven Tower as a home base, the party headed for Ximes, as a centrally located place to set up a safe base. On the way, the heroes were ambushed by 26 degenerate humanoids – they were killed to a man and Mandras was pleased that he had slain three, of whom two were some sort of berserkers. But the party lost a number of mercenaries as well as Jauregi, the mage who had cost more than she was worth.
Arriving in Ximes, the party was accepted with raised eyebrows, but Rarder greased a few palms and everyone settled in for a rest. Mandras felt strangely stronger after the events (managed to get back to level 4) and back to normal, if that was possible in this strange place.