Magi of Crystal Moons – The Magi are an organization that formed during the chaos that befell the Star Sphere after the rampage of the First Great Horde. There were rumors that abounded during this dark age that the magi were partly responsible for the Horde’s coming. Some whispered that the magi, arrogant in their towers had begun probing that which was forbidden, the Great Void. In their clumsy attempts to unlock its secrets, the magi awakened the Horde and its armies and allowed the powers of chaos to ascertain the existence of the Star sphere. Soon the rumor became accepted as fact and the populace rose up against the magi and burned them out of their towers. The magi in defense fled to the far flung corners of the Star Sphere. While in exile a small group gained prominence as they created a brotherhood of magi that would swear neutrality in the affairs of the Star sphere in exchange for being allowed to return to the Star Sphere. These magi took the crystal moons as their base and soon began hunting those magi that did not want to conform to their rigid set of rules. The population of the new Empire of the Circle were more than happy to see the magi being brought to heel and within a century’s time, the magi of the crystal moons were the only recognized wizards in the Star Sphere. The magi of the Crystal moons provide advisors and scholars for the Great Houses of the Concordance of Heaven and have played integral roles in the governing and expansion of the Protectorates. Governed by strict rules of noninterference in human affairs and taking no political sides on any issue, the Magi of the Crystal Moons intend top remain true neutrals in the world. The only time the magi broke their code was during the Height of the War of Concordance when they joined the Lords of Concordia in defeating the Second Great Horde and reestablishing order in the galaxy. --Biblia Historica Chapter 3: Ambush The first wicked barbed orc arrow struck the tree by where Griswold stood, the arrow jutted merely inches from the old wizard’s face. The second and third arrows whistled by his head like angry hornets and suddenly the Lady Ursula’s beautiful gown’s billowing skirt was punctured by several arrows as they lanced through the folds of the silken material. “Run!” Perseus shouted and bought his sword up in a defensive stance as he slipped his helmet on. Xenia tapped the stud on her collar and her own helm and faceplate hissed on over her head. She raised her sword and urged her lady on. “Lady Ursula please get to the ship, now!” Xenia shouted as an arrow slipped by her head and buried itself in a tree trunk behind her. “You get back and protect the others. I’ll hold them off!” Perseus shouted and was suddenly stunned by a bolt that burst in the ground right beneath his feet. The explosion sent him tumbling backwards. He landed on his back and shook off the shock as quickly as he could. “Looks to me like you can use all the help you can get.” Xenia replied. They still could not see the orcs but they were definitely out there. They could hear the strange grunting language of theirs on the air. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been a Man at Arms for all my life!” Perseus spat as he slowly retreated towards the Star Jammer, mindful to listen if any orcs were trying to flank them and get to the retreating lords. Xenia glanced at him, her featureless black face plate betrayed no emotion as he looked him up and down. But the voice said it all. “You look all of 12, lad.” She replied sardonically. “Those orcs are armed with fire bolts. You didn’t say anything about fire bolts.” He countered as another one lanced overhead and exploded in the branches behind them. “Quite frankly, I didn’t get much of a chance to say anything.” she replied. “What kind of orcs are armed with fire bolts?!” “The kind that pull our ship out of starshift and then try to reel us in with giant hooks.” “They pulled you out of starshifting? How?! I didn’t think that was possible.” He ducked underneath an arrow. “Come to think of it, I wondered just what in the name of the Concordance you were doing way out here in the first place.” “We were on our way to your home world when suddenly the ship was pulled out of starshift and we were in this system. Within seconds we were under heavy attack by an orc raider.” She began grunting as she whipped her sword around and chopped an arrow out of the air. She could see some ape like shapes loping into view, using the foliage as cover while they closed the distance. “How did you manage to crash down here?” He could see her face under her faceplate but he could somehow tell that she was smiling as she answered him. “When the Raider speared us with her tow cable, we simply gunned the engines and dragged her down into the gravity well of this planet. They couldn’t detach themselves in time and so they were dragged down with us.” “That’s insane!” Perseus exclaimed as he caught sight of his first orc charging him headlong with a wicked looking scimitar. He braced himself, paused and swung as the orc closed the distance. He felt the solid connection run up his arm as his blade passed through the orc’s midsection and continued out the other side. The orc screamed but his weapon still came down, glancing off a shoulder plate on Perseus’ armor and collapsing on the floor in a pool of blackish ichor and guts. “Good shot, lad, but you have to be careful, even mortally wounded these bastards can cut a man down with their dying breath.” Xenia warned and pulled Perseus back with her. “I don’t like this, they’re not charging, they’re not engaging.” she muttered as an arrow glanced off an elbow pad. “They’re harassing us, trying to slow us down.” Perseus replied as a fire bolt passed between them and exploded on the far side of the clearing they were crossing. “Damn, they mean to separate us from our lord and lady.” Xenia spat. “Hurry, we have to link up with them. We’re no longer in danger, they are!” Perseus exclaimed and both warriors began sprinting back towards the ship. “Things are not looking good for us, my lord!” Griswold exclaimed as he tried to follow the others racing to the ship. An arrow sprang into Griswold’s staff. He stared at it for a moment. “We are certainly going to get hurt or worse unless we become harder to see.” He muttered and closed his eyes, whispering words of power. “Gris, there’s no time!” Derek shouted. Suddenly a thick white mist began flooding down into the woods, curling around their feet and continuing along creating a thick soup of milky white mist all around them. “What is this?” The Lady Ursula asked. “Looks like bringing the House magus was not such a bad idea after all.” Derek laughed. “Has it occurred to you, My Lord that we can no longer see much of anything including our retainers?” Ursula replied haughtily. Derek’s brow furrowed in thought and concern. The mist had now fully settled into the wood, not only obscuring sight but warping sound as well so that shouts seemed to echo in all directions. “This is not as good as I thought.” He muttered. “Gris!” he shouted loudly. A shape suddenly lurched into view. The old magus was panting heavily and eyeing the arrow jutting out of the top of his staff with disdain. “This was not one of your brighter ideas.” Derek commented dryly now as he could no longer make out even the trees that moments ago had hung right over them. “I am a House wizard, not some combat mage from the schools of steel.” Griswold snapped and wrapped Selena’s shawl tightly around his chest and neck as a chill settled accompanying the mist. “Where to now, my intended?” Ursula asked dryly. An arrow whistled by from the left. “We go in the opposite direction of that.” Derek replied and urged them to follow him. “Aleeta! Aleeta where are you?” he called out for the small pilot. Without her they were lost even if they found the ship. “Are we sure we are going to find the halfling?” Ursula asked. She frowned. “To be honest with you this is not exactly the rescue I was expecting.” She added. Derek paused and looked over his shoulder. “No? What did you want INTENDED? I risked everything including my life to get here and rescue you and this is the response I get? Unless I’m mistaken you would be over run by these beasts if not for us.” Derek replied hotly. “Act like the nobles you are please.” Griswold snapped. They suddenly walked into a clearing in the mists. “Aleeta?” Derek asked as he noticed someone standing in the clearing. As he drew closer he immediately knew he was wrong. The figure was a human dressed in long black flowing robes, strange alien runes were written across the fabric in glittering crimson letters that resembled blood. The robed human was smiling coldly. “No, not Aleeta, young lordling. But I assure you, you will wish that I was once I am done with you.” He replied coldly. “What the hell are you?” Derek asked. His eyes slowly widened as he remembered old stories his father used to tell him. Tales of the Great Concordance war so long ago. The black robed human smiled ferally. “I see you are beginning to comprehend the depths of what you have stumbled into don’t you lordling?” the black robed human sneered. “And you should know that we have not forgotten your treachery necromancer!” Griswold boomed and suddenly a bolt of coruscating lightning lanced by Derek and lashed into the black robed mage. Necromancer. Griswold had said it. Necromancer. The traitors of the magi. Wizards that turned their backs on humanity and embraced the Great Void and its Horde. Derek did not think he would ever see one alive. They were legendary creatures of the past, used to frighten young Protectorate children. Now he was facing one. But at the same time, he was shocked by Griswold. Suddenly, the old man seemed taller, more regal and his tattered robes whipped around him as he fired off another crackling bolt of lightning, driving the necromancer back. Where had Griswold gotten such fire? “Hurry my lords!” Griswold urged. “Hurry where?” A rope ladder suddenly swung by Derek’s face. “I do believe that Aleeta found her way to the hip without our help.” Ursula noted with a bemused expression as she grabbed a firm hold of the rope ladder and quickly scrambled up into the misty darkness. “Griswold?” “There is no time young master. Be on your way now. The enemy is closing in all around us.” Griswold replied. He seemed to have lost the scholarly timidity and his eyes were sharper, more awake. Derek nodded and grabbed a firm hold of the ladder and began to climb. “You will die for this interference slave.” The necromancer spat. Griswold smiled and spun his staff in a circle. “Come, dark defiler. You will find that we of the Crystal moons remembered your treachery and will make your kind pay for it wherever you be found.” “So be it!” the necromancer spat and launched a series of spinning fireballs. Derek turned his head back up away from the sight to finally climb into the Starjammer. “I will most certainly not do anything of the kind!” he heard Aleeta complain. “What’s happening?” “Your ladyship wants me to pull out of here now. As far as I’m concerned we have a few people left below.” “If we stay here, my intended we will most likely be brought down. With all due respect to your House wizard that is a necromancer down there and I don’t expect him to last long.” Derek stared into her eyes. “My sister is still down there. We are not going anywhere without my people, INTENDED.” He turned to Aleeta. “Griswold needs help. Can you take us down low?” Aleeta frowned. “Not much visibility down in that soup but I will do what I can.” “I’m sure that you will, milady.” Derek grinned and quickly raced back to one of the light ballista. Aleeta gunned the engines and the starjammer dove hard into the mist. Ursula held on to one of the support struts and her face was set in a grim expression of acceptance. The mists parted for a moment as a lance of fire boomed beneath them and exploded. The explosion burned away the mist below for a moment and they clearly saw Griswold standing on a downed tree and from one end of his staff a shower of ice shards were streaming towards the Necromancer. “House wizard or not, Griswold is making House Dartanian proud.” Derek called out and cocked back on the ballista and aimed. “Griswold?” Perseus muttered in confusion as he stumbled into the battle. Xenia nearly ran right into him as he came up short. “What is going on?” she demanded. “Griswold’s locked in mortal combat with some black robed wizard.” Perseus spun his sword in a circle. “He needs help.” He determined. “No, lad, we do.” Xenia replied and suddenly orcs were bursting through the mists around them. Perseus roared a battle cry and began swinging his blade in long sweeping circles, the blade slicing through flesh, bone and tendon effortlessly. Xenia danced around, her blade flicking in and out like a striking cobra, piercing the orcs in vitals and sending them trashing to the ground. “They will overwhelm us! We need to move!” Xenia shouted as she noted the numbers of orcs now surging forward towards them as they were driven higher up the hillock where Griswold himself was doing battle. “No, we hold our ground. My lord will come for us.” “My lady would leave us. She knows that she is more valuable than any of us. She will convince your lord to leave.” She replied as she decapitated an orc but caught a glancing blow from an orc’s scimitar in the leg. The numbers were beginning to tell. Soon she and Perseus were back to back in pitched battle, the bodies of the orcs at their feet. Perseus shook his head emphatically. “Never. Derek will not leave me, or his sister.” “Where is she?” Xenia asked. Perseus did not answer. He did not want to think about the possibilities. Suddenly a fire bolt exploded into the closest mass of orcs charging them. The orcs howled in pain as the explosion, usually enough to kill a single creature, but the orcs were so massed together that a single blast was enough to injure many. Selena bolted to their side as she rushed through the hole in the orc lines to get to them. She stood by Perseus as she reloaded her musket. “My heart soars to see you milady.” Perseus replied and suddenly swept his sword down and cut down and orc as it reached for Selena while her back was turned as she punched a energy bolt into the musket. “I know that I can trust you with my back, Man at Arms. You have ever been a source of safety in my life,” she replied with a grin and aimed and fired. The bolt blasted the first line of orcs, sending several to the ground screaming. Perseus grinned and felt an odd warmth in his breast at her words. “How many of those do you have left, milady?” Xenia asked as she drove her blade into an orc’s throat. “Six more.” She replied and quickly started to reload. “Not enough.” Perseus muttered. Xenia nodded as they heard the roar of another line of orcs charging. “The raider cannot have held this many orcs!” Selena shouted. “No, milady, Aleeta determined this world is not in the Protectorate. “We will be swarmed.” Xenia added darkly. “then we will carve the name of Dartanian in their dark hearts!” Selena replied and fired off another bolt. “It seems that my lady has done her part, she has convinced your lord.” Xenia noted with an odd tone of despair. “Never! Derek Dartanian will never leave us behind!” Perseus shouted and emphasized his point with a broad sweep of his blade that slew several orcs charging up the slick hillock, slick with blood and gore. “I’m not so sur-” Suddenly a ballista bolt snapped right over their heads and impacted against the orc line, running several completely through before coming to rest buried in a tree with two orcs still impaled on it. “Yes!” Selena exclaimed. The Starjammer roared in over head, parting the mists and a rope ladder swung down to them. “Up you go, milady.” Perseus said and grabbed Selena and roughly shoved her up the ladder. “But..” “Up or we’re all dead!” Xenia shouted as the orc lines that had faltered for a moment suddenly charged again. Selena spared a moment and fired a bolt into the ors before scrambling quickly upwards. “Go!” Perseus shoved the ladder at Xenia. “No, you go.” “This is not time to act brave, we are not competing, I have to go help Griswold.” “You are a fool. You don’t interfere in a magic duel. Swords will avail us naught.” Xenia replied hotly. “Up!” Perseus barked. An arrow buried itself in his shoulder. He grunted. Xenia scurried up the rope cursing the whole way as the orcs closed in on Perseus. Perseus knew he could not climb, the moment he turned his back they would have him. “Damn you bastards!” he spat. I will die was a man of the Protectorates. He decided. “Hold on to the ladder!” Xenia shouted. “What?” he snapped as he drove his blade into the nearest orc that had come in too close. “HOLD ON TO THE LADDER IDIOT!!!” She screamed. Perseus wrapped his leg around the base of the rope ladder and grabbed a firm hold with his off hand as he parried a blow. Suddenly he was jerked off his feet and was flying through the air as the Starjammer pulled away. Griswold was being driven back by a series of blasts of what looked like black light. The bolts whipped around Griswold’s staff and struck him like knives, drawing blood. Perseus cursed the necromancer when suddenly a ballista bolt snapped by and struck the necromancer in the back. The necromancer was not slain, the bolt snapped like dry kindling but it drove him into the ground like a hammer and he was stunned. Perseus urged them down with frantic waving of his hand. The starjammer arced downward and drove the ladder down at Griswold. “IU have no time to be gentle Gris!” Perseus shouted. He grabbed a firm hold of the wizard and yanked him off his feet. The wizard let out a surprised whoof! Perseus held onto the Gris as the starjammer rose like an arrow and started to climb away from the battle. Perseus groaned as he finally lay down on the hard wooden floor of the starjammer. Derek smiled at his friend. “How did you like the adventure?” he asked. Perseus groaned again and turned his head away. Derek laughed and slapped his friend on the shoulder. The scream of pain produced barely suppressed laughter and half hearted apologies. “I hope you’re proud of yourself, intended. You risked my life and yours to rescue people that were born to fight and die for us.” Ursula broke the mood of celebration with her icy tone. Xenia remained silent by her side. Derek stared at her for a long moment and slowly smiled. “You know something, intended. I am. I am very proud of myself but I’m even more proud of my friends.” He replied. Ursula blinked. “Well done, lad., Well done.” Griswold said weakly and squeezed Derek’s shoulder. “You’ve done your father proud. You are a lord of the Protectorates.” Derek frowned softly. “But why do I feel that this is not the end of the adventure?” he asked. Griswold said nothing but he was not alone. The cabin was silent as the starjammer fled the planet. “Master.” The Necromancer rose from the ground and wiped blood from his mouth. “All is well, Grishnak. It is nearly time. Get your men to the loading stations.” “And the Protectorate lords?” Grishnak grunted angrily. He had lost many of his folk to the vile humans. Silas Jerok smiled coldly. “Oh, they will be caught. They have absolutely no idea of what they have walked into. But they soon will.” He replied and walked back into the misty woods, laughing softly to himself as a sound began to rise from the wood. The sound of an army on the march. A sound that could be heard throughout the entire world. “It is turning here, Grishnak.” He commented as they disappeared into the mists.