“You found them, then,” Nyssa says. We’re arranged much like we were the last time we were in her office: us arrayed around the livingroom furniture set-up at one side of the room and her leaning against her desk with her arms crossed, her brow furrowed, and her eyes dark and a little sad.

“We did,” Meg nods.

It had stopped raining and as much as I didn’t want to venture back out, I didn’t have much of a choice. Flynt’s anxiety got the better of him, and he herded us all out the door and toward the Wide Sky Tavern before I think any of us really clocked what was happening.

At least we could get a hot meal—they were serving the Qeth equivalent of cottage pie—and some good ale from the tap as opposed to the jugs kept at the Emporium. My stomach started to rumble the moment we walked in, my body equating this place with food and comfort.

I am not comfortable right now. A range of feelings emote across Nyssa’s face and the atmosphere in the room is heavy. I wish I was at least a little bit not sober for this conversation, and looking around at my companions, I don’t think I’m the only one.

“We found their remains and pulled them back into the corridor. We weren’t able to bring them back. We’d have to go back with a cart,” Meg continues.

“No, I’ll have someone else take care of that. You said there were undead in the area?”

Jonas draws a deep breath and nods, glancing around at us. “A corrupted ogre came out of the woods and attacked us. Then, there were the remains of disanimated skeletons near the bodies.”

“Did you find any evidence at all of who’s behind it?”

We all exchange glances and then shake our heads. It feels like going to the principal’s office, and just so I don’t feel like such a disappointment, I almost bring up the coin I found, the one with the Terravin crest on it—but remember what Flynt had said about Nyssa’s background and that stops me short.

“We’re not really investigators,” Meg says with a wince, seeming to feel the same way I do. “We did as thorough a look around the space as we could. There were definitely traps set up, but we’re not sure if they were there before or if whoever did in the other team left them behind. Despite our attempt to disarm it, one accidentally went off. It caved in the vault space.”

“It was a vault, then,” Nyssa asks.

“It looked that way,” Flynt says. “It was definitely some kind of storage, and we found a few valuables.”

“What kind of valuables?”

“Fine place settings, high-end cutlery, tapestries,” Meg lists off. “A lot of empty chests, though, so who knows what all was originally there. We did take a fair amount of coin and gems that we found.”

Nyssa waves a hand. “That is yours, we don’t care about those things. Any jewelry?”

“A pair of necklaces, a brooch.” Flynt glances my way and nods. I pull the cases out, including the empty one, and place them on her desk.

Nyssa picks up the boxes one after the other: the one with the necklaces, the brooch, then the empty one made from the fancy wood. She frowns while inspecting it, tracing her fingers along the dark stained wood and the gold filigree that decorates it.

“Nothing in this one?”

Flynt shakes his head. “Whatever it was has been missing for a while from the looks of the dust. It was open and empty when we found it.”

“It was sitting with the others?”

He nods. She places the box on her desk and then picks up the necklaces, inspecting them closely. She whispers an incantation under her breath, and her eyes gleam briefly as she looks at each of them, then at the brooch.

“They’re enchanted.” She closes each box and hands them back toward me. “The red one has a general protection enchantment on it. The blue helps with Essence regeneration. The brooch, while a bit gaudy for my personal tastes, will help your body fight off poison. Helpful, if you find yourself up against certain types of goblins or vermin. Even, actually, some types of undead, though I can’t imagine you’ll find them out here. Not this far from the Black Lake.”

“We said the same thing about the ogre,” Tyrus murmurs to Jonas.

“Tell me a little more about this ogre.” She glances between us. “I need to understand. Undead on the doorsteps of Oosal is concerning.”

“I’m not sure what there is to tell,” Flynt replies. “It was certainly corrupted, though we couldn’t tell if it was raised.”

“I find it hard to believe it would be natural all the way down here. You didn’t find an animation coin on it?”

I’m about to answer, but Flynt cuts me off. “The creature fell into a pond when we brought it down, and it began to decompose almost immediately. We were hesitant to spend too much time around it.”

“Probably wise,” she murmurs, her tone thoughtful. “The skeletons you mentioned?”

“Found one coin,” Jonas says. “Nothing particularly notable about it. There’s a standard necromantic sigil on one side, and it carries the expected dark magic signature.”

“May I?”

He shrugs and fishes it out of his pouch, handing it toward her. Nyssa has taken a handkerchief from her desk and lain it over her palm as she holds out her hand. Even still, she winces slightly when he lays it down, and she tentatively examines it.

There’s a tingle in the back of my mind as I watch her do it, which is weird at first, but the more I focus on her, the more I’m sure that she’s looking for something specific—and is relieved not to find it.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

I glance over at Flynt, who is also watching closely, and then his gaze drifts over to find mine. We stare at one another for half a second, barely a beat, but I can almost hear him in my head: we’ll discuss it later. It causes goosebumps to raise on my arms. Something is going on here, and I’m convinced it has something to do with these mysterious Terravins.

“May I keep this?” Nyssa asks.

“Please. I’m glad to be rid of it.”

Nyssa looks like she’s going to say something but rethinks it, and instead nods, wrapping the coin up in the handkerchief and then she tucks it into a small metal-looking box on the far corner on her desk.

“Do you have anything else you need from us?” Meg asks. “If not…”

“No, of course,” Nyssa says. “We can use the book to check in, unless you like coming here every day. We don’t mind the business but it’s not necessary. I’ll reach out if anything comes up. There are a few possibilities for a new mission, but I’m waiting for more information.”

“Oh.” Meg’s voice is bright and she glances around at us. “That sounds promising.”

“It could be. We’ll see what our other party comes back with.”

“When are they expected?”

“It will likely be the better part of a week, being honest.”

“In the meantime, are we free to investigate other opportunities?” Flynt asks. “I’m unsure quite how this patronage works.”

“Absolutely. We all benefit from your group gaining experience. Please, if I don’t have anything for you, take on that notice board as much as you want to. I would give yourselves some time to rest, though. Time on the road can catch up to you.”

Flynt nods and we all follow suit. Right now, a nap sounds great. Food sounds better.

We all stand up to file out and there’s a brief moment of hesitation from Nyssa before she says, “You all did a good job. I want you to know that. I’m not stellar at praise, so I apologize if the mood came across as something else. I have been… caught by surprise, both with the deaths of the team and the seeming cause of those deaths.”

“It’s understandable,” Flynt says. “May we ask—what were they there looking for?”

“An artifact,” Nyssa replies, shaking her head. “There was a lead that it may be there, but if you didn’t find anything, then it seems that lead was mistaken.”

“You think it was in that empty box?” Tyrus asks.

“It’s quite possible.”

I raise an eyebrow. “It’s the Stone, isn’t it? You’re looking for the Stone of Ylaura.”

There’s a moment of hesitation and Nyssa then draws a breath, nodding. “It’s a very powerful item. We’ve heard rumors that we’re not the only ones looking for it, and we’re hoping to keep it out of the wrong hands.”

“What makes your hands the right ones?” Jonas’s voice is low. He wasn’t especially thrilled about joining the Hand of Z in the first place, and he gets uncomfortable whenever we talk about what our mysterious patron’s end goals may be.

“I suppose it’s simply by the virtue that they’re ours,” Nyssa admits. “I’m sure the other interested parties also suppose theirs would be the right hands. But I know what we would plan to do with it, and we have concerns what other parties may.”

“What other parties?” Meg asks.

“The Families. Dragon cultists. Giants.”

“Giants?” Flynt repeats. “It’s something the giants are interested in?”

“Potentially. We’re guessing on that one. They certainly have an interest in keeping it out of our hands.”

“Why’s that?” Meg asks.

“Because it’s powerful enough to destroy ancient magic,” I reply.

Nyssa looks surprised. “How do you know that?”

“I read it in a book. Lost Artifacts of the Dragon Wars. It’s one of the books I found where we encountered the cultists.”

I do not say that I found a second and very well-loved copy in the potentially forgotten mountain vault. I do not say that, in the downtime between my bath and coming here, I discovered that this second copy has several entries not in the previous copy, as well as various maps and letters stuck between its pages, all pertaining to the Stone.

“It doesn’t have a lot of information. No one knows how it works. The only thing that seems to be known for sure, at least according to this book, is that Zendriel gave it to Kellnor because she knew it could be used to defeat Zel’Rosh. It’s said that it's able to bestow upon the user the power to essentially do what they will.”

“And that vagueness is a big part of why we’re concerned. The fact that a necromancer has potentially been looking for the Stone as well adds to that concern."

“You think this person would try to do what, exactly? Raise an army of the dead? Resurrect a dragon?” Tyrus asks.

“We’re concerned that there is a group of people who may be intending to use the power of the Stone to try to resurrect a specific dragon,” Nyssa says.

There’s silence in the room. It’s Meg who clears her throat.

“But no one knows where Zel’Rosh fell. He buried himself in the mountain. Died somewhere there.”

“We don’t think that anyone knows where Zel’Rosh fell,” Nyssa replies. “We’re not sure we can count on that anymore.”

“Who knows this?” Meg asks. “Do the Families know?”

Nyssa sighs. “I have no idea who knows what. All I do know is that this is something our organization has been concerned about since the beginning. It’s not the motivating reason for our organization, but it is one of the big ones.”

“To keep people from resurrecting dragons?” Tyrus raises his brow, glancing around the room. “Seriously?”

“Again. One dragon in particular.”

“I get that he was evil,” Tyrus says. “But that seems like a lot of work for something highly unlikely to happen.” He then winces at that and I swear I hear him mutter something about Mosby, which almost makes me laugh.

“This Stone,” Meg says, bringing it back. “It’s real? It’s not a myth or a rumor?”

“It’s real,” Nyssa says. “It’s very real. And way above you all, at least right now. I don’t want you all worrying about this, okay? I have very capable teams on the trail, and ask you to remember that people have been hunting for the stone for hundreds of years.”

“That’s just hundreds of years of narrowing down the possibilities,” Meg points out. “Qeth is only so big. There are only so many places it could be.”

“And that’s why we’re searching,” Nyssa agrees. “But it’s not a task for beginning adventurers, as eager and plucky as you are.”

“I don’t think we have any plans of getting involved,” Flynt says. “But let us know if we can be any assistance.”

“I will. Go get something to eat. Anthene should have reserved your booth for you. And then get some rest.”

We file out of her office in silence and head out into the large open space of the tavern’s dining room. The windows are closed as it has started to rain again, but between all the people crowded in and the fire roaring in the hearth, it’s cozy and warm despite the high lofted ceiling and glass exterior wall. We settle around our booth, which was as empty as promised—a fact that solicits some glares from some of the people standing two deep at the bar. We happily accept our pints from one of the bar backs who had it ready for us.

As we sip, I pull up [Quest Tracker] and sure enough, the on-going entry has changed. For the last week, ever since I accidentally accepted the quest in the depths of the spider cave, it has bid me to uncover additional information on a lost item. Now it reads:

> [Stone of Ylaura. Explore forgotten places in search of a powerful lost item. 1/3]

I hadn’t checked it since before Nyssa gave us the mission to investigate the disappearances, and I wish I had. If I had, I would have kept my eyes open for other clues. There had to have been some things we missed.

At least I know now. I really need to be better at using the [System] to my advantage.

Jonas draws a slow, deep breath. “So… we’re going after the Stone, aren’t we?”

“Of course not,” Meg replies, casually, her gaze focused on mine. “It’s above our level.”

“We wouldn’t want to take unnecessary risks,” Flynt agrees.

“Fate certainly doesn’t want us looking into it,” I say.

“Right.” Jonas glances at Tyrus, who just shrugs. “I’m going to need another pint.”