A million thoughts tore through her mind as Iskvold raced towards the only home she had ever known. Had there been an accident? Were they attacked? How could attackers have gotten past the beacons unseen? What if the attack came from the east? Was everyone ok? Why had no one been dispatched to warn her and Tsuta? They could have helped. The Vault. Had it burned as well? All those books, all that knowledge.

It took her almost ten minutes at a full sprint to reach the abbey’s outer courtyard from the beacon stairs. As she got closer, she could see the iron gates were open. That wasn’t unusual. They were always open during the day unless the alarm had been raised. From the level of smoke and occasional flame, she could now make out in the abbey’s upper windows, this must have happened in the last few hours. While she had been idly monitoring the gap. Guilt stabbed at her heart, but it didn’t last long. As she reached the iron gates and had a full view of the courtyard, Iskvold stopped in her tracks for the second time in less than twenty minutes. This was no accident.

The courtyard looked like a battlefield. Drying blood stained the ground in overlapping patterns and four monks, four of her friends, lay unmoving on the ground. Not a single enemy corpse in sight. She rushed to the nearest victim, rolling him over to check for a pulse, she looked into the dead eyes of Brother Jellen, an elf she had known since childhood. They grew up together here at the abbey. There had even been a brief secret relationship back in their teenage years. Tears rolled down her cheeks. No pulse. Gone. Multiple parallel gashes crisscrossed his torso and face, and she could see the gaping wounds underneath his blood-soaked robes. His hands too were cut with his palms showing similar parallel slashes. His palms. Iskvold‘s head snapped up as she looked around quickly surveying the scene. No weapons. Not a single staff in sight. Whatever had done this had given no warning, slaughtering the unarmed monks before a call to arms could be raised. She moved quickly among the others on the ground. Sister Karela, Brother Ren, and Brother Avil, all dead. The monks of the Luminarium were accomplished martial artists, more dangerous with their bare hands than most warriors with a sword. What could have cut them down so easily? Sorrow overcame her for a moment as she knelt next to Brother Avil’s body, but then another thought occurred to the Drow – what if whatever did this was still here? In that moment, something she had never experienced before overcame her. A white-hot rage started to boil deep in her guts. All rational thought abandoned her. With her friends dead and her home razed, Iskvold wanted retribution. No…more than that…she hungered for it. Jumping to her feet with her staff in both hands she let out what could only be described as an animalistic roar and charged into the main structure of the Luminarium.

What unfolded over the next few seconds felt surreal, as if she was nothing more than an observer inside her own body, aware of everything going on but completely powerless to change it.

Entering the cloakroom, she saw another body on the ground halfway propping open the swinging door to the mess hall. Another friend…can’t stop. She stepped over her fallen ally, shouldering the door in mid-stride, rocketing it back against its hinges and the wall. The mess hall was heavily charred, benches and tables black from the fire, smoke still curling into the air. Three more charred bodies. Keep moving. Kitchen or main hall? Kitchen. She heard herself scream:

“YOU WANT BATTLE? COME AND GET IT! I WILL RIP YOUR LIMBS OFF AND FEED THEM TO YOU!”

What was that? Where did that come from? She sprinted across the mess, and through the kitchen door. Its wood was also weak from the fire, this time her shoulder knocked the door entirely off its hinges as she burst through, sending it crashing into the high shelves to the right that were used to store the abbey’s cookware. The collision dislodged a large soup pot from the top shelf launching it into her field of view. Her staff struck it in mid-air, sending it forcefully to the ground where the metal clanged off the stone floor. Before it bounced, she hit it again leaving a large dent. Just a pot…keep going! Two more friends down, the tatters of Luminarium robes barely distinguishable on the fringes of their charred remains. She heard herself scream again:

“WHERE ARE YOU COWARDS!?”

She grabbed a smoldering freestanding shelf that had fallen and blocked the door to the main hall. The pain seared through her immediately but the rational passenger in her head observed that it didn’t hurt as much as it should have. Not only that, but the pain seemed to reinforce the rage that had her in its grip like a kite being lifted higher by a passing gust of wind. She let out another unintelligible animalistic roar and pushed into the main hall.

This was a large room, close to thirty feet long and more than twenty feet across. With four rows of benches to either side of a center walkway ending in a raised platform, this was where the monks of the Luminarium gathered when Sifu would deliver abbey-wide communications or lead them in worship. The benches had been reduced to smoldering rubble and black stains marked the grey stone walls where flames had licked their way higher. Four more badly burned humanoid forms lay in the open space between Iskvold and what remained of the benches all of them curled into a fetal position, perhaps from the fire, but there was also something else. Among the corpses of her colleagues was another creature. The rational passenger inside her head estimated it to be about seven feet tall, with gaunt musculature, its charcoal skin seemingly stretched over its bones. It had a long tail punctuated with several vertebrae sticking up at least three inches from the trunk and came to a sharp point at the tip. It had nasty-looking claws on both its five-digit hands and four-digit feet that were covered in dried blood along with four-inch fangs protruding from its maw. Most uniquely, there was a large bone hook protruding from the top of its head that came to a point about ten inches above its eyes. It was as motionless as the monks on the floor, but that didn’t matter to the fury that was currently in control of her actions.

She heard herself cry out “FINALLY!” as she charged the creature. Her staff came down repeatedly. Ribs. Back. Shoulder. She felt her body draw on her Ki, the magical energy that all monks can tap into when needed, her hands glowed white in response and she rained down an additional flurry of blows. Head. Head. Head. The body of the creature absorbed each one, never moving, never flinching. Her last strike produced a sickening crack as the skull caved in. And then the rage left her. Regaining control of her actions, Iskvold looked down at the corpse of the creature, breathing heavily from her anger-filled rampage. What in Gond’s name was that?

After taking a moment to reorient and catch her breath, she flitted quickly among the fallen, checking for any signs of life. Nothing. She could tell there were two male and two female victims, but the bodies were too charred to identify. At least this group was armed, each one still clutching a blackened staff. That made at least fourteen of the Luminarium brethren that had fallen. Doing some quick math in her head, she calculated the abbey’s full complement. There were thirty of them in total, twenty-four full-fledged brothers and sisters, plus Sifu Haft and six acolytes currently in training. They would have been in the Vault doing their studies. The Vault. Iskvold pressed on through the main hall and out the side door to the left of the dais into the dojo. Racks of weapons lined two of the walls framing a central heavy woven grass mat with a large painted circle in the center that served as the abbey’s main sparring ring. In the circle lay a second of the hook-headed creatures surrounded by three more fallen monks. Oddly, none of these bodies were charred. Both weapons racks along with their contents had burned, leaving their telltale black soot marks on the walls, but the mat itself along with everyone on it showed no signs of fire. Iskvold was numb as she looked down into the faces of Kai, Lin, and Finnegan. Seventeen. Once again finding nothing but death, she moved across the dojo towards one of the two doors to the transcription room, which had access to the Vault. One of the two doors was ajar and belching smoke into the larger sparring facility. The transcription room was still burning. Under normal circumstances, this was the space where the abbey did their commissioned literary work. At any given time, there would be at least four or five monks researching, writing, and transcribing at the long tables with piles of texts or from the Vault below spread out in front of them. Tapestries and paintings adorned the walls along with shelves of supplies – paper, binding, ink, and quills. As Iskvold poked her head in, the room was unrecognizable. All the tables had collapsed with two of them still actively on fire, the artwork was reduced to ash, with soot outlines on the stone walls testifying to its prior positioning. Shelving racks on two walls were also burning, though their contents had already succumbed to the flames. She couldn’t get to the trap door that led to the Vault, as rubble of the room’s contents, still flickering and smoldering defiantly, covered the access point.

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Thinking quickly, Iskvold moved to the window on the other side of the room and smashed open what remained of the folding shutters. Looking out she could see the millpond about ten feet from her position. She reached into her mind and once again summoned her Ki, her hands again glowing white as she reached toward the water. Closing her fist and pulling it back into the room, a cylinder of water two feet wide and thirty feet long sprang through the window and crashed into the transcription room, causing a loud hiss as smoke and steam filled the air. Now dripping wet, Iskvold coughed and pushed her hair out of her eyes to survey the space, feeling quite satisfied with herself. Only a few stubborn tendrils of smoke wisped into the air and even they were rapidly surrendering. As she pushed the charred furniture out of the way, she ran her foot over the now sloppy ash covering the floor looking for the small stone that served as the release for the Vault door. Under normal circumstances, the door was usually ajar, especially if any of the abbey’s residents were working down below. There were two different security protocols that Sifu drilled into everyone at the Luminarium to safeguard their knowledge repository. At any sign of outsiders, the door was to be closed making it all but invisible to anyone who didn’t know it was there. At times of significant threat, the lock stone she was searching for now was pressed flush with the floor making the Vault all but impenetrable from either side until the stone was pressed again, and the lock released. The fact that the Vault was in a locked state gave her some hope that at the very least its contents were protected, and at best, there may be some survivors. Finding the stone initially unresponsive, Iskvold got down on her hands and knees and traced her short fingernails around the outside of its edges to clear away any debris that might be preventing its release. Prying out a piece of grit, she tried again, and the stone reluctantly popped up into its typical raised position. She hurried over to an otherwise unremarkable section of the wall a few feet to her right and gave it a push. Relieved to feel the familiar click, the stone receded to expose a simple staircase cut from the earth itself, descending about ten feet before turning to the right. As if on cue, the space at the bottom of the stairs was immediately filled with the figure of Sifu Haft, his staff ready to strike, eyes blazing. Not particularly tall among the humans, Sifu had flashing blue eyes, close-cropped hair, and a substantial mustache that stuck out from his lip at least an inch.

“Iskvold! Praise be to Kord! I thought we may never get out of here!” Haft turned over his shoulder and called back into the Vault “It’s all right, it’s Iskvold!”.

For a man of his advanced age, Iskvold was always impressed by Sifu’s fitness. She was reminded of this as he bounded up the stairs two at a time while she took a couple of steps back to make room for him to enter the chaos previously known as the transcription room.

Behind him, the six acolytes scurried up from the Vault as if afraid to allow too much distance to separate them from their teacher.

“I was giving the initiates a lesson when we heard what sounded like Tiamat crashing a tea party, and they closed and locked us in immediately.”

His voice trailed off and his jaw dropped as he crested the stairs and surveyed the remains of the abbey’s workspace.

Regaining his composure Haft’s posture went ramrod straight as he turned to Iskvold.

“Status” was all he said.

She found his return to discipline somewhat settling, and the muscle memory of her training at the abbey took over. Iskvold delivered an emotionless and thorough accounting of what she’d seen and experienced since arriving at the front gates (leaving out only her bizarre rage bender) while Sifu and the acolytes listened intently, the former furrowing his brow at several points during the debrief but never interrupting her. When she finished, he clasped his hands behind his back, raised himself to his full height, and turned to face the group.

“Right. I know this is a difficult moment for all of us, but we need to focus on protecting the Luminarium and our remaining brotherhood first and foremost. Later there will be time to mourn and time to try to understand what has just happened here, but only if we now act with purpose and clarity. He turned to face each of them directly as he fired off instructions. “Iskvold - take Esmi and Jin, sweep the rest of the abbey, make sure the fire is completely out, and bring any injured to the gathering hall. Nori - you and How begin moving the dead to the outer courtyard. Usha - go and retrieve Tsuta and the rest still at the beacon outposts. We will need to pull back from our watch duties until we get things back in order here. Graver - I want you to ride immediately to the Abbey of the Crystal Dawn…” He paused as he walked to the window and stuck his head out, craning to his left. “Scratch that. The stables have been burned to the ground. First, see if you can find any of the horses wandering about, maybe we’ll get lucky. If you do, ride. If you don’t, you’ll need to head for Crystal Dawn on foot. When you get there, tell Sifu Aganon what has happened here and that we need to call on the Pact of the Brotherhood for assistance. See if he will also help spread the word to the other orders given our depleted state.”

“Yes Sifu!” came the chorus in response and they all moved quickly to their assigned duties.

Sifu Haft closed the door to the vault and pressed the lock stone back into position level with the floor.

“The Vault stays locked until we have things better under control”