Visions in the Night

((All permanent party members and those divinely dedicated to the quest will receive the following))

Darkness.

The images come slowly, giving the impression of coming gradually into view.

You see a quiet keep in the mountains where nothing lives for miles around. There is no grass. There are no trees. There is no wind. Not a single sound can be heard in an area where even a pinprick could be heard for miles. The tall walls of the keep look like they are designed to keep an army out, with nearly spartan simplicity in their design.

Inside the keep, in a throne room where nothing adorns the walls and a quiet stone throne sits, a man sits on the throne. He sits there, still as death, his face stretched and dried like one who has been mummified and preserved for thousands years. Everything except for his clothes and his eyes would mark him as being among the long departed. Cold sunlight streams in through southern skylights, barely illuminating the room.

His clothes, made of finely dyed linen, are of an impeccable cut and look like something made for a different time and place. They look like they were made yesterday, and cover him in such a way that the only exposed skin is on his face and hands.

His eyes--or rather the place where his eyes used to be--glow a sapphire blue.

"I have come, Kaiechos." A voice, feminine and commanding, breaks the stillness of the throne room. "Did you really believe that you could hide here forever?"

"Foretelling was always your strength, Alayna, not mine. Though I suppose it was inevitable that you would make it here eventually." Kaiechos's speaks slowly, with deliberate emphasis and a thick accent, as if trying to grapple with a foreign tongue. "I see that you have completed the staff."

"No thanks to you, I would have thought that you would have jumped at the chance to build such a weapon." The woman known as Alayna steps further into the room, becoming visible. She is surrounded by an aura of positive energy, her eyes glow green, but otherwise she is as you have seen her in previous visions. In her right hand is her staff in its completed form.

"Nothing personal. I prefer not to build things that in a thousand years people will hunt me down over. How do you plan to present it to the Aboleth?"

"I have a plan to lure it out. I have found this remarkable girl Lief and with a few modifications, she would be perfectly suited to the task. Actually, that's where I think you might be willing to help..." Alayna smiles coldly. "Not like you have any choice in the matter this time..."

The vision fades to blackness.