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Monologue of Maragan Shale
Among the restless ghosts who gave their lives in sacrifice to the vile and selfish god Qo is Maragan Shale,
who seeks to reclaim his honor and escape from purgatory by assisting the adventurers in the destruction of Abarat.
The sword that Elena carries is his holy avenger, not the mere knock-back weapon that they identified it
to be. Its true powers are revealed when he wields it. The sword is an intelligent item which is laying low. Once sunlight touched the blade
it awakened and it has been observing the adventurers to see what their intent is. When the blade enters into the crypt once again it begins
to gently vibrate as it calls to the spirit of Maragan Shale, an ex-paladin who was turned to Qo by a series of tragic events in his life and who
now lives as an undead shade, trapped in the Temple of Bone.
Maragan feels the party's intrusion into the underground complex and so he startles them with a furious assault.
The sword then decides that action must be taken to redeem its former bearer and speaks into the mind of the person who holds it, asking to
be held forth. Once held it bursts into golden sunlit radiance and Maragan ceases his attack, shrinks from the fury that consumed him and falls
quiet and entranced with the blade.
"Long has it been since I have felt the sunlight touch my face. Longer still since a sliver of good has pierced
my soul. You have returned to me my sight, and for that I both weep and thank you."
"What," the party asks, "transpires in this place that you haunt?"
"There is a terrible evil that lurks in this place. I can feel its presence crawl upon the walls about us, waiting
behind the bricks. Those evil men, they call themselves priests and believe this to be their holy place, but during my imprisonment here I have
felt its great age.
"It seeks to consume souls, and plenty have been provided to it by those foolish worshipers of evil. My own
was lost to it. Now that I have returned I know its true nature. No spirit of Qo dwells here. It is an evil from darker pits. When I was a child I
heard tales of a mighty diabolical lord who came to these lands with a massive dread hound whose belly could hold a township of souls within.
How this fell creature was cast down I do not know for sure, but it is said that good giants banded together to slay it. This is where it died, its
ribs now point to the sky.
"In later years, its master was slain, bound into three artifacts. By some awful chance, or perhaps by vile
planning, all three were eventually found and placed here in these ruins. Now they wait, but their master no longer sleeps. It is still
imprisoned, but forces work now to change that.
"A strange creature I have never seen before entered here, its long tongue tasting the latent evil that
waits here. It came and performed a ceremony in the crypt where I was buried and I felt its power stir with the spirit that fills these halls
as it tested with its magics, as though uncertain if here was where the evil was imprisoned. It left and returned only a short while later, with
mortal men who chanted long into the nights, calling for the evil here to answer and as it awoke I became restless once more. Then,
awakened by their pendulous calls into the dark, it came among them, rose our bodies from their sheltered crypts and we slew them all,
to a man, but not the long tongued one. He bid us wait and sent some of us out into the country to find more mortals to feed the dread that
lairs here.
"It is very close now. So very close to awakening entirely. I fear for my soul and those others which dwell
here. Even as it still rouses itself I can feel its will reaching out and calling other beings here, pulling strings so that it might reunite its body
with its spirit and mind.
"The watch fires have been lit. They call out and bring adventurers and the curious like moths to a flame,
calling out to its evil brethren and bringing the innocent to consume and add to its power.
"Let me take my sword, though I do not know what lays within the chambers beyond where I slumbered,
I can feel the pull of the dread devil that rests here. But I bow to its will no more, thanks to you. I will war against it by your side and
perhaps together we can shatter its will."
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