After properly looting the ruins of Nirolkilon, the Hand of Fortune decided they really needed to hack off the head of Grandmaster Yoridar, as proof to the King and his councilors that the man really was dead. Devrik shrugged and did the honors, and then did the same again when the arcanists all insisted the head of the demon-spider-thing need to be preserved for study.

They would’ve liked to have taken the whole thing, of course, but that was simply not possible. And Vulk was of the strong opinion that they should burn the whole damn thing and then salt the ground. They compromised by stowing the head and eight claws in a large burlap sack, and then burning the rest of the remains.

The Korönian knights and soldiers they dragged outside as well, and piled them together with the demon, before Devrik used a fireball to start the pyre. They decided there was no need to stick around, and the smell of the burning demon proved an added incentive to hurry them on their way.

They stopped at the sad little shack of the murdered shepherd and his son just long enough to strip the bodies of their murderers and pile them up for their own smaller funeral pyre. They would’ve liked to have done a proper pyre for the two victims, but the bog had their bodies and there was no retrieving them at this point. Instead Vulk held a brief ceremony and everyone observed a moment of silence.

By this time it was late afternoon, and they all agreed it would be good to be off the moors before night fell. They unhobbled the horses, loaded up the poor beasts with sacks of coins, jewels, books and heads, and set of in the opposite direction from the sunset.

The discussion along the way mainly centered on what to do about their discovery of the fabled lost Onyx Throne of the Delfari Empire. While it was undoubtedly an invaluable historical find, it not only weighed close to a ton, but no one could quite figure out how to monetize it.

If they revealed its location to the Arushali authorities, there was little chance that they wouldn’t simply claim it for the Crown, with anything more than a pat on the head for the Hand very unlikely.

And, as Devrik pointed out, the Republic, which views itself as the true heir of the old Empire, would probably insist that it be returned to Delfarin, and the last thing the political situation needed right now was more friction between the two nations… really, they’d be doing everyone a favor if they kept its existence a secret, at least for now!

This lead to recounting of some of the legends surrounding the Onyx Throne, the most widely know of which was that only a true scion of the ancient Oceanian royal bloodline could sit on it. What was less clear is exactly what that meant…

“I’ve heard that anyone not of the royal blood who sat on it would be instantly struck dead by a bolt of pure energy,” Mariala offered.

“No, no,” Devrik ojected. “Not instantly – it was a curse, you see, and any pretender would die within a tenday of placing his (or her) ass on the throne.”

“The story I heard,” Korwin interjected, “was that it simply didn’t allow a non-royal posterior to touch it… such would simply slide off, as if the seat were made of very slick ice. There were some very humorous anecdotes about various pretenders over the years squirming and scheming to keep their seat, and always failing!”

“The legend I heard in seminary school,” Vulk said, “claimed that it was heat that drove off the unworthy. The longer a pretender sat on the throne, the hotter the stone became, until they were forced to leap up or be burned to death…”

Everyone looked to Toran. He shrugged. “Never heard of it before today.

“But I will note that none of us tried to sit on it today. I wonder why that is?”

The others started to object, surely one of them had tried out the great black seat… but they quickly realized the Khundari was right. Even after they’d cleaned it off enough to identify it, no one had tried to sit in it.

“Well, we were rather busy with more important tnings,” Vulk said. But he seemed a bit uncertain. The others frowned thoughtlfully, and they rode on in silence.

They made Dor Kolvin before the sun had quite touched the horizon. The Sheriff of Ulionshire seemed rather surprised to see them, which cast a rather unflattering light on his opinion of their abilities. But he was quick enough to acknowledge their accomplishment once he saw the head of Grandmaster Yoridar.

He immediately had it packed in salt, and a courier was dispatched to Lothkir and the King with the news. This threw the whole question of what the Iron Claw might be planning up in the air, and possibly off the board altogether…

Yoridar had been the driving force behind the order’s ongoing rage at Aruhsal and the Bronze Shield. Oh, to be sure, everyone in the order shared that enmity, but without his guiding hand, it was unlikely they would be a threat any time soon. If nothing else the internal struggles to fill the power vacuum at the top would keep them focussed inward for awhile…

The Hand followed behind the courier more slowly the next day, but still at a good clip. They stopped only briefly in Virzon to fill in Vulk’s parents on recent events and bid his family farewell. They made Dor Colton an hour after sunset, and were on the road again an hour after dawn the next morning.

They arrived at the gates of Lothkir in the mid-afternoon, and were closeted with the King and his advisors by supper time. Yoridar’s head made an interesting centerpiece for awhile, before the king had it removed.

Dorikon and his Council seemed quite pleased with the results of the Hand’s little vacation, and as a reward the king granted them one fifth of the treasure recovered from the ruins of Nirokilon, and first perusal of the books found there, though he did insist his own scholars would eventually want to take possession of them for the Royal Library.

No mention was made of the Onyx Throne, and the group breathed a silent, collective sigh of relief when it was decided there was no point in sending another party into the ruins at this point.

Released from their obligations to the Crown, the Hand next met privately with Master Vetaris and Ser Owain. To the representatives of the Star Council they recounted the full story of the encounter with the Ancient chamber and the demonic spider creature. Again, however, the subject of the Onyx Throne never seemed to come up…

It was agreed the site was something for the Council to deal with, and that the problem of a disembodied demon loose in the land was indeed an issue to be taken very seriously. But there were those who were expert in tracking and dispatching such horrors, and they would be contacted.

Free now to relax until Erol returned from his scouting mission to Bremkin, the various members of the Hand went about their various tasks the next day – Devrik closeted with his new matrix crystal, attuning it to himself and learning its capabilities; Vulk studying the two new rituals he had found amongst Koltorin’s papers; Toran poring over a tome of artificer techniques and spells from the Observatory archives; and Mariala and Korwin studying faded treatises  on their own areas of study.

The next day continued on in much the same vein… Erol was expected the following day, at which time they would all take ship with the Arushali delegation headed to the alliance negotiations at Kar Vandol.

But those plans were thrown into sudden disarray when Mariala made her pre-supper check of the various linked parchments in her possession. She burst into the dining room where the others had gathered, waving one of the sheets.

“Erol is in trouble,” she said, tossing the paper to the table, where Vulk picked it up and the others crowded around to look over his shoulder. The scrawl was childish, many  words misspelled, but the message was clear enough:

“ERAL TAKIN BY 7 PILORS

ENSLAVD FOR GAYMS SOON!!

TOWN BEEING GIVIN TO KILLDOA”