While I desired to visit Sentinel Stand, home of the last living Regent and likely where Graven Ashe’s daughter was being held, across the wind- and storm-swept countryside I caught sight of a tall spire, standing defiantly against the magical horrors which raged on around it. Trying to still my excitement, I ordered my party to travel with me and study the infested oldwalls, which local legend held as the only entrance to the monument.
The ground near the oldwalls was covered in bodies – Unbroken, Disfavored, and Scarlet Chorus all laying where they fell. Phantasms and stranger things flitted around the battlefield, causing us no small inconvenience as we approached. They seemed to cluster around a large pile of bodies, as if all three armies had crashed into this one spot. After we dispatched them, we noticed a faint blue glow emanating from inside the pile; a glow that wasn’t caused by any of the spiritual apparitions we had dispatched.
Without delving into grisly detail, we discovered the fabled sword Dauntless, carried by military champions of Stalwart for generations. So impressive was its history, Verse and Berik chimed in, that often the legacies of its wielders were dwarfed by the mere presence of the blade. It could rally supporters to its bearer’s cause and stood as a testament of Stalwart’s resolute attitude. Even as he recounted the many brothers and sisters in arms he saw felled by the blade, Barik admitted he was impressed by the strange, glowing artifact.
I debated stowing the sword, perhaps to mount it in the spire once we claimed it, but a stray comment by Eb caught my attention. The oldwalls which cris-crossed the Tiers, though to a much lesser degree they were present in the rest of the empire, were known to be home to Banes, beings which could only be wounded by powerful magical artifacts. Artifacts like the glowing sword I had pulled from a mountainous pile of corpses, which had drawn the attention of strange and terrible entities.
Needing to rest after several drawn-out battles against the spectres, and unwilling to do so near the oldwalls themselves, we turned inland before setting camp for the night. The spire would have to wait for another day.
