A fan-fiction story based upon historical and in-game facts about an item that got lost in the mists of Guild Wars’ history, and the quest of a young necromancer trying to find this item, fabled in her grandmother’s stories …

 

I was just a little girl when my grandmother told me these stories, which were handed down to her from her grandmother and from there on backwards in time; to a time before Abaddon - back to a time that is shrouded in mist; back to a time when magic was dealt with in a whole different way, at least, so her stories told...

 

According to my grandmother, magic did exist before Abaddon, and it was not just the ritualists who used it by communing with the dead. Back in those days one didn’t acquire magic through practice and training: one acquired magic and skills by attaining magical crystals, setting them in rings. Extensive training was then used to harness the magic locked within these crystals.

 

This tradition is most likely why we are still limited to using eight skills today; together with it being a likely restriction the gods inscribed on the bloodstones, after Abaddon handed out magic so freely that chaos arose on Tyria. With this gift from Abaddon and the other Gods, the use of crystals was no longer needed, and as such they were lost in time.

 

With the loss of the rings and crystals as a way to practice magic, so did another item get lost in time; an item my grandmother called The Necklace of Power. This item worked very much in the same way as the rings did as one would set a crystal in the necklace, allowing them to harness its power. The necklace had a restriction though: since the crystal was set into a necklace and not a ring, the crystal had to be recharged by a skill trainer after being used. My grandmother stressed that the loss of these necklaces became a loss for all Tyrians, because there would be many times when a single use spell could be very useful. Moreover, since the particular skill could be of any kind of magic.

 

Over the hundreds of years since the exodus these necklaces had all been lost. Most likely they had been melted for their gold and turned into other items of value. I didn’t fully understand why I had to know about this history if I couldn’t use crystals or rings, and all these necklaces had been lost. My grandmother stressed it was good to know the historic truth, as there would always be people trying to spread their own versions of history to benefit their own cause. To some extent I’m glad she told me these stories, because they were a nice way to remember her after she had passed away.

 

Several years later, these stories sparked a quest of my own. At the time I was training under Necromancer Munne in the catacombs of Ascalon. One day she scared off a young man named Horace by threatening to turn him into a minion. She had caught him stealing items from deceased people, and as he ran off he had shouted:

 

“The dead have no use for these items, and I have to eat.”

 

When I asked Munne about this, she told me the deceased had often been buried along with their possessions, since the erection of the catacombs, around the time of the founding of Ascalon. I’m not sure why, but I realized that if I could find a grave old enough it was very likely that I had a chance of finding a necklace, and thus see for myself if these stories were true, or just the ramblings of an old woman about a long lost time. With the help of Horace I could probably find my way in and back out of the catacombs.

 

The first thing to do was to search for an old grave. What better way to go about this than searching the Historical Documents of Ascalon? I headed back to town and convinced a scribe that I was looking for information about my ancestors. I am fairly sure the argument: “I am interested in the history of my bloodline and I want to write a story about my family’s history” won him over, as he began telling about how he had started his career as a scribe in a similar way. So I was granted access to the Ascalon Library, which held documents on the birth and death of all Ascalonians, as well as the section of the Catacombs in which they were buried. So not to arouse any suspicions I started with my parents and grandmother and worked my way back in time. I wrote down the names, birth and death dates on pieces of parchment.

 

It is funny what you can find through this kind of research. Apparently I am related to Baron Egan some few hundred years back, though clearly I ended up in the wrong family branch. The further I went back in time the thinner the archives got. Apparently registration in the archives was reserved for the upper class at some point in history. To some extent this brought some doubts to my plans. Grave robbing a high profile tomb just to find out if my grandmother's stories were true? Then again, if these stories were true and I could attain such a necklace, I would have an extra spell, which would surely give me an advantage over anyone I were to cross in my life ahead. Also, having an upper class grave would make it a lot easier to convince this Horace in joining me. More value meant more to eat...

 

When I finally came to the era before the exodus the archives were just a few parchments thick. Unfortunately almost all these graves were located in the caved in sections. Nowadays the catacombs are all caved in, but back in the days of which I am writing, one could exit the catacombs at various locations throughout the Ascalon region. If you are old enough and from around Ascalon you might know about the bridged gap at the north-eastern entrance. That hadn’t always been there: it was constructed when a hallway caved in years ago, sealing off a large part of the older graves and revealing what had been hidden in the ground for centuries.

The last entry (or should I say the first?) gave me hope. It was in a section I was unfamiliar with, but the signet suggested it was not in one of the caved in sections. The name of this person though made me gasp for air: King Doric! In a haste I ran through the archive again. Surely there must be another grave I could reach other than a royal grave? But there were none. Well of course there were other graves, but there was no way I could ever reach them except for maybe with a full geared expedition and clearance to excavate the cave…

 

I decided not to tell Horace the name of the deceased when I met him at his encampment, I merely told him I had found the location of an upper class grave and asked him to join me in collecting some ‘unused objects’. Nor did I tell him about the necklace. I told him that any necklace we found would be for me, and that we would split up any other spoils. I am not sure if it was the campfire or the prospect of gold, but I am fairly sure his eyes lit up when I told him the grave would be of someone of the upper class. And so we agreed, we would meet the next night outside Barradin’s Estate and enter the Catacombs from there.

 

Horace met me outside the Estate just after sun down and we walked towards the Catacombs. As soon as we entered he grabbed a torch from his backpack and lit our way. Luckily the young gargoyles were not aggressive and we made our way across the bridge. If only these hadn’t caved in I would probably have felt less guilty of what we were about to do.

 

We made our way into the first chamber which was littered with coffins and graves. I had a quick look around and, after a fight with some adolescent gargoyles, I concluded this was not the right section. This was something I had expected; the ancient first king of Ascalon would not be amidst the more recently deceased.

 

“The grave is not here, we need to go to this section”, I told Horace as I showed him the signet which indicated where to find the entrance to the tomb.

 

“I know of that section, but there are no graves.”

 

“What do you mean, no graves?”

 

“Well it’s just an empty hall, I will show you.”

 

We exited the burial chamber and made our way through the catacombs along a curly trail, littered with juvenile, non-aggressive gargoyles.

 

“We are close now, so watch out for...” Horace could not finish his sentence as two aggressive skeletons roared and came our way, weapons at the ready.

 

I quickly placed a few hexes and decreased the skeleton’s fighting speed, casting another few hexes to drain their lives, quickly switching from one to the other while trying to block blows with my staff. As I looked around Horace was nowhere to be found, and as I looked on the ground there were only two piles of bones.

 

“HORACE!”

 

“Coming!” He shouted as he came running from his hiding place.

"I’m not much of a fighter so I, ehrm, well I hid around the corner”

“You could have told me that up front!”

 

“Well you didn’t mention any fighting, just collecting some valuables.”

 

This didn’t bode well for the rest of our quest. The catacombs were notorious for their traps and dangers. I quickly went through my backpack.

 

“It should be in here somewhere, ah yes, my family stone.”

 

It was one of the few valuables my grandmother had left me, a summon stone that had been in the family for ages I had never used it and I hoped…

 

“There it is! Above the bridge!” I looked at Horace pointing at a sign on an arch just behind the bridge up ahead, it did indeed look a lot… “and they are in our path!” Horace shouted out.

 

Two more skeletons were guarding the bridge ahead. My summon stone had better work.

 

With a puff of smoke it squeaked into existence, a bright shining fire imp. With that by my side I at least stood a fighting chance down there. I fired a bolt of dark energy from my staff, and caught the skeletons' attention as they roared and made their move forward. Luckily my fire imp followed my lead and hurled a bolt of fire at the one of the skeletons. I quickly slowed down the other skeleton’s attack speed and drained whatever life it had left in it.

 

Meanwhile I kept hurling dark energy at the other skeleton, with the fire imp doing the same with fire. As one skeleton slowly pounded on my armor, the other one burned to a crisp. As I turned my attention to the remaining skeleton, so did the fire imp. A few more hexes and fire bolts took care of it, and as it crushed in on itself it dropped its rusty blade on the ground.

 

“Horace?! You can come out now.” Horace came running from his hiding spot around the corner.“Here pick this up, you might not be a fighter, but I‘d rather have you armed in case you need to defend yourself.”'

 

“But, but...” With a little muttering Horace picked up the blade; necromancers can give a convincing stare.

 

I examined the signet above the doorway. It was slightly overgrown with moss but there was no doubt about it depicting the section of the Catacombs where we needed to be. Unfortunately the writing below the rune was covered in more moss, and I could not make out much more than “…nger… … gua..s …" and some more text, so I mostly hoped there wouldn’t be any warnings for imminent death and proceeded forward.

 

As we entered we saw four more skeletons guarding the room. Luckily they patrolled in pairs and they were dealt with two at a time, similarly to the ones on the bridge.

The large square room had two stone structures in it, two unlit rusty braziers and a large wall painting of Grenth, the God of Death. If the structures had been large enough to hold a coffin you would think you had just found a tomb, unless they buried their dead standing in the past.

 

“I told you there was nothing interesting here.” Horace had come from his hiding place and strolled around the room.

 

“Well there are two exits, but they just lead to other sections of the Catacombs.”

 

 

I made my way through the room looking for any levers or pulleys of some sort to open up a secret doorway. Horace had started tapping the walls.

 

“It all sounds like solid stone to me.”

 

The only peculiar thing that I had found were some red smears on top of the stone structures. The structures looked somewhat like doorways, but rocks sealed off any entrance, if they were indeed doorways. The red smears looked somewhat similar on both structures and must have been some sort of decoration that hadn’t withstood the test of time. In desperation I had started examining the rusty braziers for possible clues, but most of it looked like simple decoration.

 

“If anything is written on there, it’d be ‘light my fire’ “ Horace scoffed as he lit the brazier I was inspecting. The sudden bright light made me close my eyes

 

“Thanks!”

 

“No problem, I’ll light the other.”

 

As Horace moved over to the other brazier I stared into the room, my eyes still adjusting to the freshly lit light beside me. I shouted “WAIT !”, but Horace had already lit the brazier.

 

“What?”

 

“Look at the structures.”

 

Slowly but surely there were runic symbols appearing in the red smears on the structures, as if they were slowly charging up.

 

“Well, it looks like we are making progress, why did you say wait?”

 

“The first had already started lighting up when you lit the brazier.”

 

“SO? This just speeds things up!”

 

“True, but if anything is to happen it’s now going to happen in two fold.”

 

“Can you read those symbols Arghore?”

 

“No, they are of a language I have never seen before.”

 

“Well, let’s hope they open a secret door.”

 

We stared at the symbols as their glow intensified. Then all of a sudden they started blinking, first slowly, then faster and faster, as if they were some sort of timer.

 

“What’s happening?”

 

“I have no clue Horace, but if anything it looks like it’s about to happ...” A loud bang overpowered my voice, dust and stone splinters splashed across the room, a moment of silence, then a loud roar echoed through the room. If only it had been an echo. From each structure, of which the blocking stones had been forcefully removed, came forward a large brightly glowing skeleton with a mighty axe and shield. Horace ran out of the room with a large squeal, and for a moment the thought crossed my mind to do the same. My fire imp thought differently though, if indeed it thought. It had started hurling fire at one of the skeletons which, infuriated, made his way toward us.

 

There was nothing left for me to do but fight, for my life, as turning my back on these things would surely be the death of me. I switched my hexes from one to the other, while I hurled dark energy at the skeleton pounding on my fire imp. I was glad I trained my hexes, because that at least slowed them down a bit.

 

The imp suddenly screamed as the skeleton pierced his shoulder with his axe. Surely this skeleton wouldn’t last much longer it was bright ablaze and noticeably suffering from my hexes. The other skeleton was pounding on my armor and while its blows hurt, my life siphon made sure no vital damage was done. Another scream from my imp. The axe had made a large gash in his leg; he was bleeding badly.

 

I did hope he would outlast these skeletons, because I surely couldn't take both on at the same time. Then, a bright blue glow engulfed my imp, the bleeding stopped, and the wounds started to heal themselves. “Like a bag of tricks these imps”, I thought to myself. Then the skeleton crushed in on itself, leaving a pile of burning bones.

 

“One down, one to …ARRGGH”, a spike of pain ran through my arm, the axe had pierced my armor and apparently my life siphon had ended. Then the blue glow engulfed me as well, the bleeding stopped and the wound started to close. “What in the name of Grenth is going on?”

 

No time to ponder on it though, as this skeleton was serious in its intentions, and defeating it needed my full concentration. With just one skeleton to focus on it was luckily just a matter of time before it too was nothing more than a pile of burning bones, but the fight left my imp and I panting for energy.

 

“I thought I’d lend you a hand,” said Horace as he whispered a spell. My imp started glowing blue again.

 

“You’re a monk!?”

 

“Well, not as holy as that might imply, but yes I know a few spells."

 

I shrugged. "We should inspect those structures, perhaps they lead somewhere?”

 

We made our way to the right structure and peered inside, no staircase, but at the back of the chest-like structure was a rusty handle.

 

“Wait! Let’s check the other one first”, the other one had the same handle inside. “I would like to suggest one at a time, this time.”

Horace pulled the lever and we backed off a bit, expecting anything to happen. When nothing happened we pulled the second lever, then we heard a click, then the rattling of chains and the high pitched sound of rock against rock, like fingernails on a chalkboard. It made the hair on my neck rise.

 

Horace had already made his way closer to the entrance of the room. The chain rattling continued, then a large bang at the back of the room stopped it, then silence. I must have stood there gripping onto my staff for about a minute, expecting anything to show up, roar or otherwise, but nothing happened.

 

“Let’s check out the back of the room, I’m sure the sounds came from there.”

 

We walked towards the large painting of Grenth at the back wall, Horace tried to light it as best he could with his torch.

 

“This looks more recent than the rest of the room, look here at the bottom, the masonry.”

 

“You’re right, the stones look different, as if someone closed off a doorway and plastered over it to conceal the difference in stones.”

 

Horace tapped the wall. “Still as solid as before though.”

 

“Too bad you are not a hammer warrior, a sledge hammer sure would help.”

 

“I think I have something better”, Horace started to go through his backpack and pulled out a barrel.

 

“You might want to go and hide behind one of those structures”, as he planted the barrel in front of the wall.

 

“I found these in a bandit encampment, they produce quite a bang.”

 

He lit a cotton strap on the barrel and made his way behind the other structure. A loud bang, and again the room was filled with dust, and fragments of stone flew around. Someone was surely going to find out we had been here. For a moment I realized again what it was we were going to do. In all the excitement I had forgot to consider backing off, but with that hole in the wall we had already gone too far to turn back.

 

Horace stepped through the gap and lit it from the other side so I could step through. As we stood in the narrow corridor it was clear it made a sharp turn to the left after a few meters. Then we descended down some stairs leading to a platform and took another turn to the left.

 

“Stop!” I grabbed Horace’s arm. “Look on that platform, that green glow, it’s a trap.”

 

“Now what?“

 

“Now we do what Munne taught me, disable it with a minion. If there are any corpses around that is.”

 

I started my spell. As green spell symbols appeared around me I could hear the growl of a minion around the next corner.

 

“Cover your eyes!”

 

Chunks of flesh and bone flew around as the minion hit the trap.

 

“It’s disabled now.”

 

“The trap as well?”

 

“That’s what I mean you silly. Let’s move on.”

 

At the small platform the turn left revealed another staircase leading down into blackness.

 

“Keep your eyes open for any more traps”, I said.

 

“Look, torches, should I light them?”

 

“Glad you asked Horace, sure go ahead, I doubt they do any harm, as they look like they are placed to light the stairs.”

 

We moved down the stairs, torch by torch, down into the dark, damp tomb. At the bottom of the stairs the next hurdle on our quest made itself apparent; a large wooden double door without any locks or handles. Faint colors and paint chips made it apparent that this door had once been elaborately decorated.

 

“Looks like this door will only open to the right spell, as I see no locks or other means to open it.”

 

”Or the right tools”, said Horace as he pulled out another barrel from his backpack.

 

“This had better work, because it’s my last one. Best stand back a bit.”

 

After Horace lit the cotton we made our way up the stairs again. A large bang echoed through the staircase.

 

“And?”

 

One of the sides of the door had come loose from one of its hinges and offered a gap big enough for us to enter.

 

“Looks like it worked, sort of …”

 

The door itself barely had a scratch on it, it was obviously protected by some sort of magic, but the hinge hadn’t been protected by this magic or had simply corroded away through the centuries. We worked our way past the door and ended up on small circular platform on the other side. In front of us was a large stone bridge leading into the darkness. Horace held his torch as high up in the air as he could, but we couldn’t see much more than the bridge up ahead.

 

We made our way toward the start of the bridge and peered over the side. Deep down below there was the faint glow of a lava river.

 

“Eeww, there is something yucky in this ditch.”

 

Horace dipped his finger in the ditch that ran on the side of the bridge and smelled it.

 

“It’s some sort of oil.”

 

Before I could say anything he had already lit the fluid with his torch. The flame spread across the bridge running wild across the room, and back up the other side of the bridge.

 

“Let there be light”, he smirked.

 

I hit him on his shoulder. “Think next time will you! For all we know it could have set this place on fire!”

 

“Well, you’re probably right, but it didn’t ok, now look.”

 

We stood in awe as we looked onto the lit platform ahead, the yellow glow of gold dazzled the mind.

 

“HORACE, WAIT!”

 

It was too late. Horace ran off onto the bridge.

 

“Gold! I’m rich!”

 

Bang, Horace lay flat on the floor. He had tripped on a stone, as he turned on his back and sat up, he shouted:

“The stone gave way, there is some decoration on it!”

 

As I looked onwards onto the bridge I could see various stones with symbols on them, decoration for the unwary, but an obvious warning for the informed not to step on them.

 

“You probably triggered some trap! Let’s hope it won’t kill us now that we are so close!”

 

I made my way towards Horace making sure neither I nor my imp walked on one of the decorated stones. We were almost on the other side of the bridge and I could see a life-like statue of what was most likely King Doric, standing watching over a stone coffin. His hands were resting on what would have been his sword, and around the statue’s neck was a gold necklace with a glimmering crystal hanging from it. A Necklace of Power! I had found one.

 

Nothing had happened yet, but we also hadn’t moved after I had helped Horace back on his feet.

 

“Maybe the trap is broken? Or it has been triggered in the past already, so it won’t now. Can we move on?”

 

“I don’t know Horace, but it sure looks like it’s safe to move.”

I had spoken too soon. We had barely made one step forward when strange translucent blobs with tentacles showed up from behind various gold, decorated objects around the platform.

 

Horace giggled: “Look, living pudding. What are those going to do, suffocate us with vanilla?”

 

A bolt of energy flew towards Horace and hit him right in the chest, he screamed in agony.

 

“I think not Horace, brace yourself, or run, and don’t step on any more of those tiles!”

 

Horace whispered a spell and a blue ball of energy started circling around him, he repeated the spell until my imp and I had the same blue ball circling around us.

 

“I’m too close to run now”, Horace said as he gripped on to the rusty blade I had made him pick up earlier, “and besides, it’s only pudding.”

 

My imp had already started hurling balls of fire back at the tentacle puddings. Summoned creatures are a great help, but they do have a mind of their own. I joined my imp as I started hurling dark energy with my staff and spread some hexes around. Horace took point as he defended our position against a couple of ‘puddings’ in melee range. It was hard to see if he made any progress though, as his blade sliced through the creatures as a knife through butter. You could hardly see he hit them as any wounds just closed up after the blade had run through.

 

More of those creatures had started showing up, it was as if the trap had opened the floodgates of a massive pudding storage, but luckily we had defeated some, so they could be killed.

 

Then our fighting got interrupted shortly by a soft thump sound and some dust and rubble coming down from the ceiling. It had even surprised these creatures, as for a brief moment all fighting stopped, only to continue shortly thereafter. The second thump sound only seemed to be noticed by me, as Horace, the imp and these creatures kept fighting like nothing had happened. Then another louder bang, and again rubble and dust rained down on us from up above. I checked around the room, there were more creatures showing up, and only our strategic position on the bridge was keeping us alive at this point.

 

“We can’t win this Horace, we have to run, my imp will hold them off.”

 

“But we are so close!”

 

“Yeah! Close to our deaths you mean!”

 

Another loud bang and more dust and rubble seemed to stress my point. This one was loud enough to stop the fight for another moment, I didn’t hesitate and grabbed Horace by his arm.

 

“RUN, and don’t step on those stones!”

 

My imp held them off long enough for us to escape. We hurried over the bridge, through the door, and up the stairs. As we moved up the stairs the thumps seemed to get louder and more frequent. We stepped through the gap in the wall, into the room, still lit by the two braziers. We ran outside over the bridge.

 

“To the right here, we will exit at the Abbey.”

 

We didn’t make it far, as the route towards the Abbey was blocked by a huge cave in.

 

“Back the way we came Horace, and quick, something bad is happening.”

 

We ran back past the bridge. As we entered the twisting path towards the graveyard, we ran into Oberon quite unexpectedly.

 

“Hello Horace, Miss Arghore. On an early stroll through the catacombs?”

 

“Hello Oberon. Something like that. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

 

Another thump seemed to shake the ground beneath our feet as to point out what exactly the question was about.

 

“Not the slightest clue young ones, but it felt urgent enough for me to make my way up from down below. Better safe than dead.”

“I think we agree on that, let’s move.”

 

There wasn’t a gargoyle to be seen on the path towards the gravesite, I figured they too had concluded this place was not safe anymore and had made their way somewhere else. I was right about that. As we turned left to enter the large room with the bridge over the old graves, we found it was filled with overly excited gargoyles, both juvenile and more adolescent ones.

Horace pointed behind us. The large grave chamber had caved in and early morning light shone through the ceiling. Here and there things were burning. Ahead there was light shining through the entrance of the Catacombs, but as of now, our route forward was blocked by these gargoyles.

 

“They won’t let us through without a fight”, Oberon pointed out “and the juveniles will follow the adolescent ones so it’ll be a tough fight.”

 

I grabbed my family stone again, but nothing happened.

 

“It will only work every so often, so if you used it recently it won’t be of much use now.”

 

“Thanks Oberon, I didn’t know that, so I guess I can put it away.”

 

“Did you train the minion skills I taught you?”

 

“Yes I have, and there is bound to be some fleshy corpses in that caved in grave room. Good thinking.”

 

“What about you Horace? Can you fight?”

 

Horace seemed somewhat out of it as he stared with glazy eyes. “What? Yes I can fight.”

 

“Horace is really a monk, so perhaps he should take the backline?”

 

“I’m not that much of a monk, I just know a few spells”, he said as he whispered his blue ball spell three times.

“Well maybe warrior will be a good second profession for him to pick up if we make it out of here alive, you can never swing a sword often enough.”

 

“Let me try and get some minions at least, to help him out”, I said as I walked to the entrance of the gravesite.

 

“It’s no use, they can’t make it over the rubble blocking the entrance, so it’s just the three of us for now.”

 

“So be it, Horace you take point, I’ll help you magnify your damage with a mark of pain, just keep hitting your target and the mark will do the rest”, Oberon said.

 

Horace let out a loud roar which made some gargoyles look our way. Then he just ran off towards them and started hacking with his blade. Oberon placed his mark of pain on the gargoyle he was hitting, on every hit a high pitched sound rang and several gargoyles around Horace were hit with shadow damage. The gargoyles dropped to the ground left and right.

 

Both Oberon and I threw hexes around and tried to raise as many minions as we could. It was quite a sight; gargoyle blood splattered around, minions raising where gargoyle had dropped. Bolts of various kinds of magic flew through the chamber and hexes flew from one side and the other.

 

Every time Horace slew a gargoyle he let out a roar and moved to the next. I even had to shout at him to remind him to heal himself. He seemed not the Horace I left with yesterday evening. Even when there were no more gargoyles standing, he kept hacking at a gargoyle corpse. When Oberon turned it into a minion, Horace was ready to release his fury on said minion.

 

“HORACE, NO!”

 

He stopped and looked around. He was covered in gargoyle blood and I was sure I could hear him mumble: “kill, kill, kill.”

During all this the thumps and bangs had not stopped, sometimes loud and nearby, other times soft and further away. It felt like it was raining heavy objects, but what exactly was going on was yet unclear.

 

“Let’s make our way out of here, before whatever it is makes this whole room cave in upon us.”

 

We marched over the bridge towards the exit of the catacombs, Oberon up front, then me, then Horace, followed by a whole pack of roaring minions.

 

As we exited the catacombs and adjusted our eyes to the morning light, it did not feel like a bright and sunny day. It looked more like the sky was ablaze and large boulders of fire rained from the sky. In the distance we could hear the warning bells and trumpets from the Estate. It was the day the Searing had begun. The charr were attacking Ascalon, and to make matters worse for us, a war band of about ten charr had spotted us and charged forward roaring like madmen.

 

“Brace yourselves, CHARR!”

 

Horace froze to the ground, then he fainted at the sight of these charr charging at us. Luckily for Oberon and myself the army of minions didn’t know fear, and seeing they had been trailing behind us the charr had probably not seen them when they thought us easy prey. About fifteen to twenty minions swarmed the charr. Oberon cast his mark of pain and other hexes, so did I. The minions formed a protective meat shield between us and the charr. For any that fell, a new corpse was ready to be turned into a minion. We did take some hits before the fight was over, as these charr were formidable archers. Oberon used a healing circle spell to keep us from harm.

 

“It also works great to keep minion’s alive”, he said after the fight.

 

Then came the hard part. We tried to wake Horace up but he was too far gone, and we couldn’t carry him. Necromancers are not exactly known for their physical power. Oberon had said we'd best leave him behind. There would be more charr soon. The way he was covered in blood any charr would think him for dead, and he was smart enough to save himself once he awoke.

 

We made our way towards the estate and were about to call for back up to retrieve Horace. The chaos that arose when a few of those burning rocks hit the estate made that impossible, not to mention the blowing horns of the charr, warning us they were not far away. We had to make sure we survived before going to rescue Horace. I did not see Horace again until about 2 years later…

 

The searing changed a lot for Ascalon, if not to say everything. Not only that, it changed people as well. Oberon had gone mad during the war, and I of all people had to take him out. He had been a mentor to me, and if it weren’t for him I doubt Horace and I would have made it past those gargoyles, let alone those charr. But in his madness he was a threat to the surviving population in Ascalon. He had to be taken out.

 

I met Horace in Ashford Abbey, or rather, Sardelac Sanitarium as it’s called today. When I met him the conversation was somewhat awkward.

 

“Hello Horace how are you doing, remember me?”

 

"Are you here to take me back? I don't want to go back. Don't take me back. I'm staying right here."

 

“Sure no problem. Do you remember anything from last time we saw each other?”

 

"ROCKS! ROCKS!" Horace laughed hysterically.

 

“And our mission?” I prompted.

 

"Pudding... all gone... the pudding with the yellow."

 

“Yeah you could think of it that way.”

 

"Where's my pudding?"

 

“Sorry... got any plans?”

 

"Here... yes, here... good."

 

Necromancer Munne had pulled me away from him and told me I best not talk to him too much, as he didn’t seem to like people talking to him. He had gotten quite some attention at the start of the Searing. He was found by a patrol, covered in blood, surrounded by about ten charr bodies. It had given a lot of heroes courage before going to the front. These charr could be killed! If one man could kill ten, how many could a regiment kill?

 

Munne said she didn’t understand how he had done it, as she knew Horace was a monk by profession. Seeing Horace stand there, somewhat lost in time, I could not bear to tell her the truth. The Searing had taken its toll on Horace, as it had done with so many. With this story he at least kept some dignity and honor.

 

That was years ago, and I feel I have to write this down for posterity as I will embark on what could be a final quest. Rumor has it that Lord Odran’s myths are true; that there are portals that connect the realm of the living with The Mists. After all that I have been through in the last few years, that isn’t too hard to believe. The Mists touch all things. They are what binds the universe together. Past, present, and future, so there is no telling if I will make my way back, or where or when I will turn up, if I find and enter the gates into The Mists.

 

Don’t think less of Horace. So he hadn’t slain those charr, but he fought bravely against those oozes and gargoyles and only the Gods know what he has been through during those two years I didn’t see him. And the necklace? Well, it existed long ago, and with the catacombs in the state they are now I doubt they will ever see the light of day again…

(Post Explanation: the necklace was an actual armor item in one of the early versions of GuildWars, it could be loaded up with a spell crystal of any profession and used once, after which the crystal had to be recharged again. It was meant as ‘a card up the sleeve’ and was/is the sometimes referred to ‘ninth skill slot’ in GuildWars. Obviously this item didn’t make it into the final game, and it was ‘lost’ in the mists of GuildWars’ past.)

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