The people of Vlastarus endeavour just to survive in a world that keeps trying to destroy them. From the dispassionate occupation of the ever fluctuating banners, to ruthless bandit gangs, savage goblin tribes, and necromancers raising dead from their graveyards. But it was when the dead began to rise unsolicited from the nearby Ayleid ruins of Ceyatatar that they may just have begun to suspect that the whole of Mundas has it in for them.

Regular ghosts would be bad enough, but these are the spirits of Hadhuul the Fire King’s notorious army who have somehow retained through quietus, their ability to summon and control flame atronachs. Ghosts will oft retain their power to cast simple destruction spells beyond the grave, perhaps it is that their magic becomes so much a part of their identity that it remains with them through death, but rarely have I seen or heard of ghosts that retain their ability to summon other entities. I mean, what self respecting daedra would want to be commanded by a dead mortal.

The townsfolk have a cunning plan to use an attuned crystal to collect essences of flame from the atronachs to prevent them from being resummoned, but first they require a hired hand to dispatch them. Luckily for them I have had no better offer this evening; not for lack of searching could I find a gambling hall, or bawdy house nearby. As I cut through the atronachs one by one, I watch with fascination their bodies crumble to dust, their essences rise into the air dancing in the dusk like shooting stars, and then disappearing into the crystal.

Only when I feel I have done enough do I venture to challenge the ghost of the fire king himself. This was not a request from Vlastarus, this is purely for my own pride. Rarely it is that one gets to face an opponent of such repute. Perhaps not since the Worm King raised the Yokudan heroes against us in the Ancestral Crypts beneath the Valley of Blades; not counting of course my encounter with the Lord of Brutality himself, for a thousand, thousand souls had my back on that day.

S.K