Greetings and salutations reader! I assume you are familiar with my great works, Funtasions in the Cosms of Thought, A Burlesque Approach to Dimensional Rifting, The Confounding of the Temporal Inversion, and my latest work, The Opus of Sanguineous Sobriety Through the Modern Age. I dare say they are classics of their own right. Yet, if you are the poor few who are not familiar with my works or the sadder bits of fleshly mediocrity who have not heard of my renown, I take this moment to bless your eyes and ears with my humble introduction. I am Sir Thaddeus Qunicy of the Eleventeenth Court of Bardic Mystics, and Lord Temporaneus Mysteriosum Magorium, Holder of The Quandrinomicon, and Keeper of the Key of Destiny. Humble servant at your service. And though you cannot see me through these written words, know that I have dispatched my hat from atop my head, and am bowing lowly before your presences in honor of the occasion in which we celebrate your now knowledge of who I am. I inquizzicate your ponderance and wonder, as I reel your mind on the gossimer strands of words and story. When last we met our intrepid band of Fenrir’s Fame, they had left the vile gurgletry that permeated the streets of Stormspire, and had headed to the center of the Earth aboard the runthinkating vessel of none other than Silas the Great, Technowizard of Thermopolis. Keegan, ThorFrid, Turag, Benna and Sister Rebecca all surrounded the astoundingly massive trunk of the nutritiously eternal Millennium Tree, Avladrissil. Basking beneath the breadth of its beams and branches, the party unionized their minds in a trance communing with the deciduous sage of ages. "Tells us about Morgana" Benna began the inquisitioning of the tree. Her hope was to see a fair picture and location of her mother who she never had the opportunity to meet. Yet, the tree provided no visionation to saurianate her desire. Instead it granted the images of various women through a passage of time. Benna saw war, and great destruction that irraviantly shook her mind in horror. She saw death follow. "Are all these women the same Morgana?" Benna thought. The tree responded with warm light passing through its dense leafed branches. "That must mean a 'Yes'." The tree again responded with light passing through its leaves. "If this is Morgana and she is evil, how can we defeat her?" The tree's branches seemed to shake and leaves appeared to fall revealing barren branches. The peerilook of it caused the most cold of feeling that scattered across the pinsulators on the skin. But suddenly warmth returned as the light shone once more through the branches. These two visions repeated over and over sequentially until they realized the tree was unsure or did not have an answer. Fenrir's party learned from the tree that Morgana is not endless. Rather, the entity that is Morgana came in cycles. Though the tree knew not how to beat her, it was sure she could be beat. Nevertheless, she could not be destroyed just as little as the shadow could destroy the light, she could only be pushed back. ThorFrid in all her curiosity wanted to know if Thor was older than Morgana. The tree showed a woman standing over the birth of Thor as a meager walluppersnack. "How powerful is Morgana?" From this question a mountain appeared with an ancient stairway that seemed to stretch up the mountain side and continue passed the mist covered peak into the heaven's beyond. Upon the steps of the gloricated stone stairs Fenrir saw themselves. First, wee Benna stood on the first few steps smiling sweetly. Up the way a bit she was joined by Keegan the Stout. A way up the steps stood a strange masked woman swaying lithfully back and forth confused by her present company. Following almost immediately on the next step was ThorFrid. Finally, the long-necked Turag stood resolutely five or six steps up the mountainside stairs. Lastly, the vision took them several leagues up the steps, at least three times the distance from Benna to Turag. There at this distance stood the wretched woman of their inquizzications. "Who was that masked woman, you showed us, Tree?" Questioned Benna. At that moment at very equatorous trunk of the tree a masked woman was pulled into existence. She seemed startled but confident, and was surrounded by six skeletal minions with crooked jaws and bedecked with tattered priestly rags and religious trinkets. The name Anakhet came to Fenrir's mind. And the names of Fenrir came to Anakhet's mind. Seeing Anakhet before her, Benna thought, "Who can help us defeat Morgana, Tree?" The tree did not show Anakhet, but a man across the sea in a cave dressed in sagely robes of vibrant motley colors of heliotrope, xanthous and vermilion. The man had dark sorrel colored hair and beard, and was chained away in his darkly cavernous hovel. They concluded this was Merlin of old trapped in the Crystal Cave. "Where is this cave?" The tree was unsure, but reminded Fenrir of the cartouche found in Benna's mother's puzzle box in the catacombs beneath Castle Refuge. Fenrir then changed topics. "Who is Gawain? Where is he? How can he help us? How can we find him?" The tree informed them with the impressions that Gawain could be found by bringing the cartouche up to the Golden Spruce Millenium tree in Calgary. Though, there were some impressions that Gawain was once good and delightsome, but is now dark and in hiding. Unsure of how to proceed, Rebecca wanted to use the cartouche to perform a ritual to delve deeper into its past to discover the whereabouts of this cave. Upon retrieving the cartouche from his pack, Keegan found it glowing. In touching it, his mind became locked in a battle of his psyche with the same dark force seen in the hole that swallowed Krampus! Keegan lost to this force, and rendered his form from Rock Dwarf to Red Cap who had a sickly obsession with bathing himself in blood! To add insult to injury when trying to gather the objects needed for Rebecca's object read spell, Benna's past caught up to her...or more like her father's past. One of the Avalonians recognized the scion of The Butcher Baron and ushered Fenrir out of the Center of the Earth. Benna was so angry she nearly broke her vow of non-violence. The group set to a vote: Go to Canada to find Gawain, or go to England to find Merlin. Because they still did not have exact location of the Crystal Cave in England, the majority desired to head to Canada. Also, Silas refused to take his submarine up the leyline to England, meaning the party would have to make a sea voyage if they were to go to England. Three days later, they arrived on the surface at End of the Line. Fenrir returned to Castle Refuge to check on Norlig and retrieve Tut, Benna's massive slobbery Dogboy companion. Rebecca tried the ritual once more. She easily did this with the aid of Apollo's gift that allowed her to duplicate herself 20 times! She discovered in her ritual the exact location of the Crystal Cave. After the ritual closed, Apollo spoke to her and stated that he would no longer allow the abuse of the power for fear that he would soon break the accords for all gods to not interfere with Rifts Earth. He said he would provide her a different boon. Even with this new information Fenrir failed to heed Turag's and Benna's warning to avoid Canada. But who listens to old slow talking windbag and precocious non-confrontational children, anyways? That was not rhetorical dear reader! The venerable Sir Thaddeus never presents socratical rhetoric...It is absurd and unnatural! The answer reader is one of two variety, the reckful (those who abstain from recklessness) and gunklebucks who have a propensity for enjoying boredom. Away the flew! Wait...no they were reminded of the Dragon Kingdoms that ruled the skies from End of the Line to Castle Rock. Instead, they paid $250,000 credits to ship the Mark V (K-Dawg 2) on a Leyline Freighter train to Castle Rock. After a total of 8 days from the Center of the Earth to now, they arrived in the blissfully dismal Warfield of Calgary. Whereupon the spot the Golden Spruce Millenium Tree and several leagues from its growing roots an encampment of armies. Straddling nearly a quarter of one encampment was a 40 ft tall fiend from the Abyssal Realm wielding a blade of Legend appearing not too dissimilarly from the sword Caliburn seen in Geoffrey of Monmouth books of old, or Excalibur as some may recall. The giant demon turned toward the flying Mark V and shouted gritoriously, "That is unfair of you, Morgana bringing arcane tech to aid in your escape from me!" Keegan the Red Cap hatched a plan at that very moment. The Sword! He needed that sword. With his new invisibility abilities rendered as a Red Cap, the Cyber Knight launched himself from the fuselage of the K-Dawg upon the sworded Damon's shoulder and in an epic battle of strength only a God could win, the fairfolked burglar stole away with the Sword, Necromonica. The Sword immediately reduced in size and whispered its dark and deceitful lies in Keegan's ear. "I could help you bring justice and fairness to all the land...give yourself to me...and all of it shall be yours..." What other dark secrets will the sword whisper? Will they they discover the trickery and hidden nature of the fallen one, Gawain? When will Merlin be found? When will they traverse the seas to skirt the shores of England to discover his cave? These and all your other questions will be answered fair reader in the next chapter of this intrepid story. Until next time esteemed reader and fellow inquizzicator! I bid thee farewell.
