Gorthen blinked in surprise, "You truly do have a knack for losing your memory, my friend. The Fountain of Youth was a simple acquisition, and a welcome one after its waters shaved off near-on 25 years of my life, but that was nearly two months ago. If you remember our plans before we set off for it, the fountain was a convenient detour to our next target. Lorya's temple at the edge of the Ingyar Plains was our next destination. When we arrived, we had Lorya call her patron goddess before us so that I could ask for a few tears. Initially, she refused me, but it was during this time that an undead being simultaneously calling himself Banefaust and Terror appeared. He attacked us, and never have I seen such a powerful being. It was all we could do to survive, but impossible for everyone. Lorya was killed by the horrible creature; her very life leeched away. Laughing, the fiend left us to mourn.
"However, fool that I am, I didn't want to believe that my closest friend was lost to us. I beseeched the goddess for her tears. With the reagents we'd gathered already, I believed I could create a shortcut ambrosia, not granting pure godhood, but creating in Lorya the power of an avatar and, hopefully, bringing her back to life. This time, she agreed. As I mixed the ingredients, I heard your Slash telling the rest of the group that he sensed in Banefaust the same spirit, perhaps the Terror, that his father had told us of in the Land of the Dead. He thought that Terror was the thing that had destroyed yours and my villages. When I finished the small dose of partial ambrosia, I gave it to Lorya.
"To all our horror, she awakened violently and began turning to undead. It was then that our ears were assaulted by the laughter of Banefaust, back again to gloat. Lorya went to him; there was nothing any of us could do to stop her. Her incubus master called, she told us. Just as abruptly as he'd arrived, they both left." Gorthen had slowly been growing emotional, and he wiped a tear from his alligator eye, "I remember breaking down, then, for the first time since childhood. It was all my fault. I asked the goddess what had gone wrong. Respecting my grief, she observed the ingredients I'd used and told me solemnly that the seeds I'd used weren't from the Tree of Life like we'd originally thought. If they had been, she agreed that my plan would have worked. It was by luck that the goddess held Lorya deeply in her heart, and felt grace enough to tell me a means to redeem myself. She told me about a different potion I could mix that might restore Lorya from undeath. It would require some of the sacred nectar we'd gathered from the Celestial Valley, a powdered vampire fang and an angel's feather dissolved in hydra acid, and, finally, a golden dragon scale.
"Pushing aside my emotion, I thanked the goddess and led us all to where we might begin collecting this new set of reagents. Shortly after obtaining the vampire's fang, we ran into a group that you vouched for, led by a woman named Drakona. We learned from her that she was actually in this country to track down the dragon sire of her tribe east of the Nevrean Sea. There was unrest in her village, and she was supposed to alert the dragon of the situation. He happened to be a gold dragon, so we offered to help her out. She would be the only way any of us would be able to find a gold dragon, since she had a ring that would lead her to him. The hardest reagent would be easily acquired with her help.
"It was shortly after our joining that Lorya and Banefaust came again as we were passing through a small village. They both attacked us, which was far more devastating than just Banefaust. Lorya had still gained the power of an avatar from my potion. During this conflict you were injured and had to retreat into one of the buildings. Come to think of it, it might have been a head injury, so you may have passed out. Lorya still had her white magic, and was using it to attack. RenDe, of all people, was countering her with his black magic. They were pushing enormous blasts of white and black power between them. I'm still not sure what I was thinking, but I threw a blast of earth magic into the fray. The next thing I can remember was being in an enormous explosion of magical energy. I think the maelstrom of opposed forces ripped a hole in space that sucked some of us through. As I was saying, this is generally how I created my harp gates, so I can kind of understand why. I have no idea how many of us wound up here from our group. You are the first person I've seen." Gorthen finished his recount of past but recent events with a sigh. He looked at Covallok, "Is it coming back at all? I can't imagine why Slash may have forgotten." Despite the sad story, he grinned slightly, "Unless he decided to be lazy and leave the explanation up to me."
