[center][h1][color=007263][i]The Southern Tip of Ansus[/i][/color][/h1][/center]

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	An icy breeze swept in from the ocean, flowing through the leafless trees to break against the foothills of the mountains that dominated 
the island further inland. There was a time, many thousands of years ago, when the isle was considered cursed by the presence of a dreadful warrior. Man was good at forgetting what they deemed unpleasant. 

	A small coastal village had sprung up where once the ground had been painted with corpses. Houses and buildings made mostly of stone reclaimed from ancient ruins and thatched roofs stood in little clusters with a well-worn track of dirt running between them, and along the beach fishing boats were pulled up away from the surf and weighed down with some of the same stone to stop them from sliding into the ocean whilst untended.

	A simple existence, isolated from the goings on of the continent to the north. They did trade, yes, but mostly with villages further along the coast and other nearby islands. For the most part they were complacent in this life, sure the occasional youth would sail off on his own or join in with a party of raiders, but otherwise nothing ever happened on the island, and most folk were sure nothing ever would.

	Of course, those were adults. For a child, even the mundane forests an hours walk inland were a source of adventure and excitement. So it was that a band of village children had worked their way into the woods with all the daring of youth, and even now urged each other to go farther yet than ever before. Four in all, these boys had the dark hair and sun-tanned skin of their forefathers, and most fisher folk. The ground had begun to slope up before them, the trees thinning, and as they crested a rise the face of a mountain flatted by time rose before them, at its base a loose scattering of stones that their untrained eyes did not recognize for the foundations of a once mighty keep, stripped bare by the islanders over millennia. 

	The sun reached its peak in the sky as they came abreast of the ruins, silent now as if by some youthful intuition they understood that this place had, once, been more than it seemed. The only sounds that could be heard were the scuff of feet on rocks and the whistling wind as they edged forward, still curious despite their trepidation. A tremor shook the earth beneath them, sending them screaming back towards the trees, having seen enough for one day.

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	In a vault closed off from the ravages of time, an ancient entity stirred for the first time since his death. All that remained of his essence had been confined within that mask for an unfathomable amount of time, dwindling until it was scarcely different from stone or sand in its capacity. Then, it felt an unfamiliar pressure, a bemusing and foreign sensation that it eventually identified as [i]pain[/i]. It was ignored for a time, but slowly the ramifications of its presence came into focus, and Balor opened his eyes to see… a slab of stone, heavy as two horses, which was crushing his body.

	[i]What is this?[/i] He pondered. The last thing he could remember was a field of fire, the corpses of men, dragons, and angels as far as the eye could see through the thick haze of war. [i]I died. I have been… sealed… away.[/i] Strength was returning to his limbs, or at least he was becoming aware of them. He pushed, but his arms were pinned and he had no leverage, he was well and truly stuck. Then he remembered the mask he wore. Calling its energy to him for the first time in he knew not how long proved difficult, but after hours of straining he released a concussive blast that sent the tablet flying to shatter against the cavern’s ceiling. 

	Chunks rained down on him, frustrating his attempts to sit up for a time, but eventually he managed to swing his feet over the edge of the altar and stand on shaky legs, casting a curious gaze at his surroundings. An octagonal stone chamber, once a chapel to Oraum which had been desecrated long before Balor first arrived at this keep. Yes, he recognized this place, Thandlarax. Home, or so it once had been. Now it was clear some time had passed, if not by the state of the chamber then by the altar behind him.

	Powerful inscriptions laced the whole of the surface, with their nexus where his head had once lain. When consecrated to Oraum, they should have held him fast for a thousand years, even with the power of his mask escape would have been futile. They were dead. Such a time had passed that he could not sense the faintest whisper of power, what remained could not have held a spider in place.
[i]What has happened here? What… will I find above?[/i] Reaching for his scabbard, he saw that his sword was missing, an image of his arm spinning away flashed into his mind and was gone. Lost on the field of battle, unfortunate. Unfortunate indeed. He was beginning to understand the magnitude of his dilemma, and with that a cold fire was returning to his heart. With a wave of fire he blasted open the barred stares, scaling them only to find his way blocked once more, but by now he had regained the ability to make short work of these barricades.

	What he found on the surface, when the smoke cleared, was light, blinding light such as he had never felt before. He clutched at his eyes, falling insensate for a time from the shock, when he rose he saw that no two stones remained standing on top of each other. Turning to the mountain he shouted a phrase in a cursed tongue, the line of a doorway appeared in the sheer cliff face, but the [i]Invisible Gates[/i] lacked the strength to open, and they were too great a barrier for him to pass with force.

	“Athos!” he called at the stone, his gravelly voice echoing off the wall, hoping for a response, any response from within. With clenched fists, he looked over his shoulder to where the smoke from cook fires rose above the tree line. He set out for the coast.