Mace of Reaving
Not far away from Andratha's tower is a small, hidden temple of Talos where devout followers of the evil Lord of Storms and Destruction run a hostel for brigands on the run and dedicate themselves to organizing destructive raids on outlying hamlets, small caravans, and undefended herds of cattle (to gain them¬selves food). Darthin, doorwarden of the temple, is sorely wounded while fighting off a vengeful band of mercenaries hired by a merchant who escaped temple-sponsored brigands and did not forgive nor forget the loss of six wagons of trade goods. While recovering, the doorwarden muses on what sort of surprising magic he might wield to defend the temple doors more or less alone —and find victory.
Out of his dreams swims a vivid vision, night after night, of himself standing at the open temple door on a clear summer night with lightning cleaving the starry sky along the distant horizon,
while angry priests of Lathander lead forces to assault the temple. Darthin raises the mace in his hand —and it spouts fire to strike down one attacker. He swings it again, at empty air, and magical bolts —like a wizard's magic missiles —burst forth from it to smite another Lathanderian. And then, as the servants of the Morn- inglord all shout and charge, smashing at his body with their own hammers and maces, Darthin feels healing power flooding through him from the mace and keeps his feet, hurling these foes back from the sacred threshold.
He awakes shouting in exultation. After the same vision comes for the third night, Darthin informs his superiors. The Master Reaver, head of the temple, sleeps in the same room the next night with his sacred storm staff laid across both men to link their sleep¬ing bodies from cot to cot. In his dreams, the Master shares Darthin's vision. In the morning, the Master tells Darthin that he is released from all other duties until he has created the mace seen in the vision—and that he has a free hand with temple resources and to command his fellow priests to accomplish this making.
Immediately Darthin goes to the temple smith and tells him to fashion a mace from the last precious adamant ore struck by the divine lightning of Talos in the Stormcall ritual of last Midsummer night. "For the glory of Talos, let it be the best mace you have ever made," Darthin says, and after hearing the tale of the vision, the
wonder-struck smith agrees. The doorwarden then withdraws into the darkest temple cellar to fast and pray to Talos for guid¬ance, seeking visions to direct him as to how to make the mace.
He sees himself slaying a wizard barehanded, calling on the name of Talos as he strangles the man and endures the pain of a frantic barrage of magic missiles from the wand the wizard wields and has thrust desperately into Darthin's ribs —the wand Darthin staggers away with after the man is dead. Darthin takes careful mark of the wizard's face in the vision.
The next vision he sees is of his own face lit by flickering flames rising from his own hands in the very cellar he is sitting in. Obviously, Talos wants Darthin to craft the mace's fire magic himself. Modifying a flame blade spell should make a good begin¬ning.
The last vision takes almost a tenday to come. It is of himself on his knees, holding the mace, which has been anointed with a glis¬tening ointment. All of the senior priests of the temple, dressed in full ceremonial robes, hold forth their hands in unison to cast healing spells on him— and the ointment boils away from the mace like smoke roiling away from a fire.
Darthin tells the Master Reaver of what he has seen, omitting no detail, and they discuss what must be done. The Master agrees to devote time to improving the rituals of purification and conse¬cration of items to Talos and to set the senior priests to the task of
Darthin dedicates the mace of reaving to Talos's service.
modifying the known process of creating a staff of curing to imbue an item with the ability to cure serious wounds.
Armed with good walking shoes, as much small coin as the temple can spare, and a variety of garments intended to make dis¬guises possible, Darthin sets out to find the wizard in his vision. It takes him over a year, keeping to port cities having the crowded alleyway settings he saw in his vision of the battle, to find the man, and a few months more to corner him alone to perform his das¬tardly assault. But when their struggle occurs, it happens just as in Darthin's vision. More dead than alive, Darthin seizes the hard-won wand and staggers away, calling on Talos to see him safely home.
The god obliges, and after a long, painful journey, Darthin returns to the temple in triumph to find that the Master Reaver is similarly jubilant over the capture of a priest of Gond. Negotiations between the Talassans and the Gondar to regain their brother have ended in the release of the Gondar priest and the delivery to the Talassan temple of a scroll containing the clerical prayer version of the wizardly spell dweomer divination, which will allow the priests to examine the magical workings of the wand.
Darthin finds that the mace itself was completed long ago and has been taken to hired mages to have magic missiles cast at it sev¬eral times, as well as being touched by priests unleashing healing spells and shrouded in the flames of fiery spells at the high altar of the temple. The mace and the wand are placed together on the
altar, and Darthin, the temple smith, and the Master Reaver begin a vigil around it —a vigil that lasts for a day and a night before the exhausted men fall asleep.
They soon wake, as Talos sends lightning snapping out of the mace to strike the hammered steel lightning bolts that adorn the four corner pillars of the holy sanctuary and rebound again. The men wake to discover that they have shared the same visions: First and last comes a scene of the mace floating amid lightnings, drifting slowly nearer as the echoing voice of Talos intones: "Let this mace of reaving be wielded always in true service to me. Take care that it serve no other." Between those identical visions come scenes of the anointing of the mace and its dedication to Talos at the altar; then the weapon flashing with lightning strikes as it stands, planted head uppermost in the ground, on a stormswept hilltop; Darthin kneel¬ing as the assembled senior clergy cast healing magic into the (dif¬ferently) anointed mace; and then the ritual of transference, at which all the priests and novices of the temple are gathered around the altar while arcs of magical energy crackle between the mace and the captured wand and both float above the altar. The three holy men of Talos agree to follow the procedures they have seen without delay and set about it.
First, holy water is newly consecrated to Talos, and taken forth in blessed jugs to be touched by lightning during a storm on a nearby hilltop where the priests have set up a tall metal pole in the shape of a lightning bolt. Focal stone spells are cast on some of the temple's store of gems, and Darthin sets to work modifying a flame blade prayer to produce a firebolt spell, ending up with a 4th-level spell that could probably have been more quickly derived from a produce fire prayer, and creates a jet of flame that can leap out up to 40 feet (length controlled by the caster), that forces item saving throws vs. magical fire on all flammable substances it touches, and that deals 2d4+8 points of damage.
While Darthin is repeatedly revising and testing his firebolt prayer to Talos in seclusion in the cellar, a well-armed delegation from the temple has taken a focal stone to a wizard and hired him to cast magic missile into it. They pay him handsomely in temple gold and provide for him a copy of the dweomerflow spell used in the transference.
The firebolt and cure serious wounds spells find their ways into focal stones by the same process, and then all three stones are placed, with the mace, in the specially prepared holy water, in a deep bowl sacred to the Destroyer. A prayer is offered to Talos, an eternal flame spell is cast on the mace, and the priests chant the most holy Stormcall ritual. Lightning bursts forth from the holy water, the mace rises to levitate above the altar, and the water and the focal stones are consumed.
The jubilant Master Reaver dedicates the floating mace to Talos and is struck senseless when he touches it. Darthin hesitantly reaches out for the floating weapon and finds no harm come to him as he takes it from its floating position and leads the assem¬bled priests in a procession out to the hilltop. There the mace is planted upright, as shown in the vision, within a ring of guardian priests. A storm begins over the hilltop before the group led by Darthin even reaches the temple again, and lightnings begin to stab at the mace in a furious display that sends the guardians flee¬ing to the base of the hill to watch in exalted wonder.
When the storm passes, Darthin takes the mace to his cot and falls asleep clutching it to his breast. The visions he had earlier, both of guarding the temple threshold and of the making of the mace, are repeated.
It is several days before the Master Reaver is well enough to lead the other senior clergy in simultaneous castings of cure seri¬ous wounds. Darthin uses this time to compound and purify the ointment with which the mace will be anointed. (It contains pow¬dered ruby and lodestone, pure essential glowflower oil, and tin- gleberries harvested with a curved silver knife dedicated to Talos during the dark of the moon.) The scene shown in the vision is duplicated, and then the mace is left under guard at the altar for priests to say prayers of thanks to Talos over it.
All of the holy men and women of the temple, priests and novices, assemble the next day to hear the Master Reaver's direc¬tions. The ritual of transference is planned for several days later, and all clergy are ordered to either pray to Talos for that spell if they are able to or to pray for a combine spell instead if they are of lesser rank, so that all can participate. The ritual takes place, is successful, and is followed by an awakening.
Darthin then wields the mace, calling on its powers to demon¬strate that they work. As hymns are sung to Talos, the Master Reaver casts permanency prayer on the mace, using a blood, link spell first to transfer the necessary sacrifice of Constitution to a willing devout lay worshiper.
Talos decrees that the mace shall be a permanent magical item, requiring only recharging by a wizard casting magic missile to keep that power operable. The fire and healing abilities need no charges to function, and one magic missile spell put into the mace allows it to fire a dozen 1d4+ 1 magic missile, one or two in the same round (as the wielder desires). The mace can absorb a dozen of these magic missile spells at maximum to be recharged, and as a benefit from the god, they do not need to be placed into the mace with a dweomer flow spell. (They must be specifically tar¬geted into the mace, however, to recharge it; they are not just automatically absorbed as if the mace were a brooch of shielding.) Darthin is charged by the god through a vision with the task of developing a priest version of magic missile to charge the mace with in the future.
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