Word of Traitors_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [1]
The lhesh understood that whomever he eventually named as his heir would need a strong symbol of power to bring the fractious Darguul clans into line. Haruuc had been in negotiations with the Kech Volaar, for many generations keepers of the lore of fallen Dhakaan, to bring the isolated clan into alliance with Darguun. From their stories, he had learned of an artifact passed down from emperor to emperor during the Dhakaani Age. This artifact, the Rod of Kings, had been forged from the same vein of the purple byeshk as the Sword of Heroes and a third artifact, the Shield of Nobles. The shield had been shattered and the rod and sword lost at different times before the fall of Dhakaan, but Geth’s recovery of the sword offered hope that the rod could be found as well. The rod would provide a potent symbol that could unite Darguun, and Haruuc had asked Geth to undertake the quest to recover it.
Geth accepted. Undergoing a ritual of duur’kala magic to wake the power dormant in the sword, he experienced memories of the great hobgoblin heroes who had wielded it during the time of the empire and found that through the sword he could sense the direction in which the rod lay. He set out from Haruuc’s capital of Rhukaan Draal to find it, accompanied by Ekhaas, Ashi, Chetiin, Midian, and Dagii of Mur Talaan, a young warlord in the service of Haruuc. The sword guided them to a hidden valley in the Seawall Mountains. Bypassing the camp of a savage tribe of Marguul bugbears, they descended into the valley where they discovered an untouched forest and a mysterious stone staircase of pre-Dhakaani design.
Before they could investigate, however, they were attacked by trolls and forced to flee—a flight that resulted in the capture of Ashi, Dagii, and Ekhaas by the bugbear tribe. Invoking the names of Haruuc and House Deneith brought no respect from Makka, the leader of the bugbears, and the trio was held under threat of being either sacrificed or sold as slaves. Geth, Chetiin, and Midian had managed to escape, however, and with the help of Chetiin’s cunning wolf-like mount, Marrow, they rescued the others, burning the bugbears’ camp in the process and leaving the tribe in disarray. Now armed with fire to ward off the trolls, they returned to the valley and descended the stairs to find an ancient shrine.
Within the shrine, a crevice led down to a strange cave where the withered corpse of a richly-dressed hobgoblin sat on a throne, clutching the rune-carved byeshk rod that they sought. As Geth tried to take the Rod of Kings, however, the apparent corpse moved and spoke, revealing that he was Dabrak Riis, the very emperor who had vanished with the rod thousands of years before. The cave was a forgotten place of power, the Uura Odaarii, or “Womb of Eternity,” where time did not pass and to which Dabrak Riis had retreated from the world with no idea of Dhakaan’s fall.
Attempts to persuade the lost emperor to give them the rod only made Dabrak angry, and revealed a power of the Rod of Kings unmentioned in any Kech Volaar legend: commands issued by Dabrak could not be resisted. The Sword of Heroes protected Geth from the power of the rod, but Dabrak had also mastered the strange power of the Uura Odaarii and used it to defeat the shifter. Geth’s heroic resistance gave Ashi the inspiration she needed to invoke her dragonmark, rendering her impervious to any form of mental domination or attack. Dabrak couldn’t affect her with the powers of either the rod or the cavern, but in the timeless place, she couldn’t harm him physically.
She found the answer to her dilemma in the skills that Vounn had driven into her, and struck a bargain with Dabrak for the rod and the release of the others. When Dabrak went back on his word, however,