When I speak of legends in reference to the Briar King and his Rose, my choice of word is perhaps misleading. What I should be saying is.. fables. Stories for mothers to tell their children late at night to keep them in line with healthy fear. As time has passed in Carver's Outpost, the story of the demon and his witch consort dwindled to a mere ghost story. A verse.. if you will, which falls in eerie singsong refrain from the lips of a child.

In it, it speaks of the great betrayal of the Briar King against his brother, Taltos who had a tender for a young woman named.. Rose'Elle. One look at Rose'Elle and Asmodeus fell hard to the sin of lust, soon plotting to sweep the only obstacle in his path aside, which was Taltos who was courting her.

The rhyme is sketchy on whether Asmodeus killed his brother or buried him alive but in either case, Taltos vanished from Carver's Outpost and Rose'Elle was devastated. Nothing Asmodeus could do would heal her broken heart and soften her towards him.

In a moment of keen frustration, he made a most wicked pact with dark, terrible forces who did indeed grant him the power to bind the reluctant Rose to him.. but also increased his appetite for destruction by ten fold. He was an out of control tyrant, killing any who opposed him with a viciousness which couldn't be allowed.

Seven mages came together in hopes to stop him, but all they could muster was a binding spell which pens him within the confines of the Amberleaf Weald. They were unable to kill him, nor could they sever the inexplicable bond between him and his Rose.

A bond he would use to his advantage.. long after Rose'Elle's death.

But what if I can raise Taltos back to the land of the living? Would he not exact a terrible revenge against his brother? Or I could at the very least speak to his spirit. Perhaps he knows of an Achilles' heel I could use that no one else knew about. It is all farfetched but I refuse to believe that Asmodeus is invincible. After all he is kept prisoner in the Weald!

But if I hope to reach Taltos I will need someone who can cross the boundaries between the living and the dead and that is why I write this to you from beneath the outstretched branches of an ancient gnarled oak.

Calliope is resting and sampling the tender shoots of grass in the clearing a few feet from me. I am not in my own forest.. I seek the ghost of Gloumenwood.. a Necromancer whose name came to me as a curse upon the lips of an old Gypsy woman. Warrick the Wise.

[0 petals fell]