Free Catalon

Description
The evil pentarch, Pr'aal, must be found and somehow killed. If this is not done soon, the lands of Catalon will fall into his hands. You must enlist the help of the Dancers to aid you in your quest. It is rumoured that they used to be based in the Ice Tower, in the southwest of the area. After this, free the lands of Catalon once and for all. To do this, you must find a way to the top of the Grey Tower, and defeat Angus. This must be achieved soon after the death of Pr'aal, or he will re-cast his terrible spell, with dire consequences!

Chapter 1 - In the beginning
From what I can gather, the lands of Catalon were once a peaceful, rural area, but that all changed when the local Lord, Angus, started dabbling with alchemy and black magic. He changed from a good, well-natured person into an evil, scheming one, who cared for nobody but himself. After this, he became obsessed with one objective: to rule the lands of Catalon, and one day Zebedee itself.

I have come to the conclusion that after several years, he decided that to achieve his goals, he needed to become immortal. I have looked into this, and research tells me that the only way to do this is to separate one's chaotic nature from one's logical soul. He must have found a spell to do just that, and in his eagerness to become a God, he cast it. Something must have gone wrong, because the spell managed to seperate him into two factions, and then kill him.

After this point, myself, the four other Dancers, and the evil Pr'aal came to be. Pr'aal instantly took a dislike to us, and we could tell from his manner that he was the logical side of Angus. We therefore must be Angus's chaotic side. Pr'aal teleported away, and with the tower collapsing around us, we quickly blasted a hole in the side of the tower and made our escape.

Chapter 2 - Setting up bases
Pr'aal set about taking over the Red Tower, situated in the northeast plains. In doing so he summoned many minions to do his evil deeds, and then decided to guard it himself - day and night. I don't know if he ever sleeps, but I expect he doesn't trust any of his creatures enough to guard the tower whilst he does so. I've certainly never believed that he needed sleep anyway.

As most of his power is generated by the Red Tower, Pr'aal chose to make it his home. However in binding his power with that of the tower, he has become more than a little dependent on it. Leaving the tower would probably weaken him a great deal, possibly to the extent that he wouldn't be any stronger than all of us put together.

In order to get ourselves as far away from Pr'aal as possible, we relocated to the Ice Tower in the southwest. It was here that we built our limited defenses, but we knew that no matter how hard we tried, we would always be the weaker of the two factions. When Angus cast his fateful spell, evil and twisted logic had almost completely taken over him.

Chapter 3 - The years of war
After a few months of preparation, Pr'aal launched the first of many attacks against us. He blasted several magical attacks at the Ice Tower, and our counter attacks were unable to damage his well-protected Red Tower. He had prepared too well, and we couldn't make a single dent in his fortress, no matter what we cast at it.

The several years of war have left the landscape barren and blasted, certainly unrecognisable from what it looked like before the war began. The once kind and considerate townspeople, from the town in the northwest, have since turned into selfish, crazy people. The white lady tells me that most of them have left now.

But you cannot prevent the inevitable and as time passed, the day of our final defeat was fast approaching. Despite having killed some of Pr'aal's minions over the years, we had been unable to scratch the Red Tower whatsoever. Our own tower had been less fortunate to say the least, and large cracks were beginning to develop within its structure. With our magical defenses drained, it would not have been long before the tower collapsed around us.

Chapter 4 - Our last chance
We had to come up with a plan, and fast. We decided to combine all of our magic into creating a powerful Barbarian, by the name of D'ram. It was hoped that he would then be powerful enough to kill Pr'aal. However, this caused us to be drained of most of our remaining energy, from the casting of such a powerful spell. If the plan failed, Pr'aal would surely destroy our tower in seconds.

Of course, we did have a small contingency plan. If D'ram failed in his quest, it was hoped that Pr'aal would be weakened enough for us to finish him off. The plan was to cast a mass teleport spell at Pr'aal, once we heard the Shield of the Fates drop to the floor, which would happen on D'ram's death.

After a few days, we did indeed hear the sound of the shield as it dropped to the floor. So we all teleported to Pr'aal, and I attempted to strike him down. Unfortunately my attack rebounded instantly, and he hit me with such strength that I was forced to run away. At this point we all turned to run, but he cast a curse spell at all of us as we did so.

Chapter 5 - Masterplan foiled
Obviously, I have no real idea what happened, but my best guess is this: D'ram found the Red Tower after a few day's travel. Pr'aal was taken aback by this and D'ram struck first, gaining the initiative in the fight. He probably beat Pr'aal, and was about to strike him down, but somehow Pr'aal tricked him.

This made D'ram stop for an instant, at which point Pr'aal trapped him in the shield. I know this happened at some point, because D'ram is in the shield right now. However, I have no idea why he would have done this instead of killing D'ram.

When we teleported to Pr'aal, I took the shield from the floor, and noticed it had been drained of all of its power. Pr'aal must have used it in a spell of some kind. It is plausible that during the fight, he lost his energy shield and thus used the shield after the battle to recharge it.

After that, he either dropped the shield because he had no further use for it, or on purpose to trick us. If he had charmed D'ram, he might read his mind and thus learnt of our plan. I don't know what really happened, but fluke or not, it was definitely a masterstroke by Pr'aal.

Chapter 6 - Running away
As D'ram's equipment wasn't dropped by Pr'aal when he dropped the shield, it must have been used in his spell after the battle. I suppose it is possible that he just destroyed the equipment, so we could not get our hands on it. That would have stopped any possibility of us making another D'ram.

The fact that my attack bounced off Pr'aal's shield means one of two things. Either D'ram's attacks had no effect on it, or he used the shield to recharge it after the battle. The latter is a far more likely explanation in my opinion, but it really doesn't matter now. D'ram failed, and as a result we are now trapped in our current locations. Pr'aal's curse spell was so powerful that we were prevented from moving, once each of us stopped running.

Thankfully, I managed to reach the Ice Tower before I ran out of energy. I am really not too sure where the other Dancers got to, although we do keep in telepathic contact to an extent. We have all agreed to only talk to someone once they say our real name. Then we will ask a riddle to test that person's true nature, and if they answer correctly we will reward them. In my case that means giving the shield away, so my riddles are very difficult.

Chapter 7 - Our eternity in hiding
Through our telepathy, we all decided that our best course of action was to create a miniature item each. This way, it might be possible to get D'ram out of the shield some day. Because he only had four items, and I had the Shield of the Fates, we decided that each of the others would create an item each. This also meant that I could concentrate my efforts on the defence of our tower.

It took several years to create these items, but we believe it will be worth it. However, as none of us can move, it will require some outside influence to help us achieve our goal. I believe that the other dancers have managed to perfect a clone spell, but our telepathy is not that great, so I am unsure of the exact details of this. To give some advice to anyone who wishes to help us, the white lady's name is in many phrases - more than it actually should be.

However, it has taken us several years to achieve all of this. It is hard to believe that Pr'aal hasn't managed to strengthen his own defences in that time. We designed D'ram's sword to be able to pierce his shield, but since he managed to destroy that, I don't think there is any weapon that can do so anymore. Now his defenses are probably so strong, that most weapons can't hit him at all!

Chapter 8 - The final chapter
These days, it seems that Pr'aal has stopped his attacks on the Ice Tower. I assume this is because he knows that we don't live there anymore, I doubt he thought any of us would have got as far as this tower when we ran away. On that note, he seems unable to locate us either, for we have felt no such spells upon us, or near us. He seems content to cast untargetted spells at the landscape, in a vain attempt to kill us by chance.

However these spells cause considerable damage to the landscape, and I guess it is only a matter of time until one strikes true and kills one of us. There is nothing we can do to prevent this as it stands. I also fear that one day he will become impervious to ALL attacks, at which point Catalon will be his.

Our only hope now is that some brave adventurer can work out what our real names are, and convince us that they are trustworthy. This will be no easy task because after the years of hiding, we are wary of just about anyone. I would be especially wary to entrust someone with my shield, even for a short time. Sadly there is little choice, if Pr'aal is to be killed. Unfortunately his death will mean Angus will re-emerge, possibly immortal, which would be very bad news...

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Spear-Spear Player

{Complicated matchup rules go here}

get Scroll of Hints __________________________________________________________________________ ,'  `.                                                                     `. |     |                           Riddle Hints                               | |    |    | `.___,|                                                                      |      ,' The white lady: Invented very long ago, in Yorkshire. '     |                                                                      |      |                                                                      |      | The bone thing: Found in your garden, and often in oil. |    ,'                                                                     ,'     |                                                                      |     | The man of shadows: A mage spell, and also a bad break. |    |                                                                      |    ,'                                                                     ,'    | The boy of jet: Feeling a bit dazed, are we? |   |                                                                      |    |                                                                      |   ,' The madness: You were asked the answer! ,'  |                                                                     |  ,'. __________________________________________________________________,'_ ,'   `.                                                                     `. `.___,'_____________________________________________________________________.'

Spear-Spear Player tells you: I will also tell you that the white lady's name is in the book itself, hidden in a phrase. The phrase is only one sentence long. This sentence contains the name, just like a snowman contains snow.