Sweat beaded on the half-elf's brow, and the grimace on her face as she chanted almost suggested that she was in pain, but not once did she dare stop, even as her knees buckled. She kept a tight hold on the book, eyes locked to the page, heedless of the sinister glow that had begun to emanate from the bones. Suddenly, there came a flash of light, and Valena yelped, shielding her eyes. When the glow finally subsided, she squinted at the place the bones had once been. In their place was a pile of ash and the spectral form of a tall, bearded man.<br/><br/>She tensed as he moved towards her, rising shakily to her feet. If she had been successful, then the being standing before her was incredibly dangerous. Binding charms or no binding charms, she wasn't taking any chances. When he spoke, however, his voice was warm and soft, despite carrying a ghostly echo. Waves of reddish arcane energy wafted from him, but for a supposedly evil warlock, he seemed almost...confused? When he spoke of finding a book to help stop Zargga from returning, however, the half-elf suddenly even looked more puzzled than he did.<b> "Wait...what? But <i>you're</i> supposed to be--"</b>She trailed off, looking down at the book again and flipping through the pages. There had to be some mistake here, the tome was supposed to hold Zargga's spirit, so where was it?!<br/><br/>Answers came when he named himself Ipius and gestured to the crumbled pile of soot that had once been a skeleton. Valena sighed in frustration, shutting the tome and tucking it under her arm.<i>Wonderful.</i>She had botched the ritual. Instead of resurrecting Zargga, she had raised the soul those bones had belonged to: a Grandmaster Ipius, apparently.<br/><br/>Complicating matters was the fact that he seemed deeply adamant that Zargga<i>not</i>be released back into the world.<b>"Well," </b>she began, shifting uncomfortably,<b>"Y'see, that's who I was trying to summon in the first place." </b>Realizing that, by itself, raising an evil wizard seemed like a profoundly stupid idea, she hurriedly added,<b> "Not without precautions, of course!" </b>She gestured to the binding charms, unaware of the magic scorch that had returned them to pretty but utterly useless pieces of silver.<b>"I only wanted to prove that I <i>could, </i>but instead I got, well, you." </b>She sighed.<b>"Couldn't even do <i>that</i> right. Maybe the others were right about me."<br/>
</b><br/>Something about this didn't feel quite right, however. She glanced down at the book under her arm, perplexed, then held it out to show the spirit.<b>"This was supposed to be the tome they sealed Zargga in, but now I'm not too sure. But if he's not in here, there where is he?" </b>Ipius's words seemed to suggest that he was indeed trapped somewhere, but if it wasn't in the tome, then where?