When our heroes were last seen, they had been confronted by a dire bear on the mountainside, on their way to find and destroy the mad mage Arran Shieldbiter.  The dire bear gave chase as they wheeled their horses around and tried to find some clear ground where they could outrun the beast, but it had been centuries since anything like a road had been cut through the mountain woods.  A few bolts of magic werenât enough to stop it, nor were arrows or daggers, and a brief attempt to mystically contact its mind was countered by its ravenous hunger and single-minded determination to eat.  Eat the party, and/or their horses, specifically.  Dubious salvation came in the form of a draconic creature, one or another species of wyvern as Cersei would later confirm, who swooped in over the charging  horses from the front.  The tree cover and the partyâs reflexes were enough to avoid the snatching claws, but the dire bear, denied cover by all the smashing down trees it was doing to pursue them, was rent apart by the draconic talons, and as they rode around the side of the mountain, the group could glance back and see the wyvern perched on the corpse, ripping out mouthfuls of entrails with sinuous, snake-like darting stabs.<br/><br/><div class="bbImageWrapper lazyload js-lbImage" data-lb-caption-extra-html="" data-lb-sidebar-href="" data-single-image="1" data-src="http://i31.tinypic.com/11ub960.jpg" title="11ub960.jpg">
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</div>[/quote]<br/><br/>There would be other pitfalls of the trail: navigating treacherous terrain, a rockfall, an unfamiliar plant that turns out to be animate and carnivorous, always keeping an eye on the skies because they know theyâre in a wyvernâs hunting grounds.  Game was pretty plentiful, though, albeit some varieties seem strange, as if new breeds were being introduced, this far from Tarak.  Soon there was a glacier, though, and while the ice was cold and slippery underfoot, at least the surroundings were clear.<br/><br/><div class="bbImageWrapper lazyload js-lbImage" data-lb-caption-extra-html="" data-lb-sidebar-href="" data-single-image="1" data-src="http://i27.tinypic.com/24y23pi.jpg" title="24y23pi.jpg">
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</div><br/><br/>This travel took a couple of days, and during the nights, Cersei started getting dreams.  She saw a tunnel entrance, stretches of tunnel in little segments, and finally a large cavern with carved walls and basically living quarters, kind of crumbling and dusty and fungus-grown, but always also a voice, echoey, vaguely inhuman but also vaguely recognizable, calling âComeâ¦ comeâ¦â<br/><br/>On the glacier, they were swiftly led to a cave half-closed and partly ground-down by the ice.  It was the entrance Cersei had seen in her dreams.  The tunnel was laden with traps, the most cunning two old dwarf mages could devise, but Cersei had dreamed of the safe stretches of tunnel, so where her dreams ended, thatâs where the party became wary.  After avoiding traps and fighting a few guardbots, they came into the cavern, and could actually physically hear the voice of Cerseiâs dreams.  âComeâ¦ comeâ¦ help meâ¦â<br/><br/>Shieldbiter was in the back of the chamber.  His legs and lower torso had converted themselves into a fungal colony, but his chest and head were still dwarven.  He offers no resistance, but begs them to hear his story, first.<br/><br/>He and his mate escaped what they viewed as the tyranny of the Guild by vanishing into the wilderness and establishing their own place to study.  Unfortunately, they discovered that while the Guild was very controlling of its members, it sometimes needed to be.  Their studies of forbidden knowledge unlocked uncontrollable transformations, drove his mate, Wurra Stonesmasher mad, and immobilized him so he could do nothing as his mate studied further and eventually left their home, presumably to go to Tarak, where what was left of her mind sought either revenge or companionship or both.<br/><br/>Now he is unable to do any major magic himself, all his will and energies being focused on keeping the corruption of the alien fungus he accidentally called into himself under control.  He has not slept in eight years, by his count.  All he can manage are sensory spells, and with great effort, dream-casting.  He watched the adventurers kill his mate, and knew it to be sadly necessary.  He knew he would be detected, and when he saw who had been selected by the Guild, and why, and what she had been going through just before her selection.  And he hoped she might help him.<br/><br/>He has a plan, a great spell that would preserve his life, at the cost of his ability to work magic, and indeed, his ability to do much of anything.  He has the tools and materials in the cavern, but he cannot work it himself.  He needed Cerseiâs help, and in return, he has sworn to impart his knowledge to assist her in whatever research she desires.  She can go rogue, as well, but with his advice and counsel, she can avoid the pitfalls and dangers that he and his mate fell into.  He has suffered for his hubris, and could help her avoid her own pride and the resultant fall.<br/><br/>After much deliberation and consultation with her companions, and after examining Shieldbiterâs alchemical and enchanting formulas for traps or flaws, Cersei agreed to help, without promising to go rogue.  While the others watched with varying degrees of reservation, she built devices and enchanted items and prepared, and finally, in a powerful and thoroughly disgusting hours-long ritual, she removed Shieldbiterâs brain and eyes from his skull and put them in an enchanted jar of water, sealed it, and set it on a platform with at least a dozen little mechanical crab legs and two tiny arms.<br/><br/>The jar was enchanted to keep the brain alive, and allow it to hear and speak (in a slightly burbly, watery voice â a byproduct of the resonance method used to produce the voice).  The platform was enchanted to let the brain move at will, and manipulate things, and have a sense of touch, and it automatically kept the jar in place unless Cersei took it off; the magic was indexed specifically to Cerseiâs body, allowing her to remove the jar from the platform anytime she wanted, no matter what.  Shieldbiter actually suggested Cersei have that absolute control over his movements, and designed it as such.  From the jar, he could live indefinitely with no need of sustenance, as long as his brain was safely encased, and he could still teach Cersei anything she wanted to know, and could help her when she needed a (tiny little clawlike) hand.  As a brain in a jar, Shieldbiter could project no magics.  He found, unexpectedly, that he could still handle receptive spells, could still project his senses into the past and future and into the distance, but could not exert any will over what he saw.  Otherwise, it was exactly as he had predicted.<br/><br/>As soon as the ritual was done, the rest of his former body was consumed by the fungi in seconds, which then began to spread aggressively.  It took fire spells, flaming oil, alchemical acid, and a whole bunch of improvisation to kill all the spores, but Shieldbiterâs magical senses detected every microscopic flake of the fungi and told them where to burn until it was all gone.<br/><br/>With his body and ability to project magic gone, the tracking amulet no longer registered Shieldbiterâs presence at all.  As far as the Guild was concerned, he had ceased to exist, so the party had accomplished their mission, and could return home.  And it was then that Cersei admitted that she wanted to stay.  She would scar her tattoos, mar her amulet, and drop off the Guild radar, stay in the cavern with Shieldbiter and pursue her own path.  It was a tearful, sad farewell, but Cersei could not be convinced.  In secret, Shieldbiter provided Lucca with a tiny jump ring, no larger than a regular finger ring; it was all he had, but it used to be his and his mateâs, and he would give the other ring to Cersei when the others were on their way.  That way, Lucca and Cersei could stay in contact, passing notes and whispers and small touches as best they could.<br/><br/>The travel back to Tarak might have been dangerous, but they could suffer through.  With only physical threats to conquer, the three âsurvivorsâ were more than capable of making it back with the horses, crossing the broad and ancient Yarranâs Pass Bridge.  When asked, they stuck to their story that the two mages destroyed each other, and they seemed grieved enough that everyone took them at their word.  And thus, Cersei departed the campaign, with an option to be called back, in emergencies.<br/><br/>(I had a sudden flash on a fight scene on the way home, with Lucca whispering urgently into the ring, and then holding it while Cerseiâs finger came forth through it, pointing the finger at the threat, and tapping the knuckle to let Cersei know to release the fireball straight ahead.  If they both put the rings on at the same time, it would be like wearing each otherâs fingers.  Bizarre!  But useful, in a limited way, and not just for spellcasting like that.)