<div class="floatright">(http://th00.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2010/324/a/a/wizard_magic_by_pangeawizard-d333l6g.jpg)</div>Talos let out a throaty chuckle that came out in a series of low 'ho' sounds.<strong>"Heavens no, lass.  If the gate truly had been opened, we'd be up to our ears in demonic hordes rather than the occasional malformed abomination.  Plus, I would have sense it; anybody with even the faintest talent for magic or attunement to nature would have felt it happen as they did over a century ago."</strong><br/><br/>The elder man leaned back in his chair ponderously at Rose's next question, considering it for a few moments while puffing at his pipe.<strong>"That would depend on what you consider to be civilized lands, because it crossed the border into Desh and Aveil a few months ago.  I suspect it'll be another two months until the first signs of its effects reaches the southern-most established communities; from there it'll just gradually grow worse as the blight advances further north.  And that's one of the inconvenient effects of the blight; it interferes with any and all attempts at scrying.  Since it appears the Great Gateway is at the very core of it, it is entirely impossible for me to work any far-seeing anywhere near such a concentrated source of the affliction and have no way of knowing for certain what is causing its accelerated growth.  But I have theories..."</strong><br/><br/><strong>"You never did answer my question, but the truth has been a well kept secret and for good reason.  Very few have been daring, or foolish, enough to venture that far south into the wasteland apart from your father's army all those years ago.  As such, even fewer have actually seen the gateway with their own eyes.  It is a marvelously insidious structure indeed and neither combined magical might or coordinated siege strikes could so much as put a chip on the infernal archway that linked our planes.  However, there was one weakpoint; the keystone of the arch held just that.  It had cost your troops a river of blood, but they managed to sunder the key from the gateway and effectively sealing the portal.  The relic that was used to do so was destroyed in the process, but not before breaking the key into six separate pieces that were hidden all across the land, surrounded by the best wards and defenses that could build up around it, and intentionally stricken from history as ever happening.  Six groups were given the task of doing just that, one for each piece, and neither knew where the others would go and once their objective was complete...  Well... The best way to keep a secret is to ensure all who know about it do not live long enough to spread it..."</strong><br/><br/>Talos was silent for a moment, seemingly out of reverence for such a noble sacrifice.<strong>"I suspect that somebody has stumbled across one of these burial sites and is attempting to bypass the protective barriers that keeps these pieces not only hidden, but from affecting our world.  They are of abyssal make after all and the energies within are tied into the gateway regardless of the distance between them.  The Great Gateway itself will never be able to open without the completed key, but the closer the individual pieces come to it and one another, the easier it becomes for demons to come to our plane through smaller, temporary portals."</strong>