WANTED: Adventurers, mercenaries, and soldiers of fortune whose coin purses are lighter than they’d like.

Exploration and excitement are knocking at your door! Ancestral ruins housing magical splendor are ripe for the taking. All we need are a few brave souls daring enough to tread into the darkness! You will be paid handsomely so long as our associate survives and returns the artifact to our care.

If you are interested please meet our associate by following the winding road west of Valintal, when you get to the Ro’an Creek bridge take a left on the side road and follow that until you come across a gargantuan twisting red oak that divides the path. We meet at midday.

- Arcane Elven Historical Society
Lilly’s eyes scanned the document from top to bottom once more. This bulletin looked much better than the last few. Very official, it had a decorative stamp with a red seal and everything. Parchments with fancy red seals always looked important. Hopefully this one was convincing enough to get a few more experienced blades so she could get her hands on the prize she had been seeking for the last two months. She had passed the news around to every tavern in Valintal and posted the bulletin on as many sign posts as she could find.

“Ancestral ruins” sounded much nicer than “ancient archmagus tower that fell into disrepair centuries ago.” She also didn’t mention the nest of hobgoblins that prevented her from proceeding beyond the first story of the tower. Or any of the dangers that likely awaited the would-be explorers on higher floors of the tower. Traps, magical fields, demons, or possibly even spider webs… there was no way of knowing what horrors lay ahead.

After her first expedition with that elven bard who claimed to be the “best knife chucker in Raiaera” she had grown more and more desperate. They hadn’t proceeded more than two feet into the tower when one of the hobgoblins was alerted and subdued the so-called famous bard. Lilly barely got out with her life and was reminded once again of how miserable bards, particularly elven ones, made her.

The second try went a bit better. A band of three brothers claimed they would get her whatever object the tower held. They managed to actually slay a few of the goblins before the eldest two brothers were murdered horribly. Their youngest sibling lost an ear and wouldn’t stop crying to Lilthis about how much it hurt. Humans were much worse than bards or elves. At least elves lived past the age of fifty. And they had the decency to not sob in front of a dark elven lady.

“Third tries a charm I guess,” the young woman muttered as she leaned against the oak. The midday sun gleaned against her charcoaled flesh and radiated off her snowy white hair. She was staring at the tower just across the field that lay before her. That tower would be conquered. It’s secrets would be revealed. And Lilly would claim the illusory stone and the archmage’s schematics for herself.