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Before entering her slumber Shratalanda used her psychic powers to telepath the location of the Shacklack School of Psions to all the psions of Cimmeria. Many of them answered the call, but with Shratalanda gone the School changed. Shratalanda led a place of pure learning and study. Her older students abandoned the free thinking and open experimentation encouraged by their absent master in favor of hierarchy and ritual. When the Gish Trio arrived they hoped the urgency of their quest would earn them immediate access to Shratalanda’s notes. The new masters of the Shacklack School had other ideas.

To gain access to Shratalanda’s texts Galandir, Tereman, and Blendegad would have to prove themselves worthy. They underwent a trial of the mind, body, and soul. Working together they overcame the challenge. With their virtue proven the masters of the school allowed the Gish Trio to view Shratalanda’s research notes.

The notes revealed the method for binding two immoral souls together. No spell could force a binding, but if one possessed the immortal golden threads of life that represented each beings’ soul, then the threads could be physically intertwined to create such connection. The Fates kept the threads locked within their holy temple on Crete. If Bavastatner had this information he could escape oaths on the River Styx by tying his thread to the river’s. Now all the Gish Trio had to do was slip this information to the blue dragon. Then he would break his alliance with the githyanki, allowing Tracy and the Trio to divide and conquer their enemies. The Gish Trio returned to Tracy with the information they’d gathered.

Bavastatner’s accelerated breeding program yielded a result, although whether it was positive or negative was a matter of opinion. The dragon patriarch created a new draconic variety known as the abyssal drakes. Bavastatner hoped to sacrifice hundreds of them in a necromantic ritual to capture the soul of the Styx. Unfortunately for Bavastatner when the souls were gathered together his initial experiments revealed that their deaths would gain him nothing but temporary strength. Frustrated, he released his devil children, causing a plague of demon dragon attacks across Eastern Cimmeria which was still under the control of the githyanki. The Lich-queen demanded explanations and compensation for the damage to her people. Bavastatner provided neither.

Next: The First Vampire of Cimmeria Part 7