Editing Announcements - 2007/04 - Strange Sightings (section)

== Rollout Article ==

{{Turbine 2005
 |  Link = <nowiki>http://ac.turbine.com/?page_id=529</nowiki>
 | Title = Rollout Article
 |  Text =
Captain Tharnoch crouched over the shattered corpse of an undead sorcerer, picking through the skeletal remains for anything noteworthy or useful.  It was night in Dereth, but moonlight provided enough illumination for an experienced guerilla like Tharnoch to make his way through this ancient and recently re-surfaced graveyard.
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"Who were you people and why have you awakened from your long sleep?" Tharnoch muttered to the corpse as he rifled its belongings.  It was obviously a futile question, as the corpse had been unlikely to answer even when it was still animated.  But Tharnoch had gotten into the habit of talking, to himself or to anything else, in the years in the wilderness when he and his small band of Aluvian soldiers had been living on the run from King Varicci's monstrous army.  The sound of a human voice was a small defense against the madness that had threatened to engulf them all during those long, bleak years.
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The question also came of frustration.  He'd spent three days and three nights scouting the graveyard, killing as many of the wandering undead as he dared, searching for some clue that would explain what had brought this graveyard and its buried souls to the surface after thousands of years under the shifting sands of the Direlands.
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Just as much of a mystery was the identity of the graveyard's denizens.  Earlier scouts had discovered pages from an ancient journal, recollections that named the undead of this area as victims of some great campaign by Lord Rytheran, one of the most powerful of the Dericostian undead who still lingered in Dereth millennia after the crumbling of their empire.  These unfortunate souls had once been the nobles and retainers of a house that fled the court of Dericost in the earliest days of the court's undead corruption.  Rytheran had hunted down the disloyal house and subjected them to the very perversion of undeath that they had tried to escape.
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"It's a terrible thing, to take away the prospect of a good death," Tharnoch mused to himself, reflecting again on the strange lifestone-bound undeath that was common to all denizens of Dereth.  "I hope this isn't me in a few thousand years..."
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Finally, under a pile of tattered cloth and leather, Tharnoch's keen eyes detected a glint of metal.  Pushing aside the scraps, he turned up a small, charred metal disc.  As he brushed away the grave dust, the features of the disc became more evident.  It looked like some kind of coin, bearing a mark unfamiliar to his eyes.  It put him in mind of other insignia he'd seen in texts about the ancient noble houses of the vanished Empyrean kingdoms.  Pleased with his find, and certain that it would help the Council unravel the mystery of the graveyard, he put the coin in his belt pouch.
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He intended, at that point, to return to the Council and show them the coin.  He got as far as reaching into another belt pouch to withdraw the proper portal gem when he stopped.  He felt a chill creeping over him, and the intuition he'd come to rely on during his time as a guerilla leader served him well.  He glanced behind him and saw five ghostly figures drifting among the gravestones, headed in his direction.  He turned to face them, keeping to a low crouching stance, and readied his sword and shield.  They didn't seem to have noticed him yet, but they would if they moved much closer, and he was sure they'd notice him if he tried to run for it.
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As Tharnoch waited for the inevitable confrontation, he took the time to study these five ghosts.  The figure in the center looked like the leader.  It was taller and dressed in a finer cut of robes than its companions.  Its ravaged face was too withered to reveal anything about its identity or even its gender, but somehow he formed the impression that it was a female.  He tried to memorize as many details as he could, in case he was defeated in this fight and had to give a report without being able to inspect the remains.
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The ghosts finally came close enough to take notice of him.  As one, five wraithlike heads turned to face him, and the air somehow grew colder.  The leader stood back and waved her arms.  The other four advanced, hissing, with fell magic crackling from their spectral hands.  Tharnoch straightened up, spat on the ground, and braced himself for the fight.  "Come on, then!" he growled, waving his sword.  "See if you fare any better against me than you did against Rytheran!"
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At the mention of that name, the leader of the ghosts fixed her empty eyes on him and let out a shriek of pure, keening rage.  Tharnoch roared a war cry and charged forward into the ghostly gauntlet.
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