Lortin continued once again east, back towards Murdon's camp. The day was very muggy, Lortin was sweating up a storm on his walk towards this forest. "I wonder what I'm going to encounter in this forest," Lortin thought to himself, "some gnomes that cast vicious magic at me? Or even a snake?" Lortin just sighed and continued to walk down the eastern path to the base of the mountains where Murdon's camp sits. He walked by the camp, intended not to do anything there, where he noticed that nobody was at the camp. "Maybe he is helping Kaohn with his task." Lortin thought. He continued to walk up the mountain path.

The afternoon was coming to an end, and Lortin was nowhere near the center of this mountain range where this forest lay. Also coming unprepared to set up a camp in the mountains, he had to find shelter before anything happens up there. The sun was minutes away from disappearing when Lortin found a small cave, with a fire pit. "Looks like someone had the same idea as me." There was a couple pieces of wood left unburned from the previous wanderer, but left nothing to light a fire. Lortin went outside the cave to quickly get something to light the fire, to his luck, it didn't take very long; although it was a pain since there was no sun to guide him. Lortin not only brought back something to start the fire with, he brought a few more pieces of fire wood to help him through the night. He started a fire and pulled out some rations that he brought with him. He sat next to the fire pondering, at what the elder really wants.

"It's strange that he summons me of all people."

"I mean, I'm behind on my studies...
well, not anymore I don't think."

"And why does he wants these strange artifacts, Elder Kaohn has been acting strange since he summoned me."

"I felt a strange darkness from that cave I was in the other day, like nothing I've ever smelt or felt in my life around mana."

Lortin finally put his mind the rest and began to dose off to sleep.

It was dawn, and it had started raining very calmly, a light shower. Lortin walked out of the cave to notice a strange creature feeding on a dead animal. This creature looked incredibly vicious, with 4 long sharp fangs and 3 horns coming out of it's head and a wicked tail to say the least. Before Lortin could try and walk away unnoticed, the creature stopped and stuck it's head up and focused it's eyes on Lortin. It's eyes were pitch black, but had meaning to them, like it was ready to kill on sight. The creature charged at Lortin at full speed, unable to pull out his sword quick enough he tried to push it back with a Psychic Blast, but the creatures force and will was to strong and it only prevented a direct hit from it's horns, sending Lortin flying into a wall. He fell down and kneeled with his hand on his hilt, ready for a fight. The beast readied another charge and once again did it at full speed. This time Lortin was ready, and used his Mind Blast to weaken the creature for a more lethal strike from his blade. When the creature got close enough it lunched out for a strike with it's horns, Lortin slid under it with his blade sticking upwards and slashed straight through it's stomach, a clean kill. Although this beast looked edible, it's insides looked to disgusting to even consider eating. "I'll just eat my rations instead," Lortin said to himself as he continued to walk deeper into the mountain range.

The sun was almost at it's highest peek when Lortin arrived at the forest. The trees were black and brown, this wasn't your normal forest, the forest was evil, and alive; he could feel it. Lortin walked into the forest confident enough to take on whatever was in there. For an hour Lortin encountered nothing, he didn't hear anything, only his footsteps and his own thoughts. As he continued to go deeper and deeper into the forest, it started to get darker and darker. "How can it be this dark when the afternoon just started," Lortin asked himself as he looked up towards the top of the forest, only to see little to no light. Just then he heard a branch smack into a tree, he turned around and saw a tree violently swinging it's branches everywhere, as if it was alive. "This place is very spooky." Lortin ignored the tree since it posed no threat to him and he felt a light in the distance, he was near the center of the forest.

As Lortin drew closer to the center, the forest became brighter and brighter, but this wasn't light from the sun, it was light from mana. This mana was pure, manipulated with light and good, unlike most of the forest which Lortin sensed manipulated with evil and darkness. In the center, as Elder Kaohn had stated in his note was a tree stump with a 6 inch tall rusted goblet, half of the bowl was broken. Lortin grabbed the goblet and began to leave back through the darkness of the forest to head back to the college. Until he felt a presence, a presence of mana. He turned around to see a boy, maybe even younger then he was, wearing combat robes and pale skin standing just as tall as Lortin with hood over his head wielding an axe with both his hands.

"Who are you!?" the boy demanded, "and what are you doing here!"

"Who am I? Who are you and where did you come from!" Lortin demanded back, "I was here first."

"My name is not of any importance to you, and you have no need to know where I came from, just hand me that goblet and I shall let you live," the boy said to Lortin.

"No," Lortin said.

"Then I shall take it from you by force."

The boy readied his axe and waited for Lortin to ready himself. Lortin created a Psychic Blast from his hand and let the orb float around him ready for launch and then grabbed his sword, holding it with both hands next to his head ready to parry his enemy's attack. The boy jumped in the air and came flying down at Lortin strong, Lortin dodged forward and turned around and readied his weapon still at the same position. The boy got up and charged Lortin and swung, as Lortin parried the swing and shot his Psychic Blast at the boys chest and the boy was pushed back several feet. Infuriated the boy charged again at Lortin, this time with a lesser strength in his swing. Lortin parried the boys attack upward and swung downwards. The boy jumped back to avoid a cut down the center of his chest, he grinned and began to slow down the pace of the fight. He held his axe in one hand as he walked calmly towards Lortin, but Lortin was prepared. After a few feet, the boy lunged out again but was blasted back by another Psychic Blast, unprepared for this kind of blow, it left the boy open. Lortin took this opportunity and shot the beam of black right at the boy. The blast hit but only to be negated by a shield the boy had conjured and then the boy put his axe away.

"That beam...."

The boy then disappeared without a trace.