The Staff had sat in its corner of the Reliquary for quite some time now, its crystaline surface dulled and dirtied from many years of neglect and non-use. Propped against the wall in the Shadows its presence was rarely noted, surrounded as it was by so many exotic and far more tantilsing artifacts. Indeed its very origins and uses had long since drifted from the collective memory of the Court.

So now it sat forgotten and dormant in the quiet, dark stillness of the Reliquary...and waited....

More time passed and still the Staff waited...

The silence was broken by a low thrumming sound that began to emanate from the staff. For several minutes it remained at the same, steady pitch then suddenly the noise and rate of of the sound increased dramatically and the Staff itself began to glow with a piercing, ice blue light.

Brighter and still brighter it became until the whole room was lit up with its near blinding intensity that blurred the room and the objects within it into a single shimmering space.

Then above the sound a faint female voice could just be heard, muffled and as if coming from a very great distance away.

"I...I dont believe it after all this time I've broken through....Hello ? Hello ? Can anyone hear my voice....aaaah this is so difficult I dont know if I can hold the rift open much longer.......Master ? Master are you there ? I need.....no not yet...not yet.....Muldran ? Mul ? ....Please help me - its me - its..."

The light vanished and the silence closed in once again.

Vygorn hovered outside the Reliquary in shade form - he had been drawn to the Valley by the unexpected pulse he had felt from the Staff and had been more than pleasantly surprised to sense the familiar presence of the Court members within the snowy valley - as well as some new and as yet unknown ones.

"So this is where you have dragged your sorry band of misfits eh Skully ?" he thought to himself "Pity for your sake you never saw fit to destroy the Conduit - you always were a fool - and now it has drawn me back to you. Without it you may well have stayed hidden - safe in this frozen bolt hole of yours. How delicious"

"Now I shall reclaim what is mine, then decide what to do with you".

With a sardonic chuckle he drifted forwards toward the Reliquary - only to be violently thrown backwards by an invisible bolt of energy. He awoke - back inside his host body , head pounding, vision swimming and grunted in pain. He steadied himself then rose and gazed moodily out across the Ocean.

"Well well Skully seems you arent the total fool I took you for. Finally created a ward worth the name. No matter - it will take more than that to stop me - much more."

He stood for hours gazing at the gentle swell of the sea as the sun slowly set across it in its fiery death, lost in thought.

Then he smiled.