"Behold the Vhurd-aq," said the wizard addressing the others, "the loss of which signalled the decline of the First Age. Many an age ago, this periapt crowned the staff of the wizard Bellandor, who fought long with Morlock the traitor, he who turned his back on the Council and the Four Kingdoms to serve the Evil in the East. As I have long suspected, Bellandor perished by his own hand when the city he helped defend was under siege. This I now know because if Bellandor had died in battle, the Vhurd-aq would have been destroyed along with him.
"It is said that the enemy so feared this periapt that they raised a great fire, setting the very earth ablaze, and cast the Vhurd-aq into the molten debris, expecting it to be lost forever. Unknown to them, however, Bellandor had expended the remainder of his power into the periapt, intending to protect it from harm.
"At least, that is the legend. But fifteen years ago, while visiting the libraries of my friend, the King of Angorain, I first met his youngest son, Valen. The King wished me to speak with the lad, for he was troubled by dreams, the meaning of which their best healers and seers were unable to decipher; in fact, they were beginning to fear that the boy was a little mad. His dreams were of wars vast and terrible, with great weapons and periapts of power. But the people he saw spoke no tongue he understood, nor did he recognize many of the great cities, save one. The one where he saw a great wizard with a staff crowned with the likeness of a beast of the sea, with eyes that shone like stars.