Prologue

The Adventurers moved through the ruins of the castle, taking on the groups of orcs and goblins that shot at them from behind piles of rubble. The orcs dropped their bows as the Adventurers got close, drawing spears and axes and charging into melee. One of the Adventurers in bronze-leafed steel plate armor led the charge on the Hag and her guards; his divine magic met her dark spells in flash of radiant gold and purple energy. In the chaos of the battle, no one noticed a man in black leather armor split off from the rest of the party. Picking the lock on an iron-bound door he slipped inside, giving a quick look about to check for traps or guards. The room appeared to have been part of a mining operation under the castle but it now looked to serve as a treasury with crates of merchants goods, bags of grain and a wooden chest bound in steel with a large lock. Knelling down before the chest, the rogue spent a few moments in concentration as he felt for the gears within, oblivious to all else. Gold, silver and copper coins from across a dozen different kingdoms and from ancient fallen empires glittered in the light of a lantern lit on the wall. A scabbard, dagger, and belt inscribed with runes that looked to be magically enchanted as well as a few red, blue and orange potions.

“Looks like you green-skinned bastards won’t be enjoying your loot much longer,” the rogue chuckled to himself and began stuffing his pockets.

He stopped, his eyes going wide as he lifted a black diamond the size of his fist with what looked like a blood-red ruby embedded within the center of it. “Amazing,” He whispered, slipping it into a pocket by his chest. His eyes went even wider and he gasped and looked down at the bloody blade emerging from his chest. He toppled over, and the hobgoblin who had managed to kill the rogue turned to the door it had silently opened only to take an arrow to the throat.

“Damn it! Who was supposed to be watching the rogue?” the man in bronze-leaf armor asked accusingly, turning to his party members.

A man in red robes and a tall staff sheepishly raised his hand, “Sorry Kern, I was working on keeping my focus for my [storm rage] spell and didn’t notice him slip off.”

The paladin shook his head, looking down at the fallen rogue. “I always told you, Darren, that your greed would get you killed someday. Well, let’s see what he was trying to steal this time.” He said shaking his head at the antics of the newest member of their party, it was so hard to get good quality rogues these days.

They searched Darren’s belongings and a woman in the party who had also been killed, leaving nothing to waste. The party's ranger picked up the black diamond and put it in her satchel. No one saw the grin from a shadow in the corner as something or someone watched her pick up the diamond, unknowingly spelling doom for her and her party.

A week later the entire party was dead in an inn along with everyone else in the building, the entire party had been looted and searched but the assassin had not found the core and was forced to report failure to his master. A young woman just starting her adventuring career boarded an airship with her mithril sword and plague wood bow given to her by her aunt along with a mysterious black diamond. Three weeks later the airship did not arrive at its destination and fishermen found its wreckage floating about in the open sea. The dark assassin, a short halfling smiled, the grin barely visible under the half-skull mask that covered his face, its two long fangs extending past his chin, his eyes and nose concealed behind a black mist. He and his own party of dark Adventurers found another ruin of a castle and murdered the goblins and orcs using it as a base; the halfling placed the diamond in the center of a cavern deep beneath the castle. The diamond began glowing more vibrantly, a deeply sinister dark purple glow that could only be seen because of the cavern devoid of light.