[Abe Sargent]

A half hour later, the Bear allies of Alzar arrive back and Alzar escorts them to the rock. Alzar takes the sword of the Bear Tribe, and sticks it in the front of the rock, all the way up to the hilt. There is a crashing thunder, and the rock cracks into two equal portions, revealing the fifth sword, The Edge.

Alzar grabs the blade and he is celebrated by the 100 strong barbarians here. Alzar sits down and begins to look at the five blades pulling them all out. They have ancient runes from centuries ago. And the runes aren’t legible, they are parts of words, not full runes. Alzar grabs his Helm of Reading Magic and Languages and puts it on.

It verifies his assumptions. These runes are not full letters but parts of them. He moves a few swords around, and soon he has lined up an incantation. Nothing says what will happen when its read, and Kabloona has not heard of it. No time like the present. Alzar begins to intone the runes, and in less than a minute the incantation is finished from the five blades.

A crack in reality opens up and a popping noise follows. As everyone looks up from Alzar and the blades they see a giant, muscular, barbarian figure that towers about 20. He smiles a smile that is bigger and wider than Alzar’s arm and that’s when Alzar notices two large wolves can be made out to his left and right, resting.

“Thank you my children! You have brought me back to your fold after centuries of being lost. You have gathered the blades ,and from that proven yourselves worthy again. In gratitude, I shall grant you your most intimate desires as long as they do not alter the path events are destined to follow. “

Alzar stands back up and addresses the Great One of the North, an immortal and worshipped by the barbarians.

“I would want thing. That you remove the seal that binds me to Pandius, that I might freely travel the planes again.”

“I can do this for you. Compared to an immortal, a demon prince has as much power as a grasshopper does to you. I can lift this veil. But I will not. That is not your destiny. You are not one of my kind. You are not a barbarian, you are not even from this world. No, your destiny is not mine to alter. You are not in my circle of power, if you will, to grant that desire.”

“Then I would have you give my land its freedom. I would have you increase our military power, strongholds, navy, and remove us from the weak yoke of the King.”

“That’s more of a barbarian request. But why should I give you that which you can do for yourselves? And your destiny in Norwold for now is more than you can conceive right now, I cannot sever that linkage.”

“I admit, I don’t understand that destiny. But I would learn about the path to immortality. I have heard that it requires a sponsor.”

“It does. And you have done many deeds that would impress potential suitors. You have destroyed artifacts and created spells and founded a fledgling nation and won much glory across three planes. But immortality is not ours to give someone who has not come from our plane, Pandius. We can’t have a bunch of plane-travelers coming to our world, walking the paths of immortality, and join our pantheon anymore.”

“But you uses to?”

“Most rules, to immortals, are more like general guidelines to consider.”

“Then I would want you to allow me to achieve immortality here on Pandius, if I earn it.”

“Hmmm… I can’t do that on your behalf. That’s a decision that would require more than one immortal to agree. What I will do is outlay the basics of achieving immortality, normally questing and heavy research would be required.

However, I cannot be your sponsor. You are not one of mine. Plus, you are in an odd place. Should you go with the evil-aligned sphere of Entropy? The lawful one of Matter, earth and fighters? Energy’s chaos, fire and wizard? Thought and air, thief and good-aligned? Time with its water, clerics, and neutral? Every sphere has immortals from various alignments and entrance paths, but it can be harder for people out of the things that Sphere cares about.

While I just don’t see you with the last two, the first three of the have a claim on you in one way or another. Law, evil, and mage. I am an immortal of the sphere of Time. Each sphere requires a different path, and you would need to find your sponsor for more specific details as to what to do.

After getting a sponsor, a person needs to gain more experience from the world, and then do a specific quest, trial, testimony, and task.” He goes over a few more details, and then “Finally, I can offer to contact a few immortals in Matter, Entropy and Energy, and see if some are interested in you. In fact, there might even be a fellow time-immortal that I can think of who’d be interested. But that will all come much later. For now I thank you for helping my people return to me”

And with that, the Great One is gone.