Huge dark clouds gathered outside the open-shuttered windows of the mage's library. It was the middle of the day and as black as midnight.. A spear of lightning ripped from the clouds and thunder rolled behind it. Throughout the city, people shrank back from their windows, waiting for rain to soften the energy that crackled through the air. But the rain didn't come.

'The answer is seeking you,' the Matron told herself, and she resolved herself to find it. She had secluded herself in the library, intent on what was perhaps some of the most important research in her life. A gift of love, to her son Nactonees.

She had found the small child in the great forests of Arkane when he was entirely too young to be on his own. Blind at birth, and abandoned, Lei'ursathdd had taken the boy in, loving him as dearly as any child of her own womb. But time passes as it always will, and through a vicious custody battle with his birth mother, and many years spent in Arkane, the years had turned him into a fine man. A mother could not be prouder of a son, and Ursah was intent on giving him this gift.

Nactonees had never complained about his lack of sight, but with that extrasensory perception that all mothers have, the woman knew that her son longed to take in the world with his eyes. She had watched him struggle since he was quite young, learning to fight, learning to perceive that which was around him, until he no longer seemed to have a need for sight, his perceptions almost completely accurate. But Ursah was intent. What clerics could not do, she would find a way. The answer was just beyond her fingers, and must be here, somewhere in these books...

The Enchantress picked up a book labeled, "Items and Associations", and began to flip through it. She tucked the heavy book underneath her arm, and continued her search. Outside the thunder cracked once more, but Ursah did not jump as she might have been prone to do. Calm and collected, her eyes scanned the library like those of a hawk.

Lightning tore once more through the sky, and out of the corner of her eye Ursah caught a faint glow. As soon as the lightning dissapeared, the glow dimmed, calming into nothingness. The enchantress froze in place, her heart leaping suddenly in her chest, afraid to move for fear of losing the source of the glow. Clutching the holy symbol at her neck, she offered a quick prayer.

'Generous Lady, please...'

And the sky was suddenly laced with a web of lightning. Bright yellow light rose from a bookshelf, nearly blinding the the woman's eyes in its intensity. Shielding her eyes, Ursah glanced toward the source of the glow, and as the lightning dissapated the glow faded once more. But she had memorised the spot.

Blinking the sunspots from her eyes, Ursah leaned heavily on her cane and grabbed the playful book. Tracing a finger down the runes on the spine, the enchantress felt a soft vibration in her hands and read the title: 'Mortadis Gialis Vorithacum. '

'Yes... ' she said aloud to herself, though a slight frown furrowed at her lips. 'Yes.... '

She recognised the language as one that was truly ancient, a dead language that had been used long ago by a certain sect of mages involved in the Necromanic arts- not highly trained, like the Necromancers of the conclave, but experimenters, and rapers of magic who practiced things they did not understand. The book was icy cold in her hands, and Lei'ursathdd felt a small dread in the pit of her stomach.

But the answers were here... She was certain. Even though the hair of her arms prickled with energy, she knew that this was the book for which she had been searching. Pushing back her emotions, she returned to a small desk, opening the dusty tome out before her.

As if by destiny, the book flipped open to a page which had been entitled "Seeing with new eyes". She read on, and it detailed a painful process in which the eyes were cut out with a specially prepared dagger, and replaced with another creatures eyes, to be determined after ritual and scrying.

Swallowing hard, Lei'ursathdd blinked back tears at the thought of doing this to her own son. 'Drakkara, give me strength...' she whispered.

The day was over, the library entirely empty apart from the enchantress. The space outside, filled with tumultous energy, now seemed silent and taunting.. Ursah looked out the window, watching the enourmous black clouds that rolled through the sky. There were shadows everywhere.

She had her answer.