2013.10.08 - Answers Denied

Lake of the Cauldron, Ireland October 4, 1478 ADE

It had taken some scrying and some researching, but Necro had finally located a legend of a certain artifact that would let her create undead minions without limit. Well, there was a limit, but that was just 'having enough bodies'. Perhaps there was a way to circumvent that as well. Working to overcome the boundaries and barriers placed before her was what Necro knew best -- both as a mortal and then as a lich. If fatigue and pain had been irrelevant when she was alive, having a body proof against exhaustion and such mundane stimuli as suffering made her even more unstoppable when she set her mind to a task. This latest had just been another example of how her efforts would defeat all opposition eventually.

There was a certain cauldron, known variously as the Pair Dadeni, the Cauldron of Regeneration, the Black Crochan, the Black Cauldron, Arthur's Chalice (a false vessel that was not the 'true' Holy Grail), and other titles. It may have once held other powers, but the only one it was useful for now and the only one that Necro was interested in was its ability to reanimate the dead. She did not know where to find it exactly but she knew where the cauldron had originated from thanks to her research. So she had teleported to Ireland with a handful of servants, expecting she could simply make more on-site if anyone got in her way.

A pair of giants had once been the Cauldron's keepers, but a cursory inspection with her senses revealed they were not present. Still, there was something underneath the lake. A hollowness she could feel in her mind. She raised a skeletal hand in the cloud of magical darkness that shielded her and her followers from the sunlight, and the entire lake emptied itself into a hole in the sky. Then they descended into the drained lake and Necro's minions dug into the abandoned home of the giants Cymidei and Llasar. There they found various things of minor note. Armed and armored bodies of long-dead warriors, still inhabited by crumbling skeletons. A stone slab with writing in some language Necro had not yet added to her repetoire of tongues.

No sign of the Cauldron. It seemed answers were not yet forthcoming. She would have to do more research.