Tomb of the Necromancer - Intro

In the foothills of the Greywall mountains stood an ancient oak. For five centuries it had stood silent vigil, an undying sentinel watching the passing of the ages. It did not feel old, did not know time except as seasons, as a waxing and waning in the sunlight and water it needed to grow. It had fathered a small grove and it, in turn, had spread far and wide across the foothills. Hundreds of small thickets dotted the hills and in most of them, the ancient oak had family.

The roots of the ancient oak went deep into the ground and far under the soil. So deep did the roots grow and so strong were they that where they met stone it cracked and split and parted. Even heavily ensorcelled stone doors, reinforced with steel bands and secured with wards of the highest order, gave way.

In the fall of the last year of its fifth century, a storm blew across the foothills. Storms were common and the old oak had weathered many that had felled lesser trees. Common storms were not a threat to the ancient tree. Rather, they were a way of pruning off weak limbs and dead leaves and felt quite refreshing.

But this was no common storm. The ancient tree felt the violence and the hatred borne on the winds. Normal storms were pure force, pure element. Although men insisted it was so, storms contain no rage, no fury and no hatred. This storm was different and very wrong. It was a part of nature but violated and twisted towards a purpose unknown to the ancient oak. As the storm battered the branches and boughs of the tree, a different and far more insidious evil assaulted the tree from below, assaulting the roots, shriveling the lesser ones and weakening the thick main roots.

After days of assault, days of constant battering by wind and rain, rot gnawing at the roots and creeping evil in the soil, the tree was weakened.
The storm changed. A subtle change in the clouds, the wind changed direction. Rain started pouring with renewed strength, the ground slowly eroding. Flashes of lightning crept ever closer to the ancient oak.
Lightning had hit the tree thrice in the centuries since it had sprouted, hardening its core, strengthening it against the elements. The first time, the tree had been young and quickly recovered and the subsequent strikes had merely served to further strengthen its gnarled limbs and trunk.

But like the storm was no ordinary storm, this was no ordinary lightning. As the storm reached its furious crescendo, lightning struck the ancient oak; again and again the proud limbs and roots, thick and gnarled as they were, were battered and split by lightning. Slowly, majestically, the trunk leaned towards the valley, as if nodding to a supplicant and with a final crash, the earth ripping and tearing beneath its roots, the mighty oak fell.

In the opening beneath the giant roots, something gleamed and shone. A metal band, still clasping split and torn stone doors.