Umber

Callie learns a trick of psions fighting psions. (sab)

In a relaxed moment you sit down to perform your customary meditative practice. You have just settled in when your hand twitches slightly, and you reflexively begin to reach for your pack. Quickly you pull your hand back, and there is no resistance. Out of curiosity, you cautiously put yourself in the same frame of mind and watch, fascinated, as you reach for your pack, and open it. You pull out a piece of parchment, a pen and ink, and your tinderbox. The same soft compulsion drives you to ink your pen, and begin drawing.

Across the page, drawn by you but simultaneously not by you:

In the background, an open hand.
In the center: A double-bladed scimitar.
Along the sides: two greatswords of simple design.
Above the scimitar, a bladed staff.
Below the scimitar, something similar to a punching dagger, but with three blades instead of one.
At the very top and very bottom of the page, an ornate ceremonial hair-pin.

You reach for your tinder box and start a small, hot fire. You try to stop, but this part of the compulsion, at least, cannot be broken. You burn the page to ash, then put away your pen, ink, and tinderbox.

But you recognize the drawing. It is the cover page of a popular children’s book that you once read in Blastir’s keep: the story within is a fairy tale about a courageous band of monastics who break free of their tyrannical masters (typically believed to represent the Scarlet Brotherhood) and travel the land seeking to impose true order – an order that would benefit all people, not just those in power. The book details many adventures, including one in which the heroes save a city (Irongate, seemingly) from a surprise attack from their previous masters (the Brotherhood) by warning the city’s noble leader (generally thought to be Cobb Darg) in time to muster defenses. Interestingly, similar events did happen during the Greyhawk Wars, though no one actually believes that the story is more than the unknown author’s imaginative embellishment on them.

No one, that is, except perhaps you…