Old story

..."Follow me, this is something very important you must see." he spoke in a raspy, harsh voice. The man was dressed in black robes and his face is covered in a veil of shadow unnaturally dark save for one eye which glowed brighty in contrast to the shadow veil and cast an imposing glare at everything it sees. The man outstretched his right arm, extending his hand out of the dark sleeves of his robes, it was gnarly and covered in scars which told a tale of a thousand battles.

"Are you coming?" The man inquired, Aoiga could only comply as the man's glare seems to have drained Aoiga of his energy to refuse. He reached his hand out hesitantly and grabbed hold of the mysterious man's gnarly hand. As he did so, a gust of wind envelopped them and they were immediately whisked away to a dark room.

A dank foul smell of decay quickly assaulted Aoiga's senses, they seem to be in a dark room constructed out of marble with small windows filtering daylight in from a wall to their right. Aoiga noticed several faint-shimmering pools of liquid littering the floors and several stalls to his left. There's a door to his front from which a cacophony of boisterous talk and the occational yell of cheer emanated from. "Where are we?" Aoiga asked.

"Toilet, ever neen in one?" Aoiga opened his mouth in indignation to the cutting remark but was quickly cut-off "The people in here have heard of, much less seen magic performed by humans, it's best to be discreet. You wouldn't want to cause a scene in a public tavern, do you?"

Aoiga nodded in agreement as he was led out of the dank, dark toilet through the door at the front and into the hustle and bustle on the other side. He was immediately greeted by the most amazing sight that had ever greeted his eyes ; Imps, ogres, dwarves and goblins all sitting around in round tables, drinking root ale, having conversations and small talk in tongues of Dervish, Impish, Ogrish, Dwarven, English and even Elvish. Some of them are playing a card game with shimmering rune-imprinted cards, some are showing off their strength with arm-wrestling matches with spectators cheering the contestsnts tossing money into the betting pool and some are flirting with the females members of their races, some of which Aoiga found to be slightly attractive. A couple of humans can be found amongst the menagerie.

"Nice place isn't it?" The man asked Aoiga with a tone that suggests a light-hearted mood and humour at Aoiga's amazed expression. "Welcome to the Mystics' Tavern, a popular hangout of magical creatures and non-magical ogres alike, but this isn't what we came here for. Follow me." He made a beckoning hand gesture and led Aoiga to the liquor bar where a bouncy imp is serving the customers and giving orders to voluptious goblin barmaids in a surprisingly loud voice.

"Jordi! What a nice surprise to see you here! I have acquired this most ingenious loaded deck over here, guaranteed to give winning odds to the dealer and it completely undetectable!" The imp bartender greeted the man in a jovial, wry voice. "This is a one of a kind, this shady dude sold it to me for ten thousand gald. Hefty price but I regained it all back in the first round I played, they suspected it's loaded but..." The elf snickered mischievously. "...they never found a thing!"

"Woodrow, I already told you I am through with dark magic!" The man named Jordi barked harshly. "Besides, I have some really important business to take care of. I'm looking for a Joan."

"Oh..her?" Woodrow the imp asked with a raised eyebrow "She's in room 612 with a of human and this freak that keeps turning into a panda after a couple of drinks. I suggest you knock before you enter incase there's any action going on." Woodrow winked at Jordi. "I tell ya, just one look at her and I needed to apply soft potion to my lil' bro." Jordi groaned at his last sentence.

"Allright, so Joan, Axe and Jason the panda. I'll catch you later! Can you prepare a dozen ethers, an assortment of potions, antidotes and a flask of sweet ginger ale to go? I'll be back to collect them in a few moments" Jordi tossed a bag of money in the counter in front of Woodrow. "There's 50 clerians and 23 gald in it, keep the change."

"Allright thanks, pal!" Woodrow grinned widely at the bag of silvery and golden coins he quickly opened and emptied into a jewel encrusted box. "Say...what's this filly doing here with you?"

"I'm not a girl, you freak!" Aoigy replied sharply and hotly.

Jordi ignored Aoiga's outburst and Woodrow's subsequent chuckle and replied. "It's strictly confidential business, nothing personal of course. I just can't risk this info being heard by the wrong sort."

Jordi got up and led Aoiga up the flight of wooden stairs to the right of the bar. The stairs lead downward to cavernous corridors and the the walls accompanying the stairs are decorated by portraits of several imps young and old, whom which Aoiga assumed to be Woodrow's family and ancestors and ran the bar before him. A question tickled his brain [i]what is Joan, Jason and Axe doing here of all places, and why are they here? Is this where they've been all these months since the last adventure?[/i] Aoiga voiced his questions to Jordi to which he relaxed his pace and bagan his reply.

"I might as well tell you now to save time. You see...lately your friends have discovered pieces of diamond crystals shaped like lenses in deep caves located in the mountain sides at the outskirts of the land of the mystics. Only they seem to create images of magic-invoking ancient runes when light is passed through it."

"Okay, so where do you  and I come in?" Aoiga asked.

"I'll get to it...okay so they came to this conclusion that there must be an ancient civilization to be unearthed. being explorers and adventurers, they couldn't resist the lure. So they bought digging tools and explored nearby caves and gathered more lenses. They went through various taverns asking around if they know what those runes meant but none could answer their questions. It was then that I started to feel a magical presence, I tried to track down the source but I kept on missing them by bad luck."

"So they became careless and grabbed your attention?"

"In a way, yes. It had attracted the bad crowd too. One day, they crossed paths with a dark mage who is curious and wanted the lens for himself for some reason. He paid them handsomely and took a handful of lens in his hand which promptly burnt the skin of his hand, Joan's gang quickly fled the scene in fear of facing his wrath. The dark mage took off after him, but it seemed that the lens also absorbed most of his powers, rendering him weak and helpless, he died quickly from shock."

"Wait, dark mages? Aren't they supposed to like try to take over the world?"

"Supposedly, yes...but you see, their power have corrupted them utterly with petty greed and stripped them of their ambition. Those that have the ambition are too weak to take on the task of worls domiation. Hence they make a living out of peddling enchanted objects to help people perform acts of mischief. Like a loaded deck, thief mantles and thief's candles."

"Like the guy whom Woodrow mentioned?"

"Yes, now back to the story...I arrived at the tavern where that dark wizard met his demise mere minutes after it happened. While I missed your friends once again, I was given the chance to finally meet them. You see...the tavern regulars are too afraid to touch the lens on account that they are afraid they might get zapped like the dark wizard. I picked up the  lens and was greeted to the last few minutes of the dark wizard's life which gave me information on what they look like and their names. I eventually tracked them down introduced myself and they told me the story which I passed down onto you"

"Okay, that still doesn't explain why it has anything to do with me."

"I'm getting there, be patient!" Jordi barked, beginning to get annoyed at Aoiga's numerous interruptions. "...okay, so I told them that I could lend my magical abilities to them in their pseudo-archaeological dig and they took me in unquestioningly. One day, we unearthed a sword with an bright orange jewel in it and a curved blade with a sapphire gem embedded in it. The sapphire gem seems to react violently to everyone who tried to wield it, except for Joan. It screamed her name shrilly whenever anyone else tried to handle it, guess what the orange sword did?"

"It screamed my name? But why?" Aoiga asked uneasily.

"Exactly, but that's not all, let me explain. The swords seemed to be sentinent, as Joan claimed that it spoke to her. It spoke about a disaster that looms ever closer and threatens to destroy the world as we know it. Also, it mentioned  something about revenge of an ancient foe that she and her gang had fought before and that she's chosen to stop that disaster from happening once again. I think that it's safe to assume that you as well as a few more are chosen to avert this disaster as well."

"You mean there's more?"

"That's what Joan's sword, who named itself Esuna Aeres, had said. That is all." Jordi concluded his story.

Aoiga opened his mouth in shock, the prospect of fighting an old foe once again mere months after defeating him is too much. "Ark4Elle..." was all he could mutter which caused Jordi's eye to narrow.

Minutes passed in silence as they walked down staircases and through corridors. (Which are no longer made out of wood but carved stone) Neither spoke a word during the rest of the trip. This went on until they reached room 621.

Jordi pressed his palm onto the handle of the door which glowed white and made faint clicking noises which indicated that the door is being unlocked. He twisted the knob, opened the door and was promptly greeted by a skid-marked pair of undies to the face...