Memory Palace

Once inside the familiar cave, Thomas gathers the group around him.  "Something that Wong pointed out jogged my memory while we were talking to the dwarves."  Thomas looks at Wong... "you mentioned that the White said right before he took the final lance blow to the chest that we were 'mistaken'.  That word seemed to echo in my head."  Thomas stares off toward the far wall of the cave.  His eyes seem to haze over then close slowly.  Then he begins to speak, as if distant.

"So I searched my memory vaults for the events of the past few months.  I have a room in my mind where I go to think... my memory palace, I call it.  There I walked along the rows of shelves, glancing at small boxes filled with objects and papers.  Looking...looking...ah, there it is, the globe we saw in Stavian’s vault.  Next to it is a box with the green globe found in the White Dragon’s lair.  Finally, in another box, the globe that the Mantis took from the lodge.  Moving them to a table, I laid them out.  All similar.  Two of them, the one from Stavian, and the one from the Lodge, are cloudy, but colorless.  The third pulses green.  Its color seems not to be the only thing that is different.  The green one has some power in it.  Life?  No.  Something else.  It reminds me of something.  I closed my eyes, tightly.  Something, something about this.  Energy.  So then I ran down the stacks of boxes and grabbed a small box.  Then to another shelf.  I grabbed a scroll case.  Then I stopped...  Where is the other….there it is, top shelf, center.  I climbed, pulling a heavy crate down.  I took all of the items back to the table.  With caution I opened the first box, not knowing what exactly I would find, but trusting my mind.  A small white ball sits in the corner of the box.  No, not a ball, a pearl.  A pearl of power.  I set it upon the desk.  Next, I opened the scroll case.  A scroll, no two scrolls... spells.  Magic Jar and Soul Bind.  But they seem altered, not binding souls or life…but some other type of essence.  Then to the last container.  With reservation, I slowly open the last container, a crate with protections on it.  (You see Thomas physically recoil for a moment)  Evil emanate from this... a lich’s phylactery.  But how do these things relate.  It’s all a puzzle, I thought.  Properties of all of them?  The Dragons’ soul in the orbs?  No…that’s not it.  I looked back at the box with the Green orb.  I picked it up.  I  felt like it is looking at me, like IT is examining ME???  Looking at my person, my items... MY MIND.  I put it down carefully.  Then I picked up the orb from the Lodge.  It is clouded, empty.  Perhaps waiting to be filled with light or color.  Context, I think, might be relevant.  I remember the scene where it was found.  Dreng dead, his stunned eyes wide open.  His body lying in a pool of blood. Heschen dead, the look on his face one of melting despair.  The joy on that Bitch Robyn’s face as she holds her prize in her hand.  She notably disregarded the whole party’s disappearance through the tapestry.  She disregarded the incredible death and destruction around her.  Her face with the red tattoo, almost glowing, her eyes focused on the orb.  It’s what she came for; all of the murder... the blood... the deception... the lengths she went to fool all of is. And what shows most of all... her Happiness.  It was all clearly a small price to pay for the orb.  Finally I picked up Stavian’s orb.  It is the same as the one in the lodge, empty, perhaps waiting to be filled.  BUT WAIT... there was more in Stavian's vault... how did I not see this before.  Papers... underneath the orb; notes, scribbled and blurry.  (Thomas' eyes squint hard as if looking directly at the sun)  I forced myself to concentrate on the writings, and then a few words of it came into focus.  'Vault, dragon artifacts.  Story of dragons.  Red, Black, Green, White, and Blue.  Gray.  A battle, a war.  Metal and Chromatic.'  But what does that mean.  Then I remember Lashonna, the expert on dragon lore, said that the orb came to Stavian’s father from Mengkare.  And then one word last word from the note comes through, underlined.  Hermea."

Thomas shakes his head as if coming from a dream and begins to rub at his temples.  It seems that we might need to pay a visit to Mengkare himself.  But how we get there and how we get an audience IF we can get there, I'm not sure.