Chapter 2: The Nest of the Minecrawlers

The second chapter opens where the first one closed: at the Swamp Camp, where Lester finally brings the hero before Y'Berion himself in the temple hall. The High Guru speaks of the Great Calling that the Brotherhood has been preparing for years, and of the magical focus the ritual needs to channel the energy. The hero receives the map the Water Mages once used to weave the Barrier and the task to bring one of the five focus stones back from the sea cliff west of the camp.

The novice Nyras has been sent on the same errand and never returned. The hero finds him alone at the focus platform with the stone already in hand, his mind unraveled by the Sleeper's whispers and convinced that he is the only true servant the god will ever need. Nyras attacks; the hero takes the focus off his body and carries it back down the cliff.

Y'Berion accepts the focus with quiet relief and sends the hero straight on to Cor Kalom in the alchemy laboratory. The true purpose of the focus is the channelling of energy for the Calling, but the energy itself has to come from a minecrawler secret far more potent than the mandible slime the Brotherhood has been refining. Kalom demands that the hero enter the Old Mine and find the nest of the beasts themselves. He hands over healing potions, light scrolls and a colony map before the descent.

In the Old Mine the templar Ian holds the tunnel into the deeper galleries. Before he lets the hero pass he demands a new gearwheel for the broken swampweed press, and the hero fights his way a few floors down through minecrawler nests to recover one. Ian sends him on to Asghan at the sealed gate on the deepest level. Asghan adds one more condition: three more templars must come down to guard the open gate behind him before he will touch the mechanism. A healing potion or a plain argument persuades each of them in turn. With the gate finally open, the hero follows the dark tunnels through pack after pack of heavy minecrawlers until he reaches the hatchery of the queen. The fight is ugly but survivable with the Stone Breaker from Chapter 1, and the queen dies on her own eggs.

Back at the surface every camp rewards the successful return. The Old Camp promotes the hero to guardsman under Thorus or to a full Fire Mage through Corristo; the New Camp raises him to mercenary under Lee as soon as he has reached Level 10; the Swamp Camp lifts him from novice to templar through Cor Angar once the crawler secret is on the altar. Kalom receives the queen's eggs with barely a nod and throws one more task on the pile: the old Almanac the Brotherhood needs to complete the ritual has been stolen from the novice Talas on the road. Talas waits on the temple square for anyone willing to help, points the hero to the black-goblin cave where the book now rests, and covers the retreat from the safe side of the bridge.

The hero fights through the black goblins and brings the Almanac back to Cor Kalom, who finally nods and tells the hero to be at the temple square at nightfall. Everything is now in place for the Great Calling - the focus, the queen secret, the Almanac, the assembly of the Brotherhood. As a novice the hero also receives in this chapter the side-task of shutting down the illegal swampweed operation out at the lake ("Illegale Krautherstellung"). But the real weight of the chapter is the single night that ends it: the Brotherhood gathers under the stars and lifts the first words of the Calling of the Sleeper.