A messenger from the New Kingdom summons you to Kingscourt on a matter of great urgency. Arriving at the palace you expect to see the king (whom you helped on your previous visit) but are instead greeted by the prince who informs you that the king has fallen deathly ill, as have countless others.
The affliction, as the prince explains, stems from a great disaster in the kingdom's past. Hundreds of years ago the people of the Cyrakian kingdom lived in the forested old lands west of the Great Mountains, but the Dark Lords attacked the land and, with help from treasonous collaborators within the kingdom itself, gained the upper hand and moved to invade. The king, Talon Cyrak, refused to see his people and his kingdom handed over to the invaders, so as his loyalists fled east he sacrificed himself to initiate a powerful, plague-like curse against the collaborators who remained. The "Curse of Talon" swept through the population, leaving the land depopulated and depleted.
Now three hundred years later the Dark Lords have begun to send their orc raiders across the Great Mountains, and though immune to the curse themselves they carry it with them. It's now spreading through the kingdom and only a magical rod created centuries ago by Talon himself can lift it. The rod is believed to be hidden somewhere in the castle of the Cyraks in the old land, so with several able companions provided by the prince you set out across the mountains on your quest.
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