Exalon

Exalon is the tiefling who keeps the Lazy Wizard inn in the small town of Osterhn in the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign. He greeted Ephorus warmly on his arrival and offered him a place in the common room even though he had no money.¹²³

Innkeeper and quiet helper

Exalon says he knows a little magic, enough that people in town leave him alone. Only small stakes are played at his tables, since bigger games would draw the attention of Jasper's men.⁴⁵

He finds work for those who want to help others, such as smuggling medicine or carrying messages. When he met Ephorus, Kemp Corvus and Sarah Lia Galanodel, he asked them to take medicine to the mother of Finart, a harbour worker who had organised the dockers against Jasper and whose mother was being denied medicine in return. Exalon could not do it himself without endangering both himself and those he helped, and offered to pay half the bribe for the bridge guards.⁶⁷⁸⁹

He told the newcomers that Jasper had some forty armed men, ran a racket that did not kill people but did not let them leave either, and was in league with the goblins whom the townsfolk feared even more than Jasper's men.¹⁰¹¹¹²

Later Exalon hid Finart in his rooms. He brought Ephorus the mother's ornate mortar, saying it was made of a magical wood. He agreed that two months of medicine were no lasting answer, but would not leave the young man to die or to the townsfolk, and offered the town's doctor his own blood, which he called strange, in exchange for the blood the medicine needed; the doctor agreed to try. He judged the doctor a greedy man who cared for no one but himself, and declared himself ready to help if anyone moved to kill Jasper.^131415161718

The pact

The companions once found Exalon stripped to the waist, old sword scars showing, fighting to stay awake with a spiked bracelet that hurt him. If he slept, he said, he might not get up for weeks or months, and he asked them for a bitter, dark, odourless mushroom from the nearby Derinkök caves. He ate the mushrooms they brought with water and thanked them. He then told them he had made a pact, not easily broken, with a being far more powerful than himself, and that with its power and authority he had to carry its responsibility and its curse; the trouble with sleep was part of it, and he did not regret it.^1920212223

Ephorus later described him to his friends as a warlock whose powers came from such a pact. Exalon told Ephorus that he had seen the terms of his own pact before accepting it and thought it dangerous that Ephorus had accepted his unseen. In his account an unnamed queen watches people with promise and makes her offer when they are in dire straits, and he expected that within a month or two Ephorus would be brought a dagger with a large black stone.²⁴²⁵²⁶

He said he had worked for years to have a clause added to the pact that bound him, making him free for as long as he stayed in this place, and that this was why he stayed at the Lazy Wizard. The pact, he said, slowly drives away sleep. Every six months the body must give way or it falls into a sleep of a day or two, and he gets around this with a potion. Its mushrooms and mosses can be replaced by others, but it needs very clean natural water: well water or merely boiled water will not do. He said it has no effect on an ordinary person, and he still needs ordinary rest. A later idea of the companions to make something similar to put hounds to sleep came to nothing.^2728293031

When Ephorus had made his own bargain, the Lady told him that Exalon had vouched for him. Exalon said his own bond was no longer what it had been: his soul would not go to the Shadowfell but would stay bound to Osterhn. He advised Ephorus never to delay the Lady's rare requests, brought by a crow or another servant, to help others who bear her mark, and not to harm her important allies; her great plan, he admitted, he had never learned. He also warned that the bans on dealing with the dead who return and on bodily relations with them were serious, the second because it could harm the other person too.^3233343536

Later still he told Ephorus that because of his blood part of his being belonged to the Nine Hells, and gave his opinion, while saying it was not his field, that the drow matrons had no absolute power over Ephorus.³⁷³⁸

The goblin war

Exalon described the goblin meeting place at Diştepe, a small, open hill unsuited to a large camp, and advised taking the goblin officer Moluk or another officer alive; he spoke the goblin tongue but could not leave the town himself. He gave the companions a potion in a thin tube which he said would speed a person up for about an hour, found them extra horses, and warned them to leave the horses well away from the camp because worgs could smell animals from far off.^39404142

When they brought back a living officer, he met them by moonlight at the abandoned tax building where the prisoner was hidden. There he cast a spell on the goblin and talked with him for a long time in his own tongue, playing the friend who would save him from Ephorus, and asked about the goblin leaders and the hobgoblin horde called the Eastern Torment, growing more worried as he listened. He then reported that an attempt on Jasper's life was being planned in the house of a woman Jasper regularly visited, and that he had learned where Moluk's den lay.^43444546

From a chest of old adventuring gear in his locked cellar he armed Ephorus with a short sword and Kemp with a longsword, simple magical weapons, saying one of the blades had come from a woman who had once mattered to him.⁴⁷⁴⁸

While the companions were captives, Exalon told the kobold Pitt that he could not save them, then left the inn to consult someone who might help. On the night the goblins threatened the town, he came limping out of the shadows with a mace and a sword and told Jasper to take his men and hounds out: Osterhn was under his protection. When the two met in the street it was plain that they knew each other, and Jasper did not object.⁴⁹⁵⁰⁵¹

Over whisky in the closed inn he laid down his mace and sword, and both vanished like smoke. He sheltered the poor of the Harbour and Square districts in the castle while Jasper's men were out, and when they returned he had the gate opened, congratulated them and handed the castle back.⁵²⁵³⁵⁴

He told Ephorus that while he held the castle he had placed magical marks inside it, so that its gate was no longer a barrier to him, and that something he needed for his freedom was in the castle, though he had not had time to find it. Jasper's recent good deeds, he said, did not wipe out his old cruelty, and he would keep his promise of justice for Finart's mother; but he did not have to kill Jasper if Jasper gave up his power and left. He had a quarrel with the witch hunters' methods but none with Gordon himself. When a new official witch hunter arrived, he gave Ephorus the key to the woodcutters' old blue house beyond the bridge and went into hiding in the tax building.^5556575859

He handed Ephorus a written order bearing the mark of the Osterhn Squad and a red ribbon, which he said Kerbor had given to the bridge guards: troublemakers from the harbour were not to be let across, even in a matter of life and death. When the companions came back from rescuing Kerbor he welcomed them with pork and wine, and said he had not felt the joy of sharing a meal with friends after an adventure in years.⁶⁰⁶¹

Before the great goblin assault the inn had no customers, so he set out the food that would spoil on free tables. He said he could not fight or put himself at risk, and planned to hide.⁶²⁶³

The rising against Jasper

After the victory Jasper denounced Exalon to the witch hunters as an unlawful wizard, and Gordon posted a proclamation of a witch hunt against him in the square.⁶⁴⁶⁵

Exalon now aimed openly at Jasper's death and the town's freedom. He had the caravan leader Lars called with a message that the time had come to repay an old debt, and reckoned that with Lars's men, the woodcutters and other debtors he could raise more than twenty fighters. He would lead the hunters several hours away and slip back through the marks he had left in the castle. Ephorus, Kemp and Sarah agreed to fight beside him for the townsfolk.^66676869

In the cellar he counted some thirty-five men against them. He asked the three to fetch a small wooden chest of his from the old marble wishing well just outside the castle's east wall; once it was taken, he said, he would be able to fight, and he would know. He would appear as an old human warrior, break the wall and open a way to the upper floor for them.⁷⁰⁷¹⁷²

The chest held a warm crystal heart, the size of a human heart and more like a real heart turned to crystal than a carving. When it was lifted the ground shook and thunder and an explosion sounded; at the castle the companions found the gate and wall broken and Exalon, in the guise of an old human warrior, fighting the larger garrison with a few men. When the garrison surrendered, he stopped his men from attacking those who had laid down their arms. Ephorus gave him the heart, and he put it in his pocket.^7374757677

From a surrendered officer he learned of Jasper's provisioned hiding place, and he hoped that once things settled the notables would elect him, or some decent person such as the tailor or the carpenter, until the Empire came.⁷⁸⁷⁹

Spoiler: The ghost in the wellGösterAçık ettiği: Sürgün Günlükleri #14; Sürgün Günlükleri #15 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

At the well the companions met the ghost of a noblewoman, who gave a name like Isabel and said the castle had been her father's house. She took Ephorus for Exalon and attacked him, crying that he had killed her; calmer for a moment, she said she was Exalon's wife, that he had had no choice but to kill her, and that she wished to see him one last time. The companions were forced to destroy her. When Ephorus told Exalon of the ghost and that her last message was one of forgiveness, he looked to the sky, took a deep breath and thanked him.^80818277

Head of Osterhn

Exalon joined the hunt for Jasper at once, saying he could not have come without the heart Ephorus had returned. He rode very well, having learned to fight on horseback, and said it was the first time in about forty years that he had been so far from the town, which he still called home. At Yeşiltepe he took his old human guise and remembered that forty years earlier, when most of the village did not yet exist, the miller's three daughters had kept a sort of tavern there.⁸³⁸⁴⁸⁵

Back in his own tiefling shape, he said he had killed the wizard known as Zehir Asa ("Poison Staff") long ago by striking him on the head outside his cave, and had never searched inside. Cassius Varum had described Zehir Asa as a wicked wizard who ran a gang and died some fifty years before. Exalon called himself a warrior, not a wizard. In the cave he warned that an old glyph probably held a powerful attack, likely a fireball, and when Jasper surrendered he stepped towards him in anger with his black mace but held himself back.^86878889

He asked the young mage Katherin to send a private letter he could not send in his own name to a young woman teacher whom Katherin remembered as a new assistant. Katherin finally posted it some time later.⁹⁰⁹¹

With a gnome tailor and the old dwarf merchant Gerd he found Jasper guilty at the town's trial. That evening, after the tailor and other candidates withdrew and Kemp spoke for him, the notables chose him to run the town until word came from the Empire. In his speech of thanks he told how as a young man he had carried a warrior's weapon, and how a drow turned away from a town's gate one night survived an orc attack, wounded, and defended that same town the next day.^92939495

When his friends left, he told them that whoever they were running from, the Lazy Wizard would always be their home, and promised Ephorus to share a secret when he was ready.⁹⁶⁹⁷

When they returned, the Lazy Wizard was open again and Pitt went about openly under Exalon's protection. Exalon said that when a hobgoblin force had passed through, he had taken the people into the castle and shut the gate, and that he had wined and dined the imperial census official and sent him off with a bribe. The old bond no longer kept him in the town, but his duties did.^9899100

Spoiler: At the lakeGösterAçık ettiği: Sürgün Günlükleri #26; Sürgün Günlükleri #27 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

When his friends later fought to free souls held by a lake, Exalon came through a purple portal with the allies Varis brought, carrying his great mace, for the sake of their old friendship. He told Ephorus he knew of his anger and would teach him to let it out in battle. With Lars he kept watch on the lake shore over the souls of Sarah and of his own late wife, and came back wounded but alive, saying they had protected Sarah's soul, before taking the helpers home through a magic door.^{101102103104105}

Spoiler: Later eventsGösterAçık ettiği: Sürgün Günlükleri #16; Sürgün Günlükleri #25 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

Exalon played a slow tune on the flute at the funeral of Sarah, who had died in the assault on the castle. Afterwards he stood alone before another woman's grave in the old part of the cemetery.¹⁰⁶¹⁰⁷

When the companions returned to Osterhn, he promised to tend Sarah's grave.¹⁰⁰

Spoiler: A visitorGösterAçık ettiği: Sürgün Günlükleri #28.5 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

A young tiefling who visited Ephorus said he was Exalon's son. His mother had died when he was a baby, and his father had sent him away to keep him from evil; when he made his own pact and repeated his father's mistakes, he sent word that he had died, so as not to grieve Exalon, and asked that his father not be told he lived. Ephorus gave him a diamond necklace that had belonged to his late mother.^108109110

Spoiler: The end of the campaignGösterAçık ettiği: Sürgün Günlükleri #50 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

After the last great battle Exalon was found dead, one arm torn off and a smile on his face. In his testament, read afterwards, he wrote that he had found a family among his friends, that he now wanted to rest and go back to his wife, and that a friend dear to him should be looked after and not left alone.¹¹¹¹¹²