Face-Stealer's Mask
Item · 500 gp · Weight 0.25
Lirk Ha'an was Storasta's greatest philosopher, but few people still remember his name. The bards call him the Face-Stealer, a great sage brought low by passion and hubris. Lirk Ha'an believed he could answer any riddle, solve any mystery. Having heard about the wisdom of demon lord Areshkagal, he dared to challenge the Faceless Sphinx. Within a circle of twenty three candles, Lirk Ha'an chanted "come and give me your most difficult riddle" from dusk till dawn. When the last candle burned out, the dim light of the dawn revealed a woman wearing a bloody pharaoh's striped nemes. She handed a mirror mask to Lirk Ha'an. "Don it, for it contains the riddle of the wise man's true face. Solve it, and boundless knowledge will be yours. But if you make a mistake, the mask will claim a part of your own visage." As the woman vanished, Lirk Ha'an put on the mask and witnessed a conundrum of infinite complexity. He kept giving wrong answers time and again, making his face bleed like an open wound until his soul started to follow suit. Feeling his end draw near but unable to concede defeat, Lirk Ha'an embarked on a journey. He asked but a single question to every traveler he met, "What is the wise man's true face?" He repeated their answers, howled in pain, cruelly murdered them, and flayed their faces. Unable to move on, the souls of his victims surrounded him, covered his shoulders like a ghostly cloak, and drove him delirious with their whispers until the former sage became known in Sarkoris as the Face-Stealer. Lirk Ha'an quickly forgot who he was and only remembered the riddle he was supposed to solve. He wandered the roads of Sarkoris for years until he met a renowned artificer named Xaria. The woman saw a tall gaunt figure emerge from the fog, wrapped in a shroud of spectral faces. The sage's voice cut through the barely audible murmur of lost souls: "What is the wise man's true face?" Trying to save herself, Xaria offered Lirk Ha'an her help. She promised the madman that she would create an artifact that would reveal his true visage. Lirk Ha'an brought her twenty-three dragon scales, no less and no more, a vial of prisoner blood, and the blade of an executioner's axe, then Xaria forged a blade of astonishing beauty. "Wield it, and let the knife's edge show you the path to what you seek: the path to the wise man's true face," said she. But when the Face-Stealer touched the knife, the blade greedily plunged itself into his mask, shattering the mirror-like surface and releasing the souls of his victims into the sky. The faces Lirk Ha'an had stolen fell to the ground as useless clumps of flesh, leaving only a gory skull behind. The Face-Stealer perished, and wise Xaria hid the shattered mask so nobody else would fall prey to Areshkagal's gruesome riddle.
Location
Road junction near Sevalros's Lair · 2Worldwound