“Beware the dusky maidens of Farise!”
After facing war, death, unruly gods, and unmitigated evil, Minalan the Spellmonger is forced to return to Farise, the site of his earliest battles, with the simple assignment to conquer the subtropical city-state and expel the pirates that plague the kingdom’s shipping. Tired of warfare, Minalan embarks on a clandestine campaign to do so, assuming an alias and setting up shop in Farise as a mere Practical Adept as cover for his operation. Recruiting a cadre of talented agents to assist, he reluctantly begins the task of infiltrating and observing Farisian society and its corrupt, ramshackle regime of pirates and rebels with the goal of subverting it. But it’s not easy. The Farisians are a strange and stubborn people whose customs and history are at odds with Minalan’s feudal sensibilities. The popular sailor’s warning to “beware the dusky maidens of Farise” becomes all too apt as he secretly plots to seize the remote remnant of the Magocracy. The ancient underground organization known as the Contramara seems to be behind every plot and scheme, and unseen masters control the city like puppeteers in the Farisian marketplace. Assassination, kidnapping, extortion, betrayal, and bribery are the rules of the day as different power blocs play the game of whispers with costumed gangs in the streets and daggers in the salons. It doesn’t take a wizard to realize that revolution is in the air and things are at a breaking point. Minalan must struggle with the ghosts of his past as he tries to navigate an uncertain future in the hot, storm-tossed land he once occupied. Legacies from his days in the occupation army fifteen years before return to haunt him and complicate his mission while he keeps up the pretense of being a simple self-promoting Practical Adept, selling his spellwork like any other artisan. But when one of the infamous “dusky maidens of Farise” stumbles across this mission with an old, one-eyed wizard, things start to get complicated. In a journey that takes him from ancient ruins to hidden temples to the sewers of Farise to the spire of the Doge’s Citadel, Minalan undertakes an adventure unlike any he’s faced before. New allies and shifting politics propel him to question his past, his motives, and his very identity as he realizes the sinister truth in another old saying: “Nothing is as it seems in Farise.” For there is a new, unknown power working behind the scenes, one even older and more determined than the Contramara, to control the chaotic city and determine its fate. And all that stands in its way is one resolute Practical Adept!
