Editing Challengers of the Unspeakable (section)

===Duvik Pass===
[[File:Hoshotath.jpg|thumb|left|Hoshotath begins to enter Syra.]]
The heroes continued down the road for several days, eventually reaching [[Duvik Pass]]. As they traveled, they were attacked by a medusa whose arm was branded by a dark green rune leading a gang of bandits. The Challengers narrowly defeated her, though as they did the rune vanished and reappeared on Harthur's arm, poisoning him. Harthur quickly determined, however, that he could channel that poison into his blades. Fearing that more bandits were wielding such powers, they followed their tracks off the pass and into the mountains until they found ruins covered in similar runes. They also found more bandits, these ones led by a minotaur with bright orange runes glowing on his neck. As before, when they killed him the runes transferred to Gryff, searing him with pain but enabling him to channel fire into his sword. Exploring the ruins, they found sketches of a set of standing stones with runes drawn next to them. Fearing what the bandits had stumbled upon, they continued to the top of the mountain where they found the standing stones and the bandits' leader. Though a heavy cloak obscured most of her features, when she spoke they realized it was their old ally, Tephra. She explained that she was now serving a being known as [[Allabar]], who had given her the ultimate power she had always dreamed of and who would soon remake the world in his image. She intended to free the [[primordial]] [[Hoshotath]], who would destroy the world's defenders and pave the way for her master's arrival.

Though the Challengers fought fiercely against the elementals she summoned, she was able to shatter enough standing stones for Hoshotath to begin to enter Syra, scouring the mountaintop with his power. Tephra herself assailed them with both powerful arcane magic and tentacles that whipped out from within her cloak. She was ultimately defeated by a mighty blow delivered by Kalth, but her body erupted into a mass of writhing tentacles and her telepathic voice told the Challengers that they would see her again.

As Tephra vanished, another set of magical runes carved themselves into Nuraya's chest. Though she could feel Hoshotath's will driving her to kill her companions and finish freeing him, she found that she also understood the ritual that had bound him. Pushing back against the primordial's influence, she was able to inscribe new runes upon the ruined stones that forced him back into his prison and bound him once more. Once the binding was complete, the runes vanished from Harthur and Gryff but remained carved into Nuraya's crystalline form.