From the Tomes of the School of Scholars

Cicero Talaten was one of the greatest mages of his time. The adopted son and heir apparent of the Archmagus Jared Asehan, Talaten was a man much beloved by those who knew him. He was said to be a kind man and a philanthropist, and was personally responsible for the treaty that ended the war between the kingdoms of Ritten and Caliska. He donated much of his great fortune to schools of magic and learning. He was a happily married man with two sons and a daughter. But all of that would soon change.
Archmagus Asehan, Talaten’s benefactor and mentor, suddenly vanished. His body was found a fortnight later in the domains of the Warlord Malaan. Talaten, now the Archmagus, was responsible for Malaan’s later defeat and death at the hands of the Dragons, the Army of Caliska. Warlord Malaan’s lover, the witch Morilyn Kilenta, swore vengance on the mage.
She was apparently not long in making good on that oath. A year after the battle in which Malaan was defeated, Talaten and his family vanished. The Talaten ancestral home was found abandoned and empty. Many of Talaten’s personal possessions had been destroyed. Many reliable witnesses said that the once merry house now projected a haunted air. It would seem obvious that the witch Morilyn had murdered Talaten and his family in retaliation for Warlord Malaan’s death. Indeed, the bodies of his wife and two of his three children were soon found on the grounds of the Talaten manor. But the body of Cicero Talaten himself, nor the body of his son Erik, was ever found. Some of Talaten’s contemporaries emphatically believed that Talaten would have been too powerful for Morilyn Kilenta to defeat.
So the question remains: what did become of Magician Cicero Talaten? Was he killed by a murderous witch? Was he ensorcelled, or did something else entirely happen? And what of his missing son Erik? Was he killed with the rest of his family or did he escape? Might he have had a more sinister role in the events surrounding the death and disappearance of the Talaten family?
These questions have never been answered. And now, two hundred years after the fact, it is unlikely that they ever will be. The only clues are the legends and rumors that still persist, and the long-abandoned Talaten mansion, which has developed a reputation as a badly haunted house. The witch Morilyn was eventually killed, and her castle has also remained abandoned, shunned as a place of evil. No one knows what answers, if any, might be found within the dark recesses of that great lump of stone. No one is anxious to go looking.

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