Juan's mother calls him to help after his sister Rosa has gone missing
for a while.
Juan and the other heroes (Lucas, Vlad, and Picante) go in search of Rosa.
Juan traces Rosa to a small village in La Sierra de Hierro, where she is
apparently staying to help the villagers after some recent attacks by bandits.
The heroes learn that, using a strange Syrneth artefact, Rosa can heal
grievous wounds.
The village, and others around it, have been frequently raided by bandits
led by a man who calls himself El Víboro.
Food and supplies are stolen, and the able-bodied men are captured and
led away.
One villager has managed to escape and come back;
from him it was learned that the captives are used by El Víboro
to work in a mine.
The heroes go spy on El Víboro's mine,
and end up being captured. They are forced to work in the mine.
Juan manages to get an interview with El Víboro
who explains that he has partly deciphered an ancient text which suggests
that there is a deposit of dracheneisen in the area. The bandit
argues that Castille needs this resource; he has tried to hire the peasants
but he cannot pay them the wages and so decided resorted to forcing them
to work.
Juan offers to pay the wages, so El Víboro
puts Juan in charge of the operation. Juan accepts, and the bandit
leaves.
Juan discovers that, pay or no pay, the villagers
just want to go home!
Meanwhile, Vlad, still working in the mine, inadventently
discovers a cavern by breaching through a wall. In the cavern he
finds a sleeping drachen. For reasons known only to him, he decides
to wake the sleeping dragon, who promptly kicks his Ussuran ass between
his ears. Vlad runs for his life and the mine is evacuated in a panic
while the drachen goes on a rampage.
The heroes finally manage to collapse the mine's
tunnel and either crush or trap the drachen.
Juan and Rosa have some parting words. Rosa,
who has been pressing him to renounce his sorcery in the name of Theus,
finally walks away in anger, announcing her intention to travel to Vodacce.
Juan, still accompanied by his friends, returns to
inform his mother of the results of his expedition. He finds the
house burned to the ground and his mother's charred body inside.
Blind with rage, he goes in pursuit of El Víboro
whom he assumes is responsible for the murder.
After a bitter fight, the bandit manages to convince
Juan that he did not kill his mother. But by then the trail of the
real murderer is cold.
