Ravenscar: Rand and the origin of the Undead Legion
Mina’s Amulet
In the present, Mina's Ghost recognizes the living Hero as someone who can help. She asks for her lost amulet, promising to reveal how Ravenscar was cursed and how Dage's Undead Legion began. The Hero searches the village and recovers it; Mina thanks the Hero for finding what she could not.
When Mina shows the amulet, she says it belonged to her betrothed, but the picture is gone; it is still something she can hold onto. She calls Ravenscar cursed and herself trapped for a crime she did not commit, with the flames and her grief continuing as long as the Undead Legion marches.
The amulet reveals an account set five thousand years in the past, when Dage and Blightbringer contended over the Underworld and Blightbringer sought the Book of Dark Doors. Ravenscar burns; Rand confronts Dage over his family, friends, and home. Dage denies causing the destruction, says he knows the necromancer responsible, and offers to help Rand make him pay. Rand says he would do anything to make that enemy hurt as much as he does.
Rand’s Revenge
Dage sends Rand against the undead still in the village. Their loot leads to a page from the Book of Portals, then to the missing spellbook; Dage says the book holds a spell that can open a way into Blightbringer's lair. He says casting it requires corrupting something pure and good connected to someone no longer alive, supplied by Rand himself. The undead have taken the picture of Rand's lost love, so Rand recovers it for the spell.
The spell opens the portal with the memory of Rand’s beloved as its fuel. Rand cannot remember who Dage means when he speaks of a beloved; Dage says casting the spell destroyed the resource that supplied the energy, and tells Rand that as far as he knows, he has never loved anyone. The way to the Underworld is clear, and Rand can pursue the revenge that began with Ravenscar’s fall.
Dage's route brings them near Blightbringer, but they must fight through undead, take the gate key, and press the skulls in the right order. In the Underworld, Rand backstabs Blightbringer and takes a green ball of energy from him. Dage senses unexpected power, thinks he has removed one competitor, and refuses to let another rise.
The First General
Dage kills Rand, takes his soul, and binds it to his own power. Rand rises undead and demands to know what Dage did; Dage says directly that he killed him and bound his soul. He insists Rand is not mindless: Rand can think, plan, and lead, making him the first soldier and first General of the Undead Legion.
Dage attacks Rand with blue flames. Rand tells him that he hates the undead, was betrayed, and will never serve him. Dage studies his resistance, then insists that Rand will serve, recruit, or be replaced. The first General's role is imposed despite Rand's refusal, and Dage imagines a whole world of others he can claim and lead.
Back in Mina's present, she says the Hero now knows what happened but cannot know whether Rand would have left his father's farm and changed the world without meeting Dage. She says she remains doomed while Dage's minions ravage Lore and Ravenscar burns. She fears the Legion is eternal, sees Rand as a weapon guided by Dage, and believes it can no longer be stopped. The Legion keeps growing as Mina watches, with no end to her grief in sight.