Mikalla's story:

Some 8 years ago, Mikalla Czak first starts hearing tales of mighty Asgeir; her beauty, wealth and power, and how she had been imprisoned by Loki as nothing more than a prank.  Fueled by a combination of greed, lust, and quite possibly a tiny bit of subtle assistance from Loki, Mikalla makes the rescue of Asgeir, along with the subsequent (and in his view inevitable) winning of her heart and hand for so doing, his life's quest.

He gets off to a decent start.  His research is sound enough, and between his nature skills and knowledge of the area it doesn't take him long to find the stairway, but he tries to climb the stairs without the Heart of Asgeir and is lucky to survive when the stairs disappear from beneath him partway up.  So, after recovering from his injuries, he starts work on solving how to safely climb the stairs.

Years pass, during which time he learns that a red gem of some sort is the key to safely getting up the stairs.  At one point, he even hears tell of a party who have found just such a gem and are intent on going up, so he races to the stairs but by the time he gets there the party - including Lusia - have already climbed.  He doesn't dare follow, so he waits to see if the stairs disappear like they did when he tried going up.  They don't, and he grows very concerned, but none of the party are ever heard from again and after several months he guesses, correctly, that they have failed.  (as it turns out, this party's gem is not the Heart of Asgeir, so Asgeir's servants kill them all except Lusia, who becomes Asgeir-the-Lich's plaything for the next 5 years)

More years pass, and Mikalla becomes ever more consumed by his passion.  Eventually, he learns of somebody named Groa, who lives at the head of a remote glacier-filled valley somewhat north and west of the stair and who might have some knowledge of Asgeir.  But by the time he reaches Groa's hut she has died, and - as his intentions are anything but goodly - her spirit will not reveal itself to him.  Searching the hut reveals nothing, but as the valley's only previous Human occupant is now dead he makes it his home and spends a year or so making peace with the local wildlife.  Off a vanquished adventurer he acquires a device of non-detection; once he realizes what this is, it never leaves his person again and he adopts a much more sinister outlook on life.

Finally, word reaches him that someone else is interested in Groa, and that this interest is quite possibly connect- ed with Asgeir.  About the same time, a couple of foreigners (Throy and Metsamo) enter the valley and get killed by a nearby resident Dragon before Mikalla can do anything about it.  So, Mikalla heads for the valley mouth and is rewarded when a rescue party arrives looking for the two foreigners.  Acting on a hunch, he convinces them to take him on as a guide, and much to his well-disguised glee he soon discovers they are in fact looking to free Asgeir themselves.  He also learns a lot about the party's capabilities during the next month or so.

The rescue party clear out the Dragon's hoard, and return with a large red gem.  Thinking this might just be the gem he needs, Mikalla steals it at the first opportunity and hides it a half mile or so away from the party - well out of range of any detection spells.  However, when the rest of the party arrive and are actually able to speak with Groa's spirit, he learns the real gem - the "Heart of Asgeir" - is in fact many miles away.  So he calmly ac- companies the party out of the valley, then takes his leave, goes back to recover the stolen gem, and trades it to another local Ranger for a magic sword. (Mikalla gets the short end of the stick here too; the gem is worth about twice the sword's normal value, but as he has no knowledge of gem evaluation he thinks it a fair trade)

Mikalla then tracks the party to the Ruins of Trakand, hoping they can do all the dirty work involved in finding the Heart and that he can then just steal it at a good opportunity and vanish into the woods.  He hires a group of local Hobgoblins to ambush the party as they leave, so he can heroically save the day and thus regain the party's confidence, but the Hob's make a complete mess of things.  First, they ambush a Frost Giant instead of the party, and Blug's arrow-riddled corpse would serve as a clear warning to the party that danger is near. Then, they prove completely unable to inflict any serious harm on the party when the party finally does emerge. Mikalla, hoping for a relatively easy time of things, is instead forced to flee and in fact Calion nearly catches him in the woods (though doesn't realize it) before he finally makes good his escape.

Now, Mikalla has to improvise.  He knows the party's next move will be to the stair, so he dashes north in hopes of being able to reprise his guide act; he gets there first only because he knows where the stairs are and the party does not.  He talks his way into the party once more, and learns Pearl carries the Heart, but the party insist on a climbing order that puts several people between he and Pearl.  Seething with frustration, he waits until they’re all a few hundred feet above ground, then tries to simply knock people off the stairs until he can get to Pearl.  Perry manages to fight him to a draw, however, and both fall; even this might have been fine except Mikalla doesn’t realize Germanica awaits below.  He quickly casts Feather-fall, then tries to shoot Perry, also feather-falling and badly hurt, but Germanica casts Dispel Magic on Mikalla who falls to his death.