The Treasure of Time (1983) is the second of, I believe, only two storybooks produced in collaboration between TSR and Marvel Books, the other being The Forest of Enchantment. Both are tie-ins for the LJN line of D&D toys — this one features Strongheart, Elkhorn, Zarak, Kelek and a sorceress, Charmay. More on her in a minute.

The story is a simple thing. Kelek steals a scroll revealing the location of the titular treasure and everyone races to get it. Kelek gets their first and uses it to de-age, but then loses his powers because of it. But gains a nice head of hair, which honestly seems like a fair trade. The end. What really makes this thing lovable is the art by the great Marie Severin. It’s so effortlessly lovely, the characters have such energy and the compositions catch the eye. And I love, love, love the final page of a pensive looking Elkhorn contemplating the sand running out of a hourglass. It was probably meant to just fill the space, but I think it hits with a surprisingly complex, adult weight.

Oh, Charmay, almost forgot. This is, to my knowledge, her only real appearance. A production drawing that very much looks like this character, a good sorceress, appears in The Shady Dragon Inn (1983), but she is among the villains and labeled as Skylla, even though she is clearly not the Skylla that (sorta) made it into the toy line in 1984. The same illustration is used for Skylla in Quest for the Heartstone, too. This discrepancy has apparently tormented toy folks for decades — was Charmay a planned figure distinct from Skylla, or just an early concept drawing of Skylla? We’ll probably never know!