Session 10-11-08

 

 

The four exhausted friends, and their feline companion Auernoth, prepare for their final stand against the Ebon Aspect.  The mysterious being created by Jenoic and Exile to resolve their ideological wager has been corrupted by the evil Ebon Triad, and faced with the prospect of utter defeat, the four heroes cannot but face their destiny as heroes must.  They bravely turn as one and face the gate as it forms completely, freezing the struggling forms of Jenoic and the Exile in mid-grapple and bursting outwards in a flash of blue, red and purple light.  The Exile seems prepared to defeat Jenoic and win his gambit once and for all, but then a thought comes unbidden to the heroes' minds: the date is, in fact, Alindor 1... Prankster's Day.  Bracing for battle, the four adventurers are instead shocked to hear a happy cry of "Wheeeeeee!" as a massive pile of fleshy, chitinous debris flops through the gate with a comical sploosh, followed shortly by a gnome they recognize at once: it is Merin Jewelshine, god of the gnomes, ridiculously clad in black silk pajamas adorned with shiny ebony buttons.  Merin surfs out of the gate on a wet, sloppy pile of Chaal-Nathran innards, holding what appears to be a shining spindle of glowing purple thread laced with motes of sharp violet jewels, spinning to a stop not five feet from the disbelieving group.

 

The returned god of the gnomes brushes off a few clinging bits of Chaal-Nathran goo, then reaches out to embrace each of the four heroes.  "Capital job, my friends!  I have returned as promised, none the worse for wear.  Well, perhaps somewhat worse... there is much now that needs doing."  The little gnome's bushy eyebrows angle sharply as he turns to face Jenoic.  "Up and at 'em, old boy!  You've had worse."  Merin begins winding his spindle, gathering threads of energy from the gate of purple light, unravelling the powerful working that Jenoic and the Exile entered into during the Convergence.  The Exile shakes with rage, powerless to stop Merin or interfere with him due to the energy field of the gate.  Meanwhile, Jenoic slowly rises to his feet, an expression of gratitude and faithful love upon his elven face as he looks toward Nathaniel, Essedar, Zara, Telenvor and Merin.  All the while, Merin keeps winding and winding, unraveling ever more of the gate's entwined energy.

 

"Now that I am free, thanks to your brave efforts," says Merin, casually continuing his work, "I hope you have time for a story.  I can say without fear of contradiction that you are the first mortals to hear such secrets in many ages," he says, casting a baleful glance at the Exile's wrathful form, shaking in impotent disbelief at the unmaking of his gambit.  "You have heard of the mortal called the Jeweler, who so loved his dying wife that he crafted her consciousness into a grand crystal matrix beneath the surface of Gaia herself?  Some of you call this matrix 'Source,' which is as good a name for her as any.  Well, that mortal was me, and Source was my greatest creation.  She contains all the secrets of Gaia, you know... even the method by which mortals may ascend to divinity.  It was these secrets that were stolen during the Banespawn Wars, perverted to serve evil and spawn the beings you know as Yshunor, Ethoar and Tyraudon.  Jenoic led the way, despite the warnings of others, and Irindix went below forever, banished to the Underlands for her perceived role in the unpleasantness."

 

"And YOU," he says, addressing the Exile, "the trouble with god-gambits, bargains such as the one you entered into, is that they're subject to peer review.  You rigged the game; you set up your eidolon to reach a foregone conclusion.  That's not how we do things around here."  He now addresses both beings.  "In all my days as an immortal, I was always known for my hacks, my slices, my crafted fixes for things that were broken.  Unfortunately, my friends, neither of you gets off entirely free.  Ah yes!  And now to my story, for the benefit of you mortals.  I hope you use the information wisely!"

 

 

" In the mists of time before the Vernal Epoch, the elves and dreamkin split into material and dreaming races.  This was Gaia’s  Sundering, the separation of worlds.  The dreamkin became the fey, and the terms are essentially interchangeable.  Fey gates have always gone to the Dreaming, which itself contains gates to other dimensions, as does material Gaia – the Dreaming has always echoed material Gaia in this way and other ways.  Once the dreamkin had migrated to the Dreaming, they found the ways in which the dreamlands responded to their manipulations and thoughts to be addictive and lost their connection to the elves and the material world. One of these races of fey, or dreamkin, were known as the Zadonites.  The last of their kind stands now before you, if only in spirit," says Merin, gesturing at the Exile.

 

"In any case, long after the Sundering, the secrets of immortality were stolen and Jenoic implicated Irindix in the theft, setting off the Banespawn Wars and helping to convince the other deities that she must be banished from the pantheon.  Recall that events on material Gaia are frequently echoed in the Dreaming.  It is not known, even by me, what actually occurred back then.  Mortals such as yourselves must quest to discover the secrets of that era and the terrible mistake that may have been made in casting her out.  For did you know that the Planet herself is quite capable of creating hybrid forms of divinity, independent of the deities themselves?  One such is the Worldspinner, the great earth spider, a dual aspect of Irindix and Shandae.  Even now she weaves her endless web beneath the surface of Gaia, between the vast dark of the Underlands and the sun-warmed lands above.  You have heard, then, of the Dreaming Web?  The means by which mortals rediscovered paths to the Dreaming that could be visited while awake and lucid?  It was this discovery, of the strands of the Worldspinner which make up the pathways of the Dreaming Web, which re-opened the way to Gaia for the zadonites and their Exile."

 

"There can be no doubt now of the Exile's original plans.  Whatever caused his bitterness and predilection for war, he stood apart from the others of his race, and they opposed his return and his plan to remake Gaia in his image with a massive Convergence of the Dreaming and material planes.  He is a powerful being, nigh unto a god in his own right, and he almost succeeded in trapping me permanently and making me a snack for his ally Kyuss of Chaal-Nathra.  Even so, I fear they used my people's illusioncraft to committ a terrible atrocity and bring your nation to the brink of war."  Merin shudders with the memory of his near-vivisection and absorbtion into the elder god known as the Worm-That-Walks.

"As the two planes merged, the other zadonites performed a mass ritual which consumed their life force - or perhaps diffused it, more correctly - and prevented the destruction of material Gaia.  The Exile would have created his own Dreaming paradise, and overlaid the material Gaia of your parents and all other past generations with another world of his own making.  As I said, the game was rigged.  But Jenoic engaged him, and they came together in battle, streaking to the surface of the Planet in a violent starfall.  As the Convergence raged, it became obvious that the Exile's original plan had been ruined by his own people and their sacrifice.  We now see that there was a method to their madness, with the appearance of zadonite dreambrands amidst the mortal populace of Gaia.  They have passed on their heritage to the youth, the children of the Convergence, and the young will lead us into the future.  That's you, by the way," he grins

"There were further complications, though," continues Merin.  "The Exile's ritual would have put an end to we deities of Gaia as you know us, and that could not be permitted.  In truth we were caught unawares, but the zadonites and Jenoic saved us.  When Anilmathien engaged with the Exile, coupled with the counter-ritual of the zadonites, the rest of us were forced to take on flesh forms.  It was an... unfortunate side-effect of the whole situation, but we will make the best of it, as Gaians always have.  The Exile set up an ideological conflict with Jenoic: the two of them would identify significant deeds, significant souls, and set them against one another as pawns in a greater battle.  But as I said before, the game was rigged.  The eidolon - a half-formed godling - was exposed to the worst of what Gaia has to offer, the crawling evil of the Ebon Triad and its Elder Banes.  The Exile planned this, I think.  He never wanted a fair fight with Jenoic.  His madness is consuming him, but there is much work yet to be done."

Merin shrugs, grinning at the heroes as they stagger to take in all the information in his tales.  "And now, though I admit it's hack-work at best, the gambit is undone.  The house's game is, as they say, no longer rigged."  The god of the gnomes finishes the last few winds of his glowing purple thread, unraveling the last of the gate's energy and sending both the Exile and Jenoic hurtling into its black center, sucked through as though with the force of the vaccuum of space.  "They are now free to struggle against each other.  Prior to my little hack, ALL conflict fed the Exile's power and divinity, for he sought to take Jenoic's mantle and become the consort of the Planet herself.  Whether you prayed for peace or war, if t'was your sword arm accomplishing the deed, it fed the Exile.  Now that equation will be balanced.  Our intentions now determine where that energy will go, and what possible futures will come to Gaia.  The mad dreams of the Exile could still take hold, but we have a fighting chance."

The little gnome rubs his hands together gleefully.  "And I cannot thank you enough for your stout bravery and defense of myself and my people!  For that little favor, I will grant you one in return."  He tosses the bloated spool of energy-thread into the black hole of the gate, which closes in upon itself with an audible "pop" and seals itself shut, vanishing at once.  "That poor eidolon, who was subjected to such horrors at its birth, is now nothing more than a weave of possibilities and energy.  I have entrusted the Worldspinner with its fate, and it shall remain with her, carefully guarded and spun into a chrysalis of potential, waiting for some clever mortal... or mortals... to find their way to it and take up the mantle.  The gambit of Jenoic and the Exile was to end in the crowning of a new deity, and so it shall.  Seek out the Worldspinner and learn of the ways beyond sight that lead to power and wisdom... destiny awaits.  And now I too must go, but my favor will remain upon you, and my people will know you as heroes and liberators.  Farewell my friends!"  With a flourish, the gnome god bows low, straightens his black silk pajamas, and meets the heroes' eyes once more.  "I made a fine Ebon Aspect, think you not?" he laughs, and then vanishes with a snap of his small fingers.

 

Alone in the mausoleum of Ijruk's Blind with war and occupation bearing down upon them, the four companions know they must return to their homeland at once to reveal the conspiracy of Kyuss and Chaal-Nathra, who have hoodwinked Emperor Royce into a mistaken war of vengeance.  Zara prays for guidance, and in her mind she sees a flash of Tent Town outside the walls of Aerendale-Haven.  The party briefly searches the corridors of the Blind and discovers that the flesh wall that warded their way out is now gone.  They step out into the sunlight, finding themselves near ground zero of the starfall, at the very spot where Jenoic and the Exile began their divine gambit, manipulating mortal souls around them in an ideological war for the soul of civilization.  The Blind is starkly beautiful, marred by the scar and crater of the starfall, but even here new evergreen saplings can be seen poking through melted rock and blasted earth.  The companions look to one another, join hands, and await Nathaniel's completion of his teleport spell. 

 

Aerendale-Haven, Tent Town, 4-1-23 CR:  

An instant later, they stand in a well-known clearing of trees outside Aerendale-Haven, with the smell of raw flowing sewage and aura of quiet tension that signals they have reached the outskirts of Tent Town.  Here and there among the tents, Telenvor spots the traditional angular black plate mail of Moridarn soldiers.  The Moridarn infantry seem to be keeping peaceable order over Tent Town, but the party remains out of sight for the moment.  Eventually they step out into the open, and Nathaniel asks a young Hathoraen boy about current events.  "They call me Nymm, m'lord," says the boy.  "I'm no lord," replies Nathaniel, "but tell us what has happened here.  There are soldiers everywhere!  Are they inside the city as well?"

 

Nymm sighs, "Yes indeed, sir.  Today is the day.  All the votes have been counted, they say, and President Weylorn is due to speak when the sun is highest in the sky.  That'd be about two hours from now, sir."  Zara gives the young man a gold piece for his trouble, for which Nymm is most grateful.  As the conversation continues, however, a contingent of Moridarn soldiers notices the party.  A young female lieutenant, clad in black plate and the traditional purple and silver trim of Moridar, approaches.  She is all business, quite polite and efficient, and carries an air of confident authority.  "You are Zara Oberwald, Nathaniel Crane, Essedar Holmwen, and Telenvor Tisiera?" she inquires.  "I must inform you that you are wanted for conspiracy to commit murder and destruction on the esteemed Emperor and the nation of Moridar, related to events involving former Prince Royce's visit to the orc capital of Thran-Gaar last year.  I must place you under arrest for immediate questioning.  Please do not cause an incident."

 

As she speaks, more than a dozen heavily armored and armed Moridarn soldiers surround the four companions.  The soldiers insist that the four bind their weapons, and then coolly march them through the north gate of Aerendale.   Both Moridarn and Hathoraen soldiers man the gates, and during their brief processing at the north gate, Essedar manages to alert several members of the Picket (a Hathoraen espionage unit) to their plight with a series of secret hand signals. Upon passing through the gate they are turned over to a tall Moridarn man with long, flowing black moustaches who does not give his name, though his badge insignia identifies him as a 1st-rank Military Inspector.    "You will come with me at once for joint questioning with your own legal authorities at the custom-house, which is now serving as a joint base for law enforcement between our two nations," he states in a clipped tone.  The inspector and a dozen Moridarn infantry now escort the four friends to a three-story building just inside the city gates which they recognize as the north gate customs house.  Once inside, Essedar makes eye contact with a young clerk whom he recognizes as a member of the Picket, and the two of them exchange several coded hand signals to alert other members of the organization of the fact that the attack on Emperor Royce and his family was a carefully crafted setup.  Essedar is certain that his messages are received and understood by the young Hathoraen clerk.

 

After several tense minutes of questioning, the inspector brings in a Moridarn wizard, a calculating woman with dark blue eyes, who performs several short magic rituals of detection upon the four friends.  "I am satisfied that they are clean; there is no infestion that I can detect, Inspector," she says to the moustached man.  "Very well," he salutes, dismissing the wizard.  The four are then bound in iron neck collars, with bars attached to their hands and cuffs for their ankles and feet.  Combat and spellcasting are now impossible, and they are at the mercy of their Moridarn captors.  The inspector regards them carefully.  "Your President is about to begin his speech, and you are entitled to hear it.  I will order you an escort to the Sun Park Coliseum, should you wish it."  Soon enough, the companions are marched through Aerendale toward its central park near the Temple district, led forward by a squad of grim Moridarn infantry.  All throughout the city, citizens stream towards the park in an orderly fashion, but as they near Sun Park and its great marble bowl of a coliseum, the tension in the air is palpable.  The President's speech is about to begin, and the will of the Hathoraen people will be known.  By nightfall, two nations that were once the strongest of allies will be at war, or else Moridar will occupy Hathorae and control her destiny for the present.

 

 

Amidst the din of the crowd, in the middle of the great coliseum, a tall platform has been erected, on which now stand two figures: one is the young, pale, trembling figure of Emperor Royce Ralaevar, his fury barely concealed beneath a hard-jawed mask of quiet anger, his tall, muscular frame seething with a need for vengeance; the other is the Supreme Elect of Hathorae, an ageless warrior who has for years chosen to show his age, calm and serene, looking now more like a solemn warrior king of winter than an elected official of a fledgling republic.  President Weylorn Orren gestures for quiet, and the assembled thousands quickly hush, a gentle murmur falling steadily in volume.  Weylorn speaks to all assembled, countrymen and allies:

 

"I stand before you Folk of this great nation, my friends, my family, my loves, my heart, and most importantly, those citizens who stand with me and call me brother though they disagree at any given time with the course of growth which our fair nation takes.  To Shandae the Mother of All, To Jenoic, the mighty and resplendent Walker Beside, to Bright Aeren of the shifting sands, and to wandering brave Elaera of the cliffs, I bow in reverence and honor.  Let us come together in a joining of hearts and minds and shared purpose as we move forward united, sheltered from the red rain of hate which now seems to fall unceasingly and unwanted upon us.

 

"Hathorae was constructed first from thought, love, focus and action born of pain and suffering, but also born of compassion and valor.  Its founders, myself among them, dreamt of a better world given form through the efforts of a people united by common purpose and sacred trust.  All who learn our nation’s history – the triumphs and the folly of our endeavors alike, as history must be taught to be of substantive use – know that the economic foundation of Hathorae rested initially upon the bounty recovered from the Overlord Khyrandros and its Hierarchy of Souls.  No person of honor could do other than return such bounty to the bosom of the people who had so suffered at the will of the Hierarchy, and so the coffers were upturned and the future of the people was safeguarded as was fitting.

 

"All who hear my words know the laws and the Constitution of our nation, which provides for the common good through love, respect and shared sacrifice.  We have provided through our collective labors a miraculous lens through which other nations might see a different world, where we are not divided by our differences, but made stronger in a communal sisterhood and brotherhood which affirms and honors the conscious efforts of the divine to connect all Gaians in a tapestry of magic and life.  We have lived and will always live by the principle that magic is life.

 

"By the Walker, each time I stand before the citizenry assembled, your faces seem to grow younger and less familiar to me, and yet the eyes of youth are lost even as the sun shines off your glowing faces.  Children without mothers, without fathers, without families to speak of save the quiet love of the morphs that arrived like a blessing and a dream in the face of a red dawn.  War has taken much from you, children of Hathorae, and from some, war has taken your children.  Yet the nation, the office of the President, the functions of government remain, and the bloody wheel turns and the red rain falls not on the mighty and the ageless, but upon the innocent and the quiet, the meek and the hopeful, dashing hope, destroying the dreams of youth.  Your eyes speak clearly of the fact that we are a nation weary of war.

 

"But sad and tired eyes alone cannot determine the fates of nations.  Votes must do that, and in point of fact they have done so.  Since the tragedy which befell our friends and allies in the north, the great nation of Moridar, we have asked more of you than ever before – into your capable hands we placed the future of Hathorae, not simply in terms of deciding who would be your senators and chamberlains, but what the collective response of our nation would be to these harrowing and unprecedented events in relation to our neighbors in Moridar.  The question we posed was simple on its face, but complex in the extreme once delved into by an informed and conscious populace.  Would we go to war and fight our sworn allies over a tragic misunderstanding – or worse, a deliberate deception – or stand down and bare our throats to the mercy and justice of the truth?

 

"The votes cast here in Aerendale, from FortPraevé in the east to the valleys and farms of the western holds in Tantaev, you have spoken.  Your government – our collective voice – as well as the individual held most responsible for this tragedy, General Al-Sayyid, my beloved husband, have both beseeched Moridar and the good Emperor Ralaevar to see how unbelievable it is that this alleged attack could have been perpetrated by Hathoraen hands.  We as a nation stand accused of violent tampering in the matter of Imperial succession, and of the slaying of dozens of Moridarian citizens in a premeditative, terrorist slaughter.  My friend and ally, for I shall profess him so until the end of days, Emperor Royce Ralaevar believes we are guilty of violently murdering his family, friends and countrymen aboard the airship Invincible, in sight of our own capital city.  Over the past months, Milord and my love Ishak has done all he lawfully can to prove his innocence, and that of our soldiers under his command, in the court of world opinion.  In this, he has convinced all minds but those few which matter most.  And now some fourteen thousand soldiers lie poised upon our borders, ready to make war upon our nation.  To the people of Moridar I say: there is no conflict here.  We are your steadfast allies and offered aid and comfort during this time of tragedy.  As a nation, we stand by our collective assertion that this attack was contrived by forces unknown in order to start a new war and fracture the Northern Alliance.  There is no enemy anywhere but that which we perceive.  Hathorae is weary, our forces depleted and our youth exhausted by generations of conflict, and we shall not take up arms against our brothers and sisters to the north.  We shall not take this bait; we will not swallow this poison pill of falsehood. 

 

"The people have spoken, and I cannot but listen.  On this day, the X of Alindor in the year twenty-three Convergence Reckoning, the nation of Hathorae unconditionally surrenders to the nation of Moridar, and we call you friends and allies even as we lay down our arms.  Esteemed Emperor Ralaevar, we as a people and a nation place ourselves at your mercy." 

 

With those words, President Weylorn steps forward and calmly unbuckles the scabbard of his legendary greatsword, Diamondheart.  Solemnly and steadily, with no sign of resistance, he crosses the platform which stands above the teeming crowd of tens of thousands gathered in the great coliseum bowl of Sun Park in the center of Aerendale-Haven.   Expectant faces of morphs, humans, half-elves, dwarves, orcs and all the assembled races of citizenry watch as the president kneels quietly before Royce Ralaevar of Moridar, the first human ruler of the former Dragon Empire chosen to lead his nation since the dragons departed from the affairs of mortal politics.  All fall silent as the young Emperor stiffly takes one, two, and three steps towards Weylorn.  At this moment, Weylorn Orren looks less like a president and more like a glorious paladin of times past, his silvered armor flashing in the sun, his sparkling blade sending prismatic rainbows dancing across the leaves and treetops and grassy hills of Sun Park, his long grey-white hair and braided beard swaying gently in the wind.  With great deliberation, he takes his blade in both hands, places it on the platform before the plated feet of Emperor Ralaevar, and kneels low, kissing the blade and prostrating himself before the pale-skinned, trembling young man. 

 

Ralaevar’s eyes flare with impassioned hatred and his expression hardens.  He reaches with his left hand toward his right, removing the velvet glove upon his right hand to reveal his skin, stained deep crimson from fingertips to wrist, contrasting with the rest of his pale flesh.  and he stamps upon the president’s fingers, crushing them beneath his plated boots.  Weylorn does not react, except to raise his face up to meet Royce’s gaze.  “Mercy,” says the paladin, with no trace of pain in his voice.  The word rings out clearly across the park, and time seems to stand still for the assembled thousands.  His face twists and contorts with rage, and with a sudden, swift certainty, his red right hand draws forth his keen, adamantine-forged gladius, the traditional weapon of the Dragon Emperor.  “Vengeance!” cries the young Emperor, his voice gurgling with uncontrolled fury.  He kicks the president hard in the stomach and ribs, shattering bones and causing Weylorn to cough up a gobbet of blood.  Trembling uncontrollably, he snatches a handful of the ageless paladin’s hair, jerking his head up, and with an incoherent cry, draws the grey-black blade across his throat.  Hot blood runs down the blade, covering his red right hand as the president bleeds out his life, and the world of Gaia stands still between heartbeats.

  

The story of Falling Stars, Rising Hope will continue in Bastion of Peace and other upcoming branches of Gaia's Dream.

 

Falling Stars, Rising Hope