Session 4-2-08

For the five companions - Nathaniel, Zara, Essedar, Telenvor and Londario - the flow of time seems to have halted.  Merin Jewelshine's aspect stands before them with a mischevious glint in his eye.  "Friends, before you do battle on my behalf, mayhap I can show you something important," he says, blinking his shining eyes once.  The scene fades away before the heroes' eyes like a chalk painting in a rainstorm, replaced by a vision of an idyllic glade somewhere deep in an old forest.  This primeval glade seems to be laden with lush fruit trees, each of which holds exotic three-lobed clusters of cherries, apples, pears or berries.  The atmosphere is quiet and serene, with golden light filtering through the emerald green leaves an occasional blossom falling gently to the ground in a barely perceptible breeze.

The adventurers take stock of their surroundings and realize they are witnessing events as invisible, incorporeal observers.  Wherever this grove actually lies, they are not physically present there... only in spirit.  A four-legged deerlike faun emerges nearby to nibble the soft moss gathering on a nearby cherry tree.  It is four times the size of a man and stands nearly twice as tall.  Nathaniel recalls a sketch of such a creature from his studies of primordial fauna at the University of Aerendale.  He approaches the faun cautiously as the breeze picks up and cherry blossoms begin to swirl around the grove.  Zara looks on curiously with Essedar as Nathaniel picks a lobe of cherries from a nearby tree and slowly, quietly approaches the faun in an attempt to feed it.

Though the creature is nervous, it eventually reaches out to nibble one of Nathaniel's cherries.  But in that same moment a bowstring sings out and a large razor-tipped hunting arrow flies from a nearby tree, hitting the faun squarely in its neck.  The animal tumbles backward from the impact and is dead before it falls.  The five friends turn to see a naked fey man with long black hair and pale skin emerge from the branches of a tree; he stows his greatbow on his back and bounds towards the dead faun.  Cleanshaven with handsome, angular features and startling black eyes, the man's rippling muscles hold fast to his wiry, lithe frame.  The companions recognize him as Valis d'Mirathos, an enigmatic dreamlord baelnorn (fey lich) who appeared unexpectedly at the Battle of the Wall at Aerendale during the Convergence.  This d'Mirathos is a wilder and younger version of the emaciated, tight-skinned being the companions have heard about, and their vision seems now to be clearly one of the distant past... perhaps during the pre-Vernal epoch of Gaia's history.

d'Mirathos holds the faun in his arms as its life bleeds out.  He looks deeply into the animal's eyes with a mixture of cold calculation and abject wonder.  A rustling in the trees draws his attention, and the dreamlord turns his head to see another fey creature step into the clearing.  This one has a similar build, but his hair is golden as sunlight and his skin is deeply tanned.  Large green-black eyes peer out from his handsome face, which seems to be constructed of all the most attractive traits of the elven race.  Nathaniel gasps quietly as he begins to suspect that he now stands before the elven paragon Anilmathien Ceriendor, who would later become known as the god Jenoic - first among the male gods of Gaia's pantheon.  Neither he nor his dreamkin brother show any sign of the bone spurs or other deformities that afflicted the elves during the Convergence.

Anilmathien's voice rings out with a singing quality, laced with harsh judgment.  "Valis, what is the meaning of this?  It is not for you to end the life of one so young.  Leave it to the passing of years.  You seek the death of your quarry to learn what it is to die, to step closer to a mastery death.   Brother, there is no wisdom here beyond what the warm blood on your fingers can tell."

Valis answers his brother's query coldly.  "And the blood tells such stories as you can only imagine, if you but had the desire to hear.  I will master death and transcend this illusionary realm to find the dreams which lie beyond.  Your goddesses, in whom you place so faith, limit your perceptions in this matter."  The dreamlord pulls his arrow free of the faun's flesh, licking warm blood from his fingers with pleasure.

The elf who will be Jenoic turns suddenly to Essedar, Nathaniel and Zara.  Tel and Londario stand off to the side, observing the scene quietly.  "What must be done," he asks plaintively.  "My brother seeks the mysteries of death and I have little wisdom to share.  I perceive that he fears death and seeks the knowledge of what it is to die.  What say you, Sisters?" 

Nathaniel speaks first.  "One must die to know death, but some who die come to regret their own passing."  Essedar takes a long pull of smoke and adds, "Tell him that sometimes learning how to live is more important than learning how to die."  Zara speaks last.  "One can also learn of death by feeling the loss of loved ones or others who pass," she says.  As each hero speaks, Anilmathien looks deep into his or her eyes with his own oversized, unblinking elf-orbs.  They each feel rather lightheaded as they hold his gaze.  The Paragon of Elves seems to believe they are speaking with the voices of his goddesses, the Three Sisters (Arinna, Shandae and Irindix), though it is unclear which hero is speaking for which goddess.

Anilmathien moves towards his brother Valis, who reaches up towards him with a bloody right hand as the vision fades.  The primordial grove is instantly replaced by another scene, this time from the current post-Convergence era.  The five adventurers stand on a filthy street corner in the slums of the Iron City of Chenrol.  Built into a wartime metropolis by Lord Shaur (a blackguard of Tyraudon) during the Harbinger War, Chenrol now stands as a squalid reminder of the cost of warlike ambition.  The Chenrol Protectorate is officially managed by the Northern Alliance, but since the Convergence there has been precious little gold funnelled into the city, causing plague and crime to run rampant there.   So the five friends now stand amidst the poverty, filth and hopelessness of the Inner Wards of Chenrol, among prostitutes, leprous beggars, orphaned street urchins, rape gangs and remorseless slavers.  The smell of rust, sewage and human corruption is palpable here.

Zara spots a tall, cloaked figure hunched over in a nearby alleyway, coughing up blood and mucus as he clutches the wall with sharp, bony fingers.  She and the others approach, and Zara boldly walks up to the figure and clasps his shoulders.  "I can help you, sir," she says confidently.  "Will you let me help?"  The figure draws back his hood to reveal a twisted elven face, but with features that vaguely resemble those of Anilmathien from the previous vision.  Painful spurs of bone mar his cheeks and scalp, pulling his flesh taut against his skull.  Sores and wounds weep blood and pus onto his arms, chest and legs.  The elf's dark eyes look wild and menacing, as though he is unable to focus them on his physical surroundings.  Zara prays quietly to Arinna, a corona golden light enveloping her palms as she reaches toward the elf to lay on handscure disease.  The elf grows deadly still for a moment as she leans in, defenses down, to touch his bare skin.  In that moment, he hisses with a mad, strangled cry and sinks his teeth deep into Zara's throat, pulling out her arteries and splashing her life's blood across the walls of the alley.  Witnessing this, Essedar looks on with shock and concern while taking a deep pull, and Nathaniel yells angrily at the elf, "Wake the fuck up!  Don't you know who you are?" The vision abruptly ends, and the heroes find themselves back atop the ziggurat amidst the trackless sea of Chaal-Nathra.

Falling Stars, Rising Hope