Session 9-21-08

Now that the disturbing vision of Jenoic's fall with the Exiled Zadonite, and the two beings' subsequent gambit to create some sort of cypher-eidolon (perhaps a divine aspect or a godling?), has ended, the four friends look around the now abandoned elven/orcish tombs.  It is quite likely that they now stand beneath the hills of Ijruk's Blind, within a burial site that dates back to the Banespawn Wars, almost fourteen thousand years ago during the Vernal Rising.  They discover two faint circular burn marks in the floor where the spheres of energy holding the two beings used to be.  The tombs of the orcs and elves within this mausoleum are undisturbed and sealed with lead.  Finally, the large tomb at the far end of the room still pulses with purplish, necromantic runes which ward it from the outside.

Chaotic drumming and chanting can be heard from down the hallway to the party's right.  As they leave in that direction, each of them hears two distinct voices in his or her mind: an elven voice, that of Anilmathien (Jenoic), whispers "We shall overcome," followed a moment later by the calm, measured tones of the other being, which says "I shall never die."  Uncertain of precisely what sort of deific gambit they may have entered into, the heroes continue ahead, bracing for another confrontation with the mad cultists of the Ebon Triad.

As the group moves down the corridor, a gentle but insistent message invades Nathaniel's mind.  It is a sending from Adrien Verdarnes - his light, fey voice is unmistakable to his lover, Nathaniel - "Do not believe what you hear.  I live.  The situation in Aerendale is critical.  You must return post haste."  The weight in Nathaniel's heart lifts as he hears the voice of his beloved, but he fears the sending was quite delayed in reaching him due to the party's recent unplanned planar jaunt.  He replies, as per the sending: "Just got your sending.  Was in Chaal-Nathra.  We are alive and ourselves.  Merin Jewelshine returned to himself.  Cultists seem to be on the move."  A soft psychic chime sounds in Nathaniel's head as he completes the sending, signalling that his return missive was in fact received by Adrien.

The ancient corridor, spattered here and there with caked gore and other unidentifiable filth, leads the party about 100' to down and turns right while continuing forward.  The drums and evil revelry continue down the right branch, but the corridor directly ahead ends in a writhing, throbbing mass of flesh and viscera, thrumming in time with the drumbeat of the Ebon Triad cultists off to the right.  Nathaniel channels his arcane power through his bejeweled staff of Cereborn, burning the flesh-wall with a radiant burst of holy fire.  The wall chars and burns, but the living flesh grows back as fast as it can be burned away.  Before they can experiment further with this obstacle, the four friends hear their adversary Kothaer taunting them from the main room off to the right.

"Faster, pups!  Crawl on your bellies to your master and embrace the vision of the Ebon Triad," cries the blackguard.  He stands in a gore-streaked temple of vilest corruption, surrounded by naked, sweating and bleeding cultists who are lost to the material world, out of their minds in an orgiastic frenzy.  Other, more calm and controlled cultists - bearing the red and black pointed hoods of Tyraudon - rush ahead of the terrible dance to greet the party with steel. The temple beyond is a nightmarish vision of three-tiered ascending platforms, each incorporating the aspects of Yshunor, Ethoar and Tyraudon into a terrible synergy of all three banes (demigods).  On the uppermost platform, the heroes again glimpse two strange spheres of energy - one containing the muscular zadonite with the ever-changing mask of death, and the other holding a pale, weakened male elf who, from his appearance, can only be Anilmathien Ceriendor - otherwise known as the deity of culture, community, fatherhood, and brotherhood: Jenoic.

Kothaer appears as a bald, clean-shaven human over 6'3, with lean muscles beneath his gleaming, blood-colored full plate armor.  His round, solid, scarified face is a bestial, grinning mask of adamantine razor-teeth, sharpened to a killing edge.  He wields a sawtoothed greatsword casually in one hand, for the moment.  "You four are lucky... you will witness the birth of the Ebon Aspect, an amalgamation of the three Elder Banes forged into a godling of wholeness and dark perfection.  And after we welcome the Ebon Aspect into Gaia, I will take my time with each of you as the others watch!"  He spits this last, brandishing his four-fingered right hand.  For the moment, the canny - or cowardly? - blackguard hangs back, content to let his minions fall to the heroes' onslaught.

And fall they do.  Zara's spear sings as she punctures her foes with righteous fury, and Tel takes advantage of flanking positions as well as attacking berserk cultists intent on grappling his friends.  Essedar and Nathaniel focus their arrow- and spell-fire on the charging cultists, while another pointy-hooded minion runs back to the highest tier of the temple and yells "Unleash the troll!"  A level is pulled, a cage door lifted, and a terrible bladerager troll covered in metallic armor implants charges forth.  Zara turns her attention from the immedate battle and absorbs the troll's charge.  She returns a strong series of strikes, and Nathaniel finishes the beast off by incinerating it with a blast of holy fire from his staff.

As his minions fall, Kothaer grows more and more excited.  He seems to be enjoying the chaotic battle and the suffering even of his own allies.  "And you, Zara Oberwald, who presumed to send me a vomitous vision of compassion and healing... I will show you the truth of all things."  With that, Kothaer Cradan joins the melee, his blade clashing with Zara's greatspear as the two battle in the midst of the temple. Just then, Essedar and Nathaniel, who have been hanging back outside the temple and firing spells and arrows into batle, see the flesh wall to their left begin to ooze and writhe more vigorously.  A pulsating rift appears in the flesh wall and an orc, of all things, steps through.  This orc seems and smells hauntingly familiar to the two of them, but his flesh is slightly too moist and baggy, and behind his eyes the writhing of white and grey worms can be seen.  Essedar and Nathaniel feel their hearts thump hard as a creeping realization runs through their consciousness: the orc is sub-chieftan Thaddar, of the Rolling Thunder clan, who accompanied them to Caladere in their very first assignment.  Its deep, lilting voice is digustingly slurred as it laughs grimly.  "In the name of my master, Kyuss the Worm-that-Walks, I greet you, fools.  It was I who set the others upon you in Caladere... I who told young Kothaer where to send the Horde of Ethoar in search of victims that night.  They feasted well on the flesh of Hathoraen soldiers." 

With this revelation, the previously inexplicable and horrific events at Caladere seem to come into focus.  The Ebon Triad, led by Woregord of Yshunor and Kothaer, the devoted servant of Ethoar, infiltrated the Caladan forest and planted the seeds of the Chaal-Nathran invasion.  The worm-faced being that was once Thaddar gurgles a deep, wet, throaty laugh as the realization dawns on the four friends.  "Yes, the Ebon Triad has paved the way for my lord Kyuss' entrance to this world.  When all is in readiness, the world will shudder as the Age of Worms begins!"  It moves aggressively towards the party, and small white and green worms jump disgustingly off its body, trying to bore into the heroes' flesh.  "You will never have our world," cries Nathaniel, blasting the alien being with holy fire.  Essedar fires his arrows into the monster's body while Telenvor and Zara keep Kothaer occupied. 

Thaddar turns to Nathaniel, dropping white and green worms on the floor as he shuffles forward.  "You are a foolish herd animal, fit only for infestation and thralldom.  Do you even know how much time has passed while you were trapped in Chaal-Nathra, the Writhing Sorrow?  Many things have occured since your passage into the slithering beyond."  Green worms squirm in the aberration's mouth as it slams against the party's defenses.  "We of the Writhing Sorrow are the shapers of flesh, and Woregord will be born again through our collective memory," taunts the thing that was Thaddar.  "Destroyed though he was by you, we shall remake his flesh and mind so that he may go forth and spread our blessing once more."  But even as he mocks the heroes' efforts, Nathaniel burns away his wormy visage and Essedar's arrows send it sprawling backwards, twitching and burning alive.  It screams hoarsely with a dozen voices as the white fire from Nathaniel's staff spreads across its body; soon the beast is gone, cleansed from Gaia by holy flame. 

"It matters not!" yells Kothaer madly.  "I shall send you all down to the depths after I vivisect you slowly!  The Ebon Aspect will arise!"  The naked, gore-stained cultists join the battle, blindly slashing at the heroes in a furious anger, pushed ahead by the wild, chaotic drumming of their fellows.  They serve as no more than a nuisance to the battle-hardened heroes, who grimly cut them down to focus their attention on Kothaer.

Nathaniel feels a pair of eyes upon him at that moment, and notices that the Exile seems to be watching him from atop the third tier of the platform, grimly nodding and almost smiling as Kothaer prattles on.  The zadonite peers through Kothaer at Nathaniel with an almost ironic grin, given the nature of its ever-changing deathmask of a face.  The motives of the Exile are unclear, but Nathaniel peers back into its eyes and senses a certain smugness, as though the Exile has somehow hoodwinked Kothaer.  The murderous blackguard fights on with an insane, giggling rage against Zara and Tel, but the two companions continually outflank the blackguard and soon he staggers back under the force of Zara's blows.  "You cannot kill me," he cries, "I will die and yet live... such is the power of Ethoar the Soul Burner!"  Zara knocks his jagged-edged greatsword aside and measures and killing blow with her spear, stabbing Kothaer through the chest.  Her blow is true, and punches through armor, flesh and sinew.  The blackguard giggles, blood frothing from his mouth, and falls dead.

Three voices, speaking as one and darkly heavy with menace, seem to call out from the walls themselves.  "The sacrifice is made... he has died and yet lived..."  Suddenly a black and purple energy crackles around Kothaer's broken body, and he stands up with a flourish, performing an energetic kip-up even while clad in spiked full plate armor.  He laughs maniacally.  "Yesss!  I have died and yet live!  Receive my sacrifice, for the glory of the Ebon Aspect!"  Essedar identifies this effect as Fortune's Fate, a powerful divine spell.  Kothaer's fall and apparent death seem to have completed the next phase of his ritual, because a thrumming wave of purple energy bursts forth as the two trapped beings - Jenoic and the Exile - begin to merge together.  Their twin globes of energy, blue and red respectively, form into a single purple globe.  A second burst of energy issues forth from the upper platform where the two are trapped, blinding the heroes and knocking them senseless, or at least into a vision of events which have already passed.  As the vision begins, each of the four friends hears two distinct voices speaking directly into his or her mind.  One is the sharp, urgent voice of Anilmathien - the elven aspect of Jenoic - and the other has a strong, insistent depth which seems to change tone from moment to moment.  Both voices speak the same words simultaneously:  "We are the same; we are with you."

The heroes' eyes roll back in their heads and the reverie takes them.  Once again, they see a god's eye view of the planet Gaia herself, a blue and green celestial sphere hanging in starry darkness, orbiting a golden sun.  Blue and red footprints of mystic energy form at the point of starfall and spread across the face of the planet, and the two uncomprehensibly powerful beings - Jenoic and the Exile - speak into their minds.  "The day is Alindor one, twenty-third year Convergence Reckoning," intones Jenoic, speaking all known languages at once.  "Time flows too quickly in Chaal-Nathra.  You who have fought for me, carried my name on your lips, receive this wisdom."  The companions' minds reel with this information... they were last seen on material Gaia on Tenanye 7, 22 CR.  More than six months have passed during their unexpected jaunt to Chaal-Nathra. 

Another voice, that of the Exile, speaks into the minds of the four friends with a tone of smug certainty and violent righteousness; it is the sound of a thousand bones being ground into meal by the gears of war.  "We are all Gaians, are we not?" mocks the Exile.  "I am the last of the returned, the Zadonite Dreamkin who were banished into the infinite darkness between worlds.  The Writhing Sorrow of Chaal-Nathra I name my allies; they will claim their rightful place in this world even as you fight for your misbegotten gods.  You have already lost."  A force beyond imagination invades the heroes' minds and their vision continues: this time, it is a familiar vision, but re-told from the perspective of the Exile.  He stands above the starfall crater in Ijruk's Blind with Jenoic, and the two enter into their gambit, forming the runic eidolon from their collective energies.  Yet something is out of place, and there is a feeling of anticipation emanating from the Exile, as though he knows the assembled cultists of the Ebon Triad are waiting to bind and torture his and Jenoic's new co-creation.  As before, the cultists spill forth from the bowels of Ijruk's Blind and subject the eidolon to unimaginable torments as the two beings look on.  The gambit has begun, but the game is rigged.  How could a being born into such brutal experiences ever hope to be other than an avatar of war and suffering?

Jenoic's clear, calm elven tones invade their minds as they watch the rape and torture of the eidolon in horror.  The Paragon of Elves speaks to the heroes directly, in a single sentence: "Deception is a many-layered pattern."  The four friends recall their encounter inside of Merin Jewelshine's divine body, with the calcified idol which resembled the Exile's head and face.  At the time, it ranted and raved somewhat incoherently, but these words stick out in their memories: "You are not of the pattern."  What precisely is afoot  between these two beings, one divine fallen to the earth (Jenoic) and one long-banished lord of the Dreaming, if his words are to be believed (the Exile)?

The heroes' vision swims and changes as the poor eidolon is dragged into the lair of the Ebon Triad, to be locked away in its magically sealed tomb and transformed into their twisted vision of triple divinity: the Ebon Aspect.  Then they see the planet Gaia again as from a god's-eye view from space, and the blue and red footprints of the two adversaries move across its surface.  Jenoic and the Exile each do their part to fulfill the terms of the gambit, visiting sleeping mortals in their dreams and influencing them towards greater deeds. 

Zara, Nathaniel, Essedar and Tel see another band of heroes rise up from the chaos to the south in Falgenburg.  From the first instance of the Darkening in that fair city, these mortals band together to defeat a great conspiracy of sentient undead - the criminal Cymos Clan - from forming their own nation and using the life energy of Falgenor's citizens to fuel their mad plans.  During their questing across Talirae's midlands, the Heroes of Falgenor carry a matched set of gemstone goblets sacred to Jenoic the Walker Beside, one of pure diamond and the other of polished lapis.  The Exile whispers dreams of fascistic nationhood and uniform obedience into the mind of the mad crystal-lich Korelith Cymos, the architect of this dark conspiracy (see the Heroes of Falgenor campaign log for further details).  The Heroes of Falgenor fight their way to the plane of shadow and destroy the crystalline lich in his necromantic sanctum, putting an end to his mad dreams and preventing the fall of Falgenor and its transformation into "Cymos-Cor," the first necropolis of a new undead nation ruled by Korelith.

The vision continues.  A powerful and puissant fiendish half-dragon, the warlord Azarr Kul, descendant of the demon-worshipper Mu-Tahn Laa, arises with his horde - the Red Hand of Doom - to menace the peaceful Elsir Vale in the nation of Oberwald (see the Azarr Kul's Ambition campaign log for further details).  The footsteps of the Exile echo loudly as the Red Hand horde crosses fields and plains, burning and looting as they go.  Yet hope is not lost, for another, different band of motley heroes arises to take the fight to the enemy.  These five succeed in first preventing the return of an Abyssal Layer - the Mountains of Sorrow Beyond Measure - to prime material Gaia, delving deep into the shattered remnants of the ancient fortress known as Slaughtergarde.  Fresh from that victory over the remnants of Mu-Tahn Laa's ancient army, the band of five companions heads south to the Elsir Vale to protect the midlands of Oberwald.  After countless battles and heroic deeds, they succeed in breaking the siege of Brindol and routing the Red Hand of Doom, scattering its forces back into the Wyrmsmoke Mountains and beyond.  Yet their work is not done, for these heroes meet Azarr Kul in his mountain fortress, the Fane of Tiamat, slaying the High Wyrmlord and putting an end to his ambitions of rulership.  Before he dies, Azarr Kul raves about his greater destiny, and about proving his "significance" to the "powers that are watching."  This mighty warlord of Tiamat, thrown down in his own Fane, was another of the mortals influenced by the Exile to achieve greatness through conquest and destruction, ripping down the architecture and society of the world that Jenoic helped to create.  As the vision concludes, Jenoic whispers to the four - Zara, Essedar, Telenvor and Nathaniel - "Bear witness to the power of three, for you also carry my standard against this red tide of destruction and hopelessness."  Three bands of companions, bound together in service to the greater good of Gaia and her people, have now arisen in the years following the Convergence... and they themselves constitute the third band.

A sense of hope fills four friends as they watch the resounding defeat of Azarr Kul and the subsequent banishment of Tiamat's aspect.  The triumph of the Elsir Vale's five defenders now fades, though, and with it their sense of hope drains away, replaced by a deepening sense of dread at what they witness next: the events of the six-plus months since they were forcibly removed from prime material Gaia and whisked away to the Writhing Sorrow of deep Chaal-Nathra, where elder things beyond mortal comprehension move through the darkness of the stars.  Jenoic and the Exile each spread the seeds of their competing ideologies - architecture, language, law and brotherhood, versus destruction, war, domination and conflict - through the dreams of various heads of state, including the nearly sainted President of Hathorae, Supreme Elect Weylorn Orren and his Vice-President, Miyra.  These two nigh-immortal and ever-elected stewards of Hathorae summarily reject the Exile's advances, but their dreams are troubled nightly by visions of war and suffering even as Jenoic soothes their minds with his calming presence and prayers for justice and peace.  The Exile visits other heads of state, including the young and newly-appointed Emperor Royce Ralaevar of Moridar, first human Emperor of the former Draconic Empire, and mighty King Thaggha Wraithscorch of Malok-Gorthai, the Orclands.  It seems that this ideological battle has been raging between the Exile and Jenoic for the last twenty-two years, since the time of the starfall at the peak of the Convergence, and the hearts and minds of Gaians everywhere are being subtly influenced by the gambit between these two ultrapowerful beings - Jenoic seeking to protect his home and his works among all the Vernal races, and the Exile working to subvert civilization into a state of eternal conflict.  And all the while, beneath the surface of Ijruk's Blind, the cipher-eidolon lies trapped as Gaians across the globe unknowningly feed it with the potential energy of imagination, action and possibilities.  What will finally emerge from that sealed tomb?

The final vision received by the four companions is perhaps the most stunning of all, and each of them recalls the words of the Exile as they watch the tragedy unfold: "You have already paid the price."  In this last, awful reverie, they see the silhouette of the Moridarn airship Invincible, cruising through a snowy sky towards the air dock outside the Hathoraen capital of Aerendale-Haven.  Given the snow, this vision must be from some time early in the year 23 C.R., perhaps late Chelmont.  The young Emperor Royce Ralaevar stands on the deck of his imperial flagship, surrounded by his personal guard and several members of his family (his mother, younger brother and two sisters) as the Invincible slowly begins its descent towards Aerendale.   The first human emperor of the Moridarn stands tall and proud, his raven-black hair cut shoulder-length and darkly resplendent against his pale-skinned face.  All seems well for a moment, but then a dreadful scene unfolds: without warning, over a dozen Hathoraen troops clad in dark green and black-trimmed uniforms teleport onto the deck and begin a violent, murderous purge of all aboard the Invincible.   Leading this brutal assault is Hathorae's Chief Defense Minister Ishak Al-Sayyid, the ageless and lawful Saradhassan paladin of Arinna, lover of Weylorn Orren and friend to all who love light and goodness!  This attack seems quite unbelieveable to Zara and her friends, who now know that the illusion-crafting abilities of the gnomes and their god Merin were stolen and assimilated by the forces of Chaal-Nathra.

Though Emperor Royce is, by all reports, a skilled warrior, he is terrified and broken by the mere presence of an ageless immortal power the likes of Al-Sayyid.  The young Moridarn watches in horror, shrinking back against the guardrails of the Invincible as Ishak (or his imposter) slays first his sister Maida, beheading her in a single stroke, and then immolates his mother Janika with a column of blazing fire.  One by one, his entourage is cut down by the Hathoraen forces, who strangely seem to leave him alone to witness the carnage.  Laughing, taunting and killing all who stand before them, the Hathoraens launch a barrage of magical energy into the engine room of the airship.  As his ruined flagship begins to plummet towards the western wall of Aerendale-Haven, Royce Ralaevar finally comes to his senses and activates his stone of succor, teleporting away from the carnage before him.  The Hathoraens also teleport off the vessel, and the ship crashes into the woods outside Hathorae's capital, leaving behind a massive, fiery ruin of burning wreckage and destroyed lives.

What Royce has witnessed - and what the four companions believe is a false attack perpetrated by either the Exile's forces or the Chaal-Nathrans, or perhaps both - soon compels him to action.  The whispers the Exile now invade his dreams with regularity, pushing him deeper into a cold, unforgiving rage against those he percieves to have wronged him.  Despite the urgent pleas of Hathorae, and weeks' worth of attempts on the part of Ishak Al-Sayyid and his allies to convince the Emperor that Hathorae was uninvolved in the attack on the Invincible, he soon orders two thousand troops to the Moridar-Hathorae southern border.  Hathoraen diplomats are expelled from Moridar and the Hathoraen embassy is closed; all Hathoraen nationals are likewise banished from inside Moridar by imperial decree.  By mid-Faerisa in 23 C.R., the two thousand Moridarn troops has grown to eight thousand, and by Alindor 1, 23 C.R. the number has grown to fourteen thousand.  No amount of pleading, cajoling or diplomacy seems to penetrate Royce Ralaevar's haze of cold, righteous fury against his former allies to the south and co-founding members of the Northern Alliance.  On the eve of the four heroes' return to Gaia, war between Hathorae and Moridar now seems iminent.

Falling Stars, Rising Hope