Brave New World • Chapter 09

## Tightening Threads

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### Valenroux Countryside*(3rd of Maer, 4E 776)*

Breaking out to the surface, the group is borne upward into the sky through sheer momentum, still speared on the singer's wings. She comes to a halt moments later, bringing them gently back down to the surface without speaking a single word, before releasing them and floating back up a few hundred feet, where she remains hovering quietly above the treetops.

They find themselves in the middle of a forest somewhere in the countryside. It is almost last light, and battered as they are the group sees no choice but to make camp and rest, hoping that they would be able to speak with the singer the following morning. As they bed down for the night, just before last light, the singer begins to sing.

She sings of the dead, of those lost and those that remain. The song draws all of the group to sleep, thinking of those they themselves have left behind. For Yuli, the song instead takes her once more to the Garden, where she sees the singer in her true, angelic form of light, walking amidst hundreds of thousands of spectres, the remnants of her people.

"*There now do I see the farthest shore.
There now do I see my kin.
There now do they sing.
There now do they call to me.
 And I cannot answer...*"
 ― The Singer

When the song ends, the singer stops before another that looks like her, but larger and grander, with thousands of coils of light emerging from its back. This stranger speaks with a thousand voices, welcoming the singer back, and reminding her to not lose herself in the mourning of the dead.

As that vision fades, Yuli remains in the garden, and has a further conversation with the stranger within, now bearing once more the face of her mother. They discuss the nature of evil, and how mortals clung to ideals of good and bad in a universe that had no such concepts.

### Valenroux Countryside*(4th of Maer, 4E 776)*

When Yuli wakes at the end of her dream, it is past midnight, and the singer is descending slowly from above, her previous song now finished. She comes to a stop at the top of a nearby hill, where she sits overlooking the starry night.

"*You may approach, if that is thine wish.*"
 ― The Singer

Yuli and Ironstrong-4, the only two of the group that are presently awake, approach to speak with her. Seeming calmer and past the initial shock of her release, she thanks them for saving her and for their sacrifice in doing so. She speaks to them of her stasis, of the torture she endured, and of the loss of her people.

"*In mine mind it was an eternity in moments. All at once, but an eternity nonetheless. But now I can see it has been longer even than that, and all that I doubted could ever end hath gone to dust. Even the stars have changed. It grieves me still. All we sought to protect. This garden world that was pure, has been tarnished now as well. 'Twas foolish of me to think it undying. Even now, I crave the Lie.*"
 ― The Singer

Upon their questioning, she sings to them a small portion of her people's song, a vast and complex melody that encapsulates the entire history of her people. The words remain beyond their understanding, but Ironstrong-4 recognises the cyclical nature of the melodies building upon each other from his earlier studies into the language's roots.

Realising they could not understand the song, the singer reluctantly agrees to tell them the tale in words, though bids them understand that it would be lacking the true depth of the narrative which could only really be encapsulated in the song. Yuli and Ironstrong-4 wake the rest, and the singer tells them a long story of her people and their fall.

At the end of the story, the group presses her for details of the "one true god" she had mentioned, surmising it to be linked to the happenings in Edraxis. This leads to more questions on the nature of gods, during which the singer vehemently argues that gods and immortals were obscenities that tried to establish a natural order to their own benefit, in the same way that the "Creator" had done to her own people.

She warns the group that the gods would seek their own protection above all else, even if it means betraying the faith of their servants. She also says that there were other secrets gods strove to keep hidden to protect themselves. Ones that, if revealed, could lead to their undoing. Curious to find answers, the group presses her for information on this front.

"*I dare not. To speak such secrets here, in the open, invites the ire of thine leeches. Thine gods. And though I do not fear their servants, I wish not to bring such danger upon thee.*"
 ― The Singer

Even still, the group continues to ask what it was that the gods were hiding, and when the singer finally agrees to speak of it, three streaks of flame approach across the night sky and three armoured solari land at the edges of their camp, dressed for battle.

The foremost solar commands them to cease their dangerous questioning, to stand down and keep the covenant that was placed upon the world by the Allfather for its own protection. The singer in return calls them liars, stating that all this god wished to protect was his own interests.

With tensions mounting, Hector desperately begs the solari to listen to reason, to simply tell them what secret was hidden so they could decide for themselves. When they refuse, he asks for them to grant him an audience with the Allfather instead, hoping to avoid the increasingly likely conflict. As they so rarely do, his words fail him, and the solari attack the group, much to the more faithful of the group's dismay.

The fight is brief, and the solari are quickly dispatched by the singer and Ironstrong-4, who in the midst of the fighting attunes with the bladed feather that had been embedded in his chest plate, which turns into a shimmering scythe of black steel. During the skirmish, Hector calls on Titania for aid, but receives only silence in return, to which he begins to wonder if any of the gods were truly on their side.

With the three solari dead, the singer urges them to escape, knowing there would be more on the way. She promises to lead them away from the group by taking a small part of each person's essence with her, disguising their true position, to which most of the group agrees, aside from Dieterich, who instead decides to leave the group and return to Varlesans, where he would seek shelter and council at the Skyweaver's temple. Before she departs, the singer promises she would find them again, and that in the meantime she would seek the other remaining member of her people, hoping to understand what had truly happened on that final day.

Leaving the ruined campsite, the group treks a few hours into the forest in the middle of the night, finally finding shelter in an uncomfortable hillside cave, where they hope they would not be disturbed for the remainder of the night. Ironstrong-4 and Hector, who is unable to find much sleep, keep watch.

The former spends some time inspecting the scythe that had formed in his grasp, in so doing returning briefly to the garden, where he has another conversation with the stranger there on the questions he must ask and the journey he must take.

When he returns, he checks in on Hector, who remains distraught and frustrated at the unwillingness of the gods they had encountered to talk instead of resorting to violence, especially the Allfather who he had thought stood for something different than simply the upholding of power.

"*Everything is about power. Either for it, or defiance of it.*"
 ― Ironstrong-4

Left unsatisfied with the state of things, Hector eventually goes to sleep, still thinking how in just a few hours their entire trajectory had seemingly changed, and seemingly not for the better.

### Creuser*(4th of Maer, 4E 776)*

The following morning, the group travels back the short distance to Creuser, where they hope to complete their dealings with the Black Kraken Company before continuing on their journey. Once there, they are told by the governor, McCarthy, that he was temporarily no longer in charge of the camp, and that someone had been waiting to see them at the main tent.

A mixture of curious and worried, the group makes their way to the tent, which they find guarded by four Company servicemen in sharp black coats that are evidently of a much higher make and quality than the bulk of the servicemen they see around camp, suggesting these guards to be more elite members guarding someone of greater importance.

Inside the tent, they are met with a curious sight. Behind the desk is an illithid with matte-black skin patterned with white marbling, wearing a neat, richly-tailored suit and eating what looks to be some kind of soup. The strange creature introduces himself as Lapu, the founder and chief executive of the Black Kraken Company who said he had travelled all this way to make their acquaintance after having received word of their venture into the mines.

"*Would you care for some soup? I assure you it's quite fresh. I've had it especially teleported in from my man in Imagwa. This dish is a delicacy known as Mogya. A traditional dish from the Scythi people of eastern Almeras. The prawn is very peculiar. It feeds exclusively on blood. Specifically, the blood of this particular river fish. The two are caught and cooked together. Together till death. I find it rather romantic, if not perhaps the most palatable of subjects.*"
 ― Lapu

The charming businessman quickly draws them into conversation, probing expertly for details of their travels and personal lives. Hector notices quickly that he is skimming the group's surface thoughts to help guide the conversation and get what he needs from it, but doesn't draw attention to this fact immediately. Finding Lapu disconcertingly similar to his own mother, Hector tries to minimise the information the group gives away, while shielding his own thoughts as best he could.

The group recounts their travel into the mines and details some of the variant dangers and trials they had faced. Hector pointedly neglects to mention the singer and all they had discovered from and about her, but the group does show Lapu the disc plate they had retrieved, which he promptly activates to view the recorded memory within, seeming fascinated by what he sees.

"*Truthfully, I did not travel all this way for a story and some trinkets, but I must say what you have shown me is truly marvellous. Think of what we could accomplish if we were to unlock the secrets of this archive. The advancements we could make! We could change the world.*"
 ― Lapu

Despite Hector's suspicions, Lapu insists with the group that his only aim is to broker a friendship with them, and to offer his services as patron should they ever be in trouble and need some aid. He pledges they would not need to sign any contracts or even hand over a cut of their earnings, simply to think of him when they found themselves in interesting situations. As a token of good will, he offers them all the items they had recovered from the mines as a gift, with the exception of some of the disc plates that he wished to have his scholars study.

"*Let's just say I have a fondness for those that dare. And a vested interest in managing* their *interests. After all, the bold are just one careless step away from the foolhardy, unless tempered by proper guidance. Wouldn't you agree?*"
 ― Lapu

Thanking Lapu for the food, the gifts, and his offer, the group makes their leave, making an effort to not linger in one place for too long, fully aware that the Allfather would still be searching for them. After a quick stop by the quartermaster's tent, where they order an enchanted amulet of non-detection for delivery to Marenhof, they leave Creuser and head back out into the countryside, where Hector calls in their favour with Cerredwen and has them plane-shifted to the Endless Athenaeum.

### The Library*(4th of Maer, 4E 776)*

More than a month after their last visit, the group finally returns to the library in the flesh, finding it now almost completely overtaken by the gothic corruption that was swallowing it whole. Armed with the knowledge of this place's confusing, non-Euclidean nature, they remain put in the first crossroad while Oondak casts a similar spell to the one he had previously cast on the Book of Truth, hoping to glean information about the library that would help guide them.

While Oondak is preparing the ritual, Ironstrong-4 attempts an experiment with his scythe, attempting to sever a small part of the library. His efforts yield worrying results, as he creates a small tear in reality through which matter begins to be sucked like a vacuum into a bottomless black void, a faint barely-perceptible tug that pulls even on him.

Once the ritual is complete, Oondak witnesses in quick succession the creation of the library from raw arcana, the folding of infinite space into a vast, non-Euclidean labyrinth of corridors and shelves that held an incredible, total sum of knowledge stored since the creation of the library itself. Books about all topics fill the shelves, a tremendous quantity of information that would take eons to read, if only one had the sight required to read them. Oondak also sees the library begin to unravel, a wound piercing its heart, tearing it open and consuming it from within. When the gothic architecture fully spread, the library would simply cease to be, devoured whole into the Slip.

From this insight, Oondak determines that truesight would be the key to unlocking the library's secrets. With the aid of some soul slivers they had recovered from the attacking devils at the Court of Endless Muses, Oondak casts a spell that grants him the divine vision required. With eyes glowing green and gold, he sees the Endless Athenaeum in its true form, infinite corridors and stairways folded into the same space.

Now, at last, with the knowledge to traverse it, Oondak leads the group forward through the corridors, keeping Lionel Forrester fixed firmly in his mind, hoping to finally find their disappeared companion. They travel for almost an hour, walking then sprinting through corridors that twisted and curved and folded in on themselves in Oondak's eyes. With unique focus and true belief he would find what he was looking for, Oondak and the rest of the group finally emerge in a circular open space, where the true nature of the library's unravelling reveals itself.

Here, like a spear impaling the library's heart, is an arrow-like tear through reality, as though curtains had pulled back on the world to show beyond only a black starless void. The tear had blasted straight through a singular pedestal in the centre of this space, tearing apart a massive tome that was placed upon it, the pages still swirling around the rift as though circling a drain. Impaled at the spear tip of the black tear, motionless, they see an elderly man with weathered, wrinkled skin dressed in a tattered green and velvet vest, pockets overflowing with scrolls that flutter downward towards the rift, only just resisting its pull.

They have little time to absorb this sight, before at the far end, emerging from a corridor opposite to them, comes a horrifying mass of blackened flesh and tentacles, books and tomes half-buried inside its mass, wrapped in scraps of parchment that had been pulled thin like twine. The burbling creature holds aloft a strange lantern, swinging it back and forth like a pendulum. And at the centre mass of its body, only just visible between the black ooze that wraps around him, is the body of Lionel Forrester.

The monstrous creature attacks, utilising the folding corridors of the library to manipulate space and attack from every direction, splitting up the group across the vast room. Thralls made out of the same inky flesh burst out of the corrupted bookshelves, duplicating into a swarm that attacks the group. A dangerous fight ensues, with several in the group barely escaping being sucked into the vortex at the centre of the room, but eventually Oondak manages to pull the body of Lionel from within the creature. The inky flesh dissipates into low-lying mist that is quickly pulled away into the vortex.

Left behind, in a rapidly disappearing pool of black and a pile of torn books and parchments, is the still form of Lionel Forrester. He lies unmoving, his clothes tattered and reduced to scraps. Though his chest is rising softly as though he were asleep, his skin has a faded, grey pallor, and his eyes are wide open, twitching, left and right like they can see. But there's nothing behind his eyes. They're glazed over and blank.

While the group inspects Lionel, Ironstrong-4 sees for the first time in a long while, something lingering at the corner of his vision. Turning to face it, he sees, hovering inches away from the tear in reality, a veiled spectre in red and black. The rest see it too, and they watch as more and more spectres continue to appear, gathered around the massive, sundered tome at the heart of the library.

In perfect unison, the creatures lift their hands and point towards the centre, towards the tear of reality where the pages circle the broken pedestal, where the tome lies punctured through its heart, but not completely destroyed. Knowing they could not physically get to the book, and that magic was swiftly sucked away by the vortex when it got too near, the group resorts instead to Yuli, whose particular brand of psionic magic seems to force its way through the pull.

With her guiding the effort, they form a planar connection with the tome, and within it see the dying memories of a god. They see fragments of eternal life, visions of other worlds, of other peoples, of civilisations coming to an end, of an endless pursuit for knowledge that often ignored the life that created it. And when the visions fade, a thousand voices come from the gathered spectres, echoing around the hall.

"*This realm is dying. You cannot save it. But you can still free your friend. Destroy the heart. Break the well of divinity. Set free those trapped within.*"
 ― The Stranger in the Garden

Without pause, having seen the souls trapped within the tome including that of their old companion, Oondak, Yuli, and Hector all attack the book with their respective spells, but where arcane and divine power fails and is swiftly sucked away by the roaring wind around the tear in reality, Yuli's telekinetic blast strikes true, hitting the tome in the centre of its wound, and causing it to erupt.

The resulting supernova of arcana annihilates the library and ejects the five of them through space into an abyss of stars. They see the suns, and they see Ygdren as a blue speck amidst the canvas of starlight, and while they drift here for a few moments, the thousand voices speak to them again.

### Valenroux Countryside*(19th of Maer, 4E 776)*

They abruptly come to back in the exact same clearing they had left what seemed like only an hour or so before. The ramifications of what they had seen and done hit all of them hard, and they have an immediate and earnest discussion about the true end goals of their journey to the Desolation, and whether something was pushing Yuli there to its own ends. Though she initially is defensive, Yuli realises that in her quest to sate her curiosity, and to never feel weak again, she may unwittingly have been led astray. For the first time, she finds herself uncertain about her goals and what she would do to achieve them.

Hector pleas with the rest that they do not continue to press on towards the Desolation before they understood both sides of the story. He proposes they try to speak with the Allfather's servants again, to try and clear their name and settle things peacefully. The others are sceptical about this, fearing that it would backfire terribly. Ironstrong-4 instead suggests they wait for the Ashmaiden to answer him, hoping she would be more neutral in the matter. Somewhat reluctantly agreeing, Hector sends a quick message to Titania to ask if they could talk. She does not respond, but a single snowflakes falls from the air, melting in his palm to spell the word "patience".

After the charged discussion , Oondak inspects Lionel's unconscious body again, and now finds that he is slowly recovering his self, like the pieces of his soul had been fragmented into tiny bits and were slowly coalescing back together. Tired, battered, emotionally drained, and unable to decide on an exact course of action, the group rests for a short while in the clearing, before deciding to make their way back to the camp at Creuser to try and secure a safe place to sleep for the night.

### Creuser*(19th of Maer, 4E 776)*

When they arrive, they discover that their brief escapade in the divine realms had actually cost them more than two weeks of time. Hector sends a quick message to Evendur to inform him that they had managed to find and rescue Lionel. He finds that the trio they had left behind at sea had just finally arrived at Varlesans after a long detour thanks to the storm that had blown them off course. He also discovers that Evendur had had no word from Balthamos, and still knew nothing about Calisca's whereabouts.

While the group rests and decides their next move, Oondak heads out to the nearby woodland to try and commune with the Earthmaven, having a serious period of contemplation about faith and his own place within it. Hector goes with him to make sure he's not attacked while he is alone, and while Oondak is praying, notices a trail of frozen grass and leaves leading away from the clearing, which he follows.

He comes to a frozen brook and pond, near which is the familiar figure of Queen Titania, looking regal as ever, but worried. She gives Hector troubling news, telling him that the Wyld Hunt had not returned from its venture into Edraxis to discover what was happening there.

"*The well seems unharmed but...something's wrong. I can sense it. So much of her is drawn away elsewhere...it leaves us vulnerable.*"
 ― Titania, the Winter Queen

She apologises for not answering Hector's messages, telling him that she could not have risked acting directly against the Allfather, who was the only one currently guarding the borders of the fey realms. She explains that there was an oathbond on Ygdren to prevent these secrets from coming out, and that it had been placed there by the Allfather and some other gods a long time ago when the gods were just arriving to this world.

"*Know that not all agree with it. Some, like my mistress, would rather you were free to make your own choices. But we were not here when the bond was placed. And we cannae undo it now, not without...*"
 ― Titania, the Winter Queen

When Hector brings up his plan to return to Varlesans and attempt to speak with Flamekeeper Cyrus at the the Allfather's temple, Titania warns Hector that the Allfather was still furious, and that he could be stubborn in his fury, unwilling to bend.

She also warns Hector that him messaging her directly was too risky. She would offer what help she could, having owed them a great debt, but could not do so directly. She leaves Hector with a tiny sprite creature wearing the garments of a courtier of the Winter Court, telling him that the creature could serve as a messenger instead. A means to stay in contact.

Troubled, but relieved that not all their allies had abandoned them, Hector returns to camp with Oondak and brings up his meeting with Titania to the rest. They rule out returning to speak with Flamekeeper Cyrus, and instead decide their most likely course of action was to press on to Radenstadt, where the looming threat of Hector's past remains.

That night, in anticipation of their next venture, Hector messages Cassandra and his mother, informing them they would be visiting soon. While most of the group sleeps, resting from the ordeal of the day, Ironstrong-4 goes for a walk alone to clear his head.

In the meantime, back in the tent, just before midnight, Lionel stirs from unconsciousness. He is weak and disorientated, his body atrophied from disuse, and his mind fragmented with parts of his memory completely missing, though he cannot even remember which parts are gone. More than that, he feels hollow, like some deeper, more crucial parts of him have also been taken away. Frustratingly, he also feels that there were important things he had learned that had been lost along with other parts of him. Answers that tied everything together.

His mind is filled with fractured memories of his ordeal. He remembers returning alone to the library, finding its heart, arrogantly hoping to claim the divinity held within the large tome at the library's centre, and having his soul completely pulled into it without even managing to begin to resist.

"*There was pain. A great deal of pain. And there was fear. But there wasn't anyone left to feel it, so it fades quickly. There was no true consciousness, no one to think the thoughts that swelled and dimmed. All parts become one and become all.

When awareness returns, it returns in colours. Flashes. Bursts of light. Darkness. And again. A rhythm. A pattern. Question and response and question again, one asking the next asking the next asking the next. All in an instant until a trillion parts become a billion answers to a billion questions.

Thought. Consciousness. On a far grander scale. Firing synapses in a mind the size of eternity and at its heart a burning sun that pulses and flashes and asks and asks and the synapses flash in return and answer. And with each question the sun grows more dim. With each answer, there are fewer lights. The fading of a dying mind.*"
 ― The Storyteller

Lost within this divine mind, Lionel is faced by the god to whom it belongs, the Curator. His consciousness, scattered amidst the fading lights, is pulled together by the god's will, enough for them to talk. And here they discuss both of their folly, and the seeming poetic fate they would now both endure.

" *Is this all you hoped for? Everything you craved?*"
 ― The Curator

"*I suppose it's fitting, that you'd be here to watch me die. To die with me. If you're stubborn enough to last that long.*"
 ― The Curator

Angry, and frustrated, Lionel confronts the dying god about how useless it was to hoard and preserve knowledge instead of using it and passing it on to others. Though briefly angry, the Curator ultimately seems too tired to argue for long. Lionel remembers convincing the god to share secrets he had kept hidden, but much of the conversation is blank, lost to the void along with so much of his own memories from before.

"*Time passes without end or meaning. Focus shifts away from you, and what little you regained, you slowly lose. Parts of you gone forever into the void that creeps at the edges of this eternal prison. And each part that vanishes, ceases to be. You can't even remember what was lost. Memories. Knowledge. Secrets. Gone without trace. And with each eternal moment, the lights dwindle. The sun fades.*"
 ― The Storyteller

The last things he remembers from his imprisonment is the final death of the Curator. How all the remaining lights had flared at once, and new flashes had appeared, spectres in red and black forming a vast net around the central sun.

"*Around the sun new flashes begin to appear. New lights. And the you that was recognises them. Spectres in black and red floating in a vast net in empty space. Hundreds at first. Thousands within moments. And one, just one, at the centre, brings an ache beyond recognition, an ache of familiarity.

The name comes slowly, the memories slower still. Curled hair, scarred cheek, a veil forming over her face. And like music reaching a triumphant symphony all the new lights sing at once, and all the old lights roar with them in anger, hatred, joy, pain.

New awareness comes, not in colour, but in rage. The thrill of destroying the order that shackles. The surging flame of change through ruin. And the you that is, the you that no longer was, sings with the rest. Tired of being imprisoned. Tired of being chained to a dying star. Tired of stagnation. You would take back what was taken from you, or burn creation to the ground so that others could not have it.*"
 ― The Storyteller

As one the remnant lights and the spectres all sing together, threads of light connecting them all to the figure of Yuli at the centre, who releases a spear of radiance that pierces the core of the sun, burning it form the inside out in a web of spectral red flame.

"*Blessed are the bringers of change.
Blessed are the breakers of chains.
Blessed are the bringers of war.
In blood, they write the final truth.*"
 ― Spectres in the Dream

Lionel does not remain awake for long, only long enough to speak briefly with Oondak and ask where Evendur was. Though displaying some brief fervour, he seems different than he was before, traumatised and changed deeply by his ordeal. Oondak pushes him back to rest, and Lionel swiftly falls unconscious again in exhaustion.

### Creuser*(20th of Maer, 4E 776)*

The next morning, the group and a now more lucid Lionel discuss what comes next. Worried by the fact that Lionel still bore the mark of his devilish contract with Balthamos (though it is dull and subdued), they decide not to discuss everything with Lionel, and he in turn does not share the entirety of what he had experienced in his missing time.

Ironstrong-4 returns Lionel's spellbook to him, and the lost wizard takes some comfort in its return, though he notices that there are many pages he does not remember writing, and that there are some parts he had a strange new understanding of, as though fragments of experience that were not his own had joined with his mind.

Needing supplies, money, and to recover Lionel's belongings, the group decides to briefly return to Varlesans, planning to try and rendezvous with the Skeksis while avoiding as much notice as possible and steering clear of the Allfather's temple.

### Valenroux Countryside*(20th of Maer, 4E 776)*

They leave Creuser early in the morning, taking the road back towards Varlesans. Their travel that day is largely uneventful, and they stop early in the evening to allow an exhausted Lionel more time to rest. Some ways into the wild woodland near the road, Oondak creates a sanctuary temple through the Earthmaven's divine magic, a protected glade with cabins and stairwells grown out of the ancient trees where they could talk and rest in safety.

Sheltered by these walls, the group at last discusses some of the matters that troubled them, though they still do not share everything with Lionel, fearing that the terms of his contract might cause problems if he knew too much. Here, Lionel also shares some of the new knowledge he had gained. Amongst them, a more complete understanding of planar, and new ways to use it.

He offers Ironstrong-4 a means perhaps to find more information about his brother. Using Ironstrong-4's spellbook, created by his brother, as a focus, they use a complex planar enchantment to project dreamlike aspects of their consciousness to where the book had been created.

### Edraxis Countryside*(20th of Maer, 4E 776)*

The planar dream brings them back to Edraxis, to the same collapsed tower where they had first found Ironstrong-4. A strange shadow hangs over the land, and they quickly notice why. Hanging in the sky a great distance to the southwest is a massive fortress of grey stone, sheer flat walls rising probably thousands of feet high, split into four wings, each its own bastion sweeping outward in perpendicular directions. Together, they form an equal-sided cross, at the centre of which rises an even taller fortification, a tower lined with blue and gold. A castle in the sky.

From the angle at which it is visible, they note that the shape of the bastion matches the strange cross that was borne by the Magisterial Court, the sect of the Church of the Vigil that believed in the one god. Around the fortress, they see many streaks of gold flying, moving between the lower and upper levels and sometimes descending past the horizon.

With the strange bastion making them somewhat nervous, and not wanting to linger here for long, they explore the interior of the collapsed tower for clues they might have missed when they first passed through. Inside, Ironstrong-4 is hit by echoes of memory stored deep in his fractured data banks. He sees vague impressions of the rooms as they once were centuries ago, but finds little that remains in the way of clues.

After exploring the collapsed portions of the tower, they head to the ruined base that remains standing, and here find a hidden basement room below with the remains of a study, decayed books that are hundreds of years old in bookshelves along the walls, and a teleportation circle carved into the stonework at the centre.

Curiously, one glyph of the circle has been replaced by a newer stone at some recent time in the last few years, seemingly in a single casting to both disable the previous circle and travel elsewhere. Ironstrong-4 keeps note of both glyph circles, and restores the original circle to function, hoping to perhaps be able to travel here physically at a later point.

Around the room, from what remains of the decayed tomes, they note that this the collection largely focused on necromancy and extending life, which they surmise to be efforts made to achieve immortality of some fashion. They also note that a single book from the bookshelves appears to have been removed, perhaps by the same individual that had disabled the teleportation circle.

### Valenroux Countryside*(20th of Maer, 4E 776)*

When the planar dream ends, they return to their physical selves and head to their individual rooms to rest. Hector, who had chosen to not go with them and stay behind to keep guard, had in the meantime contacted Puck, the Prince of Fools, a mischievous archfey from the Seelie Court, hoping to entice him into aiding them in some fashion. Puck agrees to meet Hector the next day in Varlesans, and tells him he is bringing a guest.

Before going to sleep, once alone in his cabin, Lionel extends some planar connections to a few people. First to Ansyclla, the Starseer, whose plight he now better understands and promises to try and remedy if he can. Next to Evendur, who contacts him back pleased to find him alive, confirming that there had been no word or sign of Balthamos recently, and saying he looked forward to meeting in person in Varlesans. Next, he speaks to his older brother, who cannot respond in the same way, and apologises for things he had done in the past. He goes to sleep in his cabin, surrounded by statues grown out of the wood of various figures form his past, all bearing a face of disappointment.

In the meantime, Oondak contacts his sister Bryna to check in. She tells him they were ok, but confesses that she had sensed shifts in the mood of the forest: longer nights, colder days, freezing winds, none of which should be happening at this time of year. Deeply concerned by this, Oondak and Hector project themselves just as they had done to Bella von Dusken's office, freaking out poor Bryna who was not expecting spectral ghosts to appear in her living room.

After calming her down, she explains that were was nothing specific that she could show them to back up her claims, but that the forest felt wrong in minute ways, and that she could feel that things were changing in some way by instinct, having lived here all her life. Oondak promises to return in the same way a couple of days later so she could show him the forest, and they could potentially figure out what was wrong.

While the others eventually go to sleep, Ironstrong-4 remains awake a while longer, troubled by echoes of memory from his earlier visit to the collapsed tower. He tries to piece together a possible location for the second glyph circle they had found, hoping to understand where it might lead. When he does eventually go into sentry mode, he has one of the strange fractured dream memories that sometimes trouble him.

### Valenroux Countryside*(21st of Maer, 4E 776)*

Ironstrong-4 is woken up early the next morning, before second light, by the sound of someone knocking on the sealed, overgrown gate of the glade. Warily, weapons drawn, he commands the gate to open, finding an elderly stranger on the other side. A tall tiefling man, with ashen skin that is deeply weathered with age, but still has that strange beauty that all tieflings seem to possess. Despite his clear age, his physique is muscular, if no longer having the bulk of youth, and he is dressed in elegant, clean clothing, black with highlights of gold and crimson.

"*Peace. I'm unarmed and unarmoured. I mean you no harm. My name is Thyakos. I serve a concerned party in Oblivion. If I could have but a moment of your time, we'd like your help preventing a war.*"
 ― Thyakos

Though sceptical, the group agree to let the stranger into the sanctuary, and here have a lengthy conversation about the reasons for his visit. The individual, introducing himself as Thyakos, approaches them with a proposition regarding Balthamos and a possibility of the termination of the contract that still bound Lionel, Evendur, Gaeldrim, and Jendora, alongside avoiding open war between the fey courts and Oblivion

He reveals that a group of dissidents in Oblivion calling themselves the Broken Chain had been fermenting a rebellion: sabotaging operations, assassinating political targets, and threatening the careful order of the hells. The Sovereign, and the so-called Mistress of Lust for whom Thyakos worked, believed this group to be responsible for the attack on the Court of Endless Muses during the Spring Confluence, and believe that Balthamos was affiliated with the group.

"*The devil you know as Balthamos. He is connected to all this. We believe in fact that he recruited you, amongst others, in his efforts to further the Broken Chain's cause. Myself and others in my Mistress' service were tracking his movements for some time, hoping he would lead us to the key perpetrators of the rebellion. But, a few days before the attack on the Court of Muses, he went to ground.*"
 ― Thyakos

Thyakos informs the group that Balthamos was hiding in the Avarice Pentant, the sector of the inner city of Oblivion owned by the archdevil Delzebaal, Lord of Avarice. Due to the complex legal framework of Oblivion, no servants of other archdevils could openly invade the pentant to retrieve Balthamos, and even the Sovereign himself could not interfere without "showing favourites", and thereby causing even greater political upheaval. Further still, the Sovereign was not publicly willing to reveal this internal strife and weakness to others, meaning that no proof could be provided to the Winter Court until the Broken Chain was already dealt with. If Balthamos remained free, war was inevitable.

"*We attempted to extradite Balthamos by legal means, of course, but the Lord of Avarice also has a nose for value, and when he caught a whiff of suspicion that Balthamos held some importance politically, he immediately ground all our legal channels to a halt until he could figure out exactly what value that political importance held.

This is where we are now. Balthamos is being protected ferociously on principle of greed, and he of course is clever enough to lead on Delzebaal's collectors with the promises of even greater value. It is a dangerous game. Either he will stall long enough for war to break out, and then he can slip away in the chaos. Or the Lord of Avarice will lose patience and simply kill him to avoid anyone else from gaining value he himself coveted. Whichever one happens first is problematic for us.*"
 ― Thyakos

With legal means at a stalemate, Thyakos brings forward the real proposal to the group. He suggests that they, a group of "unaffiliated" mortals with no ties to any archdevil, could break into the Avarice Pentant, take Balthamos prisoner, and escape to the Desire Pentant, where they could be "arrested", and then secretly let go, while Balthamos was properly interrogated to reveal information about the Broken Chain.

"*But...a group of unaffiliated mortals...with sufficient motive: hoping to take Balthamos prisoner and force him to void their contracts, acting of their own volition with no connection to any other player in the great game...that would be a story we can work with.*"
 ― Thyakos

"*I must say it is not without risk. I can get you as far as the edges of the Avarice Pentant, but you would need to enter, retrieve Balthamos, and escape with him alive back to the Desire Pentant all on your own. When you cross the border back to our pentant, we can "arrest you" for trespassing, at which point you are under our jurisdiction and the same laws that are keeping Balthamos out of our reach would do the same for you. Poetic, isn't it?*"
 ― Thyakos

Though they acknowledge the plan sound on principle, the group remains wary of the dangers involved. They haggle with Thyakos for sufficient recompense, settling on a number of things: Oblivion would push for peace with the fey courts, the contract binding several members of the party would be legally voided, and the group would be provided with enchantments that would shield them specifically from the Allfather. Thyakos agrees to all this, and the group promises to consider the proposal and give him an answer as soon as possible.

Once Thyakos leaves, the group spends some time discussing the merits and demerits of the plan put before them, and though they do not reach a consensus, they consider the option of simply taking the information from Balthamos themselves and revealing it to both Oblivion and the fey courts. Though this would likely anger the Sovereign, it comes with the advantage of more information being revealed to the group directly, putting them on a more equal playing field than simply being pawns in greater schemes. Hector and Oondak remain against this alternative, suggesting that it was too risky a gamble that could still cause war, especially if they fail, which is not something Hector especially wishes to risk, considering that Eris, the Fey Huntress, was presently missing.

Eventually, not yet having reached a decision, the group leaves behind Oondak's sanctuary and presses on towards Varlesans to meet with Evendur and the others, and to resolve Hector's promised meeting with Puck, the Prince of Fools.

### Varlesans*(21st of Maer, 4E 776)*

Upon returning to the city, the group heads towards the docks, where they meet with Captain Eddie and Tiny Pete and learn of the last leg of the journey they had missed. The ship, having been swept off course by the storm, had taken a wide detour to Fort Lafayette on the southern coast of Valenroux, and had then made its way back around to Varlesans. They collect the profit from the trip, leaving some behind for future investments.

Lionel, eager to meet back with his old friend, finds Evendur in his cabin. After a brief reunion and catching up, Evendur tells Lionel that he still had no word on Calisca's whereabouts, and was considering going after her, contract with Balthamos be damned. Making use of Lionel's newfound understanding of planar, the two attempt to locate Calisca, but find their efforts blocked by an immediately violent collection of connected psionic minds, which Lionel manages to briefly overwhelm and discover them to be illithids, aboard some kind of vessel. He only manages to catch a glimpse, before a stronger presence is drawn to the planar connection, which Lionel swiftly terminates.

Surmising that Calisca had been captured by these illithids during her own journey across the ocean, Evendur begins making hurried plans to chase after her before she was taken to Ry'lith and turned into one of the illithids. Lionel and the others, who have by this point joined them in the cabin, put him in contact with Lapu, who as an illithid himself might be able to shed some insight, as well as provide Evendur with resources to help him find and retrieve his betrothed.

After Evendur rushes off to the nearest Black Kraken Company ship to open a line of communication with Lapu, Lionel spends some time, with Oondak and Yuli's help, contacting some old friends in Edraxis. First, Katrin Vermillion, who he finds alone in the countryside. Though she is initially sceptical that he isn't a hallucination, she gives him some information about the so-called Bastion of Heaven that was now hovering over Edraxis. The conversation is cut short, as Lionel's presence seems to attract the attention of several entities from the bastion, beams of golden light that swiftly descend upon the camp, forcing Katrin to run.

After that, Lionel contacts Verity and the rest of Richard Donoghan's group. He finds them hiding in an attic in Lavente, and she gives him similar information to Katrin. The Bastion of Heaven had descended upon Edraxis, proving right the Magisterial Court's claims of the one god. The golden angelic beings that inhabited it had aided the Magisterial Court in taking power, and had immediately afterward begun cleansing any and all crimes and "sin" from the cities, disintegrating even petty criminals on sight. They were preventing anyone from leaving, enforcing control and order on all the citizens that remained. Once again, the conversation is cut short by the imminent attention of one of the golden celestials, and the four other adventurers are forced to make an escape while Lionel cuts off the connection.

In the meantime, Ironstrong-4 returns to Saint Cendrillon, the Ashmaiden's church in Varlesans, where he speaks with Senne and discovers that the Ashmaiden hadn't spoken to him either. Ironstrong-4 notes an increased presence of Handmaidens of Zephra in the temple quarter, surmising that their warning and Dieterich's portent had sparked some heightened security.

Later that day, as the group spreads out to purchase various things in the city, Hector hears a whiff of fey music, and follows it with Oondak in tow to a small tavern called Le Chat Souriant, the grinning cat. Inside, the two find a strange sight: a hundred or so people of all ages, children included, all engaged in revelry. People singing, people drinking, people cheering, and people dancing around a central figure: a strangely-alien individual with four wispy pointed ears, dark tan skin, chalky white face paint that's black around the eyes like that of a mime, and vivid emerald-green eyes. They enter the tavern and begin working their way through the crowd, realising the cause for the unnerving vibes they were getting.

"*Everyone is smiling. Not just smiling: wide, ear-to-ear, toothy grins splitting their faces. Grins so wide they almost seem painful to maintain. And they never dip, not for a second. Even while they dance, or between breaths of singing and cheering. Teeth stay clenched together, lips stay pulled back, eyes stay unblinking and wide, the wide smiles never reaching them.*"
 ― The Storyteller

Realising these people were being held here cruelly against their will, but knowing they couldn't do much about it, the duo work their way to a side table, where they find a jovial Puck waiting for them alongside a strange mason jar covered in black cloth. Within a few minutes of conversation, the maniacal fey prince has stolen Oondak's tea recipe, replaced all of Hector's rations with wooden replicas, and twisted Hector's initial proposal into a plot to steal the legs of everyone in Edraxis, and specifically the legs of a god. He promises to deliver the legs to Queen Titania himself, and agrees to try and work alongside the other two courts, provided it wasn't funnier to fuck them over.

Uncertain how much he had actually accomplished, Hector joins Puck for another dance, but is empathetically forced to put an end to the "festivities" when he realises that the people at the centre of the dancing rings had been here dancing so long that their feet had worn through the soles of their boots, leaving bloody footprints on the wood, and their eyes had been unblinking for so long they were bleeding. Hector breaks the enchantment, and finds that Puck has disappeared, leaving behind a room of screaming people, and a mysterious mason jar.

Making a hasty exit after helping as many of the people in the tavern as they could, Hector and Oondak head back towards the ship. They take the jar with them, uncovering it to discover inside a small, oddly liquid, oddly semi-sentient, ball of multi-coloured light. Upon communicating with it in some fashion, Hector discovers it to be a portion of the Witchlight that Puck had stolen from the faerie kings, and after contacting Cerredwen, learns to his alarm that the faerie kings would likely be hunting him down to retrieve it.

Understandably alarmed by this, Hector decides to stay at a tavern near the ship instead of on the ship itself, hoping to not draw trouble to his companions. Communicating with the portion of the Witchlight further, he learns that faeries were intrinsically linked to the strange light, and that it's disjunction would drive them into a frenzied attack of anything surrounding them, including each other, until it was restored to a whole. Hector realises that the matter would not be simply resolved by giving the jar to the faerie kings, and that he would need to return it to its origin, the Witchlight itself.

While Oondak and Hector discuss this in the decrepit tavern room, they notice a strange black cat has appeared by the doorway, which seemingly had entered the room without opening the door. The cat, which has curiously vivid purple eyes, wanders lazily about the room, sniffing at the mason jar, and then perching on the windowsill to watch outside. Oondak tries to speak with it in beast speech, but it responds only by, strangely, rolling its eyes. When he tries to pet it, it's mouth widens to four times the normal size and it nearly bites off his hand.

Suspecting the cat to be a fey of some sort, Hector inquires about it with Lord Oberon, who suggests that it might be a grimalkin, a type of fey creature that is considered in some cultures a portent of doom, and is believed by other fey to show up at places where something interesting was about to happen "because they like to watch".

Even further alarmed, Hector decides the only real course of action was to head to the fey realms the next morning to try and return the orb of light to the Witchlight. Oondak takes news of this to the others, who go back and forth a few times on the viability of completing this task in light of their other goals. Ultimately, at Oondak's insistence that he would go with Hector, the group agrees to return the Witchlight first, then resolve the matter with Balthamos afterwards.

That night, Yuli dreams again of the young girl that had fallen into a snowy crevasse, followed by disjointed memories of that girl growing up into a woman, of countless nights spent in brothels gathering secrets, and of those same secrets whispered back at the snowy crevasse to the pale woman Yuli recognises as Ynalthed.

"*YULI! PLEASE DON'T LET ME GO! SAVE ME!*"
 ― Voice in the Dream

The dream ends again with the fortress of granite grey stone by a waterfall of light in ash-covered fields, and the same voice screaming for Yuli to save her, followed by a thousand voices asking her again: would she be the subjugated, or would she be the spear?

Meanwhile, Ironstrong-4 keeps watch on the deck of the ship, and eventually goes into sentry mode. While resting, he has another of his fractured dream memories, which abruptly ends with his waking, finding himself face to face with a number of Gnome Gnetwork special operatives that appear to be assaulting the ship.

Chaos ensues on deck and below, as the operatives attempt to disable Ironstrong-4, with the rest of the group caught in the crossfire. Back at his lonely tavern room, Hector is woken up from a restless sleep by the grimalkin that had remained in his room.

"*Not to alarm you, but it appears your friends are being murdered.*"
 ― Gloaming

Putting aside the realisation that the cat could talk the whole time, Hector hurries to help the rest of the group. They quickly find themselves outgunned when the gnome operatives call in an arcane golem. The situation only worsens, when the jar that Hector is carrying with him begins to vibrate violently, forcing him to drop it. When it hits the deck, there's a flash of light, and a number of faeries that appeared to have been in the midst of killing each other also appear, and in a frenzy attack everything around them.

Amidst the chaos, and finding themselves increasingly outnumbered, the group are forced to try and escape, and only manage to do so when Oondak calls upon the divine intervention of the Earthmaven, who teleports him and the group to her temple in the temple quarter, letting off a column of green and gold that ignites the night sky.

### Varlesans*(22nd of Maer, 4E 776)*

Stumbling out into the dark interior of the temple, the group, now momentarily safe, see the fading column of light, and spot two streaks of gold emerge from the Allfather's temple just next door, heading towards the docks. They are confronted by Marissa, the elderly caretaker of the temple, who mistakes them for intruders before recognising Oondak.

They have little time to explain the situation to her, before there is loud knocking on the temple door, as a solar demands to be allowed into the temple to search for the group. Though she hesitates momentarily, Marissa determines that if the group was unjust the Earthmaven would not be helping them still. She tells them to leave through the back garden, while she distracts the solar as long as she could.

The group hurries to do so, trying to sneak out the back and escape into the sewers of the city, but are spotted at the very end by another solar that was patrolling the sky. They are nearly caught, but at the last second Hector is contacted by Cerredwen and manages to get the group out to the fey realms in the nick of time.

### The Thornwood*(???)*

They appear at the edges of the Thornwood, a mysterious mass of brambles and thorns, and a narrow pathway leading into the murky depths. They find the same black cat waiting nonchalantly for them at the entrance.

"*There you are. Took you long enough.*"
 ― Gloaming

They speak to the grimalkin, who introduces themselves as Gloaming, and he welcomes them to the Thornwood, saying that he was particularly interested in seeing how they went about returning the Witchlight.

After a brief rest, the group ventures into the bramble proper, following Oondak, who leads the way with a spell that would supposedly guide them on the right path. Along the way, passing through the spooky depths of the tangled thorns, Lionel is almost lulled away into the forest by the sight of floating wisps of light deep within the brambles, the Aos Sídhe, but is caught by the group before he can step off the path.

At this point, Hector realises (at Gloaming's cynical reminder) that they had made no offering to the Aos Sídhe before entering the woods, and the group hastily offers up a pile of fine costumes from their previous time in the fey realms, in the hopes it would placate the mysterious beings. Gloaming also mentions off-handedly that they had been going in circles for a few hours, and wondered if that was part of their general approach to things.

After pressing the perpetually bored-sounding cat for answers, he gives them some more information about the actual location of the Witchlight and suggests that he could lead them to it. He also mentions that the area around it was heavily fortified and re-fortified, since it swapped hands between the two warring faerie kingdoms constantly, and they always added some new measure of defence to it. In particular, the Witchlight itself was locked inside a large hive, with strong physical and magical barriers blocking entry to it, largely to avoid any light from escaping which would incapacitate any faerie that caught sight of it.

"*Yes, they're fighting over something they don't even get to see. Moronic, isn't it?*"
 ― Gloaming

Gloaming offers them a potential solution to getting past the barriers, in the form of what he calls a "Vorpal Key". He offers to guide them to its location first, though once again off-handedly mentions it was likely to be quite defended. The group agrees, seeing no other good option, and follows the grimalkin into the bramble once more.

After several more hours of walking, with exhaustion setting in, the group stops to rest in a small glade amidst the thorns. Not wishing the spend the night in the unprotected wilds, Lionel creates a pocket-dimension for the group to stay in. The inside takes the form of a mansion bearing a similar style to the Endless Athenaeum, though the rest quickly notice that various parts of the construction seem to be frayed or broken.

In particular, Lionel takes them to a large library inside the mansion, filled with an assortment of tomes that seem to be all pieces of knowledge that he could remember. Much of these tomes are incomplete, and have vast sections of them missing, and of what little text remains much of it also seems to be in various different handwritings, as though it was a collection of scattered thoughts from countless other minds.

The group spends some time in the library, going through a few of the books. Yuli finds a journal with an entry retelling parts of what Lionel had seen during his "imprisonment" with the Curator, and is particularly interested in the chant she finds written there, which is almost identical to one she had also heard previously during their journey across the Vastenean.

While the others eventually go to sleep, Ironstrong-4 spends the night cataloguing the entirety of the contents of the library, nothing with interest that of all the many different handwritings he finds, all seem to write with the same scholarly and scientific approach. He memorises everything he can find within the library, in the hopes of having a backup in case anything should happen to Lionel.

The next morning, the group continues their journey through the Thornwood, until Gloaming eventually leads them to another glade, this time a small bowl-shaped valley at the bottom of which is a perfectly circular pond. Around the pond are two concentric circles of glowing flowers, and muffled from within the water comes the sound of relentless maddened jabbering.

Gloaming stays behind to watch, and the group cautiously wanders down into the valley. When they reach the first ring of flowers, Oondak spends a spectral scout ahead to test it out, and the flowers all immediately shoot out chameleon tongues that tear the spectral bird to shreds. In doing so, they alert the beast that dwells beneath the pond, a jabberwocky, and a group of nøkken that had taken up residence with it.

The rabid, jabbering, drake-like creature bursts out of the pond to attack them, and a frenzied battle ensues, during which several of the group are incapacitated by the maddening burbles the jabberwocky constantly spews forth. No harm they inflict on the creature seems to stick for long, and it almost tears some of them apart with its overgrown fingernail-like claws, until Hector recklessly dives into the pond at the centre and finds at the bottom a beautiful, perfectly sharp, tapering dagger with a lock pattern on its hilt, which he presumes to be the Vorpal Key.

Upon grabbing the dagger, the jabberwocky is driven into a frenzy, and relentlessly hunts down Hector and tries to tear him apart. Panicking, he manages to get in a single stab with the dagger into the creature's breast. This has immediate effects, as purple-black veins spread violently from the wound and the creature is driven into an even greater madness. After this point, the battle is over quickly, as all the harm that the jabberwocky had shrugged off only moments earlier now seems to be multiplied instead. They kill the jabberwocky and several of the nøkken, and eventually emerge victorious, with the Vorpal Key now in hand.

They afford themselves only a brief respite before moving on, fearing that they were wasting more time than they wished. Following Gloaming, they continue through the bramble, heading now towards the faerie hive and the Witchlight. Along the way, Hector is beset by stabs of pain coming from the scoop of Witchlight he carries with him, showing him flashes of visions: weapons clashing, limbs rending, blood splattering. Growing increasingly concerned, he urges the rest to hurry their pace.

They emerge shortly thereafter, very abruptly, at the edges of a battlefield, only hours old, that seems to have destroyed an entire swathe of the Thornwood itself. Hundreds of corpses, faeries of both types, are strewn across the ground in haphazard piles. It is immediately clear this was no organised battle or raid but a blood-soaked, frenzied, melee, and both sides had torn each other apart without consideration or mercy.

Cautiously, they proceed forward, shaken by the sight. Even Gloaming seems concerned, mentioning that something of this scale was certainly unusual. They come to a particularly large pile of bodies at the centre of the melee, where the fighting was fiercest, and here find a gruesome sight. At its summit, they see two faeries impaled through the length of their spines atop thorn lances, their heads severed and wedged into their cracked and oozing chests, where sitting on blood-drenched scalps you can still make out two crowns of bramble, one silver, and one black.

"*Svartalfurr and Ljosalfurr. Kings of the Hive. It seems we may be too late.*"
 ― Gloaming

Grimly, Hector climbs the pile of corpses and retrieves the two bramble crowns, as well as dismantling the the effigies and laying the two faerie kings to rest as best he could. Having done so, the group pushes on towards the hive, which was now visible in the distance.

The battlefield stretches on almost all the way to the base of the hilltop on which the hive is built. It ends near the fortifications at the bottom of the hill, which seem abandoned, but had evidently seen recent fighting as well. Here, they bid farewell to Gloaming, who tells them he has led them far enough that they could make their own way, and that he would now be watching from afar.

Sneaking forward, and thanks to a clever illusion by Hector, they manage to sneak past the defences, noting that the hive itself was patrolled by a greatly diminished number of faeries, but of both types working in unison. Notably, the faeries also have a strange orange glow in their insectoid eyes, that Oondak notes immediately as unnatural. That being said, the faeries they do see seem to have broken out of whatever frenzy must have overtaken them, and were calmly going about the business of repairing the hive and clearing out the bodies that were littered everywhere.

They infiltrate the hive building itself, following a large tunnel that slopes upward towards the heart of the hive. Along the way, they are paid no attention to by the faeries that remain, but spot a particular incident in which two faeries get into a confrontation, and one casually stabs the other through the chest, without any particular display of anger or emotion, before dragging the corpse away to join the rest of the piles.

With the way briefly clear, Hector uses the Vorpal Key to undo the enchantment sealing away the heart of the hive, and they rush through, putting up an illusion behind them to cover their entry. Inside, they find a narrow tunnel leading downward, which Lionel notes is pulsing with veins of vibrant magic that seep through the hive matter. They follow the tunnel cautiously downward, hoping to remain undetected, but shortly thereafter Yuli hears a voice in her head speaking to her.

"*Disciple. Have you come to undo what has been done?*"
 ― Warbringer

Yuli answers that she merely wanted to know what she was a disciple of, and why she was being drawn towards that end. She says that she herself had no particular stake in restoring the Witchlight, but that the rest of her companions did. The stranger's voice answers one more time before the connection is severed.

"*I ask you then to consider. Look at what has been achieved in such a short time, when even the least of their idols is cast down. These people have been riven for centuries, but now? They have been unburdened by faith, unshackled from servitude. They have cast down their masters, and found the strength to rule themselves. No gods. No kings. Only triumphs and consequences of their own making.*"
 ― Warbringer

Yuli shares with the others what she had heard, and Hector incredulously asks if the slaughter they had seen outside could really be considered freedom or salvation. Before anyone can really find an answer, the tunnel opens up into a chamber at the very heart of the hive, overgrown with vibrant lichen and strange fey plants, leaving only a crooked path of hive matter leading to the centre of the chamber.

And there, atop a cluster of hive matter that is formed into crude steps, they see the Witchlight, an orb of gelatinous light, floating only inches above the floor, giving off glimmers of radiance so bright it hurts to even look at and yet so beautiful it hurts to look away. But still, diminished. Entire parts of the sphere are dull, unlit, and they can see plain as day a scoop missing from its side, like someone had taken a bite out of it.

A voice rings out as they walk into the chamber, from a figure at the top of those steps just beneath the Witchlight. Tall, and powerful, dressed in amour of burnished steel painted with twisting woad markings that reflect the light into coiling wisps of smoke. And across their head and shoulders, hanging still but seeming to churn with some internal shimmering, is a silken veil of black and red.

"*Now her hand is raised, a spear to pierce the sun. With one strike she frees the faithful, and brings them unto salvation.*"
 ― Warbringer

Two other figures stand further down the steps from the veiled stranger. The first, a tall elven man, lanky, skeletally thin, with sickly pale skin that has these infested fungal growths creeping across it, and pale green eyes that almost seem to glow faintly. And the second, a grotesque figure. Massive, powerful, with bulbous skin stretched unnaturally tight across sinew and muscle, and seeming to writhe from within, and a second figure of pale flesh seemingly grafted, legless, to his back.

The veiled man turns towards them, and as though he had been privy to their brief conversation in the tunnel, speaks out again.

"*All great things come to fruition through change, and change by its very nature requires the undoing of the old, and the remaking of the new.*"
 ― Warbringer

While he is speaking, Yuli hears instead in her head the same voice speaking solely to her.

"*Your destiny awaits you, fellow disciple. Why do you fear it? You have sacrificed so much to it already. Friends, dead. Mother, taken. Would you not wish to set them all free? We shall make our salvation at the beginning and the end, amidst the desolate and the unmade. I and the second will wait for you there. Do not linger on your journey, lest the chains we have undone settle into shackles once more. Trust only to your own strength and your own purpose. The rest will fail you. In blood, the truth is written.*"
 ― Warbringer

Noticing that the veiled man was speaking to Yuli thanks to his arcane sight, Lionel steps forwards as the veiled stranger moves to plane shift away, and asks if they could know who he was. The veiled stranger answers in Lionel's head,m before leaving in a flash of folding space.

"*You stand before a Warbringer, child. You who have faced gods and seen them slain. Know that you walk with a disciple, the third of three. And she is the key to all our salvation. If you know what is wise, and do not wish to return to your imprisonment, you will see that she fulfils her destiny.*"
 ― Warbringer

The group are left alone with the other two strangers, and the thin elven man in particular is focused on Hector, who jokingly asks who was in charge now.

"*I know who you are, wordsnake. Mother wants you alive, as a gift for the General. But not, I think, unspoiled.*"
 ― Zygomites

With a click of the elven man's fingers, the grotesque monstrosity at his side surges forward, and battle begins. The elven man, a cleric of the Sporemother, brings forth one of her servants, a behemoth spore giant, and the other two adjoined siblings attack the group with insect-ridden hammer and spells.

In the chaos, Hector attempts to sneak past the fighting and restore the Witchlight, but decides to try and do so by opening the jar and entering the Witchlight itself, resulting in him being sucked away from the fighting to elsewhere. The rest struggle to fend off the onslaught, with Lionel picking up the open jar with its scoop of Witchlight and attempting to hold up the scoop to the larger ball of light, beginning its restoration.

He is interrupted, before he can do so, by the brothers, who cut him down and take the scoop of Witchlight from his unconcious body. Oondak attempts to stop them, but is also cut down, and the brothers, with the faceless mage adjoined to his burlier brother's back cackling wildly, teleport away, taking the ball of Witchlight with them and abandoning the by now badly injured cleric of the Sporemother to his fate, and causing the briefly restored Witchlight to collapse in on itself with a high-pitched screaming whine.

The chamber, the plants set aflame by the fighting, begins to crumble, and the fighting now grows desperate. With many in the group just as hurt, the hive alerted, and the maddened cleric they are fighting intent on killing Oondak, they hold a fraught defence, and at the last moment, just as Oondak is hit by a nearly fatal spell, Ironstrong-4 manages to kill the cleric and Lionel blasts down the spore giant with fire.

Seeing a frenzied hive of faeries descending towards them and knowing they have no hope of outlasting them all, let alone escaping the collapsing chamber alive, they take the only route open to them, and jump into the Witchlight.

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