Brave New World • Chapter 08

## A Song Sung Once

Prev Chapter
Next Chapter

### Varlesans*(19th of Venn, 4E 776)*

Having escaped the Ashenways, the party appears in a small chamber inside the church of the Ashmaiden in Varlesans. They are greeted by the sole occupant and keeper of the church, an eccentric fire genasi called Senne. They take the group to a dormitory to rest, informing them they had missed about 2 days of time, and telling them about a castle falling from the sky just the day before, heading west towards the old world.

"*Yesterday, a seagull stole my lunch, and a castle fell from the sky. It was very frightening. Many people think it is the end of days.*"
 ― Senne

Completely exhausted, the group decides to discuss matters the following day, and quickly fall asleep, with Ironstrong-4 keeping a partial watch in sentry mode. While he powers down, he is drawn back to an audience with the Ashmaiden, where the two discuss the arduous journey through the ways, and what the group had encountered there. Ironstrong-4 informs the goddess of their meeting with the Sovereign, and she in turn gives him more information about the undead they had fought at her command.

"*The creatures bear the Wraith Queen's mark. The wretched ruler of Naz'barleíd has long been a thorn in my side, but now she defies me openly. I suspect she is being emboldened by the same enemy you and I seek, snatching wanderers from the ways, stealing them away from me with a guile that is not her own. It has been happening for months. My Shadar-Kai are trying to stop it where they can but...there are too many. I am not certain what is being done with the souls that are taken but I can only fear the worst. War is coming to the north. This is the hammer that will break the old world against the ocean's anvil.*"
 ― The Ashmaiden

She also tells Ironstrong-4 more about the fortress that had fallen from the sky, and about how it had streaked through the sky and fallen towards Edraxis, remaining there. She did not know where it had stopped exactly, having no eyes inside the nation, and asks Ironstrong-4 to see what he could discover from his end. Most importantly, she mentions that the fortress, when looked at from above, bore the same shape as the sigil of the Magisterial Court, which they both conclude could not be a coincidence.

### Varlesans*(20th of Venn, 4E 776)*

When the group wakes, they have a long discussion about what to do next. They discuss the purchase of supplies and preparations for their continued journey east, and decide to head south towards a mining town called Creuser, where Senne informs them they could find one of the archaeological dig sites related to the old ruins that had been found scattered through Almeras. From there, they could then find their way east towards the Desolation.

While the remainder of the group spreads through the city to purchase supplies for their journey, Yuli heads off alone to the docks to search for signs of her mother's arrival at the port city. Asking a dockmaster for access to their ledgers, she finds no sign of the Kingfisher ever having arrived at Varlesans. Uncertain of where to search next, she spends the rest of the day alone at the edge of a quiet pier, musing over her next steps.

On the far side of the city, Ironstrong-4, Oondak, and Aurora attempt to gain access to a private library owned by a retired merchant lord called Jacques de Vers, but are rebuffed by his steward, a warforged called Butler-15, who immediately dismisses them when Ironstrong-4 mentions the particular condition of his mental state as a possible point of interest for the Monsieur de Vers, who was known for his fondness of eccentricities. Unable to get inside, the trio retreats to handle other matters.

Meanwhile, Hector, who had left the dorm early on without a word, ventures out in disguise into the city in a quest to find a performer for his upcoming concert at the court of his patron. His search proves unfruitful, and he is ultimately forced to contact Cerredwen and ask for additional music support. The archfey promises to send him a promising young conian talent he had recruited, and tells him to expect her early the next morning.

With the purchase of supplies largely complete, Dieterich returns to the dormitory to bathe and clean himself up after having spent so long without access to water. On his way back, gusts of warm air flood down the street he is traversing, rolling into him like a wave with force and intent behind it. He notices that the gusts are rhythmic, and reminiscent of heavy breaths, as though of someone asleep, and notices that they appeared to be coming down from one of the large cathedrals that dominated the landscape of the temple quarter, the Cathedrale du Ciel.

"*The closer you get to the cathedral the more you become in awe of its majesty and size. You realise that the stained-glass windows are actually all patterned, showing incredibly intricate depictions of dragons in flight, dragons roosting, dragons nesting beneath the earth, dragons curled around clutches of eggs. Thousands of renderings, all spread over the centre of the dome, surrounded by a massive carving, that circles the entire base of the structure, a dragon of diamond asleep around the world of her children.*"
 ― The Storyteller

Standing guard outside the temple as he approaches are a half dozen Handmaidens of Zephra in uniform, and they initially they appear to move towards Dieterich to stop him, they seem to wordlessly notice something about him and let him through. Inside, he finds that the cathedral had an austere simplicity to its design: shaped like a massive smooth stone basin, with a pool of liquid in the centre that appears to be liquid glass. The surface vibrates evenly with each of the heavy breaths that continue to reverberate around this place.

In something of a trance, Dieterich approaches the pool and kneels next to it. Here, between breaths, a voice like a hurricane echoes around the chamber, with the sheer force of a landslide, a sound textured like tectonic plates scraping against each other. And the glass ripples more violently with each word.

"*You have travelled far, child. Have you kept your oaths?*"
 ― Voice in the Glass

"*Make it right. The world trembles. Cataclysm nears. You must be ready.*"
 ― Voice in the Glass

Overwhelmed, Dieterich remains by the edge of the pool long after the voice fades and the sound of the heavy breaths wanes. Eventually, with newfound resolve, he rushes back to speak with the others, stopping only to inform the Handmaidens keeping guard outside the temple of his revelation. The captain of the local chapter, Sabine de la Cere, takes his warning gravely and promises to spread the word.

Shortly thereafter, the group convenes at the Ashmaiden's abbey of Saint Cendrillon. Here, they lay everything on the table and speak of their collective journey. They tell Dieterich and Aurora of their experiences with the veiled spectres, and their journey towards the Desolation and the reasons for it. Dieterich in turn shares that he had fought a mage that could manipulate shadow and flame who also wore a veil across their head and torso, and tells them how he had killed the mage, only for it to become undone in some way. He also informs the group of the warning he had just received at the cathedral.

Realising that their paths were more linked than they had anticipated, Dieterich and Aurora decide to continue travelling with the group, hoping to reach the Desolation together and find answers at its heart. The party decides to spend another day recovering in Varlesans before setting off towards Creuser, in order to give some additional time for Hector to finish preparations for the Spring Confluence, which was fast approaching.

Before they go to sleep that night, Hector and Dieterich have a brief talk about their respective origins in Radenstadt, where Hector lets slip his bitter resentment towards the country, revealing that he could not help but hate Dieterich at least a little for reminding him of the place, and did not know how to stop his feelings from boiling over the top the closer they got back to home.

The group goes to sleep shortly after nightfall, and Dieterich stays awake to keep an eye on Yuli at Ironstrong-4's behest, since Hector is in no state to do so himself. As the night quietens and the city falls asleep, Dieterich spends his time silently cleaning his armour to clear his mind, musing over the events of the day, only for that silence to be shattered exactly one minute past midnight, when a loud bang of pink and green confetti explodes above Hector's bed, and a massive orchestral harp tangled with a befuddled conian woman crash onto the unsuspecting bard's bed with a cacophony of noise and colour, heralding the arrival of Hector's early morning appointment.

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

The suddenly arrived stranger introduces herself as Lyrenaeiranethwyn Pendrybyswenna, or Lyra Silverstring for short. She was sent by Cerredwen at Hector's request to assist him with preparations for the concert. Though somewhat concerned about nearly being crushed by a harp in his sleep, Hector recovers quickly, and sets about testing the woman's musical talent, which he finds more than adequate for his needs.

"*My name's Lyrenaeiranethwyn Pendrybyswenna but most people call me Lyra because that's quite a mouthful not that you'd have any problem with that sir I hear you have quite the way with words and can I just say what an honour it is to meet you in the flesh sir I've heard so much about you and so much of it has been good except for Berry he said you stepped on his mushroom once but then again he's always so grumbly so I didn't really believe him and Basil said you'd look good as a donkey so I think that's maybe a complime-I'm doing it again. Stop talking. Stop.*"
 ― Lyra Silverstring

While Hector and Lyra spend much of the rest off the night discussing matters regarding their performance, the remainder of the group attempts to get some rest. When they wake, Dieterich takes them to meet with Captain Sabine of the Handmaidens of Zephra, in order to familiarise them with her, and vice versa, for later messaging purposes. The captain informs them that she had already begun to spread news of the warning Dieterich had received to the other temples, both in Varlesans and abroad, and the group offers to do so personally for the temple to the Allfather that was within the city.

Meeting up with Hector, who had just woken up, they go to the grandiose structure with its towering phoenixes, and are greeted inside by a powerfully-built solar with his rich summer blue skin and pupilless radiant white eyes, who seems to have been expecting them in some fashion. He introduces himself as Flamekeeper Cyrus, and takes them to a back room where they share their warning and end up discussing much of their long journey.

Cyrus, who listens intently and without much prying, offers them a number of helpful insights. He gives them more information regarding the Desolation, which he explains had existed before the gods even arrived in Ygdren, and which had poison air that was dangerous even to creatures such as he. He cannot offer them any information of what lies at the strange domain's heart, since no mortal ventured deep enough inside, and thus the gods' vision was limited. Similarly, the goings on at Edraxis remain veiled, but under the group's insistence Cyrus pledges to bring a suggestion to the Allfather to dispatch a Flamekeeper, or even a Flamebearer, to investigate matters personally.

The group also tells Cyrus of their journey through the Ashenways, and he gives them more information regarding the space, informing them that the pathways were actually a part of the Slip, watched over and cleared by the Ashmaiden to some extent in order to allow the souls of the dead to travel to the divine realms. The fragmented landscapes within were constructed from the fractured memories of the dead that passed through, and rarely lasted for long before being torn apart by the roaming ink black wall of hands, which Cyrus reveals was in fact an aspect of the Evermoil, leaking into the Slip where the bounds of its chains were lessened.

When the group mentions the prison of the Red Duke of Marenhof and their meeting with the Sovereign, Cyrus makes mention that it would do them well to not take the Sovereign's words to them as bible truth, since the god's intentions were often intentionally misleading. They show him the bandolier of bells they recovered, and Cyrus tells them which planes the bells were attuned to. The one that was pure white, they discover, appeared to no longer be tethered to any plane, perhaps because its tether was broken or lost, but Cyrus suggests that there could potentially be ways to restore that connection from traces that remained around the object.

As the group continues to share more and more information regarding their ordeals, and shares details of their encounters with the spectres and their arrival at the Garden, Cyrus is granted godly permission to reveal some deeply secretive information regarding gods and divinity, though not before binding the entirety of the group to an oath in the eyes of the Allfather that they would not share this information outside this room.

Once the group agrees, he tells them of how the gods had not always been divine, and that each had once been mortal in their own worlds, ascending to divinity in their own ways and travelling between countless worlds throughout the extent of their godhood. Knowledge of how one reaches such ascension was forbidden and kept secret, and Cyrus refuses to elaborate on its specifics, though he indicates that it was deeply dangerous and could cause irreparable damage.

In Ygdren, only one had reached divinity by discovering this hidden knowledge of ascension, the Ashmaiden, despite strict godly efforts to prevent any mortal from doing so. In the wake of her rise to godhood all knowledge of apotheosis had been more stringently hidden and enforced, and no other had been allowed to reach divinity since.

While explaining this, Cyrus also mentions that demons were intrinsically linked to gods, but does not share how or why, claiming the knowledge to be forbidden as well. He does indicate that when the Allfather had first arrived in Ygdren, no other gods had claimed this world yet, and the reason for this appeared to be a strange barrier that surrounded the inner planes, disguising the presence of life on the plane. By the time the Allfather had been drawn here, this barrier was already fractured, and had shattered completely later during the Second Dread War, drawing many other gods here in the aftermath. This planar barrier and its origin remain a mystery.

In the wake of these revelations, the group speculates on the potential origin of the being within the Garden, and debates on why various primevals such as those that laid claim to the ocean would be serving it, as well as what its connection to the strange ruins they had encountered could be. Cyrus suggests that perhaps this being was itself a god, perhaps even one of the very first gods, but cannot know for certain. He has no other knowledge of the Garden or of its inhabitant, nor is he familiar with the story of the two brothers, but suggests to Yuli that the tale as it is shown to him did not yet seem finished, and that more information was possibly yet to be revealed.

Having learned what they could, the group bids farewell to Flamekeeper Cyrus. Before they leave, he grants Yuli one parting gift, recognising her as the only one within the group that was not under the guidance of any god. He gives her a phoenix egg, claiming that in her direst need, it would hatch and grant her one wish. In taking the small, palm-sized egg wreathe of flame, Yuli sees a brief glimpse of a card in dark midnight blue, with a crescent moon outlined in gold, before the memory withers to ash.

Over the course of the rest of the day, Hector takes the group clothes shopping, needing to clothe each member of his group in line with the colour scheme of the upcoming spring confluence ball: sunset, ink, and cotton mint. Finding a specialised tailor to fulfil their needs, the group acquires a bizarre and eclectic collection of outfits in the strange combination of colours: a voluminous robe and pointed wizard hat for Oondak, an ink-black evening gown and accompanying tearaway ghillie suit of orange grass for Yuli, a garish gradient suit with brightly coloured cravat for Aurora, a frilled tuxedo and vest for Hector, and a chestless leather shirt contraption with a massive, floppy, wide-brimmed, feathered, pirate hat for Ironstrong-4.

Outfits purchase, some of the group attempt to revisit the opulent manor house of Jacques de Vers, and thanks to Hector's silver tongue are able to talk their way inside, buying themselves a few hours inside the library. Here, they discover some additional information about ongoing expeditions into the Desolation and the require protective vestments, and Hector notes that the native Radeni people of Radenstadt could potentially know of a secret means to travel through these wastes, having likely done so before.

While in the private library, Jacques de Vers himself, a sickly and elderly man hobbling along with a cane, sneaks up on Yuli while she is poring through some books. Unlike his butler, he does not buy their false reasons for visiting for a moment, but seems amused by the boldness of their sneaking into his manor house, and points Yuli to a particular tome titled *The Expeditions of Livia ab Faen*, which he gifts to her.

"*Take it. As a gift. Bring it with you back out into the world, as a small part of me, and perhaps if you return we can add your own tales to this library. I would very much like that.*"
 ― Jacques de Vers

That night, the group reconvenes at Saint Cendrillon, and briefly discusses what they would be doing next. The plan as it stands was to speak with the fey lords at the confluence ball, in the hopes of enlisting their aid with instantaneous travel closer to the Desolation. With only one day to go till the event, and their heads churning with the plethora of information revealed to them that day, the group goes to bed, being woken just after midnight by a sudden ignition of light that burst across the skies outside.

"*Only a few hours past midnight, the dark of the night begins to brighten, and all of a sudden, in a rush from the north, the sky ignites. A myriad of colours, intermingling, ethereal curtains dancing like a thousand fires reflecting in the sky. Emerald, lilac, turquoise and jade, all shattering against one another in resplendent waves above you, and within moments it is as bright as morning or dusk. The air is abuzz with this static, like just before a storm, and the sharp tang of ozone fills your nostrils. The lights in the sky hang so low you almost feel you could touch them, and you sort of do. Every movement of your hands leaves behind this faint, translucent trail of mist, like coloured steam rising off your skin, dispersing into the air. You've all seen this before: the lights, the surge of arcana. Once every year, when the suns align. The Spring Confluence.*"
 ― The Storyteller

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

With the city coming awake to the start of the Spring Confluence celebrations, the party bids a final farewell to Senne and leaves behind the temple district, deciding to get some of their travel done over the course of the day before Hector's concert. The city streets are crowded with celebrants and performers alike, and the group enjoys a walk through the growing crowds, soaking in the sights and smells of the party. Dieterich and Aurora in particular, having spent the last few months in utter isolation, are almost overwhelmed by all the colours and the noise, until at last they reach the Mud Gate that leads out of the city peninsula, and head out into the wilderness.

### Valenroux Countryside*(22nd of Venn, 4E 776)*

For the first time in a long while, the party takes to the open road. The road they are following is a simple one, unpaved, lined with some gravel to keep the grass at bay. Though this part of Almeras has been colonised for a good while now, and there are merchants and travellers aplenty on the road, the countryside still feels untamed. If this was Atheldael, or Edraxis, there would be farms and fields and the neat lines of stone fences lining the roads. But here, the forest still looms, as if to remind travellers that it had been here first. The pine trees are taller and older, the undergrowth thicker, the grass overgrown and the hills craggy.

Nonetheless, the party enjoys a quiet and uneventful day's journey, heading south towards Creuser. Hector spends much of the day practicing his performance for that evening, and Dieterich lets Auðn, his bonded wyvern, spread its wings and fly free for some time. That evening, they make camp early, and begin getting ready for the night's festivities. A few hours before midnight, they feel themselves being pulled away, and with a dizzying pop of pink and green confetti, are whisked off to the fey realms.

### Court of Endless Muses*(22nd of Venn, 4E 776)*

They arrive amidst the growing crowd of fey queueing up to get into the event, an eclectic collection of creatures of all shapes and sizes, from talking horses with coats of starlight, to insectoid faeries, to birds with four wings and glowing tails, to a woman made entirely of water wearing a lily flower dress. Thanks to Hector's VIP access, they speak with Bartholomew Bluefur, Cerredwen's conian head scribe, and skip past the queue into the magnificent ballroom that has been constructed around the Court of Endless Muses that Hector is familiar with.

They are greeted here by a dizzying array of marvels. Floating platters of exotic foods, otter-like chefs with long moustaches and bright orange tuxedoes, flying champagne glasses fighting to fill themselves up from never-ending fountains of sparkling wines of all colours, and an uproarious hubbub of conversation, music, and song from the equally bizarre crowd that is gathered here. Soon after their arrival, their host Cerredwen steps up to a podium on the far end of the ballroom to announce the start of the festivities.

"*Welcome! Welcome, one and all, to our yearly Confluence Ball Extravaganza, brought to you proudly by the splendacious Court of Endless Muses. The evening's entertainment will begin shortly, and I assure you we have quite the magnolious array of delights to awe and inspire you tonight. In the meantime, please, make yourselves at home, try the crystal wine, or one of Granny Myrtle's homecooked pies, and settle in for an evening of spectacle, marvels, wonder, splendour, and of course...magic! Let the festivities begin!*"
 ― Cerredwen, the Song of Morning

The group mingles into the crowd, coming face to face with several of the rather eccentric patrons. They try some of the food, which has adverse affects on Yuli in particular, and plenty of the drink. They also venture over to Granny Myrtle's pie stall, where the mysterious old woman sells them some strange pies (including one that keeps faintly screaming every time it is bitten and one that grows legs and tries to run away) in exchange for "gifts of equal value". The fortune teller, whom only one of them had met before, greets Yuli with a question, and some cryptic wisdom.

"*Hello dear. Have you found what you're looking for yet?*"
 ― Granny Myrtle

"*Ah, well the journey is oft more important than the destination. A pity your kind has a habit of focusing on the latter, don't they?*"
 ― Granny Myrtle

Aurora takes the opportunity to ask Granny Myrtle questions about the witch that had cursed her village, believing that she may be a hag of some nature. Granny Myrtle, unhelpfully, suggests that the witch had been right to curse the town, because they refused to listen to her very correct warnings. She doesn't recognise the witch as any hag in particular however, but tells Aurora that she could ask "Mother" if she wanted, since she knew everyone.

Shortly thereafter, Lyra runs up to them to inform them their performance would be starting soon. While moving off to backstage, a fanfare of trumpets announces the arrival of Queen Titania, head of the Ardfaíl Court, and her guest, the Lord Oberon. The two arrive with a procession of guards, and take their place on thrones at the innermost end of the ballroom, watching over the crowd and the central stage, where the party hastens to begin the show.

What follows next can only be described as a bizarre retelling of the group's journey, with a heap of artistic license. Hector's musical play tells of the story of a group of heroes that strive to defeat a growing shadow. Following the journey of Madame Orchidia de la Cravatte, Principe Lancaiter, the Ambassadeur Laurent du Crème, Arcanist Longman, and their trusted companion: a sentient bush, the performance in five parts is tremendously successful with the gathered crowd, and only leads to the demise of four pixies and an unfortunate boggart that was polymorphed into a dolphin, as well as one expensive, gigantic, floppy, sunflower-yellow leather hat. At the end of the show, to the general approval of the crowd, the group retreats to backstage, where they are congratulated by an overjoyed Cerredwen.

"*Mingle, my fine sirs and madams. It's a party! My party. I must demand that you enjoy yourselves. Have some wine. A muffin perhaps. I would steer clear of the hors d'oeuvre, I'm not quite sure where Pepperjack got them, and I'm not certain the eggs are eggs. Go, go! Have some fun, by order of your host! Don't cause too much trouble, and try not to get turned into anything bothersome.*"
 ― Cerredwen, the Song of Morning

Following their host's wishes, the group scatters into the party, mingling with the crowds. Hector entertains a crowd of boisterous fans, and is congratulated by Lord Oberon, or one of his many copies, on his performance. Dieterich tries to partake of as many things as possible, eating far too much magical food and going on a strange, mushroom-fuelled trip thanks to a grumbly yet insistent redcap. Yuli attempts to investigate the origin of the mysterious hors d'ouevre, discovering answers she would rather have remained buried. Aurora searches the crowd for any sign of her witch. Oondak entertains a host of faerie children, who attempt to make off with his wizard hat.

Meanwhile, Ironstrong-4 notices a disturbance by the central willow tree of the court, and together with Hector and Oondak foils a plot by a maniacal host of invisible pixies and burrowing leprechauns from the Seelie Court to steal said tree. With the tree rescued, Ironstrong-4 decides to finally take some time off, and lets his guard drop and his mind wander to memories of distant parties and dances in a better time. He lets loose in a blissful, wild dance with the fey gathered in this court, beginning a mid-air waltz across the entire ballroom.

In the general bustle of the party, the night takes a more dangerous turn. Dieterich, half-comatose from his indulgences, is approached by the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, who offers him some wine and conversation. Immediately smitten and deeply in love, Dieterich stumbles over a brief talk with the woman, and eventually is asked to introduce her to his companions, so that she may congratulate them for their performance. Upon introducing her to the group however, a jubilant Hector freezes, the blood rushes from his face, and the taste of the night's triumph turns sour.

"*Hello, Hector. What a pleasure seeing you here. How have you been, mijne liebling?*"
 ― Bella von Dusken

It is revealed that the woman is none other than the Lady Bella von Dusken, head of House von Dusken, a dangerous and cunning bruxa, and the woman that had raised Hector. Within moments, she has almost all of the group under her spell, and they compete for her affection while Hector looks on in horror. He tries to draw her away from the others by offering a dance, which she accepts, and sending a secret message to Ironstrong-4, breaking him out of his reverie.

While Ironstrong-4 attempts to snap Oondak out of the heavy charm that had been placed upon him, Hector has a tense conversation with the Lady Bella, layered with a subtle suggestion of clear and present threat, lined with the storied history and deep set trauma between them, and threading a fine line of diplomatic conversation with the dangerous and unpredictable woman.

"*I must admit, I had missed the sound of your music. It seems you have only improved in your absence. Will you ever be coming back to Duskvol? We've made some wonderful new additions to the castle that I'm certain you would particularly enjoy. I would hold a feast in honour of your return, of course. Perhaps we might even invite the Lady Anastase? I'm sure the two of you would love nothing more than to catch up.*"
 ― Bella von Dusken

"*I'm an old woman, Hector. Is it so wrong of me to wish happiness for my children? For you?*"
 ― Bella von Dusken

Mingled and conflicted emotions trouble Hector throughout his talk with the Lady Bella. He learns some news of home, and some part of him longs to return and to believe that Bella was telling him the truth. This part of him rages in conflict with memories of the trauma he had undergone during his time at Duskvol, his home, and the many reasons that had led to him fleeing.

"*The Lady Olivia was quite distraught to be left at the altar. Indeed, I had to pay her family a considerable sum in reparations. But no matter. I was headstrong when I was younger too. I should have known you would be no different. Of all my childer, you are after all the most like me.*"
 ― Bella von Dusken

By the end of the conversation, the two descend back to where Dieterich and Aurora are still pining for Lady Bella, but are spared more dangerous interactions by Hector's careful manoeuvring of the situation. Ultimately, with the silent, towering, black-plated form of her protector, Ser Moravec von Dusken, in tow, the Lady Bella takes her leave, leaving a stunned and conflicted Hector with the rest of the group. He still has not fully recovered, when there is a commotion from the other end of the ballroom near the throne.

"*A lone figure stumbles out of the crowd, knocking aside one of the servers. Cries of shock and surprise ring out, and the crowd pulls away to reveal an eladrin, dressed in a fine suit, on his knees, shivering violently and clutching his stomach. You see his pale skin turning amber, and splitting into cracks of flame. From around Titania and Oberon guards spring into action, rushing to intercept him, but it's too late. The eladrin manages to rasp "Oh, gods..." in horror, before he erupts and the world explodes into light and flame, engulfing a half dozen conian guards in an instance.*"
 ― The Storyteller

Time slows to a standstill, and most of the group are tossed away by the violent explosion, struggling to their feet as three fiery portals open across the ballroom, and from them rush a host of devils bearing a glyph mark that the party recognises. The same mark that had been placed on Hector by Balthamos, revealed and dispelled by the Sovereign in the Ashenways.

Through the smoke and the chaos of a screaming crowd trying to escape the ballroom, a horned devil soars through the doorways and into the air, pointing a forked spear at a shell-shocked Queen Titania and summoning chains of cold steel that drag her to her knees, powerless at the touch of the metal. The devils roar a triumphant war cry and surge forward, beginning to hack through the crowd and towards the incapacitated Queen Titania. The party, stunned, scramble to protect her, urged by a final cry from Cerredwen before he is swept away by the panicking crowds.

"*HECTOR! PROTECT YOUR QUEENNNN!*"
 ― Cerredwen, the Song of Morning

Rushing to save Titania, the group fight their way through the devilish assassins, managing barely to free her from her chains and unleashing her wrath upon the remaining devils. Before she can completely slaughter them all, Hector manages to convince her to stand down and leave some alive for questioning. Despite her anger, Titania listens to reason, and agrees to hear out the group.

Despite their insistence that the Sovereign might not be directly involved and had nothing to benefit from a war with the fey, Titania remains sceptical, and sends out the call to Eris and the Wyld Hunt, who she says were currently hunting in Edraxis. She agrees to pass along the information the group gives her about Balthamos and the mysterious third party that might command these devils, but also insists that she would not go to the Sovereign to beg for peace, and that if war came, they would be ready to fight it.

"*I cannae risk the life of my kin on mere word, less you have actual proof of the contrary.*"
 ― Titania, the Winter Queen

Thanks to their role in keeping Titania alive, the group secures a boon from the powerful archfey: the promise of swift teleportation to Marenhof, the capital of Radenstadt. They also cash in on a previous agreement with Cerredwen, who agrees to send them to the Endless Athenaeum whenever they wanted, while simultaneously getting distracted by the construction of a statue to commemorate the occasion and replace the now ruined willow tree in the centre of the ballroom.

Finally, leaving behind Cerredwen's courtiers to start the clean-up, the group is sent back to their campsite, where they promptly settle down to rest after the ordeal of the night.

### Valenroux Countryside*(23rd of Venn, 4E 776)*

That night, Yuli has a disjointed dream about a girl that looks oddly similar to her, running through snowy mountains and accidentally falling into a crevasse between the ice. Here, the girl is approached by a figure in rags of moonlight, that Yuli recognises to be Ynalthed. The dream then shifts, to a landscape where ash falls from the sky, and a strange castle with no doors or windows rises at the edge of a waterfall, where a river of light cascades into a starless, sunless sky.

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

Here, Yuli hears a voice shouting from within the depths of the castle, begging and pleading. And then a thousand voices speak to her as one, telling her it wasn't too late, and that the Truth could set her free. She wakes with a start at the group's campsite, only a few hours before first light. Ironstrong-4, who was keeping watch, asks her if she had had another dream, to which she replies in the affirmative, but refuses to share the details of the dream just yet.

Instead, the words spoken to her in the dream still echoing around her head, Yuli returns to the Garden, where she hears the end of the story from the stranger and learns some new details about the two brothers and their conflict, though she remains uncertain if the story was truthful or simply some complex allegory.

When the others wake, they discuss the events of the previous night, and decide it was prudent to message Evendur to check if he was aware of any particular details regarding Balthamos and the attack on the fey court. They learn that Evendur and the others were alive and well, but that the storm had blown the ship far off course, and they were now sailing east to try and make landfall. They hadn't heard from Balthamos at all recently, which Evendur is concerned about since Calisca is still missing.

With this information in hand, the group continues south towards Creuser, spending an uneventful day of travel in the countryside before finally making a stop at a clearing by the road that evening. Here, Ironstrong-4 teaches Hector the basics of planar, using his own notes on the subject as derived from Lionel's previous efforts and their own experiences.

With Ironstrong-4 bolstering his efforts, Hector manages to reach across the continent to speak with Cassandra, his beloved, who is understandably confused by the intrusion into her mind, but relieved to hear Hector. She confesses that things were worrying at home as well, and that her father seemed increasingly frightened and was preparing for war. Hector tries to reassure her that he would be home soon and promises to be there as soon as he could.

Emboldened by his success, Hector tries to push the envelope further, by projecting as much of himself as he could, with Oondak's help, to Lady Bella von Dusken's office in Duskvoel. His efforts prove successful, after a couple of attempts, and he manifests himself as an ethereal astral projection in her office. The Lady Bella, for her part, seems intrigued by the visit, though she takes caution to shield the deeper parts of her thoughts through the use of an amulet on her desk, Hector suspects shields her from divination or mental intrusion in some way.

After a brief talk with Lady Bella, Hector and Oondak return to their physical bodies. Their visit proved informative in a number of ways, as Hector notes that their projected forms were oddly reminiscent of the spectres that had plagued the group previously, and pieces together that Lady Bella's amulet interfering with the planar connection was also similar to Yuli's spell blocking the spectre that had been following Ironstrong-4 in Sandpoint.

In the meantime, Ironstrong-4 attempts on his own to project his consciousness via planar to the Ashmaiden herself, rather than relying on the usual methods of her picking him out for a conversation. His effort falls slightly short, but he is intercept before he can return fully to his physical form by the Ashmaiden, who strongly cautions him that planar was not a tool to be trifled with. It involved projecting a part of your very soul to another and doing so with a being such as a god was akin to sending a raindrop into a maelstrom and hoping it remained unaffected.

After acknowledging the warning, Ironstrong-4 recounts their experience at the Court of Endless Muses, and informs the Ashmaiden of their suspicions about a possible rogue faction amongst the devils, with whom they suspect Balthamos to be involved. In turn, the Ashmaiden tells Ironstrong-4 that the attack had caused a swathe of anger amongst the gods, and that several were now strongly considering starting a war against the Sovereign for the breach of peace. For his part, the Sovereign had remained completely silent, which some amongst the gods had taken as an admission of guilt.

The topic turns next to Yuli's most recent visit to the Garden, and Ironstrong-4 discusses with the Ashmaiden his theories about the two brothers. As always, the Ashmaiden remains curious about the matter, but the pieces remain too incomplete to arrive to a full conclusion. Both she and Ironstrong-4 suspect that events in Edraxis were connected to one of the brothers, and that the ruins they had encountered before and hoped to explore in Creuser were similarly another piece of the puzzle.

Once everyone has finished their various ventures, the group retires for the night. Though the night itself is uneventful, during the second watch Yuli lets her curiosity get the best of her and attempts to contact Ynalthed with a planar connection. Her consciousness is almost consumed entirely by the vast entity she finds herself connecting with, and she only manages to escape by the barest of margins before her mind is entirely ripped apart, blood dripping from her nose and from the edges of her eyes. The very memory of the encounter, when she shares it with Hector, is enough to almost drive him mad, and Ironstrong-4, who wakes from sentry mode at the sight of the commotion, reiterates the Ashmaiden's warning about sending consciousness to beings of a far greater power.

### Valenroux Countryside*(1st of Maer, 4E 776)*

The following morning, with a whole slew of revelations and discoveries from the previous night, the group prepares to travel the last leg of their journey to Creuser. Before leaving camp, Aurora endeavours to find some information about the hag that had cursed her village, hoping to find out enough to safely attempt to communicate directly with her, since she suspects the hag still lives.

### Creuser*(1st of Maer, 4E 776)*

The group sets off to Creuser shortly thereafter, travelling at a quick pace in the hopes of reaching the mining encampment before nightfall. Their road is a quiet one, and the day passes without trouble. By the early evening, they come into sight of Creuser, a low palisade and a few lookout towers surrounding the base of a hillside, and a variety of mining equipment.

Immediately apparent as they near the small community is that the encampment was under the control of the Black Kraken Company, with black flags flapping from the lookout towers and guards stationed at the gates and along the walls. Fortunately, thanks to Hector's charming ways, they manage to talk their way into a meeting with the governor of the encampment, a fellow called James McCarthy.

McCarthy seems interested in having a potential business discussion with the group but is understandably wary and bound by a number of company policies regarding the security and secrecy of the encampment's operation. Matters only worsen when he attempts to utilise an enchanted object to establish a zone of truth for the discussion, which Ironstrong-4 quickly dispels. Hector manages to calm things down and convince McCarthy to at least discuss the matter with his superiors and hire them as mercenaries, under a number of stringent stipulations: namely that all physical property they retrieve from the mines belongs to the Black Kraken Company, they subject themselves to thorough searches of their persons upon each expedition, and that they leave personal tokens in McCarthy's possession in the case that the Company needed to track them down.

The group agrees to the general terms and spends the night at the encampment while McCarthy contacts his superiors and drafts a contract. Hector confronts Ironstrong-4 about potentially jeopardizing the discussion with his rash dismissal of an expensive item, and Ironstrong-4 insists it was important to not let themselves be pushed around. The two ultimately decide to let Hector take the lead in delicate discussions such as this one, due to his more prominent experience with such matters.

### Creuser*(2nd of Maer, 4E 776)*

The following morning, they are called back to McCarthy's pavilion, where he asks why they didn't mention that they were already known to the Company's chief executive and were classed as "friends of the Company". After seeing the letter that Ironstrong-4 hands him, he admits that this makes things significantly simpler, and presents them with standard contracts for contractor work, under the same stipulations from yesterday, but with less of an aggressive tone. The group hands over vials of blood or personal affectations as part of the agreement and signs the contracts.

With business settled, they visit the camp's quartermaster to reacquisition some final supplies for their expedition, and upon doing so make their way towards the entrance of the mines, heading down towards the ruins below.

### Beneath Creuser*(2nd of Maer, 4E 776)*

Led by a portly miner, they are taken down by a ramshackle mining lift to the lowest levels of the mine. Passing through dimly lit tunnels, the group sees excavation works underway, extracting scattered bits and pieces of ancient stonework, crystal, and metal that seem to have been dispersed through the earth in various states of decay.

Eventually, they come to a large pit, in the centre of which is the excavated top few levels of a hexagonal spire, built of that same rock they had come to associate with the ancient ruins they'd encountered previously. With Ironstrong-4 taking the lead, they make their way down a central shaft that leads down into the broken and buried tower.

They find little of import at first, passing through dirt-filled, empty rooms that had either been cleared already or had been swept empty by the tides of time. Eventually, Ironstrong-4 and Oondak land on the bottom level of the tower, a larger foyer with some decoration on the flooring that seems to symbolise a sun or a star. Curiously, it only shows a singular sun. They have little time to investigate the matter further, because Oondak accidentally triggers an explosive glyph placed in the centre of the floor, which in turn sets off a number of constructs that emerge from the surrounding walls and attack the group.

A short fight later, the constructs lie broken on the floor. While catching their breath, the group pokes around the room and inspects the broken remains of the constructs, which are made of that cerulean blue crystal and golden metal that they've seen a number of times already. In alcoves around this room, they find a number of minor artifacts: two of those metal tipped crystal cannisters, dull and inert, and an entire collection of small metal plates that are miniature versions of the relic they had originally tried to retrieve from the chapel in Edraxis. Further investigation of the metal plates in particular indicates that they store inside them a particular sequence of instructions, which Ironstrong-4 determines to be the components of different spells, surmising them to be scrolls of some nature.

While the group investigates the room, Yuli's attention is drawn to the crack in one of the walls near the buried doorway of this lobby. The opening seems to lead off into a natural cave tunnel, and from far down that way she hears a distant, quiet voice, singing a haunting melody. Upon bringing it up to the others, she realises that only she can hear it, though she shares some snippets of her memory with Hector, who begins to piece together the notes involved in the piece, realising that the musical structure is completely alien to anything he'd encountered before.

With their investigation complete, the group decides to dig through the buried doorway rather than head down the cave tunnel. While excavating, they find another of the constructs that had attacked them in the gravel and stone, this one already broken down. From it, they manage to retrieve another of the tube-like cannisters, which they believe to be a power source of some nature, with seemingly a small amount of charge still stored within it.

They also pry out an egg-like core from the heart of the construct, made of the same metal as the spell plates they had found, and with the same blue crystal maze arranged over its surface. They deduce this to likely be the equivalent of Ironstrong-4's personality core, though on a different level of construction and complexity.

With this collection of artifacts in hand, they continue digging, eventually breaking through into a different cave tunnel, which they now decide to follow. Following Yuli's directions, they move toward the sound of the distant singing, hoping it would lead them to more of the ruins they had come to investigate.

Their journey through the interior of the caves is cramped and difficult, made even more so by the pitch dark. Eventually however, they begin to notice patches of bioluminescent moss growing along the sides of the tunnels, akin to the same moss they had seen below the chapel in Edraxis. Warily, they press on through the tunnels, eventually coming to a small cavern, dotted with rock pools of water that seems to be glowing ethereally with reflections from the moss that covers the walls. A strange scent hangs on the air, like rotten eggs, and the water is oddly viscous and sticky to the touch.

Playing it safe, they decide to pass stealthily over the water instead of following the disjointed, rocky paths through the cavern. Their decision proves fruitful, as they note near-invisible translucent creatures shifting beneath the surface of the water. Fortunately, their efforts let them pass through undetected, and they make it to the end of the cavern without trouble.

From here, they follow the passage of water through another series of damp tunnels, until eventually the water gathers into an underground stream, that comes to a sudden halt at the edge of a drop-off, where it tumbles into a deep pool and disappears into the dark. By this point, the bioluminescent moss has notably also begun to sprout small bioluminescent mushrooms which, when picked, let off little clouds of spores, as Oondak finds out.

The group decides to rest at the edge of the drop-off for the evening, tired from their exertions, spending a cold night amidst the damp rocks of this cave system. For Yuli, the song that has persisted all day continues, lulling her to sleep, where her dreams are mixed with strange snippets of fantastical landscapes: pale green oceans flecked with foaming gold, dark black cliffs of basalt grey stone, clouds of rust brown that rush past, skies turning red in the fading sunlight of a single sun.

Part way through the watch, their camp is attacked by a massive millipede-like creature, with growths of bioluminescent mushroom on their head that hypnotise various members of the group until in the ensuing chaos Ironstrong-4 manages to banish the creature, resulting on its swift and bloody death when it returns. In the aftermath, while the rest of the group returns to sleep, Ironstrong-4 and Oondak have a heart to heart about their duties and obligations, the dangers they continued to face, and how fate had brought them this far from family and home.

### Beneath Creuser*(3rd of Maer, 4E 776)*

When they wake the next morning, somewhat rested but not fully due to the cold and damp, they use one of the spell plates they had recovered to cast a spell of water breathing, and with it, descend into the dark pool of water at the bottom of the short waterfall, continuing to follow the sound of singing that has continued through the night.

The surprisingly quick current of the water carries them swiftly away into an underground river, battering them against the sides and depositing them bruised, but otherwise relatively unharmed, into another underground lake. Here, at the bottom, they find a crevasse leading away deeper into the earth. While swimming beneath the surface, several of the group hear voices and cries from family and loved ones, alarmingly real ones. Hector hears Cassandra screaming in pain and calling for help, Oondak hears his sister, Ironstrong-4 hears Oondak and the rest of the group shouting in combat, Dieterich hears the sounds of a slumbering dragon, Yuli hears her mother begging her to save her, and Aurora sees shadows of her dreams promising her an end to her torment.

Realising it may be a trap, but unable to shake the realism of the sounds, and unwilling to risk the possibility they may be real, the group dives into the crevasse and follows it through to a completely submerged cavern, at the bottom of which are scattered ruins and remains of some ancient structures, covered in growths of large fungus. In one such structure, Ironstrong-4 and Hector find Oondak and Cassandra respectively, impaled against a wall by a silver spike, which they both attempt to remove.

Upon doing so, the visions fade into black ink, and it is revealed that the spike was impaled into a massive eel-like creature, which promptly attacks the group, along with a gathering of its spawn. A panicked fight beneath the water ensues, in which Hector is enslaved by the creature, and almost drowns Oondak before the creature is destroyed by Aurora, releasing him from its spell.

In the remains of the eel's belly, they find a pile of ancient coins from previous adventurers and unlucky souls that had ventured into these depths, which they gather and carry with them. They also find a strangely buoyant chain shirt and identify the silver spike that had released the creature originally as magical as well.

After a brief rest, they press on in pursuit of Yuli's song, following another tunnel until it re-emerges into the open air. Here, they find themselves at the bottom of a chasm between two cliffs of sandstone. Following the chasm, with sand trickling down the walls around them, they come at last to a wide-open basin in the midst of the sandstone, at the far end of which rises a towering wall of basalt grey stone built of hexagonal bricks, and a hexagonal gate sealed with fields of magic.

With some investigation, they discover the gate to have three individual seals barring entry. The first they manage to open by finding three large, enchanted bells scattered amidst the sand and stone. Ringing the bells, which prove to be the three notes of an alien chord, undoes the first seal, dispersing it in a burst of gold dust.

Once the first seal is broken, the gate shifts, the hexagonal bricks moving to reveal a hexagonal pattern of gold metal, with a mural at each vertex. These six murals show particular scenes that are of great interest to the group, and their quest for knowledge in these ruins finally bears fruit. To open the second seal, Yuli touches the centre point of the hexagon, a gold sphere, which causes a feedback loop with her crystalthorn wreath, eventually causing it to erupt into dozens of skewers, which lance out to pierce the centre point of each mural, binding them all to the centre, and causing the second seal to also burst into gold dust.

The third and final seal proves simpler than the previous two. A failed attempt by Ironstrong-4 to dispel it triggers the activation of a number of new constructs, with spinning blades of gold and more elegant designs. The constructs swiftly attack the group, but thanks to direct commands via planar given from Yuli (to whom the constructs seem to look for orders after a convincing display of eloquence from Hector's universal speech), the group manages to power down the automatons before they cause too much harm.

### The Lighthouse*(3rd of Maer, 4E 776)*

With that, the third seal breaks, and the gateway opens, revealing beyond it the grand remains of a collection of hexagonal helix spires, magnificent and eerie all at the same time, rising like twisted fingers towards the rock ceiling, at varying heights and sizes. Many of the spires are broken, having fallen crashing into ones nearby, or been scattered and lost amidst the shifting of the earth over long millennia. But some remain surprisingly intact, whether by leaning against the darkened sides of this cavern, or by strength of architecture, or by sheer luck.

At the centre rises the tallest spire of them all, basalt grey webbed in lines of gold that still glow dimly, casting a faint warmth and a radiance across the ruins akin to the earliest rays of dawn. Half of it is shorn away, fallen into the ruined streets below, leaving behind almost a cross-section, at the top of which, like a pearl half-encased in the remains of this spire, is a sphere of light, a bright beacon in the dark. It was evidently once a room at the heart of its topmost levels, but whatever tore away the exterior appears to have left it whole, where all else has weathered and fallen apart.

From that sphere, Yuli now hears the song strengthened fivefold, new harmonies becoming prevalent, the melodies more earnest, a haunting call into the empty dark, waiting for someone to listen. Although only Yuli can hear the song clearly still, the rest begin to sense the melodies and harmonies like faint vibrations on the air, like a memory of a song, that touches something deep and subconscious inside each of them.

With a sense of silent awe, they make their way up a main thoroughfare towards the central spire and the beacon of light. Inspecting the structures, Ironstrong-4 comes to the realisation that the central spire seemed to be a lighthouse of some nature, using the song instead of light, calling things home across land, sea, and perhaps beyond. This insight has barely settled in, when the ground beneath their feet shakes, and up ahead they hear the crashing of stone as something erupts from the earth.

They send Hector, hidden in the dark, to scout ahead, and he finds a worrying sight waiting for him. A giant wurm-like creature with skin of volcanic stone overgrown with fungus has burst through the earth, and from its gaping maw are crawling a host of insectoid creatures, along with a number of armoured driders standing guard, and at last a duo of important-looking figures.

"*On the left, a smaller, hunched shape, with the same insectoid legs of the first creatures that emerged, but a frailer and more humanoid form sitting atop, draped in a sheet of what seems like flaps of fungal skin slender enough to flow like cloth. From beneath what would be the hood peek dozens of glowing, malformed, insectoid eyes, and on itshunched back a complex growth of mushrooms exudes yet more spore matter into the air.

Next to this aberrant creature is a massive, humanoid form. An immensely muscular woman, to the point that her desiccated, bulging skin seems ready to burst in some places. Over seven and a half feet tall, wearing tattered, worn clothing, with stone-like purple-tinted skin marred by a strange network of fractal scars that spread across the entire surface, from which have burst countless patches of mushrooms and encrusted moss dense enough to almost form armour, albeit a misshapen and twisted version of it. The woman's skull still has strands of black hair hanging from it, but an entire portion of it has split open, large growths of glowing fungus growing outward like a crest, shading a cruel, pained face with two eyes that were once a crystal clear pale icy blue, now clouded and milky with purple.*"
 ― The Storyteller

The second of the two figures, the muscled woman, looks around to the driders waiting at attention, and issues guttural commands to them, sending them out with the host of insects to disperse amongst the ruins.

"*They're here. Find them. Take the girl alive. Kill the rest.*"
 ― The Sporemother's General

Hector rushes back to the rest, warning them of what lies ahead, then breaks away to serve as a distraction, buying the rest time to get to the central spire. In a dizzying series of illusions and narrow escapes, he leads the swarm of monstrosities on a goose chase through the ruined buildings, while the others make a dash for the base of the lighthouse, only barely making it undetected.

In his efforts to keep the creatures hunting them occupied, Hector tries to form a planar connection with the commander of the troop, the massive goliath woman overgrown with fungus which the other creatures referred to as "General". To his horror, he finds her mind empty, and is snared instead by the powerful entity in control of it, which he realises quickly is an aspect of the Sporemother, whose attention is now firmly locked on him.

The Sporemother's General, at uncanny speeds for one so large, immediately charges at Hector. All the while, the voice in her head attempts to force him to reveal the location of "the disciple", which he assumes to be Yuli. Unable to lie his way out, Hector makes a run for it and only barely manages to get away, his skills of illusion stretched to their limit. In desperation, he is forced to call on the aid of Lord Oberon, whose patron goddess has a particular distaste for the Sporemother and the Spider Queen, and he receives just enough aid to slip past the swarm of spiders and other insectoid monstrosities and rendezvous with the others inside the lighthouse.

"*I have them distracted. Go, quickly. Your friends are at the central spire.*"
 ― Lord Oberon

Inside, they find themselves in a grand, ruined entrance hall, with hexagonal openings in the ceiling leading out to the upper floors, but no apparent way to get up. Moving quickly, they fly up to the ceiling and make their way through a series of corridors, navigating their way through the floors towards the peak of the lighthouse. Inside, they find a variety of rooms: storage areas, manufacturing facilities for the same constructs they'd faced previously, and also a massive archive full of thousands of disc plates.

While Yuli and Hector press onward to the top of the lighthouse, the rest remain behind to look through the archive, only half of which still remains, since the rest was sheared away with the rest of the building's front half. Most of the disc plates that remain are rusted or cracked, and despite his best efforts Ironstrong-4 is only able to find a handful that are in any recoverable shape.

However, deeper inside, they find a strange device that appears to be a configurable mould of some sort to create disc plates. Still inside it, they find a half-completed disc plate that seems relatively intact, and upon channelling arcana into it it begins to emit light, projecting a faded, moving image of a memory locked inside.

It shows the archive as it once was, a long time ago when it was still intact. Pillars of grey stone, lined with resplendent gold that is aflame with light and warmth, alcoves filled with thousands and thousands of disc plates, each pristine in silver with its own pattern of bright cerulean blue. No destruction has torn the chamber apart yet, and sunlight pours from cleverly hidden openings in the walls and ceilings to illuminate the room in all its glory.

Through the memory, they hear the song which Yuli had been hearing during their descent. Beautiful. Haunting. Pure. Tinged with the sorrow of a people scattered. Filled with the hope of people found. It pulls at some deeper part of their soul. A heavy ache. A longing. More than that, they see the people who had build and inhabited this place all those years ago.

Floating and drifting between the archives, busy in an almost surreally casual way, they see dozens of angelic creatures just like the ones they had fought beneath the ruined chapel in Edraxis: tall, slender shapes with bare, bronze skin glistening with flecks of brass, multitude pairs of wings swirling and writhing behind their backs, and silken veils across their heads and shoulders. They hear the quiet bustle of activity, but no conversation, only brief melodic flares of static on the air, like sub melodies to the greater song.

The being through whose eyes they are watching this memory moves to the mould where they had found the disc plate, and they see it begin to pour and solidify liquid blue crystal to form the maze pattern at the centre of the plate, and afterwards to encase it in silver. But before it can finish, the mundane scene abruptly changes.

The song, from slow and haunting, stutters momentarily, and suddenly grows loud, becoming high-pitched, rising into a pained keening, the song becoming a scream. All across the chamber, alarm begins to spread. Angelic beings come to an abrupt halt, looking up towards the source of the singing, gathering mid-air in a rising panic, uncertain what to do, uncertain what was happening. Flares of static fill the air, setting it rippling and buzzing with a building high-pitched whine, until the air itself seems to be screaming in unison with the song. A thousand screams all in a rising crescendo. And in the distance, a roar.

A low, continuous rumble. A tremor. A growing rush of air. Growing louder and nearer. Wind howls through the openings that let in the sunlight, which flares brightly and abruptly as every single cloud in the sky is all at once swept away. The chamber begins to shake. Hurricane winds ripping against the outer stone.

The viewpoint of the memory turns, and in its last moments they see a single, silver, weightless strand fall into the centrepiece of the mould and disappear into the blue crystal, before all around it the screams rise all at once into a panicked, singular, unified shout of agony and fear. And the image blinks out.

With little time to process this revelation, the group rushes to reconvene with Yuli and Hector, who in the meantime have reached the beacon at the top of the lighthouse, the source of the song.

"*You come into sight of the beacon that you saw from ground level, a sphere of golden light embedded into the dark grey stone, and now that you're closer you realise it isn't a beacon at all. Instead, it's a protective dome around what was once a room in the heart of this place. A glistening barrier glistening with swirls of bronze and gold. And inside it, almost like a snow globe, is a scene frozen in time.

You see the architecture as it was, basalt stone still fresh and unweathered: lines of golden metal still glowing, beautiful designs of tree roots grown into place as part of the very fabric of the walls, alcoves inlaid with blue gems that are still surrounded by unbroken glyphs, and autumn leaves still falling through the air, frozen in place like snowflakes.

At the centre, hovering inches from the ground, is a sight that sends a shiver of anticipation down your spines. A humanoid figure some nine feet tall, long and slender, feminine, with a multitude of wings spread out behind it, and a long, billowing veil also frozen in place across its head and shoulders. The creature's hands are spread, fingers splayed and strained, as though holding back an immense weight at the centre of this dome.

Curiously, an array of blades of bronze-gold metal are frozen in mid-air around the figure as well. Some further, some nearer, and some having already taken place as though magnetically attached around the radiant feathers of the creature's wings. Seemingly razor sharp, beautifully and perfectly carved into shape, each inlaid with intricate symbols and designs.*"
 ― The Storyteller

Hoping to discover more as quickly as possible, Yuli forces a planar connection through the dome and with the being, the singer, inside. As soon as the bond forms, she hears only screaming. A singular scream of a million voices, frozen in time, playing over and over ahead inside the singer's head. The compounded agony drives like a spike into Yuli's mind, but she forces through the pain and manages to break the creature's hold upon the spell, causing it to drop.

As soon as it does, just as the rest of the group are rushing down the tunnel to join them, the singer's mind is set free, but the damage had been done already. Millions of years of intense, repeated trauma had completely shattered her mind and driven her to complete madness, and in a frenzy, the singer attacks the group with bladed wings moving at blistering speed.

Reluctant to kill the singer despite her deadly efforts to kill them, but knowing they had very limited time now that the beacon had dropped before the swarm caught up to them, they attempt to break her out of the madness, making progress but moving far too slow for the time they had. Within moments, the insects and monstrosities from below begin to swarm up the spire. Aurora and Ironstrong-4 attempt to hold them off, buying time for the others, but are steadily becoming overwhelmed.

Desperate and near death by the singer's relentless attacks, Yuli uses her phoenix egg, granted to her by Flamekeeper Cyrus, to repair the singer's mind, causing her to drop motionless to the ground and cease attacking them all at once. Swarms of spiders and flying insects continue to swarm into the chamber, slowly whittling down the group's defences, and at last, in a cloud of spores, the Sporemother's General joins the fray with her deadly dual scythes in hand.

Seeing death approaching, the group attempts to call upon Queen Titania's favour, but find their efforts blocked by the will of the Sporemother, whose gaze is firmly locked now on the group, surrounded as they were at the top of the lighthouse. Aurora goes down in the fighting, and is executed by the Sporemother's General before the others can reach her. Ironstrong-4 faces off against the giant woman next, even his formidable defences struggling to keep her at bay. Almost too late, the singer stirs, placing a hand on Yuli's chest and seemingly absorbing the knowledge of modern language from her, before reaching out a hand to her.

"*TAKETH MINE HAND.*"
 ― The Singer

Before Yuli can do so, she is dragged back by a thrown sickle from the Sporemother's General, and all seems to be doomed, until in one desperate manoeuvre the singer spears her bladed wings at all of the group's surviving members, skewering them in much the same way as Yuli's crystalthorn wreath, and taking off at immense speeds towards the cavern ceiling, where an unspoken spell parts the rock and lets them through to the outside, escaping the clutches of the swarm by mere moments.

Prev Chapter
Next Chapter