The Emptiness at the End of Time

and

Justin as the DM

"**The Emptiness at the End of Time**" is the twenty-fourth episode of Rise of the Arcane, the third season of Tales From Del'nasra

A sinister voice speaks out into Antyr’s mind after a violent altercation within the bathroom of a brothel in Port Creach.

## Episode Synopsis

#### **Previously on Tales from Del'nasra**

No recap this week due to the special nature of this episode.

#### The Episode

As soon as the orc sailor that had stabbed Antyr was rendered unconscious and slumped in the stall they seemed to wither into a husk just as soon as Hopper smeared the strange substance on the man's face. Almost immediately after this occurred, Antyr heard a voice speak out in their head saying "Finally". As the voice stopped the world around Antyr seemed to lose colour, freeze and turn to dust.

A tear opened up in space around Antyr and stepping out was a stretched out, gaunt, almost hollowed out version of Antyr with lifeless eyes that began consuming the orc's life force. Once it had finished feeding it motioned for Antyr to follow it inside the tear in space.

Upon following the entity, Antyr found himself in an endless, dark expanse with chunks of various terrain and realities floating about and frozen in states of collapse. In the distance in this realm was a massive, withered, dead tree, bringing it to a total of three massive trees of equal size the party had seen at this point. As the entity trudged along and Antyr followed a long tendril reminiscent of a root of a tree weaved throughout this space and consumed the screaming spirit of the orc Antyr had just drained of their vitality.

The entity pushed onwards, as did Antyr eventually stumbling through memories they didn't recognize as well as versions of their party imprisoned within spiked cages hanging from an oak tree. As Antyr passed these versions of the party silently screamed towards them, and they noticed that these versions of the Fonkey Casuals were incredibly withered, similar to the orc in the brothel bathroom.

They passed by the copies of the party and entered the base of the tree which seemed to house a sort of structure inside with numerous corridors and figures watching from the shadows up on the ceiling. One of the figures scurried down the ceiling and introduced themselves as The Caretaker and seemed similar to Antyr in appearance but rotting, with their scalp falling to the floor as they introduced themselves. They grabbed a lantern off a nearby wall and offered to show Antyr around, noting they seemed a bit confused.

The Caretaker brought Antyr to a grand, empty chamber where designs similar to the Astral Sea were moving on the ceiling. The room also contained a large window overlooking the emptiness. The Caretaker welcomed Antyr to the Emptiness, a place that was once the domain for the God of Time but ever since the gods banished themselves six years ago this place has been dead and is now the place where time and reality goes to die. While here, the entity that led Antyr here approached them and took a spell that had been carved into the skin of their back and fed it to Ciphersworn, granting Antyr the knowledge of some unknown spell.

The Caretaker mentioned that whenever Antyr would consume a soul they would wind up here with more knowledge to learn, but told them to explore at the leisure and get a feel for the place before coming to meet them in the highest point of the structure, the Nexus.

Deciding to explore, Antyr checked out a door leading out of the current chamber and found what once served as a personal quarters but was now unfurnished with a broken window that didn't seem to look out to anywhere. After finding a shard from the broken window, they placed it back into the window and repaired it. Realizing this window could function similarly to a Scrying spell, Antyr used it to see a variety of people including Doe, Lionel and Hopper still frozen in time in the brothel's bathroom and also saw Torger, Grin and Vonkar in the sewers harvesting something from the fatberg.

They also glanced upon Guardian Peshan also frozen in time in their tower furiously scouring through documents and also looked in on where they had seen Duskreaper Aelinor steal the luminspire and saw a goristro and marilith patrolling this chamber, and in the background was Graz'zt concealed by shadows and dragging a newly bound Creep by a spiked chain.

The final scene Antyr looked in on was Auntie Gothel, and upon looking into her scene, they saw that this was the only scene not frozen in time. Auntie Gothel was with a haggard looking Arthur Wordweave, an overjoyed Terry and what appeared to be Leek, restored to life and older than before. She seemed to realize they were being watched and held a conversation with Antyr, mentioning that she has a keen eye for seeing through the threads of time and fate and suggested that once they're done with their business in Port Creach they should come find her and asked that they bring Leek's belongings with.

Auntie Gothel ended the scene and Antyr made their way towards the Nexus to meet with The Caretaker.

Upon arriving in the Nexus, Antyr saw a chamber with a collection of large tree roots coalescing into the centre of the room in the form of a massive knot. The roots had a faint, mint-green coloured glow to them and also seemed to veer off into the endless expanse beyond. The Caretaker called this this knot of roots the aetherroot and that it connected this tree and the others like it together, explaining each tree held their own aetherroot. They called these trees the Eildear in the fey language, but in the common tongue they were known as Elder Trees. These trees anchored reality together and their roots spread far and deep in the planes they existed upon. These roots are the leylines and they provide the weave to the various planes of existence, and that the crystals they had seen being shipped around the world by the Ley Guardians was the sap from these roots which was the physical embodiment of the weave. The Caretaker explained that each plane of existence has one of these trees and that Antyr had seen two of them previously. The first being the Willowspire, the eildear of the Feywild and then in a vision they had seen the eildear of the Del'nasra, the Everlasting Arbor which was seen in the Drakeward Desert of Cathatuuin.

They explained that these trees will bring about the Grand Restoration, but the first tree must be the one to do so, and this is the tree of Del'nasra. Antyr realized that the leylines they saw wrapping around the moon was in-fact the massive roots of this tree as it was preparing to bring the moon down and destroy Del'nasra. The Caretaker mentioned the reason this was occurring was because a deep corruption spread through the leylines thousands of years ago and that because of the tangled nature of the aetherroot, and the twisted timelines that these leyline convergence points were leaking memories and visions from other timelines and realities into the present; hence all of the conflicting accounts of the past few thousand years, as well as people having foggy memories of certain events. The only way to restore the Prime Timeline as The Caretaker called it was to ensure the Grand Restoration comes to pass which will destroy Del'nasra and in the ensuing chaos and eruption of magic, the world would be restored and time would reset.

The Caretaker mentioned that Antyr wasn't strong enough to come and go from this place at will quite yet and to leave a soul would be required, much like one was required to arrive here. They told Antyr to defeat them and consume their essence, but once they returned to their world and retrieved the sword they were seeking they should seek out Auntie Gothel as she is knowledgeable of the eildear, having built her home within the roots of the Everlasting Arbor. They said she could provide far more information on these trees and the path ahead, mentioning this could be a good way for the others to learn about the eildear and not from a vision that Antyr may have had.

Mentioning they couldn't go down without a fight, the pair of them fought amidst the roots of the Nexus and eventually, Antyr came out on top and consumed the essence of The Caretaker, adding more years to their lifespan and also taking their astral cord, empowering theirs. The Entity that brought Antyr here re-opened the portal into Del'nasra and shoved them through and as they returned back time seemed to resume once more.

## Featured Characters

### Player Characters

* Antyr Xiloscient
* Doe
* Grin
* Hopper Thimblefoot
* Lionel
* Torger Otrson
* Vonkar Eldsaga

### Returning

* Auntie Gothel (via some sort of magical window)
* Baba Yaga (via the luminspire)
* Ciphersworn, the Page Eater
* Graz'zt (via some sort of magical window)
* Kena Peshan (via some sort of magical window)
* Leek (via some sort of magical window and seemingly alive)
* Rattle (via some sort of magical window)
* Sir Arthur Wordweave (via some sort of magical window)
* Terry (via some sort of magical window)
* The Creep (via some sort of magical window)

### New

* The Caretaker
* The Timeless Hunger

### Mentioned

* Arcane's Bane
* Duskreaper Aelinor
* Iggwilv, the Witch Queen
* Marquis Torgol Marrshade