Battle of the Red Center

Fan art of Ludinus and the Malleus Key, by Wesley Griffith.

Combatants| * Ruby Vanguard
* Paragon's Call
* Grim Verity
* Ashari

Commanders| * Ludinus Da'leth
* Liliana Temult
* Otohan Thull

Strength| * General Ratanish
* Bor'Dor Dog'Son
* Ruidusborn soldiers
* Warder automatons
* Mage hunter golems
* Reilora
* Ira Wendagoth
* Beauregard Lionett
* Caleb Widogast
* Tempest Blades and other Air Ashari
	+ Baernie, Leeta and Maeve
	+ Turan and Fira
	+ Jennis and Erana
* Champion of Ravens
* Forces sent from Vasselheim, including Judicators

Casualties| * Several Ruidusborn and at least one Exaltant
* About 30 soldiers killed when the *Silver Sun* crashed
* Unspecified number of constructs destroyed
* At least one Judicator
* More than two dozen Ashari warriors
	+ At least two more Ashari wounded in battle

The **Battle of the Red Center**, also known as the **Conflict of the Red Center**, was the name given by the Air Ashari to the battle fought in the Tishtan excavation site in Marquet. It took place on 20 Fessuran 843 PD, and marked the beginning of a particularly long apogee solstice.

## **Background**

To achieve his stated goal of releasing Predathos and freeing Exandria from the influence of the gods, the archmage Ludinus Da'leth and his allies set in motion a complex plan that involved not only the construction of three Malleus Keys (one in the Material Plane, one in the Fey Realm, and one in the Shadow Realm), but also the participation of powerful international forces. Empowered by dumanis produced by the Cerberus Assembly, Otohan Thull (leader of Paragon's Call) was sent around 837 PD to Zephrah, in Tal'Dorei, making an assassination attempt on the local leader Keyleth, who escaped largely unscathed although several Ashari were killed. As the apogee solstice approached, the Ruby Vanguard allied itself with other cults and organisations (the Elder Cross Cult, the Carrion Breach, the Children of Malice and the Cult of the Dark Heart) to keep attention away from Da'leth's plans, while also leaving clues for the Voice of the Tempest to follow and eventually show up at the Tishtan excavation site.

Since part of the plans involved locating and recruiting multiple Ruidusborn (as well as learning more about their nature), Ludinus and his allies procured relevant documents for the task, drawing the attention of the Grim Verity, who began to keep an eye on the Ruby Vanguard's plans. When the Lumas twins, two young students allied with the Verity, were killed by Thull in the same way she attacked the Air Ashari, the clues left behind drew Keyleth's attention. She sent Orym to investigate, and this ended up involving Bells Hells, a motley but determined adventuring party that Orym allied with. Their involvement became more personal after Otohan Thull killed one of their own and Lord Ariks Eshteross (their ally). They also learned that Liliana Temult (the mother of another member) was part of the Ruby Vanguard, and when they met Ludinus in person, they saw his cruel methods of obtaining what he wanted. These adventurers, after becoming allies of the Grim Verity, managed to destroy the Malleus Key in the Feywild, which, combined with the damage to its equivalent in the Shadowfell, forced Ludinus to alter his plans.

## **Conflict**

The first casualties of the conflict occurred on the eve of the solstice, when Da'leth's forces shot down a skyship sent from Vasselheim; at some point a Judicator sent from Dawn City also engaged the forces defending the Tishtan excavation site, and was defeated.

When Bells Hells arrived at the location they met Professor Caleb Widogast and Expositor Beauregard Lionett, allies of the Grim Verity, and began with them the process of sabotaging the machinery and power sources of the Malleus Key, damaging the automatons present and killing several Ruidusborn soldiers. These interferences caused Ludinus to advance the activation of the Malleus Key, giving a speech to which he brought in the newly captured Caleb and Beau, while Bells Hells tried to keep interfering without drawing too much attention. Ludinus used the time magic of a Luxon beacon to speed up time at the excavation site until the start of the Apogee Solstice (deteriorating his own hand in the process), at which point the *Silver Sun* (a skyship owned by Bells Hells) crashed into the Malleus Key, and despite being largely held back by the archmage's magic caused about thirty deaths in his ranks.

By this time the Ashari forces were in the process of descending to the area where the action was taking place, but their leader, Keyleth, went ahead transformed into a plummeting earth elemental. However, her appearance had been expected, and she was paralyzed by a spell cast by Ludinus. Otohan Thull began to attack her repeatedly with her echo knights, severely wounding her and bringing her to the brink of death. The attack was stopped when the Champion of Ravens suddenly appeared and interposed himself, but his appearance had been expected by Ludinus, and he was almost immediately captured by Liliana Temult's magic. His body was compressed into a sphere of dark shadow and incorporated into the Malleus Key as its final piece, allowing the key to emit a red energy beam (weaker than it should have been, due to the sabotage) that connected directly with Ruidus, anchoring it in the sky above the excavation site as more skyships from Issylra were arriving.

A flash of white light teleported several people present near the Malleus Key (as well as many others in locations of the world where ley lines were converging) to different places in Exandria. The forces that were left from the Ruby Vanguard, Paragon's Call and the Ashari fought, and the former were assisted by the Reilora that started descending from the red moon. The Air Ashari lost more than two dozen people, and three were injured and poisoned in the same way Keyleth had been. Eventually they escaped with Keyleth, prioritizing their leader's safety.

## **Aftermath**

The activation of the Malleus Key tethered Ruidus to a single section of the sky, allowing travel between Exandria and its smallest satellite through the red beam (the Bloody Bridge), and also causing the apogee solstice to last longer than normal, interfering with the working of magic all over the world. Paragon's Call returned to Bassuras under the command of General Ratanish, who forced the locals to stay within the city and made Imahara Joe and Verna the Viper work for him building weapons to use against skyships, such as a brumestone nullifier.

People who were teleported away in areas near a ley nexus had to find their own way back to their homes, and potentially some of them perished due to the environment they appeared in.

The casualties and injuries among the Ashari left them in a vulnerable position where they prioritized the recovery of the Voice of the Tempest, initiating an effort to collect an antidote with which to counter the toxin that prevented her wounds from closing.

International political forces, aware that something bad was happening at the Red Center, began to organize to send armed forces to the excavation site, which is currently surrounded and defended by an army of more than a hundred that includes Otohan Thull according to an ally of Paragon's Call, although there hasn't been a direct confrontation so far due to lack of active aggression. The Marquesian nations also started an attempt to form a continental alliance. The Ruby Vanguard saw the greatest threat to themselves as "unity" although it was unclear if that referred to armies, to the gods and primordials, or to something else. The gods, for their part, urged their followers and champions to do the same to prevent Predathos from being released; among them, in addition, the risk posed by the activation of the Malleus Key led them to declare a kind of armistice between the Prime Deities and the Betrayer Gods, who for the first time in centuries had a common interest.

## **References**

1. ↑ See "Aid of the Tempest" (3x66) at 0:18:42.
2. ↑ See "For The Tempest" (3x68) at 2:26:07.
3. ↑ See "Aid of the Tempest" (3x66) from 3:38:52 through 4:16:05.
4. ↑ See "Bloody Flowers" (3x67) at 4:20:25.
5. ↑ See "The Apogee Solstice" (3x51) at 2:03:56.
6. ↑ See "For The Tempest" (3x68) at 2:26:13.
7. ↑ See "Aid of the Tempest" (3x66) at 0:45:19.
8. ↑ See "Bawdy Basement Belligerence" (3x44) at 3:04:33.
9. ↑ See "Bawdy Basement Belligerence" (3x44) at 3:38:43.
10. ↑ See "Blood and Dust" (3x33) at 3:00:53.
11. ↑ See "Growing Bonds and Teasing Threads" (3x06) at 3:12:51.
12. ↑ See "Red Moon Rising" (3x50) at 3:14:30.
13. ↑ See "The Aurora Grows" (3x49) at 4:31:31.
14. ↑ See "On the Trail of a Killer" (3x04) from 3:03:06 through 3:05:33.
15. ↑ See "Growing Bonds and Teasing Threads" (3x06) at 2:40:19.
16. ↑ See "Fight at the Museum..." (3x21) at 3:19:44.
17. ↑ See "Blood and Dust" (3x33) at 3:49:11.  Laudna's death occurred in "What Dreams May Come" (3x34) at 0:21:37.
18. ↑ See "The Momentum of Murder" (3x39) at 1:01:06.
19. ↑ See "Ominous Lectures" (3x45) at 1:38:01.
20. ↑ See "The Fey Key" (3x47) at 2:43:29.
21. ↑ See "Red Moon Rising" (3x50).
22. ↑ See "Red Moon Rising" (3x50) from 1:05:50 through 1:33:16.
23. ↑ See "The Apogee Solstice" (3x51) from 1:05:50 through 1:43:56.
24. ↑ See "The Apogee Solstice" (3x51) at 2:21:05.
25. ↑ See "The Apogee Solstice" (3x51) at 3:13:37.
26. ↑ See "The Apogee Solstice" (3x51) at 3:17:12.
27. ↑ See "The Apogee Solstice" (3x51) at 3:23:32.
28. ↑ See "Aid of the Tempest" (3x66) at 1:11:22.
29. ↑ See "Aid of the Tempest" (3x66) at 1:11:02.
30. ↑ See "The Apogee Solstice" (3x51) from 3:54:33 through 4:13:51.
31. ↑ See "The Apogee Solstice" (3x51) at 4:21:28.
32. ↑ See "The Apogee Solstice" (3x51) at 4:24:25.
33. ↑ See "Faith or Famine" (3x60) at 1:50:41.
34. ↑ See "Aid of the Tempest" (3x66) at 1:13:47.
35. ↑ See "Aid of the Tempest" (3x66) from 0:49:43 through 1:12:55.
36. ↑ See "Embattled in Bassuras" (3x70) at 4:30:07.
37. ↑ See "Hope Within History" (3x55) at 0:58:02.
38. ↑ See "Embattled in Bassuras" (3x70) at 3:14:07.
39. ↑ See "Faith or Famine" (3x60) at 2:39:03.
40. ↑ See "Aid of the Tempest" (3x66) at 0:45:38.
41. ↑ See "Phantasmal Parley" (3x72) from 0:26:58 through 0:28:00.
42. ↑ See "Embattled in Bassuras" (3x70) at 4:30:07.
43. ↑ See "A Path of Vengeance" (3x65) from 1:35:17 through 2:24:23.
44. ↑ See "Phantasmal Parley" (3x72) at 0:29:57.
45. ↑ See "Escape From The Past" (3x58) at 3:42:12.
46. ↑ See "Bloody Flowers" (3x67) from 4:26:11 through 4:27:20.

**Art:**

1. ↑ Fan art of Ludinus and the Malleus Key, by Wesley Griffith (source). Used with permission.
2. ↑ Fan art of the Champion defending Keyleth, by MishellyArt (source). Used with permission.
3. ↑ Fan art of the Malleus Key activating, by BlackSalander (source). Used with permission.
4. ↑ Fan art of the wounded Keyleth, by @zhellers (source). Used with permission.