Armor Vision

As you bring them together, the air seems to pulse periodically around the chitin armor pieces. Waves of force distort the air, like ripples in water. As the pulses wash over you, your vision fades.

All of you stand on a stone formation, overlooking a shimmering expanse of sand. The sky above you is wrong. Instead of clean blue, it is marred by faint shreds of iridescence. Tattered swirls of color like oil in torn silk. In front of you, beyond the edge of the platform, floats a humanoid figure clad in familiar chitin armor. The armor gleams on her, flowing forms of iridescent carapace in unearthly symmetry. From her waist drift three long trails of red fabric, which ripple down below her in the desert breeze.

Beyond the armored figure, you see a battlefield. Massive formations of armored warriors, clad in armor and weapons unlike any of your age. Thousands upon thousands, forming a bastion that stretches across the landscape. All of them, countless races of humanoids, united in one great line. Among the legions, you also see Qhamu. They are mountains with a thousand legs. Colossi with a thousand eyes of black glass. The carapace of Uqhesh is impressive, but to see these creatures alive is nothing less than awe inspiring. They face forward, waiting.

"'This is it,'" says the Transcendite. "'This is the day our age ended.'"

You look beyond the gathered hosts of mortal kind, and see the enemy they have united to oppose.

Reality tears. Rifts appear in the space beyond the armies, passageways carved through the substance of existence. From these rifts pour armies of abominations. Their shapes defy description, defy reason. You see glimpses of creatures you might call chuuls, aboleths, mind flayers. But they are but component specks in an aberrant flood.

"'The empire of Qhamune prospered for ten thousand years,'" She says. "'But we never ruled this world. It was theirs. It has always been theirs.'"

From beyond the rifts, the sky warps. Towering above the chittering hordes, silhouettes manifest that extend beyond the range of your sight .

"'The Void Titans, we called them.'"

Below, the Qhamu brace. You see  ripples cascade out from them, psionic energy forming an enormous curved wall. This metaphysical bastion quakes, buffeted with an invisible onslaught of psychic malice from the titans beyond. The armies of Void surge onward, crashing like a wave into the mortal host.

"'Under my command, the Qhamu protected us from them. Shielded us from the annihilation they would have laid upon us. But our existence was defiance to them, and defiance could not be allowed. So the void titans, in all their alien intelligence, did something very stupid."

The silhouettes, too vast to understand, move. They raise limbs, if they can be called that, toward the heavens. The earth begins to shake. Far, far above, the black moon stirs from it's lazy orbit. Aphotis is pulled, suddenly and inexorably, closer to Azra.

It fills the sky gradually. The tattered blue expanse darkens, spreading from a growing disc that leers down like an inescapable eye. The black moon grows larger and larger, impossibly visible above. Below, madness descends.

"'The Black Moon is an entity of pure destruction. With its proximity, the mind itself fails. Empires fall, immortals die, and ages end. Our protectors were turned against us, and against themselves.'"

The Qhamu writhe and scream in sudden anguish. You see a shockwave of psionic force burst from one of them toward another, cracking it's carapace. Thousands of mortals arrayed in formation between the two are instantaneously liquified, bodies bursting under the pressure of the mental assault. The bulwark of force falls, and the armies of mankind descend into madness and blood.

The Transcendite looks down at her armies, fists clenched and shaking at her sides. Slowly she reaches up, and lifts the chitin helmet off of her head. Underneath, you see the face of a human woman with dark bronze skin. Her dark hair is cut short, and her features have an ageless quality to them. She looks at you, and with a start you realize her eyes each have 6 pupils arranged in a ring within the iris.

"'What I do next… is a secret that may unravel the foundations of your age. I entrust it to you because I have no other choice. Because you will need this knowledge to save yourselves.'"

You are suddenly not alone on the stone formation. Walking between you to kneel before the Transcendite are 12 people. Their faces are familiar, and it takes you a moment to recognize them. You’ve seen them in temples, holy symbols, iconography and sculpture. Before you, somehow, are mortal versions of the dawn war pantheon.

"'My most trusted of disciples.'" She speaks now to the kneeling 12, rather than to you. "'You are here because my deepest fears have been realized. The bodies of mortal kind have failed.'"

Beyond her, armies die screaming.

"'But their minds are stronger than ever. The only thing we have now, is the power of mortal belief. Thought, will, and faith. I must decieve them. Alter their minds, and direct their desperate mad hope. All to you.'"

The twelve bow their heads. The Transcendite raises her gauntleted hands, and erupts. A shockwave of psionic force tears out from her, a supernova of mind. Below, the desperate mad screams of mankind change. Their dying words form names.

*Pelor. Bahamut. Ioun. Erathis. Sehanine. Asmodeus. Kord. The Raven Queen.*

Light pours from the 12 kneeling figures before you, and your vision fades to white.

"'The black moon is pure destruction, but what is destruction if not change? The Void titans drew it in to destroy us, but I don't think your new gods could have driven them back without it. They led your armies, forged weapons and soldiers of their own. They stitched the karmic shroud back into it's place around the world, using obelisks of crystal to hold it as it heals. My power directed the faith of mortal kind, harnessing their belief to make gods in their image. The Pantheon then fought for them, and inspired more faith in turn. A self perpetuating cycle, a power strong enough to oppose the Great Old Ones. A perfect system. But one that my existence threatened to end.'"

Your vision returns, and you see the Transcendite soaring upwards. She drifts high above the surface of Azra, departing its sky and floating aloft, defiant against the vast form of the black moon. She spreads her arms, almost peaceful in the silence of the night. All at once, Aphotis strikes. You see a lance of pure darkness pierce her head, striking through her left eye. Her hands reach up and grasp the black spike, and iridescent light surges out from her as her mind pours from her body.

"'I used every drop of my power to force the moon back. My mind was the most powerful psionic force ever to occur in a mortal form, and I needed it all. I died there. The voice speaking to you now is an echo, a trace of intelligence left in the hollow objects that conducted my power. My body fell from the sky. The remnants were scattered and hidden, armor secreted away in the obsolete temples once created to worship me. But now, my last work is being undone.'"

You see a broken tomb, deep underground. A sarcophagus of stone surrounded by kneeling figures in black robes. One lifts a medallion, emblazoned with a one-eyed face. Black smoke drips from the crack beneath the sarcophagus lid. Slowly, steadily, the stone slab levitates from it's place into the air. Beneath, a withered and mummified corpse rises out of its stone interment. Dark leathery skin, stretched taught over folded limbs that are little more than bones. A gaping hole bored through it's head, centered on the left eye, that hollows its face like a crescent moon.

"'They are led by my corpse, which they call Tekenu. It has been corrupted, now little more than a vessel for the will of Aphotis. It commands them, instructs them on how to hasten the moon's return. They perform forgotten rites, bringing it closer and closer in the sky. We don't have long now before it is too late.'"

"'There is a way this can be undone. Gather the remaining pieces of my armor. Find Tekenu, and place the armor on it's body. Then, the remnants of my mind can overpower the remnants of my body. I can use the last of my power to sever Aphotis's connection, and push the moon back.'"

Your vision flashes through several disconnected images.

You see a right pauldron, and a coastline crowded with thousands of crumbling temples.

You see a left greave, followed by a door with 12 rhombus shaped slots.

You see right greave, and concentric arches of translucent amber resin.

Finally, you glimpse the maimed face of Tekenu, and see a jungled island. Massive ruins poke up from the treeline in rings of ancient stone.

"'This doesn't have to be the end. Save your world, and set things right.'"