Session 7: What was Lyria doing down here? Report

General Summary

Mozdemir lifted a gate, rusted shut entering after having a look through the slit for any sign of danger. What he didn't notice/ couldn't see is the twin animated armours just out of site. Immediately at the entrance, they attacked the party.   Upon defeating the animated armours, the party rested for an hour. Then approached the dias and more importantly the book. Cairn Macdui nothing that was around the dias was threatening the party and Mozdemir checked to see if he couldn't recognise any dark magic from his past. Nothing was noticed, and the party was able to acquire Lyrias Notebook reading it. It mentioned the Drow, a warlike evil race of elves not known to all in the party. So Ellyrian Starchaser filled them all in. The book tells the story of Lyria Duskbane and how she was preparing for something.... that got disturbed that night by Thoran Grimwood   At the end of the book in blood, written in elvish was an ominous quote saying upon reading this the ceremony was done and as your fingers leave the final page of Lyria's journal, the book snaps shut with a violent thud. A sudden, bone-chilling gust swirls through the room, cutting through the air like a blade. In that very instant, all of your visions plunge into a black void.   But this darkness does not last.   Your eyes flutter open, but the laboratory has vanished. Instead, you find yourself suspended high above the clouds as if the world itself has fallen away beneath your feet. Below, faint shapes begin to materialize through the haze—a village, no doubt. You recognize the layout, the huddled buildings. Mareford, though distant and shrouded in eerie mist, is unmistakable.   Yet the sight pales before the monstrosity carved into the sky itself.   Embedded into the very clouds is a colossal rune, vast and sinister, its presence twisting the surrounding clouds into swirling obsidian. Even the darkest storms seem pale in comparison, but this rune... this rune is a void deeper than the abyss, etched into the heavens like a scar upon the fabric of existence.   And as your mind tries to comprehend what your eyes see, you notice something else—Aeloria . She stands there, impossibly close, her brows furrowed in concentration as she feverishly flips through a deck of cards, each one shimmering with threads of light, threads of fate itself now tangled with threads of shadow. Her eyes are glazed, yet her voice cuts through the surreal landscape, speaking to you and yet lost in her own trance.   “Impossible…” she whispers, her voice laced with disbelief. Her fingers tremble, unsettling to see in a being of unlimited power, as they trace the threads of fate interwoven with strands of pure darkness—an ominous, unnatural tapestry. “The Greater Rune of Darkness… A world outside of time and place, a Creation World .”   She pauses, her eyes still fixed on her cards, her voice turning cold with realization. “This is a universe born from the first spark of creation, yet unknown to me. It should not exist—could not exist—without me. My brother could not have forged it without my hand.”   Her gaze shifts, locking onto the rune that glares from the clouds. Her brow furrows deeper as if every truth she has known is unravelling while seeking more answers.   “Magic, fate, death… the fundamental laws that bind even the gods should have no place here. Not yet. This realm is too raw, too young, unformed. The borders between the Hells and Fey should be unformed, the weave of magic unstable… And yet, here it is. A world of mortals, with civilizations born from the wreckage of numerous worlds, thriving in defiance of the natural order.”   She clenches her fists, eyes narrowing on the rune.   “This universe… it is both alive and dead, bound to forces that should not yet exist. The Great Rune of Darkness is the first. The other Runes of Creation will soon follow—order and chaos, life and death, the building blocks of divinity itself. Someone… someone is toying with these primordial forces. Forces I can barely contain.”   As she speaks you are taken even further into the sky, while you can see Mareford and the surrounding area you can see cities, great seas, continents and a series of events occurring. You have no way of knowing if this is the current or the future, you can be certain from her telling you the Rune of Darkness is the first that it isn't the past.   Mountain ranges suddenly rise up, splitting the land asunder spewing lava, where it hits the cracks in the land that had filled with lava the explosion tearing the landscape apart, the glow throbbing in what you can assume is a Rune of Fire.   A Great Malestrom Storm causes a vast whirlpool, dragging all into it at the bottom a Rune of Water, causing the ocean currents to change in an instant. Causing communities connected via sea or ocean travel into isolation.   A Rune of disorder, found through the layout of a great city, roaming with Vampires and mortals themselves. Where the currency and the power lie in blood and death is granted went the source runs dry. At the same time, a Rune of Statis and Logic is found in a grand city where in the facades of marble are carved the purpose of the buildings, the rank of the owners and the rationale of the city section.   And in a hundred other places, you see Gods emerging, a pantheon of Gods of Air, Fire, Earth and water. You see great beasts, the prime of their race leading them to places of great grazing and prey. You see mortals, or not quite mortals hunting and striking them down, stripping from them a spark of divinity and elevating themselves to demi-god or godhood.   Her eyes flicker back to you, dark and piercing. “You… your freedom to choose your fate, your ability to defy the strands… it all makes sense now. This world’s stories have not yet been written. Heroes, legends, myths—they do not exist here. The light of hope promised through Heros of Stories unknown has yet to shine, and without it, this world is doomed to wither beneath despair.”   Suddenly, the future unfolds before you, unbidden. It flashes before your eyes—a glimpse of what is to come, if nothing is done, an great enemy to face.   Moz— You see a celestial, following the path of the exemplar of divine power, black-tipped wings unfurled as he commands armies of terrified mortals. His voice is cold, delivering judgment to those deemed impure, and unworthy of life, which seems to be all. Divine fire rains down, and millions are reduced to ash. Without a hero of strength and conviction, a Herculean figure to defy this “god,” redemption will remain a myth, and the world will burn in divine wrath.   Ell — You see an unknown woman, following the path of the demoniac creature, her hands slick with blood, surrounded by the withered corpses of Fey. The once-vibrant forests of the Feywild are now barren, consumed by fire and bloodshed. Without the chaotic, trickster nature of the Fey, the boundaries between realms collapse. The Blood War spills into every plane, demons devouring worlds until nothing remains but ruin. A defender is needed, one ready to shake the very foundations of reality and cause demonic chaos to question themselves and hold the realms in balance.   Cairn—You see two enemies; A warrior (following the path of the Warlord), clad in gleaming armor, stands at the head of a countless mortal legion backed by a great smith in his workshop. The warrior's greatsword, infused with divine sparks of screaming innocent elements, is raised high as his forces clash with giants, elementals and dragons. All cut down, each move attempted countered by this warrior or the weapons of war created by the smith (following the path of the wondermaker) behind him. The very elements and divinity itself —fire, water, earth, air—are enslaved, forced to fuel a war machine of mortals drunk on conquest. Without a primordial force to channel the raw power of the elements, to unleash destruction and renew the cycle, the world will be consumed by progress—merciless, unrelenting.   And then, looming behind it all, a vision of twin figures—one a prophet, the other a jester. They are false echoes, twisted reflections of creation. Behind them, the world itself stirs, a world born dead, corrupted at its core. The Great Runes of Creation pulse, hungry and ancient, feeding on life itself. The universe crumbles under the weight of their insatiable hunger, as the dead world’s heart beats ever louder.   The World born head, Atropus stirs. The cosmos itself ahead changes, with eldritch moons each with its own power of damnation announcing The end begins or this is the beginning of the end   Aeloria, the Over-Goddess of Fate, shudders, her once imperious form now trembling with the weight of the revelation. Her eyes—silver, flecked with strands of light and shadow—meet each of yours, their gaze piercing, ancient, burdened by the knowledge of countless realities. When she speaks, her voice is soft yet unyielding, a force of inevitability woven into every syllable.   "This version of reality," she whispers, her voice carrying the echo of worlds long dead, "does not need to exist. It is a fragile mirror, a twisted reflection born from choices that should have never been made. And yet... it persists. To create this realm without my hand—without my brother's—required an unspeakable price. I suspect the death of your worlds was necessary to birth it."   She pauses, her words hanging heavy in the air like a sentence unspoken, yet already felt.   "You are far too weak now. Too powerless to stop what is coming. But you are more than just mortals—you are the living echoes of myths that reoccur in every plane, the last embers of forgotten legends, with the embers of divinity scoured against your soul. The stories of your worlds still burn within you. Become that legend. Find out how your realms perished. Survive what is to come. For a war of gods and against them will soon ravage this land, and how it touches the fragile web of mortal civilization is unknown. This... has never happened."   Aeloria’s gaze shifts beyond you, her brow furrowing as if she can see the threads of fate spiralling out into infinity. “Watch for the sparks of divinity, those who seek them, for they will either remake this world... or destroy it. Survive, if nothing else. We will need you to uncover who those impostors are—those two pretenders masquerading as my brother and me. For now, get yourselves to a centre of one of these civilizations. Something is stirring, and we must learn if these mortals sense the wrongness of this world. Perhaps the pieces of this puzzle are already falling into place.”   Her voice grows softer, more distant, the weight of her power pulling her back into the weave of fate itself. "Go now. Survive. The threads of this reality are unravelling, but not all is lost. Not yet. You can be the protectors of the people (looking at Moz), magic (looking at Ell) and the elements with divinity itself (looking at Cairn) ... if you fail I think all fail, I think I fall..."   In the blink of an eye, the ethereal world around you shatters like glass. You are pulled from the clouds and the runes, and reality snaps back with a nauseating lurch. The cold stone floor of Lyria’s laboratory presses against your back, and the smell of dust and old magic fills your lungs.   Thoran stands over you, his face pale as ash, his hands trembling as he tries to revive you. His voice cracks with desperation, a sound that is almost prayer.   "Please... for the love of the gods, wake up!" His eyes are wide with fear, and his hands shake as he grips each of you, desperate to bring you back to consciousness.   The room is silent save for his terrified whispers and the faint hum of forgotten magic. Reality, for now, holds. But the shadow of what is to come lingers, waiting in the dark corners of the room, in the still air, and in the pounding of your own hearts.     Overhead, the deep, bone-rattling sound of something colossal echoes through the walls, a tremor so powerful it feels like the earth itself is groaning in pain. The ceiling above quivers, dust falling from ancient rafters like ash from a dying fire. Each low, booming noise reverberates through your chest like the beat of a war drum, foretelling ruin.   The floor beneath you shifts, an almost imperceptible shudder, but enough to send a chilling realization through your bones—the very structure of Lyria’s laboratory is beginning to buckle. The ground itself may not be safe for much longer.   The roof trembles, loose stones from the upper walls rattling like bones in a crypt. Cracks slither their way up the stone pillars, thin at first, but growing as the booming intensifies, as if some vast beast beneath the earth claws at the foundation of reality itself.   "Whatever that is... it better not be destroying my Inn," Thoran mutters, his voice hoarse with dread. His wide eyes dart to the ceiling, his hands twitching at his sides. "We can’t stay here. We need to move."   Another tremor, this one stronger, sends a cascade of dust and debris showering down from the rafters. A section of the ceiling groans, the sound of stone straining against stone, and a crack forms, spider-webbing outward.   Time is running out.   You can feel it in the oppressive weight of the air, in the tremors that shiver through your legs. Whatever is causing this—it’s vast, it’s powerful, and it’s not going to stop.   You need to get out. Now.     When the party got out they asked Thoran Grimwood what made him come down to the lab. Being taken outside the great Oak that had led to The Shadowed Oak Inn was gone. Uprooted itself and walked away.   Thoran went back in for a long long drink and Cairn Macdui approached Garrick Stone with an idea. Could Garrick take the animated armors and fashion a type of plate that would fit the 9 foot goliath. They both planned how it would work and Garrick Stone told Cairn Macdui that it would take a couple of days but should work.