Session 105

Hearing the horrible screeching sound coming from far above, the party enters Archmage Kyran's tower. Immediately inside, they see two dead sorcerers, mangled presumably by the figure they had just fought, while attempting to reach stairs leading downwards. On the stairs leading up, a third body is seen snapped in half bent over the edge of the stairs, with a scream permanently locked on their face. They proceed up the steps towards the source of the screaming, feeling the tower shake beneath their feet as they heard a loud boom from far above. They crest the top of the stairs just in time to see another of the pink-eyed assailants cutting down another sorcerer attempting to flee. The figure is flanked by two others, one with a hood and daggers, and the other with what appears to be a wand and light clothing resembling the sorcerer's. Without hesitation, Dain tosses a Fireball in their midst, scorching the three. However, they seem to shrug it off, with the soldier immediately advancing towards Dain. Meanwhile, the rogue type vanishes in a flash of green light and the caster glances at Merrick, who dropped a Flame Strike on them, causing Merrick to feel a chill rush down his spine as he suddenly felt a supernatural terror as the chill seized his nerves. The fighter runs in and begins to rapidly drain Dain using the same ability his counterpart downstairs had used, leaving Dain huffing and puffing as he fought. Meanwhile, the rogue type reappeared behind Merrick, tapping him on the shoulder before rapidly shanking him, disappearing again afterward. The caster turned aside attempts to shoot him with a wind barrier of some sort, and when Merrick's Deep Spawn attempted to attack him, the wind buffeted him, sending him flying against a wall. The group fought ferociously, bringing down the fighter -- who reached out pleadingly while he bled out like the one before him, and then the caster -- who didn't get the chance to as Dain bashed his head into a fine paste. However, the rogue proved much more slippery, phasing in and out of the material realm while stabbing and draining the party until they managed to coordinate their attacks and Summer, catching on to the pattern of his attacks, managed to lunge forward with Wavecutter, stabbing the rogue in the throat. After finishing them off, they began to search their bodies. They managed to find some gold, but otherwise their equipment appeared unremarkable, having nothing but very basic supplies, confusing the group who expected them to be equipped for breaking into the tower. Confused, they continued up the tower, not meeting any more resistance, but taking a couple of minutes to reach the top, especially due to the exhaustion caused by the assailants' draining abilities.

Arriving at the top of the tower, as they approached the door to the room on the top floor, the tower had been quiet for more than a minute now. Merrick approached and kicked down the door, filling the hallway with dust and debris, which obscured the room -- to all except Merrick, whose supernatural vision allowed him to see a form slumped against the far wall. Rushing into the room to the fallen figure, Merrick found none other than Archmage Kyran, who lay motionless with hollow eyes and blackened veins radiating from a dark hole in his chest. Dorin rushed to him as Merrick attempted to use his Healing Light to revive Kyran, whose flesh began to stitch closed, but otherwise he remained unresponsive. Fearing the worst, Dorin attempted to cast Revivify on Kyran -- but it was too late. As the light cleared, Kyran remained motionless, and as Chandira rounded the corner asking about what they had found, she screamed in horror at the sight of Kyran's lifeless body, her mentor and friend, and the leader of the Sorcerer's Cabal. She wept over his body as the party took stock of what had happened. However, they did not have long to contemplate the scene as they heard a strange noise from far below. Rushing to the window, Dain witnessed three figures arrive by teleportation and rush towards the tower. Several minutes later, the figures arrived in the doorway -- and seeing the scene, their fervor drained out of them as they saw their leader. Meanwhile, Merrick attempted to commune with Estrea for answers…

As Chandira relayed the events up until now to the three figures, whom she called Tyllaethe, Esta, and Carados, Merrick completed his ritual of communion, causing a visage of Estrea to appear in the room. The three sorcerers were shocked to see the sight, and Merrick began to plead with Estrea to return Kyran to the living. However, she utterly refused, stating that death is final and his time had come, saying that they were too late. Merrick and Dain then began to beseech Estrea for information regarding his attacker, but she again refused, citing the Seven Sisters' cryptic "non-interference pact" which prevented them from interfering in mortal affairs. Dain and Merrick argued that she had already interfered a number of times during their time hunting Aubron and that they had done her bidding numerous times, but she replied that she intervened with Aubron specifically because he had fallen under the influence of the dark god Emir, and his actions threatened all of Aellorah -- but that Archmage Kyran's killer had nothing to do with the gods and he had specific goals in mind. Merrick pondered if Orick or The Deep One could give him this knowledge, but Estrea told Merrick that Orick, bound to her service, would not give him information that his mistress would not, and that even if The Deep One had this knowledge, which she seemed certain he did not, the price he would demand for it would be more than Merrick would wish to pay. Dain, fed up with Estrea's inaction, decided to take a more direct approach, and Dorin began to cast Speak with Dead on Kyran's body.

As Kyran's corpse animated, with a haunting green glow returning to Kyran's eyes, they began to question him, seeking information about his attacker. However, Kyran seemed to not know his killer's name, nor where he currently was, just that he sought an artifact Kyran possessed, and that the two had crossed paths before. Dain, frustrated, confronts Chandira asking where they were. She replies that they are north of Catarvoss, which startles Dain, realizing they are in Myr, on the other side of the world from where they had just been. Dain seems to be a bit miffed by Chandira's transportation without warning. She apologizes saying she needed help and the other Cabal members were unable to respond quickly enough, and he was who came to mind. She says she can send him home using the gateway at the bottom of the tower, but asks if he will help investigate first, since the party has a number of useful skills that could help them uncover something. Dain agrees and they begin to look around the room. While investigating, Dain hears one of the Elves, Carados, whom he noticed had been scowling at him, tell Chandira that she should have kept this an internal matter. Dain got in a heated argument with the Elf who seemed unusually aggressive with him and seemed to already hate him. Carados then stomps off to a corner of the room and begins to perform a ritual while Dain and Summer investigate. Merrick also takes the time to go through the tower, taking the bodies of the enthralled assailants and the sorcerers and laying them out in front of the tower. While looking around, Summer sees a desk with a hastily scrawled letter addressed to one "Ettrian Levanadel", a name she recognized as the Elf whom Orick had directed them to at the Ars Aurum Academy that instructed them to toss the Chronicle of the Dead into Lys' Wellspring to destroy it. Reading on, it appears Kyran had been trying to contain some sort of artifact, a crystal, that he had used wards to suppress the energy of, but the wards were failing and he wanted the advice of Ettrian about how to strengthen the wards. However, the note was mostly scratched out and there was a note in the margin saying "Idiot! Shadesteel… but, expensive!" She also found a notebook with notes about his experiments with this crystal, suggesting he had exposed it to Eskite, which promptly exploded in his hands. He also seemed intent on creating a vault made of Shadesteel to contain the crystal, but that it was far beyond the funds he had available at the moment. Summer noted a pedestal near the desk with a setting that was empty and, despite the scorch marks around the room from the battle, the pedestal was completely untouched. Dain, meanwhile, notes markings on the ground that indicate someone had teleported out of the room, likely the assailant, and some ectoplasm indicating the presence of spirits quite recently. Tyllaethe, donning some magical goggles, screamed in pain and said that she was blind. After recovering, she explained that the glasses allowed her to detect magical auras, and that when she looked at the pedestal, it was so heavily charged that it was like looking at the sun. She carefully put them back on, looking everywhere but at the pedestal, noting that the energy near where the attacker stood indicates Enchantment magic was used, but also some sort of magic that resembled necromancy but not quite. As she attempted to describe the aura, Carados commented that it sounded like the Ettinor art of Soulbinding, which allowed the binding of spirits that could be conjured to do the caster's bidding.

As Carados completed his ritual, the room darkened and took on a monochromatic appearance. The party witnessed an illusory image of Kyran appear. The other sorcerers seemed confused that Carados had access to this magic, but he seemed to comment that he was a collector of obscure spells. They watched as the illusory Kyran apparently flipped through a book sipping tea while an illusory image of some manner of large crystal giving off a haunting light sit on the pedestal nearby. Unbeknownst to Kyran, the wards around the pedestal began to disintegrate slowly, and eventually disappeared completely. As Kyran finally glanced over and took notice of this, he began panicking, frantically running about the room grabbing reagents and attempting to restore the wards. However, he then ran to the window where the party could hear a noise down below, though the ritual didn't extend far enough for them to see what he was looking at. He began to speak with the sorcerers throughout the tower telling them to evacuate, and Chandira entered the room to ask what happened, to which Kyran replied that "Lod'exenter had broken containment." Minutes later, the door flew open and a heavily obscured figure walked through, with his features hazy and unable to be discerned. They watched as this figure said something unintelligible and Kyran replied by saying that he always knew this day would come, mentioning the Dreaming Wastes of Arak and that he knew much of "his kind" and it was worth taking the artifact to prevent him from using it. He then began to battle the creature, who apparently summoned several spirits who rushed at Kyran. Kyran fought valiantly, but was ultimately overpowered by the spirits. The figure then approached Kyran and extended its hand, which became visible enough for the players to make out a desiccated hand whose fingernail blackened and extended, stabbing Kyran near the heart, causing him to collapse -- dead. The figure then moved to take the crystal from the pedestal before teleporting to who knows where. As the spell ended, everyone sat in stunned silence before a frantic Tyllaethe began to speculate about what the creature could be, sounding terrified. Dain went to Chandira and asked what this "Lod'exenter" was, to which she replied that it was the crystal they saw the figure take, and that Kyran had mentioned recovering it from some ruins centuries ago, but never said anything more than that. Chandira thanked Dain for his assistance, but Dain said that he was exhausted and just wanted to go home. With that, Chandira brought the party to the gateway room down below and opened a gate to the Ars Aurum Academy in Mythwell. She thanked them again and asked them that if they find any information about Lod'exenter in their travels to please bring it to her. Dain also mentioned wanting Chandira's assistance in crafting a Helm of Teleportation from the book of enchantments he had recovered from Seryndor so that they could travel more easily, and Chandira said that she would be willing to help.

Stepping through the gateway, the party arrived in the gate room of one of the spires in the Ars Aurum Academy, to see a confused Elven sorcerer who questioned their arrival from Myr. They briefly explained before Merrick let slip "Oh, by the way, Archmage Kyran is dead." which horrified the young sorcerer, who turned to dash up the stairs. Following up into one of the seven schools of the academy, they saw the man dashing off towards the main hub. As they exited the spire to the main hub and turned a corner, they ran straight into a startled Tabitha, who was overjoyed to see Dain and Summer, telling them of her progress at the academy, and of passing through the second gate, indicating her proficiency. She had a short coughing fit before they caught up and then parted ways, with the party deciding to rest for the night before journeying to Eldham. The next morning, they set out on their journey. However, along the way, Merrick, Summer, and Moonshadow developed a cough which seemed to get worse as they passed through the Bast Wilds. Halfway through the wilds, Dain received a mental ping from Samira, who informed him that she was at Fort Elden and that Sabine was comatose. The party decided to make a brief stop at Fort Elden to investigate, where they met Tamas and a now fully grown Ronan. They caught up for a bit before Tamas let Dain know where to find Sabine. Proceeding into the fort, they encountered Talindra who they also caught up with, before Merrick's coughing caused Talindra to reel in panic. She immediately told Merrick, Summer, and Moonshadow to leave the fort. Dain, wanting an explanation, asked Talindra about this, who informed him of a virulent plague breaking out amongst the Elves in Eldham that began with a cough and peripheral neuropathy before progressing to metallization of the veins and skin, eventually hardening the joints and causing blurred vision, and other horrible symptoms. She said that this had begun happening only a couple weeks after the Wellspring eruption, and that while no Elves had died, it was looking like that wouldn't be the case for long despite their self-quarantine. Dain then proceeded upstairs where he found Samira tending to a motionless Sabine. Samira informed him that Sabine had collapsed after the eruption and remained unresponsive ever since, and that she was unable to get ahold of anyone from the Sorcerer's Cabal to help. Dain informed her of Archmage Kyran's death, which greatly shook her. Dain talked to her about the outbreak of the plague and how he believed it was connected to the Wellspring eruption, and Samira commented that no eruption had ever presented two effects before, and the Cabal had already confirmed that the energy signatures from the Wellspring indicated that the Forgeborn's awakening was the effect of the eruption, so something must be terribly wrong with the Wellspring. Dain told her about their destruction of the Chronicle of the Dead in the Wellspring and that he believed it was responsible for this unintended side effect. Samira seemed overwhelmed and asked Dain to investigate while she tended to Sabine. Meanwhile, outside, Summer received a surprise mental ping from none other than Seylas, who informed her that Valdor needed to speak to the party, and that he would meet them in Eldham…