C1-13.5 Session 13.25 (Torque Downtime 1)

When last we left Torque, he plucked a puzzle box from the catacombs beneath the Demas Towerhouse. This otherwise innocent deck of cards turned out to be a source of unspeakable power.   Over the next week, Torque traveled with Gromlock down in to the city of Du'chan where he sought to heal his wounds. Ironically enough, Gromlock signed the book in the same place. Speaking to Dawnlord Rhyst of Lathander’s Light Cathedral, traded a small tithe of 10 gold for divine medicine on his leg. While effective, the restoration left his right leg stiff from the lingering injury. Departing the temple, he approached a familiar face up deep in demagoguery the Central District. With scarred, ashen skin, Corvin pleaded with the tieflings of Du’chan to leave The Pact and reclaim the lands of Mephistal. With the long lost flag that once protected the city, Corvin explained to Torque that the flag could be the rally sign of the movement back west. His convictions were strong but his audience was small. As an invitation, Corvin invited Torque back to his pauper’s apartment above the Lower Wards. Torque sat, nearly breaking his couch, and revealed the Shards he had collected. Corvin suggested asking one of the major colleges within the city for help. Du’chan’s two major academic parties vied for power with the Technocratic party hold nearly unmatched power within the city. Thanks to infernal enchantments from the tieflings, the gnomes of the Technocracy easily out matched the Mages with enchanted automatons and munitions. Thus, Torque figured the Mages may be desperate and willing to partner with Corvin to try and break up the Pact.   Torque returned to the towerhouse and jumped atop its crenellations. From the deck of thirteen cards, he decided to pull one testing his luck. From the deck he drew a card with a large gem emblazoned upon it. With a spark of arcane light, the card formed into a blade made of bone that was cold to the touch. In his spare time, Torque also studied two tomes: one was an arcane macaroni cookbook pulled from Muamarr's corpse and the other a grimoire of wizards spells.   Returning within that next week, Torque needed to furnish his towerhouse and sought a carpenter within the city to do so. He traded gems at the Silver Fish from the Wharfs with very little return for his otherwise expensive treasures. Torque also looked for a bit of labor to tend to his land by purchasing a slave girl from the Ratacombs. Returning to the Tower, Harpine bought Torque’s story that she was just paid help. Erky too had escaped the south. Marred by the sandstorm and plagued with an ashen arm, Erky sought both refuge at the temple and in the Tower. That next week, Torque reconvened with Corvin at the Mage’s Guild. Rife with magic and illusion, the off-duty teachers showed them to the headmaster’s tower. The tower of Headmaster Milton Freewater appeared mundane and modest. All an illusion of course. Milton Freewater threw off his invisibility revealing his dark skin and pupil-less eyes. Torque stymied the short banter and cut to the chase: in exchange for advocating for the Pact to be dissolved, Torque wanted to know about these shards the Survivors had been interacting with. Milton quickly identified the shards as pieces of various omphalos. Sitting and shaking his head, he illustrated the situation with a simple snowglobe. The world, as Milton alluded, is bolstered by the Elemental Omphalos as its foundation but required other protections. Cabochon was not the stable Material Plane it is often referred to as but instead a snowglobe in the Abyss. Instead of white snow within the globe, blackened ash fell outside of it in his illusion. The constant swirling of the ash outside the globe did not effect it though. Milton began to strike the globe upon the his desk until small cracks formed. Eventually, a hole appeared within the desert region of the snowglobe with scorched ash flooding into cracked illusion. He snuffed the illusion and spoke in altered tones. “Here lies our fate. These gems may weaken our magic but it greatly weakens the otherwise overwhelming eldritch forces.” In agreement of their terns, Milton dismissed Torque who rode back to the Tower in deep contemplation.   Bounding back to the tower’s apex, Torque resolved to test fate again pulling another card. Its surface bared the visage of a jester which plucked two additional cards for him. The first card depicted a knight riding a steed. Supernaturally flung from his hand into the dusk air revealed two gleaming sapphire eyes. Staring back was the white dragon wyrmling. Staring at each other, there was an understand of trust and companionship. A comet bisected the second card with little effect. Though, he understood that his next encounter may be more meaningful than it otherwise would be…