Frying Pan to Fire 1476.03 to 1476.04

Three days after the BMG fled from the Ojasi military encampment at Cyolonore with sealed battle plans, their hunters tighten the noose, closing in.   With escape all but cut off and the Kingdom of Jorentes more than 1,500km away, unknown to the others Dawn message spells her father for assistance. Emerging from a portal of deepest, most unreflective darkness steps Helm Darkport. Dwayne uses skills to rcognise that Helm's level is 16, his dexterity is 24 and he is many years older than when last he saw them, a mere 12 months ago. He also lets Grundark get a cheap shot on him, so the dwarf feels loved and special.   Helm tells them that the Shadowways are opening again for the first time in centuries and there are places everywhere that are becoming accessible again. Helm will lead the BMG out of danger using the Spaces but they must not leave the path; if they do, they're on their own and there are many terrors hungry to cease their existence. Teleporting has become unstable and therefore dangerous because of the tear in the sky. When asked what the tear in the sky is, Helm replies it is a singularity that is now attracting and now leaking whitewasps.   Dawn gives Helm, the Elder God Aves Reva's Blue Chalk which the BMG took from the Duerger - the Duerger had assembled a number of artefacts 'personal' to Aves Reva, including items affixed to the dreamwalker Stone Giant. Later it is clear that the Blue Chalk was the price for Helm's help.   Once all have entered, they are told they're in the Shadowfel. They are walking on an ancient soft stone pathway made of irregular sized blocks. The path's edge is indistinct and troubling to look at. Draconic is crafted all along the edges, though looking at the glyphs causes them to be seen as if with double vision. "Soon" the BMG is heading steeply uphill and the Shadowfel gives away to an almost nothing. Helm tells them they have entered the Spaces. When asked what are the Spaces, Helm tells them:

• the Spaces are what hold the Places (i.e. planes) together
• the Spaces are made up of many parts, but primarily chaos, the quanti and the void
• Chaos is the possibility everything and is the 'stuff' that provides substance to create the Places
• the Quanti is deep within the spaces and is the blueprint of everything that was, is and will be. The Quanti is what instructs chaos to take shape
• the Void shapes the Spaces and keeps the Places apart

At an unknown time, they all enter a globular chamber made of a cool, softly malleable and unreflective substance. Hidden shapes move just out of sight from the multiple tunnels that curve off the glodular chamber. In the centre sits a cold, miniature star. One by one everyone walks into the miniature star and into the Spaces:   Essen is shown and offered the original Atlantis. The quanti has recreated it out of the blueprint of knowledge it contains. She can feel the pulse and draw of an immensely powerful force within its heart but denies the lure, as she affirms that Atlantis is no longer real. Towering above her is a glimpsed Aves Reva, most likely recreated by the Spaces, but also maybe not entirely.   Gimblenock sees himself across a vast void. On either side an andless cliff wall carved with the designs of fallen civilisations. With ominous sound and great presence part of Architeuthis stretches across the sky and Gimblenock has the opportunity to follow one of the infinite possibilities to a place he could kill the Emporerr. He recognises that this would not impact the real world and refuses   Grundark enteres a dark room with a large, single shard mirror floating in space. Dozens of tiny dark tentacles emerge from behind the mirror and grapple its edges. In the mirror Grundark sees a dwarf who looks nearly identical to him in a pith helmet and note book. He is badly damaged and a large Helegu yells at him before picking him and and running off, "Professor move! We have to go now". The tentacles reveal themselves as an Elder Thing that whispers "Sless loves the Professor". Grundark refuses to enter the mirror to help the professor - this is the future and only a possibility, there is time to avert what he has seen   Dwayne arrives on a lonely Tor. Dark clouds that are more than clouds twist above and the base is so far far away it cannot be seen. An old Semudan woman with milky right eye, leaning on a stout walking stick and dressed in brightly coloured clothes, including an orange patterned headwrap addresses him while smoking a cigar. At one point Dwayne wants the cigar and she throws it at him - Dwayne realises that the cigar contains much more than tobacco (below is what she said without the swears and clear disdain of the Witch Queens)   “The 13 manifold Minds are Six,
Another never wakes but peeks at the borders,
Six are too few for the Spaces,
If existential vanishing you desire – choose Six,
Your Ruby red love
One of Three Faces
Lost is the Third Face, so not Three
Your problem of Six
The One may resolve
Do not choose the One”
"Your Ruby Red desires a warlord
To oppose the southern warlord
This final son of Holocene,
Rises,
And you stay in Shadow”
  She is Mama Tet, or possibly a Spaces facsimile of her   Arriving one week later benath the watch of the fortress of Solis Minor, high above the city of Solis Major:   Battle plans were delivered to the Jorentes military   Dawn leaves with Helm at the instructions of her father, who was present when the BMG arrive - she owes him   The Sundials Warden, Korjay Scuben, saw something so terrifying when he was using the Sundials looking over the Helegu khaganate that he collapsed and entered a deep coma, before lapsing into a coma his final words were “Dolg Catar” and "Arrival"   Jorentes reached out seeking information about the ‘Dolg Catar’   Spies sent into the territory of the Blue Host are going missing and secret societies they use to learn more about what has happened either vanish overnight or refuse to have anything to do with it all because of the "imminent death" omens associated with looking into the “Dolg Catar” and "Arrival"   Sunscale, the secret spy network for the Kingdom of Jorentes asks BMG for assistance, starting with travel through Helegu controlled lands to the home of the Blue Catar, one of the many steppe tribes supporting the Helegu.   Wearing the Golden Mask of High Station, Andjav Teasliph, who is the head of the Solar Storm (the Jorentes Kingdoms magical forces) has lost precious resources and is currently involved in a secret war with the Mirror Host (the Helegu's imperial magicians)   The BMG agree to investigate this on his behalf but not before bargaining for magical assistance which is provided by the week's end   Before leaving Gimblenock along with other gnomes of importance is summoned to a meeting with Gnome Living Ancestors - Xoser, Selphina, Fenyaris. The gnomes are terrified, since the Architeuthis event the sacred machines of the Gnomes ceased responding:

• Blinding Ark
• Petrifying Tablet
• Bracelet of Nightmares
• Jar of Storms
• Hand of Agony
• Malediction Microlith
• Elemental Door
• Old Faith's Arch
• Nightmare Disc
• Mirror of Delirium
• Canopic Jar of the Scourge

The sacred gnome masterkeys have failed to reactivate the machines and the black flame of Solis Major is extinguished. All the sacred artefacts were crafted using the Gnome relic Blackflame Crucible. Only 100 crucibles were ever created for all the gnomes in all the realms in all of time. As each extinguished it was never to be lit again. If Gimblenock is ever in the presence of blackflame the masterkey will burn and he must plunge the masterkey into the substance, recharge the key and return to the Living Ancestors   Essen's brother reveals the following to Essen:

• the Ojasi leadership are “soul sick, they are terrified of no longer existing.
• He heard the shaman and arcanists whisper in hushed tones that existence is crumbling. It is undefining. That in order to have any chance of surviving the end, they must destroy to survive. When the Ashen Forge has turned absolute cold, when Nishrak is silent and the outer realms forgotten by the Spaces, the Ojasi will be standing, where no other will
• Essen’s brother took on their father’s blood debt
• 500 years ago, Elwin of Zinwel (grandfather) made an alliance with the banished first son of Liodan, Elyon
• Elyon was dissatisfied with the limits of Elven traditions and rites, including his demand to be the keeper of Sapphire crown - vigorously denied by the rest of Liodan, as it was a position given not taken and would require the death of those in front of him in the order of succession
• Denied influence from within, he sought greater and greater power outside, including turning to the patronage of the Nine Hells.
• When this was uncovered, he fled and was banished in absentia, leading him to trade with the Witch Queen of the Aphotic, who offered to place him as the head of the Western Liodan in return for securing her vault during the time of the Ardreth discontinuance (named after the Elven magician who foresaw its coming)
• Their grandfather and uncles had squandered their position of influence
• Their father had been ruthless over the past 100 years in dominating and destroying those who he deemed responsible for laying low their clan, but required the help of Elyon to slowly madden the First among the First, allowing their father to claim the position of the First
• Their father optioned his debt to his first born - Essen, but his brother discovered this when he came of age and took on the blood debt to Elyon and was sent to use his skills in training the Wolf Trolls and other forest beasts of the Ojasi, and serve at the whim of Elyon.

The Blue Cathari and Northern Cathari are the last steppe tribes that call themselves Catar.   The BMG are sent as far as they safely can using a teleportation circle, deep in the heart of Blue Host Helegu. They are aware that the Blue Host is at war with the Blue Host, half of whom have allied with the Blue Host.   Emerging from the Teleportation Circle they are confronted by 4 heavily armed and armoured Fire Giants. Skills win out and they are unmolested by the CR12+ giants.