Session 136: Time to Reveal

General Summary

10th-11th Sydenstar 836PD   10th Sydenstar   As soon as the Unbroken begin to enjoy the relief of their revived ranger, Enessa cuts the reunion short as she quickly excuses herself to get some “fresh air” in the surrounding woods of the keep.   Obviously overwhelmed with her experience in the Matron’s realm, and the freeing of her soul, the party give Enessa the space to process everything.   The rest of the Unbroken begin to recuperate in their Keep. Unbeknownst to the others, Arthur secretly casts a sending to Professor Tymal Rathbourne, the hard to describe tutor with a connection to Karkematth, inviting him to the Keep tomorrow.   The Professor graciously accepts the invitation to the Unbroken’s Keep…   11th Sydenstar   Come the morning, Arthur is informed by the party’s Major-domo Jeremy Darling that he has a visitor. Arthur asks for the Professor to be escorted up to the study, while he tries to calm the shocked and riled party and explain his actions.   Seeing the other clones at the laboratory, Arthur hopes to find out from the Professor what exactly is his connection to Karkematth, to discern if he is the original Karkematth or another abandoned clone. He asks for some initial time with the Professor to play along with this as a social visit to catch up, whilst he tries to break through the disguising glamor that covers him.   Raphael keeps his riling suspicions in check, and tells Arthur he’ll have 10 minutes before he and the rest of the party come up and ‘welcome’ his guest.   “Duly noted” Arthur curtly acknowledges, and he goes up to speak with Professor Rathbourne. The Professor is pleasantly polite and warmly welcomes seeing his protégé. Rathborne coyly asks about Arthur’s exploits, but the student is confident to call out his teacher on knowing more than he lets on.   Arthur presses his engagement with Rathbourne, and makes the flattering elder stumble his words when he asks if he’s ever heard of an archmage called Karkematth? This momentary distraction provides Arthur with the opening to peer through the magical disguise, and see a wizened but familiar half eleven face of a Karkematth.   “Oh, my dear boy, you see me now. But Karkematth is a face I wear, not a name I own” Rathbourne wearily confesses.   The study doors suddenly burst open with Raphael and Frostweaver leading the charge of the armed Unbroken. They too see the face of an elderly Karkematth clone, but Arthur is quick to stop them and give enough space for Rathborne to explain himself.   Simeon pulls out the Spirit of Intellect Barty to corroborate whatever Rathbourne shares. The animated Skull and the elderly clone actually recognise each other, as Rathbourne was one of the first clone batches Karkematth created at the laboratory, 40 years ago.   However, there was a miscalculation in the creation of his batch, causing Rathbourne to age at an accelerated rate of 4 years for every 1 year. Hence putting Rathbourne on the path to spare as much time as he could through the study of chronurgy, and to find a worthy successor at the Academy in Arthur in his final years of life.   With Rathbourne’s truth shared and verified, a little more of the recent picture of Karkematth has been unravelled, but on Raphael’s finger lies answers to the beginning of Karkematth.   Raphael asks Arthur to set up a telepathic bond so that they could all speak with the soul of Matthias in the ring of mind shielding. With the party and Rathborne’s consent, Matthias shares through a series of visions the truth of Karkematth.   During the calamity, Matthias Karken and Tommas Karken were two identical half elven twins in service to the mortal woman who would become the Raven Queen.   Matthias was a gifted sorcerer, while Tommas was the first Winter Knight and lover of the mortal Matron. After one of the last grand battles of the calamity had been won, Matthias asked his brother to give up his broadsword, Frostweaver, as it was a weapon forged for destruction and its influence was turning Tommas too aggressive and destructive.   Tommas refused to give up it, and soon its influence pushed him into accepting a deadly challenge from their cousin, Ileria Karkematth, the Champion of Chaos, a chosen of Tharizdun.   The Mad Mountain of a man cut down Tommas, and slayed Matthias as well, but in the sorcerer’s dying moments he was able to bind his soul to this ring which Karkematth originally wore. It allowed Matthias to influence Karkematth’s actions, and overtime he was able to grow and control his body when he slept.   Matthias eventually created a clone of Tommas in an attempt to bring him back from the dead. However, during the ritual to call Tommas’ soul back into his body, Karkematth had been aware the whole time of Matthias’ influence, and seized control right at the moment to swap his soul into the body instead, thus creating the prime Karkematth clone.   Throughout the centuries that past, Karkematth kept the ring with Matthias as a constant torturous reminder to the soul of his failure to save his brother, and the ill legacy of being Karkematth’s clone creator.   However even as Karkematth’s power and arcane gifts grew, he could never replicate the precise magic that Matthias wielded to create the prime clone body. Damning Karkematth to successive weaker cloned bodies, and eventually when his efforts to create and split his soul across multiple clones failed, he finally lost interest in Matthias.   Karkematth left him with the clone body that had been infected by an illithid tadpole he had captured and was experimenting on in the laboratory the party investigated. Ileria left Matthias with parting taunt for a final time, as he “now sought to unlock a Higher Power”.   And even now freed from there, Matthias’s soul will not depart the ring. He vowed to never leave until his mistakes could be rightened, for he could not bear the shame to be judged by his lady the Raven Queen while Karkematth still lives in defiance of her.   Raphael attempts to comfort the vision of Matthias by sharing that the soul or some essence of Tommas resides in Frostweaver. The brutal broadsword of battle was reforged by Moradin at the request of the mortal Raven Queen to save and honour her fallen love, taking its current form of an elven longsword.   While the sword hasn’t displayed any explicit sentience with Raphael, it did choose and awaken him, and in some way of cosmic fate eventually proving Matthias successful in bringing the soul of Tommas back with his (albeit long descended) clone body. Although like all clones, he is his own man, as destiny has just come full circle to have him wield the body and the blade of the first Winter Knight.   The vision of Matthias turns to Raphael, initially crestfallen that his brother’s soul is similarly taking an oath to not move on from his duty, and had been mistaken in trying to bring him back in the first place. But as he looks at Raphael, he’s comforted by the familiar face and bearings of his brother Tommas, and realises that while he may have set in motion the events that created Karkematth, it also was a legacy that led to Raphael and a path to his redemption.   The resolute spirit of Matthias thanks the Unbroken for letting him share his burden, and offers Raphael and them whatever guidance and influence he can to battle whatever foul activities Karkematth is planning.   With the revelation that Ileria was originally a Champion of the Chained Obilvion, Orlando asks if Karkematth was known by another name, Azeyeroth or Lock-Breaker?   The vision Matthias' face becomes ashen as he recognises that name…   The Unbroken reach level 18!