Session 18: Errant Memories, Tinted Glass Report

General Summary

Following the funeral of Kairon, the Masters of the Nine Elements congregate once more the following night at a solitary tavern in the middle of town. Still wary of Goron, the party pressure him into finally spilling what he knows. A scourge is spreading around the island, only known as Aura Sickness, and nobody yet knows a cure. However, Goron speculates that the disease can be slowed or maybe even pacified by a certain flower that grows in the lowest parts of Byrexior: Rasdivis' Lotus. Aura Sickness can only spread in places where the fabric between Avalǿn and Byrexior is the thinnest - places such as Planar Gates. And the only possible way that it could have reached as far out as Elgen Isle is if there was a Gate lurking far, far below the island.   Now wary of the very ground they stand upon, the next morning, the Masters of the Nine Elements depart to the outskirts of town, in order to find Kairon's mother - she was the first to contract Aura Sickness, maybe she knows a reason as to why. The Phalia residence is a feeble cottage far away from the centre of town, being only comprised of one room that acts as a bedroom, kitchen and living space. As the party approaches, out walks Dr. Francis Tennox, the only cleric on the entire island who currently is having a field day trying to keep everyone alive. He allows the party to talk to her but advises not to stir or scare her too much. They walk into a dusty room, curtains drawn, stacks of unwashed crockery piling beneath the windowsill. In the corner of the room, wrapped in a single fleece bed sheet is an old tiefling woman; face gaunt and pale, weak puffs of sulfur exuding from holes in her neck. She incorrectly believes Sly Tony to be her son (after which the party straight up tell her he died with no warning whatsoever). Nonetheless, she takes it quite well and is eager to help them in their investigation so long as they honour Kairon's passion. She believes that the only places that could possibly lead far enough underground are the caves at the edge of the island, where Kairon and Goron used to play in their younger years.   The party thank her and begin to make their way toward the Northernmost Point of the island in the light rain of Harfn'vel. Eventually, they come across a crag wall that puts the edge of Elgen Isle some 200 feet above the crashing waves below. Nearby, opposite an old willow tree is a dark maw that leads further down into an open cave, with one of its walls discontinued by the edge of the island that instead leads out into the open ocean, like a large window at the top of a skyscraper - only, natural. With insane perception skills, Tony finds a loose segment of rock behind the back of the cave that leads to a seemingly abandoned mine shaft. Though after a while, they learn that the entire mine belongs to a group of scrounging goblins wanting to get rich off of leftover Arcstone, whom they promptly scare off and take their shiny rocks for themselves. Following the most tough battle yet with a singular goblin that refused to get hit, they make it to a supposedly endless hole, with a ladder leading down into the abyss. Heato throws a torch down to light up the cave but its no use. As the human fighter begins to reluctantly climb down, Averel spots a peculiar piece of machinery in the back corner of the cave, that vaguely resembles a teleporter. As each of the other party members stand on it, they are immediately transported to the bottom of the hole. After around 15 minutes of climbing, Heato begins to feel rather warm, before looking down and realising the ladder below him is burning from the raging fire caused by the torch he dropped earlier. Terrified, he scrambles back up as if his life depended on it (it did) and just about claws his way out of the pit by his fingernails to avoid the screeching geyser of lava that billows out soon after. Angry and slightly toasted, he finds the teleporter and proceeds to be laughed at by the rest of the party.   The teleporter leads to a tunnel that winds on for hours, gradually going down. In the lower levels of the cave system, purple particles float about the musty air - it's humid here, and there's a strange smell of vanilla. After what seems like a lifetime, they eventually begin to hear a mechanical clicking, which they later deduce to be a hallway filled with swinging pendulum axes and scythes suspended about the ceiling; the kind you'd see in some sort of 3D-platformer. The corridor leads to what seems to be a long abandoned dungeon, in which the party spend a while poking about every room to see what they can gather about the Planar Gate. In an abridged account, Tony uses his big brain to win a game show hosted by a talking quill that makes him telepathic, the party fight a bunch of extra-terrestrial monsters, find the Terraria shimmer, learn a cheeky bit of lore, collect a bit of funny purple rock and Heato gets rushed by a bunch of creatures at the same time in the middle of a 4-way corridor. Oh, and Rostliem finds a huge stone door that's like a thousand years old and imbued with the life-force of a Grand Archmage and dispels it like a god damn chad.   Behind the door is a huge blown out cavern, scorned by age; black and purple moss snaking along the walls, providing a wandering mist that floats about the room. Below a wrecked stone platform is an actual bottomless pit around 80ft in diameter - ravenous jaws of an ebony hell. This, they later learn, is the shattered remnants of the Astral Vault: a planar gate used during the Wars of Xandria that was later utterly destroyed by the Knights of the Four Corners to prevent further inter-dimensional conflict. Violet tentacles slither up from the darkness and out of the chasm, wrapping around the lip of the hole, and latching onto the platforms above. And suspended across the impossibly deep pit are a series of floating islands - unstable fragments of rock that gently hover in place. Each one of them is a stepping stone leading up to a central island, larger than the rest. Atop it: an etched stone pedestal missing its sword, that when approached reads "In memoriam: Donevan Corsair." Shaken by the name drop, Donevan goes forward to touch the pedestal, but his mind suddenly goes black as violent memories come flooding to him all at once.   There are painful flashes of his past; of dark monsters rising, marching out from the gate that used to be here, when it wasn't destroyed. All of their flesh is smooth and grey: some with tentacles, others with long flowing white hair - the ceaseless armies of Byrexior. He blinks, and is suddenly on a battlefield, these grey monstrosities lumbering toward him. But no matter how many he carves through, more keep coming. He blinks once more and finds himself in a volcano, standing before a huge yet dwarfoid creature toiling away on a weapon to rule them all, his brow dripping with sweat. Finally, he lifts up a greatsword, crackling with blue energy, and gives it to Donevan with a smile. The final memory is that atop a snowy mountain in the Nørdenfrost, in the middle of a storm with monsters closing in, pushing Donevan back against the edge of a cliff. He readies his greatsword, still crackling with that blue energy and turns to face the onslaught. But just then, from out of the waves of creatures, a slender mind flayer calls itself forward, 12ft tall, void of colour, with long, grasping tentacles writhing down to the end of its robe: Lord Xandria. It approaches him as an icy voice whispers in the back of his head, like a knife etching a twisted message in stone. "The death of a martyr is the gateway to a genocide of many more." And Donevan finds himself falling into the darkness below, to the harsh cradle of an icy caress.   All goes silent for a moment, until more memories come barging through: these ones not of the past, and not of a definite future, but of an alternate timeline should history continue on its intended course. Donevan awakens to see Barontyne atop his throne in Terren, speaking down to André Calixis and some other man he doesn't recognise. He explains that Donevan's sword is what is known as an Astral Key, buried and split apart into four segments after his death. If all of these artefacts could be sourced and forged once more underneath Fury's Summit, Barontyne would be able to open the Astral Vault and unleash Xandria upon Avalǿn once more.   Donevan awakens back in the Astral Vault with the rest of his party - five incessant fragments of memories plaguing his mind: "Hilt, Blade, Scabbard, Essence, Forge." Armed with the knowledge of Barontyne's master plan, the Masters of the Nine Elements begin their ascent back to the surface world with one clear goal: to get the Astral Key before Barontyne does, and in turn, prevent the Fall of Avalǿn...   All characters level up to Level 8.