Breac's Guild report - 0.0.14 before guildfall
There's an ordinary world
Note: This is a recreation of a guild report submitted by Miko Tanner's uncle (who's identity has been ripped out of my memory) just before Guildfall. It was lost in the mess that was the hall's explosion. I've questioned several agents and pulled together what information I can, and added them to my own recollections, but details are difficult to come by. Everyone who experienced these events first hand is missing. I experienced them by looking through Varus' eyes into his dreams as I channelled every spell I have a name for in an effort to keep him and his companions alive. So be warned that what is written below is my best attempt at an accurate recount, nothing more.
It was well established by this time that William Bregan and Whisper were two minds trapped in the same body, and in the Dream they were entirely seperate entities. Whisper had aquired the Echo of Helenia's Hope, so we knew he had located the Guild Hall on Elanora, and he had begun using the Echo to ambush teams of agents offworld. Times were desperate, so Miko's uncle answered a distress call from William Bregan originating from within the Dream. We could only hope it would be William, not Whisper, waiting for us at the other end.
I assembled two teams, one of clerics and priests led by myself, the other of guild agents including the young wizard Varus. The agents would be sent to sleep through a ritual and their vital signs monitored by my team. If they perished in the dream, they would be woken in the Prime Material Plane and be magically healed before being put to sleep again. If the link between their soul and body were to be severed, I would intervene to return them to life.
The agents met a figure claiming to be William in the Dream. They moved through several memories of his, gathering relics in each, and defeating ghosts of William's past that were being thrown against him. They then proceeded to the Dream's representation of Pylagord, where the Void Gate was first opened on my homeworld. William explained that a certain ritual would need to be performed there - and until it was, the Void Gate could never be completely shut, and Nathrael would forever have a toehold in this reality, reforming after some time even if he were to be temporarily defeated.
As William, Varus and their companions attempted to complete this ritual, Whisper appeared with several allies of his own. A chaotic battle broke out and I lost track of much of what happened after as our agents were killed several times over - but they persevered, returning to the Dream each time to continue their efforts. I remember seeing William dispel an illusion around Whisper's image, revealing it to be a lieutenant of Nathrael. William laughed back in its face, claiming it had never truly been a part of him at all, that it was nothing more than a parasite. As the two figures dueled in the centre of the chamber and Varus and his team closed in on victory, Nathrael's lieutenant in desperation screamed a Wish spell at William Bregan.
"I WISH YOU'D FADE INTO NOTHING". That was the wording of the wish. As William seemed prepared to counterspell, he smiled and instead let the spell take effect. And then he was gone.
I don't pretend to fully understand what happened, or why William allowed himself to be seemingly obliterated. I did clearly see Varus push the last dream-relic into its receptacle, completing the ritual before the demon could turn from William's fading form. I saw the demon and its allies pulled back through the dream version of the Void Gate. And then the agents awoke, the ritual seemingly compete. William would appear again in the waking world a week later, relaying critical information to Varus just before Whisper took control again and was killed by the guild. William claimed that his own life also stood as a final anchor to the Void Gate, and that as long as he lived and called the Prime Material Plane home, the gate could not be shut. But how could he do this, how was he alive at all, if he had 'faded into nothing'?
All I have to go from are some of his old notes from his studies with Rhillaine - he seemed facinated with the notion of the 'Inner Void', not the outer planes which are spoken of with such fear but of a mathematical zero in reality that was nothing and nowhere, yet still had a value and could still be refered to as a place, as the place from which all creation had sprung. He had often spoken of the Dream as a place that transcended time, in which events could occur disconnected from all causality. And his final diary entry, dated just before he left the Guild - "The gods have ways of writing straight using crooked lines".
See also: I won't cry for yesterday
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