Lucien: I will stop your meddling, once and for all!
Alarm triggers. Dal ascertains it has triggered, there is a glyph of warding beneath our feet about to go off, and that there is latent chronomany in the area of extremely powerful time magic locking things in place after an explosion.
Dal's arcana question about the rock: How long does the spell effect have left? Answer: Compared to the Loss orb, the Loss spell is more powerful and running on a smaller battery. This spell is tethered to a power source. Everything is happening as it ought, no leaks. The link between the sword and the moon is probably powering this spell and it likely won't run out of time.
Glyph of warding -- we're hit with a 7th level dispel magic.
Lucien: See how you fare with no preparations against my power.
Dal insight check to see if it's a recording. Unclear. But he probably doesn't know exactly where we are for a round.
Lucien: The four of you will perish. I know where you are.
Enter initiative. Bolt of lightning strikes central platform and Lucien appears 200ft away from each of us.
Lucien: You are trapped. You cannot leave. And now you are going to die.
Lucien casts Ravenous Void. STR save. Sigrid saves with inspo and takes 18 force dmg. Dal fails, takes 36 force dmg, is restrained, and is hurled into the centre void of darkness. Reb appears from Dal's backpack and also fails. It's difficult terrain. Non magical objects inside the sphere not worn or carried will be destroyed. Soooo don't become an object by dropping to 0 hit points.
Start of turns, take 24 force damage. Dal Fey Steps out of the portal, to the outside of the Wall of Force dome. Holds an upcast of Fly.
Lucien: Flee all you like. I will hunt you down. You cannot stop this anymore. You never could. You have been a thorn in my side for too long.
Sigrid fails to break Reb's restrain.
Sigrid: We're not here to meddle. Can we just talk about being a thorn in your side because actually we think we can help each other.
Lucien: Talk? Talk? I will not let you monologue at me. Why should I allow this?
Sigrid: We actually want to hear from you. We've read some of your work and it's fascinating. And we think we got off on the wrong foot and we just want to hear you out.
Fails persuasion check.
Lucien: Pathetic. I will not hear your lies.
Sigrid: It's not a lie. I know we lied last time--
Lucien: You killed my friends.
Sigrid: Like I said, we got off on the wrong foot. We thought you attacked us first. And I understand that might not be the case?
Sigrid passes Strength Save to move (rolled 24). Steps through portal, sets up Healing Spirit on Dal.
Oksana holds an action to open portal next to her, connecting with the rest of the party outside the wall of force. BA lunar form The Crone.
Oksana: I wanted to bring you news about the Morrigan. I don't know if you know.
Lucien: What news would you bring of she who you slew?
Oksana: A prophecy. She lives.
Lucien: Of course she lives. The unkillable cannot die truly. Merely be removed from this world for a time. She will not be the same when she returns. She will not be my lover.
Oksana: No. People rarely are the same. But you know, seeing as you attacked us first on sight, and they were holding our friend against their will forcibly for a ritual that we couldn't carry on. Shall we call a stalemate for the moment?
Lucien nat 20'd the DC for an unreachable DC 30. Lucien doesn't react.
Reb casts telekinesis on self to move through the portal. Fly and the Lantern held actions go off.
Lucien: You think yourselves clever for getting out of the spell? No, you will still die here.
Oksana rolled a 20 dex save, fails, takes 45 points of lightning damage from a long range bolt.
Dalitar: I'm sorry for the pain that we've caused you. I didn't want to hurt anyone. I came to this forest to learn. And you seem like one of the most knowledgeable people here. You always talk to me about shadow dancing. You give me warnings. You've witnessed things that have gone wrong in the past. If I'm not to make the same mistakes as the people before me, then I could really use someone to guide me. That's why I'm here begging your forgiveness.
Persuasion check -- with advantage. Succeeds: Lucien rolled the same.
Lucien: You became a Shadowdancer without knowing the cost.
Dalitar: No one was there to tell me. All I was doing was trying to understand why shadows are. I found it by accident.
Lucien: I warned Sindar history would repeat itself.
Dalitar: Well, that's why we need someone like you to help it not happen again. Please. Can you tell me what happened? I don't want to doom the world by accident.
Lucien: This world is already doomed by those of your ilk.
Dalitar: Well, perhaps then we can save it.
Lucien: That is what I am trying to do.
Dalitar: Well, then tell me, how can I help? How can I not make it worse? I want to learn.
Lucien: Dying would be one way.
Dalitar: I can actively help in a different way. I've seen your work, I truly admire the joy that's in the magic that you create, even when it is trying to pull me apart. I want to see a world where that joy is returned.
Sigrid: You said yourself you've not enough time. If we can find common ground here, find common goals, we're four extra pairs of hands, maybe three, if Reb isn't willing. We're very annoying. And I get that. But we're an asset when we're on side and we do just want to help. Corruption, Loss, the Stem.
Persuasion check with disadvantage for confirming that we rummaged around his office. Fails.
Lucien: Yes, I did say I was running out of time. I said that in my own notes, not for your consumption. Meddlers. Fools. Vagabonds, breaking into my home. The Shadowdancer perhaps I could teach. You. You will never learn to stop meddling, will you?
Sigrid: I want to learn full stop.
Lucien: That is not what your actions have said.
Sigrid: Maybe so.
Oksana comes through portal and casts enhance ability on charisma checks for everyone.
Oksana: Let's do this everyone! I mean he's got a point, I did actually get the killing blow on two of his friends. I feel like I should probably step back a little here.
Dalitar: Don't speak.
Oksana: If he calls me a meddler I'm just going to be well da, obviously.
Dalitar: Don't say that either.
Oksana: It's kind of my job. Cool, well done, Dalitar. That was really good.
Reb: Is everyone being very dramatic? Lucien! Why did you turn the previous princess into a monster?
Lucien: Previous princess?
Reb: You know. The frog at that waterfall outside of Bardh.
Lucien: Oh. When you meddled with my experiments again. She was on the verge of corruption and I was simply experimenting. My aim was to test a new potion on the nearby vegetation. And she was, well, irritating. If she meant anything to you, then I am sorry for your loss. But she was dying anyway.
Reb: A likely story.
Lucien: Shadowdancer. You will break the world again if you continue down this path. Stop meddling with your soul.
Dalitar: I have a name.
Lucien: I do not know it.
Dalitar: You could have asked.
Lucien: It has no meaning for me.
Dalitar: Very well.
Lucien: Previous encounters with smart, witty, adventurous always lead when I ask for names to them saying no, names have power and I shan't hand it over and they think they're so smart and then they die and I could have helped them.
Dalitar: You don't really need a name to get exploded by--
Lucien: Precisely! This is why I no longer ask it.
Dalitar: Well, my name's Dalitar. Pleased to meet you. Do you prefer Keeper or do you still use Professor?
Lucien: Keeper will do.
Dalitar: Pleased to meet you, Keeper Dubois. I didn't mean to mess with my soul. I simply wanted to understand why this world is full of corruption that clings to people's souls.
Lucien: Because of people like you.
Dalitar: Well, I've certainly learned a lot about that when I've come to this forest. And I understand why you feel so strongly about it. I would not have chosen to do that research if I'd known it was dangerous. And I'm sure you'll say neither would they. But I've got a chance to learn. I've got a chance to fix things. And you are part of that chance. Will you consider helping me? Will you give me a chance?
Lucien: I will give you the same chance I will give everyone else in this godforsaken world.
Dalitar: Okay. Is that a yes, can we have a conversation without trying to kill each other? Because I would rather not do that.
Lucien: I do not trust you.
Dalitar: I understand. What can I do to change that?
Lucien: Leave!
Dalitar: But then if I leave, I can't learn from you.
Lucien: You will learn. All of you will learn.
Dalitar: But I want to help you. If you're trying to save this world, then I want to help.
Lucien: The hubris. You think I need your help?
Dalitar: I can just take notes and carry things. It doesn't need to be anything grand. I don't think you need help. But surely it's nice to have some.
Lucien: Nice is that you do not have to look over your shoulder in fear of what they might break next.
Dalitar: I'm very careful.
Flat persuasion check. Fails. Insight check what he wants, Sam sent Kirsty a message.
Sigrid: If it's any reassurance, Dal's very good. Careful, diligent. If this is between you two, we can step back. I'm the clumsy one. I don't have to be involved with helping you.
Dalitar: He doesn't want the help. No help (neck cutting gesture).
Sigrid: We've gone down some wrong paths. And we do have good intentions. We just want to learn the best ways we can enact positive change. That's all we want to talk about.
Lucien: The best way is to leave me in peace. Stop ruining everything I try.
Sigrid: Would you like cake? We have cake.
Lucien: I do not require sustenance.
Oksana: Hello. My name is Oksana. I've been hit by your spells several times. They really are breathtakingly powerful. I wanted to say that I. I'm not really concerned whether you want or need help or not. I live here too, and have a responsibility towards this place. And so will be participating in maintaining the lives of the people that live here. I'm a witch, You know the type. But I'd like to do it together. You obviously have a major part to play in this.
Lucien: And I know I would not.
Oksana: Not what?
Lucien: Like to do it together! Difficult projects are hard enough when you are not looking over your shoulder, looking at inexperienced idiots breaking things or trying to stab you in the back.
Oksana: Well, we're going to be doing it anyway. I'd like us to not be at odds. Obviously, you know, get on with your project. We'll tell you what we're up to. You tell us what you're up to. We don't get in each other's ways and we save this world so we can keep existing in it.
Lucien: Your naivete is adorable. What makes you think I ought to tell you anything or want you to tell me anything?
Oksana: I don't think you want it, but I think it's needed.
Lucien: And I do not.
Oksana switches form and casts mass cure wounds. We're basically all near full health.
Reb: Hey Lucien, I've discovered a way to put myself through reliquary and to turn the dead into my own servants. I feel like there's something missing. Could you fill in some gaps? You're a skeleton man.
Persuasion check with ADV. Passes.
Lucien: What? You have discovered how to create a phelactery?
Reb: Ooh that's a good word for it.
Lucien: I suppose I could help. What are you missing?
Reb: Well, I can stay in the phelactery forever and I can only possess certain people with it. Is there some way I could, you know, extend it?
Lucien: Indeed. The simplest way is to feed souls into the phelactery.
Reb: Ooh I like that. Is that what you do?
Lucien: No. That was a stopgap. There are too few souls. You have discovered the startings of powerful magic. It is simple, really. Everything has a source and a sink, a beginning and an end. And you must simply attach the right end to the right beginning.
Reb: Trismagistus write that down, write that down!
Lucien: Channels. Conduits. These links between endings and beginning are seemingly many but fundamentally few. What is the difference between a lake and the ocean, and a stone and a soul? Each is the same thing, viewed on a small enough scale, but when you have the bigger picture, you can work out which way the energy flows.
Reb: I understand now. I need to go to the moon so I could see more things.
Lucien: That is one way of doing it. Souls are an expensive currency when they are so alike to the natural flows of magic. It is a waste to use them.
Reb: Do you sustain yourself on leylines?
Lucien: Indeed.
Reb: Maybe I should do that (evil laugh).
Dalitar: Am I still allowed to continue studying how to remove corruption from souls if I'm following these rules? Because I've made quite a lot of headway there.
Lucien: The manipulation of your soul as a weapon is what I take offense to.
Reb: Yeah, Dalitar, gah.
Lucien: That is what allowed corruption into this world.
Dalitar: Is it because the ancient elves had their shadows essentially inside their bodies and now they are separated?
Lucien: Not quite separated. Mine and soon your little friends are separated. Yours is attached by the finest tether that you rip and tear at every time you draw it from your body.
Dalitar: Yes, and when someone gets resurrected, they're also a bit tattered when they come back, aren't they?
Lucien: Indeed. Souls are not meant for more than one journey. The trip to the ocean ought to be one way.
Dalitar: Ought there be an aboleth there? Was that there back in your day?
Lucien: Indeed. A so-called guardian of the dead. A fool thinking themself a god.
Dalitar: Forcing worship from the dead for his own ego, apparently.
Lucien: Those who find themselves in a position of power will usually choose to use it.
Dalitar: A lot of your research was on these conduits and lay lines and moving power. In your book that I found, the introduction to Dynamics of Arcane Augmentation, life energy was just a theory at the time of writing.
Lucien: A theory I developed. You are surprisingly well read to have found such a paper without access to the Dreaming.
Dalitar: I found this in the demi plane. Library of Professor Moroe.
Lucien: You have visited Gil'ornomin. Was it you that discharged the arcane batteries then?
Dalitar: There was a visitor before us who removed the head that was still in there. Is that what you mean? Awarth.
Lucien: No. The power went down in the-- never mind.
Dalitar: Do you know what Awarth is up to? Collecting large fiend body parts. Is that something I should be concerned about?
Lucien: That may be something we all ought to be concerned about.
Dalitar: It seemed extremely worrying, if I'm honest. She's incredibly powerful and hard to predict and cursed.
Lucien: Do you know how many pieces of Abbadon she has found?
Dalitar: We're aware of half, ish. We don't know about a torso. We don't know how many pieces that's in.
Lucien: She must plan to use the magic of the convergence as well. Stop her. She may yet destroy this world.
Dalitar: We have no clue as to where she is. I mean, one theory was that she was here, but clearly not. We saw her going to a place with no trees.
Oksana: What is she doing? If you're asking us to meddle now, it feels right that we should know what we're doing.
Lucien: I am asking you to stop her. Which handily removes you from my presence. But if you wish to attempt to save the world, that is one route. I can only foresee that she is piecing the destroyer back together. The power of such a fiend at her disposal would allow her to create even more ill-suited acts of betrayal than previous.
Oksana: What was her first act?
Dalitar: Was it not invading?
Oksana: Well that's why I'm asking.
Lucien: Her first act was creating the first Shadowdancers.
Dalitar: That's why she gave me a little wink. Was she an elf?
Lucien: Some speculated she may have been.
Dalitar: I did wonder if she changed. You know, transformed by the power that she dealt with.
Lucien: She is a fiend. She is untrustworthy. She is the gateway of chaos.
Dalitar: And she caused corruption then, if she created the first shadowdancer.
Dal rolls an arcana check to process/ connect what Lucien was saying about corruption and shadowdancing being linked. Realising his belief that he was strengthening his bond with his shadow is false. Nat 20s (my boy).
DM: You almost seem to shimmer to your friends around you as runes flicker in the air as you put words and thoughts into visual form around you. Something he said to Reb. Stones and oceans, lakes and seas. Souls are an expensive currency. Raw magic will do the same. The question Why is corruption related to both strong emotions and sins, but also magic? Does that mean magic is a sin? Awarth created shadowdancers. He didn't say she was a shadowdancer. The runes around you spin faster as your thoughts blur. What is the link between corruption and shadows? What is the link between shadows and shadow dancing? You thought you were enhancing your shadow when you were creating your original elixir that first allowed you to draw Thorn from yourself. Enhancing. Simply adding something. Just a little pinch of magic from that.
From that, what five questions would you like answered?
Break, 01:24:00.
Dalitar: When I saw someone turn into an abomination, I saw their shadow go into their body and then transform them. So does corruption essentially replace the magical lifeforce of a shadow? Was this some way for Awarth to infect people, I suppose? If she brought corruption into the world.
DM: There's almost two questions there. I'm going to take the 'Was this a way for Awarth to infect people'. And actually, from what you can glean from what the Keeper has said, that does very much sound like it. You think of the elixir you created to begin shadowdancing. You don't need it any more. But initially that bond was necessary. You realize that whilst it was a way for you to strengthen your personal bond with your shadow, if anything about that original elixir had been corrupted, there could be very different, very bad effects on people's souls. And actually, shadowdancing might not be the problem. The act of creating a shadowdancer could, however, be abused very easily. Question two?
Dalitar: Does corruption essentially replace the magical lifeforce of a shadow?
DM: Not quite; the shadow is of the same essence as magic itself and in using magic you become part of the flow of arcana across the world. Lensing that flow through your own shadow leaves a thick residue of corruption upon yourself. When a person becomes an abomination, their shadow goes inside themself as their shadow fuses with their body, wholly sinking into the mundane under the weight of filth.
Dalitar: Are shadows or souls made it the essentially the same stuff as magic? From what he said about how everything is more or less the same when you look at it from further away.
DM: Yes. It's condensed to a purpose somehow. And you think of the Keeper's rituals. The bits, the tiny fragments that you've learned so far, corralling off the memories and delights into the Dreaming and allowing the body to flow down to the sea beyond. Well memories, they're just who we were. The delights are who we are. The body in death is just who we're going to be. The shadows or a soul, could just be a small, tiny nexus of magic that is who each of us are.
Dalitar: Does that mean that tieflings are essentially souls that are born already messed with?
DM: Yes. Somehow you would usually expect, however dubiously, through heritage of some kind, by blood, there is some element of a different corruption within them, or perhaps a different curse.
Dalitar: If corruption is essentially-- If the magic that makes up the life in this world is a big lake, an ocean and the corruption is in it like oil, do I believe that there is actually ever a way to separate them? I've always been told that you can only move it around.
DM: This is your final question, yeah?
Dalitar: I haven't been counting.
DM: Tieflings was number four.
Dalitar: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Unless anyone wants to stop me in sort of anything better before me.
DM: That's fine. I'm just clarifying.
Dalitar: I think that that's really one of our one of our goals.
JJ: Well, we have been told that, like matter, the corruption can't be created or destroyed. But can it be transformed? Is that something that we've been told it can or cannot be done?
Dalitar: It's more like, can we separate the two things out and then throw the giant ball of corruption back where it bloody came from?
DM: Well you already know the answer to that on a small scale. Because you did it earlier today to Oksana, or yesterday. You can separate it out. It's not easy, it's not painless. It's certainly powerful magic to do even on the small scale that you've done, but it is certainly possible to move it. Whether on such a grand scale as to remove it from the world, well, you'd have to have world altering magics available.
Becky: Like the convergence.
Dalitar: Like these ones.
JJ: Is that what Lucien is doing?
Back to the Keeper.
Sigrid: So interfere with Awarth... The aboleth? If we removed him from the game would that interfere with your plans?
Lucien: The interloper has nothing to do with me. My rites as a Keeper. They sometimes crossed with him. I have not truly been a mortuary keeper for a thousand years. My dead do not come through my hands any more. Now I am the World Keeper, Last my kind and shepherd of lonely souls to the great void beyond.
Sigrid: Is that what you're doing? You're reattaching the stem? Returning the souls, reallowing them to be shepherded?
Lucien: In a manner of speaking, that will be one of the outcomes, yes.
Sigrid: I would like to have the aboleth removed and have the path of the dead be smoother sailing.
Lucien: Then in this we are aligned. Remove him, but know that he is a nihileth, a powerful creature, half dead already.
Sigrid: I know he doesn't like radiant damage. I know he can be blinded and deafened and stunned and incapacitated.
Lucien: Because he is mortal, as much as his pride thinks himself a god. There are no gods in this world. They abandoned us at its beginning.
Sigrid: Thank you.
Sigrid checks Dal's shadow while he's thinking hard.
DM: It is sparking effervescent. There are flares of crimson's and brilliant greens, bright yellows and deep, warm oranges. There is a definite raggedness to it. I think you have not seen Dal's shadow before. Except in Thorn. It is beautifully colored, more energetic, I think, than any shadow you've ever seen. But it is. Ragged is the best word for it. There are patches around the edges where you would normally expect maybe a if not crystalline, at least a clear delineation between the shadow and the air behind it. But Dal's shadow is almost evaporating at the edges, small wisps of it flickering just outside the ordinary bounds of his shadow. Within the colours you glimpse brief spots of darkness or perhaps gaps, before they're covered and move.
Sigrid: It's like a crimson sunset oil painting on fabric with holes in and it's torn around the outside and paint keeps leaping off, leaping on lots of movement, lots of dancing.
DM: Immediately as you say this to him, several of the bright yellows and reds, golds turn to blues browns, dark grays.
Sigrid: It changed. The sunset. It's now dark, blue, brown, gray.
DM: You look at Dal's eyes and they're much more wintery than the summer they were a moment ago.
Dal: Ragged? At least I know he's being honest with me, which I thought he was. But now I know.
Oksana: It's a shame that those adventures didn't let you monologue before. That was quite eloquent. Everything generally you were saying.
Lucien: I am not monologuing.
Oksana: Well, no, I'm saying that you're not--
Lucien: I am trying to help you.
Oksana: Da, thank you. I appreciate it. I just thought if you had the chance, you would be good at it. I wanted to ask what you thought about the ghosts being in this world or near it.
Lucien: The world is veiled in shadows. The time of the prophecy is nigh.
Oksana: What do you think the prophecy means?
Lucien: That there will be a moment very soon when Qwyn (full name) will take their rightful place as ruler of this dying world and wrest control of death. As they were created to do.
Oksana: And what does that entail for the people who live in this world now?
Lucien: Do the living fear death right now?
Oksana: Da.
Lucien: Then they shall continue to fear it. It is the dead who will be under Qwyn's control.
Oksana: Okay. Thank you. This is very enlightening.
Reb: You know, I think everyone was just excited to have a big ritual fight. But if you say there's a ritual going on somewhere else, we can just do that instead.
Reb checks Lucien's visage with shadowsight and truesight.
DM: So you can see vaguely that he appears to be concentrating still on the ravenous void that he cast originally. You can also see a shimmer in the air around him that you recognize as some sort of protective ward against spells. True sight, you see him as he is. He is not using any illusions to cover his form. So he is a skeletal body, he has no flesh upon him, not even desiccated, entirely skeletal. And there is no shadow to see.
JJ: because he has a reliquary. And so the shadow's in the reliquary. I see.
Reb: Hey, there is that one time where you stopped Trismagistus from following me. Why did you do that? Do you have something against nargle spirits?
Lucien: It was an interesting opportunity to study one. They were very rare, even in my time. You are lucky to have found such a benefactor.
Reb: Oh yeah. He teaches me arcane secrets all the time. Um. Hey, if you tell us what your ritual does, I'll give you one free spell reading of the nargles.
Persuasion roll with ADV. Passes!
Lucien: I intend to allow the convergence to happen for longer than it ordinarily would, so that I might write a spell upon this world.
Reb: I see. And that spell is...?
Lucien: The greatest undertaking of chronomantic magic ever known.
Reb: I don't know much about chronomancy I'm afraid.
Lucien: If I cannot solve the problems of this world, I shall return the world to a state before the problems existed.
Reb: Will that undo all of us or will it just redo the world?
Lucien: It shall be an ending for all. And a new beginning for those in the past to not repeat their mistakes.
Reb: Does that mean that I'll be born again and be all powerful again? Or does that be that I'll never be born ever?
Lucien: I do not know. There could be ramifications. But you would not be harmed. You simply would never have existed or would continue to exist and perhaps in a better way without this corruption dripping from you.
Reb: I see. Well, do you want your reading now or later?
Lucien: Now is good.
Reb: OK, sign here.
Lucien spends his turn reading and signing Reb's contract while Reb puts on his ominous cloak.
Dalitar: If you intend to draw out the time of the convergence and you need to use presumably all of its power for this spell. But there's someone else trying to use it like Awarth. Or even multiple people, I don't know how many people across this world know how to use convergence. Is that going to cause problems? Is there going to be flashes of magic?
Lucien: It is possible. The convergence is a new -- relatively -- phenomena. In this world, there are very few people besides myself who could use it to its fullest potential. Previously, one moon could amplify magic. The day-to-day would be a little easier. Slightly grander feats could be undertaken. When the second moon was raised, a lensing effect began. This is how Sindar wrought her greatest works. But with the rising of the third moon, I know not of any such grandiose magics that have been attempted. My timelines have been shortened, particularly by your own actions. If Awarth also wishes to use the convergence to reform Abbadon, it is unclear as to whether there is enough magic in this world to fuel both of us. Any ordinary mages should hardly be a drop in the ocean compared to rituals like mine. And I have another advantage.
Dalitar: You certainly have planned very far ahead.
Lucien: And yet I am rushed at the last.
Dalitar: Did Awarth essentially poison the shadowdancers? When she created them? Because I thought over it and in theory. The theory of it should be fine. But if one introduced a poison to it.
Lucien: If one rips a hole in their chest and it becomes infected, is the theory of ripping your chest open still sound?
Dalitar: I was curious as to whether she accelerated the problem.
Lucien: Indeed.
Dalitar: And then forced a war so that people would have to use shadowdancing.
Lucien: Oh the war was already happening.
Dalitar: A war with fiends? And then someone conveniently had a solution.
Lucien: First the Civil War. Then the fiends came.
Dalitar: The Civil War was why Tsien Chang's daughters got assassinated, then.
Lucien: Tsien Chang, yes. The upstart who slew the dragon.
Dalitar: The dragon who was a guardian of the empire.
Lucien: One of many such powerful spirits. You are familiar with some of the others, I believe.
Dalitar: Colere-de-la-Nature?
Lucien: Indeed.
Dalitar: I haven't met her, just heard of. I have met the spirit of Midresthor. Quite imposing. If we got him back, would that help?
Lucien: Perhaps. If he has not been corrupted.
Dalitar: Do you mean literally in the soul like other mortals? Because I can try and check that if that's a concern. Or do you mean morally?
Lucien: Corruption rips through this land. Moral corruption is corruption of the soul.
Reb: If you don't mind me asking, did Midresthor have the power to burn away corruption? Because that's what he wants to do. Is he going to kill everyone if he does that, especially on the convergence?
Lucien: I do not know. A powerful spirit, but impetuous and roused to action. Well-meaning, but I do not know that he is powerful enough.
Reb: But that what if he had three moons?
Lucien: Troubling.
Reb: Dalitar, I think everyone wants to use the moons.
Dalitar: I mean, if I had a big plan to get rid of corruption, I would also want to use the moons, so I fully understand.
Sigrid: What will happen to Qwyn and how does them being Leader of the dead reset the timeline? How does that connect?
Persuasion check -- pass.
Lucien: When the moment comes that the world becomes shrouded in shadows, the chosen one will bind them to their will and to bring forth a reckoning of death. This prophecy must come to pass. And it must come to pass before I can turn back the clock.
Sigrid: And with the convergence on pause, you have more time to do that.
Lucien: The world will be perpetually in shadow. The shadows of the dead will encroach upon it. And Qwyn can bind all of the shadows of this world to their will, removing the last remnants of these corrupted people and allowing me to cast my spell.
Sigrid: And you don't believe there's any other way?
Lucien: People have ruined this world. The gods abandoned it at birth. Tabula rasa, my dear.
Sigrid: What's tabula rasa?
Lucien: A clean slate.
Oksana: What makes you think that people won't end up making, if not the same mistakes, worse ones? They could make better ones. But you don't have control over how this world turns out.
Lucien: Indeed.
Oksana: So why not leave it as it is?
Lucien: I think it better to give people the chance to make better choices.
Oksana: Well, people have that. The people who live here right now.
Lucien: And the choices that you make, they are funneled through your vision of corruption. You are limited by corruption. I would give people a chance to not make the same singular error and hope, hope that people are better next time.
Sigrid: Without corruption, there would be more life now.
Oksana: Why can't the people here be better?
Sigrid: We might be.
Oksana: If you're concerned about people making the same mistakes then surely the things that have happened in this world are things to learn from and without knowing it, starting anew--.
Lucien: I am concerned about people making the same mistake. I am giving people the chance to not make it. You are the one concerned about people making the same mistake. You brought that up. I am simply resetting the scales, bringing the balance to neutral, giving another chance.
Oksana: I don't know. I'm concerned you're taking it away from a lot of people. If you don't know how this works, whether we disappear, reform, never have existed at all.
Lucien: This is why I will not work with meddlers!
Sigrid: There would be so much more life in the other timeline.
Dalitar: There would be so many more choices for people.
Reb: But that I won't be alive, noooooo.
Sigrid: You might be. We, any of us might be.
Reb: Look, I may not know how chronomancy works, but I know how time works. And it would be me, but not me but someone else.
Lucien's looking very pissed at how the conversation is going. Reb does his reading and notices Lucien's staff is more charged than last time, flickering at the top with blue and purple lightning. Reb reads the rules of the spell: Lucien asks his five questions.
Lucien: Is the creator of the third Golden moon still here?
Reb: Yah.
Lucien: Would they join me in my ritual?
Reb: Never.
Lucien: Is Qwyn ready?
Reb: Unclear. To be fair, if you ever met them, you would be--
Lucien: I literally helped raise them.
Reb: OK. Then they're about as unsure of everything as they've always been. I can give you that one for free, to be honest. But it's already been done.
Lucien: Should I let you meddlers live?
Reb: Unclear.
Lucien: Do the nargles regret how it ended?
Reb: Yes. Geez, how did that end. Even I don't know that.
Lucien: Our deal is complete.
Reb: Okay, I think we're leaving now. We're going to go and do Awarth things, I'm sure. So you shouldn't kill us.
Lucien: If I see you again, I will.
Before he leaves, Dal thanks him because he's helped to open his eyes to things that he didn't realise. And maybe he can turn the damage around that he did with shadowdancing. We leave Lucien deep in thought, timecode 02:24:01:14.
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