Session 10: The True Flame
General Summary
Inside the dimly lit chamber, Bal began to answer the Keeper’s question of, “Who are you?”. However, he was interrupted by another voice in the room coming from behind them. A figure stepped forward, seemingly without making any noise. He was thin, wore tailored robes of black and silver, had thin grey hair and a grey mustache and trimmed beard. He introduced himself as Bright Cardinal DeRoche and told the Keeper that these people were here by way of a miracle, traveling through the very flame itself. However, he also removed the Foundation’s means of escape, reaching out a hand and pulling the flames into himself. With that, he told the Keeper to go rest and she left her meditation chambers with a lighted guardian named Pumpkin at her side, a huge mix of a wolf and black panther, parts of its body lit with pale, white flames. Around the room, they saw there were a dozen more.
DeRoche invited the Foundation to stay as honored guests and led them up out of the chambers. As they walked to their apartments, Marcella noticed Templar guards who she knew only held guard positions in one place: the Pale Palace in Flamekeep, Thrane. At the apartments, the Foundation was left in what amounted to a very fancy prison cell. The windows only opened a few inches and Vax found he could not do magic inside the palace. Bal asked the Templar guarding the room for food, who reluctantly agreed to go and find the Foundation “snacks”. However, the party was not successful in finding a way out.
As Yelena tried to force the window open further, a voice called out telling them, “Please don’t do that.” The voice was coming from the fireplace, within the flames itself, as the party saw what appeared to be the Keeper, but her appearance was slightly different. She told them that she could help them get out, but not far. Without any other options, the party agreed and as they put their hands in the fire, they were once again transported, this time to the raining streets of Flamekeep not far from the Pale Palace.
Determined, the Foundation headed straight for the Cathedral of the Flame at the center of the city, following the massive pillar of silver white fire. Marcella ducked into an alcove and shifted their appearance to look like the Templar who had been guarding their apartments, using a minor illusion to recreate the symbol of the Templars around their neck. Outside the gates of the Cathedral, they found a small crowd protesting and a templar guarding the gate. Apparently, there had been a larger protest earlier in the week that had led to the Cathedral being locked down to the public. The Templar noticed Marcella in disguise and waved them over. Everyone but Vax followed, as Vax peeled off and donned his ring of invisibility to keep tabs at a distance.
The Templar was about 6 and a half feet tall, had premature grey hair in an undercut, and was a goliath. He asked why Marcella was with the crowd and she lied, saying that DeRoche had sent her with the rest of the Foundation, that they were honored guests and needed to be brought to the cathedral. Seemingly convinced, the templar agreed to get them inside. As he left his post, he used his broadsword to send a wave of white flames at the protesters, forcibly dispersing them.
The templar led the party around to the church’s rectory and he produced a silver key not unlike the one Vax was carrying, found in Verite’s apartment. As he led the party through the gate, Vax had to use misty step to get through without being locked out. The templar led the Foundation through the rectory and into the Cathedral itself, a massive expanse of gothic architecture with at least 20 alcoves and antechambers. He then left them there and told them he would be right back.
Not wanting to wait, Bal and Turk went to investigate the pillar of the Flame. A brazier sat on a large slab of marble that held the massive pillar of flames at the center of the church. As they got close, they found that their fingers began to alight with the pale fire of the flame. Bal hid around the corner of the slab and discovered that when he touched it with his hands in flames, a secret door opened revealing a small set of stairs to a chamber beneath the pillar.
As the party went below, Marcella put a minor illusion on the opening making it look like solid marble again. Inside, they found a sarcophagus carved with the image of Tira Miron, with skull motifs on the sides. After checking for traps, they managed to open the sarcophagus to find it empty save for one thing: the dragonshard skull. Turk was clearly confused and didn’t understand. Bal went to investigate the skull and found a similar situation as before: when he touched it, he disappeared. One by one, the rest followed Bal, except for Vax who nimbly placed the skull in his pack without touching it before then following.
They found themselves in a pocket dimension, a small medieval sitting area. There, they found a woman sitting in a chair. As they approached, she said, “What do you want now?”. When Bal responded, she turned to finally look at them. Sitting there was Tira Miron herself. They were soon joined by the Keeper, Jaela, who began to explain things.
What came next was a flurry of information: Tira explained that everything the church believed was a lie. The Silver Flame was not a benign, god-like entity, but a natural arcane force. In 229 YK, she was not a simple peasant woman, but a paladin of the Templar Order, established long before the church. During her time as a templar, she discovered the first dragonshard skull; a Siberys dragonshard (gold and white) in Thaliost. She found that she could draw power from the skull carved long ago to channel the Flames natural power. She also found that, in seeking out more of these skulls and destroying them, the one skull got more powerful. So, she destroyed all but two, stopping only when she realized her mistake. The flame had been a natural protection, a gift from the dragon Siberys herself, to protect Eberron from the evils beneath the surface. With only two left, the flame was not strong enough to keep back the Archfiend who broke through.
Tira used her strength to try to stop the wave of evil spewing forth, but she could not. Eventually, Galifar II had to intervene and help put down the demonic invasion. Tira did indeed slay the archfiend, but when the dust settled, Galifar II wanted answers. Instead of telling the truth, the templars created a lie that ensured their order remained and they were not punished. Tira accepted her new prison, created out of one of two remaining dragonshard skulls (the one they were currently in) and the church sprung up around the belief that she had been an ordinary woman, empowered by a god-like entity, to save the world.
The Keeper had come to this place only a few years ago, replaced by a doppelganger on the outside. She tells the Foundation that both DeRoche and his right hand man Bright Ser Corbyn, a goliath templar, have been siphoning power from the flame, leaving it a shadow of its former self. Tira asks the Foundation to leave this place and to destroy the last two skulls, allowing the Silver Flame to take on its original, natural form; spread out over all of Eberron.
To do this, Tira gifts the Foundation with her former sword, Emberime. A longsword imbued with a bit of the Silver Flame itself. Keeper Jaela also tells the party not to trust DeRoche or Corbyn, but to trust the Flamewatcher. With that, the party leaves with Marcella expressing her desire to see the Church come to ruin. As a parting message, the Keeper tells her, “Do not find so much joy in destroying the faith of millions.”
Back outside the skull, the party finds the cathedral’s main doors open and the gate no longer locked. They also find that it is the next day in the morning, time inside the skull being strange. They decide to go to the abandoned Sovereign Temple where they can discuss next steps without any prying eyes. They want to go to Thaliost, but don’t want to leave Essex behind. Turk uses his dragonmark to cast sending, speaking to Essex over a large distance. Turk tells Essex that they are heading to Thaliost and to meet them there. Essex tells Turk that he is already headed that way.
The Foundation then decides to take a riverboat to Thaliost, being the fastest means of travel. Vax is proudly able to pay for his own 10 crown riverboat ticket and the Foundation pack onto the cramped vessel, sitting with the rest of the travelers under the overhang as it is still raining in Flamekeep and likely will be until they settle their feud with House Lyrandar. As soon as the riverboat makes it out to the Thrane river, the rain stops and the party finds themselves on a lovely riverboat ride in the mid-morning.
During their travel, Rasp sleeps and Vax goes off to investigate the skull. During this time, a tiefling woman with brown skin and pursed lips sits next to Bal after he spots her checking on them. The woman introduces herself as Flamewatcher Monast saying that she has been keeping very close tabs on them. When Marcella and Bal scoff at this, she points out a number of TCB agents they did not notice on the ship. She tells them that the bumbling agents they have met are plants meant to deter people from seeing their real agents and that they are chronically underestimated by design. She tells Bal that she wants to help because DeRoche and Corbyn have become too corrupt. She is the only non-church member of the Ministry and believes it is time to do something about those two. She will do what she can to keep Thaliost clear for them to do what they need to do.
Later, while Yelena is cleaning and checking her weapons, Flamewatcher Monast briefly sits next to her, saying, “I don’t know why you’re here, but I know. I just want you to keep Thrane in mind in what you’re doing.” No one but Yelena hears this exchange. While investigating the skull, Vax finds that he too can pull some power from it, allowing him to cast cone of cold for up to an hour each day.
The riverboat finally arrives in Thaliost in the evening, and for many they see this strange, contradictory city for the first time: the former capital of Aundair, war-torn from the famed Siege of Thaliost, built up over time, city on top of city. At the docks, they meet Essex who is waiting for them dressed in a traveling cloak with the hood pulled up. From their conversation with Tira, the skull is somewhere ancient in the city. The Foundation stops at the Crown’s Rest pub for some food, realizing they haven’t eaten in a long time. Marcella suggests they head to the Cornerstone Park in the north part of the city, admitting that she knows there are ancient, arcane places in the graveyard there as they had once decided not to enter the city in that direction during the Siege of Thaliost. Essex was taken aback that Marcella was a part of the siege, saying that the 66th was also there. He asks her how she made it out alive, to which she says that she was carried. The conversation dies down and the Foundation heads to Cornerstone Park.
The graveyard is a large, above-ground graveyard cluttered with tall headstones, mausoleums, and shrines. Spirits wander here and there as this place is indeed saturated with the arcane. Rasp ends up stumbling upon a shrine set into a mound that has golden dragon motifs. On the shrine sits a simple bowl and, after a few attempts, Bal finds that a Siberys dragonshard has made its way into one of his pockets. He places the shard into the bowl and the shrine opens revealing a set of stairs that goes down into the mound. Inside, they find a wide, ancient shrine to Siberys. However, the shrine now has tables, chairs, desks, cots, and other things set up for someone to have been working in. In an antechamber blocked off by a glass partition, is the golden dragonshard skull. While looking through what has been left behind, it is discovered that this place is a Shadow outpost of some kind. This confirms Turk’s theory, that the shadow had been stealing relics and artifacts during the war for some unknown purpose.
Before they can get too far into searching the shrine, they are interrupted. Bal keeps watch at the top of the steps but is thrown back by Ser Corbyn who appears brandishing his greatsword. Bal recovers inside as Corbyn and DeRoche enter the shrine and thank the Foundation for leading them right to the original dragonshard skull. Essex turns on Corbyn who recognizes him and chides him for being a werewolf.
Before the Foundation can defend themselves, DeRoche raises a hand and sends tongues of silver flame at each of them. Though most shake off the charm, Marcella and Yelena’s eyes suddenly light with silver fire.
Comments