Precursor: https://korranberg.observer/2/keep-your-eyes-on-the-prize-week-1-2/


Session Roster: Ratha, Jinnis d’Kundarak, Khale, Sam Helfen, Tanthælas “Laz” Zoltrac


Mission Briefing from Tanarion d’Tharashk:
Our tracked shipment appears to have been distributed amongst the amassed goblinoid encampment surrounding the Gathering Stone, where a large-scale event was just about to begin.

A handful of marked crates were scheduled to be forwarded to the ruined city of Lyrenton, where we discovered members of the Order of the Blackened Sky and suspect that Master Archivist Taelios Vaun is somewhere nearby, conducting his “field research”.

The Order of the Blackened Sky is a Karrnathi sect of House Deneith, and their influence is now somewhat apparent in the military readiness of the goblinoid masses.

Whatever this is, it’s likely much bigger than what we’ve pieced together so far. It’s time to find Vaun and get some answers, once and for all.


Objectives:
– Locate and definitively expose Taelios Vaun red-handed. Investigate what he’s up to.
– Ratha said it best, “We go towards Vaun, find out anything we can, then run. No way can we fight a marching goblin army.”


Outcome:
After interrogating the surviving soldier, the party decides they’ve seen enough necromancy to know when it’s “wise enough” to behead all the twitching corpses with Jinnis’ mini-guillotine contraption! The survivor was bound, gagged, buried and location flagged…just in case the Keepers had the opportunity to take him back with them.

Wailing and crying could be heard on the wind with each magical pulse in the distance. The Keepers pushed forward. The surrounding ruins were silent, dust and bodies everywhere. Evidence of a long fought siege all around. Bone, stone and ash seemed to amalgamate. The dead gray mist swallowed both land and sky…then the source of the glowing magical pulsing was found. It was Magister Taelios Vaun, casting within a ritual circle. Several floating sarcophagi humming in the air, suspended. Two warforged both still on either side of Vaun, at the boundary of the fog.

Vaun appeared to be weaving arcane latticework in such a way that mimicked drilling a tunnel through stone. He notices the party and offers them a choice — learn more about the truth of secret projects Minotaur & Divinity at a specific Cannith black site location called Whitehearth within the Mournland.. or attempt to warn Breland of the incoming goblin warbands of Darguun, seeking war. Vaun discovered souls could be harvested, used and remade into something new… a fuel source to power machines and arcane magic among other things. House Cannith failed with their Project Minotaur but Project Divinity seeks to build upon their shortcomings. Vaun seeks knowledge, knowledge to harness and control power.. and he believes he is “not in the wrong” and more suited to do so than those Cannith failures. “Chaos is a ladder, we can climb it. The world desires war,” he justifies.

The Keepers decide to pursue truth and to essentially flee from the goblinoid army in the west. They are pulled into the Mournland by Vaun’s arcane tunnel, recognizing that the Mournland is a manifest zone for Xoriat and that the daelkyr magic distorted time and space. Two of the sarcophogi are left at the entrance of the arcane tunnel into the Mournland. The arcane tunnel latticework seemed to protect those inside of it, repelling the Mournland’s mists. A few of us notice shapes in the mists that look like sorrowful people in old Cyran attire…calling out to us. But in actuality, they were angry spirits, will-o’-wisps, trying to cling on to the closest living thing. Vaun dropped the arcane tunnel and basically told us we’d appreciate the truth more this way… a combat encounter ensues, the Keepers survive, Vaun made his point and brings the tunnel back online to push forward toward Whitehearth.

The party is once again “sucked forward” into the tunnel but this time it seems like they go back in time as well, to the Day of Mourning. Everything around them outside the tunnel appear to be in slow-motion with the time shifting, everything, everywhere, all at once. People of all walks of life in Cyran clothes going about their business, when suddenly there occurs a violent tearing — as if the light, their souls, are being pulled from the bodies. Bodies collapse and the angry spirits from earlier attempt to dive into the bodies to reanimate them. 2 Cannith scientists can be seen “ghostbustering” all of these souls, magic similar-looking to that of the arcane latticework tunnel that Vaun has been weaving. The souls are supposedly stored at a large facility in Whitehearth according to Vaun.

Vaun stops at a certain point and the other two sarcophagi seemingly activate. We can see the Whitehearth facility up ahead in the distance. Vaun asks again if we’re willing to learn the truth. He seeks aid to cross this final boundary because his magic is currently limited. Those of us with innate arcane abilities approach and offer some of our own power. Laz in particular offers all of his, desperately wanting to find truth behind his lover Rana’s fate. As the Keepers’ magic is consensually syphoned from them, exhaustion washes over them and they notice briefly a black shadow pass over Vaun’s eyeline..a darkened expression over his face, and he looks “hungry”. Vaun channels all of the arcane power into the fog ahead and yells out, “We’ve done it, we’ve made it!”… but his voice is different this time. It’s the voice of Archmage of the Closed Circle, Magister Arthellian Braum. First to negotiate with the daelkyr. Vaun is possessed!

Suddenly the arcane latticework shatters like glass, the tunnel closing in, while the mists and angry spirits start to collapse. Vaun is frozen in the air but dragged like a ragdoll puppet towards Whitehearth, waving towards the Keepers. The Keepers really had no choice but to charge into the fray and follow. The party meets Vaun still suspended in the air but the two sarcophagi have now been revealed to contain undead Karrnathi soldiers. Vaun himself appears less like himself and more like a decaying corpse being puppeteered. Combat ensues between the undead and the very worn thin party of Keepers. Ratha sends a message to her patron, seeking aid. The undead soldier fodder are fairly easily dispatched but the lich Vaun just wouldn’t go down without a fight. The Keepers were greatly injured but Khale ends up psychically choking out Vaun and his exposed heart. As Vaun’s mortal body expires, everyone notices a shadowy black mote attempting to escape from it and try to act fast. Laz attaches rope to a crossbow bolt then fires precisely and true right at the mote, harpooning it then reeling it back just enough for Ratha to slash at it with her already-possessed sword. Braum has been contained…for now.

We push on to the Whitehearth facility. The large dome in the center is most likely the housing place for all The Mourning souls. We don’t realize how much time has passed, how far we need to go back or how long that will take. We came here for truth but only have so much time to do so. There’s an urgency in everyone’s motions as we gather as much as we can here because the area was becoming so unstable. We see more crates with bullheaded symbols on them and find several old research notes. This was ground zero for something. Sam falls over some buried remnants of old prototypes of warforged titans that appear to have familiar latticework. The mad scramble continues… Breland must be warned!