His final act of obscenity upon the populace was the abduction of three girls - Jeselle, Privea, and Maige. Using his own power and countless tortures, he instilled within them a lust for suffering and set them loose upon the city, their newfound abilities put to use maiming and killing the very populace which tried to save them. Satisfied with his efforts, he became scarce among the Freeport, once again focusing on the search for the merchant who held the sword piece.
During this, Ulstram's time was split between attempting to subvert Eryael's efforts with the help of his followers and the construction of another link into the mind of the Painlord, all while attempting to convince the merchant to reconsider his offer. He imparted a sphere of power among those who would seek to help the three girls - Subarashi, Rebeya, and Godefroy. They were tasked with unlocking the power of the spheres through various meditation techniques throughout shrines across the world.
~1~
They set out on their task, which took them to many different places, one of which was Teras Island.
This is where Nershuul was tasked with something other than simple reconnaissance - he was given orders to directly interfere. As their resources were stretched thin, he was tapped to act as a point of contact between the free agents of Lornon and act as a guiding force of violence and chaos throughout the rest of the campaign. He would lead several strike forces of Luukosian soldiers and undead to hamper and interfere with the rituals - but they would ultimately succeed, and the spheres were filled with holy power. However, Nershuul had found a suitable corpse to manipulate and inhabit during his time on Teras Island and would use this to lead attacks against the Resistance.
~2~
Returning to Solhaven, the bearers of the spheres would eventually find the three stricken girls, near mad with their newfound powers, and use the spheres to exorcise them of their tortures and of Eryael's power. The girls' minds became unclouded, and while they could barely remember what had happened to them, the scars they suffered ran deep, and they would eventually be returned to their families. Our assigned contacts report that Jeselle broke down after a few months and is now confined to the asylum on Teras Island, while Maige and Privea have lead quiet, reclusive lives.
It was at this time when Ulstram and Chaeye completed their preparations and had found ways around the warding Draezir had placed on Eryael's mind. Navigating through the maze-like channels of power, they were able to open another gateway into the Painlord's mind and hastily assembled their respective followers.
~3~
Once again cautioning them against the dangers of the dreamscape, Ulstram and Chaeye breached the realm of dreaming and allowed in those who would fight against Eryael.
The warriors would be faced with something altogether different than the massive coliseum - within Eryael's mind was a chain of islands surrounded by utterly still waters and a deep fog. Upon each island was a specific torture, including bloodletting, whipping, a device which would instantly scar and maim a person, as one of the warriors, Railien, would discover quite unpleasantly, and the final act was to stretch an illusory woman on a rack, which hampered everyone's morale quite soundly.
~4~
Boarding the pristine white boats for the last time, they made their way to a temple of pure ivory, its elegant architecture marred by various signs of violent destruction - shattered glass, broken columns. There, they came upon a pool surrounded by several sigils of power. Touching the pool, the warriors were subject to Eryael's deepest memory - his conversion to Mularos.
Apparently a prodigy with various flora, Eryael was left at a temple of unknown faith, though it is very likely it was Imaera from our initial research describing the following incidents. Regardless, the temple and its elderly inhabitants were destroyed by a rather insane individual, whom regarded the land they built their temple on as his own and summarily burned it to the ground, killing Eryael's master in front of him in a most gruesome fashion.
~5~
Finding Eryael, this man would use him as an outlet for suffering, visiting thousands upon thousands of tortures upon the boy - the most significant being his first act of aggression. He methodically and painfully removed the boy's eyes in order to let his other senses become sharper in preparation for the various tortures he was to plan.
This continued for several years, the man torturing the blind boy until one evening, Eryael heard a voice in his mind. It asked him what kept him from breaking all these years, and he replied that he simply wished to make things beautiful again. The voice - Mularos, if we are to believe this memory - was satisfied with this answer and healed the boy's vision, turning his once golden eyes to violet. The vision ended with Eryael adding this man to what is termed his 'garden.'
~6~
When asked about Eryael's garden, Nershuul spoke fondly of it - while Eryael seemed soft and delicate and almost childish on the outside, his true side was shown in the garden. There, he kept thousands of his past victims he deemed unfit to serve save for in this fashion - they would be impaled on pikes within a vast expanse of desert, enchanted with healing magics to ensure their death would never happen prematurely, forever cursed to be impaled over and over again as they writhed in agony. Nershuul speaks of meeting Eryael there several times to discuss strategy, and he found it a rather pleasant backdrop to such discussions. His only regret, he said, is that they never had a cup of tea there.
Beyond such tidbits of historical significance, they eventually connected the events in the pool to the corresponding sigils, and once deciphered, a door was opened.
~7~
Within lay a single multi-hued rose - pristine white petals bordering the inner crimson ones, while within the very core of the bud were pure black. Using the sphere of power given by Ulstram, Kerl used it against the rose, and once more the dream world was torn asunder, the warriors having succeeded in their mission.
Eryael was also struck by an unending coma, and immediately his relatively small army of followers took up to tending to him and resuming their roles under Morvule's command. As Draezir had recently come upon a particularly intriguing lead, Morvule lead his army from the Sea of Fire to Solhaven with the intent of finishing what would needed to be done.
~8~
It is here we must digress into a strange situation that had arisen among the city of Solhaven. A traveler by the name of Volierre had arrived, speaking of something vague that he sought. He was elven in nature, and his eyes were clouded over and completely blinded. He spoke of being plagued by visions, of something called the 'All-Pattern,' and he sipped absinthe - what he called 'The Tongue of the Worm' - in order to stop the pain of the constant visions. From what we observed at the time, this man did indeed see visions, but they were only visions of the past. From his ramblings, it would seem that he saw everything which happened in the past all at once. This pointed fact would become extremely significant during the final days of the war.
~9~
Morvule began a brutally efficient assault, using his magical prowess to shatter Ulstram's barrier and combining the sheer number of his forces and his unrelenting, remorseless tactics meant to utterly destroy morale of those who would stand against him. He tasked many of the free agents of Lornon to set or encourage fires that his forces would set as they blazed a trail of destruction. He gave clear and ominous warnings, demanding a surrender, speaking of mercy, lest he do something that could never be undone and would weigh upon the conscience of all who did not lay down their arms.
The Resistance gave no quarter, eventually tracking down a project of Morvule's - he had captured an adult kraken and planned to create another necromantic horror using troll's blood and other magical components, essentially infesting the waters of Solhaven with these creations forever more.
~10~
The defenders of the city would retrieve this information and summarily set out to the locale where the horror was housed, destroying it and its guards in one fell swoop before his plans could be enacted.
Morvule's retaliation was swift and merciless.
At this time, the gates of Vornavis had been opened in order to take any who could not join the fight inside for a place of refuge. On the night of his ultimatum, Morvule revealed how utterly and wholly unforgiving he was - he tore back his robes to reveal massive wings and summarily rose into the sky, past the archers of Vornavis, and into the streets of the guarded city filled to the brim with the defenseless and the weak.
~11~
His targets were children - the children of all the refugees. He heralded his plan by swooping in and plucking one of the innocents. He landed in North Market, a common gathering place among the adventurers who made their way to Solhaven. There, he faced a large contingent of those he fought hardest against. As he held the mewling child in his claws, he spoke of how they could have prevented what was to happen. Without hesitation, amid the cries to stop from the defenders, he spilled the child's innards right in the market, then ascended into the air once more.
~12~
It was then that the true horror began. Shadowy wraiths appeared at strategic locations, stealing away the children among the gates of Vornavis - they were systematically slaughtered and raised as the undead in a massive effort by the serpent priest. The undead children were then set upon the town in waves, and the defenders were forced to dispatch those that they had failed to protect. Hardened warriors were hard-pressed to lift their swords, while others simply refused to have a hand in such things.
Eventually, all the innocents killed were dispatched. Morvule continued to barrage the city with attacks, eventually joining his forces with Draezir's, and they again subjugated Solhaven and renamed it Nighthaven, threatening further atrocities should Ulstram refuse to give the location of the merchant.
~13~
Nershuul finds all of this particularly amusing and recalls it extremely fondly, as he was allowed to roam freely in his newfound giantman form, leading Morvule's forces and destroying some of the more vexing of defenders.
After his first ultimatum and the slaughtering of innocent children, Morvule spoke of another horror to be unleashed. He gave no warning and demanded no surrender now, but many remember seeing his silhouette flying to the locale of Bonespear Tower, an abandoned structure of an incredibly talented demonologist. Scaling the top of the tower with his minions in tow, Morvule used the summoning circle atop it to rip open a plane in the veil. Through it he tore incredibly powerful demons - the abyran'ra, which had accompanied him previously in small numbers, and the newer more hideous creatures - the many-eyed oculoth and the insanely powerful vathor.
~14~
Ablen struggled bravely to fend off the first wave - a cloud of demons so large it threatened to black out the sky with the numbers as it burst from the tower and headed straight for Solhaven. Using all of his power, Ablen sent forth a burning torrent of holy fire towards the mass of death and destruction and summarily repelled the majority of the demons in one fell swoop. Their presence would linger from then on, however, and the armies of Luukosian and Sheruvians swelled with demonic power.
With these creatures, the Resistance was hard-pressed to fight against the army - the oculoth's bite would drive a man insane and turn him against his fellows or make him collapse into a mewling pile of spittle and failure. The vathor used the corpses of the dead to create a demonic undead mix of ruthless efficiency - the necleriine, creatures who took on the characteristics of the dead they were 'born' from. Both were incredibly resistant to the efforts of even the most skilled of adventurers.
~15~
Ulstram, beyond attempting to bolster the defenses of the beleaguered Solhaven, had found a way into Morvule's mind. Chaeye flat out refused to cooperate several times due to the risk, but eventually relented faced with the mounting terrors Morvule and Draezir loosed upon the populace.
Nershuul explains that Morvule expected this, even counted on it, as his actions forced Ulstram's hand in the matter, but it was not without risk - the land of dreaming and the mind are treacherous, strange places, and Morvule was unfamiliar with such things. Steeling himself, he had to willingly allow the warriors within the confines of his consciousness and rely on several enchantments prepared by himself and the free agents of Lornon. They had gathered a number of gems and components to cast a strange mental spell upon him that would aid in his defense.
~16~
Entering the mind of the serpent priest, the warriors encountered something devoid of anything remotely recognizable. They wandered within a massive symbol of infinity - three doors stood before them: upon the left, an entranceway to a monstrous horror, whose body contained a heart, and upon the right, an entranceway to a pomegranate tree, whose leaves bore pristine white fruit and whose branches held a tiny asp. The halls of this construction were filled with the undead creatures they had fought prior, and they pushed to make their way to both chambers.
Finding both items, they met at the convergence of the massive infinity symbol, where a door stood before a plate. Placing these items within the confines of the plate, death's door opened - Morvule's mind was a symbol of Luukos' interpretation of the cycle of Life and Death - on one side were lies, on the other was undeath, with death bridging the gap between them.
~17~
They stepped through and were met with three serpents - one black, one white, and one emerald, again an interpretation of Luukos' tenets. They were massive in size, and though they felled one of the beasts, the other two eventually destroyed every single person there. Now Morvule made his move - as there were no conflicting minds within his own, he pushed back against the link Chaeye and Ulstram had forged and into Ulstram's mind. He found exactly what he wanted - the location of the merchant.
Ulstram, momentarily stunned by Morvule's doings, recovered quickly even as the others found themselves expulsed from the dream world forcibly. They reconvened, and at that moment, Ulstram told them what had happened. Scrying the man's location, he found him and Kendryth there and explained what had happened and what would happen should the merchant not divulge the sword piece - Morvule's entire army had withdrawn and was heading towards the merchant's home.
~18~
The merchant, stricken with fear, told Ulstram what he needed to know, and Kendryth summarily took action to save his life. Kendryth provided the distraction that Ulstram needed in order to move quickly and challenged Morvule to combat as he approached, eventually slashing the priest's hand off before succumbing to Morvule's power, and escaping only with his life.
Ulstram, knowing the location, took his trusted circle there to meet Morvule's armies. This was where Nershuul was struck down with a blow to the head by Perigourd, injuring the creature's actual body, which appeared to reside in the skull somewhere. Several hours after the initial battle, our teams arrived and knew what to look for - they found Nershuul and placed the head in a box of pure veil iron as a precaution. We would eventually come to coax information out of him through this most fortuitous turn of events.
~19~
The group would fight through the Dark Alliance's forces as they descended upon the house and made their way into a subterranean maze, which eventually lead to a vault of epic proportions. Ulstram was able to pass through the nearly impenetrable barrier, and within he found the blade of the sword.
Whisking his supporters away from the onslaught of the Dark Alliance, Ulstram returned to the city triumphant. The blade was theirs, but Morvule's anger was like a storm. He loosed all of his forces and tore fearsome demons from the outermost planes upon Solhaven like a furious whirlwind of destruction, demanding the blade be given to him. They descended like a plague upon the city, burning and destroying everything in their path.
~20~
Ulstram, seeing the suffering of all the innocent lives and the destruction of everything his followers held dear, decided there was only one course of action. He reforged the blade using Lorminstra's power, and, while the sword remained incomplete without its other three pieces, it was still a formidable weapon. Despite protests of his followers against the danger and possible folly, Ulstram knew it was the only way.
Perhaps it was part of his prophetic visions, or perhaps it was related to how he had neared resolving his issues with the spirit who plagued him incessantly, but he felt the need to do what he would.
He challenged Morvule, and the two met upon the field of battle, Morvule wielding his own tainted version of the sword. Ulstram fought bravely, but in the end, it was not enough. Morvule struck him down and recovered the blade.
~21~
As Ulstram had essentially consecrated the blade once more, the power he filled it with could thus be corrupted by Morvule, rather than rendering the blade inert.
Now in possession of all four pieces and the prophet of Lorminstra dead, the Resistance was faced with even greater troubles - as Morvule consecrated the last piece to darkness, the Black Temple was charged with massive amounts of essence and power, which summarily funneled through the links of each priest and instantly awoke Eryael and Zerroth. Unable to convert the sword on another plane of existence, the Four revealed their sanctuary - the Black Temple appeared in the skies as the Four were sequestered into the Altar of Darkness. Their minions were tasked with overseeing the operations in their absence, and as massive energies permeated the skies and day turned into everlasting night, the Four began the conversion process.
~22~
The undead, demons, and the living servants of the Four ran wild across the lands, slaughtering all in a hellish reaping of their enemies.
Kendryth and Ablen were abducted as they fought against this terrible onslaught and were summarily sacrificed and slaughtered. Nershuul laughs when speaking of this - an odd clicking sound - of seeing images of the two being eaten alive by the very demons they fought against within the confines of the Black Temple through his link to Morvule.
Nershuul reveals that even though our protections in trapping and subduing him were indeed quite impressive, that Morvule's connection with him remained throughout - he just didn't care for failures at this pinnacle of all of their plans and thus did not rescue him. He spoke of seeing brief flashes through Morvule's eyes of Morfell being taken to the Altar of Darkness to reforge his link with the sword as its original bearer.
~23~
Through him, Nershuul explained, they would corrupt the last trace of Lorminstra's power from the sword.
It was at this time, at this darkest moment, that the events surrounding Maluverre and Volierre came to light. For months, Volierre - often speaking of himself as the 'Foundation' - had been seeking something called the Advent. While he was in Solhaven, strange occurrences would happen, including visions of an old temple, of strange marionettes, of a winged woman standing before a wasteland that would sweep across the citizens and defenders of the city in odd, mass visions. Volierre's constant ramblings, of his singular minded goal of seeking this Advent, would lead him down a strange and difficult path with the defenders of Solhaven.
~24~
Maluverre, during all his time spent in Solhaven, had avoided meeting this man. When asked of him, he was evasive and somewhat alarmed by his description. When pressed by people he normally found rather agreeable, he would simply avoid the topic or find an excuse to be elsewhere.
However, due to our most phenomenal research attempts, we've gathered the backgrounds of these two - while the 'trinkets of fate' provided a brief glimpse, the overall story was known to only a few - namely a mute boy named Yukito, a rather intelligent girl named Raelee, and an empath by the name of Nilandia, whose company he often sought out. Maluverre, an elementalist of no small skill, was once drawn to the spiritual side of life and magic - he was inducted into a secret cult of Gosaena during his collegiate years.
~25~
The ideology behind this sect was somewhat strange - during Maluverre's time within the ranks, the ruling half of the sect was referred to as 'the Right Hand,' signifying a philosophy amongst Gosaena followers, the right hand embodying the more compassionate side of life's path, and the left signifying the more ruthless side. Most temples depict life as a blend of such paths, and this cult seemed to take such seriously, for every few centuries the cult would switch its leadership to the opposite path.
At this time, the young Maluverre had found himself in quite an influential position within the cult and summarily met a young woman within the fold - a cartographer of unsurpassed skill. Being an esoteric scholar himself, he found her studies intriguing, and the two eventually fell in love.
Her name was Sylvirria Azarielle.
~26~
She eventually revealed to Maluverre her ultimate goal - she had been seeking the locale of one of the very first temples of Gosaena, an ancient site that supposedly predated the elven empire itself. At this point the accounts of our contacts becomes hazy, as the exact nature of the situation is known only to Maluverre and Sylvirria. It appears that Sylvirria made a breakthrough in her research, and driven by her sole passion, left to seek out the temple alone.
She found what she sought and apparently her time there 'changed' her - from accounts of a journal of Volierre's, within the temple a strange stasis existed. Within the very heart of the massive complex lay three pools - when Volierre visited there, two of these pools were empty, but one was filled with rippling silver light. We suspect that when Sylvirria was there, all three were, lacking a better term, 'active' at the time.
~27~
Regardless, when she returned, Maluverre had just been anointed the new spiritual leader of the cult, and his first duty was to transition seats of power from the Right Hand to the Left, as the time was upon them to enact such a change. As the Left Hand rose to power, Maluverre expected his beloved to return with good news.
Instead, she returned as a half-mad visage of their Arkati - upon her back were black wings, and she was cursed with sight of the future constantly. The burden of such power was too much for her, and she began to act incredibly strange. Among her acts were single-handedly stopping a massive military campaign by the Vaalor elves - she was never seen, but the unleashing of her power aroused much suspicion within the political circles. Fearing the discovery of their cult, the Left Hand acted - they had attempted to talk to Sylvirria, but she was utterly uncooperative, refusing to reveal the locale of the temple.
~28~
Faced with no other choice, the Left Hand decided that she would be subdued and imprisoned within a crystal - they had attempted to assassinate her, but upon the eve of the assassin's strike, she had simply stood and addressed him as if she had known him all his life, asking him to please do her the mercy. The arrow was loosed and did absolutely nothing to her. She went quietly when they came to take her away, and Maluverre, being the leader of the cult, could not show compassion to her when handing down the decree that the council of his peers had decided on.
Maluverre proceeded over the ritual to seal her away forever into a crystalline prison. She was consigned to the depths of the earth, and her chambers were sealed away so that none could ever come upon her again. But Maluverre's feelings did not fade - the only thing which did was his passion for his compatriot's cult - he left shortly after, stepping down as their leader.
~29~
During the few conversations between them when she returned, Maluverre apparently learned the locale of the temple Sylvirria had visited. While she warned him never to go there, his longing for her and his rather dangerous sense of curiosity lead him to its ancient halls.
We can only assume the same thing happened to Maluverre, as he was summarily referred to by Volierre upon meeting him as the 'Keeper of the Present,' a key role in the ritual they would conduct. From witness accounts, it appears that Maluverre also gained a strange ability - he was, for all intents and purposes, unable to be seen, noticed, or remembered after the time since he left the temple, unless he chose to be. So while all those he had met prior certainly retained their memories of him, should they pass him by in the street, he would simply be another face if he wished.
~30~
He had effectively become nonexistent to history's pages from that point on, only revealing himself as an eccentric, curious scholar to those he thought might be good conversationalists.
Using this strange new ability, he hid in plain sight in Ta'Illistim, his longing for his love eventually leading him to her burial place. He quietly and slowly began an excavation, stealing Sylvirria away in an attempt to awaken her from an eternal sleep. He placed her underneath his new home in Ta'Illistim and began his research efforts.
This continued for several centuries, until at long last, the Illistim scholar gave up hope - he turned away from the spiritual paths and began to use his near infinite free time to study the ways of the elemental planes. He kept Sylvirra underneath his home, occasionally visiting her, but otherwise he'd given up on all such attempts to free her and awaken her.
~31~
In the year 5100, the Left Hand noticed that Sylvirria had gone missing. They began to delve into her leftover research and eventually found an elf as brilliant as herself in both ancient histories and cartography - his name was Volierre. They inducted him swiftly into the ranks, promising him a great cache of artifacts to study, and after a few scant years Volierre found what the Left Hand had never gazed upon - the ancient temple.
Knowing that something had happened there that was extraordinary and possibly dangerous, the Left Hand lead a faux expedition to the site. There they found a great many unusual things - we have a copy of Volierre's journal and will be including it among these reports, in which he expounds upon his expedition and his eventual transformation.
~32~
The Left Hand made certain Volierre was within the temple's confines, then orchestrated a cave-in, leaving him completely stranded. Volierre managed to survive, but was haunted by visions and strange dreams. Eventually, he found the pools within the heart of the temple - and he awoke one night to find that he had immersed himself in one of them in his sleep. This experience seemed to change him, and as his vision became overwhelmed by images of the past, he eventually went blind and half-mad from the onslaught of information. If we are to believe his journal, he had knowledge of everything that had ever happened in the past - he speaks of being one of the Vaalorian warriors at the fall of ShadowGuard and of times even more ancient than that. His 'All-Pattern' he spoke so frequently of seemed to be this grand tapestry, a webwork of interconnected events and happenings that spread across the broad expanse of time's past - something he could never escape no matter how hard he tried.
~33~
Now armed with intricate knowledge of the temple's purpose, he made his way back to Ta'Illistim. He did not trust the Left Hand any longer, but during his time there they had secretly placed a geas upon him. Upon his return, he was compelled to obey their commands - to find Sylvirria, or the 'Advent,' in his mind. As he sought her regardless, he complied, but revealed nothing of his knowledge on the past, only demonstrating to them that he was powerful enough to be their weapon. According to the notes we have from Maluverre included in this report, the Left Hand intentionally broke the ancient ritual which bequeathed him these gifts for their own lust for power, and it was this realization that eventually lead him to act against them.
~34~
He fought against their control while in Solhaven, the distance dissipating some of the effects of the enchantment they had put on him, but not entirely. It was Maluverre who became aware of the Left Hand's manipulations with Volierre and was threatened by their presence in Solhaven and the potential of being discovered through him. He took flight to Ta'Illistim one evening after his realization - scraps of his journal accompany this document to give a fuller explanation of his motives. There, he sabotaged the Left Hand's headquarters, destroying their grip on Volierre and sending some of their well-laid plans into chaos. To his dismay, Volierre searched for him even without their hand to guide him - for he knew what had to be done to complete the cycle which had been set in motion.
~35~
So it was that these two never met by Maluverre's avoidance of anything connected to his past dealings with the Gosaena sect.
Getting back to the current happenings with the sword, on the eve of the sword's consecration to complete darkness, Maluverre told the assembled crowd on his airship most of this story. He spoke of his past, of his lost love, of what transgressed with the Gosaena cult. He expressed regret at having to keep such secrets from his newfound companions, colleagues, and friends. While he was brief, those who spoke to him often wondered of his past were given the last pieces of the puzzle, and brought Volierre aboard.
The two met, and suddenly Volierre was able to see him - he seemed to know him already and greeted him as the 'Keeper of the Present.' They spoke little, as Maluverre took to the air, saying that he knew what had to be done, but did not know how to accomplish it.
~36~
From Solhaven, they flew like the wind on his airship, crossing the massive DragonSpine mountains swiftly, and made haste into Maluverre's small Illistim home. He took them past his study, leading them down a flight of hidden stairs and into a small underground chamber. There, they saw what had been hidden for centuries - Sylvirria, entombed in pure crystal.
Maluverre explained that he had tried to awaken her countless times in the past, but had failed and had simply given up. As the assembled crowd gazed upon her seemingly flawless visage and Volierre railed against any possible solution, a bright golden light suddenly winked into existence within the crystal.
~37~
Ulstram's spirit had returned - and suffusing the crystal in a hazy golden energy, the crystal shattered into nothingness and Sylvirria stood before them, awakened for the first time in centuries. Volierre was nearly uncontrollable, speaking of what must be done, of how the final ritual *must* be completed. She silenced him with a wave of her hand and spoke to him of what must happen - that she wished to use her precious few moments as a mortal woman to stop what she had foresaw. Volierre relented, and she took to the skies, wielding two scythes of black and white.
She obliterated the armies of the Dark Alliance that infested the countryside in minutes. Upon her return, they set off for Solhaven, and there Maluverre and Volierre's roles came to light - they had been components of an ancient ritual, conducted in the far distant past in the confines of the ancient temple all three had visited.
~38~
From what we can deduce, the three participants were to all play a part in raising one of Gosaena's mortal followers to the ranks of her silent, winged angels of death.
Volierre was the Foundation - the knowledge of all things past that her silent servants must be imparted, all of the prophecies that have now passed. Maluverre was the Keeper of the Present, the method by which all memory of those who ascended into Gosaena's silent ranks were never remembered once they had gone, how they had disappeared from society and the pages of history evermore. And Sylvirria was the Advent, the one who would see the death of all things and the mad dance of fate's strings upon the world, her vision was the vision of all those who quietly lead souls to their final death.
~39~
They completed their ritual before the crowd, as leaving it uncompleted for years had left all of them as broken pieces in an ancient puzzle long forgotten. Sylvirria was chosen as the one to leave this world for the Void, and before she left, she imparted something to a woman she had reached out for in her eternal sleep - Charna Ja'Varrel'Kav, a servant of Zelia's teetering neutrality. Sylvirria extended her hand and gifted her with a silver sickle, whose immense power was made clear shortly - it would simply end things with but a wave through the air.
Sylvirria then said that she could not accompany them to the temple, that she could no longer affect fate's web, and her duty was now to eternity. She left them then, bidding a sorrowful goodbye to Maluverre. As Volierre departed, his vision now clearing after years of the past blinding his eyes, the group took off in the airship to the Black Temple.
~40~
It was a grim time, but the spirit of Ulstram accompanied them silently, opening the massive doors of the giant temple with his golden blessings. The group entered the temple and were denied access to their ultimate goal - the Altar of Darkness. Exploring the temple even as cataclysmic energies raged across its inner walls, they fought through hordes of the Dark Alliance's most fanatical soldiers and creations. Finding shrines and areas dedicated to the Four priests, which were now sequestered away fulfilling their decades long plans, the warriors fought to find the keys that would open the door.
The first, Zerroth's chambers, was filled to the brim with his warriors, seething and already engaged in a violent bloodbath of rage.
~41~
The Resistance would fight hard to dispatch all of them, and eventually within a ring of bloodied weapons set before an altar, those killed in the battle were absorbed into the enchanted weaponry, and a massive obsidian sword blade appeared - Zerroth's key to the altar.
The group set forth to Eryael's chambers, where they were forced to pay a terrible toll for his key - they had to be the arbiters of pain and suffering, torturing innocents in grisly displays of never-ending torture. As they pulled apart people's limbs, dropped women into vats of boiling oil, and burned men alive, a crystal within the heart of his chamber became energized, and the wounds of the innocents were healed just on the brink of death. They left there, shaken, but with a pale ivory rosewhip.
~42~
They then encountered Draezir's chambers, a massive room of puzzles meant to drive those who attempted them insane. The Resistance met with much difficulty here, the driving force of time against them and their minds beset by all that would happen if they did not act quickly enough. They eventually made it through the agonizing puzzles - temporarily going insane to hear the mad whisperings of their own minds to retrieve a cube of shadow, casting spells of light to drive a creature of darkness to stare at itself in a mirror and disperse, making a dead heart beat through sorcerous magic, sacrificing one's eye to a clockwork contraption enchanted with darkness, an observatory where one needed to trace the constellation of the Jackal, and a puzzle of dangerous sigils. Once the Resistance had puzzled through all these, the temple of Draezir revealed his key - an amber-eyed black jackal head of onyx.
~43~
Lastly, they came upon Morvule's chambers - a dead temple, ruined beyond all imagining save for a massive statue of a wyrm within the heart of it. Nershuul tells us this was where Morvule was originally converted to Luukos and that he had preserved it within the confines of the Black Temple as some sort of odd sentimental piece. As they came upon the statue, the doorways to the temple suddenly slammed shut and locked, and the statue came alive - its body rippling with motes of strange color. A fierce battle ensued, the girth and size of the wyrm easily hitting all of the assembled warriors with ease. As they attempted to deduce a way to penetrate its thick, stony hide, they began to decipher its secrets - as it changed color, it became vulnerable to spells associated with such a hue. As it turned blue, cold spells were cast upon it, chipping away at its hide; when red, fire spells; when black, sorcerer spells - and so on.
~44~
Finally, after a prolonged battle, the massive serpent retreated and curled around the remains of a huge statue defensively, blocking parts of its body from attack as the adventurers continued to rage against it. Eventually, they destroyed the statue protecting it and with it, the beast was slain, revealing Morvule's key to the door - a void-black crystal heart.
Possessing all four keys, they stood before the threshold of the Altar of Darkness and opened the door. They found all of the Four priests in heavy prayer, the sword completely suffused with darkness - they were too late. It had been converted. The priests rose, some in anger, some already laughing, drunk with the power of the sword's total conversion. As they moved to descend on the adventurers like a pack of wolves, a golden light pushed them back - Ulstram's spirit was protecting them, and with a light brighter than the sun, a massive golden barrier surrounded the Resistance and the tainted sword, pushing back the priests.
~45~
As everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief, they suddenly realized something was wrong. The sword began to pulse rapidly, and a crack appeared within the golden shield that protected them. Through this sliver, a form stepped through - one that had not been seen by any of them for many years - Morfell. He had used his unbreakable connection to the sword to pierce Ulstram's shield, and he stood triumphant as he unsheathed it from the black rock which held it fast. Raising it high above his head, he prepared to dispatch those which had hampered them from the very beginning once and for all, a grand sacrifice to start off the culling of the world which was to come.
It was then that Charna knew when to strike. She brought the sickle to bear against Morfell just moments before he would strike the killing blow, and the sickle, using all its instilled power, turned the once powerful artifact into nothing, ending its existence in a blinding blur of power.
~46~
The cataclysmic energies unleashed as the two weapons met slowed time to a crawl, and the world became warped around those gathered. The world faded away altogether around them, and they found themselves immersed in blackness.
They floated in the void on the edge of eternity. Sylvirria appeared to them there, as well as Ulstram, and spoke to them for a time, saying that the sword had been destroyed and that they had carved their own destiny from what could have been a crucible of darkness.
After brief goodbyes, the Resistance was returned to Solhaven in time to see the Black Temple crumbling and bleeding in the sky, its towers and spires cracking like ice. As they watched, it caved in on itself, then disappeared in a flash of incarnadine energy, the magic of the planes far too unstable to keep it in this one.
~47~
From our studies into planar magic, it would seem that before it was completely destroyed, the temple was thrown into one of the many planes of existence surrounding our own, the enchantments upon it growing unstable until it simply phased away, tossed about in the planar currents like a leaf in the wind. Where it may have gone, and whether the Four priests are alive, remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, the defenders celebrated their victory over the Dark Alliance. While they had lost many compatriots, they had stopped the armageddon which would have come, and they began a slow process of rebuilding.
~48~
Among the most ardent of defenders were Kinshack Starblade, Valicar, Malikary, Bristenn, Haxley, Kevralynn, Tebon, Morgiest, Galesmight, Murp, Calean, Rebeya, Subarashi, Nilandia, Mnar, Turinrond, Revalos, Bartain, Kilthal, Teveriel, Gahread, Krisella, Juspera, Arimantis, Ilvane, Evelith, Guarrin, Eahlstan, Vonka, and Yviara.
Chaeye retreated back to dreams, occasionally seen within the depths of a nightmare fending off the devices of Sheru.
As for the free agents of Lornon, they retreated back to their life of quiet and not so quiet worship.
Those of neutrality also retired to their lives, content in the fact that neutrality had prevailed, ending an unbalanced relic of power.
~49~
Among those whose voices echoed clearly their sentiments of neutrality were Songowl, Kaishaku, Cappurnicus, and Charna.
And thus concludes our report on the Griffin Sword War - while we have many, many supplementary documents to accompany and follow this collection, this should provide a general overall view of our research efforts throughout the past few years.
By my hand,
Vaelsoth Inzuniel
Watcher of the Eternal Eye
13th of Eorgaen, 5108.
~50~
During this, Ulstram's time was split between attempting to subvert Eryael's efforts with the help of his followers and the construction of another link into the mind of the Painlord, all while attempting to convince the merchant to reconsider his offer. He imparted a sphere of power among those who would seek to help the three girls - Subarashi, Rebeya, and Godefroy. They were tasked with unlocking the power of the spheres through various meditation techniques throughout shrines across the world.
~1~
They set out on their task, which took them to many different places, one of which was Teras Island.
This is where Nershuul was tasked with something other than simple reconnaissance - he was given orders to directly interfere. As their resources were stretched thin, he was tapped to act as a point of contact between the free agents of Lornon and act as a guiding force of violence and chaos throughout the rest of the campaign. He would lead several strike forces of Luukosian soldiers and undead to hamper and interfere with the rituals - but they would ultimately succeed, and the spheres were filled with holy power. However, Nershuul had found a suitable corpse to manipulate and inhabit during his time on Teras Island and would use this to lead attacks against the Resistance.
~2~
Returning to Solhaven, the bearers of the spheres would eventually find the three stricken girls, near mad with their newfound powers, and use the spheres to exorcise them of their tortures and of Eryael's power. The girls' minds became unclouded, and while they could barely remember what had happened to them, the scars they suffered ran deep, and they would eventually be returned to their families. Our assigned contacts report that Jeselle broke down after a few months and is now confined to the asylum on Teras Island, while Maige and Privea have lead quiet, reclusive lives.
It was at this time when Ulstram and Chaeye completed their preparations and had found ways around the warding Draezir had placed on Eryael's mind. Navigating through the maze-like channels of power, they were able to open another gateway into the Painlord's mind and hastily assembled their respective followers.
~3~
Once again cautioning them against the dangers of the dreamscape, Ulstram and Chaeye breached the realm of dreaming and allowed in those who would fight against Eryael.
The warriors would be faced with something altogether different than the massive coliseum - within Eryael's mind was a chain of islands surrounded by utterly still waters and a deep fog. Upon each island was a specific torture, including bloodletting, whipping, a device which would instantly scar and maim a person, as one of the warriors, Railien, would discover quite unpleasantly, and the final act was to stretch an illusory woman on a rack, which hampered everyone's morale quite soundly.
~4~
Boarding the pristine white boats for the last time, they made their way to a temple of pure ivory, its elegant architecture marred by various signs of violent destruction - shattered glass, broken columns. There, they came upon a pool surrounded by several sigils of power. Touching the pool, the warriors were subject to Eryael's deepest memory - his conversion to Mularos.
Apparently a prodigy with various flora, Eryael was left at a temple of unknown faith, though it is very likely it was Imaera from our initial research describing the following incidents. Regardless, the temple and its elderly inhabitants were destroyed by a rather insane individual, whom regarded the land they built their temple on as his own and summarily burned it to the ground, killing Eryael's master in front of him in a most gruesome fashion.
~5~
Finding Eryael, this man would use him as an outlet for suffering, visiting thousands upon thousands of tortures upon the boy - the most significant being his first act of aggression. He methodically and painfully removed the boy's eyes in order to let his other senses become sharper in preparation for the various tortures he was to plan.
This continued for several years, the man torturing the blind boy until one evening, Eryael heard a voice in his mind. It asked him what kept him from breaking all these years, and he replied that he simply wished to make things beautiful again. The voice - Mularos, if we are to believe this memory - was satisfied with this answer and healed the boy's vision, turning his once golden eyes to violet. The vision ended with Eryael adding this man to what is termed his 'garden.'
~6~
When asked about Eryael's garden, Nershuul spoke fondly of it - while Eryael seemed soft and delicate and almost childish on the outside, his true side was shown in the garden. There, he kept thousands of his past victims he deemed unfit to serve save for in this fashion - they would be impaled on pikes within a vast expanse of desert, enchanted with healing magics to ensure their death would never happen prematurely, forever cursed to be impaled over and over again as they writhed in agony. Nershuul speaks of meeting Eryael there several times to discuss strategy, and he found it a rather pleasant backdrop to such discussions. His only regret, he said, is that they never had a cup of tea there.
Beyond such tidbits of historical significance, they eventually connected the events in the pool to the corresponding sigils, and once deciphered, a door was opened.
~7~
Within lay a single multi-hued rose - pristine white petals bordering the inner crimson ones, while within the very core of the bud were pure black. Using the sphere of power given by Ulstram, Kerl used it against the rose, and once more the dream world was torn asunder, the warriors having succeeded in their mission.
Eryael was also struck by an unending coma, and immediately his relatively small army of followers took up to tending to him and resuming their roles under Morvule's command. As Draezir had recently come upon a particularly intriguing lead, Morvule lead his army from the Sea of Fire to Solhaven with the intent of finishing what would needed to be done.
~8~
It is here we must digress into a strange situation that had arisen among the city of Solhaven. A traveler by the name of Volierre had arrived, speaking of something vague that he sought. He was elven in nature, and his eyes were clouded over and completely blinded. He spoke of being plagued by visions, of something called the 'All-Pattern,' and he sipped absinthe - what he called 'The Tongue of the Worm' - in order to stop the pain of the constant visions. From what we observed at the time, this man did indeed see visions, but they were only visions of the past. From his ramblings, it would seem that he saw everything which happened in the past all at once. This pointed fact would become extremely significant during the final days of the war.
~9~
Morvule began a brutally efficient assault, using his magical prowess to shatter Ulstram's barrier and combining the sheer number of his forces and his unrelenting, remorseless tactics meant to utterly destroy morale of those who would stand against him. He tasked many of the free agents of Lornon to set or encourage fires that his forces would set as they blazed a trail of destruction. He gave clear and ominous warnings, demanding a surrender, speaking of mercy, lest he do something that could never be undone and would weigh upon the conscience of all who did not lay down their arms.
The Resistance gave no quarter, eventually tracking down a project of Morvule's - he had captured an adult kraken and planned to create another necromantic horror using troll's blood and other magical components, essentially infesting the waters of Solhaven with these creations forever more.
~10~
The defenders of the city would retrieve this information and summarily set out to the locale where the horror was housed, destroying it and its guards in one fell swoop before his plans could be enacted.
Morvule's retaliation was swift and merciless.
At this time, the gates of Vornavis had been opened in order to take any who could not join the fight inside for a place of refuge. On the night of his ultimatum, Morvule revealed how utterly and wholly unforgiving he was - he tore back his robes to reveal massive wings and summarily rose into the sky, past the archers of Vornavis, and into the streets of the guarded city filled to the brim with the defenseless and the weak.
~11~
His targets were children - the children of all the refugees. He heralded his plan by swooping in and plucking one of the innocents. He landed in North Market, a common gathering place among the adventurers who made their way to Solhaven. There, he faced a large contingent of those he fought hardest against. As he held the mewling child in his claws, he spoke of how they could have prevented what was to happen. Without hesitation, amid the cries to stop from the defenders, he spilled the child's innards right in the market, then ascended into the air once more.
~12~
It was then that the true horror began. Shadowy wraiths appeared at strategic locations, stealing away the children among the gates of Vornavis - they were systematically slaughtered and raised as the undead in a massive effort by the serpent priest. The undead children were then set upon the town in waves, and the defenders were forced to dispatch those that they had failed to protect. Hardened warriors were hard-pressed to lift their swords, while others simply refused to have a hand in such things.
Eventually, all the innocents killed were dispatched. Morvule continued to barrage the city with attacks, eventually joining his forces with Draezir's, and they again subjugated Solhaven and renamed it Nighthaven, threatening further atrocities should Ulstram refuse to give the location of the merchant.
~13~
Nershuul finds all of this particularly amusing and recalls it extremely fondly, as he was allowed to roam freely in his newfound giantman form, leading Morvule's forces and destroying some of the more vexing of defenders.
After his first ultimatum and the slaughtering of innocent children, Morvule spoke of another horror to be unleashed. He gave no warning and demanded no surrender now, but many remember seeing his silhouette flying to the locale of Bonespear Tower, an abandoned structure of an incredibly talented demonologist. Scaling the top of the tower with his minions in tow, Morvule used the summoning circle atop it to rip open a plane in the veil. Through it he tore incredibly powerful demons - the abyran'ra, which had accompanied him previously in small numbers, and the newer more hideous creatures - the many-eyed oculoth and the insanely powerful vathor.
~14~
Ablen struggled bravely to fend off the first wave - a cloud of demons so large it threatened to black out the sky with the numbers as it burst from the tower and headed straight for Solhaven. Using all of his power, Ablen sent forth a burning torrent of holy fire towards the mass of death and destruction and summarily repelled the majority of the demons in one fell swoop. Their presence would linger from then on, however, and the armies of Luukosian and Sheruvians swelled with demonic power.
With these creatures, the Resistance was hard-pressed to fight against the army - the oculoth's bite would drive a man insane and turn him against his fellows or make him collapse into a mewling pile of spittle and failure. The vathor used the corpses of the dead to create a demonic undead mix of ruthless efficiency - the necleriine, creatures who took on the characteristics of the dead they were 'born' from. Both were incredibly resistant to the efforts of even the most skilled of adventurers.
~15~
Ulstram, beyond attempting to bolster the defenses of the beleaguered Solhaven, had found a way into Morvule's mind. Chaeye flat out refused to cooperate several times due to the risk, but eventually relented faced with the mounting terrors Morvule and Draezir loosed upon the populace.
Nershuul explains that Morvule expected this, even counted on it, as his actions forced Ulstram's hand in the matter, but it was not without risk - the land of dreaming and the mind are treacherous, strange places, and Morvule was unfamiliar with such things. Steeling himself, he had to willingly allow the warriors within the confines of his consciousness and rely on several enchantments prepared by himself and the free agents of Lornon. They had gathered a number of gems and components to cast a strange mental spell upon him that would aid in his defense.
~16~
Entering the mind of the serpent priest, the warriors encountered something devoid of anything remotely recognizable. They wandered within a massive symbol of infinity - three doors stood before them: upon the left, an entranceway to a monstrous horror, whose body contained a heart, and upon the right, an entranceway to a pomegranate tree, whose leaves bore pristine white fruit and whose branches held a tiny asp. The halls of this construction were filled with the undead creatures they had fought prior, and they pushed to make their way to both chambers.
Finding both items, they met at the convergence of the massive infinity symbol, where a door stood before a plate. Placing these items within the confines of the plate, death's door opened - Morvule's mind was a symbol of Luukos' interpretation of the cycle of Life and Death - on one side were lies, on the other was undeath, with death bridging the gap between them.
~17~
They stepped through and were met with three serpents - one black, one white, and one emerald, again an interpretation of Luukos' tenets. They were massive in size, and though they felled one of the beasts, the other two eventually destroyed every single person there. Now Morvule made his move - as there were no conflicting minds within his own, he pushed back against the link Chaeye and Ulstram had forged and into Ulstram's mind. He found exactly what he wanted - the location of the merchant.
Ulstram, momentarily stunned by Morvule's doings, recovered quickly even as the others found themselves expulsed from the dream world forcibly. They reconvened, and at that moment, Ulstram told them what had happened. Scrying the man's location, he found him and Kendryth there and explained what had happened and what would happen should the merchant not divulge the sword piece - Morvule's entire army had withdrawn and was heading towards the merchant's home.
~18~
The merchant, stricken with fear, told Ulstram what he needed to know, and Kendryth summarily took action to save his life. Kendryth provided the distraction that Ulstram needed in order to move quickly and challenged Morvule to combat as he approached, eventually slashing the priest's hand off before succumbing to Morvule's power, and escaping only with his life.
Ulstram, knowing the location, took his trusted circle there to meet Morvule's armies. This was where Nershuul was struck down with a blow to the head by Perigourd, injuring the creature's actual body, which appeared to reside in the skull somewhere. Several hours after the initial battle, our teams arrived and knew what to look for - they found Nershuul and placed the head in a box of pure veil iron as a precaution. We would eventually come to coax information out of him through this most fortuitous turn of events.
~19~
The group would fight through the Dark Alliance's forces as they descended upon the house and made their way into a subterranean maze, which eventually lead to a vault of epic proportions. Ulstram was able to pass through the nearly impenetrable barrier, and within he found the blade of the sword.
Whisking his supporters away from the onslaught of the Dark Alliance, Ulstram returned to the city triumphant. The blade was theirs, but Morvule's anger was like a storm. He loosed all of his forces and tore fearsome demons from the outermost planes upon Solhaven like a furious whirlwind of destruction, demanding the blade be given to him. They descended like a plague upon the city, burning and destroying everything in their path.
~20~
Ulstram, seeing the suffering of all the innocent lives and the destruction of everything his followers held dear, decided there was only one course of action. He reforged the blade using Lorminstra's power, and, while the sword remained incomplete without its other three pieces, it was still a formidable weapon. Despite protests of his followers against the danger and possible folly, Ulstram knew it was the only way.
Perhaps it was part of his prophetic visions, or perhaps it was related to how he had neared resolving his issues with the spirit who plagued him incessantly, but he felt the need to do what he would.
He challenged Morvule, and the two met upon the field of battle, Morvule wielding his own tainted version of the sword. Ulstram fought bravely, but in the end, it was not enough. Morvule struck him down and recovered the blade.
~21~
As Ulstram had essentially consecrated the blade once more, the power he filled it with could thus be corrupted by Morvule, rather than rendering the blade inert.
Now in possession of all four pieces and the prophet of Lorminstra dead, the Resistance was faced with even greater troubles - as Morvule consecrated the last piece to darkness, the Black Temple was charged with massive amounts of essence and power, which summarily funneled through the links of each priest and instantly awoke Eryael and Zerroth. Unable to convert the sword on another plane of existence, the Four revealed their sanctuary - the Black Temple appeared in the skies as the Four were sequestered into the Altar of Darkness. Their minions were tasked with overseeing the operations in their absence, and as massive energies permeated the skies and day turned into everlasting night, the Four began the conversion process.
~22~
The undead, demons, and the living servants of the Four ran wild across the lands, slaughtering all in a hellish reaping of their enemies.
Kendryth and Ablen were abducted as they fought against this terrible onslaught and were summarily sacrificed and slaughtered. Nershuul laughs when speaking of this - an odd clicking sound - of seeing images of the two being eaten alive by the very demons they fought against within the confines of the Black Temple through his link to Morvule.
Nershuul reveals that even though our protections in trapping and subduing him were indeed quite impressive, that Morvule's connection with him remained throughout - he just didn't care for failures at this pinnacle of all of their plans and thus did not rescue him. He spoke of seeing brief flashes through Morvule's eyes of Morfell being taken to the Altar of Darkness to reforge his link with the sword as its original bearer.
~23~
Through him, Nershuul explained, they would corrupt the last trace of Lorminstra's power from the sword.
It was at this time, at this darkest moment, that the events surrounding Maluverre and Volierre came to light. For months, Volierre - often speaking of himself as the 'Foundation' - had been seeking something called the Advent. While he was in Solhaven, strange occurrences would happen, including visions of an old temple, of strange marionettes, of a winged woman standing before a wasteland that would sweep across the citizens and defenders of the city in odd, mass visions. Volierre's constant ramblings, of his singular minded goal of seeking this Advent, would lead him down a strange and difficult path with the defenders of Solhaven.
~24~
Maluverre, during all his time spent in Solhaven, had avoided meeting this man. When asked of him, he was evasive and somewhat alarmed by his description. When pressed by people he normally found rather agreeable, he would simply avoid the topic or find an excuse to be elsewhere.
However, due to our most phenomenal research attempts, we've gathered the backgrounds of these two - while the 'trinkets of fate' provided a brief glimpse, the overall story was known to only a few - namely a mute boy named Yukito, a rather intelligent girl named Raelee, and an empath by the name of Nilandia, whose company he often sought out. Maluverre, an elementalist of no small skill, was once drawn to the spiritual side of life and magic - he was inducted into a secret cult of Gosaena during his collegiate years.
~25~
The ideology behind this sect was somewhat strange - during Maluverre's time within the ranks, the ruling half of the sect was referred to as 'the Right Hand,' signifying a philosophy amongst Gosaena followers, the right hand embodying the more compassionate side of life's path, and the left signifying the more ruthless side. Most temples depict life as a blend of such paths, and this cult seemed to take such seriously, for every few centuries the cult would switch its leadership to the opposite path.
At this time, the young Maluverre had found himself in quite an influential position within the cult and summarily met a young woman within the fold - a cartographer of unsurpassed skill. Being an esoteric scholar himself, he found her studies intriguing, and the two eventually fell in love.
Her name was Sylvirria Azarielle.
~26~
She eventually revealed to Maluverre her ultimate goal - she had been seeking the locale of one of the very first temples of Gosaena, an ancient site that supposedly predated the elven empire itself. At this point the accounts of our contacts becomes hazy, as the exact nature of the situation is known only to Maluverre and Sylvirria. It appears that Sylvirria made a breakthrough in her research, and driven by her sole passion, left to seek out the temple alone.
She found what she sought and apparently her time there 'changed' her - from accounts of a journal of Volierre's, within the temple a strange stasis existed. Within the very heart of the massive complex lay three pools - when Volierre visited there, two of these pools were empty, but one was filled with rippling silver light. We suspect that when Sylvirria was there, all three were, lacking a better term, 'active' at the time.
~27~
Regardless, when she returned, Maluverre had just been anointed the new spiritual leader of the cult, and his first duty was to transition seats of power from the Right Hand to the Left, as the time was upon them to enact such a change. As the Left Hand rose to power, Maluverre expected his beloved to return with good news.
Instead, she returned as a half-mad visage of their Arkati - upon her back were black wings, and she was cursed with sight of the future constantly. The burden of such power was too much for her, and she began to act incredibly strange. Among her acts were single-handedly stopping a massive military campaign by the Vaalor elves - she was never seen, but the unleashing of her power aroused much suspicion within the political circles. Fearing the discovery of their cult, the Left Hand acted - they had attempted to talk to Sylvirria, but she was utterly uncooperative, refusing to reveal the locale of the temple.
~28~
Faced with no other choice, the Left Hand decided that she would be subdued and imprisoned within a crystal - they had attempted to assassinate her, but upon the eve of the assassin's strike, she had simply stood and addressed him as if she had known him all his life, asking him to please do her the mercy. The arrow was loosed and did absolutely nothing to her. She went quietly when they came to take her away, and Maluverre, being the leader of the cult, could not show compassion to her when handing down the decree that the council of his peers had decided on.
Maluverre proceeded over the ritual to seal her away forever into a crystalline prison. She was consigned to the depths of the earth, and her chambers were sealed away so that none could ever come upon her again. But Maluverre's feelings did not fade - the only thing which did was his passion for his compatriot's cult - he left shortly after, stepping down as their leader.
~29~
During the few conversations between them when she returned, Maluverre apparently learned the locale of the temple Sylvirria had visited. While she warned him never to go there, his longing for her and his rather dangerous sense of curiosity lead him to its ancient halls.
We can only assume the same thing happened to Maluverre, as he was summarily referred to by Volierre upon meeting him as the 'Keeper of the Present,' a key role in the ritual they would conduct. From witness accounts, it appears that Maluverre also gained a strange ability - he was, for all intents and purposes, unable to be seen, noticed, or remembered after the time since he left the temple, unless he chose to be. So while all those he had met prior certainly retained their memories of him, should they pass him by in the street, he would simply be another face if he wished.
~30~
He had effectively become nonexistent to history's pages from that point on, only revealing himself as an eccentric, curious scholar to those he thought might be good conversationalists.
Using this strange new ability, he hid in plain sight in Ta'Illistim, his longing for his love eventually leading him to her burial place. He quietly and slowly began an excavation, stealing Sylvirria away in an attempt to awaken her from an eternal sleep. He placed her underneath his new home in Ta'Illistim and began his research efforts.
This continued for several centuries, until at long last, the Illistim scholar gave up hope - he turned away from the spiritual paths and began to use his near infinite free time to study the ways of the elemental planes. He kept Sylvirra underneath his home, occasionally visiting her, but otherwise he'd given up on all such attempts to free her and awaken her.
~31~
In the year 5100, the Left Hand noticed that Sylvirria had gone missing. They began to delve into her leftover research and eventually found an elf as brilliant as herself in both ancient histories and cartography - his name was Volierre. They inducted him swiftly into the ranks, promising him a great cache of artifacts to study, and after a few scant years Volierre found what the Left Hand had never gazed upon - the ancient temple.
Knowing that something had happened there that was extraordinary and possibly dangerous, the Left Hand lead a faux expedition to the site. There they found a great many unusual things - we have a copy of Volierre's journal and will be including it among these reports, in which he expounds upon his expedition and his eventual transformation.
~32~
The Left Hand made certain Volierre was within the temple's confines, then orchestrated a cave-in, leaving him completely stranded. Volierre managed to survive, but was haunted by visions and strange dreams. Eventually, he found the pools within the heart of the temple - and he awoke one night to find that he had immersed himself in one of them in his sleep. This experience seemed to change him, and as his vision became overwhelmed by images of the past, he eventually went blind and half-mad from the onslaught of information. If we are to believe his journal, he had knowledge of everything that had ever happened in the past - he speaks of being one of the Vaalorian warriors at the fall of ShadowGuard and of times even more ancient than that. His 'All-Pattern' he spoke so frequently of seemed to be this grand tapestry, a webwork of interconnected events and happenings that spread across the broad expanse of time's past - something he could never escape no matter how hard he tried.
~33~
Now armed with intricate knowledge of the temple's purpose, he made his way back to Ta'Illistim. He did not trust the Left Hand any longer, but during his time there they had secretly placed a geas upon him. Upon his return, he was compelled to obey their commands - to find Sylvirria, or the 'Advent,' in his mind. As he sought her regardless, he complied, but revealed nothing of his knowledge on the past, only demonstrating to them that he was powerful enough to be their weapon. According to the notes we have from Maluverre included in this report, the Left Hand intentionally broke the ancient ritual which bequeathed him these gifts for their own lust for power, and it was this realization that eventually lead him to act against them.
~34~
He fought against their control while in Solhaven, the distance dissipating some of the effects of the enchantment they had put on him, but not entirely. It was Maluverre who became aware of the Left Hand's manipulations with Volierre and was threatened by their presence in Solhaven and the potential of being discovered through him. He took flight to Ta'Illistim one evening after his realization - scraps of his journal accompany this document to give a fuller explanation of his motives. There, he sabotaged the Left Hand's headquarters, destroying their grip on Volierre and sending some of their well-laid plans into chaos. To his dismay, Volierre searched for him even without their hand to guide him - for he knew what had to be done to complete the cycle which had been set in motion.
~35~
So it was that these two never met by Maluverre's avoidance of anything connected to his past dealings with the Gosaena sect.
Getting back to the current happenings with the sword, on the eve of the sword's consecration to complete darkness, Maluverre told the assembled crowd on his airship most of this story. He spoke of his past, of his lost love, of what transgressed with the Gosaena cult. He expressed regret at having to keep such secrets from his newfound companions, colleagues, and friends. While he was brief, those who spoke to him often wondered of his past were given the last pieces of the puzzle, and brought Volierre aboard.
The two met, and suddenly Volierre was able to see him - he seemed to know him already and greeted him as the 'Keeper of the Present.' They spoke little, as Maluverre took to the air, saying that he knew what had to be done, but did not know how to accomplish it.
~36~
From Solhaven, they flew like the wind on his airship, crossing the massive DragonSpine mountains swiftly, and made haste into Maluverre's small Illistim home. He took them past his study, leading them down a flight of hidden stairs and into a small underground chamber. There, they saw what had been hidden for centuries - Sylvirria, entombed in pure crystal.
Maluverre explained that he had tried to awaken her countless times in the past, but had failed and had simply given up. As the assembled crowd gazed upon her seemingly flawless visage and Volierre railed against any possible solution, a bright golden light suddenly winked into existence within the crystal.
~37~
Ulstram's spirit had returned - and suffusing the crystal in a hazy golden energy, the crystal shattered into nothingness and Sylvirria stood before them, awakened for the first time in centuries. Volierre was nearly uncontrollable, speaking of what must be done, of how the final ritual *must* be completed. She silenced him with a wave of her hand and spoke to him of what must happen - that she wished to use her precious few moments as a mortal woman to stop what she had foresaw. Volierre relented, and she took to the skies, wielding two scythes of black and white.
She obliterated the armies of the Dark Alliance that infested the countryside in minutes. Upon her return, they set off for Solhaven, and there Maluverre and Volierre's roles came to light - they had been components of an ancient ritual, conducted in the far distant past in the confines of the ancient temple all three had visited.
~38~
From what we can deduce, the three participants were to all play a part in raising one of Gosaena's mortal followers to the ranks of her silent, winged angels of death.
Volierre was the Foundation - the knowledge of all things past that her silent servants must be imparted, all of the prophecies that have now passed. Maluverre was the Keeper of the Present, the method by which all memory of those who ascended into Gosaena's silent ranks were never remembered once they had gone, how they had disappeared from society and the pages of history evermore. And Sylvirria was the Advent, the one who would see the death of all things and the mad dance of fate's strings upon the world, her vision was the vision of all those who quietly lead souls to their final death.
~39~
They completed their ritual before the crowd, as leaving it uncompleted for years had left all of them as broken pieces in an ancient puzzle long forgotten. Sylvirria was chosen as the one to leave this world for the Void, and before she left, she imparted something to a woman she had reached out for in her eternal sleep - Charna Ja'Varrel'Kav, a servant of Zelia's teetering neutrality. Sylvirria extended her hand and gifted her with a silver sickle, whose immense power was made clear shortly - it would simply end things with but a wave through the air.
Sylvirria then said that she could not accompany them to the temple, that she could no longer affect fate's web, and her duty was now to eternity. She left them then, bidding a sorrowful goodbye to Maluverre. As Volierre departed, his vision now clearing after years of the past blinding his eyes, the group took off in the airship to the Black Temple.
~40~
It was a grim time, but the spirit of Ulstram accompanied them silently, opening the massive doors of the giant temple with his golden blessings. The group entered the temple and were denied access to their ultimate goal - the Altar of Darkness. Exploring the temple even as cataclysmic energies raged across its inner walls, they fought through hordes of the Dark Alliance's most fanatical soldiers and creations. Finding shrines and areas dedicated to the Four priests, which were now sequestered away fulfilling their decades long plans, the warriors fought to find the keys that would open the door.
The first, Zerroth's chambers, was filled to the brim with his warriors, seething and already engaged in a violent bloodbath of rage.
~41~
The Resistance would fight hard to dispatch all of them, and eventually within a ring of bloodied weapons set before an altar, those killed in the battle were absorbed into the enchanted weaponry, and a massive obsidian sword blade appeared - Zerroth's key to the altar.
The group set forth to Eryael's chambers, where they were forced to pay a terrible toll for his key - they had to be the arbiters of pain and suffering, torturing innocents in grisly displays of never-ending torture. As they pulled apart people's limbs, dropped women into vats of boiling oil, and burned men alive, a crystal within the heart of his chamber became energized, and the wounds of the innocents were healed just on the brink of death. They left there, shaken, but with a pale ivory rosewhip.
~42~
They then encountered Draezir's chambers, a massive room of puzzles meant to drive those who attempted them insane. The Resistance met with much difficulty here, the driving force of time against them and their minds beset by all that would happen if they did not act quickly enough. They eventually made it through the agonizing puzzles - temporarily going insane to hear the mad whisperings of their own minds to retrieve a cube of shadow, casting spells of light to drive a creature of darkness to stare at itself in a mirror and disperse, making a dead heart beat through sorcerous magic, sacrificing one's eye to a clockwork contraption enchanted with darkness, an observatory where one needed to trace the constellation of the Jackal, and a puzzle of dangerous sigils. Once the Resistance had puzzled through all these, the temple of Draezir revealed his key - an amber-eyed black jackal head of onyx.
~43~
Lastly, they came upon Morvule's chambers - a dead temple, ruined beyond all imagining save for a massive statue of a wyrm within the heart of it. Nershuul tells us this was where Morvule was originally converted to Luukos and that he had preserved it within the confines of the Black Temple as some sort of odd sentimental piece. As they came upon the statue, the doorways to the temple suddenly slammed shut and locked, and the statue came alive - its body rippling with motes of strange color. A fierce battle ensued, the girth and size of the wyrm easily hitting all of the assembled warriors with ease. As they attempted to deduce a way to penetrate its thick, stony hide, they began to decipher its secrets - as it changed color, it became vulnerable to spells associated with such a hue. As it turned blue, cold spells were cast upon it, chipping away at its hide; when red, fire spells; when black, sorcerer spells - and so on.
~44~
Finally, after a prolonged battle, the massive serpent retreated and curled around the remains of a huge statue defensively, blocking parts of its body from attack as the adventurers continued to rage against it. Eventually, they destroyed the statue protecting it and with it, the beast was slain, revealing Morvule's key to the door - a void-black crystal heart.
Possessing all four keys, they stood before the threshold of the Altar of Darkness and opened the door. They found all of the Four priests in heavy prayer, the sword completely suffused with darkness - they were too late. It had been converted. The priests rose, some in anger, some already laughing, drunk with the power of the sword's total conversion. As they moved to descend on the adventurers like a pack of wolves, a golden light pushed them back - Ulstram's spirit was protecting them, and with a light brighter than the sun, a massive golden barrier surrounded the Resistance and the tainted sword, pushing back the priests.
~45~
As everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief, they suddenly realized something was wrong. The sword began to pulse rapidly, and a crack appeared within the golden shield that protected them. Through this sliver, a form stepped through - one that had not been seen by any of them for many years - Morfell. He had used his unbreakable connection to the sword to pierce Ulstram's shield, and he stood triumphant as he unsheathed it from the black rock which held it fast. Raising it high above his head, he prepared to dispatch those which had hampered them from the very beginning once and for all, a grand sacrifice to start off the culling of the world which was to come.
It was then that Charna knew when to strike. She brought the sickle to bear against Morfell just moments before he would strike the killing blow, and the sickle, using all its instilled power, turned the once powerful artifact into nothing, ending its existence in a blinding blur of power.
~46~
The cataclysmic energies unleashed as the two weapons met slowed time to a crawl, and the world became warped around those gathered. The world faded away altogether around them, and they found themselves immersed in blackness.
They floated in the void on the edge of eternity. Sylvirria appeared to them there, as well as Ulstram, and spoke to them for a time, saying that the sword had been destroyed and that they had carved their own destiny from what could have been a crucible of darkness.
After brief goodbyes, the Resistance was returned to Solhaven in time to see the Black Temple crumbling and bleeding in the sky, its towers and spires cracking like ice. As they watched, it caved in on itself, then disappeared in a flash of incarnadine energy, the magic of the planes far too unstable to keep it in this one.
~47~
From our studies into planar magic, it would seem that before it was completely destroyed, the temple was thrown into one of the many planes of existence surrounding our own, the enchantments upon it growing unstable until it simply phased away, tossed about in the planar currents like a leaf in the wind. Where it may have gone, and whether the Four priests are alive, remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, the defenders celebrated their victory over the Dark Alliance. While they had lost many compatriots, they had stopped the armageddon which would have come, and they began a slow process of rebuilding.
~48~
Among the most ardent of defenders were Kinshack Starblade, Valicar, Malikary, Bristenn, Haxley, Kevralynn, Tebon, Morgiest, Galesmight, Murp, Calean, Rebeya, Subarashi, Nilandia, Mnar, Turinrond, Revalos, Bartain, Kilthal, Teveriel, Gahread, Krisella, Juspera, Arimantis, Ilvane, Evelith, Guarrin, Eahlstan, Vonka, and Yviara.
Chaeye retreated back to dreams, occasionally seen within the depths of a nightmare fending off the devices of Sheru.
As for the free agents of Lornon, they retreated back to their life of quiet and not so quiet worship.
Those of neutrality also retired to their lives, content in the fact that neutrality had prevailed, ending an unbalanced relic of power.
~49~
Among those whose voices echoed clearly their sentiments of neutrality were Songowl, Kaishaku, Cappurnicus, and Charna.
And thus concludes our report on the Griffin Sword War - while we have many, many supplementary documents to accompany and follow this collection, this should provide a general overall view of our research efforts throughout the past few years.
By my hand,
Vaelsoth Inzuniel
Watcher of the Eternal Eye
13th of Eorgaen, 5108.
~50~