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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 7494524" data-attributes="member: 6816692">Ekossigan of WinterTo our surprise, the Fey Lord's voice is almost calm and aloof, his words clear despite his wooden mask.After this sudden introduction, Ekossigan goes on to explain that he has seen a dark child growing in the Bleak Gate version of Cauldron Hill, a dark weed he plans to root out. He (or, his mask) then grins maliciously and turns to Asrabey as he tells him that it is his wife, the dear Kasvarina who had been the gardener of this weed. Oh, and she probably won't remember the dear husband who had been serving her at the Court for centuries.   Asrabey is both furious and confused. We try to let things not slip out of our hands, so we calm Asrabey down and tell him that Ekossigan might be the only one not in league with the conspirators who knows more about Kasvarina, so we need to listen to him a bit longer. We then introduce ourselves as agents of King Aodhan, rightful successor of King Kelland and explain that we basically want the same thing as Ekossigan: To find a way to the Bleak Gate to stop the Cauldron from shattering and prevent the dark child from being born. There are now far too many prophecies pointing at a catastrophe that might happen if no one intervenes. And King Aodhan will surely understand our reasons for teaming up with him. Ekossigan smiles for a mere moment and then tells us his plan to get to the Bleak Gate: By sacrificing thirty-one young flowers, the younger the better, to use their bodies as a conduit for powerful magic. This and the century-old tree as a focus will then open up a portal to the Bleak Gate through which he will lead his army and annihilate all who seek to spill their dark forces into our realms.    We object to this plan as we cannot possibly stand by while Ekossigan murders these innocent children. As he is Lord of Seasons and protector of the Dreaming, we are protectors of Flint and all its citizens. On top of that, we're pretty close to finding another way to the Bleak Gate, so we could just all join forces against the dark powers. Aurn adds that she's a fey herself, daughter of Galadin and descendant of Kasvarina, infused with the energies of the Dreaming, so she'd like to request Ekossigan's help in finding a way to the Bleak Gate with a less cruel method.    Ekossigan answers that he doesn't have time for petty mortal feelings, so if we don't wish to join him, he'll consider us his opponents. His eyes flicker in an icy-bue hue while Auryn tries her best to change his mind:  “Don't you see, Lord Ekossigan? Only together can we prevent your vision from happening.  Continue down this path and, we'll have to stop you. And all will be for naught.”  Then Ekossigan's whole appearance changes to an icy-blue being with gnarled, dead-looking arms, a coat of snow and blue glowing eyes. “Greetings, I am Ekossigan of Winter. And you won't be able to stop me now.”     It seems as if the whole environment reacts to Ekossigan's change of seasons as the air turns frosty and ice begins to cover the tree's bark. The Fey Lord laughs manically while saying that everyone has to die when winter comes and then summons two ice-infused snow leopards. Meanwhile, the army of fey turns against us and starts throwing projectiles while the more melee-oriented fey begin to climb the tree.(Umm.... "Winter is coming!" Sorry, I had to <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ) “I'll hold them off. You take care of Ekossigan!”  Asrabey shouts before he dives straight into the fey and releases the terrible dreadnaught powers we'd witnessed on Axis Island. Fortunately, Gale shakes her head and does... nothing. Well, nothing but hiding in the shadows.    Auryn charges at Ekossigan and his leopards and decides to take on the beasts first while Carlyle uses a teleporting maneuver to get to the Fey Lord's back. The gremlins (cursed gremlins!) fire their arrows at Ekossigan which are then redirected at Auryn. Fortunately, the arrows miss their mark (though that was a really clever trick) and she also manages to dodge Ekosigan's icy breath. Carlyle seizes the opportunity to stab Ekossigan from behind while the air, and especially the bark of the tree turn icy. We hear the cracking of wood as the wooden bridges connecting tree and housings begin to freeze. Ekossigan realizes that Carlyle poses a serious threat and teleports away, down to the ground while Auryn fells the last leopard. Carlyle grabs Auryn's hand, asks her to come with him and then teleports the two of us directly in front of Ekossigan. Where we continue our coordinated attacks on the Fey Lord. As soon as she realizes that he's almost defeated, Auryn, remembering the story of King Kelland's fight against the Titans, decides to give Ekossigan a last chance: “Lord Ekossigan, we're clearly stronger than you. You won't last much longer. Surrender and we'll find another way to the Bleak Gate. It doesn't have to end that way.”    Ekossigan laughs manically, then points at the slowly dying tree. “Too late, too late. You think you've won, but they will all die. And then my army will conquer the darkness and root out the bad weed! Your attempts are futile, little agents of Kelland” Then we hear a loud crack and see that parts of a bridge come crashing down. We now also hear the quiet weeping of children coming from the five outer housings above and can only guess what happens should the branches fall down as well.   “He's right, they will fall to their deaths should this tree die. Take care of this madman while I... try to keep this one from dying.” Auryn then withdraws from Ekossigan, runs towards the tree and starts her ritual dance to call upon the Light of Srasama. Carlyle continues his fight with Ekossigan and manages to knock him out the moment the divine sunlight falls upon the tree. Plants grow quickly inside the radiance and Auryn directs them to entangle the bark of the giant tree, hoping to stabilize it. She then calls out to Gale to get the children to safety while Asrabey fends off the fey until they, too, lose their will to fight and scatter. Gale does as she was asked, thanking us for being released from her promise to “Ekossigan of Spring” who's gone now that Ekossigan turned into his winter incarnation. (Yeah, you could have avoided this altogether had you realized that Ekossigan of Summer and Ekossigan of Spring are different incarnations with different characteristics... but we were quite happy that we didn't have to fight our friend.And speaking of Gale/Hana, I only realized then that Hana could be translated to “flower”, which would make Asrabey's  nickname for Auryn, “small flower”, or possibly “chibi Hana” in the elven tongue, sound quite funny while being around Gale.) Fortunately, Auryn's desperate action and the return of the usual warmth are enough to keep the massive tree from dying, so Gale (and the rest of us) can successfully free the terrified children.   Then we turn to Ekossigan who's still unconscious. We tie him up and mage-cuff him before waking him up with all proper caution. We try to get some more information from him about his poem and what he might have seen in his vision, but this winter incarnation seems to be quite mad. “She's in a cage, Asrabey! I've seen your pretty little gardener, placed in a cage, a beautifully decorated cage. Oh how she'll loathe and love her little, ugly weeds. But you, you... she'll never love you ever again!” Needless to say that Asrabey has a hard time holding back, but he's still bound to his oath and, being a member of the Unseen Court, he doesn't have the right to take actions against the Fey Lord. Carlyle assesses the situation for a moment, then turns to Asrabey and Auryn and sighs.   “I'm sorry. He isn't of much help in this state. Still, we made a promise to Asrabey and the King that we'll punish Ekossigan according to the sentence of the Unseen. I know how much you despise taking lives, so I'll do it. You don't need to watch, if you don't want to.”  Auryn nods silently, her eyes wandering from Ekossigan to the tree and back.  “No, I'll watch. I have to see the consequences with my own eyes.” (She didn't say it, but these “consequences” include both her perceived failure to convert Ekossigan to their own cause and stop him from trying to commit mass murder, and also the vision of a foreordained fate. Ekossigan's downfall cut another wound into her soul that threatened to shatter her belief in her own abilities. Especially in her ability to conquer her own fate, to change the path of history and to fight these prophecies of doom.) Carlyle then takes some time to link his spirit with his surroundings, the Dreaming, the Bleak Gate and Ekossigan. He tries to clear a path for Ekossigan's spirit and also tries to prepare the fey for his ultimate journey to those fey spirits who have passed on. He then executes Ekossigan with a clear strike, proclaiming the he acts according to the laws and judgement of the Unseen Court. In death, Ekossigan dissolves into a swirl of leaves that scatter in the wind.    Carlyle doesn't waste any time and immediately tries to make contact with the spirit of Ekossigan. He first apologizes for what he had to do, but Ekossigan seems to accept his fate as this was his decision and his failure. Carlyle explains that we'll still plan to go to the Bleak Gate to prevent Ekossigan's vision from coming true, so he asks him to tell him more about what he saw in his dream. Ekossigan touches Carlyle briefly and shows him images of countless souls, drowned in witchoil, seeping towards the Bleak Gate. He then shows him masses of tortured souls being used as food or fuel for a dark presence that's towering above them all. Last, he shows him the vision of an eladrin woman with black hair, the same woman Carlyle saw in Grappa's vision. She's looking much more alive first, directing workers in some sort of industrial complex. Then, the image shifts and she's suddenly apathetic, sitting in a cage that's decorated with elfaivaran tapestries.   Carlyle thanks Ekossigan for sharing his vision with him and then asks him about a person called Alexander Grappa and his connection to the “Cauldron Born”. The Fey Lord doesn't know anything about such a man though, but he insists that the Child must not be born and that they are all in grave danger. The court wouldn't understand, he says, as they don't care much for anything that's not directly related to the Dreaming. Carlyle promises to do whatever he can to prevent a catastrophe, thanks Ekossigan again and then guides him towards the afterlife of the fey spirits.   Carlyle then tells us about what he got from Ekossigan and Asrabey makes it clear that he wishes to go to the Bleak Gate as soon as possible and rescue his wife. As we share the same goal (well, we wish to prevent a catastrophe and gather more information about the OB on top of that), we agree to team up, but we carefully explain Asrabey that Kasvarina might have something to do with our enemy, so we hope that she might be able to help us once we get her out of her stupor. We also have enough reasons to believe that Leone Quintal might be in this complex as well, so we have to discuss possible means of defense against his metal-bending. We also discuss the possibility that Kasvarina might have been possessed by this Nicodemus spirit or whether she'd been split in three quite literally. Asrabey doesn't know anything about an unusual behavior of his wife prior to their separation, but that's centuries ago, so he doesn't really know much about her current state. (For this "split in three" stuff: There is a popular character from the Warcraft setting who had been split into two different aspects of his personality in two different bodies by the foul magic of a black dragon. And he completely lost his memories in the process. So that, in combination with Nevard's vision, is where this theory came from.) Before we join Hana in her efforts to get the children to safety, Auryn takes a final look at the place where Ekossigan had been sitting. “I almost pity Ekossigan, even if I despise his methods. He's seen the warnings and he wanted to prevent a catastrophe. But he didn't listen and failed. Maybe... maybe fate is indeed inevitable.”  She then shakes her head and joins up with the others. Together, we gather the children and bring them to the next settlement. We take the rest of the day to cut loose the dead bodies of the druids and bring them to their brothers and sisters of the forest. Last, we head to the RHC to give a full report on our mission for the Unseen Court and to maybe make plans with the other team on how to proceed on our anti-Kell mission.   (Okay, that whole Ekossigan affair was pretty dark. We knew that fey and Risuri have different sets of morale, but murdering a whole school of children is on a different level of depraved. The whole chapter also had quite the horror feel to it and the stakes for failure were pretty high. One dead child and the dead druids were terrible enough to really disturb our two constables. Asrabey? Not so much. I guess he has seen worse.  Tiz told us that we were quite fast in terms of finding Ekossigan which is why the ritual would have taken 2 more days to complete and his last threat was more or less to spite us, not to actually bring his army through. And honestly, looking for a Fey Lord in the Nettles or Cloudwood was the most logical thing to do if you know a bit about fey and Flint.  And while we really despised Ekossigan's methods and his viewpoint of seeing mortals as assets and tools for his magic, we would have totally temporarily teamed up with him for a common goal. But not on his terms and not when the only option was killing or harming innocents.    As for Auryn, like I mentioned before, she started to doubt her own strength and abilities. After that really high note at the end of adventure 4, it felt as if reality came crashing down on her. And she started to project all of their successes of the past on Carlyle's powers, seeing that he's carrying a divine spark, having a quicker reaction time than her and mastering kinds of magic she couldn't, despite being born with the gift of magic. So she started to feel as if she was reaching the same limits here in Flint that she had felt before leaving Elfaivar.  Being unable to reach perfection, threatened by the thought that her whole education and faith was based on a lie and also unable to reach her own goals, she became more and more frustrated and began to crave more personal power. Without realizing it she understood Fordren's path of power and personal strength, feeling weak for depending on others who seemed to grow much faster than she did. So she started to toy with the idea of following her own path once she knew Flint and King Aodhan were safe and the peace conference was over)</blockquote>

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