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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 8228897" data-attributes="member: 6816692">The trial of Ingatan, or: There are four flames           We return to Betronga and the Bagheva and bring him the good news. The Rajah is very happy hearing about the humans' departure, but we all don't know for sure whether the colonists may return somewhen in the future. So we suggest we'd bring the arrow to a few more clans in the area and explain the situation to them. This way, Betronga's clan could rekindle the unity of the Children of Hewanharimau.The Rajah joyfully accepts our offer and states that this way, the Bagheva may become Elfaivar's true surviving future. Again, we don't wish to rain on his parade, but we do remind him that not too long ago he sensed that his tribe was missing something. Something that the enclave of Sentosa may have plenty of. Auryn adds that she, too, learned a lot once she saw the different enclaves and now the Bagheva's way of life. Also, as a Risuri, she knows that there is strength in diversity, in different ideas and approaches to their people's challenges. So maybe it would be a wise idea to look to an enclave like Sentosa for inspiration as well.“Matriarch Athryalla knows a lot about talking. She had opted for the diplomatic route even before both of us were born.”, Auryn explains.It seems as if Betronga is at least interested in reforging the connections to Sentosa. Still, we first have to find what we came for at the first place: The crown of Reida. Betronga sees no problem in letting us enter the Sanctum after all we've done for him. He warns us though that there is a reason why this place is usually for secret-keepers only as even the cleansing ritual can be quite deadly.Auryn laughs at this statement.“Good that I am one of those 'secret keepers' then, eh?”“Haha, I completely missed that, dear Aur-Ryn. Maybe this is an omen. Maybe you are meant to enter”“Ingatan's ways are as mysterious as they are funny”Carlyle nods, thinking about the strange but cohesive way the Temple of Ingatan in Rumah Terakir was structured. He adds that he knows a lot about the nature of time, which is why he would have a natural knack for dealing with an artifact linked to the planet of time. Betronga asks us to just take good care of ourselves, and then we enter the Sanctum.We carefully examine the first rooms and find that the purification chamber has been trapped by those who left the Sanctum, so we avoid it. We also spot a fresco of Ingatan, carrying four flames. Auryn explains that these represent both the past and the future and guesses that the test could be linked to all four time scales.So we decide to start this test in the correct chronological order and thus with the monochrome hall of the far past. The room switches immediately to a vision of the Coaltongue on the day we first met King Aodhan. The first person we see is Inspector Delft who tells us to go look for Duchess Ethelyn who has been suspiciously absent for a while now. All of a sudden, Delft is interrupted though as two ashen grey fire elementals appear and attack us.“Now this is something that definitely didn't happen back then. Let us put the timeline back in order” says Carlyle and draws his kukris.The elementals are not much of a threat, and we understand that this might still be a test after all. The moment the last of the grey creatures dissolves, the remaining embers form one small, harmless flame which we transfer to the statue of Ingatan.We don't take much time to examine the mechanism behind this much further, but rather venture on to the next hall, this time tinted in red. As soon as we step in, the hall transforms again and we are suddenly standing in the workshop of Tinker Oddcog deep down in Gradiax' hoard.At first, the room appears to be forsaken (which seems odd as we encountered both “Pemberton” and Oddcog back then, but then we see one transparent image of Fordren.“Strange... you, why are you here? This is not your... this is not the time for you!” he says, but then vanishes again.We then spot smaller flames lying all over the place and then feel that the room is getting hotter and hotter. So Auryn uses a flame warding dance before we split up to gather the flamelings one by one. Due to the protective aura, the fire doesn't harm us and we manage to unite the pieces in a timely manner. This then lets us ignite the red flame of the recent past.(A first glimpse at the true nature of Gradiax and one thing he has in common with Carlyle: Time is his specialty)We both agree that the next two rooms will be potentially difficult for us as they may give us insight into the future course of events. Nevertheless, we enter the hall of the near future, which is dominated by a yellow shine. The room twists as before, but this time we cannot make sense of the place we're being in. It appears to be on a large platform atop what must be a gigantic tower. The platform is walled with the occasional opening from which we can spot a city full of white houses way down below. In the middle of the platform is some sort of portal which may lead to another world as the sun is rising on that place while we're looking at a full moon on the sky above us. Right in front of the portal, we spot the body of a dead, large-framed man, but his face is veiled in shadows so thick that even Auryn's light spells cannot pierce them.Then, all of a sudden, yellow flamelike ghosts appear in the openings and try to scorch us with flyby attacks. Carlyle retaliates immediately and dissolves one of the ghosts. Auryn does the same with the second one and then decides to go after the other two. This turns out to be a near-fatal mistake as her flight spell is being suppressed the moment she leaves the platform and she starts plummeting toward the ground. Luckily, she is able to roll around midair and catch the ledge with her arms. Which of course makes a perfect target for the remaining ghosts.Carlyle dashes into her direction and hits one of the ghosts before it can reach Auryn. This leaves him with three parts of the yellow flame and gives Auryn enough time to crawl up the platform again. She warns Carlyle about the anti-magic field outside and hides behind the walls. The ghost stays out of the tower however, and we are being forced to think of a new strategy.“Will you shoot it for me?”, Carlyle asks all of a sudden.“Of course, but what will happen to the flame?”, Auryn replies.“Don't worry. I will catch it.”Auryn finally agrees, draws her (severely underused) bow and fires a salve of arrows at the ghost. It doesn't take too long and the elemental dissolves, leaving a flame behind that starts falling immediately. Carlyle then teleports directly to the edge of the platform and jumps after the flame. He combines the four parts midair, and all of a sudden the shadows in the dead man's face vanish and reveal that he is no one but our dear friend Andrei.(we kind of suspected it the moment we saw the bulky frame. That was one low blow. Also, Carlyle, what a daredevil!)The room changes back as Ingatan accepts this unusual solution to his trial and we ignite the yellow flame in his hand. Auryn, however, is shocked by what she just saw. She tells Gabriel about Andrei's death and adds that this path of the future would break Isobel's heart.“This is exactly why we need to remove Reida from our configuration. This future, this fate, is just too cruel. And knowing that it will most likely be inevitable...”“Don't... please. Don't you start believing that this future is inevitable.” Gabriel pleads, and then embraces her tightly.“This is but one possible future and while I see that Ingatan can play some damaging tricks, he isn't that cruel. I'd rather believe that this is an opportunity so we may change the outcome of this event. Never forget that time is my friend. He won't die on us.”Auryn finally agrees to trust their power, even if both know that Nicodemus would be more than a match for them.We then move on to the last test, the trial of the far future. This room is lit with a white light and transforms into a forest-y landscape. The next person we see is Rock Rackus and this time it is Carlyle who is dismayed by this sight. We appear to be on the run with several more people coming with us, but we know none of them. They are not bothered by our sight, so we guess they must at least be brief acquaintances. Then, we see meteors falling from the sky and our pace increases. In a clearing before us, we can see the destination of our flight: A ship that appears to be an airship!Now it is Carlyle's turn to be shocked as this scenario has always been his worst nightmare. The meteors finally split the ground and separate us from the airship. Then, we see a rival group which is also trying to reach the ship: A bunch of kyton devils wearing golden chains. What is even more shocking is the fact that these devils all of a sudden teleport onto the ship despite them wearing golden chains.So we guess that this vision might be a future where the Obs or someone else successfully changed the planar configuration in a way that removed Urim's blocking effect. Also, these guys are definitely part of the Golden Legion, so this part of our warning was obviously correct. Despite the fact that we could both just cross the gap to the devils, Carlyle offers all of us a safe passage by creating an icy bridge over the chasm.(Elsa Carlyle? <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=";)" /> Also yes, he does love these wall spells)On the ship's deck, we fight the devils and finish them quickly, leaving us with the fragments of the white flame. Then, the cracks beneath the ship widen and this whole place appears to be crumbling to dust. We just hope that this wasn't our home we saw as we return to the white hall with the white flame of the distant future in our hands.“Let's just hope that this was merely another possible version of the future as well...” Auryn says, breathing heavily after this world-shattering vision.The test ends with the last flame in the statue's hands, and one of the walls opens up to reveal a wall of fire. This turns out to be merely an illusion (trickster god again...), which we may pass safely. All of a sudden, we find ourselves standing on the spires of Ingatan's statue where the Arc of Reida appears right in front of us. We carefully look at the artifact and are then being hailed by the Bagheva who don't understand why we would suddenly appear on top of the Sanctum.We shout that we just finished the trial of Ingatan and got the Arc of Reida, so no worries, this is all part of the plan. Before we lay our hands on the Arc, we examine it with magic and then wrap it in a cloth as we fear it might imprint on us or something like that.We then climb down the Sanctum again and thank Betronga for this opportunity. Still we have to return to Sentosa as quickly as possible, so we cannot stay for much longer. The Rajah understands us and then asks us to take him and Talios with us so he may speak to Matriarch Athryalla. We have given him much tot think about, he says, and so he'd like to try understand the enclave-dwellers a bit more. Carlyle agrees to teleport the four of us to the gate of Rumah Terakir. But the moment her casts the spell, he notices that something doesn't work as planned as he is slightly off-target and we all get slightly scorched.“Sorry, I knew this could happen eventually. Nothing to be worried about.” he says, but Auryn deep down knows that Carlyle so far has never missed a target. She doesn't want to alarm the Bagheva though and so she keeps quiet. We are still close enough to the entrance so we are able to enter the enclave in a timely manner despite the mishap.(And this is where I got major WotBS vibes. We knew we would be able to handle such an effect, but this was very obviously linked to the “burning threshold” Old Stag warned us about)</blockquote>

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