Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 8573314" data-attributes="member: 6816692">...find out the secrets behind...     Before we can fully leave the memory behind and properly understand what we just witnessed, the Arc resonates again and conjures the next memory on top of the fading images. The Obscurati trio is meeting again and they appear to be approximately the same age. But this time, Kasvarina appears to be quite happy as she talks about her and Grappa's progress in training and building the golems. She casually mentions that the process was sped up by quite a lot ever since they installed the gates in Stanfield canal. Nicodemus is slightly confused about Kasvarina's good mood and she explains that she just found joy in training the wee golems who call Grappa father and her mother. Nicodemus meanwhile looks strangely annoyed by Kasvarina's unusual cheer and the vision ends again.Gabriel and Auryn both look at each other with both a knowing and worried expression, but before anyone can dig deeper into the scenes, we hear a commotion at the foot of the tower. It appears that the Porteurs du Mort who arrived with Lya managed to reach the tower and are now starting their way up. We are not entirely sure whether they managed to spot us yet, so we make haste to get more distance between them and us.Kasvarina casts a few spells to damage the path right behind us so the Porteurs and Lya will be hindered should they up get to this point. As we expect more visions that may halt our progress, we agree that this is a sound plan and so Carlyle sprinkles some alchemical oil onto the steps as well.Then an earthquake strikes the whole area again and we see Borne taking a step over the river, causing him to ripple the barrier between Dreaming and Waking, and also rendering him tangible from the Waking. The Danorans are quickly to react to this change as their giant war machine begins firing at the Colossus.We know that we won't have too much time till either Borne or the Porteurs reach our current position, so we rush further upstairs. Meanwhile, we try our best to mentally talk about the two visions and wrap our heads about what we just witnessed as Gabriel expands his telepathic power onto Kasvarina and Auryn. Auryn and Gabriel agree that Ethelyn's vision and the Obscurati's original plans for dealing with the royal obstacle are directly connected as she heard about the king being made a puppet. We believe that maybe Nicodemus even planned on abducting and possessing Aodhan, but Kasvarina doesn't know enough about this plan to actually confirm it.And then we point to the elephant in the room: Kasvarina being very obviously fine with killing a lot of innocent people, and even invading a foreign, peaceful nation for their plan.“I wonder when your old you stopped viewing people as people and started seeing them as mere obstacles instead...” Auryn wonders with a sad undertone in her thoughts.Kasvaina appears to be honestly unhappy about her past self and her and Nicodemus' exchanges. Going back to Risur, we ask her why no Obs officer ever thought about actually trying to talk to a Risuri king or Queen. After all, at least Aodhan is a pretty open and unconventional monarch who generally only has the best interests for his people in mind. Kasvarina can only guess from what she has seen and felt so far that the upper ranks were too much afraid to have a Risuri monarch rejecting their ideas. And having a knowledgeable opponent would have obstructed their plans too much. This much Gabriel and Auryn can understand, but this doesn't explain why they would have risked their plan getting spoiled by opening up to a Jierre. Kasvarina doesn't know about the reason for this either, but her gut tells her that both she and Nicodemus thought that Han Jierre and his family were trustworthy.While we continue upstairs, the next ghost of our past emerges to haunt us yet again. This time, it is Elanor Yanette who screams at us, trying to curse us before falling to her doom. A few steps further we also see Boone who gets turn to shreds. Gabriel fixates this one with disdain and he doesn't hide the fact that he's actually glad to have Boone out of this world.“These two got what they've earned... ” he whispers.“A murderer and a slaver”, Auryn explains briefly without going too much into detail.It doesn't take us much longer to come to the next opening in the tower's structure and to have the Arc show Kasvarina another one of her lost memories. The trio meets again, but this time, it is not Han Jierre but another Jierre sovereign with Nicodemus (in another host) and Kasvarina. The Jierre apologizes that the third Yerasol war wasn't enough to convince Risur that it would need to invest in technological progress as their magic was just too strong. Nicodemus and Kasvarina asren't too happy about the way the war turned out, as they seriously need a basis to build their Colossus and Witch Hill would be just the prefect place. But getting all the needed tech to Risur without having them actually invest and build technology on their own would be far too difficult.Nicodemus brushes the trouble off in the end as he has yet another ace up his sleeve: Some allies and friends in the Risuri government who could pull a few strings here and there if they are given the right opportunity. So he asks Jierre to have his newly built steam vessel get captured by the Risuri navy so the Risuri are easier to impress by seeing the tech upfront. Of course, Jierre isn't too happy at the prospect of factually betraying his own nation and losing a good investment, but he agrees in the end.The vision ends and we are very much surprised to see that the great coup that earned King Aodhan and Duchess Ethelyn gain their notoriety and position was actually just another Obscurati plan. We're also worried about Nicodemus' friends in our government as this cannot possibly mean Katharina Romana, who wouldn't have been born at that time. But whoever that might have been, he or she would likely be dead by now. Still, we get the feeling that Romana wasn't the end of Obscurati in positions of power.We continue upstairs and see Borne approaching slowly but steadily. Lya and the Porteurs are also on their way up, but are heavily hindered by our obstacles, just as we hoped. So we sabotage the tower even more and continue.The next vision strikes us soon thereafter. This time, Kasvarina reports that she managed to find the ziggurat of air on a floating island in the realm of a dragon tyrant. She then tried to conduct the planned ritual, but something must have gone horribly wrong when she tried to relocate the portal behind the golden seal. Her magic backfired in a huge magical explosion and then all flight magic failed after just a few minutes. She is glad to make it out alive, but this turn of events meant that the (still floating) island and its ziggurat are now out of reach. In conclusion, the ritual was faulty. Nicodemus doesn't see fault in his plans however and curses Kasvarina for her failure.And now we realize that we just found out the truth about the fall of the Dragons. We don't see it as too much of a catastrophe as this helped the oppressed tribes of Ber to defeat their former tyrants and form a nation of their own. Auryn and Gabriel secretly agree to never ever tell Gradiax this truth even if he appears to have settled with his new life.After the vision has ended and we're on the run again, another ghost appears in front of our eyes. This time, the figure looks like a mechanized version of Kell. The moment the ghost sees us, he draws his weapon and tries to dismember Carlyle. Who instead blasts the spirit with a strong force evocation.Well, now we at least know what happened to Lorcan Kell and can be sure that he won't come back anytime soon. Another good riddance.(I guess this is the second-most underwhelming death of a notorious NPC in our campaign. Number one is not too far away as well. Stay tuned. But hey, not all baddies need to go off with a bang or be killed actively by the PCs <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=";)" /> )As we are at quite the altitude now, we begin to wonder how high this tower might end up once it is finished constructing itself. Still we go on and are drawn into yet another memory of Kasvarina. She turns pale and stoic while Nicodemus tries to comfort her. We get that this must have happened shortly after the death of Launga as Nicodemus states that he would have tried to protect and save Launga had be been there, by her side. Kasvarina stays cold and shows no sign of emotion, even though we realize that she's doing her best to suppress her pain. She says that she doesn't need empathy as she left grief behind long ago. All that is left is her focus on their mission. Nicodemus seems to be satisfied as he explains in detail all he has learned about Skyseer magic and their knowledge of the planes. Knowledge that led him to believe that they could manipulate the planes themselves.“That dirtbag of a man! How could he so sleazily try to crawl back into your life after he just caused Launga's death!”. Auryn spits out, holding back her disgust no more. She then points out that her great-grandmother was most likely “sacrificed” by Nicodemus because he was sour that Kasvarina didn't want to hear his “grand planar ideas” when he met her in Ushanti and tried to enthusiastically get her on board again.Kasvarina stays silent for the moment though as there is too much to unpack here and she needs to process getting back so many memories in such a high frequency.“Life means nothing to him. He lost all humanity likely a long time ago”, Gabriel comments silenty.(Before you wonder whether the PCs will talk more about Nic: Soon. There is a lot to unpack and the two do some heavy dissection based on how Nic acted towards Kasvarina and the Jierres.Also, this must have been a really exhausting walk up the stairs for the Obs and the Hierarchs who used the Lance of Triegenes before them. So I'll just leave this random bit of funny gameplay here which reminded me of the Spire and vice versa <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC_WaAVYgSs" target="_blank">And they had only 60 floors...</a> )</blockquote>

Verification