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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 9803577" data-attributes="member: 6816692">Shadows of the pastAuryn's face turns a pale bronze, as she looks at Gabriel in utter disbelief. Both she and the King exchange grim looks, and without further discussion they conclude the arrangements with the Drakrans, offer Heid a final bow of gratitude, and then teleport back to Slate in an instant.Lee looks just as if he'd expected us no second later, as he greets us in the palace with a face lined by more worries than usual. His report is clinical, but there is a nervous tension beneath it.„Tell me.“, Gabriel states with a kind of sternness that's barely enough to hide what might be going on inside of him.“Shot in the head,” Lee explains. “A pistol in his own hand. Every fact points to suicide… except that none of it feels right. This is Price-Hill we're talking about, not some emotional fool”“We’ll see for ourselves,” Gabriel growls. „After all, examining crime scenes is still one of our specialties...“, he adds, while sounding more uneasy this time. (well yeah, it is different when you have to be ready to examine a dead confidante.)We head straight to the Lord's estate to examine the scene of the crime. As we're ready to move in, we see RHC agents guarding the perimeter as if afraid to enter the site where their Lord Commander found his end.Inside, Auryn moves swiftly towards what's left of Lord Price-Hill. As she kneels beside his body, her brow creases.“Lee was right. This was no suicide.“, she says after taking just one look at the hand that's still holding the pistol. “His wrist is broken,” she adds quietly, before touching said wrist gently. “Pretty badly. He couldn’t have held a pistol steady, let alone fired it.”Gabriel nods swiftly, taking one glance at the RHC agents, but biting his toungue as he represses to openly ask the question how they could have possibly missed what was so obvious to his partner. He then inspects the room with proper respect. The clues he gets as he sees dust displaced, and a couple shelves strangely bare in places, adding more evidence to the obvious. „Missing inventory. Maybe the murderer was after one of Price-Hill's secrets? But what could it...“Gabriel's monologue stops suddenly as both he and Auryn get a glimpse of someone familiar at the same time. „He's in the mirror! He's... still here!“ Auryn almost shouts in surprise as she takes out her pocket mirror, while Gabriel feels the familiar, unnerving presence of the recently deceased. Gabriel closes his eyes and reaches out with practiced calm, letting his mind slip into the flickering twilight of the dead. A familiar, silvery silhouette forms in front of his inner eye, dignified even in death, yet wracked with guilt.“Your Majesty…” Price-Hill whispers. “I am sorry.”“You have nothing to apologize for,” Gabriel answers softly. “Tell me what happened.”The Viscount’s tale unfolds like a nightmare. An ambush. Abducted into a vault of stone and shadow. His servants - all Deva - dragged away from him into darkness by strange eladrin captors with cold, bright eyes. And finally, being returned to his own home, a gun pressed into his broken hand, compelled by some unknown force magic to pull the trigger.“I failed them,” Price-Hill says, voice shuddering. “My RHC agents… and all those who went missing over the last couple of months. I should have reported the disappearances sooner. I shouldn't have just kept the intel inside my safe, trying to solve the puzzle on my own. I should have known better...” “Viscount,” Gabriel replies, firm yet gentle, “you have not failed. You stayed because you believed your duty wasn’t finished. Rest assured that we will find the missing people and your agents.” As he senses that Price-Hill's spirit is a bit relieved, he ends the connection and bids the Lord farewell.  We then search for Price-Hill's safe and the aforementioned files and find a tightly bound dossier. It contains reports, dozens of them, detailing missing Deva across Risur. Among them two from Flint. Gabriel’s expression hardens as he realizes that one of the two is someone he knows personally. The curator of the museum,” he says, tapping a name. „I... wanted to share a good bottle with him once matters would quiet down a bit.“, he states with regret, pressing his lips.(Remember when these two met back in adventure #3? It was a brief, but sweet and melancholic moment. Impactful enough to affect Gabriel personally.)„And I fear that this pattern might point to someone far more familiar: Eddie. We know that he tried to take Srasama's essence from me. He made it look like an assassination attempt on the Vantrys family back then. He's making it look like Price-Hill has committed suicide over having dark secrets now.“Auryn nods quietly in agreement and puts her hand on Gabriel's shoulder. „We'll find the Deva. This will stop. I promise.“Just as we return to RHC headquarters to begin preparations to track down the “dark vault,” another message from Lee arrives.“Your Majesty,” he says, “sorry to interrupt, but you have a visitor. Betronga of Elfaivar. He claims it is urgent.”„One moment I may spare...“ Gabriel mumbles, as he leaves the RHC and asks Delft to take over the leadership of the RHC on an interim basis.Back in the palace, we receive Betronga and what appears to be his 'entourage'.Betronga stands tall and proud in the audience chamber, adorned in ceremonial armor of the children of Hewanharimau, flanked by two guards who grip a bound prisoner: a wiry Eadrin man covered in marked with devilish tattoos. “This man,” Betronga begins stiffly, “is Anduin Haldyr. A defector from the Kingdom of Vardanis. He demands asylum. I have brought him here because the old King said he'd protectorate our lands and Elfaivar thus honors Risuri law....“ he then pauses, gives a quick, cat-like grown and adds „...even though I do not like it and would gladly rip out his throat.” (just a quick note for the odd naming inspiration. Anduin should be known from both LotR and WoW, while Haldyr is the name of a character from our old guild. He was a dwarf rogue though <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" />)We quickly explain to Betronga that an honest defector could be extremely useful to us, right before we turn to the Eladrin to ask him about the reason for his change of heart.He reports that he was one of King Vardanis' favourites and a candidate for 'ascension'. However, his companion, an Eladrin Deva named Lina-Even, recently disappeared. Shortly afterwards, the king set off for the Eternal City, promising to grant ascension to thousands of Eladrin, which seemed highly suspicious to him. “You know, ascension has always been the privilege of a chosen few.“, Anduin explains with a sense of pride. „But everything changed after his alliance with the prophet, the 'gray eminence', whose whispers lead to a cult-like circle of followers, especially in these weakling colonies. And those who vanish… do not return.” He takes a deep breath ask the memory of his companion appears to be too painful, even for a fel-touched Eladrin like him. „A bit late for that kind of revelation, but... sometimes it takes the pain of love to open your eyes“, Auryn states, giving her approval in that matter to Gabriel with a slight nod. So we grant him refuge, but we insist that he is to be placed in a secure “guest cell” until we know more. Anduin Haldyr accepts the confinement with a bowed head, though he does not seem too happy with this development. Betronga grumbles openly, however.“I had hoped for the opportunity to bite his head off...”, the warrior mutters.Gabriel gives him a wry half-smile. “You may yet get the chance... if he’s lying and this turns out to be another trap that is.”Betronga narrows his eyes but says nothing more.Gabriel’s expression, though superficially calm, is set like iron. Every new thread of evidence points toward the same conclusion.“Eddie is with Vardanis,” he says quietly, almost to himself. “And if the Deva are vanishing in both Risur and Elfaivar… then he’s collecting them. Their divine sparks. Srasama’s sparks.”He then quietly clenches a fist while staring blankly into the distance, stating without words that this is his responsibility. That he might have prevented this, had he just given his own tragedy more priority.Auryn rests a hand on his arm. “Whatever Eddie is trying to do, it cannot be allowed to continue. He is both a threat to the Deva and to Elfaivar. And even worse, he is twisting our goddess to his will. So whatever path you take, I'll walk it with you.““It doesn't matter what he intends to do. The divine sparks belonged to Srasama. She has sown them into us we she died. They are not meant to be ripped from us and used for whatever his twisted mind is dreaming of. I take it on me to free them so that Srasama can choose her own fate.” He then adds that it would be wise to take all we've learned from Eddie's failed ritual on Gabriel with us – just in case we have to try and take his essence in return. In addition to the ritual, Auryn suggests that we take more pieces of the fallen white star of Srasama with us, as it was seemingly able to strip Stanfield of his divinity.Gabriel allows himself a thin, approving smile. “You are right, it was as if Srasama herself took back what she had granted. We’ll bring them.” Next, we meet the RHC team from Slate at an old estate in the forest, as they followed the tracks of the attackers in the mean time and found out where Price-Hill and his servants were held captive.Delft, in his interim-command coat, scratches the back of his head. “It’s quite creepy and damp in here. Whole place feels like a mausoleum. Found scorch marks. Something got summoned or dismissed here.” We're quite surprised to see Delft over here, but realize that the Chief must have had his own connection to Lord Price-Hill and took it onto himself to search for clues. Even though it is quite obvious that he hasn't been out in the field for quite some time. Auryn takes one quick look at a fading circle carved into the floor. “Not summoned,” she murmurs. “Departed. A teleportation ritual of considerable power. And it seems eerily familiar. Looks quite like the one Asrabey and Kasvarina used on Axis” Gabriel rolls his eyes with a sigh, as he knows exactly what comes next.So we teleport back to Slate to go find Asrabey, who is far more eager to join up with King Gabriel again. “Asrabey,” Gabriel calls, taking a deep breath, “You navigated deeper into the Eternal City than any living explorer. The teleportation ritual you and Kasvarina used back on Axis island came from there. We need you as our guide down there.“ Asrabey accepts the request with a broad grin as he finally has an opportunity to leave Slate again and get into action. As we understand that we'll most likely need more support this time, we also take Margit and Betronga with us. As a first step, we teleport to Sawyer to gather more information, and to keep an eye out for other Eladrin who have already been to the mysterious Eternal City. (Asrabey-Margit-Betronga is one tem we'd not expect to see anytime soon before this episode. Taking two Eladrin felt pretty logical, and we knew we'd needea cleric in a deep, dark dungeon cough)  Sawyer is tense. The markets are active, yet there’s a shadow over every conversation. Betronga takes his time to speak with a veteran captain while we ask around about the missing Deva. We quickly learn that basicaly all of the remaining Deva in Elfaivar have also disappeared, and that there have been attacks there as well. We also ask the local scholars about anyone who might’ve entered the Eternal City recently or in the past, be it a veteran, an explorer, even a smuggler. Their answers form a consistent refrain: None went as far down there as the Dreadnaught did. None returned with more than fragments of memory and the sense that something terrifying must be hidden down below the Eternal City.Asrabey looks at this news with a sense of pride. “Then we waste no more time. You bring me there. And I'll show you how I snuck inside last time.” We set off as quickly as possible and teleport to the outskirts of the Eterny City. Unlike last time, it appers to be less fortified by the forces of Rationalis and Vardanis. Still, we agree that it would be wise to not draw attention so early. Fortunately, Asrabey is able to find his secret entrance, allowing us to bypass the Feladrin and Danoran guards. We descend a narrow stairway until it opens onto a massive stone gate carved with spiral motifs, leading deeper into the buried vaults of the Eternal City. To our surprise, we find a body lying in front of it. We instantly see that this was a Danoran soldier, twisted unnaturally, his armor crushed inward. “He stepped on the wrong stone. A pressure rune.”, Margit states dryly. Asrabey crouches, tracing the ancient inscriptions. “Old defenses. The city was designed to protect its secrets, even from our kind.”With the practiced hands of both an RHC agent and a trap-savvy alchemist, Gabriel disarms the remaining trap lines and pushes open the colossal gate. “Then we tread carefully. As always.”, he states while gesturing forward. (This is pretty obviously going to be a more personal episode for Gabriel. We had no idea whether Tiz would wrap up the Eddie story eventually, and, well... it escalated more that we'd thought. So yeah, this is going to be a good detour from the original story.)</blockquote>

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