We rejoin the party six weeks after the events in Silversun, as the first signs of spring began to appear in Bellcea. The snows began to melt and warm breezes blew through the streets outside the Bureau where the party worked to set up their new division within the organization. Living quarters and a small collection of rooms were sectioned off to create the “Diluted Hope” area, accessible only by the party and high level Bureau officers.
In that time, Bureau artificers worked for more that a month to create a new soulstone for Edward. Using his notes on the Blackstar shard and their research in to crystal growth they created a new stone, black with flecks of red, blue, and gold. Paz herself oversaw the ritual to move Edwards soul from the soulgem to this new soulstone. She had spent the time waiting for the soulstones completion dragging whatever information about the Eldar Gods she could out of the belligerent blue stone. As she moved Edward from one stone to the other, she considered just letting his dissipate into nothing but stopped short of doing so, as his usefulness still outweighed his assholery. Edwards new stone was much weaker that the former relic he was housed in before, compounded by his severed connection to Mantorok, this left him somewhat unsure of his magic abilities in this new form. Only time would tell how he would be affected.
Two weeks after returning from Silversun Paz, Gemward, Hattori, and Mörker were out at a pub just off of Lights Gate Square.While debating the finer points of what they could have done differently in the city beneath the mountain and how Edward was still wrong no matter what he thought, Hattori stopped mid sentence. He was looking over at the bar, his eyes wide. When Paz asked him what was wrong, he only replied “I know that man.”
Looking at the bar, they saw a tall, pale human man. Middle aged and gaunt, he looked toward the group and made eye contact with Hattori. The man was visibly startled, quickly paying and leaving. Hattori rose from the table, not looking away from the man as he left.
“I’ll be right back” he said as he headed toward the door.
That was four weeks ago. He has not been seen or heard from since.
A summons came to the party, their next assignment seemed to be at hand.
Everyone reported to the usual meeting room, although looking around they appeared to be short members even with Hattori missing.
Dessa entered the room with a thick file in her hand. Sitting down at her desk she motioned for the group to sit in their provided chairs. Looking at the two empty chairs for Ash and Heywood, Dessa grimaced slightly.
“We’ve made a…discovery…about a member of your group. She needs to be reassigned for the time being, hopefully we can help her with what she needs. In the mean time Heywood will be hunting Edwards old body, as it is still at large. Ash has volunteered to work with her, we wish the pair of them luck in bringing in the less annoying version of Edward.” She spoke as she ran her hand across the file on her desk, not opening it.
“Getting to the matter at hand, we’ve had two research teams investigating the city you discovered under the mountain at Silversun. There have been some major discoveries, with some serious implications for what this all means for our place in this.”
Dessa opened the file and began removing hand drawn maps, showing the world as the party knew it as well as copies of the various maps they had pulled up while using the controls for the gates.
“We are most interested in this “anchor” device. While we have been aware of our worlds slow slide in to this Eldar God dimension, we haven’t had any success on stopping it. If this is what it seems to be, we could put a stop to this decent, maybe even reverse it.”
Dessa looked off in to the distance, a faint smile seemed to cross her face at the thought.
Edward raised his hand to speak.
“I have to object to the idea of activating this thing, the last thing like this these Precursors used wiped all life from the surface of our world. There is no reason to think that this will be any-”
He was interrupted by an explosion somewhere nearby.
Everyone turned to look in the direction of the sound, it seemed to come from a far outer wall of the building.
Dessa frowned and spoke.
“The walls of the Bureau are warded to protect against magical or physical attacks, while we’ll need to see what is going on, there isn’t any thre-”
Another explosion, this one louder.
“This could be more serious that I thought.” She said, grabbing her things and heading for the door.
A bell could now be heard ringing out the hall, the party rose and opened the door to see what was happening. Three guards ran by, toward the end of the hallway with their weapons drawn. Another explosion blew out the wall just off to the right of the end of the hallway, black smoke and debris filled the intersection in front of the guards. Five elf-like creatures came forward from the smoke, three dark-skinned and two pale white. They carried with them vicious looking black swords and set to work cutting down the guards.
Behind them a figure came forward out of the smoke. It was tall, blue, translucent, vaguely humanoid with long ribbon like wings that moved out in all directions. When the thin strips touched the walls and ceiling, scorch marks appeared. In the place where it would have a chest floated a sliver and golden box. It was carved with hundreds of tiny eyes, with a large one located directly in the middle of its front, the large eye contained within a carving of the sun. Edward still could recognize relics, though he couldn’t recall more tha just names, and knew this as a relic of Mantorok called the Eye of the Mourning. As he prepared to tell the party this, the translucent shape turned its featureless head toward him and spoke directly in to his mind.
“Oh, what is this? The traitor shows itself.” It’s voice was calm and smooth. Almost soothing, if not for the hostility of its words.
“Wait, I’m no traitor. I was-” Edward was cut off.
“No one turns their back on the Master, young one. You will see all that you have forfeit soon enough.”
As it finished speaking, it used it wings to tear away the corner of the room closest to it and disappeared into the hole.
The elf creatures descended on the group, having cut down the guards. The party made short work of them and approached the door to the room the Eye had entered.
The Eye was nowhere to be seen.
The room was lined with shelves containing hundreds of books, all on the different regions of Nyvon. Maps covered a large table in the center, with two new maps on top. Maps of the possible locations of gates and Magrathea, the anchor city.
“I guess we know what they were looking for.” Reith said, shuffling though the maps.
Early Frost Warning 