Xorus Delivers an Invitation to The WAthers of the Eternal Eye

Professor Xorus seems to have a plan, and writes a missive to put it into play. The Principals, The Talon, The Eye of Ta’Ashrim, and The Invitation. Oh, MY!

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Category: Towns
Topic: Wehnimer’s Landing

Date: 11/22/2017 03:21 AM CST

From: INIQUITY

Subj: Invitation to the Watchers of the Eternal Eye

The warlock hands the envelope to a courier outside the Faendryl Embassy in Ta’Illistim. It is sealed with the symbol of a black six-fingered talon and embossed with a crest of an open eye set against a black pyramid. He smiles slightly and disappears with a twilight grey flash. Soon he is standing with Sheruvian warlocks in a summoning chamber with a mist-shrouded krodera and veil-iron veined orb. He remarks, “They insisted on using their plinite method instead of allowing me to pursue our work on the monolith on Melgorehn’s Reach. Let that mistake become self-correcting. With your aid I will use the Siphon Stone to fix this dome, and I will feed Sheru the souls trapped in the Eye.”

The Watchers of the Eternal Eye
Couriered from Linsandrych Var
c/o Vaelsoth Inzuniel

“The Talon of Toullaire and the Eye of Ta’Ashrim”

Esteemed Colleagues:

I write this missive from the lawless region of northwest Elanith, beyond the baronies of the northern marches of the Turamzzyrian Empire. There is a Grand Magister of the imperial Hall of Mages, a scion of the Kestrel family, who is now in possession of the Talon of Toullaire. The intrigues surrounding this eventuality are irrelevantly complicated. What is most salient is that he is a wayward member of a rogue faction, acting outside the scope of his order, leaving the artifact vulnerable to acquisition.

While he acknowledges it as a Siphon Stone from the Age of Darkness, however non-commital he may be on whether its provenance is with the Ur-Daemon, he denies it has any relation to the Chaos Lord of the Wizardwaste who was slain by the Imperial Drakes a few decades ago. This is suspect as his immediate family has been subject to wasting sicknesses and chaotic augmentation of latent powers. Indeed. He has leveraged the wasteland that was Talador for its preternatural similitude to Ba’Lathon.

I. Expository Context

He has used the Talon to imbue the essence of an unnaturally augmented fire elemental born of his son’s corruption into a cache of plinite stolen from the Hall of Magisters. This is the elemental amplifier substance of Jegrato Plin from the time of the Solhaven Cataclysm, from whence you are aware the creature Nershuul was in possession of Provost Venquinor. It is much the same principle as the elemental soulstones devised by the madman Alusius whom the Argent Mirror gave such wide discretion.

This magister Dennet Kestrel was drawn to the region as there was still a chest full of plinite remaining from last year, which had been stolen from his own thieving faction within the Hall of Mages, when we used it to amplify our pylon weapons from the Elithain Cross incident to eviscerate the floating pyramids of the Ithzir of Kol’Tarsken.

With the instabilities of the Elemental Confluence which ruptured through our regional valencial stresses, which itself caused the Red Forest vergence shortly later in the lunar alignment, combined with the mana storms of Melgorehn’s Reach which exhibited symptoms of interplanar bleedthrough — needless to say, these pylons violently exploded forming a small legion of elementals. He wishes to infuse this siphoned power into his own pylons, within a stone’s throw of Melgorehn’s Reach, nominally to form a radius of comfort for his wife who is in failing health. He both claims he wishes to be rid of the Talon to whomever while his cabalist to whom it is falsely promised is to be murdered.

II. Proposal

The fate of this matter is inordinately at the mercy of those who find credulity in all of the wrong things. This is extraordinarily frustrating as we have spent millennia since the exile preventing such affairs, keeping primordial artifacts in the southern wastelands where they belong. There is a local Deacon of the Church of Koar who has met with some resistance in his demands that “the Watchers” be sent for, but it strikes me as a fine idea indeed to invite the expert assistance of the Watchers of the Eternal Eye.

What I propose is a grand bargain. There are only a few plausible scenarios of near future possession for the Talon: Grand Magister Dennet, his rival Octaven in the rogue faction, the Hall of Mages proper, or the ill-promised Tehir blood mage Quinshon who is a mindwalker. The worst case would be for the crystal to end up properly secured. When reduced to the choices of Dennet, Octaven, and Quinshon there is room for negotiation. The difficulty is only in lack of knowledge regarding true motives.

The locals will be much more likely to acquiesce in allowing the Illistim to study the artifact than my own associates of the Faendryl antiquaries society should the Grand Magister truly wish to be parted with it. Octaven would seem to have a price, more interested in plinite caches than archaic relics. The most intriguing aspect is the blood mage’s assertion that he requires the Talon to counter the Eye of Ta’Ashrim. The Eye is known to be in the possession of Grishom Stone, a surviving blood mage and savant of the human Arcane Eyes cabal, among whom included Elithain Cross himself and the witch Raznel who is ultimately responsible for the desolation of Talador.

Grishom Stone is a gentleman and a scholar, however much he suffers from the human vice, the monomaniacal pursuit of reckless power through the black arts. I have no doubt he can be reasoned with in some fashion. While Grishom assures me he has no wish to see our world conquered by the Ithzir, his blood magic was at work in the opening of the sky portal to Kol’Tarsken. One of the children the Ithzir abducted and transmogrified to open this gateway survived, the half-Ithzir cambion who most immediately caused the annihilation of the human barony through his own power. This fascinating child has asserted he has not yet reached the final form of his metamorphosis.

It happens that I have some rapprochement with both Dennet and Quinshon as well, including no shortage of incriminations for prosecuting their extortion. Whether the Talon is handed over to us by Dennet or immediately ends up with Quinshon, the opportunity avails itself in one way or another to acquire the Eye of Ta’Ashrim. The final disposition of the Eye is of no great concern to myself, while the Talon has considerable intrinsic value to my associates as well as my own researches. I do not wish our failure to recover the Talon from the wreckage of Toullaire before the Hall of Mages to become as ill-fated as when Raukturga and his cohort acquired the Sphere of Sorrow two centuries ago.

III. Considerations

The three of them all have inordinate interest in the Ithzir, which might be exploited in various ways. The boy cambion has an especially visceral hatred of Quinshon and the Kestrel family from his own captivity and tortures, but for all we know he may come to regard Grishom Stone as a kind of father figure or blood god. Grishom is quite taken with their profound telepathic capabilities. There is still an Ithzir pyramid mostly intact under Darkstone Bay, crashing not so far from where the Eye did five years ago.

You may recall the histrionic irrationality the Mirror displayed in open court regarding taking responsible actions in the West, unhinged as she was over traumas related to Caylio Javilerre and the mages murdered who were sent for the Eye. It would be no small embarrassment to the throne and rather poetic for the Eye to be recovered by the Watchers of the Eternal Eye. Her wanton disregard for responsibility in recent affairs along with near destruction of the city leaves her vulnerable to the Council of Thrones. I would suggest that there any number of excellent choices among the Avelleur family, who are less taken with royal frivolities and quite well regarded within House Faendryl.

Incidentally, this chaotic fire elemental may have been afflicted with an enchanted Mularosian poison called the Long Suffering, which causes eternal torture and torment. This will have been infused with its essence into the plinite that will be used to charge his pylons. It would be most poetic for this cursed elixir to taint the radiance of comfort for the grand magister’s wife — in the dead language of their ancestors in the fallen Kannalan Empire, after all, the wasteland of Ba’Lathon itself means “land in pain”…

Lord Xorus Kul’shin
Vice Chancellor Emeritus of the Hazalred Thaumaturgical Society
Division of Relics, Artifacts, and Antiquities
The Black Claw; New Ta’Faendryl

Council of Advisors to the Mayor of Wehnimer’s Landing
Advisor of History, Occult Lore, and Magic
21st Eoantos, 5117 Modern Era

Post-Script: The Grand Magister’s subordinate in the region is Magister Raelee Svala from the Solhaven incidents. It may interest you to know that she as well as others recently visited the otherworldly library of Fash’lo’nae on the Inorios plateau involving the vesperti creatures. I have spent considerable time among the demonic cultists in the valley where Augustin Vespertinae set up his experiments. It might be possible to arrange a return visit. Needless to say, this is none of Ambassador Tredohal’s concern.