Echoes of Power, Part III: Dark Designs
In the aftermath of the cosmic conjunction, another of Sapience’s ancient landmarks stirred beneath the quiet coastal town of Tasur’ke. The Crystal Caverns, long dormant after a cave-in, echoed with the alluring song of celestial magic, filling its faceted passages with a curious melody that drew inquisitive and ambitious adventurers alike.
Heiress Rashemi, accompanied by her conclave of vigilant Siderealists, was first to venture into the dazzling depths, her eyes aglow with cosmic energy. Already present when Sapience’s ascendants turned up, the Heiress had uncovered the centralmost mineral vein within the cove for all to examine. She wasted no time channeling her powers into the crystalline surroundings and soon announced that she sensed overwhelming potential locked within each gemstone. However, she cautioned that something tragic and wrong lurked underneath, explaining that this particular landmark had a sad history. As others arrived, the Caverns hummed softly with ethereal sorrow: the manifest remnants of experiments conducted long ago by the Dark Empire and ancient forces of Light. While the adventurers and Heiress conversed, a Grook Siderealist set apart from its fellows arrived late to the gathering, adding another cunning mind to the assembly.
Legyn, Lin, Whirran, Sepyhie, Pietre, and Jhura were among those who braved closer examination, each encountering echoes of the past etched deep into the crystal. Whirran, ever pragmatic and ambitious, boldly attempted to wrest control by striking the crystals directly with his dagger – only to be instantly repelled by the site’s overwhelming force. Not to be outdone, Lin and Legyn both attempted the same, and the latter received naught but a faceful of sparks for a reward as it sank bare fangs into the cavern’s walls. Oridez’s attempts to interface with the landmark resulted in a fatal catastrophe, its hidden powers and truths driving the Spirean mad as the energy within the crystals unravelled his entire being.
Ambition’s Hammer and Knife chose a more direct route as the adventurers pondered the cavern’s mysteries, stunning onlookers as they executed what seemed a sound plan to them. Reasoning that a sacrifice might aspect the caverns or affect its powers somehow, the two promptly ended their lives in dedication to their Dark King, adding a spark to the powderkeg of memory and power all around. In a flicker of celestial power, an unexpected figure wrested herself free from a crystalline prison within the cave: a girl, clutching an eerie dagger and wearing little more than a ragged shift. Jhura quickly recognised her as the remnant of a tragedy, a living echo embodying the rage and sorrow of countless orphans sacrificed to ancient rituals and lost to the Wars of Power – an interpretation further confirmed by the manic thoughts racing through the creature’s mind. The girl, empty of all emotion and cold as ice, made her intentions clear in five words:
“I have to kill you.”
Whirran, clearly unfamiliar with Sapience’s more dire chapters of folklore, mistook the vengeful creature as naught more than a child and reached out to try and disarm her, prompting the girl to unleash a flurry of terrible knifeblows that dispatched the Ogre faster than any Esterporean duelist could dream of. As dread settled over those present, the girl made an unexpected plea for aid: her own sinister doppelganger, a mirrored version trapped in the Dark Mirror realm, posed an existential threat to her. She directed the crowd’s attention with a simple gesture of her knife, drawing the eye to a gathered horde of doppelgangers dwelling within and beyond the landmark’s magical facets.
Left with no choice, the gathered warriors resolved to aid the knife-wielding girl in her bid for freedom. In recompense, she showed her loyalty to the First World by stepping beyond Aetolia’s boundaries through the very same bridge that now threatened its safety and executed a trio of assassinations as a distraction, eliminating Lin, Emhyra, and Pietre’s doppelgangers in a wrathful flurry. Meanwhile, the girl’s doppelganger – the other girl with the knife – crossed into Aetolia simultaneously, once more showcasing the eerie, fateful connection between the two realms set so far apart in the Eschaton’s cosmos. In a bloodied confrontation that painted the cave in a thin film of red, Sapience’s adventurers triumphed over the spiteful intruder and began to deliberate on how to seal the way.
Heiress Rashemi, supported by her Siderealist students, hastily began channeling cosmic energy to seal the cavern from further intrusion. In so doing, the nebula of Siderealists managed to shift the landmark’s aspect, claiming it for the Guiding Light Council – Rashemi’s independent cadre of students and associates. A flicker of power filled the cave as the way snapped shut, allowing the knife-wielding girl to slip back home to Aetolia – and then, in another flash, she dispersed, freed from her prison and released to the world as the worshipped spirit she always was. A momentary lull allowed adventurers to recover, even as uneasy laughter and debate lingered among them regarding the threat beyond their world – an enemy that dwelled just beyond the cave’s mirror-polished crystals, ever scheming to invade and replace us all at the centre of the Prime Material.
The Crystal Cave’s transformation soon ended, rendering its previously translucent crystals dark enough to resemble night’s blackened canvas. The energy within the landmark became glittering pinpricks, evocative of the stars from which its new guardians derive all their precious power.
As the Crystal Cave shed its terrible past and became the Starlight Cavern, other landmarks stirred from centuries of disuse…
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Summary: Heiress Rashemi and her Siderealists investigated Tasur’ke’s Crystal Caverns, uncovering painful histories and confronting dangerous doubles from the Dark Mirror realm. After defeating the doppelgangers and narrowly preventing further disaster, the caverns were aspected to Rashemi and her students, transforming them into a constellation-filled wonder that betrays nothing of the grim threat it could pose.
Penned by my hand on Closday, the 13th of Celes, in the year 10 AC.
