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Light on words (and those penned mostly as riddles and cryptic side-notes), but heavy on subtly horrifying diagrams and mind-bending mathemagical formulae, "Xukong's Manuscript" will no doubt go on to become the single most celebrated (and dreaded) work on its subject matter for untold centuries to come.
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After any preparations needed, the team, minus Zarta, heads for the Arcanimirium. She has other matters to attend to, she said, and trusts you will handle matters as effectively as you did in the vault.
At the reception desk of the school, student employees greet you cheerfully. Unfortunately, their enthusiasm is offset by their inexperience, and you will have to make arrangements with the bureaucrats who truly run this library, and figure out how to send the staff where you need them to go.
While trying to track down the details about the beacon itself, you can also study the Dark tapestry in the Arcanimirium's library.
Eventually, you learn that the items are called “Beacons of Ralzeros” and that the remaining two beacons are in two locations: journeyman wizard Maren Fuln’s office on campus; and on display in the Blakros Museum.
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Desini hurries up to the student employees, speaking in a loud and quick voice that doesn't give them much chance to interject. "Ah, thank goodnessss we've finally made it! Run along now and tell your bosssess we're here and passss on our apologiesss for being a little late." Along just enough time for some blank looks but not enough for any real interjections, Desini continues, with a sigh. "You do know who we are, don't you? Never mind, they'll be expecting usss...quickly, now I did sssay we were late, didn't I?"
Lies flow off the sorcerer's tongue like honey as she easily gets the students to do what she says and soon the group are face to face with the real bureaucrats of the Arcanarium. "Ah, good! Now we don't have a moment to wassste. That sssphere you sssold the Pathfindersss Sssociety a few weeksss ago...well it, ssshall we sssay 'malfunctioned'. We averted the dissasster but must sssee the other two itemsss at once. I trussst you'll be able to locate them for usss without any delay. We're worried that they might alssso be about to do sssomething nasssty!"
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Bluff
Know. Arcana
Molos again lectures about the Dark Tapestry. ”The term itself is meant for the lifeless space between the stars. Studying it has a common effect: making the studies insane. Thankfully, whatever is out there generally leaves us be. Paucol the Grey is the Society specialist on the topic, but you can only see him by appointment. And to be honest, he’s not seeming altogether anymore. That thing we just fought resembles a description of Auciturn, the furthest planet from the sun. It’s exceedingly hard to teleport to, and the atmosphere is purported to be pure poison!”
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While those with skills in areas that Xantanax considers to extremely boring and easily capable of putting him to sleep negotiate with the other bureaucrats, Xantanax uses his whetstone to sharpen his sword and restore its honed edge. When the Blakros Museum is mentioned he drops the whetstone on the floor in shock.
Not that accursed place again! There's a disaster happening there every month it seems like. I had to battle its oddball junk a few months ago when everything in the place came to life. That idiot who runs the place had stolen some dagger from the North and caused a whole bunch of trouble."
He shakes his head. "I'd rather just burn that bad luck beacon to the ground as much as even look at it again."
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Xantanax kicks the door and it shudders and some wood cracks, but it remains intact. "WHAT THE F$*@?" yells a voice from inside. "DID YOU JUST KICK MY DOOR?"
The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families.
Wait, what was that? A stray thought that made no sense. Did you all think it at the same time?
Shaking off confusion, Vlazis calls out to the occupant of the room. Though the kick to the door scared him, the infernal priest's honeyed words smooth it over. "Ah... I see... just concerned... well, don't try to kick my door down again! There's something strange here... well, come in and see for yourself, I guess. Might be easier to deal with if I have help."
With a click, the door unlocks.
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The door open to reveal a middle-aged academic, sweat on his brow and mussed clothing. He looks frazzled and concerned, but steps back to allow Vlazis to step inside.
The floor of this workplace is layered in charcoal and gravel, with mounds of incense burning in regularly spaced wall sconces and two metal braziers to the north. Worktables, chairs, and haphazard stacks of papers take up the eastern half of the room. A glass sphere floats above a desk in the western section of the room, holding a roiling mass of dark liquid. Faint motes of light fly from the orb to a wide summoning circle that has been carefully drawn in the stone and ash, illuminating its circumference with subtly shifting numerological sigils.
In the circle stands -- or rather, hovers -- an abomination. Thin tendrils trail from this misshapen ovoid, gleaming with an unpleasant-looking slime. Its underside holds a gray orb that resembles a bulging, lidless eye.
"Oh good, you're not Arcanimirium staff. Please come in and close the door. This is Nggilth-Tsa. Despite its appearance, it is quite intelligent, and we were having a... conversation when you knocked." He glances back at the creature, nervously. You don't think the conversation was as peaceful as he's trying to make it sound.
The tentacled creature appears to gaze at you as you enter the room. If you have skin, how do you leave memories behind? The words slip into your minds as if they were your own thoughts, but have a slippery, unctuous quality about them that suggest their alien origin. How much pressure until your emotions fall off?
"He, heh, it, not sure if they have genders, but Nggilth-Tsa has been asking questions like those since it arrived. The... beacon, you said? It seems to have interfered with my summoning circle. I was trying to acquire the aid of a raelis azata. I'm not sure how this fellow showed up."
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Desini has done enough study to know what this thing is either but she strongly suspects it may be from the Dark Tapestry and one of the creatures Zarta asked them to interrogate or capture.
"It arrived, did you sssay? From where...oh and when, er and how?" She looks to the creature with a glint in her serpentine eyes, completely fascinated by the horrific creature. "Does it anssswer quessstionsss, or jussst asssk them?"
She turns to the thing and ask as question as if to test this query out for herself. "Where are you from and why are you here?"
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Eyes in the dark. Some shrouded, some bare, some blasted, some infected. Ten and one, in circles move, but beacons lead to where one did not choose to go. This appears to be an answer to Desini.
"I don't know exactly where it came from, but when I tried to read a planar binding scroll, this showed up instead of the azata I was expecting," Maren explains further. "This was about 10 minutes ago. I've gotten only a few bits of coherent information from it. It seems to know what these beacons are," he says, gesturing at the Beacon of Ralzeros glowing on his desk.
Lights, bright lights, to hold in the dark. When the dark pushes back, the lights shine brighter, and there is balance, a seal on the gate. But the dark is everywhere now, even within the light, for the light now shines from the darkest stone in orbit. Maybe Corners of Spheres can now unseal the gate from inside. Why are all your senses on one head?
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Vlazis whispers to his Archival brethren, "It is a Rhu-Chalik. They are not of this world, but from somewhere beyond. Possibly Aucturn? Hold no secrets from it without an iron will, for the thoughts of the weakminded are plain to its gaze."
"These Corners of Spheres, what are they? Are they the beacons? The bright lights?"
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Badly wounded - somehow, 'damaged' almost does feel like a better word for it - Xukong looks at the others from a cautious distance, then presents two wands - one a red coral wand shaped like a pitchfork , the other a verdigris-coated copper wand tipped with a stylized obsidian sunburst, as well as a flask filled with translucent black liquid . "Should I be gravely harmed, use *these*, or similar magics," It says with a shrewd glance in particular at Vlazis, "To fix me. I am...not wrought of common temper."
It then puts the wands and potion back, however, and pulls out the one of the most bizarre things you've seen in quite some time (and you're adventurers!): A poppet, like a child's doll, of cloth, ceramic, bamboo-papyrus, lacquered metal, and unguessable stuffing, that is the spitting image of Xukong, even with a to-scale black sword nestled in its porcelain grip.
"However," Xukong explains, "I have recently discovered that, so long as time is no pressing concern, *this* also works quite well...for me...."
Xukong takes its effigy-sword as gently as its tremulous, claw-like hands are able, and begins to repeatedly stab its own doll in all the same places on its body that Xukong has just been wounded - and every stab is accompanied by a hollow gasp or high-pitched shriek of pain from Xukong itself, and sometimes violent, seizure-like thrashing, yet it keeps at it...and after about a minute or two of this horror-show, Xukong resumes (what passes for) its normal posture and puts the poppet away, every scratch and laceration the Kensei has sustained now gone.
To the others' knowledge, Xukong, after some study, is able to add:
"Long before Paucol, there was another local sage of the Void: Ralzeros, called 'the Overwatched'. He converted much of his estate to laboratories for the study of alien beings and magic. Eventually, he disappeared. No one knows why or to where. The foundations of the great wizard’s estate eventually became the groundwork for none other than the Blakros Museum."
Xukong replies to the creature's enigmatic stare with an equally enigmatic stare of its own. The two mysterious horrors seem to share a fleeting 'moment' before Xukong joins in the others' inquest .
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Xantanax asks about the gate, and those linking their minds to the creature begin considering that aspect and trying to trick the Rhu-Chalik into answering, or use their own knowledge of the world as a way of overwhelming its mental defenses.
A door, a copper wall that moves. Pass from one side to the other, and the space changes. Pass from the other side, and it squirms. Built by a man going home from home. Could not quite make it, so he brought some of home through the door—made a house beyond the void. But his guests are homesick; they want to see the worlds. Would you kill to keep your taste?
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Ralzeros. He could make shapes from words and pain from thoughts. He loved this world but was drawn to another, like gravity. He thought Corners of Spheres could let him live in both, invited them into his house past space. But Ralzeros did not like the answers, left Corners of Spheres scratching at the door. Seems the lights are listening now. Do you devour those who hurt?
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"So if there's something that wants to move through this gate thing, and it is gaining enough power to do that, is it good or bad? Also, where is this gate thing at? I mean, if it isn't anywhere near us, then it isn't something we can do anything about."
Xantanax shrugs his shoulders and looks at the casters who are supposed to be figuring complicated stuff like this out.
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Fuln shrugs at all of you. "Ralzeros is not a name I'm familiar with."
Suddenly the academic gasps in horror, seeing something you're not. "No, the circle! It's destroying the circle!"
The time has come to change the pictures in minds and thoughts to pictures in blood and questions.
The Rhu-Chalik has been subtly telekinetically moving the powdered silver the circle has been made out of, and now the final bits of the substance are parting, breaking the circle.
Desini
Molos
Roderick
Xantanax
Nggilth-Tsa
Maren Fuln
Vlazis
Xukong
Korandil