Just dotting.
Unexpectedly, unforeseen by any divinity, a wound tears through the fabric of the multiverse.
What was separated is now joined, like different cloths pierced by thread and needle, the major planes of existence get interconnected.
Though, for now, only a tiny portion of each plane is affected the damage has been large and it threatens to expand.
Aeons rush to restore balance, Celestials fight to protect their homes, demons revels in the opportunity to cause pain, devils get terrified by the sudden uncontrolled anarchy, Inevitables marches to restore order and the separation between planes, etc etc etc...
Who sill stand up to discover what has happened and stop it?
"I Isiabhiosasealgannansolasnagealaich will join this hunt in the name of my Monarch, to bring glory to The Wild Hunt, and to write my name into history."
The Steward corporates from a swirling storm of orange fire and darkness.
"The Boneyard has been breached and lost souls spill out to planes not by the Lady of Graves judgement. "
"The armies of Heaven have dealt with demonic invasions before...but never at such a large scale. My bretheren are holding the line as best they can, but even they can't hold out forever. This merging of the planes must be stopped by any means!"
"Whatever stands behind this is surely worthy prey. None will escape the Hunt."
In this time of upheaval the forces of good and/or law or balance are in tremendous disadvantage. While most of the factions are just doing what they can to maintain their agendas, the forces of chaos and destruction are enjoying the upper hand.
The extreme situation of the multiverse have promoted unlikely truces, a devil and an angel might despise each other but when an army of demons are knocking on your door they better cooperate than to have their homeplane crushed.
So here you are, different motives but the same goal.
The seers and diviners among your factions have pointed to 3 possible places where to start looking for answers.
- The planar disruption in the Axis is near the place where the first protean-Axiomite clashed in their primordial war.
- A planet in the material world in which a city was destroyed long time ago by a catastrophe than resemble the one you are dealing with at the moment.
- Reports indicate that in the first layer of the abyss creatures that takes a glimpse into the planar anomaly have more chances to discern its nature...the Problem is that everyone that have tried it became crazy.
"Mortalkind are often to blame for many catastrophes." The Steward scans across the makeshift group with scrutiny.
"We go with the Lady's fury. None shall oppose us." The bone and plate clad figure then goes about laying her blessings on everyone.
"Last I checked, mortals didn't have the magic or technology to cause something like this. But their capacity for reckless destruction seems to grow tenfold every century. We'd better make sure they aren't playing with cosmological fire."
The Hound growls.
"The mortals do not matter. This destruction bears the stink of the Abyss."
In one of the uncountable populated worlds of the multiverse lies the underground ratkin civilization of rash'azham.
The ratkin in their tunnels are now under siege by hordes of all kind of creatures that use the planar anomaly to travel through the planes, though in particular a Div general is taking pleasure in unraveling the deeds of this mortal race.
However, not all of you are moved by the desired of helping others, what really concern all of you is the ancient tale of a ratkin city that was ravaged not by creatures of the lower plane, but by evil itself (whatever that means) in a cataclysm reminicent to the current planar anomaly.
It's hard to tell the exact spot of that ancient city, because the god themselves cleansed the place with holy fire. Maybe you can earn the locals help if you save them, or you could torture them to extract information. Whatever suits your mood.
Infragilus nods to himself. "I think it's self-evident that gaining the trust of these ratkin is the most certain way to get the information we need."
"Er...and I'm sure that driving back the creatures that plague their world will make for a most glorious hunt."
The Hound snorts.
"Unlikely. But sometimes the eradication of vermin is necessary to draw out greater prey."
"Mortals can be an amusing lot, I am not above humbling myself should it prove necessary for the Hunt."
The Rash'azhamites are industrious people. Their culture values physical work, discipline, obedience and lack of great ambitions. Humility is priced, both material and intellectual. This custom is an old one and its origins date back to the time of the great cataclysms. It is said that disaster ensue when mortalkin try to reach the knowledges reserved to the gods. It is not a surprise that nowaday rash'azham does not stand out by magical, military or scientific prowess, but it was in the past.
You can (And I assume you do) kill hundreds of Doru Divs, no need to detail such triviality. We can do a mini-boss fight, but I guess you have means to teleport to the surface of the world so we jump to fight against the Akvan Div general?
Like cat and mouse, inside the tunnels that lead to the surface the Ratkin are being hunted and slaughtered by a pack of Shira Divs. The ratkin in the outside tunnels are the strongest of their kin, they have the task to defend the tunnels against the dangers of the outside world, but they are being selectively killed by the greater-teleporting Divs.
You see two Shiras chasing a small group of ratking, they are coming your way, 80 ft away lets say.This part of the underground has ample space for you to do whatever kind of maneuvers you want to do.
The tunnels are a huge maze for the non-teleporting, save some ratking and discover the quickest way to the surface.
"Let us remove them from our path and be on our way!"
Amsaraph flies forward at breakneck speed and tries to deck one of them with her FIST.
Infragilus charges forward while manifesting his shield and spear, and stabs at the second Shira. If possible, he positions himself to threaten both of them.
He looks down at the tiny Ratkin around him, and with what he hopes is a friendly smile, speaks to them in Truespeech: "Fear not, we are on your side!"
Isha draws her bow and lets fly a volley of glowing arrows, Her first attack striking the Shira in fighting Amsaraph, While her latter two attacks are aimed at the one in combat with Infragilus.
"And with the first shot, the Hunt begins!" She calls out in Sylvan.
Do your weapon count as Cold Iron and Good?
- Dazed.
======================
When Amsaraph and Infragilus hit, the dusty pelt ability of the Shira gets trigered. It provides concealement to the shiras.
Soes Isha ignores concealement?
It's Rinjyns turn.
"Run little ratkin. Your hunters have become the hunted." The Hound growls, then leaps at the nearest Shira.
So, Shira A gets hit and dazed by Amsaraph while Shira B get stabed by Infragilus and bite by Fiain.
Still Not sure if concealement is a problem for Isha.
===========================
Anyways,
Coordinating by the use of their telepathy, a third and a fourth Shira (C and D) greater teleport to Surround Isha.
Shira E teleports in front of Amsaraph.
Shira B full attacks - She full attacks Infragilus
- Hit? Infragilus mini stats are mising.
Infragilus can threaten Shiras A, B and E if he has reach.
Infragilus blocks Shira B's attacks, and retaliates.
The Steward of the Skein shifts her gaze imperiously from the Shira she dazed to Shira E.
"Yield and be grateful the Lady has not come for your immortal lives this day. Fight on and be consigned to the grave." She states before stepping forward to the press the fight.
The goggles allow the wearer to see through magical and normal fogs, mists, and similar obscurement. They do not confer darkvision or low-light vision. Further, the goggles distort and skew vision strangely, causing a –4 penalty on Perception checks.
Anyhow Isha takes her bow and turns to fire all 3 shots into Shira A, Only switching to Shira B should any of her arrows fell the creature before the volley is complete.
The Hound becomes a whirlwind of fangs and teeth.
======
SO shire A dies from a rain of arrows. Shira E gets injured and dazed. Shira B dies from getting stabbed by an archon. The hound full attacks the nearest living enemy, that is the dazed Shira E.
The remaining divs quickly understand you are above they paycheck, they take a move action to move away from Isia and teleport away.
That leaves one dazed and very injured shira in the "battlefield".
====================
The ratfolk have the sight of their lives. Such display extraplanar power and majesty is like a divine revelation for them.
They kneel and start worshiping you as gods (or messenger of the gods, its like the same for them).
Infragilus dismisses his spear and shield, glaring fiercely at the last remaining shira. "Make sure that one doesn't escape - perhaps it can lead us to the general. I believe I'm the only one of us capable of Truespeech, so I shall try to calm these poor ra-"
Then he turns around and notices the ratfolk prostrating themselves. If it were possible for a celestial to blush, he would be doing so.
"Oh, there's really no need for that." he says to them in their native tongue. He gets down on one knee to put himself slightly closer to their level.
"We are here to help you, but we also need your help. Who among you is the most knowledgeable about your world's history?"
They almost faint when the celestial start speaking to them. It takes some minutes until they start answering coherently.
kneeled and with Face pointing directly to the ground, one of the ratfolk says
"You seem to be looking for one of the loners"
Their civilization whole philosophy for living is that "thou shall not look for more knowledge than neccesary", but they due reluctanly acknowledge than some knowledge is valuable. So, they allow some very selected individuals to learn things that are not really needed for everyday survival, but those individuals are almost ostracized from society. They are constantly watched so they don't do anything dangerous, but otherwise live a lonely existence.
Amsaraph leaves the captured Divs to be held/interrogated at bow/teeth point by the Hunt. She moves over to Infragilus to listen in but takes the form of a pale white furred Ratfolk whose head is a skull with pinpricks of silver light in it's eye sockets. Her outfit becomes a black robe covered in loose hanging bones.
"Guide us to them."
You are guided to a very very densily populated "city". The ratfolk's tunnels are scarcely decorated, only functionality is important everything else is vanity.
Anyways, millions of eyes watch you enter the principal tunnels. The word of the "visit of the gods" spread quickly. In the outskirt of the city you find what you are looking for, a set of tunnels dedicated to the recording of knowledge and the few ratfolks that can access to that knowledge.
Instead of books or anything like that, this section of the tunnels is covered by Braille-like marks. The floor, the walls, and in someplaces even the ceiling.
In awe, the loners await for your questions.
Infragilus seems relieved to be away from the curious eyes of the masses. Archons are generally advised to avoid revealing themselves to mortals - it's better to subtly guide them towards peace and justice from behind the scenes. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and if direct intervention is necessary to save these ratfolk, Heaven, and the entire multiverse...then so be it.
"We've heard rumors of an ancient city that was ravaged by..."evil itself". Could you please explain what that means, and tell us where this city was?"
An old Ratfolk clear his clears his throat, visible nervous by the divine presences in the room, and then answer
Aye, the downfall of the old rash'azham kingdoms is a tale every ratfolk knows well, since it teach the dangers of ambition for knowledge. The exact nature of the knowledge our ruined forefathers is forbidden to even us, it is not recorded in these tunnels but in the tunnels of the ancient city, a place no sane ratfolk wanders. - He paused for a moment, almost afraid of the tale he is about to narrate an then continues In any case, what is forbidden for mere mortals is available for divine beings...the tale begins with...
The tale has the basic morale of "be aware of the dangers of uncontrolled ambitions", but beyond that you can catch the hidden meaning behind the ratfolk words (meaning that scape them since they don't have the context).
In the tale the word "gods" is everywhere, but you notice he is not talking about the actual pantheon, basically every powerful extraplanar (like yourselves) enters in the "gods" category. The ratfolk of old were highly interested in the origin and nature of the "god", the good ones and the evil ones alike. They were warned by a winged emissary of abandoning this path but they persisted.
Things started to ill when they made breakthroughs about the nature of the very birthplace of some of the evil "gods". The evil "gods" birthplace is what they call the "evil itself". They looked too much into the abyss until the abyss* itself started back.
*They use abyss metaphorically, but what a coincidence, it's the correct term.
More details might be found engraved in the old city tunnels, but that place is like a mini-abyss, so they don't go there.
He then hesitantly says Are...are the new events a punishment? We tried to live a peaceful life, did we make something wrong? something unforgivable?
"Have rabbits done wrong because a wolf ravages their den? It is simply the way of the universe."
Their underground world doesn't have rabbit nor wolves, so they don't understand the simile.
"I doubt that, More likely you've simply become the collateral victims of forces outside your control, The facade of civilization has fallen around you, thrusting you back into your natural state. Prey beholden to the predator...
As your luck may have it, The Apex predator has come to rid you of your tormenters, Or potentially, Assuming we have reason to call forth the hunt on these Shira and their masters. I have a hard time beliving their presence here just as we arrive is a mere coincidence."
"What were these breakthroughs that you began to unravel before the Divs arrived?"
"What were these breakthroughs that you began to unravel before the Divs arrived?"
That's truly forbidden knowledge, so they don't want to know and even if they wanted to know it is outside their reach, only recorded in the engravings in the tunnels of the destroyed city.
EDIT: The breakthroughs were made in ancient times, and they believe the acquisition of that knowledge is what caused the destruction of their ancient kingdoms.
"Then we should finish driving off the Divs and explore the city ourselves. Thank you for telling us what you could."
Infragilus glances at the Hound and the Fey, mildly surprised.
"Ah, I take it you've already extracted the general's location from the Div we incapacitated?"
I gave them a simple task, but they are chaotic by nature. So they either ignored my request, or accomplished it more spectacularly than I could have imagined.
"I doubt that, More likely you've simply become the collateral victims of forces outside your control, The facade of civilization has fallen around you, thrusting you back into your natural state. Prey beholden to the predator...
As your luck may have it, The Apex predator has come to rid you of your tormenters, Or potentially, Assuming we have reason to call forth the hunt on these Shira and their masters. I have a hard time beliving their presence here just as we arrive is a mere coincidence."
The Hound huffs.
"That is what I said."
"Then we should finish driving off the Divs and explore the city ourselves. Thank you for telling us what you could."
Infragilus glances at the Hound and the Fey, mildly surprised.
"Ah, I take it you've already extracted the general's location from the Div we incapacitated?"
"If you wish prey to be tracked, killed, or incapacitated, The Hunt will oblige your whims, for now. But we do not converse with prey."
The Steward chuckles a bit as she resumes her armor plated form.
"Come now Archon, did you expect anything less? Did the Hunt intend to catch and release these Divs to follow them back or did you happen to execute them? Either would please the Lady greatly I imagine."
"We should put the Surviving Shira to the question."