She listens to Vladimir's inquiries patiently, her white eyes locked with his while the rest of her expression remains hidden by the mask fashioned from the night sky. Its surface is the deep void, but beyond it, as though a window, are points and patterns of light. Nebulae and singularities.
It cannot the hide pain in her eyes when Vladimir speaks of Azithax’s death.
"First, know what I am. Every life our soul has donned is connected to you. That connection is gentle... for you can barely recall but hints of the passions and pains within them. But the connection is also strong, for nothing can remove them from you, nor your essence from those that shall follow after you."
As she speaks her words are punctuated by stars shimmering into existence. They pay no heed to the perspective and placement of the previous vision of the temple, which seems hollow and flimsy now. Slowly, pathways appear between the stars to form a constellation of which Vladimir is an inseparable part.
"...until they don the Mask. It is much like death. Not only for the loss of self, but for the revocation of the connection to our other lives." The constellation vanishes. Vladimir is not longer part of the pattern of the stars. "After they don the Mask their further experiences can no longer speak to you. Instead they are bound to me… Or bound to what I am an echo of." The ethereal connections return, now bonding with the Shadow of Dormin.
"This connection is weaker than your natural one. It cannot survive the pain of death, and must be reforged anew in the furnace of primordial magic. But this connection is also lucid. For I can taste the sweat from exertions millennia past. I recall the lessons of every life I've lived."
She reaches out to touch Vladimir. "Alas... you and I. As her hand meets him it passes through without sensation or force. "...Are not truly connected. We stand at a memory that bridges our experience, but that bridge cannot support the weight of much. And truth is a heavy burden to bear. I will share what I can.”
Vladimir’s force of will to sustain the connection: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (15) + 4 = 19
Vladimir can feel the strain of this connection, exerted through the Shadow. But it is an easy burden for him to bear to hear the answers he has sought.
She begins to pace as she speaks. The stars and suns of her mask change and translate, as though glimpsing a larger arrangement at great distance through a narrow portal.
“Azithax and our pasts were first bonded to each other, not by magic, but simply by devotion and love. They sought to do good through cultivating each other, which eventually lead to my birth. We used the latent magic of the land of the Faedark to bind my consciousness into being. A friendship was now also a partnership. We undertook many things, all to nurture goodness in life around us, or to repel those that sought to corrupt it. This endeavor took many lifetimes and the aid of countless others. Other places of power were settled, like the Citadel you speak of. The legacy we made and the traditions we created became the Divine Visage. At times I was its leader, but always I was its councilor.”
As she speaks wisps of herself part and drift. Her hair ends in smoke and her extremities lack definition from her surroundings. Only the Mask remains clear.
“But the tides of prosperity and suffering seemed greater than our grasp, and Azithax and I dreamt of more. Of the task of which you ask. The channels of power that flowed through the Faedark could be more than an anchor for me. Their power could be turned inward, and our reality could be opened. We crafted a passage that, at our command, could lead to the Heavens for aid or armament… or the Abyss to strike at the very forces that plant the seeds of evil in men’s hearts. Or any manner of other plane of existence.”
Now she is but figments and shadows. Edges with no substance. Still the faint starlight shines coherently from the Mask.
“I gathered those that were strongest and closest to me, and sought to slay Greed itself. Azithax remained, as he was the anchor of all our ambitions. And that was the last I lived. Never again have I been born, and as our lives have not touched, you know more of what has happened than I. I cannot speak of Azithax’s death, his killer, nor what has become of our places of power.
Vladimir must still sustain the connection: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (8) + 4 = 12
Her figure fades. The vision of the temple has long drifted away. Only the Mask remains, stretching to the edges of the darkness in which you now stand.
"There is little left. Ask your final question."
