Journal #43: Family Matters

After a long and subsequently a terrible couple of days of emotions of both guilt and hope and everything in between, we finally reach our destination of Liangxin. A far eastern city which was impossibly large and seems to be strictly controlled by some sort of military force. Entering from the airship docks we were prompted with a series of questions and strangely vaccinations. Perhaps there is a sickness in the city? Who really can tell anymore. The person who had to deal with me had made a passing comment about my kind, which told me a significant amount dark elves had recently shown up within this city. However ‘recently’ could be any amount of time, I would guess within the last couple of year. Long enough to notice an influx of drow within the walls of Laingxin. This city was the last known location of this traveling group of elves adventurers.
 
Before our investigation into where these lost elves were, Celuriel left the group as she said she would. I would be lying if I was not worried but nevertheless, the party teased me for getting in a fight. I have some reasons to be worried, but I had already given her my book to contact us if something comes up, or if she needs to find us.
 
A second later we decided that it would be for the best for us to at least have a clear point, a base of operation, to work out a form while gathering information about this traveling group. This was a local inn and or tavern, I am rather sure it was an inn. The thought there was if we went to a well-established inn and asked around it was more likely for them to have information on the elves, or if they have even passed by. We paid for a couple of night in advance, asking for around. One of the Elves was at least familiar with, something about having been here or searching for a library. Of course, our first thought was visit the biggest library the city had to offer. Well, not the biggest as we later found out.
 
Finding the library was easier than I originally thought, finding the elf was the more difficult part. Asking the librarian behind the desk near the front door if they had seen any of the elves, the picture we showed them helped. The Librarian said the ones she had seen that day were the elves known as Canthe Pa’lustris and Aster Lau’turea. The six of us broke up into different floor looking for them. Some going from the fifth floor down some going in reverse from the ground floor up. Among the searching, we found them hidden in a room filled with books a large square table in the middle. Canthe was a high priestess of Desna and a reasonable elf the more silent of the two was the Half-Elf Aster. Only speaking when he found something of note to comment on. While waiting for the other to gather on the location, though everybody filed in with Licia and I struck up a conversation with Canthe. I made a bet of 5 gold pieces, on who had the stranger adventuring story that bet one that is still unsolved. Through some mental connection, the elf shared the information we vaguely told them trying to gather their group as well. The Commander had an issue that we would deal with later. The sibling to Cante, Eirian Pa’lustris who within a couple of seconds managed to annoy me more than most people I have ever interacted with. He had found Celu and brought her along, she was clearly not pleased ducking into a corner away from everybody.
 
Though I will never say it to their face, I was and now am incredibly grateful for this stupid series of events. Bring Celu kept her within the time dilation that we had to deal with. Another portion of time has been stolen from us, but at least she was not alone.
 
The traveling group from Kingdom of Elves were confused as to why they had a search party sent after them. According to them, they had sent messages back. However, Liangxin and the country that this city claimed to be a part of had all information warped and changed, especially when it came to any propaganda. Which lead to my telling them, it never made it out of the country. Explaining the quick thought, if what they said was true, then their letters home would most likely have been altered or never made it out of country. The thought leads to me thinking of a connection between this strange magic and The Unbroken March. The closest artifact in the description that could have the potential to do something like they described. I was correct, but I would not know that till later.
 
Though we found our elves, we had not found all of them. Thus a rescue mission was made for The Commander of the Galasthin forces, an elf which I had been warned about. According to Eirian, who had placed her in this difficult spot early in that day, to begin with, had said The Commander was underneath the city in a large archive. With some information gathering, we learned that this larger library had entrances all over Liangxin. With two fail attempts to find those entrances, one at the Cafe where Eirian pushed The Commander in, the first was in the library we found Canthe and Aster in. Our third and final attempt before we succussed was under one of the four large bridges, diving deep into the water underneath. Entering a labyrinth of water-themed puzzles, traps, and blue tinted walls. Testing both our minds and skills. With less than stellar results with some of the puzzle based for the mind, taking for too long and some being so simple it took less than a second to finish. When we found our way into the next set of the puzzles, the next room, the elven party lost contact with their leader.
 
It took far longer than we probably should have taken to get into the Endless Archives. The round balcony of Archives had shelves upon shelves of books of any and all kinda. I could spend a long time there, but the less time near a shard the better. While some of the party decided to stay and read, I decided to explore rather than read. Licia follow which I was thankful for. I have to admit, I have not been thinking before acting some of my actions have been rash. It was more of an attempt to keep my mind and body busy so I would not focus on other things. As all of us fully explored the archives, a few of us found constructs that disappeared as soon as we spotted them.
 
Licia and I after descended down several floors of this library found Commander Lyadri An’thimael, with a very warm reception I might add. By warm I meant once I made my presence known asking if she was the commander, I was greeted with a toasty fireball to the face.
A reasonable response for an elf whose mere name is synonymous with an event that took place in the Kingdom of Galasthin Elves simply known as “The Purge.”
 
I do not think it would be that hard to draw the lines knowing that I am a dark elf.
 
The Commander was also behind a wall of fire, protecting her and another from outside forces that had been attacking her for the past week. During this time of speaking with the elven military leader, the party finally started to make there way down to rejoin with the two of us. With a detailed explanation of the current situation and the past days worth of information since we took a rest within a large room in the water labyrinth before finding the archives. The Commander informed us that one, it was stupid for all of us to come down here, two that she had been fighting down here for about a week.
 
According to Eirian at most, The Commander should have been down here for at most a day in half with the number of rests we had taken. Not a week…
 
Which without hesitation I turned on the spot to find Celu, not everybody had followed us down. Just The Lost Ones.
 
Remember how I said I had been acting rash. While the ladder we had been using to climb down the archives had been closing behind us. I ran to those ladders pulling down the cord to have the ladder extend down for us to climb up. A rather large great ax implanted itself in my right shoulder. It was very unpleasant and bloody. After that, I took caution while going up the ladders. The only other trap of note was the flamethrower.
 
Finally reaching the floor, rather bloody and slightly burnt time had passed, my sense of worry melted away as she was okay. Normally she would have completely ignored me and staying far away from me, she had been ignoring me since my attempt at an apology on the airship. The first interaction since then was a slap to the face, but she did cast a healing spell on me remaining silent but near me. They had seen some danger and were more than willing to travel as a group down back to the others. Though under less normal circumstances, we finally gathered all the Galasthin Elves.
 
The Lost Ones now content on dealing with the Shards pressed on, with Lyadri and Jinne, the Samsaran that Lyadri had been fighting alongside in her week-long imprisonment in The Endless Archives. Going to the next floor I borrowed one of our magical communication journal to message Celu, I wrote to her to please be careful and that I would try and make it back as soon as possible. Time dilation is a tricky subject, I honestly had no clue when I wrote that how long before she would read it. We battled our way through corrupted constructs down one more floor and enter a very interesting room.
 
A dark room with two rings of crystals around a floating light blue book. This dark room had glyphs dimly glowing blue on the ground. The outermost layer of crystals was white and was large, perhaps a bit larger than a dwarf. The next layer of inner crystals was more concern, for me especially. The darker black crystals were that similar to the void, a clear sign that this book was a shard. Or as Jinne explained a false appearance of one, a copy, an illusion. How it was able to do this, I am not sure. Needless to say, nobody wanted to touch the crystals. While we had found the Unbroken March, the others had been pulled into their trials created by this Shard. I had a restless night of sleep, in that room when Licia told us about the other trials as she alone glimpsed some of the trials, one which caught my attention. One being Celu’s Sister, I might stop paying attention after that.
 
Something I believe should be said about Jinne, that something was in her short conversation explaining the reminded me of something, not to mention the Silver Orb on her staff. She was a follower of “The Way” those odd nomadic religious people searching for that one true magic. I had always wanted to ask more question, and I had gotten the chance after we broke the trials for Celu and Searyn’s. However, I feel like I should mention two key points one that she follows The Way of Runeblessed Dreams and their silver orb are connected to that religion as I thought. Second, she has been to this place before and knows about the artifact. Being that she was one of the Samsaran, a race created by Pharasma, bound to an almost endless cycle reincarnation. Jinne had kept returning to The Endless Archives, in several of her past lives. An interesting idea true reincarnation.
 
While coming up with a plan, Jinne determined that somebody using her orb could create passages where we could slip through to disrupt the trials that the others. However, somebody has to hold open the portals from the outside, which The Commander volunteered for. The Samsaran then explained that to save them, they could not fail nor could they pass their trails. If they failed, well she gestured to the crystals, people who failed force to protect the book. Their souls bound to those crystals or something similar. Knowing that we would have to get rid of at least the first set of crystals for the Elven Commander to use the orb. I had to use the power of the Mother of Souls, something I have been rather reluctant to use powers from her champion mark she gave me.
 
At first, channeling the power, I focused on passing on the souls bound in the crystal, which I hoped I would not have to physical touch the large crystals. This had an odd and every more concerning the outcome of my mind being more quiet than normal. The power having no outlet only affecting myself but my soul never left, so the question is what did it affect? Knowing my broken self, there are more things I have to questions. The second attempt got rid of the crystals force me to physically touch them, which had the attended effect. Allowing for the Commander to open the portal using the Silver Orb.
 
Without much thought, we as a group thought to rescue our Elves first. Leaping through the orb like portal to them we found ourselves outside a stone tower, entering this trial from a large tombstone. A tombstone labeled as Ulsaron Geltharieth, Celu’s father. The forest around us was familiar in an unpleasant way especially for me. Since I had seen this moment once before, as a vampire Celu once shown me this one moment, that moment of her turning into a vampire the moment of her death, that is what the shard based our surrounding on. The tower that Celuriel once called home.
 
At the far side of the tower Celu was up against a tombstone, and in front of her was a figure clad in dark armor standing near a grave. Which I knew what lay within it Without a seconds thought, I used my arcane powers to teleport in front of Celu, even without much thought I was not going to let her die, or even have to go through this again. Not alone anyway.
The others could and probably would have to deal with Saeryn and her problem. She was in the middle of hunting down another elf in front of the ominous tower with a horde of undead around her. Honestly, in that one moment the fact Saeryn was there was lost on me. Silver was already in my hand, I knew I was recently told to try and not to go leaping in front of a sword for her. However, I cannot stand by and watch if somebody I deeply care about is suffering. My original plan was to teleport her away, but with her being both confused and may be concerned as to why I was there, we didn’t.
 
Her sister, the would-be lich, in this false creation of Lurissiel Geltharieth was still an Elf. Took a long a calculated time before speak. Few things I learned in this interaction, she was not an Arcane lich like I had thought. Since the blonde elf was clad in armor, she had to be a Divine Lich most likely a cleric from some dark god. She was curious to why a dark elf had anything to do with her sister. Though I could not recall really any of the conversation since none of really helps when finding a way to defeat her. She, of course, knew I was going to interfere, so I place a protective sphere around Celu. The would-be lich began to cast a spell to summon some a creature, thought either Whisperbreath or Ashlyn broke her concentration. That interruption did not please the elf, which leads to a series of spells cast at the rat. Which by the end of those spells she just sat there looking smug. Never a good sign. I am not going to lie, Ludrissiel was scary. The hand that gripped Silver was trembling, in fear in knowing how powerful she is, or in angry knowing Celu’s Killer was in front of me. A mix of both, Celu was adamant that any attempt to fight back against Ludrissiel would be useless; it would lead to everybody’s death. I tried to explain that she couldn’t kill her sister nor could she die, she had to walk away. She did not listen; she thought it would be better if the two of us would have just waited there while they died.
 
This was not something I would stand for. I do not want her to give up even in the face of her sister…
 
Teleporting out of the sphere knowing this might end as expected, I knew there was a large number of evil creatures around, so I cast the spell Angelic Aspect. It would allow for some extra protection. My attempt to slice the elder sister failed, slipping right through the projection. I should have known better, but very soon after the invisible would-be lich cast a spell on me, the spell was delivered through a touch. She was toying with us, an even scarier though. To avoid her Scythe, I used my feathery wings to fly up, flinging a fireball down. Celu would be okay she was in the sphere, but her sister she had to be close by.
Celu now seeing that she could attack her sister, wanted to join in ask if she could be released. Though Ashlyn protested the idea, I dispelled the resilient sphere. This proved to be a smart idea. Celu with her recent change of life, had her abilities change have some grasp over time. I would trust Celu is time manipulation far more than Whisperbreath. That is neither here nor there. Wanting to clear some of the confusion, she displaced her sister in time! Asking for a better explanation as to what exactly was going on. I tried to stress that no matter what she could not kill her sister.
 
From my best interpretation of what happened as to why she now wanted to defeat her sister was to prove that she was not useless. She told me that all of us were so strong, but it was the way she said it that showed more of how she viewed herself compared to the people around her. We were strong, and she wasn’t, and by defeating her sister, she could close that gap, oh Celuriel. I explained that she didn’t have to get stronger, not alone anyway, she had us, she had me. She didn’t have to beat her sister today, that today she just had to walk away. After telling me she did not know how to leave, I took her hand and lead her to the portal leaving that horrible place behind.
 
Now at this point, the others had dealt with Saeryn’s problem, who was more than upset, having to deal with… whatever she had dealt with. Thank god for that time locked zone, before resting I thought it would be best to at least speak with Jinne. Which was a conversation on magic, religion, fate and she regrettably convinced me to at least want to ask to speak with Pharasma.
 
Our second attempt into the twins orb portal, we were warned of Eirain psychic abilities and how that will possibly affect the trails. The Commander was right about that warning. Entering into a broken octagonal stone room a stone altar with glowing green lines going down the altar, along the floors and into the walls. Canthe was on the other side of the altar, The Commander laying on that stone slab unconscious ‘illusion.’ The last figure was a hulking beast of a man that was known as The Tulaant Steppe. We’ll get back to this man, we had a terrible maze to deal with.
 
The effect Eirian psychic abilities on the octagonal room, one of the eights walls had been completely destroyed leaving a large empty void. The party, of course, decided it was better to explore the void, and not deal with Canthe currently, something I thought was rather stupid. The void of clouds and stars contained a icy maze.
 
Entering created unending amounts of annoyance for me, which only made me want to punch the elf’s smug face more. Carefully going through the maze, we were bombarded with magical enchantments that affected us both emotional and binding certain actions of ours. As leaping over some of the damaged portions of the maze, causing spells to attempts to change us. It was more than annoying while trying to kill an Imp which was a simply psychic creation of Eirian, and tracking down the psychic elf. Celu only was able to speak when asked a question, Ashlyn started stripping, Kraia and Pin wanted to kiss Ashlyn. Though Kraia might not have been affected by that same enchantment. We straight up lost Cid somewhere along the ways. My personal enchantment leads to general hate to everything around me, and gods forsaken compulsion to cuddle and kiss that fucking elf. As Eirian was the first I saw when placed under that enchantment. Another reason to hate them, though as Celu saw this the spells, all of them faded. Great timing. She understood when I told her it was the magical enchantment, but her holy ice scythe was something I feared she might use on Eirian. Punching him would be more satisfying. I told her that, this she didn’t believe.
 
Quickly chasing after Celu and I learned of Eirian trail, he wanted to end their mothers suffering. Breaking her soul which had been contained in a gem. However, Eirian viewed us as nothing more than an illusion which they became slightly hostile. I waved it off we could solve the problem without them. Quickly shouting this the others they had seen such a gem, another chance where I had to use Pharasma power. Passing Licia returning to the group who attempted to convince Eirian herself, I reached the gem attempting to do the same to the Soul gem, and I did to the Crystal. If it were not for the mothers of souls power the act would have gone horribly wrong. Celu noticing attempt failing, she bolstered my second attempt at pleading with the soul of the twin's mother to pass on. An new enchantment placed on her making her grief, I reach back with my other hand to make sure she wasn’t alone. Ashlyn too helped as well as Licia who had given up on convincing Eirian. It worked, but with a very dangerous lesson instilled in me, I need to learn how to master these powers.
 
As the gem disappeared so did the walls of the maze. Eirian thoughts cleared and soon listened to reason. They did not take much convincing once we mentioned their sister and that she needed their help. Now currently I’m still going to punch the twin just not yet.
Now to the entity known as The Tulaant Steppe.
 
Eirian gave us a quick summary, Canthe had constructed a deal in order to save the commander who had been placed in a catatonic state of sorts. The deal with this entity what's to give it a physical form. So easy we discussed quick plans in order to stop that event from happening. We would stop her from making the deal. However many disagreed with this idea and decided to instead wave their scythe and sling their spells around which I inevitably agreed because once a paladin decides to do something, there is no stopping her.
 
That plan had failed instantly.
 
Most things in life as we've come across could be dealt with in a conventional manner. However, this entity that stood before us The Tulaant Steppe was different. It broke the rules. Now it was easy to say that the entity was just a mere illusion, but it wasn't. For you see when you conjure something, that's something can not normal think on it’s own. This Entity had a scary level of omniscience which it used to for snarky comments. I cannot say that this creature was god or even a demigod. It was something different clearly. I have never once heard of a divine figure to want a physical body, or being able to communicate through a mere illusion. No it seemed to become that illusion, as if the mere act of invoking a mere copy brought forth a personification of The Tulaant Steppe.
 
The Tulaant Steppe as soon as we woke it from its time lock slumber was completely aware of the events around it in what was going on with the shard. It was stalling for time so the lifeforce could be drained from The Commander, we attempted to attack it. Having very little progress there. Instead, it offered us a challenge though still tried to stall for time in the process. We were given 30 seconds to impress this personification, and seeing that the Elven twins had been part of the original deal, they were exempt from this.
 
Since almost none of our attacks seem to be landing save for Cid and Artemis the rest of us had to devise some sort of plan that would appease this entity. Kraia performed a series of acrobatic feats channeling the power of her god to augment her wild shape into something much more. The world's best trapeze artist might have been jealous. With Whisperbreath, her attempt had been to reconstruct the mental barrier around this room sealing it off from the void outside. She channeled the constructive powers of her God to perform the act mixing her knowledge in a well. Interesting but needless to say it had adverse effects on her. Channeling so much of the power, she was unused to tapping into harm her mentally. I had several failed attempts at flinging spells at the towering figure which led me to that idea. Celu simply used her power and divided Whisperbreath into three significant timelines, child form, the present and a rather older form. Ashlyn had not attempted did anything with her Champion Powers simply preferring the act of swinging a blade at the opponent in front of her. Licia channeling the power of her Goddess did something ridiculous. She made a star, or least that's what I think happened. In order to give us a bit more time or to disrupt his plan in general, I leaned down touching the green lines represented the Commander's life force and attempted to channel the power the death goddess to reverse the flow of life back into the image of the elf.
 
This was a mistake.
 
Temporarily, or so I hope, created some sort of mental connection with The Commander allowing me to understand the name of this being in front of us who is giving us this challenge. Then a very angry elf told me to get out. As a ramification my left eye began hurting but the full extent of what happened I would not find out till after the trial. This action caused me to learn the name of this being which brought a creepy smile to his face. How to say the smile was disturbing in nature it was the fact that he was smiling at all that was disturbing to me.
 
Lastly bringing up the rear the Paladin had channeled the power of Sarenrae bolstering her powers landing several blows it's on The Tulaant Steppe. Never once drawing blood. Bringing the trial itself to a close, we soon after that left the illusion coming back to the room what that false shard in it. The commander was not pleased demanding an explanation as to what I had done. Not thinking that what I have done would affect her physically, mentally or something else entirely, explaining that I thought it was just a mirror illusion copy of her. But with psychic magic and the personification, things did not go as planned and I'm not even sure how the connection was truly made myself since that should have just been an illusion a hollow imitation. The fact that I wasn't in initially scorched by another fireball she might have accepted what I said. Then she referenced the side effect that my little incident has caused. Somebody gave me a small pocket mirror since my left eye had been hurting I brought it up to examine if anything that happened to it. My eyes were naturally gold; however, the left one the one that had been in pain started showing there was no longer entirely gold. Small bits silver had replaced portions of the golden color.
 
Though was concerned were minimal currently I would probably will have to ask about this later, since we had bigger things to deal with. Plus gathering up the courage to speak with the elf might be a tad bit more problematic than I would have hoped for. She was not one who was known for her friendliness towards dark elves.
 
Again with another time where we rested before the final two trials. The last two actually quite simple. Forcing the Gnome to abandon his test as an Arcanist, which The Gnome adamantly believed he would not do. We picked them up and ran out of the room trying to find Aster the one who was connected with the Fey. For the first time it was rather simple we had slashed and flung spells across killing the fey that he thought he was going to destroy along with the building and himself. Coming back out of the room a series of traps have triggered, as well as some poison gas that had filled the general area. Finally entering back into the testing grounds after rescuing Aster have been barred by constructs. The Gnome foolish ran ahead got themselves into more trouble than it was worth, so we quickly dispatched the constructs. Dealing with them each one by one destroying them with our magic and blades.
 
If only things had been that easy for the other four.
 
Leaving presented an issue. As we'd entered back into the room something was wrong, the people who were there The Commander, Jinne, Saeyrn, Eirian, all of them had vanished. The book no longer floating on the ground it's pages, and the cover looked like it had it been blackened by fire. So that probably was not the case. The ground which had unreadable symbols and glyphs before, changed, now reading to everyone ‘Auto-saving.’ Not entirely a good sign. Before we decided to take another rest and deal with the consequences outside, a single female voice entered my mind with a command. Which told me about the amount of danger that we could possibly be in. Well, I did have a conversation with Jinne, The Commander has spoken only once, interrupting us and warned about the dangers of a specific object if misused. Once again The Commander had spoken in my head about that object. About that orb.
 
“Get her orb back.”
 
… I swear this connection better not persist longer than it needs to.