3.3.2 Bane of Dark: A Memory of Dragons, Ch. 3
General Summary
Robin, Elfriede, Riven, and the mysterious Ilse arrive back at the Black Tower to recover from their battle with the Void Husks and to assess the threat this new contagion poses to the people of the Reach—and what they can do to end it before it claims any more lives than those of orcs and demons.
Robin immediately takes the helm at the arcane controls of his tower, setting it on a southwest trajectory to try to cut off any husks before they hit the borders of Pact territory.
Elfriede, however, stands silently before a raised pool of water, its surface revealing to him far-off things he wish he wasn’t seeing. Riven and Ilse join him, and the three of them watch in horror at the scenes playing out on the water:
The few surviving husks from the recent battle seemed to have caught up to the main orc and demon hordes, as the scrying pool showed a veritable sea of hollow-eyed zombies surging across the plains. At the rate they were going, it would take only a day for them to reach the Crimson Pact outpost at the ruined Orc Gate…
But as Elfriede shifts the view to the outpost in question, a scene of even greater horror meets their eyes: Winged husks, abyssal monstrosities hollowed out by the curse of the void, blotted out the sky as they descended upon the defenders the walls, the last of whom fell to the dark touch of the creatures only to rise to join their ranks. The next moment, and the aerial husks had taken off to the northwest, perhaps compelled by some primeval force to seek out creatures to claim for the Void. As they fly off, a sinking feeling hits each of the onlookers: the husks are making a direct line for the town of Last Rest.
Riven, however, notices another group of void creatures: goblin warg riders, one with the void, racing over the plains towards Crimson Pact encampments—and Juorug Ulak where Warlord Domokos is coordinating the armies of the Free Peoples. Leaving the problem of the winged husks to their companions, Riven declares they must warn Domokos and the Pact of the void riders and the greater horde approaching from the east, departing in a flurry of black feathers off the side of the tower.
While the remaining Heroes of the Reach decide what do to next, Ilse gazes at Robin with a frozen expression on her face. She does not hear Elfriede, speaking in the voice of Asatavarinuth, beseeching the Allmother to explain why she abandoned her children, why she did not rally the dragons to fight...
Memories are flooding in. Of that man, in this tower, wrecking death and destruction upon dragonkind. Millennia of pain and grief cause by this man, the Great Enemy, break down the final walls in Ilse's mind holding back the tide of the past. The Dark One must perish, now, while he is still weak, before he can destroy the world -- and if she cannot stop the deaths of his children, at least she will at long last have justice.
Ilse transforms, becoming once again herself, becoming once again Feyndovul, the Bane of Dark, the Allmother of Dragons. The walls of the Tower tremble and columns fall, torn like paper by the garagantuan form of the Platinum Dragon as it engulfs the domed hall. Things then happen very quickly.
Feyndovul attacks Robin, who barely manages to throw up an arcane shield against the great dragon's platinum claws. Elfriede, singing the Bladesong of his grandfather, dances out of harm's way, only for Feyndovul to come down hard on Robin once again, her draconic paw slamming the artificer to the stone floor before he can reach for his tower's defenses. Terrified for the life he can feel beginning to slip away beneath Feyndovul's onslaught, Robin casts about for something, anything that might save him...
ust then, another piece of the tower gives way as something crashes through the wall--a familiar furry figure, careening out of control in his final descent from his skyborne meditations: Grunk the Monk, Grandmaster of the Monsterary and the Way of the Bugbear.
Several months ago, Grunk set off to answer the question, "What is Grunk?"
After weeks lost in the Dragonsbane mountains, turned so far inward that he lost all track of tiem and place, Grunk came to on the top of a tall peak overlooking an unknown sea. Across from him sat an ancient white-feathered aaracokra, who taught him to seek purity of soul and to find sustenance from the sun and air around him. After meditating on these teachings for several days, Grunk achieved the first pillar of the Way of the Bugbear, the insight that "Grunk is tree," and promptly passed out from starvation.
Days later, after recovering in an aaracokra village nestled in the Crown of the World mountain range, Grunk set off for the distant sea he had spied days earlier in search of greater wisdom. A series of unfortunate events later, and the bugbear found himself meditating in the belly of an ancient turtle monster at the bottom of the sea. After three days and nights of introspection, Grunk achieved the second pillar of his path, the insight that "Grunk is fish," whereupon he imposed upon the digestive tract of the turtle to blast himself out of the water back onto dry land.
Surrounded by very cold-looking trees, Grunk determined to seek the final answers to his questions of self-discovery--after he warmed up. Days later, he found himself in the middle of an endless bog, with storm clouds gathering above him. Attuned now to the ways of the weather, Grunk understood that the warmth he sought was coming, and leaped skyward directly into the path of a bolt of lightning. Infused by the warmth not only of electrical overload by also from the exploding peat bog below, Grunk found himself flung heavenward at great speed, singed but pleased with himself, and unlocking the third pillar of his path, "Grunk is sky-boom."
Inexpertly harnessing the power of sky-boom, Grunk managed to ping-pong his way through the storm via his newfound thunderstep abilities over the course of the next several hours, until a large black tower loomed up before him in the sky and his found himself crashing through its walls at terminal velocity.
Grunk quickly assesses the situation as his body torpedoes towards the ground. His old friends Elfriede and Robin--wow Robin looks old old, he has beard now?--are locked in combat with a dragon much too strong for them. Grunk knows how to fight dragons. You have to punch them in the face. So Grunk angles his body in the direction of Feyndovul's head as she turns it belatedly in surprise at this new attacker, and he manages to unleash a barrage of bugbear blows upon the dragon's face before he smashes into the floor in a shower of broken stone.
The blows, while doing little to harm the platinum dragon, do manage to distract it long enough for Robin to free himself from her talons. Desperate and out of options, Robin yells for his companions to follow him through the closest Chronogate--the one that leads to this very tower over a year in the past, at the time of the last battle of the Dark Lord.
Unfortunately, he is not quick enough, as the heavy hand of the Allmother crashes down on Robin right as he reaches the gate. And yet, as the life begins to bleed out of the artificer's broken body, Feyndovul glances at the scene in the canvas he had wrought, a scene of horror as the Dark Lord at the height of his power lays waste to the West's last hope for freedom, the Heroes of Falinor falling one by one--she winces as one of her grandchildren, a great gold dragon fighting alongside the heroes, is cut in two by the Dark One's power... And the Allmother glances back down at Robin, the Dark Lord to be. They are not the same, she thinks. This boy will one day destroy the world--has already destroyed the world--killed my children and corrupted all that was once fair and good... But he is not the Enemy I see through the gate. Perhaps it is right that I should kill him now, but this boy is not my enemy. She looks through the gate. That one is.
Seeing Feyndovul hesitate, Robin beseeches the dragon to stay its hand, to join them and help save the Reach from the threat of the void. Elfriede, looking on, accesses Asatavarinuth's consciousness, and understands that the Allmother has seen the Dark Lord in ages past lay waste her people, leading to the destruction or subservience of nearly all the dragons, and stands in awe of the great one's patience and restraint--and then in bafflement as the Greatest Dragon of the World gets into a headed verbal argument with the by comparison ant-like human at her feet. She is barely containing her lethal rage as Robin yells up at her that they must use the Chronogates, that only they have a chance of undoing what is about to pass, and Feyndovul bellows her disgust at the corruption of Robin's foul magic--
It is at this moment that Grunk picks himself off the cratered flagstones, picking shards of rock out of his fur. He shakes his head, clearing the daze of the impact, then has a sudden moment of inspiration.
Rocks. Grunk has a rock. He pulls from within his robes his old friend, his Very Special Rock. It has been some time since he has meditated upon it.
Grunk is tree.
Grunk is fish.
Grunk is sky-boom.
And, he understands suddenly, his face still smarting from the impact, what has always been true.
Grunk is rock.
Having unlocked the final pillar of the Way of the Bugbear, Grunk sees clearly what needs to be done.
He looks at his friends. The dragon is yelling at his friends. That is not nice.
He leaps to his feet, impossibly fast in this moment of pure clarity, of oneness with himself and the universe, and grapples Feyndovul the Allmother in a head lock.
A single second passes as the dragon, wizard, and artificer look at each other in shock. Grunk looks up at his friends quizzically.
Robin and Elfriede wordlessly point to the Chronogate. On the other side, rising up from the pile of the dead in his black tower, the Dark One seems to be staring straight at them.
Grunk shrugs, and throws the dragon through the gate.
hus ends the reign of the Dark Lord of the Reach, as the Bane of the Dark screams through the time gate towards her ancient enemy.
The last thing she says before she disappears, a word that echoes in the glowing heart of Robin Adlehyde, is "Change."
The tower is in shambles. The people of the Reach on the brink of extinction. But Robin knows what he must do.
He gathers Grunk and Elfriede to him, and explains his plan.
A few moments later, Elfriede activates the teleportation circle one last time. He looks towards his library, sighing at all the work he's going to have to do rewriting them all. And Robin activates his archotech mines throughout the tower.
The greatest symbol of darkness in the world, looming ominously in the skies above Yyrda since before the Cataclym, falls, destroyed by the one who built it.
I will, Robin promises the dragon, finally understanding. Starfire erupts in pure radiant light, and the Legends of the Reach go home.
Legend Level 12 level up: Robin, Elfriede, Grunk
Robin immediately takes the helm at the arcane controls of his tower, setting it on a southwest trajectory to try to cut off any husks before they hit the borders of Pact territory.
Elfriede, however, stands silently before a raised pool of water, its surface revealing to him far-off things he wish he wasn’t seeing. Riven and Ilse join him, and the three of them watch in horror at the scenes playing out on the water:
The few surviving husks from the recent battle seemed to have caught up to the main orc and demon hordes, as the scrying pool showed a veritable sea of hollow-eyed zombies surging across the plains. At the rate they were going, it would take only a day for them to reach the Crimson Pact outpost at the ruined Orc Gate…
But as Elfriede shifts the view to the outpost in question, a scene of even greater horror meets their eyes: Winged husks, abyssal monstrosities hollowed out by the curse of the void, blotted out the sky as they descended upon the defenders the walls, the last of whom fell to the dark touch of the creatures only to rise to join their ranks. The next moment, and the aerial husks had taken off to the northwest, perhaps compelled by some primeval force to seek out creatures to claim for the Void. As they fly off, a sinking feeling hits each of the onlookers: the husks are making a direct line for the town of Last Rest.
Riven, however, notices another group of void creatures: goblin warg riders, one with the void, racing over the plains towards Crimson Pact encampments—and Juorug Ulak where Warlord Domokos is coordinating the armies of the Free Peoples. Leaving the problem of the winged husks to their companions, Riven declares they must warn Domokos and the Pact of the void riders and the greater horde approaching from the east, departing in a flurry of black feathers off the side of the tower.
While the remaining Heroes of the Reach decide what do to next, Ilse gazes at Robin with a frozen expression on her face. She does not hear Elfriede, speaking in the voice of Asatavarinuth, beseeching the Allmother to explain why she abandoned her children, why she did not rally the dragons to fight...
Memories are flooding in. Of that man, in this tower, wrecking death and destruction upon dragonkind. Millennia of pain and grief cause by this man, the Great Enemy, break down the final walls in Ilse's mind holding back the tide of the past. The Dark One must perish, now, while he is still weak, before he can destroy the world -- and if she cannot stop the deaths of his children, at least she will at long last have justice.
Ilse transforms, becoming once again herself, becoming once again Feyndovul, the Bane of Dark, the Allmother of Dragons. The walls of the Tower tremble and columns fall, torn like paper by the garagantuan form of the Platinum Dragon as it engulfs the domed hall. Things then happen very quickly.
Feyndovul attacks Robin, who barely manages to throw up an arcane shield against the great dragon's platinum claws. Elfriede, singing the Bladesong of his grandfather, dances out of harm's way, only for Feyndovul to come down hard on Robin once again, her draconic paw slamming the artificer to the stone floor before he can reach for his tower's defenses. Terrified for the life he can feel beginning to slip away beneath Feyndovul's onslaught, Robin casts about for something, anything that might save him...
ust then, another piece of the tower gives way as something crashes through the wall--a familiar furry figure, careening out of control in his final descent from his skyborne meditations: Grunk the Monk, Grandmaster of the Monsterary and the Way of the Bugbear.
Several months ago, Grunk set off to answer the question, "What is Grunk?"
After weeks lost in the Dragonsbane mountains, turned so far inward that he lost all track of tiem and place, Grunk came to on the top of a tall peak overlooking an unknown sea. Across from him sat an ancient white-feathered aaracokra, who taught him to seek purity of soul and to find sustenance from the sun and air around him. After meditating on these teachings for several days, Grunk achieved the first pillar of the Way of the Bugbear, the insight that "Grunk is tree," and promptly passed out from starvation.
Days later, after recovering in an aaracokra village nestled in the Crown of the World mountain range, Grunk set off for the distant sea he had spied days earlier in search of greater wisdom. A series of unfortunate events later, and the bugbear found himself meditating in the belly of an ancient turtle monster at the bottom of the sea. After three days and nights of introspection, Grunk achieved the second pillar of his path, the insight that "Grunk is fish," whereupon he imposed upon the digestive tract of the turtle to blast himself out of the water back onto dry land.
Surrounded by very cold-looking trees, Grunk determined to seek the final answers to his questions of self-discovery--after he warmed up. Days later, he found himself in the middle of an endless bog, with storm clouds gathering above him. Attuned now to the ways of the weather, Grunk understood that the warmth he sought was coming, and leaped skyward directly into the path of a bolt of lightning. Infused by the warmth not only of electrical overload by also from the exploding peat bog below, Grunk found himself flung heavenward at great speed, singed but pleased with himself, and unlocking the third pillar of his path, "Grunk is sky-boom."
Inexpertly harnessing the power of sky-boom, Grunk managed to ping-pong his way through the storm via his newfound thunderstep abilities over the course of the next several hours, until a large black tower loomed up before him in the sky and his found himself crashing through its walls at terminal velocity.
Grunk quickly assesses the situation as his body torpedoes towards the ground. His old friends Elfriede and Robin--wow Robin looks old old, he has beard now?--are locked in combat with a dragon much too strong for them. Grunk knows how to fight dragons. You have to punch them in the face. So Grunk angles his body in the direction of Feyndovul's head as she turns it belatedly in surprise at this new attacker, and he manages to unleash a barrage of bugbear blows upon the dragon's face before he smashes into the floor in a shower of broken stone.
The blows, while doing little to harm the platinum dragon, do manage to distract it long enough for Robin to free himself from her talons. Desperate and out of options, Robin yells for his companions to follow him through the closest Chronogate--the one that leads to this very tower over a year in the past, at the time of the last battle of the Dark Lord.
Unfortunately, he is not quick enough, as the heavy hand of the Allmother crashes down on Robin right as he reaches the gate. And yet, as the life begins to bleed out of the artificer's broken body, Feyndovul glances at the scene in the canvas he had wrought, a scene of horror as the Dark Lord at the height of his power lays waste to the West's last hope for freedom, the Heroes of Falinor falling one by one--she winces as one of her grandchildren, a great gold dragon fighting alongside the heroes, is cut in two by the Dark One's power... And the Allmother glances back down at Robin, the Dark Lord to be. They are not the same, she thinks. This boy will one day destroy the world--has already destroyed the world--killed my children and corrupted all that was once fair and good... But he is not the Enemy I see through the gate. Perhaps it is right that I should kill him now, but this boy is not my enemy. She looks through the gate. That one is.
Seeing Feyndovul hesitate, Robin beseeches the dragon to stay its hand, to join them and help save the Reach from the threat of the void. Elfriede, looking on, accesses Asatavarinuth's consciousness, and understands that the Allmother has seen the Dark Lord in ages past lay waste her people, leading to the destruction or subservience of nearly all the dragons, and stands in awe of the great one's patience and restraint--and then in bafflement as the Greatest Dragon of the World gets into a headed verbal argument with the by comparison ant-like human at her feet. She is barely containing her lethal rage as Robin yells up at her that they must use the Chronogates, that only they have a chance of undoing what is about to pass, and Feyndovul bellows her disgust at the corruption of Robin's foul magic--
It is at this moment that Grunk picks himself off the cratered flagstones, picking shards of rock out of his fur. He shakes his head, clearing the daze of the impact, then has a sudden moment of inspiration.
Rocks. Grunk has a rock. He pulls from within his robes his old friend, his Very Special Rock. It has been some time since he has meditated upon it.
Grunk is tree.
Grunk is fish.
Grunk is sky-boom.
And, he understands suddenly, his face still smarting from the impact, what has always been true.
Grunk is rock.
Having unlocked the final pillar of the Way of the Bugbear, Grunk sees clearly what needs to be done.
He looks at his friends. The dragon is yelling at his friends. That is not nice.
He leaps to his feet, impossibly fast in this moment of pure clarity, of oneness with himself and the universe, and grapples Feyndovul the Allmother in a head lock.
A single second passes as the dragon, wizard, and artificer look at each other in shock. Grunk looks up at his friends quizzically.
Robin and Elfriede wordlessly point to the Chronogate. On the other side, rising up from the pile of the dead in his black tower, the Dark One seems to be staring straight at them.
Grunk shrugs, and throws the dragon through the gate.
hus ends the reign of the Dark Lord of the Reach, as the Bane of the Dark screams through the time gate towards her ancient enemy.
The last thing she says before she disappears, a word that echoes in the glowing heart of Robin Adlehyde, is "Change."
The tower is in shambles. The people of the Reach on the brink of extinction. But Robin knows what he must do.
He gathers Grunk and Elfriede to him, and explains his plan.
A few moments later, Elfriede activates the teleportation circle one last time. He looks towards his library, sighing at all the work he's going to have to do rewriting them all. And Robin activates his archotech mines throughout the tower.
The greatest symbol of darkness in the world, looming ominously in the skies above Yyrda since before the Cataclym, falls, destroyed by the one who built it.
I will, Robin promises the dragon, finally understanding. Starfire erupts in pure radiant light, and the Legends of the Reach go home.
Legend Level 12 level up: Robin, Elfriede, Grunk
Report Date
23 May 2025
