Lots of stuff happened today! I'll compartmentalize it to some degree in smaller posts attached to this one.

This doesn't mark the end of the whole story, but it is a major breaking/turning point.

Edited to add: At this point, I would consider any logs from the quest(s) until this point to be fair game to post.

Daevryn was the man that the Eldritch Consortium had hired to run the dig for the Vault. Rumored to be a competitive man of not-insignificant self-made wealth, he was known to have supervised several dangerous or unusual mining operations in the past.

Rayihn was an enigma, a witchy healer-woman who wandered the land offering her aid to those she felt worthy. She worked miracles and possessed strange powers none could adequately explain. Her aid was sought repeatedly by members of the Consortium, originally to tame the storms of Despair, and later to provide some relief against mysterious magical diseases.

Not all things are as simple as they first appear, and Daevryn and Rayihn have a history and motivations all their own...

The very nature of reality churns and heaves disquietingly.

A strange vision permeates your consciousness. You are dimly aware that you witness events that have already passed.

A pair of humans, man and woman, decend a scaffolding, making their way down the inside of a vertical glass tube, passing various mining apparatus as they go.

The man is powerfully built, dressed in titanium and black leather. His steely-gray eyes confidently scan the path ahead of them; he seems somehow at home in this unique mine.

The woman is dressed in vibrant purples and blues. A natural beauty, her sapphire eyes and strawberry blonde hair seem to illuminate her surroundings. There is an air of preternatural vitality to her.

Outside the tube, bolts of lightning arc through violent black seas, attempting to strike the pair but held at bay by the enchanted glass.

They continue to descend as the glass tube gives way to a mine shaft of more conventional construction. Reaching the bottom, an arched passage stretches to the north.

The eerie glow of a shifting, shimmering veil of chromatic light bars their passage through the archway. Beyond it, a hulking demon can dimly be seen standing before a pair of massive doors, glaring and unmoving.

Pausing, the humans half-turn, gazing into each others eyes. The pair exchange smiles. His, a grin of triumph. Hers, the smile of a woman about to meet her destiny.

"We've passed none of your crew on our way", the woman observes.

With a shake of his head, the man replies, "No, I've sent them to inform the Consortium that their work is complete. There will be a little time before we're disturbed."

"You must know that this won't please them. That we're going in first."

"They got what they paid for. My crew dug the way to the Vault, at great danger and great cost. We brought them this far, when none other could or would take them so far and so fast."

"The whole time, they've been competing with others for the contents of the Vault."

"With the snares and hurdles of Nyastren and his mages, but also with other factions of modern Thera who have different designs upon its contents than they do."

"Some they've manipulated, some they've bargained or allied with, others they've opposed. Each obstacle thus far has been removed. They played the game well and have neared their goal."

"They just didn't understand that I was playing the same game. That we were."

"Poor Destanin. So much study, sacrifice, and work. So much plotting and paranoia. And at the end of it all, he's undone because he was too proud to suspect 'the help.'"

"It's not so bad, the vision they had for the world, the way they wanted to improve it, but I know better than they do the way things should be. Would Ssriel warm the cold or Festpath feed the hungry?"

"Of course not. That is why someone better needs to take the reins. My gift will heal this world."

Impulsively, the woman grasps the man's hand and pulls him to the prismatic veil of light. It shimmers for a moment, then parts before her, as if recognizing something in her it must obey.

The pair steps through the part in the veil, which flows together again behind them.

Only the hulking demon, its body covered in runic tattooes, stands between them and the massive doors of the Vault. Although it glares balefully at the humans, it does not yet approach them.

The man pulls out a tome. Any who have seen the ancient journal possessed by the Eldritch Consortium would recognize it as the same book, except that it has noticably more pages.

Flipping to a marked passage, he addresses the demon, his voice clear and commanding.

"Annek hasto meros akkat nas ifer Nyastren!"

With a disappointed snarl, the demon nods in recognition of the passphrase, pulls one door open, and stands aside for the pair.

Together, they stride into the Vault itself. Its walls are made of colored sandstone, heavy with platinum ore. Stretching off as far as can be seen are numerous shelves filled with tomes and various artifacts.

Fading into existance before them is a creature forged of terror and nightmare. Although clearly a lich, it is unlike any other seen before.

What at first seems to be a body armor of some kind is in reality spikes and shards of bone that thrust out of his greyish skin and wrap themselves around his body.

In between each bone, something writhes and changes, some sort of magical power -- no, pure chaos that binds these atrocities to what was once a great man. Its eyes burn with the deepest red of darkness and chaos.

The form of his frame is all wrong to mortal eyes, it has been tampered with in ways most mortals never dream of. This can only be Nyastren himself.

Mystic energy begins to coalesce around his twisted, bony hands, but he hesitates before striking. His baleful eyes narrow and fix on the woman, and he begins to address her in a raspy whisper.

"You... you are not one of my disciples. Yet the Blood of Chaos burns in you!"

Nyastren turns to regard the man.

"But this one..."

"Is under my protection. Let us pass, Nyastren. I have come at last for what you have safeguarded."

The lich seems confused as the two start to walk past him, but ultimately he does let them pass.

The pair wander the halls of the massive Vault for some time, clearly searching for something. Outside, the sounds of battle can dimly be heard.

Eventually, they seem to find it: an enormous crystal orb brimming with orange and magenta energy. The man produces a small vial of clear, viscous liquid and empties it over the orb.

As one, they both place a hand on the orb's slick surface. It shatters into millions of pieces, and thick coils of the mystic energy formerly trapped within encircle each of them...

The nature of reality shifts again, and the strange vision ends.

In the days that follow Nyastren's spell, word circulates that the Vault of Nyastren seems, now, to be empty, although many things formerly believed to be inside have been spotted in the hands of adventurers and elsewhere.

Of the Orb of Adun'thul itself, nothing reliable has yet been heard. A deadly storm yet rages across the Sea of Despair, annihilating all that venture too close to its rift.

Scholar and magi everywhere report that the strength of the very power of magic has begun to fluctuate erratically. Even simple spells often seem to fail or worse.

All things that depend on the power of magic seem uncertain. In one way or another, almost everything in Thera does.

(Incidentally, this does include the Battleragers, in an inverse sort of way. Also incidentally, magic is sometimes weak, but it's also sometimes strong.)

The Eldritch Consortium, having awarded several of their allies the best they find themselves currently able, retreat for a time to regroup and consider their next action.

Out came Nyastren from the Vault. The ancient Archmage of Chaos had been transformed into an exceptionally twisted lich in order to survive his long self-imprisonment in his Vault.

Much death did Nyastren rain down upon the would-be plunderers of his Vault. Eventually, they started to get the upper hand... but Nyastren, who had caused such trouble for Thera with the many defenses to his Vault, had one more card yet to play...

His ancient form battered and broken from fighting half of Thera, the lich Nyastren retreats from the battle with the mortals who would dare pillage his Vault.


Glaring at his enemies across the storm-tossed Sea of Despair, his raspy whisper echoes like thunder.


I have not waited these thousands of years to be beaten by you pretenders to the legacy of accursed Order!


You desire what has been stored in my Vault?


You wish to see the untamed might of Magic?

You lust after the power of Chaos?

THEN HAVE IT!

Pouring the remaining strength in his undying form into a final spell, Nyastren collapses, uttering a single arcane word.

In answer, the immense magical power stored within the Vault's mana well ignites, fueling a primeval spell of annihilation, augmenting its potence beyond imagination.

Although a storm of destruction consumes the area, it is the effects of the spell's assault upon the very fabric of reality that will be remembered...



All the leaking energies from countless magical items and artifacts stored in the Vault of Nyastren had, for Ages, been trapped and focused into a unique mana well. During his long imprisonment, Nyastren had begun to believe that those he meant to permit to claim the contents of his Vault would never come. He had prepared a magical weapon of last resort using the mana well in case one of his many hated enemies should open the Vault. With his back at last to the wall, he used it, assaulting the weave of magic and even the very nature of reality with Chaos magic of untold power.

A magical rift has been torn open near the former dig site in the Sea of Despair; death waits for all who near it. Not even ghosts are safe. A victory over Nyastren had been won, but at too high a price.

It seemed that as part of his final stroke, Nyastren had also dispersed the contents of his Vault to the four winds. Some of these items have already resurfaced and are in the possession of adventurers; others are not yet accounted for.

Foreshadowing, yo!

At last, the dig team hired by the Eldritch Consortium reached their goal. The doors to the Vault of Nyastren could, at last, be seen.

In the way: One hulking, scary looking demon and one shifting, shimmering veil of chromatic light which disintegrated everything it touched. (Surprisingly, only one PC touched it.)

The intrepid Euvian and Nebbelrud were recruited by Festpath to find a way to deal with the veil. Finding a solution (but not without price) in the realm of dreams, they disabled the veil.

Numerous other heroes had arrived at the dig site by this time. With a little help from Destanin and Festpath, they did battle with Nysforxan, the demonic Sentinel of the Veil. He thoroughly beat the stuffing out of our heroes with a whip in one hand and the dismembered carcass of an angel in the other until he was cleverly dismissed by Ernam.

Of course, his phat loot went back to the Abyss with him. I assure you it was phat, too.