Our tale picks up at the camp near the Town of Shown, where the bug puppet things were. Maria Whitehead, who we now realize is a very plausible candidate for the Immortal Empress, has left in the night, leaving a note explaining that she is going to deal with the Roc problem.
Resolving to meet up with her later, we head off to Whiteridge in the Halidom of Ultan. Tylar and Mildred check up on their enterprises, their typewriter, deliveries and religion, Edgar plays tourist and Honsu works on a rune of unbinding.
Mildred, while looking for someone to upgrade her weapons, meets with a trader/inventor by the name of Dr. Lucian Kablamo, who can create a rocket-powered axe or a flaming sword, by way of a special fuel he has developed. Mildred wants to get her hands on the fuel, but her negotiations are interrupted when her axe is stolen.
Then proceeds the slowest, least exciting chase scene ever. Which concludes with the would be thief struggling to get over a wall and being pulled back over by Mildred. Turns out the thief is an old friend of Mildred from her own world, and shady past. An old fellow by the name of Jockser.
After a brief catch up, Jockser is arrested by the guards and put into the lock up. Mildred concludes her business with Dr. Kablamo then fills us in on what happened. So we all go visit Jockser, question him a bit, and agree to take him off the Ultan people's hands. So now he follows us around, like a shitter, older Cog.
Anyway, it turns out Tylar and Mildy have a quest that they got from this city last time they were here that they have been neglecting. A husband to be has gone missing from his home in the town of Hammer Pass. A man by the name of Valentin Moro. So we fly on up there and investigate.
It's suspected that he got a bout of "Mountain Madness", some form of sudden depression that happens sometimes that causes people to wander into the wilderness and die. However, after investigating his house/workshop, it is discovered that he was kidnapped and had his research stolen by three Ozmendian men. Using a convenient Cypher that Tylar found in his house that can see into the past, we managed to track them into the wilderness, down a cliff, to a little halfway hut. They were long gone by the time we got there, however we did have to take shelter there from, not one, but two Tyrannosaurus Rexes!
After the monstrous beasts lost interest, we continued following the trail until we came across a road and a pub. After interrogating the pub owner, we discover that the Megats, the ruling family in Ozmez and the owners of the Pinnacle bank, are behind the kidnapping, and Valentin has most likely been taken to Ozmez. Concluding that the trail has gone cold and Valentin is most likely safe for the time being, we resolve to sort it out later and continue up the mountain.
Flying up to the mountain, we land at a monastery that has been carved into the side of the mountain. We have a quick chat with a monk named Abdul who tells us that a number of his brethren were sent out by Lyndon, about a week ago to perform some sort of binding rituals on the anchors, the Haze Tree, Lance Stone and Base Crystal.
He takes us to his superior, Master DeWitt who allows us to view Lyndon, whilst informing us that he doesn't wake up. As we enter Lyndon immediately wakes up and lays down the lore.
The information shared with us is going to summarized in dot point form:
- Lyndon does not consider himself a god, and scans suggest he is, indeed, just a regular Asmarian man.
- When he meditates, his soul wanders the multiverse, including brief forays into the void between worlds.
- The void is the ends of things, but there are forms of life native to the place. They are the Weavers and the Shades.
- Weavers bind worlds to the Nexus somehow, and Lyndon believes that one has taken an interest in Honsu. These creatures could forge a road home.
- Shades are formed when the balance between worlds is upset. They begin life as a multicoloured slug, AKA, a blink slug, before metamorphing into a humanoid shadow form. In this form they try to consume as much extra-dimensional material as they can in order to mature. Once matured they will attempt to consume Others to restore balance. The only thing they can't cut through, or rather can only cut through once, is the silk of their cocoon.
- There are three Archfiends of Order, Hazer, Lancer and Baser. They strive to bring absolute order to the multiverse, which will bring about its end. Balance between order and chaos must be maintained.
- They can manifest shadows as minions of their will.
- They are trapped in the prisons, but there has been a sharp swing towards order recently that Lyndon believes they are behind somehow.
- These archfiends are what bring people to the Nexus. They do so to gain influence outside their prisons, though the exact mechanisms for doing so are a little unclear.
- Returning people to their own realms will restore balance and foil the machinations of the fiends.
- The Chaos God, and seven armed fellow called Zai'di'shar, was the one that imprisoned the fiends in the anchors, but he has grown weak recently.
- Lyndon believes that there is an entity in the Nightmare lands that wanders the astral planes. A being called Return-renew, known by the insect people as Keten-Neket. It is believed that this entity could return people to their home worlds.
Our session with Lyndon, however, is far from over. Any further questions may still be asked of him, next time.
