Meeting the Keeper: Silarion Eltarin
Key Events:
After long and dangerous adventures, the group completed the quest to find the tower and brought Essu and Zori back to life. Each of the heroes was granted 2000 mysteries, and they felt the relief of a well-deserved reward.
Experience for the session: 1000.
Aden, following intuition and insight, headed to the city where he discovered that the group’s belongings were stored in a grim shop called The Purple Eye. Among dusty artifacts and strange items, he saw Danaya’s possessions. An attempt to bargain for a radio to communicate with Fregnard failed due to a lack of mysteries, but instead, he was offered a task: to watch over the shop at night. Fate was not on Aden’s side—he was caught failing stealth, and soon he found himself behind bars, as did his comrades.
Meanwhile, Danaya, Erdal, and the Nameless found themselves locked in a room with braziers, where ancient magical symbols inscribed on the walls hid the secret of salvation. Erdal, thanks to his knowledge and gift of reading any text, understood that the door could be opened using blood and the name of Ptaris. But as soon as he lit additional braziers, shadows and undead began to crawl out from the dark corners of the room, filling the air with the chill of death. Fighting enemies, the heroes shed blood in the hope of opening the path to salvation.
Aden, finding himself in prison, encountered a silent knight in heavy armor. His cold, emotionless behavior led to the thought that he was not a living being but an expertly crafted construct. This knight offered an exit through the dungeon, and after long deliberations, Aden accepted his offer.
Meanwhile, Erdal, Danaya, and the Nameless successfully opened the door using the magic of the name Ptaris—or, as he appeared in visions, Sai Silan. At that moment, the shadows retreated, but there was no time to rest. Into the room burst Aden and the mysterious knight. The latter activated an ancient spire, and Aden fell into a deep magical sleep. Then the knight took a battle stance, and his body began to disintegrate—pieces of his armor slowly detached and hovered in the air. This was not simple destruction—the knight-construct activated a magical self-destruction mechanism, ready to blow up everything around to destroy the heroes.
When hope seemed lost, a decrepit old elf appeared in the corridor — Silarion Eltarin. His voice was weak, but his magic was powerful. He stopped the knight’s disintegration and contained the magical explosion, slowing its unfolding and giving the group time to escape. “Run… faster!” he uttered, and the heroes, not wasting a second, rushed out of the room. An ear-splitting explosion sounded behind them, but they were already out of reach.
The elf was mortally weakened after containing the explosion. He asked to be taken to a room at the end of the corridor, where the heroes discovered a huge statue of a golden dragon and an austere setting. Now they were in the very heart of the Stellar Tower, the city’s central spire. The old man was too weak to answer questions but asked to be given a communication device from one of the pedestals. Through it, he summoned Fregnard. After some time, the dwarf appeared and, using his magical skills, helped the old man regain his strength.
Fregnard offered the group to rest, hinting that they were under constant surveillance. He handed them paper and a quill, suggesting they write letters and leave them in the central hall. Suspicions that the heroes had found themselves at the center of some conspiracy intensified.
Fregnard, looking much younger than in the group’s visions, aroused even more doubts. He thanked them for their help and returned Essu and Zori using two small vessels. His words, “invaluable assistance in the search for souls,” only added to the mystery of what was happening.
The final act unfolded in the dungeon, where Doc (Dominic) Ward led the heroes to their belongings, protected by a magical barrier. Using the name Sai Silan (the true name of Ptaris), the heroes were able to pass through the barrier and retrieve their items. For the first time in a long while, they felt that no one was watching them and experienced the long-awaited solitude—alone with themselves and their thoughts.
“The world is under threat of destruction; the one who maintained balance in the world and was the world itself is trying to become someone or something else.” — Doc (Dominic) Ward
