Deeper down the rabbit hole

 

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[2 min read]

This is in response to our DM asking the party do we want to reconsider the offer of the Aegis Arcana to join them as full members, rather than being contractors of theirs as we ultimately chose in that meeting.

Tomas awakens, exhausted and lying prone on the ground, his right hand clutching the holy symbol of Tyr which he must have unconsciously reached for during his horrific visions. Ears ringing from the explosion, and his body wracked with pain from the fiend’s diseased claw, Tomas picks himself up slowly and tries to gather his thoughts. But calm eludes him as his mind races, desperately trying to make sense of all that has happened over the past months. 

Twice now the party has uncovered powerful slivers of divine power - first of Azuth back in the demi-lich’s dungeon in Thar, and now of Bane in the hideout of the Cult of the Shadowmoon - and twice these were being corrupted for foul purposes and the perversion of natural life. Destroying these also left their marks on the adventurers, now able to call on the eldritch powers of the gods they embodied.

With at least one more divine sliver awaiting them in the ruined tower in Solus (undoubtably guarded by a powerful agent of evil) and possibly more across the Realms, Tomas considers his options. Having left Mithral Hall an exile from the church of Gorm Gulthyn, and swearing to one day find and root out the corruption at its source, does chasing down these godly artifacts bring him closer to that resolution?  

The words of his god, Tyr the Even-Handed, come unbidden - ‘to corrupt is to deny Justice’ and ‘all Justice must be served’. Surely preventing the misuse of divine power from these slivers would serve Tyr more than chasing down some grasping dwarves? 

Resolved, Tomas considers the ruined town of Solus, and the implications for the city the party is trying to return to the peoples of Faerûn. Each time a sliver was destroyed, it created a huge explosion and leveled the surrounds. In order to reclaim the city (in its baptismal name of Eldrus), deposing the evil lurking in the ruins and severing the connection to the divine sliver would be necessary, but could it be done without razing the city to the ground? Especially by a party renown for its blunt methods of destruction?

Reaching the limits of his understanding, Tomas turns to the meeting the party had with the Aegis Arcana, which seems like a lifetime ago now. Their patrons, an organisation dedicated to hunting ancient magical artifacts, seem best equipped to help uncover the mystery of the divine slivers and also the unnatural effects on the persons of Eldritch Inferno. Perhaps deepening the party’s relationship with their order would grant them access to the power and knowledge needed to accomplish this goal?