The primary mission of our group was to hold a diplomatic discussion with the Labyrinthe of Xenos at the The Garden of All Elements waystation regarding their increased item gathering activity across Orin Rakatha. While there we were also to travel into the garden itself and gather several magical essences that would be required to create a portal to the Conflux plane, needed to help straighten things out with the Elemental Prince of Water.

Our team composed:

Myself, Khandis, Ksndra, Nathan, Bill Jingle, Jux, Malice, Draak, Kyle, Kurt, Rannark, Sir Verrick and our guide Ginny, a librarian of the Archive.

There were four major sections to our mission.

Firstly we used the Planar Codex to open a portal to the Garden of All Elements sub plane, which is a magically enhanced pocket plane of the Material Plane. Unsurprisingly there were large numbers of elementals, in fact at least one group of each colour.  At the magical node sites there were also very powerful purple guardians who were linked to the wards of each and each had to be overcome in order to extract the magical essences.  Carrying the essences was also problematic as magic effects seemed to leak from them until they were eventually confined in a box and returned to the nation by pathfinders.

Secondly, whilst at the Garden Waystation, providing security for the area, we were informed that the local herb garden had become overrun and we needed to do some `gardening’ which was a little ironic.  This wasn’t too taxing but the source of the interference was a shambling mound that had to be soundly beaten.

Thirdly, after gardening we were gathering our thoughts before the Xenox ambassador when a wave of essence drain swept over us.  It transpired that, in the Wizards Concillium’s lands not far from there, Calex Wraithspawn had attempted to use the Mystic gate to travel to the Plane of the Sleepless Dead and it had failed spectacularly. Void stuff had leaked out.  With it, void essence draining creatures spewed out and those not protected (as the Valley are) would have been sore pressed to resist. Indeed this culminated in two Void Collectors and several possessed Wizards Concillium Sorcerors and gaurds. We managed to save two of the Concillium, which was fortunate as Chancellor Marius (WC tower leader) arrived to rebuke us for the void explosion. He linked our request to use the Mystic Gate with Calex’s failed attempt somehow. It was agreed that due to the current issue with void it is probably too dangerous to use the Mystic Gate at the moment. Helpful that Calex failed to travel though.

Lastly, we met with the Xenox ambassador who was High Enchanter Hepheston. Which was a very useful and frank discussion that covered a number of issues which I will detail below. The most curious thing about Hepheston himself is that all through the official negotiations and formal dinner he spoke in the usual stilted drone speech and near the end he flipped and become more like a normal human. At this point we discovered more about what exactly is going on in the Labyrinthe.

Nature of the Void

The void itself is large beyond understanding. Even that statement is misleading as it is a very absence of anything so it cannot have any physical size. Nothing lives in the true void but the Labyrinthe have Voidships that they can use to travel through/across it. These they use to travel between all the planes, as they exist within bubbles in the void. The void seeks to consume non-void stuff continuously and indeed it is inevitable that eventually all will be consumed by the void. 

Where the void encounters non-void stuff an interface is created, like a bow wave in water where all is churned up. This is where the void creature we encounter are created and live. They are basically in the process of being turned to void themselves.

The void can also be called The Darkness. At the void interface access to the spheres and elements are hindered, more as the process continues until they are inaccessible. There can be a temporary effect of Black magic being enhanced during the start of this process but it is a transitory effect only.

The Ikarthian Triangle

A long time ago, the three towers of the Labyrinthe, the Ikarthians and the Tower of the Wind decided to build a defence against the mists, to keep the area bounded by their towers clear. To do this they all contributed to it’s construction. Icarus, the Ikarthian tower leader, had part of the warding bound into his spirit. The Labyrinthe agreed to provide the power source. To do this they travelled to the void and constructed three beacons to transmit power to the ritual. The ritual was a complete success.

Unfortunately, since then a number of things have gone awry. Firstly the death of Icarus has led to an instability in the warding and it is effectively broken. Secondly there have been a number of interferences with the beacons in the void. Firstly by Dymtheris who used it’s power to travel to the Plane of the Sleepless dead. This was then componded by the Dymwan Cadre who used it’s power to travel to Maeglor. Most recently Verbal Gut Fantasia, now know as a Voidweaver, has discovered the beacons and uses them to bolster his own powers.

The now beacons are irretrievably disfunctional and have begun to leak Void into the Ikarthian Triangle. The Labyrinthe predict that at the current rate of incursion Orin Rakatha will be completely destroyed in 7 to 9 years. They have two plans of action. The first is to use their Void ships to abandon Orin Rakatha and relocate to another plane. Before that commit to this however they are going to try and shore up the leak by creating three more beacons to seal off the three in the Void. To do this requires a considerable amount of energy.

The Labyrinthe can extract raw energy from a wide variety sources, including organics, spirits and more commonly empowered and ensorcelled items. They have furnaces to reduce these items into raw power and the ability to store that energy long term. In order to accumulate enough energy to build these beacons they have had to necessarily increase the frequency of their collection of items.  Even so, at their current rate of collection it will take them more than 20 years to gather enough energy. An estimate is that they require 25% of all items on Orin Rakatha. They do not expect this to be achieved given the divisive nation of the nations.

The Labyrinthe of Xenos

Originally, Xenos had a son named Finneas. I believe he died and in his grief Xenos created the first drone also named Finneas.  In order to stay connected to Finneas, Xenos created a machine that allowed him to share Finneas’ senses and thoughts but required him to be plugged into it. Eventually Xenos never came out of the machine.

Xenos had an assistant, of considerably lower (but not trivial) ability named Weylan. Once Xenos was in the machine on a permanent basis Weylan became defacto leader of the tower (Master Enchanter) over the other High Enchanters. Weylan expanded the machine by creating further drones and plugging them into the machine. He could also access the machine in order to share the sense of those connected and laterly to be able to directly control them, if necessary.

During our negotiations with Hepheston, he was being monitored/controlled by Weylan, hence the stilted speech, but later after Weylan released him he was able to speak perfectly fluently and candidly.

Hepheston said that Xenos does indeed appear to be waking and this is causing some considerable problems in their nation. Weylan appears to be in denial that Xenos may wake. Potentially, if he fully awakens, he could take control of all the drones away from Weylan and the other High Enchanters and no one knows what his disposition might be.

Politically, a number of the High Enchanters are pro the Valley nation but Weylan is very much an isolationist.

The Forgotten

We were attacked by a group of The Forgotten but Nathan was able to unshackle the spirit of their leader, one Amrit Soldan, and from there we were able to speak of what is happening in their tower. It seems that Calex and the Black Queen are conspiring to control as many of the old Court of a Thousand Swords leaders as possible through either voluntary or forced spiritual embodiment. Not all the nations elders are possessed and most of these are appalled at what is happening although they do not openly object as that would mean they would be forcibly possessed.

The Red King is still alive and is being held in Calex’ compound. Amrit felt that those who were free of possession would be more likely to rally against Calex if he was free. For our part we said our nation was sympathetic to those resisting Calex and that Amrit could pass a message of support back to his people (not acting in the capacity of the Mystics of course).

Ichabod.