Legend of Ransera

A figure stood waiting in full Sentinel blacks, veil drawn to cover a face that would have been shadowed to obscurity by the hood even without its added concealment. Silently the imposing creature loomed stock still as she approached, perhaps a glint of pallour from the eyes behind the veil but little more and nothing in the way of movement. By and by, a deep, but feminine voice spoke.

"You are no Sentinel, and yet you walk a Sentinel's path and don a Sentinel's ward." She gestured to the runeforged pendant that was obscuring her Aura and Symphony from arcane assessment. It had been gifted toward the end of Frost, when High Sentinel Cithæra decided that Hilana's work was too classified and her access too privileged for her to walk around unshielded from the arcane incursions of the covetous, the curious and the insidious.

"Intriguing." She intoned, "I am Sentinel Qævyx and I am to conduct you along the path of your choosing. And why, Vastiana, when shadows invade and abound in our world in dread profusion, do you seek to broach a plane where their might is greater?" A beat.

"Of all the planes that mortals might breach. Why this one? Why now?" With that question posed, she turned away and approached the rear wall of her office, whereupon she lifted her hand to scrawl a large symbol which would glow blue and expand into a portal into an open cavern that Hilana would not recognise from any of her travels in the Umbrium.

To the words of greeting, Qævyx merely nodded acknowledgement. There was an aloof formality to the Sentinel that Hilana may have been coming to realise was customary of members of their order. As the Tertian-reared Vastiana got to know more and more mighty figures of the city, a frigid formality was not uncommon amongst any of the higher echelons of society- Particularly amongst the haughty Race of Re'ha.

"Intriguing." The Vigilia mused, "Some who seek to fight shadow pursue knowledge of the light, and others seek to combat darkness from within." She unfastened her veil, and drew it down to reveal the striking face of an aging, Platinum Elf. She looked like she must have been born well before the Bellum Successionis and, though her face was weathered, it bore a regal, timeless grace... Rather like one of those old statues from time immemorial that stood sentry in the grounds that lay before the Temple of Midnight's Mother.
She stepped through the portal and into the strange cavern that lay on the other side. They might have been in the mining district or they might have been in Auris for all Hilana could tell at first glance. The chamber was cool, not like the caverns close to the core of Sorokyn, and the floor was well trod. And it was a floor, indeed- Tiled and smooth, unlike the walls that seemed to be natural formations. Qævyx would lead Hilana through toward a narrow corridor, and globes of light along the walls sprung to life as the two approached, casting their light on the path ahead.

"The first thing you should ken is that the creatures who attacked your friends are not like to have been born in the Plane of Shadow, but of the Void. These are distinct realms, though there is overlap. The shadowrealms are not inherently evil nor chaotic... They are as neutral as nature. That being said, the same incursions from the Void that afflict the mortal realms of Ransera are also affecting the other planes. Shadow is susceptible to the Void, and so it is a more precarious journey now than it was this time last year."

"That is... unfortunate." Qævyx replied, considering the implications of the ability Hilana described. "And suggests that, perhaps, the incursion of the Void into the Shadowlands goes deeper than we realised." But she left it at that, for the moment, deciding to focus more imminently on the task at hand and the role she currently occupied. And in that role of pædagoga, she answered Hilana's questions promptly, both in the affirmative, before beginning to address the common misconceptions.

"The most beneficial thing you can do for your mindset before we pass into this plane is to distinguish the concept of 'shadow' from the concept of 'darkness'. All shadow bears darkness, but not all darkness is shadow. A shadow does not exist without the light whose obstruction births it to life. An eclipse in the traditional sense would be a shadow, but the one haunting Ransera at the moment is... Something altogether different and far more insidious."

Qævyx led them into a torchlit chamber and, perhaps notably, these were actual mundane torches rather than arcane light sources. They were lit with oil and fire. If there was anyone else around keeping the torches lit, they had yet to cross another soul since passing from Qævyx' chambers into this cavernous area. This chamber was more built up than the corridor that led them there. The architecture looked akin to that of the Temple of Midnight's Mother- reverent but simple, with a strange monolith sprouting up in the centre of the tile floor, engraved with patterns. At first they would be unrecognisable, but if inspected with a Sembler's eye they would prove more ancient than Solunarium itself.
Qævyx stood in front of the monolith and gestured for Hilana to do the same, her eyes fixed on the wall across the room. Lifting her hands to either side, she dimmed the firelight ahead of them and set the torches behind them to burning more brightly. As the light shifted the shadow of the monolith, which obscured those of Hilana and Qævyx, was stark against the wall. It was odd how it seemed to move, or rather things seemed to move within it. Ere long Hilana would realise that the shadow cast by the monolith was an ingress. The movement she noted was on the other side, where the gentle glow of a twilit marsh winked back at them. It was not the place of grim abject darkness that many expected. There was no dearth of light, it was just that it was dim and outnumbered by the shadows that gave the plane its name and purpose:

"The Shadowlands."

"Light stands counter to the Void. That is why the Sceptre of Aværys was raised in defence of the realm." Qævyx noted, "But from what our Præventores report, light also attracts these creatures and their resistance to its effects is not what we would expect... At least until recently. Toward the beginning of the season something shifted. Likely not perceivable to the naked eye, but..." She regarded Hilana curiously, "Well, you're a Sembler so perhaps you took note of the starlight returning beyond the Sceptre's grace. Whatever caused that has rendered the voidspawn more vulnerable to arcane magic."

Sembling the monolith would reveal that it was tens of thousands of years old. It hadn't been carved nor engraved by mundane means. No chisels or other tools were utilised in the construction of the stone slab. It was made by magic and infused with obtenebrum.

Once they'd passed through the portal, Qævyx paused to assess their immediate surroundings as Hilana employed the mask. She blinked in an expression of mild surprise, but didn't comment on what had just transpired.

"Explore as you will and glean what information you seek to. I will keep close and survey our surroundings for dangers while you focus on getting what you wish of this plane." This was Hilana's exploit as far as the Vigilia was concerned. She was there to offer support, security and to answer questions as they were posed, but Qævyx was no pædagoga. She wasn't fond of giving lectures, and she really had no agenda of her own for this little excursion, beyond getting them safely back when the Vastiana completed whatever tasks she set out to execute in these realms.

As Hilana trudged forward, Qævyx would remain slightly to her rear, using all of her senses and her Sembling to assess the area around them.

The immediate surroundings were marshlands. They didn’t take many strides before the charcoal grey grass gave way to shiny black mud. It might have been mistaken for tar, if it weren’t so slippery underfoot. Soon they would be trudging through black, reflective water that shone with the glimmer of indigenous plants and mercurial spirits flitting past and ignoring the interlopers. Even the ripples caused by their steps weren’t enough to draw their interest, with Varvara’s power dissuading them.

“Hold.” Qævyx whispered, placing a halting hand on Hilana’s shoulder. Right in front of her, the broad head of a large salamander emerged from the water to peep the surroundings at the surface. It’s tail splashed a bit, revealing that the creature looked to be between three and four feet long from snout to tail.

After a few moments, satisfied that there was nothing of interest to see, the slick black salamander submerged and swam off to the telltale rustle of grey grass.

The Sentinel paused with Hilana as she regarded her map. The depiction seemed to be speckled with glitter, but so did the reality surrounding them. Upon inspection- The swamplands would end about a mile ahead, where a tree line was visible. Beyond that lay an open meadow which might have appeared tranquil if not for the massive crater that pocked its centre. There was a strange cloud depicted upon the map which seemed to churn on the page with motion. She would not recognise this precisely, but it did look like a faded version of the way a powerful æther signature might be reflected upon the Volumen. Behind them the swamplands seemed to stretch endlessly, and there were pockets of greater æther signatures peppered throughout. There were no marked signs of significant battles or settlements to be found.