Legend of Ransera

Searing 68, 124

It was once said that the land of Ecith wore a crown of three jewels, and each jewel was a city. To the north was Ailos, the shining beacon of hope, light of a thousand ages. In the center, Drathera, the Three Cities, nest of the Red Dragonflight and home of heroes and sages alike. And in the south...

Kythera.

A storied place, built with the sort of intentionality cities rarely got to benefit from. From the first moment, Kythera was envisioned as a celebration of life, a living monument to all the works of Raella and Aedrin. Its stone walls had been sculpted to flow in and around a thousand seedbeds, each one pregnant with the rich loams of a hundred lands. The Orks had boasted that every plant ever grown had some example in their garden- trees and flowers of the jungle, certainly, but also foreign biomes. Cacti and brush from the deserts of Ataraxia, volcanic flowers from the northern reaches, rare trees of Atinaw, and even strangely-colored displays of xenoflora which had never evolved upon Ransera, but instead survived the fall of the Boundless Empire.

And all of it had been lost. Worse than lost, really. Sacrificed. The jewel of an empire which had endured for centuries, detailed accounts of life which had been kept for countless generations... all of those things had been left to the onslaught of the Imperium, so that the Orkhan might survive. A canny maneuver, to be sure, a strategy worthy of the followers of Raxen and Skar. But many wondered if, in the end, it had not been mostly a gift to Grandfather Malgar.

Strangely, though, the Imperium hadn't been the ones to claim that prize. Trapped against the Gardens, they had turned on it with all of their beasts of war and smoke-belching engines of destruction and been repelled by something much worse.

It is said that the Queen of Kythera ravaged the city when she awoke, slaughtering Orkhan defenders and Imperial invaders alike by the hundreds, then the thousands. Her roots dug throughout the earth of the Gardens, touching every plant which had ever been and taking their essence unto herself, until she swelled with power and treachery. Her vines spread through the city, spearing soldiers and gardeners alike; and when that blood watered her vines, she bore fruit, filling the place with wooden simulacra of her victims.

Some feared, in those days, that they had somehow unleashed an apocolyptic catastrophe. Sages and ancient dragons alike watched the birth of this new Primal, and wondered if it would simply grow and spread until it had encompassed the entire continent, an unstoppable tide of assimilation. But the Queen's growth slowed as she neared the edges of the Gardens, and while her minions infested the surrounding forests, they seemed uninterested in any broader horizons.

Still, the Commonwealth did not trust this pause in the Queen's progress. For the past twenty years, a large camp has remained stationed on the edge of the newest primal's territory, using careful magic and spycraft to observe Kythera, to ensure that the Commonwealth is not taken by surprise... and perhaps, some day, to take back the lost jewel in Ecith's crown.

That is, until the Eclipse, when all communication was lost.

By the time the expedition reached Base Camp Kythera, it was an ex-Base Camp. Although the stone houses and small watchtower were intact, they were also overgrown, choked with vines. The doors were splintered, and the splinters were twisted into stunted, dead growths- all around the Base Camp were signs of chaos and struggle, though none seemed recent. Strangest of all, the whole camp was covered in a dusting of yellow powder which felt rough like sandpaper against the skin.

All of this was reported to the main expedition by the time they reached the Base Camp, of course, with the scouting team having gone ahead days prior to ascertain the situation. Still, although the Base Camp was decimated, Ooklo was unwilling to simply return to Drathera without first ascertaining what had happened.

"If they remain alive, we must aid them. If they are gone, we must mourn them. But we cannot suffer to leave their fates unknown." the veteran told the assembled expedition, mouth firm. This was met largely with agreement, for no Orkhan would abandon their brothers over a little danger. Then, too, some of the expedition's more unusual members had their own reasons for coming.

No sooner had the expedition begun to set up camp outside the Base Camp's walls, however, than disaster struck. Two of Norani Windwalker's scouts came down sick with some manner of fever and fell asleep. Neither died, but they could not be roused. Ooklo set up a quarantine, intending to care for them himself without risk to the rest of the members, and the next day, Major Alua summoned several of the Expedition's members, including Evandria the cartographer and Laebirus, the stranger. This time, the Great Witch Imogen also made an appearance, though she looked decidedly unwell, and kept herself upright by means of a brass staff topped with the largest pyrolith most of the members had ever seen.

The group assembled at a pavilion on a hill just below the yellow-coated walls of the Base Camp, and with a direct view of Kythera beyond. Even in ruins, the city looked unbelievable, like a scene from a dream. Not like something which people had ever been able to live in, walk about in, work in.



"Good morning." Major Alua said, though she didn't sound like her heart was in it, "I imagine you've all heard by now about the scouts who have taken ill. Ooklo is still tending to them, but he hasn't been able to figure out why they won't wake, except that they're filled with... an overabundance of life, he calls it."

Alua cleared her throat, glancing back at the Base Camp.

"For the moment, nobody else has gone in. We can't risk... well. But we also can't just sit here. I'm looking for any suggestions for how we find out what happened here, and whether there's anyone left to rescue, or if we're better off running back to Drathera with our tails between our legs."

!

Message from: Erratum

This portion of the Expedition will proceed as follows: each person involved should make a post indicating how they would like to approach the mystery of what's happening in Kythera, and we'll proceed until we either enter the city or split off into different threads. At this point, Major Alua will agree to most plans (unless they're plainly suicidal), so once you post what your character's suggestion, I'll describe how the Expedition executes on it and what progress is made. If you intend to enter Kythera to accomplish a character goal, this is a good place to state it for the record, so that a one-on-one thread can be posted later.

Norani frowned as she looked down over the city once considered to be the most beautiful of them all, throughout all of Ecith's history. She wished she could've seen it at its height, for while it was beautiful now, it was a now a wild beauty, grown over a broken pot. Her and all the other scouts that arrived three days past were in various states of melancholic, some of the older ones nostalgic, and the younger like her feeling something akin to... missing that which you never actually knew.

And worried, considering that the base camp they had been looking to meet with was gone. They weren't able to ascertain what exactly had happened, particularly with the lack of bodies. This wasn't unusual in the jungles here, there were plenty of creatures that would eagerly make off with an easy meal. Norani looked down at a large junction in the vines where a flower the size of an elephant was blooming, wondering if this was the Queen's doing. Her fingers reached across the entirety of the city, and beyond those boundaries set by the Orkhankind. Norani tightened the rag about her face that she had Enmeshed with a simple spell of wind, one to allow wind and only wind to pass through.

Her mind traveled to the stilled, feverish bodies of Hoka and Korali. They didn't if the course, yellow dust had anything to do with their sickness, they knew nothing at all. No clues, no journals, nothing had been found in the defunct camp, so the pair were left to the healers. After some discussion, Norani had enmeshed enough facemasks and had them distributed about. Maybe it would help, maybe it wouldn't, but it was a negligible amount of aether for her to try.

She looked over at the other scouts and a nod and knowing glance was exchanged. There had been discussion about what should be done before the rest of the group even arrived. She waited as Major Alua and the others spoke, listening and taking it all in before she stepped forward to say her piece.

"We've all agreed to come on this expedition, well aware of the dangers, both known and not, that we might face. We accepted the risks that come with such an endeavor." She looked down at the fallen camp, "But part of that agreement was contingent on meeting up with reinforcements. We have now arrived blind, tired, and lower on resources. As such, we are on limited time here, and each day we spend increases the risk that none of us return, that the information the camp had acquired, that we learn ourselves, will be lost to the jungles. I propose that I lead a small team through the city, a team small enough that we can move quickly, stealthily, and can be hidden easily in a pinch. This team will be tasked with two missions. The first, and most important, is to see if there's any traces of the base camp members within the city and to extract them. The second will be to evaluate the city for ourselves, firsthand, in order to report back to the capital."

She looked over at Major Alua, "Alua, I propose you take the rest of the expedition and secure a temporary stronghold, and run scouts to map the borders of the city, as well as the reaches of the Queen's vines. Hold this position for three days while my team and I investigate. If we are not back by the end of the third day, return to Drathera without us, saying that the city is lost unless greater forces wish to be invested."

Norani now turned to face the crowd of the expedition, "Evandria's plan for entry is smart, and I can provide both protection and the ability for all to breathe underwater as we go." She looked at the woman directly now, "I would like to request that you join my team as cartographer and navigator. It will be just as important to know how to get out as it is to get in. But we will not order you, nor anyone, to join this venture. There's a very real risk that none of leave this city."

She looked over at Laebirius, "I would like to request two combatants and someone with specialized knowledge in plants. We don't know what will find in these gardens, for better or for worse, nor do we know how this Queen exerts her control."

She took a deep breath, "Who will join me?"

Searing 68, 124

The Major listened to each of the Expedition members quietly, pursing her lips as she imagined what each approach might look like. Although the base camp's disappearance had been a possible outcome, considered and registered prior to the expedition's launch, it was giving her a great deal of trouble. It would be a terrible failure if they returned to Drathera with no more information than this, but the thought of throwing good scouts into the slumbering city plainly troubled her.

After each had spoken their peace, Major Alua nodded and rubbed her forehead.

"Norani, you have command of the scouts. I won't complain if anyone wants to join you." The Ork turned back towards Evandria and Laebirius "An underwater approach is sensible in some ways, but recall that the Queen's spawn are said to walk the riverbed."

This was a common story in Ecith, though of the sort it was annoyingly hard to actually verify. It was said that whenever the Queen of Kythera took a new victim, she spun new spawn as a mockery of their body and soul, wooden doppelgangers which possessed the same skills (and even magic) of the deceased. The stories did often claim that they emerged from the river at night to claim more victims for the Primal's waiting maw, but who could say if that were more than superstition? Still, plainly Alua believed it.

"Memnosyte are hard to come by in Drathera." the Major admitted to Laebirius. Ironic, given the city's provenance as the Librarians' holdfast, but the laws of mineral formation were not susceptible to argument. "But if we can bring back even one living scout, the Seers can extract their memories in full. I would take caution in relying upon a charm of invisibility; we do not really understand how the Queen senses her prey to begin with. It may be that at least some of her manifestations hunt by smell, or some even stranger function. Be wary."

Alua hesitated--plainly she wanted to say more--but she could provide nothing else. It was simply a fact that neither she nor Ooklo knew what was going on beyond the confines of the walls, and she could hardly promise to send the cavalry in after them if they failed to return. As much as she wanted to come back to Drathera with results, she certainly would not throw away lives without more intelligence.

"The Great Witch has been sleeping for the past two days. If you do not return within twenty-four hours, I will wake her and ask if she can locate you. Ooklo won't be happy, but... Well, may Galetira guide you."



When approaching Kythera, it became clear that the heavy dust which had covered the site of the base camp were originating from somewhere deep within the city. Whatever the stuff was (pollen? spores? simple plant detritus?) was coming from the ruined tower near the city center, which Norani thought must once have been an administrative center. Thick clouds of it trailed off the upper levels, where it was caught by the winds. Thankfully, those winds now carried it to the other end of Kythera; if it was responsible for the scouts' indisposition, then the Expedition would be safe from it for a few days yet.

Still, this was not in any of the reports which the Base Camp had sent back to Drathera prior to the Great Eclipse. If this was some trick of the Queen's, it was something wholly new.

From a distance, the Gardens seemed empty of all but motionless plants- but as the scouts closed in to the city limits, that illusion was broken by Evandria's spyglass. Wooden statues were planted on every corner, looking out of each cracked window. The Primal's spawn, nearly unmoving save for those few on patrol, thronged throughout the city in such numbers that it would have daunted the Sword Legions. A head-on assault would be impossible for anyone without the aid of a god.

But although the myths often linked the Queen's minions to the river, the scouts quickly discovered that they were overblown. There were tangled masses of plants down there, and perhaps some of that included the Primal's minions, but it was still much easier to slip through those and enter one of the city's several aqueducts, still functional despite decades of disrepair.

Once within the marble corridor of the aqueduct, the questers found their path surprisingly clear. Although roots and seeking vines crowded around the upper surface of the flowing water, the bottom was mostly clean. It was, perhaps, some spell writ upon the aqueducts, meant to prevent them from being clogged with overgrowth- or maybe the Queen was simply cunning enough to understand the danger of choking her own source of irrigation? That was a slightly chilling thought.

Under cover of Norani's Elementalism, the scouts were able to follow the aqueduct past the decrepit walls of Kythera and underneath its outer promenades, entering one of the city's grand fountains. The water feature had long since ceased to function, and the magnificent lily pads and orchids floating atop the water were marred and stained green by a great profusion of pond scum and algae. It was possible to follow the aqueducts still deeper into the city from here... but it would require a choice, for the irrigation channels split into three routes as it moved deeper into the city.

One of those routes led off to the north, towards what had once been the city's residential districts. A second continued south along their original path, to those ruined grounds which had once been the site of laboratories and places of learning and culture. A third, most algae-choked and ominous, moved straight towards the tower at the city's heart.

!	Message from: Erratum
	How will the party proceed from here? Where to go? What to look for?