Session 21: All Eyes All the Time
General Summary
The Future Arrives
Strange energy filled the air near the Pool of Tister, strange lights, blurred voices, a very regular ticking forming where nothing had been ticking before. A shape outlined itself in the pool's residual glow, distinctly dula-dulas in silhouette. The figure resolved slowly, covered in advanced runic equipment, a shield covered in glyphs with several thin mechanical arms rotating across its face. He was not Tad Polo. He asked for Tad Polo immediately.
Vutha pointed into the pool. "You might be in time to say goodbye." The newcomer watched the image of future Tad walking toward a group of female dula-dulas fade into the water and reached out, grasping nothing. He tapped the glyphs on his shield rapidly. "I don't understand. This should be the correct moment. Wait, the chronal bubble hasn't collapsed. What could this...?" He turned to the Claw. "It seems there may still be a chance. Could you tell me who you are? Are you trying to fulfill Tad's heroic destiny?"
The Claw was rather at a loss. The Godeater was not. Vutha introduced himself at length. The newcomer did not recognize the name. He introduced himself in return: Rad Polo, Artificer and master of Chronurgy magic. He came from a future where the Empire and the world had been dragged to ruin by Mekka-Tiamat, God Empress of Darastrix Tolgalen. Vutha's expression curdled. Rad had come because his calculations identified this moment as one that could change the outcome of that future. He had come to find Tad Polo before Tad went forward. He had arrived one pool-push too late.
He turned to Kal and asked his name. Kal pointed out that surely everyone knew the name of the purveyor of the pizza oven. Rad asked what pizza was. Kal's dread was immediate and total. He shook his fist at the ceiling. The future was a pizza-less hell.
Rad brightened when Kal gave his full name, Kal "Pizza Time" Wah Bunga. Famous, Rad confirmed. A rebel who fought against imperial oppression to stop the pathway to ruin. It was for his fierce defiance that the remaining members of Clan Turtle had been killed, but those who wanted a better future remembered him as a hero. Vutha asked about his own future. Rad asked his clan. Vutha replied that the Sentinels served the Emperor directly and belonged to no clan. Rad confirmed that the Sentinels were worshipped as demigods in his time. Vutha accepted this with a shrug.
Rad turned to the dragonborn. Nyxek gave his full title. Rad recoiled. "Oh no. You will doom us all." Nyxek's frills hackled immediately. Rad caught himself and tapped his shield glyphs. "I've said too much. I need to be careful about paradoxes." He recovered enough to ask one question: did Nyxek serve the Emperor? Rad sweated and punted. He wanted what was best for the people of the Empire and their future. Nyxek closed in. The Emperor, specifically? Rad conceded: in his time, the Emperor was nothing but a puppet of Mekka-Tiamat. Nyxek demanded to know who the Emperor was now. The whole Claw answered together, Harmonic Horizon. Rad blinked. Still? Always, they answered. He has always been the Emperor. He will always be the Emperor.
Rad considered his position and offered a compromise: he held an oath to his cause against Mekka-Tiamat, but if they succeeded, he would swear loyalty to the Emperor freely. Nyxek pointed out he should swear it now. Rad explained that breaking his current oath to swear a new one would make the new oath worthless. When his present oath was fulfilled, he would be free to swear another, and he would do so. Nyxek considered this and conceded it would do for now.
The new Claw struck the Earth.
Days 8 through 11: The Final Stretch
Day 8 brought a massive flowering cave of Dragon Nip. Kal's excitement lasted until Vutha warned of movement in the tunnel above them. The ceiling came down. Most of the Claw stepped clear but the Miner took damage and was buried under stone. Vutha attempted to dig it out and lifted a stone considerably too heavy for the attempt, nearly trapping himself in the process. Kal used earthbending and blew the obstruction away. The kuo-toa priests who had been following since Day 6 prayed to Blopdalskam and the Miner's damage reversed itself. Then a strange bell chimed from somewhere in the tunnel, the Bell of Awakening, and Blopdalskam began to move and think with more independence than before. Nyxek noted the creature was gaining awareness. The kuo-toa heralded its growing godhood. The Godeater eyed it with professional interest. Blopdalskam sensed this and grew distressed.
Nyxek understood the situation needed management. He approached the kuo-toa archpriest about ensuring that their god would recognize the authority of the God Emperor of Darastrix Tolgalen. The archpriest had not heard of the God Emperor. Vutha explained that the Emperor was the protector and defender of all scalykind. The archpriest considered this, so like Blopdalskam, but far away? Nyxek assured him the Emperor was a far greater god and that Blopdalskam should properly serve him. The archpriest pointed out that Blopdalskam was right here, right now, and asked how anything could be greater than that.
Nyxek said he would demonstrate. Vutha encouraged him to show the greatness of the Emperor's miracles. The archpriest appeared excited for a theological debate. Nyxek informed him that he hoped Blopdalskam's priest was ready for a bad miracle. Rad wondered aloud what a bad miracle even was. Everyone in my Claw is a bad miracle, Nyxek said, and summoned a ring of blades to make sushi of the kuo-toa archpriest.
The archpriest was cut. He grinned. His blood spilling for his god made for a proper theological debate. He had his own bad miracle and summoned a wave of destructive power. Nyxek used the time-twisting power of the Rod of the Red Dome to shunt the archpriest forward in time, stripping his spell, and deposited him directly back into the biting blades of his own bad miracle. The archpriest emerged confused but knowing when he was beaten. He conceded the superiority of the God Emperor to the Vox Harmonic.
He was still somewhat confused about how an absent god could be superior to a present one. Vutha explained that Blopdalskam was a young, small, edible god, while the Emperor was a huge, eternal, will-eat-you kind of god. Nyxek confirmed that there was a hierarchy of gods and that so long as Blopdalskam recognized and respected his place in it, there would be no trouble and no eating. The archpriest scratched a divine org chart into a stone tablet. Once the Claw confirmed the org chart was correct, Nyxek stopped Vutha from seasoning the Miner.
Day 11 brought the sound of robotic mining ahead, multiple servok servitors expanding out a side tunnel. Blopdalskam moved forward. The Claw held back, uncertain whether the Miner would malfunction or assert its newfound divinity. Blopdalskam whistled at the other constructs. The servitors cleared the way and left. The god understood its place in the org chart.
The Platform
Beyond the servitors, the tunnel opened into a wide cavern with a carved vertical shaft at its center. A platform waited at the bottom, large enough for the Claw and operable from below. Nyxek assessed the chamber above and understood what it was: an installation deliberately disrupting the operation of the Boundary Monolith on the surface above, creating the passage that allowed Mekka-Tiamat's forces to enter the tunnels safely.
He ordered Draxelas to remain below and protect Sora. She would need to cast the teleportation circle when the time came. Draxelas accepted the assignment with the air of someone who had done the tactical math and was not unhappy with the result. The Sentinels stepped onto the platform and ascended.
The Beholder Chamber
The chamber above was a battlefield of floating stone platforms connected by tentacles and suppressed magic. Two large beholders hung chained at opposite ends of the room, their antimagic eyes trained on each other, the overlapping cones creating a dead zone across the center of the space. Smaller beholder-kin drifted between the platforms. The months of mutual hatred had pushed the two large ones to the edge of coherent thought. They turned toward fresh targets with immediate and total enthusiasm.
Magic was gone in the antimagic zone. The air was not. Kal airbent himself and Vutha across to engage the first large beholder directly. He stunned it long enough for Nyxek to step outside the dead zone and release a precisely placed fireball against the cluster of smaller beholder-kin. Rad attempted to leap between platforms and found himself considerably less nimble than his predecessor. He scrambled among cracked stone pillars and found himself exposed to a full volley of eye rays from the second large beholder, plus additional rays from the drifting smaller ones. Rad resisted every single one.
The smaller beholder-kin floated and bit at the Claw with limited success. They did not slow Kal from ending the first large beholder. Its chain went slack. The antimagic zone shifted. The second beholder, still chained at the far end of the chamber, turned the full weight of its hatred toward the Sentinels of the Dragon Isle.
The fight was not over. (But the Session is!)
