Session 15: Vox Gammoranths

General Summary

Bastion Week

While the Claw prepared for what was coming, the Wyrm's Oven was busy. Kal's workshop transformed his broom into something closer to a flying cloud (Dragon Ball style) while his storeroom turned a profit and his greenhouse produced Lesser Restoration fruit. Tad's library turned up something unexpected: dula-dulas tadpoles were historically harvested for salves and lotions, and the last known breeding pair was held in the Birthing Pools at the center of the Dragon Empire. He wants to know if the regenerative power can be extracted without killing them. Nyxek's library research pulled up records on the Dauphin: loyal, decorated, served the Empire without question. His workshop produced implements for pizza operations and marketing. That week, pizza sales generated 2,200 gold pieces. Nyxek added Pizza Patron to his titles. (Implying the existence of pizza warlocks?) Vutha's storehouse turned a profit, his stables were sold off, and his barracks recruited five new soldiers.

The Vox Harmonic Convocation

For the first time, all eight Voices of the Emperor gathered in one place. Nyxek brought Paragon Prophet as his guest and spent the convocation quietly taking the measure of his peers, looking for someone he could trust, someone worth bringing into a coalition for the Empire's actual defense rather than its ceremonies. He found a possible ally in Vox Harmonic Sextus, a female gold dragonborn whose interests seemed to run more toward encouraging Nyxek to sire a line of eighty-nine than toward coordinated counterstrikes against the Fallacy. He filed her away and took whatever goodwill he could get.

The Mirror

When Nyxek returned to his quarters, a mirror sat on his desk that had not been there before. He looked into it and saw himself, not as he is, but as he was: a young dragonborn in his first acolyte robes, eager and uncomplicated, ready to serve. Two fox paws appeared at the edge of the reflection and scratched a question into the glass.

*Are you still this same dragon?*

Nyxek considered his answer. "I am as devoted to the Emperor as ever," he said, "but the years have embittered me with the reality of my service." The image faded. He waited for a visit from the Fox. What came instead was the decommissioned Sending Stone, the one pulled from the oblexerated Oblex, activating with a voice he recognized. "We need your help. It is time to return." The Rod of the Red Dome thrummed in his hand, offering the way.

Station Desolation

The Claw assembled and teleported north through Tad's half-finished circle, the Rod serving as the key. Draxelas and Captain Bialzik met them at the perimeter, Bialzik surprised to see Nyxek at all. The new captain quickly pivoting to report on how badly undersupplied the fortress had become under his command. Nyxek ignored the supply report and pressed them on who they had actually been trying to reach. The two officers deflected. Nyxek kept pressing. They admitted it: they had been contacting Vox Gammoranth Honesty, the Dauphin's sole Vox.

"Of course it did," Nyxek said, looking at the Sending Stone. "We will speak to the Dauphin about his Vox. What help was needed?"

Bialzik found his footing: Gammoranth was under attack from forces of the Fallacy. Too far out for the station's cannons, no way to fly. The defenders on the Dauphin's back had been falling. Skorjira fought alone. A flash of lightning from something circling above the massive shell settled the question. *We fly. Kal, take Tad. Vutha, bring Draxelas.*

The Godeater smiled, stretched his wings, and dragged the officer into the sky.

Skorjira's Fight

They found the Dauphin's heir fighting alone against a coordinated strike force: three flesh golems backed by a dracohydra, a stitched-together mockery of the five-headed mother. The constructs unmistakably Father Oz's work. "A farce of the five-headed mother," Vutha declared. The golems knocked Skorjira unconscious before the Claw could reach him.

Tad and Kal hit first. Kal, remembering that flesh golems fear fire, summoned a burst of flame in their midst. One golem was so thoroughly disrupted that his own arm dropped off. The dracohydra surfaced from around the shell's edge and used its lightning breath to restore power to the golems. Nyxek summoned a spirit sword. Vutha spat acid. Nyxek pushed healing into Skorjira and brought him back to consciousness.

The young dragon turtle wanted to press the attack. Vox Harmonic Octavus ordered him to regroup and fight with breath, fight with the Claw. Skorjira obeyed. The others surged. Kal kept the golems pinned with sustained fire while Tad and Vutha turned their full attention to the dracohydra. They eviscerated it. Nyxek landed the killing blow, a war hammer strike carrying the martial weight of the god-emperor. The dracohydra fell. The golems, no longer sustained, were finished quickly.

Khabroth the Rune Carver

In the stillness after the fight, Vutha noticed the statue in the courtyard. He recognized the likeness: Khabroth the Rune Carver, who had raised him. He couldn't believe it was actually him. Nyxek looked more carefully and saw what Vutha couldn't bring himself to accept: this was no carving. This was the giant himself, petrified.

Nyxek restored him to flesh. Khabroth opened his eyes, shouted a warning, "Look out behind you!" The giant collapsed in exhaustion before he could finish the thought. Whatever he knows will have to wait.

Vox Memory

The building at the Dauphin's altar came to life. Vox Gammoranth Honesty stirred and Nyxek went straight at him. "How long since we last saw each other?" The tortle answered in years. Nyxek watched the fear behind the eyes and saw it was fresh: days, not years. "I see your lies, Vox. Do you lie to the Dauphin as well?"

The island rumbled, softly. Skorjira fell asleep mid-breath.

The Vox settled. "I need no longer keep up the act." The tortle's form dissolved. What flopped out of the illusion was an aboleth, the one they had fought in the sewers. "I am Vox Gammoranth Memory." The Claw moved to engage. Then the second illusion peeled back.

The Dead Dauphin

The shell beneath their feet was not a shell. The island was not an island. The trees had been dead for years and they simply hadn't looked closely enough. The petrified giants rescaled. Red light bled through the joins of ancient bone. An enormous skeletal head turned toward them, slowly, red eyes opening in the dark.

Gammoranth spoke.

"You will not harm my Memory. You have destroyed my farm, captured my rune workers, and yet I have allowed you to come upon me and live. Think carefully on why that is."

The Dauphin, the ancient, loyal, decorated Dauphin, is a dracolich. Not forbidden under Imperial law, but shameful, and a rite unknown before the fall of the Red Dome of Heaven. Draxelas, who had seen this coming in the way that draconians who survive long enough see most things coming, said only: "Ah. So he's a dracolich. He is not the first."

The Claw has dived directly into the depths of the Dauphin's deception.