Umber

Psydney explains the Eternal Champion to her sister, T’lar.

Dear T’lar,

How is your headache? It was bad timing on your part, but it does rather serve you right to decide to take an uninvited peek at my mind and find four others in residence with it. At least now you’ve met everyone, in a sense.

I will now answer your question, “What in the Nine Hells is happening?” in the manner which I prefer: on paper. We are currently enjoying a well-deserved rest in Tenser’s keep on the Nyr Dyv. And while yes, we originally broke in, we are now staying on as guests of Tenser himself. No, you didn’t misread that. And no, I haven’t taken leave of my senses. One thing I have to grant these arcane types: they’re damned hard to destroy permanently. The place is a bit too blue for my taste (the man has an obsession with the color), but the hospitality is welcome. And much as I like King Yiss and his band of lizardfolk, it’s nice to be staying somewhere a little less swampy.

You knew that we’d intercepted a message apparently from our old nemesis Ren to Gulthias, mentioning a gate alignment at Tenser’s keep. Research bore out our suspicion that whatever they were planning, this was not an occurrence which should be allowed to take its course. We lacked any of the items required to enter the keep safely, but that’s never stopped us before. It was filled with the usual tricks and traps you’d expect of a wizard: bloodhawks trained to attack anyone taking to the air; a titanic dwarf (really a stone golem) with bright blue eyes who strikes down anyone not privy to the correct response to his question; an iron golem disguised as a solar (neat trick, that), who nearly managed to hurl Magnus and I, weighty though we are, through a wall and into prison cells; a throne which reduced Bane’s mind to a lizard’s; a necklace that would have killed Jake over and over again if he didn’t have the ability to rewind time (also a neat trick); exploding pieces of paper; attacking brooms: no doubt you get the idea. And at the top of the tower: a mysterious table and a half-finished sword.

What does all this have to do with what I felt? you’re no doubt wondering impatiently. I’m getting to that. In the meantime, you richly deserve to be teased a little. This table was a puzzle: large, stone, round and levitating, with eight pairs of handprints arrayed along its edges and the words “Deus ex unitae” etched and partially trimmed in gold across it. The unfinished blade, a greatsword designed for something larger even than a stone giant, lay in the center. Magnus was eager to finish the sword, less eager to finish the table. He muttered something about meddling in the affairs of wizards, but after all, that’s what we’re out here for, isn’t it? And precisely the reason you finally decided to stay home. Neither good nor bad, but a choice we all make sooner or later, if death doesn’t make it for us.

The Table

Magnus and Bane, working together, completed the greatsword in good time and we inserted it in a slot apparently designed for it in the center of the table. Now there remained the unfinished lettering. Bane, daunted by the challenge I think, but resolute, picked up the pen and gold ink and set to work on the inscription. His concentration was complete and he became literally absorbed in his work, appearing as time passed to fade in and out of existence. I was concerned for his safety, but as the phenomenon did not grow in intensity decided merely to watch and wait. Minutes stretched into hours, and as the inscription seemed to take on a life of its own Bane also took on a different life, flickering between his own form and that of a golden, glowing humanoid, twenty feet tall with four arms and four legs. It was truly beautiful, T’lar. I’ve seen a lot of things, but I’d never seen anything like it before in my life, literally shining with the radiance of honor, and calm self-possession, and righteousness.

Evidently Magnus did not see what I saw (or perhaps he did, and didn’t like it), as he let out a roar and attempted to knock Bane away from the table. But the table threw up a force shield to protect the wizard, and Magnus was unable to penetrate it. I suspect had he and I both combined our might we could have prevailed, but I was now frankly unwilling to disturb the process. Jake, whatever he was thinking, made no attempt to intervene either, and soon the writing was complete.

The handprints beckoned. Each pair also bore an inscription, in plainer lettering, one hand proclaiming “Justice,” the other “Mercy.” Magnus protested that there were only five of us, and eight hand-pairs, so we probably wouldn’t be able to activate anything anyway. Bane, Jake and I replied that there was only one way to find out, and moved to the table. Bane chose only Justice, while Jake and I opted for the balance and tension of both Justice and Mercy. Once my hands fit the indentations, a wave of force washed over them, holding them gently but firmly in place, and although perhaps I should have been alarmed, I was not. Kuhlefaran, approaching more slowly, reached out to Mercy. Magnus grumbled a warning of meaningless, battle-less deaths, but finally chose Mercy as well.

Now to say the words: Deus ex unitae. We chanted in unison, and suddenly, for a few moments, I was no longer standing in my place but was somewhere else, still at the table but somehow not there, very much larger and very much closer to the huge sword in the center. I reached out to take it in hand, but a brilliant flash of white light blinded me, and when I could see again I had regained my former aspect. I felt myself as myself again, but the sword had vanished, and some subtle change had taken place within us all. We were unable to determine its exact nature, but somehow knew to a certainty that if we were to chant the phrase again, even away from the table, something would happen. Exactly what we did not know, but if this initial experience were any indication it would be something very powerful.

The Gate

The ritual completed, we returned downstairs to a door set in the outside wall of the keep, apparently opening onto air hundreds of feet above the ground. But as your Bard can attest, there are many kinds of doors leading to many kinds of places. This one led to a plane called Luna, where a map hidden under a pile of rotting leaves revealed a hut reputed to contain a clone of Tenser. Unfortunately, the terrain precisely matched that seen by Bane in his recent efforts to scry on Jallarzi Sallavarian, once an ally and friend of Tenser’s, now apparently, however unwillingly, under Ren’s dominion. We feared the worst for Tenser.

Luna is not a place I would recommend for a relaxing vacation. It is a kind of twisted mockery of a positive energy plane, overflowing with vegetation and life, and mud, but life brimming over with hostility; and beset by storms and lightning, and mud. The map we discovered indicated a carefully marked path from the gate to the hut through the mud, and we dared not deviate, lest we become lost and then consumed by the wild jungles on either side of us, or swallowed up in deeper pockets of mud.

We travelled unmolested for several hours, although we were disturbed at the sight of deep footprints more than two feet across. Then we heard a noise up ahead. Closer investigation by Jake revealed a dretch gathering fruit by the side of the path, looking wet and unhappy. For once our infamous indecision operated in our favor. We were debating whether to attack unseen and end its miserable life quickly, and I had just asked, “Are dretches usually blue?” when the creature caught sight of us, ran forward and threw itself in the mud at our feet. Unable to speak but quick with pen and ink, it revealed itself to be Tenser himself, transformed by Ren as a perverse joke and now in the service of Jallarzi Sallavarian.

He was able to convey this information and no more when a voice ahead on the path shouted, “Where’s my breakfast?” Soon a figure appeared, looking in all respects like Jallarzi, but male and, Kuhlefaran warned, emanating great evil. Magnus asked the dretch if we should kill him/her, but Tenser shook his head urgently. I was concerned with Ren’s whereabouts, but if Tenser wanted her spared, I would make every effort to comply, even at the expense of time I feared we did not have.

She offered us refreshments, a conceit which even the most gullible of us saw through and, as we expected, attacked as soon as we reached a clearing. Magnus and I grappled her, brushed off her weak attempts to free herself and began beating her senseless as gently as possible. I suppose we could have tied and gagged her, but I prefer an unconscious enemy wizard to a bound one. Still, I dared to hope that we might have her subdued before anyone else realized we were here. In the way that fate will, though, my hopes were dashed when we heard a loud crashing off the path, coming closer. “Ren,” I said.
“He wouldn’t be making that much noise,” Magnus protested.

I stared at him over Jallarzi’s nearly unconscious form. “I don’t think he gives a damn whether we know he’s coming or not.”

The Battle

And then he was upon us. I had never personally seen Ren before, but even so I suspected the party didn’t realize that he was a twenty-foot-tall cross between an ape and a boar, or it would have come up in casual conversation before now. He eyed us with disdain. “My control over reality must have slipped momentarily,” he said, then vanished from all but Bane’s sight.

“Nalfeshnee,” Bane and Kuhlefaran hissed. I don’t know how up on tanar’ri lore you are, but suffice to say that they don’t come much bigger or badder. He drove his greatsword through Magnus and in a single blow dealt so much damage that if it had not been for his mighty fortitude even this strongest of our fighters would have died on the spot.

“The phrase!” Bane shouted, although I don’t think we needed much coaxing. None of us had any idea what would happen, but we were plenty sure that we would all be killed if we continued this conflict on Ren’s terms. Kuhlefaran had spoken no more than “De-“ when I felt an overwhelming compulsion to say the words with her. Making no effort to resist, all of us spoke in unison.

And suddenly, I could see Ren again. Not only could I see him, I could look into his eyes, eyes that moments before, even at my twelve-foot height, had towered over me. And those eyes looked startled. For Bane and Jake, Kuhlefaran and Magnus and Psydney, were no more. In their place stood a single golden creature, with four arms and four legs, twenty feet tall and wielding the colossal greatsword which had vanished from Tenser’s keep.

We were ourselves, but we were one, and the best parts of all of us had merged to form this being. We were clad in Magnus’ plate mail, Bane’s Cloak of the Archmage draped across our shoulders, Jake’s feathers sprouting from our arms. We saw with Bane’s true seeing, moved with Kuhlefaran’s speed, possessed my insight into the future to aid our ability to dodge Ren’s blows. We became the sum of our intelligence, our dexterity, our strength. All of our powers: physical, arcane, clerical and psionic, were available to us. Strangest of all, perhaps, was that the sword we held in our hands, a powerful Holy Avenger, was ours to wield at its full potential. Despite our personal differences in moral outlook, the entity we had become cherished the good, and safeguarded law.

We struck at Ren, and every blow hit home. He struck at us, and seldom managed to penetrate our defenses. Afraid that Jallarzi would be an irritant, we immobilized her in one of our hands. It was about then that I felt you briefly penetrate my mental landscape, grow confused and withdraw. Sorry I didn’t say hi, but I was rather busy at the time.

Looking for reinforcements, Ren called a glabrezu. Tall as the demon was, it looked up at our form, snarled a curse at Ren for summoning it to assist him with that, and shared the joy by summoning a pair of vrocks before reversing gravity in a cylinder centered on us. The vrocks called forth more vrocks, who called forth vrocks in turn, and there might have been some macabre humor to be found in the scene if the seven who eventually appeared hadn’t joined hands and begun an infernal dance.

Taking momentary stock of the situation, we decided that Jallarzi was under control for the moment, and the vrocks, even one an insurmountable obstacle to the party in Ossington, would probably prove now to be only a nuisance. The glabrezu was another matter entirely. Because we could fly, its little gravity trick had no effect on us, but we had no idea what it did for an encore. Loathe to be distracted from Ren, which was no doubt his intent, we nonetheless spared an attack to bring literal destruction on the lesser demon; in moments its body had been obliterated in a blaze of holy fire. We rather hoped this act would frighten the vrocks, but they hooted as if they’d witnessed an exceptionally entertaining spectacle and danced all the more furiously.

Ren made repeated attempts to dispel our various magical effects, with only limited success. We stuck to the time-honored strategy of raining blows upon him. Finally, he collapsed to the ground, and his body began to burn. Now that we were free to devote our full attention to them, the vrocks decided there were much better games to be played elsewhere, and planeshifted away from the scene.

The Aftermath

None too soon for us, as it turned out, for with a sudden, sickening splintering we were our individual selves again. The sword was nowhere to be seen. We lost no time finishing off the job of rendering Jallarzi unconscious, then wavered for a moment, uncertain what to do. Some premonition of evil nagged at me, though, and I suggested to Magnus that he ask Kuhlefaran to heal his still-bleeding wounds.

Also none too soon, it seemed, as an old woman approached us on the path. This turned out to be no ordinary woman, but Iggwilv herself, come for retribution in the death of one of her favored pets. “I will not allow this!” she raged, pointing at Ren’s corpse. To our horror, it began to reform. The avatar we had become was gone, and we knew with certainty there was no way to recall it. In the mouth of victory, doom leered.

Without warning, the corpse collapsed on itself again and vanished. We turned to see behind us an old man, calm and smiling, dismissing the body and shaking his head at Iggwilv. Kuhlefaran blanched and murmured, “Fharlanghn.”

“I will have revenge!” the crone shrieked, gesturing to the sky. A dozen massive meteors came hurtling towards us. Fharlanghn waved his hand, and a shimmering canopy appeared over our heads to dissipate the projectiles harmlessly.

“They must be punished!” Iggwilv demanded, shaking a fist at us and uttering strange words. Fharlanghn bowed his head and vanished; the old woman vanished as well.

Even as these events took place, the dretch Tenser was diving on a box Ren had carried. Jake had the presence of mind to relieve him of it long enough to check for a trap, then Tenser resumed his mad scrabbling to tear off the lid. He extracted a ring from the box, slipped it on his finger and uttered a wish. Instantly, he stood before us a blue-robed man. Another wish, and Jallarzi was restored to her normal form and mind.

“There are two more wishes in this ring,” he said. “They are yours, with my gratitude.” When we asked about Iggwilv’s last action he shook his head soberly. “It was a curse of some form. I am not certain that it can be wished away, and believe it would be dangerous to make the attempt. I do not understand its exact nature, but I will say this: if I were you, I would curb your usual hazardous lifestyle for a while.”

I must admit, sister mine, I took a great deal of pleasure in having Tenser himself, who had been so imperious toward us in his incarnation as Alf, treating us with so much respect and even a certain deference. And when we returned to his keep, we found Mordenkainen waiting with an army. Bane, as you can imagine, was beside himself in the company of such renowned figures. And here we are now. Tenser freed Magnus from the blackfire, and shared with us the formula for the antidote. The Circle of Eight, for better or worse, has been reassembled, with our own Bane a hair’s-breadth from being chosen as a member. And Cuthbert help Oerth if that ever happens. No, I don’t really mean that.

The Meaning

As to what happened to us for those brief moments confronting Ren, of which you felt the briefest moment of all: Tenser explained that while he had designed the table for the Circle of Eight, they refused to use it and it had been left unfinished at the time of his death. Its purpose was to facilitate the summoning/creation of The Eternal Champion. This is not a concept I am familiar with, although perhaps The Bard is. In any case, by performing the initial ritual and then uttering the words “Deus ex unitae,” we created the conditions under which our substance and abilities could be molded to produce something greater than the sum of its parts, in our case the ultimate rogue/warrior/mage/cleric/psion.

When I asked why we, none of us dedicated to both the law and the good, were able to wield the Holy Avenger, he also explained that the Eternal Champion’s moral fabric was created from the choices we made at the table. Choose Justice and it tips toward law. Choose Mercy and it tips toward good. Our choices were sufficient to permit it to manifest in its preferred, I suppose you could call it paladin-like, form. A little more mercy and a little less justice, though, and the Avenger would have been doing a little less avenging, and I probably wouldn’t be writing this to you now.

Funny to think of any of our motley bunch as paladins, even a composite paladin, isn’t it? But it was impossible to come away from that experience unchanged, and we were all changed in deep, almost incomprehensible ways. For one thing, a bit of the “best part” of others that we most admired remained with us even when we no longer functioned as a single being. Jake came away with a piece of Bane’s arcane knowledge. Magnus, the single-minded wielder of weapons, has begun manifesting psionic powers, while Kuhlefaran and Jake have developed uncanny martial abilities that could only have come from Magnus. I have gained enough insight into Jake’s roguish talents to employ them in a small way myself, and both Bane and I have been blessed by the gods with the capacity for divine spellcasting. While we both feel a deep debt to Fharlanghn, both for his power as manifested by Kuhlefaran and his personal intervention on our behalf (although I have no illusions as to why he was there, and it was fortunate for us that we were standing with his loyal servant at the time), I do not believe that either of us is destined to follow his path.

For that was the other transformation that occurred, a subtle shifting of the very fibers of our ethical being. Whether the choices we made at that table actually changed us or merely clarified us to ourselves, the individuals who withdrew from the form of the Eternal Champion were not the same as the ones who merged to compose its substance. Bane and I, one standing removed from the law, one from the good, both now understand how they may coexist in harmony. Jake’s chaotic urges, while I suspect not purged entirely, appear to have softened to a more neutral posture. Kuhlefaran, in consciously deciding for Mercy, has taken a step away from her amused detachment. And Magnus, perhaps driven somewhat mad by the extreme changes forced on him by fate, seems to have emerged from the Champion at least a little less obsessed with the vicious indifference of existence.

This has gone on long enough. I would apologize, but the circumstances were complicated. If it is too wordy for you, give it to The Bard and let him compress it into a song.

Be well (and stay out of my thoughts),

Psydney

p.s. The reference to Cuthbert was not entirely idle. I said I was a cleric now…