The Vision from Torm

Below is the series of visions that Solarys experienced by putting the Helm of Torm's Sight onto his head. The rest of the party experienced them, as well, when they joined Pherria Jynks in the Ritual of Returning.

The longer visions are intercut with quicker snippets, and all of them jump back and forth in time. This is the order the party experienced them, but is obviously not the order that these events occurred.

The Beginning of Zariel's Fall

There is a kind of inky darkness; a nauseous veil of swirling shadows. Then a beam of golden light. The light slowly grows in intensity and the shadows are ripped apart, like a caul parting before your eyes. At the point where the light is almost blinding, it turns reddish and becomes hot. Dry and hot. A dry, hot wind under an ominous red sky.

As your vision clears, you're standing on a field of battle beneath the blood red sky of Avernus. A huge mound of devils lies dead. Other devils, still living, are hauling bodies off the mound, chittering amongst themselves.

All the way at the bottom of the mound, as one last corpse is pinioned on a pitchfork and flung to one side, the body of an angel is revealed. Her skin is porcelain white. Her hair the golden light of an evening sun. Her wings bloodstained ivory.

The devils draw back. Some of them are cackling, but then one glances back over their shoulder and suddenly drops prostrate to the ground. Others, too, following the first’s gaze, throw themselves to the ground.

A tall devil with skin of maroon and crimson, dressed in robes of black and gold, strides in amongst the scattered corpses. He is possessed of a leonid beauty, with two almost impossibly long, dark horns curving gracefully from his forehead.

The devil's eyes smolder as he looks down at the angel. As he pulls off a gauntlet-like glove from his left hand, revealing the talons beneath, he turns and asks, in a smooth voice of elegance and grace, "Where is her Sword?"

The caul of gilded night sweeps over your vision.

The Three Generals

You are standing at attention in some sort of ceremonial uniform in a small group of similarly dressed knights. Each has a small badge on their left shoulder, depicting a pair of twin suns. Before you, on a grassy field, are arrayed three riders wearing identical badges: A woman with dark hair upon a black charger, a bearded man on a white horse, and the angel you saw lying beneath the mound of corpses -- here sitting tall atop the back of a golden-furred, winged mammoth. Approaching from across the field is another mounted man, this one flanked by an honor guard.

As the man draws near the trio before you, he brings his horse to a stop and then dismounts. The trio does likewise. A herald steps forward and announces, "Haruman, Lord Knight of the Far Hills greets Lord Olanthius."

The beaded man smiles. "Hail to you, Lord Haruman. And welcome to Elturel. I am pleased to introduce you to Lady Yael of Idyllglen and Zariel, solar of Celestia."

"And I'm Lulu!" trumpets the mammoth.

Haruman removes his left gauntlet and extends his hand, shaking each of the others in turn — and also, with a laugh, Lulu’s trunk! Escorted by Lord Olanthius, he proceeds down the line. In a few moments he stops before each member of the party and shakes their hand, as well.

As they each shake his hand, and watch him process down the line, their vision grows dark yet again.

Zariel's Request

The red heat of Avernus sweeps over you. So do the sounds of battle, but only at a distance. There is a trumpeting and the shadows are swept away like mist in a strong wind, you see the angel Zariel kneeling in the dust. Lady Yael, arrayed for battle in battered, bloody, and dust-covered armor kneels on the ground next to her. Zariel is pushing her glowing sword into Lady Yael's hands.

Yael: I refuse. Do not ask this of me.

Zariel, smiling sadly: I must. I do. Look beyond this forsaken day. One last time, I need you to dream a little bigger.

Yael weeps, once, and then, unable to speak, nods and takes Zariel's sword.

There's another trumpet and Zariel's golden mammoth comes charging up. "I drove them off, but there’s another group drawing near."

Zariel pulls off her left gauntlet and buries her hand in the mammoth's fur, leaning her forehead against her and taking a moment of comfort. "My old friend. Goodbye. Perhaps we shall meet again, but I do not think so. I need you to go with Yael. Help her make certain my Sword is not captured by the forces of Hell. Let it become a symbol of everything we have fought for. Even if it has ended in folly, let our deeds have meaning."

As the veil formed from shadows of gold wraps itself around you again, slowly blotting out everything except the sword still glowing in Yael's hand, Zariel's voice continues: "This is the last thing I will ever ask of you. Protect Yael."

Yeenoghu's Gambit

Through the shadows, the sounds of battle intensify. Your vision clears to reveal yourself riding on horseback at a full gallop. The sun hanging high in the blue sky momentarily blinds you. Your companions are with you. Ahead of you, on the back of a golden mammoth and leading your charge, is the angel Zariel. You're surrounded by a massive battle –- an army of mostly human knights are fighting a horde of gnolls.

A wall of black-furred gnolls come loping up over the top of the hill in front of you. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Zariel calls back over her shoulder: "Guard the flanks! I’ll cut us a path through!" Then she spurs her mount to an even higher speed; Lulu's feet actually glide off the ground.

As she says, Zariel and Lulu descend on the gnolls with righteous fervor; the party splits to each side and takes out the flanks of the seemingly-endless gnoll army, cutting them down left and right, eventually rallying to Zariel's side. Suddenly, one of the knights shouts: "They've got the lady!"

Turning to look, everyone sees a few hundred yards away across a field stands a twelve-foot-tall demon gnoll. It holds aloft a dark-haired woman — Lady Yael – by the neck. Seeing Zariel across the field of battle, it turns and with a slash of its claws rends a purple, roiling gash in the air. With a hyena-like cackle which crackles across the field like black lightning, it leaps through the portal with Lady Yael still clutched in its gauntleted right hand.

Zariel's Court

As the demon vanishes, the energy of the portal turns red and then seems to turn into swirls of shadow and gold. Through the darkness you hear two voices.

The first voice, as if played from a cracked record, asks, "Where is the Sword?"

And the second voice, weak and disoriented, replies, "I don't know... I don't... I used to know, but I don't any more. I don't."

A Message from Torm

A hand -- or, rather, a gauntlet -- reaches through the shadows and sweeps them away. An immense light which seems as if it should be blinding in its intensity but which is instead a soothing comfort to your eyes emanates from the gauntlet... or perhaps from a point behind the gauntlet.

A booming voice emanates seemingly from all directions: "Seek ye Zariel's blade. It is the key to her heart and her greatest desire. With it, Elturel's chains can be severed."

The gauntlet clenches into a fist as the voice speaks. Then it opens and, upon the tip of the middle finger of the gauntlet, a tiny golden elephant -- Lulu -- is flying in miniature. "Even from my sight is the Sword hidden. There is only one who knows, and she knows not."

The gauntlet closes again, then opens to reveal, in its palm, two black-feathered, birdlike humanoids standing next to a strange vehicle of blackened iron. "She must seek the kenku. In her memory they speak."

The gauntlet closes for a third time. You hear a different voice chanting as if from a great distance. Eventually everyone realizes it is the voice of Pherria Jynks, raised in prayer.

The booming voice speaks again, but it, too, seems to come from a distance now as the other voice grows stronger: "Seek the kenku!"

The light now truly becomes blinding and--

Everyone awakens with a start.