August 10th, 2025
Forte, Custodia 29th, 1194
We head to the sunken monolith, not entirely sure how we are going to get in. We decide to swim down to the highest point to try and enter. While approaching, Ty feels something request ki from her. herShe allows it and time, for her, stops. She gets a vision of a massive library, the books have titles keyed to memories of Ty’s past. There is a figure with a featureless face, one eye open and one closed; a known Xhal’ith effigy. It speaks to her, “Threads tighten. The loom of fate trembles. You walk into a vessel that remembers the dark before the first dawn. They will tell you the path forward is straight—they will be wrong. Trust only the echoes that do not match your step. The child is gone, but the song remains. It will sing to you from behind the light. Do not hum along. There are doors in this place that do not open outward. Some will open into you. Choose which you leave ajar. The shadow between stars watches through borrowed eyes. Close enough to see your pulse. The truth you carry will not survive the crossing. Hide it where you cannot find it.” And then the vision ends.
We focus our energy and enter the monolith. Inside, the hum is much deeper. We are in a rotunda with 11 other passages leading out, each at differing heights.
We try the lowest passage, but it’s blocked by some unseen force. Beyond it, we can see a dark sky with stars flickering irregularly. There are three chimes at the entry way, a puzzle matching the flickering lights. We solve it and enter. Inside looks like a star chart chamber, but the stars shift often. In the middle is a giant telescope that is pointing down. Looking through it shows a black ocean with purple tentacles spread over it. The echoes that we make here seem to come from farther away. This room is very similar to the star chart room that we visited in the first monolith.
We head to the next room. There barrier here muffles our voices, and beyond it we can see a tall, thin-ish object of some kind. We also hear whispers in many voices, including our own. Ralzer believes that if we speak back our own voices something will happen. Remembering our warning, we do not proceed.
The next door is blocked by a crystal pane with pulses of light; there are six prisms on the frame. Ralzer rotates them to sync them with the light from the door and we enter. Inside is a giant crystal with a thundering storm within it. There are large claw marks on the ground and walls. There are puddles on the floor that show us slightly different reflections of ourselves. This is much like the crystal that Ralzer communed with at another monolith. We leave, but Ralzer sneaks away to go back to the crystal.
Ralzer divines the crystal and sees a similarly themed vision regarding choices and power. This one has a figure creating a night sky. He looks like an older Ralzer, wearing a crown of crystal shards. He says, “you have seen my heart, will you carry it?” Ralzer accepts.
He then finds himself before a cracked crystalline throne with a crown of interlocking crystal shards set at its base, pulsating as if breathing. Behind him, he can hear foot steps approach, their echoes matching his own heart beat. He doesn’t reach for the crown.
He then finds himself standing next to a well filled with fragments of memory. There is another being reaching for a fragment that Ralzer feels is important, so he grabs it first. At this point, Ishtar and Graynor pull Ralzer away and break the link with the crystal.
Ralzer says he knows that Kaajh’Kaalbh is seeking to corrupt the leylines and the monoliths are part of that plan. We discuss what happened and Ralzer’s rationalizations for doing this without warning or consult. He thinks that this information is valuable and wants to reenter the commune, and it’s decided that he will do so under observation.
He has another vision of seeing someone with his face as the focal point of a parade. Then, in another, he is in a throne room surrounded by masks that say, “wear us and be everyone and all gods.” In another he is under raining cloudy sky, there is a bloody taste in the air. He hears, “the weave is watching. To open now is to invite its hand.” Then the vision ends without presenting him any choices.
The next door is barred with dense fog with runes scattered in it. Sigmund traces them to dispel the fog. We hear a lot of murmurs in many languages that become more distant the longer we walk down this tunnel. No matter how walk down it we can’t make progress, so we leave.
The next door is barred by a light curtain with shifting glyphs; three rotating glyph discs are on the frame. We solve the puzzle and enter. Inside is a large library. The titles and subjects matter of the books keeps changing as we read them. We decide to try and find a room that doesn’t resemble one from a previous monolith.
The next door has vertical beams of light with strange voices. On the frame are several runes that we rearrange into a coherent sentence to gain entry. Inside is a large spire with molten gold in it. There are 12 tablets, each with a different word on it in the same language as the door. Each tablet periodically gives off a projection; there are some of extremely large creatures and landscapes, nothing that we recognize.
Sigmund activates the tables Memory and Awaken. this triggers something in Ralzer. He remembers being very young in a lab and interfacing with things like this. The humming also gets very low.
Sigmund then activates Awakening Oversight. The humming becomes high and keening. Ty feels another tingling in her ki, she responds and a shadowy mantle envelops her, Graynor, Ishtar, and Ralzer. Xhal’ith addresses them, “son of Madri and Namas and … You (pointedly referring to Ralzer).” They all go ethereal and leave the monolith. Before leaving, Xhal’ith whispers to Ty that the Sleeper is losing power.
For Sigmund, it looks as if Ilythia herself appeared and warped him out.