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Runtime Break start 3h 54m 2h 5m
Episode 98: The Nox Engine
In the long wake of the Solstice, Bell's Hells find Exandria and their world turned topsy-turvy as Ludinus Da'leth and his cadre of followers (known as the Ruby Vanguard) plan to unleash the god-eating entity Predathos that was long sealed in the red moon Ruidus. After travelling to this very moon, interacting with its people and returning with intel on hopes to stop what they're doing, they discover that they've been sourcing ancient, long-buried Aeorian magical technology as part of their plan. And not just that. Ludinus Da'leth is there right now dealing with a strange wrinkle in his plot with the name Dominox.
Bell's Hells, escorted by a figure with some experience in the ruins of Aeor, one Essek Thelyss (crowd shouts 'Hot Boi') on loan from his 'partner', brought them to the strange, northern, frozen realm of Eiselcross where the very fabric of magic is strange and prone to unexpected apparation subforces. They went to these ruins, delved beneath, discovered that the Ruby Vanguard that had been delving within, scattered, killed (not by the terrifying denizens of these ancient dark ruins, but by eachother in strange fits of almost religious madness, carving glyphs into their flesh).
Going towards the darkest depths of the basements of the ruins in the center of the Genesis Ward at Essek's guidance, they come upon a strange chamber where upon the ancient bodies mingling with the new freshly dead (now dangling by blackened hooks from long chains that seem to have apparated from nowhere, almost grown from the surrounding stone of the crumbled rock and ruin). They heard some of these long forgotten corpses asking them questions through magic: hearing things of a Nox Engine, hearing that Dominox was once (or may still be) a grand demon of ancient times sealed away and harnessed for nefarious magical purpose within this Nox Engine by the mage lords of Aeor long ago now recently running rampant upon the Ruby Vanguard.
Right as they discovered this, strange visions began to come to them. First Chetney Pock O'Pea being overcome with a mystical vision of a familiar darkened wood of the past and the bloodied faces of the children, seemingly called from dark, maybe buried, memories asking why he hurt them, why he killed them. Uncertain if this was real or not, he had to pull himself from the vision before attacking his friends. Right as they began to collect themselves, searching for the source of this strange dark magic, hoping to either find Ludinus or perhaps this Dominox and figure out what or who is the right villain in this instance, poor Dorian Storm fell to his own vision. As they pass between these hanging chains looking upon one of these hung corpses, he sees the face of his recently deceased brother Cyrus, who looks up at him with dead sunken eyes saying,
"Why have you done this to me brother?"
It's here in these shadows. Dorian Storm, the blood pouring from his blackened sockets here in the shattered expanse, the rest of it just a shadowy dark blur around you, Cyrus looks towards you from that shadow.
"Why? Why, brother?"
As you glance up towards his face to try and make eye contact, his now-somewhat-shriveled corpse arms reach out and grab your lapel and pull you close (where you can smell the early decay on him) his lips curl back with the gums in the early stage of decomposition.
"Not all is lost, brother. I'm not beyond saving. My spirit lingers, haunts this realm now without peace, and I am not alone."
You see these little sparks glow on the horizon around him, these other souls lost in the limbo, now in the post-Solstice era. The hands no longer grasping you; now just touching your cheek with a sadness and a hopeful longing.
"Within this engine, a curse keeps us, brother. Free us. Let us rest, brother."
As the body begins to fade, the last thing you see in his shadow are a sparkin flash of a spinning purple crystal before you blink, and the body hanging before you is a long-dead skeleton, withered and armored in that of the ancient Aeorian guard.
Previous Episode: "Ancient Sins"
