Relic and Christopher befriended the shrouded stranger Maven, whose hieroglyphic face-plate told a sad story of unsanctioned love between a daughter of Highking Gloriandel and an elven caliph of Que'tesh. For disobeying her father (the specifics of which were undocumented), she was cursed to suffer eternal living death as a mummy. She didn't seem too upset, her mind addled and her memories foggy after thousands of years of solitude. Similarly, she couldn't say exactly how she ended up bound in a tomb sealed by portions of the Elder Sign.
Christopher was able to recover both pieces of the sonic screwdriver, and Relic and the Doctor were able to reassemble it. Using the screwdriver, the Doctor disarmed the remainder of the tomb's traps. Many precious tomes containing lore on the Yth and pieces of the Elder Sign were recovered. Even Maven's own bandages held a potent element of the sign as if chance, fate, or destiny were almost willing them to uncover the ancient and amicable protection.
The quartet ultimately found themselves standing before the final seal protecting Alhazred's burial chamber, a living expression of the Elder Sign using bound elder elementals ranging fire and water to slime and salt. Like the open rifts earlier, balance was key to unlocking the portal safely. Relic and Christopher used their considerable mechanical and arcane knowledge to draw out elementals two at a time, either combining them (and sending them back to their home plane in the cancellation) or slipping them back through the open rifts. Several elementals threatened to break free, however the automaton and the fledgling dragon god worked quite well in tandem.
Beyond, they found the sarcophagus of the learned Abdul Alhazred bathed in white fire, which Relic, Christopher, and the Doctor recognized instinctively as the Secret Fire, the fire of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding (a lasting expression from the positive Ethereal attuned closely with the Power of Creation). It was a rare phenomenon reserved for only the most scholarly and altruistic-- telling quite a revealing tale of the sorcerer who many wrote off as an insidious madman. His many shelves and chests overflowing with notes, journals, and other studies identified him a champion and defender of Creation. However, even his genius was overcome by the immensity of comprehending and combating the Yth. The defense of the worlds is more than any one set of shoulders, one mind, or one soul could ever bear. His curiosity became a duty became an obsession and, finally, pure insanity. However his research into ritual practices for summoning, binding, and commanding outsiders was truly unparalleled. Similarly, his work on deciphering the Elder Sign was more comprehensive than anything the four had ever seen (and the Doctor had seen a lot).
The Doctor recovered his TARDIS with the aid of the screwdriver and the four intended to depart. Unfortunately, Maven was unable to follow into the miraculous device, still bound by the unyielding curse. Relic, familiar with Gloriandel's return, Sent a plea to release the elf lord's unloved daughter. His response was short and stern, that he was busy, and through the highking's eyes Relic saw a nightmarish scene: Gloriandel was buried deep in the Abyss, deeper than any non-demon had ever dared to delve, and was fighting a potentially infinite horde from all directions as he struggled upward (perhaps related to his 'dealing' with Shub-Niggurath).
It was agreed the Doctor and Christopher would extract Gloriandel, while Relic and Maven would begin organizing Alhazred's materials. Hopefully Diana would be along soon...
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Meanwhile, across the solar system, Tyvis, Narra, Eilessa, and Caiphon hovered above the radioactive planet of Xoth, a futuristic wasteland overrun with contagious zombies which had recently been conquered by Toben the Many. Desperate for the Blackheart in his possession, and with the shadow of the throneworlds stretching over Cadavera, the four determined the Xothi Leviathan was the best target for the Tesseract's rejuvenation beam. Little was known of the leviathans, but their well being could be intimately linked to the health of their planets.
Moving into 'optimum firing range', the hypercube unleashed its ray... with little affect. The planet-wide corruption was too strong, despite a small patch of the creature momentarily returning to a more natural tree-frog orange. The amphibious leviathan retaliated with a tongue lash so powerful it impaled the ship and quickly drew it down toward the fallout-crusted bay serving as its wading pond. Alarms blared, purification exhausts hissed, power cells flickered, and the internal equilibrium of the ship was lost. The party was thrown hard. Narra was nearly killed for the system shock, but managed to briefly phase the entire leviathan out of time-space.
The hypercube made an emergency landing on a nearby helipad and teleported just out of orbit, turning its restorative powers inward (the ETA of which remains uncertain). With Craius facilitating a drama playing out between the Waylans and all the native Barovians they hoped to take with them, the Xothi group was on their own.
Eilessa was able to sense the whereabouts of an Anubian artifact, what must have been the har'venoth, though pinpointing its location was no more specific than 'that building'. It happened to be the same building Caiphon sensed an immense kind of necromancy, suspecting the actual Toben could be inside. Not far, Narra felt the fragile and trembling psyches of survivors (some only children). It seemed their path was clear, as Tyvis's hawk-like eyes scanned for trouble.
Initially, the Many were oblivious, already distracted from the previous leviathan vs. vessel battle. The leviathan rematerializing in a loud splash and thunderous croark provided a second diversion. Unfortunately, zombies under a singular consciousness proved much more difficult to evade than masses of their mindless counterparts, and it was only minutes later the party was spotted. With the cries of millions, zombies swarmed, heaping and piling against the sides of the building, flooding the lower storeys, and threatening to kill them by leaping out the windows of much higher skyscrapers in crazed kamikaze fashion. As the party took to the air, stray shots from the mingled crowd's gun-toting corpses threatened to take them out.
Once on the roof of the target building, the party plunged through a skylight and inside a penthouse, hoping to extract the Blackheart and escape before the full zombie horde could reach them. Despite ice walls, couch barricades, and old fashioned locked doors, the Many could not be resisted. No sign of the Blackheart, either. The party broke through the floor and delved deeper into the infested building, a combination of Eilessa and Narra's auras the only things keeping a crowded hall of flesh-eaters at bay. There they confronted Toben in the body of a mangled, young gangbanger.
Eilessa appealed to Toben's sense of survival, but he refused to surrender his most prized possession, his partner, his love, for nothing. Toben was already a selfish and twisted being. The Blackheart's influence had only made it worse. And she did NOT want to be surrendered. Narra promised to respect the solidarity of his conquered planet, but still Toben was not satisfied. He wanted Loranna, too, which the party outright refused. Then he asked for the Wyld, for Cadavera, for one of the orphan worlds. He wanted the Many to grow beyond even his four plus billion. When threatened with annihilation by the Yth, Toben had a truly terrifying epiphany, enveloping Yth into the Many, which the goddess immediately regretted inspiring...
Caiphon decided to quickly change the subject by granting Toben the potential for a whole universe in the form of a star child, namely him, which alarmed the group, especially Narra. Eilessa had a vague notion he was misleading Toben when he summoned mirror images of himself, but had her doubts when all of them stepped into the undead crowd and offered their naked wrists. Toben also had his doubts, but the promise of his own universe was just too tempting not to take. He offered up his precious Blackheart, spurring a sudden and half-expected double cross. Narra and Eilessa destroyed Toben's avatar and snatched the heart, even as Caiphon rematerialized in the safety of their combined auras.
What followed was a howl of rage multiplied by the population of an entire planet, enough to deafen and disorient all within the claustrophobic hall as the whole world attacked.
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