Dear friends. I still await news from The Nexus. However, it seems even as I stay in this healer’s bed hidden from the world, the world came calling for me last night. Tonight, I share with you a missive and image from the Athasian Survey Project. This time the image was brought to me. Allow me to explain.

Many years ago, as I was just starting my training at the Nexus, I made a friend who hailed from Euripis. Chala and I were the youngest in our class, and it was her first time living away from her native islands in the so-called Silt Archipelago. She had a mercurial personality and a mischievousness about her that she always claimed came from her ukoven watersoul heritage (apparently her name meant “the lively behaviour of falling water” in her native tongue). Her natural magic and her powerful wild talent inspired me, just as it seemed she admired the worldliness I had learned spending my early life with my father and the Merchant Guild.

Oh, the trouble we got into together! Reflecting on my previous missives, you probably noticed bits of some old memories that passed through my mind when sending these messages. At my age, I’m afraid glimpses of my past sometimes come more quickly and freely than my recall of the present, and such traces are difficult for me to separate out.

It now occurs to me perhaps there is a reason why the masters of the Nexus are taking so long with my petition - they may remember how many times we had come close to expulsion!

As we achieved mastery of the Way and prepared to leave the Nexus, we resolved to travel together back to Euripis, with the intention of me asking her father for her hand in marriage. When we arrived, the timeless architecture of the village and the almost eldritch beauty of its culture captured my heart nearly as much as Chala had. But it became quickly clear I was the first non-genasi to set foot in their villa in millennia, and her father, understandably, was not at all keen on an interloper taking his daughter away back to the ruined mainland. Sadly, no amount of persuasion, pleading, dowry, or credentials could sway the man.

That evening, I was faced with the impossible choice: leave the love of my life, or ask her to leave all of the loved ones in hers… In the end, it was no choice.

…

We had not spoken directly for over 50 years. Until last night, when she reached out to me with the Way:

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“…Eshmel.”

“Wh-what…Chala? Is that you?”

“Eshmel! You’re there! I didn’t think this would work! Ah, by Ral… your voice…”

“Yes, yes. It has been a lifetime. What did you expect? It… is good to hear from you, Chala.”

There was a pause. What do you say to someone whom you have not seen in 50 years?

“I’m dying, Chala.”

I could hear her sigh in response, but I could also feel her emotion - sadness and shock dulled away by an immense weariness… But there was something else. Fear, and a strange urgency.

“I…I…am sorry. I discovered wisdom far too late, Eshmel. Putting tradition and my father over myself…chasing a life path set by someone else…I am sorry. There is so much I wish I had time to tell you, but my own time has run out as well.

“I have reached out to you because I wish to bring you to my ascension ceremony. Being the matriarch of my house, I now have say over who attends my own funeral, and no one would dare to oppose a dying matriarch’s wish. I also have something I need to show you…”

———————————————————————————————

Of course I accepted.

When ukoven reach an advanced age, they do not pass away into the Gray. Rather, they ascend to their elemental plane through the help of a special ceremony. This tradition in Euripis is one of the secrets they protect in the city, and why they are so guarded around outsiders. I knew of this because of the trust Chala had once placed upon me all those decades ago, in the naive belief that we could build a life together in her home city.

What you are seeing in this image is one of the elemental fountains in Euripis. Each genasi brings wondrous colour and almost obsessively intricate attention to details in the architectural embellishments of their jewel-like houses, and the combination of their natural talents makes for a stunning and varied architecture.

When I arrived in Euripis (inhabiting an animated shell she had kindly prepared for me), I had a moment to speak with Chala away from her children and grandchildren, deftly concealing our last dialogue as investigating the site where her ascension ceremony would take place - neither advanced age nor illness had dampened her rebellious spirit.

…

As much as I wish to remain faithful to my vow to document my travels across this land, there are some moments I reserve as too private to share. Most of our final conversation I will keep to myself. However, I will share the information she wished me to know.

It seems, like myself, she decided in her latter days that she had nothing to lose. So she took upon herself one last adventure to acquire a scroll of forbidden knowledge from the Vanishing Lake. She showed me that scroll, and never before have I seen a more terrifying and astonishing artifact! At first I thought it was a leather scroll, inscribed in what I was told was a 4000-year-old language called Ulyanese. But the more I looked the more disturbing it became. The leather was made from human skin, and the scroll and writing were hardly more than a year old!

When Chala translated the text for me, it detailed a strange and harrowing vision of destruction:

On the day the Divine returns to the Crimson Sphere,
The Eye of Doom will open in the Void, here.
Every world will be swallowed, starting with the sun.
The last of Fyreen will pray for the Messenger’s return,
While raiders from distant spheres will come and take,
Until the last Warden watches the end of Doomspace.

She also told me there were many powerful and aggressive individuals who did not want her to have this scroll. I am uncertain it is safe to share this even within our closed circle, but this has only left me with more questions, and she entrusted me with the information before destroying the scroll. So I must ask you all for help.

I implore you all to research for me and return with whatever knowledge you can find which might help me in deciphering this message.

I’ll await your response. Until then, good luck, and may the moons guide you.

Sources:
* Euripis notes
* Elemental Overlords Gazetteer manuscript
* The Crimson Sphere
* Spelljammer 5e
* Secrets of the Dead Lands