The Beacons Prologue

"Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. We’ve yet to find a magic capable of breaching that distance between us and Rhyonian Space to truly find out. " From the center of the continent of Arhan-Zoul, a squat, ashen dwarf peers through a massive telescope aimed into the heavens. His face is gaunt but fuller than his previous state. The man, Poluskan his name, hums to himself as he jots notes and remarks periodically at his observations with curious ahhs and indeeds and of courses. His hand, ceaselessly scrawling ink without the need of refreshing his quill in a well, suddenly stops. He pauses for a moment, deep in observation, and takes a long sip of tea before adjusting the lens of his scope to enhance the focus over a peculiar, blinking constellation.

"Hmm, it is definitely 7548. The Arcane Cosmic Patron should be at its zenith yet it seems to be waning exceptionally early. Summer 1st of 7548, by all records, The Arcane should be thriving! Truciluna seems to be perfectly fine. My magic is operating well enough." Poluskan waved his hand in the direction of a bookcase, just as he re-positioned his telescope and viewing station to swerve and observe the opposite end of Rhyonian Space. A faintly glimmering galaxy-like hand comprised of miniature stars and asteroids appeared in the space around the lone tome on the top shelf. It began to brush off the thick layer of dust coating it when Poluskan sneered and said, "Don't waste time with cleanliness, bring the thing here, you silly hand!"

With simply a flick of his wrist, Poluskan willed the hand to deliver the tome to his waiting lap where, immediately, he began to search with a zealous fervor. He tore through page after page, cold sweat beginning to bead across his forehead, the hand dabbing it away with a handkerchief it pulled from Poluskan's lazily closed lounge robe. Worry began to take him after each page turned and passage read, his suspicions were all but confirmed. "Alert the Deans of the Citadel, the Trinity Lighthouses are ready to be opened!"

"Deans, I, Poluskan Gemjaw, have gathered you to tell of what I've seen." Poluskan had bound his best dress robes and adorned a scholarly-looking silver circlet, casting a twilight halo over his head. He thanked the enchanter who thought to add the twinkling star effect that hid how truly dewy his brow was. "The Cosmic Patrons have never faltered in the 2500 years the Eldritch Observatory has stood. I mean not to question the auspiciousness of your schools, but this establishment has stood longer than any of yours and religiously have we watched these entities, worlds beyond our own. I-"

Clack! Clack! Clack! A dolorous clattering of petrified wood and amethyst resounded against the ivory mosaic floor beneath the assembly of archmages and attendants. "You mean not to question our auspiciousness, yet you do. You, a cowering addict playing at recovery and remarking at greatness. Magic is wasted probing your mind; you wear your thoughts on your moist brow like the title of book. Make haste with your exposition, you bleary-eyed excuse for a dwarf, I've little time for this." It was a scathing string of remarks for a private conversation, let alone the collection of the most accomplished minds of Arhan-Zoul; the entirety of the Arcane Citadel. The attacker was the Dean of the School of Divination, Lady Theona Kithiruk, a remarkably brutal orc woman who could cut down anyone five times her size with word or blade. She was known for using her mind-reading capabilities flawlessly in battles of war or word. It's said Theona effortlessly probes her opponent's mind to see through their thoughts, into their insecurities, and bring them to light before utterly demolishing them with whatever weapon she has at her disposal. In the present moment, it seemed her opponent was Poluskan, and her weapon, was her words.

The proud yet humble, typically known as wise, dwarf refused to back down. He had faced greater affronts than this and bore it with an elegant smile before bowing, and continuing his demonstration. "Yes, milady. You see, Arcane should be radiating power." He waved his longsleeved arm, summoning his distant hand to draw the curtains and block the light from Balasar beyond the windows. The room darkened and murmurs fell over the crowd before a Telecrystal lodged in the ceiling sparked to life with a humming arcane pulse. The magic within it stirred and it projected the illusory image of the celestial moments captured within his telescope.

"If you look here, these ten slides are of the same spot, of the same constellation collective of Zardons known as The Arcane Cosmic Patron, over the past ten years." Poluskan's mage hand whirred through the air, diving between the gathered mages to come to rest beside Poluskan. It would halt beside him, arms folded behind his back, and shook despondently before proceeding to wave through a series of projections. Each time the hand would swipe, another almost identical image would display the same eight differently colored. Each of them were vibrantly radiant stars pointing downward toward the stationary, blood red moon, Truciluna. The only thing that denoted a difference between the images was a time and date stamp that was projected alongside each ethereal image.

"But this," Poluskan said, raising a hand of his own to rest it on top of the seemingly fuming arcane appendage. "This is Arcane today." He bowed deeply, locking eyes with Theona as he did. A rapid flourish of both his hands spun the room and nearly knocked those not quick enough to reinforce themselves off their feet! The entire room began to shift as the Telecrystal extinguished its projection and disappeared. It was replaced by a telescopic dome ceiling that seemed to extend far beyond the light of Balasar, into the dark of Rhyonian Space. Every head in the room was craned upward, gazing at the alluringly romantic mix of color that was the space beyond Rhyonis' sky. There were countless small white Zardons dotting this watercolor residue skyscape, little blips of twinkling wonder, and a massive haunting scab beneath them; Truciluna the moon over Theurgius.

"What are you playing at, Cretan? There's nothing but a bleeding reminder of the mistakes of the Creation Gods. Are you too a reminder of their inescapable failures?"

Poluskan, ever patient and tolerant in his path to growth, bit his tongue once more, looked away from Theona and to the void above. "Precisely, my lady, it's gone!"

It had been nearly three whole Phases since Poluskan had first noted the fading of Arcane's light. What were once eight independently colored and twinkling blips in the night sky were now but empty shadows over a bleeding moon. Now, missing as they were, they were his call to action. After addressing his concerns to the deans, Poluskan poured every labor hour he could muster together to research. This discovery lent him the aide from several willing Deans of the Arcane Citadel, though a spare sour few were swayed to Theona Kithiruk's campaign. Those that did come to his service provided assistance through magical implications, intern opportunities from their individual schools, alongside a plethora of magical instruments and ancient documents.

Despite all the hands and eyes on this endeavor, it was no small task. Absolutely nothing in all of Rhyonis' history, sordid as it was, had reflected or alluded to a Cosmic Patron fading from the sky entirely. It wasn't until the beginning of Winter, some odd fifty days ago, that a young air genasi named Accula Nimbus discovered three growing sources of light off Arhan-Zoul's coasts. A cool blue light to the north, a flickering yellow light to the east, and a roaring red light to the southwest.

Without a moment's hesitation, Poluskan approached the girl's telescope upon her announcement of her discovery. He had a scratching feeling at the back of his mind for several days now, thinking their attention was wrongly placed within Rhyonian Space, that just maybe the answers to their questions were already here, upon Rhyonis' surface!

He adjusted the telescope three times. Lining it up to Accula's coordinates and honing in on the light sources in question. Just as he had thought, exactly where the girl had said, there were three individual standing towers, ones that had been overlooked countless times, in the realm and in the texts that spoke of them, over the past several weeks of research. They had never been lit before, and until this moment, he thought there was no possible way they could be connected to Arcane's disappearance. Despite this, as he looked upon them now, each of these distant towers stood proudly boasting uniquely colored flame, clearly following a pattern of glowing and dimming eight times in succession.

"What are they, Master Gemjaw," Accula asked, brushing her puffy white locs behind her ears to look through the scope once more. Poluskan leaned back, allowing his mage hand to dab the sweat from his temple as he crossed his arms and half-heartedly smiled at the student.

"A problem, dear Accula," he said, sighing for a dramatically extended period. "Those are the Trinity Lighthouses, as we know them, and they have remained a great mystery since Arhan-Zoul's founding. As you know, this great land of ours was formed by a ceaseless flow of lava from the massive volcano range formidably known as the Fire Worn Spires, now dormant at the center of the Continent. What is frequently glossed over in the retellings of Rhyonis' History is just how many islands were overtaken in that flow. How many cultures, peoples, and their secrets were lost to the hunger of molten rock? We are blessed with a bountiful land that an unknowable number of lives were lost to create.

Scattered pieces have been uncovered over time as new cities and roadways have been created, or rivers forged by storms. These echoes of distant races we will never know have come to be the only records of what we call The Lost. The Lost refers to the ambiguous collection of peoples and the various remains of their cultures we've uncovered. Though some pieces line up and we have gathered an idea of some regional hubs for certain sects of The Lost, these three towers are particular standouts."

Many students had gathered at this point, kneeling around Poluskan, elevated above them in a levitating chair. He had drawn the crowd with his lengthy explanation, but as his cosmic star-like hand animated his words with obvious sarcastic intent, the novice mages were fascinated and entertained. The dwarven man had barely glanced away from the telescope, only to look Accula unnervingly in the eye.

"You see child," he took a sip of steaming tea, seemingly conjured from nothing but a fold in his sleeve before continuing. "These towers, the Trinity Lighthouses, are unique in design and the outfitting iconography on their exterior. None of these have been discovered in any other locations of recovery of items from The Lost. In fact, after their initial discovery and the lengthy expedition in which several mages tried to enter the Lighthouses, they were chalked up as an 'anomaly', a massive thorn in the side of the curious minds of the Eldritch Observatory, to be certain! This is due to the fact that they are impossible to enter, by any means attempted, even by the Deans of the Citadel, would you believe?"

"So what does this all mean?" A precocious voice piped up from somewhere in the crowd. All eyes turned to look for the questioner, even the mage hand that had begun to tiredly float and drift as if panting from its impression work. No one stood to face the crowd or confess to having posed the question, but Poluskan answered all the same.

"It means, a new adventure is about to begin!"

The year was drawing to a close, the first thought on Poluskan's mind when he awoke Winter 80th, 7548. Snow was falling across all of Rhyonis, several feet deep from the doorstep of the Observatory, all the way to his former home of Areezah. He shook the haunting memories of his darker past, slipped his wide hairy feet into plush silver dragon slippers, complete with crunchy holographic wings, and started his day.

He whipped his hand through the air, conjuring his mage hand-assistant that groaned by cracking its knuckles into a lengthy yawn-stretch of its spindly astral fingers. "We've a busy day ahead of us. Tis the day we finally meet the Descendent Champions. Theona's a pain, but that prodigy of her's, Accula, has so much potential. Without her keen eye, we wouldn't have even discovered Trinity Lightouses', err, The Trinity Beacons, still getting used to that. . . The Beacons involvement in the disappearance of the Arcane Cosmic Patron." The mage hand was begrudgingly listening to the droning exposition of its caster, clearly well aware of all that was being said to it pointlessly.

"Even further still, she decoded the Zardonic writings outside the Beacons and created the Codex we used to uncover what we could about the strange iconography. Admittedly, it was the hard work of the entire Arcane Citadel and Eldritch Observatory to track down those referred to in the writings as The Descendent Champions." Poluskan poured tea from a kettle into two cups and approached a snow-frosted atrium, admiring the rigidness of a static snowscape. He sipped his tea, welcoming the interior, dispersal of warmth fighting against the encroaching cold. "MMM, there's nothing quite as tasty as a good story, wouldn't you say?" The hand didn't answer, motioning from Poluskan to the second cup, then to the deafening silence of the no one it had wished was there to take its place. Poluskan sighed, slumped his shoulders, took his seat, and started taking from the second cup himself.

"These Champions are spoken of along and around the Beacons' entryways. The Cerulean Spear to the north, the Marigold Mire to the east, and the Crimson Cowl to the southwest, all state:

These Beacons Trinity shall stand still and sealed,

the realm is broken, and must be healed.

The Descendent Champions, of those we left behind,

they, alone, shall enter, and to the Zardons will climb.

The hand had begun to pretend to sleep in the air, lazily drifting up and down as the steam from its cup rose beneath Poluskan's nose. He, who was fascinated by his own words, as speaking them aloud made them all that much more real. He couldn't help but wonder at what would be discovered within those ancient towers. Just the thought alone was enough to keep his mind busy, ending his focus on the mage hand to occupy himself with thinking to himself instead of speaking just to hear his voice. Apart from the enticing history of all that may lie within, there could be the secret to saving Arcane. His mind began to formulate what that could mean for him, what he could gain if his efforts lead to a Cosmic Patron's salvation, but the time in his life for selfish wanton ambition was passed him.

"Master Gemj, err, sorry, Poluskan, still trying to get used to that. . ." Accula shyly knocked at the chamber door, her pale blue skin tightly bundled in a thick winter wolf cloak. She was a sweet girl, Poluskan had thought, wildly brilliant beyond her years and she didn't even know it.

"It's fine dear, you can call me whatever makes you comfortable, just know I think of you as a peer, maybe even a superior. Do you have word on the Champions?"

She laced her fingers over her stomach, toying with the thickly furred sleeves hanging past her hands. "Yes, I just finished conferring with the Sending Department and they've all heard back from the five Champions. By accounts, they should be arriving now." Just then, as if on a fated queue, there was a long drawn chiming of flailing bells from somewhere far to the south of their position.

"Well, Miss Accula, why don't we go welcome our Champions and uncover an ancient mystery, huh?"

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