The Cathedral of Living Banners

The vast cavern floor was covered in pools of blood of various colors, mounds of dead opponents, and three members of the Wyvern team. None of them moved.

The Wyverns knew taking on this mission would be a struggle. They knew they’d be facing a trio of Ilithids, also known as Mindflayers for their preference for sucking the minds out of captured sentients. The Wyverns also knew this Ilithid coven had numerous allies with them, from a dozen or so Intellect Devourers—small two-legged beasts that could burrow into a sentient and take complete control from within—as well as a handful of enthralled beasts and monsters.

They’d also been warned that there was some sort of “Master” Ilithid, more powerful than the three standard Mindflayers, who just by themselves were quite a challenge. But the Wyverns knew that if they didn’t fight them now, the coven would just grow stronger and more numerous. So they accepted the mission.

The Wyverns had handled each allied monster the Ilithids controlled, as well as the three Mindflayers themselves. But the enemy’s numbers had taken their toll. Now, Dowlin lay to one side, blood leaking from numerous wounds. He wasn’t breathing. Beside him lay Rohkud’s lifeless form, punctured by even more wounds. Not far away was Apophis, surrounded by a dozen dead opponents that he’d taken out, before their comrades had overwhelmed him.

After facing down her own share of thralls, Yumaia had been grabbed by the Master Ilithid, a massive thirty-foot-tall beast with tentacles stretching out from its head, each of them ten feet long. The beast’s strength was too much for the wiry Druid to resist, though she struggled vainly in his clutches.

Only Kah’terra was still up and mobile. He wrenched his weapon out of the chest of the third Mindflayer to fall, and turned to face the Master. “Now, it’s your turn!” he roared, as he launched himself at the giant beast.

A wave of psionic energy pulsed from the upraised left hand of the Master Ilithid and enveloped Kah’terra, crashing into him like a tsunami of lethal energy.

The old Gnome fell to the cavern floor. He exhaled one last time. He saw no more…

The next thing he realized was that his numerous wounds seemed to have been healed, or maybe they’d just been removed. He then realized he was no longer in the vast dark cavern where they’d fought the Ilithid coven.

He also realized he was neither laying down nor standing upright. Instead, he seemed to be floating. His cleric abilities could give him the temporary ability of flight, but this did not seem to be that power. It was almost as if he were being held by some unseen Force. It wasn’t the Master Ilithid, of that he was sure. This Force seemed somehow to be more gentle, even reassuring.

As Kah’terra regained his faculties, he thought he heard a deep chorus say to him, You are welcome here, Old One.

Whoever or whatever those Voices were, they weren’t visible. In fact, Kah’terra’s eyes had a hard time focusing on anything specific. There was a blurry shape off in the distance ahead of him, a soft region of pink and grayish white, like an immovable cloud. Since that was all he could see in any direction, he decided he should head that way. As soon as he thought about moving, he did, floating towards that region like a feather borne on an unfelt wind.

As the old Gnome got closer, the faint image resolved itself into a massive structure, itself hanging unsupported in that impenetrable darkness. The grayish white portions appeared to be pillars upholding a vast roof with no walls or doors, though they did connect in places to giant horizontal beams, easily the size of entire city blocks. From these huge beams hung an uncountable number of long rectangular items, like flags or banners, their shapes seemingly undulating in the same unseen breeze that bore him forward. The banners fluttered slowly, delicately, as if the wind caressed them with knowing care and deep appreciation.

You are welcome, the Voices said again, then sharpened to one crystal clear soprano, in the Cathedral.

If this is a Cathedral, Kah’terra groused to himself, it’s unlike any I’ve ever seen.

He soon discovered that being closer didn’t help his understanding of the arcane structure. Its beams and ceilings, if that’s what they were, appeared constructed at impossible angles, a bewildering collage of conflicting connections and unsupportable sections. The more Kah’terra tried to make sense of what he was seeing, the more his head ached. He realized that all he could do was simply accept the structure for what it was: incomprehensible.

One banner in particular seemed to call to him, enticing him forward. The unfelt wind carried him past dozens of rows and towards that specific banner. As he got closer, the wind slowed, leaving him floating only a few feet in front of the woven object. The old Gnome peered closer. Something other than his eyes, some hitherto unknown sense, produced an understanding of what he was looking at, as if he had been present as this banner’s creation, or its manufacture, or possibly its birth.

His mind struggled to encompass the entirety of this banner, from where it began far overhead, lost in the pink and grayish-white indistinct distance, to the edges of its existence some equally unfathomable distance below. As he focused on this new attempt at comprehension, the chorus of Voices returned.

This is you, Kah’terra, the Voices sang to him, all you ever were, all you ever could have been, and all you may yet become. The chorus seemed to sway and recede, sometimes sounding as many coordinated individuals, fifty or a hundred or more, and sometimes as only one or two. Yet no matter how many Voices he heard, their message was always clear and distinct, powerful and irresistible as the mightiest glacier, soft and inviting as the gentlest Spring dew.

Kah’terra focused his attention on one of the intersections between the horizontal tubes and the vertical ones. The tubes seemed to encompass a moving, flowing energy, from left to right in the horizontal ones, and from top down in the vertical ones. Their pinkish color resembled the tubes in a body that carried blood, though whatever was in these channels seemed to change and evolve like moving images. Only where they intersected was there a semblance of a normal color palette, which seemed all the more crisp and clear in contrast to the more opaque pink tubes.

He closed in on one of the intersections. Within that space, a trio of figures began to resolve themselves in a scene he’d never witnessed before, yet one which seemed oddly familiar.

He, Kah’terra, dressed in an unusual form of dull gray plate armor, stood above a fallen creature of a type he’d never seen before. It bore the earmarks of a humanoid turtle, with its iconic shell on its back, but with human-like hands and feet, and a head wearing a conical metallic helm. From the numerous fire-blasted wounds on the fellow’s body, he appeared well and truly dead. As the Kah’terra in the vignette reached down to search the body, the vignette Gnome’s hands picked up a rifle, an advanced weapon Kah’terra had only read about in tomes back in the Underdark. These weapons could fire a powerful bolt or projectile quite a long distance, farther than most spells, and with surprising accuracy.

But when the vignette Kah’terra touched the weapon, something came over that version of himself. The Cathedral Kah’terra watched his twin’s face widen in surprise, study the rifle with a new-found appreciation, then sling it over his shoulder. The third creature came into focus beside him, a reddish-skin female Tiefling not too different from Yumaia, except this one was taller and darker, and carried a smaller hand-sized weapon in a holster around her waist. The vignette Gnome quickly helped the Tiefling, still recovering from some significant wound, out of the dark alley in which they found themselves, and down the street into the gloom of an unseen night.

The images moved on to different scenes, and Kah’terra in the Cathedral leaned back to appraise what he’d just witnessed. He sensed that the banner or tapestry or whatever it was contained a nearly limitless collection of images, moments in time both in the past and in the future, each one occupying its own intersection between horizontal and vertical tubes.

How is this all possible? he found himself asking.

We are many, the Voices responded, we are powerful, and we are ancient beyond your ken.

As he stared at the uncountable number of banners from innumerable ceiling beams, he found himself conversing with the Voices. Where do you reside? How is it I’ve never heard of you?

The Voices seemed to laugh, though it was such a complex reaction involving humor, curiosity, surprise, and a dozen other unknowable energies, that Kah’terra was almost overwhelmed by their response.

But you have heard of us, the Voices responded. We are Ioun, they said, using the name of the Goddess of Knowledge and Wisdom that Kah’terra once worshipped back in the Underdark. We are Ao, they said, using the name of a god he’d heard mentioned as the Father of All Gods. And we are known by a thousand other names, and are venerated from one end of Creation to the other. Our physical forms reside in an area we call the Blackout, and the Voices shared an image of Creation where billions of galaxies appeared darkened, seemingly burned out of all energy, or perhaps simply hidden from mortal site. We have maintained our privacy for eons, hoping to avoid the petty disputes that energize so many Godlike beings. But we have decided to resume our connections with Creation.

The Voices became quieter and more dramatic. We have allowed you to live, and your friends as well. You all will have a great role to play in future times. You must continue your work. We will help.

But then, he realized, he was alone. Where were the other Wyvern members? Yumaia and Apophis, Dowlin and Rohkud?

You wish to be with your friends? the Voices asked.

Before Kah’terra could even respond, he felt torn from this place and flung seemingly across the galaxy. The speed was so intense and the distance so vast, his brain’s only response was to simply shut down…