Thursday, 10 December 2020

Gilgamesh and the Golden Palace of Za-Hadrash - Godratt's Saga

 


Godratt is the son of the Caliph Ardishir Al'Aamash by an Illumian concubine.  The Illumians, he explains, are a race of transhumans who learn to speak a language that carries intrinsic arcane power from an early age.  They are "Illuminated" as signified by the circle of magical symbols in that language that circle their heads.  (DC 35 Bardic Knowledge or DC 55 Knowledge (History) for anyone from the Flanaess to have even heard of them as an obscure legend; Legend Lore could reveal more, though, given a 1d10 day casting with Godratt to hand - though he could do this himself, or indeed a Vision spell for much quicker results).

Godratt was a young man of 125 (25 human equivalent) when he accompanied his hated uncle Behmanesh and his older brother Dahish on the expedition to retrieve the Mirror of Chinvat.  Ardishir had recieved intelligence regarding the existence of one of these mirrors that had never been activated and so had escaped detection by the Wind Dukes of Aaqua who had destroyed the others of its kind in the closing struggles of the Chaos War (which had occurred 25,000 years before Godratt's time).  The mirror had fallen into the hands of the Spell Weavers, an ancient and mysterious race that were known for their penchant for collecting magical devices.  The mirror was held in a demiplanar retreat that was virtually impregnable; no means of conventional planar travel could grant entry to the place for those not of the spell weaver race.  "By a cunning ruse, however, we managed to make a deal with the Nerra, a race of beings who dwell within the Plane of Mirrors, and thereby we gained entry to the Spell Weaver vault through the Mirror of Chinvat itself...from there, though, things became more difficult.  We could not simply plane shift away, nor, for complex arcane reasons could the Mirror of Chinvat be brought through another mirror itself.  Instead it was necessary for me to precipitate a planar breach, a severe one that would permit us to slip through.  This however took time, and two castings of the breaching ritual to achieve.  After the first casting, traits from the breaching plane began to leak through in the vicinity, which unfortunately alerted the spell weavers to our presence.  My companions had to fight off their attacks and defend our position long enough for me to create the breach.  Matters were made more difficult by the fact that the breaching plane was the Negative Material Plane - unfortunately I had no control over the destination and my Uncle Behmanesh only had one spell of Death Ward, which he was forced to use on me, while he and the others suffered dwindling vitality as they battled the Spell Weavers.  

"We escaped, but my Uncle fell during the retreat, though I managed to drag him through the breach as I made my final escape.  I thought he was dead, but it turned out he was actually only unconscious.  He did not survive the brief moments on the Negative Energy Plane it took me to find the scroll of Plane Shift he carried and utilise it to return home.  Due to the transit through the negative energy plane that finally ended him, he could not be restored to life, unless it were in a state powered by negative energy, thus he was mummified.  His honour guard were put to death and mummified to join him in his unliving afterlife."

"It was my understanding that my uncle never forgave me for his death and I had to make myself scarce during those moments when he roamed abroad and unliving in the palace.  This was not often, for you see at this time my father Ardishir was still hiding in plain sight, masquerading as a Janni Caliph, of the line of Delir the Brave and often entertained pilgrims to the shrines of the former Caliphs whose line he had in fact usurped.  Behmnanesh' unholy sepulchre was hidden beneath that of Ghalandar the Dervish; as you have by now surmised, no doubt, having passed through it to reach this place."

"It was for this reason, that I decided to build my secret sanctum down here quite close to my Uncle's crypt.  I knew that it would be the last place anyone would expect to find it."

Godratt then recounts some of the known history of how the titan King of Sumeria, Ubara-Tutu, was gradually corrupted by the Carnelion Idol that was a gift to him from his father but was actually possessed by Godratt's half-brother Dahish; while the Daeva lords known as the Seven Jenni went forth and possessed Ubara-Tutu's giantish nobility and advisors and slowly eliminated those who counseled against the advice the king recieved from his talking idol.  This is largely in line with the account of ancient history the Hubul vizier Rashid Al-Suleiman has already given.

Forty years after the expedition to retrieve the Mirror of Chinvat, his father's schemes came to fruition and the assault on the City of Brass took place; which ended in a disastrous rout, as told in the histories.

Soon after which, the retribution of the Great Flood of Sumeria occurred.  By now Godratt was 165 years old. 

[Jibran will at this point inform Godratt that the Great Flood of Sumeria occurred over 4000 years ago (it will eventually be determined that the precise figure is 4135 years).  Godratt will be a little shocked by this news.]

Ardishir's subterfuge held firm though and his true Efreeti identity went undiscovered.  And two and a half centuries later, Godratt's father was scheming once again to conquer Kish and the Jannee lands, having secured a promise of renewed aid from the master of darkness whose realm lay beyond the Mirror of Chinvat.

"By this time, my various misgivings regarding my father's schemes had grown, and I had come to feel a sense that the ascendant human nation of Kish, that had made great advances in the two and a half centuries since their founding by Ziusudra the Ark-Builder, deserved better than conquest by my father, who I now recognised had become corrupted by the chaotic energies that seeped through the Mirror from Pandemonium.  By this time I was over four centuries old (age 415, to be exact), and I had grown in wisdom.  I had come to regret my part in its retrieval, which I now realised had been the source of much harm to the cause of civilisation.  For so many years I had laboured to win my father's approval, but he never chose to recognise me as his heir even after my brother Dahish perished in the seige of the City of Brass alongside Ubara-Tutu.  As my father amassed Daeva armies through the Mirror and his agents the Seven Jenni worked to undermine Kish from within, I made the painful decision to send word to a virtuous tribe of Janni of the Southern Desert, the Hubul, who were an ofshoot of the line of Delir the Brave who founded Za-Hadrash and who had fought on Sulymon's side to defend the City of Brass from Ubara-Tutu.  I revealed all, and agreed to lower the barriers surrounding Za-Hadrash to their forces if they laid seige to the place."

"During the seige, however, my father somehow succeeded in calling forth a more terrible creature than I had expected; Azi-Dahaka, the three-headed dragon spirit of death itself.  Following in its wake came a surging army of Daevakind from the depths of Pandemonium.  I feared I must swiftly halt this tide and no longer could I rely on the Janni and Human forces to stop it.  I had by now learned that in the years since Ubara-Tutu's downfall, Sulymon had abdicated his rule of the City of Brass and had departed to unknown lands, leaving the city in the hands of the Efreet Sultan Ashur Ban and the Djinn Sultana Cirrishade who ruled jointly, and so I knew he could not be called upon for aid.

[Jibran interjects at this point that Ashur Ban and Cirrishade were deposed in a coup by the present ruler of the City of Brass, a mighty and most evil Efreet who calls himself simply The Great Sultan.  He has ruled for nigh-on 2000 years.  The Hubul were ejected from their ancestral lands in the Plane of Molten Skies for siding with Ashur Ban & Cirrishade, and have walked the Prime Material realms ever since.]

"And so I made the decision to reverse the wards around the palace trapping within all those not native to this plane, just as before it had held them without.  I made fast my wards about my sanctum after helping my human apprentice Sangasu escape with some of the palace slaves.  I told him of my intention to find a means to destroy the Mirror of Chinvat.  I urged him to find others, beyond the palace perhaps, who might do the same."

"I set about my research, but was hindered by my inability to emerge from my sanctum and seek outside sources without risking the integrity of the barrier.  Above, Azi-Dahaka and the trapped daeva hordes raged, attacking my father's servants and each other in their frustration.  I do not know what became of my father, he was holed up in his palace which was warded against scrying.  Before long, I realised that I must needs seek new sources of knowledge elsewhere to destroy the Mirror - though first, I would need to find where my father had hidden it - the portal it creates is obvious, and the mirror is the focus that creates the portal to Pandemonium, but it does not share a location with the portal after its creation.  I am certain it is within the palace grounds somewhere but my father kept many secrets from me.

"I placed my body in suspended animation in my Stasis Cabinet - well, my guardian golem was instructed to lift my unconscious form into it - as I astrally projected forth seeking a place my mother had spoken of when she was alive, the Illumian Library of the Sublime.

"To my joy, I was eventually able to locate this fabled repository of knowledge and spend time among the people of my mother's line.  They welcomed me kindly and respectfully but looked upon me with a sense of pity that they made little attempt to hide; though aged and learned I knew I was regarded as a mongrel, an aberration due to my half-efreeti heritage.  I would not be permitted to take an Illumian wife and sire offspring, should I have felt inclined to do so.  Fortunately, I was already long beyond such things, even were they possible in my astral form.  There were some among them who even stated openly that they felt my mother had erred when she chose to bestow upon me the Ritual of Word Made Flesh that confirmed me as an Illumnian.  I did not mind this, for even though they saw me as impure they showed me more familial kindness than my father or his relations had ever done.  They were free to express their views regarding my mothers actions, disapproving or otherwise, since nothing about those views altered the fact of actions my mother had already taken.  It was all very academic really, as far as I was concerned.

"In the Library of the Sublime I learned of a new kind of magic with which I had been unfamilar until then - the magic of True Names.  It was very different from the Sha'ir genie magic I had been schooled in, and more in tune with Illumian philosophy.

"I began to realise that this would provide the missing magical component I required to destroy the Mirror of Chinvat.  I resolved to research the truename of the Mirror itself and use this in a ritual of destruction.  Before long, I realised I would have to study this kind of magic for a lengthy span.  And so, I did.  On the Astral Plane, it is difficult to gauge the passage of time, and I knew not quite how long I spent there.

"Eventually, I succeeded in developing a ritual which I was sure could destroy the Mirror of Chinvat if correctly performed.  I then had to find a means to carry it out.  My first thought was to find my apprentice Sangasu and secure his aid.  I scried upon him from my Astral locale but to no avail.  I managed to scry a Janni who had been my contact among the Hubul who informed me that 90 years had passed since the Siege of Za-Hadrash.  He indulged me by seeking out Sangasu's family, who I then scried upon and spoke with.

"Sangasu had married a noble lady of Kish and after the prismatic wall had been erected by the Janni around Za-Hadrash, he had abandoned his magical studies and moved into politics.  He had eventually passed on.  His son had not learned the ways of magic, but his grandson by his second son, also named Sangasu, had shown interest in his grandfather's magical works and had undertaken to school himself.  He had taken possession of the firebrass plates I had made with the key to the barrier.  He showed much promise and was eager to help, and so I schooled him via his dreams in the ways of magics, both of the Sha'ir and the Truenamer.  He was not yet ready to hazard Za-Hadrash, but with sufficient preparation and practise I believed he might be able to enter the Palace and find my cabinet, release me from my stasis and together we might conduct the ritual to destroy the mirror.

"I spent a number of years visiting Sangasu the Younger in his dreams training him.  Before he was ready, however, a most unfortunate occurence took place.

[3790 years ago].

"The Illumian Head Librarian activated a Refuge token I had given him years before, by which he might recall me to the Library should he be in need of aid.  And indeed he was, for the Libary was under attack by the Githyanki.  This was no mere raiding party, but a full military assault.  I have no idea why the Githyanki queen, Vlaakith CXXXI [131st], chose to attack the Library; perhaps she determined that some secret knowledge lay therein, or perhaps it was pure spite.  That is something I shall have to determine at a later date. 

"I can only hope that the Illumians managed to repell the attack; for my astral form was slain defending the Library.  My soul transferred back to my material body which was resting in its Stasis cabinet...which is the last thing I recall before being woken by this blue-skinned gentleman lifting me out of the cabinet.

"When I saw the undead creature looming nearby and it commanded me not to make any hostile moves on pain of death, and I saw that my wards had been broken by force, I felt sure that I was not among allies.  I still had a small handful of spells and my fists.  Creatures I recognised as Rakshasae were approaching with bindings to hold me fast and I realised that if I did not act swiftly, I would be deprived of the use of either. I had a permanent Repulsion upon me that would ward undead - a precaution taken against my old uncle Behmanesh - so I decided to cast Calm Emotions which would prevent the living beings from making any hostile moves.  I would take my chances with the undead.

"Unfortunately, this undead creature clearly possessed an unusually high degree of spell resistance, which could overcome my Repulsion aura.  While my Calm Emotions did indeed subdue the blue-skinned one, the undead lashed out and with one blow, slew me and trapped my soul within its form.  I do not think that may have been its original intent, but it seemed somewhat panicked when I began casting of spells.  It was probably unaware that my entire array of offensive magic had already been exhausted fighting the Githyanki at the Library of the Sublime.

"The undead monster was probing my memories while I was entrapped, seeking information about the Barrier and the Mirror.  I am not sure it found what it was looking for before you burst in and destroyed the creature, though I have unfortunately lost some of my power in the process of my resurrection.

"Fortunately, I do still have prepared in my mind, the ritual that may destroy the Mirror of Chinvat.  However the ritual does also require the input of a magical spell of the ninth order to power it, and also if I am to have a chance of success, the assistance of another being with the talent for Truespeech - which would have been Sangasu the Younger in my original plan, but he must be long dead by now.  I do not have any spells of the ninth order remaining, nor will my recovery of them be swift.  However long my body may have been in stasis, as far as my mind is concerned less than one hour ago I was battling Githyanki hordes at the Library of the Sublime."

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