First Foray into the Atral

Here is recorded the first encounter with the Atralic entity that came to be known as Joek, the Oldest Wizard.

Years after their escape from the cursed homeland of Oen, the people of Itheria had created the beginnings of a new city. It was to be a walled fortress, Deltheria, a bulwark against the darkness in the southern land of Libertas. The foundations of a grand cathedral were being laid, masons were raising towers, and woodsmen harvested the abundant lumber of the mountains for the carpenters to make houses. The people of Itheria had traveled long, and now they sought to rest their feet, and build new lives. Monsters still appeared occasionally, creeping from the deeps and the depths of the yet untamed forests, but Deltheria's walls were high and strong -- the exiles could relax at last.

Their sense of peace did not last.

The wolf riding rangers had formed their own nation after aiding in the flight from Oen. There, they built their own cities and houses. There, they raised their wolves, practiced their woodcraft, all the while guarding their own interests, though still aiding the people of Itheria as close allies, having come from the same kin. They took to a narrow expanse of land north of Itheria's holdings and guarded that way from monsters like the volatile, creeping shadows that had assaulted the old kingdom fortresses, and the screaming abominations that had destroyed Thirian's walls. It was thought that, while it was a wilder life, it was also one of relative safety. Few beasts or monsters came within the realm of shadow guarded by the rangers without being torn to shreds by their hunting hounds. It came, therefore, as even more of a shock when they were the first assaulted by this new threat.

On the 16th of Immersum, one of the rangers came down from the mountains, seeking an audience with the Keepers of Itheria. He had come from a watchpost set in the mountains near Itheria's northern most city of Glarim. When questioned by the Triarchy as to the reason for his panic, the ranger could only say that the watchpost had vanished. The night before had been the new moon, a time when high concentrations of aberration monsters appeared.

The ranger explained, "It was the dead of the night, with the dark moon over head. I was on the end of my patrol, when my hounds went mad, and a rent opened in the sky above the cabin. Those stretched abominations poured out in numbers I have never seen in this land. Behind them, the realm of Atral sparked and writhed; I even saw chalky islands suspended in the void there. Then a static filled chuckle sounded, and a great black hand filled with stars reached down and scooped up my house. Then the rift closed.
"It took us all of yesterday to slay all the abominations, and it is only now that I come to ask for your aid. We have little knowledge of these beings aside from what has be told through stories, having come too late to the battle in Thirian to have fought them our selves."

A war party was put together and made their way to the portal claimed and guarded by the kingdom of Noetheria. This force was led by Keeper Cleric, at the head of two legions of the Creed, and Keeper Tulthorion, bearer of Glorgrim, who was followed by all but ten of the Elite Guard. In all, it was an army of six-hundred and fifty men. They knew the Dragon to be dead, and Beothell was slain, but perhaps some further horror was still hiding within the void between worlds, ready to bring the shadows against Oen's beleaguered people once again.

Man after man, they entered the portal.

Down, down, down they plunged, watching flickers of phantom light and the purple void of Atral rise around them. They came to rest on the entry island, a chalky slab of alien rock, miles in diameter. Atral beings shuffled listlessly in small packs, whispering and coughing to each other. Long thin blades of black glass grew from the island, reflecting and bending the phantom non-light of the void into fractal shapes. Some of the spires were no taller than grass, others more massive than any tower of Deltheria's walls. All were jagged; the sharp edges quickly shredded the loose robes and capes worn by the wizards. More than one unfortunate man put his armored boot down on smaller ones, and it went clean through.

Cleric commanded a portion of the mages to help the injured to the Dragonslayers shrine, where the black heart of that beast held open the only portal back out of the Atralic realm. This delegation, plus the losses of those injured by the sharp stone of this strange place, removed an eighth of the Keepers' forces.

The abominations proved far less aggressive than when they were encountered away from their home; only making direct eye-contact with one or making a loud noise nearby caused it to become enraged, and after cutting down a few such attackers the explorers quickly learned to keep their eyes down.  It took them a couple of hours of navigating the dangerous terrain before they came to the edge of the island, and the source of the attack on the rangers.

Out past the edge of of the island, suspended in the space of the Atral, was the cabin of the ranger. It was pristine, there was even a tree still rooted in the ground that cabin was resting on. The grass had paled somewhat, and the cabin had no light inside. The image was distinctly surreal, and the new island that the cabin created seemed extremely out of place.

Tulthorion looked up, "What purpose would this serve?"

"Keeper, look!" One of wizards the raised a finger to a point to one side of the cabin island, where a terrible figure floated atop a black glass shard. "What manner of monster is that?"

It was man-like, but could by no stretch be called a man. Nor was it one of the Atralic aberrations that Beothell had summoned to assault Thirian. Its most striking feature was a huge pale eye, surrounded by a black lid, which sat upon its shoulders in place of a head. The eye seemed almost liquid, rippling slowly in some nonexistent breeze, a pink pupil staring unerringly at the cabin. The rest of its body was covered by a tattered blue robe, covered in faded esoteric sigils picked out in yellow thread. Wrapped around its waist was a belt of golden rope. Where ever it showed, the entity's skin was black; liquid night, painted on a skeletal frame. It did not stand on the black shard, but floated about a hand-span above it, the ruined feet dangling below its robe slowly dripping void ooze. For all its horror, it took a rather civilized pose; hands clasped behind a straight back.

Cleric called out, "Creature, what is the meaning of this abduction?"

The eye flicked down at the Keeper, slowly traversing the small army behind him. One arm pulled out from its sleeves; it was bent in numerous places, all of them wrong. In a warped claw of a hand, it held a small piece of purple flesh. The creature blinked slowly, and the sorcerers felt an alien presence skating across their psyches; barely perceptible. Finally, it focused on Cleric. He felt a disjointed mind touching his, asking to communicate. Withdrawing at first, he cautiously established telepathic communication. The mind he encountered was both highly ordered, and drastically alien: all thoughts and meanings were filtered through its own private lexicon, and difficult to decipher.

"Greetings, motives. You appear well equipped for negative action. Please declare your origin and intent. Now."

Cleric passed this message on to Tulthorion, explaining the mental exchange.

Tulthorion raised his hammer. "Stop with the mind games, monster! You attacked our home. Our intent is your destruction, that Itheria may be safe once more!"

Its mental communications stifled, the creature raised the purple flesh to its face, and in a quick lunge blinked, biting off a piece. Its entire body shivered, buzzing in and out of reality, much the same as the other beings of Atral. Then, it began to walk towards the main island across empty space, each foot setting down on a platform of phantom-light and purple sparks, the void giving it a path to walk down. The pale eye rippled in time to its voice. It was like a bad recording of the voice of one near death, echoed through unknowable distance. "Unacsssseptable, motives. I harmed nothing. 'Asssault' would mean I meant you harm. I never want to harm experimental subjeckkks. I am only trying to understand this ckkkkonfluence more fully. Knowledge is important, is it not?" At this point, it had reached the main island, and floated at the front of the army, gazing slightly down at the two Keepers.

"This 'abduction', so called, was simply the next ssssstep in Projecttttt: Magnifier. My deepest condolences, motives, if you were inconvenienced by the system I put into use for the extraction of the confluence. Intentssshhhh, stated. Will any further eckkkkkssplanation be rekkkkquired?" It took another blinking bite of the purple thing in its claw, and shivered briefly out of reality, leaving a cloud of purple sparks behind. It then reappeared about three feet away, still focused on the Keepers, and began to float back towards them.

Cleric stepped forward, and requested the cabin returned to its original location, as a show of good faith. The creature claimed this quite impossible, as any such attempt would create much the same results as before: monsters from the Atral would pour out of the rift. It continued to eat as it conversed, leading to a bit of rubbernecking from the Keepers as they attempted to keep it in sight.

It did ask if there was anything else it could do to end any further "negative actions", and said it could teach the sorcerers of Itheria about the Atral, should the Itherians be able to assure it safety from 'aggressive motives'. Cleric was about to turn him down, intending to leave this stand off, when one of the wizards of the Creed pushed his way to the front of the column.

Upon catching Cleric's attention, he explained that he had been conferring with the members of his cloak, and one of the oldest had recognized the sigils on the creature's robe. He had seen them in an ancient tome, before the fall of Oen. They were from a sect of Oen sorcerers. Cleric whirled back to the creature, "Who are you? Where did you get those robes?"

Its eye stilled for a moment. "I...am...Joe--kkkkkkk -- an old wizard. I know not how many lunar ssssscycles have passed since I entered Plane One. I have always had these vestmentsssssss, though they have sustained some wear and partickkkkkulate staining over time."

The Keepers consulted with each other and their advisers. They decided that, if nothing else, it would be good to keep this warped wizard close. So much the better if he was once of Oen, and they could somehow remove his affliction.

Tulthorion pointed his hammer at the ancient wizard. "Very well...Joek? You may accompany us back to Deltheria. Should you cause further problems, I will not hesitate to pursue 'negative action'.

Joek finished his last bite of the purple lump, teleporting directly in front of Tulthorion. "Exemplary! I have always wanted to create an institution to further knowledge."

Thus, while they set out after an enemy, this day the people of Itheria gained a new ally. He took up residence in the mountains, near the site of the cabin he had abducted, and cultivated the strange purple fruit that he was so fond of, and cared for horses, which he had something of a mania for. When not taken by either of these pastimes, he spent his time at his Institute, teaching grandly convoluted lectures to the wizards of the Creed who thought it worth their time to piece together meaning out of his strange lectures.

So ends the account of Itheria's first foray into the Atral Realm, as put down by Amadaus Piminy, wizard first level of the Creed of Itheria.