Omens in the Sky
Centuries have passed since the elemental titans, the Ancients, sacrificed themselves to save Rathe from the Old Ones. While few records remain from that cataclysmic time, there are those who know that history has a way of repeating…
In Enion, an ominous sigil appears in the sky, a tear in reality like a hungering maw.
Creatures exposed to its foul breath become twisted and viciously ravenous. Whole towns descend into bedlam as neighbors and family members are gripped by strange, all-consuming appetites that seem to emanate from the omen in the sky.
Its appearance has affected the Flow, with lightning talents surging with new potency.
With their abilities heightened by this Lightning Flow phenomenon, the Wayfarers and Wizards of Volthaven travel to all corners of Enion to counter the effects of the omen.
Together, Oscilio and Aurora ride the lightning to the omen itself, hoping to sear the opening shut. Yet they are met with a demonic force beyond anything they have encountered.
Reaching out from the sigil, a shadowy manifestation catches Oscilio by surprise, disintegrating him into a shower of fragmented components.
A desperate Aurora races to Oscilio's rescue. She overcharges Star Fall until the blade shatters, releasing the weapon's elemental energies in a Forked Continuum of intense lightning. It works. Oscilio's essence reignites, and his pieces form around his core in a haphazard configuration. With her friend alive, if not yet properly himself, Aurora bolts back to Volthaven with Oscilio at her side.
As Oscilio recovers and transforms, he receives a vivid message, sent to him from another world by a mysterious stranger: Zyggy Starlight.
Zyggy is an Aetherscribe who wishes to help destroy the omen that is plaguing Enion. During the Third Age, Zyggy had a hand in Oscilio's creation, and the changes occurring with Oscilio have revived that connection.
Zyggy explains they are stranded in the Nebulus Rift, another reality created during the cataclysm. The only reason Zyggy has been able to reach out to Oscilio, after all this time, is that the omen has weakened the aetheric barriers between the Nebulus Rift and Enion.
They and their fellow surviving Aetherscribes inhabit the Auric Keep, a fragment of old Valahai that can be reconnected to Rathe by a powerful artifact from that time: the Voltaris Gem.
The Aetherscribe tells Oscilio of the secret vault where the Voltaris Gem is secured, and of Shyldverk, an ancient gatehouse where the gem can be used. Zyggy promises that, once their exile is over, they'll help close the omen and end the spread of corruption before it engulfs Enion.
Aurora uses Zyggy's instructions to find the island on which the vault is hidden, only to discover that the omen's corrupting forces have propelled the ruin into the sky. Like a doomborn comet, it is descending upon Volthaven!
Riding the lightning faster than ever, Aurora catches up to the island-turned-comet and enters the vault. By harnessing the power of the Voltaris Gem, she is able to forge a blade onto the empty hilt of Star Fall. This new sword, she proudly names Scorpio.
With the comet now moments from collision with Volthaven, Aurora calls down a tempest, lightning bolts bursting from storm clouds over Enion, burning through the comet to strike Scorpio like a lightning rod. The resulting thunderclap blows the comet apart.
After flying free of the wreckage, gem in hand, Aurora returns to Volthaven and is met with a wondrous new Oscilio, his transformation complete. Together they set out for the ancient ruin of Shyldverk, to use the Voltaris Gem as Zyggy instructed to manifest an Astral Bridge through the Nebulus Rift that will reconnect the Auric Keep to Enion.
Within Shyldverk, Oscilio places the gem upon its pedestal and unleashes its power. Lightning fills the chamber, coalescing to reveal an arcane doorway. He and Aurora push through the portal and find themselves on a road of starlight snaking through the Nebulus Rift.
Zyggy is there to greet them. They follow the Aetherscribe across the Astral Bridge to the Auric Keep, where Aurora and Oscilio learn from surviving Aetherscribes that the sinister sigil is seeping into Rathe from its sister world, i'Arathael, home of the Aesirs since the Third Age.
Zyggy, Aurora, and Oscilio use the bridge to return to Rathe, where they travel once more to the omen in the sky.
Though the demonic force reaches out for them again, Oscilio, Aurora, and Zyggy are ready for it. Aurora and Oscilio hold it at bay with a steady flow of lightning while Zyggy forms hard holograms of astral aether across the sigil. Thus choked, the omen ebbs away. Yet before it fades entirely from Enion, the sigil flickers with a frightening vision.
It has not been alone.
Zyggy, Aurora, and Oscilio watch in mounting horror as more omens appear, one after the other, each glaring down upon a different land. Above the wild jungles of the Savage Lands. Over the red earth of Volcor. Over the fog-veiled valleys of Misteria. Over the broken hills of the Northern Realms. Over the skyscrapers of Metrix. Over the besieged city of Solana.
Our heroes of lightning look to one another, for all can feel the gravity of this moment, and know that Rathe is about to change...forever.
