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+---- Thread: Mystryl's Curse (/showthread.php?tid=2423)
Mystryl's Curse - Balanor - 09-20-2014
Mystryl, once the goddess of magic and time time, had been dead for nearly three millennia. Yet while Mystra had taken the domains of magic from the dying goddess, no other god had subsumed the powerful portfolio of Time she had held when she died.
Why, for something mortals should value above all else, had it been neglected by the gods? And as the Time of Troubles had shown, could not a mortal rise up to claim his own divine portfolio if a void existed? Why had this not happened with Time? And why not him? These questions had consumed his every thought for decades.
It had been only a mere two years prior that he had finally uncovered the secrets of the Time Conduit spell and meticulously researched its nuances since. There could be no mistake, he had left nothing to chance. Now, using it along with the knowledge he had gathered throughout his life, he was finally prepared to travel back to moment of Mystryl’s death. Once there, as ancient Netheril fell, he was confident he could claim the discarded portfolio and become the god of Time!
After he had made his final preparations, he began casting the powerful spell. But he could soon feel something going awry. The world seemed to distort and flow around him like a river, and he slowly turned to see his body still casting the spell, but his consciousness was floating further and further from it. He silently screamed at himself to stop, but to no avail. Then the world went black.
For what seemed to him later like an eternity, there was nothing but the darkness. The world and all in it were gone. But then without prelude or warning, he found himself starting a reflection of his younger self in a divining pool. He gasped and looked up, realizing he was in his study again…but yet it was different. He turned back to look at his reflection and noticed fewer wrinkles and gray hair, and slowly the realization dawned on him that he had become younger. He looked around wildly. No! Wait! His consciousness had been transferred to his younger self from years prior. He could instinctively tell his powers were less they had been when he cast the spell, but his memories all remained intact.
He rushed over to his sundial and found the year to be only 1360 DR. The spell had only transported his consciousness back two years?! His rage at this failure threatened to overcome him but he forced it down and focused his thoughts. In his deepest memory he strove to recall this moment from his past, and then finally remembered. It was moments after he discovered the location of the only remaining ancient tome to contain the Time conduit spell. But now he remembered something that had been hidden since that moment...
He rushed back to the diving pool, startled to see a beautiful woman staring back as his reflection in the water!
Her eyes were yellow and red-rimmed, blazing with madness. Her skin shifted slowly and continuously in hue from dead white to mauve and back again. In a moment he knew who he beheld: Beshaba, the goddess of misfortune and accidents. Lady Doom, herself. Her cruel laugh threatened to drive him mad as he closed his eyes and covered his ears. Her deceptively lovely voice, however, filled his mind.
Do you remember now, my dear? Last time your eagerness blinded you when you discovered the location of the only ancient tome that contains the Time Conduit spell. But you failed to perceive Mystryl’s curse wrapped around it, firmly in my domain now, and one I have waited ages for a mortal to unleash...AGAIN!
Her delicious curse is meant to stop any -even gods- from using her Time Conduit spell to return to the point of her death and claim that portfolio as their own. But then claiming it at the moment of her death is the only way known that any being can claim dominion over that particular portfolio! HA! What a paradox, don’t you agree?
So listen closely, my dear; you now race against that which you seek to control: Time.
As you know the Time Conduit spell only keep you in the past for a month, and that is all the time you have now to re-retrieve the tome, prepare for, and cast her cursed spell again. If you manage to do this, you lift the curse, the spell will function as you intended, and you will have the opportunity you seek to claim dominion over time itself.
Of course, it couldn’t be only that simple. Mystryl’s curse is rather nasty beyond the fact that you are permanently bound to this younger version of yourself: Random souls who also have knowledge of the future were drawn back to the bodies of their younger selves at the same time as you, and they instinctively know that you are to blame and will recognize you on sight. If you succeed in casting the spell again, they all simply cease to be. If you do not manage to do so in time, you cease to be and they are sent back to their own time.
So as you can guess, you are a despised and hunted man, and those you have affected will seek to make you pay for unleashing this curse. The last wonderfully foolish mortal to trigger Mystryl’s Curse made it only a week before succumbing to a mob of angry individuals drawn back in time with him. Of course 30 years had passed since the man had first discovered the tome and when he finally cast the spell, so he didn’t stand a chance. Lucky for you, your eagerness and all-consuming focus on this allowed you to trigger her curse that only 2 years had passed.
Either way, goodbye dear one, and thank you for bringing about this misfortune again! It is one I dearly enjoy watching play out. Let them curse your name and bring you down, foolish Thayan!
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OOC Note: This is the IC explanation for the OOC server crash and data loss which occurred less than a month ago. I will be running events to bring this to its conclusion within a week or two, and moving the in-game clock back to 1362 DR.
RE: Mystryl's Curse - Balanor - 09-22-2014
Now that a bit of dust has settled from the busy weekend of PCs getting (re)setup and going again, I am planning to run the first event for this tonight after 8:00 PM Central Time. PCs who are interested in getting a bit of revenge against the one who put them in their current state are encouraged to attend.
RE: Mystryl's Curse - Balanor - 09-25-2014
The final event for this will be tonight starting sometime after 8:30 Central Time. Meet at Thralgard Keep in preparation to enter High Thay under Red Wizard supervision.
Epilogue - Balanor - 10-06-2014
Velsharoon snapped up from his divining pool with a start, and his left thumb accidentally dipped itself in the water. Disoriented, he looked around with a frown. Where was he again? What was he doing? His mind filled with confusion as he watched the ripple expand in the water from where his thumb disturbed it. Well, whatever he was trying to look for was ruined now thanks to the bad luck of something so stupid as his thumb slipping.
He closed his eyes and sat back in his dark chair, trying to focus his thoughts. He was in his abode, the Tower Terrible. But why the hell were the rest of his thoughts so scattered? What had he seen that caused this? He continued to try and calm his frazzled mind, and eventually some pieces came back to him.
He had been looking for the means to become a god. That’s right! But...what was it again? He shook his head angrily as the realization suddenly took him that he may have indeed found what he was searching for, but something had either blocked or wiped that memory from him. Angrily, he got up again and looked into the now calm pool once more, focusing his rage and thoughts and finding it again.
He would not be denied, by man or god.
The water below the surface appeared to swirl wildly, turning dark blue, then purple. The abrupt boom of thunder, with lightning appearing in the depths of the water almost broke his concentration, but by sheer force of will he continued the divination. The water continued to swirl, but shorten, even more. Finally, it came to him that he was looking through a raging purple sandstorm. For a brief moment the sandstorm cleared just enough to see a very old ruin, and then a brilliant bolt of lightning struck the entrance and the water of the pool exploded upward to drench a startled Velsharoon who fell back unceremoniously into his chair. Irritated, yet elated at the same time, he know what he must do. He needed to find that ruin in the storm of purple sand. The key to godhood must lie there!
It was time to get his Shadows to work.
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In her throne room from the depths of the Abyss, Beshaba laughed. Her thoughts filled with delicious possibilities, and with a malicious smile, set out to visit another god of chaos to discuss them.
It was time to visit her misfortune on a god, and she couldn’t think of a better one than the young, arrogant fool who held too much power already. Her laugh echoed throughout her domain as she went, driving those tormented souls within to a madness they had never known possible.