“The dragonshards and psi-crystals are in their correct places,” Elidyr said, sounding more defensive than he liked.
“But they haven’t been properly attuned to one another,” the dolgaunt pointed out. “If you tried to activate the device now, at best it wouldn’t function, and at worst it would fail catastrophically and destroy half the lodge in the process.” The creature’s leathery lips stretched into a smile far wider than a human could manage. “Although now that I think of it, that could be amusing.”
Elidyr knew the dolgaunt wasn’t joking-he would find the devastation amusing-but the artificer chose to ignore the comment. Sinnoch’s mind was sharper and more focused than others of his kind. That was the only reason Vaddon had agreed to allow the dolgaunt to assist with the Outguard’s work. But in the end Sinnoch was still a creature of chaos, and thus periodically given to bizarre and unsettling turns of thought. However as long as the dolgaunt chose not to act on those thoughts, Elidyr didn’t worry about them-much.
Elidyr had dubbed the device the Overmantle, a rather elegant name, he thought, for a somewhat unimpressive-appearing piece of equipment. But he’d always been more practical than artistic-the Karrn in him coming through, he thought with some amusement-and he really didn’t care what the device looked like, as long as it worked. The Overmantle was designed to help humans bond with symbionts while leaving the hosts in complete control. The psi-crystals would form a psychic barrier in the hosts’ minds to protect them from symbiont influence, while the dragonshards would open a miniature portal to Xoriat and channel a small measure of its chaos-based energies into the hosts in order to create a kind of “chaos inoculation” to help further shield them from the symbionts’ psychic contamination. If the Overmantle worked as designed, hosts would have complete control over their symbionts and be able to use them as safely and effectively as any other weapon, without fear of succumbing to the aberrations’ corruption.
“The basic attunement of the shards and crystals shouldn’t take more than a few hours,” Elidyr said. “My major concern is making certain the dragonshards we configured to open a portal to Xoriat will be able to do so safely.”
The portal in question would be smaller than a pinprick, but that would still be large enough to draw the needed amount of the realm’s energy into Eberron’s plane to allow the Overmantle to complete its work. So far all their tests in this area had proven to be failures-sometimes quite spectacular ones. The last such had created a portal to Xoriat the size of a man’s fist, and a slime-covered green tentacle had slithered through. There had been a tiny toothless mouth on the tentacle’s tip resembling an infant’s, and it crooned a wordless song in a woman’s voice. Sinnoch had managed to close the portal, severing the tentacle, and Elidyr had hacked the still-writhing monstrosity to pieces with an axe he kept close at hand. Pieces which Sinnoch had disposed of by devouring them. Elidyr shuddered as he remembered the satisfied moaning sounds the dolgaunt had made as he’d feasted.
Needless to say, Elidyr had decided not to report the result of that particular test to his brother. But it pointed out the reason why they needed to proceed with extreme caution, and Elidyr had been determined to do so-until Bergerron’s recent ultimatum that they shut down the project and vacate the lodge. But he couldn’t do that without at least trying out the Overmantle, not when they were so close.…
Elidyr had first become fascinated with Xoriat during his early days at Morgrave University. His homeland had a long and proud history of military service, but at the beginning of the Last War the nation had become a military dictatorship, and still was. Martial law remained in force, and unlike the rest of Khorvaire, instead of following the Code of Galifar, Karrnath followed the more rigid Code of Kaius, a set of laws restricting many rights in the name of national defense. Men and women like his brother saw nothing wrong with this system, or if they did, they accepted it as a necessary evil for the protection of Karrnath and its people. But there were those like Elidyr-freethinkers who chafed under the Code of Kaius. And so even with the Last War still raging, Elidyr had left his homeland to study in Sharn. At Morgrave University he studied the craft of artificing, telling Vaddon that he planned to use the skills he gained in service to his country when he graduated. Which was true enough-though admittedly Elidyr hadn’t been in any great hurry to graduate.
Elidyr had studied many subjects at the university, but he’d found himself most fascinated with the subject of Xoriat, the Realm of Madness. At the time Elidyr hadn’t understood the strange attraction he’d felt toward Xoriat, but in the years since, he’d come to believe it had something to do with how different the dimension of madness was from Karrnath. While Karrnath was tightly structured-Elidyr often ironically used the word regimented to describe life there-Xoriat was the exact opposite: total freedom reigned in that realm … so much freedom that even the basic laws of nature held no meaning there. The very existence of Xoriat had posed a compelling question for the young scholar. Was there such a thing as too much freedom? Without some sort of structure to give it form, like water given shape by the cup that held it, could existence truly have purpose?
Elidyr read everything he could about Xoriat and its denizens, of the daelkyr, and of the aberrations they created to be their servants. He’d learned of how the daelkyr had once attempted to take over Eberron and, when they failed, how some had retreated with their servants to the subterranean realm of Khyber, where they were reputed to still live to that day. Elidyr had learned of a handful of explorers and adventurers who supposedly had traveled to Khyber and survived, and he sought them out, hoping to gain firsthand knowledge of the daelkyr and their aberrations, but while he’d tracked down a few adventurers, all he’d learned were a few scraps of information, little more than what his own studies had taught him. He’d eventually set out on expeditions of his own in search of aberrations to study firsthand. He began with symbionts, for as dangerous as they were, they were tame kittens in comparison to creatures such as mind flayers and their brethren. It was during one such journey into the Nightwood that Elidyr encountered Sinnoch.
He’d been in the forest for several days when he discovered a subterranean cave system that showed signs of symbiont habitation. He’d gone into the caves, which displayed a dismaying lack of aberrations, when the dolgaunt approached him. At first, Elidyr thought the creature intended to attack, and he prepared to defend himself using a rod he’d designed to collect energy from the sun and release it in a blast of light and heat. But when the dolgaunt made no move toward him, Elidyr had lowered his weapon and was surprised when the dolgaunt spoke.
“I’ve been watching you. You search for that which most humans fear and loathe. Why?”
They talked for hours after that. Elidyr was fascinated and thrilled by their conversation. Not only was this his first true encounter with an aberration, it was with one who could think and communicate. For his part, Sinnoch seemed intrigued to meet a human who did not revile him simply for being what he was. Sinnoch explained that he had stumbled through a naturally occurring but unstable portal from Xoriat some years previous and, unable to find his way back, he had lived in the cave system ever since. Elidyr learned much that day about Xoriat and Khyber and the nature of aberrations, and the young artificer stayed with Sinnoch for three more days before reluctantly heading back to the university.