After traveling about 2200 miles (mostly on foot/hoof/wing/paw) and being less than about 500 miles from our destination (Thronehold, the King of Slaves and some miffed goblinoids), Teves received a letter from Willa saying there was some kind of druidic hub-bub in the Eldeen Reaches and that they wanted us to return. She also sent some vouchers for all of us and our horses to travel by way of a personally chartered elemental sky ship back to Greenheart (capital of the Eldeen Reaches and the place I started my druidic training - and, of course, finishing it off to the south in the foothills of the Byeshk mountains under the watchful eye of my orc elder brother). That's got to have been expensive, and druids are not know to have, nor even want, much money.
Now, I know they are kind of immortal, in that they don't age (or eat or breath or sleep or have sex), and that they think in a way very different than a human, but I'm still not really comfortable with elemental binding. I understand the need to bind the dealkyr. It's ether that or let them destroy our world, or engage in another empire shattering war with these god-like, aberration making, lords of insanity from the plane of Xoriat. But I still think "binding" is really just a nice word for enslavement, and a convenient means of getting from one location to another (way faster than I have every traveled in my entire life) for those of us who have the might to do so. I can't imagine they like it. Not any more than the dealkyr like it or any more than the Geomancer (more on her in a bit) - but I don't imagine the elementals in the air/water ships did anything to try to take over or repopulate Eberron (or even just a small part of it). I guess that's why I've always had some lingering issues with gnomes. Luckily no one in our group is a gnome or an elemental slaver so I haven't had to deal with it much.
The day after we landed in Greenheart there was a meeting. Basically all 1000 of Greenheart's inhabitants came to see the spectacle. Much was explained and the events centered around us and our actions. Ten of the highest ranking Gatekeepers (which is about 1/10 of all the Gatekeepers in Eldeen) were there to ask us what we did and tell us what had been happening since. So, now we know this following series of events:
- When we touched the ancient goblinoid axiomatic binding device which we found in the pedestal where the King of Slaves should have been sitting we deactivated some kind of ancient non-detection deception keeping it's location from being known. The protection was broken when something living touched the device (which is probably why it was protected by two wights).
- One, or possibly more, of the dealkyr have been looking for this device (as well as all the other binding devices) in order to destroy it so they can escape their capture. So now, thanks to us, the dealkyr know where one of the devices which keep them in Khyber and keep Xoriat away is located.
- Knowing they would need someone of great power to destroy the binding device the dealkyr decided to call upon an ancient woman known as "The Geomancer".
- She is a great wielder of magic in a form for which we know little about. Through logical deduction we think she must either be a giant or an elf, since she comes from Xen'drik from the time of the giant's empire (about 80,000 to 40,000 years ago), and the only known races to know arcane magic at this time (having learned it from the dragons) was the giants and their elf slaves (who stole the information as they could while serving the giants). Though, I do realize this assumption may be false since knowledge of this time is sparse, and there may have been members of other races who learned magic as well - which might explain how she used a form different than what we presently understand.
- The dealkry, somehow, awakened her from her suspended state and made a deal with her to destroy the binding device in exchange for her freedom.
- There was an ancient order of paladins who were sworn to keep the Geomancer down. They have no name since they have been lost to history, but it is still known that the magical device which Velis found in his pack is something which connects the person holding it to this order of paladins at the time of the Geomancer's awakening. So now beside being an odd magic-like wielding person he's also a paladin.
What we also think is that since she was bound in the first place (and not destroyed) she must be rather powerful herself (not to mention [as I do] the fact that the dealkyr think she can destroy an artifact), so we are probably better off trying to reinstate the binding rather than destroying her - if she really deserves to be bound, that is.
The only people who know much about times that old are probably the Undying Court in Araenal, and maybe some dragons. So, we have decided to go to Araenal, 40,000 year old island domain of the elves, to try to gather some information on the Geomancer, and Xen'drik, so we can deal with her properly. The complication, since there must always be one, is that our own elf friend, Tevis, carries an aberrant dragonmark, and the elves especially hate aberrant dragonmarks. In fact the reason Tevis is 'from' the Eldeen Reaches is because he is actually from Araenal but his family was exiled when they refused to kill their aberrant child (then mauraders killed his parents in Valenar and he somehow ended up in Eldeen as a youngster). However, on the upside, his grandfather is a member of the Undying Court - and was not interested in killing one of his family members.
And while we are off dealing with elves, undying, giants, the Geomancer, and Eberron knows what else, the Gatekeepers will keep ahold of the axiomatic seal and look into how to make a new non-detection protection on it to keep the dealkyr from finding it again. At least I think that's what they were going to do. I hope they are not waiting for us to return from Xen'drik to then go try to find the lost information needed to re-hide the axiomatic planar seal.
Daaleen, Gatekeeper Aspirant