AD&D Session 97 - A Past Left Buried
18th of Horisal, 835 PD
After several tense weeks in Rexxentrum, the party had settled into an uneasy rhythm. Marcus remained largely secluded in his study, trying to unravel the magic clouding his memory, while the others kept themselves busy elsewhere in the city. Despite the dangers of Imperial scrutiny, they seemed to avoid drawing the wrong kind of attention and even earned a measure of local goodwill among Rexxentrum’s poorer and more neglected districts, becoming something like minor heroes to those worst served by the city’s order. Marcus, meanwhile, managed to partially dispel the enchantment on himself.
The effect did not break entirely, but it yielded flashes of a life he could not properly place. What little surfaced only deepened his suspicion that the spell was the work of the Empire, the Cerberus Assembly, or both. The discovery left him facing a more frightening uncertainty than simple lost memories: whether dispelling the enchantment fully would restore who he once was, destroy who he had become, or reveal that his current life had always been a carefully constructed lie.
That uncertainty became urgent when Modreck, a former colleague from the Soltryce Academy, arrived at Marcus’s door. Their conversation was guarded on both sides. Marcus tried to discover what awaited him at the Academy and whether Enikas could plausibly accompany him, while Modreck avoided direct answers just as carefully as Marcus avoided revealing too much. Whatever Modreck knew, the visit confirmed that Marcus had been found, and that the time for waiting had run out.
That evening, the party discussed their situation. The Academy knew Marcus was in Rexxentrum, and they likely had only hours or days before he would be expected to appear. While they debated whether to flee or risk discovering what the Academy wanted, Enikas chose an especially ill-timed prank, creating a magical knocking sound at Marcus’s door. Marcus rushed down, fearing the Academy had already come for him, only to find no visitor—yet there were suspicious guards outside, apparently concealed under magical guises. Taking the incident as either a warning or a threat, Marcus decided there was no more time to hesitate.
He left at once for the Shimmer Ward and the Cobalt Soul headquarters, intent on ensuring that the dangerous artefacts already entrusted to them would not fall into Imperial or Assembly hands. The rest of the party tried to follow, but Marcus persuaded most of them that entering the Shimmer Ward together would draw too much attention. Bibi insisted on accompanying him, and the two passed through the gate separately. Though Bibi was briefly delayed by additional scrutiny, both were admitted, and Marcus requested an audience with High Curator Yudala Fon, using his name and position to lend urgency to the matter.
When Yudala arrived, Marcus pressed him on several concerns. The Cobalt Soul had identified the leak as lying deep within the Volstrucker and, by extension, the Assembly’s machinery; they did not know how many were compromised, only that the Cobalt Soul itself was being watched. Yudala did not believe Marcus’s name had leaked through that breach, but he could not offer total certainty. As for Bane’s Mace, the situation in Rexxentrum had become precarious enough that the Cobalt Soul was considering moving multiple dangerous artefacts out of the city. Bibi’s Ruidus-linked orb drew similar concern, with Yudala warning that it should be handled carefully and perhaps removed from Rexxentrum as soon as possible.
Bibi also used the meeting to ask about her own past. The inquiry led to a revelation she had not expected: she had been born during a Ruidus eruption, making her Ruidus-born. The knowledge gave shape to some of the strange forces surrounding her, but not yet any clear answer about what she should do with it.
Marcus then asked the question that mattered most to him: whether Yudala knew who he really was. Yudala did, or at least knew enough to warn him that the answer would fracture the life Marcus was currently living, even if that life was false or implanted. Learning the truth would likely change his ability to continue his recent research and would become especially dangerous if he chose to leave the city. Faced with that, Marcus chose not to know. For the moment, the buried name and the buried past remained safer left untouched.
The final problem was escape. Yudala believed the party should be able to leave Rexxentrum, but Marcus considered his own position too dangerous for ordinary travel or border scrutiny. He asked for an official route out by teleportation, and Yudala unexpectedly agreed, provided Marcus continued pursuing leads on dangerous magical artefacts and turned over anything significant to the Cobalt Soul. Given the choice between Zadash and Nicodranas, Marcus chose Nicodranas, avoiding the complications of Imperial border control entirely. That left the rest of the party to resolve their remaining Imperial entanglements without him, while Marcus prepared to vanish from Rexxentrum before the Academy could close its hand around him.