Onwards

[Nephrite]

He blinks, then blinks again, as his world returns to the chanting.

"Sorry, I..." He clears his throat. "I... can remember something, but..."

He blinks, then smiles. "No, no buts. I can remember something." He repeats, this time with more confidence.

[Anastasia]

Xandra's smile blossoms like a radiant sunrise, "That's wonderful, Moore. What did you remember?"

[Nephrite]

"Are you familiar at all with what happened with Benfal?" Moore asks, as his face then turns to her more fully, as a dawn of realization hits him. "...Actually, you probably know exactly what happened with Benfal." He says with a click of his tongue.

"Well... anyway, during its liberation, something happened to it that elevated it from a Prime world into Elysium." He explains. "I was doing research into what could've caused it. I...spent a lot of time doing research into what could've caused it."

He clears his throat here, as if to make a point. "I don't remember doing research into what could've caused it. You have to understand something about me -- after I recover myself from... You Know Where, I couldn't remember anything. I... wasn't satisfied with that. I made it a point not to forget things that happened to me again." He says.

He then gestures towards himself. "So as I think you can imagine, after I did research into what could've caused Benfal to be elevated into Elysium, only to have somehow not noticed that several hours had passed, that I didn't think it was just that."

Another pause before he clears his throat yet again. "Anyway... I don't remember what happened. But... after listening to you and listening to them, I can remember the name 'Elena,' who is the... she's a spirit tied to Aurora. So..." He turns back to look at the people chanting.

He pauses there for a moment, about to get lost in his thoughts again before he shakes his head vigorously.

"Did I tell you I tried to use the Words of Creation to get around this?" He asks as he turns his attention back to her. "I tried to put words my soul remembered, but I couldn't, onto a piece of paper. It... uh, didn't work. Well, no... that's not exactly true -- it worked exactly fine, it did what it was supposed to. I just... couldn't read them without forgetting about it again." He says with a bit of a chuckle.

"Ah... sorry, I'm rambling now. This is an important topic for me, as I'm sure you can guess."

[Anastasia]

"It is. It's much for thought." Xandra agrees. "Do you believe she can help you, then?"

[Nephrite]

"...Hm." He turns back to the chanting at that. "That's a good... question. I..." He takes a breath. "I may as well ask her when we're done here. The worst that can happen is she has no idea what I'm talking about."

[Anastasia]

"Then let us continue," Xandra says, and from there?

Erran Valin resides in a small tower tucked away amid a dozen other towers. As blue and purple fire dances in the night sky, the two of you approach.

[Nephrite]

To be clear, we're approaching the tower they live in, not them, right?

Moore flies up to knock on the door!

"Isn't it weird that the spell called 'knock' doesn't actually do what you'd think it does?" He asks, idly. "This place sure inspires me to think about magic."

[Anastasia]

You're approaching the tower, yes.

"It's an unus-"

Xandra is cut off when with a wink, you're elsewhere. A dark, starry sky is above you as you stand on a roof. Here sits a large tower's roof, and atop it sits a brass and gold telescope. It is ornately decorated with runes as a dwarf uses it, gazing up at the stars above. The air here is chilly, a brisk fall breeze already with the first hint of winter on it. The scent of wood smoke and apples lingers in the air.

The dwarf turns away and dusts his hands off before gently adjusting a knob on the side of the telescope. "Duke Moore, I am Erran Valin. When the Mother of All Magic is too busy to handle every petition herself, she distributes them to trusted aides to assess them. Tell me what you need and I'll guide you."

[Nephrite]

"Oh, hello." Moore says with a nod and a bow. "It's good to meet you. It's... a bit of a long story, but if you want the whole thing I'll tell you. The summary is thus: Orcus and Lixer had some sort of fight over Foggard. Now the whole place is trapped in some sort of... void of nothingness, and the entirety of Foggard itself seems to have been cut off from the Weave somehow. I was hoping there might be something we could do to fix that."

[Anastasia]

"A dead magic area?" Valin says, attention fully on you now. "Tell me everything. Such things must be remedied with all haste, so that the Mother of All Magic's gifts can spread far and wide. To deprive an area of the Weave is to deprive it of Mystra herself. That is never acceptable."

[Nephrite]

He takes in a breath. "I'll tell you everything I can, but some of the details are unknown as... well, you'll see."

He clears his throat. "This all began a few days ago. I was going to Foggard to investigate something for myself. We came across an area warded against teleportation, which led us to being spied on by Lixer. Long story short, Lixer was fighting against an army of Orcus and Cryonax's at Foggard." He says.

"We infiltrated Foggard itself -- at the time, magic still worked there just fine. We did have to fight some demons that used some extremely powerful silencing ability, but they ended up getting defeated. On our way out, we were met with some extremely powerful magic -- we believe that to have been the work of Orcus or his avatar. Ultimately, we were able to escape... except in our haste, I left an ally behind." Moore says with a bit of sourness to his voice.

"We returned and made rescue, but it was then that the avatar of Orcus appeared and incapacitated pretty much all of us. I was the lucky winner of the 'who gets to be cursed by Orcus' roulette -- don't worry, I fixed that part -- and... well, then Lixer and Orcus must've had some sort of knock-out fight with each other that ripped the Deep Ethereal apart."

He stops here to pause before he looks over at Xandra. "Something is still inside Foggard, and it may be an avatar or something that was created to defend the place -- but we didn't really have the opportunity to check, as that emptiness permeates the whole of four or five miles around Foggard and inside of it, too."

[Anastasia]

Xandra adds once you are done, "I am a seer and I can only see shadows within. Whatever within is likely tied directly to Orcus or perhaps Cryonax. This is no trivial matter or merely demons causing trouble."

"I'm inclined to agree," Erran Valin concurs, "You have told us of this. What did you hope would come of this meeting?"

[Nephrite]

"Ultimately, we need to purge Foggard of whatever is there, and need to restore the damage done to the Ethereal. It was my hope by restoring magic to Foggard that it would be an easier matter to get rid of whatever is causing the trouble." Moore explains. "Good or evil, Foggard isn't a place that should be prevented from being accessed."

[Anastasia]

"Now," Erran Valin goes on, "Is this an official request from Celestia or is a personal request from yourself?"

[Nephrite]

"I wasn't sent to Foggard on any missive from Celestia." Moore answers. "This is entirely a personal request."  He says, open and honestly.