"Spine of the Times"

A Musical Journey into the White Kingdom.

By Dorian Hart and Kate Jenkins

The scene is a field, in the center of which is a gaping hole. The Defenders have just defeated the Necropede, a hideous undead monstrosity that broke the surface here. It is through this fresh tear in the earth that the Defenders now prepare to journey downward, downward, to fulfill their quest and promise to break the spine of the White Kingdom and defeat the dreaded Ivory King.

Malachite, Chaplar, Knight of the Emerald, looks down into the darkness as the sun starts to set behind distant hills.

The Defenders' descent into the Underdark begins, leaving the sunlit lands behind. Their guide is a sulky little gnome named Priggle Gembreath, pessimistic to the last and strangely unmemorable.

It is not long before the Defenders meet the villainous ghoul Soder – pretending at first to be a dwarf named Kelharin. After rejecting Soder's offer to join the Ghoulish empire, the Defenders first help defend the Dwarven stronghold of Mridsgate, before vanquishing a powerful shadow-creature threatening to turn all of the dwarves into Shadows themselves.

Frustrated by the Defenders' survival, Soder manages to Gate a gargantuan acidic ooze into their Comfortable Castle. While the monster manages to dissolve Galthia's much-needed Staff of Disruption, the Defenders vanquish the beast.

More fantastic and harrowing adventures follow: Encountering the real Kelharin, who guards the Black Door that seals off the lower reaches of the Underdark; fighting the evil dragon Oathenor who occupies the dwarvish city of Mrid; and plumbing a great dwarvish treasure vault filled with death-traps and Undead Beholders.

Oh, the fun they have!

Soon enough they find the underground trade city of Aiken's Throat, where they meet a dour shaman named Stone Bear. The blind-yet-seeing Stone Bear, at the urging of his various ancestral spirits, has been waiting to join the Defenders.

As if the ghoulish menace isn't enough to worry about, Agar gets a surprise visit from a Pit Fiend masquerading as an old halfling woman, sent to bring him back home for his long-arranged marriage. Needless to say, Agar decides not to go, and suddenly ghouls don't seem so terrible.

Events reach a local maximum of strangeness when the Defenders encounter a lone, hostile goblin. But the seemingly-trivial battle becomes extremely disturbing when the goblin sprouts tentacles and reveals itself as a Pseudonatural troll! The group manages to destroy the monster – as their divination predicted, "Ready oil and open flame light your way to wealth." But while most of the party looks upon the betentacled aberration with disgust, Agar is transfixed by its alien beauty...

Leaving the slain tentacular creature behind, the Defenders of Daybreak resume their descent. Their immediate goal is a long vertical tunnel known as the Deepening Rift, but en route they encounter the wizard tasked with guarding it – Nulloc Toadbringer.

Toadbringer does what his name implies, turning most of the Defenders and their allies into toads. But Nulloc's hubris gets the better of him, and he's unprepared for the arrival of summoned Devas and a Gated Solar. Things are touch-and-go for a while, thanks to a chained enervation and a devastating rock-to-mud-to-rock trick, but the Defenders prevail and slay the Ivory King's... toady. In his lair they find notes describing what the ghouls are doing at the bottom of the Rift: creating a Transport of Horror, a Necropede writ large, a Buggernaut capable of delivering a payload of ghoulish thousands to anyplace on the surface of Spira.

That, clearly, must be halted.

The top of the Deepening Rift is guarded by the ancient and enormous Thurn, bat-winged and terrible to behold. But things go better this time than they did with Toadbringer; the Defenders overwhelm the Thurn with numbers and soon enough its hulking corpse is plummeting down into the darkness.

Realizing that the Thurn will alert the ghouls upon its landing, the Defenders fly down after it, shooting through the darkness like a cluster of bright comets. The dimensions of the Rift are staggering – hundreds of yards across and over a mile deep. At its bottom it empties out into an enormous cavern wherein a cadre of ghoulish casters are completing their Ritual of the Buggernaut. Once this cavern was entirely submerged, but as part of the ritual the ghouls have parted the waters, revealing a raised plateau. It is upon this platform that the ghouls are chanting and Doing Evil™.

Hovering above, the Defenders lay waste with destructive spells. Galthia then swoops down and smashes an important-seeming amulet, worn by the ghoul in charge of the operation.

On an unrelated note, all hell then breaks loose.

It seems that a week earlier, in a Deific spat for the ages, the Goddess Galanna slew the Goddess Imbindarla. It is at this exact moment that Imbindarla finishes tumbling down from the Heavens, and her death-on-impact sends a tremor of grief through the world along with an icy wind. Of more immediate concern to the Defenders, it also results in a cessation of all magic, including the spells that keep them in flight. The parted waters come rushing back, and the heroes are plunged into an utterly dark nightmare of pain and screaming ghouls.

Only the cleric Velendo doesn't fall. He finds himself still aloft, held by a guardian angel whose arrival was exquisitely timed. For thirty seconds of lightless confusion, Velendo doesn't quite know what's happening. Then magic returns, and in the glow of magical lights he can seen the horror below him – a churning soup of maddened and terrified ghouls, frantic and pleading and gibbering. Among them are his friends, struggling to stay afloat and extricate themselves.

Velendo looks up and for the first time sees his Guardian Angel, Cruciel. She holds him up, a vision of strength and glory and beauty. He looks down again, sighs, and decides it's a good time to ask a question he's long wanted to pose to someone of divine stature...

Freeing themselves from the ghoulish stew, our heroes continue down, ever downward into the Underdark. Their progress is impeded briefly by a community of Formians, hideous malformed giants used to exacting tolls from passersby. An even longer diversion plagues them in the Kuo Toa city of Glubyal, where the Defenders become embroiled in a local goggler political imbroglio.

After many battles and intrigues, the Defenders see the crowning of a new Sea King, and rescue the water seer Ceann from her centuries of imprisonment. From her they learn the designs of the Ivory King – he intends to summon and then eat the corpse of Imbindarla, thus inheriting Her divine spark and ascending to godhood.

Ceann also speaks of others who vie for that lofty title, "fighting like barracuda over scraps of flesh." It's unclear who she's talking about, until the next day when the heroes are camped inside the Flickering Needle. Inside they are startled by a loud CLANG as something impacts the exterior of the tower. Outside they find the last person they expect to see – Teliez, sullen teenaged son of the God of Murder. He looks terrible, and he looks terrified...

Having decided to throw their support to Teliez, the Defenders fling him to relative safety through a Gate to the Beastlands, and then manage to battle the Demigoddess Halcyon to a standstill. When Stone Bear sunders Obedience, her Greatsword of Law, Halcyon calls upon her godly powers to rewind time, before fleeing with dire warnings of revenge.

So it seems that Halcyon and Teliez both wish to assume Imbindarla's mantle, though how their ambitions will play out remains a great unknown. And it doesn't change the mission: the Ivory King and Nacreous still await them several days' journey ahead.

There is one more major hindrance between the Defenders and their goal: the Illithid city of Tothokkil. The mind flayers have been harassing them for many days, and the only subterranean route to Nacreous runs through the heart of Illithid territory.

En route they receive a most unexpected missive from the Elder Brain, one of the most powerful psionic powers on Spira. It offers them safe passage, on the condition that they help heal the Elder Brain itself from its affliction of Ghoulism.

Galthia has strong misgivings. While loyal to his friends, his Githzerai people are sworn enemies of the mind flayers, and many of Galthia's race have been slain by this particular settlement. The opportunity to exact revenge on these brain-eating monsters will be a hard one to ignore...

Nonetheless, the Defenders heal the Elder Brain out of unfortunate necessity, burning away the diseased and moribund tissue from its cranial body and restoring it to reasonable health. Leaving the Mind Flayer city, the Defenders begin the final leg of their journey to Nacreous. The odious Soder, advisor to the Ivory King, makes one final appearance, attempting to talk the heroes out of their mission. Predictably, he fails.

Expecting naught but death, fear and ghouls from here on in, the Defenders are surprised to find a last oasis of holiness in the deep dark depths. They stumble upon the enormous collapsed cavern where, centuries earlier, Saints Morak and Aleax halted the undead hordes by dropping a thousand tons of rock on their heads.

While the spirit of St. Aleax had been freed to become a pawn of ghoulish designs, the soul of St. Morak of Calphas still resides here, along with many other good spirits. Speaking through Stone Bear, Morak makes the Defenders an astounding offer: with the shaman's help, he can guide their souls into Nacreous, there to temporarily inhabit the bodies of local ghouls. It's a chance to gather information that could prove invaluable.

Velendo, Nolin, Stone Bear and Claris find themselves in Ghoulish bodies, eating the flesh of a zombie that turns out to be Mara. Mmmmm, Pala-delicous! But while her intestines do taste surprisingly good, the ghoulish party leaves off their meal and scouts out what they can of Nacreous. It is an eventful couple of hours.

For one thing, they discover Halcyon's severed arm mounted on the wall of the Ivory King's palace, still clutching her Sword of Law. It seems that the demigoddess did in fact try to eliminate the Ivory King, with a notable lack of success.

For another, the Ivory King's cadre of ghoul-priests finishes summoning the corpse of Imbindarla; it appears just below the rocky ground, causing an uprising of stone in the shape of her body. The unholy cadaver is immense, stretching for over a quarter-mile head to toe.

Finally, the scouting party discovers the Ivory King himself, an obese, pallid slug with multiple chins, long sickly tongue and a crown of bones jammed onto its head. Easily the size of ten ordinary ghouls, the Ivory King is carried on a palanquin by thirty straining servants. He has just finished slurping up the remains of his closest cadre of priests, whose collected and devoured essence powered the spell that brought Imbindarla's corpse to Nacreous.

Stone Bear is unable to restrain himself; he charges the Ivory King and punches him in his blubbery gut. The Ivory King responds by biting off his ghoulish head, and with the conduit broken, the various Defenders find themselves back in St. Morak's cavern, possessed again of their own bodies.

What follows are many long hours of protracted strategizing, based on their collected intelligence. Mara tries to pay attention, but she chafes at the delay. Malachite is talking about tactics, and Velendo is urging caution, but she knows in her sunlit heart that there's been too much talking, and not nearly enough smiting...

They do spend the night there in the sanctuary of St. Morak's resting place, and despite Mara's misgivings it provides them a much needed breath before the plunge. The next morning they find that Cruciel has built them a fortified temple with altars to both Aeos and Calphas.

Their plan is relatively straightforward, to Mara's satisfaction. It'll be a direct assault on Nacreous, with spells cast to protect them from the dead city's negative energy and un-breathable air.

The last bit of travel takes the Defenders through miles of twisting caverns; they Wind Walk at high speed, guided unerringly by Stone Bear's death spirit, Elder. It is disturbing that the rock of the tunnels is slowly changing to ossified bone. It is more disturbing that the restless spirits of slain foes seem to be dogging them. Stone Bear can see them riding the winds along with them.

Stone Bear frowns. He has always trusted his Spirits to guide and advise him, and it makes sense that his Death Spirit, Elder, is in his element so close to Nacreous. But there's something... something... he can't quite put his finger on it, but his soul is troubled.

And perhaps Elder is a cause for great concern, but Stone Bear pushes these thoughts away and they are soon forgotten as Nacreous comes into view at last.

Events move quickly. The heroes fly across a great gulf to the border of Nacreous, a malign enchantment illuminating them and making them into glowing targets. They are soon beset both by a stream of undead wraiths, and by a barrage of fiery siege missiles from the city. But they are not deterred, and they force through a protective wall and into the city proper.

Mara and Malachite find themselves drawn to a bricked- up palace, which turns out to house a pillar of holy Aeosian light! This is where Aeos himself smote the ghoulish thaumaturge responsible for the shenanigans with Aleax's corpse. Velendo summons an enormous earth elemental to smash the walls that keep the sunlight from spilling out into the city.

But the most significant feature of Nacreous is the body of Imbindarla, into which the ghoulish forces are burrowing in several places. Most of the activity is up near the brain, but Stone Bear sees through the trick; the Ivory King is heading toward the Heart of the Goddess, intent on acquiring Imbindarla's divine spark through pure aortal gluttony. Diving down into tunnels carved into the dead Goddess's flesh, the Defenders engage the Ivory King in battle at long last.

Things go south in a hurry. The negative energy emanating from Imbindarla make healing spells impossible to cast, and there's not enough room in the body to take advantage of their numbers. Realizing the hopelessness of the status quo, Velendo casts a long-saved Miracle, moving the entire battle – Ivory King and all – into the smashed and sunlit palace where Aeos's divine radiance shines forth.

It's better, certainly, but at best the playing field is now merely level. In response to a scathing barrage of insults from Nolin, The Ivory King flexes his semi-divine muscle – his tongue, specifically – and pulls the bard to his drooling maw. Before the other Defenders can move to save their friend, the fat monstrosity activates a Cube of Force, leaving Nolin partially paralyzed and helpless. To make matters worse, Soder shows up to help defend his non-born master.

While the fight outside rages on between the Defenders and Soder, the Ivory King prepares to devour Nolin. Some of the bard's allies are battering at the force walls, but the truth is slowly dawning that it's too late to save him. Nolin has realized it too, but remains undaunted by his imminent death. True to himself to the very last, he makes sure to have the final word...

Nolin's death unleashes the fiery energies of the phoenix Rides-the-Sun, which sear the Ivory King with a pain the likes of which he has never endured. And this is the moment when the battle turns, the Defenders gaining strength and determination from their friend's heroic demise.

Granted, there are still a few minor complications. Stone Bear's death spirit, Elder, turns out to be one of the ancient undead worms that once devoured all life on Spira. Teliez shows up in the middle of the battle, taking advantage of the other aspirants' distractions to claim the Godhood for his own. Soder is still a powerful force to be reckoned with. And, though badly scalded, the Ivory King doesn't go down without a fight.

But down he goes, bludgeoned by weapons and spells, seared with the focused light of Aeos, and with his powerful and malign crown disintegrated by Agar. Soder, discovering that his soul-mate Nolin has been treacherously slain, abandons his master in a fit of peak. Elder is driven away by the holy power of Aeos channeled through Stone Bear. And Malachite himself delivers the killing blow against the Ivory King with the sword Karthos, ensuring that Imbindarla's aborted spawn will never again rise to trouble the world.

Victory!

Eventually Teliez finishes his divine meal and becomes the – heh heh heh – Dark Hunger. As a favor to the Defenders, he annihilates the ghouls who still remain in Nacreous, allowing the heroes to plunder it at their leisure. But among all of the treasures left behind by the Ivory King and Soder, the greatest is the mysterious creature Eve, Soder's daughter and prisoner.

There are more harrowing adventures on the way back to the surface, but let's face it, the Defenders have been underground long enough. Let us fast forward past trained monkeys, insidious cysts, disturbing artwork, powerful cheeses and conflicted Elder Brains, to the moment when the heroes arrive at last on the surface of Spira. The pre-dawn air is chill, and they savor the sharp thrill of it in their lungs. Then, as they watch, shivering, the sun's first rays pierce the distant clouds.

Daybreak has come again.

(Priggle: "No song for the deep gnome. What a surprise.")

Fin.