On the edge of Taelinor space bordering Azakidu
While Boorengi and Khaldun were in The Tin City of the Astral gnomes, Diashatan, the Eagle was in orbit on the dark side of Athiriol, the mercurial world’s third moon. Upon return, Mimitra and Rivorna meet Mordhek and Katen (The Kilrathi) who does his best to keep the morale up among his people aboard the Spelljammer.
What is sanity in this space? Who are these characters now? Having acquired power and now with so many new responsibilities and understandings. How does Khaldun feel, what is his relationship with the Ptahakton? How does Boorengi feel about the promised land of Ibernomot? Does he believe that he is the chosen one to find it, and save these people, is he one of these people? These people he has rarely met and never encountered as a singular community.
Mimitra takes Boorengi aside for an evening of tea and tells him that Tawaret informed her that they are indeed brother and sister. Although Boorengi has no memory of her, he understands this information to be true.
Khaldun believes that there is meta-knowledge, as he calls it, that is encrypted into what can be intuited as the software of the Tomb Guardian design. He is not exactly sure of the nature of this knowledge, but it is somehow representative of what can be called a collective intelligence, or a collective consciousness that binds him together as a singular being, and perhaps is part of the fabric of reality through Argead Space.
Mordhek has been tracking the Aerbanthor, or the City of Light and Fire, as it is regularly called. Athara, an ancient angelic power called the Dark Light Angel, and his son, Aetharadion are after the Dragonmarked children Tiatna of the Resurrection and Camal, the astral elven boy. The city-sized ship, the City of Light and Fire is a three-thousand-foot-long ecosystem that is twenty stories tall and operates with a Gravity Pulse Drive, its sensors are also radio arithmetics, like the Eagle. The Gravity Pulse Drive is a space-jumping mechanism like the Spore Drive but does not use Xoriat-based shortcuts. The Gravity pulse drive installed in the Aerbanthor is one hundred meters in diameter. It disappeared nearly three days ago from Eatiah space, where Umlama is, and could be anywhere. It may be en route to the Eagle and we simply have no way of knowing that. If they are on their way directly to Athiriol, the Aerbanthor should arrive in 3 to 7 days.
AERBANTHOR, captained by the ancient angel Athara, declares war on all worlds, not of the New Alignment. Athara will not rest until the Eagle is destroyed.
Katen, Elder Kilrathi, uncle of the dragon marked girl, Tiatna
Near the Eagle, there is a time well, a temporal anomaly of concentrated tachiminians, arcanically influenced particles that obscure radio lithometircs less than 10 million miles away from Athiriol. The patch is sufficiently strong to obscure radio lithometrics, but Mordehk is unable to orient the ship correctly. Khaldun and Boorengi are able to successfully activate the temporal anomaly and calculate the stardate of the destination. By way of their velocity, it is determined that they will be transported somewhere near the beginning of Argead space, just after the reign and conquest of Alexander, nearly five thousand years in the past.
The time-teleport is successful but approximately 800 GP of damage is done to the hull and starboard mast arm of the Eagle. The world that they find themselves orbiting is called Akros and in the future, no longer exists. It was destroyed by powerful magic in the original war of the elves. Destroyed by dragon mark magic in the year 2496 (sol) upon the founding of Xaryxis (the Astral Elven Empire) with the assistance of the original and the last of the Solar Dragons, Aelnatha. At this time, at the dawn of spell-jamming technology, Akros only has some yachts capable of traveling into Argead space by way of minor helms.
Athara, The Angel of Vengence, as it appears in the first decades of Argead’s Space Satrap Era
When the Eagle lands at Akros, the angelic emissary, Athara greets them with the flags of Macedon. This is the same ancient, angelic force that would be threatening war with them 5,000 years in the future.
Duke Elektes was a general in Alexander’s army and bestowed Satrap lordship over Akros, 35 years before the arrival of the Eagle from the far future. The current year in Akros at the time of the coming of the Eagle is 54 sol, although it will be centuries before this calendar system is invented.
In the court of Duke Elektes, a parade of known and unknown characters is introduced to the officers of the Eagle. The first is Ka-Entach, the artificer who built Khaldun, and the other Tomb Guardians. If the timeline remains intact, it is not for another twenty years that the tombs of the Aetharadion are erected, at the end of the Satrap era, when Ibernomot is hidden in exile, the seven lords are killed by the lunar dragons, and the new lordships of Argead Space—the first dynasty of men is established.
Ka Entach, a legendary pioneer of magic and artifice
Also in the Court of Elektes is his vizier, Lord Alamon, the Giff ambassador of Ibernomot. He says that Ibernomot is the ancient world of Tawaret, confirming the stories that Boorengi knows. It remains to be conclusively learned whether Ibernomot was hidden by the powers of Ibernomot to protect the Promised World, or whether the homeworld of the Giff was exiled from Argead Space for some external reason. Alamon and Boorengi don’t seem to like each other. They have a bit of interaction, and Boorengi reports that he doesn’t trust the vizier—something about his smell.
Also in the court of Elektes are two young sorcerers: Amrodinae and Eferan. Boorengi and Khaldun know Amrodinae as the Void Mage in 5,000 years: a corrupted demonic force whose power is linked to the spore drive because her power is funneled from Zuggtmoi. Here she appears as a beautiful, young woman with jet-black hair. Boorengi and Khaldun know Eferan as the Slime-mold dragon, Eferataxt. Here, he appears as a handsome, young man, also with jet-black hair. As they learned in Chapter 11, sometime in the near future, Ka-Entach, who is in love with Amrodinae, upon learning that Amrodinae and Eferan are lovers, betrays them both to Zuggmotmoy and in so doing traps them in the Ptah Akton, the device housed inside the body and the mind of Khaldun.
This is a time of consternation for Duke Elektes. A planes-walking elder, tempest giant named Gamirithon, a wielder of powerful, otherworldly magic, has gated in an entire castle called Keranos, to the top of a local peak. Then Gamirithon used a mighty net to capture Aelnatha, the Opal dragon. That was two weeks ago. Keranos is impossible to take with infantry. The castle is now shrouded with lightning and storm clouds. No one yet understands what Gamirithon wants with Aelnatha. Khaldun and Boorengi know how important the well-being of Aelnatha is to the continuance of their future timeline.
The next few days are spent in study, with the iron forge of Kaznorgorl hot and smelting iron to produce cannonballs. The forge takes one day to set up and one day to cool. Intelligence + Proficiency. DC16 = d12 cannonballs/day/Boorengi and Khaldun. fail means 1d6. Day one: set up. Day two: 21 balls. Day three: 20 balls. They have enough iron for 125 balls.
Chronicles of the World of DaoTyr 