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Runtime	Break start
3h 42m	1h 53m

Episode 97: Ancient Sins

Upon hearing that Ludinus Da’leth was indeed not on Ruidus, but was dealing with another important factor in Exandria that had been noted to be towards Eiselcross (specifically in the long-buried and frozen ruins of Aeor) to the far north of Wildemount.
After gathering yourselves, Dorian Storm was returned to the troop. Gathering some materials in Zadash after an interrogation, after making some orders and setting yourselves up for a dangerous and chilly journey, and a number of failed teleports, you managed to finally arrive on the outskirts of the ruins of Aeor.
Your guide (revealed to be Essek Thelyss, a fugitive from the Kryn Dynasty) had previously had experience wandering through these ruins a number of times. Guiding you through, you began to traverse the subterranean ice-covered layers; the strange and oddly magical, and magic-altering auras that occasionally flow through this space. You found the shattered, broken (and in some cases, still locked in time) memory of this ancient mage city.
As you began to delve towards the central portion of the Genesis Ward (in which, looking for information on this locale that came up in the interrogation; The Occultus Thalamus seemed to be tied to what Ludinus has been doing down here and where he likely will be) you investigated a Vanguard tent that had been built in one of these city streets that still remained. Investigating, you found the people within had all been slaughtered, Vanguard members, bloodily. Looking into its history and the scene of the crime, it looked like one of their own had done the deed before killing themselves, after carving an odd symbol into their chest with a blade.
During this investigation, some heavy thuds were heard nearby and as you all gathered yourselves, and darted off into the nearby shadows, some strange creature began to lumber around. This massive, elongated, gray-and-black-fleshed entity (with these sunken jowls seemingly-faceless, and this odd, bug mouth of teeth in the center of its torso) began to (seemingly stirred by the sounds and conversation you were making) look about the space. One of you, unfortunately, had a rough time hiding and caught its attention, where a number of these translucent, armored, chitinous, insectoid creatures began to emerge from its mouth and crawl across the ground in your direction.

Previous Episode: “Shadows New and Old”

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