Helena Text Audio /53
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The Blackguards will never stop pursuing someone they consider a traitor. I'm a danger to everyone around me, and not long for this world if I can't find a place to hide. This seems like a good area to build a hideout, but it's filled with monsters. Can you clear it of everything dangerous?
HelenaFirstHideoutRushed
This seems like a good area to build a hideout, but it's filled with monsters. Can you clear it of everything dangerous?
HelenaHideoutHasMonsters
Curious... with the death of the last monster here, the very air itself feels different. I wouldn't use the word 'purified,' but you've definitely negated the pall over this place. I'll stay here for now and make sure nothing dangerous re-emerges.
HelenaCongrats
Welcome to our new hideout, exile. I'll start getting it set up.
HelenaClaimHideout
I retrieved the Transmutia Device from the Chamber of Sins, and I believe I can rig it to imbue equipment with magical modifications. This may involve minor meddling with dark forces we don't understand, but we'll have to take that risk. Wraeclast is a dangerous place, and we'll never get anywhere by playing it safe.

As long as we treat the process scientifically and approach it methodically, we should be able to craft equipment to our needs.
HelenaCrafting
Alright, I've taken the liberty of performing a few tests. There are a few magical modifications the Transmutia Device can make that are safe every time. Try enhancing a piece of equipment now. Let's see if my results hold.
HelenaCraftingQuest
While you're out there, try to remain vigilant for other possible locations for hideouts. The Blackguards never give up, and they may eventually stray close to this place. I want to have a backup location ready to go in the event we need to make a quick exit.
HelenaOtherHideouts
I believe I've found another location that could make a good hideout. Once you rid the area of its current residents, we can move in. Can you take care of it with that particular skillset of yours?
HelenaOutsideOtherHideouts
He's well-intentioned. That's the foremost thing I can say about him. I've never seen any trace of hostility in his actions, but his words sometimes stray from the path he set for them, and his laughter can be a little too gleeful. I fear that Voltaxic Sulphite exposure is poisoning his mind.

But despite that, he may be the most qualified person on Wraeclast when it comes to the mysteries under the earth - and under the earth is exactly where thousands of years of history have sunk over time.
HelenaOnNiko
With that book on Vaal blood thaumaturgy, Alva has accessed a power scholars have only dreamed of for centuries. Travelling back in time sounds both insane and absurd, yet I've seen her incursions myself.

It is both a curse and a blessing that she chooses to employ those incursions solely for personal gain. Yes, we could do so much more with the power to visit the past, but her focused interests also keep the timeline stable. I can't imagine what would happen to us here and now if, for example, we tried to go back and assassinate Malachai to prevent the Cataclysm.

Would we cease to exist? Or would we simply create a second Wraeclast, one in which the Cataclysm never happened? One could go insane thinking about it...
HelenaOnAlva
When I first met him, I underestimated Einhar. Coming from the poorest of Ezomytes, themselves already a battered people in this region of the world, Einhar struck me as someone who could contribute brawn to our cause, but not much else.

How wrong I was. If anyone can decipher the dark design afflicting the creatures of Wraeclast, it's him. I've been looking for the source of all this, an equation or overall pattern, but he's unknowingly taken an empirical approach. By learning about and understanding every single corrupted animal - and the energies their blood contains - he's done more to advance our understanding of the problem than I could ever have done myself.

One day, he may even solve the symptoms of Corruption without ever understanding the root cause. Make no mistake, exile, that's... impressive. A humanistic brute force approach to a cosmic problem.
HelenaOnEinhar
I heard of Zana, back in Oriath. I even experienced some of the contempt for her and people like her that Dominus wanted the "church-approved" scientific community to feel. With those lies broken, now I see that she is a woman of science like me, and utterly dedicated to her cause.

The forces she faces are orthogonal to the concerns of this life. I must worry about the real-world logistical and political concerns of Wraeclast first and foremost, but I recognize that she is protecting us in her own way.
HelenaOnZana
I find Navali's state of existence curious. She is present, sapient, and capable of self-directed action. In a land where the dead continually rise as mindless monsters intent on nothing but destruction, Navali stands as a stark outlier. I suspect that she is trustworthy only because of some Karui essence that still remains from her life before, carrying with it honour, duty, and respect. Were it Piety or Dominus returning in such a form, the consequences would be unthinkable.
HelenaOnNavali
Jun keeps to herself. It's clear that she's not used to trusting strangers. From watching her, I think she is dealing with the loss of her {akhara} by pouring everything she is into her mission. That's admirable, but dangerous. Keep her safe, exile.
HelenaOnJun
The Order of the Djinn is real? You have no idea how much that means to me as an archaeologist. I was in an apprentice position, yes, but my colleagues still refused to listen to a degree I found absurd. I was convinced that there was a pattern behind the absence of artefacts of myth. My conviction reached a certainty so strong that, if a colleague told me about an expedition they had in mind, and if the sought after artefact was one of sufficient mythological renown, I would bet a month's pay that it would not be found at its supposed resting place.

I never lost those bets, and now I know I was right, even though I didn't know the name of my theorized secret organisation of relic keepers until now. The Order of the Djinn found and sequestered all of those powerful artefacts long ago, and good they did. Power like that in the hands of men like Dominus would be catastrophic.
HelenaOnOrderOfTheDjinn
While asleep, while dreaming, I felt I was on the verge of a brilliant revelation. In one hand, I held one of Navali's little purple orbs, and in the other, I had cut my palm for one of Alva's blood thaumaturgy incursions. In my dream, I was a scale, balancing these two forces.

No, they were one and the same, and I was caught inside their eternal vortex.

And with me in that vortex, above, was the shouting, screaming, clawing, and cawing web of life as taught to me by Einhar. Below me, quiet, magmatic, frozen, and grasping, were all the nightmares beneath the earth that Niko has revealed with his delving.

I thought I was the center of a strange balancing act, but no, exile, it was not me. For I was dreaming; Zana was there, ahead, forging the dream, the unreal. Where she was ahead, I now saw that I was behind, creating the physical, the real. I was not the center. You were.

Do you understand this dream, exile? Even if it means nothing, it's still reflective of the truth. Each of us carries one end of an impossible axis, and you unite all these forces.

And together we face the storm.
HelenaOnThesePeople
Perhaps it's just paranoia, but I fear those loyal to the High Templar may still be after me. Could you spare some space for me in your hideout?
HelenaInviteToHideout
Farewell for now, exile.
HelenaDismissFromHideout
Many of the Blackguard are still alive and scattered across Wraeclast, but the organisation has had its back broken after what happened in Oriath. I wouldn't want to run into a random knot of them, especially as they start to get hungry and desperate, but I believe their concerted search for us has ended. That'll give us some breathing room to face new problems.
HelenaOnOriath
Malachai himself gave this Transmutia Device to Maligaro. It makes me incredibly uncomfortable to think about the horrors that it helped bring into being.

But I must remind myself that science is not responsible for what happened in the Chamber of Sins. Science provides tools for mankind to manipulate the world. It is up to each of us to choose to do good or evil with the power so provided.

Maligaro was the evil responsible, and Malachai before him. Together, you and I are going to start using this Device to undo the damage they did.
HelenaTransmutiaDevice
I was no wonder child back in Oriath, but I prided myself on what junior accomplishments I managed to put together within the strict set of allowed sciences. Archaeology was my specialty, and Dominus and his ilk had an uncommon fascination with artefacts from the past. And I... I was told I was crucial. That I was important, because I could tell whether an artefact was truly Vaal simply by running my hand along faded stone patterns.

I may have had a head slightly too big for my shoulders. When the Ebony Legion made available an archaeologist position on their expedition to Wraeclast and nobody volunteered, I thought my colleagues were all simply afraid of continental dangers.

No. They knew better. None were allowed to speak it openly, but they knew. I didn't find out what kind of society I was truly a part of until I saw Piety's aspirations. I studied the Vaal. I knew all about their downfall, or at least our Templar-twisted perception of it. Piety's ocean of slaughter... the Vaal called their hubris the Apex of Sacrifice. The Eternal Empire called theirs the Purity Rebellion. We call ours the Temple of Lunaris.

And I know nothing, exile. Nothing at all.

Save that we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past unless we learn the hard way.
HelenaEducation
We are all in your debt for what you've done. Oriath stands today only because of your heroism. For my part, I will continue to help you whatever way I can.
HelenaPostKitava
I could hardly hope for better results. Do note the device needs special reagents to perform, so not all uses will be so easy.
HelenaCraftingComplete
Exile... Exile, wake up!
HelenaWakeUp
Commander Kirac has requested your presence in the War Room.
HelenaRequestYourPresence
It's through the tunnel.
HelenaThroughTheTunnel
It's hard to believe it's been a full year since you slew Kitava. This place is almost starting to feel like home. I left behind a piece of my heart in Oriath, even though I know we can never return there. Too many terrible things took place on that island. I think I agree with the popular sentiment that it was somehow cursed.
HelenaOnKitavaDefeat
When I really think on it, Oriath's suffering was almost entirely the fault of its people. Not the common folk, mind you. The ones with the power. The Templars fostered a society in which monsters like Dominus and Piety could not only rise to power, but then wield that power to harm all of Wraeclast. Enslaving the Karui directly led to the cult of Kitava unleashing mayhem, and of course the tyranny of Innocence stemmed from the blind zealous faith they gave him. Then, there was the whole business with Sirus...
HelenaOnOriathCurse
That was the final nail in the coffin for Oriath. We might have been able to rebuild things after Kitava's rampage, if not for the surprise attack by Sirus. Kirac was a lesser officer in the Vanguard then, and had to work with exiles and radicals in strange exotic realms to try to control the situation... but Sirus was far too dangerous to be contained. I'm not sure even you could have stopped him, had you been there. I don't know exactly how they won the day, because Kirac never talks about it, but I do know a great many people died.
HelenaOnSirus
We are the people's response to the madness of Wraeclast. We've had enough of corruption, gods, and would-be dictators. The last year or so, the Citizen Vanguard has embarked upon a celestial war in secret in a realm called the Atlas, and we've lost many valiant men in battle. We need all the soldiers we can get, so it's time for you to put your strength and wits to good use.
HelenaOnCitizenVanguard
Serving under Kirac in the Citizen Vanguard this past year has certainly been rewarding. This is a nobler cause by far than aiding the Blackguards. I don't know if Piety's atrocities can ever truly be made right, but I will keep trying until the day I die.
HelenaOnNewRole
History, as I was taught it in Oriath, seems very skewed now. There were a great many events that were hidden from the public eye, and the use of map devices throughout the ages was one of those secrets. We know Maligaro experimented with one. There was also a map device in the possession of the Templars, though they did not know what they had. As far as we know, map devices can open portals to almost anywhere, even locations not of this world. We generally use it to enter the Atlas, although some of the exiles we worked with traveled to the domains of the Breach Lords. Those exiles were never heard from again, of course, but the portals worked.
HelenaOnTheMapDevice
Where do I begin? That woman has had a very uncommon life. When she was a child, her father was tasked by High Templar Venarius to work on what would end up becoming a map device. Both her father and the High Templar would eventually disappear into the portals of that device, leaving her to grow up an orphan. That experience left her very focussed on learning the secrets of the map device, as you can imagine. It was her work that enabled all of this. The Vanguard's foothold on the Atlas. The efforts against the mad Elderslayers. She even did some initial work with the exile The Maven first fancied as a plaything. But when Sirus died... she quit. She walked off into the Atlas, and we haven't seen her since.
HelenaOnZanaCaeserius
I don't know much about High Templar Venarius, unfortunately. The history I study is generally older than that. However, as an Oriathan, I've heard the same decades-old rumors as everyone else. It was an awful thing they did to his mother... if it's true.
HelenaOnVenarius
I'm less studied on The Elder than I should be, but from what I understand, it was an otherworldly entity that preyed on humanity for thousands of years. It served a force called Decay. Not too long ago, the Elderslayers defeated The Elder with the help of Zana Caeserius, but that seems to have simply led to another problem. The Elder's absence means the Atlas is a prize trophy left undefended against a cosmos full of hungry horrors.
HelenaOnTheElder
While it may seem like control of the Atlas is constantly under contention, the first war of ownership was actually not too long ago. It's hard to say whether The Elder created it or simply found it in ancient times, but the realm served as a haven from which humanity could be preyed upon for thousands of years. Twenty years ago, a man named Valdo Caeserius, Zana's father, was trapped in the Atlas by the actions of High Templar Venarius. Zana's father learned some measure of power over the Atlas, and became what we call The Shaper. He waged war against The Elder for as long as he could, until his daughter led the Elderslayers to a final triumphant victory. Unfortunately, Valdo was too far gone by then.
HelenaOnTheFirstWar
They are probably better referred to as the Elderslayers now, but for a time, the Vanguard battled Baran, Veritania, Drox, and Al-Hezmin for control of the Atlas. The leader of the Elderslayers, Sirus, was far more powerful than the rest. Before they all went mad, he sacrificed himself to help seal The Elder, and they thought him dead... until he somehow returned, full of pain and ennui. He alone managed to escape the Atlas, and he took out his despair on Oriath, during our rebuilding efforts. As you can see, that triggered the evacuation, and we haven't returned.
HelenaOnTheConquerors
I can't help but feel a sense of hope that the people we have gathered are part of something greater. We're all utterly different, but something has brought us together here and now. Alva, with her blood thaumaturgy. Tane, with his dark science. Einhar, with his natural wisdom. Niko, with his machinery skills. Jun, with her combat prowess. Kirac's leadership, and your strength, make me confident that we can handle whatever the future brings.
HelenaOnThesePeople2

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Helena