Heart of the City

Portals Crumbling:

With the Heart of the City shattered and fragmented, scattered across the city, the structures that rely on the heart to maintain their power, have begun to fail. Specifically a number of portals... though in at least one case, an entire room has fallen in as well. If you are roaming the city, please be cautious and watch out for sealed portals along the main pathways (both West Valley of Totality, and Umbric Plains, have sealed portals along the main path), or blocking off Sanctuaries (Chasm of Souls has one sealed sanctuary portal) or Vaults (Cenotaph of Dream). The collapsed room, is Blood Halls in Gloom Peaks.

According to one witness, the portals leading from Horron's Lair in Caudal Rift, were seen bulging and flexing with pressure. Seeming to begin failing.

Hopefully, once the heart of the city has been restored, these portals will return to normal functionality. Until such a time, we have been warned by several people to expect more portals to fail, along with vaults and sanctuaries.

Are these portal failures truly a result of the Heart's shattering, or is something else behind all of this? Is the situation truly as straight forward as its being presented as... or this part of some convoluted greater plot? Where will the other fragments turn up, and who will discover them? ~ Arnaya, Soulmistress

Heart of the City:

In the news about the Heart of the City weakening, this week, things have reached a critical level. With portals across the city shutting down as power is lost, and shudders/quaking sweeping across planes. Many dreamers have also reported the distant sound of a beating heart, often weak and fluttery. Eldryck Venym has often been located in a place called "The Center".. which he's termed as "The center of everything" due to many dreamers perspective as the city being the center of existence. He has revealed that the Center is where the "Physical" heart of the city rests, but will not reveal where it is. Insisting that he is working on it on his own.

Thursday evening, the city began quaking and the sound of the heart beating became weak. Flames erupting from various places around the city as parts of it began to break down and portal ground to a stop. Najerv Torek sacrificed some of his own soul essence and "Aura" as he termed it, due to a previous connection with the Idoaclesian Heart... sacrificing that fragment to strengthen This cities heart. This effort weakened Najerv noticeably, but the sound of two hearts beating was heard echoing over the city and most of the fires died off. The portals stopped shutting down, though ones already shut down didn't restart.

Cyborg512, Uthanatos, and Arnaya, collected several thousand strength worth of power tokens from the Orb of Calenture and took them down to the primary generator beneath the Library of Souls, channeling their power directly into the generator to provide at least a temporary boost of power.

Steps from here are varied and under investigation by many in the city, though several are focused on locating "The Center". Of note, Eldryck Venym has stated that the heart "Isn't For everyone", while Silk Nuvas has reportedly implied that Eldryck Venym is the one responsible for moving the Heart to its location within "The Center". For more information on the "Bubble People" trapped in the small dungeon of Mount Illapse, please see the next article.

Is Eldryck truly working on repairing the heart, or is this another move in his game to take rulership of the city? Is the Heart even truly weakening, or is someone deliberately draining it? What will it take to repair the heart, or stop its being drained? And perhaps just as importantly... where does it truly lie?

Scrying the Heart:

With the questions raised about the vulnerability of the Heart of the City, there has been talk about what to do and several idea's have been brought forth for seeking it out. On Thursday, Oct.11/2018, Arnaya; Uthanatos; Arlyana Jax (All 3 of House Calenture); Purple Lace; Jade; Nathan (All 3 of the Bastion of the Covenant); and Nmoto (Free Spirit) assembled in the Lambent Flats Sanctuary to conduct a preliminary effort at finding the heart of the city. The premise was to use a scrying technique that Arnaya refers to as a Mist Viewing or Mist Scrying. By raising a thick bank of mist, and energizing it with lucidity or other highly reactive energies, the bank of mist is made into a viewing port to display the results of an Insight probe. In this case, Jade and Nmoto grounded metal rods into the floor, which Purple Lace and Arlyana Jax directed their respective probes into. Nathan unfortunately stormed at this point, so Uthanatos took up drawing in the returning insight probes information, and casting into a mist bank that Arnaya raised and maintained (using Power Tokens in the place of raw lucidity). The following is what was revealed within the mists:

A faint image rippled into view in the mist, devoid of color. Jagged rocks could be seen enclosing a small area briefly before the image flickered, quickly showing two more similarly vague locations.

The group intensified their efforts, and were rewarded with the following:

The misty scene blured as it changed. A splash of pastel colors filled in the empty spaces, making it more comprehensible. The image reflected the people gathered in the room (Jade, Uthanatos, Arnaya, Purple Lace, Nmoto, & Arlyana Jax), gazing directly back at them. The mirrored vision of the dreamers all appeared to be reaching for something indiscernible, but it continued to move just out of their reach. One by one, they began to fall - getting trampled by the person behind them. A distant thump of a heart's beat reverberated around the room, but didn't seem to come from any particular direction. The mirrored dreamers disappeared from sight and the image faded away.

The group discussed the possible meanings and ramifications of the viewing for some time, and it was decided to continue to search for the "Heart of the City" until more concrete information could be gathered. Allegedly, the Heart of the City is a crystal like object (According to Caretaker Bosley) that forms the core of the city... energizing and powering the entire overall structure.

Questions continue to be raised about the wisdom of this pursuit, and its potential implications to the city. Further, several have questioned what motives the various power entities and groups within the city, could have for seeking the heart. Are all truly interested only in protecting the city? Or do some... perhaps powerful individuals watching from the shadows... have their own agenda's and purposes for overseeing this search?

You'll notice a slight change to the presentation of articles in this write up. I have made sure that only the facts are presented, but the questions raised at the end have been suggested by some of the regular readers of this newsfeed. Please let me know your feedback on this. Sincerely, ~ Arnaya, Soulmistress

The five Heart fragments were brought together on the 29th day of March of the year 2019, along with the binder to heal the Heart. Each fragment represented the focus arts of Dreamsoul, Insight, Lucidity, Resilience, and Willpower. The ceremony commenced at 8 pm dst in The Teaching Guild. One fragment was held by House Calenture, three were held by Dreamers of Light, and one by the Temple of Abundant Soul, The Chosen. Each fragment was handed to Breena who arranged them on the floor for all to see. After several intense moments of channeling the focal arts into the Heart fragments, dreamers noticed that the darkmares began to appear at the Acropolis Rift. The appearance of the darkmares brought unity to the dreamers that had gathered together, and the dreamers then had ONE goal in mind, to bind the Heart. Once the Heart had been combined, everyone that took part of the ceremony was teleported to The Center. The Heart was now complete and the healing of the Dream City of Underlight had begun.