Gathered at the gatehouse of Porta Aquila, a handful of Hashani crowded around their Seneschal Arcturus to hear the words of a rare foreign envoy. Kaama'lier, impartial judge of the Tsol'teth, brought with him words of urgent opposition to the Wayward Heir's latest scheme.

The meeting was short, but the Regency did not hesitate to decree all mortal shrines across the realm would fall.

A handful of Hashani set out on their quest, vastly underestimating the workload required. Mud shrines fell easily to the assault of water buckets, but wooden shrines proved more challenging, not to mention the resilience of stone shrines! Several days passed and not even a quarter of the R.I.S.E. altars were felled. Quickly the party realised that, as the Tsol'teth envoy advised, they should be focusing on the shrine of Kinilan Demaxx, the first in line for mortal ascendancy.

Worryingly, Kinilan's obsidian shrine remained unfazed by all their mundane attacks and seemed, in fact, to only grow stronger with every lesser shrine felled. Holoocaust globes, wild fist swings, and even mighty draconic breath storms did nothing at all, and it was only upon consulting with Kaama'lier that they realised their assault required a subtler approach.

Hashan set out to research ritualism, as these events unfolded during a time when many of their experienced practitioners remained unavailable. Eventually they settled on channeling Wellspring energy towards one of their key contributors so far, a young Rajamala by the name of Ardor Crescent-Thorngage stationed at the obsidian construction. No matter what they tried, even adding additional relay locations, the distances were simply too great for the energy to arrive in sufficient quantities.

Nearly cracking their tools in the process, the Hashani decided they should instead imbue their implement with energy and then bring that to the shrine. By now, the group was much bigger and included adventurers like Vecten, Zoktos, Bunni, Essie, Giddieon, Alizais, Iowin, Zorina, Hikagejuunin, and Augtavian, along with the curious and ill-fated Wileas, Page of the Lucretian Athenaeum. Focusing all their wills upon the shrine and the Wellspring's energy, the group ignored the wishes of their fellow citizens Kinilan and Accipiter until the shrine finally cracked and violently exploded in a burst of kaleidoscopic light.

Though every ritualist died in the sudden release of Divine essence along with the young satyr page, their objective was complete, and every other linked shrine soon imploded.

Somewhere, a forlorn voice whispered: "We will not rise."

~~~~~

Summary: Warned by Kaama'lier that the Tsol'teth would not tolerate Pandora's R.I.S.E. project, Hashan set out to annihilate the master shrine of Kinilan with the energies of the Wellspring. They succeeded, and cut off all mortal access to Divinity.

Penned by My hand on the 22nd of Aeguary, in the year 899 AF.