Story
Act 1
HT and Keket command Icarus to bear them to the many satellites the Beacon highlighted in the skies. At each, they find something interesting, but not revelatory, including a few communications satellites, another waystation or two, and, finally, a large observation station, one Keket had seen in her dreams.
Having explored nearly its entirety, and certain the station contained nothing of direct interest, they stumble upon a chamber, in which they find vats containing human beings. The creatures seem to be clones, or artificial beings, never having been alive, but held in suspension in case the incorporeal beings who dwelt in this place needed a corporeal body to inhabit.
Disturbed, much of the party wished to leave, and return to the world, where their many mortal concerns had been brewing for days. Instead, HT and Keket activated the Beacon again. This time, it illuminated not one, not dozens, but hundreds of new destinations, this time all to be found on the planet's surface.
Insisting on following its lead, they command Icarus to descend to the nearest point of interest, an island chain in the oceans east of Kara-Tur and west of Maztica.
The ship arrives on the island just before dawn, finding a verdant paradise, warm and breezy despite the winter season. There, they find evidence of an ancient civilization of winged elves, which seems to have vanished over 50,000 years ago. Not only is this a remarkable archaeological find in its own right, but it contradicts the conventional history of Imaskar, which places its rise at -9,000 DR, and then it was merely an amalgamation of hunter-gatherer tribes barely worthy of nationhood.
Talrendis' magic discovers an interesting alien presence deep inside the extinct volcanic caverns below the island. They descend into the caldera, passing through ancient magma chambers now filled with beautiful geode-like crystals. In the bottom chamber, they discover a very artificial creation, a small bunker of pearlescent construction, well-preserved and secured against the elements and all manner of intrusion.
Well, not all manner. Having brought a master of infiltration well-versed in Imaskari technology, the party easily gains entrance, finding a research station, complete with more "avatars", this time a batch of winged elves, and a computer console with a wealth of data and records which Kara happily downloads.
The records seem to indicate that the station was continually inhabitated until well after the culture went extinct, up to perhaps -10,000 DR, when it was abandoned and sealed according to "Directive C". It is not explained what this directive is.
Emerging from the subterranean caverns, the party once urges the royals to resume their duties, but they have a new idea. HT was long aware of the mysteries to be found in the Halls of Origination in the City of the Dead, but had himself been unable to gain entry to most of its secrets. Perhaps the Beacon would prove useful to this end.
And thus, they sailed around the world to Mulhorand.
Act 2
The party HALO jumps into the City of the Dead, easily bypassing its guardians by landing directly on their target site. Kara has no trouble reprogramming the construct guardians, as she had done before. Inside, she discovers that the prime number puzzle meant to keep out tomb raiders was no longer functioning correctly, possible due to deliberate action, but it was shrugged off as HT simply brute-forced through the elevator shaft.
In the bowels of the temple, they encounter resistance: Gaspar, and a squadron of Inevitables. They overcome the guardians, and Gaspar flees, presumably to gain more force. Balthazar pursues.
Within the Hall of the Keepers they find a court of massive stone statues of the Pantheon, each containing some massive crystal battery, presumably meant to store the essences of the gods themselves, or perhaps copies of their knowledge. Little remains within them; HT and Keket absorb what is there, without much satisfaction.
Behind the final door, they find the Chamber of Prophecy, a marvelous room wherein, it seems, the ancient Imaskari might have foreseen any eventuality, predicting the future in great detail, but limited by the influx of information. It seems the engine no longer has access to current data from the many observation stations throughout the world, such as the Avariel island they had recently visited. They correctly surmise that this is because a crucial component meant to link all the systems together, the Orb of Stars, went missing from its intended place, and no longer serves its purpose.
Kara has the ability to read information imprinted upon objects. Using this ability on the Orb, she traverses the already-understood history of the Orb passing from the Library of Mystra in Inupras, to Keket, and ultimately to herself. But before its long stay in the library, it was owned by a princess, and a priestess, who herself liberated it from some far more ancient site in the Katakoro mountains.
Thus, they resolve to return it there, in the hopes that what they might find is the fabled Ship of the Gods itself.
Act 3
Arriving at the site in question, they find a grand temple carved of the mountains themselves, one so epic in scale that it would easily dwarf any known giantkin, as easily as it dwarfs Icarus itself.
At the center of the mostly empty temple, they find a great, black sphere, both reflective and yet darker than darkness itself. Keket and HT are certain that what lies beyond is the Ship of the Gods, and also that the Titan-made shell around it prevents anything from ever escaping once it enters. They are willing to enter it, regardless of the danger.
The party successfully convinces HT that he must stay in this world, to attend to his mortal concerns, though his condition is that Keket must go in his stead. Kara agrees to go with her, and, as she leaps into the sphere, trusting her life to her faith in what lies within, Raithen jumps in after her.
The three find themselves in a realm beyond the mortal, an amalgamation of memories representing their home world. They soon take to the skies, observing their home galaxy in impossible detail, stricken by its indescribable beauty.
To beings of pure thought, every ray of light, no matter how faint, no matter its frequency, can be seen and understood. Every star, every nebula, every cosmic ray; they could see it all, their home galaxy in its totality. And just when their minds began to come to terms with that, they realized they could see the whole of the Universe itself, a cloud of infinite possibility, a rainbow spectrum of galaxies filling every vector of their vision.
They are pulled through some sort of tunnel through space, passing waystations and hubs, returning the origin of its maker. They see many worlds along the way, some clearly inhabited; they encounter massive space stations, light-forms, and things stranger still.
Ultimately, they arrive at a world not unlike their own, in orbit around a simple, yellow star. They descend to its surface, finding themselves on the shores of an ocean. In their current forms, they can see the totality of things on this world; every form of life, no matter how small, is present in their unlimited senses. The beauty of this world is evident in every sound, every vision, every sensation of their unbound bodies.
The stars themselves seem to coalesce into a form, a vague humanoid shape, which speaks in the distant, reverberating voice of a man.
"I am He they call Ptah, the Traveler. I welcome you, Keket, to your home."
He explains:
:A billion years ago, the people of this world evolved naturally from animals into sentient creatures. They passed through the phases of civilization, eventually overcoming the foolishness of war, of resource-dependency, and of religious thinking. They were guided by Science, accepting the laws of nature that they observed, and casting away their own preconceived notions, and their ambitions, when the Universe contradicted them. They lived in harmony with their Universe, rather than trying to impose their will upon it.
:Above all, they sought to find others like themselves. They built ships to take them to the stars. When they found that interstellar travel would take hundreds or thousands of years, they simply transcended their physical limitations, becoming immortal constructs, free from the degradation and weakness of mortal flesh. And so, their people flowered throughout their home galaxy, expanding over millions of years.
:They discovered much life on other worlds, which they would meticulously catalogue, observing its evolution constantly, over millions of years, never interfering, but simply observing. They would marvel at the diversity of life, its ability to adapt to incredibly hostile environments, to grow and prosper despite the odds.
:However, for all the wondrous animals, plants, and simpler life they encountered, they never found other intelligent beings like themselves. Their loneliness only intensified with each new discovery, as they patiently awaited peers they would never find.
:Eventually, they learned to transcend all physical matter entirely, becoming beings of pure thought, riding waves of light throughout the Universe. They mapped the wormholes connecting distant space, and proliferated throughout the Universe over the better part of a billion years. On every world where they found life, they established listening stations, observation posts where they would monitor all creatures, and be the first to know if and when sentient life emerged.
:There came a time when the limitations of the Universe itself became apparent, and the Observers resigned themselves to the inevitable conclusion that they were the first intelligent beings, and would never discover others like themselves until it had evolved naturally from life they'd already encountered. They accepted this fact of the Universe, and faded from it, pursuing instead the limitless possibilities of long-forgotten alternate Universes in the Continuum.
:But there were those who did not leave. It was discovered that much of the life on many worlds was from a common source, a single genetic pattern that had arisen on one world and had learned to insinuate its genetic code into other creatures, converting them into unwitting slaves for its own propagation. It learned to transcend its homeworld, and flowered to many worlds, using only the simplest of tools, existing cosmic phenomena such as comets and meteors. For this remarkable ability, they named it the Flower of Life.
:But not all were enamored of its incredible properties. Though it seemed to have become a spacefaring entity, it did not exhibit properties of intelligence. Instead, its incredible ability to adapt by insinuating itself into other lifeforms seemed to be an evolutionary dead-end; it was too well adapted, and would never have need to develop full sentience. Worse still, it infected other worlds like a virus, effectively ending their natural course of evolution. If not stopped, it would inevitably infect the entire Universe, bringing a halt to evolution everywhere...there would never be another intelligent species, ever.
:Some among the remaining Observers could not countenance such a possibility. They violated their ancient oath only to observe, never to interfere, and mounted a containment program against the Flower, which would ultimately become an extermination campaign. Others, unable to stomach the idea of their august and ancient people betraying their purpose, arose to stop this rogue group. They labeled the rogues "Defilers", and themselves "Preservers".
:For hundreds of millions of years, the Preservers battled the Defilers. The Preservers gained the upper hand, but, unable to destroy any form of life, they instead chose to banish the Defilers from the Universe. Now the sole remnant of the Observer race, they would become responsible for all that had been done during the conflict.
:...
