In the far distant future of Eberron, the Reclamation arrived upon the shores of the Seren Isle The denizens of this isle were descendants of the Seren tribes of barbarians in the heroes’ present day. They were also guardians of the only gateway to the continent of Argonnessen ruled by the dragons. They led the heroes past hidden ways into the presence of an ancient electrum dragon. This rare dragon was a member of the Chamber, a mysterious council of elder wyrms that ruled over all of dragonkind.
The dragon asked the heroes for the purpose of their visit, speaking without words through thoughts that echoed in their minds. The heroes presented the dragon’s egg that was born from the ivory figurine of Vvaraak. The dragon seemed to understand and led the heroes across the enchanted waters that separated the Seren Isles from Argonnessen. Then, passing the ring of tall mountains shaped like the heads of fearsome dragons, they arrived at last in the great city of Iolokar, mightiest of all the cities of dragonkind that has ever been or ever will be.
Iolokar, 782,290 YK
In later days, the heroes remembered little of their visit to that glorious city. Such were the enchantments upon the city that the mortals to whom it had been revealed, whether by chance or fate, never recalled more than fleeting glimpses of the gilded streets and tall spires, and a distant memory of awe and wonder.
The heroes were led into an immense keep, and into a hall more vast than any man-made edifice they had ever entered. They were surrounded by a great gathering of mighty elder wyrms. It was here that their sense of wonder quickly turned to dread and horror as the heroes realized that they had entered a courtroom in the heart of the Chamber, the circle of elder wyrms that led the dragons of Argonnessen. And a trial had commenced to pass judgment upon the black dragon wyrmling Vvaraak.
An electrum presided over the court and announced the charges brought against Vvaraak: conspiring to commit crimes against time and infringe upon the ban against the teaching of magic to mortal beings. Although Vvaraak had been prevented from fulfilling her destiny as the teacher of the Gatekeeper druids, the Chamber was trying her upon charges of mere conspiracy, and she was doomed to be found guilty and be banished from time and existence unless the heroes stepped in.
The heroes, led by the silver-tongued Lanfear, defended Vvaraak as her barristers. But their minds found the dragons’ way of thinking and system of jurisprudence to be utterly alien and incomprehensible. When they feared that all would be lost and Vvaraak would meet her doom, they recalled the words of the Draconic Prophecy that had been spoken by the Oracle of War.
When dark lanterns flicker in the light of the silver torch,
The King in Green rides north on a bolt of steel.
Two nations prepare for war as all eyes turn to Sky Blue.
The Chamber fell silent upon hearing the words of the prophecy. Then the voice of the electrum dragon broke the silence, both in the minds of the heroes and echoing through the hallowed halls in the city of Iolokar.
“The defendant shall be found not guilty of the charges brought forth against her if the defense can produce such evidence to prove that the defendant has a part to play in the Draconic Prophecy.”
The electrum dragon tasked the heroes with presenting before the court either the Oracle of War, which had produced the prophetic lines, or part of the Oracle’s prophecy, such as the thief Sky Blue.
The heroes decided to seek out their old friend Sky Blue in what, to them, would be the present day. They were given leave by the dragons of Argonnessen to embark upon their quest, and the power of the dragons delivered them unerringly to their destination in time and space. But what would the present day look like after the alterations that had occurred in the distant past?
The Excelsior, 998 YK
Since Vvaraak had never taught druidic magic to the Gatekeepers, the continent of Khorvaire fell under the threat of the alien invasion. It fell upon the shoulders of another hero to save Khorvaire. That hero was the changeling Jai, who had somehow journeyed to the past and used her knowledge of events to come to save the continent.
Having grown up under the influence of a terrible cult, Jai had a long-standing fear of organized religion. When her heroic victory against the alien invaders became known throughout the land, her stalwart atheism was spread as well. After that point in history, events in the timeline of Khorvaire were immensely altered. The faiths of the Sovereign Host, the Silver Flame, and all other organized religions on the continent shrank into obscurity. Lanfear was startled and excited to see icons and imagery of her close friend everywhere around her, yet dismayed to find that Jai herself was nowhere to be found.
At first glance, the absence of religious zealotry seemed to be a boon to this new world. But it soon became evident that the followers of the faiths were being outlawed and persecuted under draconian anti-religion laws. Those who were caught practicing any form of organized religion were imprisoned, and many were executed.
The heroes sought out the friends whom they had left behind on their journey through time, hoping they could shed some light on the changes to the timeline and offer a lead as to the whereabouts of Sky Blue. They found Tabrius in a mobile casino inside a luxurious Brelish lightning rail train, called the Excelsior. Tabrius was drinking and gambling away his inheritance. Without the teachings that he received from the monastery of the Silver Flame in the original timeline, he never became a paladin and instead fell into a deep depression after the murder of his brother.
The heroes joined Tabrius in a game of Dragon Flight and managed to lift up his spirits enough to gather some clues about Sky Blue. They learn that Sky Blue had been apprehended by authorities after trying to rob a royal vault. Sky Blue was imprisoned for her crime in a maximum security mobile prison in the Mournland called the Enclave, where many religious dissidents were also held without trial. They were guarded by warforged guards and a warden who was rumored to be a powerful warforged arcanist.
The Mournland
After many months away, or perhaps years or millennia traversing the vastness of the space-time continuum, the heroes found themselves back in the small frontier town of Salvation on the edge of the Mournland. They found Sheriff Elynvashir watching over the outpost as before, but in this timeline Elynvashir had become a tremendously strong warrior and ranger. After the disappearance of her father Kalhenvashir under mysterious circumstances, Elynvashir had not become a paladin as she would have in the original timeline. Instead, she turned to physical exercise and wandering the wilderness to make sense of a senseless world.
Elynvashir helped the heroes find the mobile prison where Sky Blue was being held. But being an officer of the law, it was as far as she could go with them, and she wished them good luck on their quest.
Now, the heroes donned once more the old press passes that they had carried from their days as journalists of the Salvation Times. They entered the Enclave as reporters in search of a story about the plight of religious dissidents and the prison-industrial complex of Khorvaire, asking to speak to a prisoner named Sky Blue in particular. They were compelled to give their arms to the warforged prison guards, but they found the prison staff to be otherwise cooperative. They waited in the visiting room of the facility while one of the guards went to fetch the warden for a preliminary interview.
While they waited, they met and befriended a gnome artificer and bookseller named Wolfgang, who offered each of the heroes a gift from a very deep bag. To Lanfear, who needed nothing but her rapiers and her swashbuckling wit, Wolfgang offered a book filled with number puzzles which he called a Sudoku book.
It was then that Brynhildr called upon a celestial ally—a mighty valkyrie from the hallowed halls of Valhalla—to aid the heroes in their quest. Just as a prison guard inspecting the heroes’ belongings discovered a set of religious vestments in Brynhildr’s backpack, Sigrún the Ashen Rider stepped through a heavenly gate that appeared in a blinding flash of light. And in that moment, the warden—a powerful warforged lich—flanked by a pair of warforged archmages and a trio of warforged knights of the Enclave stepped through the door to the waiting room. Upon seeing the celestial creature and the vestments among Brynhildr’s possessions, the warden determined the heroes to be religious dissidents and sentenced them to immediate execution.
A fierce battle ensued between the heroes and their celestial ally against the warforged guardians of the enclave. The heroes narrowly emerged victorious against the first wave of warforged and all but the warden himself were slain. But the enclave was filled with guardians, some even more powerful than the foes they had faced. And among the heroes, Lanfear had fallen to the fell magic of the warden and was at death’s door.
It was then that Lanfear felt the familiar presence of Jai all around her. She wondered if her old friend had indeed died long ago in the past and now greeted her from the afterlife. Yet it was not the Jai that she remembered exactly. Instead, a multitude of voices, each resembling a different aspect of Jai, seemed to speak as one voice, and they were joined by the voices of the warden and the other warforged of the Enclave. These voices spoke with Lanfear for what felt like an eternity, though only seconds had passed in the material world.
When Lanfear awoke, she remembered little of the dialogue and wondered if it had all been a dream. But the warden and the warforged guardians of the enclave stood down and halted their assault upon the heroes. And they brought forth Sky Blue and released her into the heroes’ custody without further protest or resistance.
Therefore the heroes accomplished their quest, and returning by the same magic of the dragons of Argonessen that had sent them through time, they once again found themselves standing before the Chamber in the great hall of Iolokar. When the dragons laid their eyes upon Sky Blue, they knew that she, and therefore the heroes and their defendant Vvaraak, all had important roles to play in the Draconic Prophecy. For the heroes had brought with them new lines of the Draconic Prophecy, which had manifested in an encrypted numeric code inside Lanfear’s Sudoka book:
A war of great ruin will be halted by Sky Blue
bringing peace between nature and machines.
The warforged in the volcano are the keymasters.
They will be taught the way by Squealing Sulfur.
The night hag druids shall be the gatekeepers.
To them, Vvaraak will show the druidic ways.
Yet peace will never come to pass in the lands
so long as the villain Irulan Karnach still lives.
All of these things must come to pass, or else
the second alien invasion will bring ruin to all.
The heroes presented these words to the Chamber, though they did not understand the words themselves. But the long and thoughtful silence of the dragons told them that the words of the prophecy would come to pass, one way or another.