[05e01] The Temple of Symmetry
- SPI agents travel to the temple of the Progression of Symmetry, a reclusive monastic order situated at the ultimate summit of the Cliffs of Transcendance.
- Agents speak with Ou-sh-, the Grandmaster of Winds, one of four elemental masters of the monastic order. She is the one who called the SPI to investigate. They Progression is sworn not to get involved in corporeal affairs, instead pledging their lives to self-reflection and spiritual pursuit.
- Ou-sh- tells the agents that people have been jumping from the Zenithal Summit platform and disappearing. When Mishaal, daughter of the Master of Fire Kára Halfdandóttir, became one of the victims, her mother leaped after her and also disappeared, so Ou-sh- called for the SPI in response.
- Agents speak with Ceowyn Mandragoran, Master of Earth, who expresses his support for the Progression’s policy of non-intervention.
- Agents speak with Sonan the Scholar, Master of Water, who has secretly kept a journal of all the victims’ names—which include a young orphan—in violation of the order’s edicts.
- Vondal—who has a soft spot for orphans—is furious, runs outside, and blasts the platform (which the agents sense is radiating a strange power) with wild magic. It causes a violent disruption, opening a rift, and sucking Vondal in!
- In response, a red dragonborn acolyte emerges angrily from the temple carrying a lamp, and dives into the rift! Inside, Vondal witnesses him use the lamp to transform into a white dragon. After a few moments, the dragon emerges from the rift and attacks the temple!
- With help from the elemental masters, the agents defeat the dragon.
- Meanwhile, Vondal navigates the place he finds himself in, which seems to be some kind of flux-tainted demiplane filled with spiderwebs. He perceives a gargantuan spider just visible deep down below. He also discovers both Mishaal and Kára bound in chaotic spiderwebs, with Mishaal’s body partially corrupted by Flux.
- Vondal manages to free them both from the webs, and carry them both (mentally) back through the rift. He is also able to extract the Flux within them by channeling it through himself, but at great cost: he falls unconscious, near death.
- Sonan is able to heal Vondal using an unfamiliar technique. Vondal wakes up, and is totally fine.
- Afterward the battle, the other agents investigate the acolyte’s room, where they discover a journal with some details of his scheme, which involved sacrificing people as part of a secret cult. But to what end is unclear.
- Memory of the following few days are lost to flux poisoning.