The Darkstones
The Kitsune Star, a band of adventurers, entrepreneurs, wanderers and scholars whom have taken a dedication towards ending the more dire threats faced in the world around them, the threat of the Black Plague and Black Stones ever-growing power now filtering into the long conflict between the major Western powers Balenos, Calpheon, Serenia and Mediah, and the Eastern Kingdom of Valencia in the great Black Desert.
Through the darkness a new threat has emerged in the form of unusual Alchemical Stones known as Darkstones that are now appearing all over the lands, causing freakish growth in the natural fauna that makes contact with it, and unabated aggression in all who linger around it. They are unlike the Black Stones all around the world as they are, this new power seemingly appearing for no reason. Whom, or what, is causing these things to appear, and what is their ultimate goal?
The intrepid Kitsune Star, lead by the Noble Valkyrie Kinjita Savanos, have collected a small amount of the many stones that are rumored to have appeared. Already affecting the warrior Arvinhall, the threat these Darkstones possess grows with each passing day.
It wouldn’t take long for the source of the Darkstones to rear its ugly head. Following rumors of a massive cache of stones being carted towards Calpheon Castle the Kitsune Star investigated the location, only to be entrapped by a dark hooded figure that neglected to offer identity. Sealing them in by dropping the portcullises he used the power of the Darkstones to enrage the living earth itself, creating a golem that was an amalgam of stone and steel which attacked the investigating group. Fortunately they had planned ahead and had brought with them a crate of volatile and explosive Elion Flamegems which were eventually used not only to bring the creature down, but to dissolve the Darkstones that laid within the golem’s hollow stone shell, acting like a form of lava for long enough to destroy the Darkstones present for good.
Though the party was damaged from the attack both physically and mentally they now had answers. Someone was causing these stones to appear in the world that seemed to have sinister motives at hand, and the stones themselves could be destroyed, though it did take great effort.
Further investigation finally allowed the Kitsune Star to put a name to the mask of their foe. Rhohs Gallor, an extremely powerful Wizard and talented Alchemist who seemed hell-bent on using the Darkstone power for the nefarious purpose of conquest. Encounters in Mediah territory revealed an acceleration of Gallor’s plans which involved the use of chemical substances to subjugate the mind of an affected person to drive them to follow the commands of a single leader.
It wasn’t until the group pieced together key pieces of what was to be a massive puzzle that they confirmed some of their worst fears. Rhohs Gallor planned to subjugate one of the greatest Dark Threats in all of the Five Realms. Through an experimental substance designed to subjugate the mind, the Darkstones to allow a greater channeled energy, and Soul Crystals housing the life energy of countless people, he planned to summon Kzarka and subjugate him to his will. It was now up to the Kitsune Star to locate where he planned to perform this heinous deed and stop him before all of the world suffered his wrath.
After organizing the forces of Kamasylvia, as well as marshaling a fleet to distract the denizens of the Gyffin Rhasia Temple, the Kitsune lead by Kinjita and riding into battle atop the Griffons of Taeydrenn Naichingeru infiltrated the location at which Rhohs Gallor was using to perform his summoning ritual. Encountering two massive Darkstone Powered Gyffin golems the team fought a long and arduous battle to destroy his creations and remove the shield which protected him, leaving him vulnerable. In a decisive blast the wizard departed the mortal realm, thus ending the threat he posed once and for all.
Yet his creation, the Darkstones, remained intact. While many were eventually destroyed, plans for their creation, as well as modifications for liquid versions of the Darkstones themselves, had begun to crop up in various locations on Ilos. Was Rhohs Gallor’s grand plan truly to summon the beat Kzarka once more, or did he have a more nefarious intention in mind?
The Key to Power
With the events of Rhohs Gallor now behind the Kitsune, and the guild slowly becoming a full-fledged and independent organization, the guild’s foremost occult inspector, Drake, approached members of the Kitsune within the walls of the Fox and Falcon in Duvencrune with a conundrum. A caravan out of Altinova had been attacked suddenly. The caravan had carted recently procured ancient artifacts from an auction, one of which seemed to have the uncanny ability to cause the other artifacts around it to move or even fly a great distance, violently enough to cause potential damage to them.
Enlisting the aid of his friends in the Kitsune the Inspector began to try and gain information regarding who it was that had taken these artifacts, and possibly their intent in doing so. His observations and details gathered lead him to a shady informant who had provided intel that a group known as the Red Ninesharks were interested in these artifacts, possibly for the specific relic with the power to manipulate the ones around it. In the midst of waiting to spring a trap meant for the Red Nines, however, an attack in the docking district of Calpheon had thrown his plan into disarray. Organizing a response team they quickly discovered that the Red Nines had infiltrated the docking district and had sprung the trap but had managed to escape, leaving behind the tracking crystals that were intended to allow the Kitsune to follow them.
Through a stroke of luck the informant had lived, providing key eye-witness details about their escape. Quickly giving chase by boat the Kitsune were lead to a formerly abandoned farmstead, now the site of a battle between the Red Nines and what seemingly was an unknown group of mercenaries that had possibly been lead by one or more wizards. Their investigations, and the discovery of a note left at the scene, lead the Kitsune to a meeting place south of Calpheon where the Red Nines had already engaged the mercenary group, lead by a group of magi. In the heat of the conflict, and the thrill of the chase, a single masked Ninjutsu practitioner managed to escape with an object of some form, leaving the Kitsune with more questions than answers.
Weeks pass as new revelations dawn upon the Kitsune. A discovery is made, tying the artifacts the Organization is after to Illezra. Five imbued pieces of her staff were shattered after the Days of Darkness, scattered upon the world in various locations to be lost to history. Only through diligence, determination and keen investigative work were their locations finally discerned, but the Kitsune weren’t the only ones on the hunt. The Magi pursued the pieces as well though they were also in competition with the Red Nines who later would ally themselves with a group thought lost to history, the Luth’Arganai. Deadly at range, shadowy in nature, and seemingly ageless, the Luth’Arganai took to a corrupted form of Syvlia’s teachings, aiming to pursue an even more ancient knowledge in order to restore a more natural order.
Combat rages over time and the Kitsune constantly find themselves pitted against both the Red Nines and Luth’Arganai’s combined forces, led by a ruthlessly mysterious woman with a massive Heilang as her companion. Finding most of the artifacts in their possession the Kitsune, after having some of their own captured and later rescued, find themselves pitted in combat against the woman who identifies herself only as Melody, and her Heilang of immense power, bolstered by the use of one of the ancient Illezran Artifacts.
The Kitsune finally found themselves victorious, capturing Melody and putting an end to her cycle of supposed revenge. With the artifacts now being destroyed a question remains. What was it Melody was truly after, and even after her capture and imprisonment have the Kitsune truly heard the last of her?