On the night of the 29th of Pharast, The Prisoner contacted Bash, Dabwick, Grip, and Pandora while they slept and sent a series of images:
The story of the Great Race of Yith continued…
As Time raced forward.
The Yithians had made contact with Xhamen-Dor.
Xhamen-Dor, the Great Enemy, the Star Seed, as a creation of Carcosa, where Time does not obey the same laws the rest of the universe recognizes, and as a being that exists partially in the Dimension of Dreams, where Time is fully mutable… the Inmost Blot proves to be a unique threat to the Yithians’ entire way of life.
Simply by brushing up against its influence, the Great Race encountered a reality that their greatest Time Seers could not comprehend. Because the Yithians couldn’t fully perceive Xhamen-Dor. It was essentially invisible to them—outside of what the paltry, rudimentary senses their frail, mortal, physical shells could perceive, those dull, flat, insignificant senses such as sight, smell, and touch.
Not only that: their ability to view and communicate across time grew cloudier—and more and more prone to error—the closer people and events brushed up against Xhamen-Dor or Carcosa’s direct influence.
Mortals from Golarion experience Time and causality in one way. The Yithians perceive it in another. But Carcosa exists outside of all structure, logic, and control.
Back to the War.
The Flying Polyps on this other world proved to be too mighty to completely destroy, but the Yithians were able to engineer this unknown planet’s destruction, hoping to utterly destroy Xhamen-Dor’s physical body. However, they do not understand the Star Seed’s full nature, of course, and they did not perceive in advance what result their actions would have. Of course. All of which was a new sensation for them.
They exploded the planet in a cataclysm of fire, and as it shattered into millions of fragments, the Yithians ripped their city of Kothrekis out of time and space once again. And this act, this second act of doing so, it shattered the minds of the remaining elders and Time Seers…
A Loss.
…but not before one of them saw what they’d just unleashed: a minuscule blot of fungoid sentience survived, clinging to a shard of broken earth. From the explosion the Yithians just caused. And out into space, on a tiny piece of rock, that tiny piece of blot flew. On and on, it soared through the infinite darkness for thousands upon thousands of years. Not quite directly at Golarion’s solar system, but close enough. Close enough that it felt the pull of the Star Stelae the Flying Polyps left there so, so long ago.
And so, ten thousand years ago, Xhamen-Dor came to Golarion. Dragged along in the wake of the Starstone, which it used to hitch a ride.
Which it may never have done if the Yithians hadn’t tried to kill it, thousands upon thousands of years earlier.
Consequence.
Where—and when—Kothrekis went after its second jump was unknown to the Prisoner. Barely any of the Yithians survived the move. But enough of the young ones did, enough to begin rebuilding their species once again. All that the Prisoner knew of their story is what it found contained in a Mnemonic Repository left by one of their kind: a message to the twenty Yithians left behind to protect Golarion and guard the subterranean prison containing the hoard of Flying Polyps.
Your future is unknown. We cannot see you. AT ALL. Carcosa’s touch has corrupted your timeline. Your orders stand. But whatever happens, you must never join us again. For the sake of the Great Race.
You are alone.
The bell tolled again…
And Bash, Dabwick, Grip and Pandora’s minds were ejected into new dreamscapes.
Pandora again found herself on a horse. What is it about this horse?
“Fear the Corpse Orgy.” Rony & Riptusk knew to fear it. For it consumed all who tried to escape their oppressors through the sewers of Okeno. As long as it rules the Sweatways, there is no hope of freedom for any of the victims of that terrible city’s horrific trade. From cell to cell, from chain to chain, the truth was whispered among the captives of that Yellow City on the Sea: the Pactmasters created an abomination and left it in the dark to feed upon the innocent. And no one will ever destroy it.
And Dabwick was a magpie again. Slowly, imperceptibly, the vast wastelands transformed around them, and they were flitting and flapping through a series of sewers. And they recognized these particular sewers at once. Cassomir. The thwacks of their wings echoed hollowly off the close, wet, stone walls. The air was bad here. Light was nearly non-existent. Yet still, Dabwick did catch periodic sight of a flash of white at intersections up ahead, or hear a dull flutter down tunnels in the distance…
And then they woke.
First Reference: Chapter 175
Other Notable References: —