Genesis VI: To Regnis

Stenbruk took Nel into the monastery but refused entry to the others, telling them that the monks needed to extract Tan-Sul from his human body, and to return in a week's time. They decided to go down to the town of Xandris below. Belgar finished repairs on the first of his gadgets damaged in the Mir prison: a "steam propulsion golem," which hovered on a cloud of steam. He rode upon it, floating down the mountain to Xandris.

In Xandris, Lantis purchased a supposedly magical staff, and from its merchant they learned a bit more about the strange happenings in Regnis surrounding the coronation of Voleta III. They were calling their new queen the "Sun Queen," because since her coronation there had been two suns in the sky of Regnis. The party decided to investigate while they awaited their chance to rejoin Nel, and headed north.

In the singular pass from Xandris to Regnis, they were accosted by a bounty hunter named Ernestine, once a part of the Regnisian Royal Guard. She demanded that they hand over Belgar, as the patriarch of the House of Vask had discovered his escape from prison and was offering a huge bounty to get him back. They discussed this for a time, but things quickly turned violent (as they have tended todo by this point). Numerous bursts of High magic used against Ernestine and a second unaffiliated bounty hunter (calling himself the Pyromaniac) resulted in all of Belgar's freshly-repaired gadgets, including the golem as well as his cryogenic explosive flasks and his clockwork time-reversal belt, being damaged or spent. Worse, Tahl accidentally turned himself into a ray of light, transporting himself to Noctis.

Without any other recourse, Lantis and Belgar decided to proceed to Valencia, the City of Colours, which was roughly halfway between the border and the capital city of Solendis. Tahl, meanwhile, found himself in a thorp full of mongrelfolk with only one other human, a veteran of the Garaam Varask navy named Rudiger. Rudiger was transported here after Cerielle's death, and was afraid to leave the thorp. Apparently, Tahl had arrived in the Necros Union, a state controlled by feudal undead lords who hate the living, keeping them only for sustenance for those varieties of undead that need to feed on the living.

Tahl convinced Rudiger to join him to the nearby city of Z'rt, which was ruled by two lich-lords, in order to find a way to get back to Equis. Near the gates of Z'rt they were caught by a high priest of darkness named Mortanius, the official mediator between the two liches. At first, Mortanius tried to get them to surrender their lives and become undead slaves. Tahl and Rudiger adamantly refused, and so he instead convinced them to join him in the city to speak with one of the lich-lords, and hopefully bargain for a way to get back to their homes.

Back in Valencia, Belgar was looking for a workshop to repair his gear and found one belonging to Lantis' cousin Tisnal, while Lantis himself struggled to join the Dyemaker's Guild. He was taken as the apprentice of its guildmaster, Jouyav.