Laerryn Astral Leywright

BRENNAN: Deep within the Meridian Labyrinth lies the Heart of Avalir. Once known as the Apparatus Arcane, this crystal engine lifted Avalir, by the command of Imyr Por'co, into the sky, 292 years ago. Now, they named it the Apparatus Arcane because at that time it was the only one, but since then, there have been many, many more. The Registry of the Porter's Guild, there are, in addition to that, there are the Codex of Keys, the Helm of Avalir, the Ley-Rudder, which connects to the Navigator's Guild. However, we are in a room just off of the Ley-Rudder, and we see a quite fascinating new machine. Aabria, I'd actually love if you could describe the engine that now we behold, and the chamber that we see.
[...]
AABRIA (LAERRYN): It starts with this big central pendulum that swings back and forth, that is generating and holding this massive miasma of ether and arcane energy. There's a circle of batteries that I've requisitioned and built, and each of them glows with a slightly different shade of green, that are feeding into this pendulum, and in the center underneath it is just this massive platform, and there are runes inscribed into it. But it seems like if you look really closely, you know like when you draw on paper and there's papers underneath, and you can see the imprint of other ones, she's been trying lots of different ones to try to figure out the right array to move in a new direction. She's worked really hard on the Arboreal Calix, but she needs to go in a different trajectory and hasn't figured it out yet.
BRENNAN: I love it. I'll say one thing, by the way. I don't think you would've worked very hard on the Arboreal Calix. That is actually a different- But, there's a- the machine in front of you. So this attaches to the Ley-Rudder, which I think that you've done a tremendous amount of work on in order to make this machine possible. I think also somewhere in this room there is a small token. Not something that is of mechanical significance. A small token of an old friend. A gift given to you long ago. A... locket, a simple orb inscribed with runes, to be filled with something of safe keeping, to remind you that the long years could part you, that friendship would win out in the end. What do you remember of your old friend, Evandrin? As you look at this locket.
AABRIA (LAERRYN): Despite the suffusion of warm memories and good feelings that attended him handing me that locket, all she can remember is those last few days, before everything broke bad, and the panic of not knowing how to help him, and not knowing how responsible she was as he began to fade. So it's that burst of joy and then the creeping guilt.
BRENNAN: The memory of your friend becoming translucent, incorporeal, and fading, such that when the time came to inter, there were no remains. You behold this work in front of you.
AABRIA: I have a question.
BRENNAN: Yes.
AABRIA: Is this what's being dug into? What was formerly the Heart that the Drashari-
BRENNAN: [nods]
AABRIA: Okay, cool, cool. Yeah.
BRENNAN: What you now behold is an engine that you have named, and I'll let you say its name.
However, as you prepare this here, Dweomer is here with you. Calum is not. Calum is out working on a bunch of Eldritch Battery stuff. There's a lot of work for the Replenishment that needs to happen. But you hear approaching footsteps, some of them quite heavy.
AABRIA (LAERRYN): Well, this area that's been dug into and dug out. There are a bunch of the run-down automatons that needed replacing, so the moment I hear footsteps, I'm going to cast Animate Objects on them and set them up as a guard behind me.
TRAVIS: Oh snap.
BRENNAN: These constructs come back into being, momentarily animated simply by the word of command from the city's Architect Arcane. They leap back to action. Literally, I think just you blast ether from a receptacle on your own wrist and give them the momentary life that their initial construction no longer can. And as they stand back up, you see Nydas Okiro approach with automata you have never seen before.
LOU (NYDAS): "Your Eminence, I bring exactly what you asked for."
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "Those are new."
LOU (NYDAS): "Yes. So much is being used in the name of the Replenishment that I had to tap into a stock that we were waiting to reveal or start to release into the city upon rising again. But for you, an exception can always be made."
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "Thank you."
BRENNAN: Dweomer looks to you, on her unflinching, warforged face. "Your Eminence, the automata present within the chamber do not bear the glyph of the Armorer Arcane."
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "Oh, interesting. Who made these?"
BRENNNA: You guys did.
LOU (NYDAS): "Oh, we did, of course, the Golden Scythe."
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "You bypassed entirely."
LOU (NYDAS): "Well, I wasn't going to let bureaucracy slow us down."
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "Incredible. I have several questions about what their purpose is. They're so big. What are the blades on the back for?"
LOU (NYDAS): "This can all be discussed later."
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "Understood, sure."
LOU (NYDAS): "Is it possible? Is it going to happen? Do you have everything you need? You said, well, you were leaving and I couldn't- Do you actually have all that you require?"
AABRIA (LAERRYN): I think just with a quick flash, I'm going to drop Rary's Telepathic Bond. "Yes. If only-" I go and run and grab the papers. "Tonight, in the next day, this is my best chance."
LOU (NYDAS): "You spoke about that earlier."
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "So it has to be now. This comes every 120 years. I might be alive to see the next chance of this, but they won't. Evandrin wouldn't have lived to see it. I don't think Quay would've either, so it has to be now, I have to prove that it was worth it."
LOU (NYDAS): "And you will."
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "Yeah."
LOU (NYDAS): "You will."
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "We have a bit of metal. I have a destination. We're going to move the entire city."
LOU (NYDAS): "Well it is truly a blessing that you came to me, that you have allowed me to be part of this. It is everything I wanted
as the Dragon of Avalir."
AABRIA (LAERRYN): I just run up and hug him. "Thank you. I haven't had anyone to talk to about this."
BRENNAN: You embrace under the impervious gaze of the four massive constructs surrounding you. Dweomer steps up and grabs the corroded bow and displays it to you.
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "Okay. There's enough energy. We've siphoned off so much from this last trip. It's got to be worth it."
LOU (NYDAS): "It will be."
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "Will you stay?"
LOU (NYDAS): "Of course."
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "Okay."
LOU (NYDAS): "It would be my honor."
BRENNAN: The Taxmen step in. Dweomer gives them their instructions. They take the bow from you, and you see that one of them gazes down at it, walks over to another engine, puts their hands, doing the work that these automata do. You see its gauntleted steel hand [heavy clicking] animate apart so that its hand splays open and a raw vent of arcane power [KWOOM] goes into an engine. Dweomer inserts the bow into the top, and it begins to spin as golden light spills out of an opening in the top of the stone dome. [intensifying electric whirring] [electrical crackling] The corrosion peels off the bow. Pure gold, shining brighter than the sun. You see that one of the Taxmen, [clack, clack, clack, clack] its chest begins to come apart. Another Taxman just steps up and grasps its shoulders from behind. [WHOOM] It begins to fuse into its brethren in front of it. [heavy whirring] As the engine speeds up, Dweomer steps over to you and rushes towards the engine in the center of the room, the Astral Leywright.
SAM: What?
AABRIA: Yes.
BRENNAN: She begins to interact with glyphs. You see, in a corner, a tiny model of the Ley-Rudder, a just ever so small recreation of the machine in the anterior chamber. Above the engine, you see, [revving] light fills the chamber. Dweomer says, "Architect Arcane, we are reading a signature. 0.504. 0.508. 0.512. 0.516. 0.530. 0.548." You see that the Ley-Rudder in your hand [whoosh] surrounds you. Light, energy. One of the three leylines that converges on ancient Toramunda, on Cathmoíra, which you are an hour or two away from being directly over. Leylines are invisible. It's pure energy of Exandria that flows, the veins of magic, the stuff of creation. Nydas, you behold as the spirit itself of the world is rendered visible, and realize you are standing in the blood stream of the cosmos.
TRAVIS: Holy crap.
LOU (NYDAS): I think Nydas just, hands up, has tears falling down his face. "It's beautiful! It's totally incredible!"
AABRIA (LAERRYN): I'm going to move my Arcane Ward over him in that moment.
LOU (NYDAS): "Hah! Huah!"
BRENNAN: The dream of a cabin boy deck hand taken aboard a pirate ship to look at a flying city, and to say, 'One day, I could be at the helm of a great working of magic.' You watch the beating heart of your world flow magically through this room [vwoom]. As the bow finishes spinning, [swish] a rod of pure gold slides into the light, [fwip] and the stone dome [ka-doom] closes [sputtering stop]. The spinning stops, and the engine pulses, mirroring the heartbeat of your world. Silvery white light with a feeling of warmth. Heartbeat that matches the feeling of being inside the cradle of life. The miniature Ley-Rudder in your hand, the engine of the anterior chamber just outside that the navigators use to pilot the city around Exandria. Small, little gem lights up on its exterior. And the new engine that you have created, the Astral Leywright, mirrors that gem. [bwoom]
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "It's a mediocre mind that tries to replicate what's already been. We're going to go somewhere new now. All of us."
LOU (NYDAS): "Yes."
BRENNAN: As you say that, Laerryn, you feel the miniature model in your hand lift off [tap] and begin to travel. It's traveling in the same direction as your city. [whooshing wind] As it travels, you see two more gems light up on the Leywright [bip bip] and another two, and then four more. The trajectory of the Ley-Rudder, your little miniature train, this nothing more than a toy really, stops moving sideways. It moves up at a diagonal. But what a strange diagonal. As it moves, it becomes translucent and fades, [whoosh] vanishing from this plane. You see the gems on the Leywright [vwip, vwip, pip pip] and a signal of recognition. Somewhere beyond this realm, your toy is safe and in one piece.
AABRIA (LAERRYN): "Yes... It was worth it." I go over and grab the locket. "It was worth it."

Episode 2 - Bitterness and Dread - 0:41:56