The Book of Abbadon

The Briefing

The thunderous applause and cheering dies down and King Aizarik returns to his throne with a smile.

" Now! Let us begin the briefing! "

Sir Gerard shouts as a transparent magical projection of Voldoor materializes over your head in front of the throne. Tom nudges you and nods his head for you to follow him to one side of the room where some guards are standing. Once the area under the projection is clear, it descends down onto the floor and enlarges to a massive size, almost taking up the entire floor of the throne room. You look up at this futuristic city and are amazed at how different it is from Moriarch.

" Let's go over the plan one more time with Abbadon so he knows what to expect going forward. The floor is yours, Tom! "

Sir Gerard shouts in a polite manner before Tom steps forward and begins speaking to the room.

" Voldoor is a pretty fucked up place. The people there don't have any sense of common morality or dignity, so you better mentally prepare yourself to be exposed to the degenerate atmosphere of the city and its inhabitants. Since there are no laws there, the place is run by violent cartels and morally bankrupt companies. People only behave themselves out of the fear of these cartels and companies if they get on their bad side. People who cross these cartels and companies, even if it's by accident, are known to get murdered, tortured, raped or worse on Voldoor's streets in broad daylight; and the people there are so fucked up that they usually gather around just to watch it and laugh. I want to make it incredibly clear that if we see people falling victim to this on the streets when we visit, we are not to interfere. We're there to investigate, gather intel, and speak to the Czar; nothing more. If we blow our cover trying to save one person, we could be jeopardizing the entirety of Aria. "

Tom then turns and holds his hands out to navigate the projection. He zooms in on a tower standing in the middle of the city that's taller than all of the others, and the building becomes transparent to show a room at the very top of the building. Tom continues to talk as you see what looks like silhouettes of people sitting down and making deals.

" All of the biggest cartels and companies in Voldoor are funded by the Czar, who sits on the wealth accumulated by Vol and his descendants from building the city. The Czar funds these cartels and companies through a cult dedicated to the worship of Vol and the dark gods called The High Temple. The High Temple has their fingers in everything, and if you don't praise Vol, you don't get the privileges that your competitors will if they do. Since Vol founded Voldoor before the gods existed, they put him at the head of their pantheon and worship him as a god revealed in the flesh. Make sure not to bring up religion or the gods unless you absolutely have to. People with unpopular opinions always attract unwanted attention. The city is under constant surveillance and I don't want us making a scene by decimating the people who try to do us harm.

Our main destination is the Czar's penthouse suite on the 689th floor of the High Temple Tower. Thanks to Voldoor's superior technology, the tower is the most secure place on Aria; so in order to keep a low profile, we have a contact from the city who's going to get us in to speak to the Czar. I'll introduce you both after the briefing is over. "

You look over to the two young men standing in front of the throne and the shorter one who's bald smiles and nods his head at you politely before you go back to listening to Tom talk about the plan.

Tom zooms out from the tower and zooms in on a familiar club that you once saw before when you were dreaming.

" We had to make some last minute changes to the plan after you woke up and I saw your memories from when you were in Somniohm with Sowzo. I've marked The Devil's Den as a secondary destination for us to investigate while we're there. If Sowzo thought that the interference in his realm was coming from this place, then it's definitely worth looking at. There's going to be four of us going into the city together, so maybe we can split up and knock out both destinations at once. "