The 6th legion is small. Or maybe it’s just an advance party. Our guards confirm that it is just the advance party. Our guards are a gruff human with a shield and battle axe, a dragonborn with a giant katana, and a silent humanoid with a spear.
We decide to try to get through the whitestone door in the basement.
Solstice casts magical lockpick, and the top fifth of the door lights up. Unfortunately, after many more tries the door is resisting all attempts to unlock it further. Milo attempts to disrupt the doors defences, but just exhausts himself. Solstice continues to slowly unlock the door, a second lock unlocks. And then a third! Phaidros lends his energy to Solstice, and a fourth lock is undone! The fifth lock gives way, and the door slowly grinds open. The hinges on the inside are a fancy Gnomish invention that extend as the door opens.
We see a well lit room. Glowing orbs on the wall light it. A desk with a scholarly figure presiding over it are in the foreground, with a very white room behind it. There is a black wall beyond that, with visible hinges that seem to indicate a room or vault of some sort further in. There is a second scholarly figure who is holding up an orb to the far vault door and looking through it. On the floor is a pattern in metal with runes that go to the vault. There is a stone cube marked with the symbols of the great beings on each face that is hovering inside a contraption that is over the metal pattern/runes. There is an additional door that is magic that leaves this space.
Our soul tether points directly at the stone cube.
Project #12. Duration of one week so far. Subjects of projects 1-11 have experienced dehydration, and further issues depending on the species. The attempt done with people has been left out of the official reports. People in enclosed spaces for 1.5 months did not go well. Projects 1-5, 7, 9 have all been failures. They have had issues with portable power. They need the Leyline nexus to power this experiment. This time the subjects are houseplants. They do not know how the plants are doing as “reports are disjointed” and the “compression factor” is making things difficult. The 12th project is trying for a 2-month duration. Every one before has ended after one month because the enchantment has unravelled because they ran out of energy. They are now using the Leyline nexus as a power store (have since project #9). They previously drained the Empress’s power stone and nearly drained the Mythalar.
On the paperwork on the desk we see lists of people who have entered. We see Stracas, the Empress, and researchers Tere, Leafbrace, and Moorum.
The cube has been here since before the wizard’s tower. Leafbrace is working on testing the cube with planar stuff to see if the cube is rotating at the same rate as the planes. The planar setup is for reference. The second scholarly person is a half-elf named Moonbeam.
We touch the cube, and it seems to be made of some sort of stone. It is body temperature. It is definitely magical. The cube is 6-feet per side, a sizable cube! The markings of the great beings are carved into the stone. There are no instrument marks, but otherwise it is quite pristine, though it does look old. The alphabet has not really changed since the great beings created it, so the markings don’t help to age the cube.
Milo puts some energy into the cube, and we all feel a pulse. Phaidros casts gift of tongues and finds that the cube is in fact inanimate.
After some meditating close to the cube, we see the lines from each of us are from our general soul area to each other’s general soul area, but the cube’s line goes to a specific point on our soul-nub, a specific anchor point of our soul brand. Milo tries to add energy to the cube while in soul meditation, and we are all sucked into a white dimension. Blob arms. We can see each other, but are surrounded by unlimited whiteness. There is a blobby humanoid thing where the cube was, it is the first time we see it, but also has always been there. It says: “Welcome controller to the threshold, I am the guardian.” This is the threshold of the cube. The controller is within the cube. We are the controller. The controller has already left the iteration. It is not possible for anyone else to leave. We are the controller. We can leave the threshold at any point. We are in control of the iterations, but are not authorized to know how many there are. Each iteration is within the cube. The cube contains the iterations. We can leave the threshold at any point. The scope of each iteration is?...the length of the iteration has already been set. There is only one controller. When it says we are the controller, it is talking to all of us. Why is the controller de-authorized?...the purpose of the iterations is whatever the controller wants it to be. We may leave the iterations at any time. The gate is barred we cannot leave, we need the key to leave. The controller can gain the key easily. The key is connected to the controller. The key is not marked by the controller. He does not know where the key is. The controller can sense where the key is. Our marker can sense the key. The marker can sense the cube and the key. The cube is the threshold. The cube contains the iterations. Who created the threshold?...we are not authorized to know. After some time of silence, he says “you are not authorized for that information”. We ask what information, and he repeats we are not authorized to know. (Is it just randomly answering, not even comprehending our questions?) How long have we been the controller? 967 iterations, approximately 30 years of linear time. (Zach thought that he was in here longer, so he thinks that his memory has for sure been altered). Has the controller been present for every iteration? We are the controller. Does any time pass between iterations? The iterations are within the cube. What happens after the last iteration? The controller should leave before the iterations complete. The key will unlock the threshold. Within the threshold one could leave the cube. The key unbars the exit and only the controller can leave. The controller has left the cube, and is within the cube. The key is within the iterations. How do we find the key with our marker? The controller can find it easily. The guardian is 967 iterations, approximately 30 years of linear time old. We are unauthorized to know the length of the longest and shortest iterations. Why can’t anyone else leave the cube? It would be unethical for copies to leave the cube. They would switch souls and the original would die. Can anyone else enter? The controller is already in the cube. Is the controller a copy? The controller is a copy, the controller is the controller. Can the controller transport entities between iterations? Lesser markers can be placed within the cube. The Controller can place lesser markers on people to add them to iterations. This only lasts for six iterations before they fade. Can the controller be unmarked? We are the controller and the controller has left the cube. What happens to the iteration when the controller leaves the cube? The iterations will end.

We cannot cast magic in this area. When soul-looking we see we are connected to everything in here.

When we ask to return to our bodies to continue the iteration, the guardian says that we need to restart the iteration as our bodies are excessively damaged. We decide to return to our bodies anyway.

It says we have 52 iterations remaining, equivalent to approximately 4 linear years.

Solstice and Phaidros fail to return to their bodies and are stuck as souls.
Milo returns to his body and sees:

The red robed mage is standing over us.
Everyone in the room is dead.
Xataqar killed everyone and is in the room as well. He is hanging out with the red mage.

Milo asks, “why?”
The red mage says, “interesting, you are alive, more like how?”
SPLASH!

Are we all copies, marked by the controller mark? The controller has left, thus we are in a simulation/loop that is running when it shouldn’t be because the controller has left. Is the red mage the controller?

Kris Synopsis: