Bashert, the great city seat of the Black Pope and home of the ancient celestian fragment known as the Black Star. The Palace of Darkness, where the Pope resides, can be seen in the middle of the central islet, its great spikes rising to see everything on the neighboring island hillsides.
It was an ordinary day in Bashert, and life continued as it always did. Ships carried people and good to and from the mainland coast, and vendors in the city’s market halls sold merch, spices and novelties from all across the Empire and beyond. Nobles, aristocrats and members of the Black Court entertained themselves in the great halls of the Palace of Darkness, intellectuals conversed in the city’s many academies, and the city’s artisans and workers tended to their professions.
That day however, a lighthouse and watchtower on the southernmost island of the Starry Archipelago that overlooked the southern sea spotted in the far distance an incoming ship, that did not match the design of any known Archothirian vessel. An urgent message was sent through the watchtower’s runic communicator to Bashert’s navy center, and multiple defense warships were mobilitated and deployed in a long line between the incoming foreign vessel and the islands, to defend them in the case that the ship had hostile intentions.
After the Black Pope was notified of the situation he ordered one of his most trusted advisors, Selthalim Arnich Ounfransal, to embark on one of his special diplomatic vessels and to act as ambassador of both Bashert and the rest of the Empire with the incoming foreigners. Selthalim aquiesced, and after quickly preparing himself, boarded the diplomacy vessel in the city’s port.
Selthalim Arnich Ounfransal, advisor of the Black Court, resting on a balcony in the Dasjakli Academy, overlooking the city of Koodralsin. In his hand are the Four Squares of Auric Harmony, a magical artifact he inherited from his ancient family of mages.
As a knowledgeable and very skilled mage, Selthalim armed himself with a large variety of runes, glyphs and talismans to aid his task as an ambassador, and to protect himself from any hostilities. Being remarkably capable in the magic arts, Selthalim had forged and created many of the talismans himself, but being a member of the Black Court gave him access to much more powerful spells and resources than a regular mage would have, all of which were created by the Black Pope and his scholars by studying the Black Star, an extremely powerful artefact capable of warping the fabric of reality itself, and the prime source of the Pope’s power.
The diplomatic vessel sailed past the line of Bashertine warships, and sent out a warning flare towards the foreign ship, in hope that it would get the intended message and slow down. As the glittering concentric rings of the flare exploded up above in the sky, Selthalim readied himself. After all, with the exploration ships the Empire had sent out a month earlier already making contact with the Belsedori, a new era of Imperial history was just now beginning, and only one question filled his mind: with everything said and done, who would he be in the history books of future scholars?
