This is the lore of Druid Ozohr and his familiar Kara, soul of the Sun god.

Prologue

They stood in the hallway within the druid's Merchant House in the old town of Kohr on the main island of the Alchemist's Archipelago. After traveling for weeks, Ozohr was anxious to return to his study. The house was normally secure but Ozohr was cautious after his recent encounter with Wizard #5622.

Ozohr opened his notebook, scanned the first index page, and then flipped to the Unlock Door spell.

"Really? You don't have this memorized by now?", Kara asked.

Ozohr smoothed the pages open and tilted the book towards the sunlit window at the end of the hall.

"This door has a Necromancer Viper woven within, needs to use Reni dialect and no, I don't remember it."

Kara purred like a laugh.

"And, if I get a single pronunciation wrong, we will both be paralyzed as part of the original lock spell. Forever."

Kara stopped purring.

Ozohr closed his eyes and held out his hands, waist-high, fingers curled like holding a dial.

Kara could see nothing changing. She looked up at Ozohr and saw the old wizard's white eyebrows twitch slightly, eyes shifting side to side under his eyelids.

Ozhor could feel the warmth of the air surrounding him. He pulled a single red thread from his coat, wrapped it around his right index finger and then opened his eyes. Glowing strings filled his field of vision. Like dust motes in sunlight, threads as thin as hair floated lazily around him with colours of blue sapphire, golden amber, green glass, and vermillion.

Ozohr felt along the edge of the door. Threads like thick cords were braided and ran along the entire perimeter. There was a faint green line extending from one corner into the centre of the oak door where a tightly coiled green knot hovered. As he moved his right hand towards it, the thread on his finger got hotter and tightened and the green knot flashed orange and moved like a serpent.

"We have a problem, someone has been here", he said aloud, "a Delphin curse thread trap has been overlaid", and he pointed. Kara could not see anything except the plain wood.

"Uh boss, so we should go?", she asked. Ozohr frowned. Kara purred again, knowing she'd bothered her master just so.

"One moment. It looks like the door has remained closed so hopefully this is just to slow us down."

Ozohr looked around at the loose thread in the hall and touched a glowing blue thread. The string pulsed and he sensed a connection to infinity and water and the sun. Under his breath, he muttered:

Dark night, hidden bright
Dolum nazva secom do
Light unto the original world
cross the bridge
dakorum needum da!

Kara's fur suddenly felt electric. A spark flew from his hand, along the thread and crossed the gap to the green thread. Burnt ozone smell, a flash and the green thread turned to blue then fell slowly as ash to the floor.

"We're good?", Kara asked.

"First step. Hardest one next. But I've seen this before so we should be ok."

Ozohr started moving has hands in a circular motion in front of him. Not touching the door, as he moved, individual strands from the braid detached. His hands moved faster and as he pulled towards his body, large clumps of string came away. The air became dark, his vision obscured by the mass of thread as he pulled until all was gone except a single red string, glowing around the door. He stopped, grabbed it with his left index finger, muttered "Mulllazra" and there was a click and a shudder and the door opened inward on its hinges.

He pushed through, Kara following silently on padded paws. The room behind was a study. Wide gable windows let light through stained glass depicting a rainbow bridge. The sunlight wavered and danced on the mosaic floor. There was silence except for a light breeze and birdsong outside. Kara arched her back, fluttered her tiny white wings and sat back down on the tile floor.

The study had a wall of bookshelves, full of dark leather bindings and long rolled up papers and scrolls. The desk in front of them was wide and deep with a large globe on one side and a small wooden box on the other. Ozohr stepped forward to the desk. Papers were stacked and strewn, a scribble of flowing letters scrawled and scratched out. Balls of paper on the floor. Nothing appeared to have moved from his last visit.

He opened the wooden box and pulled out a piece of thick ivory paper embossed with the same rainbow bridge as the windows. From a pocket within his coat, he pulled out a chain with a metal arrow attached with a loop.

"It's time to go", he said, "we have been away from Xanadu for too long."

Kara moved to stand next to her master. Ozohr unfolded the paper to reveal an embossed rainbow bridge with a gilded border. The colours in the rainbow shimmered as they were made of fine magic threads. He touched the arrow rune to the page.

There was a large crack and a low sounding wail that grew in crescendo so loudly that Kara flattened her ears.

The globe on the desk suddenly became intensely black and tendrils of inky black lines curled out from it, pulling the light in the room towards the globe.

"No!", Ozohr yelled. He tried to pull the rune and paper apart but could not move. "I need your help!"

For a brief moment, nothing changed. There was a pulse of light and a flash of lightning and the room went blue throwing shadows against the wall. Ozohr struggled to keep focus on the rainbow page but could see the shadow of an enormous lion head emerge behind him.

Kara's voice screamed deep and loud with enormous power as pure white light poured from her mouth into Ozohr's hands.

The black tendrils from the globe continued to twist and coil and reached the page. The colours of the rainbow pulsed and grew and entwined with the blackness and began to leech out of the paper. Ozohr forced his will to hold the threads in place but even with Ra's extra power, he watched as they bled out faster and spun in the air before disappearing into the black orb of the globe. A booming crack shook the room and then the shaking stopped.

Ozohr looked around the room wildly. "I don't see it!", he cried. He held the paper in his hand, still with the embossed rainbow but now bleached completely white.

Kara had returned to her small cat-like form and watched Ozohr stare silently at the page.

"We are stuck here, my friend", he said quietly. "we cannot go back."

Entered by: 0xdAA8…ee4b and preserved on chain (see transaction)