Player Primer • Pulgari Estate<
Player Primer • Pulgari Estate<
The investigation that began with blighted timber in Macridi has finally revealed the shape of a much older danger.
Reiver's Right was not reopened in 4723 AR, roughly three years ago, simply to harvest timber. Its hidden financier in Kerse belongs to a secretive Mammonite organization known as the Golden Hand. The logging operation provided wealth, workers, heavy equipment, and a legitimate reason to excavate beneath the Palakar Forest without drawing unwanted attention.
The digging violated restrictions preserved in older agreements—restrictions that specifically prohibited deep excavation beneath portions of the Palakar.
You now know why.
Beneath the abandoned Pulgari Estate lies an ancient portal to Hell.
Generations ago, Bridden Pulgari built his estate above the site and attempted to contact his patron, Mammon. His ritual ended in catastrophe, but the portal remained open.
Since that time, a powerful gate archon named Ambithas has remained below the estate, guarding the portal with the aid of Palakar's fey.
The Golden Hand did not open the gate.
They are trying to make Ambithas lose control of it.
The Golden Hand's excavations cut through ancient protections surrounding the Pulgari site. At the same time, their agents unleashed the forest blight that has already consumed logging camps and devastated fey territory.
The two operations work together.
The blight weakens the fey who help defend Pulgari. The excavation damages the buried protections surrounding the portal. As those defenses fail, infernal influence is finding new paths through roots, groundwater, stone, and old magic.
The black corruption spreading through the Palakar is no longer confined to the surface.
The final proof came through one of the missing fey couriers.
Among the courier's recovered belongings was a damaged message written partly in Sylvan and partly in Celestial. Sorzmig Koob and representatives of the Palakar courts were able to translate it.
The message was written by Caelivar, a celestial warrior serving as Ambithas's lieutenant in the outer defenses of Pulgari.
"The Keeper remains at the Gate. He cannot leave it. The roots are wounded below us, and through those wounds the Enemy presses inward. If allies still walk beneath the living sky, send them below. Do not seek the Gate first. Find me. The sickness must be severed before the Keeper can be relieved."
The message identifies an old maintenance descent beneath the western ruins of the Pulgari Estate. Caelivar intended it as a route by which allies could bypass the Golden Hand's primary excavation works and reach the celestial defenders below.
Whether that route remains open is unknown.
Reach the estate and penetrate the Golden Hand occupation. Expect mortal cultists, hired guards, infernal defenses, and whatever creatures have begun crossing through the weakened barriers.
Locate the old western descent described in Caelivar's message.
Caelivar is believed to be holding one of the remaining passages between the Golden Hand excavation and the deeper Pulgari ruins.
Ambithas cannot leave the ancient portal. Caelivar therefore serves as the celestial defenders' eyes, messenger, and battlefield commander in the outer complex.
Reach him before attempting to descend to the main gate.
Caelivar's message confirms that the corruption spreading through the Palakar is being sustained from several locations beneath the estate.
These blight nodes are places where Golden Hand excavation has wounded the old protections and where the conjured forest blight has rooted itself into those wounds.
Caelivar knows where the surviving nodes are. Once you reach him, he can provide their locations and explain how each must be destroyed.
Caelivar's message names three regions beneath the estate where the corruption is strongest. Their exact condition will not be known until you reach him.
Beneath the estate's old cisterns, corrupted groundwater has reached a massive network of ancient Palakar roots. Whatever is sustaining the node there is poisoning water that eventually spreads far beyond Pulgari.
Golden Hand excavators drove reinforced tunnels through one of the old buried ward-lines. Witnesses describe black iron supports, gold-marked machinery, and roots that continue to grow despite being dead.
The deepest known node lies in ruins predating Bridden Pulgari's estate. Caelivar believes this wound is closest to the ancient portal and therefore the most dangerous of the three.
- Enter Pulgari.
- Reach Caelivar.
- Learn how the blight nodes can be destroyed.
- Travel through the underground sections of the estate and destroy all three.
- Only then descend toward Ambithas and the ancient portal.