Urgent Missive from Thalion Voidweaver

  *To the Esteemed Masters of the Arcane,*
 
  *I pen this missive with hands that tremble not from age — though eight 
  centuries weigh upon me — but from what I have witnessed this very hour. 
  The Elemental Nexus has been breached.* 
 
  *The convergence I have guarded for six hundred years — the singular point 
  where fire, water, earth, and air meet in sacred equilibrium — has 
  fractured beyond anything my wards could contain. The Cores have been torn 
  from their moorings and scattered back to the elemental planes. Pyrothame, 
  Terralite, the Aquamarine Prism, the Zephyr Stone — all lost. Without them, 
  I cannot hold the balance. I am not certain anyone can.* 
 
  *Reality itself bleeds at the seams. I can see the Infernal Reach through 
  the cracks in my study walls. The floor beneath me groans with tremors from 
  the Crystal Caverns. The air grows thin as the Tempest Heights bleed 
  through, and frost creeps across surfaces that should never know cold as 
  the Abyssal Depths press inward. The planes are collapsing into one 
  another, and each hour the rifts widen.* 
 
  *I will not mince words — I am failing. The wards I have maintained for 
  centuries now shatter faster than I can reweave them. The elemental lords — 
  Ignis, Bouldus, Undina, Ventus — have claimed the Cores as their own, and 
  their power grows as mine wanes. My robes, once a comfort of shifting 
  colors, now burn and freeze against my skin in equal measure. The 
  convergence does not have days. It may not have hours.* 
 
  *I need champions. Warriors and mages of extraordinary resolve willing to 
  breach the planar portals, wrest the Cores from their elemental guardians, 
  and return them to the Nexus Heart before the collapse becomes 
  irreversible. The path will lead through volcanic wastelands, crystalline 
  depths, abyssal trenches, and storm-wracked skies. I will not pretend it is 
  survivable for the unprepared.* 
 
  *But if no one answers — if the Cores are not restored — the rift will 
  consume everything. Not just the Nexus. Not just me. Everything.* 
 
  *The portals within the realm of fantasy remain open. Barely. Find me at 
  the convergence before they are not.* 
 
  *— Thalion Voidweaver, Archmage of the Elemental Nexus*
  *Warden of the Convergence, 600th year of the Vigil*
  *...what I fear will be the last.*