VIII. On the Obelisk Network

The Saumen Kar did not rely solely on Aqakaru’s sacrifice to contain Ossoyo. They also constructed a network of obelisks — ward-stones scattered across the Crown of the World, each one a link in a chain of containment that reinforced the seal beneath the ice. These obelisks are ancient, massive, and imbued with the remnants of Saumen Kar faith. They do not merely suppress Ossoyo’s influence; they form a web of interlocking wards that distribute the burden of containment across the arctic landscape, so that no single point of failure can undo the whole.

Dr. Ritalsin has been systematically corrupting this network. His method — developed through his research into blackfrost and the gatewalker subjects who bore Ossoyo’s mark — involves using living conduits to channel Black sand energy into the obelisks, converting them from instruments of containment into instruments of liberation. A corrupted obelisk does not merely cease to suppress Ossoyo; it actively feeds the entity’s growing strength, turning the Saumen Kar’s own infrastructure against the purpose for which it was built.

At the crash site of the Gossamer Drift — Ritalsin’s wooden sailing vessel, brought down by Saumen Kar ward chains still functioning after millennia — the party discovered an obelisk that Ritalsin had corrupted using experimental gatewalker subjects as conduits before fleeing north toward the Nameless Spires. This obelisk cannot be purified. It must be destroyed.