The Three Obelisks are ancient sets of three towering pillars arranged around a marked platform. Sets exist on several worlds, including one beneath Novaris on Meridian and another beneath an island in the Navan Sea.
Construction and study
The Novaris pillars curve inward until their tips nearly meet. Their smooth surfaces consist of mixed rock resembling granite and carry inscriptions. Thin lines cross the central platform, and similar designs cover the chamber’s dome.
The Navan Sea set stands in a round, reinforced underground chamber reached through a stairway and corridor. Railings surround its three curved pillars and a circular platform of material resembling steel, covered with inscriptions. Eliona and Azarion entered the chamber and examined its pillars and platform without activating them.
Surveyors of the Malverand Intergalactic Empire, including Atraxi specialists, studied obelisk sets. Helena Hyperion also used the Maraveth Core to investigate obelisks, without results.
History
The Novaris activation
Eira examined the pillars with her origin and divine senses and blinked to the other side of a pillar, without a response. Kaelion, carrying Xoh’Tenol, touched a pillar after drawing on his sun magic. Its inscriptions flared deep purple, and the chamber droned and shook. A blast followed. Kaelion blinked back toward Eira and Mike and raised a shield, but could not fully protect himself. He collapsed with bleeding eyes and a purple-white burn in his palm.
Eira healed his body, but he remained unconscious for several days. Xoh’Tenol also stopped answering for a time. After recovering, Xoh’Tenol reported images of inhabited worlds where she was worshipped.
On another night, Kaelion saw gray-blue people with tendril-like hair and a woman who threw Xoh’Tenol’s core toward a dark yellow sun, which flared white. He could not tell whether he had visited their world or was dreaming.
Transport and sun cores
Thalena later removed a sun core from Kaelion’s chest and found an identical orb inside Xoh’Tenol. She thought the obelisks had responded to Kaelion because they required solar radiation.
A frame-by-frame examination of Mike’s recording revealed that something had forcibly transported Kaelion away and returned him before his own blink toward Eira. Thalena judged that the transfer had probably implanted the core. Isandro and his researchers increased security after reviewing the recording.
Thalena’s account
In Thalena’s Shores of Eternity, Eira, Kaelion and Xoh’Tenol visited the Navan Sea set. Xoh’Tenol’s core grew warm, and Eira disappeared while Kaelion was looking elsewhere. Day abruptly became night, and Xoh’Tenol told him he had stood motionless for about an hour. Kaelion left the chamber without finding Eira and waited on the island for help.
Thalena subsequently visited the island in an intangible state. The chamber’s lights detected her presence, and she could touch its cold metal inscriptions. The lights went out when she left.
The Spiral Mandate also held photographs of obelisks on other worlds, but its records contained no accounts of their awakening.