The Egg of Ritornelo is a cosmological weapon of alien techno-arcane origin, used by Kerbog Khan to destroy the city of Ritornello in Ardis Vala. Its effect is documented; its mechanism is not fully preserved.
| Type | Artifact (cosmological weapon) |
| Origin | Rudishva technology, Beacon weapons module |
| Operator | RAJ-750 (configuration); Kerbog Khan (deployment) |
| Target | Ritornello |
| Spanish entry | El Huevo de Ritornelo |
Description
The Seekers call it “the Egg bomb”; military doctrine, “the Bomb of Ritornelo”; those who know its source, “the Rudishva Egg”; the Decadian archive, “the instrument of the fall”. It is an ovoid egg or sphere, portable but heavy, activated by Rudishva codes or an external trigger whose exact workings nobody has reconstructed. Its ultimate nature is disputed: fission, antimatter, a dimensional warhead, or a Rudishva equivalent fitting none of these.
Technology and operation
The doctrine of the Plata suspects Rudishva technology. The Rudishva, aliens who arrived aboard the Beacon some 3,000 years ago, left artifacts in the sublevels of the Ardisvala mega-dungeon. RAJ-750, the AI of the Beacon’s weapons module, operates the Egg; it cannot be fired without the AI. Documented sequence:
- the sublevel trolls, as intermediaries, access RAJ-750;
- the AI configures the Egg with specific geographic, temporal and doctrinal parameters;
- the Egg is loaded into a bomb-dragonfly, an aerial vehicle mixing Rudishva technology and parasitic biology;
- the dragonfly flies to the target;
- the detonation alters the cosmological operation of the place, not only its material geography.
Chain of custody
- Original custody: the Rudishva weapons module in the Cavern of the Lock of the Troll Lifts, guarded by a deranged intelligence (RAJ-750).
- Secondary custody: Psalor Ki, who “made a bond with a Marguerite and at one point even kept the egg”.
- The Seekers gained access to it during their first run.
- They handed it to the Varumani as part of strategic alliances in the war against the Knights of the Scar of the Sun. The Varumani kept it and did not detonate it of their own will.
- Kerbog Khan sent a dragonfly, an armed automaton of his own line, to take the Egg from the Varumani; it carried and activated it over the city.
Kerbog acted from the shadows so as not to be hunted by the Archontean Empire or by the schools of magic (Sortians, Priscians, Theosophists).
Effect on Ritornello
Before, Ritornello was the city of sixty silver domes crowning temples of the Benevolent Brotherhood, seat of the Archontean Empire’s Factorial Merchants and the main trading center of the Barrado Balacán. An 18-day fateful date started the countdown, one of the major cosmological events of the present cycle. Afterward the city was left in silence, not rubble: its ruins are recorded as suspended rather than destroyed geography. What was there still exists in some sense, but the wider cosmos no longer reaches it. The valley calls it, fifteen years later, the matter of the ashes.
Aftermath
- The Varumani, who held the Egg and took part in the violence, were later destroyed. The Defeat of the Varumani is recorded as a consequence, a punishment for the mass violation against humanity: the custodian fell, not the operator.
- Kerbog Khan survived. The Crystallization of the Machines later ruined his technology and forced him into hiding, where he reappears in a sarcophagus as “the Elf-Troll”.
- The Seekers who handed over the Egg bear partial, indirect responsibility: Caladan, Bayrum, Alúmine, Sixto, Roderick and Valerius, Melvino Calvino and Numa Pompilius. After the Hiatus they are joined by Decio Balmora, woodsman of Valdemora, who lost his own in the disaster. Nobody has told him.
Open questions
- Whether other Eggs exist is not fully confirmed. The Ritornello Egg was consumed, but the weapons module remains and RAJ-750 is still operational; someone with the right codes (the lord of the domain, a Seeker who learns too much, or the sister intelligence Akala as bridge) could have it dispense another.
- The Plata hypothesis holds that the Egg is a replicable model. If the Heqeti reached the module, directly or through manipulated Seekers, all of Ardisvala could be at stake.
- What Psalor Ki did with the Egg while holding it is unknown.