The Fifteen-Year Hiatus is the period between the close of the first cycle in the valley of Ardis Vala and the return of the Seekers. During it Ritornello fell, Sir Sixto rose as Pope, the valley became a domain of mists, and the Seekers came back changed.
| Type | Event |
| Duration | Fifteen cosmological years |
| Location | Valley of the Barrado Balacán; the mega-dungeon |
| Spanish entry | El Hiato de los Quince Años |
Duration
The archive first recorded thirty years, then corrected it to fifteen: half of thirty, which is half of sixty, the full zodiacal cycle. The Hiatus is a quarter-cycle.
Events
From outside, the Seekers stopped descending, the roads to Ritornello grew over, and the mega-dungeon went on breathing underground. Inside:
- Sir Sixto, lost in the lower levels since the first cycle, emerged as Pope Alexander VI, later seated in the Palace / Castle of the Prism.
- In the first year a dragonfly carrying a bomb egg (an extract of the rudishva arcane module, possibly side work of Kerbog Khan) burned Ritornello, the valley’s imperial city, to ashes. The Seekers share the blame: in the first cycle they gave the egg to the faction that detonated it.
- Varboka’s Varumani, lords of the Court of the Thegn and operators of the Troll Lifts, fell at the close of the first cycle or during the Hiatus (Defeat of the Varumani). The Lifts stopped, the Court stood vacant, and the mines of the Floor of the Great Abyss were suspended or seized.
- The valley became the domain of Valakhan: mists at the edges, white fever in the villages.
- Caladan, risen from the sarcophagus of Tuliarios and vampirized by Malakita in the hyperbaric chamber, settled as an involuntary darklord in the castle on the hill, and waited.
Figures of the silence
- Decio Balmora: Ranger of Valdemora, former Lord of the Sunless Citadel, widower of Lali.
- Argus: Baron of Ritornello, a fallen paradigm turned ranger.
- Carad de Teyber: Lord of Panthers, Decio’s betrayer, regional authority imposed after Ritornello.
- Lali, corrupted: vampire queen of the Gulthias Tree in the ravine of Stejara; once Caladan’s mortal partner.
- Mirela Valka, Luminita and Dracos: a noble family of Valdemora.
- Baba Iliana: binder of prophecies in Estellara.
- Arkos: alchemical clone of Arcoms Cosmar, summoned with high-purity mercurial silver solution.
- Ardipithecus: the proto-guardian Graz’zt hid in the companion sword of Valerius, settled there to emerge later.
In an outer barrow of the Barrowmaze, a dark portal can age whoever crosses it by fifteen years.
The return
Decio, found far from the valley, guided the Seekers back. Mirela received them at Valdemora; Baba Iliana bound what she could at the inn of Estellara. Sent to rescue Luminita and Dracos from a crypt, they descended through the Sunless Citadel, sunk into a rift during the silence. They beheaded the corrupted Lali, whose last words were: “I knew you would come to do this to me. I forgive you. I have always forgiven you.” They found Argus, then fell into the pentagram of the Palace of the Prism, whose prism had harvested its three colors (green, yellow, red, the colors of the flag of Abyssinia) during the Hiatus.
The Seekers came back changed:
- Caladan: pointed animal ears, red eyes, feline claws.
- Valerius: unknowingly carrying the demonic companion sword.
- Alúmine: armor half-crystallized by an unnamed plane.
- Bayrum: with the shield and axe Argus bequeathed him.
- Sixto: a warrior sharing the Pope’s name, coincidence unresolved.
Conflicting accounts
- The link between the prism’s colors and the Abyssinian standard is the chronicler’s thesis, held by some heretical Sortians and confirmed by the Custodes without discussion.