Pyramid of Shadows - a path ahead.
"I don't think it is actually there." Rynoth pointed up toward the birds flitting about the structure. "See how the shadow ravens just pass in and out through the walls? It's only half-manifest, which means that Karavakos hasn't broken out yet." He let his hand fall back to his side, although he continued to split his attention between the pyramid and the road ahead. "I went through the mages' archives before we left and learned a few things about him and why he's there."
Legends of old speak about the time before men when eladrins and fomorians battled for supreme ship of the Feywild. One such legend tells the story of the ancient fomorian king Moran, who was known for his pursuit of power and fell magic. He stroke a bargain with a demon lord who transformed his evil eye into a crystal vessel of shadow and fire. Moran later crafted several lesser eyes of similar design, naming them Moran’s Eyes and giving them to powerful monsters in exchange for fealty.
Karavakos had with his demon pact with the Prince of Undeath managed to concur all neighboring lands and form a mighty nation to rival the great human empire of Nerath that held sway over much of the land at this time. It was at winter’s arrival that Vyrellis, the eladrin princess, arrived to Karavakos palace seeking his audience.
Vyrellis was the second daughter of the great Eladrin King Palenthior, Warden of the Silver City of Celduilon, and shared Karavakos ambitions for power. The beautiful eladrin princess filled Karavakos head with dreams of power, proposing that he should extend his rule ship across two worlds and into the Feywild. Against eladrin customs, Karavakos took Vyrellis as his bride without her father’s consent, and they proclaimed that they together would rule the new empire. With spring’s dawning his armies would march into the Feywild.
Vyrellis knew that her father would close the Moon Door’s into the Feywild at the approach of Karavakos demonic and undead armies, so she proposed another alliance, betraying her people, and spoke of another portal to the Feywild, a portal guarded jealously by the troll king Vard, founder of the realm of Vardar which bridged into the Feywild as well as the world of men.
Karavakos went to the troll king’s lair with an offer of alliance, but the troll king of Vardar would not hear of it. He knew the strength of the eladrin forces and did not want to march against them and risk his life. Karavakos had to return empty handed. There the story could have ended if not the Blood Lord had interfered, because Vard wielded one of Moran’s Eyes, using it to dominate his violent subjects. Through it the Blood Lord whispered, sending visions to the troll king of Vardar. Telling him to go back to Karavakos with an ultimatum – If Karavakos could guarantee that the troll king would survive the eladrin battle, he would lend Karavakos his aid and his troll hordes.
Karavakos, who received help from his demonic advisors, started the creation of the Stone Cauldron—a vessel built to contain the waters of life that the troll king guarded, having the power to fuel a ritual capable of returning the dead to life—even those already claimed by the Raven Queen. What Karavakos did not tell Vard, was that those raised returned as shades of their former selves under the control of the one who raised them.
When spring came, the demon hordes marched through the Crystal Throne at the Fortress of Mross-Kagg into the Feywild. In the Feywild, though, the demons and the undead met their match. Invincible on the battlefields of the natural world, the demons had no such protection once they stepped into the Feywild and met the mighty eladrin army. Fey spears and arrows felled the hordes, putting an end to Karavakos’s dreams of conquest—and severing his demonic bargain.
When the troll nation of Vardar was sacked, Vard was killed in battle at Kadorhak, his body vanishing in a sheet of orange flame. The forces of good assumed he had been incinerated, but the power of Moran’s Eye carried his body back to the Great Warren. Troll shamans later interred Vard’s remains and the Eye in a great barrow hidden in the Trollhaunt, waiting for his return. But as ages past he was soon forgotten in the mists of time.
The pyramid was constructed from green feystone, so it would last forever. The Tower was the foci used in the complex ritual to bend the dimensions for the creation of the demiplane needed for the prison.
And so one witness remained – Karavakos – imprisoned for eternity in the Pyramid of Shadows by the eladrin king Palenthior, together with princess Vyrellis for her betrayal.