Whispers of a Storm

"Whispers of a Storm" is the twelfth episode of Book 1: Sand & Starlight of Regolus: Dark Age.
== Official Description ==
"When last we left our adventurers, the D-Rank legionnaires had completed their first job, but at a dreadful cost. A clash with Sentinel ended with Aelys’s death, unleashing the demon Xilyreon, who consumed every non-elvhen aboard to restore her. Now, as the charred and broken train crawls into Faleeria, our heroes must face a new challenge: how to spin a tale of what transpired that will not lead to their undoing.”Whispers of a Storm (Youtube).
== Plot ==
=== Part 1 ===
* The train has just arrived in Faleeria. The survivors thank them and say that they will never forget what the group, and therefore the Copper Legion, has done for them. The second the group leaves the train, Hareem pulls them into a group hug and whispers that they have a long discussion ahead of them. When Hareem notices Lenore, he asks if she is to be trusted, before he gives her a document that allows her to stay at Spearhold Keep, at least for the day. He then leads them back to the Heirloom so they can talk before anyone else can get to them for an interrogation.
* Katari is training in the courtyard when she notices the group plus another brandless Isskari coming back. She asks if Lenore is also Karnak Rasaan, war crowned, if she lost her horns in battle. Lenore explains that she did not but that she can still fight if need be. 
* When the others are gone, Katari makes her way to her team in the barracks. She can feel an unnatural, arcane storm brewing but can also still smell Lenore, because of her training to hunt Bloodtraitors, and that was one more of them with magic they should not have. 
* On the Heirloom, they start the debriefing. Hareem activates the privacy field before he asks if they achieved the goal. JB holds up the stone that will fit exactly in the Errant Cryptoglyph. They ask Hareem what he knows about Sentinel, but he does not seem to know the name nor the symbol. They tell him that that was the group who initially had the stone and explain what happened on the train and that there is probably someone in Spearhold Keep that works with Sentinel. As Lenore speaks, Hareem focuses his eyes on her tattoo. She tries to hide it but Hareem asks if she is from the North-East, as far as you can go there. Lenore says that she probably has been there at some point. Hareem thinks she is qualified enough to be here but makes sure she keeps quiet about what is happening here. 
* They have to connect the key rune to the socket matching Longing on the cryptoglyph. As Aelys connects them, the stone sinks in and some lines on it and all their Sigil tattoos light up. A vision appears in her mind of a nighttime canopy of stars, twinkling in vibrant Emerald. They silhouette a figure with resplendent angelic wings. This angel holds their arm down towards a group of people clamored in a savannah-like field. The green light from the stars coalesces and wraps itself around the arm of this angel, coalesces into a physicalized actualized version of the Sigil of Æons as these people from all stretches of life reach up towards this gift the angel is bestowing. As soon as the vision is there, it is gone, but the cryptoglyph still glows. It now shows some kind of blinking light on an irregular grid and the Sigil of Longing radiates a faint thread that seems to go in a northern direction - a map, they realize. Aelys shares the vision with the rest, and Bubbles remembers one the Murals in the Rusted Tomb that showed an angelic figure like this gifting down the Sigil of Æons. Aelys thinks the field those people were standing on could be the Grift to the east of the Prime, north of the desert. 
* Hareem thinks that if it is really a map, it must be close, whatever is it, because the lights that appeared in the sky showed this Sigil. Hareem has dedicated his whole life to this so he wants to figure this out, but someone in the Legion does not seem to want that. Bubbles asks about Hareem’s motivation behind it all. Hareem tells them that all he wants to do is uncover something that nobody has known. He wants to have his name carved into the stone of history. He has so much wealth and nobody to spend it on or to give back to. All he has is that piece of rock that his family has kept and he would like to invite the group in front of him to make history together. 
* JB wonders about the fact that Smythe was a follower of an old god. Hareem says that there are stories of the Gods of old, myths, that they get involved when something is at stake for them. They change the threads of mortal lives when something grander is in the balance, and when lights carved from ancient stone start appearing in the sky and they get branded with sigils not seen for generations, it does not shock him that they met someone defending a piece of this same object carrying divine power. “They [= the gods] went to sleep and something is waking them up.”
* Hareem wants to know more about Lenore and if she spent time in many storms. The others figure out that this is about the Distortion. He asks what it showed her, this storm chasing, as he was shown many things. He used to live near the mountains in the Northeast so he was always curious about it.
* Hareem gives them a Chest of Holding that opens with the phrase “In the Shadow of the Mountain”, which includes a black pearl as the bounty for their mission. He then turns off the privacy field and they all hear Commander Bertrand shouting “D-Ranking Legionnaires of the A-Team, meet me in the fortress now, my office.” 
* Katari wakes up her other teammates. She tells them that the other team is back with another addition and now that they know how some of them fight, they can think about what to do next. Daisy-Mae makes sure they will not violate them. Katari then asks what Voltaire needs from her. He wants her to find out what they were doing, as that document they passed around was not what it seemed. The Pyrrin family have not requested any such activity on any such train, so he wants her to discern what they did.
* Katari makes her way to the train station, where a few members of the Inquisition of the Dawn are still investigating and bringing husks out of the train and away. She tells one of the Coalition Knights that she has information about the incident that she would like to discuss with a higher up. They bring her to the Exactionem Inquisitorio, where she talks to Head Scribe Threnodius. Katari makes a deal with them; she tells them who and they tell her what. Under a Zone of Truth Spell, Katari reveals Aelys’ name and the scribe tells her that she was already on their radar. He then reveals in return that they have found two dead Solarborne on the train, their throats slit but the blade has not yet been found. Katari wants to go investigate herself but Threnodius declines, so Katari decides that the one name is all she has for them. Threnodius has another deal for her: she is closer to the suspects than the Inquisition is so they could give her one of the extractor servos, a skull that when accurately deployed it can be used to manifest physical truth from subjects willing or otherwise, to find out more information in return for the rest of the names. Katari declines and makes her way back to the Keep. 
* Meanwhile, Lenore did not go with the others and is instead joined in her training by Barridyne.
* Commander Bertrand leads the group into her office. In there, they can see a large old copper statue of Xenarius, the Clearhearted, who is holding a spear made out of orichalcum. Bertrand asks if they completed their contract as verified by the Pyrrins. They give her the second bounty Hareem gave them for this situation. Bertrand asks at what costs they took care of the contract and what happened. They tell her that they were attacked by a group called Sentinel and their version of what happened, that they were attacked by them. The Commander emphasizes that their actions have ripples that will carry on long after today. She asks about what magic would be able to do such a thing, so they try to explain that it was some kind of Divine Magic. Bertrand is overwhelmed and stressed and frustrated because she says that sometimes keeping a low profile is worth failing a job and that is what they should have done. The whole Legion will have to suffer because of this. She tells them that they should have taken a step back and take the loss so others don’t get hurt or feel the consequences afterwards. She wants them to keep a low profile and rest for a few days, but also tells them that the word “Sentinel” should not leave this room until she figures out what it means and until then be discreet about all of this. They leave her with the coin with both the Sentinel and the Copper Legion symbol on them.
=== Part 2 ===
* Barridyne wants to fight with Lenore but she denies because she is not going to fight a child. When Barri is gone, she can not only see a jester roaming about that seems unenthused by her whip but also Hareem watching her from above the Heirloom.
* Katari looks at the possible jobs for D-Ranks before she joins Lenore in her training session. She asks again what happened to Lenore’s horns, so Lenore tells her that her people did this to her, when she found out that what they believed was not true and wanted to give everyone the option to believe differently. They kicked her out and when she tried to return for her family, they did this to her and she is now no longer a part of her people. For Katari it makes little sense that they took away something from her and told her that, because she is still part of the Isskari. Is it then that the others return from the Commander’s office. Synnove sees them but sits down away from them. Katari wonders why she did not welcome her and calls her over, twice, and asks her why she shows greater kindness to a stranger than to her own blood. She has to respect her own blood and part of that is to greet each other. Katari then continues with what she promised and shows them the way Isskari greet each other. They did not do that growing up, but it triggers a vision for Synnove of a childhood memory that is otherwise unfamiliar to her: She sits in a cottage at a kitchen table with two women taking care of her. Katari tells Synnove that she should respect family and not deny her own blood just because the circumstances changed. 
* Lenore decides to get something to eat before she heads to bed. While the others see Lenore walk into the building, Lenore finds herself elsewhere when she steps through the suddenly purple-greenish aura of the door. The sky above her is pale green with rivulets of black in it, there are floating chunks of rock around her and hovering in the distance is this great impossible shard of artifice, that looks like the spire or point of something that has been broken off, disks of stone with a faded blue crystal at the tip. She finds herself on a floating Island, but she is not alone, as some kind of mage is sitting around the campground. He looks up at her and welcomes her. They introduce themselves, his name is Sethius, and he says he had a feeling someone would show up, so hopefully they can be of some use to each other. Lenore says that she was told she is a very sharp tool. Sethius explains that this is what is needed here in the Faded Realm.
* Bubbles decides to visit Dr. Iridia Thane. She asks if they recovered or acquired any artifacts or items of otherwise unregistered nature on their mission. Bubbles, who is still holding his new staff, enters the tower so they can talk in private. She invites him into her study and tells him that he would have to give her the item as per regulations of the Copper Legion. Bubbles does not want that but Iridia still needs to at least examine and document it, to which Bubbles agrees, if he can keep the staff afterwards. They both examine it together to find out the origin and intent of this artifice. With the help of some crystals they start the procedure, as the crystals begin to form a V. Iridia asks if the number Five means anything to Bubbles. They find out that this staff is one of an infinite number of them, there have been so many of these and there will be and this was one from a batch of the fifth time they were made. Bubbles asks if she has seen something like the energy inside the top of the staff before, but she only really heard about something similar. Her people used to travel very long distances and they were powered by bioorganic crystalline substances that channeled arcane and psionic energies that seem to be similar in function. Bubbles reveals that he is capable of writing/speaking in Qualith and Deep Speech. She asks where he learned these but he just tells her that he has nobody else that he can speak these languages to and would like to learn more. Iridia would be happy to tutor him, though it seems he doesn’t really need that. With a building level of trust, Iridia shows him a return rune, with which he is able to come back into this tower whenever he needs it. There is only one other who has this rune, Sethius, and he was only given it out of necessity and research. Bubbles asks if Iridia knows the names Nostram or Theagus. She heard the second one before because the staff knew it. Bubbles would like to trust her with something else, so Iridia says “I have just given you the key to my house. What else could I offer you? I am drowning in a sea full of arcane mediocrity and you are here to alleviate that”. Bubbles reveals that the crystal on the staff is Temporite and that he goes by a different name, Theagus. He tells her that he requires exactly this material. Iridia says that if she ever comes across temporite in her work, it might go missing from the stores. All she wants in return is Knowledge, a scholarly debate, an exchange about what he finds out, “if [he] can keep up, that is.” She leaves him with some of the crystals, known as Morphocite, that she wants Theagus to find out more about.
* JB makes his way to the armory tower where he asks Damien to forge something new with the copper he has left from the Tomb. He wants to be able to protect and defend people better, and so a new shield is created, the Stormcloud Aegis. Before JB leaves, Damien tells him that he has a bad feeling and to stay safe. 
* JB and Bubbles find themselves in the barracks, where Aloysius hands them a letter from Hareem that says “Legionnaires, I have confirmed it. It is in fact a map. Give me two days, then Stage Two”. They destroy it so nobody else can find it. Synnove joins them in the barracks, where all three of them decide to go to bed for a few hours. 
* Katari sneaks inside the room and casts a Silence spell so she can’t be heard. She tries to take Synnove’s book, but as she touches it, her own and Synnove’s brands/tattoos start to glow, as Katari gets a vision: She finds herself in a grassy field, a forest in the back and a cottage not so far in the distance. She busts into the cottage, where she finds a child with golden eyes standing in front of a table. The child says: “You shouldn’t be here” over and over again, as suddenly her eyes go from gold to bright green, as green flames engulf her face and her body becomes caged by this thick dark iron lantern, green flames spilling out from it, that then breaks apart into metal iron limbs. A sword comes out of nowhere and as it is about to hit Katari, she is back in the barracks, book in hand but Synnove is awake. Synnove immediately lunges for her book. Katari can see a tall woman who is radiated in gold light in her peripheral vision, but she ignores it and a fight begins. Being away from the book causes a sharp pain in Synnove’s back of the head. JB wakes up and  sees what is happening, so he steps in and knocks Katari out. Before the lights around her go out, she just hears a whisper in her head “You don’t belong here”. Katari falls unconscious and is hogtied so she can’t attack someone again. Synnove gets her book back and the pain in her head immediately goes away. JB checks in on Synnove before he goes back to bed. Synnove stays up a bit longer and writes a letter to Katari that she puts in a pocket on her outfit so Katari finds it when she wakes up:
* Aelys makes her way to the old temple of Sindar. She feels the hunger in her as she steps in. “What would be enough for you?”, she asks, “I don’t understand. You could have taken my body, but you listened to me. You saved me. Why? Why do you care about them?” As the light shifts above her, the Xilyreon answers that it was because they taste good and because it is old. Aelys wants to know what it is so she doesn’t have to search and wants an explanation as to why it is her bloodline’s burden, so maybe she could help. It saved Aelys so there has to be a reason for it. The Xilyreon tells her that they are not done yet and they still have truth to make, the first and only truth. The truth from which it is made. Aelys wants to know what it is. “Everything dies.”, is the answer she gets, “Because I am. We will do it, you and I. Not the sorrow, not the (k)night(?). You and I will finish what I was made for. You want to know me? You would know me. I am only that I am. That which was made true by my mother and her kin.” Aelys asks who that is and the being that formed in front of her out of the liquid shadows, of ink and claw, in this unstable realm that it created, tells her that “She is the shepherd. I am the pasture in which they lie. Know me now and always, child of Viraan, Godsleep.”
== Characters ==
=== Player Characters ===
* Aelys Sa’Viraan
* Bubbles Bathington
* Jean-Baptiste
* Katari
* Lenore
* Synnove Oleander
=== NPCs ===
* Hareem Lord Hareem
* Garavel Norixior
* unnamed train passengers
* Aloysius 
* Solomon
* Voltaire
* Chrom
* Barridyne
* Værina
* Daisy-Mae
* Commander Bertrand
* unnamed Knight
* Scribe Threnodius
* Stella
* Sethius
* Dr. Iridia Thane
* Damien
* Xilyreon
===Mentioned===
*Garavellir (in RP Warmup)
* Urzok 
* Smythe 
* Rahni 
* Beatrix Avalon 
* Pyrrin family 
* Senevok, the Glory 
== Locations and Organizations ==
=== Locations ===
* Faleeria
** Train Station
** Spearhold Keep
** Exactionem Inquisitorio
** Old Temple of Sindar
* Faded Realm
=== Organizations ===
* Copper Legion
* Sentinel
* Coalition of Greater Order
** Vanguard
*** Inquisition of the Dawn
== Tarot Card and RP Warmup ==
The tarot card for the episode was The Fool, drawn by Wintercamryn.
The roleplay warmup question was: "Is there anyone back home that your character misses in particular?"
== References ==