The End of the Line

"The End of the Line" is the eleventh episode of Book 1: Sand & Starlight of Regolus: Dark Age.
== Official Description ==
"When last we beheld our brave adventurers, they found themselves aboard a train bound for Faleeria. There, they crossed paths with a band known as the “Sentinel,” led by none other than Smythe, a cunning tortle who held the very Cryptoglyph fragment they sought. Yet, despite attempts at parley, peace was not to be found. Upon the windswept roof of the speeding train, a fierce battle erupted, leaving our heroes in possession of the fragment—but their struggle is far from over."The End of the Line (Youtube).
== Plot ==
Note: You will find a Content Warning in one of the bullet points of Part 1. Please check it out and skip if need be. Take care of yourself.
=== Part 1 ===
* Aelys and Thera are fighting in the engine car. Aelys asks for the stone and when Thera reveals that Smythe has it, Aelys knocks her out and brings her up on the roof of the train.
* Synnove is unconscious from the lightning that hit her, but her book is floating over her body. Synnove finds herself in her familiar dream, the phoenix sitting on top of the ruins, offering help, now and forever, but that would mean she could help the rest of them less. They still have so much work to do and she can’t do it without Synnove. Syn agrees if this is the way towards healing the world. Stella confirms, as this is the way towards the forever light. Fragments of golden light enter Synnove’s body, she feels ascendant, as the dream fades to white gold. 
* On the train where Synnove lies, the book glows and the light wafts over her, as the goodberry that Bubbles fed her takes effect and she wakes up. She feels that her healing capabilities have changed. 
* JB sees that Synnove is okay, so he follows the direction Kelevor went before they turned invisible. 
* The others see Aelys coming up the train, carrying the unconscious Thera, as suddenly the air around her shimmers. Kelevor appears and attacks Aelys, who is barely standing - carving the sentinel symbol into her and slitting her throat. As she falls over, blood seeps out of the symbol, but nothing from the throat. From where they are standing, a void of pitch black shadow encompasses everything. From Aelys’ bleeding body, the Xilyreon speaks: “Demi Planar Expanse. Malice of the First Truth”. Her mouth cracks like ice up the side of her head, as from their feet these strands of breaking ice break out. Aelys rises in the air, as a throne of ice forms beneath her. The threads reach out to the individuals around, but Synnove is able to avoid them because she still radiates light. They reach Thera, who turns to ash, and Kelevor, the tendrils rip the body apart and reform it into a shuddering, pulsating orb, that is consumed by Aelys’s body. As the tendrils hit JB and Bubbles, they can feel their constitution lowering. 
* Aelys’s consciousness drifts through a sea of moving, shifting bodies; the bodies of those wayward children that were looking for her before. She is helplessly pulled along, the pulsing, dull red veins spread through the dark blue sky above her, as suddenly the sky shutters. Aelys hears the Xilyreon again, telling her that they will eat them next, friends all, and the question if she wants them to stop. She is not aware of what is happening on the train, so she says: “Don’t hurt them, don’t hurt them. Anyone else is okay. Just not them.” “Anyone?”, the Xilyreon wants her to confirm. “Not Elves. Everyone else.”, she specifies, which is being interpreted as Elvhenan by the Xilyreon. 
* (Content Warning: Accidental Death) In this sphere of eternal darkness, a dead Aelys cracks their attention towards JB and runs towards him. JB tries to stop Aelys, ready to send charges of electricity through her body, as Aelys suddenly stops in front of him and the dark sky shatters apart. She smashes her hands through the floor, darkness floods the entire train. All they hear are screams and cries, unbridled horror, before it all goes quiet. They will find 25 husks in total where non-elvhenan individuals have been before - only the elder-blooded and her friends survived. The train comes to a halt in the middle of the desert.
* Aelys gains consciousness, her body turning back to normal, the shadow gone. They head down into the train to see the aftermath, check on the survivors and do damage control. They tell the people that they were attacked. Bubbles can sense that the barrier between the Prime plane and Realm of Magic is exponentially thinner than it was moments ago. 
* Lenore appears as if she had never left and notices that the train is not moving. She starts searching for her sister. 
* JB makes his way to the front of the train. On the way, he helps a few people, including the Ad’Elvhen, who shows JB the symbol of the Nevricīl and could get help. JB tells him to wait as they are Copper Legion and will try to handle it. He makes his way into the engine car, where a warforged was operating the train but there is just a husk now. 
* Bubbles and Aelys make their way to the back, where they meet Lenore. While Aelys just keeps moving, Bubbles tells Lenore where she can find Synnove. 
* When they reach the end of the train, Aelys tries to speak to the Xilyreon, asking if this is what they did in Üthevhenan. She gets no answer, but the strength is almost like when she woke up in the desert. She turns to Bubbles and wants to know what exactly happened so Bubbles tells her what they saw. 
* Synnove follows JB to the front, where JB just touched the husks of the warforged. He gets a vision of a town somewhere near farmland with things coming out of the ground and sights of languid lengthy creatures tearing through the village and ripping it apart before they burrow back beneath the earth. As soon as the vision is there, it is gone again. JB moves the husk to try to figure out how the train works. Synnove arrives and they discuss their next steps, as Lenore enters the car. Synnove is upset because Lenore just disappeared again, so Lenore tries to explain what happened and that she wants the same thing as they do so they can work together.
* Aelys jumps off the train and Bubbles follows her, telling her that she can’t run away from her problems and that they need to talk about it. Aelys says that those feelings of hatred and upsetness are the only things that give her strength. They sit down and Bubbles tells her that she has to face whatever is inside of her. Aelys agrees, she is here to think about it because she doesn’t think this is the worst thing she has done. Saying that, she has a dreamlike thought about choosing her party and elvhen, and an image of shifting through the sea of bodies. The voice appears in her head again: “She knows where it is, the night-touched one. She knows”. Bubbles asks what steps they can take to not have that happen again. Aelys tells him about the book she is looking for, the Dreamer’s Codex by Abelas, that she needs to understand more about what the Xilyreon is and use him, because they are connected, it is her and she is it, forever. That is her purpose. Aelys asks if Bubbles still wants to sit next to her and Bubbles just answers: “I am still here, aren’t I?”. Aelys tells him that there might be more bodies like them before she figures out how to control it. Bubbles wonders why he is still alive then. Aelys thinks he saved them because she thinks she needs them, but Bubbles reveals that she killed someone he knew, a friend from a different life. He will explain more but wants the whole group to hear it. They continue to talk about control and strength. Bubbles is not sure if Aelys should really want the strength the Xilyreon has, as that took out almost every passenger on the train. “But not all of them. Not the ones I’d save”, Aelys says, as they just sit there in silence. After a while, Aelys thanks Bubbles and says sorry for putting them in danger.
* When they return to the train and all meet back together, they plan their next steps and the story they will tell, before they gather the leftover passengers in one of the first class cars with an announcement from Synnove (“Attention, Survivors. [...] Congratulations, you have survived”)”, in which she tells them that the train was attacked by Sentinel, before they continue their journey to Faleeria. 
* After a while, a green light on Bubbles’ new staff begins to glow. Bubbles knows this to be a request beacon.
=== Part 2 ===
* Lenore and Synnove sit down in the Dining Car. Lenore tries to explain again what happened to her after she was dropped in the Distortion, that she is still half her but the other half is now like the Distortion so she needs to go back there regularly to recharge. But she is still herself and cares about their family. They talk about magic, tainted or not, and the gods they follow and the work they do for them. Synnove asks why Lenore needs that stone but Lenore says that she thinks it is best to keep it somewhere safe and within the hands of people they trust. They continue to talk about who they trust and that it is hard for Syn to trust her because of what she was told back home by Inara, but she doesn’t know what is true anymore. Lenore needs Synnove to understand that she did not want to be away and that she is willing to answer any more questions they have. 
* Bubbles/Theagus finds a space where he is alone and answers the call. He recognizes the voice as someone from at least the upper rankings of the Hourglass Court asks him about the change in the ownership of the staff. Theagus tells them that the other Theagus was killed and that his directive is to find as much Temporite as he can. The member tells him that when enough has been amassed, the Hourglass Court will help him return home.
* Throughout the journey, Garavel Norixior tries to speak to JB, Synnove and Bubbles because he wants to gather knowledge for his article about what has happened.
* The group finds themselves back together in the engine room, where Bubbles opens up about his story. With another accent, his real voice, Bubbles reveals that his name is Theagus SOT and that he is here on an order from the group that he works with to obtain pieces of an object called Temporite, a deep magical essence put inside a rock that can give power, mostly in the essence of time. He does it all for the Seekers of Time. Nostrum was also a part of this organization and that is why they knew each other. Theagus tells them that a part of the staff is made of temporite, which is deeply important for them to understand and manipulate time. His goal is to collect as much as he can and then leave. Theagus reveals that he is from another world, from a place called Mobiaux and got his ability to speak from SOT. He is sorry for lying to them but he is not intending on manipulating the threads of this world, not unless he has to, but he was shunted here and does not mean to harm anyone. His goggles will help him find the temporite he needs, but that is why he was so upset when Halifax took them away by Halifax. 
* Lenore remembers that her boss has spoken in passing of allies, people who are working to the same end, and the comet wyrm was someone she cannot really place yet. Theagus asks Lenore about her tattoo, as it seems to be from another iteration. Theagus makes sure that the others will keep his true identity between them and hidden from the rest of the world.
* Aelys asks Theagus if any of the words he said as Bubbles were true to him as Theagus. He negates that, he is not from the North and does not have family there, he never met orcs and he has only been on this world for two months. He will be honest with them from now on but can’t promise that he or his court won't interfere with this time/reality here on the Prime. What he knows and wonders about is that all the elves are called Theagus, but he is the only other species that has been called that name and that he was chosen.
* Afterwards, they check in on Aelys and ask what they need to do so Aelys can get control over the dangerous thing inside her. She can’t get rid of it, as it is a part of her, but she needs the book to understand it. Aelys tells them about how it became a part of her, that she lost her magic when she was bound to the Xilyreon. It is the burden of the Viraans to handle it but she needs to understand it first. JB needs to make sure that Aelys will try to not let that happen again. They again talk about the trust they have for each other and the importance of being honest so they can try to fix things together as a group and prevent things like this from happening again.
* They debate on what to do with Sentinel and how it connects to the Copper Legion and that this could start a war so they have to be careful. Synnove believes that Sentinel is the reason why this has happened, as she doesn’t think it was Aelys’s responsibility, she can’t control the thing inside of her and just needs to figure out how to do that. 
* Synnove says she needs to talk to Stella, which opens up a discussion about the gods and how Synnove still thinks the other gods are bad.
* The hours pass by and the train arrives in Faleeria, where they can see Hareem and a small hooded figure waiting for them. As the figure sees them arrive, they disappear into the town.
== Characters ==
=== Player Characters ===
*Aelys Sa’Viraan
*Bubbles Bathington
*Jean-Baptiste
*Lenore
*Synnove Oleander
===Mentioned===
* Abelas
* Inara
=== NPCs ===
* Thera 
* Kelevor 
* Stella
* Xilyreon
* several unnamed train passengers
* Norixior
* unnamed Member of the Hourglass Court
* Hareem Lord Hareem
* Værina
== Locations and Organizations ==
=== Locations ===
* Train from Sullevara to Faleeria
* Mobiaux (mentioned)
* Faleeria Train Station
=== Organizations ===
* Nevricīl
* Hourglass Court
== Tarot Card and RP Warmup ==
The tarot card for the episode was The Hanged Man, drawn by Hannah.
The roleplay warmup question was: "What is in your character’s pockets right now?"
==References==