The Heroes Within

**The Heroes Within** is the 8th session of the New Dawn Memories campaign. It is part of the Return to Sender story arc.

# Synopsis

While the party follows Neverember to his hideout, they reflect on the decisions they've made in the past few days.

# Development

## Part 1

The party learns from Neverember that he found a safe place in the wasteland of the former city of Neverwinter. As he tries to convince them to follow him there, he notices a pin on Manasa's clothing, identifying him as a foot soldier of a brigade in Neverwinter.

While following Neverember to the fort he claimed for himself, the party reminiscence through conversations about the past few days.

### The Conversations

#### Weneon & Mycha

Weneon asks Mycha about Kilijan's reaction to the stabbing. Mycha tries to explain himself, but Weneon tries to convince him that Kilijan is still just a little kid and to let it go.

#### Mycha & Kilijan

When Mycha approaches Kilijan to talk to him about what happened earlier, Kilijan brushes it off as a purly reasonable response to the situation from his side. He concludes by telling Mycha that he has let go of the idea of killing him.

#### Kilijan & Lorkhan

Kilijan tries to understand Lorkhan's ability to consume souls and asks him why he did not consume his soul while he was dying. Lorkhan, who himself does not genuinely understand the process, attempts to explain to Kilijan that some unknown desire probably kept him from letting completely go.

#### Lorkhan & Manasa

Lorkhan is interested in learning from Manasa what the world was like 1000 years ago. Manasa, having only seen the current state of Neverwinter they are in right now, answers him that it was 1000 times better than this.

#### Manasa & Weneon

Manasa is intrigued by Weneon's desire to steal. He starts telling him about his own thievish past, and they start exchanging stories about heists they were involved in. Manasa learns that reincarnation is no longer possible in the future.

#### Weneon & Kilijan

Weneon tries to convince Kilijan that he acted emotional regarding the incident with Mycha. Kilijan sees it as a pure rational reaction. They debate for a while about the merits of what constitutes the transcendental margins of one's inner world in reference to a dialectical understanding of the difference between emotion and rationality. Weneon then asks Kilijan to make him a gun.

#### Mycha & Lorkhan

Mycha, still obsessed with Kilijan's response, tries to get an opinion about the situation out of Lorkhan. Lorkhan simply tells him to let it go, adding: "So what if he is mad at you? Let him be mad. Who the fuck cares?"

#### Kilijan & Manasa

Kilijan is most interested in Manasas snake patron. He asks him some scientific questions, to which Manasa, who does not know how to explain the powers he got, tells Kilijan that he now has a snake around his body, but that he used to be known to have a snake in his pants.

#### Lorkhan & Weneon

Lorkhan approaches Weneon and asks him how he is doing. They chat for a bit about everything that has happened, and Lorkhan tells him about what it means to be free for him: "I need to get stronger because that is the only way I can stay free." This resonates profoundly with Weneon.

#### Manasa & Mycha

Manasa and Mycha have a chat about naming conventions for weapons.

### The Inner Thoughts

After the conversations come to an end, the party reflects internally on the station they are in.

#### Weneon's Thoughts

Weneon is thinking about how he got away from home to escape his grandfather's Xanzin Emberspirit's strict rules. In a way, he wanted to be free, but now that he looks at the people he is with, and seeing the things he has seen, he can't shake the feeling of the world being a place full of regrets.

#### Mycha's Thoughts

Mycha is concerned about not losing again someone he cares about to the darkness. He thinks of his sister Myscha and the last time he saw her in the barn killing his childhood friend before his eyes, before she was taken to the asylum by their parents.

#### Kilijan's Thoughts

Kilijan's thoughts are occupied with creating armor from mimic material. He then looks at the party and thinks to himself how they destroy everything. He concedes, however, that at least they do not hit him. His mind wanders to the time of abuse he endured with the pirates, but also with times of joy he had with Kalena.

#### Lorkhan's Thoughts

Lorkhan's only thinks about surviving the situation they are currently in. His mind is set on his hatred towards Nazzit, his former owner, and how he escaped him. Thinking back, Lorkhan vividly remembers Nazzit being hit in the head during Lorkhan's escape. Suddenly Lorkhan realizes that he never actually saw Nazzit dying, just falling unconscious.

#### Manasa's Thoughts

Manasa thinks about the fact that all hope he had might be lost, since reincarnation was lost to time. He thinks about his brothers Kronos and Atlas. Will he ever see them again?

## Part 2

Neverember and the party arrive at the fort. Neverember has made somewhat of an improvised camp among the ruins. He gets the party seated and produces, from one of the remaining few scrolls he has, a heroes' feast before they fall asleep.

The party is awakened by Kilijan tinkering with something in the courtyard. He then gifts to Mycha a mechanical hand that attaches to his nerves. The hand does not function properly, but Mycha just thanks Kilijan and says nothing.

The party examines the perimeters of the fort. Kilijan commits the landscape from one of the fort's towers to a magical stone. Weneon, inspired by this, suggests to Kilijan to try to commit these images he made to Marla's rings.

Neverember approaches shortly after. During a short but emotional conversation about their intentions to help him, he promotes Manasa to a general of Neverwinter, leaving to him the choice of deciding what they should do. He produces a teleportation circle, giving them the option to go if they so desire.

Neverember tells them how he was kidnapped and locked away after a trip he went on just before the cataclysm. His judges put him away in the dungeon beneath Neverwinter Castle.

Just before the cataclysm, however, a man opened his cell door and introduced himself as Gambino from the Leaves. He grabbed Neverember and dragged him to the library tower of Neverwinter, he placed him next to the big window overlooking the city, and froze his body. Neverember recounts how he then saw his city teleported beneath the surface of the earth.

For the next 1000 years, he witnessed the fall of his once great city, while the people in the streets fought for their lives for hundred of years.

Neverember does not know Gambino's motivations, why he did this to him. He tells the party that only a few days ago, the curse was lifted. He fought his way to this location to retrieve his spell book from a bunker he ordered to be built underneath this fort.

The party agrees to help, and make their way down the well in the middle of the courtyard.

## Part 3

Reaching the bottom of the well, the party finds the latch that leads to the bunker. As they climb down a metal ladder, Kilijan accidentally triggers the light switch and a chemical reaction lights up the place.

They see a damp cave with a stone bridge leading to a somewhat well-preserved house on the other end of the cave.

While approaching the building, the party is attacked by a swarm of kruthiks. After the fight, Kilijan shows to Weneon the marking he got from Ostar's breath weapon.

In the building they find well-preserved rooms and a dog named Meff. Lorkhan gains his trust, and Meff leads him to his previous owner's study. As Lorkhan investigates the study, Weneon finds in another room an unopened letter addressed to Gambino with a sigil of the Leaves.

Lorkhan finds Neverember's spell book and another book written in a strange script. Kilijan examines the book and realizes that the ink was thinned with blood to last longer.

As they try to leave the building, a howler attacks them. They swiftly deal with him and return to the fort.

Neverember, seeing Meff, tells them that this must be the ancestor of the original Meff who belonged to his childhood friend and archivist Maifel. The party shows him the book and he realizes that it is Maifel's handwritting in a script they came up with as children. He browses through the pages and lets the party know that it contains every detail of the resistance of the people of Neverwinter after the calamity.

He informs them that he found a paragraph that mentions a location to the north of the fort in which "The Hungry", a sorrowsworn made by Gambino and based on Lorilon Duskwalker, was located by a recon team.

Weneon then hands him the unopened letter. Neverember reads it and crumbs the letter in his hand. He then tells Manasa that their next missions seems clear, and that he awaits his decision on how to proceed.