The Lost Cataclysm (Campaign)

*This article is about the campaign. For the in-universe event, see The Lost Cataclysm.*

**The Lost Cataclysm** is a D&D 5e campaign run by wiki moderator Apeirogon42. It takes place in the Saulis Isles in 4161 ANW, 54 years after Daerraphere was hit by a world-wide catastrophe that seemingly no one can remember. The player characters find themselves being interrogated for something they have no memory of. They come together to investigate the strange goings-on of various secretive groups and to battle a new threat emerging from Ostad.

## Characters

### Players

* Arne: A human ranger who grew up on the streets of Elendul. His parents were refugees from Iannocia in the aftermath of the Cataclysm. They just barely made it into the country before borders were closed. Arne grew up with Sia Jesqonda, but the two lost contact before Sia met David Windbrook. The two reunited when Arne joined the Project. However, the cult's murderous ways became too much for him, and he escaped with Sia's help. He made a bit of a living selling game in some of the shadier parts of town, catching the attention of the Coldcrest criminal syndicate. He and Snargle have known each other for an unknown amount of time. Arne is played by Starfoxer117.
* Snargle: Later called Blargle after a wild magic mishap, he is an elderly goblin warlock. His life was extended thanks to his patron, Groth-Golka, the Demon Bird-God of Balsagoð. He lost contact with Groth-Golka after the Cataclysm, but since his mysterious interrogation the god has been communicating to him somewhat through his arcane focus. Blargle is played by Gustav Cannon.
* Calvyn "Badger" Goldmantle: A rock gnome fighter that grew up on the wild stories his grandfather told of his time in the local Elendul Adventurer's Guild. Having been hyped up about this guild, he sought it out only to find the two remaining members were not fit for adventure. He set off on his own adventure, but after the group's interrogation he found his holy symbol of Gond, a keepsake from his grandfather's days as a cleric, had been replaced with a fake. The Adventurer' Guild may not be doing any adventuring anymore, but they have kept good track of local conspiracies and gossip. Calvyn is played by Monk3yboy316.
* Guy Epic: A human monk who gained fame as a theatrical martial artist. Experienced a mental breakdown after the Cataclysm that ending his acting career. Guy is played by Dabmeister.

### Companions

* Nyarriel Arafir: A high elf ranger NPC. The Lost Cataclysm devastated Iannocia. Soon after it occurred, Nyarriel and her infant daughter were part of a refugee caravan making its way south to Elendul. However, Minister of Foreign Affairs Albert van der Wolde closed the country's borders, and anyone attempting to enter illegally were arrested and subject to inhumane treatment in various camps and prisons on Elendul's outskirts. During the course of this, Nyarriel's daughter died, and a pendant she was going to give to her was stolen by van der Wolde. She managed to escape prison with the help of Pelecciel Evenspell, another Elven refugee with whom she had fallen in love. The two of them founded a commune in the ruins of Drimwell Prison called Etelehta. The commune became a haven for victims of the Elendul refugee crisis. Nyarriel and Pelecciel lead the Eterúninde Riders, a band of rangers that protected the commune.
* Pelecciel Evenspell: A high elf ranger NPC. After falling in love with Nyarriel during the Elendul refugee crisis, she assisted in founding Etelehta. The two sought revenge against van der Wolde, eventually launching an attack on his homestead. The players were sent to fend them off, but decided to join them instead, breaking into van der Wolde's home and stealing back Nyarriel's pendant.
* Gemphias Therdiak: Dragonborn paladin NPC. Apparently part of a secret organization known as the Keepers, Gemphias was stationed at an outpost in the Sulchai Mountains when the Petrified Sentinel attacked. Her sister Alken was killed, and she only survived by locking herself in the outpost's vault. After a month of isolation, she was released when the players defeated the Petrified Sentinel's forces. She left for the Keeper's headquarters, but met up with the players again when she was captured by the Rusted Sentinel's forces. She was forced to compete in the arena at Windlo, but escaped with the players' help. She joined them in defeating the Rusted Sentinel. She seems to have some issues with how another secret organization, referred to by her as the Protectorate, have been treating the Keepers.
* Gond: God of Crafts and Smithing. Calvyn's grandfather was a cleric of Gond. The god has only recently been able to contact the players on the material plane, as all the gods had seemingly left after the Cataclysm. The players have had two visions relating to Gond: one in which Gond appears to find a decaying humanoid entity identifying itself as "Rot," and one where Gond and Jergal, a former God of Death from the same pantheon, resurrect Groth-Golka after followers of Gond killed him millennia ago.
* Groth-Golka: Great Old One, the Demon Bird-God of Balsagoð. He was killed by followers of Gond that washed up on his remote island several millennia ago. As his body decayed and his bones froze over, he saw visions of some sort of presence within death, seemingly the same entity that Gond witnesses in the players' vision. When Gond had him resurrected, Groth-Golka informed him about this "presence" and went off to find a suitable ward to prepare for this presence's full manifestation. With the last of his power, he became the patron of Snargle and gave him extended life. However, after the Cataclysm, he was cut off from the material plane and could no longer contact Snargle until recently.

### Other Friendly NPCs

* Gavyn Thundersplitter: Human fighter. Husband of Belnir Bravefists. The two of them are the last remaining members of the Elendul Adventurer's Guild. They are too old to keep adventuring themselves, but were glad to help out the players when they sought their assistance. The guild is based in the basement of Nora's Vibrant Textiles, a shop run by Nora Effebesen.
* Belnir Bravefists: Dwarf barbarian. Husband of Gavyn Thundersplitter. He wrote a book based on the Guild's adventurers titled *The Fantastic True Stories of the Adventures of Belnir Bravefists.* His husband claims the events of the books are embellished, but Gavyn is credited as an editor in the book. Belnir is quick to blame Mind Flayers for any strange goings-on around Elendul.
* Sia Jesqonda: Human. Childhood friend of Arne before she was indoctrinated by David Windbrook, becoming second-in-command of the Project. David was extremely abusive towards her, but she stayed with the cult because it was the first place to give her life meaning. However, after David began sending thousands of troops to their deaths in a battle against the growing threats of Ostad, she questioned her faith. With the players' help, she confronted and killed David. Her fate after this is unknown.
* Odulf Platt: Human wizard. A very reclusive individual, Odulf has set up shop in Etelehta on the coast of Thiamor Lake. After much persuasion, he revealed he was working on some sort of potion to counteract an anomaly at the lake's center. Everyone who attempts to travel through it ends up on the other side with no memory of what they saw on the way through. He's warmed up to the people of Etelehta a bit, having helped find a cure to a mysterious disease spread from strange plants in Moeraslonde.
* Ianhomin Aranala: Half-elf, local doctor in Etelehta. He struggled to find a cure to the zombie disease from Moeraslonde as he had started developing symptoms himself. After the players convinced Odulf to help, he assisted the wizard in finding the cure.
* Laath: Oni, originally introduced to the players in his human form as Okuda Masanari. He had been captured by the Rusted Sentinel and forced to compete in the Fightmaster's arena battles, but escaped with the players' help.
* Adomnán MacThréinfhir: Human, head of Coldcrest operations in Elendul. He had known about Arne long before the events of the campaign, but the party as a whole caught his attention when Yllfaen Hollygrove, one of Coldcrest's rogues, witnessed them stealing from David Windbrook's vault. After the players became wanted for the break-in at Albert van der Wolde's estate, he offered them protection in exchange for employment with Coldcrest.
* Yllfaen Hollygrove: Half-elf rogue. They reported the players' skills to Adomnán and was the one to guide them to Coldcrest territory when they were on the run from the law. They are a bit embarrassed by their last name as it clashes with their dark and mysterious demeanor.
* Sarmben Qinhana: Wood Elf artificer. One of a pair in Etelehta that gave Calvyn his prosthetic arm. Sarmben's specialty is working the forge and doing more heavy-duty metalworking.
* Torthrien Qinhana: Wood Elf artificer. One of a pair in Etelehta that gave Calvyn his prosthetic arm. Torthrien's specialty is delicate crafting: engravings, clockwork, etc.

### Mysterious Individuals

* Tananta: Amnian Ferret. The players have run into him on a few occasions. He was the one to interrogate them at the very beginning of the game. Later, he and Minister of Education Haryk Adbalar were spotted meeting with Albert van der Wolde, where the two of them accessed some sort of magical device behind a secret door in van der Wolde's vault. He was later seen in the ruins of an Elendul government building where the players had found Calvyn Goldmantle's Gond pendant, which was emitting blasts of holy energy before the players retrieved it. There, Tananta warned the players to stay away from Ostad. According to him, whatever group he is a part of can handle the threats in Ostad, and the players' involvement could make everything worse.
* Haryk Adbalar: Wood Elf, Minister of Education in Elendul. Seemingly connected with Tananta and whatever secret organization interrogated the players.
* Tăcere: One of the three "Uber-Seraphim" within the Project's faith, the three highest ranking Angels that answer directly to the cult's singular God. Arne had brushed off the Project's beliefs as nonsense long ago. However, Tăcere appeared before the players in the caves below Vermaningstad. Maybe the Project's beliefs weren't nonsense after all...
* Omite: Another of the Uber-Seraphim, seemingly the leader of the group. Omite appeared in Windlo soon before the players defeated the Rusted Sentinel. Gemphias seemed to recognize her and berated her for the mistreatment of the Keepers. Omite ordered her to return to the Keepers' base, but she refused to do so until the Rusted Sentinel was dead.
* Reţine: The last Uber-Seraphim, briefly spotted collecting drosera weeds in Moeraslonde.
* Rot: An entity resembling a blackened, rotting corpse that has only been seen in visions by the players. Gemphias and Omite referred to the growing threat in Ostad by the same name.
* Trine Farkeep: Amnian deer. Part of the same organization as Tananta, but her mind was seemingly erased before the party could learn too much from her. A Project zealot called her a "false prophet of the Rot God," saying she was spreading the lies of the Ostad cult across Vestya, a claim Trine denied. She has been given housing in Elendul by Coldcrest

### Villains

* David Windbrook: Human who believes himself to have been resurrected and sent to this world by God. He is the leader of the Project, a cult whose beliefs seem strange to the people of Daerraphere, but outside readers may recognize as a warped version of Christianity with some elements of reincarnation. In his mind, Jesus Christ was just the warm-up act: David himself is the true messiah. He became worried about the influence of another cult in Ostad that was pulling members away from the Project. He announced to all that he had received a "divine gift," a tool to "open one's third eye." The gift in question was an M1911 pistol. As the threat of the Ostad cult grew, he began sending troops over to defeat them. Those who were not killed were captured and converted, and much of the Project's forces were lost. Several ships returned, their crews claiming they had visions of the Uber-Seraphim telling them to leave the island alone. David insisted only he knew God's true will and had these cultists executed for heresy. This deliberate waste of human life was what prompted Sia to confront and kill David. In his dying breaths, David said the cycle of reincarnation would continue and he would seek revenge in every life after this.
* Albert van der Wolde: Human, former Minister of Foreign Affairs in Elendul. He was responsible for the atrocities committed during the Elendul Refugee Crisis, closing the country's borders and sanctioning the horrific treatment of imprisoned refugees. He stole a sentimental pendant from Nyarriel. He has now retired to an estate on the outskirts of Elendul, where all the locals hate him. He was seen meeting with Tananta and Minister Adbalar. His true involvement with them is unknown.
* Petrified Sentinel: A huge creature resembling a marble statue in classic contrapposto pose. The left side of its head and torso, along with its right arm, have been cracked apart, revealing a broiling, surging void within. Its arm of void terminates in a massive axe blade. In its other hand, it wields a spear made of rusted scrap metal. It has a single wing on the right side of its back, and instead of legs it has dozens of marble hands. It is responsible for the surge of awakened petrified corpses in the Sulchai Outpost and Vermaningstad. A month before the beginning of the campaign, the Sentinel and its forces took over Sulchai, killing most of the personnel there and trapping Gemphias inside. After it was defeated by the players, Snargle took its void axe and Calvyn took its spear. Gemphias felt some sort of magical energy emanating from one of the stone feathers in its wing, giving it to the players for further study.
* Rusted Sentinel: A humanoid creature with mechanical augmentations based in the ruins of a factory in Windlo. It is in charge of the rusted soldiers that took over the city, grafting armor and weapons to the flesh of nearly any creature they come across. It seems that people taken by the Ostad cult come through Windlo and are either grafted by the Rusted Sentinel and its minions, or are sent for a more sinister type of "conversion." The Rusted Sentinel has a magical clockwork "heart" that was loaned out to the Surgeon to heal wounded combatants at the Windlo Arena. During the players' final confrontation with it, the Sentinel seemingly used up the heart's healing capabilities, but it still retained some functionality, granting Arne an extra set of arms when it was taken by him. In a similar manner to the Petrified Sentinel, Gemphias felt magical energy from a gear from within the Sentinel's mechanical body, entwined with the flesh of whatever creature it used to be.
* The Surgeon: A strange, eyeless humanoid minion of the Rusted Sentinel, in charge of the grafting process. The players defeated it on two occasions, as the Sentinel had revived it after their initial encounter.
* The Fightmaster: A similar creature to the Surgeon, the Fightmaster is in charge of the Windlo Arena, organizing gladiator battles to determine who is worthy of being "converted" by the cult, who will become a grafted soldier of the Sentinel, and who will be cut up for spare parts.
* The Blacksmith: A similar creature to the Surgeon and the Fightmaster, the Blacksmith forges the weapons and armor used by the Surgeon in the grafting process. Unlike the other two Overseers, the Blacksmith has four arms, each with a different smithing implement in place of hands.
* Zealot Colton Sarsk: High ranking soldier of the Project sent to Ostad as part of David Windbrook's war efforts. He was captured by the Rusted Sentinel and forced to compete in the arena, where he recognized Arne. Sarsk was directly involved in the events that led to Arne fleeing the cult. Sarsk was left in the arena while the players escaped, but he was later seen in the basement of the Sentinel's Foundry where he was converted into a strange shadow creature. The players killed him, and Calvyn retrieved the weapon he was using, a polearm with a sharp spear point at one end and a sickle-like hook at the other.
* Gangrenous Sentinel: A tall figure with rotten skin, so tall its body vanishes into the fog above. This was the form it took on in the players' visions of the Dark Forest. Its true form seems to be a network of fungus and mycelium growing on a pile of decaying bodies, at the center of which is an elf child, Lir Mialeth, whose diary describing the events of the Cataclysm was found by the players.
* Emiel van der Wolde: The son of Albert van der Wolde, continuing his father's legacy in Elendul politics. MP for Edennon. All the old-timey bigotry Albert has, Emiel has condensed into a solid ingot of hate. Ordered the siege on Etelehta.
* Commander Mantle: The commander leading the Etelehta Siege.

## Story

### Act I

#### The Interrogation

The players all wake up in a dark room with a bright light pointed at their face. A mysterious figure interrogates them, asking their name and backstory, before telling them they were at a bar in the Nima District of Elendul, and that nothing of note happened the night before. He puts them all to sleep, and they all wake up in the bar as described. Whatever just happened, it seems like they weren't meant to remember it.

As the players come together and discuss what happened the night before, they become suspicious of the bartender, a human man. After some interrogation of their own, he lets it slip that he was involved with whatever happened to them, but he runs off before they can get any more info.

Everyone's belongings seem to be in place, but Calvyn Goldmantle notices something off about his pendant, the holy symbol of Gond passed down from his grandfather. It seems to have been replaced by a fake; the material is slightly different, a fact only he could have noticed. He suggests the party visits the Elendul Adventurer's Guild, as its last members are masters of local gossip and conspiracies.

#### Adventurer's Guild

The players introduce themselves to Gavyn and Belnir, the Guild's only members, and explain their problem. Belnir quickly blames Mind Flayers for it, but Gavyn doubts that's the answer and says they'll look into it. In the meantime, they've heard about some interesting opportunities for a growing adventuring party: a wanted poster for raiders at a nearby farm, and a call to assist in an archaeological dig in Vermaningstad, Ostad. The players take the former first.

#### Farm Raiding

The party heads to the eastern edge of Elendul, where much of the city's farmland is. They ask around, but it seems most of the farmers don't have a clue about the "raiding" the poster is referring to. When they show the poster to one of them, she laughs and says that Albert van der Wolde probably posted it. He's a rich former Minister who set up an estate nearby, and who most of the locals hate. She says they could go see what the "raiding" thing is about, but in her opinion van der Wolde deserves it.

Upon reaching van der Wolde's estate, they find the farmer's description of him very accurate. He tells them that the raiders are all elves, saying several very racist things in the process. As the players leave to track down the raiders, Minister of Education Haryk Adbalar enters, along with an Amnian Ferret who looks at them with a mix of surprise and worry.

According to the estate's guards, the raiders are coming from the east. They're likely readying for an attack soon, so they'll be camped out only a few miles away. The players head east, finding several elven rangers on horseback. They identify themselves as the Eterúninde Riders, and their leader, Nyarriel Arafir, explains that van der Wolde was responsible for imprisoning them during the Elendul refugee crisis. They only want to break into his estate for one item: a pendant stolen from Nyarriel. If the players help them, they can take as much gold from the vault as they want, likely much more than van der Wolde had offered to pay them.

The players agree and return to the estate, calling on all the guards to barricade inside the house because the Riders are approaching. While the guards are focused on the front door, Nyarriel and her wife Pelecciel sneak in through the back door, having stolen some armor from a pair of guards. Van der Wolde and his guests are nowhere to be seen. It seems like they're meeting in the library, but the doors to it have been locked by magic. The players find the vault past a hidden door in a closet, heading down and taking whatever they want. However, Adbalar and the ferret head down into the vault as well. The players manage to hide themselves, but the mess they have made down there is obvious.

The two of them open a hidden door in the vault, through which is a large mechanical device covered in various runes and symbols. They begin to operate it, making contact with someone remotely. From what they're saying, it seems like this is some sort of teleportation device. The players cause a distraction, forcing the ferret away from the machine so that they can confront him. With a knife against his back, he says his name is Tananta and confirms that he was the one who interrogated them. He says that what he and Adbalar are doing is of utmost importance. If the players let him go, he won't tell anyone they were involved with the theft.

The players agree to these terms. The "raid" the players claimed was imminent never happened, so the guards have relaxed a little bit. Van der Wolde still pays them, and the players leave. Nyarriel and Pelecciel tell the players they are welcome to visit Etelehta.

#### The Pilgrimage, part I

Upon returning to Elendul, the players find a crowd gathering in a square near a church. A man carves the word "LUST" into his torso, cutting off that section of skin and reciting Project prayers. He claims David Windbrook, the Project's leader, will be arriving soon to spread his holy word. Indeed, a carriage soon arrives, and David Windbrook exits, approaching the man and praising him for his commitment. He inspects the severed patch of skin, tossing it away in disgust. He heads into the church as crowds of Project members and curious onlookers fill the pews. The players follow, with Arne hiding himself somewhat to avoid being recognized.

David announces that he has been given a holy gift that will bring about salvation for those faithful to him. This gift will be revealed at the Project's compound near Xilokiir Crater in one week. Anyone willing to make the pilgrimage and "open their Third Eye" is welcome to come.

#### The Vermaningstad Dig

Having completed their first official quest as a party, the players seek out the other one they were offered. They head to Wildwood University to meet with Corina Aregund, head of the school's anthropology department and the main organizer of the dig in Vermaningstad. She tells them that some of the archaeologists at the site have gone missing recently. She chartered a ship to take them to Ostad to investigate.

The party arrives in the ruins of Vermaningstad, where various tents have been set up around the city hall. The dig's overseer, Narthedir Innothro, tells them that the team's wizard, a tabaxi named Glow of the Sun, was among the missing. If they are not found soon, the focus zone around the site that keeps Wild Magic at bay may soon fail. Narthedir and the others are too afraid to enter the ruins themselves.

Most of the building is in ruins, but the basement is still mostly intact. The players enter and find offices, records rooms, and hallways full of petrified corpses, seemingly turned to stone by whatever caused the Cataclysm. Soon after they enter, though, these corpses come to life and attack. The players fend them off, encountering some that had melded together into a single shambling mass. Eventually, they reach a strange door with draconic runes around it, leading to a staircase descending further underground.

The area they find themselves in has much different architecture than the city above. There are petrified corpses around, but they seem to be those of dragonborn. Dragonborn have seldom been seen since the Cataclysm. The players don't have much time to investigate, though, as something has followed them.

What seemed to be a broken pillar full of exposed rebar was actually a living creature. It dragged itself along with its spindly rebar legs, following the players and stabbing one of them with its jagged rods. It is fast and deadly, but it seems that it can only move while unobserved. It magically extinguishes the players' torches, and those with dark vision must struggle to keep their eyes open while the party attacks it. Eventually it is killed, and the party sets up to rest for the night.

Before they go to bed, though, they investigate a strange device in one of the rooms. It is made of similar materials to the one seen in van der Wolde's vault, but it seems to be some sort of remote communication device. There are multicolored crystals around that the players can use to see recordings of previous conversations. They witness one dated a month ago, where two dragonborn respond to a distress call from another location, referred to by them as the Sulchai Outpost. The dragonborn on the other end says they have lost contact with something called "K-Prime," and that there are stone creatures attacking their compound. They plea for help, but they are stabbed through the torso by a rusted metal spear. A creature resembling a giant marble statue steps into frame, before seemingly breaking the connection by smashing the device on the other end. Several other distress calls then come in from various other outposts, and the recording ends with the sounds of the petrified creatures breaking into this outpost.

In the room they decide to spend the night in, the players find a map that seems to show several of the locations referenced in the footage. The Vermaningstad Outpost is one of five along the Narrow Wilds, along with the K-Prime compound mentioned by the dragonborn. The Sulchai Outpost is the furthest north in the Sulchai Mountains. Granwell fields is between Vermanigstad and Sulchai, and two others, Durven and Astantaurë, are to the southeast.

While on guard duty during the night, Calvyn feels a wave of exhaustion come over him, but he keeps himself awake.

The party continues on in the morning, fighting more and more of the petrified dragonborn. They can't quite use their breath weapons anymore, but they can imbue their bites with whatever elemental damage type they had in life. At the other end of the facility is an exit into pair of long tunnels. As the players turn the corner to see this exit, they find a pile of non-petrified dragonborn. It seems like they died no more than a month ago. Something out of sight drags a corpse into the tunnel, and the players follow.

The tunnel exits into a cave system that is partially open to the sky above. Water drips down from above and from various underground sources, forming large speleothems and a large petrifying well, where anything placed in it will slowly be encased in limestone deposited from the water. Strung up from the ceiling around the main pool are various objects and artifacts from the Vermaningstad ruins, as well as the missing archaeologists in varying stages of petrification. Glow of the Sun is there as well, and seems to be the only one still alive. They pull them down and investigate the rest of the cave, finding another pool with some sort of rocky mass in its center. This mass turns out to be a Well Lurker, a large, dog-like creature with shaggy hair encrusted in limestone from the mineral-rich waters. It seems like the Lurker was responsible for the strung up objects and people around the cave. The players fight the Lurker, which uses its inherent spellcasting ability to try to put them to sleep. It is defeated, but a mishap with Wild Magic during an attempt to cast Thunder Step turns Snargle into a sheep temporarily.

As the party leaves the cave, another petrified corpse appears before them. Before it can attack them, though, it is cut down by a hooded individual wearing a blue mask with three eyes. Arne recognizes him as Tăcere, one of the three Uber-Seraphim in the Project's faith. He had dismissed their beliefs long ago, but upon seeing Tăcere before him he wonders if there could be some truth to them after all. Tăcere vanishes in a cloud of mist.

Glow of the Sun returns to the dig site, the players are paid for their help, and they return to Elendul.

#### Mysterious Stone

A crowd has gathered across the street when the players arrive back at the Adventurer's Guild. Nora is standing outside her shop, annoyed. She says the shop across the street belongs to Armande Tivurga, a salesman of fine tilework and masonry. One wouldn't imagine his customer base would overlap as much as it does with Nora's, but it does, and he's always trying to draw customers away from her.

The players head in to investigate and find Armande is showcasing a strange, blue stone that he's selling as tiles. The material is unlike anything they've seen. The surface is shifting and shimmering in an otherworldly way. After some persuasion, Armande reveals where he got the stone from: some ruins near Xilokiir Crater, where the city of Xilokiir used to stand. The place is widely considered cursed, so few ever venture there. Armande says the specific ruins he was at flooded as he left, though.

Xilokiir Crater is on the way to the Project's compound, so the party heads there before seeing what David Windbrook's announcement is about. Before they leave, though, they sneak into the Project's church in Elendul to find cultist outfits, as Arne worries he'll be recognized by the Cult.

The party searches along the crater's northern edge, eventually finding some sort of structure built from the same stone Armande was selling. Heading inside, they find an owlbear has made its home in the ruins. After dealing with it, the players find a four-armed humanoid skeleton clad in strange, red armor.

The ruins held little else of note, so the players continue on to the Project's compound.

#### The Pilgrimage, part II

The Project's compound is near the remains of an orc fort, and the area is still marked as "Orc Fort" on many maps. The players join several other groups of interested people at these ruins, where a makeshift camp has been set up until the Project lets people in. There's still a day or so before Windbrook's announcement.

As the player's settle in, they notice a shadowy figure watching them from afar. A half-elf, and a rogue judging by their outfit. They begin to approach, but a noise comes from the forest. Several giant badgers have come up on the campsite. The party quickly jumps into action, swiftly defeating the creatures. The rogue looks on, impressed.

When the day of the announcement comes, the gates to the Project's compound are opened. Everyone files into the primary church, where David Windbrook and Sia Jesqonda stand before them. Arne knew Sia when they were kids. She helped him escape when he was expelled from the cult.

Windbrook begins his presentation, saying there has been an exodus of Project members to Ostad to join some other cult there. However, the "divine gift" David mentioned before would allow them to reach salvation before the Ostad cult could become too much of a threat. A pair of cultists bring out an ornate wooden box, from which David pulls an M1911 pistol.

A man with his hands tied behind his back and a sack over his head is forced up onto the stage. David introduces him as Brother Whitehorse, a cultist who had fallen under the Ostad cult's influence. David says it may seem like Whitehorse would not deserve to have this divine gift used on him, but he assures the audience that this is the perfect way to prove to him the Project's faith is true. He loads a single bullet into the gun, then shoots Whitehorse in the head.

After the presentation, Sia approaches the players and pulls Arne aside, admonishing him for coming back to the Project's compound after his excommunication. She considers blowing their cover because she fears David would punish her for letting them go, but she gives them a compromise when they tell her what went down in Vermaningstad.

David recently sent a scouting party to Ostad to spy on the other cult. Only one member of the party returned, badly wounded. The records of this voyage are kept in David's personal vault. If the party wants to try to steal these records, they can, but otherwise Sia tells them to get out.

The party takes her up on her offer, waiting until night before approaching the vault. The entrance is a small hut, probably containing a staircase down to a larger, underground structure. A pair of guards stand at its entrance, and several more are patrolling David and Sia's house nearby, within line of sight of the vault entrance.

Using some magic to mimic David's voice, the players lure the guards into some nearby bushes, then sneak into the vault. They deal with guards in the vault itself a bit less stealthily the ones outside, but before long they have the place to themselves. The first room of the vault seems to be an armory. They find a crate filled with bullets for David's M1911, but the gun itself is likely stored elsewhere. The next room is the records room they were looking for.

According to the records, the scouting party headed to Windlo, the industrial hub of Ostad before the Cataclysm. They found its factories back up and running, and encountered strange soldiers whose armor seemed to be grafted directly to their flesh. These soldiers attacked the scouts, killing some and capturing others. Only one managed to escape.

The next room of the vault is full of religious artifacts, including some religious texts written by David. They seem to be retellings of various events of the Bible, but with David as an important figure.

The final room of the vault is blocked by a huge metal door with various carvings and inscriptions on it. It is unlocked by a four digit combination, the input for which is arranged into a 2x2 square. The top half of the door shows designs associated with death, while the bottom half shows designs associated with life and rebirth. The riddle for the combination, carved in a circle around the door's center, reads: "I deceived myself. **It Killed Me**. I learned the truth. **He Brought Me Back**. How long do you think you need to truly know the divine? 3 days, or **774,000**?"

After a bit of deducing, the combination is discovered. David has always claimed he was resurrected by God in 4136 after having been dead for some time. By converting the 774,000 days into years, the players guess the date of David's supposed death was 2016. The combination, 1636, comes from the last two digits of those years.

Within is David's riches, tons of coins, jewels, and other valuables. There is also another vault door, one covered in glowing, golden runes. They players can't tell what they mean, but they think they are Amnian runes. There's no obvious place for a combination to be entered.

Having taken all they could, the party leaves the vault and escapes the compound, heading straight into the forest to avoid being seen. They arrive back at the campsite, where the half-elf is waiting for them. They introduce themselves as Yllfaen and commend the players for "sticking it to the cult." They've been eyeing David's strongroom for a while now, but the players just went on in and stole from him. As the party heads out, Yllfaen says they'll recommend their services to their boss, Adomnán.

#### Odulf's Plan

When the party returns to the Adventurer's Guild, Nyarriel is there waiting for them. She says there's a bit of a... situation going on at Etelehta that they need some assistance with. On the way, she explains: a human wizard named Odulf Platt asked them if he could set up shop in their territory, on the coast of Thiamor Lake. He's been keeping to himself, refusing to talk with any of Etelehta's residents. It seems like he has some sort of alchemical or potion brewing setup. Nyarriel wants the players to find out what he's up to. They'd likely have better luck getting him to talk since they're outsiders.

At Etelehta, the players see the grounds of the prison have been converted into farmland. The dull grays of the prison complex have been covered in lush foliage. They pass through the main area of the commune, heading down to the coast near some old docks. They can now see Odulf's setup.

It takes a bit of convincing, but they eventually get Odulf to tell them his plan. There's some sort of memory-erasing anomaly at the center of the lake, and Odulf is developing a mnestic potion to counteract its effects. Making such a potion takes a lot of work and concentration, so he tells the players to screw off.

#### Sulchai Outpost

Whatever else is going on with Odulf, there won't be any developments for a while, so the players turn their attention back to Ostad. Based on the information they gathered in Vermaningstad, the dragonborn outpost in the Sulchai Mountains would be a decent place to investigate next.

This outpost is somewhat less hidden than the Vermaningstad one. The entrance seems like it once had some sort of cloaking spell on it, but several parts of the outpost's structure are visible from the outside, including a large watchtower. Just like Vermaningstad, the players find the place filled with petrified corpses. All the ones here are dragonborn.

The players make their way through the first few rooms to the main hall. At the other end is a large marble statue in a contrapposto pose. The same one they saw in the recording in Vermaningstad. It remains motionless even as the players approach. Whatever it is, it isn't going to fight them yet. The party explores the base some more, finding a vault door similar to one they saw in Vermaningstad. Using his Ghostly Gaze eldritch invocation, Snargle looks inside and sees a living dragonborn woman, taking cover from the noises outside the vault. They call out to her, asking who she is and what she's doing here, but she refuses to answer. She's not coming out of the vault until that statue thing is dead.

The fight is a tough one, but the party defeats the big statue, the Petrified Sentinel. As they deal the final blow, all the remaining petrified corpses crumble to dust. In killing it, the party severs the Sentinel's big void axe. Snargle's arcane focus, the pendant through which Groth-Golka communicates with him, pulls itself towards the axe so violently that Snargle almost falls over. It seems Groth-Golka very much wants him to take it. The Great Axe of the Void feels as light as air when Snargle lifts it, but feels as forceful to swing as a regular axe its size. It leaves behind a tear in reality that violently dissipates after a few seconds, dealing damage to whatever it passes through.

The dragonborn approaches, staring at the corpse of the Sentinel. She says her name is Gemphias Therdiak. She's a Paladin with a group called the Keepers. About a month ago, this thing broke into the outpost, killing or converting anyone who stood in its path. She's been stuck in the vault ever since, surviving on whatever scraps of food she can scavenge from the outpost's kitchen. Her sister, Alken, was one of the first to die in the invasion. It was cruel enough that the Sentinel made her watch as her sister died, but even more so to turn her into one of these faceless petrified corpses. Any of the ones she's had to kill to survive could have been Alken.

Gemphias grabs the Sentinel's spear, angrily biting it in half with her acid breath. The remaining half of it is just small enough for Calvyn to wield. Gemphias is about to leave, but hands the players a stone feather, chipped from the Sentinel's wing during its initial attack. She's been studying it during her month in the vault, and there's something... odd about it. Some sort of magical energy she hasn't encountered before. The Keepers would probably want it, but seeing as how a random adventuring party saved her from the vault before the Keepers did, she might as well give it to the players.

#### Holy Symbol

With the Petrified Sentinel defeated, the players return to Elendul. As they reach the outskirts of the city, they can see smoke rising from the city center. They find the streets around one of Elendul's government buildings have been blocked off as some sort of pulsating energy has torn the building apart. It looks like an explosion of black and white flame, but persistent rather than an instantaneous shockwave. Various runes have become burned into nearby surfaces, which Calvyn recognizes as related to Gond, his grandfather's god.

Sneaking past some guards, the party approaches the explosion. With Calvyn in the lead, they find that they can pass effortlessly through the violent waves of energy. The reach the center of the phenomenon, a room in the basement of the building. The energy seems to be coming from a pendant, floating in the air above the pedestal it used to sit on. It is the holy symbol of Gond, the pendant stolen from Calvyn and replaced with a fake. He reaches out to grab it...

A vision floods their minds. Flashes of war and violence. An object in the sky above Xilokiir. An explosion in Ostad, damaging not only the land, but reality itself. Finally, they see an endless void ahead of them. A blackened, decayed corpse stands in front of them. Gond's voice comes from their throats, demanding the figure identifies itself. It does. It is Rot, Decay, Entropy. The slow return of everything to nothing. Rot returns the question, asking who Gond is, but it already knows. The time of the Gods has ended. Now is the time of Rot.

The vision ends. The energy from the pendant has stopped. The players can now see Tananta standing ahead of them. He drops the magical shield he had been using to withstand the energy, baffled at how four random adventurers have messed with their plans so much. He says the players should stay out of what's happening in Ostad. Whatever group he is with can handle it, and things could get much worse if the players don't let them do it the right way. He storms off.

### Act II

#### Sia's Plea

Back at the adventurer's guild, the players find Sia Jesqonda waiting for them. She asks them for help dealing with David. He's declared war on the cult in Ostad, but he's losing badly. He won't accept defeat, though, and just keeps throwing bodies at the problem. He's also been rejecting claims from his soldiers that the Uber-Seraphim have appeared before them, telling them to leave their crusade against the cult. She hasn't been able to sway David herself, and needs the players as backup for arguing with him.

They make their way to the Project's compound, barging into the church during one of David's sermons. He quickly wraps it up and dismisses everyone, including his guards. Through his dialogue with Sia, he reveals that she told him about the heist from his strong room.

The argument continues. Sia is all for the Project's beliefs in death and rebirth, that death is nothing but a step towards salvation, but the deaths of David's soldiers are meaningless. Also, the consistency of the soldier's visions of the Uber-Seraphim means there must be something happening there, but David is dismissing them and having his people executed for heresy. He says he's the only one who knows God's true will, and these visions must be tricks from the Ostad cult.

The two have been circling around each other as they argue. David started out in front of the table where the M1911 rests on a stand, but Sia has now rotated into that position. David is screaming at her, backing her against the table. He lifts his hand, preparing to hit her. She recoils, turning her back and leaning on the table. The slap never comes, though. David laughs, lowering his hand. He just wanted to see her flinch. He turns his attention to the players.

Only now does David recognize Arne. He calls him the "little street rat" that Sia was friends with, and blames Sia's defiance on him showing up again. He claims he threw Arne out to protect Sia from his bad influence.

This is the last straw for Sia. She whips around, pistol in hand, and unloads the whole magazine into David. She keeps fruitlessly pulling the trigger even after the mag is empty. She then throws the pistol down onto the table, unable to look at what she just did. As David lays dying, he threatens to pursue Sia in every next life. No matter what she does, the cycle of death and rebirth will continue, and he will always be there. She loads a single bullet into the pistol, at first to shoot herself, but she decides against it. Instead, that final bullet goes into David's skull.

Sia loads the pistol again, telling the players to get out of here before the guards arrive. As they flee, the players hear gunshots from the church.

#### A Spreading Disease

Returning to the Adventurer's Guild, the party finds Pelecciel collapsed at the doorstep. She seems sick; her skin is covered in boils and she's coughing up a storm. She says something's been spreading through Etelehta, and she's worried people will start dying. The disease seems to have spread from a group of Elves who left for Ostad to visit the ruins of Moeraslonde, where some of their relatives lived pre-Cataclysm. When they returned, they were... not themselves. They had strange growths and began to mindlessly work the land, planting and growing strange plants. The others at the commune have begun to fall ill, but they still have their wits about them so far.

Arriving at Etelehta, the players are introduced to Ianhomin Aranala, the commune's head physician, who has been working at a makeshift hospital set up in the cafeteria of the former prison complex. He's been working on a treatment to keep the symptoms at bay, but he's had no luck developing a cure. Things are getting dire, as their supplies of this treatment are dwindling. He's been seeking the help of Odulf Platt, but he's isolated himself even more, setting up a magical shield around his camp.

With a bit of convincing, Odulf is talked into helping. He says the weird plants the zombie farmers are farming may be the key to a cure. They are like large sundew plants - carnivorous plants with sticky tendrils that reach out to grab and digest organisms. He dubs them "drosera weeds." The players have to collect some samples to bring back to him.

The players are told to avoid attacking the zombie farmers, as there's still a chance they could be cured. They collect a sample of vines and bring them back to Odulf. After a few hours of experimentation and discussion with Ian, a cure is developed. Just in time, too; the players seem to have caught the disease themselves.

Distributing the cure, most patients show improvement immediately. The zombies take a bit longer to react, but they regain awareness quickly. They tell the players what they saw in Moeraslonde. The bogs around the city are being used to breed and grow large wasps who lay their eggs in the stagnant water. The farms of the city are covered in drosera weeds. The whole place is tended to by diseased farmers like the ones they turned into.

#### Gladiator Arena

After they have recovered, Nyarriel and Pelecciel request to join the party. Whatever's happening in Moeraslonde has intrigued them, and they want to help with investigating Ostad. Although they're interested in Moeraslonde, they leave it up to the players where to go next. The players decide to head to Windlo, the city that David Windbrook was attempting to assault and seemingly an important location for the Ostad cult.

Docking at Port Ottersby, the players make the hike across wide fields towards the city. A cloud of smog blankets the area, making it tough to see as they get closer. As they approach the city limits, a gust of wind clears away some of the smog, revealing a giant tower made of red clay. It definitely isn't the usual architecture of the city.

Getting up to the main gate, a pair of ballista bolts strike the ground near them, coming from somewhere within the smog. They're probably up on the outer wall, so the party runs right up to the wall, underneath them where they can't aim.

After some shouting in infernal from their attackers, the gate opens. A group of soldiers exit, searching for the players. They are huge, around 8 feet tall, with heavy armor that seems to be grafted to their flesh. Their helmets are open at the top, revealing their exposed skulls. They wield huge greatswords, so big they seem more like bludgeoning weapons than slashing weapons. These are Bald Knights.

The players attempt to fight the knights, but they're staying far away from them, trying to lure them into range of the ballistae. Neither group is budging, so the knights open the gates to solve the stalemate. Another squad of knights approaches, and another pair of ballistae are set up behind them. Instead of a stationary mounting, the ballistae are resting on the shoulders of some knights as another operates them. The players try to fight their way out, but they are surrounded. The ballistae fire weighted nets, holding the party down as the knights knock them out.

The party wakes up in cells made of red clay, their weapons having been confiscated. After a bit of waiting, they are escorted to a common room. Through a gate ahead, they can see an armory, and yet beyond it is a wide, sand-covered arena.

Several other prisoners join them: Gemphias, Zealot Colton Sarsk from the Project, a surprisingly normal man named Okuda Masanari, a set of animated armor Gemphias calls a Helmed Horror, a rebellious Bald Knight, another Well Lurker, a diseased farmer, a wraith held in magical restraints, and a strange humanoid being made of smoldering ash.

Gemphias provides some context for some of the other prisoners. She had been with an exploration party sent by the Keepers. They had been captured near Drakenvallei to the northeast. Her companions' whereabouts are unknown; she worries they are likely dead. Her team had met up with another that was investigating Schaduwhelstad. The strange ash creature matches the description of something they reported seeing in that city. The being is known as a Gunpowder Corsair. According to her, whatever is happening in Schaduwhelstad is a lot even for the Keepers.

As Colton Sarsk was brought in, he immediately recognized Arne, threatening to destroy him on the battlefield. He apparently had been directly involved in Arne's expulsion from the Project.

After a few minutes, another strange humanoid enters the room. This one has no eyes and leather clothes seemingly sewn into their skin. It is the Fightmaster, head of the gladiator arena. It speaks in infernal, announcing that those gathered here will be taking part in a tournament in the arena ahead. The winner will "join [their] ranks and serve [their] glorious Rusted Disciple of Rot."

The tournament is a 1v1, double elimination bracket. Considering that the fights are to the death, the Fightmaster says another being like him, the Surgeon, will be on hand to revive contestants for the losers bracket. However, death in losers is permanent. The bracket is for 16 contestants, but there are only 15 people in the room. The 16th contestant is revealed as one of the walls slides away, showing a huge, wolf-like creature in a cage. It seems like two wolves grafted together; rather than having a lower jaw, the wolf has another wolf's upper jaw grafted onto it upside-down. Its whole body is covered in blades and armor, most notably a pair of huge blades attached to the lower wolf's legs, which stick upward awkwardly.

The prisoners are let into the armory. Every weapon that had been confiscated is there, as well as some others. The party rushes to take their gear before anyone else can. Zealot Sarsk takes a greatsword and a crossbow; the Well Lurker takes a shortsword, which seems like a dagger in its hands; and the Gunpowder Corsair takes a katana, wakizashi, and a makeshift wrist-mounted shotgun.

The first match of the bracket is the Bald Knight vs. Colton Sarsk, with Sarsk winning easily. The second match is the first one for the party: Well Lurker vs. Snargle. It's a much closer fight, but Snargle comes out on top.

As the fights go on, the party formulates a plan to escape. They haven't been able to see the room where the Surgeon is said to be reviving contestants, but they imagine it'll be less guarded, especially during the loser's bracket. Who needs to guard dead bodies?

They'll be revived anyway on their first defeat, so the party must make sure to be matched up against each other in the losers bracket. Their plan is to fake their deaths to break out through the Surgeon's room.

Continuing the first round, Gemphias defeats the Diseased Farmer, but Calvyn and Nyarriel each fall to their foes, Okuda Masanari and the Gunpowder Corsair, respectively. Masanari turns out to be an Oni in disguise, named Laath. The party considers asking him to join their escape attempt, and they eventually get him to agree to it.

Game 6 is the first to feature two party members: Pelecciel vs. Arne. They got lucky with this: the loser is going to be matched up with Nyarriel in the losers bracket, so they've guaranteed the situation they hoped for for their plan. The two put on a good show, and Arne is knocked to losers. In round one's final games, the Grafted Wolf and Guy Epic advance, while the Helmed Horror and the Wraith fall to losers.

In the first losers round, the Well Lurker and Calvyn Goldmantle defeat their opponents before the Nyarriel vs. Arne match begins. Arne takes the L for this one, letting Nyarriel "kill" him and giving him access to the Surgeon's operating theater. Calvyn and Nyarriel reported that the room is unguarded as they suspected, and the Surgeon is using some sort of floating, mechanical device to revive people by filling their wounds with liquid metal.

As the armory gates are opened for Nyarriel to return and the next contestants to go out, Arne casts *pass without trace*, allowing the party to slip past the guards and follow him into the operating theater. Stuffed into the small room with the Surgeon, they quickly cut him down. His arms had been replaced with a rotating array of surgeon's tools, including several drills for grafting metal to flesh. The Surgeon used these against Calvyn, drilling a plate into his chest with the intent to tear it back out, but he was defeated before he could. Calvyn now has a metal plate grafted to him for the foreseeable future.

The party takes the Surgeon's mechanical "heart" he had been using, hoping they could use its healing properties for themselves, but Snargle senses some sort of presence within it. Speaking telepathically with it, it is very reluctant to assist them, saying it still belongs to its "master." Apparently, the Surgeon wasn't the heart's true owner. The players get some use out of it, expending spell slots to heal their wounds.

The guards have begun to notice something's up. They seem to be coming from all angles as the party searches for an escape route. Heading around the arena, they come to an opening to outside, a platform for ballistae. Looking out onto the city, they realize the arena is at the top of the tower they saw as they approached the city. Several support cables extend from the tower to the ground, so they zipline down them to some roofs below. They dodge ballista bolts and fend off some large birds with weapons grafted to their feet before dropping down to street level.

Search parties roam the city. The players take shelter in an abandoned house. A howl echoes across the city, as it seems the Grafted Wolf has been let loose. It quickly sniffs out the player's location. Following it is a huge mechanical monstrosity, a combination of gears and flesh in a somewhat humanoid shape. It is the Rusted Sentinel, the leader of the knights that have taken over Windlo. It approaches the players' house, but seems to only be interested in one thing; the mechanical heart sprouts legs and runs outside, returning to its master. A compartment opens in the Sentinel's chest, and the heart climbs in. The Sentinel leaves, letting the Grafted Wolf take care of the rest.

Seemingly trapped in the house, the party manages to distract the wolf with some clever magic, long enough to escape. Escaping the city itself is a more difficult task, though. Unable to find their way out, they settle down in another house near a huge foundry which seems to be the Rusted Sentinel's headquarters.

#### Rusted Factory

In the night, Laath leaves, saying his deal with the players has ended. He agreed to help them escape, but infiltrating the factory is their own mission.

From their scouting the previous night, the party saw that a railroad was being constructed coming from the factory. As the night went on, the construction had moved further away from the building, letting them enter the factory through the train platform without being seen.

Although they managed to step foot into the building unseen, their stealth didn't last long. They hacked and slashed through the train platform and loading dock before entering a hallway that seemed to lead to the factory floor proper. There was another door, though. Through it the party found a familiar face: the Surgeon, who had apparently been revived after getting killed in the arena. This second round of combat didn't go much better for him, though. The room appeared to be the theatre in which metal plates and blades were grafted to those set to become Bald Knights and other Rusted Domain creatures.

As they left the surgical theatre, the party saw Zealot Sarsk being dragged down to the basement by a pair of Bald Knights. Following them, they discovered a cell block, at the end of which was a strange ritual chamber. Sarsk was restrained, and a shadowy figure stood above him, casting some sort of spell. The party arrived too late to stop the ritual. The shadowy figure vanished, and they saw that Sarsk had been transformed into a similar shadow creature wearing white cult robes. He attacked them, but they cut him down. Calvyn took interest in the weapon he was wielding: a polearm with a sickle at one end and a sharp spear point at the other. He took it for himself.

The party made their way through the rest of the factory, filled with more Bald Knights, as well as scrawny, peasant-like zombies that operated the machinery. They fought through the foundry, where massive furnaces melted metal to be used for the grafted armor and weapons, and two sets of conveyor belts: one where the metal was pressed into armor plates, and one where it was pressed into blades and other weapons. There was also a small chamber containing a creature called the Castmaker, a many-armed monstrosity that molded the clay casts used in the factory.

On the second floor, where the weapon conveyors were based, the party heard the howl of a wolf. The Grafted Wolf had been let loose to deal with them. The battle was tough, but they defeated it.

Further on, they found where the conveyors led: the chamber of the Blacksmith, another being similar to the Fightmaster or the Surgeon. This one had four arms, all with various smithing tools attached to them. The party cut him down. The last room left was across a bridge hung from the factory's ceiling. In the room, attached to some sort of base station, was the Rusted Sentinel. The Sentinel awakes, and the fight is on. It battles with a pair of colossal greatswords, spinning its torso around like a top and rushing at them. As the battle goes on, it moves out onto the hanging bridge. With no hand rails, the party is able to knock the Sentinel off. It crashed down to the factory floor below, its bottom half breaking off.

The Sentinel isn't dead, though. It reaches into its chest, pulling out the mechanical heart and crushing it. Some sort of energy surges through the Sentinel. It attaches its greatswords together, forming a huge twinblade which it raises above its head. Without its legs, it needs to be mobile somehow. The blades spin rapidly, allowing the Sentinel to hover back up to the bridge.

The party finally defeats the Sentinel, sending it down to the floor below once more. Heading down to inspect the body, they find a flesh-covered gear within the Sentinel's torso. An energy flows through it, not unlike the energy within the Stone Feather. As they inspect the gear, though, Snargle's arcane focus, a symbol of Groth-Golka, begins to glow, rising into the air. They all have a vision.

A small Viking-like longboat runs aground on a small island. Three people step off, two men and a woman, all wearing the symbol of Gond. As they investigate the shore and look for materials to set up camp, a pair of eyes stalks them through the foliage.

The vision flicks through a couple days of their camp being set up, and the trees on the island being chopped down to make it. One of the men ventures into the forest to hunt for food. He flinches and jumps as he hears leaves rustling and branches breaking around him. Someone or something is out there.

Suddenly, a massive, black bird descends upon him, slashing at him with its claws. Groth-Golka, Demon Bird-God of Balsagoð. The man scrambles to escape, eventually finding his way back to the campsite. The other two pick up their weapons, looking to the forest for the bird.

Groth-Golka flies towards them extremely fast, tackling the other man and gouging his throat out with its beak. The woman fires a crossbow bolt at it, but the bird dodges, swinging around to come at the man it frightened in the woods. It claws at him some more, but he swings his sword at it, heavily injuring one of its wings. As it stumbles back, the woman fires a crossbow bolt right into its neck. Groth-Golka falls dead.

A montage of the next few months. The survivors pick the bird’s corpse clean, expanding their camp, but heavy winter storms kill them off. The montage speeds up, going through years, decades, centuries. The climate around the island changes; it is now permanently covered in ice, and the bird’s bones are frozen in place.

Millennia pass. Groth-Golka experiences it all. The Demon Bird-God may be dead, but gods don’t die like people do. In its eons of lonely decay, it sees something. The frozen bones of the bird rest in dark, shallow water in a black void. Some distance from them, it can see another dark form curled up on the ground.

A flash. There is a dull red glow in the dark void, and the dark form has stood up. A blackened, decaying corpse. It slowly limps towards Groth-Golka. A flash again, and the corpse is back where it lay.

Groth-Golka sees several more flashes of this corpse slowly approaching it, but its vision is interrupted by its bones being raised from the snowy earth where it lay for thousands of years.

A cloaked figure with an insectoid mask holds his hand out, bringing the Bird-God back to life. This is Jergal, former God of Death. By his side is a man with red hair and a beard in a smith’s apron. Gond, God of Craft.

The Bird-God is alive again, but its physical form is nothing but bones and ragged flesh, covered in a layer of frost. Jergal leaves, but Gond stays to talk with Groth-Golka. He apologizes for his followers' actions, but Groth-Golka says they should be thanked for killing him. Without them, he never would have seen what he did.

Groth-Golka has little power left to influence the material world, but if he were to find a ward of some sort, maybe then they could prepare for what his visions showed him. Gond points him in the direction of Vestya. With that, the Bird-God flies off, and the vision ends.

The party also retrieves another item from the Sentinel's corpse: the Mechanical Heart. Its healing powers have been almost completely drained, but it has some other tricks up its sleeve. With its former master dead, it latches onto Arne, granting him a second set of clockwork arms. The arms can be retracted, granting him additional armor or temporary hit points.

#### False Arrest

The party returns to Elendul, parting ways with Gemphias who heads back to the Keepers. As they head back to the Adventurer's Guild though, they find a squad of Elendul soldiers stationed outside the building. One of them steps forth, stating that the party is under arrest, apparently for their actions at the Van der Wolde estate. More soldiers emerge from behind them, and a side street to their right. There is an escape route, however: an unattended cart parked on the side street. The adventurers rush for it, grabbing the horse's reigns and driving off.

Several squads of soldiers chase them on horseback. The party manages to fend them off, even while struggling to balance on the fast-moving cart. When it seems they've lost their pursuers, Arne guides them to a hiding spot on the west side of the city that he used to use to avoid the law. When they arrive, though, they find someone is already there. It's Yllfaen, the half-elf rogue they met at the Project compound. They've apparently been keeping an eye on the party, and have decided to give them a bit of a favor now that the law is after them. Yllfaen reveals they work for Coldcrest, a criminal organization based in Fendel Bay that has been expanding its operations into Elendul. Yllfaen takes them to meet Adomnán, the head of Coldcrest's Elendul branch.

Adomnán had been watching the party for a while, seeing their willingness to go toe-to-toe with the Project as an important asset. He was waiting for the right time to reach out to them, but them being wanted by the state has accelerated their plans somewhat. Adomnán offers the party jobs as Coldcrest Enforcers in exchange for protection from the law, an offer the party accepts.

### Act III

#### Escort Quest

With the contracts signed, Adomnán sends the party on their first mission. Since David Windbrook's death, the Project has become more militant, and have started to attack Coldcrest trade routes near Keywater. This has cut off communication between Elendul and Fendel Bay. Adomnán has charted an alternate path through the wilderness near the Bloodhearth Hills, but the forests there are dangerous. The party must escort Adomnán and a few of his men through the Bloodhearth wilderness.

This escort quest last several days. The party fends off creatures of all sorts, distracts a lost squad of soldiers with illusions, and accidentally kills one of their horses when a Wild Magic incident causes a large explosion. Towards the middle of their journey, they come across a group of Project cultists making their way through the woods. Snargle casts *maddening darkness*, engulfing the cultists in a dark, magical sphere. While the cultists wail in anguish, a trio of unicorns approaches. Using telepathy, they warn the party to dispel the sphere as quickly as possible. They hate the cultists as much as the next guy, but the spell is bound to draw unwanted attention. When Snargle refuses, they give him a psychic jolt to break his concentration. The sphere vanishes, but it is too late; the roars of a dragon echo across the woods.

A Green Dragon descends upon them. As the unicorns yell at him, it is revealed that the dragon, Ertashath, had been annoying them for weeks. The unicorns are guarding a planar crossing, and Ertashath has been trying to get at it ever since he made his home nearby. He had tried to trick them previously, saying that he was under their service after they had defeated him. The unicorns told him to piss off.

The cultists, distracted by all that is going on, are quickly defeated by the party, and Ertashath falls soon after. The unicorns, who call themselves Platinum Dare, Moondust, and Peppermint Hoof, say that they are protecting a crossing to Celestia, but it hasn't been the same since "the week with no sun." They realize that the players have no idea what that is, a trait they say is common to most mortals, so they explain that about 50 years ago, the sun didn't shine for a week. At the end of it, there were flashes in the sky, and a big explosion to the east. After that, Celestia felt empty or hollow. It still looked the same as ever, but it just felt like all the color had been drained from it. Its magic was gone, in the metaphorical sense. The Gods that lived there were nowhere to be seen. The party tries to pry further, but the unicorns say they mostly slept through that week, so they don't remember much more. They teleport away, but Platinum Dare returns to tell the party that there are some magical gateways further on in the forest. The unicorns have tested them out before and they're perfectly safe.

The party finds said gateways, which take them on a labyrinthine journey to other parts of the woods, including a wishing pond with illusory coins at the bottom. Eventually, they find their way out. The path ahead leads to an abandoned house, with Project cultists and zealots patrolling outside. Infiltrating the house, the party finds an Amnian Deer tied up in one of the rooms. She's muttering something under her breath, focusing her attention on a golden pin on her cloak. She doesn't stop her muttering, even as she nods her head to indicate the party should deal with the rest of the cultists and untie her.

They defeat the rest of the cultists. Arne recognizes their leader, High Zealot Silanna. They leave her alive for questioning. Untying the Amnian, she uses her now-free hands to perform the somatic component of the spell she was casting. Tiny, glowing chains appear around the pin. Finally able to relax, she says her name is Trine Farkeep. She won't say why she was in these woods, but she says she was captured because the Project claimed she was a "false prophet of the Rot God." Taking her to see Silanna, an argument breaks out between them. The party would be quick to side with her against the Project if she wasn't being so shady about what she was actually doing in Bloodhearth. They hesitantly accept her request that they take her back to Elendul once their escort mission is over.

The last encounter the party has in these woods is with a skeletal mariner making its way down a shallow river. When it blows its huge horn, it summons skeletons nearby to attack the party. Most of them are regular old skeletons, but a couple are massive, spectral skeletons, rising out of the ground. They either slam their fists down on the party or shoot a massive beam at them from their eyes. Trine joins the fight, using a magical shortsword whose blade is made of golden Amnian runes.

Finally making it out of the forest, the party sets up camp for the night, before finishing their journey in the morning. In the night, however, while Calvyn is on watch, he notices Trine talking to herself again. She's trying to maintain the spell she cast on her pin earlier, whisper-shouting about how she's "not compromised." She fails to keep the spell in place. The chains around the pin break, and the pin itself breaks cleanly in half before vanishing. Some sort of spell has come over Trine. When Calvyn speaks with her, it seems her memory has been erased. She has no idea who she is or why she was in the woods. She remembers a little of what happened after the party rescued her. The thing that she is most sure of is that she's from Elendul, and she needs to get back there.

Arriving at Fendel Bay, Adomnán brings the party to Miles Ermyn, the leader of Coldcrest. His office is in a back room of a brothel. Adomnán explains that their Keywater routes are compromised, and Bloodhearth is too dangerous to be a replacement. He suggests that Coldcrest shipping operations be set up in Pelgus, as all of Coldcrest's east-coast shipping is south of Bloodhearth. He'd be willing to commit resources to this, and he'd accept freelancers in addition to Coldcrest's regular cargo ships. Miles agrees, putting one of his freelance ship captains under Adomnán's command: Captain Kneen of the *Unshaken*.

Adomnán sends the party away to start getting their supplies onto Kneen's ship. As they get to work, Trine is brought in to see Miles. When she returns, she says that Adomnán offered her housing in Elendul, and she'll probably start work as an enforcer. Adomnán also tells the party that he knows they have some interests in Ostad, and that Captain Kneen would be willing to transport them to and from the island. The party does have an idea of where to explore next in Ostad, but they'd better get back to Elendul first. With all those soldiers outside the Adventurer's Guild prior to their chase, they are wondering what happened to Nora, Gavyn, and Belnir.

#### Disappeared

It's night, so the party is able to sneak down the street to get to the Guild. They see a squad of guards still stationed outside it. As they approach, though, they are grabbed from behind by someone in an alleyway. It's Armande Tivurga. He brings them through the back entrance of his shop, giving them a good view of the Guild across the street.

Armande says that Nora, Gavyn, and Belnir were taken just before the party arrived a couple days ago. He managed to worm his way out of an arrest; he's had plenty of experiences with the law. He has no idea why they're after the party, but he doesn't care; he's on their side no matter what.

The soldiers seem to be tearing the Guild apart, taking whatever evidence they can. Among the soldiers is Tananta, wearing an Elendul intelligence agent outfit. On his coat is the same pin Trine had. A prison carriage approaches, and Nora, Gavyn, and Belnir are escorted out of it and into the shop. The look on their faces is empty. Tananta follows them in. After a few minutes, he and Nora walk out, discussing something. He hands her a piece of paper before signalling for the soldiers to pack up and leave. When they're sure the coast is clear, the party sneaks over.

Nora starts screaming at them when she sees the adventurers. Based on the look on her face, its like she barely recognizes them. She calls them thieves and murderers, and her shouting gets the attention of Gavyn and Belnir. When they see the party, they echo the same sentiments. The party struggles to restrain them.

After some questioning, it seems their memories have been altered. They claim the party forced their way into the Guild to hide out there. They specifically call out Calvyn, claiming he stole the Gond pendant. The party has no idea how to fix their memories, but they think they know someone who can: Odulf Platt. They head off for Etelehta, leaving Nyarriel and Pelecciel to stand guard.

Odulf is asleep when they arrive, and is quite annoyed at being woken up like this. The party asks if the elixir he's been working on could help. He's doubtful at first, but eventually devises a plan. He hands over a sample of his elixir and a spell scroll for *modify memory*. He warns that the current iteration of the elixir is *very* strong. It must be administered in very small amounts, and even then can cause immense psychic damage.

Returning to the Guild, Snargle is the one to carry out the plan. They administer the elixir to Nora first, then cast the spell. Nora screams in agony, as she can now remember every single small detail her senses are telling her. It's too much for her to handle, but the procedure must continue. Snargle finds himself in a hallway covered in paintings, seemingly representing Nora's memories. He finds a few recent ones that seem off somehow. They're painted on paper, not canvas, and he can easily tear them away, leaving an empty frame.

Something catches his attention out of the corner of his eye. A figure heading into a door he hadn't seen before. Snargle follows the figure, who is revealed to be Tananta. At the back of the room are the paintings of Nora's true memories. Snargle puts the paintings back where they belong.

The procedure is repeated on Gavyn and Belnir. They're a bit more resilient than Nora, but the elixir's effects are still painful. Snargle successfully repairs their memories as well. The three can now remember being brought to a facility where Tananta gave them some sort of drug, likely what caused their memory alterations.

#### Diseased Swamp

The next objective in Ostad would seem to be Moeraslonde, the swampy city where the disease in Etelehta originated from. With Kneen now in their service, they have free passage there. They find much of the city has been overtaken by the swamp. Various ponds among the ruins are being tended to by the Diseased Farmers. It seems they are cultivating insect eggs on the water's surface. The identity of these insects is quickly revealed: massive wasps with deadly, poisoning stingers.

Making their way through the first part of the city, the party finds edge of a thick, dark forest on the outskirts of town. The path into it has been blocked by thorny brambles entangled into an impassable wall. Where the path meets the wall is an indent in the brambles, and the branches surrounding it are cracked, revealing a green glow within. No way through at the moment, but they keep this location in mind.

The next stop is some fields to the north. Like in Etelehta, these are being used to grow drosera weeds. These ones are much further along in their growth process, and some have formed into shambling mounds which attack the party.

In the distance, the players can see a carriage rushing through the roads around the fields. Getting closer, they see it is being pulled by a two-headed undead horse. Its driver is undead as well, and carries a bright torch on the end of a pole. This is the Tax Collector and its horse, the Collector's Omen.

The Tax Collector battles the party, charging at them with the carriage. The horse gets in on the fight too, shooting fireballs at the adventurers from its mouths. Eventually, the Tax Collector is knocked off of the carriage, which rolls over into a ditch. The lantern explodes into a fireball. The Tax Collector tries to fight on foot, but is cut down.

The party's final stop is the town center, built on one of the islands created by the river delta that runs through the city. As they approach the City Hall, one of the houses in the area catches their attention. They see a gravestone in the backyard, but it seems that something had dug its way out of the grave. The stone reads, "Hirro Mialeth, my Beloved. 3968-4107."

Inside the house, they find a diary belonging to an elf child, Lir Mialeth. The dates in the diary, and the date of death on the gravestone are all right around the Cataclysm. The diary begins pretty normal, describing Lir's best friend moving away, and containing drawings of Lir's family and her beloved stuffed owlbear. The entries get increasingly dire from there. The later ones seem to describe the Cataclysm's events, with things lining up pretty well with what the unicorns said about "the week with no sun." Lir's parents board up their house as loud bangs are heard from outside. A final explosion occurs, far enough away from Moeraslonde that the shockwave doesn't damage too much, but it seems like the girl's father, Hirro is killed by it somehow. Lir doesn't know what's going on. The final entries describe some strange force calling the survivors towards the Dark Forest, including Lir's mother. Lir doesn't seem to feel the call, but she heads there as well, searching for her mother.

The party rests at the house for a while before continuing on to the city hall. Its interior has been burrowed out and now gives way to a huge cave entrance made of dry grass and mud. Inside, they find dozens of Farmers and Wasps. Before, they had thought the Diseased Farmers were the zombified inhabitants of Moeraslonde, but in the cave they find them being birthed from strange pods. The majority of them are their own, unique type of creature.

At the end of the cave is the Mother Frog, the massive frog whose eggs the Farmers hatch from. During the battle with it, Calvyn ends up swallowed by the Frog. In its stomach he finds a skeleton covered in glowing green Infernal runes. It's the same green glow that came from the brambles at the Dark Forest, and it seems like the skull is the perfect size to fit in the indent in the wall. They defeat the Frog, and head back to the Forest.

#### Dark Forest

The party heads back through the drosera fields on their way to the Dark Forest. As they do, they see a figure in the fields. It is the Uber-Seraphim Reţine, gathering drosera weed. When he notices the party, he vanishes.

At the bramble gate, the skull slots perfectly into the indent. The vines and brambles grow into the skull, pulling the lower jaw to one side and the rest of it to the other as the gate opens. The path into the forest is dark and foggy. As the party ventures forth, they think they see a clearing up ahead, but they start getting dizzy. As that subsides, they find their surroundings have changed. The path is lined with walls; either stone walls covered in foliage, or just straight-up hedges, it's hard to tell. When they move, they feel a strange force pulling them apart, but it stops whenever they stand still. Their perspective seems different as well. Distant objects change size more rapidly as they move, and movement seems more like zooming in and out of an image than physical movement.

The path leads to a set of three arches and a gate. The arches are each a different color, red, green, and blue, and the gate has a lock on it, divided into three sections with the same colors. It seems a puzzle is at hand. The party begins with the blue arch.

Now in an area more complicated than a straight path, the party starts to realize why things feel so strange here. As they go down the path, they find series of right angle turns that should take them in a square back to where they started, but instead lead to completely new areas. They also find an interesting property of movement here: by moving in a "square" without turning at all, they seem to rotate anyway. Whatever realm they have entered runs on the rules of hyperbolic geometry instead of euclidean.

In this hyperbolic maze, the party finds shadowy figures resembling the Diseased Farmers and giant wasps they encounted before. They seem to have the ability to teleport short distances. During combat with them, a wasp stabs it stinger deep into Guy's shoulder. He feels a bit woozy after the encounter, but soldiers on anyway.

This area of the maze is full of cliffs and caves. The edges of it are bound by seemingly bottomless cliffs. The layout of the caves is impossible; their entrances and exits are much further away from each other than the distance traveled within. One cave in particular is especially impossible: The dark cavern walls give way to thick, dark trees. In the distance, the light of a campfire can be seen. The party approaches, finding a band of dwarves sitting around it. They are overcome with a sense of familiarity. They remember a quest, one to find a magical staff in a kingdom they've never heard of and know so well.

The Dwarves are a bit suspicious, but they guide the party past an abandoned shack up ahead and further down the forest path. They get to a bridge crossing a gorge with a rushing river below. A voice from below calls out: a man on an outcropping along the river gives them directions to find the wizard who holds the staff.

Arriving at the wizard's shack, he says that to acquire the staff, they must defeat a challenger. A shapeshifting monster hiding in some woods a short distance away. They track the challenger to an abandoned village in the woods. The monster, having taken human form, seems impossible to defeat, but they manage to do it in the end. The Wizard appears, handing over the staff as promised.

The party finds themselves at the end of the cave. The "staff" is just a gnarled branch. None of what happened was real, but they seem to be further along in the hyperbolic maze.

A final cave takes them to a small island surrounded by bottomless cliffs. On the other side, they can see a lake. At its edge, the water falls endlessly into the void below. At the far end of the island is another blue archway, and at the island's center is a slender figure made of blue crystal and holding a spear. A Crystalian Keymaster, the first of three.

The Keymaster's crystal form is tough to crack, but the party eventually does it. The final blow cracks the Keymaster's face open, revealing a void within. The party gets the feeling that what they are seeking is within that void. One of them reaches in, further into the void than they should be able to reach. Their hand brushes against something. Pulling it out, it is a blue shard that would seem to fit into the gate they saw earlier. It's only a third of the key, though.

Heading through the blue arch, the party finds themselves back at the center of the Dark Forest. They also find their wounds have been healed, and their spell slots restored, as if they'd had a full night's sleep. Onto the next region through the red archway.

The first area past the red arch is a clearing with a river at the other end. There is a path to their left with a stone arch at its start and an ethereal, shimmering red veil within it. In the center of the clearing is a short stone pillar with a flaming sconce at the top. Within the pillar, slotting into a socket of some sort, is a strange metal lantern lit with a deep red flame. Retrieving it, they find it has two switches on the top. When held down, one of them conceals the flame, while the other affects a lense at the front of the lantern, focusing the light into a tight beam. The switches must be held down, as they return to their default position when released.

Testing out the lantern reveals something. When they shine its light near the river, a boat made of red crystals appears, tied to a pole on the river's edge. Taking the light away causes the boat to vanish again. They also learn something about the arch with the shimmering veil. When the lantern is brought through, the light is extinguished. It can be relit by plugging it back into the socket on the stone pillar for a moment. A second stone pillar is beyond the veil, but it is not lit and does not relight the lantern. They could bypass the veil by travelling up the river, but the river is flowing the opposite direction, and it's too fast to fight the current. The best they can do, paddling as fast as they can, is get the boat to come to a stop. Their only option is forward.

The adventurers soon come across a place where they can run the boat aground and get onto shore. Another pillar is ahead, and the party has a lantern to light it with. Beyond it is a stone wall with a gap in it at one end they can pass through. Shining the lantern through, they get a glimpse of walls made of black crystal, but they vanish under the lantern's light. Past the walls, the lantern illuminates another Shadow Farmer. This one has its own lantern which casts purple light. The party quickly conceals their lantern, but the Farmer's lantern has the same effect on the black walls. It chases them for a moment, but they evade it long enough for it to lose interest.

It seems the party has a maze to deal with. Using their lantern could bypass the maze completely, but risks attracting the Farmers' attention. It's too dark to see without it, though, and the darkness is even negating the darkvision of some of the adventurers. Arne uses his Primeval Awareness feature, allowing him to track the positions of the Farmers within the maze. Snargle attempts to use this knowledge to cast *maddening darkness*, but the dark aura fizzles out. The Farmer he was targeting teleports right in front of the party. It heads right for Arne, who holds the party's lantern, lifting him off the ground and extinguishing the flame. Everything goes dark.

After a moment, though, the flame returns. The party is back at the stone pillar. It seems the pillars are some kind of checkpoint. It also seems that fighting these Shadow Farmers is a fruitless effort. Feeling their way along the maze's walls, the party reaches the other side, finding another stone pillar with another lantern within it on the edge of a lake, likely the lake they saw at the end of the blue region. This lantern's flame is deep blue. As Calvyn takes it, he starts to feel something calling to him from the lake. He steps into the water. The water is too dark to see the sharp drop only a few feet from shore. As Calvyn falls beneath the water, the rest of the party feels the call as well...

The party finds themselves back at the red region's entrance, their lanterns still lit. Passing through the red veil, they find that the blue lantern stays lit. They ignite the checkpoint pillar and relight the red lantern. Continuing through the region, they find puzzles with color-coded crystals like the red boat was made of. The crystals only appear under light of the right color, and there are some purple crystal formations that require both colors. They also find some puzzles where a lantern must be put into a "lock" of sorts, keeping the lantern's light focused to redirect it via crystals. One such puzzle requires them to leave both lanterns behind as they continue forward. The path ahead is blocked by another river, but a red light in the distance crosses over them for a moment, briefly illuminating a red crystal bridge leading across the river. There is a lighthouse in the lake, but its light doesn't stay on the bridge long enough for the party to cross.

Nearby, at the river's edge, there is a black crystal boat. The party heads down the river, leading them out into the lake. The island that the lighthouse is on doesn't have anywhere they can dock, so they look elsewhere. Another island further on gives them more puzzles with new lanterns, and they leave with a blue lantern in their possession. Returning to the lighthouse, they find a blue crystal dock that they can now use to access the island. The party uses another lantern lock thing to stop the lighthouse's light from spinning, and position it where they need it.

The rivers have calmed enough to fight the current. The party returns to the red bridge. As they cross it, the handle of the lantern snaps. It smashes on the ground, and the light fizzles out. On the other side of the bridge is a second Keymaster, this one made of red crystal and wielding a pair of ringblades. The party smashes its face open to retrieve the second key shard.

A red arch brings them back to the center of the forest and restores their health. They head to the final area, the green region. There are a few Shadow Farmers early on (luckily the kind they can fight), but the enemies thin out as they go further. This area is much more thickly wooded, and there are strange bits of ruins and architecture haphazardly placed around. They find their way to an area near a lake that seems like a market of some sort. The stalls are stocked with fresh food and goods, but there are no people around. Snargle takes some fruit from one of these stalls, but is quickly cussed out by a disembodied voice. Looking around for where the voice came from, it seems like it came from a tree near the stall. The movement of the wind through its branches seem almost like hand gestures, but they could have imagined it.

Suddenly, the surface of the lake ignites. Several lines of fire extend outwards from a point on the opposite shore of the lake. As the wind passes through a nearby patch of trees, the party hears what sounds like a crowd whispering. They hear mentions of "mages" and "wacky experiments gone wrong." One conversation in particular interests them: a pair of voices discussing a plan to rob a magic school while the city guard are distracted by the fire. As they think about it, it seems less like a plan they overheard and more like one they came up with themselves. Like in the blue region, they have memories of places and quests they've never seen. They're in the city of Sumdall in the nation of Izmer, and they are going to rob the magic school.

This plan leads them into contact with another talking tree named Marina who claims to be a mage. She and the party become hunted by a squad of crossbow-wielding Shadow Farmers led by shadowy figure named Damodar. Marina must find a magical staff that can control red dragons before Damodar can get his hands on it.

The quest continues, leading the party to a thieves' guild whose leader is a more literal shadow than the shadowy figures they've seen before, cast by the moonlight behind the surrounding trees. He sends them through a deadly maze, at the end of which is an artifact they need to find the staff. Damodar is still on their trail, though. He manages to steal the map the party had been following to get to the staff, and kidnaps Marina.

Chasing after him, Nyarriel comes under the effects of some force that puts her in the role of a character named Norda, sent by the Empress of Izmer to find Marina and the map scroll. The adventurers find Damodar's forces set up in some ruins. They retrieve Marina and the map.

The staff is only a little further on. Their final destination is the cave where it lies. Calvyn is the first to enter, but as he does so, a wall of force blocks everyone else from entering. The staff is further into the cave, held by the skeleton of its creator. The skeleton springs to life, giving Calvyn a grave warning about the staff's power, before letting him take it.

Exiting the cave, Calvyn finds that Damodar had snuck up on the rest of the party and captured them. He orders Calvyn to hand over the staff in exchange for his friends' freedom. Calvyn agrees, but Damodar orders the party to be killed anyway. He opens a *dimension door* and the party chases him through it. Snargle gives a parting gift of *maddening darkness* to the Shadow Farmers they were leaving behind.

Through the *dimension door*, the party finds Damodar handing the staff over to the final Keymaster. The party focuses their attacks on the Keymaster. When it is defeated, Damodar vanishes as well. With the final key shard in hand, they head back to the center of the Dark Forest.

Past the gate is a small hill with a shack at the top. Bits of the shack have been broken off, hovering in the air nearby. The shack has only a single room. At the far end is an elf child, facing away from the door and holding a stuffed owlbear. Lir. Before the adventurers can approach her, the shack's roof is torn away. A tall figure stands before them, so tall they can only see its rough, brownish-gray legs. The rest of it vanishes into the clouds. Its long arms hang down as well, holding a glaive. The Gangrenous Sentinel.

#### Echoes of the Tree

Mustering all the strength they can, the adventurers defeat the Sentinel. As Guy Epic delivers the final blow, the party snaps out of their vision. Guy's fist is burrowed into the engorged brain of an elf child, covered in fungus and suspended in the air by mycelial tendrils. Behind the corpse is a pile of bodies, covered in similar white mushrooms and fungus. The child's supports snap as the fungus begins to shrivel up.

Though the body pile is gross, the party finds a few things of interest within it. Guy and Arne both find new weapons, with Guy getting a pair of Spiked Caestus that can sap life energy, and Arne finding a strange dagger that can fire magical projectiles that cause blood loss. They also find the Stuffed Owlbear. It has the same energy as the Grafted Gear and the Stone Feather. Upon picking it up, both Calvyn's holy pendant and Snargle's arcane focus raise into the air as another vision begins.

Each party member has a different vision, each seeming like a memory but whose events are unfamiliar. A memory from a different version of each of them, if they had taken different paths in life. Snargle sees himself guide a blind maiden to a deep catacomb, where he inherits the power of a maddening flame. Guy sees himself sacrificed to the flame of a giant forge in the snowy mountaintops. Arne sees himself take an archer with weak legs to a barren snowfield, where she reunites with her sister. Calvyn sees himself cure a young woman of a rotting disease that took her arm, and follow her as she tries to remember her past. At the end of these visions, the party shares one together: an infernal rune surrounded by four lanterns. Two are lit, but one of the two goes out. Gond and Groth-Golka both speak, telling the party that while three flames have been extinguished, the Gods don't die like people do.

As the vision ends, the adventurers become afflicted. Snargle's eyes burn as the flame of madness burst forth from him, striking at his surroundings. Aberrant red thorns burst from the ground and restrain Guy. Arne feels a deep cold well within him as he loses all feeling in his legs. Calvyn's right arm surges with rot, shriveling up and becoming useless. These afflictions subside after a moment. The burning behind Snargle's eyes lessens. Guy lets himself relax as the thorns burn away. Arne regains some feeling in his legs, but they still remain weak. The pain in Calvyn's arm turns to a vague discomfort, but the rot has rendered his arm useless.

Their time in the Dark Forest apparently lasted until the early morning, so the party decides to set up camp where they are. Nyarriel and Pelecciel examine Calvyn's arm. They determine that it can't be healed and must be amputated before the rot spreads further. They don't have the supplies to do that here, but if they get back to Etelehta, Ian Aranala could take care of it. They also know a pair of Artificers there that could make Calvyn a prosthetic.

As the party gets to sleep, Arne notices some movement in the surrounding trees. It's a direwolf. Arne prepares for a fight, but the wolf calmly approaches him. Maybe this wolf could be befriended. With his weakened legs, Arne could use some help with mobility, and the direwolf is the perfect size for him to ride.

#### Eviction

The party swiftly returns to Etelehta. Ian Aranala successfully amputates Calvyn's arm, asking to keep it to study the rot that afflicted it. Calvyn then heads off to see Sarmben and Torthrien Qinhana, a pair of wood elf Artificers. They fashion him a new arm with a few special features: a switch in the wrist that allows Calvyn to wield a two-handed weapon with a single hand, and a set of spring-loaded metal thorns that can be launched as a reaction to an attack.

The Artificers also take notice of the party's gear, allowing them to purchase more, and imbuing their existing gear with new abilities. Calvyn purchases a curved greatsword, and gains an ability on his polearm to summon a vortex of black flame. Snargle gains something for the Great Axe of the Void: the ability to plunge it into the ground, pulling creatures towards him with gravity magic. Arne buys a dagger fashioned from a scorpion's stinger, and gets a new ability for his crossbow, allowing him to summon a magical volley of bolts from the air. For Guy, the Artificers enhanced his caestus' life-stealing ability.

With their medical check-ups and shopping trip finished, the party relaxed in a common area of the Etelehta Community Center. Guy rubbed the spot on his shoulder where a Shadow Wasp stung him in the Dark Forest. No wound was left, but the spot still ached. A sense of dread overwhelmed him as his shoulder erupted in pain, as if reality was being torn open where he was stung. Four Entropic Phantoms emerged from Guy, swirling around him as the rest of the party rushed in to help. The phantoms' attacks seemed to sap their lifeforce in a way they'd never encountered before, but the party quickly defeated them.

The next morning, a messenger arrived. The Elendul Army was outside Etelehta's gates. The party followed Nyarriel and Pelecciel to confront them, meeting with Commander Mantle. He informed them that they were to vacate Etelehta as they were "trespassing on government property," and said the order came from MP Emiel van der Wolde and Minister Throlgratir Wraithmace. Nyarriel protested the order, as Etelehta is in former Drimwell territory, which Elendul should have no jurisdiction over. To this, Mantle produced a treaty, pointing to a section that would confirm Elendul's claim. The treaty was an extradition treaty between Drimwell and Elendul. The section Mantle showed vaguely says something about jurisdiction, but you'd need a really specific interpretation of the text to say it justifies what they're doing. It is also over 300 years old and has been superseded by more recent legislation. Mantle doesn't budge, giving the party until nightfall to comply with the order.

The party isn't taking this lying down. Meeting in Etelehta's main guard tower, they begin planning, watching the army through a telescope. They have a temporary encampment about a mile away, and several trebuchets and siege towers can be seen.

Etelehta has four gates in its exterior walls, but there is also a bit of open coastline for the army to land on. Nyarriel has an idea for that, though. Heading out to see Odulf Platt, he casts a spell, causing storm-like waves to appear surrounding Etelehta. He then surrounds his campsite with a magical metallic barrier.

Returning to the tower, each party member is given a squad of Riders. Each squad will guard one of the four gates, and the adventurers can choose their position: set up outside the walls to prevent the army from breaching them, set up on top of the walls to engage in ranged combat and relay scouting information across the wall, or set up behind the wall and use signals from atop the wall to arc arrows over it. Arne and Snargle each take positions on top of the walls, guarding the northernmost and southernmost gates, respectively. Calvyn and Guy take positions outside the wall, guarding the two gates in between.

The deadline was nightfall, but Elendul can already see Etelehta isn't going to give up like that. The battle begins. Elendul's forces advance on the gates, bringing forth four trebuchets to knock down each of them. The trebuchet on Snargle's lane is dealt with easily as he casts *maddening darkness*, taking out the trebuchet operator as well as the majority of the forces in the current wave. A wave of reinforcements soon arrive, pushing a pair of siege towers forward.

At the other three lanes, the Riders are taking a beating, but manage to fend off the first wave pretty well. The trebuchets launch a few volleys at the doors, but the walls stay standing. As the fight goes on, Arne and Calvyn's frontal forces are pushed back, retreating to the top of the wall. The trebuchets in their lanes stop firing as, like with Snargle's lane, siege towers approach. Guy's squad holds their own for now.

Snargle delays the arrival of a siege tower with a cast of *synaptic static*. However, the new wave of reinforcements has brought stronger soldiers. An Elendul Knight-Captain conjures a vortex of wind to leap to the top of the wall, knocking several Riders off. Snargle responds with a volley of *eldritch blasts*, knocking the Captain to their death.

As the siege towers *thunk* against the walls of Arne and Calvyn's lanes, they too are confronted by Knight-Captains. Guy's squad fights off the rest of the current wave, but more soldiers are on the way, forcing a retreat to the top of the wall. On Snargle's lane, he fights off most of the troops at the top of the wall, but one manages to reach the lever for the gate's portcullis. The gate is opened, and more of Elendul's soldiers make their way through, led by an imposing Night's Cavalry, a black-armored knight on a horse draped in dark cloth.

The gates of Arne and Calvyn's lanes are forced open the same way, while on Guy's lane the soldiers wheel out the trebuchet once again, knocking it down by force. Three more Night's Cavalry lead the charge on those lanes.

As Calvyn fights off the Night's Cavalry with his curved greatsword, Nyarriel and Pelecciel descend from their watch tower to speak with him. They spotted a ship near Odulf's camp. It survived the storm just long enough to get a squad of soldiers to the shore. Calvyn takes his squad that way while Nyarriel and Pelecciel take over his lane.

At the coast, the soldiers inspect the metal dome Odulf summoned. As Calvyn's squad approaches, the dome bursts open, revealing Odulf in his full battle gear. He wears a metal mask and a wide-brimmed hat, and wields a katana made of meteoric ore. He joins the fight against the Elendul army.

As Snargle's forces are pushed back, Commander Mantle enters the fray. The two armies merge their forces from the four lanes and start fighting each other on one front. Mantle wields a massive halberd, and his chants seem to empower his allies. Guy and Snargle manage to wipe out much of Elendul's soldiers by the time Calvyn and Odulf return from the coast. Three of the four Night's Cavalry retreat, leaving just one of them alongside Mantle. The group takes the Cavalry out, but they struggle to defeat Mantle. Guy musters one last bit of strength, pummeling Mantle into the dirt.

## Trivia

* Apeirogon42 wrote a program in Java to speed up NPC battles in the Windlo Arena, as she wanted to avoid having the players sit around doing nothing while she rolled. The program was over 1200 lines long and attempted to simulate everything as accurately as possible, taking into account the NPCs' various attacks, critical hits, and damage resistances/immunities/vulnerabilities.
	+ Although the bracket was left unfinished in-game, it was finished out of game. Out of all the players, Guy Epic lasted the longest, getting knocked out in Losers Round 5 by the Grafted Wolf. The Semifinals and Finals were very close, with the Gunpowder Corsair triumphing over Colton Sarsk before being defeated by the Grafted Wolf. The Wolf managed to get even with the Corsair after it knocked it to Losers in Round 3.
* The surreal experiences in the blue region of the Dark Forest came from AI Dungeon. Apeirogon42 started a game using the default fantasy prompt, inputting the players' actions into the program. This was done as the combat in that region was getting repetitive, and Apeirogon42 believed that the strangeness of AI Dungeon's generations (especially on the lower-quality AI models) added to the dream-like feel she was trying to give to this section of the campaign.
* The plot of the green region of the Dark Forest was lifted from the critically-panned 2000 *Dungeons & Dragons* movie, which Apeirogon42 had seen around the time the much better *Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves* was released.
* The map of the Dark Forest was produced using HyperEngine, the open-source backend code for Unity created for the game Hyperbolica. Apeirogon42 created textures of map tiles and placed them on a hyperbolic grid generated by HyperEngine.
* The theming of the three regions of the Dark Forest was decided on after Apeirogon42 was unsatisfied with the combat-heavy blue region. It was decided that, since the blue region was focused on combat, the other two would be centered around the other aspects of TTRPGs: puzzles and roleplay.