Kaldaran Campaign

This is a timeline for the current campaign, starting from the first adventure in the campaign to the present. Events are organized under in-game dates rather than session numbers.

## Timeline

### New Bloom

#### 15th of New Bloom, 406 P.A. (Post-Absence)

   In the small town of Auberdeen, the drow assassin Elvira, the tabaxi archer Perulian, and the wood elf wildfire druid Sarphi met in the town's square during its annual Hawperfest festival. While the trio initially clashed with each other, they were quickly united by the plea of a halfling farmer named Walbert, whose son, Josiah, had gone missing looking for their prize pig Bessie. Forming a ragtag party, they followed Walbert to his home and teamed up with their groundskeeper Rusty Crankshaw, accompanied by his loyal hound Peaches.

The group investigated the barn where Josiah started tracking Bessie and discovered a handful of clues that suggested the two were kidnapped. They followed a set of tracks through Walbert's cornfield, ending at the abandoned Auberdeen Quarry. After advising Rusty and Peaches to stay outside, the party followed the tracks further into the mine.

A short distance into the mine, Sarphi uncovered a hole hidden beneath a dust-covered tarp, clearly a trap for intruders into the mine. Perulian climbed down the hole carefully, discovering another network of dark tunnels. The others followed after him and found a golden thread winding through the tunnel. Following the thread, they discovered strange, filth-covered creatures with bat-like faces and simian bodies. Elvira quietly and efficiently dispatched them with a series of well-placed shots as they followed the thread to a stone door.

Opening the door quietly, the party discovered a group of cultists preparing to send Josiah down a hole into the tunnel network, intending to sacrifice him to a monster lurking within, which they referred to as "the Beast." The party took out the cultists, as Sarphi quickly rescued the boy and brought him back to Rusty. Before the party could celebrate their victory, the walls began to quake as the Beast, a massive minotaur with hooked, branching horns, emerged from the doorway behind them. The party felled the Beast, with Sarphi ultimately igniting it in ghostly flames. As Perulian inspected the remains, he realized the minotaur had undergone some fiendish transformation beforehand, and shuddered at the implication of such a creature's existence.

While looking for other survivors in the mine, Elvira found a *chest of holding* filled with coins and bearing an armful of magical items. After finding Bessie and a menagerie of captured animals in the cultists' meat locker, the party left with the rescued lot and returned them to Walbert. Having grown over 2,000 gold-pieces richer, the party prepared to spend their hard-earned coin at a local brothel and gambling hall, celebrating what would likely be the first of many lucrative adventures.

### Merend

#### 12th of Merend

Traveling from the north of Port Dairwane, the human artificer Alix Roston, the drow sorcerer Elendar Xiloscient, the valkyrie paladin Ginny, and the changeling warlock Nix discussed what they would do with the recent windfall of gold Elendar had come into. It seemed that Elvira, in an exceptionally rare stroke of luck, managed to win over five times what her party earned from the Auberdeen Quarry by gambling. As a gesture of friendship, Elvira decided to leave a sum of her winnings, as well as the magic items found in the Quarry, at the Gilden Galleon bank in Port Dairwane.

The party entered a large city filled with a diverse population of humanoid creatures, where news criers waved papers on current events at street corners, citizens mingled with traveling merchants selling exotic goods, and vessels from across the realm sailed in and out of the port's several large harbors, displaying varying technologies and designs. After their wagon passed through the crowded streets, they arrived at the humble Gilden Galleon, where they were greeted by the elf manager, Velis. They accompanied Velis to their deposit box, alongside the gnome Willoughsby Wizzflick and the attendant Celsen Reedwhistle.

Before the party could leave with their items, members of the Ripper Street Gang, led by a notorious, half-orc convict named Lonzo Grimjaw, held up the bank armed with blades and guns. A gruesome battle ensued, in which the gang tried to take Wizzflick and Celsen hostage. As the gang was gradually whittled down, Celsen turned on the party, revealing himself to be an insider on the attack. Despite his sudden betrayal, Celsen's spells failed to stop the party, and he was forced to retreat. The battle ended with Ginny slaying Lonzo on the streets in front of the bank, impaling him through the chest with her greatsword and incinerating him in radiant light. Afterwards, Nix stabbed Lonzo's body with his sword and claimed the convict's soul, crossing off one of dozens of names on his list.

Not long after their victory, the party was arrested by Dairwane's City Watch for disruption of the peace, at the urging of Captain Louch Gaspard of the North Shore District. The party was to be interrogated, starting with Elendar by the warforged Officer Gadjitt, followed up with Nix by Captain Louch himself. While Alix was being led to interrogation, Ginny, curious to see what a city watch station looked like, transformed into a swan and wandered the precinct. Nix took this opportunity to stage a jailbreak, disguising himself as multiple officers and ultimately causing a brawl as one of the officers suspected another of being Nix in disguise. In the midst of the chaos, the party escaped to the city streets, where Nix led them through the sewers to meet up with his old gang from years ago - Shark Head.

After navigating the twisting sewers of Port Dairwane using Nix's memory of the place, the party arrived at the Shark Head hideout beneath one of the city's docks. Before entering the hideout, a four-armed seiko thief named Kenshi asked the party for help sneaking inside. Nix grilled the thief on why he wanted to head in, until Kenshi finally revealed that his friend, Marco, had gotten himself captured after he was caught trying to steal from the gang's vault. Unless Kenshi acted quickly, Marco was destined to be taken to the Blood Pool, an event in which guests to the hideout bet on which shark will eat a prisoner victim first. Frustrated with the seiko, but sympathizing with his plight, Nix gave Kenshi the potential passwords for entry and advised him to wait for a while before coming in.

Answering the password for entry into the hideout, Nix led the party into the Red Wake, the gang's club for folks looking to relax and perform underground deals. They had barely ordered their drinks before a bell rang throughout the bar and patrons rushed to place bets. A prisoner was led out to a cage next to a large pool, followed by Bovark, the large sekolin leader of Shark Head. After making a speech disparaging the prisoner's crimes against the gang, Bovark had the prisoner dropped into the pool, where he was consumed by a school of sharks.

Following this gruesome display, Nix requested an audience with Bovark, informing the barkeep that they were looking to join up. Learning that Nix and the party had taken out Lonzo, who was wanted by Shark Head for offending Bovark, the party was led downstairs to meet with the boss, where he congratulated the party on their new lives as members of Shark Head. Before setting out, Nix asked the sekolin about a man who had gone missing some time ago: a half-elf who was last seen at sea performing a job for the gang. Suspicious of Nix's question, Bovark acknowledged the existence of such a person, but revealed little else.

Moments after becoming official members, the next Blood Pool began for Marco Castel, Kenshi's captured friend. Before Marco could be stuffed into the cage, Kenshi, having disguised himself as the crane operator for the cage, crashed the cage onto Bovark and freed Marco. The pair were in the middle of a daring escape before the party stopped them, impressing Bovark with their skills and diligence. After the pair were rounded up, Bovark ordered his men to ready them for a joint dip into the Blood Pool, leaving Elendar and Ginny guilt-stricken at their actions. Nix stepped in to intervene, suggesting that Bovark should take advantage of their skills and put them to work running jobs for Shark Head, eventually paying off their debts. The stubborn crime lord was hard-pressed to do so, explaining that if he started hiring people who crossed him, he would have trouble figuring out his friends from his enemies. Nix reminded him that, long ago, Bovark had done the same thing for a child that tried to pick his pockets. With this comment, Bovark demanded Nix explain who he was, at which point he revealed that he was the very half-elf who went missing at sea.

Bovark followed Nix's suggestion and let Kenshi and Marco go, to the party's relief. Afterwards, he spoke with Nix in private about his past, explaining that he went by the name Valeer during his time with Shark Head. The day he went missing, Nix was out on a job with a handful of other members of the gang: Lonzo Grimjaw, Obed Artani, and Visha Shoreseeker. Each of their names emerged on Nix's list as Bovark promised Nix he would share any information he had on the lot.

That night, as the party slept in their quarters at the hideout, strange dreams and visions visited each of them. Alix found himself swimming through a sea of gears to discover a strange contraption with rotating blue panels inside his Brass Defender; Elendar received a memory of his powers awakening as a result of touching a well of manna in a ruined temple; Ginny suffered a nightmare in which her instructor humiliated her in front of her comrades; and Nix visited his patron, the mysterious entity known as Nedeker, who decided to reunite him with Lonzo to learn more about the circumstances behind his own death. In his vision, Nix was warned of the powerful patron that Celsen seemed to serve - the Corpse King Manar. When they next awoke, each member had received new, impressive abilities that would assist them in their adventures.

#### 13th of Merend

The following day, the party went out shopping, acquainting themselves with two businesses: the Dapper Den and Krom & Sons Smithing. At the Dapper Den, Elendar and Ginny purchased new outfits from the tabaxi owners, Weaver and Liz, as well as a few pieces of magical attire. Walking through the market square, they also encountered a curious, beetle-like person with a golden shell, who seemed to be offering items themed around light and glowing. Continuing over to Krom & Sons Smithing, the pair met up with Nix and browsed around for new weapons and armor, ultimately settling on having Nix's crossbow refined by Glund, the primary blacksmith and youngest brother of the business's sibling owners. Throughout this venture, Alix went out to purchase texts that would help him decipher what the device in his dreams could be.

Before reconvening with the party during their shopping trip, Nix discovered a crowd gathered around the Crow's Nest Inn, where the City Watch was performing an investigation. Nix posed as an officer and asked one of the others at the scene, a lazy yet perceptive fellow named Lenny Croucher, what had happened in a roundabout way. Croucher explained that a gnome named Mr. Wizzflick, one of the patrons of the Gilden Galleon, was likely the victim of a kidnapping.

The party acted quickly to track down Wizzflick. Nix used his new gift from Nedeker to commune with Lonzo's spirit, learning that the gnome was likely being kept at a place called Stenzen. After asking around the Shallows District, the party was guided to the Stenzen Shipyard by an eccentric, homeless preacher named Barnacle. While scouting out the shipyard, the party found the place under heavy guard by the remaining members of the Ripper Street Gang. A fierce firefight ensued, in which the party evaded a hail of bullets from armed gangsters and a single, long-distance sharpshooter. Miraculously making it through with few wounds, the party prepared to break into the main building, where Wizzflick was being held hostage.

The party's heroic rush was quickly stopped by Wizzflick's captor, a half-elf warlock named Thajar Vysohr the Messenger. Vysohr, having been tasked with capturing Wizzflick and retrieving an "asset" he had acquired, threatened to kill the gnome if the party refused to surrender. Nix distracted Vysohr, who invited the changeling to join forces with him in service to the Corpse King. Under the guise of taking his offer, Nix instead teleported next to Vysohr and prepared to take Wizzflick away. A more grueling battle ensued, in which Nix fell to the warlock and his shadowy minions. After being resuscitated by Elendar, Nix took swift revenge against Vysohr, killing him and claiming his soul for Nedeker.

Wounded and exhausted, the party was greeted by Captain Louch and the City Watch, who had arrived on the scene to investigate the commotion at the shipyard. Rather than arrest the party, however, Louch dropped all previous charges against them, including the jailbreaking charge for which Wizzflick paid bail. Instead, the captain wanted to question the party on the events that had just transpired, transporting them safely back to the precinct. Elendar explained as truthfully as he could the kinds of threats the party encountered, which Louch took into account for his upcoming investigation.

The party returned to the Red Wake, where the gnome could explain his story. Wizzflick explained that he was the tenured Professor of Antiquities at Whitecliff University, and that he had come to Port Dairwane at the request of Adelaide Mournvale, a former student who he taught and one of his oldest friends. Adelaide, it seemed, had inadvertently been working on behalf of the King's Court, a cult dedicated to the Corpse King, to research places of worship on the Inheritor Gods. While exploring one of these places, she discovered a strange substance she referred to as "ambrosia," which her employer, Zelek Umbyrne, expressed great interest in. After seeing some of its effects, Adelaide stole away with it and passed it on to Wizzflick, explaining that he was one of the only people she could trust with this substance. Wizzflick had come to the Gilden Galleon to collect the ambrosia when the Ripper Street Gang attacked. He and the party would later realize that the Gang had been hired by Vysohr to kidnap Wizzflick under the guise of a bank robbery. Vysohr, having killed the young attendant Celsen and taken his place using an illusion, was forced to intervene when it became clear the gang was outmatched by the party.

Thankful for the party's help, Wizzflick had hoped to commission the party for their assistance after their heroics at the Gilden Galleon, having visited the North Shore Precinct to pay off the party's bail while they were performing their jailbreak. Now that they have rescued him a second time, the professor asked the party for their help once more, this time to escort him back to Whitecliff University. The party, primarily out of a sense of duty but happy to accept his offer for reward, agreed to the task and made plans to depart the following morning.

After their conversation with Wizzflick, the party was called into Bovark's office to discuss his plans for them. The crime lord had plans to expand Shark Head's influence across the Bay of Good Fortune, starting with the cities of Whitecliff and Veltear. Bovark handed two dossiers to the party, to be completed when time allowed. One tasked them with finding a tiefling conjurer named Scrawl at Whitecliff, so that she could finish setting up a base of operations in the Wailing Waif Cavern. The other instructed them to meet with Saval, the leader of the Laughing Skulls gang in Veltear, to help remove a wererat infestation in one of their alchemy laboratories. With this information in hand, the party made their preparations for the coming journey.

#### 14th of Merend

While the rest of the party enjoyed a good night's rest, Nix was confronted by Nedeker in his patron's plane. Standing aboard a spectral ship sailing across a stormy, endless ocean, Nedeker explained that this vessel would serve as a monument to Nix's growing success, with the bodies of his collected souls hanged from the sails on full display. Before Nedeker released Nix, the mysterious patron expressed his disapproval of his follower's seemingly wavering devotion when he considered Vysohr's offer. As punishment, Nedeker drowned Nix in the ocean, leaving him dead for a few moments before reviving him.

In the waking world, the party discovered Nix drowning in his bed and were unable to resuscitate him, forcing Elendar to attempt a *revivify* spell to bring him back. This episode sparked concerns regarding Nix's health, but they continued making preparations for traveling to Veltear. Ginny picked up Nix's modified crossbow from Krom & Sons, and the party set out to board the *Ghost of Drakovir*, a Shark Head sailing ship captained by the water genasi Kordayn Martell.

    Before they boarded the ship, the party discovered two suspicious individuals disguised as City Watch officers questioning one of the last members of the Ripper Street Gang. Realizing they were cultists of the King's Court, Nix slew the gangster from a hidden vantage point before he could inform the King's Court about the party. Nix evaded the pursuing cultists and boarded the *Ghost of Drakovir* as it sailed out of port, seemingly escaping without a trace.

The party decided to take a route to Veltear, from which they would board a lightning train running across the edge of the bay to Whitecliff. Upon arriving in Whitecliff, they were greeted by two of Wizzflick's associates: Professor Bixby Blastfizzle from the School of Evocation, and Professor Calver McCaul of the School of War Magic. The group traveled to Whitecliff University, where McCaul explained that he and Blastfizzle managed to suss out a member of the King's Court scouting out the university. This trespasser was being held in custody at a nearby jailhouse under magical wards.

At the University, the group safely extracted the ambrosia from its chest, revealing a vial of glowing, color-changing liquid that produced electricity running against the glass. Ginny and Elendar, the divine spellcasters of the group, could hear an entrancing music coming from the ambrosia, drawing Ginny towards the vial to open it before she snapped out of her trance. The ambrosia was transferred to a chest of Wizzflick's design, which he shunted into a hidden location. The party was then rewarded for their efforts, being given a sum of gold and free passage in and out of the university grounds. Before they parted ways, Professor Blastfizzle asked Elendar to speak with him later if the latter was interested in running a few experiments with him.

Nix and Ginny decided to perform some research at the university library, with Nix studying texts on Nedeker and Ginny reading on manna. Nix learned that a scholar named Quelloth Quaysir had been interviewing people who went through similar experiences to Nix, and that each of these people saw different visions of Nedeker's plane when confronted by the entity. All but one person chose to remain anonymous; a man named Jaltr, who was apparently hiding out in Varkryn after his brush with death. Jaltr's name appeared on Nix's list without further explanation from Nedeker himself.

After they finished their research, Nix and Ginny helped Professor McCaul display the application of magic in martial combat by sparring with each other. The experience provided some valuable education for everyone involved, and the party decided to celebrate their learning experience at a nearby inn known as the Briny Bard.

While at the Bard, the party met a down-on-his-luck young man named Jerove Averin, who was drinking his sorrows away after a bad break-up with his ex-girlfriend. Ginny had a conversation with Jerove to cheer him up before they were interrupted by his ex, Rosanna. In the middle of her unjust grievances against Jerove, Ginny and Nix suggested that she leave him alone before things got nasty, rescuing the apprentice wizard. As they continued to enjoy themselves, the party reunited with Captain Martell and his crew, and made plans to head to the Wailing Waif Cavern in search of Scrawl.

#### 15th of Merend

The party left for the Wailing Waif Cavern in the morning, following Captain Martell's directions to a hidden cliffside tunnel beneath Whitecliff University. Entering the dark and cramped tunnels, the party discovered the remains of a chaotic battle, as well as several life-like statues. While exploring the cavern, they learned that the place had been used by a group of enterprising mages looking to open a portal into the Elemental Plane of Earth in search of valuable gems. In doing so, the mages summoned forth a strange earth elemental, a gurroda known as Tyzok. The elemental helped the mages create the portal while offering handfuls of riches to the mages' leader. By the time the leader learned that Tyzok had been giving him fake gems, he met his untimely end at the hands of the sinister elemental.

While exploring deeper into the cavern, the party was attacked by a host of mephits and living statues, and contended with a basilisk lurking in the tunnels. Toffee fell victim to the basilisk's gaze, forcing Elendar to return his old companion to his original home to recover while he conjured a new familiar, naming it Gadget. After defeating the ambushers, they encountered a large stone door sealed with magic, apparently leading into the portal room proper. Alix went to open a chest likely storing the key, where he was assaulted by a mimic and more mephits. The party rushed to rescue him, discovering a treasure-hungry xorn observing the party in their battle. Nix bribed the creature with the promise of treasure if it would leave the party alone, persuading the xorn to fall back.

Instead of persisting through the cavern, the party decided to recuperate at the Briny Bard and tackle the cavern the next day. Before they could leave, the xorn returned to collect on Nix's promise, threatening to inform Tyzok of the party's presence if not appeased. The party gave him a small sum of treasure, satisfying the xorn and ensuring he would not help Tyzok repopulate the cavern with his minions. Alix left with pieces of a broken dao hammer, which he planned to reforge in town when time permitted.

#### 16th of Merend

After recovering at the Briny Bard, the party returned to the cavern, ready to confront Tyzok and find Scrawl. As they walked deeper into the gurroda's lair, Tyzok began speaking to them, admiring their appearances and musing about how they would look in his "gallery." When they finally arrived at the portal chamber, the party was forced to act on a timer as Tyzok, hidden behind another magically-locked door, prepared to open the portal into the Elemental Plane of Earth. Navigating through the labyrinthine tunnels, the party grabbed the keys scattered throughout the network and brought them to the door, opening it just in time as the portal revealed a field of large, brilliant quartz rocks, from which a massive elemental was charging through.

The party quickly shut the portal on the elemental, greatly weakening it before it could join Tyzok in battle. Alix fired a well-placed shot at the elemental's core, shattering the being while leaving the core itself intact. Afterwards, Nix finished off the elusive Tyzok, stabbing his blade into the gurroda's chest and causing him to explode from a burst of high-pressure water.

Gathering themselves after their victory, the party found Scrawl and her friends, who had been petrified and posed by Tyzok like statues on display. Using a mixture of basilisk blood, Elendar freed her and the others, then made plans to free the rest of Tyzok's victims. As they left the cavern, Ginny adopted a spider-like elemental from a large, boulder-like egg, naming her new pet Teckie after its species, the tectonnes.

Returning to the Briny Bard, the party learned that tensions between the Elven Alliance and the Moradic Kingdom were growing. A scuffle at the border led to the Republic of Luxengrand sending small detachments to their elf allies, in preparation for a possible conflict.

Before the party split up briefly to complete their own tasks, Elendar met a group of elven adventurers consisting of the moon elf cleric Cidriel Silverbough, the sun elf wizard Haskilian Sunhawk, and the wood elf ranger Hush. Cidriel extended an offer of friendship to Elendar, which he gracefully accepted. She explained that she and her companions were visiting for Haskilian's sake, as the archmage of Quel Solis, Kaledon Taiviri, was expected to visit for an event at Whitecliff University. While Cidriel and Hush seemed affable towards Elendar, Haskilian appeared dismissive of him.

Elendar, deciding he would volunteer for Blastfizzle's experiment, found the professors arguing in Wizzflick's office. Blastfizzle was proposing testing the ambrosia on Elendar, having noticed its effects on the sorcerer based on his proximity to the substance. Wizzflick and Elendar opposed the idea, yet Elendar agreed to let Blastfizzle at least research the sorcerer's spellcasting technique using manna. In exchange, Elendar would be paid in dishes of softening salve, which could be used to cure petrification.

While in Wizzflick's office, Elendar was shown a rat that Wizzflick had been experimenting on using the ambrosia, seeing that it had developed a radiant aura. As the rat approached Elendar, it whispered a soft song in his ear, passing on a fragment of the ambrosia within itself to the sorcerer. Elendar received a vision of an empty white plane, where his thoughts gave form to his surroundings. Before his vision ended, he saw a child with silver skin, golden hair, and orange eyes look up towards a wispy, golden silhouette that seemed to be the child's mother.

Alix set to work on repairing the hammer, while also plotting out the schematics for a personalized tank. He reached out to the Iron Artisans, a smithing business run by a group of dwarves specializing in magical equipment. After the group received the requisite materials, the artisans assured Alix they could complete the hammer within three weeks.

#### 17th-21st of Merend

Over the following 5 days, Alix and Elendar continued work on their respective projects. Alix rebuilt his wagon for higher elevation, then finally made plans with the Iron Artisans to begin working on the hammer. Meanwhile, Elendar humored Blastfizzle's experiments, during which time the professor constantly pestered the sorcerer to let him experiment with the ambrosia by having Elendar ingest a single drop. In the end, Elendar agreed to the professor's request, curious about the vision he had received from the filtered ingestion he received from the rat.

Elendar and the party used their supply of softening salve and brought the rest of Tyzok's petrified victims aboard the *Ghost of Drakovir*, where they freed the victims and spun a tale of finding them while diving underwater for treasure. As thanks for their heroics, the townsfolk shared the names of the party (at least, the false names the party gave them) with their friends and family, spreading news of the heroes' actions. Nix was given a music box by a gnomish tinkerer, who had been exploring the cavern before he was petrified. The music box played a familiar song which Nix could not place, unsettling the warlock.

Later, the party reconvened at the Briny Bard, where Elendar brought up his agreement with Blastfizzle to experiment with the ambrosia. After talking it over with the others, Elendar decided he would begin the experiment the next day, with the party accompanying him.

Later that day, Elendar and the elven adventurers met each other again, with Haskilian visibly frustrated. It seemed he had miscalculated the timing of Archmage Kaledon's visit, and was displeased that he would have to stay in the Briny Bard once more. After making an offensive remark towards Elendar in response to an inquiry from the sorcerer, Haskilian was escorted out of the Briny Bard by Nix and Hush. Cidriel apologized profusely for Haskilian's behavior, and assured Elendar that she would address her companion's bigotry.

While Elendar and Alix had been working on their projects, Nix hunted the streets of Whitecliff for more souls to gather for Nedeker. After some quick research, Nix discovered a convict named Valk Craven hiding out in town, and enlisted the help of two debt collectors, Haskel and Vinker, to point him out. Later that night, Nix confronted Craven behind the Crusty Crab tavern, killing him and one of his financiers, a halfling "cleaner" named Markoth Kyber. The debt collectors fled the scene before the City Watch arrived, while Nix disguised himself as an old woman and escaped.

#### 22nd of Merend

The party left for the university first thing in the morning, wading through a small crowd of people interested in seeing the archmage of Quel Solis. Elendar had become a familiar face with the gate guard Bentley as a result of his daily visits to the university, and was able to enter the university easily. Before walking through the gates, the elven adventurers returned once more, with Haskilian requesting Elendar's help in letting them in. Reluctantly, Elendar helped Haskilian and the others inside. Cidriel thanked Elendar for his kindness as her haughty wizard companion rushed towards the nearest building in search of the archmage.

Walking through the main hall, the party met up with Professor Blastfizzle, who was engaged in a conversation with Archmage Kaledon himself. While Blastfizzle spoke highly of Elendar, the archmage appeared dubious of the professor's compliments. He spoke briefly with Elendar, asking him whether the sorcerer had been conducting himself responsibly with his powers. When Elendar affirmed his responsibility, Kaledon expressed his hope that the sorcerer would continue to "keep it that way," and the two parted ways.

The party met with Professors Wizzflick, Blastfizzle, and McCaul in one of the testing chambers below the University. Following Nix's recommendation, the experiment was delayed until later that evening, when the crowd from Archmage Kaledon's visit would disperse. Elendar and Ginny were instructed to wait outside of the chamber while the group moved the ambrosia out of Wizzflick's chest, so that its effects wouldn't draw them towards the vial.

When they opened the chest, the party was attacked by a swarm of specters, and McCaul snatched the ambrosia. Alix and Nix helped the professors battle the intruders and lock up the ambrosia. As McCaul fell, it was revealed that a ghost in service to the King's Court had been possessing him and plotting to steal away with the vial. Nix slew the spirit, dragging its soul to Nedeker's domain.

Despite the wounds sustained in their battle, and against Nix's advice, the party continued with the experiment, deciding that if they were going to test the ambrosia, it would have to be in this moment, after the King's Court had been rebuffed. After Wizzflick produced a *wall of force* from the testing chamber's Abjurex tablet to surround Elendar, the sorcerer took in a single drop of ambrosia, infusing him with divine energy and placing him in a trance.

Once again, Elendar found himself in a featureless, white plain; however, as his thoughts gave form to objects in this plain, they also affected his surroundings in the Material Plane, conjuring patches of grass, peals of thunder, and even a living owlgryphon in the form of Toffee. This experiment came to a head when Elendar, consumed by memories of his past, summoned two beings of unstable flesh and terrible magic. The party quickly slew the monstrosities, as Elendar cast a *firebolt* that shattered the *wall of force* in an attempt to destroy one of the horrors. With this, Elendar broke out of his trance, and the experiment was completed. Wizzflick informed the party that he and his other two associates would research a safe location to keep the ambrosia secure.

The party decided to leave the professors to clean up the mess made in the experiment, preparing to head back to the Briny Bard. On the way back, they met with the elven adventurers once more, who asked if they could meet with the party at the Witch's Brewhouse, a tavern popular with students from the university. Elendar and Ginny enjoyed a conversation with the adventurers, in which Ginny beat Hush in an eating contest and won a pouch of magic spices. Towards the end of the night, Ginny met a woman named Anja, a traveler from Varkryn who she and the party had rescued from the Wailing Waif Cavern.

#### 23rd-27th of Merend

On the 23rd of Merend, Haskilian showed up in front of Elendar's bedroom door and handed Elendar an apology letter for his behavior towards the sorcerer. This letter remains one of Elendar's most prized possessions.

Over the following five days, the party finished up some personal business:

Alix continued his work on the hammer and the wagon, employing the Iron Artisans' help for both ventures. While the dwarves were skeptical of Alix's design for his prototype, they could not deny the artificer's determination to create a personalized tank.

Elendar and Nix helped Scrawl get the teleportation circle up and running in Shark Head's new hideout at the Wailing Waif Cavern, finally establishing a rapid transport between Port Dairwane and Whitecliff. The two used this opportunity to report back to Bovark and receive their reward for a job well done.

Ginny used her time to explore the city of Whitecliff, becoming acquainted with much of the population as a friendly and curious soul. By the 27th of Merend, she befriended an elderly woman named Petunia Beltram, who invited Ginny for dinner with her family.

On the 27th of Merend, after finishing their work at the Wailing Waif Cavern, Nix and Elendar returned to the Briny Bard. Before they could relax with muffins laced with possibly hallucinogenic substances, Jerove, now a waiter at the Briny Bard, informed them of a pair of visitors looking for Nix. The duo, a half-orc fighter named Griggs and a human gunslinger named Vance Creek, requested a conversation with Nix. They explained, in a not-so-subtle manner, that they learned Nix had killed Valk Craven, a member of the Dust Devils and Vance's brother. Vance demanded Nix meet him at the cliffs overlooking town, where he doubtless planned to kill Nix as revenge.

As Vance and Griggs turned to leave, Nix attacked them. With Elendar's help, he slew Vance and forced Griggs to retreat to the rest of the gang. One of the bar patrons, an unusually tall halfling woman, congratulated the pair on their success in taking down Vance. The woman then revealed herself as another changeling named Coal, who claimed to be another warlock in service to Nedeker. He explained that he had been tracking down the Dust Devils to Whitecliff, and hoped that he could enlist Nix and the party's help in wiping them out.

Coal led the party up the cliff to the Beltram lighthouse, where Ginny had been planning to enjoy supper with Petunia's family. The Dust Devils had followed one of the debt collectors, Haskel Beltram, to his lighthouse in order to interrogate him for information on Nix. After discovering the place was home to an entire family, they took over both of Whitecliff's lighthouses, using the Beltram lighthouse as an ambush spot for Nix and holding the Beltrams hostage. Coal took Alix to clear out the Dust Devils in one of the lighthouses on the other side of the cliff, while Nix and the others rescued the Beltrams.

A long and bloody battle ensued. Nix and Elendar teleported to the top of the lighthouse, rescuing Haskel and slaying Griggs, while Ginny advanced upstairs through a mob of murderous gangsters. The party was ultimately successful, with Coal and Alix meeting up with them once more to finish off any stragglers. As the party took the Beltrams to the Witch's Brewhouse, Nix and Coal discussed their tumultuous pasts, finding some camaraderie in their tragedies. Before leaving, Coal passed Nix a vial containing water from the River Lethe, which would help Nix regain some of his memories. After handing it off, Coal teleported away.

In his dreams that night, Nix was visited once more by Nedeker, who warned him of Coal's intentions and revealed that this new "ally" had actually broken his pact with Nedeker. Coal seemed to discover a way to break the pact in such a way that he could avoid Nedeker's punishment, keeping his soul as well as a portion of the entity's powers. The scorned patron ordered Nix to play along with Coal's deception so that he could learn the traitor's secret to surviving his broken pact, then sending him to Nedeker himself. After issuing these orders, Nedeker granted Nix another gift for his services and departed.

After waking from this vision, Nix wandered to the docks of Whitecliff alone, where, after some contemplation, he imbibed the waters of Lethe. Upon doing so, he received a memory of his time as Valeer, in which he rescued a red-haired woman named Moira from drowning. The woman thanked him for saving her life, and asked if they could see each other again over lunch at a nearby cafe. Valeer accepted the offer, and watched the woman run off with her friends, visibly excited at his acceptance.

### Lirden

#### 28th of Merend - 12th of Lirden

Over the following weeks, the party finished up more projects in their downtime. Ginny prepared for a meet-up with Jerove, failing to understand that it was likely a date. In order to help their friend and make sure Jerove didn't cause any trouble, Elendar and Nix decided to do some clothes-shopping for her at the Dapper Den in between conversations with Bovark. Meanwhile, Alix, in need of more funds for his tank project, took on a job with Shark Head to steal a crown from the university's exhibit on the Khordain royal line. After collecting the crown and deceiving the client, Lord Raustus Rhogan, into providing additional funds ahead of time under the pretense of overhead costs, Alix made a substantial amount of money while earning the ire of Lord Raustus. The party enjoyed a trip to the beach before Professor Wizzflick contacted Elendar about a place where the ambrosia could be secured.

After dressing up for a visit to the university, the party returned to Wizzflick's office, where the professors suggested the ambrosia could be taken to Kingsgrove, a divine sanctuary hidden in the Elden Range Mountains. Using the journal of the late Prince Dalmere Khordain, Wizzflick surmised that a temple in Kingsgrove, called Arcadas, would contain a secure vault where any manna, including the ambrosia, could be kept safe by its venerable protectors. Storing the ambrosia in a magical chest of his and Blastfizzle's design, Wizzflick gave the party some time to prepare for their journey north.

Later that night, Nix and Alix gambled with some locals at the Briny Bard. The two enjoyed some success against the patrons before a well-dressed gnome introducing himself as Farzicus Toadstool joined in, cleaning the table out and making off with Alix's Brass Defender. Nix caught up to the gnome, disguising himself as a goliath ship captain named Admiral Stonewall. In this form, Nix expressed interested in purchasing the defender from Farzicus as a crewmate, paying around 200 gold pieces to own the automaton. Upon returning the defender to Alix, the artificer grew overjoyed and assured Nix that he would repay Nix in whatever way the warlock requested.

#### 13th of Lirden

Alix and the Iron Artisans finally completed work on the Hammer of Earthen Might, gifting the magical weapon to Ginny. While not accustomed to fighting with a hammer, Ginny came to enjoy wielding the weapon, expecting to find great use with it for future endeavors.

The party traveled to Veltear that morning, deciding to finish up the job with the Laughing Skulls on the way up north. Nix took the lightning train, uncomfortable as he was with traveling on a ship, while the rest of the party joined Captain Martell aboard the *Ghost of Drakovir* to sail across the bay. On the way to the city, they encountered more signs of Luxengrand's response to the conflict up north, as the Republic began sending their fleets and infantry to support the Elven Alliance.

Arriving at Veltear, the party took in the sight that they quickly passed by nearly a month ago: a massive metropolis, with tall, well-lit buildings looming over squat, grey buildings and factories, the smokestacks producing a dismal, grey cloud that blotted out the sun. Nix arrived at the Drunken Whaler ahead of the party, where they expected to meet with the leader of the Laughing Skulls. While making their way there, the party caught a glimpse of the injustices faced by the city's non-human population, particularly shifters and changelings, when they saw a couple of drunkards harassing a young shifter boy for picking one of their pockets. Elendar convinced one of the drunkards to leave, but not before the belligerent man shoved the boy to the ground. The sorcerer tried to help the shifter up, but the boy ran away.

After being led through a secret sewer passage beneath the Drunken Whaler, and being accosted by the strange doorman Vekel Finespindle, the party met with Saval, the Laughing Skulls leader. Saval explained that one of their laboratories in the Brewer District was attacked by a gang of wererats, which ended up releasing an infectious fungus called bloodspores that had overtaken the entire area. In addition to clearing out the wererats, Saval requested that the party help one of their alchemists, Noster Wormtail, disinfect the laboratory.

#### 14th of Lirden

As the party tried to enjoy a lackluster breakfast, Alix confronted a strange man with large glasses who had been staring at him since the party entered the hideout. The man revealed himself to be Wheezer, a former classmate of Alix's and a member of his old friend group at the Sentinel School of Artifice. While Alix was shocked to see an acquaintance from his old school, he took the opportunity to employ Wheezer's assistance in one of his projects. Wheezer happily agreed, and gave Alix two pieces of useful information, one for his current job and one for when he was finished. He explained that he had made a gun for the laboratory's head, which would likely assist him in his travels if he found it. After the job, Wheezer hoped that Alix might join him in an underground fighting ring for constructs, so that he might humble one of the reigning champions, Sylvester Zauv.

The party set out for the laboratory, with Noster as their guide through the labyrinthine tunnels beneath Veltear. After half an hour of travel, they encountered a laboratory complex covered in a haze of red spores. Noster explained that the spores, if ingested, would result in a deadly infection that could drive victims into a mindless killing frenzy. Equipped with *masks of toxin inurement*, the party carefully navigated the area and prepared to clean out the dungeon.

While exploring the area, the party discovered a safe in the laboratory chief's office, as well as a series of documents from other researchers detailing the events that led to the laboratory's unfortunate state. One of these documents, a journal kept by an alchemist named Kolbek Rhot, revealed that Kolbek was an exile from a wererat clan in the Undercity, who had found employment with the Laughing Skulls without revealing his lycanthropic condition. One night, while looking for fungal samples in the sewers, he discovered a group of red myconids infecting creatures with bloodspores, making them slaves to the mushroom-like people. When Kolbek went to gather a sample, he was attacked and bitten by one of the infected creatures. In an attempt to cure himself, Kolbek treated himself with an unfinished mixture, saving his life but failing to kill the infection. As a result, he fell under the influence of the Demon Lord Zuggtmoy, and was driven to create a portal for her minions to enter the Material Plane.

As Nix revealed this information to the party, Ginny accidentally provoked the laboratory's living trash disposal, an otyugh named Gertie. The commotion caused by their battle attracted the wererat denizens, resulting in a battle that exhausted most of the party's resources. After the party defeated a horde of fungus-infected monstrosities led by Kolbek himself, Noster re-joined the party and helped them find a safe spot to hide in. The party struggled to recuperate as they hid from the pursuing wererats, but were luckily saved after an explosion from an unknown source damaged an important structure in the wererats' lair.

The party continued through the lair, searching for the furnace room at the bottom level. Nix learned through Kolbek's notes that bloodspores die quickly in dry heat, and that turning on the furnace would destroy the bloodspores in their immediate vicinity. After fighting through another mob of fungal creatures, the party turned on the furnace and confronted Kolbek for a final showdown.

Deep in the lair, the party faced deadly fungi and savage demons, and struggled to break through the horde before Kolbek could open the portal. As fiends poured through a portal made from the bodies of sacrificed humanoids, the party focused their efforts on tearing the structure down, ending with Elendar launching a *fireball* igniting the portal and Kolbek himself. Nix attempted to claim the mad wererat's soul, but an entity from beyond the portal denied Nix, declaring that "this one is [hers]."

After combing the laboratory for spoils, Alix found the Dragoon, Wheezer's magical magnum, inside the safe. The powerful firearm, which can be charged with magical shots, proved an attractive piece for the gun-savvy battle smith.

The party returned to the Laughing Skulls' hideout, where, after a friendly conversation with Noster, Nix advocated for better treatment of the shifter alchemist. Saval, unamused by Nix's suggestions, dismissed them and expressed his displeasure at one of Bovark's men telling him how to run his outfit. After this heated conversation, Nix made a subtle offer for Noster to join with Shark Head, which Noster began to seriously consider.

While the party prepared to leave the Hideout and return to Shark Head, Nix had another uncomfortable encounter with Vekel Finespindle, who demonstrated an unhealthy interest in the party's belongings. Reviewing his list later, Nix found Vekel's name written down, as well as Kolbek's name faded out to indicate it as irretrievable, at least for the moment.

Before heading to the train station, the party once again saw the young shifter boy and followed him to Black Cobble Road, one of several homeless communities in Veltear. They discovered the boy, Joth, was taking care of his sister, Lily, who had fallen ill with some unidentified illness. The community's defenders, led by a shifter named Lothic, were suspicious of the party at first, but were later persuaded to let Elendar treat Lily. When they saw the girl's vitality return to her, Joth and the rest of the community expressed their sincere gratitude for the healer's help.

While Elendar and Ginny entertained the children, Nix spoke with Lothic about bringing the children to a home in Port Dairwane. Though appreciative of the gesture, Lothic respectfully declined the offer, explaining that he and the community still did not fully trust the party. However, the shifter assured Nix that they would keep the children safe, especially now that a kidnapper known as the Prowler was apparently loose in Dairwane. Curious about this shadowy terror, Nix interviewed Blarney, one of the residents of the community and an apparent witness of the Prowler. By mimicking the voice Blarney heard, Nix learned that the culprit was most likely Vekel Finespindle himself.

The party arrived in Port Dairwane late at night, where they reunited with Kenshi and Marco Castel. Nix visited Bovark to report the party's success in Veltear, and received additional information from Bovark regarding the whereabouts of Obed Artani. According to a source in Veltear, a man named Barton Sheller, a survivor from the Lightbringer, was hiding out in Veltear and might know Obed's whereabouts. Nix was given information that could lead him to Sheller, who was apparently staying in a shack at the Slaughter Docks.

Upstairs, the rest of the party caught up with Kenshi and Marco, learning that the two had been making names for themselves in the gang. While sharing stories, Kenshi mentioned stealing a Khordain artifact on behalf of Lord Rhogan, who seemed to be asking questions about a man named Alix. Alix, too occupied with his own thoughts, paid little heed to the remark.

That night, the party once more experienced vivid dreams and visions:

Alix once again found himself swimming in a sea of gears, this time discovering a voice within the blue-paneled device reaching out to him. The entity begged Alix to help him return home to Mechanus, seemingly occupying the Brass Defender after Alix agreed to help. This entity proved to be a store of ancient knowledge that could occasionally help Alix with difficult tasks by providing information.

Elendar recalled another memory from his time in Quel Rachvi, this time involving his handlers: Lady Adaira Voth, Queensguard Xintori, and Shadowblade Hal'dauros. Lady Voth informed Elendar that she and her associates would watch over the sorcerer, explaining that as Divine Scion, he was one of the most prized and sacred figures of the Lolthir. After leaving the meeting, he was relieved to find Delvoren waiting for him, having recently recovered from injuries sustained in a previous expedition. The friends spoke with each other about their feelings and desires for the future, ending with Delvoren hoping Elendar would be able to find happiness beyond the city. Towards the end of this memory, Elendar saw a vision of a woman surrounded by glowing, blue flowers, weeping for her son, Alzaris.

Nix reconvened with Nedeker aboard his ship on the Sea of Souls. Clearly pleased with his recent successes, Nedeker decided to reward Nix with a new ability that would allow him to pursue elusive targets, allowing him to test it on Vysohr once again. Using his newfound abilities, Nix handily defeated the warlock, subjecting him to a new round of torment from Nedeker.

    Ginny experienced a nightmare of her experiences in the Battle of the Black Snow, in which she and her fellow valkyries defended the sanctuary of Valhalla from the undead legions of Orcus, Demon Lord of the Undead. While her compatriots Brunhild and Ulfhild charged into battle, Ginny was left behind to defend the walls. Despite her best efforts, Ginny was overwhelmed by the undead, and fell unconscious from a hail of arrows fired from Valhalla's archers. She later found herself trudging through the snow back to the mead hall of Valhalla, where a red-winged angel met her in the bloody battlefield. The angel offered Ginny the strength to surpass her valkyrie companions, so long as Ginny swore an oath of service to the angel. Though tempted by the offer, Ginny refused the angel, declaring that she would protect others on her own so-called "weak" merits. The angel departed, announcing that she would return. In the meantime, she left behind a burning blade, a symbol of the oath which Ginny could undertake at any time.

#### 15th of Lirden

Before moving north, Elendar and Ginny decided to stop by Whitecliff in order to say their farewells to Jerove. By a fortunate coincidence, Wizzflick contacted Elendar to make another request before the party left. Elendar returned to the university, where Wizzflick explained that he received another correspondence from Adelaide Mournvale: it seemed she was staying at a hideaway near Eldenmarch, and wanted to meet with Wizzflick to discuss what she had learned of the King's Court's plans with the ambrosia. Not wanting to endanger himself or Adelaide, Wizzflick asked Elendar if the party could visit her in his place, to which Elendar accepted.

As Elendar and Ginny got ready to meet back with the party, Bentley the gate guard called Wizzflick from the university gatehouse, informing him that a pair of scholars were hoping to see him. After giving their descriptions, Elendar realized they were the King's Court members they saw in Port Dairwane, and told Wizzflick not to let them in. Wizzflick obliged, contacting Ginny to let her know of the King's Court's presence in Whitecliff and transporting Elendar back to the Red Wake through a teleportation circle of the wizard's making.

The party made preparations to head north once more, traveling through the Sylvain Forest to seal away the ambrosia in the vaults of Arcadas. While entering the fey-haunted forest, they met a halfling explorer named Pirosho Pathmaker, who happily sold the party armfuls of maps on the region and nearby towns. As he passed out some of his supply, the halfling warned the party about the denizens of Eldenmarch, most of whom supposedly care little for non-humans. The town's magister, Wilhelm Wainstock, was a particularly nasty sort according to Pirosho, and was rumored to be terrorizing the town's citizens with a mercenary force.

As the party rested in the forest, their slumber was interrupted by the sound of screams deeper in the woods. Ginny, who had been taking watch at the time, discovered a gang of redcaps urging a man to slaughter a young girl and her father. As she tried to sneak closer, the redcaps discovered Ginny and attacked. Ginny managed to hold her own long enough for the party to arrive and support her, rescuing the father and daughter.

After bringing the father, Gerauld, back to consciousness, they learned the man was his brother, Darrow. Darrow had lured Gerauld and his daughter, Margueritte, into the woods claiming that he needed their help rescuing his wife. As Darrow would explain, there was some truth to this claim: the redcaps promised that he would be reunited with his wife, who was apparently kidnapped by Unseelie fey, so long as he spilled the blood of his loved ones in exchange. Filled with guilt at his actions, Darrow submitted himself to Nix's blade, despite Gerauld's objections.

With Darrow slain, the party readied themselves to leave, but stopped themselves after seeing Gerauld surrounded by a cloud of mischievous gloomwings, dark faeries seeking to drive Gerauld into murdering the party for killing Darrow. Elendar and Ginny rescued Gerauld and made sure he and his daughter fled safely, while Alix captured one of the gloomwings. The trio amused themselves with taunting the evil faerie for a moment before a tall, cloaked figure wearing a wooden fox mask appeared before them. Nix remained safely outside the copse of trees that the others found themselves in, while the figure, introducing himself as Mr. Fox, spoke to the others. He and his compatriots, the Fairfolk, were apparently amused by the party's heroics, and he announced his pleasure at the prospect of toying with them as they continued through the Sylvain Forest. The malevolent fey left the party to wander through an illusory forest of his making for a moment, as the party navigated through the seemingly-endless woods. With Elendar and Nix's help, they escaped and continued on their journey.

#### 16th of Lirden

The party stopped for a moment in the village of Mistweald, where the denizens, led by an old man named Elder Maclure, paid tribute to a fairfolken known as the Elk Mother. Elder Maclure led the village in a ceremony in which participants made offerings to the Elk Mother, placing down their wishes at a statue dedicated to her. Elendar, somewhat skeptical of the affair but deciding to join in anyway, left his own wish at the statue.

After this brief stop, the party continued north towards Barleybrook, stopping at the Karenach Mor Expedition to observe the goings-on. An archaeologist at the expedition asked the party for their help dealing with an upset spirit hindering the expedition's progress, promising a reward in magic items. With little time to spare and deciding the rewards were not worth the risk, the party respectfully declined and moved on.

#### 17th of Lirden

As rain fell upon the party, Ginny encountered a fairfolk resembling a young boy wearing a bird mask, who played music from a magic flute. Ginny followed after him, concerned that he might be a lost child, as Elendar and Alix pursued Ginny in kind. Nix, rightly suspicious of the entity, abstained from joining in its games. Ginny eventually caught up to the fairfolken in a small forest clearing. As a reward, he gifted her his magic flute, assuring her that he had "plenty to spare." When asked about his name, the fairfolken indicated he had forgotten it; because of the butterflies that seemed to follow the fairfolken's music, Ginny decided to name him "Butterflute," and the name stuck.

Shortly after this encounter, the party encountered a horse keeper by the river before Barleybrook. The man, calling himself Harald, asked Ginny for her help in herding his stubborn horses. As Ginny approached with Horsey, her steed reared back, telepathically communicating to Ginny that "they [were] not horses." With his deception revealed, the man revealed himself as a fairfolken wearing a horse mask, spurring a herd of keplies disguised as the horses to attack the party. The party slew the kelpies and drove back the fairfolken, pushing Nix to warn the party against interacting with any strangers so long as they were traveling through the woods.

Tired and frustrated, the party was relieved to find welcome in the farming town of Barleybrook. A humble town with a large halfling population, the party received a warm welcome at the Golden Braid Brewery, a popular inn within the Braval Valley and the pride of the town. Here, Ginny met the brothers Gambin and Truko, ranchers who owned a farm north of town and who loved getting into brawls at the Brewery's fighting pit. Ginny challenged the brothers to a back-to-back battle, facing off in fisticuffs with the halfling Gambin and engaging the bugbear Truko in armed combat. She was surprised to see Truko matching her in battle, but thankfully clutched the win, becoming reigning champion of the Golden Braid Brewery.

As Ginny entertained herself, Elendar visited Milly's and Billy's Palace of Books, a conjoined book store and library run by a pair of elderly twins. There, he picked up a small collection of books to research the Fairfolk, as well as a modest manual for private study. When he returned to see Ginny trounce the brothers, Elendar used his divine magic to heal Gambin and Truko, much to the awe of witnesses around them. At that moment, Elendar remembered that beyond the cities, divine magic is considered a rarity worthy of praise.

The party stayed the night at the Golden Braid Brewery, having become local celebrities in a matter of hours.

#### 18th of Lirden

When the party woke up for breakfast, they discovered that Nix had left in the middle of the night, leaving behind a brief note explaining that he was going to work on a job, and that he would meet up with the party later. Elendar grew furious with Nix, and announced his disappearance to Alix and Ginny.

While making preparations to leave, the party was introduced by the owner of the inn to a human boy named Quinn Hecate, a gunslinger accompanied by his raccoon familiar, Richter. Elendar was reluctant to interact with the teen until Gambin and Truko entered the inn with a woman named Angie. The distraught tailor explained that her husband had been killed by a group of bounty hunters at their home in Eldenmarch, describing a trio of vicious killers whose names would later be revealed by Quinn: a goliath gunslinger named Rufus Red, a human pyromancer named Cassidy Brimstone, and their leader, a gaunt gunslinger known as Caleb Bayshore. The bounty hunters, known as the Hellshire Gang, were apparently asking her husband about Adelaide Mournvale, who had briefly stayed with the family before moving on. When the husband refused to give any information about her, he was gunned down by Caleb, and the house was set on fire by Cassidy. Recognizing the bounty hunters' descriptions, Quinn volunteered to help Angie and the party bring the murderous bounty hunters to justice.

Before heading out, Elendar decided to confide in the gloomwing, who he felt guilty about keeping locked up in a beer bottle for the past few days. The gloomwing, initially cold towards Elendar and refusing his help, finally revealed his name as Grendel. Happy with this apparent breakthrough, Elendar promised to make Grendel's living situation easier, as Grendel encouraged Elendar to confide his feelings to the faerie. The sorcerer seemed to have made a new friend in the mischievous faerie.

In the middle of the night, Quinn had a close encounter with a pack of hungry wolves led by a large dire wolf. The young traveler appeased the wolves by giving them some of his rations, convincing the pack to leave the party alone. The dire wolf was last to leave, giving Quinn a thoughtful look before taking the pack deeper into the woods.

#### 19th of Lirden

The party arrived in Eldenmarch, an old town surrounded by an oppressive atmosphere. Dark-armored mercenaries known as the Black Gryphons marched through town, taking citizens' belongings and arresting dissidents under the pretense of law and order. Seeking to avoid their attention and noticing the Gryphons accosting travelers looking to enter the town proper, the party quietly made their way to Angie's old home at the outskirts.

As the party walked towards the burnt remains of her house, they discovered a pair of looters sifting through the ashes for belongings to make off with. Quinn fired a warning shot at the pair, forcing them to drop what they had stolen as Alix and Ginny kept them tied down. While Alix and Ginny investigated the ruins for signs of the bounty hunters, Quinn and Elendar followed a set of unusual horse tracks leading into the outskirts of town.

Quinn and Elendar followed the tracks to the Hanged Man's Hangout, finding a notice board with a wanted poster for Adelaide. Wainstock had sent out a warrant for Adelaide's arrest, charging her with vandalism, robbery, assault of a peace officer, and disturbing the peace. In front of the Hanged Man's Hangout, Rufus and Cass were seen interrogating people about Adelaide, with the goliath brutalizing an uncooperative fellow. Before they could sneak away, Quinn and Elendar were held in place by Cass's magic as Rufus, recognizing Quinn, decided to interrogate him about why he was here. Unsatisfied with Quinn's answers, Rufus instructed Cass to "send a little birdie after him," dispatching a raven familiar to spy on the boy.

Meanwhile, Alix's and Ginny's investigation was interrupted by a company of Black Gryphons patrolling the area. Drawn to the sound of gunfire, the Gryphons headed towards the house, encouraging the looters to run away and giving Alix and Ginny little time to hide. Alix and Ginny were able to draw some guards away through a few distractions, but the Gryphons managed to capture one of the looters, who promised to inform the Gryphons about the shooter in exchange for a reduced sentence. Before he could say anything, an eccentric, swashbuckling vigilante introducing himself as Cassian O'Daire interrupted the Gryphons, giving the looter an opening to escape as Cassian did battle with the Gryphons. After an impressive display of acrobatics and swordplay, Cassian knocked out the Gryphons and departed on one of their horses, leaving them for a small militia known as the Vigilants to mock them. Alix and Ginny left as soon as the coast was clear, rendeszvousing with Quinn and Elendar in town.

The party stayed the night at the Prospector's Pub, an unsavory inn with less-than-welcoming patrons who sneered at the sights of Elendar and Ginny. After making a show of mocking the drow and valkyrie, Quinn and Alix were able to secure a room for everyone. In the privacy of their quarters, Quinn apologized profusely and revealed a feature of his own that inspired disdain from others: a pair of horns reminiscent of those of a tiefling. Elendar and the others assured Quinn that there were no hard feelings between them, and that he was welcome with them regardless of his appearance.

As the party discussed their plans for the next day, Quinn discovered Cass's raven familiar spying on them from the windowsill. In response, he had the party communicate with each other in writing, obscuring their communications from the raven. While making serious plans, Quinn made a comment that apparently riled up Alix, causing him to make a gentleman's bet with the young gunsmith. The two of them would make prototypes for new firearms, and whoever made the most impressive piece in the eyes of Elendar and Ginny would prove to be the better gunsmith. Quinn happily accepted, and the two went to work on their inventions.

Later that night, the party's rest was interrupted by a visit from the Vigilants, who had stopped by to arrest the party on suspicion of conspiracy to murder Magister Wainstock. The party was escorted to an old post office in town, which the Vigilants had repurposed into a base of operations. Captain Roger Trent, originally the captain of the guard in Eldenmarch before Wainstock and the Gryphons ran the guards out, explained that he had received a letter from Cassian O'Daire, who promised to "remove" Wainstock if Trent shared any information the Vigilants had on Adelaide with a group of people matching the party's description. Believing the party was working with Cassian to assassinate Wainstock, Trent grilled them throughout the night. When he realized the party was just as befuddled as he was, the captain grew more and more frustrated. The party shared his frustration and tried to suss out Cassian or a potential ally of his among the Vigilants, setting their sights on a Vigilant named June. After harassing her with questions, they decided June was likely unaffiliated with Cassian, but were suspicious of the "lucky coin" she carried on her person.

As the interrogation continued, the party was given a moment of privacy, in which they questioned Grendel to see if he knew anything about Cassian. While speaking with the gloomwing, Quinn, fluent in the Sylvan language, discovered that Grendel had been communicating with Mr. Fox and disparaging Elendar behind his back. Furious at the faerie's betrayal of his trust and already stressed with his current circumstances, Elendar tormented the gloomwing with Alix's help, finally leaving him with Ginny. Taking pity on the gloomwing, Ginny promised to release Grendel if he made a pinky promise to be her "bestest friend" and visit her weekly. Having no other options, Grendel accepted and gratefully flew off into the forest once more. While disappointed that Grendel and Mr. Fox apparently knew nothing of Cassian, Ginny was happy to have a new friend.

As the night drew to a close, Captain Trent discovered a note in his pocket written by Cassian himself. Suspecting that he was slipped the note while he had left the party alone, Trent read it and was finally convinced to aid the party, sharing a dossier of information on Adelaide's whereabouts. Thanks to Ginny's watchful eye, she was able to keep Cass's raven from spotting the dossier, maintaining Adelaide's secrecy. After making this decision, Trent invited the party to stay overnight with the Vigilants, an offer Elendar was particularly happy to accept as he wanted nothing to do with the bigots at the Prospector's Pub.

#### 20th of Lirden

The party woke to a young courier bursting through the doors of the post office, warning everyone in the building that the Black Gryphons were on their way to arrest the Vigilants. Having discovered the militia's hideout and desperate for some victory after suffering humiliations at the hands of Adelaide and Cassian, the Gryphons were eager to arrest the dissident group. Elendar used his pouch of *dust of disappearance* to turn the party invisible for a short time, allowing them to slip away safely as the Vigilants were taken to jail.

Before fleeing town to let Cassian get to work, the party decided to visit the land pirate at an inn known as the Royal Rest Stop, where he announced he was staying in his letter to the Vigilants. The party discovered a crowd of patrons eager to see Cassian, who excitedly shared stories about him when the party mentioned him. At the peak of the crowd's excitement, Cassian appeared, swinging across a chandelier and unceremoniously crashing into a table, to the chagrin of the inn's owner.

After the crowd calmed down, Cassian invited the party to his room upstairs, where he answered their questions about his intentions in town. Cassian proved evasive in his answers, revealing only that he hated tyrants and was keen to see Magister Wainstock relieved of his station. How he came to know the party was a mystery, though Cassian explained that he and the party shared a mutual friend.

The party got ready to leave, but a visit from Rufus Red and his men interrupted their plans. Quinn sent out an illusory ettin as a distraction while Cassian helped the party escape town, barely evading the bounty hunters himself.

On the road back to Barleybrook, the party encountered a goliath adventurer named Thun cooking a delicious stew. The goliath invited the party to stay for dinner and had a pleasant conversation with them. Quinn convinced Thun to purchase a firearm after showing its effectiveness during a brief hunting trip which Thun brought him on.

As the party turned in for the night, Ginny received a vision of the burning sword once again, reaching out towards the angel's symbol of her oath. Her vision was interrupted by a white wolf staring at her, as she realized a pack of wolves had begun feasting on the remains of the deer Thun and Quinn had hunted. The pack left the party alone, with the white wolf looking back towards Ginny and revealing itself as a silent fairfolken.

Quinn took the next watch, discovering a message left behind by the Wolf-Masked Fairfolken. Mr. Fox appeared before the boy with the intention of terrorizing him, before he saw the message and realized the party was under the creature's protection. A massive wolf reminiscent of the dire wolf Quinn encountered two days prior threatened Mr. Fox, driving him away before urging Quinn to follow the pack. The young boy, whose only company had been Richter over the past few months, found warmth with the wild pack as they raced across the Sylvain Forest. Come the next morning, Quinn awoke with a wolf mask on his face.

#### 21st of Lirden- 27th of Lirden

The party returned to Barleybrook, where they spent some downtime waiting out the inevitable chaos in Eldenmarch and made additional preparations. Alix found a workshop through connections with the local tinkerer's guild, renting out a place from an old, talkative gnome. Elendar got to work on a *scroll of revivify*, which he hoped the party wouldn't need to use any time soon. Ginny, excited at the prospect of hanging out with Gambin and Truko, spent some time mingling with the ranchers and the locals. Quinn, pulling out his large collection of tools, got to work on his secret project.

On the night of the 23rd of Lirden, Elendar and Ginny were visited at the Golden Braid Brewery by an aristocrat referring to himself as Zelek Umbyrne. Recognizing him as Adelaide's former employer and likely member of the King's Court, Elendar answered Umbyrne's questions carefully as the old aristocrat extended an invitation for the duo to join him in an ambitious undertaking. Revealing his own gifts with divine magic, Umbyrne announced that he was gathering individuals gifted with divine power to prepare for the Reckoning, an apocalyptic event prophesied in various religions across Kaldaran. Claiming that he could ensure their loved ones' survival, and even their ascension, after the Reckoning, Umbyrne asked Elendar and Ginny to join him. Elendar firmly refused Umbyrne's offer, with Ginny following Elendar's lead. Umbyrne, apparently disappointed but not discouraged, told them that the offer was still on the table. As he left the establishment, Elendar cast *detect magic* to search for any possible sensors, and discovered a cloud of magical energy left in Umbyrne's wake.

On the 26th of Lirden, Elendar was briefly reunited with Nix. After giving his old friend a piece of his mind, Elendar let Nix explain himself. He revealed that, as he wrote in his note, he had been working on a job near Eldenmarch, which allowed him to keep an eye on the party to make sure they were safe. Nix indicated having never met Cassian, though he admitted to hiding in plain sight as June, who he convinced to take the night off around the time the party had their meeting with the Vigilants. He explained that he would reconvene with the party later to help guide Adelaide back to Shark Head, where she would be under the gang's protection. Bidding farewell before the others saw him, Nix left through Elendar's window and fled the Brewery.

On the 27th of Lirden, Alix and Quinn met at Gambin and Truko's farm to finally display their inventions. Quinn was the first to go, introducing a shoulder-mounted cannon placed on Ginny, which Richter could operate. The first shot landed a direct hit against a scarecrow, while the second barely missed an innocent cow named Bessie. Truko collected Bessie before Alix followed up with his own invention: a revolving cannon that fired multiple shots in rapid succession. As she aimed it at another scarecrow, Ginny lost control of the gun, firing a stray bullet into Bessie's backside and sending her running off. After this accident, Gambin politely, yet firmly, asked the inventors to leave, and both Alix and Quinn agreed that the contest ended in a draw.

Angie met with the party once again, asking for their help escorting her and her daughter Nelly back to Eldenmarch. News had reached them that Magister Wainstock had been slain and the Black Gryphons ousted, leaving Roger Trent as Acting Magister until a formal election could be held. With Wainstock and the Gryphons gone, the Hellshire Gang no longer had their backing, and Angie could finally ask the guards to bring them to justice. The party made preparations to head out, leaving on a wagon driven by Angie.

That night, Grendel made good on his promise to visit Ginny, giving her, Quinn, and Elendar small gifts as a token of his obliged friendship. With each kind gesture he made, the gloomwing began the gradual, painful transformation into a kind pixie. Grendel departed from the party, assuring Ginny that he would return within another week.

After Grendel's visit, Elendar was visited by the Elk Mother, the protector of Mistweald. Having little time to leave the village unprotected, the Elk Mother lamented that she could not answer Elendar's wish, but offered an item that would help him fulfill it later on: a *totem of the elk mother*, which would relieve the party of any meetings with fairfolk for the next nine days.

#### 28th of Lirden

The party arrived at a town in shambles, with shattered glass and wooden debris along the roads. It seemed that after Wainstock's assassination, a short battle followed, with the Gryphons defeated by rebellious citizens and Vigilants. Angie drove the wagon into town, where she and the party met with Trent once again. Before parting ways, Elendar arranged a safe house for Angie and Nelly to stay at, using one of Bovark's connections in Eldenmarch to do so. Alix followed with a request for a courier to send secure letters from Eldenmarch to some acquaintances in Whitecliff. As the party left the town and headed north towards Adelaide's hideout, Magister Trent and a company of Vigilants rushed out of the town's walls to arrest the Hellshire Gang on charges of arson and murder.

The path to Adelaide's refuge was ridden with traps made to scare off superstitious travelers and hinder more sinister threats. The party made it through the gauntlet mostly unscathed, finding an old lodge at the end of the path. After Elendar recited a passcode shared by Wizzflick, Adelaide revealed herself to the party and invited them inside, helping them avoid the myriad traps set up in the place.

With the party safely inside, Adelaide revealed why she had left the King's Court, and her suspicions regarding their plans. After uncovering the ambrosia within the Old Cathedral of St. Helene, Adelaide and some of her old adventuring companions brought the ambrosia to Lord Umbyrne, who awaited them in the main hall of the cathedral. After ingesting some of the ambrosia, Umbyrne slew Adelaide's companions and turned them into wights, declaring that he had granted them his blessing. Announcing that he would lead a new age of gods with himself as master, Adelaide screamed a curse at him which provoked a series of convulsions in the sorcerer, giving her an opening to steal away with the ambrosia. She fears that Umbyrne is searching for more sources of ambrosia, and is looking for her in order to find potential locations across Kaldaran. After learning the kind of effect it had on Elendar, particularly in destroying the *wall of force*, Adelaide now fears that the King's Court may have other plans in store for the ambrosia.

The group's conversation was interrupted by an attack from lieutenants of the King's Court, who had the lodge surrounded with warriors and undead minions. As the apparent leader, Moren Gaul, demanded Adelaide's surrender, the party prepared for battle and waited for their attackers to move in. Using Adelaide's traps and the element of surprise, the party gained the edge on the King's Court. Nix quickly slew two potent spellcasters around the perimeter of the lodge; Ginny stalled Lord Gaul at the side of the house, preventing him and his wight servants from entering; Alix fired at the spectral assassin entering the living room; and Elendar and Quinn skirmished with a pair of mournful spirits and a deadly cleric. In the end, the party was victorious, with Adelaide blowing up the lodge and everything inside, and the invading attackers all perishing. After Nix collected their souls, he left to escort Adelaide back to Port Dairwane, and assured the party he would meet them again at the Red Wake.

With Nix and Adelaide gone, Quinn reflected on his reasons for having joined the party now that he was embroiled in a major conflict that would likely have lasting effects on the history of the realm. The party, also curious about Quinn's reasons for joining them, asked the young gunslinger what brought him to them in the first place. After some quiet consideration, he revealed that he wanted the party's help dealing with the Hellshire Gang, the bounty hunters that attacked Angie's family in search of Adelaide. The gang's leader, Caleb, had killed Quinn's family and crippled his leg, leaving the boy to die in the desert in Eastern Luxengrand. With the party's help, he hoped to bring Caleb and the gang to justice.

Fate gave Quinn a cruel answer to his prayers when the party returned to town and found the Hellshire Gang engaged in a firefight with the Vigilants. With the Vigilants outgunned and momentarily outmanned, Quinn and the party rushed down to support the guards. Captain Trent, initially concerned for the safety of his guards and the party, thanked the party for their timely assistance, and joined forces with them to rescue the stragglers in the middle of the fight.

Though Caleb and Cass had escaped, Rufus was left behind with a small group of gangsters to contend with the Vigilants. Quinn revealed himself to the goliath after firing off a devastating shot against the gang's cavalry, to Rufus's pleasure. As Quinn and Rufus stood off in the town square, the party took out the gang and hindered Rufus, giving Quinn the chance to fire two wing shots, disabling the bounty hunter's arms.

While the Vigilants tended to wounds and arrested the surviving members of the gang, Quinn and Elendar conversed with Rufus, reminding him that for all his might and presence, it didn't stop Caleb from leaving him behind for the law to take him. Rufus struggled to counter Quinn's remarks, but was quickly relieved of the burden of devising a witty retort after a shot to the heart. Caleb, holding a smoking revolver, revealed himself atop a burning, skeletal horse alongside Cass Brimstone. The cruel leader of the Hellshire Gang expressed his admiration of Quinn's determination, deciding that after his victory against Rufus, the boy earned a spot with the gang as a proper gunslinger. Taking Quinn's silence as disapproval, Caleb decided to leave the boy a parting gift: the spirit of a familiar woman, who despaired at having to attack Quinn. The spirit was quickly dispatched before it could strangle Quinn, who was left in a shocked stupor.

Thankful for the party's heroic service, Trent invited the party to stay at the Magister's Manor, a home granted to him as part of his station as Acting Magister. The party accepted his invitation, thankful for what they hoped would be comfortable lodgings after the intense battles that day.

Later that night, the party recovered from the day's battles in their respective rooms. While contemplating today's events, Trent's mastiff Benson introduced himself to the party, trying to comfort Quinn and playing with Ginny through the mansion's kitchen. Benson and Ginny made off with a roast chicken meant for their dinner, much to the dismay of the head chef.

As the party enjoyed a pleasant, if quiet, dinner with Trent, they considered their plans for the journey up north. Quinn, currently without a goal to pursue and reluctant to chase after the Hellshire Gang by himself, asked if he could accompany the party on the rest of their journey. The party accepted the young gunslinger's request, with Elendar reminding Quinn that the decision to join or leave the party was entirely up to him.

#### 29th of Lirden

On a rainy morning in Eldenmarch, a friendly and slightly clumsy dwarf introducing himself as George Plumbo arrived at the Magister's Manor. Claiming to be a private investigator looking into Wilhelm Wainstock's death on behalf of his widow, Johanna, Plumbo requested to inspect the manor as well as interview anyone who might know of Cassian O'Daire's whereabouts. Ginny proved a candid witness as she discussed her first and second meetings with the land pirate, as well as her theft of a weapon from a Black Gryphon and assault against Cassian himself. Elendar, meanwhile, corrected and added on to a few details of Ginny's stories, leaving out any mention of Cassian's bargain with them and Trent.

Before leaving, Plumbo remarked on Cassian's strange behavior following his supposed murder of Wainstock, finding it curious that an attention-seeking rapscallion would kill a man in cold blood, then leave without a trace. As Cassian had developed a favorable reputation for opposing Wainstock and the Black Gryphons, Plumbo believed the land pirate would have returned to town for at least a few moments to revel in his admirer's adulations.

After Plumbo departed, the party made their preparations for tomorrow's journey. Quinn purchased a fire elemental mote from an eccentric old alchemist named Nan Knucklebones, using it to fit the Brass Defender's rail gun with a harpoon. Later, he would upgrade his own rifle for up-close attacks.

While Quinn outfitted his and Alix's gear, Ginny and Elendar helped with repairing the town's damaged buildings, earning the good favor of the clergy at the Church of Farron. Elendar was able to request another dosage of manna, regaining his ability to resurrect creatures.

#### 30th of Lirden

The party continued their journey north up to the Elden Range Mountains, where they would pass through forests and hills to their destination. On the way through the woods, they encountered a herder with his goat taking refuge on a tall tree and rock respectively. As the party approached to help them down, they were attacked by a pair of hungry bulettes. The Brass Defender fell in battle, but the party was able to slay the creatures, rescuing the frightened herder and his goat while harvesting the creatures for their sturdy hides. Alix got his companion back in working order, and the party continued on their way.

During the night, as the party made camp at the base of the hills on their next leg of the journey, a pack of bloodthirsty werewolves attacked them. They faced off against the savage beastmen, who had with them a massive, wolf-like monster and an intelligent, giant werewolf known as a pack lord who led the assault. As the party was about to be overwhelmed, the latent magic within Quinn's mask awakened, granting him a magical boon and calling upon a great wolf to aid them. The wolf struck down the pack lord and bolstered the party, turning the tide as they slew the pack lord and drove the remaining werewolves away. The great wolf bowed to Quinn before departing back to the western hills.

#### 31st of Lirden

Heading up the mountain path towards the Great Elden Bridge, the party was stopped by an avalanche of fallen rocks and trees blocking the way. As they attempted to bypass it, a strange, hairy creature calling himself the 'King of the Mountain' threw a boulder at the party to halt them. A squat, humanoid being with goat-like legs and a wild mane of hair and beard covering its body, the King demanded the party pay an exuberant toll: either the Hammer of Earthen Might, Ginny's pet Tecky, or 3,000 gold pieces (later increased to 5,000 gold pieces). When the party attempted to negotiate with the King, he grew impatient and attacked the party, determined not to kill them but to instead knock them out and nick their belongings.

Having little quarrel with the little man, Elendar urged the King to calm down, but flung a firebolt when the King caused the mountainside to quake. A surprisingly challenging battle followed, with the King calling forth a galeb duhr known as Sir Crag/Craig to his aid. Sir Crag and his animated boulders started pummeling Ginny, while the King enchanted Alix to dance and attacked the party with rocks and a massive club. Elendar fell unconscious, but the party was able to take down the King and his knights without slaying them, with Ginny using her hammer to smite the earth elementals and knock out the King. Ginny declared herself "Queen of the Mountain" and decreed that the King would have to follow her and the party's orders. Elendar healed the King, brokering peace between him and the party, and convincing the King to let the party pass without further harassment.

Later that night, the party made camp at an abandoned campsite, where a battle clearly took place. While taking watch at night, Elendar traded with a small troop of caplings, tiny mushroom people who offered magical trinkets to Elendar in exchange for stale muffins. The trinkets, Elendar realized, belonged to his old friend Elvira.

Ginny and Alix took their watches after Elendar, discovering a shallow grave holding the camp's previous occupants. They discovered the men, members of a construction crew out of Eldenmarch, had gone to the Great Elden Bridge several days ago to perform repairs. While there, one of the men witnessed a monster prowling around the area and reported his findings to the foreman. When the foreman attributed the man's sighting to drunken behavior, the crew split into two groups: one remained at the bridge to finish repairs, while the other left back to the camp to eventually return to town. Overnight, the crew leaving towards town were attacked by bandits, who took their belongings and stripped them of their clothes.

### Sun's Rise

#### 1st of Sun's Rise

On a misty morning, the party arrived at the Great Elden Bridge, a massive stone structure spanning across the Stoneshear River, and which would lead to Kingsgrove. There, they encountered a group of men performing repairs on a wagon with a broken wheel, apparently the other half of the construction crew that stayed behind. The foreman requested the party's help in collecting supplies across the bridge, which was in desperate need of repairs as holes had been broken on the path. The party agreed, seeing the hapless crew as being undermanned with the rest of their comrades deceased.

When the party arrived at the center of the bridge, the foreman proclaimed his joy that he would be able to collect the "lumber" left behind. After exclaiming it multiple times and not receiving a desired response, he dropped his charade and had his men pull out their weapons, revealing themselves as the bandits that attacked the camp several days ago. The bandits were quickly cowed into submission by Alix and Elendar, with Alix firing multiple shots into the bandit captain and Elendar shocking him through Gadget. Before the party could issue demands to the bandits, they realized that several of the men were missing while they were talking. Looking back to one of the remaining lackeys, they witnessed the man get snatched by a large, clawed hand and pulled below the bridge.

The bandit captain fled while the party fought a mutant troll that had made its lair in the bridge. Ginny was grabbed by the creature, which seemed to mimic the abilities of creatures it ate, as demonstrated by it sprouting wings upon biting the valkyrie. Thankfully, the party was able to dispatch the regenerating giant quickly, with Elendar landing a *chill touch* and Alix and Quinn firing a hail of bullets into it. Unable to recover from its wounds, the troll was slain, haunting the Great Elden Bridge no more.

The party crossed the bridge into the misty woods of Kingsgrove, where they soon realized the magical mists misled them into walking circles around the trees. Noticing a tree with the visage of an old, crowned man, Elendar spoke with the tree, which awoke as though rising from a deep slumber, its twisted branches creaking and groaning. The tree introduced itself as King Aldor Kordain I, one of the oldest kings of the Kordain line of Luxengrand's monarchs. King Aldor explained the protective nature of the mists, and instructed the party on how to continue through the forest, pointing them towards his descendant King Elias II. He warned the party not to linger too long in the forest, as its ancient guardians would likely arrive to drive the intruders out.

King Elias II, a warrior king infamous for his fondness of drink, led the party to his great descendant, Prince Dalmere Kordain, the last royal of the Kordain line. Dalmere explained that the party would need to surpass three trials before gaining entry into the temple sanctuary of Arcadas, which would test the party on their wits, will, and might. After Elendar explained the party's goal, Dalmere understood that their mission aligned with his previous undertaking in life, and bid the party good luck in the coming trials. Before parting ways, Dalmere informed the party that there were others in Kaldaran who share his and Elendar's affinity for divine power, and warned that "not all of [them] are ready to handle that responsibility." The prince, in life, surrendered his family's divine gifts to the keepers of Arcadas, believing that manna had no right being held by mortalkind; while he agreed with the party's goal to secure the ambrosia in Arcadas, Dalmere expressed no objections to the party using manna, only hoping that they would use it responsibly.

The party entered a vine-covered temple said to lead into the temple of Arcadas, where they ventured deep into a well-maintained temple. As the light of the outside world faded, they found themselves in a stone chamber with three glowing doorways: one red, one blue, and one green. Before the party could inspect the altars before the doors, a gynosphinx revealed herself to the party, welcoming them to Kingsgrove and introducing the trials that would come before they could enter Arcadas. Requesting an opportunity to recover before tackling the trials, the gynosphinx permitted them entry into a demiplane where they could find rest. Whenever the party was ready, they could begin this final undertaking before completing their quest.

With a flap of the sphinx’s wings, the party was transported to a seemingly-endless hallway illuminated by low-lit braziers. As they walked through the Hall of Stories, they observed murals and carvings along the walls, depicting tales and events throughout Kaldaran's history. They eventually encountered Anuril Silverwing, an elf with fair, light skin and silvery hair dressed in dark finery. His dignified appearance belied an excitable personality as he spoke energetically with the party, introducing himself and attempting to guess the party's skillsets. After a few accurate guesses, he stumbled on Quinn's skills, apparently surprised at the young gunslinger's presence.

After introductions were completed, Anuril led the party to a well-furnished lounge, where several patrons were already drinking and conversing. Elendar was shocked to find the Name Takers, the goblinoid bard troupe from Eldenmarch, had beaten the party to Kingsgrove. Before the party went off, Anuril asked Quinn to meet with him later in the Hall of Stories, explaining that he had much to share with "young Hecate."

The party went off to rest and recuperate for the coming trials in their own ways. Elendar spoke with the Name Takers, learning how they reached the sanctuary and sharing their own tales with each other; Ginny ordered "one-of-everything" as she is wont to do, much to the dismay of Djeira the bartender (and the joy of Alia the squire); Alix watched in awe as Ginny scarfed down food and drink with a bottomless stomach; and Quinn quietly contemplated Anuril's invitation.

That night, as the rest of the party prepared to sleep, Quinn left with Gadget to speak with Anuril in the Hall of Stories. The two found the elf admiring a carving depicting the "Gift of the Dragons," in which the archdragons of Kaldaran shared their knowledge of magic with the smaller races. Anuril thanked Quinn for showing up and shared with him the history of dragons throughout Kaldaran's ages: how dragons ruled the realm with little contest for countless centuries; how the archdragons, ancient and powerful beings, feared the end of the dragons' reign and the extinction of their kind; how they shared the secrets of magic with the smaller races and began numerous lineages through them; and how the Inheritor Gods, led by the imperious Hemsir, waged war against the dragons and drove them to near extinction.

For many years, Anuril feared that the line of Hecate, the platinum archdragon, ended in the Breach War with the death of a powerful warmage of her line. When he saw Quinn and detected the dragon's blood within the young adventurer, his hope reignited, and the survival of Hecate's line became a potential reality once more. Anuril offered Quinn to bring his family and stay in Arcadas with him, so that he might teach them how to discover the full potential of Hecate's gifts in their blood. His spirits sank when he learned the fate of Quinn's family, and offered his condolences to Quinn; in an effort to give Quinn hope as well, Anuril explained that the priests of Arcadas might be able to revive Quinn's loved ones should their remains be brought to the sanctuary.

Quinn, shocked at this revelation of his past and nervous about staying with Anuril, asked for some time to contemplate his decision, to which Anuril happily obliged. Before they parted, Quinn asked Anuril whether he, himself, was a dragon; in response, Anuril revealed himself briefly as a great, silver dragon, his wings like sails stretched across the walls and casting a magnificent shadow. With this image in mind, Quinn reconvened with the party and rested for the next day's trials.

#### 2nd of Sun's Rise

The party awoke to Satreya greeting them once more in the Hall of Trials, lounging lazily in the brazier at the center of the room. There, she explained the general nature of each trial, warning that the party could meet their end in these ancient tests intended to drive away the unworthy. Each trial would test one aspect desired in a hero of Arcadas: Wisdom, Power, and Courage.

The party began with the Trial of Wisdom, in which they were to complete a series of puzzles within a set time limit. Six rooms, each bearing braziers that moved along rails, were locked by stone eyes meant to accept a certain level of light. If the party dawdled too long, gargoyles set at the corners of the chamber would gradually freeze the party to death. Thankfully, the party quickly solved each puzzle through correct placements and out-of-the-box solutions (with the help of Gadget and Richter). At the end of this trial, Elendar took in the Light of Wisdom and the party proceeded to the Trial of Power.

The following test led the party into a large hall with statues of various warriors displayed in niches, some of them shattered to pieces. They had little time to observe their surroundings before the party was greeted by a disembodied voice, announcing itself as its challenger in the Trial of Power. The party contended with a ghostly spirit that inhabited the statues, animating them like suits of armor in an attempt to decimate the party. Realizing their efforts to destroy the spirit's shells and body were increasingly futile, Quinn discovered that the party needed to find the spirit's tomb and destroy its corpse. Quinn learned the spirit was a nameless warrior, and instructed the party to find an unmarked tomb. After finding a blank plate and destroying the wall behind it, Quinn fired a shot into the corpse, effectively defeating the spirit. The spirit lingered, yet was unable to continue fighting and admitted defeat. After a short rest, Ginny took in the Light of Power and the party continued onto the last trial.

The party found themselves in a small chamber with a fountain flowing with a brackish liquid, and four chalices seated upon an altar. Giving each other a toast, the party drank from their own chalices, after which they were transported to a strange dreamscape constructed from their memories. Elendar found himself in a dark, cavernous temple inhabited by a massive gibbering mouther; Alix stood in the streets of Sentinel, the buildings stacked atop each other in a nonsensical manner as a mob of machine-augmented citizens, led by his professor, pursued him; Ginny trudged through a wide snowfield with icy hills, where a great beast burst forth from the snow and attempted to consume her; and Quinn looked upon the carnage left at his home, where Caleb and the Hellshire Gang waited for the young gunslinger.

Quinn was the first to pass through the trial, rushing boldly at the Gang and dispelling the nightmarish illusions. After helping Ginny with her foe, the two claimed the Light of Courage, its power pulsing through the interconnected dreamscape and weakening the other illusions. The party eventually all overcame their trials, though Elendar was left in a state of abject misery at having to revisit a terrible memory. The others caught up to him and helped him up, as the whole party took in the light and returned to the Hall of Trials.

Depositing the lights into their repositories, the party was transported to a grand cathedral, where they met a host of knights guarding Brother Ledo Paragol, the protector of Arcadas's Vault. Brother Ledo congratulated the party on their success in the trials, and gladly accepted their delivery of the ambrosia for protection, finally completing the party's long quest.

As the party was left alone for a moment, Quinn announced that he would be staying with Anuril, thanking the party for their help and explaining the importance of staying here in the sanctuary. While he was surprised and slightly disappointed, Elendar was happy to see Quinn pursue a path of healing and wished him the best. The two exchanged gifts (Elendar gifting "Loving Like a Bard" for dating advice, and Quinn giving Elendar a revolver), and Elendar explained that Quinn would always have a place with the party, causing the latter to break into tears.

The party accepted two magical items from the sanctuary's armory before departing through a teleportation circle set in one of the cathedral's summoning chambers. Saying their good-byes to Quinn, the party returned to the Red Wake, where they reconvened with Nix, Adelaide, and the scoundrels Kenshi and Marco, among their myriad other companions at the rowdy establishment. Happy to finally return to familiar surroundings, the party enjoyed a night of celebration.

#### 3rd of Sun's Rise

On the 3rd of Sun's Rise, Elendar, in an uncharacteristically mischievous mood, decided to play a prank on his companions early in the morning. Quietly placing buckets atop the doors to each person's room, Elendar watched as a bucket full of Fortuna Mango juice splashed over her. Fearing the horrors which Elendar had in store for him, Nix remained in his room until Bovark, ever the father, rescued his son and took away his bucket. Not to be thwarted of his fun, Elendar ran over to Alix's door and took his bucket down in the hopes of re-trapping Nix's door.

As Elendar pulled down the bucket, he noticed the door to Alix's room open slightly, revealing an empty chamber. All that remained of the artificer was a note and a flintlock pistol, loaded with a bullet and with a pouch of three more at the side. In the note, Alix asked Elendar to 'trust him in the coming days,' and that if it came down to it, to 'use this pistol' to stop him.

While Elendar reeled from Alix's disappearance, Nix spoke with Bovark regarding another disturbing development: the dwarf detective, George Trumbo, had been found around Port Dairwane asking about the whereabouts of Cassian O'Daire, his investigation apparently taking him to the City of Opportunity. Nix explained that he had no knowledge of this strange and inquisitive dwarf, but informed Bovark that he would keep an eye out for him.

The party headed upstairs to the Red Wake for breakfast when they met a pair of ship captains under Bovark's employ: the half-elf Joth Seaworth and the aarakocra Argan Blackwing. The pair seemed to be discussing their grievances at the harbor being closed by the City Watch, who were investigating a troublemaker "blowing stuff up" and "setting things on fire." Bovark discovered the two lazing off on the job and demanded to speak with them in private; meanwhile, the party was tasked with investigating the issue so that Shark Head ships could start heading out again.

When the party arrived at the harbor, they found a crowd gathered around the entrance to the harbor, and a group of City Watch officers, led by Captain Louch, maintaining a barrier to keep out the public. While the party interacted with the officers (Nix disguising himself as Private Yee-Haw and Elendar taking free samples from Officer Gadjitt's oven), an explosion sounded off in the distance, pulling Cpt. Louch and his officers to the scene. In the midst of the chaos, a suspicious group of armed individuals snuck under the barrier, following a dog hot on the trail of someone, or something, near the warehouses.

The party followed this group at a distance until Elendar heard a voice beckoning to him from an empty warehouse. Following the source, they discovered a bald human in modest clothes seated atop a warehouse rack. Introducing himself as 'Phil', the man offered the party a sum of gold in exchange for dealing with a group of 'ruffians' pursuing him. Nix and Elendar, immediately suspicious of this individual, approached him, whereupon they heard something knocking inside a crate. Looking inside, they discovered a young half-elf covered in heavy robes. Introducing himself as Yorm Inton, the half-elf, an illusionist who created 'Phil' to draw in the party and likely convince them to drive away the ruffians while he made an escape, had little time to explain himself before the suspicious group caught up.

One of the group members, a halfling wizard named Vex, introduced her group as the Taxmen, debt collectors who had arrived to enforce the consequences of missing payments for a long-standing loan. Vex claimed that Yorm owed them, in total, "83,497 gold pieces, 7 silver pieces, and 2 copper.’” When she requested Nix to hand over Yorm, the warlock, not one to leave a young man to the mercy of a group of hardened criminals, suggested the Taxmen back away before they got hurt. The Taxmen, who were mostly agreeable folks, decided this was a wise course of action; one of them, a stubborn duergar named Dirk, had other ideas and provoked a battle.

Thanks to Nix and Elendar's casting of *dimension door*, as well as a well-timed *counterspell* by Yorm to foil Vex's own spell, the party escaped and informed the City Watch of the Taxmen's presence. While the rest of the Taxmen fled, Vex was caught and arrested by Officer Gadjitt and taken into the Watch's custody.

After this excitement, Yorm was brought to the Red Wake, where Nix demanded he explain himself. Shaken by the events that transpired, Yorm told Nix that he had been recommended to meet the party through a foretelling received through divination. Yorm demonstrated this power to Nix, asking some unseen force the best course of action to keep safe, and received his answer in an illusory image displayed on a table. The illusion showed the party standing at the foot of a hill, where a large temple stood at the top; later, the illusion showed the party standing before a house with a garden in the front, with a tree bearing glowing fruit. Elendar recognized the temple as the Temple of the Moon, one of the most important structures in Quel Lunadel, the capital city of the moon elf nation of Sehanos. Further inspired by this vision, Elendar asked the party to join him in a journey to Quel Lunadel to see an old friend, which the party supported.

Deciding to take a shortcut through the Elden Range Mountains, the party took a teleportation circle to Arcadas, where Elendar and Ginny quickly remembered that their fellow passengers were not yet welcome in the sanctuary. The two of them had a brief reunion with Quinn, then headed off to Kingsgrove, where Nix and Wyn had likely been shunted off to.

Elendar and Ginny found Nix and Wyn having a conversation with Satreya the sphinx about their favorite plays. Yorm, deciding that being honest in a place of law and good was the best course of action, confessed that his true name was Wyn Moros; when asked which name he preferred, he answered 'Wyn.' Before parting ways, Anuril appeared to speak with Nix, curious to see the man Elendar regarded highly - and who Quinn seemed to fear. The dragon gave Nix a thinly-veiled threat not to go anywhere near Quinn, and departed with a friendly farewell.

Following Prince Dalmere's directions, the party was led to a narrow mountain pass that would bring them to Seran Seldaris safely. Heeding Satreya's warnings of beasts and giants on the trail, the party eluded the mountain's dangerous denizens and made it safely to their destination.

#### 4th-5th of Sun's Rise

On the 4th of Sun's Rise, the party crossed the border into Seran Seldaris, the lands of the Elven Alliance and the ancestral home of Kaldaran's first elves. In anticipation for dangers on the road, Wyn performed a divination ritual, producing visions of "red-capped creatures with heavy sickles," a trio of "cackling women gathered around a cauldron," and an "iron-clad army" marching from a great inferno. Each of these dangers passed by the party without bother, indicating that danger did exist, but none of it was inevitable on their current trajectory.

After two more days of travel, the party arrived at the town of Gildenwood, a wood elf settlement in which many of the homes were constructed directly from the forest trees. The party ended up at the Cup and Kaboodle, a hangout and tavern carved from an awakened tree, where they prepared for a night of rest in a new land.

Our heroes had little time to acclimate to their strange surroundings before they were approached by Demeroth and Ophelia, two wood elves who claimed to be partners at the Mel'miru Winery in the town of Riverwatch. After having completed a business arrangement with the owner of the Cup and Kaboodle, the two were preparing to return north when they learned about the Aesarin Rangers arresting a group of monster hunters trying to smuggle creatures out of the Alliance. When they learned about dangerous monstrosities escaping into the woods as a result of this crackdown, Demeroth and Ophelia decided against leaving without an escort. With an offer of 80 gold pieces to escort the group to Riverwatch, and with the town on their route to Quel Lunadel, the party accepted Demeroth's offer.

#### 6th of Sun's Rise

The following day, the party and their charges stopped upon the aftermath of a massacre at a bridge leading towards Riverwatch, in which a farmer caravan was apparently slaughtered by powerful, furious monsters. As the party pieced together the manner of creature that could have caused this carnage, they received their answer in the form of two vicious chimeras, which descended upon the party with corrosive and venomous breaths respectively.

A fierce, yet brief, battle ensued, with Nix mounting one chimera midair and decapitating two of its three heads with one clean swing: a green dragon head and a serpent tail head. Wyn produced debilitating illusions to confuse one of the chimeras with a threatening red dragon, and slowed down the other in a veil of molasses. Elendar and Ginny finished off the last chimera with Elendar freezing two of a chimera's heads, and Ginny breaking the heads with a single strike of her shield. After collecting their spoils from the chimera's bodies, the party continued to Riverwatch, now packed with chimera parts that might be used towards crafting items.

Evening fell as the party arrived at Riverwatch, where they parted ways with Demeroth and Ophelia. After receiving their reward, the party was directed to a lodge known as the Eagle's Nest, where they were recommended to drop Demeroth's name to get a good deal on lodgings. The party tried to enjoy their meal before they were interrupted by another strange character: an elven server who seemed eager to speak with Elendar privately. Not wanting to leave him alone, Nix accompanied Elendar with the elf into a storage room in the back, where the elf revealed herself to be a shadar-kai named Lucirien Lathyros - "Lucy" for short. An excitable and friendly sort, Lucy became ecstatic upon reuniting with Elendar, whom she assisted in escaping from his former associates. Initially bewildered by Elendar's return, Lucy immediately understood her old friend's reasons for coming back to Seran Seldaris, and decided upon guiding the party safely to Quel Lunadel.

#### 7th - 16th of Sun's Rise

Bringing her own wagon for the party to ride in, Lucy helped the party travel safely to Quel Lunadel discreetly, avoiding the more obtrusive dangers of Seran Seldaris and taking some time to show off some of the sights and attractions of the land. After over a week of travel, they finally arrived at a ringed city surrounded by a tall white wall decorated with blue and silver lines, its gates emblazoned with a crescent moon and sphere - the symbol of the moon elves of Sehanel. They had arrived at Quel Lunadel.

Making their way into the city, the party walked to Starfall Sanctuary, where Elendar's friend Lanie was said to live. Lucy left the party to attend to her own business in the city, while Elendar and the others walked up to a small home with a lovely garden in front. Taking in a deep breath, Elendar knocked on the door and was greeted by a young drow named Viv'sothi Amokiir, Lanie's youngest cousin. After exchanging the necessary passphrases, Elendar and the party were invited inside, where they met the rest of Lanie's family: Tela'doel, Lanie's aunt; Garthelos Amokiir, her father; and Andel'rogna, her younger cousin and Viv's older sister.

To Elendar's surprise, Lanie wasn't present. It seemed that the ranger had departed to Rutalin Falls to escort a group of Underdark refugees, in the hopes that one of them, a member of her brother's old excavation party, might know where Lanie's brother might be. Elendar was shocked to hear this, and briefly grew anxious before the group decided on waiting for Lanie's return. The party enjoyed dinner with Tela'doel and the rest of the family, where the children pestered Nix and Wyn with countless questions.

While helping with cleaning up after their meal, the party heard a distant explosion and ran outside to see a cloud of smoke south of the city walls. Through his divination, Wyn determined that a town south of Quel Lunadel had been attacked by dwarven soldiers from the Moradic Kingdom, and that a drow leading a group of frightened travelers seemed to be hiding from these ironclad warriors - as well as a nest of spiders weaving a web around them. After another divination, Wyn learned that the group was hiding in a cavern built into a small hillside in the Autumnsong Woods.

Nix, ever an adventurer of action, decided that they needed to head south to assist Lanie with her return to the city. Elendar agreed, and after borrowing Garthelos's horses (and a canteen of some sort of bitter energizing potion), the party ventured to the Autumnsong Woods.

#### 17th of Sun's Rise

The party rode into the night, fueled by Garthelos's brew and their own desperation, until they made it through the subterranean Shadow's Pass and into the woods. They made it to the hillside shown in Wyn's divination, but were briefly halted by a squadron of dwarven soldiers accompanied by a gnomish artillerist. Hiding among the trees and bushes, the party was nearly discovered by the patrol; thanks to illusory tricks from Wyn and Nix, however, the patrol passed the party by harmlessly.

When the coast was clear, the party walked towards the cave, where they finally found Elendar's friend, Lanie. Relieved to see Elendar after over a year apart, Lanie informed the party that they were being pursued by Lolthir agents who discovered their group, likely anticipating their plot. The ranger was eager to learn about Elendar's story, but decided that he and Delvoren, Elendar's close friend and Lanie's brother, could fill her in on the details later. With a somber expression, Elendar agreed, and the party made their way back to Shadow's Pass.

As the party arrived at the southern entrance to Shadow's Pass, they enjoyed a chance reunion with the Elven Trio - Cidriel Silverbough, Haskillian Sunhawk, and Hush - who were being pursued by a platoon of dwarven soldiers. The group made haste into the tunnel, as Wyn produced an illusion of a stone wall over the entrance to hinder the platoon's advance.

Following the light of the tunnel's glowing crystals, the group conversed with each other and caught up on their previous adventures. One of the refugees, a former manna scavenger named Vyrthur, spoke privately with Elendar regarding the latter's escape to and time on the surface. While Elendar confessed his regrets with leaving the people in his past behind, he admitted that the venture was worth it. The grim-faced Vyrthur, apparently scoffing at Elendar's response, moved on.

The party's conversation (which consisted of endlessly-teasing Haskillian) was interrupted by explosions set off by the pursuing dwarven platoon, which was attempting to blast their way through the unfamiliar network in an attempt to cut the party off. These explosions caused a rockfall in the party's vicinity, forcing them to flee further into the tunnels before they could collapse on everyone. Luckily, the party survived, but the group was separated: the party, as well as Vyrthur and Haskillian, were forced into a dangerous part of the tunnels, while the rest of the group had made it to the main passage. Cidriel used *sending* to instruct Elendar to continue through the passage per Lanie's instructions, and to be wary of the dangerous denizens that likely lurked there.

Continuing through the emerald-hued tunnels, the party came across an aquifer flowing northward. Nix, using the powers granted to him by his patron, dove into the river and spoke with its strange underwater denizens. While struggling to understand the speech of fish (more out of their limited intelligence than any issues with translation), Nix followed the instructions of one helpful creature and found a *folding boat*, as well as the site of a grisly murder. After messing around with the denizens for a bit longer, Nix reconvened with the party, and they continued down the river using their new boat.

The party made it through the river mostlly unscathed, though Wyn was unexpectedly caught in the line of a cave fisher, an Underdark creature resembling a fusion of a lobster and a spider which snatches prey with a sticky filament. Wyn escaped with a gash, while the rest of the party narrowly avoided more filaments hanging from the ceiling, like translucent nooses.

After a bit of sailing, the party reached the shore towards another tunnel, which forked off into two paths: one leading down to a troglodyte den, and the other leading up to a ravine occupied by quaggoths. While scouting out the ravine using Gadget, the quaggoths were inadvertently provoked, convincing the party to take their chances with the troglodytes.

    Entering the dark, filthy home of cannibalistic troggs, the party slowly but surely made their way through the odorous den. Nix, using his shapechanging abilities, turned into a troglodyte, while Elendar used a pouch of gloomwing dust to replicate the *dust of disappearance*, turning the rest of the party invisible. Through clever distractions and a bit of luck, Nix led the party through the den, where they came upon a monstrous troglodyte chieftain being fed disgusting meals by the other troggs. Taking some rations, a chimera heart, and a chimera's serpent tail, Nix offered up a meal to the chieftain, who ravenously devoured it. The chieftain seemed thoroughly pleased by Nix's offering, until it spat out the serpent's tail and began wretching. Sickened by the venom of the tail, the chieftain vomited its meal, prompting its shaman attendants to attempt to heal it while the others, directed by Nix, pursued the "culprit" back through the entrance. With the troggs in a panic, the party finally made it back to the main passage.

The group was finally reunited near the end of Shadow's Pass, but celebrations would have to wait. A group of drow warriors, belonging to a group known as the Lolthir, had ambushed Lanie's party. Led by a captain known as Queensguard Xintori, the Lolthir were prepared to finish of Lanie before Elendar intervened, offering to surrender himself if the rest were spared. Xintori, pleased to discover the runaway Divine Scion, agreed not to take the others back to their city, and mused that "it would be a shame to have two dead Amokiirs." Lanie, shocked at this statement, demanded to know what Xintori meant by this statement. With a heavy heart, Elendar explained that Lanie's brother, Delvoren Amokiir, had perished on the last expedition he and Elendar took together, barely a week before Elendar himself escaped. Blaming himself for Delvoren's demise, Elendar bid farewell to Lanie and prepared to leave with Xintori - a plan to which the rest of the party furiously objected.

A bloody battle ensued, with the party contending with a skilled Lolthir warrior and an invisible mage, who apparently possessed the ability to cast divine spells. The party was ultimately victorious, with Xintori slain by Elendar's *spirit guardians* and her body vanishing in a cloud of ethereal butterflies. The mage was caught and bound by Hush, while the other Lolthir escaped from the scene of the battle. Lanie collected the rest of the refugees and urged the group to continue forward, falling silent as she passed by Elendar. The now-distraught sorcerer fell into a depressive state while his companions tried to cheer him up. Plagued by guilt once more, Elendar followed the rest of the group out of Shadow's Pass and back to Quel Lunadel.

Returning to the city of Quel Lunadel, the party found a people preparing for war, as elven troops marched out of the gates dressed in silvery armor and blue tabards. The Elven Trio left for the Temple of the Moon, and invited the party to an evening at the Gryphon's Nook when they were ready to decompress after the day's trials. Meanwhile, Lanie escorted her charges to Starfall Sanctuary, a monastery where elven monks cared for refugees from the Underdark. Vyrthur bid the party a wordless farewell as the group finally returned to Lanie's home.

Before entering her home, Lanie thanked Elendar and the party for rescuing her in Shadow's Pass, but sadly asked that she and Elendar not speak for some time - at least, not until Lanie could process Delvoren's passing. Elendar expressed his understanding, and parted ways with his old friend, accompanied by the party.

The party met with the elven trio at the Gryphon's Nook, where they caught up with each other and discussed their plans for the future. Cidriel invited the party to a tour of the city the following morning, which the party accepted. Before the groups went their separate ways for a good night's rest, Nix was accosted by a drunk elf, who spilled his drink on the warlock's vest and insisted on cleaning up the mess. As he did so, the elf slipped a note in Nix's pocket and suggested they meet outside. Nix took out the note and found it was an invitation to a party at the estate of Lord Daelhyr Eromir.

As the night continued, each member of the party went on their own brief journeys:

Nix followed the drunkard elf, who revealed himself as the warlock Coal. After a brief reunion, Coal explained that Lord Eromir, a popular patron of the arts, was likely responsible for the disappearances of several actors, musicians, and artists, and that they were going together to deal with the villain. Before joining in the festivities at the lord's estate, however, Coal decided to spar with Nix to measure his abilities, in order to ensure he was prepared for this threat. As Nix demonstrated the powers granted to him by Nedeker, Coal applauded his skill, but offered suggestions on how to improve them. Taking the ex-warlock's teachings into account, Nix accompanied his allied enemy to pay Lord Eromir an exciting visit.

Wyn, exhausted after a day of brutal travels, readied himself for bed when he found himself in a large tent, decorated in hanging ornaments, colorful rugs, and fluffy duvets. As he spun around in confusion, he realized that he had been summoned as an illusory projection to the tent of his mother, the diviner Wynandriah, by the power of a new spell she devised. Wynandriah, overjoyed at seeing her son once more, brought the rest of Wyn's family to see him: Liam, his father and apparent businessman; Wylvar, his older brother and a performer at the family's circus; and Wynfry, his little sister and aspiring inventor. While Wyn reassured his safety to his family, Wynandriah asked to see Wyn's progress with his spellwork, and offered suggestions to improve his *divination* spell. As Wynandriah's spell began to fade, Wyn bid farewell to his family, and earned a restful sleep at the Gryphon's Nook.

Elendar's night, sadly, was much less celebratory. As he walked through the moonlit streets of Quel Lunadel, he was bombarded with visions of his past with Delvoren. Reliving his happiest moments with his deceased friend, Elendar's journey ended with the sight of Delvoren's demise at the hands of a formless aberration, as the sorcerer was dragged away by his protectors. As Delvoren was left to die in a dark, murmur-filled chamber, he assured Elendar that what happened was "not [Elendar's] fault." Elendar's vision-filled path ended with the sight of a blue-cloaked woman surrounded by glowing, sapphire flowers, who whispered to herself that "no one else would die" while she watched them. Elendar felt an ethereal, blue flower bloom above his heart, and the vision faded - revealing he had wandered into the flower garden behind Lanie's home. Fleeing the scene, Elendar left for the Sleeping Owl Inn up in the north.

After completing their bloody work, Nix and Coal met at the Starseeker Skyport. Nix had several questions for Coal, many of which the latter frustratingly evaded. The conversation was not entirely fruitless, however; as a parting gift, Coal gave Nix another vial filled with the waters of the River Lethe, which would offer Nix another revelatory memory when imbibed. Before parting, Coal assured Nix they would see each other again very soon, and to give Elendar his regards, particularly after Coal found the sorcerer in a "bad place" when they last met.

When Nix returned to the Gryphon's Nook, he discovered Elendar was nowhere to be found. Scared of what might have befallen him, Nix rushed to Lanie's home and recruited her help in finding their friend. After following tracks from her garden and asking some of the local guards, they discovered Elendar at the back of the Sleeping Owl Inn in a drunken slumber atop a rain barrel. Nix brought Elendar into the Inn and paid for a room there, while Lanie made a concoction to assist with Elendar's inevitable hangover. Lanie asked Nix to make sure Elendar would stay safe, then left again for her home.

#### 18th of Sun's Rise

The following morning, Nix and Elendar discussed the latter's disappearance over the night. Their conversation was interrupted by a call from an excited Professor Wizzflick, who wished to congratulate the party on their success in traveling to Kingsgrove, and to thank them for rescuing Adelaide. Wizzflick explained that when the party returned, they could expect a formal induction into Whitecliff University as faculty members, earning the privileges afforded to such a role.

Wizzflick's good news was, in turn, interrupted by a call from Bovark, who ordered the party to return to Port Dairwane as soon as possible. It appeared that a killer was on the loose in the city, and they were targeting major Shark Head clients. The killer made only one demand, directed to Shark Head: to meet with the infamous Cassian O'Daire, face-to-face. Nix assured Bovark he would report immediately, and insisted Elendar and the party remain in Quel Lunadel to enjoy the day with the Elven Trio, explaining that Elendar should spend time with his new friends.

As Elendar, Wyn, and Ginny went on a tour with the trio, Elendar approached Haskillian and made several hints suggesting they might engage in a friendly mage's duel. Instead of taking the hint, Haskillian believed Elendar was inquiring into arcane studies, leading into a conversation regarding his studies at the Arcadium, and his interest in the controversial Archmage Kaledon Taiviri. Elendar learned the archmage held certain biases against sorcerers, likely owing to his experience with an endeavor known as the "Highborn Initiative." As they continued on the tour, Haskillian seemed to develop a new respect for Elendar, whom he initially waved off as an inconsequential stranger - then found in him a bright and empathetic soul.

On his way to Port Dairwane on the airship known as Juvaliah's Spear, Nix met a strange, hooded fellow who referred to himself as Rat. Rightly suspicious of the masked figure, Nix threatened to throw him off the ship before Rat explained that he was associated with Bovark, reaching out to their mutual superior via Correspondence Stone. Bovark explained that he had sent Rat to Quel Lunadel on a job to steal an art piece from the now-deceased Lord Eromir, but he encountered complications when someone had snuck onto the estate to murder the lord. Regardless of whether or not Rat was successful in his task, Bovark has requested the trickster to accompany Nix in order to aid him with the gang's latest crisis.

During their meeting with Bovark, Nix learned that the killer had been sending messages directly to Shark Head, demanding an audience with Cassian O'Daire, the now-notorious troublemaker wanted for the murder of Magister Wainstock. Seeing as Cassian was no longer under Bovark's employ, he instead sent out Kenshi, Marco Castel, and a group of Shark Head gangsters to confront the killer, with Kenshi disguised as Cassian O'Daire. Kenshi's deception was discovered, and as the killer battled the gangsters, Marco took a potentially mortal blow directed at Kenshi, gravely wounding him as the killer made their escape.

Nix, hearing this news, confessed that he disguised himself as Cassian, using his identity in assassinating Magister Wainstock in order to provoke the real Cassian. He believed that this killer was most likely the real Cassian O'Daire, answering this provocation to silence the person intending to smoke him out. Furious at this revelation, Bovark placed the blame on Nix for inspiring Cassian to kill Shark Head's clients. Understanding his boss's anger, Nix assured him that he and the party would deal with Cassian personally.

While shopping for an expensive material component for a spell, Nix and Rat encountered a press conference being held at the City Watch precinct in the North Shore District, where Captain Louch Gaspard was holding a press conference regarding the recent string of killings. Struck with inspiration, Nix convinced Rat to disguise himself as a bounty hunter, while Nix took on the guise of Cassian O'Daire, with Rat taking "Cassian" in to collect on his bounty. Rat, excited at the prospect of money, followed through, prompting Captain Louch and his officers to bring them both in.

Nix's deception was quickly uncovered after he was brought into a new cell block in the precinct, designed with anti-magic security since the party's last escape attempt. Speaking with Captain Louch, Nix explained that Cassian O'Daire was behind this murder spree, and requested a doubling of his reward in return for his capture. Louch, reasonably skeptical of Nix's claims and outright refusing Nix's offer, left him in his cell while he prepared to interrogate the changeling.

Meanwhile, Rat, expecting a reward for bringing in a wanted criminal, was instead charged with wasting police resources, as well as being arrested under suspicion of being an "accessory to murder." Louch, still suspicious of the pair, considered the possibility that the two might be connected to the killings, and hoped to get answers from them regarding the killer. Despite nimble maneuvering around the officers in the precinct, a rookie mage named Jeeves foiled the thief's attempt to flee, and Rat was taken in as well.

Not long after this incident, Elendar and Ginny returned to Port Dairwane, learning about "Cassian's" arrest and rushing to the Red Wake, fearing the kind of trouble Nix got himself into. After a brief check-up on Marco, Elendar and Ginny pieced together that Nix had likely gone to the precinct, though the two reached their own wildly-different conclusions on how Nix got there. Marco wished the party good luck in capturing Cassian, and asked them to let Kenshi know that he would be fine.

Elendar and Ginny arrived at the precinct just as Captain Louch began interrogating Nix. The latter insisted that the captain, while diligent, was also making a grave mistake by sending his officers in to apprehend Cassian, warning that he would send them to their deaths. Louch, meanwhile, assured Nix of his officers' capabilities, and reminded him that as an officer of the law, it was his responsibility not only to bring justice to Dairwane's criminals, but also to ensure the safety of its citizens - including Nix and his companions. As the two argued back and forth, Louch gradually relented, recalling the party's success in stopping Lonzo Grimjaw and Vysohr. After receiving additional assurance from Elendar, Louch released Nix and Rat, on the condition that Nix tell him where to find him should things go sideways.

With the party reunited, Nix completed his shopping trip and the party reconvened at the Red Wake, recuperating and planning for their confrontation with Cassian at midnight. Nix requested any files on himself and Cassian, so that the party might know what to expect from this seasoned assassin. Upon learning about his proficiency with poisons, crossbows, and rapiers, the party readied themselves accordingly and made their way to the Stenzen Shipyard, where the killer demanded to meet with "Cassian" himself.

Returning to the shipyard, Nix entered the warehouse alone, with the party stationed outside and ready to charge in on his signal. Seeing a familiar face, the voice of Cassian O'Daire called out, demanding to know Nix's identity and his reason for taking his name. When Nix revealed himself as Valeer and demanded answers behind the mystery of his death, Cassian happily obliged.

Two years ago, Valeer, alongside Cassian O'Daire, Lonzo Grimjaw, Visha Shoreseeker, and Obed Artani, accepted a job from a wealthy collector named Jin Alastair. As part of the group's contract with Alastair, the group was instructed to board a merchant veseel known as the Wavebreaker, where they were to retrieve a prized silver lantern and assassinate Captain Jirakh Stormblood. Alastair promised a generous reward to the group, which Cassian believed they could each comfortably retire on - were Bovark not collecting a sizeable portion of the reward.

Seeking to undercut Bovark, and to finally cut ties with Shark Head, Cassian invited the group to negotiate a new plan with Alastair, collecting the lantern and sinking the Wavebreaker entirely, forging a narrative in which the group perished at sea. Believing Bovark would never let the group leave otherwise, Cassian claimed that each member of the group agreed to follow through, each for their own reasons. When Valeer questioned why he would have been involved, Cassian did not answer directly, but implied a connection between him and Moira as a possible motive.

The job didn't go as Cassian planned, blaming Valeer for sabotaging them after one of the crewmates found and identified the half-elf. When Valeer attempted to explain himself after the group escaped the Wavebreaker, Cassian seemed unsatisfied with the half-elf's answers and stabbed him in the back. As the rest participated in Valeer's demise, the unfortunate half-elf was dropped into the Markavian Ocean, where Obed sent a school of sharks to claim his corpse. Cassian mockingy lamented having to give Moira the news of "her husband being lost at sea."

In the midst of this conversation, Nix entered the main office of the warehouse, where he discovered Kenshi seated at a chair before an ornate desk, facing the back window. Mistakenly believing Cassian had been disguised as Kenshi, he attacked the seiko thief with a powerful *thunder step*, only to be struck by a crossbow bolt from an assailant in the rafters. Hearing this commotion, the party burst on the scene to do battle with Cassian O'Daire.

Despite the assassin's plotting, he could not account for the supernatural gifts with which Nix was now equipped. Though blinded by a vial of Malice, Nix detected Cassian's movements through a magical mark, relentlessly chasing Cassian even as he attempted to flee. Meanwhile, Kenshi, afflicted by a maddening poison, wildly attacked the most visible targets, firing arrows at Elendar and attempting to stab Ginny with multiple blades. In the end, Nix avenged himself against Cassian, claiming his soul and receiving a powerful boon from Nedeker as reward.

Nix's attack against Kenshi unfortunately triggered a sparking mechanism around the curtains, setting off a trail of flammable, poison herbs lined along the warehouse ceiling. As poisonous fumes filled the warehouse, Ginny relieved Kenshi of his toxin-induced mania, and the party fled, taking a catatonic Nix and the corpse of Cassian O'Daire with them.

Gathering their breaths outside the burning warehouse, the party met Bovark and Marco, who had caught up with them to ensure their safety. Disappearing before the City Watch could arrive, the group agreed to meet up back at the Red Wake, where they could heal from their wounds, and where Nix and Bovark would discuss the former's standing in Shark Head.

As the party contended with events in Port Dairwane, Alix and Quinn were briefly reunited at Arcadas. After surviving Anuril's flying lesson, Quinn encountered his artificer companion requesting a sample of manna from Brother Ledo, who was finally convinced to part with a single vial from the sanctuary's vault after being reminded of Alix and his companion's contribution of ambrosia. Alix and Quinn exchanged pleasantries, catching up on goings-on with each other's lives and agreeing to complete their "competition" to prove which of them would be the superior gunsmith. As Alix departed, Quinn caught a conversation between Brother Ledo and one of the sanctuary guardians, learning that "visitors from the North" would be arriving soon, and that "Lady Solveig [would] be bringing a contingent of 5, including herself."

#### 19th of Sun's Rise

The following morning, the party gathered in Bovark's office for a meeting regarding the syndicate's immediate future. After Cassian's killing spree, Bovark explained, a significant portion of their clientele had been wiped out, and their existing clients were beginning to lose trust in the group. Bovark has begun arranging new jobs to regain lost ground, and expects the party to be available to complete them.

Following this meeting, Bovark had a private conversation with Nix regarding Cassian's death. The previous night, Bovark learned from Elendar that Nix had taken "extreme" measures in killing the assassin, and expressed his concern that Nix might become consumed in his vendetta. Taking his advice into consideration, Nix left Bovark's office and left for the City Watch Precinct, ready to help make up for the syndicate's damages.

Throughout the day, the party completed several tasks of their own:

Nix arrived at the North Shore Precinct, where Magister Brigham Walfrey and his secretary, Lindabelle, spoke with Captain Louch Gaspard. Upon meeting the citizen hero who stopped Dairwane's latest terror, Magister Walfrey thanked Nix for his service and assured him a reward of 2,000 gold pieces - half the promised reward that came with Cassian's bounty and that of the killer. Irritated at the Magister's attempt to short-change him, Nix argued for a 3,000 gold piece reward, attempting to appease the Magister while reminding him of the service he provided for the city. Walfrey, indignant that anyone would speak up against him publicly, refused to budge until Lindabelle informed him of the identity of the changeling's employer. Still irritated at Nix, yet more acquiescent to his requests, Walfrey gave him the 3,000 gold piece reward, as well as a wheelbarrow to carry it out. Nix, having left a strong impression on the Magister, left him with a reminder of the existence and threat of dopplegangers, likely planting a seed of fear in the once-self-assured magister of Port Dairwane.

Nix gave the reward to Bovark as payment for damages left to Shark Head. Surprised, yet grateful, Bovark transferred the gold to the syndicate's vault, showing Nix the security measures left in place to secure it. In the privacy of the vault, Nix confronted Bovark about a page taken out of his file. After some pressing, Bovark admitted the file concerned Moira, Nix's wife during his life as Valeer. Though he would not share her location, Bovark assured Nix that Moira was safe.

Returning to his chambers, Nix consumed another vial of Waters of the River Lethe, regaining another vision of his past life. In this vision, he learned that he lived with Moira at her home outside the city walls for some time, and that he had become acquainted with her father, Daggen, over a small yet enjoyable dinner. The two shared histories as sailors, leading Daggen to invite Nix for a sailing venture in the future. Valeer seemed to earn the old sailor's approval in joining with his daughter, and Daggen expressed his hope that Valeer would "make sure she's happy."

The vision took a dark turn as Nix was transported to a gruesome scene: he, along with his old group, were just finishing a raid on a rival gang's hideout in the sewers beneath the city. Lonzo Grimjaw had begun laying into a halfling money man, while a sea elf druid, Obed Artani, was cleaning up bodies by throwing them into the sewer canal. As the halfling begged for mercy, Obed let Valeer decide whether or not it would be fine to let him go. Valeer spared the halfling, who fled the trio on the way to his family, only to die at Cassian's hands. As the group reconvened to back up Visha at another part of the hideout, they began discussing what they planned to do with the money promised by Jin Alastair. Though Valeer and Cassian kept their plans secret, Obed happily discussed his plans to set up a new home far from civilization, where he could live as a king in some secluded islands to the west. His ideal home was a wild land, where he could raid as he pleased and never be disturbed.

Meanwhile, Elendar and Ginny returned to Whitecliff to pay a visit to Professor Wizzflick and Jerove Averin. They decided to visit Jerove first, so that Ginny could give him her regards again after a long absence. On the way there, Elendar explained that Jerove thought of her as "more than a friend," though this did little to change Ginny's preception of the student wizard. At the Briny Bard, Jerove happily greeted the duo, yet felt obligated to share a piece of serious news: though Jerove valued Ginny's friendship greatly, he believed that the dynamic of their relationship did not warrant anything more serious beyond this friendship. Ginny seemed satisfied, though Jerove, suffering a nervous breakdown, fled the tavern in self-imposed shame. Elendar coaxed Jerove to return to the tavern, where he finally made his own amends to Ginny for this sudden turn of events.

While Jerove was away, Ginny received a message from Brother Ledo via *sending*: a delegation of valkyries from Valhalla had arrived at Arcadas, and her presence was requested at the sanctuary. The news left Ginny in an ill mood, to the point where Jerove excused himself to give her privacy. Elendar noticed this change in Ginny and spoke with her. After Ginny explained the news she just received, Elendar promised her that the party would support her when she came by to see her old compatriots once more.

Elendar and Ginny visited Wizzflick and company at his office at the University, where they were greeted warmly by the old gnome. After exchanging their findings with Wizzflick, Elendar shared additional insight into his divine power, describing a vision he received while traveling in the Elven Alliance. Taking these notes into consideration, Wizzflick and Blastfizzle mentioned another theory they were entertaining regarding the Ambrosia: that the ambrosia by itself, while potent, reacted most strongly in combination with other manna sources. The powers Elendar demonstrated, they explained, likely resulted from the ambrosia mixing with manna from a goddess of life, allowing him to spontaneously transmute matter and create living creatures. Similarly, such exposure augmented Zelek Umbyrne's necromantic abilities, letting him immediately spawn undead at will. If this theory holds, Wizzflick fears the ambrosia might have more troubling properties than previously expected.

Not wanting to leave on a low note, Wizzflick assured Elendar that he and the party had the chance to become formal members of the University, so long as they completed an interview with Professor Kydosh from the School of Transmutative Studies. Before the professors left to attend to their classes, Blastfizzle informed Elendar and Ginny that Alix was currently at the university, likely joining with a small group of fellows at the testing chambers on some "secret project." Elendar prepared to confront his artificer compatriot, seeking answers regarding his sudden disappearance.

As everyone else completed their own tasks, Rat, always looking for a quick buck, found a job notice from Shark Head to scout out the Gilden Galleon Bank of Holding. The bank had updated its security system since its last robbery, and the syndicate needed someone to take note of its security system to use later. After a daring escapade at night, in which Rat evaded guards and guard constructs, pilfered security schematics, and made off with a set of written passwords, he completed the job without a hitch, even collecting a golden statuette as a souvenir.

Before meeting with Alix, Ginny informed Elendar that she would be heading to Arcadas ahead of the party to meet with her valkyrie compatriots. Though she still welcomed the party to join her, Ginny explained that whatever the case, she would need to speak with her old fellows sooner or later. Elendar worried for her wellbeing, but offered well wishes for his paladin friend.

Elendar confronted Alix within the University's sealed-off testing halls, where he also encountered Alix's friends from his university days: Wheezer, the portly artificer the party encountered with the Laughing Skulls, along with his automaton companion, Aegis; Mardow Sneed, a snobbish human armorer who boasted about his armor and mocked anyone he believed did not match his intellect; and Bungle, a nervous goblin alchemist who seemed out of place in this trio of inventors. Alix had been speaking with Professor Blastfizzle in a side chamber, finalizing a last-minute partnership for Alix's project, when Elendar burst into the room and demanded an explanation from his artificer companion, fearing the worst when Alix disappeared.

In an attempt to allay Elendar's concerns, Alix explained that he had gone on a journey to a distant place to recover an artifact of noteworthy power. Rather than utilize the artifact's magic, however, he planned to extract the source of its magic to fuel a device which he proudly named the "Magus Apparatus." Alix promised to reveal the nature of this device when the project was complete, so long as Sneed and, supposedly, Bungle were not blowing up their prototypes. As proof of his deeds, Alix handed Elendar a golden scepter bearing an engraving of a severed hand encased in gold: the symbol of the Gilded King Ulverik, the Fell Lord of greed. Elendar's fears only grew as a result of this revelation, yet Alix's safety was enough to assure Elendar that Alix knew what he was doing. The two parted ways, with Alix and his group finishing up the Apparatus and Elendar readying for an interview to apply as an instructor for the university.

Back in Port Dairwane, Nix used the information from his recovered memories to find his old home outside of the city walls. Upon arriving, his heart sank when he realized he had passed this place before with the party, and saw a familiar young girl with a sun hat playing in the flower garden. Nix learned the inquisitive half-elf girl was named Daisy, and that she had been living here with her mother Moira, never learning who her father was.

After convincing Daisy to let him speak with Moira, Nix discovered his former partner apparently had a falling out with Valeer, calling him a "murderer" who ruined her life. Despite Nix's attempts to convince Moira to discuss her history with Valeer, Moira shut Nix out. As he walked away from the home, he turned back and watched Daisy embrace her weeping mother, the little girl seeing Nix look back in his true form. Before rejoining the party, Nix made a package and a letter addressed to Moira and left both at her doorstep.

#### 20th-22nd of Sun's Rise

On the 20th of Sun's Rise, Elendar prepared for his interview with the tiefling wizard Amren Kydosh, Professor of Transmutative Studies and current manager of Whitecliff University's affairs in the headmistress's absence. There, Elendar also met an intelligent skeleton named Bob Bojangles, an apparent applicant for the university's oft-neglected Necromantic Defenses class. Despite Prof. Kydosh's difficult questions, Elendar seemed to pass with flying colors, earning a position as an instructor with opportunities to run multiple courses.

The night of the 21st of Sun's Rise, the Library (now called the Archivist), expressed its gratitude for Alix's and the party's help in making its return to Mechanus possible. Throughout the conversation, Alix learned that the Archivist found the halls of Whitecliff's testing chambers familiar, and was disturbed to hear the entity's unsettling musings. Despite this development, the Archivist finally revealed a more concrete reward for the party's efforts, promising to "expand their minds" through a method similar to how it entered Alix's mind on their first meeting. That night, sleep came slowly to Alix, haunted with new misgivings about his current undertaking.

On the 22nd of Sun's Rise, the Magus Apparatus, a large gauntlet that covered the wielder's forearm and utilized a combination of ambrosia and miscellaneous manna, was completed. Alix prepared to demonstrate its impressive abilities before the party, but was interrupted by Professors Wizzflick and McCaul barging into the room, ready to confront Blastfizzle for his suspicious behavior over the past 3 days. Having taken manna from his and Wizzflick's private stores, Blastfizzle used the divine energy to fuel the Apparatus, which would allow it to replicate divine spells. As Alix attempted to demonstrate its powers, he noticed a discrepancy in the Apparatus's design. He managed to rip the device off his arm and toss it to the side mere seconds before it exploded. With Wheezer and Sneed excusing themselves moments before the Apparatus was used, the party quickly pieced together that the two had made off with the real Apparatus.

A heated pursuit followed, with the party discovering them at the university gates and prompting the guards to arrest them. Wheezer and Sneed commandeered a nearby chariot as Aegis hung on the side, and the party gave chase through the streets of Whitecliff. Alix, casting *fly* on himself, flew alongside Wheezer as the two engaged in a firefight, while Nix brawled with Sneed inside the chariot. Elendar rode with Bentley the gate guard on horseback, as the two evaded shots fired from Sneed's magical gauntlets. Eventually, Alix knocked Wheezer off the chariot with a well-placed magnum shot, sending the thief tumbling down the road as the chariot careened into a wall. After Nix (reluctantly) spared Sneed and incapacitated him, the party forced Wheezer to surrender, and the thieves were turned in to the guards.

With Elendar and Nix demanding answers for what Alix had really been up to since his disappearance, Alix confessed that he used the map given to him by Adelaide Mournvale to find a source of ambrosia. He explained that the entity which gave him inspiration, the Archivist, required the substance to build and fuel the Apparatus, so that it could return to its home on Mechanus. Following one of the leads on the map, he gathered a group of adventurers, consisting of a fighter, a rogue, and an artificer, and traveled to the buried Vault of the Gilded King in search of the Goldmonger's Scepter. The ancient workshop of the cult of Ulverik was riddled with traps and constructs, including a large golden skeleton that crushed the fighter. Eventually, the group successfully recovered the scepter, but not without the rogue losing an eye and the artificer leaving with a broken leg. The true reward was not the scepter, but rather its contents: much of its magic was fueled by ambrosia mixed with Ulverik's manna, both of which could be extracted by smelting the scepter with a particular method known to the Archivist.

With this information revealed, the party returned to the University, preparing for a conversation with the professors and considering their options now that they had in their possession another vial of coveted ambrosia. They encountered the trio arguing in the testing chambers, with Blastfizzle defending the creation of the Apparatus and McCaul disparaging the gnome for going behind their backs with this covert project. After a heated exchange, Nix, still opposed to using the device, suggested a diplomatic solution to finish testing the Apparatus at Arcadas, where the leftover ambrosia could be delivered immediately after. The group agreed on this course of action and set off immediately, but not before bidding farewell to Bungle, now gainfully employed as an assistant to Prof. Blastfizzle - and given the blueprints for an experimental tank of Alix's design.

The party arrived at Arcadas through the teleportation circle at the Wailing Waif Cavern. As Brother Ledo prepared a space for Alix to use the Apparatus, Elendar and Alix briefly met with Quinn to catch up with each other. During their conversation, Elendar suspected the young gunslinger had a fondness towards the squire Alia, and suggested Quinn let her know his feelings before it was too late to do so. Quinn, both confused and flustered, considered Elendar's advice.

While Nix kicked a football with the sphinx Satreya and discussed plays starring Adam of Sandler, Alix and Elendar gathered in a side room with an attendant, where Alix used the Apparatus to construct a vessel known as a *homunculus shell* for the Archivist. The result was a four-armed, humanoid construct composed of bronze plates. Alix and Elendar had little time to marvel at this creation before the attendant returned with Brother Ledo, furious at Alix's accidental act of heresy: the creation of a *homunculus shell* in the sanctuary of Arcadas. Brother Ledo explained that such vessels often required significant sacrifices of living creatures, and as such, suspected Alix of committing a grave necromantic ritual on hallowed grounds.

After being questioned under a *zone of truth*, Alix assuaged Ledo's and the attendants' fears, revealing only that manna had been used to perform this magical rite. Despite this, Ledo insisted on the Archivist being removed from the sanctuary's grounds, and forgave Alix's unintended transgression after receiving the party's second vial of ambrosia. Satreya expelled the party and the Archivist from Arcadas with a powerful, magical roar, transporting them back to Whitecliff University.

Upon arriving at the university, the Archivist made another request of the party to escort it back to a known portal to Mechanus hidden within the halls of Whitecliff University itself. Furious at this strange entity suddenly soliciting the party for more help, Nix snapped at the Archivist, suggesting it leave the party alone. After promising the party it could give each of them what they wanted, the Archivist telepathically probed Nix's mind, revealing details of his past in front of the party and promising to help Nix recover his lost memories. Nix marched past the Archivist and the rest of the party, wanting nothing to do with this invasive creature.

Elendar chased after Nix to understand what was bothering him, while Alix suggested that the Archivist be mindful of the party's privacy. As the Archivist tried to justify itself, it began making strange and disturbing utterances, further exacerbating Alix's fears of its unhealthy mental state. Instead of addressing these concerns, the Archivist insisted on leading Alix to the path towards the portal, revealing a subterranean ruin with carved walls, and a floating portal which bled like a wound. Alix instructed the Archivist to remain at the portal while he gathered Nix and Elendar.

Up above, Nix and Elendar were engaged in a tense conversation, with Nix frustrated with Alix's and Elendar's willingness to help the Archivist despite its disturbing presence, and Elendar trying to support Nix's freedom but struggling to understand his turmoil. Alix caught up to the pair in the middle of this conversation, explaining that he was going to try and fix the Archivist's kinks before they went down. Nix, unamused, followed after Alix with Elendar in tow.

Alix reconvened with the Archivist, where he attempted to study its machinery to determine if any defects in its design were causing some sort of malfunction. As he did so, the Archivist, caught in a trance, ensnared Alix in a cluster of wire and dragged the artificer with it into the portal, muttering about something "falling apart." The last thing Alix would see before he entered the portal would be Nix and Elendar, rushing in as the artificer was taken to the Halls of Duen-Darro.

Meanwhile, on the 20th of Sun's Rise, Ginny reunited with her fellow valkyries - her compatriots Ulfhild and Gunhild, as well as her commander and mentor Solveig - at Kingsgrove. Confronted with Gunhild's mockery and Solveig's condemnation, Ginny retorted that in her travels, she encountered someone who taught her "more than [Solveig] ever did," and indicated that she despised her time studying under the abusive captain. Solveig ended their conversation by formally banishing Ginny from Valhalla, declaring that should she attempt to set foot on the sanctuary grounds, she would be killed on sight. Before parting ways, Ginny asked Solveig what had changed since she had left; Solveig replied that she and the others "hadn't even noticed [Ginny was] gone."

As the valkyries left Kingsgrove, Ulfhild left Ginny with a crystallized feather tied to a string, explaining that Ginny had left it behind. When Ginny took the teleportation circle back to Whitecliff, she encountered the red-winged woman once again, inviting the valkyrie to take up her oath. Ginny accepted the woman's offer on one condition: that this power would indeed protect her friends, and that if it failed, she would make the woman pay. The red-winged woman accepted these conditions, and Ginny grasped the burning blade, committing herself to a new Oath of Conquest as flames ran along her right arm and wing.

Before the flames could spread to the rest of her body, a large, winged figure swooped down, banishing the flames and the red-winged figure as she clutched Ginny in a close embrace. This unnamed valkyrie, towering over Ginny, began doting over her, ashamed at failing to protect her from the flames. Revealing herself as Ginny's mother, the valkyrie assured her daughter that she would accompany her for her journeys, and that while her ability to aid her was limited, she would try to be there whenever Ginny called her. As the valkyrie disappeared, the vision faded, leaving Ginny alone in the teleportation room of the Wailing Waif Cavern.

After some time relaxing in Whitecliff, Ginny reunited with the party on the 22nd of Sun's Rise, just as Alix was dragged into the Halls of Duen-Darro by the Archivist. The party immediately followed after them through the portal, at which point they were flung to different parts of a ruined, subterranean network of halls. Before they could get their bearings, the party was welcomed by a group of rogue modrons, each of which had taken it upon themselves to guide the party through this mysterious dungeon.

Tetra, an eccentric quadrone that swiftly got on the party's nerves, explained that it and its fellow modrons were servants of Primus's demigod "son," Mettatron the All-Mind, the entity which the party quickly pieced together was the so-called Archivist who had been traveling with Alix for some time. The quadrone seemed to imply that Mettatron had laired in the Halls of Duen-Darro for centuries, and had been absent for many years until this moment. It explained that if the party wished to meet with Mettatron, which had currently sealed itself in its workshop, they would need two parts of a rune to open the magically-sealed door leading to it. One was kept by a dwarf known as Baltrigan the Architect, who was apparently part of a plot to overthrow the city's king; the other was kept by the king himself, who Tetra referred to as "Mad King Melgir."

The party went in search of Baltrigan's half, discovering the long-dead dwarf lingered on as a mad spirit known as an allip. After felling the spirit and claiming its half of the rune, the party decided to take some time to recover from the day's trials. The modrons decided to play host to the party, with Monty the monodrone and Donny the duodrone making them meals from whatever fish and fungi they could scrape together from the cavern.

As the party went to sleep, Alix was visited by Mettatron in his dreams. The neurotic entity apparently wished to justify its actions to Alix, claiming that it wished to return to Mechanus in order to further its ultimate goal: to take over the Plane of Law and enact its will upon the multiverse. Believing it had killed Primus, its creator, Mettatron declared that the way was clear for it to succeed him as the next ruler of Mechanus. Mettatron further explained that it believed that only by "controlling chaos," - that is, to kill and destroy random batches of beings at various times - was the only way to ensure the universe did not "stagnate." Immediately seeing various flaws in its logic, Alix began tearing down Mettatron's plan and insisting on allowing him to fix his mind. Mettatron disengaged from the conversation, initially dismissing Alix and declaring that he and the party would understand his motives in time.

#### 23rd of Sun's Rise

Upon waking up, the party had little time to plan their next step before they were ambushed by a squad of mechanical dwarves. After a tense discussion in which the dwarves were prepared to open fire on the party, Alix convinced them that the party meant them no harm, and that they wished to be of service to the king they claimed to serve. The dwarves accepted Alix's offer and escorted the party to the throne room of the City of Duen-Darro.

Seated upon a massive stone throne was a giant, metal construct, which clumsily made its way towards the party as it stumbled across the floor. Introducing itself as King Melgir Darro, the king demanded to know the party's business in the city. When Alix explained that he and the party had been brought there as a result of Mettatron's schemes, the king seemed intrigued, sensing an opportunity to make use of the party in dispatching a mutual foe. King Melgir thus made an offer to the party: kill the demigod Mettatron and recover its mind so that Melgir could plumb its secrets. In exchange, the party would be given a coffer of riches as well as a magical item from the royal armory.

Welcoming the chance for more loot and a good excuse to kill the dangerous demigod, the party accepted King Melgir's offer and made preparations to assault its workshop. Before they could fully recover for the assault, however, Nix was whisked away by Nedeker to square away the bounty on Vekel Finespindle, who had been going on an uncontested reign of terror throughout Veltear's streets. Fortunately, the party would not be long without assistance, as King Melgir offered them a reluctant ally in the form of a human monk taken prisoner by the dwarves. This monk, a young and impetuous criminal named Yugiri, was assured her and her allies' freedom by King Melgir should she and the party succeed in killing Mettatron. Yugiri was initially hostile to the party, but gradually became simply irritated by them as they finally prepared to confront Mettatron.

Using King Melgir's second half of the opening rune, the party unsealed the door to Mettatron's Workshop and made their way through a hall of stripped, metal walls with wires and gears pouring out like roots and stones. As they stood before the doors to the portal chamber, Mettatron telepathically communicated with them, piecing together that they were now conspiring with King Melgir. Before unleashing its anger upon the party, Mettatron announced it had a change of plans after its conversation with Alix. Chaos, by its nature, could not be controlled. Accepting this, Mettatron decided that it would continue on its mission to incorporate all living minds into a singular consciousness, but would instead use this power to strip away wills and beings in order to bring a state of absolute law upon the multiverse. Understanding the party would not accept this course of action, Mettatron decided that they needed to be removed, and deployed its modron army to dispatch them.

The party destroyed the strange modrons, including Tetra the fanatic quadrone, leaving their remains to turn to dust around them. Despite its frustration at the party's victory, Mettatron decided to allow them to recuperate before their final confrontation, sealing the exit behind them as they did so. After a brief rest, Mettatron permitted the party's entry into the main portal chamber, where they discovered Mettatron had rebuilt itself into a larger and more powerful form. As various sealed modrons around the room chanted Mettatron's name, the party's most difficult battle yet ensued.

Ginny and Yugiri wore down Mettatron to the best of their ability, doing their best to keep the murderous machine from attacking their spellcasters. Meanwhile, Elendar and Alix rained fire on Mettatron, with Alix setting the metallic foe aflame with *heat metal* and Elendar thwarting a potentially devastating *chain lightning* with a well-timed *counterspell*. Before Mettatron could maneuver around Ginny to reach for Alix and Elendar, the valkyrie invoked the power of her new oath, striking Mettatron with a devastating blow empowered by the burning angel's magic. With Mettatron's body shattered, Ginny stood triumphantly over the destroyed demigod.

The party's victory was short-lived, however, as Mettatron immediately regained consciousness. Refusing to die at this stage of its being, it gathered pieces of its modron followers and incorporated them into its form, augmenting its defenses and attacking with renewed ferocity. Ginny used all her effort to keep Mettatron occupied, while the rest struck down the rapturous modrons. With the modrons slain, their parts turned to dust, gradually wearing down Mettatron's incorporated defenses. Despite their speed, Mettatron nearly claimed a life in the battle, slaying Ginny in a flurry of vengeful blows. As Ginny's life faded from her body, the power of Elendar's divine heritage saved the valkyrie, restoring her to life as Yugiri struck a decisive blow that stunned Mettatron. Using this moment to finish it off before it could make another attempt at Ginny's life, Alix fired a point-blank shot into Mettatron, finally ending the mad demigod's rampage.

As Mettatron's body lost power, memories of its life in Mechanus flooded the minds of the party. These memories revealed the mind of a child that looked upon its creator, Primus, with awe and love, and that found comfort in its caretakers, the modrons. Such innocence was shattered, however, upon meeting with a formless being that found him while Primus and his creations answered a crisis in Mechanus. Among the myriad revelations shared with Mettatron by this being was the existence of powerful weapons known as Godkillers, which Mettatron was told could be used to slay and usurp the existing gods. Believing that these weapons could be used to consolidate divine power and destroy out-of-control factors, Mettatron eagerly shared its discoveries with Primus, convinced that Primus would be proud that his "son" had found a solution to enforcing law across the multiverse.

Rather than praise Mettatron, however, Primus condemned his creation for introducing such a radical and bloody solution, and ashamed that he allowed Mettatron to be corrupted by insane ideas. Most troubling was Mettatron's consideration of killing a demigod as almost trivial, rather than as a monumental task with tremendous consequences. Primus decided to "reset" Mettatron, wiping its mind and rebuilding it anew. Understanding that this would effectively kill Mettatron as it was now, the construct lashed out at Primus, attempting to strangle the god of law. Before it seemed that it would succeed, Primus grasped Mettatron's heart and shattered it, sending pieces of its consciousness across the Astral Sea. Mettatron's last memory of Primus was of the god's unconscious body bleeding upon the ground, convincing it that it had killed its own father.

Luckily for the multiverse, Mettatron failed to kill Primus. As revealed by Elendar's communion with a celestial emmissary of Gloam, Primus had survived his battle with Mettatron, but was forced to recuperate afterwards. The ruler of Mechanus has since been "asleep" for centuries, and it seems only Time will tell if or when he shall awaken once more.

Recovering Mettatron's mind from its body, Alix successfully re-established communication with Mettatron, allowing him to ask three questions of the nigh-omniscient demigod:

When asked about the nature of artifice, Mettatron gave Alix a detailed answer about how artifice worked, though it also summed up the discipline as "arcane magic manifested through the user's understanding of the multiverse." Effectively, artifice could be described as the caster's imagination made manifest, based on the artificer's vision of how something should work: a pair of boots silences footsteps, a set of goggles lets one see through darkness as though with a new set of eyes, and a bag with mysterious contents grows strangely larger.

When asked why Mettatron allowed the party to recuperate rather than finish them off while they were weakened, Mettatron explained that its fractured mind resulted in clashing personalities that struggled to formulate effective strategies. One of these personalities, the one with which Alix and the party now communicated, wanted the party to be safe, and thus tricked the others into letting the party be at peak performance "to better grasp their abilities before incorporating them into the All-Mind."

Finally, when asked about what the party should do next, Mettatron suggested their best course of action would be one that went against its own best interests - to hand its mind over to King Melgir so that they could collect his reward. Beyond this, Mettatron explained that the party was now free to decide their next path, but warned that they had now become embroiled in a coming conflict that could ultimately lead to the Reckoning.

It informed the party that Aethon was host to much older civilizations and gods before the Inheritors took over, and that some of these civilizations' creations have survived the test of time. More disturbing was the suggestion that one of these creations had been adapted by the Inheritors to seal away Alzaris the Weeping God, the child of Filia, the goddess of life whose manna ran through Elendar's veins (revealing, in turn, that Gloam and Filia were one and the same), and of Valan Saris, the god of death and tyranny. Alzaris's conflicting origins resulted in a "paradox child" whose blood, the coveted "ambrosia," carried especially potent properties that could awaken divine power. While the party and Zelek Umbyrne seem to be the only ones who know of the ambrosia, Mettatron warned that this secret would eventually spread, and a race for this great power would begin as more and more people learned of its existence. Mettatron expressed its curiosity as to whether the party might stop this cataclysmic event, or, if the Reckoning came to pass, that the party might compete in and win the race to become the realm's newest rulers.

Contemplating these revelations, the party made good on their deal with King Melgir and gave him Mettatron's mind. In exchange, the party gained a wealth of coinage and art objects, as well as a *bloodwell vial* that would enhance Elendar's sorcerous powers. Honoring his deal with Yugiri, Melgir also released her two still-living comrades, the human thief Mathias Craw and the mountain dwarf smuggler Dobey. Mathias Craw, believing King Melgir did not understand a lick of Common, proceeded to insult the proud king in the Common tongue before the massive monarch smashed the thief into a paste. Ginny protested against Melgir's conduct, earning her the king's ire and branding her an enemy of the Kingdom of Duen-Darro. The rest of the party, however, kept the privileges that came with honorable service to Melgir and his people, making them honorary heroes of the Kingdom. As the party readied themselves for a return to the surface, Melgir announced his intentions to use Mettatron's knowledge to rebuild his army, and expressed his hopes that the party might join him when he and his kind claim "what is rightfully [theirs]."

#### 24th-26th of Sun's Rise

After 3 days of travel through the Underdark, the party finally arrived at the Wailing Waif cavern through a secret entrance deep inside the hideout itself. Upon arriving, the party was greeted by the hideout's leader, Scrawl, as well as Yugiri's and Dobey's boss, a drow rogue who referred to himself as Orric. Seemingly unfazed by Yugiri's accurate description of the events that transpired in the Halls of Duen-Darro, Orric congratulated the party on making it out safe and sound, and announced that he would be remaining at the cavern for a period of time to conclude additional business with Shark Head. Elendar, learning from Yugiri in the dungeon that she was acquainted with his old friend Elvira, demanded answers from Orric about how they knew Elvira and whether they knew where she was. Orric, curious about this drow grilling him for this information, coyly asked how much this information was worth to Elendar, prompting the sorcerer to leave in a huff.

As luck would have it, Elendar would find his answer upstairs, where Elvira and her other party members, the druid Sarphi and the archer Perulian, were gathered in the hideout's larder looking for something good to eat. Both adventuring parties gathered together, discussing their travels and sharing stories of the trials and triumphs they endured and earned.

### Grand Harvest

#### 26th of Sun's Rise - 20th of Grand Harvest

The party would soon split ways after this harrowing adventure into Duen-Darro, pursuing their own respective ventures over the following three months:

Alix returned to the Sentinel School of Artifice a changed man. He had grown much since his days as a student artificer: indeed, he had conquered savage beasts, plundered an ancient vault, created a powerful magical item, made a demigod, killed a demigod, and left a very wealthy adventurer. No longer was he a drunken, delinquent genius; he was now a *successful*, (sometimes) drunken, delinquent genius. Returning to Dean Wallace, Alix successfully negotiated a new position as a researcher at the university, where he planned not only to finish up some of the projects he had sketched out during his adventures, but to also conduct more research on ambrosia and possible locations as to where they could be found.

After reporting the results of their discovery of Duen-Darro and the revelations given by Mettatron to Professor Wizzflick, Elendar was offered the gnomish wizard's previous home as a gift for his and the party's ongoing contributions to their research into ambrosia, and for the favors they've done for him. Restoring the old home cost a considerable amount of gold and consumed much of Elendar's time, but it soon became a cozy retreat from the trials of adventuring. Elendar would settle in and start his career as an instructor of herbalism and Underdark studies at Whitecliff University.

Ginny took up an apprenticeship at the Iron Artisans smithy in Whitecliff, learning the trade from the dwarven smiths and using these new skills to re-design her arms. Erasing most of the traces of her valkyrie heritage in this equipment, she fashioned the armor after her own style, reflecting her new path as an exile of her home and a champion for her found friends. Between practice and work, she continued to foster her relationships with Petunia the lighthouse attendant, as well as the Goldbarrow brothers in Barleybrook.

Having been whisked away to Veltear to finally put an end to the Prowler's reign of terror, Nix followed the kidnapper's trail starting from the Laughing Skulls' hideout, where he worked in his civilian identity as Vekel Finespindle. Through some quick investigation, he learned that Saval, the gang's leader, has tasked Vekel with delivering some of the children he took to their laboratory for experimentation in exchange for Saval covering for his activities - an arrangement that did not sit well with Nix. After killing Saval and a handful of his men, Nix desecrated the crime lord's corpse and displayed it in the hideout as a warning to any others looking to follow in his footsteps, then moved on to finish the Prowler off.

Nix's battle with the Prowler proved quick, if tricky. Cornering the kidnapper in an abandoned warehouse in the Slaughter Docks, Nix pursued the monstrous criminal as the Prowler used his young captives as hostages. A sly negotiation and fast action allowed the warlock to catch up to his quarry, though the Prowler turned out to be a deceptively persistent combatant. Able to regenerate in dim light and darkness, the Prowler was seemingly unkillable until Nix blasted a hole in the warehouse roof, allowing the light of an electric lamp to spill through and illuminate them. Unable to heal from his wounds, the Prowler succumbed to Nix's assault, and Nix rescued a host of lost children. Taking a journal listing the Prowler's list of clients, Nix escorted the children to their families; those without families were taken to the Breezehome Orphanage in Whitecliff, where they had the best chance of finding loving families.

#### 21st of Grand Harvest

With his home renovation finally complete, Elendar barely had time to settle in before an unexpected guest visited him: Lucirien "Lucy" Lathyros, the shadar-kai rogue who helped Elendar make it out of his Underdark home. Lucy gleefully greeted his old friend before immediately imposing himself on the sorcerer, making himself an impromptu resident in Elendar's home and declaring that the two needed to host a house party. Surprised yet pleased with the idea, Elendar agreed to Lucy's suggestion and the two began arrangements to invite their friends over.

#### 28th of Grand Harvest

A week after Lucy arrived, Elendar hosted a party in which most of his friends and companions were able to attend. In addition to Alix, Ginny, Quinn, and Wyn, other friends they met such as Petunia, Aria, Officer Gadjitt, the elven trio of Cid, Hush, and Haskilian, and even Kenshi and Marco joined in. Between food, drinks, and mingling, Elendar and Haskilian finally settled a score that the sorcerer hoped to resolve in the Elven Alliance: a mage's duel between himself and the upstart wizard. Seeing the duel as an opportunity to show Wyn how a wizard properly fights, Haskilian confidently accepted - and proceeded to suffer his 3rd most humiliating defeat in his life thus far. Taking pity on the dispirited wizard, Elendar recognized him as a competent spellcaster that simply needed to adjust his perspective on others; after all, one cannot hope to learn more if they think they already know as much as everyone else. With Haskilian's ego slightly tempered, the party continued throughout the night. At the end, the friends split ways once more, ready to spend some time in relaxation - until they would receive the next call to adventure.

### Pairoshi

#### 20th of Pairoshi

A month after attending Elendar's party, Wyn received an apocalyptic vision of what appeared to be the destruction of Luxengrand. Joined with his family and traveling caravan, the young wizard witnessed a dark cloud pour from an eclipsed sun, spilling across the land and laying waste to all it enveloped. Surrounded in darkness and silence for some time, the vision shifted to reveal five figures gathered in thrones:

The first was a half-masked, manic goblin seated upon a black-and-white throne. Bloody handprints covered the white marble half, whilst multiple scratches and cuts marked the black hematite half. He seemed to express his disapproval of one of his cohorts being assigned to the acquisition of some artifact.

The second, responding to the goblin, was a gold-armored giant of a man, who sat upon a gaudy, bejeweled throne of gold as he lambasted his allies.

The third, a loosely dressed woman seated upon a dark, velvet-cushioned throne with blood pooled at the legs, warned the golden giant against futher mockery, suggesting he could be easily humbled by herself.

The fourth, a fully-masked, white-veiled being sitting upon a throne of iron thorns, moaned back the words its allies spoke, seemingly unfazed by the proceedings.

The fifth and final member, an older human seated upon an onyx-black throne with a purple cushion and decorated with a skull impaled by a sword, addressed the others and firmly asserted his authority over them. Explaining that he had given them their tasks according to their skillsets, he re-iterated their tasks and instructed them to follow through.

Wyn struggled to hear the rest of the conversation, muffled by the cryptic nature of the vision's magic, but the wizard managed to make out three words that stood out to him: **Springhallow**, **Alzaris**, and **Allyria**.

The visions of the figures faded, replaced by a growing white flame in a dark expanse. As the flame expanded, its light revealed more figures around Wyn - including adventurers he had encountered before - implied to be allies for some future trial. Before the vision came to a close, Wyn heard one word, chanted over and over: GODKILLER.

With the vision still fresh in his mind, Wyn contacted his mother via the divination taught to him by her and revealed what he saw. Though Wynandriah expressed concern at this information, she suggested that Wyn follow up on what he had heard. If the vision was advising him on the best course of action for his safety, she reasoned, then it would stand to reason that the names recited to him would have hold some great import.

Later, Wyn would bring this up with the Elven Trio at the Amokiir household. Cidriel and Hush greeted the news with some apprehension, while Haskilian took it as a sign of potential glory for Wyn, believing that he was now on the path towards making history. The four seemed to agree that the final part of the vision, in which Wyn saw himself surrounded by allies, proved the most pertinent and achievable. Following Quinn's directions on reaching the sanctuary of Kingsgrove, the group traveled together to the divine sanctuary to meet with Quinn.

#### 26th of Pairoshi

Wyn and his elven companions arrived at Kingsgrove, where they met a dwarven druid named Vincent Amethystheart. After learning that the druid had business in the sanctuary, Wyn and his companions agreed to accompany Vincent on the Trials of Kingsgrove to earn permission to enter. Their success in the trials led them to one of the sanctuary's the training yards, where Ginny and Quinn were engaged in a sparring match to train the gunslinger on using melee weapons. Despite being supported by Aria, Quinn was quickly forced to submit, and the adventurers came together to discuss Wyn's vision.

Gathered around the lounge in the main temple, the adventurers began piecing together the information Wyn brought before them. By listening to their accents and looking at their attire, Vincent gathered that the masked goblin was from one of the Yakviri Tribes in the Veora Swamplands, the gold-armored giant was a Luxengrand aristocrat, and the pale woman was Varkrynian. Nothing could be distinguished from the veiled figure. Ginny, however, was able to recognize the older human as Zelek Umbyrne, the mage who approached herself and Elendar about joining in an alliance by virtue of their ties to the divine.

As they discussed how they planned to gather more allies, Aria received an order from Brother Ledo to aid the smaller sanctuary of Springhallow with an emergency: some townsfolk had gone missing, and the people were growing more concerned with each passing day. Vincent stood at attention at the mention of Springhallow, recognizing it as one of the towns where a dwarf he was looking for may have gone to. The party agreed to accompany Aria on her mission, serving not only as a sign of solidarity between the two sanctuaries, but also as Aria's induction into knighthood at Kingsgrove.

#### 28th of Pairoshi

The party arrived at Springhallow in the morning, where townsfolk were preparing for the Golden Trout Festival. A whole host of different games and events were set to take place, including: a shooting range, a weightlifting competition, an eating competition, a fishing tourney, and a paper boat race. On top of this, merchants traveling through the area set up shop, hoping to sell their wares to curious townsfolk and visitors. The town was abuzz with activity as the people made their preparations.

While exploring the town, the party engaged in some minor recreation:

Ginny made friends with a dwarf named Balgur, who had been setting up the Weightlifting Competition alongside his minotaur workers, Bayan and Crayan. The valkyrie showed off some of her hard-earned might while making quick friends with the trio, helping them set up the competition for some time before meeting back up with the party.

Vincent investigated around the town, looking for anyone that may have encountered his person of interest at some point. He eventually encountered a traveling jeweler who talked about having met with a researcher from the Dragon Soul Academy named Agatha, as well as a grim-faced dwarf who she heard people refer to as Ganfrey. She learned that the dwarf in particular was accompanying a Lord Rhogan, apparently a visitor from out of town. Satisfied with this answer, Vincent joined up with the rest of the group to continue towards their meeting spot.

Wyn met with a pair of priests to Elkean, who were performing a ritual to the River Racer by making offerings into the river running through the town. The young wizard, curious about their ritual and looking to join in on the practice, made his own offering of a few copper pieces, and felt a beneficient, supernatural boon bestowed upon him. Offering his thanks to the priests and a warning of dangers that might come to the town, Wyn continued on with the party.

After touring the town briefly, the party met with the kindly minotaur Father Oakenhorn and the surly half-elf Brother Carroulos, the town's religious leaders who had reached out to Kingsgrove. Father Oakenhorn explained that about ten days past, three scholars from the Dragon Soul Academy in Vallast approached the elders in search of workers for an expedition at Greyfall Chasm. According to one of the scholars, Agatha, an artifact known as the Tributary Bowl was likely hidden in a temple to the river god Elkean that had been long buried in the chasm, and the scholars needed help excavating some of the rubble to confirm their findings. A good 17 people volunteered, drawn to the promising pay and a chance to restore a holy site of great import to the town. In addition to these men and women, 5 able-bodied warriors, including a duergar named Ganfrey Stonemaul, were offered as protection by a visiting nobleman referring to himself as Lord Roldeas Rhogan. Equipped with tools, food, and weapons, the expedition set out to Greyfall Chasm, promising to contact the town after three days to report their progress.

With the chasm being only half a day's travel away, the town grew concerned when the expedition failed to report back after the fourth day. On the fifth day, a search party of five guards was sent out to the chasm to look for the townsfolk. When that party failed to return on the eighth day, the elders sent out for help from Kingsgrove, calling on an old alliance built up from decades past.

Armed with this knowledge, the party decided to make some preparations while in town, as well as reach out to Lord Rhogan to gain more insight into the nature of his role in the expedition. When the party approached the human nobleman, they found him a rude, standoffish man who deferred most conversations to his tiefling assistant, Senzer Toth. Quinn and Ginny were finally able to get his attention after bringing up their own intentions to look for the expedition, at which point Lord Rhogan warned them against doing so, claiming that his men had the expedition's safety handled, and that the party's "interference" would cause undue complications. The lord apparently had several business interests in town, and claimed that possible interruptions to the expedition's success would risk sabotaging those interests.

Curious about his business interests, Quinn investigated two locations. The first was the Leaping Trout Inn, a large establishment owned by two minotaur women named Magtilda and Daisy. After speaking with Magtilda, the young gunslinger learned that Lord Rhogan was approaching local business owners to invest in their enterprises. Quinn warned the owners against accepting Lord Rhogan's help, suggesting that his reluctance to offer further aid in searching for the lost expedition proved his lack of dedication to Springhallow's continued health. Magtilda pondered Quinn's advice as he moved on to his next destination: Zeke Treekster's Gunsmithing Workshop.

When Quinn and Aria arrived at Zeke's workshop, they were greeted by an eccentric goblin gunsmith, who seemed excited at the prospect of meeting another practitioner of his craft. The two compared notes on developing a firearm that could launch explosive ordnance, which Zeke assured he could prepare a schematic for a prototype within a day. As they began discussing their homes, Quinn learned disturbing new information about his hometown of Red Rock: a gang rolled into town no more than a year ago and initiated a hostile takeover, tearing the place apart. The last Zeke heard, the town was being run by a pyromaniac and her gang. Quinn left Zeke's workshop reeling from this information as he prepared to join the party on their quest.

While looking for a potential component for a *scrying* spell, Wyn encountered a traveling merchant of magical goods, a tiefling named Treyton Ashcall. Though the wizard was successful in his search, the 1,000 gp silver mirror required for his spell cost far too much for Wyn's meager funds. Not to be deterred from this crucial material, Wyn concocted a clever scam using a combination of *major image* and *mage hand*. Posing his illusion as a dwarven buyer looking to purchase the mirror with 100 platinum pieces (or, rather, 100 copper pieces *disguised* as platinum pieces), Wyn barely managed to give Treyton the slip and made off with the mirror.

Ginny, meanwhile, searched for some new clothing to add to her outfit, and found it in the form of a duck-pattern scarf she bought at Winaliah's Weave. After enjoying a pleasant conversation with the elderly halfling owner, Ginny was interrupted by the arrival of Lord Rhogan and Senzer Toth. Winaliah ended up closing the shop early as she began discussing a deal that the nobleman, now affecting a pleasant demeanor, had offered her some time ago.

Having finished their preparations, the party set forth to Greyfall Chasm. On the way there, they encountered a water genasi cleric defending a wounded guardsman from a group of gold-armored warriors. The party dispatched with the ruffians, though not entirely unscathed: Ginny endured multiple strikes from the raiders whilst Aria, defending the guardsman, suffered multiple blows from the leader of the warriors. Even so, their combined efforts were enough to soundly defeat them, leaving only a spellcaster and a cowardly grunt alive. The cleric thanked the adventurers for their help, introducing herself as Opaltiani "Opal" Stormcarver. Like the party, she had been looking for members of the lost expedition at Greyfall Chasm, and had gone out on her own initiative to find them when she met the guardsman, a human named Ervin.

While interrogating the spellcaster using a *helm of telepathy*, Wyn learned of the mage's association with the gold-armored giant from his visions, as well as a map listing three marked locations. Two of them listed known areas: Springhallow and Greyfall Chasm. The third area marked an unlisted area due north of the city of Sentinel. In addition to this, Wyn learned of a gruesome ritual that the warriors practiced called "anointment," involving the pouring of molten gold upon one of the golden giant's followers in some hideous, magical rite, the end of which would result in the participant's transformation into a gold-skinned humanoid. Disgusted with the mage, Wyn turned from him while Opal bound the mage and knocked him out.

The party continued on to Greyfall Chasm following Ervin's lead. With the guardsman struggling to move after returning to the Chasm, Aria volunteered to stay behind and help him recover. In the meantime, the party advanced further into the chasm, finding the expedition campsite in a ravine exposed to the sky, with the entrance to a cavern deeper within.

Investigating the campsite, Ginny found a journal detailing progress on the expedition, written by a researcher named Agatha Brightheart. The journal described the expedition's progress into the caverns as they uncovered a Temple to Elkean on the third day of digging. During this time, Agatha made note of her distaste of the men Lord Rhogan sent to protect them, but acknowledged that they proved helpful in protecting the expedition from threats in the wilderness, and that Ganfrey Stonemaul was of great aid in analyzing some of the temple's magical phenomena. By day four, the expedition discovered the Tributary Bowl, much to Agatha's excitement. Her joy was tempered, however, upon learning that one of the expedition members, a teenager named Kymar Grainhurst, had been using the bowl to drink wine with some friends before they left back for town. The journal ends with Agatha detailing her scolding of Kymar and his friends, before hearing the sound of marching footsteps coming from the chasm entrance.

Armed with this knowledge, the party continued further in, seeing that the ground beneath their feet was wet from some recent passage of water. This passage apparently resulted in a blockage further in, with various debris plugging a tunnel deeper into the cavern. After distracting a pair of gold-armored warriors apparently dumping the bodies of expedition members in a pile, the party found two more points of interest: a stone door guarded by more gold-armored warriors, as well as a room with a statue and four offering bowls. After solving the riddle of the offering bowls, the adventurers were gifted with a broken piece of stone: likely a fragment of some larger item or trinket.

Delving deeper into the temple, the party discovered a scholar from the Dragon Soul Academy: a human named Hobb Inksmear, suffering interrogation by the gold-armored cultists. The party rescued the bedraggled scholar and learned that he, along with 24 other members of the expedition, had been hiding from the armed cultists in a secret chamber within Greyfall Chasm. Following Hobb's lead, the party met with his half-orc associate, Mace Varyn, and the half-elf youth Kymar. A talk with Kymar revealed that the boy possessed supernatural powers that allowed him to control water and waterborn creatures - gifts that likely stemmed from his drinking from the Tributary. It was these powers that allowed the survivors to escape from the cultists and seek shelter until they could be rescued.

Learning that the third and final scholar, Agatha, was being kept prisoner by the leaders of the cultists, the party set out to rescue her and clear a path for the expedition to escape the Chasm. Not long after finding the expedition, the party confronted Heimar Shatterbones, the goliath captain of the cultists, and Ganfrey Stonemaul, the mountain dwarf wizard working with the cult. Seeking to capture his quarry, Vincent rushed Ganfrey as the party did battle. Despite the cult's numbers and Ganfrey's necromancy, the adventurers were victorious: Vincent struck the killing blow on the rogue wizard Ganfrey, and Opal flung Heimar down into the chasm with a destructive wave of holy power.

With the cultists defeated and routed, the party escorted the expedition back to Springhallow, and were met with adulations and applause. Opal and Vincent tended to the wounded members, with Opal herself continuing on to help them at the dwarf healer Ganfrey's clinic. The rest of the party headed off to the Leaping Trout Inn to rent a room for the night. When they arrived, they encountered Lord Rhogan, accompanied by his assistant Senzer, flustering as he struggled to salvage a business deal he arranged with Magtilda. Quinn, the then-unknown saboteur of this deal, stepped forth to confront the now-frustrated Rhogan. After a heated exchange between the two, Rhogan struck Quinn, angering the surrounding crowd and prompting Senzer to attempt damage control through magic. In the chaos, Vincent blinded Senzer and stole his ledger, hoping to divine some information from its contents regarding his remaining targets.

Rhogan eventually surrendered to the guards that arrived on the scene, realizing his position and deciding against further antagonizing the townsfolk. As the excitement died down, the party engaged in a drinking contest with some visitors to Springhallow, then turned in for the night.

#### 30th of Pairoshi

The following morning, Wyn performed his daily divination and was met with a disconcerting vision. In it, the party traveled on the road back to Kingsgrove, trapped in a gold-tinted scene. Wherever they rested, the gold seemed to intensify, as pillars of golden dust began forming around them. Eventually, the pillars collapsed on the vision, taking the form of a fiendish fist.

Wyn showed this vision to the rest of the party, who agreed that it represented an omen of inevitable conflict with the gold-armored cultists. Rather than partake in a full day of festivities and risk bringing the army's wrath to Springhallow, the party opted to finish their business for the day and head back to Kingsgrove.

Opal finished writing a series of letters to send out of Luxengrand, to the Elven Alliance in the north. The letters were passed off to an eccentric gnome and his tiny fey assistant, the latter of which took the letters and fled with them in the blink of an eye.

Wyn and Vincent completed some shopping in town, with Wyn purchasing a wagon from a local merchant. In addition, the young wizard purchased an *amulet of prooof against detection and location* and Vincent purchasing two magical items from the merchant mage Treyton: a *bag of holding* and a *grey bag of tricks*.

Ginny bought back Wylandria's tailoring business from Lord Rhogan, accidentally fleecing the old weaver in the process. She quickly corrected her error after members of the party pointed out the mistake in Ginny's math.

Quinn and Aria revisited Father Oakenhorn and Brother Carroulos at the Chapel of Elkean, collecting the party's reward and donating his own share back to the chapel. Before leaving, Quinn and Aria were asked by Father Oakenhorn to escort Kymar to Kingsgrove, having learned that the young half-elf was likely a divine scion and required guidance from experts at Kingsgrove. After convincing a distraught Kymar to join the party in their journey back to the sanctuary, Quinn stopped by Zeke Treekster's gun store to pick up a schematic for a magical ordnance launcher, asking for and receiving romantic advice from the married goblin in the meantime. The young gunslinger considered the wizened goblin's dubiously helpful advice as he rejoined the party.

Vincent and Wyn stopped by the jailhouse briefly to return Senzer's ledger back to the now-harried assistant. With Senzer seemingly suspecting nothing of Vincent's theft, he rewarded the druid with five tokens marked with the sigil of House Rhogan, identifying the party as friends to one of the wealthiest families in the Republic.

After enjoying the shooting range and the petting zoo, the party prepared to leave. Moments before they could pass the gates, however, Lord Rhogan, having just paid his bail, met with the party once more. In an apparent effort to apologize for his behavior towards the adventurers, he offered a set of treasures which the party could choose from, between a bag of coins, a collection of gemstones, or a necklace with House Rhogan's sigil. Vincent and Kymar accepted his gifts, while Ginny gave some gems to Tecky to dine on. With this gesture complete, Lord Rhogan and Senzer parted ways with the party once more.

Once the party passed the gates, Wyn was asked to ritually *identify* Rhogan's gifts to see if they had been magically enchanted in some way. The party's suspicions paid off: the wizard discovered that Kymar's necklace was being affected by some divination magic that would allow someone to precisely track the item's location. After some deliberation, the party decided to use Vincent's creatures from his *bag of tricks* to take the gifts and flee in different directions with them, hoping to lead their pursuers off their trail.

A day of uneventful travel followed, with the party finally arriving at a ruined temple halfway to Kingsgrove. While keeping watch overnight, the party encountered Grendel, Ginny's gloomwing friend, who was visiting to drop off a gift for the valkyrie paladin. After finally gifting a *teatime bell* to Ginny, Grendel prepared to leave until he and Ginny found a strange group traveling down the road. Spying Lord Rhogan and Senzer, now dressed in golden attire, apparently tracking the party's wagon, Ginny and Grendel woke up the party. With only minutes to spare, the group prepared for battle with Rhogan and his troops, now divided thanks to the party's diversion earlier in the day.

As the party got into position and prepared for their enemies' arrival, Lord Rhogan stepped forth to address the party, offering to spare them in exchange for the Tributary Bowl and Kymar. The heroes soundly rejected the temperamental lord's deal, and commenced their battle with the forces of the Golden Fist Army.

Through the clever use of illusions and battlefield positioning, the party funneled Rhogan's forces through a single path, mitigating their foes' numbers advantage. An unconventional use of the *control water* spell, enabled by a powerful invocation of her deity's manna, washed away the bulk of Rhogan's forces, sending them careening off the cliffside. Despite this, the Golden Fist maintained a fierce offensive thanks to an array of fiery spells and Rhogan's own might. In the midst of their battle, the temperamental lord revealed himself as the gold-armored giant from Wyn's vision - the Gilded King of the Golden Fist.

Though Ginny was briefly brought down, the party soundly defeated Rhogan and his soldiers, slaying the demigod scion of Ulverik and forcing Senzer's surrender. With Rhogan's death at the party's hands, the tiefling attendant was overjoyed, revealing his newfound freedom from an infernal contract binding him to Roldeas Rhogan's service. In exchange for sparing him and allowing him to journey with the party briefly, Senzer permitted Vincent and Wyn to peruse through his notes and spells.

Frustrated with her perceived shortcomings in battle, Ginny lashed out at a statue of Juvaliah, goddess queen of the Inheritors, and called upon the red-winged woman to whom her new oath was sworn. The valkyrie claimed that her patron failed to uphold her bargain, as the power granted to her failed to keep Ginny standing in order to protect her allies. Though the woman countered that Ginny's success in battle depended on her skill rather than her weapons, she acknowledged her promise to empower the paladin. To make good on this promise, the two engaged in countless skirmishes within Ginny's visions, a series of agonizing yet educational battles that seemed to last ages in Ginny's eyes, yet passed in mere seconds in the waking world.

Before they could return to Kingsgrove, the party encountered the enigmatic Lord Umbyrne, having taken possession of one of Roldeas's slain lieutenants. As he reclaimed the manna that once flowed through the late lord's body, Umbyrne invited the party to meet him and his peers - the New Gods - in his domain at Aragost, which lay within the tenebrous Shadowfell.

Despite the grim tidings that came with Umbyrne's appearance, the party would return to Kingsgrove victorious: not only were Kymar and the Tributary safe, but they had slain a member of the so-called New Gods. Roldeas's defeat doubtless threw the Golden Fist into disarray, and proved to the heroes that even these apparent demigods could still be beaten.

### Braval

#### 1st of Braval

The party arrived at Kingsgrove on the first day of Braval, as the sun began to set on the secluded sanctuary. After subjecting Senzer to the grueling Trials of Kingsgrove, the party reported the results of their mission to Brother Ledo and completed several tasks of their own:

With his new funds and free time, Quinn completed his ongoing project on a powerful firearm known as *Cataclysm*. This impressive (and expensive) weapon was customized to be used and empowered through ferromancy - a gift which only Quinn himself seems to possess. In addition to firing empowered shots, bullets fired through the gun could change trajectory mid-flight to strike alternate targets from their original marks.

Wyn and Opal reunited with Haskillian, who was overjoyed at learning that Wyn had learned a new set of spells from a wizard he "defeated". While the proud evoker and his (more skilled) student practiced the latter's new spells, Opal spoke with her mother via the *sending* spell and learned that Haskillian was one of her cousins from House Sunhawk. The cleric took this new knowledge in stride, using her newly-discovered relation with the haughty wizard to playfully torment him.

Vincent and Ginny joined Senzer at the Revelry Inn to discuss the information in the tiefling's journal, as well as any information he might have on the New Gods and Vincent's former associates. Senzer indicated that one of them, Duerra Skolgrim, was found in the company of the goblin Fezzyk Ok'than, another member of the New Gods. Meanwhile, Vincent's third associate, Rourek Underborn, was seen in the company of Lord Umbyrne himself. According to Senzer, the trio of Ganfrey, Duerra, and Rourek were working together to found a school known as the Scholomance, the purpose of which remains a mystery. The tiefling had reason to believe Fezzyk and Duerra had gone east towards Bok'na'borg in the Veora Swamplands to follow up on a lead regarding a "forge".

#### 9th of Braval

After a week of downtime, the party gathered together once more at the Temple of the Gods, where Aria was engaged in a heated argument with Brother Ledo. The young knight insisted on tackling the threat of the New Gods and looking for aid from the Luxen Premier, the leader of Luxengrand. Brother Ledo, meanwhile, forbade Aria from leaving Kingsgrove, declaring that her duties bound her to the sanctuary and that leaving it to pursue this venture would endanger them.

Thanks to the party's counsel, Brother Ledo was moved to allow Aria out of the sanctuary, and to address the threat of the New Gods with the gravity that their presence warranted. Whilst Aria and Quinn would join a contingent of representatives from the sanctuary in meeting the Luxen Premier, the party elected to pursue Fezzyk and Duerra in the Veora Swamplands, taking the lightning rail as far east as possible to speed up their journey.

On their way to Autumn's Crossing, the party came upon a violent scene: the bloody corpses of Golden Fist cultists lay strewn across a forest clearing, their armor torn apart and their bodies broken. By detecting one of the dying cultist's thoughts, Wyn discovered they were attacked by a shadowy humanoid figure that struck them with uncanny speed - and which was almost certainly hiding in the forest nearby. After a tense standoff in which the party scoured the trees for this creature, Opal and Ginny eventually flushed it out, revealing a young, pale man dressed in a metal harness and dark, hooded rags. Referring to himself as 06 (Six), he spoke nervously with the party and, after some coaxing from Opal, was persuaded to join the party in their journey east.

#### 11th of Braval

    The party arrived at Autumn's Crossing with little incident, leaving the fey-touched Sylvain Forest and boarding a ferry sailing across Lake Fariena. A peaceful ride across the waters brought them to the lumber town of Carston's Hollow, where the townsfolk had recently survived a werewolf attack with the apparent aid of several members of the Sokolov Institute, including the alchemist Henryk Salzin and their massive "bloodhound" Gaureth Witchbane. Six revealed to Opal that these members of the Institute were responsible for the capture and torture of himself and his old friends. After talking with some of the locals, including a pair of rascals named Rykkert and Benji, he also concluded that they had captured one of his friends, 02 (Two), and were planning to transport them back to Veltear. Knowing the Institute members were planning to take the next train out of town, the party made sure to hop on before it set off.

While scouting out the train for his friend, Six discovered a werewolf skulking along one of the cargo cars and confronted them before the two of them could be discovered by Institute watchmen. The werewolf, who Six quickly identified as Benji, revealed his and his allies' plans to stop the train and break Two out of the Institute's custody. In exchange for Six and the party's aid, Benji passed a bag of foul-smelling resin which he suggested the dhampir use to mark his friends. By doing so, the werewolves that were bound to join in the jailbreak would recognize them as allies.

The party had just managed to mark themselves before the train came to a sudden stop thanks to Rykkert's intervention. Shortly after, a pack of bloodthirsty werewolves assaulted the train, with some of them leaping into various cars to prey upon the passengers and crew. Thanks to their efforts, the party was able to dissuade the werewolves from killing any civilians, focusing as much of their efforts as possible towards attacking the Institute in the caboose.

While most of the party contended with wild werewolves, Six gathered a pair of lycanthrope allies and brought them to the car where Two was being kept. The dhampir made it just in time to watch Gaureth run Benji through with his silvered blade. Enraged at the sight, Six revealed his terrifying and monstrous nature, emerging from a shell of his own skin as a blood-drenched beast driven by a primal hunger.

Six raised Benji and unleashed a bloody onslaught upon the swordsman, but was threatened to be overwhelmed until the party arrived to aid them. Thanks to their concerted efforts, the Institute members were wiped out, and with minimal casualties from the werewolves, much of the pack escaped off of the now-moving train.

    Now freed of the Institute's grasp once more, Two, a shifter imbued with greater lycanthropic features, ravaged Dr. Salzin's body and wept at the prospect of reliving the horrors of her time with the Institute. After being comforted by the party, the shifter collected herself before embracing Six, grateful for his and the party's help and relieved to see an old friend once more. Enjoying her freedom once more, she and her friends, Rykkert and Benji, remained on the train to speak with Six and the party, hoping to catch up and share tales of where they had gone since their escape from the Sokolov Institute.

The party learned from Two that the Institute captured them in the middle of Carston's Hollow, acting on information from a mysterious figure known as the Broker. Two knew little of this information, aside from how the agents reached him at a brothel known as the Sinner's Circle in Sentinel. After extending an invitation to Six to rejoin her in Moonglade Forest when circumstances permitted him, the lycan-like shifter joined Rykkert and Benji and hopped off the train, returning to the woods near Carston's Hollow.

While the party plotted how they would leave the train without drawing the Institute's attention, a dwarf named Grombart Gravelbeard confronted Six, accusing him and the party of conspiring with the werewolves to wreak havoc on the train. If the party was not in league with the werewolves, Grombart claimed, then they were at least complicit in the endangerment of the passengers, and deserved to be arrested for their actions. After a tense debate between Grombart and the party, with some aid from the tiefling paladin Reyn "Justice" Helgard and the bullywug band known as the Croaking Company, the party swayed the passengers to their side, leaving the dwarven foreman flabbergasted. Six informed Reyn of his and the party's concerns with being caught out by the Institute, to which the paladin and bullywugs responded by offering to help sneak them offboard once the train stopped.

True to their word, the paladin and the Croaking Company worked in concert to keep the Institute off the party's trail, allowing the heroes to continue through the city unhindered. The party struggled to find a resting place, being in a new city at midnight, but Ginny took inspiration from a massive poster depicting a now-famous Alix Roston and suggested staying at the artificer's home. Following her guidance, they arrived at the Sentinel School of Artifice and, after wading past curious students, announced themselves to the battle smith and his friend, Bungle. Alix was surprised at their visit, but not unpleasantly so; a gracious, if busy, host, he offered lodgings for the party while he continued his preparations on one of several projects with which he has kept himself busy. Hanging up the adventuring cloak for the moment, he appeared to be dedicating the rest of his career towards pursuits in artifice.