Aerois - Episode 49: Aegis V

Kim Richards as Nova V'ger

Mark Hulmes as Aila

Rhiannon Frost as Sentry

 Tom Hazell as Qillek Ad Khollar

**Aegis V** is the 49th episode of the Aerois Campaign. It was broadcast live on both the Yogscast Twitch channel and highrollersdnd Twitch channel on 20th October 2019 from 5PM to 8PM BST.

*We're through the portal and find ourselves in an eerily quiet astral citadel...what horrors wait for us in the dark?*

## **Summary**

### **Announcements**

* Mark welcomes everyone and introduces the players.
* Katie is away this week because she is not feeling well.
* The sponsor this week is D&D Beyond.
* Mark and Kim will be special guests at Lucca Comics and Games in Lucca, Italy in November 2019. They will be doing a live stream game set in Eberron with Wizards of the Coast with Joe Manganiello; Mark will be DM for the game. There will also be a panel which will be live streamed.
* Reminder to subscribe on High Rollers DND Twitch channel, and to use your Amazon Prime subscription.
* Merch sale is still on, there should be some new merch coming on Black Friday/beginning of December.
* There will not be a formal break in this week's show, Mark will read donos while the rest take a quick break.
* Next week is the Halloween episode, which will be a dress-up episode.

### **Recap**

"*Welcome back to Aerois. Last time...*
"*Our adventurers, having gained their airship, the Stormchaser, have begun travelling toward the continent of Suvonna to reconnect with some previous allies, as well as pick up supplies en route to a place called the City of Glass. However, during their travels, they encountered an Orc settlement, called Yama Lo'Tai, and investigated as it was being attacked by strange creatures from the sea, Sahuagin. You landed, you assisted the Orcs of Yama Lo'Tai, as well as a Triton baroness called Erin Coralsong, in repelling the attackers, and learnt that the Sahuagin had recently become much more aggressive, intelligent, and were equipped with Starbane weaponry and armour. You decided to accompany Erin Coralsong deep into a place called the Coldlight Depths, a ravine where the Sahuagin have been lairing.*
"*Along the way, you met a Triton called Drexciya, a siren and singer, who accompanied you for some time in search for her lost sisters. You made your way down into the depths and through a priestess's cave where hatchlings of Sahuagin were being bred. You also encountered a shield generator, from much more advanced technology, that Sentry destroyed and bypassed. Eventually you rescued the prisoners and were left with a strange portal. Quill, using the power of the Eye of the Storm, investigated what would happen if he were to travel through it, and saw he emerged in a room with no water, and instead a strange sign reading out "Aegis V" - or as Quill thought, "visage" [short discussion]. It seems to lead into a strange crystal room made of dark crystal, similar to the Starbane ship that you had once explored beneath the Rosewater lake.*
"*Drexciya and Erin Coralsong both help escort the trapped tritons to safety, leaving you in these caves, these underwater caves, with the portal before you...'"*
### **Part 1**

*A Starbane portal leads the team far away, the cause of the Sahuagin threat!*

The crew is still under the effects of the water breathing spell with about 18 hours remaining. The water is incredibly cold at this depth, and there is no light beyond their own magic items and a glowing purple portal that hovers before them in the worked stone chamber they are in. The tritons have all left and are making their way stealthily back to their own village, leaving the party alone. Quill had previously used the Eye of the Storm to see beyond the portal, and saw a large square room with dark crystal walls. Along one side are thick metal shutters with an opening/closing mechanism, there are large tubes around the room that seem large enough to fit a humanoid into, there is a metal door on the southern wall, and a name plate on the wall saying 'AEGIS V'.

It is really cold - resting would be problematic for a number of the party members, and Aila wants to know what to do with the bodies, whether they should leave them and make it look like they were attacked when the tritons ran away: it is obvious with the destroyed shield generator that something happened. Lucius wonders what will happen if someone follows them through the portal, and Sentry is worried about what happens if they go through and cannot get back or if Starbane is up there. Nova recalls that Clyde had said that the priestess, Shantani, used to speak to Starbane through the portal, and that they gave us weapons, artefacts and armour. The party discusses whether to destroy the portal, or whether that risks Starbane's forces creating another one somewhere else, and giving technology to other tribal races; Quill does not think that Starbane would start an attack from under the sea, but Lucius says that an attack from an unexpected quarter, like the sahuagin, would be a great way to attack. They again discuss going through the portal, thinking that maybe at least they will find the priestess that has been communicating with Xarkira and Starbane, Aila says that Quill can send a message to someone to tell them what they plan to do, and even offers to just destroy the portal as another option: Nova and Lucius think this is a good option to get one over on Starbane - they will not expect a counter-attack. Sentry is worried because she has heard how powerful Starbane is, even though she has never met him or Xarkira. Even though Solwynn was heavily besieged by the Empire, there was a clear distinction between the forces of Valkyrian and those of Xarkira: Kalus tended to have more humanoid soldiers including fiends, whereas Xarkira tended to use more magical creatures and intelligent undead like vampires, she also inspired more of a war-like attitude and fervent violence in her troops, whereas Kalus was more controlled (his law to her chaos). Solwynn was also attacked by battle cruisers and was partially destroyed by The Sundering, but the entire attack was very methodical.

Nova says that they at least need to stop the priestess: she is the one teaching other a ritual to transform the tritons into monsters. Aila makes the point that the tritons live in Solwynn's ruins, so stopping the sahuagin here will protect the tritons in future. Sentry says that she is worried, not for herself, but for the rest of the party, but that she is happy to go through the portal if the rest are: Aila is ready to go through and does so. The rest join her, and they feel a sudden rush as their bodies are pulled away, much the same feeling as when Kalus had transported them to Voksar earlier: they feel themselves thrown vertically up higher than they can imagine, and they stumble out into a room full of air. They are surrounded by sleek black metal crystal, it is warmer than where they had been, and it is near pitch black except for the dull purple light of the portal behind them and a flickering dull amber glow from above the door to the south in front of them. To the north are the huge metal shutters that Quill had seen in his vision, and along the east and west are the strange metal tubes - there is soft orchestral and choral music, barely audible and reverberating from the walls. The music is beautiful and melodic, it is faint and hard to hear, but they make out a few words: it is a war song, singing about victory and freedom, about rising up and uniting under one banner - it is a war anthem for Emperor Kalus and his Empire, seemingly played on ships as his troops were going to war.

Nova knows that Eterna usually power ships like this and notices a crystalline seam that leads out of the room. Nova and Sentry, who are both currently bound to Eterna, sense that there is something wrong - a dark, cold feeling from hundreds of feet below them - it is a creeping, tingling sense of dread tingling up their spines. Helios says, "something is wrong. There is an Eterna here, but it is not like the rest of us". Tiangong sends visions to Nova: flashes of a memory of Nightfrost in the Rosewater Lake ship, but a sense that the corruption is much worse, they also give Nova a flash of the discussion they had with Ellessandra talking about how Eterna who are force-fed life force can become corrupted, then the sense that while Nightfrost had not been fully corrupted, this Eterna has. Tiangong does not sense other fragments of themself here. Lucius thinks that it is a good idea to check to see if the portal works both ways: Lucius, who is still only in his underwear, steps through and is immediately back underwater - it is indeed a two-way portal. Aila, meanwhile, has gone very quiet and is looking at the Aegis V sign quite oddly.

Quill has no more charges on the Eye at present, so Sentry casts Divine Sense but does not detect any celestials, fiends or undead within 60 feet; the orange light above the door flickers again. Nova pulls the lever to open the shutters and sees a huge debris field: chunks of black crystalline metal float past, then cables and coils of metal, pieces of burned rock, and then it parts to reveal Aerois from above, beyond the Cradle - they are staring out into Astral Space, and there is no window or force field behind the shutters. The debris field is made of hundreds of broken Starbane battle cruisers, some smaller and some larger; they have coalesced into a floating debris field orbiting Aerois. Lucius posits that these ships were destroyed battling Hadar, but Quill thinks it unlikely that Hadar is that close to Aerois - the vision of a battle (which may not have been against Hadar) that he saw when his spirit returned from beyond the Cradle could have been much further away, because he was travelling very quickly, but Quill is not sure. Using his geographical knowledge, Quill works out that they are currently above Aelseraph, the northernmost continent of Aerois - Aelseraph is very mountainous with high peaks - he thinks he sees one of the sky cities drifting above the continent below. Lucius begins to panic, Nova gets excited wants to take control of the ship so that she can find Jassavir; Aila threatens to slap people if they do not calm down.

Lucius wonders if they can jump out into space and feather fall back to Aerois: Nova realises that there is artificial gravity on the ship, probably powered by the Eterna, and that if they go into Astral Space, there is no gravity and momentum will just keep taking them in whatever direction they start to travel, off the station there would be no air, and that it would be freezing cold. Nova is intrigued by space, but Aila closes the shutters so that they can concentrate on what they are meant to be doing. There is some concern that they will run into Starbane, but Nova says that since Tiangong cannot sense any more shards of themselves here, that Starbane cannot be here. Quill moves to the door on the south wall, but cannot see a way to open it: it is a metal door with no handle, there is a crystal in the wall to the side of the door which he touches, but nothing happens. Nova, Sentry and Lucius all try to open the door by touching the crystal, but nothing happens, Nova tries touching Tiangong to the crystal, but still there is no success. Nova begins to cast Detect Magic as a ritual then is interrupted as Lucius, Aila and Sentry approach the door to try to lift it open, and as the three approach it, it opens; when Aila backs off, however, it closes and opens when she approaches it again - the door responds to Aila's presence and she does not know why. Nova asks if Aila recognises any of her surroundings - she replies with an uncertain 'not really' and appears awkward. She says that she feels like she had seen the words 'Aegis V' before; Lucius asks if Starbane is her dad, Aila replies angrily in the negative saying she does not know who her father is, but it is not Starbane.

The door leads into a corridor that curves off to the left and right in a ring shape away from the room, there is another smaller metal door in the wall directly opposite them. Like the room they just left. the corridor is made of black crystal with a thin line of purple crystal around the bottom. As they enter the corridor, a crackling voice is heard, startling them, *"Parts of this station have suffered critical damage. Lower ring and docking bay cannot be accessed. Head towards your nearest escape route"*. The voice appears to be male and female at the same time, the volume increases and decreases, it completes the sentence once, appears to begin repeating the warning, then stops. There is a discussion about whether they should immediately evacuate or whether it is safe enough to explore for a while - Nova says it should be safe because they know there is an Eterna providing power for gravity and breathable atmosphere. Aila approaches the middle door and it opens to a shorter corridor approximately 8 feet wide, the corridor goes for 50 feet before ending at a door that has been jammed open by metal struts, beyond which is a dark circular chamber.

The party discusses the fact that it looks like other people have been here, and that they do not know how long the ship has been in this condition: there is no sound from anywhere else on the station in this corridor other than the noise they are making themselves and the music they had heard faintly in the other room - it is louder now and is clearly coming from down below. They decide to head east (left out of the portal room) along the long corridor until they get to the eastern side of the ring where a large pair of double doors leading to the outer side of the ring has been broken open leading into a large open room: metal shutters cover the wall opposite the door, and in the room is a long table with metallic chairs - on the table are several broken slates of crystal, one is half-broken and flickering with a strange glow and runic symbols, there are parchment maps (with an odd red hue) showing some sort of citadel or tower that has rings around it, and there is a closed door that leads to a southern section. The citadel on the map looks like a long cylindrical tube with a large ring around the top and another around the bottom, stretching out from the centre are many prongs which connect to two huge curved metal shields on the outside (it looks like a space station) - on the page then note some writing, 'Schematics - Aegis V - outer hull': there is a note around the centre of the station that looks to be sectioned off and is labelled 'Eterna'.

Aila moves to the door in the south of the room, but this one does not open for her: the crystal at the side of the door flashes red. Lucius picks up the half-broken crystal slate and shows it to Nova who casts Comprehend Languages, Quill casts Detect Magic. The red gem that Nova had picked up glows magic, the slate that Nova is looking at has a minor magical enchantment, and the station as a whole has a very strong magical aura about it. Nova attempts to make sense of the runes on the tablet (made of different crystal to the walls of the facility), and gets the sense that the crystal tablet is connected to crystals of a similar make and that the runes are similar to those used by Illusory Script to send messages, but it looks like more of an information storage and information transfer unit: the words that she can understand are 'officers', 'door', 'lock', 'Praxis' and 'Vard'. Sentry looks through the rest of the papers on the desk: there are documents dealing with troop movements and old battle plans that rely on geography on Aerois that would have existed before The Sundering: they refer to large open fields called Goldenfields which used to exist when Aerois was one continent, with whatever is left now being part of Suvonna. There is also a battle plan for a meeting that has long since passed; Sentry takes all these documents and Nova takes the schematics for the outer hull of Aegis V. It appears that this station was damaged and has been in this condition since before The Sundering. The party chooses this room in which to take a long rest: they notice the music stops after ten minutes, then begins again after a couple of hours, but is a different song: this one is about loss of home and the reason to fight. Quill casts identify on Nova's red gem: it is an elemental gem of fire.

Nova whispers 'Praxis Vard" to the door in the south wall and it opens: this leads to a smaller room with bunk beds, wash basins, storage units and food stores, they also find three sets of military uniforms, two for females and one for a male, they would fit humanoids. The uniforms are jumpsuits (a pair of trousers with a built-in vest top) with purple and black slashes and vertical stripes around the shoulders, and they come with a matching hat: they are Starbane uniforms, depicting a sword with a broken star around it. Along with one of the female uniforms there is a cavalry sabre in a sling with a scabbard, there is also a crystal pendant that appears to match the crystals beside the doors, and built into the wall is another crystal slate with a runic keyboard - the slate is humming and appears to be powered. Lucius dons one of the uniforms and takes the crystal pendant.

Nova asks Helios if there is a way to reverse corruption once an Eterna is corrupted, and he says he is not sure but that Ellessandra's research likened it to undeath, especially vampirism, and that he believes it may not be possible to reverse it, but if there is, they do not know it, and even the gods themselves cannot undo vampirism. Helios says that the pain and anguish that he is feeling from the Eterna makes him want to destroy it rather than try to undo the corruption. He also says that while the Eterna provides power for the ship, it is not constant, but provided in bursts. Lucius promises Helios that once he gets his own clothes back, he will destroy the jumpsuit, of which Helios approves.

### **Part 2**

*The derelict Aegis V holds a few surprises for the party!*

Nova casts Comprehend Languages and looks at the crystal screen - it is made from the same crystal as the slates - it uses a version of the spell Illusory Script to write, code and store messages on some sort of magical network: the messages can be stored, recalled and sent to anyone else using a crystal slate (what Mark calls iMail - illusory mail). There are three messages on this terminal that can be accessed by anyone as well as two others that Nova cannot access because they need authorisation (saying Praxis Vard to the screen does not work). The three messages that can be accessed contain (1) information about an upcoming deployment to Aerois, an attack on a place called Goldenfields (a food source location in the southern central part of the continent) saying to be prepared at 0800 hours and assemble in the docking bays, (2) notice regarding punishment for stealing rations, punishments are quite severe, and there is a reminder that only adherence to law keeps us civilised, and (3) appears to be a circulated bulletin of news from the front: *"The 27th Fleet has succeeded in stemming the Hadar-spawn tide and evacuating Gildlan and Landor. The Eladrin courts have sworn fealty to Emperor Kalus and joined the Starbane Empire"*.

Nova has Lucius tap the screen with the crystal pendant to see if he can unlock the two protected messages, but it does nothing; she asks Aila if the names Gildlan or Landor mean anything to her, but they do not. She says that the name of the citadel, Aegis V, produced a faint, half-memory though. Nova gets Aila to touch the screen and to say "Praxis Vard" to it, but nothing happens. Quill identifies the crystal amulet - it functions much like a key, and the doors would recognise the person and admit them. Lucius takes the sabre to complement his current outfit, then goes back into the meeting room, stands on the table and practices his swings - he is reminded of the lessons he took for sky jousting, but slips and accidentally stabs himself.

They leave the room and continue around the ring, noticing that the officer's room that they had just been in was at the south end almost opposite to the portal room. There is another door on the southwest of the outer side of the ring which is open when they pass - it looks as if this door has been deliberately and methodically removed from its frame. From this doorway, they start to hear noise: the occasional clang of metal and the high-pitched hiss of steam in a somewhat regular pattern.

Sentry sends Echo in to investigate - it shows her that this room has been ransacked, but in a methodical manner: parts have been pulled out and sections cut away, tools have been left lying around and there is a puddle of blue glowing goo. In the middle of it all is a small, blocky, squared figure - it is a construct with a clamp for one arm and a blowtorch for the other, and he is disassembling parts of the room then throwing them on the ground (as if its job is deconstruction, not cleaning). Whatever it had been deconstructing is now down to the framework, and it is now cutting the frame. It sees Echo, then turns back and continues what it was doing. Sentry reports what she has seen back to the group. The party is not sure how it will react to people, so Lucius decides to go in wearing his Starbane uniform: the construct turns to look at him, then goes back to what it was doing. It does not respond when Lucius speaks to it, and when he stands in front of it, the construct attempts to work around him rather awkwardly. Quill estimates that from the speed with which it is working and the amount of stuff on the floor, that it has probably been working for about a week, but that it also has not been working alone from the other tracks and drag marks on the floor, and it seems to be the only construct left, pointlessly carrying out its last orders.

They carry on around the ring to one last closed door which has a strange symbol on the door - Quill, Nova and Sentry think this is a medical symbol. When they open the door, it leads into an octagonal room with clean white walls and four glass chambers built into the opposing wall to the entryway. There is a smell as they enter, and they immediately notice the body of a slaughtered sahuagin priestess in a pool of dried blood on the floor: the throat has been neatly cut, and she appeared to have been looking in the direction of the glass tanks. On examining the tanks, they see three of them contain the bodies of sahuagin in various stages of growth: the first contains a small hatchling, the next contains an adolescent, the third contains a muscular, powerful-looking adult sahuagin, and the last tank is empty. The tanks have blinking lights and flashing devices on them. Aila goes very quiet when she sees the glass tanks. The one in the third tanks looks similar to the rifle-bearing sahuagin they had fought as elite warriors before, but not like the merrow or the necromantic one.

Nova recognises that while the tanks are still active, whatever was being used for life support has been shut off, and that all the creatures within the tanks are dead. Aila moves to the empty tank and runs her hand along the inside of it where there is a faint patterning - Sentry asks if she is OK, and Aila responds that she is, but this is weird - as she looks to the top of the tube and the bottom, seems perturbed, kicks it, then backs off. Quill says that he has never seen anything like this, and asks Aila if she has: she says that she keeps getting weird flashes of stuff like the white patterning on the inside of the tube saying that it's like she has seen it before - she has been inside one of the tubes with somebody looking at her from the outside, but it's odd because there is no way she has been here and she does not know anything about this stuff. Lucius asks if Aila was experimented on which she denies, saying that she grew up in the forests on Aerois, and she remembers being a little kid with her oldest memory being that of her wanting beer that they would not give her because she was tiny. She says that it is weird because the memory she is getting of the tank is of her as an adult, almost as if she was in there now.

The party, having completed the investigation of this level, move to the dark area in the centre of the citadel - it looks to be about 400 feet down, and at the bottom it breaks away, open to the debris field and the stars and emptiness of Astral Space: the bottom part of the citadel has been separated from the station and is floating in the debris field. Above them is open space and a door with no way to access it; below them are some crudely-fashioned, ramshackle spiral stairs that lead down the outer wall to a door about 200 feet down. There are crystal buttons on the wall, but when pressed nothing happens, and they notice some grooves inside the cylinder as if something once moved up and down (presumably some type of lift or elevator): at various points down the shaft are doors. The staircase is out of place in this structure: the metal looks like it has been salvaged and used to make a jury-rigged and hastily-built staircase while the rest of the citadel is immaculate and incredibly well-built. Tiangong and Helios are aware that the Dark Eterna is in a room about 200 feet down - there is a doorway with a soft light emanating from it about 200 feet down the central shaft, and Quill can see that there is also one other door that is open on the way down.

Nova decides to investigate the upper door, so gets the crystal pendant from Lucius, casts Levitate and pushes out into the shaft: she notices that there is less gravity than on the outer ring. The door opens but it struggles to do so, and after some assistance, it opens into a curved room with banks of desks with crystals embedded into them: there are no shutters here, but a large translucent glass window showing the debris field, Aerois and Astral Space. A few of the crystal tablets flash with lights, and a large chair sits in the centre of the room facing the large window - it appears to be a command centre. The music from below cuts off and is replaced by a joyful, up-beat melody without lyrics. Nova investigates the command centre and notes some ASCII maps of the old Aerois supercontinent on some of the crystal screens, a couple of locations are marked on these maps. She also notices a number of crystals with writing underneath them on the consoles: one is marked shielding, another docking bay, and another is simply marked 'ILS'. She presses the crystal marked 'docking bay' and hears a faint hum, but nothing happens, so she leaves.

There are five doors between where they are now and the power core (where the Eterna is), and door three is open on the way down (the rest are all closed). The stairs only connect the two open doors - the closed doors are on the opposite side of the shaft. The first open door leads into a very dark room that seems to be mostly empty except for some huge metal coils that go from ceiling to floor: in the middle is a flat metal disc and crystals embedded in the ceiling. Sentry sends Echo in to scout the rest of the room: as in the Rosewater Lake ship, they seem to be storing some sort of violet energy - they glow with power and are connected to the central disc. Written on the side of the room at the back are the letters ILS in large writing. Nova does not think that the ILS was activated from what she saw in the command area.

They make their way down to the base of the stairwell, and the music gets louder and louder as they get closer to the open doorway. The music is strange to them - there are synthetic sounds, beeps and whistles, and coloured light seems to be spilling from the door. Just before they reach the doorway, it stops softly and is replaced with the beautiful choral music they heard when they entered. Helios tells them that to destroy the corrupt Eterna they will need magic, preferably non-elemental in nature.

Sentry sends Echo into the room - Echo sees a large square featureless room, at the far end of the room is a sectioned-off chamber with a containment unit: it has a Starbane-tech base and a glass canister around it, inside of which is a silvery axe crackling with black energy. In front of the chamber, coiled up on a serpentine tail, is a beautiful piscine-like woman with long tentacle-like hair strands holding her hands up and singling to it, as if in prayer or singing a hymn. Around her are dried-out husks of sahuagin collapsed on the ground around her: they look like they have been partially turned to ash and melted away. Somehow, her voice is amplified, and it is clear that she is the source of the singing that the party has been hearing, while the music is coming out of nowhere that they can identify. Echo cannot see any weapons on the woman, and just before it returns, the singing stops - the woman turns, sees Echo and smiles, then returns to her former position and begins singing again.

Sentry tells the party that there is a priestess in the room singing to the Eterna, and that she appears to be a snake woman - Nova wants to know if this is Xarkira, but Sentry does not know. Nova believes that Xarkira is a snake woman because her emblem is a snake coiled around a spear. While they are discussing this, the lights that were on in the upper ring go out. Sentry asks Helios what they should do: he says there is only one thing to do, he doubts that this is Xarkira, but if it is a servant of Xarkira, he wants revenge for them killing his people and the guardians. While they are debating what to do, both Nova and Sentry feel an alien presence, almost as if something has latched onto their connections with their own Eterna, and they hear "hunger...feed...must feed...need more...need more..." Helios tells them that they either do what must be done or die here as heroes: Aila moves into the room with the rest of the party following.

As they enter, the sahuagin priestess finishes her song, falls quiet, and turns to face them "So... welcome! I must admit, I was quite curious what you might do when you entered the citadel. Ah, forgive me! I forgot that I'm still wearing this ridiculous disguise..." and her body transforms. The serpentine-like features peels away and is replaced by orange, red and golden light as a beautiful woman dressed in rich red and orange silks draping off her body, delicate shoes and a beautiful head dress resting around her shoulders - she is elven with pure gold eyes and her skin is the colour of caramel. "I am so happy to see you!" she says, "You have no idea how boring these sahuagin have been. I thought I was going to be stationed here for *ever.* Ugh. Hi!!"

Quill asks who she is of Starbane's forces; she tells them that there is one big Empire, and that they are in space. She thinks Aerois is boring because they are trapped on the planet and cannot go anywhere. Lucius points out that she was singing to the Eterna, but she says that she wasn't singing to it, but practicing for her concerts, her performances. She gets the idea that the party think that she is crazy, but she says that she is not Hadar-touched: sometimes people from "backwards planets get a bit culty with Hadar and they start embracing his dark magic" which causes some strange things to happen. She says that the dead sahuagin on the floor were a necessary sacrifice so that she could power up Silveredge (pointing to the axe). Lucius asks if this was to fight Hadar, but she says it was a different mission (but she is not going to tell the party what it is) and that preparing the sahuagin to attack Aerois was part of it but was really just a nice bonus for Emperor Kalus. Nova asks her name: this is Shansara of the Diplomatic Corps: she had been appearing as Xarkira to the Sahuagin. She then directs the ILS to shut the blast doors, and the doors behind them slam shut - Nova asks what ILS stands for and she tells them cheerfully, "Illusory Leadership System". Shansara then asks the ILS to manifest where they are.

The air shimmers in front of her and a form appears: dark black armour laced with purple, long black dark hair, a powerful masculine form - it looks like Kalus Valkyrian. It tells the party that they are not authorised to be aboard the citadel and complains to Shansara that she should not have removed the security forces - Shansara says that she will deal with the party. When questioned what that means, she says they will have to die or join the Empire, and she clearly has a way off the citadel. Lucius tells Shansara that her mission makes no sense - if the Emperor is trying to use Aerois to fight the threat, killing civilians is pointless. Nova says that he is turning the triton into monsters for his army, but Shansara says that a lot of civilians will have to die because Aerosians are stubborn and will not give in because Siaska told them to fight Starbane. Nova says that Starbane should try to tell people about Hadar, but Shansara says that he has tried that before; Nova is surprised because when she tells them about Hadar they look at her like she is crazy. Shansara tells her that Siaska instilled her beliefs in Aerois and her titans (your gods) - they continue the message even though they are kind of weak now, and the people of Aerois just don't want to accept things that go away from doctrine because they are kind of stupid. She says that until people see Hadar, no one really believes in it; Nova says that she believes in Hadar at which point Shansara says that if she is that clever, she should join the Empire (despite the fact that they will have to kill a lot of people she knows and take over her planet).

There is further discussion after which Shansara asks if any of them is important: Nova says that they have a guardian, but Shansara says that Kalus has killed lots of guardians and he will not be impressed. Sentry takes this personally and is ready to swing her axe, which Shansara is happy to see and tries to goad Sentry into taking the first blow. Lucius asks where Shansara is from, she tells him a planet far away from where they are, that her people tried to fight back against what they saw as an invasion from the Empire, but eventually, after about 200 years, her world gave in after there was revolt from people like Shansara to join the Empire instead. She was not expecting Aerosians to find her on the station, and says that they must die because she cannot risk word getting out of what she was doing. Nova asks what race she is, and Shansara tells her that she is a Summer Eladrin. She waves her hand and the image of Kalus vanishes. She tells them that hearing Kalus speak about defeating Hadar, and Xarkira being so into the whole galactic tyranny thing is amazing. Lucius asks Shansara if she has ever met Kalus' daughter, but she says that he does not have a daughter; she says she is not in direct communication with him because he is busy and about to take over Aerois.

While she is talking, Sentry casts Misty Step to stand in front of her and swipes at her with the axe: it goes straight through the illusion. When she re-appears, two drones made of Starbane tech appear next to her and hover around her: one appears to have a ranged weapon underneath it, the other seems to have a strange magical device attached to it. Lucius casts Elemental Bane on Shansara, she then sings a song at him doing a small amount of psychic damage. Shansara begins to sway, dance and sing, casting Otto's Irresistible Dance and Sentry cannot help but dance along with Shansara. Nova casts slow on the drones and Shansara (who succeeds on her saving throw). Aila moves up and attacks Shansara with her hammer which damages her on the first attack and breaks her concentration on the spell affecting Sentry, but Shansara reacts and teleports before the second attack can hit - she blasts Aila with fire. Sentry casts moonbeam on Silveredge: Sentry summons a column of energy down onto the Eterna's chamber and the whole citadel reverberates - the containment glass begins to crack, and the Eladrin advises Sentry to stop because it will be bad. The first drone moves to attack Quill but misses - it has marked him for its next attack; the second drone turns to Aila and hits her with a small amount of force damage. Quill casts Spiritual Weapon on Shansara, but it misses, and hits the drone attacking him with Sacred Flame for a small amount of damage.

Shansara calls to the ILS for some help, and suddenly four red beams of light appear from the roof and sweep through the chamber - they do not affect the drones or Shansara, and only hit Sentry... to be continued next episode.

## **YouTube Timestamps**

00:00 - Fan Music "Guardian in the Wildlands" by Jack Ledsham
05:12 - Episode start
12:57 - Dun Duns
13:53 - Recap
16:26 - Part 1
52:00 - Kim pleases Daddy Mark
1:00:03 - Is Starbane your dad?
1:28:40 - Break time/Donations
1:34:00 - Part 2
2:54:57 - Outro/Donations
2:56:54 - Fan art video

## **Featured Characters**

#### **The Stormchasers (Player Characters)**

* Aila (played by Mark)
* Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto
* Nova V'ger
* Qillek Ad Khollar
* Sentry

#### **New NPCs**

* Shansara
* Silveredge

#### **Mentioned NPCs**

* Hadar
* Kalus Starbane
* Xarkira

## **Featured Locations**

* Aegis V astral citadel
* Sea of Broken Stars
	+ Coldlight Depths

## **Trivia**

* Tom asks if, in the context of Aerois and planes, whether they are now on a different plane. Mark explains that Astral Space is the space between planes because planes are planets in this universe. He then says that Astral Space counts as a demi-plane, so when casting spells like Sending, there is a chance that the spell will fail.
* Praxis Vard appears to change later to Praxis Val.
* There had been references to Echo being destroyed, but Sentry has the ability to repair it at a cost of 10g.
* Mark confirms that Quill's Eye will recharge 7 days after the last charge is expended.
* When Nova refers to Xarkira as "a snake woman", Mark looks away from the players to the roof with a smile on his face which Kim finds suspicious.