Opening Act

"**Opening Act**" is the first episode of Windrose Everlasting. In the city of Bluebell, a mysterious and chaotic robbery is undertaken as an elaborate scheme begins to weave.

## Summary

The episode opens with a flashback set twenty-eight years in the past. A variety of armored knights are sitting in a small auditorium in Bluebell, as one of their member walks up to the stage and begins to speak. As the speech begins, the narration describes film crackling, as if the scene is being watched on a rudimentary projector. The knight on stage talks about the One Week War, and how it seems like the world is coming to an end. He asks the gathered knights if they want to hear his solution, and they respond in approval. The knight on stage then announces that he is "giving up", before walking offstage. Then, remembering something, he rushes back onstage and continues the speech as if nothing happens.

The knight declares that he has issued three main "tactics" to help save Windrose from its current state of affairs. He declares the end of humanity as a unique racial category, calling for all bloodlines to be treated as a single race for the purpose of further unity among the various factions and states of Windrose. He also establishes the Ars Tellum initiative to begin the disarmament of magic items across Windrose, imploring all of the city states to assist in this initiative. He announces that his friends at Aranea have agreed to assist him with the initiative, and giggling can be heard from behind a camera, another nod that this scene is being watched on a projector. Finally, the knight announces that he is declaring the previous Age of Thought to have come to an end, and that the Windrosi government is declaring a new Age of Afterthought, along with a new calendar.

After the speech, the scene fades out to the same auditorium, but twenty-eight years later, where it has now been turned into a bar. A man backstage watches the previous scene on an Aranean television, before checking his notes and coming out onstage. He begins his speech with some romantic rhetoric, but is ignored. He then decides to jump off the stage and adopt a more bombastic persona, talking to random bargoers and asking them personal questions about their family lives and lineages. When one man tells him he's proud of his son, a musician, the orator responds approvingly, talking about how knights and bandits aren't as much of a problem anymore, and people are free to be musicians if they want.

Before he can finish his speech, a banging sound is heard as a torrent of people rush through the doors of the bar. Yarzen and Gerardia, along with two mysterious cloaked companions, rush through the bar, harassing the bargoers as they are pursued by two Aranean guards. They cause a decent amount of property damage as they run backstage and out through a back entrance, into the streets of Bluebell's Eighth Tempo. Yarzen shoots his gun at the guards and Gerardia throws a variety of objects at them, including "pocket grime", a carpet, and hot steam. They make their way across the Eighth Tempo until they come to a large, load-bearing tower that holds up some of the higher Tempos. Yarzen jumps on Gerardia's shoulders and pushes up the bar holding the gate shut, and the two enter the tower.

Within the tower, they discover shelves of ledgers and stored junk. The tower itself has strange physics, with walls and hallways refracting off of each other like a kaleidoscope or a broken mirror. Yarzen mentions that this seems like the work of a UHS. They make their way down the hall, complaining about Aranea, before confronting their target: a Distortion Giant holding a broken gold pocket watch. The two talk about how cruel it is for Aranea to keep the monster in here for the purposes of holding up their weird tower before engaging the Giant in combat. The Distortion Giant hits Yarzen and throws him into a bookshelf, placing an effect on his spirit that will kill him instantly in a few minutes. Yarzen jumps forward and shoots the Giant, allowing Gerardia to stab it before he is also thrown into the same bookshelf by the giant's blows. Gerardia's knife deals a finishing blow, killing the Giant and saving Yarzen from the brink of death. They pick up the UHS and leave the tower.

Outside the tower, the pair reconvenes with their hooded companions, telling them to make a distraction before heading off in the opposite direction. Suddenly, Aranean guards drop down from a higher tempo on bungee-cord like structures, ambushing Yarzen and Gerardia. An Aranean security officer and the Red Knight also drop down. The security officer begins questioning the two, but neither of them will speak anything of value. In the middle of their conversation, the Red Knight uses an unknown ability to summon a cavalcade of lightning that kills both Yarzen and Gerardia instantly. The security officer, frightened, backs away and tells his underlings to inspect their bodies for the UHS, but they don't find any trace of it.

The perspective shifts to the top of a train in the wastes outside of Bluebell, as it is revealed that the hooded figures had the UHS all along. One of them takes off her hood, revealing herself as Selene, and the other follows suit, revealing himself to be Sprout in their Ned form. An Aranean helicopter descends on the train as guards make their way to the top. The two fight against the guards before coming to a tunnel, and after ducking down, they continue the fight in the tunnel, eventually getting rid of all the Aranean guards and outrunning the helicopter as the train comes out of the tunnel to a much greener area. After a brief conversation, the Red Knight strikes the train with lightning as well, but Selene manages to grab Ned and jump out of the way before they get killed.

## Characters

### PCs

* Selene
* Sprout

### NPCs

* Slimy Orator
* Yarzen
* Gerardia
* Red Knight

## Trivia

* This episode is the longest episode of Windrose Everlasting by a wide margin, clocking in at one hour and seven minutes, compared to most other episodes' twenty to thirty minute runtimes