ToA: Session 43

## **Movers and Shakers**

Thanks to the sudden boom of an ungodly loud noise, the Squad rush out of the structure, only to see Artus barely holding onto Dragon Bait, who is hanging over the edge of the wall. The Squad hurry over and help pull DB back up to safety, or at least relative safety. It was only a few moments later, hardly enough time to ask Artus what happened, or find any solid source of the sound, when a wave of malaise hits everyone. Birds fall from the sky, Fargus buckles and coughs up some strange, indescernable substance, and sensing the danger of being outside, the group hurries back into the probably just as dangerous structure. DB offers to give the group what protection he can, and the squad hurries to work on the Titan Warforged, to do whatever they can to stop the oncoming catastrophic failure of the safety measures on it. While Fargus goes to check the tools, and Daedalus on the components, Neb tries tapping the amulet they had found to the front of the titan warforged. As they do, something happens and the world around them suddenly shifts.

## **A Link to the Past**

As if they had always been there, the Squad find themselves in the trenches of the war, fighting off a Kaarnathi charge and attempting to get into the city across no-man's land. Fargus is back to exactly where he was in the past, where he felt like everything made sense, while Neb looks down to notice he is in the form of Kelly Harkdat, a female dwarf persona he had not used since the war. Distracted by the vague feeling of misplaced de javu, the group is hit by a barrage of magic missile and fall back into the trenches. Kelly feels like something is wrong, and vaguely remember the oncoming charge, but it seems misplaced. Daedalus seems misplaced too, and in a moment of clarity he attempts to leave a note to Artus and Dragon Bait, who are nowhere to be seen. But the reality starts to overtake some part of their senses and they know thye need to get to the city. Kelly convinces one of the commanders to cast pass without a trace on the group, and they rush towards the other side of no man's land, where they are met with the charge of undead kaarnathi forces. They maneuver their way through until they can jump into the safety of the trenches across the way. They were Cyran originally, but had been dug into and overtaken by kaarnathi. Inside they find prisoners of war, whom they free and rally to fight with them as they charge through the trench, clearing it out of the wretched kaarnathi soldiers. After Daedalus and Fargus charge forward into the fray, Neb is soon to follow, only to pause as one of the soldiers warn him that something is off about Daedalus. They tell him about how he heard some rumor about how he was part of some strange mission that no one but him came back from. With that offputting information said, Kelly hurries to the fight, eventually leading to the collapse of the trench, burying and blocking off the kaarnathi from the Cyran soldiers.
The group climb out of the trenches, only to be hit by a fireball, and forced to run into the safety of the city. As they do, the wind changes, and the trees around them look strange.

## **A Burning Problem**

The group finds themselves walking through the trees of the kaarnathi forest. Something about the trees is wrong though, the wood makes no sense, it is mangrove wood, but this barely registers as they feel the wands of fireball in their hands and come upon the sight of the civilians pulling carts of food and supplies from the city. They have to stop them, and Fargus is ready to fire upon. Kelly feels like something is wrong though, they are just civilians, letting open fire on them would be savage. She convinces Daedalus to a different plan. They will block off the path to the army, and scare the civilians into running in the opposite direction, then take out the unmanned carts.
Daedalus fires at the belltower to grab their attention, while Kelly fires behind them to create a wall of fire cutting off their route. But things go wrong, and in the end in addition to destroying the carts, the fireball incinerates a number of civilians with them. Kelly realizes something is wrong, feels it in her head that these memories do not fit, and sees two dolls made of mangrove wood before looking down to see she has become Dainar Færine.

## **Recruitment Day**

The group is suddenly in the town of Sant Galen, on the steps of the town hall, backed by a row of Valenar mercenaries, and faced with an audience of the townspeople, there to be recruited, willfully or otherwise. Dainar knows it this time, this is fake, this is an illusion. Instead of speaking to the people he turns to Daedalus to convince him it is fake. As Daedalus uses his real name, a name he should not know at that point in time, Neb latches onto the inconsistency and manages to get through to Daedalus. But Fargus, trying to get them back in line and doing their duty is another story. Neb tries again, he takes hold of Fargus, tells him to look up into the sky, to see the red chord. For a moment, Fargus is arrested by what he sees, but in a moment of lucidity he breaks away from it and goes deeper into the fantasy, setting the mercenaries on the towns people and going onto the hall away from the others. Neb and Daedalus push open the mangrove door to follow him, only to end up outside, in a forest of mangrove. This time, Neb is a form he never meant to take again, Meya Thornsong.

## **A Link between Worlds**

The three stand in view of a manor, their mission to assassinate the enemy commander in Solstrom. Fargus is in charge of carrying the prototype weapon they will be using, a stolen piece of technology from a secret mission Serrano had been on. A weapon that is said to be able to destroy the entire manor in one fell swoop. Inside are six Cyran POWs, countless civilians, and Commander Castigne, who is there in attendance of the wedding being held for his old professor's son. Meya convinces Fargus to let her examine the weapon, the strange bomb, and from it she feels necromantic energy. Pure, distilled emptiness and a terrifying, merciless, endless rage. Knowing this was not the target, not the assassination, not the right place, Neb breaks through the illusion once again, and realizes waht he is holding is the spirit bound in the Titan Warforged. He tries to speak to it, and is struck by it. He manages to hold against the psychic onslaught, and reaches it. It is called Thindlethorn, the Treant Lord of the Mangrove. Its spirit was trapped and bound inside of the Titan Warforged, and inside of it is held an entity tricked into being bound to it, to be a source of destruction.

As Neb looks into it, he sees a sliver of the corrupted reality that had spilled from the coiling serpents in the sky, and the illusion breaks, bringing them back to the structure, where the entity is holding Fargus in its grip. Its voice sounds through the air.
"You are worthy of great destruction and endless rage..."

**Will the Squad be able to calm the rage of this great spirit? Will Fargus be robbed of the final shreds of sanity he has? Will they have to sacrifice their dwarven companion to survive? Find out next time on Tomb of Annihilation!**