Volume 6, The Darkest Timeline 5 - The End and a Beginning

Part 14 - The Asteramid of the Lost

• Shin sends his owl up to check on the dragon and determines that it was most likely killed by another dragon.
• The Thanes take shelter within the entrance to the Asteramid and remove some of their levels of exhaustion. Shin and Gamble discuss Gambles wish and Shin provides some insights that have come to him about Arpeggio based on his reading of Gamble's memories. Specifically he points out that while the lady of mirrors says that a piece of Gio is missing, the piece is there but it does not fit. Additionally Gamble believes that the mirror knight may be the third child.
• The party follow a daubed message on a wall down to the crypt beneath the asteramid. Within they spy a metal gate locked with a circular plate that is engraved with hieroglyphics. Next to this is the word "Tahlia" written in Takode.
• Before they can decipher the glyphs, they are beckoned to present themselves to the hags awaiting them in the main chamber of the crypt. There they meet the red hag Afreeyah and her coven, two sand hags that look like twins (Tirnak and Dis).
• The Thanes bargain, and the Afreeyah agrees to provide them with the bottle in exchange for the Thanes subjecting themselves to a ritual in which they confront their worst fears. The hags feed on fear and pain and will enjoy the experience.
• The party have an hour until the ritual so Karnak and Nieve poke around the crypt finding that a number of sarcophoghi are topped with an assortment of objects that relate to fallen thanes (an alagrian military sword (Rhobur), a set of dwarven berserker axes (Helda), a viol with broken strings (Arpeggio), a set of scales out of balance with one plate full of ash (Karu), a weight designed to prevent dead bodies rising, marked with a Ochi Olochi (Rhathgar)).
• Petryan and Jed poke around a study and find some remaining pages from something called the book of Kek. In chapter 13 they find out more about the spawning stone and realise that Vendari may in fact be the second born creature in all creation, Ygorl the slaadi lord of entropy.
• Gamble and Shin decipher the hieroglyphs on the metal gate and discover the prophecy of the thanes, written out in its entireity in some form of psychic text that appears as the reader's own handwriting.
• With the hour up, the Thanes head into the ritual chamber where they illusory walls separate them out into their own little segments in which they can see their nightmares being conjured forth by a crystal ball set in the centre of the room.
• While the others experience their worst fears, Nieve is visited by none other than Vendari who stuns her with a despicable word and steals the Ring of Illumination.
• The Hags laugh at their misfortune and promise the Thanes that the hag's master will bring about an end to all things. However, bound by their deal they provide the Thanes with a key, created out of a giant canine.
• The Thanes take the canine to the giant skulls in the main chamber and use it to open a hidden room, in which they find the djinn bottle. Gamble enters the bottle to try and obtain the wish. The Thanes chase after Vendari, hoping to either stop him or hold him at bay to buy their friend some time.

Part 15 - The Darkest Hour

• As the Thanes run up the asteramid, they hear the familiar sound of Vendari's ritual to summon an avatar.
• As they enter the top chambe of the asteramid, they watch as Vendari transforms a tarnished Brass Dragon named Shkiv into a Void Dragon. It breathes star fire and heads off to bring about an end to all things.
• Vendari, now revealed to be Ygorl, Lord of Entropy, explains that he has summoned 6 Avatars of the elements and energies, which when all present on Ara will bring about its destruction as their powers sprial chaotically out of control.
• Ygorl explains that he needs to summon the Avatars from locations related to the planes of energies and elements. He says he will let the Thanes watch the end of the world and that they have front row seats, but then realises that Gamble may be able to thwart his plot by resetting the timeline.
• Ygorl reveals that they are all on the moon, Elreyna as he ends the sandstorm. The Thanes are able to watch the end of Ara play out in real time. Jed tries to sneak off a shot at Ygorl and combat breaks out.
• The Thanes battle on against their terrifying foe, but discover to their dismay that it is all in vain. The fight is chaotic with many surprising twists and turns, most notably Karnak returning to life as a human thanks to a mysterious hony potion.
• As the Thanes all begin to fall, they discover that Ygorl is sustaining them in a state between life and death, so that they can watch as Ara falls to chaos:
• In Coatl, wildfires rage across the once lush jungles; the Spice Islands are lost, one by one, to a colossal tsunami; darkness spreads across Alagria, blotting out all colour and light; Ebrion breaks apart under the seismic force of multiple earthquakes, across the Northen Realms, storms clouds blot out the continent and ravage the land with lightning, in the Everwinter, the great glaciers begin to shred apart under a barrage of radiant energy.
• Meanwhile, whithin the bottle, Gamble meets the djinn and discovers that not only has he been locked in there for over 3,500 years, he experiences a year's worth of time for every hour he has been in the bottle and therefore to him it has been over 30million years. He has no desire to keep the world going.
• Back at the end of the world, the Thanes hold hands and watch helpless as the Ara begins to tear apart at the seams and chaotic energy warps reality. The end is coming.
• As they watch Afreeyah the hag returns and hands the djinn bottle to Ygorl. As he goes to destory it, Shin, realising that the Hourglass of Paradox has now run down, turns it over. Time stops in place and the Thanes are visited by the Astral Projections of their Primeline selves, who swoop in to make one last strike against Ygorl to prevent him from destroying the bottle before Gamble can make her wish.
• After a back and forth, Gamble discovers that the djinn refused the original wish on the grounds of trying to protect the world. She convinces the djinn that if he allows the world to end, then the last 30 million years of his life would have been in vain, but agrees that she will return to him within a year and a day of getting back to the primeline and either free him or end him.
• The Primeline Projections strike true, striking a mighty blow to Ygorl that stops him in his tracks, allowing Hiroto the owl to steal the bottle away.
• As reality itself begins to crumble and the universe hurtles towards its end. Gamble makes her wish, to return to when she first bargained with Umberlee so that she can renegotiate the terms of her deal.

Part 16 - A New Deal

• Gamble is pulled back through her past to every meeting with Umberlee, until at last she finds herself, astrally projecting, hovering over a past version of herself. A frozen moment in time where she and Umberlee first met.
• An astral projection of Umberlee appears and the two begin to talk. Umberlee congratulates Gamble on successfully making the wish and shows no remorse for her actions.
• As the two begin to negotiate, Umberlee tries to argue that as she won't take the year in this version of the timeline she is still owed a year. However at that point Arawn appears before the pair and announces that she will be the arbiter of this deal.
• The negoatiations continue and it is agreed that Umberlee has taken her year and will keep the memories of it, but will not be able to take any further time.
• Additionally, the versions of Umberlee and Gamble that experienced the Darkest Timelines will be sealed within their primeline selves so that their knowledge about the future will not affect the correct flow of time.
• It is agreed that once Umberlee goes to take the year, not only will she discover that she is unable to, but both she and Gamble will regain their memories of the Darkest Timeline and this new deal in full.
• Gamble decides that after Umberlee's actions she no longer wishes to associate with the demi-god. It is agreed that once their memories are returned, Umberlee will have no further hold over Gamble but Gamble will retain none of her warlock powers.
• As the pair are sealed away within their own minds, Umberlee takes the opportunity to issue a suggestive threat about Gamble being on the open seas in the future.
• Hidden away within her own mind, Gamble watches time unfold as it originally did. Over time the last vestiges of the items she carried with her from the darkest timeline begin to disappear.
• As these items melt away, the last to go is the Ring of Mind Shielding, and Serap Ustasi reaches out to Gamble. He says he wishes to be of assistance within the Primeline but will likely not believe what she would say to him.
• Serap tells Gamble that in order to get his Primeline self to believe her, she must do the following: stand within a zone of truth and tell her tale, but also reveal that she knows a secret known only to Serap and his son Vahzi, that his pet name for his wife was "Tahlia".
• Gamble watches the rest of her time unfold until at last, she finds herself at the point before she left the Primeline. She awakes with a start as all of her Darkest Timeline memories are returned to her Primeline self. 
• As she takes returns to her senses, Karu grabs her by the shoulders and says, "You did it!"