The End of the Beginning Report

General Summary

The party enters a tense discussion in the alley beside The Last Stop with Jonas while Wendell holds Rastos captive. Although Jonas continues to pry about the nature of his lost memories of the party, and seems to understand the concept of the time loop having been placed upon the city, refuses to fully trust the party or sway from his service to Thalia. However, he does react peculiarly to the mention of the name Valerius, just before the Shadowfell merges with the Material Plane for a harrowing minute of combat with Jonas and Wendell as they attempt to escape into the city. This time, with the Shadowfell merged with the Material Plane for longer than a brief blip, everyone in the radius of the shift appears to be rapidly dying. Specifically, each person's life energy seemed to be draining from them at a rate of 1 HP per 6 seconds. As the encounter dragged along, only Jonas managed to escape, slinking into the shadows and leaving Wendell to be swiftly demolished at the hands of an angry Rastos. Max and Torren quickly followed up by investigating his crumpled body, discovering more information about the possible creation and enhancement of Wendell's form from a time period as old as pre-Dragon War. After thoroughly searching through Wendell's things and scrapped metals, the party heads to the Vitruvian University, in the Tradewind district, where Torren had spotted a raven attempting to lead them. It was here that the Shadowfell merged again, this time causing many more people to fall unconscious, and a few to even die. Meanwhile, Doyle manages to piece together the true purpose of the runes they discovered in The Court of Knives, and with the help of the party, the four locations that the runes correspond to are determined just before the Shadowfell merges once again. Many more people die during this much more violent convergence, but with Max's vitality cannon, they are able to escape unscathed, heading toward the Valerius mansion in the final moments of daylight that are left. It is here that Max finally confronts his past, discovering the true circumstances of his arrival at the Valerius mansion via a strange white cloaked figure of few words. This mysterious figure had apparently brought Max to the family when he was less than a year old, and passed along a ring and a note as well. The letter simply read, "Dear Samuel," and paused as if it were intending to say more, but was followed by a blank page. After these emotional revelations, everyone died. And then they sat up, awake in a field of flowers just outside of Menkalinan proper at the break of day.

Campaign

Elemental Chaos Campaign

Protagonists