Session 11: Flame's Last Shadow

General Summary

The Foundation found themselves immediately embroiled in combat with the High Cardinal DeRoche and Ser Corbyn, the goliath templar, inside the Shrine of Siberys in Thaliost. With Marcella and Yelena pacified by the Cardinal, the fight seemed tough from the get-go. And things got worse.
Essex side-stepped to Bal and, without warning, attacked him with a stiletto. As he did, his skin shifted and changed revealing a doppelganger in his stead. With Yelena and Marcella pacified, and Turk in the corner protecting the Shadow documents, it was 3-on-3 and the odds were not in the Foundation’s favor.
Corbyn unsheathed his massive greatsword, a dark steel sword that then wreathed itself in flames just like the Emberime. Corbyn then said that he is interested to see how Emberime will fare against its sister-sword, the Umbrapyre.
Despite taking a few blows, the Foundation managed to survive long enough for Marcella and Yelena to break from their pacification. However, DeRoche proved to be tricky, casting a flame sphere to appear amidst Bal, Yelena, and Rasp as well as mirror imaging himself to make it harder for them to hit him. It also seemed that DeRoche didn’t care much for the health of his companion, letting Corbyn take hit after hit.
As things started to turn dire, the Foundation heard footsteps coming from the stairs. Essex burst into the shrine, immediately turning into hybrid form and attacking Corbyn, ripping his throat out and sending him to the ground. Behind him also strode Flamewatcher Monast, who attacked DeRoche.
DeRoche then summoned three of the lighted guardians the Foundation had seen in the Pale Palace whose breath attacks caused Bal and Vax to freeze solid. Vax succumbed to the ice, going unconscious as the water froze across his body. Rasp managed to get a healing spell off, bringing him back from the brink. Essex broke Bal out of the ice while Vax creatively used shape water to unfreeze the ice surrounding him.
DeRoche then used the flame sphere to cast darkness which spilled out over the battlefield, allowing only himself and his lighted guardians to see via their silver fire. In the confusion, DeRoche used the flaming sphere to ram into Rasp, Bal, and Essex and Bal went down. Essex took a gamble and threw a healing potion to Rasp in the darkness, who managed to catch it. In a single move, Rasp found Bal on the ground and cast healing word, bringing him back to consciousness, and drank the healing potion to keep himself standing.
As the lighted guardians also fell, DeRoche took on a new form: wreathing himself in the power of the Silver Flame, he became consumed. Doing so also negated the flaming sphere and darkness, clearing the shrine. But this was all too little too late. As Vax maneuvered back into the fray, he heard a whisper coming from the dragonshard skull he held. “Shatter it,” it said in the voice of Keeper Jaela. Begrudgingly, Vax smashed the skull against the wall, shattering it into pieces.
From the shards came two figures: Keeper Jaela herself and Tira Miron. Tira, quickly fading, strode up to Yelena and asked to have her sword again. Yelena gave her Emberime which she quickly lit and faced the Cardinal.
Tira said, “I’m sorry that you’ve succumbed to the same fate I once did. We’ll both meet the same end.” With that, she hit DeRoche with a heavy slash from the sword. Keeper Jaela then raised her hand and pulled the Silver Flame’s energy entirely from DeRoche’s body, leaving a weak, beaten old man.
Essex then stepped up to DeRoche and opted to shift back into his human form before taking a dagger and stabbing DeRoche in the heart. There in that small shrine, Thrane, as the world knew it, fell.
In the aftermath, Tira was quickly aging, time catching up to her outside of her prison. As she began to fade, Yelena took her hand. Tira smiled and handed Emberime back to Yelena saying, “Use that sword for good.” Yelena responded, “I will.” With that, Tira faded to dust.
The Foundation took a collective breath and began to gather things up and tie up loose threads. Jaela dispelled the magic keeping the glass partition protected and Vax smashed the glass panel allowing him to enter the small alcove where the Siberys Dragonshard Skull sat. Jaela, as she knew she must, picked up the skull and smashed it on the ground. As she did, a pillar of white-silver fire shot up above them before subsiding into a small, flickering tongue of flame perched atop the small pillar that had held the skull before.
Marcella and Rasp helped Turk gather and organize the documents left by the Shadow here. Rasp noted a few things from the documents on the desk:

• A number of documents were signed by a Collis Huntington
• Several records reference not just the Dragonshard Skull, but other relics that were collected, tested, and ultimately sent to “the Vault” for safekeeping.
• The person who signed off on many of these things in an official capacity was someone named Alton Faust.
• This Alton Faust also thanked Collis for holding onto a key to the Vault in his estate in Sharn.

Marcella took to collecting and looking through half-burned documents in a bin, clearly meant to be destroyed outright. She found the following:

• Three names of relics that had been found and tested and were either already sent to the Vault or were going to be moved at some point: Primarch’s Eye, Incog of Gideon, and the Seal of House Vol
• The last date on a document found throughout the outpost is 2/20/992, the day of the Mourning
• A file half burned in the trash has a photograph pinned to it. It is grainy, but seems to show two figures in Cyran military uniforms: a man and a woman. The page details Captain Maksimillion Vetrov and notes him as a possible recruit for the Operative program. It also begins to detail his relationship with the Cyran Princess, Natalya ir’Wynarn also in the photograph. The man looks exactly like Operative V without his mask, and the woman looks exactly like Yelena.

Marcella manages to pocket the file without anyone noticing and helps pack up the rest for Turk. Yelena also takes a moment to take Monast aside and ask her what she meant by her cryptic message back on the riverboat. Monast still dances around saying it outright, but says that she is aware of who she is, but no longer thinks it necessary for Yelena to keep Thrane in mind. Thrane is going to change for good very soon. Bal, however, overhears the conversation and Vax notes that it is taking place.
Vax scoops up the remaining dragonshard remnants which will sell for a pretty penny. He picks up 6 of the Eberron dragonshards, each worth 50 crown. He also picks up 10 of the Siberys dragonshards, each worth 200 crown, for a total of 2300 crown, if sold to a reputable dealer. Bal also takes 250 crown off of DeRoche and Corbyn as well as one gold and 4 platinum rings. He also takes Corbyn’s greatsword, the Umbrapyre.
As the Foundation begins to leave, they notice that Jaela is staying behind. Despite the Foundation’s urgings, she elects to stay at the shrine. She is still connected to the Flame and, even without the church, will administer what she can to those who keep the faith. She’ll also contact her family and have them come to Thaliost. Before they leave, Bal gives Jaela their rune-address for her to contact them if she needs them. Jaela says that she might just send them a letter for fun anyway.
Back in the city center of Thaliost, Monast goes to leave the group, but stops before peeling off. She will not ask the Foundation to hide the truth about the Church, but she does ask for a grace period of one week so that she can put together a semblance of a government to stand when the Church collapses. Monast also gives the Foundation her rune-address so they can let her know before they go public, however they decide to do so.
With that, the Foundation heads for the Lightning Rail station at the White Arch Bridge and books passage on the Cargo Liner for Sharn, a mere 50 cr a piece, draining the last of their money from the Aurum. The ride is not luxurious, but it is simple. Bal and Marcella build a cushion fort to pass the time and Turk scans through the documents he found.
The Cargo Liner takes the Foundation all the way to Grand Mesa Station in Sharn. As they step off the liner, Turk takes Yelena aside. He says that the Shadow had a file that might interest her, but as he goes to find it, it seems to be missing. Despite this, he tells Yelena that he knows who she is and wants to know if he can help. Yelena denies this and tells Turk to stop talking before walking away.
The Foundation finally makes it back to Sharn and to their offices in Upper Tavick’s Landing where they are met by Kharkan, Hackett, and Vivienne who orders them a nice welcome-home meal after they all clean up. The Foundation lets Vivienne know about the Shadow, the path to the Dragonshard skull, and the Shadow Outpost in Thaliost, deciding to leave out the issues with the Church, the truth, and Thrane’s eventual demise. However, Vivienne recognizes the name Collis Huntington and tells the Foundation that he is a wealthy and relatively newly-elected City Councilor. Getting into his estate will not be easy, but Vivienne will work on that and find a way for them to get in without attracting suspicion.
During the meal, Vax notes that Vivienne is now wearing silver Aurum rings, denoting a promotion within the organization. She also seems to be able to intuit when the Foundation wasn’t telling her everything, but she did not push the issue. She also promises that, now with their safe return, she will send her assistant, Anton, with their payments the next day.
Later, Yelena goes to Turk’s desk and sits, ready to continue the conversation. Turk asks if any of Yelena’s siblings also made it out of Metrol, revealing to Yelena that he was an information broker and knows that the entire royal family was in Metrol on the day of the Mourning and that, if her and her brother made it out, it seems likely that her other siblings did too. Yelena says that they are safe, but Turk tells her that he knows information brokers and that this information is more than likely to come out soon. He wants to know if he can help keep her secret, and therefore her family, safe by going back to his family and infiltrating it. That way, he can try to bury any information about her and her family that comes through. Yelena tells Turk that she will think about it, but Turk tells her not to wait too long. The Turks are likely already looking for him and it will look better if he comes to them.

Report Date

08 Nov 2020

Primary Location

Thaliost