Titans' Folly #8: The End of an Era
General Summary
The adventurers and their allies fight through the city until they reach the Warped Tower at its center. As they get there, they watch as hordes of aberrations and demons pour forth. Syllin asks Ariel to charge into the abyssal forces with her, and his blade shimmers as he rushes to slaughter these beings of darkness. The rest of the party runs into the entrance of the tower in a long hall that leads to the rising beacon of warp in the center of this damned city.
As they enter, the door closes behind them as two warp teslas in the corners activate and the sounds of chains coming loose from the other end of the hall resound in the ears of everyone. Looking down the hall, the group sees a collection of barrels and multiple cages with tortured animals within them.
As it seems like something is about to happen, Bear rushes forward and prepares for anything that is to come. Coming to a window is a twisted crystal-covered Skek who sees everyone, and everyone hears in their head that they shouldn't have come here.
Then, a mass of flesh, a warp spawn, rushes at Bear and grievously strikes into him and another follows up. This fight continues with Skellybob and Hope rushing to fight the beings and the Skek abomination, but everyone else finds themselves stuck behind a barrier and unable to help.
Many of them manage to summon things beyond the wall and Gratorr and Luthrin both manage to teleport out. The fight ensues with Luthrin rushing to kill Skek. Skek manages to get a flame of change off on Hope causing her to become magically deformed.
Then, Skek tries to get away from Luthrin, but Luthrin strikes out, instantly beheading this abomination. This led to them fighting the warp spawn as they greatly injure many of the adventurers and kill some of the creatures in cages, but the mounds of flesh were eventually killed.
Bear has some crazy occurrences, freeing a chained up monkey and watching as it pulls at its cheek with a crystal growing from it. He then looks through barrels finding vials of green liquid, sharp instruments, and body parts.
Next, they enter what seems to be some kind of torture room, and a warp tesla knocks Bear unconscious, but with the aid of his allies, the tesla is destroyed and Bear is saved. The group then all stay in this chamber and begin investigating it.
In the chamber, they find instruments of torture. On an alchemy table, they find more of the green liquid and blueprints for interchangeable weapon parts. They investigate a table that seems to be some kind of place to collect liquid and/or simply torture or experiment on creatures.
After a short while, the group have readied themselves to ascend the tower. In this time, Kriv manages to use his abilities to cure Hope of her deformity, so that is no longer an issue, and Bear sneaks up to the next room and sees numerous fogged over tubes with the green liquid within it. Seeing not much else, the rest of the group comes up.
As they attempt to figure out if they can seal up the tubes, Hope hears the slightest of thumps come from one of the tubes. The group prepare for a fight if anything comes bursting out of the tubes either now or follows them as they rise up the tower. Then, Luthrin notices as a humanoid face comes close to the edge of the tube. They smash it open and see as a corpse of Luthrin's old friend falls out.
They look around and rub the condensated fog off the tubes to see more and more humanoid figures slowly oscillating in each of the tubes. They look here and see many people in these tubes. They climb up the tower and find another room filled with people. They reach the next floor and find more. As they keep rising they just see more and more people in tubes.
Finally, the group hears the sounds of combat above them out in the open air. Bear sneaks up and sees another adventuring party being killed before being spotted himself and the group run up after the head of Contessa, an old ally of Sanguine Sunrise rolls down the stairs.
There is a tense confrontation between the new Olympians and the Dreus who stand upon platforms above them, but eventually, the Prince calls a dragon of change to breathe fire upon everyone. Thus a battle between two Destinys, the Daughter of the Sea, the Prince, this dragon of change, and these new Olympians began.
The dragon moves in and breathes eldritch energy, hurting many of the Olympians. Destiny continues to harm the Belmont siblings by forcing them to view her constructed future. The Prince rushes down to strike Luthrin, and after doing so, teleports away to a warp beacon.
Bear climbs up the ladder to fight the Daughter, but she strikes him over and over, ending this fight by stabbing him through the heart as this valiant warrior dies to the avatar of Disease. Meanwhile, Luthrin summons stars to throw out, grievously wounding the Prince with these tiny glaives of light. The dragon flies around and shoots flame upon the Olympians while Destiny continues to cause harm to all.
The Prince jumps down and strikes at Luthrin and Kurt with his tentacle onslaught but does not teleport away. Luthrin retorts by throwing another star at him, killing him. As his body and blade fell to the ground, the aspect of debauchery rose from him. Luthrin cuts through this aspect, destroying it, and the dragon of change flies away.
Next, Luthrin and Hope fight Destiny at the top of the ladder. She manages to greatly wound Hope over and over, but Kurt manages to turn him and Hope into dinosaurs for a moment, letting them live for a bit. However, the Daughter and Destiny strike out, causing them to return to their humanoid form.
Luthrin strikes the Daughter near death, but it causes many of the warp beacons to deactivate. Again, she is struck a deathblow, deactivating another large number of beacons. Then, Hope strikes the Daughter with her axe, killing the Daughter. Immediately, the aspect of Disease rises and possesses Hope.
This is terrifying to all, but as Hope notices her body being overtaken as a new form of Dreus, she releases a burst of flame, causing the aspect of Disease to be released. Immediately, Luthrin tosses Sanguine to Hope, and she slays that aspect.
Then, the group kills Destiny's simulacrum. The group now focus on the last of Dreus' avatars, Destiny. This fight goes on with many nearly dead. Gratorr and Kriv manage to fire magic upon and kill Destiny. The aspect of destiny then enters Kriv. The group works together to kill their friend in order to get rid of this aspect, but it then immediately possesses Kurt. Finally, Luthrin kills Kurt, getting rid of this aspect of Dreus and finally ridding him from this world at the cost of the death of a loved one.
Incidentally, killing Dreus causes the warpstone of the tower to pop and break as it did back in the Fey after the tree was freed of its corruption. This was dangerous as much of the tower's structural integrity was comprised of gargantuan warpstone structures, so the tower began to fall. Hope grabbed Kriv's corpse and ran from the falling tower. Luthrin casts fly upon himself and carries Kurt's body down. Gratorr leaves behind Bear and Skellybob's bodies, and he gets carried to the ground by Syllin.
Once upon the ground, the group sees the fallen Ariel and others, but with Blackstaff's help, they teleport to Waterdeep. Blackstaff begins leading them out of his tower and towards a person he may know to help. As they step outside, they see a schism in the sky slowly close for maybe the last time.
The group finds Blackstaff's clerical ally, Ogmar of Oghma. Ogmar obviously has a distrust for Luthrin but agrees to help bring the two back. In doing so, Kurt is brought back via revivify, but this does not seem to work on Kriv. Thus, the group begins the process of raising Kriv from the dead.
Hope entreats her brother to come back from all of this, an honest and heartfelt plea to someone she is close to. Luthrin lies to the spirit, telling Kriv he is needed to kill Destiny. Finally, Kurt prayed to his god to bring a new dawn to this poor figure.
The group waited, unsure if the soul would return or not. They sat, with bated breath, to hear Kriv once again. Then, they heard him. They were alive. These new Olympians had mostly survived, and they had won, but in a city far away, remained the body of their ally and friend, dead for his aspirations and alacrity. A hero same as them, and one who helped change the lives of every one of these new Olympians.
Gratorr, Syllin, and Kriv, along with some unknown heroes return out to sea and save Nix from their father and rid the world of this corruption of the depths. Gratorr sees as this vile lich breathes his last breath that his crew has finally found their way to rest. Kriv and Syllin look out towards the ocean and see as even in its thunderous rage, there is a calmness that wasn't there before.
Meanwhile, Kurt returned to Baldur's Gate-soon joined by Gratorr- looking for Bear, the animals, Skellybob, and the gun parts. They search and they search for a long while, digging through the rubble of the fallen tower. However, they don't manage to find any living being within this debris. Luckily, Gratorr does find the broken bits of Skellybob's gun.
At this time, a greyed, no longer fueled by fiery rage Hope, ventures out, but she now does so without the sparkle in her eye of the thrilling adventurer's lifestyle. She leaves the old lands of the Empire as they slowly return to their city-state lives as only Remnants of the Empire remain. Her journey stops in Triel where she finds her burnt childhood home, a warning to those who would stand against the Empire. She pushes her way through this charred memory, looking at old rooms, and finding somewhere an old painting of the Belmonts all smiling, years before her, Kriv, Syllin, or Zoe were forced to kill to protect the worlds they believed in. She travels to Elturel and sees the Companion and hears how happy the people of the city are, and she knows that there is still light in this world to be given even if she lost her friends and loved ones who weren't standing with her to kill Dreus.
She begins following in Simon's legacy, taking in displaced children and giving them a place to stay. Eventually, Luthrin arrives and asks Hope to help out at an orphanage named after the Belmonts. She hesitantly accepts, and returns to Waterdeep to help more and more people, preaching a life of peace and happiness, standing firmly against the idea of her legacy being that of rage and turmoil. Although she may have been one of the people to save the world, the rest of her life, Hope believes that her largest benefit to the world was helping these children lead better lives than she could.
Luthrin, taking some notes from Arborea, finds the Crimson Jewels, led by the remaining Archons. He allies himself with the First Archon and they use the organization to fight against discrimination, bigotry, and poverty, preaching a belief in the living themselves, rather than some sanguine god. However, Luthrin finds that his connection to these artifacts has cause to kill people from time to time simply due to its existence. They do all they can to help despite this, and Luthrin finds that they can do good despite the darkness that found them since they were a child. They can fight and protect and watch as life changes for the better at moments where no one would have done the same for them.
She does all of this while standing with Kurt who continues to pursue a relationship with her. Together they speak and they help one another in all they can in life. Both have received a new dawn and both are luckily still together.
As for Kurt's own journey, after failing to find Bear or gather the animals to continue Bear's aspirations, he returned home. He found that his mom was dying but still alive, and he was welcomed back. Their blessing had worked, and he did right by them, and his mother was well enough to show happiness and pride for what her son had accomplished. Upon her death, Kurt returned to the large cities of the world and started a criminal rehabilitation and bail fund program. His life was spent tirelessly to bring a new light to those who came into contact with the darkness of the world. Thus, Kurt and Luthrin stood together and did all they could to walk brightly into the dawn.
A small bard girl, survived in Waterdeep despite the darkness in her family. This young Sandy went around Waterdeep helping people. Going to the orphanage named after the Belmonts she met Hope and they formed some small friendship as both these figures put a past behind them to help children that deserved it. Sandy went on helping people for the rest of her life with that kind disposition she always had and a hope for a brighter future filled with laughing and song.
While she was working at the orphanage, she noticed as the High Paladin of the Companions entered the building. This of course was a reborn group after the old Companions had fallen, and its leader was new blood. A blue Dragonborn of the Goddess of the Ocean here to see his sister. She found it funny how the two siblings bickered about war and its necessity, and she could not help but burst out laughing when the High Paladin exclaimed that he now had two warhammers.
You see, after freeing the ocean from its corruption, Kriv knew nothing more than the fighting he had done, and it was all he felt like he could ever do, so with Syllin by his side, he set out to follow the legacy of a young Simon Belmont. They returned to Elturguard and with their knowledge, they rekindled the flame of the Companions under that shining sun. Together, these siblings would protect their home and protect what they could of this realm. These two companions and all who would join them would shine brightly in the darkness and bring light wherever they could.
Similarly, a plague doctor in their home was already free and working when Luthrin arrived to ally themself with the Crystal Jewels. Alex was a priest of Kelemvor believing strongly in life and its importance before death and provided aid wherever they could. Together with the Jewels this person who long ago saved a child from a deadly disease in Waterdeep found themself working with that child's killer to make the world a better place. There they stood, a guiding hand of life that would walk others calmly to their death when the time came. A light in darkness and an old friend never forgotten.
In the Mere of Dead men lies a patch of mushrooms upon dead ground. At some point, they had an organism to infest, but after the Bastion came through, now there only lies a single patch holding on to survival through their dark purpose. Meanwhile, a soul lingers in the abyss, now a great demon under their Queen of Fungi. This demon stares into the abyss, watching as it churns and shifts as the layer that once housed a great palace twists and turns and crumbles into that inky black darkness; everything crumbled into that all consuming darkness that one can never return from.
All around, watching everything that has transpired, is a curious spirit. In life, she was so curious and full of emotions expelled in moments of intensity. Now, in death, she travels, and she sees, and when someone is near producing a great innovation at the temples of Gond or in a hidden workshop, a spirit is there to whisper the correct ingredients and help create something new. A spirit of curiosity filled with strange and beautiful thoughts travels the realms, and she is happy.
This spirit watched Gratorr for a time, that once friend in life. She watched as he returned to his manor. She helped as he began crafting some strange guns. Then, she let him be as he created his naval mercenary group and sailed the seas protecting, profiting and privateering for the rest of his life.
With Syllin, Gratorr, and Kriv gone, Nix stayed where they were. There was so much life on this island that they never knew. Since they could form memories, their father had been that thing, and the people of the island had been his puppets. Now, it was Nix's responsibility to bring life here. To help the animals and thralls whose lives had been so different before. This child, born from a familiy's darkness was burdened with responsibility, yet to Nix, they only knew that they had to do what was right, and so, Nix stayed and did what was right, washing away the mistakes of blood and creating a beacon for those lofty ideals that kept them strong in those times of darkness.
At the same time was another person of good ravaged by a darkness not her own. There she sat under a large tree and smiled with her friend, Gennal. There those two sat, protecting nature as the city, the power, everything changed around them. This woman once saw creatures pour into that ocean, but when Dreus was killed, she saw that slit in the sky close, and she knew her vision had been averted or was long past. Now, she could rest after the pain brought upon her by a life of trying to change things and people she knew little about. There she rested with friends, in an arboreal paradise, touched by, but never infested with the darkness of this world.
Finally, lost to the world, was a bugbear at the bottom of a tower. The body laid, found by animals, seen by those he once sought to provide homes. The body lost to time of a hero who died to protect those mighty beasts of the world. The beasts somehow knew this, and they honored this hero. They dragged his body out of that rubble and into the wood. They let him rest away from that hustle of people entering this ruined city. They let him rest away from the sun or anything like it that would surely burn brightly upon this fallen man. They let him rest, and they honored him in their own ways, as a monkey with a greatly scarred face put his fingers upon the face of that man who had fed and freed him, and then, the dead man's eyes finally closed.
Many years down the line, Gratorr's adventuring and some number of health problems caught up to the aging loxodon, seeing him die sooner than he had anticipated. The rest of the Olympians came for a funeral, and they saw each other and they knew. They knew that whatever their beliefs were in that time or what they were now, they did what was right when they freed the world from Dreus.
And thus ends this tale. A tale of strange beings. A tale of a few people entering a strange city and its strange inhabitants simply looking for a home. A tale of those consumed by darkness destroying a corruption that threatened to engulf those filled with light. A tale of tyranny and deceptions with truth now laid upon all. A cycle was finally ended, and that semblance of peace found those heroes who suffered for their good deeds. Now, everyone knew, the Reign of Dreus is over.
As they enter, the door closes behind them as two warp teslas in the corners activate and the sounds of chains coming loose from the other end of the hall resound in the ears of everyone. Looking down the hall, the group sees a collection of barrels and multiple cages with tortured animals within them.
As it seems like something is about to happen, Bear rushes forward and prepares for anything that is to come. Coming to a window is a twisted crystal-covered Skek who sees everyone, and everyone hears in their head that they shouldn't have come here.
Then, a mass of flesh, a warp spawn, rushes at Bear and grievously strikes into him and another follows up. This fight continues with Skellybob and Hope rushing to fight the beings and the Skek abomination, but everyone else finds themselves stuck behind a barrier and unable to help.
Many of them manage to summon things beyond the wall and Gratorr and Luthrin both manage to teleport out. The fight ensues with Luthrin rushing to kill Skek. Skek manages to get a flame of change off on Hope causing her to become magically deformed.
Then, Skek tries to get away from Luthrin, but Luthrin strikes out, instantly beheading this abomination. This led to them fighting the warp spawn as they greatly injure many of the adventurers and kill some of the creatures in cages, but the mounds of flesh were eventually killed.
Bear has some crazy occurrences, freeing a chained up monkey and watching as it pulls at its cheek with a crystal growing from it. He then looks through barrels finding vials of green liquid, sharp instruments, and body parts.
Next, they enter what seems to be some kind of torture room, and a warp tesla knocks Bear unconscious, but with the aid of his allies, the tesla is destroyed and Bear is saved. The group then all stay in this chamber and begin investigating it.
In the chamber, they find instruments of torture. On an alchemy table, they find more of the green liquid and blueprints for interchangeable weapon parts. They investigate a table that seems to be some kind of place to collect liquid and/or simply torture or experiment on creatures.
After a short while, the group have readied themselves to ascend the tower. In this time, Kriv manages to use his abilities to cure Hope of her deformity, so that is no longer an issue, and Bear sneaks up to the next room and sees numerous fogged over tubes with the green liquid within it. Seeing not much else, the rest of the group comes up.
As they attempt to figure out if they can seal up the tubes, Hope hears the slightest of thumps come from one of the tubes. The group prepare for a fight if anything comes bursting out of the tubes either now or follows them as they rise up the tower. Then, Luthrin notices as a humanoid face comes close to the edge of the tube. They smash it open and see as a corpse of Luthrin's old friend falls out.
They look around and rub the condensated fog off the tubes to see more and more humanoid figures slowly oscillating in each of the tubes. They look here and see many people in these tubes. They climb up the tower and find another room filled with people. They reach the next floor and find more. As they keep rising they just see more and more people in tubes.
Finally, the group hears the sounds of combat above them out in the open air. Bear sneaks up and sees another adventuring party being killed before being spotted himself and the group run up after the head of Contessa, an old ally of Sanguine Sunrise rolls down the stairs.
There is a tense confrontation between the new Olympians and the Dreus who stand upon platforms above them, but eventually, the Prince calls a dragon of change to breathe fire upon everyone. Thus a battle between two Destinys, the Daughter of the Sea, the Prince, this dragon of change, and these new Olympians began.
The dragon moves in and breathes eldritch energy, hurting many of the Olympians. Destiny continues to harm the Belmont siblings by forcing them to view her constructed future. The Prince rushes down to strike Luthrin, and after doing so, teleports away to a warp beacon.
Bear climbs up the ladder to fight the Daughter, but she strikes him over and over, ending this fight by stabbing him through the heart as this valiant warrior dies to the avatar of Disease. Meanwhile, Luthrin summons stars to throw out, grievously wounding the Prince with these tiny glaives of light. The dragon flies around and shoots flame upon the Olympians while Destiny continues to cause harm to all.
The Prince jumps down and strikes at Luthrin and Kurt with his tentacle onslaught but does not teleport away. Luthrin retorts by throwing another star at him, killing him. As his body and blade fell to the ground, the aspect of debauchery rose from him. Luthrin cuts through this aspect, destroying it, and the dragon of change flies away.
Next, Luthrin and Hope fight Destiny at the top of the ladder. She manages to greatly wound Hope over and over, but Kurt manages to turn him and Hope into dinosaurs for a moment, letting them live for a bit. However, the Daughter and Destiny strike out, causing them to return to their humanoid form.
Luthrin strikes the Daughter near death, but it causes many of the warp beacons to deactivate. Again, she is struck a deathblow, deactivating another large number of beacons. Then, Hope strikes the Daughter with her axe, killing the Daughter. Immediately, the aspect of Disease rises and possesses Hope.
This is terrifying to all, but as Hope notices her body being overtaken as a new form of Dreus, she releases a burst of flame, causing the aspect of Disease to be released. Immediately, Luthrin tosses Sanguine to Hope, and she slays that aspect.
Then, the group kills Destiny's simulacrum. The group now focus on the last of Dreus' avatars, Destiny. This fight goes on with many nearly dead. Gratorr and Kriv manage to fire magic upon and kill Destiny. The aspect of destiny then enters Kriv. The group works together to kill their friend in order to get rid of this aspect, but it then immediately possesses Kurt. Finally, Luthrin kills Kurt, getting rid of this aspect of Dreus and finally ridding him from this world at the cost of the death of a loved one.
Incidentally, killing Dreus causes the warpstone of the tower to pop and break as it did back in the Fey after the tree was freed of its corruption. This was dangerous as much of the tower's structural integrity was comprised of gargantuan warpstone structures, so the tower began to fall. Hope grabbed Kriv's corpse and ran from the falling tower. Luthrin casts fly upon himself and carries Kurt's body down. Gratorr leaves behind Bear and Skellybob's bodies, and he gets carried to the ground by Syllin.
Once upon the ground, the group sees the fallen Ariel and others, but with Blackstaff's help, they teleport to Waterdeep. Blackstaff begins leading them out of his tower and towards a person he may know to help. As they step outside, they see a schism in the sky slowly close for maybe the last time.
The group finds Blackstaff's clerical ally, Ogmar of Oghma. Ogmar obviously has a distrust for Luthrin but agrees to help bring the two back. In doing so, Kurt is brought back via revivify, but this does not seem to work on Kriv. Thus, the group begins the process of raising Kriv from the dead.
Hope entreats her brother to come back from all of this, an honest and heartfelt plea to someone she is close to. Luthrin lies to the spirit, telling Kriv he is needed to kill Destiny. Finally, Kurt prayed to his god to bring a new dawn to this poor figure.
The group waited, unsure if the soul would return or not. They sat, with bated breath, to hear Kriv once again. Then, they heard him. They were alive. These new Olympians had mostly survived, and they had won, but in a city far away, remained the body of their ally and friend, dead for his aspirations and alacrity. A hero same as them, and one who helped change the lives of every one of these new Olympians.
Gratorr, Syllin, and Kriv, along with some unknown heroes return out to sea and save Nix from their father and rid the world of this corruption of the depths. Gratorr sees as this vile lich breathes his last breath that his crew has finally found their way to rest. Kriv and Syllin look out towards the ocean and see as even in its thunderous rage, there is a calmness that wasn't there before.
Meanwhile, Kurt returned to Baldur's Gate-soon joined by Gratorr- looking for Bear, the animals, Skellybob, and the gun parts. They search and they search for a long while, digging through the rubble of the fallen tower. However, they don't manage to find any living being within this debris. Luckily, Gratorr does find the broken bits of Skellybob's gun.
At this time, a greyed, no longer fueled by fiery rage Hope, ventures out, but she now does so without the sparkle in her eye of the thrilling adventurer's lifestyle. She leaves the old lands of the Empire as they slowly return to their city-state lives as only Remnants of the Empire remain. Her journey stops in Triel where she finds her burnt childhood home, a warning to those who would stand against the Empire. She pushes her way through this charred memory, looking at old rooms, and finding somewhere an old painting of the Belmonts all smiling, years before her, Kriv, Syllin, or Zoe were forced to kill to protect the worlds they believed in. She travels to Elturel and sees the Companion and hears how happy the people of the city are, and she knows that there is still light in this world to be given even if she lost her friends and loved ones who weren't standing with her to kill Dreus.
She begins following in Simon's legacy, taking in displaced children and giving them a place to stay. Eventually, Luthrin arrives and asks Hope to help out at an orphanage named after the Belmonts. She hesitantly accepts, and returns to Waterdeep to help more and more people, preaching a life of peace and happiness, standing firmly against the idea of her legacy being that of rage and turmoil. Although she may have been one of the people to save the world, the rest of her life, Hope believes that her largest benefit to the world was helping these children lead better lives than she could.
Luthrin, taking some notes from Arborea, finds the Crimson Jewels, led by the remaining Archons. He allies himself with the First Archon and they use the organization to fight against discrimination, bigotry, and poverty, preaching a belief in the living themselves, rather than some sanguine god. However, Luthrin finds that his connection to these artifacts has cause to kill people from time to time simply due to its existence. They do all they can to help despite this, and Luthrin finds that they can do good despite the darkness that found them since they were a child. They can fight and protect and watch as life changes for the better at moments where no one would have done the same for them.
She does all of this while standing with Kurt who continues to pursue a relationship with her. Together they speak and they help one another in all they can in life. Both have received a new dawn and both are luckily still together.
As for Kurt's own journey, after failing to find Bear or gather the animals to continue Bear's aspirations, he returned home. He found that his mom was dying but still alive, and he was welcomed back. Their blessing had worked, and he did right by them, and his mother was well enough to show happiness and pride for what her son had accomplished. Upon her death, Kurt returned to the large cities of the world and started a criminal rehabilitation and bail fund program. His life was spent tirelessly to bring a new light to those who came into contact with the darkness of the world. Thus, Kurt and Luthrin stood together and did all they could to walk brightly into the dawn.
A small bard girl, survived in Waterdeep despite the darkness in her family. This young Sandy went around Waterdeep helping people. Going to the orphanage named after the Belmonts she met Hope and they formed some small friendship as both these figures put a past behind them to help children that deserved it. Sandy went on helping people for the rest of her life with that kind disposition she always had and a hope for a brighter future filled with laughing and song.
While she was working at the orphanage, she noticed as the High Paladin of the Companions entered the building. This of course was a reborn group after the old Companions had fallen, and its leader was new blood. A blue Dragonborn of the Goddess of the Ocean here to see his sister. She found it funny how the two siblings bickered about war and its necessity, and she could not help but burst out laughing when the High Paladin exclaimed that he now had two warhammers.
You see, after freeing the ocean from its corruption, Kriv knew nothing more than the fighting he had done, and it was all he felt like he could ever do, so with Syllin by his side, he set out to follow the legacy of a young Simon Belmont. They returned to Elturguard and with their knowledge, they rekindled the flame of the Companions under that shining sun. Together, these siblings would protect their home and protect what they could of this realm. These two companions and all who would join them would shine brightly in the darkness and bring light wherever they could.
Similarly, a plague doctor in their home was already free and working when Luthrin arrived to ally themself with the Crystal Jewels. Alex was a priest of Kelemvor believing strongly in life and its importance before death and provided aid wherever they could. Together with the Jewels this person who long ago saved a child from a deadly disease in Waterdeep found themself working with that child's killer to make the world a better place. There they stood, a guiding hand of life that would walk others calmly to their death when the time came. A light in darkness and an old friend never forgotten.
In the Mere of Dead men lies a patch of mushrooms upon dead ground. At some point, they had an organism to infest, but after the Bastion came through, now there only lies a single patch holding on to survival through their dark purpose. Meanwhile, a soul lingers in the abyss, now a great demon under their Queen of Fungi. This demon stares into the abyss, watching as it churns and shifts as the layer that once housed a great palace twists and turns and crumbles into that inky black darkness; everything crumbled into that all consuming darkness that one can never return from.
All around, watching everything that has transpired, is a curious spirit. In life, she was so curious and full of emotions expelled in moments of intensity. Now, in death, she travels, and she sees, and when someone is near producing a great innovation at the temples of Gond or in a hidden workshop, a spirit is there to whisper the correct ingredients and help create something new. A spirit of curiosity filled with strange and beautiful thoughts travels the realms, and she is happy.
This spirit watched Gratorr for a time, that once friend in life. She watched as he returned to his manor. She helped as he began crafting some strange guns. Then, she let him be as he created his naval mercenary group and sailed the seas protecting, profiting and privateering for the rest of his life.
With Syllin, Gratorr, and Kriv gone, Nix stayed where they were. There was so much life on this island that they never knew. Since they could form memories, their father had been that thing, and the people of the island had been his puppets. Now, it was Nix's responsibility to bring life here. To help the animals and thralls whose lives had been so different before. This child, born from a familiy's darkness was burdened with responsibility, yet to Nix, they only knew that they had to do what was right, and so, Nix stayed and did what was right, washing away the mistakes of blood and creating a beacon for those lofty ideals that kept them strong in those times of darkness.
At the same time was another person of good ravaged by a darkness not her own. There she sat under a large tree and smiled with her friend, Gennal. There those two sat, protecting nature as the city, the power, everything changed around them. This woman once saw creatures pour into that ocean, but when Dreus was killed, she saw that slit in the sky close, and she knew her vision had been averted or was long past. Now, she could rest after the pain brought upon her by a life of trying to change things and people she knew little about. There she rested with friends, in an arboreal paradise, touched by, but never infested with the darkness of this world.
Finally, lost to the world, was a bugbear at the bottom of a tower. The body laid, found by animals, seen by those he once sought to provide homes. The body lost to time of a hero who died to protect those mighty beasts of the world. The beasts somehow knew this, and they honored this hero. They dragged his body out of that rubble and into the wood. They let him rest away from that hustle of people entering this ruined city. They let him rest away from the sun or anything like it that would surely burn brightly upon this fallen man. They let him rest, and they honored him in their own ways, as a monkey with a greatly scarred face put his fingers upon the face of that man who had fed and freed him, and then, the dead man's eyes finally closed.
Many years down the line, Gratorr's adventuring and some number of health problems caught up to the aging loxodon, seeing him die sooner than he had anticipated. The rest of the Olympians came for a funeral, and they saw each other and they knew. They knew that whatever their beliefs were in that time or what they were now, they did what was right when they freed the world from Dreus.
And thus ends this tale. A tale of strange beings. A tale of a few people entering a strange city and its strange inhabitants simply looking for a home. A tale of those consumed by darkness destroying a corruption that threatened to engulf those filled with light. A tale of tyranny and deceptions with truth now laid upon all. A cycle was finally ended, and that semblance of peace found those heroes who suffered for their good deeds. Now, everyone knew, the Reign of Dreus is over.
Report Date
04 Aug 2021
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