Over the course of adventures, the party has delved into lost cities of the First Age, collected exotic creatures, befriended powers, sought mysteries plaguing the city, and earned enemies.
Joslin and the Journal
The group found a simple backpack with a hidden compartment with a mummified hand, a key within, and a journal. The journal detailed an account of Freiden Gault of Randan seeking a perilous journey. He was a scholar and crafter, but this meeting changed his path. He took notes and information, speaking with a person wrapped in shades and light and colors, faceless to Seyjan who used charms to gain this information. They found some chests in a ship, stole away with it all, and slowly put together notes on other cities. One of the ships was the PaleHorn (he doesn’t know if it was a ship or captain). The unknown person hiredhim to investigate. This led him through a few places, including Wujian, the wavecrest, and Redmoon, Lathe, and Chiaroscuro. He was told the next piece of the puzzle may be held by a Cinderkin in Kas Na’Shii, the Darkest Dark.
There they found a street of sunken First Age manses covered in pitch black with a guard at one location. Within they found a bar and souvenir shop. Sneaking through halls, they found a door for the key, entered, and Seyjan there attuned to the celestial manse. The manse has one remaining member attuned – Solar Joslin of Donyel – Eclipse – last attuned with his circle, all died leaving him as the last to hold a key. Of keys: 3 other keys lost, 1 destroyed, addendum 1 returned and in the door of the heart.
They sought the cinderkite Juroi, a massive magma wolf at the heart of a celestial forge. From him, the group gained an orb or wood and metal called Ushwol. The journal contains more information. The orb is a key to something, perhaps Rakshan. And Joslin is held in the Heptagram by the DragonBlooded.
Dangers to the City
The group has come across a few dangerous situations seeking to harm the city. Typhon and the Wife’s Death
The favored wife of the Tri’khan was murdered and pinned on an Orkhan. But the party knows it was a strange man called Typhon who visits Kas Na’Shii, is connected to the death boat in the harbor, and may be one of these abyssals they have heard of.
Pillars Under the City
Within the forge after speaking with Juroi, the group finds a hidden massive cavern system under Chiaroscuro filled with ,pillars rising from an endless void below to the city above. They hold the city in place, supporting the weight in an impossible way! Each pillar contained carved histories but of what…? Numerous tunnels begin and end into these caverns. A Raksha named Lilting Leaf on a Pond, goes by Leaf, meets them speaking in Old Realm. She tells them something disturbs the great pillars and the city, horrible tidings and actions. She provided a map and a lost page so marked on it.
Scarabs and Murder
The Black Pawn, a thief befriended by Dusty on the thieves highway, worked with his crew to hit a merchant dealing in metals. As they laid in wait, thinking they would hit the score of a lifetime, a shadowed figure arrived blackmailing this merchant. He smuggled in flesh eating bone scarabs, a true threat to any city. The merchant received urns containing the twisted, dead bodies of his wife and daughter, and their ghosts.
The group helped a sting on these scarabs and ran into another Abyssal! They successfully stole the scarabs and burned them in the magma of Juroi. They also ran into a serpentine man named Kazj-Tavek from the deep deserts who said these scarabs were stolen from his people, tasked in their keeping.
The Juicer
Sickness and an angered solar mouse Zola led the party into another mystery involving the Juicer, a potion crafter in the Undermarket. With the added help of Lana (prostitute but something more), Zola an angered solar mouse, Zhorne the sexy sorcerer, and Den’lan a lunar mouse bookkeeper, the party sought out the Juicer. There they found a creepy couple completely riddled through with wyld taint and disease. They received small spirits, tearing apart their essences for creations and something far more sinister. But what?
After defeating the couple, saving Zhorne after he was possessed, and getting help for tiny spirits near death, they delved into records to find diabolical information. If they had not saved the spirits, a few courts may have unleashed upon Chiaroscuro causing extreme damage.
The Darkmoon
As the group investigated the Juicer, another blight in the Undercity, they came across a strange journal and bit of information. A man named Guffrey from the ship the Darkmoon under order of Captain Blaylocke (ghost ship run by a fiend of the underworld) provided the spirits to the couple for some sort of artifact, curse, or something else.
The last page shows 1 week prior to the fight that Guffrey collected a fire butterfly, 1 month ago delivery completed to Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, 2 weeks ago received offerings from Lord Verethine of Blue Haven. The journal is a copy extending from the Darkmoon, a captain’s log. It remains in the party’s possession.
Later in their journeys, they found a hidden entry in the cliffs near Chiaroscuro to the west. Through mazes and traps and screaming wights, they found a ship cursed in a large dark cavern with a kraken guardian. A terrifying curse lays on the ship called the White Crow.
They surmise this ship is the corpse, locked to land, the heart. And the ghost travels the seas. The Darkmoon (black crescent and black raven) is the ghost sailing the seas forever. Names they have from the ship include Proius Stephen Blaylocke, Master at Arms Matthew Guffery, Navigator Shelby Maginus, Miss Viviane Lockley (Courier for a Solar – The Rose Room).
Lost City and Osgoth
Befriending Oghime, the party swims through the oasis and enters Osgoth. Through this manse, they enter a lost and broken city of Anshar, smote by the Five Metal Shrike. Here they enter the Temple of Cytherea, release a mummy, run from an ancient demon Illuria, and chit chat with rock men.
Eventually they meet others and make some promises. The first is a marketplace oddly clean and well-kept by Sulimani, Jinn of Listless Seas, Keeper of the Twilit Lotus Garden. She invites her visitors to dinner and gain a promise to visit the world outside of this city. She keeps crafting puppy friends including a couple masks that move puppet to puppet.
Finding a place to sleep for the night, they find an old manse half smashed under a bolder a place owned by a Johnny. Underground gambling, drugs, and prostitution, they learn it was owned by Jakaou! He makes a deal with them to return for some very important items, letting them keep what they looted.
With Gemlord Grisht, they make a pact to enter from another path into the old city. Through his connections, they meet lethlawin of the Shining Sands and Canyon of Dreams, and her consort Thekzair, Raksha of the deep desert. They may bring one other with them, but always hold true to their agreement.
Of Dark and Light
Within the depths did the living walk. The sigils burned with a chill of Yu’shan, cracked with shards missing in the matrix, yet bound still over walls. Betwixt the fallen sections magic, melting of glass, did Juroi perceive.
Within his sight did their heat branch as walking trees. The scent and movement of life just beyond the wards and hall he could not escape without aid. Fury ever present promised to stoke, a demand for freedom and to turn his limitless rage upon his captors. The cooling of memory reminded, he made this choice. His captors were long dead.
The great grids lifted, the magics brittle yet holding, allowed for their conversations. Each face glimmered in his sight, cold as marble surrounded in burning lines thinning as rays from tiny suns. Yet they had distinct faces, particular voices. Closing his eyes, they remained, not lost of hidden as the others. Either the group were young exalts or not allied with the others.
None of them carried a scent of deception, or intent to wish him ill. For a brief moment, they felt disheartened at his refusal to leave. Submit, the magic demanded. The dire trick forced on his mind and body, but the edges cracked. If but a little. They unbound certain wards for this conversation, unaware of what they pressed.
Would Juroi break free and set his captors ablaze!? No, no they had not held him. He reminded again, this was his choice. His captors were long dead.
Unto them he gave a cursed gift, one passed unto him by the Nameless one, stolen from the Bale-Eyed king, claimed from the great tree in a time of need and hunger. A flicker of his pride in a small cinder. And passage out. As they departed, the flames of his soul chilled as the fury settled into a corner mulling for another opportunity for freedom–
A howl tore through the chambers, causing small stones and grounds to shiver above under the constant flow of traffic. Time shifted again, forcing back the mind of the cinderkin, trying to turn his head and eyes upon what he spat from his maw.
“Show me…” Again the scenes rolled through his mind, trying to edge ever closer to seeing exactly what he gave, yet only seeing a rolling ball of basalt. Inwardly, he chuckled darkly as soot fell darker upon the stone.
A pitter-patter of paws alit across the dusty surfaces, nose a’twitch to scents that bore her forward and back. The strange party had long passed…