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resources:adventure:terminus_mundi

Terminus Mundi

Initial Brief

“We have suffered many losses as a city. We have suffered the end of the world not once but twice. We have suffered the Upheaval. We have suffered the Cataclysm. We have suffered Dragons and invasions and incursions against the very heart of our city.

But Acryn still stands.

Acryn will stand long after this world is reduced to dust! Acryn shall stand as we make our way into the new world! Acryn shall stand against its enemies and it shall be victorious!

Acryn. Will. Stand.”


This Is The End.

Acryn’s adventurers are sought for one last crucial mission before the world is lost into dissolution: to transport the bauble that will soon contain the city safely through the Dragon Gate of Junnes into the safety of New Foundations within the conjoined Dragons of Triskelion and Tuireann.

Any wishing to assist are directed to simply be outside the city at the time the city is transferred to the bauble. Be prepared.

- Final call for assistance sweeping across the city

PCs

Summary

The Concerto Delegation, while convinced that Acryn is worth saving, remains unconvinced that going with the Acryn group to the Dragon Gate is the best idea for them, and so separate the Chain of Worlds to their different baubles and begin a ritual to put Acryn in a bauble. The last defenders of Acryn fight off a horde of stampeding animal life, assisted by the zombie army around Acryn, as the ritual is completed. Once it's done, the Shadow Symbiote beneath Acryn starts to rise up and out to take the world, but the party fight it off and Hardy, the Underdog, jumps into the dark to fight it.

It's here that the party notice the advancing wall of Dissolution, with Amita the Dissolver, the physical manifestation of Dissolution, at the front. Amita dissolves the Shadow Symbiote, and the party head off quickly into the flux with Hardy's Scion of the Flux abilities combining with a follower of Aetheyta the Wanderer to move quickly to Liarus.

At Liarus, the party find the city infested by Cole. Cole desperately tries to claw Acryn from the party's clutches, but they fight them off. One Cole entity begs the party for help and Bartholomew shows compassion and enters his mind to purge him of what's affecting him. They find Cole being attacked by Carlaeon across space, and so Bartholomew attempts to bring all the Cole soul together into one entity so that the dragons are only attacking one soul. They fight out the Draconic influence and come back to reality to find the rest of the party fighting off a draconic incursion from Carlaeon.

They fight back Carlaeon, but in the fight, Carlaeon scratches the surface of the Acryn bauble and the Prime Cole (created by Bartholomew's refinement of Cole) enters the city. Lionel checks if there's anything they can do to fix this using Refinement to find the shortest path, but determines everything they can do they have to do from the inside.

One fight with mother fucking sand worms later, the party encounter Acryn scouts who inform them that Junnes is fortified by Serradis, and a lot of magic is firing off from within. They also note that the Dissolution now surrounds them on all sides. It's do or die. After lunch, Penitent Damned scouts ambush the party to try and take Acryn from them. The party identify that Carlaeon is influencing the Serradics, and Bartholomew calls a Miracle of the Tender to purge Carlaeon's influence from the Serradics. Some are still very sore from the past wars, but most agree that they should put the past in the past. Carlaeon's influence is strong, though, so the party move out toward Junnes before it's too late.

In the desert outside Junnes, the Serradics march to meet the Acryn party. A violent battle erupts, killing Ambrosia (temporarily), and seeing the party delayed enough for the Dissolution wave to catch up. Unbeknownst to the rest of the party, Toli rolls Acryn into the Dissolution. When the party realise they've misplaced Acryn, Bartholomew sacrifices himself to create a glade of trees out into the Dissolution, giving them time to reach out and save Acryn from where it is dissolving. It's damaged, it's hot, but it's alive.

Down Bartholomew, the party head into Junnes where a lot of magic is firing. At the Dragon Gate, they find what Carlaeon has done - three horrifying Draconic artifacts influence the gate: one pouring in Draconic power, one withdrawing divine power, and one charging dissolution energy. An Avatar of Carlaeon appears and a desperate fight ensues as the Mages perform powerful rituals to disrupt Carlaeon's influence. They break the components, accidentally causing Lionel to ascend to godhood as the Lion's Roar and Clementine to ascend to godhood as the Twin Soul in the process. Hardy becomes one with the world in the local area to point the dissolution cannon Carlaeon created away from the Dragon Gate, and the party lure Carlaeon into the path of obliteration.

With time running out, Thorn fixes the Dragon Gate, and they start jumping through just as the Dissolution wave catches up with them and the world is obliterated. On the other side of the portal, the party realise to their horror that Acryn isn't with them, and though one last chunk of the bauble is coughed through the portal as a last effort from Hardy they eventually realise that Toli is to blame. Lionel performs a Refinement ritual to refine what remains in the bauble as Toli is slain by the others, and observing the bauble they realise what they've preserved is the Acryn Afterlife, kept in another bauble by Eric Luckner and kept safe. The city may be lost, but all those that died defending it in its final hours survive on.

As time passes, the Concerto delegation return with the bauble with Strossbourg inside it, expanding the contents to create the city once more. They examine the delicate Acryn Afterlife, and though it's in a very delicate balance, they prove they are able to extract the Afterlife from the bauble. They explain that people won't be the same, but with the last Spark of Potential there's hope. And in the fractured New Foundations, perhaps that's all they need.


Beyond, time reaches out into Eternity.

resources/adventure/terminus_mundi.txt · Last modified: 2018/03/04 21:29 by toml