It has been 375 years since The Rupture. Nearly all of mortalkind was laid to waste, countless innocent lives were lost to the armies of the Demon Lord. The forces of demons were brutal and ruthless - but that’s not all they were. Even more important than their own bloodthirst, was the eradication of knowledge and the crippling of mortals. To tear apart civilization from its roots, sabotaging it from the inside out. That was when the shining pillar of scientific and magic understanding, the expansive island city Arkannon, fell to rubble and ash. In the centuries past, the island and secrets locked behind its gates were all but forgotten.

That was until The Holy Vitkatzi Empire laid their ears to the rumor mill of gossip amongst the Southlanders. Where they heard tell of powerful weapons, mass industrialization, and sentient robots lurking just inside the mountains of the Isle Arkanna. They have been on the prowl, noses up, ears straight, and claws extended searching for adventurers either desperate, brash, or stupid enough to brave the island’s dangers and reap the rewards. The following is just one story, from one of those many groups of adventurers.

Well Laid Plans

As Ashton dusts off his newfound axe head, Holly leads the group to the upper floors of the factory. They emerge onto the roof and take in the city’s expanse from their newfound perspective overlooking the grid pattern of paved streets and warehouses. Specifically, Holly is looking for the southwestern tower that Kogen told them to find and Ashton is looking for some kind of government building. Ashton is able to find both of them, as Holly finds the verbal directions of Kogen and the map’s odd layout confusing. While also examining the city’s layout, Holly is able to spot from quite a distance away what looks to be Arkannon’s teleportation circle. He sees far off into the denser part of the city with more residential buildings is a large clearing. Seems like a perfect place to put one.

The party decides to go to the capital building, visit the teleportation circle, and finally, make their way to the southwestern tower. They have enough rations to do this, assuming they will get lucky with hunting on the way back. It’s risky, but seems like the best choice with their current resources and the potential gain from bringing high quality materials and information back to Kogen. Setting out for the capital building, they find that as the sun creeps below the blocky silhouettes of warehouses and factories, the cylindrical pillars they pass on the street hum a low buzz as they activate, revealing themselves as streetlights. Holly is relieved they won’t be needing to use any torches.

After about an hour of walking, the party ascends the marble stairs of the industrial district’s managerial building. It’s something akin to a town hall where members of the public can discuss the political nature of the district, though is mostly focused on managing the various businesses and factories in the area. Holly makes a comment to the party to watch out for flint moths as they enter the building. The entrance seems open to the public, with a large forum for discussion under a domed roof with plenty of seating. Past some doors the party finds hallways of offices where government officials once worked, writing away on their many forms of paperwork and documentation strewn about haphazardly on their desks. Half finished projects, proposals, and permits lie dormant in filing cabinets and drawers.

Lucky Find

The rest of the party keeps an eye out for anything suspicious while Holly and Ashton search the place. Luckily for the duo, a large number of government officials here were dwarves, or at least spoke dwarvish. They are able to read through the documents due to their mutual understanding of the language; though the documents contain a very old style of dwarvish, combined with a dash of legalese, the documents aren’t exactly simple to parse and take some time to properly study. They’re able to discern the majority of paperwork coursing throughout the building to be permits for factories to use the patented work of others for either an expressed amount of time. The warforged patent is owned by Arkannon itself and is therefore strict on who is allowed to manufacture parts. Extremely strict, given how many rejection letters they find. They also find some shipping records in a ledger. It contains the usual, metals from the various mines throughout the Southlands, exotic luxury imports from Quarger and Django, as well as all manner of goods leaving the city to be sold. Standing out from the expected back and forth of trade is a large and regular order of Hearthstone Cores from Planak to the city itself. These purchases are subsidized by the city itself, though the different factories seem to also be paying a share of these shipping costs. It’s unclear where these cores are being taken, however.

They also make note of some horseshoe paperweights that are all over the place. Each office has one or two laying around and they’re fairly common. They’re horseshoes welded onto small, heavy podiums with a plaque reading different numbers. They passed a factory on the way in that produced horseshoes, among many other household items. It seems these were some of the first products to be mass produced autonomously and the paperweights were given out to the politicians who helped make it happen. Holly and Ashton grab #47 and #15 respectively. There’s seemingly hundreds of these given they find numbers up to the mid 800s, though they don’t take any with them. Holly makes note of a #789, thinking the consecutive numbers may fetch a fair price. They decide it may be wise to make these horseshoes seem more rare than they actually are.

Ding Dong Ditch

They wrap up their search by making a small camp in an office at the center of the building They’re able to find an easily defensible room with no windows and only one entrance and place down their bedrolls for the night. They fumble with the lighting, but after some bumbling about in the dark, Ashton flips a switch on the wall by the door to turn on a bright, humming light attached to the ceiling. This is suitable while they get comfortable in the room, but switch to using an oil lamp later in the night. Holly volunteers to take first watch and spends his guard duty writing in his journal. That is until he hears the tinkling sound of small bells in the hallway. I listens closely, the bells get closer and closer to the door slowly and steadily. When the bells reach the door, they stop and all Holly can hear is silence. He wakes Ashton, just in time for the mysterious visitor to knock at the door gently.

The two wait at the door for some other activity. Holly whispers that as long as they are polite and cordial there should be no issue as it is likely a faerie - however, if they are asked to leave, rules of hospitality state that they must. They hear the knocking again, but notice that the door doesn’t shake with the knocks. Holly looks under the door, not seeing any feet but instead a faint glow several feet off the ground. He suspects they are dealing with a pixie. He speaks a basic phrase in high archaic he learned from home, politely asking to be left alone while Ashton wakes up the rest of the party, preparing for an attack. The pixie responds in a hurried mess of high archaic, which no one understands. Holly speaks his other basic high archaic phrase: “I don’t speak high archaic.” This yields no other response than another barrage of knocks, and it’s at this point the party realizes that the doorknobs are made of iron - whatever’s out there can’t get in. But the best way to deal with a problem is to tackle it head first. Ashton slowly opens the door, bit by bit, as the rest of the party ready themselves in case battle comes. When Ashton has pulled the door open enough to take a peek out of, the pixie zips off down the hall in a blur of fluffy yellow light and the sound of silver bells chime with them.

With the confirmation that it’s only a pixie at the door, the party feel safe enough to return to their rest. Holly assures them this is probably part of some prank it’s pulling and as long as they don’t interact with it they should be fine. Holly’s turn on guard duty is made up of listening to the bells on the other side of the door, with the occasional high archaic phrase muttered. When it turned to Ashton’s turn, the babbling became more overt as the pixie heard the changing of the guard. Eventually, Ashton attempts speaking in the same style of old dwarvish, asking the pixie what it wants. It responds quickly and excitedly that it needs help with an urgent matter and that if Ashton and his friends assisted them, they would owe them a Favor. Holly gets up from his bedroll, not having had a chance to fall asleep yet, and begins helping Ashton translate and ensuring his wording is accurate and that the pixie isn’t attempting to trick them. They’re able to work out an agreement that the party will find the pixie in the morning after they’ve been able to rest up. The pixie agrees that their extremely urgent matter can wait until the morning and the sounds of bells steadily get quieter as it leaves the party alone for the night.

After being roused awake by Nero in the morning, the party are ready to speak with the pixie. Holly explains the situation, ensuring everyone is on the same page, and Nero informs them that the sun is still currently rising and the pixie won’t be able to hide from them. At least, it won’t be able to turn invisible. They leave their camp and follow the sounds of bells and the soft glowing light to an office a few doors down. They find the pixie sitting on a bookshelf, mindlessly ripping paper from a book left laid open. The pixie is an odd looking one, a bug-like, plant-like little creature with wide black eyes, green brown skin, and a small fluffy halo of dandelion fluff around its head. It stands to attention when Holly and Ashton enters the room and chastises them for taking their sweet time. They explain the very important business they need help with. They have this friend, who isn’t really their friend anymore. They used to play with this friend by pranking the various mortals and faerie that travel through the area. That was, until she got a lot more interested in her own personal matters, which consisted of spending time with her “stupid dog” and washing her bloody laundry. They need the party to get the friend to stop washing her stupid laundry outside the capital building in the well, get rid of the ugly dog, and ensure that the pixie will never have to see their friend’s stupid face ever again. The pixie’s proposed plan is to simply kill the friend, causing the dog to wander off on its own and the well to be laundry-less.

Illustration of a small, bug plant creature with shimmering wings, a dandelion head, and a plant body.

Holly first questions this pixie’s legitimacy, asking if this is another one in their long series of pranks. The pixie responds by giggling in a fitful of laughter, but says that they just want to do something silly. He asks another time, is this a prank? The pixie is able to calm themselves, saying they are only pranking their friend. Holly asks a third and final time, and the pixie responds with the truth as true as they could possibly tell it: This is mostly just a prank on their friend, but if the party got hurt, that would be just as funny. But they think the party can take their friend on in a fight. Holly has another idea for how to dispatch the friend. They could simply kill the dog, while the friend is watching, destroy the well so no one can use it again, and cut her face off her very skull. The pixie is delighted with the plan, clapping and giggling wildly. They agree that if the party is able to do this, they will owe them both a favor and will consider them for some bartering trades down the line. The party is satisfied with these conditions, Holly justifying to the group that it would be wise to have a guide who knows the island well. Especially one that’s a faerie!

The fae asks for the names of the party members. Holly introduces them, telling the pixie they may refer to him as Holly, the dwarf as Ash, the couple as The Lovers, and the kenku as The Musician. The pixie is satisfied with this, bowing to each party member individually, and introducing themselves as Dandy. As the party gets ready to head out to confront Dandy’s ex-friend and her stupid dog, Dandy informs them she only washes her clothing at night, spending the days “back home.” They party decide the best use of their time would then be preparing for the confrontation.

Handy Dandy

The party use their time wisely, setting up several traps using the iron chains made in nearby factories. They use Dandy’s help to ensure they’re as hidden as possible, using their faerie sensitivity to smelling iron to ensure that the scent isn’t too overwhelming or suspicious. They station the party at different sections, ensuring that they would all be able to pull the chains taut, hopefully catching the faerie or her dog’s legs in the lasso shaped trap. Holly creates some small explosives using the materials he’s picked up around the factories and a dash of magic to use to destroy the well once the friend is lured into their trap.

The party then decide to lay low until night time. Hours pass by and late into the evening, a shambling, half naked woman with long, flowing hair and clawed feet stumbles weeping into the square. Following behind her is a large, chest high dog with a long, snarling jaw and matted fur. The party snaps into action, Holly deploying his firey serpent to bite from the hound’s moldy fur. Ashton jumps from the bushes, slashing the dog with his axe and pushing it into the nearby trap, immobilizing it, as Hellen pulled the snare shut from a nearby rooftop. The faerie screamed in horror and attempted to retaliate, only to be caught in another trap, and forced to watch as her beloved pet met its end. Holly brandishes a grey shrunken head from his bag, opening its mouth and consumes the Misery of the faerie. Not yet satisfied, Holly deployed his explosives while Ashton held her head in place ensuring she can still watch. Before the rubble can even clear from the explosion, Holly takes a dagger to her face and slices the very skin off her skull - once again, allowing the shrunken head to consume her Misery. Holly threw the skin into the newly made watery pit. Meanwhile, Dandy is doing a little jig in the air, satisfied that all conditions of the agreement have been met.

The party, content to leave the faerie incapacitated in the streets, gather in the government building to make camp. Dandy goes with them, saying they’ll continue following the party around until their end of the bargain is paid. Nero pulls Holly aside and asks what the deal with the shrunken head is. Holly is honest. He made a deal with a hag and he’s now paying back that debt. Hags deal in misery, it’s the only currency they accept. Nero asks Holly to not target anyone in the party and to not be needlessly cruel. In an effort to earn Nero’s trust, Holly shows them a way to tell when he’s lying with 100% certainty, as long as Nero doesn’t tell anyone. He tells an obvious lie, revealing that his shadow has changed shape, restructuring and rippling outward into a monstrous appearance - dissipating after just a moment. Nero recognizes the shadow as a mark of darkness and asks Holly what the fuck he did to earn it. Holly dodges the question, but once again reiterates that he has no intention of harming anyone in the party. He even agrees to say it three times, so Nero can know its true. This sets them off, they say they wanted reassurance from a person - not a faerie. They leave in a huff, returning to camp and sits with Jessie and Hellen, speaking in hushed whispers.

Ashton also asks to speak with Holly one on one. They speak of similar things, about the hag’s deal and Holly’s mark of darkness. Ashton takes this information better than Nero, trusting Holly and understanding the pragmatism of knowing Holly’s specific weakness. After joining the party back in their office room camp, Ashton asks the rest of the party what they think while Holly is washing the faerie blood off his cloak. Nero says this is their last job once they return back home. Hellen and Jessie seem to disagree, something that’s driven a wedge between them. Hellen says she’s only there for as long as Jessie is. Jessie says she worries for Holly, that her faith and own morals leads her to want to help people who are clearly hurting, that people don’t do things for no reason. But she also questions if she, or anyone else in the party, are the ones to help. She leads them in prayer, asking for clarity and good luck, praying that Holly will return to a healthy state of being. Once the party is ready for bed, Holly meditates on his pendant once again. He meditates over his tumultuous emotions, trying to return to the inner peace from the forest. Before the falls asleep, he hears a feminine voice in his head.

“You’re not as kind as you used to be.”

He sighs. “I know.”