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.

The Boys are Back in Town

Holly has been busy in the last couple weeks. He’s done a lot of house keeping for the team, including procuring a donkey and cart and teaming up with a gang of thieves to help smuggle their hidden goods into the city to be sold. Doing so has earned the party some decent amount of coin, allowing them to purchase new armor, weapons, and potions for the long journey ahead of them. Ashton has also been busy, meeting with the other leaders from the Django museum and finding out more information on the city, as well as gaining a higher quality map and more insight into the group’s activities. They also tell him about some locations that may have interesting items that are ultimately useless to the tabaxi.

Holly also meets up with the newest member of the party: Buck. Recommended to him from Kogen as a loyal and obedient magic user specializing in the life tradition. He lives outside the city, a little less than a day’s walk away in his family’s tavern, The Hopping Llama. When Holly finds him in the late morning on bus boy duty, he immediately perks up at the mention of the job. Holly goes through the checklist of required items Buck will need to bring along, as well as the potential dangers they could face along the way. Buck agrees excitedly and promises to be the first at the gate on the morning of the adventure. Holly also invites someone else to join the party. A raven called Arson who sits on his shoulder with beady eyes and occasionally squawks at anyone who stands too close.

Before long, the group is ready to hit the road. Helen in new, thicker leather armor and Jessie with several healing potions to hand out to the group. They also bring even more preserved meat that had been freshly hunted adding more to the group’s reserve of rations. Holly and Ashton are able to pick up that the couple seem a lot more at ease, the bags under their eyes have dissipated and they seem calmer. Ashton is also sporting a new axe with a long, iron handle fixed to the axe head he found on their latest excursion. Buck isn’t late exactly, but is the last person to arrive to the city gates. From there, they set off. The trip is fairly uneventful, no bandits this time. The group is able to plan their trip before arriving to the city, making plans for places to target and places to avoid. Ashton shares the information he gathered at the meeting, specifically where the tower for warforged production is. He is able to locate it on the map, but he also learns it is infested with monsters and that’s why the Django group haven’t explored it more. They also take this time to warn Buck of their faerie friend. Holly instructs him on basic fae customs, such as only giving them a nickname, never saying “thank you,” and trying to stay as normal as possible. Buck vows that he will be normal.

The Boys are Back in (a Different) Town

Once arriving to the city, the group split up briefly. Ashton also learned how to dispatch the two golems at the city gates. He and Helen go ahead, descending the rope ladder, and walking around the city’s walls to enter. They loop back around to the gates and Ashton dons the uniform of the gate guard. While standing on a small balcony in view of the golems, he speaks a short phrase in High Archaic telling them to “open the gate.” They obey, stepping out of the party’s way and they are able to walk right past with their donkey and cart. Ashton says another short phrase, putting them back in their original guarding position.

While they’re doing this, Holly sends Arson ahead to fly above and see if there’s any activity in the city and to find a good path to the tower. He returns as they begin walking, informing Holly the city is pretty quiet as of now. Fae tend to prefer being out and about in the night time. He did find a decent path to the tower, though, avoiding some collapsed buildings and blocked roads, they’re able to make it there in good time. Before long, Dandy reunites with the group once again. Invisible at first, they ask Holly if the new guy’s cool. Holly says yes, he in fact is, and introduces Buck to Dandy, Buck being a nickname. Dandy explains they haven’t been able to find a warforged body, but through talking with some of the other fae, know where one might be. Luckily, its where they’re already headed. Its a three day hike through the city and into the more mountainous areas of the island to reach the tower. All along the way, Dandy is clamoring the sound of flies buzzing around Buck’s ears to mess with him. He tries really hard to be normal, but is barely holding it together, much to Dandy’s amusement.

While making the long trek, the party does also do some scavenging for interesting artifacts and the like along the way. Buck excitedly finds a horseshoe, thinking its a rare and interesting item. The party almost laugh at him, until they see the number 14 engraved on the plaque. Not a bad find! They come upon some kind of a book store. Most books aren’t intact, either being destroyed be demons, time, or weather. But Holly and Ashton are able to find two specific books that are well preserved enough to read. Ashton finds a scroll made of snake skin that’s extremely vexing to him. It’s written in ancient dwarvish, but its almost entirely gibberish. It goes as far to almost drive him mad, until he realizes the runes were not drawn by mortal hand. This was created on a printing press by machines, the linework on the runes are too neat to be anything else. He realizes that perhaps this is some kind of test print as it features every major rune in the dwarvish alphabet. This is filler text, like “the quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog” or “Lorem Ipsum dolor sit.” Holly’s book seems to be a short folio of children’s stories and fables with strange illustrations. They also scavenge a set of navigator’s tools.

“Don’t Push It”

The party finally reaches the southwestern tower. After climbing several flights of stairs on the side of the mountain, they enter through a hole in the side that clearly isn’t the tower’s usual entrance. They find themselves in the manmade tunnels that run underneath the mountain range in Arkannon. The pipes underneath the tunnel floor seem to have burst, sections poking out of the path and an inch of water resting in the dingy tunnel. Dandy leads the party past a corner where they had heard warforged bodies were inhabited, with a large sign over the door that reads “Inhabitation Room” in High Archaic. There is a large indent in the middle of the door in the shape of a sphere with some runes etched into the sides of the hole. There isn’t any door handles, but as Ashton pushes the doors around he can feel small pockets in the walls where the sides of the door would slide into. Holly sends Arson in the form of a gecko to scout the tower and find the orb.

The party turns around to explore the rest of the tunnels and the tower itself, but they are interrupted by the sound of metal groaning and rock grinding on rock as two large snake like creatures slither out from the floor. They are dark brown and black and have two heads, one on each side of their body. They bare their sharp fangs with poison dripping from their mouths. Ashton reacts quickly, smashing one of the heads with his heavy two handed axe. Holly casts Hellfire Bolt, attempting to scare these beasts away, but with no natural predators, fear is not an emotion they feel. Buck joins the fight, casting a spell at one of the snakes, dealing some damage with unintended side effects. A small, almost imperceptible forcefield of strange magic expands from him, encasing Helen inside it. As she pulls her string back to shoot the creatures, she suddenly feels a sharp pain with no known cause. She is able to let the arrow loose, but isn’t doing too well.

The snakes retaliate, one of them biting and poisoning Jessie with its venom. The other grapples with Ashton, seeking revenge, though is unable to properly poison him. Jessie uses her turn to cast Healing Berries and runs to get out of biting distance with the snakes. Unknowingly entering Buck’s magic forcefield, but luckily avoiding any damage while she hands a berry to Helen. Buck steps forward, getting Helen and Jessie out of range for his chaotic magic and using it against one of the snakes, which is unable to fight against it. Holly shoots off another Hellfire Bolt, but due to the moist environment isn’t able to do much damage. Ashton lands the final hit on the remaining snake and the party is safe once again.

Holly is curious on the biology of these snakes and the party spends some time dissecting them. Not only do they have two heads, they have two brains. Interesting!

More importantly, Buck takes the moment to apologize to the party for something. He actually knew the chaotic magic energy sprung from him, but he swears it doesn’t ever happen often. He didn’t think it would literally occur after casting his first spell around the party. The entire reason he specializes in life magic is because of this little quirk. Holly expresses deep frustration that Buck didn’t make the party aware of this sooner - possibly taking some of his anger from being unable to damage the snakes out on him. Jessie steps in to defend Buck, saying he’s just a kid and they should move on. Besides, life magic is sacred, nothing can go wrong with casting from its spells because the tradition itself is a gift from the gods. She trusts Buck to not hurt the party - or at least heal them if they get hurt. Helen has eaten more of Jessie’s berries, so she calls it even. Holly is still sulking about the whole thing, which Ashton takes great joy in pointing out to him.

The Tower

The party begin ascending the large tower. They pass through many different areas within it, workstations, lecture halls, dorm rooms, cafeterias, anything and everything to facilitate the work and personal lives of the various wizards who made their home in the tower. Through poking around, the party are able to find some mysterious and strange artifacts. Holly finds a pair of slippers hidden under a mattress that don’t make a sound when they touch the ground. Ashton finds a circlet that straps onto his axe handle allowing him to do more damage. Buck finds some enchanted pants that can walk on their own and obey orders. It acts as a compelled construct and has imprinted onto him. Holly attempts to wear the pants, but the pants seem uncomfortable with the idea of being worn, but will allow it if told by Buck to. Buck decides he hates them and commands the pants to fold up to be placed in Holly’s bag.

Arson reunites with Holly and informs him that the key-orb for the door is somewhere on the top floor in an administrative office. As they approach the office at the height of the tower, they hear soft rustling sounds on the other side of the door and gentle footsteps. Holly sends gecko Arson ahead to sneak under the door and check out the room. He returns saying he doesn’t see anything notable, other than the glowing sphere sitting on one of the desks. The party slowly and steadily files into the office. Ashton catches a book closing on its own and sees some papers fall off a desk. Holly takes out the folded pants from his backpack and Buck orders it to walk over to the sphere and pick it up. The moment the pants touches the orb, a ghostly apparition appears out of thin air and slashes the pants, killing them instantly!

The party reacts, Holly firing off a successful Hellfire Bolt and Ashton rushing in with his axe. Helen nocks back an arrow while Buck gets ready to unleash a spell far away from the party this time, but before they can act, another apparition appears! It begins attacking and with a flaming sword Holly strikes back while the rest of the party focuses on the first ghost. Jessie denounces them, holding her holy symbol of Dahlania high. Several more ghosts appear, one of them capable of casting spells, and begin peppering the party with attacks. They’re able to pull through, though, with their combined efforts and a lot of fire and steel, the ghosts are defeated!

With the apparitions taken care of, the room is theirs to loot. Ashton examined the book he spotted close, its a personal diary written in High Archaic. Buck is slightly relieved the pants are dead, but Holly saves the day with a casting of Jury Rig, bringing them back to life, much to Buck’s chagrin. The party collects all the papers they can find and has Holly read them quickly with his translating spell, finding ledgers and receipts, some more detailed information about the every day lives of these wizards, and a sad letter mentioning a ring that was unable to be returned to its rightful owner. The party finds the ring - but have no intention of giving it its proper resting place. Finally, Holly finds a grimoire with mysterious text and Ashton finds a satchel that seems much bigger on the inside.