E V E N T ☆ 2

Port Heritage is shaken.

In the 24 hours after Godsgoing, you return to the main levels of the city to find that the demons mostly departed, winging off across the ocean. However, you see evidence of their attacks here and there. Stalls smashed to bits, ship sails torn to tatters. Largely, everyone remained safe, with minimal injuries and deaths, but the city is terrified.

The narrative revolves around the Red Dynasty's attack. It's obvious that no details about what truly happened at Godsgoing have gotten out.

The next day, a courier arrives at your door, with a message inviting you to a secret location...

Whenever the work day ends, the temples empty, the upper districts darken, and a half-dozen taverns far below in Wailer’s Wharf flare to life -- yet none of them larger than the Dancing Spray, with its leaning, ramshackle bell tower and the wafting scent of bready ale.

More than 100 years old, the Spray is a pillar of the Docks district. Foreigners and Port Heritagians alike cling to their favorite barstools like hagfish on a whale's bloated corpse.

The Dancing Spray lacks a back wall, and salty air blows in from the sea. The tavern's proximity to the water has only occasionally resulted in enormous crustaceans rising from the seafloor of Heritage Cove to seize drunken sailors in their claws. But the Dancing Spray has the cheapest and best ale in the docks -- its alchemically-altered formula somehow tastes exactly of hot brown bread, slathered in salted butter -- and so this is generally considered a reasonable risk. (Though perhaps it comes as no surprise that the outside seating, bobbing on the waves, is typically the last to fill.)

Instead of claiming a table, you peer at the parchment in your hand, and head down a side corridor.

The hallway leads toward the bathrooms and the storage, where ale ages in huge oak barrels. You stop at a large tapestry of the city. You put your hand on it -- solid.

Then, following instructions, you press your hand over the Docks district.

In a flash, the tapestry and the wall behind it become incorporeal, and you tumble inside.

Large round tables fill the huge room; suits of armor and mostly-empty weapons racks line the walls. Bookshelves are filled with history books and magic tomes. One wall is made of a huge chalkboard. Judging from the sounds echoing from the dumbwaiter, it must be attached to the kitchens, accessible with a single ring of the bell.

There's a parchment on the table, signed by ADMIRAL HYLAINE:

WELCOME TO HOME BASE.

LET'S NOT SCREW THIS UP.

You spend the seven days after Godsgoing strategizing, and come to this conclusion:

• Half of you will go investigate the glowing ocean, where the demons flew after escaping the portal at Godsgoing.

• Half of you will pursue the Harvest Key.

You're becoming used to the new normal: winding down Port Heritage's tiered streets to the Dancing Spray, the knowing nod from the bartender as you head to the tapestry hidden entrance to home base.

On day seven, it's different.

As you turn the corner on the cobblestone street to the view over Heritage Cove, a blackened, smoldering ship is pulling into harbor.

It looks different than a normal pirate raid. You smell sulfur. Huge claw marks gouge the hull. The mast appears to have been snapped off entirely. Dock workers race with buckets of water to douse the purple flames, but the fire refuses to extinguish.

A white-bearded man sits near you on a box, watching the commotion, toking from a long, skinny pipe.

"Demons," he says, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "They's popping up all over the ocean, the sailors says."

When you enter the back room of the Dancing Spray, the carcharus twins LUDOVICA and AZZURRA are waiting for you, their shark eyes black. The silver badges declaring them the Headmistresses of the Academy are absent from their lapels today. LUDOVICA -- or perhaps it's AZZURRA -- opens her mouth. You see her two rows of triangle teeth. Smell her rank, meat-rot breath.

"Planning time's over."

Plot Hook 1: The Glowing Ocean

ADMIRAL HYLAINE's support comes with perks.

You learn from the carcharus twins that the sleek topsail schooner neatly anchored in the corner of Heritage Cove belongs to a certain MR. PERRINGOLD, a name you've never heard before.

Understandably so, because, it seems, MR. PERRINGOLD does not exist.

The ship is not marked in any way as Navy property; all of the paperwork is appropriately, legally civilian. The deed is delivered to you in a parchment scroll. Though small, the ship seems fast, and belowdeck, it's stocked with ample munitions, fresh water, gunpowder, rope, netting, and citrus.

"Some of us already have ships," you object.

LUDOVICA -- or perhaps AZZURRA -- runs a sandpaper-rough hand down the wooden railing. Sawdust trickles into the water.

"Sail as you please," she rasps.

That, it seems, is that.

What the ship seems to lack, notably, are any anti-monster measures. There are two small cannons, nothing more; nor is the ship's hold stocked with any sort of weaponry.

It seems that some shopping is in order.

There are three main places where people shop in Port Heritage:

1. Heritage Plaza: These ever-changing stalls and respectable brick-and-mortar stores are dependable, and their prices are fairly regulated. However, you'll find nothing particularly unusual, exotic, or sinister here.
   

2. Spellster's Lane: Magic is powerful, but buyer beware in these establishments! Those without a keen magician's eye may be taken in by a charlatan. Additionally, a humble citizen like you has no hope of accessing the greatest of the Magisterium's powers: imbuing normal objects with powerful enchantments, using Panopolis' Prism...
   

3. Thieves' Cove: Here, you will find the dark, the macabre, the illegal. But the prices may fluctuate wildly -- as well as the quality of the fascinating weapons. The Cove has had its share of explosions from misfiring inventory...

If you hope to live through what awaits you on the Godsea, you will need to prepare.

Where will you go?

Plot Hook 2: The Harvest Key

The three-day voyage to the Archipelago of Autramelle is quiet.

Well. As a crossing of the Godsea can be.

Autramelle is fairly isolated civilization -- not at all unknown, but a rare destination, due to its small size and trade unimportance. ADMIRAL HYLAINE provides the fare for a journey on a passenger ship.

Some of you have never been on the ocean before. When you lie on your back on the deck, the night sky is so black and so bright, except for the silhouette of the crow's nest, and the armed guard inside, scanning the waters.

You encounter no monsters.

But you do encounter an infamous boiling sea.

It's the second night of the journey. Some of you, the light sleepers, awaken when the hold is as hot and humid as a sauna, sweat pouring slick down your neck. The deep sleepers don't awaken until they hear the dying creatures of the ocean, screaming in the water, scratching at the wooden hull.

The crew ushers you onto deck. The Storm devouts aboard take turns giving each of you relief with their temperature-controlled force skin Sigils.

"We'd be dead without them," the captain tells you. His mustache clumps with perspiration.

You look out at the ocean. The monstrous corpses bobbing on the surface.

"Why does this happen?" you ask.

The captain shakes his head. He makes a holy sign that means The gods decide. He stands.

"Better tend the bells," he mutters. "Reckon we owe Him a 'thank-you.'"

The heat dissipates, sudden and without warning, after an hour.

You don't sleep.

You dock in Autramelle at the dawn of the fourth day.

Behind you is an ocean of cerulean, but ahead is a sea of pink. Every tree on land is a cherry-blossom pink, lush and overflowing. The buildings, so they seem, are made of large pink bulbs, growing straight out of the ground, wafting fragrance in the beach breeze.

It looks to be a small village. The dock is slick with mildew. The captain squints at the shore as the crew lays anchor.

"Nice place," he says. "Relaxing. A good change from Port Heritage."

The forest beyond the village is so thick and dark that you can't see beyond the first row of foliage. Anything could be there, you think. Anything at all.

The captain's hand squeezes your shoulder. "Hope you find what you're looking for."

And with that, you disembark, toward the perfume-scented unknown.

Plot Hook 1: The Glowing Ocean

Your small fleet departs from Port Heritage, beneath the draconic Jade Gates, and out into the open Godsea.

Some of you have never left home. Some have never voyaged beyond Heritage Cove. But Port Heritage slowly and steadily becomes nothing but a toy-sized city on the horizon, then a black speck, and finally -- nothing.

You feel alone out at sea, with nothing but sky above, and ocean as far as the eyes can see.

You recall the burning ship at the Docks. The unquenchable purple flames.

You tell yourself it's the bucking of the waves beneath that causes your stomach to lurch.

You hear it before you see it.

The coordinates are a short journey beyond the city, ADMIRAL HYLAINE had said, and she spoke true. You fell into a fitful sleep below deck, listening to the waves and the creaking wood and your party's breathing -- and it's just past dawn the next day when the noise begins.

Like whooshing wind, a hurtling avalanche, a crushing waterfall.

You spot the perimeter of the whirlpool within moments.

Coming above deck, you're bathed in a bloody scarlet light that bursts from the center of the whirlpool and into the sky like a beacon.

STANCLIFF DUKES, still with large bags under his eyes, but with a distinctly jauntier pep in his step, nearly fumbles the platter of garlic-fried ricotta tomato toast that he bears as he joins you in the surface.

"Oh my," he says. "Oh gods. You weren't kidding. You're -- those are --"

His face takes on the paleness of a man who expects to die -- and for good reason. Ships drift listlessly around the whirlpool's perimeter, flickering with purple flames, no visible moving persons aboard.

But that's not where STANCLIFF is gazing.

High above, winging in and out of the whirlpool's beam of light, are no less than fifty demons.

And they turn their eyes on you.

MARLOW gingerly places their offering into the final puzzle statue's bowl -- and it begins to glow.

As the statue pivots toward the center, all five statues stare at the visage of the Harvest goddess etched into the wall -- mirroring the animals in the mural at her side.

Suddenly, the water from her eyes stops flowing. The stream running through the room goes still. The sound of falling water is replaced by the gentle grinding of stone as the mural parts in the middle. The sun light from beyond the door is so brilliant, it’s near blinding.

You step through.

Gently pushing aside trailing vines, soft with flowering white blossoms, you find yourself in a beautiful basilica, overrun by nature. Sunlight streams in through stained glass windows, depicting Harvest in many forms: Harvest as a cow leading a weary traveler, Harvest sitting in court with the other five gods, Harvest reaching out her arms toward an unseen person, the window smashed in by the boughs of a pomegranate tree, fighting its way inside. Indeed, the foliage is so heavy laden with pomegranates that the branches droop toward the floor, perfect for the plucking. Everything smells fragrant and sweet.

In the middle of the room, so large that it takes up a quarter of the space, is a griffon.

You intimately recognize those wicked, curling claws, on the end of unbelievably massive eagle's feet. Gold fur ripples down its lion's body as it breathes heavily, exhaustion plain in its sharp, yellow avian eyes. As you enter, the feathers on its head bristle and expand, but it does not stand. Nestled beneath its haunches are six yellow eggs the size of a full-grown man -- out of which are popping wet, feathery heads, with the soft noise of eggshell pecking.

You are not alone.

A towering woman stands before the griffon, one massive hand resting on its heaving flank.

She turns.