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E V E N T ☆ 5

Updated: Sep 16, 2022




"Harvest's precious pomegranates! MY EYES!"


ESHA's screams rise into the perfect blue sky of a warm, breezy ocean day. He slips on the burning acid gushing blood-like from the side of a punctured, corrupted spray, its sludgy inside gushing onto the deck.


"Help the others!" he gasps as his shoes sizzle. "Help them--"


VANJA grabs his collar. "That’s like askin’ a mother t’ abandon her wee child—we’re not lettin’ ye do this alone. Once you’re wit’ us, we’re not gonna leave ye alone, no matter th’ situation or time ‘f day." Her voice is strong and calm above the sounds of battle -- this dragonborn has seen sea warfare aplenty. "It’s what family’s for, damnit."


With a flourish, CATHERINE throws up her sword. "As they said boy. Now let us help --" Glinting in the sun, the blade cartwheels abovehead; then lands, perfectly hilt-first in CATHERINE's grip-- "Or wait for us to go down with the ship."


BOLIN bellows from across the boat:


"STOP JINXING IT! WE ARE NOT SINKING THIS FUCKING BOAT!"


A comforting, if somewhat optimistic, sentiment.


On the dawn of your fourth and last day on the voyage toward the Crescent Isles, the party had been having a hearty lunch of canapes prepared meticulously by Chef STANCLIFF DUKES. Drinking from champagne flutes, you plucked hors devours from his platter -- until the whole ship pitched violently to the right.


Corrupted sprays. Journey the Godsea long enough, and you'll encounter 'em. Enormous, slimy creatures, black and mottled with corruption and pain -- these are not the kind, bouncy pests that you know from home.


Now, the battle rages chaotically. KEE slips and sends a whole armful of potion bottles crashing into the air. With an elegant flick of a sword, ZELL splits a massive spray in two. Her eyes rolling in her head like a cartoon, KAS hits the deck after a spray belches her up from its belly. JAMAL swan-dives from where he'd been trapped in the crow's nest. SIL blasts the cannons. WISH says "fuck."


Another day, another sand dollar.


KOCHEK'S head jerks up from where


he'd been trying to pry an amorous spray off of his leg. "Is the ship -- shaking?"


Those near enough to hear him stop in their tracks. They crane their heads back.


Black storm clouds roil overhead.


Then, with an enormous clap of thunder, rain begins to pour.


The corrupted sprays dissolve the instant that the clean, pour rain touches their filmy skin. The acid washes off the deck and into the ocean. You could cry with relief at the cool water soaking your burned limbs.


It's a soft rain -- the type that falls quick and thin like theatre curtains dropping. You all breathe hard, lowering your weapons, as a mist begins to fill the air.


And as you look eastward... an island appears on the horizon.





Slightly singed, sails somewhat tattered, you glide silently into the Waning Bay.


Silver mist rolls up from the surface of the water. The prow of your vessel splits it like a billowing, shimmering blanket.


As you approach the docks, the village appears.


People in robes stroll with baskets full of pillowy white buns. Somewhere in the distance, someone is playing a flute, a melancholy sound echoing over the sound of waterfalls trickling down the cliffsides. The architecture is beautiful, and yet somewhat ancient: once bright-blue paint chipped and dimmed, eyes and creatures carved into stunning scrollwork on the walls.


You halt at the docks with little difficulty, but as soon as you do, guards run down to greet you. These are not the armored watchmen of the Port Heritage city guard; no, their armor appears thrown-together, homemade. Some have knives that would look at home in a domestic kitchen. Others have clearly needed to reinforce their spears with rope.


One has a helmet clearly too big, and keeps pushing it up out of his eyes. By his side walks a hulking, brown-and-orange-furred wolf dog.


"Halt!" he shouts. The helmet falls down again, and his next words carry a metallic echo. "You can't -- wait -- dang it -- hold on a minute --"


As he tries to yank the helmet up off his head... the dog rolls its eyes. It pads forward to the edge of the dock.


"If you have any weapons, you need to hand them over," the canine says. Up close, you can see the scar running across its nose. "Strangers are welcome here, but we don't allow objects of violence."


TENTACLINO's map has led you to the Crescent Isles.





The stars above twinkle more brightly than you've ever seen them.


They're dancing, you think, deliriously, as the blood sluicing on the floor seeps into your shoes.


Far in the distance, thunder cracks through the sky.


But it's KAS (roll: nat20), with one of her gold arms flattened like tin foil under the force of the night god's last blow, who feels the glow of SUN within her.


It starts like a spark. Then an ember. It bursts into a blaze. KAS feels it in the pit of her chest, agonizing, like being barbecued from the inside out -- and then it explodes out of her in a fiery glow. The barricade of sunlight rushes over the room like a tidal wave. Screams rise up. Eyes are blinded. Hair is singed.


Within moments, it's over.


The illusions are gone.


You stand in the pagoda. The illusions have fallen. The exits are revealed. You can see the gaping hole in the ruined wall from ZURIE's Sun Stone explosion.


MOON's trickery has left this place. Now it's just a building, plain and tangible.


MOON stands silent in the middle of it all, his starlit hair slowly beginning to rise into the air.


His lips curl into a smile, cool and enigmatic. But there's rage behind it. After the chaotic swirl of motion, of glimmering illusions, of flying daggers, this pure stillness is ten times more chilling.


MOON gently places his palms together.


In the next few moments, cold realization will sweep through the room. But it's ADELAIDE and SLOANE who figure it out first. Who figure out what's coming.


In the one split second before everyone else figures it out too, it's just the three of them: MOON, ADELAIDE, and SLOANE, in their own separate world. Standing still and silent in the acknowledgement of what's coming.


It's an honor, really, in its own strange way.


To know that MOON's kid gloves are coming off for you.




MOON sets his sights on the first party members he intends to attack. But you know they're not the last ones. You know this is just the beginning.


You can see yourself in your mind's eye, fleeing through the village. But how can you outrun a god? You picture his silvery legs striding over the village, lazily reaching your ship in moments. You imagine how little effort it will take for him to crush you.


MOON tucks a long strand of hair behind his ear, and lifts his other glowing palm toward V, ZELL, WISH, JAMAL, ADELAIDE, JULIA, and SUMIO.


You squeeze your eyes shut.


And with agonizing pain, light sears through your eyelids.



The thunder is deafening.


Your ears pop; you hear the rush of your blood. The ground quakes. You tumble to your knees. The rocks scratch your skin, make you bleed.


You pry open your eyes.


A man stands across from MOON. Ten feet tall, with rippling muscles, and a toga like the waves of the ocean...


...and eyes like a storm.





The lightning-scorched ground smokes beneath the sky god's feet.


"A thousand years," STORM says. His voice rumbles like thunder itself; the pebbles on the ground vibrate with its resonance.


He draws a spear from beneath the waves that form his shoulder sash. He doesn't shout. He doesn't scream. Yet his voice drips with cold rage as he continues: "A thousand years I've sought you. I should've known you'd --"


MOON heaves a sigh. "Oh, must you ruin all of my parties?"


STORM wears a strangled expression as MOON interrupts. MOON shoots a withering glance at the mortals before returning his attention to STORM, planting elegant hands on his hips. "One hundred thousand years of introducing sticks to mud; surely you find this dull by now."

The blood is still seeping through the soil. Your own blood. Your friends' blood. Your hands are sticky with it; you're swaying, barely alive.


STORM's nostrils flare. "Reducing you to nothing will bring me much excitement, then."


MOON tosses a wink to the mortals lying on the ground. "In the unlikely event any of you live, take some notes for the annals," he says.


And with an elegant snap, twin knives, curved and wicked, appear in his hands.




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