In which the party...
- Thumb travels west from the ruins of Stoutwall, as the Red Mist begins to slowly encroach the wilds around the city.
- Comes to an intersection, with a northern path having some animal tracks, and a southern path having signs of battle.
- Follows the southern path and discovers a wounded bear sitting, resting around the corpses of the Goalshine Militia. Behind the bear lies the raggedly breathing figure of Captain Ophelia Theradulin, the gnoll captain of the militia.
- Thumb uses some rations to distract the bear, and makes it to Ophelia in time to patch her up, and quickly leaves the clearing to set up camp elsewhere.
- The bear follows, and as the party lies still in wait, sees it eat the rest of their rations before it lumbers off, leaving them unharmed.
- A portal opens, and the duo are ushered in by one Tom Hickathift, the emissary for Queen Mab of Alphame.
- Following him through the portal, the duo arrive in the court of Alphame, with a few other familiar faces - Millie Hnuk the dwarven owner of an inn in Goalshine, and Grubz the orc thief.
- Queen Mab tells the five individuals - Tom, Thumb, Ophelia, Millie, and Grubz - that they have been chosen from their realm as part of a prophecy to save their world from the Red Mist, an entity that travels from world to world eating entire realms and consuming them into its mist. The Good Fey entities have been fighting against it's corruption for millennia, while much evil in one way or another serves it to some capacity.
- She relates the prophecy:
- The Knight of the Realm takes up a stand, And the Thief that mourns will slip his hand, The Ranger bends the threads of fate, The Mage calls truth—too soon, too late. Bound in trust, the Survivor stays, And in their choice, the world will sway.
- She explains that to fulfill the prophecy, they will need to head to another realm - one nearly consumed by the Red Mist, with but a single isle with a Bastion. There, they will find the way to save their world.
- She opens a portal to this other realm, where it turns out Tom Hickathift has already started talking with an individual, and they enter.
- They arrive in the city of Xian, where Tom's contact - a hooded figure by the name Vikthar, the scaled, a half demon cultist associated with one Shogunate - immediately attacks Tom, draining his essence stating he knew of the Fey's betrayal.
- The party attacks and kills the cultist, but not before Tom soul is nearly pulled from his form, as he goes unconscious, in and out of delirium,
- They immediately return to the portal with Tom, and wait for a week as he heals in the land of the Fey, with one of them keeping guard on the cultist's dwelling, which is uninvestigated by any authorities.
- During this time, they learn that this world was consumed by the Red Mist - known as the Red Tide by the people of this land - and that this island, Ektau, was the only one spared from it's ravages for unknown reasons.
- Within a week, Tom Hickathift is healed up, but the Fey tell them they cannot keep the portal open forever, and they will have to try and survive the best they can as the portal can only be opened at limited intervals, and only from limited locations due to the tenuous connection to the realm caused by the Mist's overwhelming presence.
- Reunited, the party finally ventures out of the dwelling, the cultist buried and hidden away, and into the streets of the city of Xian to learn what they can on the nature of the Red Mist.
Characters: Thumb, Ophelia Theradulin, Millie Hnuk, Tom Hickathift, and Grubz
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