Interlude: Jeeng's Hope, Justine's despair

Just as we ported back home, we noticed a group wearing unusual goggles noticing us. Jeeng and Justine made a break for the airship with the rest of us in tow. It was clear now that Justine was a wanted person and those goggles would see through any magical disguises so she adopted a more traditional concealment once aboard. Lyse demanded an explanation for our expedited escape to which Darren divulged all we just learned from our encounter with the recently released Legion. Justine also contributed her tragic past to compound the need to stem the corruption visited upon the region by the high houses, especially Canith. Darren then sought Lyse's counsel on the matter of his order of Scions and their removal from everyone's memories. We sailed back to pick up our loot from the docks and got briefly (re)acquainted with Mazari's new friend Legion before heading toward Alphi and Ali who dutifully reminded us that not only Justine but all of Mystery Inc was now hunted by Canith. Thankfully they agreed to take the Joe jr. parts off our hands as Darren explained the nuanced of the threats we faced and dropped a bombshell of his own, finally revealing the fate of Lia in hopes of catching Alphi off guard. With his friend flustered, Darren raised the burning question about the nature of his unusual powers. In response, Alphi bestowed a magic amulet which he advised would be required to seek the answers from a mysterious author, Thinly Mergleton. Alphi also warned that ignorance might be preferable to the truth. With that settled we left the twins with the mecha parts and departed for Lady Maria's domain. Along the way, I read Darren a rather dark bedtime story to help illuminate the mysteries of his past and its ties to the red scarves. In almost every account, the shadow warriors of lore defeated their crimson foes but for one. On our way we dropped off Darren and Penny at the League of Explorers to learn about his lore. The rest of us continued onward to Maria's, entrusting the Vitaray to her capable care before returning to Harth for a quick and quiet homecoming. L. Justine sought the counsel of Thalia and the Mayor in her efforts to expose the atrocities of Cannith and the other houses and turn public opinion against them. During the meeting, we learned of a technological exposition the Dragon Mark houses were planning to celebrate the recent peace we'd won for the realm. They pointed us to Last Stop to where they suggested we acquire evidence in the form of the entity Legion by any means. Not long after our meeting, Darren and Penny regrouped with us and recounted the shocking existential truths they learned regarding his origins. Apparently the archfey have been playing an arduous and ancient game with Darren and his crimson counterparts, something the sprite that followed Jeeng from the ship raid enlightened us on, even offering to take us to the fey realms to investigate further. Before we went down that path, Jeeng got word back from Lady Maria about discoveries she'd made from studying the VitaChamber. Thus Jeeng and I popped back over for a quick visit to learn her new theories on how the chamber could be repurposed to cure Jeeng's terminal life draining curse. She elaborated by giving 3 potential candidates, whose magical essence could be transferred and infused into Jeeng to reverse the necrotic effects, 1 being the elemental core of the illegal firebomb in Patrice's custody, the other being the formerly rampaging giant from the cloud tribe. While we contemplated the dubious choice, we made our way to confer with Lynra Lyrandar about siding with Team Justine against Cannith. She offered a little leverage against Fisk and Tharask in exchange for a little piece of my memory of the evidence that we've gathered to decry Cannith. To seal the deal, we forecasted the expose Justine would release to the public in a few days time. Jeeng decided to follow up with Lady Maria's tip and contacted Jimmy for the first time in a while. That conversation seemed promising too as Jimmy hinted that he might have a means to pacify his raging giant friend.