Session 4: Ashes of Memory, Embers of Truth
A tale transcribed, somewhat soberly, by Dorian Frostquill
General Summary
They came with the smoke.
Four souls bearing the scars of Wurgar’s chains stepped into a city carved from sand and fire. Dum Ramil. A name spoken in whispers and screamed in sermons. A place where flame is god, forge, and guillotine.
The Festival of the Ashen Moon had begun, an orgy of smoke and colour, of fire dancers and bone flutes, of children in horned masks and priests hissing hymns through cracked teeth. But beneath the ritual and revelry, the city’s heart beat like a war drum. The Sects were watching.
And Dum Ramil never watches without judging.
With ash on their backs and defiance in their eyes, the party, Adeline of the Scareguards, Rhazh’Korr the Exiled Flame, Brazen the Banewood Walker, and Silas, holy blade with haunted veins, stepped forward into the crucible of trials.
First, the arena. Sun and shadow. Blood and cheers. There, under Talvek Marr’s smoke-roughened gaze, they proved themselves in battle, not for glory, but for alliance. When the dust settled and sweat steamed from their brows, the Highfort Alliance nodded. “We will march.”
Next came invention. The Gilded Forge did not want strength. It wanted sacrifice. Meaning. Vaerel Hadran, burn-scarred and brass-bound, led them to the corpse of a machine, a relic of the Bound Flame. It was Rhazh’Korr who understood. The locket around his neck, the last remnant of a family lost to time, was given without a word. The engine stirred, and the Guild listened.
Then the Crucible. Fire made holy. Flame made judgment. Silas, stripped of steel and title, walked barefoot between braziers that whispered every regret he ever buried. He confessed. Not to his gods. Not to his friends. But to the flame. That he bore the curse of the Crimson Lady. That blood, once sacred, had been tainted. The brazier did not recoil. It burned brighter. He emerged blistered, shaking… and changed.
And finally, the whispering dark. The Shadeborn offered no flame, only memory. The party descended into the Hall of Echoes, where murals blinked and doorways murmured. They wrestled secrets from the very bedrock of the city. Found a memory, no, a truth, that Dum Ramil had buried in silence. A betrayal older than any living Sect. And like all truths, it stank of blood and ash.
The Sects gathered to hear the prophecy spoken in fire. And in that moment, all factions beheld the same vision—of Dum Ramil’s collapse, and the fire to come.
But unity? No. Unity is a bedtime story told by fools to soothe themselves. The Sects snarled behind their smiles. And so the party chose a side.
The Guild of Black Flame became their patron. Vaerel gave them more than tools, he gave them purpose. Beneath the city, beneath the soot and steam, lay the Echo Vault. A scar. A memory. A curse.
They descended.
Through tunnels thick with static and regret. Through halls lined with statues that wept soot and whispered “oathbreaker.” Through a mirrored chamber where their own reflections watched… and judged.
There they faced the Ashen Warden.
Once a guardian. Now a nightmare. Bound in molten memory, it attacked not out of hatred, but grief. Its chains flailed with forgotten vows, its helm bled light. The battle was savage. Magic howled. Steel sang. And, as if fated by the gods of irony, Barry once again blasted Silas in the back with a Guided Bolt, leaving the paladin smoking like overcooked lamb.
Yet they prevailed.
And at the heart of the Vault, cradled in a sorrow too deep for words, pulsed the Echo Shard, a relic not of power, but of revelation.
When they placed it before Vaerel, it opened like light poured from an old wound. Blueprints of wonders unseen in centuries. Engines that needed no fire. Cities that healed themselves. Souls Ash made pure again.
The Guild would remember.
No parades met them as they left Dum Ramil. Only the hiss of steam, and the whisper of what had been done.
Now, they fly.
Adeline, drawn by unfinished promises.
Silas, chasing the Crimson Lady.
Brazen, feeling the pull of ancient roots.
Rhazh’Korr, watching a future that feels more like prophecy than path.
The Republic of Misty Waters lies ahead. And in its tides, new games await.
The flame has not died, dear listener.
It has only begun to breathe.
Rhazh'Korr
Adeline Hawthorn
Silas Brattenward
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