Session 36: The Ascent

General Summary

Departure

We left Stonemantle with frost in the air and the lingering scent of forge-smoke still clinging to our clothes. Everyone took their final moments to prepare: Chungle overpacked again, Jim triple-checked the stabilizers like a man expecting disaster, and I made sure the scrying eye was properly tuned. I’d been refining its recording runes — if the stories are true about Jarak’s Forge, then the world ought to remember what happens there.
Flying west, we passed over the frozen fields of Brakkar Hold. They looked peaceful from the air, but I don’t trust serenity in these lands. Off in the distance, Jarak’s Throne rose from the horizon like a scar left by something much larger. We could see only part of the peak — the rest was swallowed in a swirling storm of ash, ice, and thunder. The tallest mountain in Thallindor, and it wore its fury like a crown.
It was magnificent. And it didn’t want us near it.

The Crash

About halfway up, the Chainbreaker’s mag-ducts began to fail. It was subtle at first — a tremble in the floor, a slight delay in the trim correction — but I could feel it in my teeth. Something was disrupting the stabilization runes, and the closer we got to the summit, the worse it became. The air itself buzzed with wrongness.
Then we dropped. Not a full plunge, but more than enough to seize every heart aboard. The ship bucked sideways, skidding into the cliffside, and for a moment I was sure we’d be flung into the storm. Instead, we landed hard into a snow-packed shelf that absorbed most of the blow. No serious injuries, though Warby managed to knock his head — he insisted it was a tactical impact.
With the Chainbreaker grounded and the interference too strong to risk another flight attempt, we made the only decision we could: Jim, Chungle, and I would stay behind to make repairs. The rest of the party would press on toward the summit. Before they left, I handed them the scrying eye — it would hover at a discreet distance, quietly recording everything it saw. That way, if they succeeded, we would have a record. And if they didn’t… at least we’d know why.

The Climb (as recorded by the Scrying Eye)

The ascent was more trial than trail. Even through the eye, I could feel the brutality of it — jagged switchbacks carved into brittle stone, edges sheathed in ice, volcanic ash mixing with snow to form choking slush. Old traps still lay embedded beneath the surface, divine in origin and still very much active. The air grew thinner with every step, but worse were the whispers. They bled from ruined forges like ghosts, tugging at memory, faith, and purpose. Sunny seemed to draw strength from them. Goq… less so.
Warby avoided their influence entirely by stuffing his ears with beeswax and shredded parchment. I refuse to ask where he got either.
After hours of climbing and careful maneuvering, they reached the summit. There, they found a sealed planar gate — dormant but very much alive. In front of it stood a figure I had only heard rumors about: Kethrys. Once a man, now a revenant of ash and ember, his body fused with flame-marked chains and his voice echoing like a cracked forge bell. He called himself Ashen-Pledged and demanded to know their purpose, reaching into their minds to extract it.
And then he turned their vows against them.
The battle was vicious. Elementals — Uthuls — formed from the storm itself, joined the assault. Kethrys struck with terrible precision, his blows fueled by the party’s very ideals. The eye flickered from damage more than once, and I feared it would fail. Goq was knocked to the ground at least twice, and Sunny fought like someone ready to die on that peak. Warby, somehow, found an opening. With Kethrys distracted, he sprinted toward the gate, Eternal Flame in hand.
He lit it.
The portal ignited — not with fire, but with something older. Something deeper.

Jarak’s Forge

The gate opened not like a door, but like a wound being torn in the world.
Through it, the party emerged onto a floating slab of molten-black rock — one of the Shifting Crucibles, as legend calls them. Around them spread a fractured realm of colossal machines, drifting platforms, and rivers of molten metal that moved not with gravity, but purpose. Towers of bronze and iron rose into a cracked sky lit by forges that hadn’t burned in millennia. This was no ruin — this was a divine forge waiting for command.
They had entered the Forge of Jarak.
Their first destination was clear. Far across the horizon, nested in smoke and steel, stood the city of Velthurak.

Campaign

The New Dawnbreakers

Protagonists

Sunny Grannach

Brazen White Bulb Conquering Red Blossom

Dulb the Deckhand

Dulb's sheet

Level 13 Swashbuckler.

Health

/

Goq-Ixai

Report Date

03 May 2025