1. Organizations

Badgers

Adventuring Party

Dela ran her fingers over the marble features of the statue, a small bust of an elven woman. “She’s still alive? Trapped in there?”

“You speak as if that’s a punishment.” The priest’s features were hidden by his golden mask, his voice calm and steady. “Our lives are filled with chaos, battling disease, searching for sustenance. And what for? When we die, all that we are is consumed by Dolurrh. Instead, she is free—from fear, from hunger, from pain. She is eternal.”

“What good’s eternity trapped in stone?”

“She lives in a world of her own creation,” the priest said. “An endless trance—not unlike your dreaming, but she shapes the form of it. She may be walking through her perfect garden or reading her favorite book. She has access to all the memories of her time in her body. And that’s why life is so important; it is where we gather the knowledge and memories we will use to build our eternity.”

Dela looked at the hundreds of stone faces lining the shelves. Each one the vessel of an elf soul, countless generations of the Jhaelian line. “So which one wanted to talk to me?”


Dela could feel the mind flayer’s hatred, inflaming the anger of the crowd around her. His thoughts washed over her as he made his announcement to the gathered monsters. Outsiders came to Graywall, scheming to steal an ancient treasure from our governor’s palace. These arrogant easterners have been taken into custody, and within the hour they’ll fight their first match in the arena. Who will stand as the champions of Graywall? Who will spill the blood of the East?

The crowd around Dela roared as one. The minotaur in front of her raised his axe—made on a Karrnathi forge, from the look of it—and bellowed his righteous fury. Dela was glad for the illusion that made those around her see her as an orc; this was a bad moment to be the only human in the crowd.

A sudden sense of calm silenced the mind flayer’s rage. It was Gentle; the kalashtar’s telepathic projection momentarily shielded Dela from the governor’s wider projection. Do not fear, Dela. We’ll save them.


The sky was full of dreams. Countless points of light glittered against the endless darkness. But these were no stars. Some were quite close to Dela, and she could see them more clearly. There was movement within each iridescent sphere, images of people and places from across the world. In one, she could see a child begging on the streets of Sharn. In another, a woman was being crowned, surrounded by cheering people. Dela knew that if she touched one of these spheres, she would enter the dream, experiencing it just as if it was real. If she could find Rusty’s dreams, she could speak to him. Try to save him. But how could she find one dream among the endless multitude?

It was then that she saw the shadow moving against the darkness. Its body was nearly invisible against the sky, but it was surrounded by a halo of glowing eyes. Gentle had warned Dela about these. Each eye was the essence of a mortal; its dreams had been consumed by the kalaraq and its soul bound to service. And now, it was searching for her.


The dwarf muttered to himself as he scaled the imposing cliff. “‘It’s the plane of nature, Rusty!’ ‘It’ll be a vacation, Rusty!’ Well, this is the worst vacation I evaaaaaaaa—”

Dela was already drawing her wand even as her companion began to fall. Her fingers tightened around Rev’s shoulder plating as she considered her options. Rusty was tied to the warforged, but his full weight on the rope could dislodge Rev and send them all tumbling down. In her mind, she pictured the threads of gravity pulling the dwarf down, then reshaped the pattern with her thoughts, weaving the threads into a malleable platform.

“—aaaaoOOF!” Impact with the disk knocked the wind out of Rusty, but he wasn’t seriously injured. Dela rotated her wand, reeling in the threads of gravity and pulling the platform toward her. He sat up, glancing around. “Well, this is an improvement. Couldn’t you have done this earlier? Saved my shoulders?” “I didn’t want to waste the energy,” Dela said, struggling to maintain her concentration.

“Why not? Don’t you think we’ve done enough climbing for a day? Or a lifetime?”

Rev finally reached the top of the cliff. Digging his steel fingers into the soil, he pulled himself, Dela, and Gentle onto the plateau. Dela looked around . . . and then looked up. The plateau was dominated by a single massive tree—an oak taller than any of the towers of Sharn. Dela could see an airship nestled in the branches, like a child’s discarded toy. It was the Storm’s End. And they needed to reach it.


"What is it?” Ban asked, carefully studying the ancient gauntlet. Pulling out her duster, Dela passed the wand over the relic. Centuries of grime vanished, revealing blackened steel and glittering Khyber dragonshards. “The Hand of Halas Tarkanan. It’s a weapon made to amplify the power of aberrant dragonmarks.” She touched one of the embedded shards. “This gauntlet once leveled the towers of Sharn. And in the wrong hands, it could do so again.”

All characters that are members of this organization.