Ninjas and Sharks

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We ran around the apartment looking for clues. Everything is a wreck, there’s blood painted on the walls. All the lab stuff we brought over is gone. The doorman didn’t see anyone come or go, but suggests our servants can fix the mess. Heading back downstairs, I call out for them, and Barry apologizes. Wait, what?? He says that the other servants made the mess, but he didn’t see it happen, didn’t see who left after. I order him to clean up the mess while we discuss how to quickly go after them

Leaving a note for Remy, should he ever come back, we head out to Xingtown, carrying Klein. We don’t have enough magic to get there quickly, so foot it is. When we are halfway across on the ferry, a ninja in blue comes down and a whole group of shadowy men attack. I levitate up off the ferry and let the fight move on without me. Dalish manages to get them to talk.

They told Remy to go inside and bring their stuff out. When he didn’t come back out, but we did, they assumed foul play and treachery. I let my spell go and swim after them. Dalish keeps explaining what happened, while Klyce tosses me a ring and pulls me aboard. They say the Koga clan stole his sister. We convince them that we are not their enemy, at least not today. I ask about his sister’s magic, and he says it is rare. We convince them that we’ll go find her and bring her back. They say they will watch.

Finishing our ferry ride with another discussion of killing and killing by leading killers to other killers. We’re not to kill the killers, but we can only control our own actions. Using Locate, we run around Xingtown until we get a ping, 500 feet below us. Heading into the sewers, we find no way down. Coming back up, we look around and decide Lu Bai’s dojo might give a way down.

We knock, but there is no answer. Gerhardt sends in his snake and finds it empty, but Lu Bai is in the back office with his sword drawn. Klyce knocks again and shouts for him. He comes to the door and tries to shoo us away, but we tell him we are looking for the Koga and explain. He says he cannot help us, there is nothing here that can help you, but leaves his door open.

We head inside and look around. Nothing sticks out, until Nat uses her wand. There’s a dummy in the corner. We mess with it for awhile until Klyce just grapples with it, and there is a click. We head down a 30 foot ladder. We all head down after Klyce sets off a trap. There are tripwire everywhere, and pits, and tunnels going every which way.

Eventually, we get to a well-lit room with a matted floor and a dias in the center. There is a black iron shell on the platform. The wall is covered in writing. Once we all get into the room, the door closes behind us, and 4 ninjas appear and attack us. The fight is bloody. Dalish keeps ringing his bell and murdering them! Klyce manages to knock out the last one, instead.

Nat finds a hinge on the shell, revealing a slide downwards into the dark. We all slide down after a quick check for traps at the top. Oh gods, this is fast and so many twists and turns. Suddenly I’m alone. Then I’m splashing down into water. There’s something in here with me. Something bumping into me. I have no more magic. I don’t know what to do! Pain. Blackness.

Ninjas, Betrayal, and Captives

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The screaming start immediately, and I am not the only one. Something has stabbed me in the side! I reach out to Alice to cast on her and myself, then fly up and the darkness receeds below me. There are two bubbles of darkness in the warehouse, and everyone stumbles back out into the lighted area. Projectiles come flying out of the darkness, embedding themselves in my flesh and I fly straight back out of the building entirely.

Most of the others join me, but not for long. Remy goes charging back in to save Alice and Francine. Gerhardt sends a message to Maribeth (and Klyce) that we’ve been attacked. Then everyone is back inside, except for me, flying above the street and bleeding all over dirt below.

It isn’t long before I see Klyce and Maribeth approaching on ghostly steeds. I waves and fly up and down until they see me. I explain that everything went dark inside and then someone started stabbing us, and they head right on inside. They were with Poissant and told him before then rushed to us, so I continue staying outside, still bleeding, to wait for him.

It isn’t long, though, before the darkness is gone. I carefully re-enter the building, but the fight is over, and somehow Nat is inside. Alice is still there, but Francine has been killed, and one of the attackers has been decapitated. The others are saying something to Gerhardt about a dog? Remy takes a look at the dead man and finds scarred flesh on his back and hands.

Klyce tells Gerhardt that they need to talk about killing and then Remy gets into it with him. Klyce Will Not condone murder, even in self-defence, and Remy feels it’s justified to kill someone trying to kill you. Things get heated until Remy storms out. Klyce asks if any of the rest of us want to object to a no killing people rule, and we all demure.

It’s at this point that Klein finally arrives. We turn on him about everything that’s been going on, and all his staff who have been murdered. He goes on about how he went to Xing and studied their legends of an immortal emperor and the Woojen. (I really should ask someone how to spell that…) They were able to tap into raw mana without refining or consuming it. Klein found (Stole!) some relics that hinted at a path forward that we might take. When I ask about the thefts, he says there weren’t any Woojen left, as though that excuses it.

As he went on, Klyce asked if maybe they were like me. I don’t know, maybe, but it sounds like they knew what they were doing, maybe did it intentionally?

Klein offers to show us the relics. He claims that he doesn’t know what the killers want. Said he didn’t even know his people were being targeted. We tell him that we’re taking him out of here, and to gather his things and the relics, it’s not safe any more. They know where he is. He grabs a bunch of soil and rock samples, a staff covered in rules with a jade crystal on top, and some figurines. He has a small shrine, too, but it’s a bit much to be carrying across the city. Dalish sits for a few minutes and casts some magic on the staff. He says it’s a Staff of Withering, which sounds pretty horrible to me. We ask about the blood and meat and he says his rituals require it, but claims it isn’t blood magic.

We take him back over to our apartment, hoping that no one will be able to get in the magically sealed door. We set him up in the alchemy lab and he starts lecturing us, just like Malden used to. Why do we have to refine mana? Then launches into this crazy theory that the earth is a sphere of mana contained only by thin layers of rock and dirt. He says it’s at least thirty percent mana, but that it is kept in check and underground by the will of the planet! He claims that refining it breaks that bond to the world, and makes it usable by people. I mistakenly tell him I don’t need refined mana, can’t use it, and he gets Super interested. The rest have my back though. Nobody’s going to make Me a lab experiment.

We change the subject, back to our investigation. Did Greg tell him that he was going public with his complaints about the rituals? Klein has no idea what we’re talking about. Says everyone was happy to be working on the project. We ask what Else was going on at his lab, but he insists there was nothing. We tell him what the letter says, but he has no idea what would have been so upsetting and cost human diginity.

We all decide to go back to the lab to check it out. Maribeth doesn’t want to leave him alone, so she stays while the rest of us head out. Klyce and Dalish head to speak to LuBai, while Gerhardt, Nat and I go back to the lab. Remy still hasn’t come home. We find Poissant still at the lab, and start searching more carefully. Nat finds a secret door that has an arcane lock on it. She can’t pick the lock and Gerhardt and I can’t break down the door. Gerhardt sends a message to Klyce and he comes in swinging, knocking the door right off the hinges.

There are stairs down to another lab here. There are more samples like upstairs, but also a magical circle, and various unfriendly looking prods and probes. There are also strange glass circles pointed at the circle. When Dalish looks through one at Nat, he can see her skeletons and motes of mana floating around inside her. I step in front and Dalish says he can’t even see my bones, I’m just made up of mana!

The equipment down here looks a bit newer than upstairs. There are also empty filters and mana jugs. We find another lens that seems to slow down time in front of it and records what it sees. We fiddle with it until we can back up and see what it has recorded recently.

Greg comes down the stairs, picks up an iron flask, and a girl pops out. A Xingese girl about my age with glassy eyes. He tells her to sit down and then cooks and feeds her meat. Then he just puts her back inside the flask. What in the World??? We go back further and further. There are a lot of recordings of feeding this girl, always meat and only meat. A few recordings show her casting spells, the forms are strange but the results look normal. They run probes over her and even stick one in her once. There is one recording that shows the mana glass, and she’s just like me, full to the brim with mana. The flask isn’t down here, and it wasn’t with the stuff we took, either. The three dead men and Alice are the only ones on the recordings. Klein never comes down.

Alice. Klein. Maribeth!

We race home. Klein is unconscious on the floor. One of the rooms is painted in blood. Alice and Maribeth are both gone! I run around the mansion, calling for her. She Has to be here! She Has to!

I vaguely hear Gerhardt waking up Klein and demanding to know what happened. The ninjas came. Into our House!

Dalish tells him what we found, but he doesn’t believe us. He casts a spell on Dalish, but Dalish tells him the story again. Klein collapses on the floor again. Gerhardt tries to message Maribeth, but nothing happens. We move the unconscious Klein into the living room and try to decide what to do next.

Butchers and Blood in South Brooklyn

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Klyce, Maribeth, and Dalish round the rest of us up for a trip to South Brooklyn to check out the Butcher shop our murder victim bought all the meat and blood at. Eustace says Tim is his best customer, buys about that much every couple of months for the last year and a half. He says Tim seemed fine last time he saw him, just a couple days ago for that order.

Next we head to the bank on “Tim’s” checks. Remy heads in and asks for the manager. Alice doesn’t work here, but the manager recognizes Artimeous’ name, but tries to push us off to the hall of records. Remy is insistent and eventually gets the manager to tell him how often Artimeous gets paid and for how long, that same year and a half.

We take a break to get some lunch and ask the Xingese waiter if he can knows anyone who can translate the note we found. He offers to take a look, but when we show him, says it is too old and he can’t decipher it. He gives us directions down to nearby dojo and says there’s a man who might be able to help. We ask after Tim, and he says he eats here often, and even brings friends around, and speaks the local language very well.

Tim seems quite the odd man about town here, so after lunch, we split up and canvas the area, looking for anyone else he might have known. We manage to find a grocery store he frequents, furthering our idea that he must have an apartment nearby, but no real leads on where.

Gathering back up at the dojo, we head in to Lu Bai’s Martial Arts. There’s an older man teaching about ten kids our age and he tries to shoo us out. We ask if we could just wait for him, and he reluctantly leaves the kids to come see what we want. We tell him we’ve been pointed his way for translation help, and he says he will in exchange for Klyce’s help in a demonstration. Klyce agrees, and gets thrown to the ground in front of the class.

Sending the kids to spar with each other, he takes us to another room. Remy explains why we have come, and he takes a look. He says the script is in an ancient form, but the characters are unfamiliar to him. He suggests we visit an antique dealer a few blocks away. When Remy asks if he knows anyone who would leave such a note attached to a dagger in a murder victim, he says that the Triad does is not so sloppy to leave writing behind.

We head over to the shop and start browsing the wares. The shopkeep approaches and welcomes us, and Remy explains that Lu Bai send us over for help with some ancient script. She takes the paper and after a moment, walks over to a shiny old bronze statue. She holds the paper up to it, as though to a mirror and begins reading aloud. Only Remy with his spell up can understand her, but soon we all get the gist as a thunderous explosion fills the shop.

What the heck???

She explains that it was a prayer to the Gods of Thunder and Vengeance that the person slain burn in the fires of the thousand hells and woe to those who interfere. Sure…. that makes sense… Who would do something like that? Who could? She says that it could be the Children of Lightning, the woojen or something. I ask if these gods have temples here, but she says no. She doesn’t know Tim, but she could maybe get us books about the Children and their gods in about a week or so. We apologize for the explosion, but while unhappy, she mostly just shoos us out.

Enough excitement for one day, we head home, stopping by the bank for Maribeth. In the morning, Dalish and Gerhardt get up early to hit the room of forms and the Hall of Records while the rest of us sleep in, greet the sunrise, or train. Then, while they’re still filling out forms and finding records, the rest of us head out to Brooklyn again to start checking out apartment buildings for anyone that knew Tim.

Plenty of folk have seen him around, but no one claims to be his neighbor. After a short while, Remy recieves word from Gerhardt that there’s been another murder. This one in South Brooklyn and Inspector Poissant is already there. We head on over and it’s on the outer edge of Xingtown. Poissant tells us that it’s Gregory Killcannon, and he was found in his chair with a knife in his chest. A knife just like Tim’s. No forced entry here, either, the maid just found him when she came to clean. We look around and only come up with some spare mana and a Transmuter’s spellook. Maribeth manages to find some of Tim’s hair in the bathroom and a Journal under Greg’s mattress. The rest of us talk to the neighbors, but they don’t have much to say. Greg kept to himself. Would stay home for days on end, then be gone for days.

We head out to lunch at a different place, and Maribeth fills us in on the journal. Greg was excited about his new job. He said Klein was Brilliant, had vision, passion and a worthwhile goal. There were drawings of the planet with cris-crossing lines, and a section view too, with different layers labeled with heat, pressure and mana concentration. But then something happened, and he started using words like morally unconscionable and no goal is worht the sacrifice of human dignity. That’s about the time he sent word to Tim about going public.

Maybe Klein got mad and killed them both. Who is Klein? Where do they all work? It has to be around here, but we have no leads. We have to go see what Dalish and Gerhardt have dug up and Maribeth needs to go to her bank again, so we all head back to the Petals. There’s some arguing over our next steps. Remy wants to go be bait, but Klyce says the murders have been up close, personal, and in their own homes. Remy asks Dalish to speak to Rictus about the names we’ve gathered that night and we all head to rest. Remy wants to hang out in the hot tub we’ve made in our mansion, but it takes him a minute to figure out why I won’t join him. Boys! I do try to give him a bit of a lesson in fae, but we’re both a bit tired.

In the morning, we gather up while Dalish and Gerhardt go look into more records and figure out where Klein works. Once we get the address, we run nearly all the way there. The door isn’t locked on this old warehouse outside of Xingtown, so we walk on in. The walls are clean white and the floor is tiled. There’s a front desk, but no one is at it. The desk has the usual stuff, but none of it seems to see any use. We head through another door and find a large lab.

Glass topped cages on long tables. A blackboard full of sketches and equations. The illusion of a globe with the same line of mana. Over in the corner is a blond woman, rummaging around. Alice? Yes, hi! Where’s Harden Klein? Well, he just left to go to your office, Malakan died last night. We told him to stay here, but he went home. Alice sends a message to get Klein to come back, and Klyce and Maribeth get Malakan’s address and head out to meet with Poissant. The rest of us ask Alice about what’s going on here, and what specialities everyone has. She called out to someone named Francine to join us, and then the lights went out.

Alchemy, Religion, and Murder

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It got quiet after we became heroes of the city. Well, magically speaking, at least. We had time to go back to our studies for a little while. Dalish finished up our paperwork and we could breathe new air every morning. It was refreshing to not explode every hour. That was such a strange experience. And meeting a Goddess? Not that Remy believes it, not yet, anyway. I am learning more each week, going to Sunday services, and watching the sun rise and set each day. It’s peaceful and nice.

The magocracy can’t get enough of us, though. All these political mages come banging at our door. Join our party, no ours, we’ll give you access to power, to spells, we can fix the world, we can fix everything. UGH! I’m just thirteen, and I could care less about all their agendas, or their power, or their stupid spell books that I can’t use. No way I’m going to be a figurehead. Not for my family, not for them.

I did get to work on my alchemy lessons a little. With Gerhardt’s help, I figured out how to make a healing potion! I’m so excited, but they do take a while to make, but at least we can still get supplies at the school, when we have time to go back there. Dalish still has to be there, working with Rictus. Oh man, I’m so glad I can’t do that type of magic!

After a few days, Remy gets over himself enough to ask me for a conversation. He sorta apologizes, but says he still isn’t sure about the Dawnmother’s intentions, or the real cause of the old war. He wants me to try and teach him the fae language, and go with him back to the forest to see if the fae will talk to him. He wants to know what they think about the old war. And he doesn’t want me to tell the others. Not yet. I tell him that we can’t go walking into the forest alone, what if we get killed? We have to tell them we’re going at least. I’m also not so sure about teaching him the language, I don’t even know how I know it, but I’ll give it a go when we have time. After that conversation, though, he fell deep into his magical studies, working on that wierd blade of his.

Klyce wanted to go back to school and find another spell or two. Everyone babbles on about flying, polymorph, fire shield, or hallucinatory terrain as we go. Once there, we decide to take a closer look at the courtyard between the buildings. Maribeth notices that there are different species of grass in certain spots, so I lift her up to get a better look.

She says the grasses form runes all across the courtyard. She copies them down and then highlights them with little sparkling lights so the boys can see. Klyce climbs up the main hall to take a look, and notices they’re from the transformation school and seem to have something to do with acceleration. So, he climbs down and walks them in order and a spell called Plant Growth appeared for him to write down.

Once they all get it down, they continue to look around. The sidewalks seem oddly uniform, but they can’t get anything from them. There’s a big tree in the corner, and when they start investigating, they find abjuration, necormancy, and a very odd geometric design to the limbs. Eventually, Dalish casts Identify, and discovers it is the Keystone for the school’s protective magics.

Walking around the area, they notice the benches have equations, or parts of equations, that seem similar to the tree’s design. They walk out the patterns and find a glyph on the theatre’s wall. It seems to be a glyph of warding against unauthorized folk. We try to find other ones around the other buildings, but this seems to be the only one that matches the pattern. Frustrated, we pack it in for the day.

A couple weeks later, Remy calls us all together to have a party. Gerhardt finished his potion of longevity, and Remy is back down another ten years. He looks like Maribeth’s age, now, and we go out to celebrate in the Petals. It was a lovely evening, and we all got to relax and talk about nonsense.

The next morning, however, things got back to our normal. The floating pool up at the 30-something floor was bright crimson in the dawn light.

Maribeth tells the doorman, who notifies a constable. We volunteer, as official investigators, to go take a look while he waits for them. Once he recognizes us, he gives us a key and Maribeth and Remy head up while I go fetch everyone else. By the time we all get up there, Maribeth is going through the dead man’s mail and Remy is studying the body with a knife in its back. Dalish uses magic to turn the corpse over, but there are no other wounds. The knife has weird magic, an octagonal handguard, intricate wrappings, and a small tag attached to the pommel. Dalish tries to understand the writing on it, but it’s some sort of code.

Maribeth says that, according to his mail, the dead man is a researcher, and someone he worked with was very concerned about what they were researching. Saying they had gone too far, and it was affecting lives. He was planning on coming forward and hoped Artemious would, too. That one was signed Killcannon. She said there was also a butcher receipt for beef, pig, pig’s blood, and organ meat. Way more than a man living alone would need.

Just as Remy is suggesting that maybe this isn’t our concern, Inspector Poissant arrives, and suggests we take point. The writing on the tag is Chinese, and they live in the south end of Brooklyn. The butcher shop is also down there. We suggest that he takes over the scene, as his people are much better at crime scene investigation, and we would head off on the leads. He agrees and we head to work.

When we ask at reception for Killcannon, the receptionist says he’s not on record there, and neither is Artemious Finch. There are two other Finch men here, though: Daniel in Records, and Uriah in the Hall of War. She directs us to those departments and we head up. Maribeth, Dalish, and Klyce head for the Hall of Records and Remy, Gerhardt, and I head to the War Department.

A Deal With a Goddess

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Round Ten.

Waking in the dirt again. After we get past Cross, Remy heads off to talk to Carmine. The rest of us head towards the bank to try and find the foreman. We find a promising looking apartment building, but the name plates are all corroded. Dalish manages to Mend them enough for us to see the names. But we don’t actually know her name. So, with Klyce in the lead, we begin searching room by room, until, on the fourth floor, we see a doorway blocked by a bubble. I head down to catch Remy on his way to the bank, and bring him upstairs, because he has the spear that can pop the bubble.

When we get back up, he spears it, and we start to hear a beeping. In through the door, we see another smaller bubble with a robed figure holding a book and a wand. Also, a rather large bomb. Klyce rushes in, grabbing the bomb, and diving out the window. BOOM!

Round Eleven.

We run straight for the apartment, while Remy heads off after Carmine. We have a plan, to try to get the bomb further out the window with magic, if the code from the mine door doesn’t work on it. While we’re doing that, we’re also going to pop the lady’s bubble, so she can help us, now that we found her.

Once Remy makes it back with Carmine, we try it.

Pop. Code. I levitate the bomb. Klyce runs and jumps with it. Remy pops the lady’s bubble. She has time to say… oh… no… BOOM!

The lady in our whitespace vision was missing an arm…

Round Twelve.

Klyce insists that the bomb didn’t kill him, but what does that matter, really, we’re back in the dirt.

Remy says that it didn’t kill him either, and he was able to pour a healing potion down the lady’s throat, and she told him to find her journal before the reset.

Okay, new plan. Maybe the journal is in the vault. Carmine is pretty certain that something in there will fix all of this, so how do we get inside? The manager appears to be the only way in, so Remy will mask up like the sheriff, saying he needs access, and Maribeth will look like Cross. Klyce and I will go try and ask Cass about the big bomb. Dalish and Gerhardt are going to ask around for the foreman’s name, because the name plate says J. Isaacs, but we’re pretty sure that’s the sheriff. We split up and run.

Klyce and I go sit at the tree to wait for Cass, but it turns out she doesn’t know that foreman’s name, they just referred to her by title. Sad to say, Klyce did way better at talking to Cass than I did, I really don’t like dying a dozen times in a day, it makes me cranky.

We all meet back up at the bank, where Remy and Maribeth have managed to get the foreman’s journal from the vault. The journal has the bomb’s code in it, and we discuss going up immediately to turn it off, or heading to the church, now that Carmine will go with us. The church wins out, and Carmine insists we all come along.

The brothers, man and skeleton, pray together and the church rebuilds itself. Dalish says it’s strange magic that does it, not quite like the fae, but not like ours, either. The brothers then pray to the Dawnmother for her light, her guidance, and her help in the path forward. At this, a shimmery haze fills the altar area, and Maribeth rushes into it. What else to do but follow, so we all go into the light.

It seems like the white space between explosions. There is a woman here, made all of light, and I am nearly overwhelmed with the power coming from her. She greets us as mortals, and insists she would not normally meddle, but there is a great trouble, and causality is all out of order.

Dalish asks how we can fix things, and she says it is within her power, but there is a price. She requires worship in return for her help. Remy is having none of this, he doesn’t know who or what she is, but he is not interested in worshipping some strange being of power who is only just now stepping in to help stop only one of the horrors we have lived through. Dalish asks if the worm is the wandering vengance, but she says no, it is our ancient enemy. She assents, it is the fae, and the war has been going on for ages, but will answer no more questions about it.

Klyce, ever reasonable, asks what it is she is willing to do. She says she will remove impediments before us, but we must give her both the spear, and the hourglass that the foreman has used for the time bubbles. Klyce says we have already removed most of the impediments, and we have a plan, and we have the bomb’s code. He asks if she’ll fix this area of town, put it back the way it was, put the people back. She says she will fix the threads of time, reintegrate this part of the city with the whole, but the changes to the people cannot be undone. The foreman, who has died many times, and put all of herself into the protection of this area, will not survive.

This throws Remy into another fit, arguing that she has been instrumental, just like us, in keeping things whole, in saving all these people. The Dawnmother says there is a higher order, and she is only allowed to do so much. Maribeth suggests she only has control over certain aspects of the world, and the Dawnmother agrees.

I cut in, and ask what sort of worship she requires. She asks only that we show appreciation for the sunrise and sunset. Remy refuses. Dalish agrees, asserting that we might as well acknowledge the gods, since she’s right here in front of us. Remy and Dalish argue for a bit, over her intentions, our ability to solve the problem without her, and the possibility that she’s just like Garian, only she succeeded.

Klyce eventually cuts in, asking her if we all have to agree to worship her, or just some of us. She says not all of us. Dalish, Maribeth, and I agree to worship her. I was already going to talk to the priests about her, ever curious about my powers. The dreams mention “her coming, shining as the sun,” so I was already on my path. Klyce agrees to the plan, if not the worship, and Remy simply abstains. The Dawnmother agrees, and reminds us that the hourglass and spear will be collected when we are done.

Outside the mists, the explosion completes.

Round Thirteen.

We get past Cross and head for the foreman, discussing our plans as we run. Maybe the foreman can help with the reactor. That worm is huge, but surely the bomb will kill it. Dalish and Remy have quite the conversation about gods and evil and Rictus. Klyce and I discuss the plan, my magic, and I even tell him what my dreams have said.

We get to the apartment. Remy pops the bubble, and quickly enters the code from the journal to disarm the bomb. Then he pops the foreman’s bubble. She says thank you, it is up to us now, and disintigrates in his arms. Remy grabs the hourglass and it begins speaking to us all. Klyce grabs the bomb, and we begin heading down to the mine.

It says that it is Time given physical form. It says June did a great job holding things together, and is sure we can fix this whole mess. It says that having all of us together changes the math of the situation. It says we an fix all sorts of things. Some of the others go a bit blank, like they’re seeing things that aren’t there, or maybe that used to be there. We start asking it questions, but it doesn’t really know what the big worm is, and it can’t see forward in time to know if our plan will work. It can, however, pause time, which it does for a moment. Remy asks about the war from his extra memories, but the hourglass says that’s too far back to tell us anything. Remy asks about the Dawnmother, but the hourglass can’t see her because we were out of time when we talked to her. The hourglass isn’t alive, but more of an intelligent item, it seems to like that label.

We start to fill it in on our plan to explode the worm with the big bomb. We tell the hourglass that we will then have to give it up to the Dawnmother. We talk about the bubbles and the one holding the worm in. It says that June didn’t create a very good bubble around it because it was done in a hurry. We ask about creating a bubble just around its head, like we through the bomb in, then bubble it so that it cuts it’s head off, and blows it up at the same time. It says this is doable.

Remy asks about going back to save June. It says that it would take him out of time. Remy asks about going back to our first cycle, and saving her there. The hourglass says she was already dead many times over by then. Remy talks about various plans, saying he does’t want to give the hourglass over to the Dawnmother. The hourglass agrees with him, not being interested in being pulled out of time again. The hourglass tries to tempt Klyce, but he wants no part in more strange magic. Remy says he’s going to try and absorb the hourglass somehow, to keep it from the goddess. He thinks she has bad intentions. He asks it if it could lock itself away in time, and while it could, it finds that even more boring. It thinks it could meld with Remy, but it also thinks he might just fall into pieces. They go back and forth a bit, but at least it seems Remy accepts June’s sacrifice.

We head down to the bottom of the mine and prepare. Maribeth sends me a message, saying she plans to put Remy to sleep, and do I side with her. I tell her that I will not attack him, but neither will I let him hurt her in return. Klyce tosses the bomb out over the worm, Remy pops the bubble, and the hourglass seals a new bubble around its head. We feel everything click into place. We hear and feel the rumble of the rest of the body falling deep into the earth. The head floats in the air, a contained explosion inside a bubble.

The Dawnmother appears before us, and says it is time. Remy insists that he did not agree to this plan, to giving her the powerful items. She asks him, Will you make oathbreakers of your friends? His answer to her trails off, as he drops the spear, and starts trying to shove the hourglass into his chest. Dalish rushes forward and touches Remy with cold magic. Maribeth puts Remy to sleep. Dalish hands over the items to the Dawnmother who thanks him and hopes to not see us again. She tells us to proceed out to the edge of the bubble, and she will prepare us an exit. Then she will reknit the area back into time.

Klyce lifts Remy’s body, and we head out. When we leave the bubble, the cannon’s report is still echoing. Nat and the artificer ask if it worked, and we say yes. Turning back, we watch through the hazy bubble as the area clears, and years pass. We watch them build statues of us, with June standing above us all. In five minutes time, the bubble falls. There is a huge wave of cheering from the people inside. They all know what we did to save them, and the rush over to thank us.

Klyce asks the artificer to get someone over here. Maribeth goes to speak to the artist about her grandmother. Cass comes over to Klyce, saying she’s going to turn her life around and join the police force. We wait for Prime Hadrius to arrive, and stop Dalish from causing a panic over the worms. Klyce tells Hadrius that these people need to be given proper legal status, that their current state is not their fault. Maribeth, Dalish, and I go back to the church. Kevin has been given back a proper body, thankfully. The welcome us to come and worship, and talk to us for a while about the Dawnmother.

Back at work the next day, we debrief as a group, and tell them everything that happened. The story, naturally, gets out to the press, and it isn’t long before political parties start approaching us each to join them. I repeatedly remind anyone approaching me that I’m 12, which is much to young to get into politics.