Into the Chasm - Episode 4

After a tense night in Melusa, the party bargains with Malquin for passage home; stepping through a strange gash in reality they find Eidrikas in the true Great Chasm.

Timeline

• Jan 26, 1730 DR, night: During the so-called night, Kalima slips from Nura and Khaled’s house, as Ice Palace soldiers move outside. The party stays hidden and rests.
• Jan 27, 1730 DR: The party learns more about Melusa and the rebels who want to escape, led by Zahara. Deciding to bargain directly with Malquin, the party enters the Ice Palace. Malquin veers between fear and authority, but lets the party leave if they return with proof the outside world is real. The Chasm Explorers escape through a strange gash in reality that shows a mirror of Melusa’s ledge, without the village.
• Jan 27, 1730 DR - Jan 29, 1730 DR: Stepping through the gash, the party finds themselves in the Great Chasm, a few days later, where they meet Eidrikas, who asks for help to restore the Great Chasm.

Cast of Characters

• Kalima (kah-LEE-mah; she/her, the Zimka human): guide to Melusa and Old Zimkovan woman rescued by the party.
• Zahara (zah-HAH-rah; they/them, the Zimka human): leader of the Melusa rebels.
• Samir (sah-MEER; she/her, the Zimka human): wakeful baby with a strange old soul.
• Nura (NOO-rah; she/her, the Zimka human): Kalima’s sister and the party’s host in Melusa.
• Taquin (tah-KEEN; the Zimka human): an old soul speaking through the infant Samir.
• Iskander (is-KAN-der; he/him, the Zimka human): member of the rebels and Zahara’s contact in Melusa.
• Malquin the Vaqar (for-KWAH-ree-on; he/him, fey lord): ruler of the demiplane; the Melusan name for Forquarion the Frostbinder.
• Eidrikas (AYD-ree-kahs; he/him, human): druid in the Great Chasm, member of the Vejo Vaikai.
• Pakrinek (PACK-ree-neck; kenku): fallen kenku companion of Eidrikas.

Places

• Melusa (meh-LOO-sah; village in Zeyfa’s Realm): Isolated chasm-side village caught between Malquin’s rule, Zahara’s hidden resistance, and the dangerous gashes in the cliff. Session context includes: Nura and Khaled’s house, Iskander’s hut near the cattle-island bridge, and the cliffside gashes.
• Ice Palace: Malquin’s floating palace, reached by a conjured bridge of ice. Session context includes: the entrance hall and throne-room-like audience chamber.
• Great Chasm (chasm in Zimkova, Greater Sembara): The true chasm beyond Melusa, where floating carved platforms surround a failing planar mechanism.

Narrative

Our session begins at night, as the party hides and rests. During the night, Jrain hears the door open during her watch, and sees Kalima slip into the whiteout fog outside, following a guide, while Malquin’s soldiers move through the village, and Samir lies awake watching the escape.

Morning brings no simple explanation for Kalima’s flight. Samir, still only a baby, answers with memories of falling toward the labyrinth and seeing Zahara above him, then identifies himself as Taquin. Nura describes Melusa’s wrong-soul curse and the brief lives expected for such children. The party discusses what to do next, and decides that, rather than rely on the village elders, they should talk to Zahara’s troublemakers, likely a better path to answers.

Leaving Nura and Khaled’s house, the Chasm Explorers walk through Melusa to find Iskander, a contact of Zahara’s. Once he is convinced they are serious, he tells the party more about the five gashes in the cliff. They appeared a few months ago, but the one apparently safe exit is held by Malquin’s forces and guarded by a forty-foot ice wolf. A few have tried to escape, and failed, but most of the villagers are too frightened or resigned to act. He also explains more about Zahara’s rebels. There are only a handful of them, he says, and they often withdraw to a hidden refuge on one of the floating islands when the village feels unsafe.

With Iskander’s information exhausted, the party decides to act instead of spend more time investigating the situation, and develops a plan to confront Malquin directly. They ask Iskander to warn Zahara’s circle, so they are not caught off guard if this creates an opening for escape, and then leave Iskander’s for the Ice Palace. Along the way, the party stops to look at the gashes; Eolo tests the metal gash and comes away with a sharp, shimmering fragment of metal, and a mangled arm. Reaching the edge of the village, the party announces themselves, drawing enough attention for the bridge to the Ice Palace to form.

Inside the Ice Palace, the party comes face to face with Malquin. The audience is less a formal reception than an encounter with a ruler struggling to hold himself together. Malquin appears and reappears around the chamber, names himself Malquin the Vaqar, and alternates between grand authority, terror of annihilation, and suspicion that the party might be another false thing from the whispers that speak to him. The severed head from the labyrinth unsettles him, but it also helps make the outside feel possible. In the end he bargains: they may pass through the apparently safe mirror-world gash, with his necklace as a token, but he wants proof that what waits beyond is real and not some trick.

Malquin’s permission proves real enough for the ice wolf to let them approach, and the party steps through the mirror-world gash. The portal opens onto a sheer cliff in the true Great Chasm. Below them, the party sees strange carved floating platforms in the Chasm, flickering with unstable light. Eolo and Ekko help the others reach the stones, where they see a person below. Clairvoyance reveals this is Eidrikas, alive but in agony as he uses his body to complete a damaged runic circuit in the stone platform. He tells Ekko that orcs overran the site, killed Pakrinek, and carried a vital stone key down through the platform network, presumably trying to escape. His count of days also reveals that several extra days passed outside while the party was trapped in Melusa, leaving only a narrow window to recover the stolen piece before the mechanism cracks entirely with unknown consequences.

Combat