Into the Chasm - Episode 6

After recovering the chasm engine’s keystone, the party returns to Melusa and leads dozens of willing villagers through the unstable portal to safety.

Timeline

• Jan 29, 1730 DR, evening: The party recovers the keystone, but postpones repairing the chasm engine long enough to return to Melusa, where they evacuate a few dozen willing villagers.

Cast of Characters

• Eidrikas (AYD-ree-kahs; he/him, human): mentor and living bridge in the mechanism.
• Zahara (zah-HAH-rah; they/them, the Zimka human): leader of the dissidents.
• Older Melusan woman: skeptical elder rallying people to stay.
• Iskander (is-KAN-der; he/him, the Zimka human): organizer of the willing group.
• Kalima (kah-LEE-mah; she/her, the Zimka human): refugee among the willing.
• Malquin the Vaqar (for-KWAH-ree-on; he/him, fey lord): missing ruler of Melusa.

Places

• Great Chasm (chasm in Zimkova, Greater Sembara): Sacred chasm machinery site where Eidrikas holds a damaged planar engine together and the rescued Melusans emerge into the true world.
• Melusa (meh-LOO-sah; village in Zeyfa’s Realm): Isolated village-realm whose willing dissidents escape after strange portals overwhelm the palace guard and destabilize the settlement.

Narrative

Our session begins with the last orc dead; the party can finally take in the vast hall beneath Eidrikas’s platform. Six black pillars—apparently neither stone nor metal—descend through the floor, surrounded by hatches lit from below with an unsteady purple-blue glow. Broken gears, rods, and stone lie scattered across the chamber, and the stolen keystone rests fifty feet away: a jagged arc of black stone banded with silver runes and dark channels. Though the open hatches suggest another level below, the keystone is the piece Eidrikas needs.

Eolo moves to take the keystone, but as he picks it up, he is caught in its charm, which pushes him to enter the hatches and descend below. When he tries to toss the stone to Justas and fly below, the party quickly reacts: Finnan’s Calm Emotions spell snaps Eolo free of the compulsion. Jrain wraps the stone in a scavenged cloak, allowing Ekko and Eolo to carry it safely back to Eidrikas. Still gritting his teeth as his body completes the broken runic circle, Eidrikas confirms that replacing the missing arc should steady the planes and close the chaotic portals. However, he agrees to hold on for a few more days in the chasm—roughly a day inside Melusa—so the party can return to Melusa and attempt to rescue any villagers they can. The Chasm Explorers leave the keystone with Eidrikas, rest until stars appear above the chasm, and prepare one last return to Melusa.

Leaving the wrapped keystone with Eidrikas, the party crosses the portal in quick succession. They emerge into a swarm of dozens of glowing wisps that surround Eolo and Justas, and sting Jrain and Finnan as they arrive. Everyone sprints away, batting the creatures aside until the swarm yields and gathers again around the portal. Only then can they see how much has changed: the forty-foot ice wolf lies shattered across the plaza, a spike shoots from the metal crack, ash billows from another opening and coats the wreckage, and no guards remain. Beyond the salmon pool, the village still stands, but the Ice Palace is dark and its bridge is gone.

Rather than explore the silent palace, the party hurries toward Iskander’s side of Melusa and sends Rala to check Zahara’s island refuge. At Iskander’s cramped house, they find Zahara and a handful of dissidents, huddled around the body of another dissident, killed while trying to run past the swarm of portal wisps alone. Zahara reports that the cracks grew more chaotic after the party left, and that a fist the size of a house burst from the ash realm, smashed the guards and ice wolf, and vanished. No one has seen Malquin since, and attempts to enter the palace have failed. Iskander is already gathering others who want to try to leave, but fear of the wisps, who have already killed one person, has trapped them. With Eidrikas unable to delay the repairs indefinitely and their escape route likely to close afterward, the party decides to gather anyone willing to flee at the salmon pool in half an hour, then lead them through the wisps in one protected rush.

With the departure set for half an hour, Finnan turns his fiddle into a town crier’s drumbeat and calls the villagers from their houses, promising safe passage through the portal and an escape from Melusa. Ekko changes into a polar bear and fishes from the salmon pool, giving the willing an unmistakable landmark. Nearly fifty people gather to hear Finnan, but a stooped older woman accuses the strangers of bringing the curse, and insists that a capricious god is better than an absent one. Most look to her and the dark palace instead of moving toward the portal, though Iskander and Kalima arrive among a group of about thirty-five willing refugees. The party considers confronting Malquin, but they do not know what awaits them in the palace, what will happen to those who stay, or whether life outside will be better. Rather than take a risk on a dangerous visit to the palace, they decide to lead out those few who have chosen to go.

With thirty-five people waiting, Eolo crosses first to receive them on the narrow platform while Justas ties the party’s rope around his waist, raises his shield, and walks into the swarm protected by his Spirit Guardians. Finnan sends a tricksy fey spirit blinking through the wisps in bursts of darkness, and Ekko’s polar bear draws off any that drift back toward the portal. The first frightened group bunches at the opening, so Jrain waits for each wave to clear before sending the next. On the far side, Eolo catches the refugees and seats them in a tight row above the chasm. The wisps batter Ekko, break apart against Justas’s radiant guardians, and finally overwhelm Finnan’s fey spirit, but not before the last group crosses safely. Justas stays behind until only a few lights remain; his final call draws one more young villager from the crowd, and Finnan waits for them both before following. Once everyone is packed onto the platform, Eidrikas sets the keystone into the broken arc. The runes blaze, the platform steadies, and the portal begins to peel from the wall.

As the portal slowly peels away from the cliff wall, the refugees crowd the floating platform and look out into the Great Chasm, whispered questions passing among them. Eidrikas flies over to join them and points out more room on the great machinery below, now safe enough for a camp, though this does not solve the real problem: thirty-odd people will soon be hungry and tired, and the surface is a mile or more overhead.

The Chasm Explorers and Eidrikas work out a rescue. The Kemeko Monastery can send kenku to help, and Eidrikas can carry four people at a time transformed into a giant swan. Flying everyone out will be safer than searching for underground passages possibly used by the orcs and Stoneborn to originally reach this place. Finnan goes up with an early group to find somewhere the refugees can settle, while Justas stays to offer reassurance and help with the later lifts. They hope to find a northern village with room for newcomers, and elders who still speak Old Zimkovan; Jrain shares any memories and leads that might help.

Over the next few days, the rescue takes shape. Eidrikas also shares what he knows of the Great Chasm with the Chasm Explorers: three ancient mechanisms of inkaya stabilize the planar vortices beneath the chasm, their builders unknown even to the Vejo Vaikai, who guard the secret of their existence. When this one was damaged, planar instability was the result. With the machinery restored, the party brings its expedition to a close. The rescued Melusans eventually find a place to settle, and the Chasm Explorers are free to turn toward whatever comes next.

Combat

Breakout at the White Portal. The party emerges inside a dense swarm of portal wisps and fights clear without casualties, leaving the creatures clustered around the gateway.

The Last Crossing. Justas, Ekko, and Finnan’s summoned fey draw the portal wisps away while Jrain and Eolo move the refugees through, allowing the last willing villager to escape before Eidrikas restores the keystone.