Session 118

The fires in outer Craze Pass have grown beyond the locals’ ability to contain, ringing the city in a perimeter of ash. While the denizens scramble against the flames, the real fighting is concentrated at three points.

The Wall Crumbles (Mack, Dax, Orianna)

The Scrappers understand the kill box. Their bolts find the gaps in Mack’s armor and wear her down through sheer volume of fire while Dax and Orianna struggle to hold the perimeter. The Scrapper with the hammer steps into the pocket and swings - a transfer of force her armor can’t disperse - and Mack falls. As the snipers adjust to confirm the kill, Orianna throws herself into their line of fire, drawing their malice onto herself and buying Mack’s unconscious form a few seconds.

The Intent of Steel (Peach)

Peach and Vela remain a stalemate of speed - every strike countered, every dash matched. But Twilight hums in his hands. The blade knows what Vela is and the corruption that fuels her, and it pulls at Peach, urging him faster, desperate to purge her without question or trial.

The Broken Mirror (Aydriann, Ember, Rosibynne)

Malacor is cornered. The party has littered the ground with caltrops to deny the construct movement. Ember strikes from the Ethereal, flickering between spaces like a ghost fighting a machine. Aydriann tries to follow with Blink, but the magic fails to catch and he’s left anchored and exposed. Malacor turns on the one who can’t fade and unleashes a final volley at Ember - but Rosibynne raises her arcane pistol and, with cold calculation, puts a shot through the construct’s helm, shattering it.

As Malacor falls, the trapped, agonized faces swirling across its armor spin into a vortex and vanish. In the reflection, clear as noon, Aydriann sees a face he knows better than his own - Corsten, his brother - surprised, scared, trapped.

Then the construct detonates: a shockwave of compressed magical force flays Ember, Aydriann, and Rosibynne and creates a vacuum that snuffs the surrounding fires and the lives of the bystanders in a single breath. Aydriann lies dazed in the crater, trying to reject what he saw - until Edmeera’s voice snaps open in his mind, turning his own words against him: “I told Corsten to ‘Go wait to die.’”