The Wandering Isles: Session 52
Before reaching their next destination, the group makes camp in the stillness of the wild. A clearing offers a moment of rest, though rest proves to be a fleeting thing.
Dash and Slate venture out in search of food. What begins as a simple hunt turns strange—Dash encounters a small pack of rabbits with unsettling, blood-red eyes. When he tries to take them down, they turn on him. Fast. Aggressive. Coordinated. He scrambles up a tree just in time, the rabbits leaping nearly twenty-five feet to try and reach him. Slate, nearby, takes on a terrifying form meant to intimidate, but the creatures remain laser-focused on Dash. Eventually, Slate dispatches them all with little difficulty—but not without leaving questions behind. As he collects his arrows, he sees a figure across the river—antlered, still, and watching. Red eyes gleaming. Then, it's gone.
On the way back, Dash confronts Slate about a note he found—one claiming that his father, Marcus, may still be alive. Slate denies any knowledge. The conversation leaves more unease than closure.
Back at camp, Slate cooks the rabbits, though no one else is particularly interested once Eos points out their notoriously foul taste. She also finds a few ticks on Dash’s back, which she helps remove—with Eldrin’s gentle guidance keeping her from doing more harm than good. Small, strange moments stack up like stones in the dark.
As the group beds down, Eos drifts into sleep and finds herself once more in a vision. Her father, aboard a doomed ship. The sea serpent rising. But something is different this time—someone else is there. Weslyn Theiwyse. Exhausted, disoriented, and strangely familiar, Weslyn doesn’t seem to know her, nor does he recognize the fox at his side. Together they move through dreams, shifting time, peering into his past. They see the world before his end. And after. A grave. A home. A warning: burn it down. As the serpent returns, he urges her to wake. She does—alone, away from camp, unsure how far she's wandered.
Elsewhere, Amaedrianna sits quietly in the trees, her thoughts circling the revelations from the book of Vathros, the scars left behind by Saigo no Toshi. While she rests, Albi, her bird companion, awakens Eldrin to take the next watch. He rises, touches his holy symbol—and then another. The one tied to something older. Darker. A push instead of a pull. His tone shifts. His patience thins. He wakes Dash with a boot.
Dash, unsettled by the night's tension, spots something: red eyes floating outside his tent. When he climbs to investigate, he finds footprints leading from the base of his tent to the branch where he had perched earlier. Something had followed him—or led him. But nothing else reveals itself.
Slate tries to help him make sense of it. Amaedrianna watches silently from above, unseen. She notices the fatigue weighing on Dash, but he brushes it off, carrying his burdens the way he always does—alone, but not unobserved.
By morning, they realize Eos is missing. Slate is the first to speak it. Amaedrianna sends Albi. The bird finds her, dazed, standing alone beneath the trees. Dash rushes to her, pulls her into a hug, the relief palpable. Eos shares her dream. Her encounter. Her warning.
Later, with Eldrin’s help, the group pieces together old folktales—stories of omens and forest watchers. The Hollow Crown. The Horned Root. The Thornfather. And always, the red eyes. Legends etched in fear. Warnings that sound far too familiar.
Dash, troubled by it all, climbs back to the tree where he first fired on the rabbits. He leaves behind worms for the nest he found there—an offering. An apology. An attempt at balance.
And as the party moves on through the woods, the camera lingers behind.
An hour later, the clearing is no longer empty.
A figure arrives—hooded, robed, methodical. They pause at the remnants of the camp, examining signs, footprints, ash. And then they continue on… following.
