The Wandering Isles: Session 57

After plunging into the strange prison that was once a book—bound to Vathros and steeped in memory—the group was met not with chains, but with a whisper:

"Memory is not truth. It is allegiance."

They awoke not in darkness, but on a familiar beach, under familiar skies. At first, it seemed like they'd simply returned to the moment they arrived at Maleficum’s Arcanum of Magic & Might. But something was off. Dash was gone. So was Slate. And Eldrin… wasn’t entirely solid. Transparent, almost spectral.

While Hatsu suggested they return to where it all began—the high peak where the book first entered their lives—Amaedrianna descended into the Arcanum itself, searching for the vault she’d only ever heard whispers about. Her passage was denied.

Elsewhere, Weslyn found himself in the office of Remington Maleficum. He wasn’t alone for long—Amaedrianna entered, demanding answers he didn’t have. She turned to books for clarity, but none offered her new knowledge. Pages remained blank unless she had read them before. Weslyn, curious about the strange connection between his body and the text around him, wondered aloud if the ink of his tattoos—now clearly alive with arcane energy—could interact with the written word.

That’s when Chicken, his ever-enigmatic fox companion, appeared—gnawing on a roast bird. Weslyn scolded him gently, the absurdity of it all hanging in the air like smoke.

Meanwhile, Hatsu and Eldrin grappled with Eldrin’s transparency. They tried everything: memory projection, time-shifting, spatial anchoring. Nothing worked. Eos tried bending time itself. Still, nothing. In the Arcanum, Eos found herself engaged in casual conversation with Boreal Paleclaw, but Eldrin noticed—he was invisible to the man. This was not the world they thought it was.

Weslyn sought out his old home, only to find it missing. At a tranquil pond, he encountered Delphini Urging—a young woman with doe eyes, curly brown hair, and an unplaceable calm. When he asked how to leave this place, she didn’t seem to understand the question.

Back at the Arcanum, Amaedrianna reached her limit. As Remington entered, she broke. Pleading with the illusion for a way out, she was told to change her perspective. All prisons can be escaped—if you understand the bars. That’s when realization struck. Eldrin didn’t belong. He was different. He might be the key.

To Eldrin, the dorm door looked like a celestial gate. To the others, it was nothing but iron and dread. It was the only true difference they could find—and it was enough.

They passed through the threshold… and found Stella Maleficum, crouched over a dying bird. Purple-skinned and horned, she tested the Seal they had once used to rescue another. Khouzman Scorchwood watched in silence before asking:

“And what happens when something bigger than a bird goes in?”

The bird’s final song echoed… and then they were somewhere else.

Rain fell, and they realized they were within Eos’s mind. Aboard a ship. The past? A vision? She wasn’t sure—and she wasn’t in control. Her friends were absent. Her father wasn’t. He begged her to leave. She refused.

No matter how she approached the situation—sending Amaedrianna forward to speak, setting the ship ablaze, creating fear in her father—it all ended the same. A massive sea serpent, one of the infamous Raze Threats, descended again and again, smashing through her memories. Each attempt reset the loop. Again. And again.

Eventually, they tried something new. Using the Seal, they released the horned woman—the same one rescued from Ashrest. She wasted no time. Lifting enemy soldiers into the air and casting them aside like dolls, she turned the tide. The group boarded the ship and struck back at the beast.

Elsewhere, Stella stormed into Mylethyr, golden wand in hand, arguing that the Seal could replace prisons and executions for magical crimes. But as she walked away, her memory glitched. Just for a second. A flicker in the page. A shadow behind her—watching. Vathros. She didn’t notice.

Her spellbook opened on its own. She missed that too.

And then… everything shifted again.

The group found themselves in a starlit grove. Weslyn’s eyes settled on a familiar house—his house. But something was different. The stars were not their own.

A different time. A different place.