The Wandering Isles: Session 59

Amaedrianna found herself in her journey within the pages of this book. Sprinting across the rooftops of Vurduar, the city’s edges shrouded in familiar shadows. She wasn’t alone—Bantun, her childhood friend from long-forgotten escapades, ran beside her. It was lockdown. They weren’t supposed to be out. But the thrill of the forbidden never quite leaves some hearts.

She told him, almost casually, that her father (The Archon) was out with several men. Bantun thanked her.

Curious, almost as if she had seen this moment before, she followed him in secret. Watched him read, greet his father, sleep. Normal. Too normal. Not all all like she had expected, but what it is that she had expected was still unknown to most. But returning home only brought chaos—Kael bloodied, enraged. Her intel, he claimed, had triggered an ambush. Dozens dead. She denied it. He didn’t believe her. With fury, he beat her, broke her wing and left her gasping for air and he still pushed harder, all in the name of squeezing the truth from her broken body. When she could take no more, she told him the truth. He left, and so did she.

She leapt from the rooftop, desperate to reset whatever this was. A dream? A vision? It didn’t work. Pain wracked her body, until Eldrin helped—healing her with quiet concern. But she didn’t stop. With wings tattered, she flew to Bantun with haste.

She warned him, told him to flee. Begged. Pleaded. Bantun, confused, woke his father. He and his father fled the building at her warning. She stayed behind, never to know his fate, but hoping only to buy him the time he and his father needs to flee.

Her father, an imposing figure, came through the door and offered no comfort, only a reflection of the monster he always was—even when she offered a reminder she would never become that. He simply dismissed her words as the inexperienced words from an ungrateful progeny. Then it all went black.

Amaedrianna awoke in a cell, bruised in body and memory. She immediately opened the lock, but her escape was halted by her mother walking in. Hatsu recognized something about her—features, design, weaponry—all echoing his homeland of Saigo no Toshi. Valentina. The Viper. Armor in hand. Concern on her face. Trying, somehow, to help her daughter heal.

Amaedrianna left the safety of that place with questions burning behind her eyes. To spite all of his questions, Amaedrianna gave Hatsu nothing—only fragments of names. She had work to do. She started with Worby Jane, but no answers came. Just whispers of a cloaked man. A cliché in a duster.

Eventually, she found him. Drel Morrix. A man long known for attempting to kill Eos, now a shadow walking in familiar footsteps. He wouldn’t explain how he found Kael’s location, or the information he used to manipulate her father. Only hinted. Suggested fate. Claimed to want power. Not loyalty. His motivations appeared cloaked by more than a duster and a Stetson.

She left, and found the body of Bantun’s father. No sign of Bantun. The vision refused to end, no matter how much she begged and pleaded.

Hatsu steadied her, asked the questions she was avoiding. Why this? Why now? Why Drel?

So she forced her composure, and did what she did best. Took to the shadows. She followed Drel. She followed him as he slept in a dark alleyway, then awoke, stole food and then found his way to her father’s building. It was then that he split in two. One version took to the lobby and waited, and Amaedrianna asked her allies to wait and watch. The other one explored, followed groups until he went so far as to end up in The Spiv—where Worby worked— and realising nobody was there he took to some investigation. He found a secret passageway, a door, but was promptly obliterated by a trap.

The one in the lobby was quickly found by Amaedrianna, just in time. He was lead to an office. She took to the walls to listen, but only caught some of the conversation. Something about how he did good work but still isn’t going to be offered a high level job here. Instead he was given an opportunity to work his way up.

He received a blade. A position. A future.

She thanked her friends for their help. For their friendship. For helping her see what she couldn’t. She mourned the truth—Bantun didn’t betray her. She had betrayed him by ever believing he might have.

Later, the group spoke with Slate—about names, respect, and trust. He guided them back toward the truth of the book. Toward its purpose. Stella meant to make something good. A place to preserve. But something else twisted it. Khouzman’s influence. Vathros’ shadow. Maybe both.

They wondered aloud—was this all a test? A way to judge their intentions?

And then… the memory shifted. They saw Drel speak with someone in secret. “Your idea worked,” he said. “She’s going to want to know.” To their shock, Slate responded: “I’ll let her know.”

A new vision unfurled, as Amaedrianna’s came to an end.

Stella knelt in a corridor of magic and invention. A man stood behind her, cloaked in quiet authority. He didn’t dream, he said—he curated. Her Seal had opened a door, and he had become the lock. Reality leaned toward him. Not in body, but in will.

He fed on memory. Not just the memory of one seal, but potentially all of them.

Khouzman saw him, too—just once—before everything fractured. The look on his face suggested he knew more than he let on, but before any more could be seen of this vision - light inverted. Vathros descended deeper into the book’s very bones. The Seal, his playground now.

Then came Slate’s chapter.

It began at the end. A cold slab. Blood gone dry. The others tied beside him. His body unmoving—until he saw it shift. As his friends spoke, he took their shapes. Not in choice, but in reflection. This wasn’t a memory. It was something left behind.

Perspective twisted. Slate now stood beside the body. The one lying there… just a boy. Scared. Silent. He told him what he once heard: “You’ll lose everything. But you’ll survive.”

From there, his life rewound. A warm hand. A mother’s meal. A bath. School. Lies told gently, truths told too late. A scuffle. A moment of courage. He was hit hard—then something changed. His allies took over. Amaedrianna’s fire, Hatsu’s precision, Eldrin’s command. Each move danced with borrowed strength. They fought without rage. Just resolve. With each word from his allies, his body shifted to take on the appearance of the one with the most resolve. The one who spoke. They moved with the precision of a well formed machine, but unfortunately, that wasn’t enough.

Slate was cut, badly. Blood along his body. He checked, but could not find a wound. Instead he found himself standing in the uniform of a guard of Palperroth.

He saw a brawl begin, and ran to aid the people. Again, his allies helped him. They took over, one by one. Delivering blows to those who are fighting, and delivering commands to the guards. Eldrin used his expertise from his own past to give clear instructions to the guards. Amaedrianna and Hatsu fought the brawlers with tactical precision, using 1-2 maneuvers and tactics. Trading places in Slate’s body to deliver the final strikes to end this confrontation. Again, it was too late.

A knife in his chest ended the moment.

Slate awoke in a morgue. Whole. Confused.

As he sat up, a woman in the morgue screamed. She ran out. He wanted to follow, but instead, his focus was drawn elsewhere.

He found a door. Bone and obsidian. It didn’t open—it inhaled.

Then, light. A garden. A girl: Lyra. “You always forget me,” she said.

Then, she turned to ash, accompanied by the sound of weeping.

A feathered figure and a promise. “You’ll forget. And you’ll serve.” She let down her hood to reveal her hair, and that was enough for Slate to recognise Dr. Emilia Harrow. Her promises to keep “them” safe meant nothing to me, but the weight of his acceptance of this offer burdened his heart and soul beyond compare.

The sun set and never rose.

He walked through a corridor of mirrored selves—each one a different body. A different form. One slammed on the glass, and he recognised it as himself. He then saw an open container, climbed in, and he heard it.

Vathros whispered again.

And in that long hall of converging truths, he faced the only reflection that mattered: himself, as he truly was.

He stood in a dark corridor, looking at the light. His allies calling him home. Vathros calling him home. His head empty. He was alone. He struggled to make a choice, but decide ultimately to walk into the light.

As the others called him back—he realised he was no longer in his memory. His world. Was it over? Was it a mistake to leave? Would he never truly learn all there was to learn?

Stella’s voice cried out for the Seal to stop—he felt his body change. Root. Shadow. Power.

Stella realized the truth. She was no longer archiving memory.

She was feeding it to something.

To him.

She tried to stop him, but to Slate’s surprise, she wasn’t talking about Vathros. She was talking directly about Slate. She used her power on him, but once he was pulled inside the book by her magic, he saw something familiar.

Like a loop in time—we returned to where it all began.

A boy.

Slate.

His memory ready to begin again.