The Wandering Isles: Session 66
The companions found themselves in Asazaki, where old ties and new revelations intertwined. Dash led Hatsu to the workshop of Shuuri Greyfeather, a local bowmaker. After a brief meeting, he presented her with a drawing of a sea eagle carrying a bow. In return, she unveiled a masterwork she had already crafted: an ornate bow adorned with sakura leaves, a clear tribute to Hatsu’s home of Saigo no Toshi. Dash gifted it to him, and Hatsu’s first arrow sang through the air with grace, proving the bow’s beauty was more than decoration.
Elsewhere, Slate commissioned a statue in memory of Hartwell, a figure split between man and werewolf, capturing the duality of his old friend. Back at Roshi’s Bookshelf, Raine Tintreach served peppermint tea. Amaedrianna slipped away to bathe, Eldrin tried to steady himself with a cup, and Dash sat with Eos to share what he had endured during their lost months.
He explained that he hadn’t known they would be trapped in the book for seven months. Vathros, the Shadowed, had offered Dash a deal: to become his obedient vessel in exchange for helping the group survive. Dash described how he was manipulated, sent on errands to places Vathros himself could not tread, forced to steal, trade, and gather ancient relics. At first it was control, pure and suffocating, but over time Vathros began to treat him more as a partner than a puppet. Dash admitted he obeyed partly from morbid curiosity, trying to understand the creature’s intentions.
He recounted his journeys—retrieving a shard from Smogrot, harvesting a crystal of grief from the Caverns of the Gods, and seeking a bone in Mishn, where he hunted a half-human, half-lion being again and again until he broke it. Dash’s voice faltered when he spoke of Thimarrot, where he witnessed ruins steeped in sorrow and destruction, the remnants of a lost library, and where Vathros performed a ritual upon the book. The memory left him shaken, especially when he realised that Slate had saved the book at the volcano, despite Vathros’s intent for it to be destroyed.
The revelation sent ripples through the group. Slate argued that the knowledge within might protect them from greater threats. Dash admitted Vathros had feared the book deeply and warned that its existence must remain secret. Eos pressed Weslyn for his thoughts, and Weslyn, in turn, pressed Dash about Vathros’s control, his spells, and his fear of the tome.
The conversation circled around the nature of Vathros himself. Dash described his appearance—squid-like, with purple skin, golden eyes, and long nails—and his time under his thrall as like drifting in and out of sleep, sometimes awake, sometimes only a passenger in his own body. Hatsu challenged his account, doubting, but Dash remained firm. To resolve the matter, Slate read his thoughts and was overwhelmed by flashes of memory: Vathros’s manipulations, reminders of love, fragments of family, friends, and the countless people Dash had met in Asazaki. The images were clear, consistent with every word he spoke.
The night carried on into heavier questions. Eos confessed to her own inner fracture, a shadow-self who once nearly doomed them all, while Weslyn’s answers remained cryptic, hinting at truths yet untold. Amaedrianna noted how many of them carried unseen watchers in the shadows, while Hatsu challenged both Dash and Slate directly. To Dash, he asked why he hadn’t sought them once free of Vathros’s grip. To Slate, he asked him not to withdraw, not to carry his burdens alone, but to see the group as family. Both men answered with sincerity, and Hatsu marked the moment by affirming that they now had a true home together at the Bastion of the Crescent Pearl.
Their discussions turned toward the future. Dash confessed his urgency to return to Saigo no Toshi, where Lysa was soon to give birth. The group compared troubling signs: birds avoiding both Saigo no Toshi and the lands around the Arcanum, ties to the Scorchwood Correctional Facility, and the many paths fate seemed to be drawing them toward. Plans were tentative, scattered between time to rest, to train, and to gather supplies, but one truth was clear—they could not remain still for long.
In Asazaki, the days passed with moments of reflection. Amaedrianna and Hatsu trained by the water, the latter growing into his new bow, naming it Guren Ōkyū, and refining his routines with fire, flight, and alchemy. Eos helped her mother while wrestling with her past. Slate performed at the tavern, singing songs that bolstered the pride of the village, while Dash and Eldrin spoke of gods, family, and the quiet strength of belief. Each carried their own burdens, but together they began to piece themselves back into something whole.
Meanwhile, Eos wandered into the undercroft, tracing the subtle changes Dash had left behind. She began to reorder the shelves, sorting them in Seraphic, a language of precision and control, reclaiming the space as her own. But as she moved through the dim corridors, a voice stirred from within. It whispered of the power it had given her—visions, strength, the promise of more if only she would listen. It urged her to follow Dash’s path, to bring the “boy” to the stone when the time was right. It pressed her to use her friends as tools to reach that end, threatening that if she ignored it again, it would not ask, but take.
Ekdíkisi would not be silenced any longer.
