The Wandering Isles: Session 71
The group lingered on the outskirts of Saigo no Toshi, studying the barricaded walls that once welcomed travellers and merchants with open gates. Now the city stood silent, its beauty smothered beneath cruelty and decay. They needed a way in, but every route seemed sealed.
Dash tried to reach Hatsu through the tension, asking how he felt about what had become of his home. Hatsu’s answer came quietly. He didn’t know what to feel, only that anger had settled deep in him like a weight. He was grateful that Ayame and Lysa were still alive—relieved, even—but the knowledge only sharpened the fury beneath. Dash admitted he’d doubted either would survive what Saigo no Toshi had become.
Hatsu asked how Dash’s son was doing, and Dash had to remind him the child wasn’t born yet, that they didn’t even know the gender. Hatsu’s certainty that it would be a boy made Dash pause, then remember—Hatsu had known Lysa was pregnant before anyone else did.
When Hatsu turned the question back on him, Dash didn’t pretend. He said he was scared, angry, and exhausted. The weight of everything—the siege, the creature, the losses—was taking its toll. Hatsu confessed his own desire for release, for catharsis in bloodshed, but knew that killing wouldn’t fix what had been taken. Dash cautioned him that anger without purpose was only chaos, and that line seemed to settle between them, quiet but firm.
They turned to strategy. Hatsu noted the heavy defences: the city was turtled behind its own walls with ballistae pointed outward. Even a distraction might not work, as the occupiers seemed to care only about holding the city itself, not the surrounding lands. If it weren’t for the innocents trapped inside, Hatsu said, he’d smoke the invaders out like rats. But too many lives were tied up in those streets to take that risk.
He suggested something simpler: hollowed bamboo could serve as makeshift snorkels, a way to breathe beneath the water. Slate mentioned he’d seen bamboo a little further back along the road, and Dash reminded them that the small supply boat would be arriving within the week. It came only once a month. If they were to use it, the timing would need to be perfect.
Weslyn proposed attempting a parlay, even if it meant shouting up to the walls to gauge whether reason or madness held the city. Hatsu’s reply was grim: the only response they’d get would likely come from a ballista bolt. So they chose to focus on the bamboo idea first.
Weslyn found only two stalks sturdy enough to hollow out. As they worked, conversation drifted into absurdity—about water, boiling, cactus juice, and eventually the desperate idea of drinking their own urine. Dash lost that argument swiftly and gracelessly, tripping over his own defence of “hygiene” before changing the subject to boats. Moments later, he scooped up water from a questionable stream and drank it anyway, which might have settled the earlier debate.
He turned to Eos then, asking how she’d learned her magic. She said she hadn’t learned it at all, not in the way people imagine. It had grown with her—starting as sparks and drops, little signs that she carried something larger within. Dash said that in Palperroth, even that first spark would have terrified people.
Curious, he asked about Slate and Weslyn next. Slate barely opened his mouth before Dash interrupted himself again, but Weslyn answered. He said he never needed to study magic. He is magic. He doesn’t cast it like others do; he exists in it. Magic, he explained, isn’t just a language—it’s a state of being. He’d lived among others who dwelled in that place between worlds.
Meanwhile, Hatsu shaped the bamboo into something usable. He found that it allowed short breaths, useful only for brief dives. A tool for stealth, not safety. Later, as he cleaned and dried his weapons, he prayed. His words carried the weight of memory and duty: “Mother of Light, creators of shadows. Send a bee for those in need. Bring light back where enemies hide. Don’t let them rest. Let them know we’re coming. Let those who suffer remember that there’s always light, always hope.”
Elsewhere, Slate and Weslyn spoke quietly about the Crisis Response Unit. Why hadn’t they intervened? Were they inside and silent, or simply ignoring the suffering? The question hung unanswered. Weslyn then asked if Slate remembered him from dreams past. Slate said he remembered Weslyn from before his own death—vaguely familiar, like an echo of another life.
He tried to trace the thread back through his forgotten years and saw flashes: Palperroth, his service in the Crisis Response Unit, an older man with blue tattoos offering him chicken, a fox beside him—Weslyn, from another age. When Weslyn tried to sense magic around him, all he detected was the faint residue of Slate’s old shackles, the ones Hatsu had cut free long ago. Weslyn took one and suggested it might have been a tracking device. Their talk turned to the strange rhythm of Weslyn’s many lives, each ending in pain. He listed the ways he’d died before, and Slate asked if he knew of dendrochronology—the study of trees, of rings that mark time—but before he could explain, they were interrupted.
The group reconvened by the fire with a large fish Eos had caught. As they ate, Weslyn mentioned his need to travel north into Arbores, though he feared his friends would die along the way. Dash insisted he shouldn’t go alone, unwilling to see another companion die.
Eos, curious, asked Dash what drove him. His answer was simple: his fiancée and unborn child were trapped inside Saigo no Toshi. He had to reach them.
Their talk wandered toward fate. Some believed their paths were entwined by design, but Dash refused to accept that. He didn’t believe in destiny—only in action. When Eos asked how he’d take down the king, Dash spoke of lessons from her father, Rykur Frakes, who taught him to destroy power from within. Dash was already weaving his way through noble ranks, setting the stage to dismantle them from inside.
Eos wondered if those connections could lend them a boat. Dash admitted he knew someone, but he wouldn’t ask—not when the request came with expectations. He showed a letter signed with a kiss in lipstick, saying he’d never dishonour Lysa like that. Eos, half-joking, asked why Slate didn’t just take Dash’s form and charm the boat’s owner himself.
That night, Weslyn dreamed again. He found himself face to face with Dr. Emilia Harrow. She asked if he’d found what she’d sent him for. He hadn’t. He asked if he’d at least kept the girl safe—Slate’s daughter. Harrow said she was here, unharmed. Then her tone darkened. The king was coming to destroy Saigo no Toshi. It made him look weak to leave it standing.
The dream shifted, pulling Weslyn toward another voice. Lysa’s. He found her weary, speaking of how the city had been overrun. The Archon, Kael Bloodstone, vanished shortly after the group left. Hana no Sasayaki, Kaelora Toshimura, was helping smuggle supplies to what remained of the rebellion. The Willow, Kuroji Tensei, kept them alive.
But Lysa said the occupiers were armed to the teeth and seemed to know their every move. Someone inside was feeding them information. She told Weslyn they might have two weeks left before everything collapsed. When he asked how it could get worse, she said they’d lost too many already, and the last distraction had cost dozens of lives.
Then came the names: Elandor, missing. Alira. Orla. Sister Vaelith. Satsuki. Amelia. All gone or unaccounted for. She mentioned she was close to giving birth. Weslyn begged her to flee, but she begged him instead to save her child.
She explained that when the Archon left, Thrakgar seized power. The city was his now, and no one understood the strength he wielded. One by one, the leaders disappeared. The curfews came. Then the raids. Then silence.
Lysa said Asuka Toshitsugu was still there, helping her, but no one else from that family remained. When Weslyn asked after Ayame Fujiwara, Lysa said she lived—but changed. Her family had been made into examples, their bodies hung on the wall. Ayame was the last of her line.
Finally, Lysa made one last plea: keep Dash out of the city. It was too late for her, but not for their child. If they could intercept the supply boat, they might still save it.
Weslyn promised he would. She said no more lives needed to be lost. Then the dream dissolved, leaving Weslyn awake, breathless, and heavy with the burden of what he now knew.
