The Wandering Isles: Session 72

The night before everything changed, Weslyn woke with a start. His dreams had been too vivid, too heavy with truth. Dr. Harrow had spoken to him there, as real as any waking voice. But when he opened his eyes to the dim light outside Saigo no Toshi, he decided not to tell Slate. The truth of it felt too sharp to hand over. Instead, he found himself standing awkwardly beside Dash’s tent, waiting for the man to stir.

When Dash’s voice called him in, Weslyn did what he always did best—he showed, rather than told. He conjured an image of light, a flicker that shaped itself into Lysa sitting at a table, her face weary but determined. Her voice, borrowed through magic, echoed softly through the tent. She begged Dash not to come for her. To stay away.

The illusion hung between them, fragile as glass. Weslyn added what else he knew: condolences for Elandor, and a list of names Lysa had given him—Alira, Orla, Sister Vaelith, Satsuki, Amelia. Dash tried to touch the light, as if by reaching through it he could cross the impossible distance between them. When his hand passed through, he broke. He told Weslyn to leave, but before he did, Dash said quietly, “If the next few days go badly, I owe you more than you know—for letting me hear her again.”

Weslyn replied that debts were just burdens, and he wanted no part of those. Before slipping away, he warned that the king was coming—not to reclaim Saigo no Toshi, but to burn it to the ground. Then, almost absently, he conjured berries from nothing, simple and good, as if to balance the grimness of what he’d just said.

When Amaedrianna found him, the group was already discussing what to do next. Weslyn told them everything—Lysa’s condition, the baby she planned to send away by boat, her plea that Dash stay out, and the king’s intent to raze the city. He added that Thrakgar had seized control, twisted beyond reason, and seemed impossible to kill. Amaedrianna wasn’t surprised. She’d seen this coming. “He should have been put down when he was still on a leash,” she muttered. Weslyn took that literally until she explained, and when she said he needed to die, he believed her.

Weslyn went on. The Fujiwara clan was gone, save for Ayame. Changed, though Lysa hadn’t said how. Amaedrianna felt something vital was missing, something she’d overlooked, but she couldn’t shake the certainty that they had to get inside the walls. The blame still hung heavy on her father, the Archon, who had taken the city eight months ago.

She sent Albie, her ivory crow, to scout ahead. The bird found the aftermath of the bombing from days earlier, a ruined rebel base beside an old tea house. Through its eyes, Amaedrianna saw a woman moving inside—black hair, dark leather, a long purple cloak. A hunter, silent and deliberate, equipped with a grappling hook. Someone dangerous and skilled.

Meanwhile, Dash and Amaedrianna studied the walls, looking for weakness. The guards were constant, working as though patching something they’d once failed to contain. Dash suggested using the magic coin from Dagtorp—the one that had unleashed a horde of wild animals—to create chaos. Amaedrianna even offered to fly over and trigger the distraction herself. But Dash had another idea. He could call in his favour with Vathros, The Shadowed.

He didn’t care what Lysa wanted anymore. He wouldn’t stay outside the city, though he didn’t want her to know that. Amaedrianna argued that maybe Lysa was right. Someone needed to stay on the outside—to summon help if it all went wrong. Even if that help was something as dangerous as Vathros.

Dash went to Eos and Weslyn, asking for a way to contact the creature. Eos had none but ordinary mail. Weslyn questioned if Dash really wanted to reach out to the thing that once lived in his mind. Dash said yes. Vathros didn’t sleep, only tranced, so maybe there was a way. Weslyn, reluctantly, agreed to try.

Amaedrianna asked Slate if he could do it. He said no, he had no such means. She then mentioned a mad idea—a “Halo Jump.” She’d been working on a spell that would let her plummet from the sky and stop just before impact. She wanted to use it to slip in unnoticed, but she didn’t yet know how to get that high, or where she’d land unseen. Weslyn said he could become invisible, though only to a point. Amaedrianna asked if Slate could make her invisible instead, but he reminded her that while she might vanish, anyone she touched would still be seen.

That sparked another idea: The Seal, the artefact capable of trapping someone in a dream of their happiest memories, frozen in time. She wondered if it could be used tactically—to extract or protect. Mentioning Remington’s words about it stirred something in Weslyn. He blurted that Kaelora—Remington’s daughter—was here. A dragon, he called her.

Slate suggested that they didn’t need one plan, but several. He could make two of them unseen. They had the coin, the bamboo snorkels, the Seal. They could fly, dive, or distract. Amaedrianna’s eyes lit up at the thought: chaos on every front.

She reached out through magic to the being buried deep within Eos’s mind, pleading for its help. The voice that answered agreed to aid them once—either entering or escaping, not both. Amaedrianna accepted, whispering the secret to Slate later. The being would open a door, a short-lived portal to anywhere Eos had been. One minute, no more. Slate asked where that door should lead. Amaedrianna suggested The Bastion, their refuge on the Crescent Pearl. Slate agreed but mentioned, almost in passing, that he’d invited others there once—an admission that lingered oddly before being brushed aside.

Amaedrianna made the others promise that if things went wrong, they’d leave her behind. She asked Weslyn for the list again: Alira. Orla. Sister Vaelith. Satsuki. Amelia. Names to remember, names to find.

When Hatsu returned from his walk, calmer and more centred, he found the group in the middle of their final planning. He joined without hesitation. Messages were sent through Albie—first to the Willow: We need in. How? The answer came back that every entrance was sealed. Then another message to the mysterious woman in the tea house: We’re trying to get people out. Are you helping? Her answer was yes. Amaedrianna’s final reply was simple: We’ll be there in a few days. Prepare for a mass evacuation.

Dash contacted Vathros directly and learned the being could arrive in two days. Weslyn was furious, reminding him of the cost such summons demanded. Dash said this wasn’t a favour—it was owed.

Soon after, Weslyn entered Ayame’s mind, hoping to reach her, but what he found was rage incarnate. She was locked in endless battle, her hatred like wildfire. Holding her ring, the one Hatsu had kept safe, he called out to her—but his own magic lashed back, the tattoos on his skin coming alive and dragging Hatsu into the vision.

Inside the dream, Hatsu joined Ayame in battle. Together they cut through waves of enemies, he wielding Kaze Joba, she Onimaru. Their blades sang in unison as they faced Thrakgar, the monster that had taken everything from them. When he fell, the world around them shifted—a cave of prayer, sacred and quiet. Ayame embraced him. Hatsu told her he was close, that he was coming to make their destiny real. He guided her through a dance of blades, channelling their energy into twin dragons of white flame, coiling around one another in a moment of perfect balance. Then both awoke.

When Weslyn, half-teasing, asked if Hatsu planned to marry her, Hatsu deflected, joking instead about Dash and Lysa’s child. He made Weslyn promise to keep what he’d seen secret. Then, grinning, told him that if he ever did marry, Weslyn would be his wingman. “I don’t have wings,” Weslyn replied. “Then you can be my best boy,” Hatsu said with a laugh.

Weslyn called himself a symptom of something broken, but Hatsu corrected him. “No. You’re the cure.” He reminded Weslyn that Chicken the Fox had chosen him for a reason.

That night, Weslyn reached Lysa’s dreams once more. Her water had broken. He told her the plan but chose not to tell Dash when he woke.

Days passed. On the fourth morning, Vathros arrived.

The creature offered to link their minds. Slate, Dash, and Amaedrianna accepted, though the others refused, mistrusting it. Amaedrianna recapped the plan.

Hatsu would find Ayame.
Weslyn would locate Kaelora.
Slate would go for Lysa.
Amaedrianna would create chaos using Dash’s enchanted coin, summoning wild beasts to distract the enemy.
Eos would guard the way and open the path when the time came.
Dash would wait by the boat.
Eldrin by his side.

When the chaos peaked, Amaedrianna would rush back, and it would fall to Hatsu, Weslyn, and Slate to get everyone through the exit. Hatsu gave Dash the Hearthstone, a teleportation focus tied to The Bastion. If things fell apart, Dash would grab Eldrin, Vathros, and Chicken and use it to get them all to safety.

Weslyn promised to help but said he wouldn’t return with them. He’d go north, into Arbores. Hatsu also refused to leave. His city needed saving, and he meant to see it done. Dash panicked at the thought of fighting so many alone. Eos called it suicide and prayed Minerva would guide them. Before they set out, she blessed Amaedrianna, Hatsu, and Slate with divine strength.

Amaedrianna tried to remind Hatsu that Saigo no Toshi wasn’t just walls and streets—it was its people. She would stay focused on them. Hatsu told her he understood. He wasn’t asking her to stay, only to trust. He’d seen what was coming, and he’d make that vision real. When Eos asked if he’d won in that dream, he only smiled and walked away.

As the sun fell and the moons began to rise, the plan came alive. The group took their positions just beyond the city’s sightlines.

Ready or not, the night of reckoning for Saigo no Toshi had arrived.