The Wandering Isles: Session 93

Amaedrianna Blüdfist gathered the group and revealed that something had been found in the ruins by Xephyr, the invisible genie who follows Delphini Urging. She placed a box before them, and Weslyn Theiwyse opened it. Inside was an egg made of glass. Weslyn questioned whether it was real or merely a replica, while Amaedrianna assumed it must be a copy. Boreal Paleclaw wondered if magic could identify it, but Ekdíkisi Tintreach first assumed the egg should only last a week before Amaedrianna clarified that it was not biological at all. It was glass.

Eos admitted she did not know the magic needed to identify something. When Weslyn questioned why she had not been taught that kind of spellcraft, Delphini explained that she did not really teach witches. Eos, with unusual acceptance, simply admitted that perhaps she was a witch after all. Hatsu Toshitsugu then asked who had taught Weslyn magic, shifting the attention briefly back onto him. Weslyn performed his spell and confirmed the egg was glass and non-magical. That seemed to support the theory that it was a replica, though he could not be certain.

Hatsu asked what they were meant to do now, and whether they still needed to deliver the egg to Vale. Amaedrianna rejected the original bargain. They would not hand the egg over as promised. Instead, she proposed switching the true egg with the fake one, then paying for the Bastion supplies properly rather than completing Vale’s barter. The plan was practical, but dangerous. Weslyn wanted to speak with Isolde Thorne, hoping she might know more about the handover or the object itself.

Boreal then explained more about his own magic, including how he could communicate through it. Hatsu was troubled by this, realising he did not truly understand the extent of his brother’s power. Dash Heidmann asked whether someone could contact his mother. Amaedrianna left the ship to run errands, while Dash gave Boreal a message to send: “It's Dash, don't be alarmed. Danger is coming. Get to Elandor on the Crescent Pearl. You can reply.” Dash and Weslyn debated whether that was the safest instruction, whether the Crescent Pearl was the right destination, and whether giving a location could create further danger. Dash ultimately decided to proceed despite the risks. Unfortunately, Boreal forgot to include that she could reply, leaving them uncertain whether the message worked or whether Dash’s mother understood the warning.

Elsewhere on the ship, Eos attempted to get water to boil for tea and crossed paths with Hatsu. He stopped her from taking water freely from the ship’s stores and also firmly prevented her from using fire magic aboard a wooden vessel. It became a small but pointed lesson: no fire on the ship. Meanwhile, Boreal gave Amaedrianna aurems so she could buy him a diamond, which she did after haggling successfully and keeping a few coins’ profit for herself. She then went to a leatherworker and commissioned something for Weslyn: short leather armour, cut off at the arms, flexible enough for him, but sturdy enough to protect him. She paid two aurems, a significant amount, then returned to the boat.

While she was away, Hatsu inventoried the supplies on the ship, assessing what had arrived and what still needed to be loaded. Dash later joined him for a security check. Strangely, neither of them noticed Amaedrianna return, which was especially unusual for Hatsu. The group remained on edge, tired from recent events, with the ship becoming a temporary place of planning, rest, and strange new revelations.

That night, Eos fell asleep, which was deeply unusual because she does not normally sleep. In her dream, she found herself by a lake at dawn, fishing with Duckie nearby. Weslyn was there too. After some casual talk, she realised something was wrong and asked why he was present. He told her she had much to learn and began an exercise. He tried to teach her how to move through a dream-space, asking her to shift the location. Eos attempted to bring them to the store she once ran with her mother, but instead, fragments of the shop appeared awkwardly across the lake.

Weslyn then asked how many cats she could see. At first, Eos did not understand. Then she realised there were at least two dozen cats around them. Weslyn explained that she needed to learn to see beyond what things visually appeared to be. When she asked how that would help her stop danger, he warned her that most things in spaces like this were dangerous. She asked how he learned, and he answered plainly: he died a lot. These lessons were painful.

The dream began to turn. The stars in the daylit sky rippled like water, then became waves of the ocean. Weslyn told her she needed to learn control. Eos felt her scars stir and feared that Leviathan, The Sea Serpent, was coming. As the waters rose around her, she cast lightning bolt into the water and electrocuted herself. She woke abruptly on the floor of the ship, where Boreal found her and asked about the dream. She explained it quickly and bluntly, shaken by what had happened.

Meanwhile, Amaedrianna finished her watch and went to the captain’s quarters. She found Weslyn asleep and covered him with a fur blanket. Then she sat and opened a wooden box she had been carrying. Inside were a compass, a set square, and parchments. She began mapping the town from memory, drawing everything she had seen with astonishing precision. The map was so accurate that only she would ever notice its flaws.

As she worked, a sharp pain struck her head. When she opened her eyes, there was a sudden flash of light. The map no longer looked like simple parchment. It became a translucent neon film, and when she looked up, she could see it projected in three dimensions around her. The world seemed to gain structure and edges, as though space itself had become readable. Something in her had changed.

At the same time, Dash tested the strange suit given to him by his mother. He transformed it into a kind of wetsuit, though it still had the printed appearance of a cheap suit. It looked ridiculous, but it worked. He stepped off the ship, fell into the water, surfaced dry, and climbed back aboard. The test was successful, if not graceful.

Hatsu ended the night with his usual routine: training, push-ups, and sword forms with Kaze Joba. Then he sat to meditate. In his mind, he returned to the cave and searched for the moment where everything had first clicked, when he had seen the bee for the first time. He thought about what the group had achieved together, what had happened in Saigo no Toshi, and what they might still achieve for his family, his people, and the survivors they had saved. The thoughts gave him warmth, and for a moment, a sense that everything might still be alright.

That warmth overwhelmed him. In the cave, Hatsu stood because he saw something new: a path, like dust flickering in light. He followed it deeper and found the bee resting on a tiny branch of a small sakura tree left behind in the darkness. As he focused on it, his hands and body grew warm. Normally, his power leaned toward shadow, but in that moment he understood what he had truly been praying to: the Mother of Light, creator of shadows. He understood her as the one who gives space, protects from heat, and burns things down when necessary.

Hatsu looked at his hands and saw them glowing gold like the bee, rather than with the blackish aura he was used to. He knelt and prayed. In his mind, he heard the bee and the voices of his people. They taught him secrets he had never heard before: how to protect the ones he loved, shatter those who should be shattered, heal those who deserved it, and know that the divine was still watching. As he faded from the cave, he took a deep breath in his cabin and said, “I guess that was another path.” He flicked Kaze Joba back into its sheath.

Then the vision deepened again. Hatsu found himself far within his own mind, surrounded by countless pathways. Some led to questions, some to answers, and some to where he needed to be. The bee appeared again as a guiding light. The vision drew him toward Kaze Joba itself, revealing the blade as the oldest remaining relic of the Toshitsugu clan, once belonging to Hīrō Toshitsugu. It had passed through Hatsu’s ancestors, to his father, and finally to him. But none of them had drawn from it quite the way Hatsu did.

Within the vision, Hatsu opened his eyes and saw Saigo no Toshi as it had been long ago. Sakura fields and trees surrounded the city, but the buildings were different. He understood he was seeing the city near its beginning, before many districts had been built and before many of its stories had been told. Yet what caught his eye was not the city itself, but what guarded it: a dragon made of flame. It was not like Stella Malefic. It resembled something that had come from Kaze Joba when Hatsu had first truly begun to harness the blade.

The dragon flew around Saigo no Toshi, powerful and protective, then came for him. Hatsu was engulfed in flame, but it did not burn. It protected him. The light protected. He understood this as the guardian of the blade, the next evolution of Kaze Joba. It would aid him in battle in ways he had not yet seen, and it would also help him through the mental and emotional battlefields behind him and ahead of him. When Hatsu woke in his cabin, Kaze Joba was still in his hand. New markings had appeared along the dull side of the sword, like dragon scales inked into the blade. Hatsu had grown stronger, and Kaze Joba had evolved with him.

Asuka Toshitsugu appeared as Hatsu woke. She asked whether he had noticed Boreal’s growth. She found it strange that they had all grown so much since their father died, almost as if they were trying to find pride in a ghost. Hatsu pushed back on that thought. Their father had always wanted them to learn and grow, not for pride, but for self-growth. He said that if there was a reason to evolve, to become stronger, wiser, and more caring, it was because others depended on them. That, he believed, was when people grew most.

Asuka told him that the egg they wanted would be traded in two days. Hatsu wondered whether it was meant for the Sun King or The Archon. Asuka questioned why The Archon would not simply use his own daughter, Amaedrianna, if he wanted the egg so badly. She also wondered whether the king was real at all, or whether he might be a Metamorph, and if so, how many of him there might be. Hatsu wondered whether Dr. Harrow was involved.

Then Hatsu offered Asuka a gift. He gestured for her to meditate. He began his usual prayer, his tone growing resonant and deep enough that she felt it through her whole body. After a while, he started to glow gold, in a way the group had seen before from Eldrin Drosk. He became a torch, a beacon. He spoke words in a language Asuka had never heard, then told her the Mother of Light asked for her dedication. Asuka answered that she would serve as her family did. Hatsu released a golden bee from his finger, and it attached itself to her shoulder. Through the dedication ritual, Asuka became stronger, steadier, and more whole. She felt like she was home. The night ended.

Amaedrianna woke Weslyn, asking for help, but the moment she touched him, the pain in her head returned. She collapsed, and her eyes opened to light. Weslyn tried to reach her mind but unexpectedly connected to both her and Eos. Amaedrianna begged for help and said she could see everything. Then she collapsed again and handed Weslyn a piece of paper containing a perfectly accurate design of exactly where she stood. When Weslyn asked in her mind if she was alright, Eos heard him too and became confused. Amaedrianna insisted she was okay, and Weslyn suggested the change might be tied to her proximity to the forest.

Weslyn showed Amaedrianna the paper, but she could not see anything on it. Seemingly, only he could read what she had drawn. As she prepared to leave with him to collect the outfit she had commissioned the night before, she noticed another piece of paper: blueprints of a familiar office, including a stone behind a desk. Something about it pulled at her attention.

As they prepared to head out, Boreal asked someone to pick him up a cloak. Over the last few days, the group had noticed someone watching him: someone who seemed to confuse him, or Amaedrianna with her wings, for some kind of large bird. Boreal wanted to stay hidden. Eos then mentioned that she had heard Weslyn’s voice in her head. Weslyn was confused by this, but approached her and asked if she trusted him as he placed his hands on her head. Dash disguised himself, and then Weslyn, Dash, and Amaedrianna left together, giving Eos little closure on what had just happened.

Amaedrianna led Weslyn to the leatherworker, where the armour she had commissioned was ready. It was a gift meant to protect him and keep him alive. While this was happening, Eos occasionally kept seeing cats, likely because of Weslyn’s lessons or illusions, though Boreal could not see them. At the leatherworker’s, Weslyn was dressed in his new leather armour. Amaedrianna and Dash, for reasons of their own, pretended to be his parents. Dash even claimed Weslyn’s name was Cash.

Weslyn found the armour itchy and decided he needed proper fabric beneath it, along with a cloak, a hat, and something nice. Dash bought everything. He picked up a dark blue cloak for Boreal, one that could cover his face and shadow his eyes. For Weslyn, he selected a small tweed suit, a flat cap, and a bowtie, something that hid the armour while giving him a surprisingly polished look. When they returned to the ship, Weslyn asked Eos how many cats she had seen. He ended the illusion, and she answered with relief that she had seen forty-five. He told her she needed to get that number down and that she would try harder tomorrow.

Dash asked what the actual plan was for what came next. Amaedrianna said she hoped Isolde could help with the handover, or at least provide details about it. Stealing the egg mid-trade would likely become a fight, so she preferred to avoid that. But if a fight had to happen, she wanted it indoors, somewhere they could control the situation. Dash asked whether anyone had magic that could make the egg unseen. Eos said her staff might be able to do something under a full moon, but she would need to be in moonlight. Boreal asked if he could summon Isolde, confused about the difference between apparating someone and simply messaging them. Weslyn explained the distinction.

Boreal could message Isolde, but it would cost power, and he wanted to conserve what he had for the heist. Amaedrianna scolded him for saying “heist” so loudly. Weslyn also wondered whether Boreal could speak to Remington Maleficum, or perhaps summon him, because they still did not know what had happened to him after the forest. Weslyn hoped Remington might know something they did not.

Eos then asked Weslyn how she could get better with the cat exercise. He told her to start listening to the currents. It was in her blood, so she needed to listen to herself first. She had to become more aware of how the air moved when she moved. She had to count the cats. She would be surprised what she could learn from them. As the conversation continued, Boreal finally realised why Eos had been asking about cats. Weslyn thanked his “mom and dad,” meaning Dash and Amaedrianna, for his new clothes, which only confused the group further.

Then they left, and Eos was struck by another vision. She found herself standing in a library. Dash and Weslyn were there, meeting Isolde. Then Dash and Weslyn had their throats slit. Isolde was lifted into the air by nothingness, and her neck broke. Eos woke from the vision to find that Hatsu, Dash, and Weslyn were nowhere to be seen.