[author’s note: With all of these “Age of Ashes” posts, check out this blurb to explain what I’m doing. This is a quick scene showing Yoonla, our goblin bard who took a vow silence when her wife died prior to the campaign. Nehi was an adventurer, while Yoonla stayed at home. Here we see one of Nehi’s adventuring partners sharing the tough news with her, right before the players meet the Bloody Blades, the mercenary group who killed Nehi. It played out really well in game.]

Fade to black.

When we fade in, the scene has no sound.

Yoonla the goblin sat on a chair in her living room. Bowls of all sizes scattered around her, and she kicked them to an unheard beat. She plucked away at her banjo and sang, energetically and with a smile on her face.

She paused and set her banjo aside. Standing, the goblin practically skipped to the front door and threw it open with a shout.

Yoonla’s face transformed from exuberant delight to pleasant confusion as she found a male dwarf in battered armor at her doorstep, ornate axe slung across his back. The dwarf, though clearly a warrior, looked uncomfortable and unsure of himself… he shuffled his feet and looked at the floor instead of Yoonla’s face when he spoke. She stepped aside and let him in.

The two of them sat. Yoonla offered him something and he, still refusing to meet her eyes, shook his head. She reached out and placed a small hand on his, asking a question.

Red-faced, the dwarf began to speak. As he did, Yoonla’s eyes went wide, then filled with tears.

Then she screamed.

Even without sound the scream was primal and raw. The goblin pulled at her ears, kicked her feet against the floor, and rocked back and forth. When her lungs had emptied, she sucked in a ragged breath and screamed again. The dwarf was looking at her now, sorrow in his deeply wrinkled eyes.

Yoonla rolled onto the floor of her living room, curled into a ball, her face a mess of snot and tears as she cried. Her small body shuddered and heaved.

The dwarf gently knelt and gathered Yoonla in his arms, carrying her to the red loveseat in the room. He placed her and pat her shoulder awkwardly.

As he stood to leave, Yoonla’s skinny arm shot out to grab the dwarf’s wrist. Her tear-streaked face looked up imploringly, and even though no words came out, the dwarf knew her question.

“How?”

The dwarf frowned and dug into a pouch at his belt. He pulled out a cloth patch that had been crudely ripped from wherever it was sewn. He unfolded it and showed to Yoonla the image of a red sword.

The image fills the screen, and then we zoom out, seeing that same image of the emblem reflected in Yoonla’s wide eye here, now. We pan out and around to see the crude, red sword, the image clear on a flapping banner atop the lead watchtower in Guardian’s Way.

[author’s note: Check this post for background on these fantasy bits. This particular cut scene is my favorite of the campaign so far… detailing a small sidebar in the Age of Ashes adventure path that I couldn’t otherwise find a way to reveal to the players. Voz is one of the two main bad guys in Book 1 of the adventure.]

Voz Lirayne sat in a dark, candlelit room. Her thin, pale hands shook from exhaustion and concentration as carefully, very carefully, she placed a black onyx stone on the wooden table in front of her. Voz’s eyes darted left and right, silently measuring that the onyx sat directly in the center of a circle of lit candles dotting the table’s edge. Satisfied, she turned her attention to the other object on the squat table.

The severed head did not stare back at her, because its eyes were long since gone. Pallid, dry flesh clung to its black-haired skull, lips peeled back from crooked teeth. Even in death, it’s clear that the living man’s nose had been broken countless times and sat above the leering mouth as a twisted lump.

Voz closed her eyes, breathing deeply and centering herself. After long moments, her dark eyes opened and focused on the onyx.

She began to chant in a muttering language, the sounds alien. The candle flames dipped low as they seemingly bowed to the eerie tongue, almost guttering out.

For hours Voz droned on. The chant, if anyone but Voz were there to hear it, harkened to lonely, moonless graveyards and ruined crypts. Her voice gained speed and volume, and as it did the candles’ flames rose in response. The candleflame turned a sickly green.

Finally, with a hoarse shout, Voz threw back her head and opened her arms wide. And, as she did so, the head on the table groaned. Voz smiled tightly, sweat beading her brow. The onyx was gone, a blackened smudge on the table.

“Where–? Where am I? What has happened?” the head croaked in a dry whisper. Yawning eye cavities searched the abandoned storeroom. “What is this place?”

“Silence,” Voz snapped. The head turned slightly to regard her, the stump of spinal cord of its neck twitching against the table. “I have questions, and you will provide me answers, corpse.”

“Corpse. Ah…” the head sighed. “That explains it then. We are in the crypts, it seems. And, yes, I see now, we are in the back storeroom. Ask your questions then, wizard, and leave me be.”

“Who were you in life? A full Hellknight?”

“A Hellknight, yes. Grachius Felix, of the Order of the Nail, stationed at the glorious Citadel Altaerein, in backwater Isger. A land of heathens and disorder needing to be tamed. Indeed, I was the one who–”

“Desist,” Voz snapped. “I don’t care.”

“I see. So you are neither a follower of Asmodeus nor his Law. Then I suppose I am here for some other purpose. Ask your questions, desecrator. Ask.”

Voz absently smoothed a hand over her pale hair, pulled back in a high ponytail, ensuring not a strand was out of place.

“We, you and I, Grachius Felix, are indeed presently within the basement and tombs of your citadel. Yet there is a lower level to this place, yes?”

“Not built by the Order’s hands, but yes. There are elven ruins below. Ah, but I see your ears now, so perhaps that is the connection. Go to them and leave me be, half-elf abomination of a spellcaster, whose parents did not value purity. You do not need me to see the ruins for yourself.”

Annoyance in her voice, Voz asked, “Did the Hellknights here ever decipher their purpose?”

“A temple to your elven gods, long forgotten, we assumed. There must be ghosts there you can pester, necromancer. Why rouse me?”

Voz sniffed. “The way below is blocked, the stairway collapsed.”

“Ah. Alas. The citadel has fallen, then. All things must eventually fall beneath the eternal gaze of Asmodeus, I suppose.”

“Is there another way in?”

The head of Grachius smiled, running a black tongue across its withered lips. “And there is the question that rouses me from eternal sleep, it seems. Of course. There is always another way in, fool.”

“Where? Tell me.”

“Alas, I must answer your questions, foul deathspeaker, however I might wish otherwise. It is odd, to be compelled in such a way. Quite novel.”

“Tell me!”

“Yes. There is a cave, six miles from the citadel, that leads back and under to the elven ruins. Or there once was. Who can know? My time has passed, and my knowledge with it. So much must have changed, if the mighty Order of the Nail now lies in ruin.”

“Where is this cave?”

Just then a sound like a large WHUMP! echoed from nearby. A purple light washed over the room and beyond, passing through the walls like a wave crashing onto a beach.

“What was that?” Voz gasped, eyes wide.

“Ah. I wondered if it might still be intact. Hoped it would be. The whole thing took rather longer than I expected. I was… stalling, you see. As best I could. I must answer, but it need not be quickly.”

“What was it, slave?” she snarled.

“A necromantic ward,” Grachius leered grotesquely, lips peeled back.

“A what?”

“Ah, not so powerful a wizard, it seems. The Order guards its tombs from necromancy, half-elf abomination. See for yourself, see for yourself.” Grachius chuckled. A purplish glow had begun to form in his otherwise empty eye sockets.

Voz stood, limbs protesting from fatigue and inaction. She smoothed her robes and went to the heavy door behind the still-chuckling head.

It was a long, dark room lined with headstones. As her keen eyes adjusted to the shadows, she heard the scraping of stone on stone. The sound repeated from several places around the room.

Something was opening the Hellknight tombs. Something from within.

Voz hustled back into the storeroom. The head of Grachius continued to chuckle, its eyes now fully aglow with purple light.

“Fight fire with fire, eh necromancer? Even in its demise, the Order is wise. Goodbye, mongrel scum.”

“Where is the cave?” Voz snarled, stuffing materials hastily into her satchel. The sound of heavy stone lids hitting the floor echoed nearby.

“I am free of you now. Savagery must be quelled in the land, home, and mind. Begone!” The head screamed, and as it did so burst into a purple fire. All around the table, the green-flamed candles guttered and died.

Cursing, Voz rushed to her escape tunnel at the back of the storeroom, a raw and jagged hole in the wall. Something wailed despairingly from deep within the tombs, the eerie sound echoing as the thump of something–several somethings, actually–began bumping and shuffling beyond. It sounded as if the entire complex was waking into undeath.

“Necromantic fucking ward,” Voz growled, and vanished into the dirt-walled tunnel.

Well, she thought, willing her stiff legs forward as another distant voice wails, she had what she needed. She was one step closer to unlocking the secrets of Alseta’s Ring.

* * *

Voz stood with maps arranged across the table. It was daytime, the sounds of Breachill awake drifted faintly into her small shop. Her lips were pursed in concentration as she measured and marked the maps, measured and marked.

“Six miles… six miles…” she muttered. “I’ve got you!”

Voz stood excitedly, checking her work and measuring again to be sure. But she had it. She slammed her hand down on the table in triumph.

Dabbing a quill hastily in an inkwell, she jotted into her notes, “Aha! Entrance to Alseta’s Ring–Guardian’s Way” and laughed into the empty room.

Someone knocked at the front door of the shop and Voz whipped her head around. She narrowed her eyes, annoyed. The tall half-elf stood, deftly and with practiced hands locking the door of her small research room behind her.

Voz took a deep breath and smoothed her robes. Absently, she ran a hand across her head to ensure that her white-blonde hair was in place. The door to her shop opened. Standing there, a motley crew of Jacques du Tank, Yoonla, Obedience Fletcher, and Zonja-ex arrayed behind him, was Jethro Vermillion.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” Jethro said. “May we come in?”

[author’s note: Please see this post for some background information on anything tagged “AoA.” This was Jethro’s second haunting vision and was a fun writing experiment. Marcus, Jethro’s player, and I wrote this collaboratively back and forth via Facebook Messenger.]

Jethro Vermillion stepped forward hesitantly, blinking and confused. He took in his surroundings.

The cleric stood at one end of a long tunnel that seemed to be made of hardened lava, long ago scorched and melted. Tiny cracks and fissures lined the walls, within which an orange glow flickered and gave the tunnel a soft, fiery illumination. The air was uncomfortably warm and smelled of smoke.

An archway just behind him glowed with gold and silver mist, and it seemed to Jethro that humanoid figures moved within it. At the far end of the tunnel, perhaps a hundred feet, an identical archway shimmered with mist.

“What manner of place is this?” Jethro asked aloud.

Just then blasts of fire and smoke poured out of the tunnel’s walls. Jethro flinched from the sudden explosion of sound and heat. Within moments, the burning form of a dragon coalesced mid-length of the passageway.

The fiery creature was so large that it had to crouch, its head laying between claws and staring directly at Jethro with burning eyes.

“So…” the dragon croaked, and smoke billowed from its maw. “Here is the newborn of the Dawnflower. You think you are prepared to defeat my followers, newborn? To confront the Eternal Destruction itself?”

“I… I… I am not ready. I know not of what terrible fate you speak. I know not of your followers. You call me newborn of the Dawnflower–I follow the Goddess yes, though I claim no such title. But I know this, foul creature: I am willing. I am willing to play my role to the world’s end, whatever the cost. And if you are that lover of oblivion called Dahak, as I suspect you to be, I know that I will serve my goddess and do all in my power to bring you–and all who name you lord–to the light!”

The dragon squinted, looking irritated. “Light. Bah. I serve no one. Not your goddess. I will bring destruction to all, and you, little one, will help me.”

“I would sooner die a thousand deaths than serve your purpose.” Jethro seemed to lift his head taller, his stammer forgotten as he stood on familiar theological ground. “In the end, we all must serve, beast. But the morning comes each day, and if it is indeed my help you seek, I offer you this: It is never too late to repent. The true destruction you wreak is of your own soul. May you find a true spark of wisdom before your own light is extinguished for good.”

The dragon blinked, clearly surprised. Then a slow chuckle bubbled from its throat, filling the tunnel with smoke that burned Jethro’s eyes. “So young. So naive. Your doom is all but guaranteed. You are nothing. Those with you are nothing. Your dreams and plans merely ash in the wind. Proceed on this path, and each step brings you closer to me.”

After a pause, it asked, “What do you hope to accomplish in Breachill? Beneath Asmodeus’ barren citadel?”

Now it was Jethro who blinked, unsettled by the change in tone. “I know not what purpose this citadel or what lies beneath may serve, only that it is right that I am here, that whatever part I have to play starts here. Know this, breather of hot air: where I find good, and those who serve fires of hope and truth, I will provide succor. And where I find evil, and those who would cast this world into endless darkness, I shall bring the flaming sword of redemption. And while we may be inexperienced, the companions who have found me and I, we will only grow stronger, as we have already, and more prepared to stop you!”

“By all means, then, grow stronger. But you will fail,” the dragon sneered. “You and anyone with you will die, flayed and dragged into the Great Darkness to feed me. And then I will rise, finally free of this prison. Your utter failure will unleash me upon your world.”

It inhaled deeply. “Now… Burn, little dragon hunter. BURN!” and the fiery beast opened its maw wide.

Flames filled the tunnel, washing over Jethro and turning him to ash.

Tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, Jethro Vermillion screamed into the morning darkness, the dragon’s roar still echoing in his ears.

Anso pulled on the bin of rotting vegetables and discarded bread crusts. At ten years old, he was a strong boy, but the bin was large, heavy, and unwieldy. Anso grunted and twisted his body, straining to move it across the road of hard-packed earth. It was springtime, with a chill in the air, yet still the lad was plastered in sweat.

“Erika!” Anso gasped. “Gods! Are you going to help or what?”

Anso’s younger sister was a wisp of a girl, all elbows and knees beneath a mop of jet-black hair. She looked up from poking a beetle with a stick, startled.

“What?”

“Help me, you twit!”

Erika wandered over to the bin and frowned. “It’s too big, yeah? We can’t get it all the way to the stables.”

“Ma said to take it there. She told both of us. So you help me right now, or I swear I’m gonna–”

A deep rumble of thunder rattled shutters and sent nearby dogs barking. Both kids looked skyward, blinking and confused.

What had moments before been a clear blue sky was now swarming with angry clouds, moving overhead like thick sludge around a drain. Blue lightning crackled within the mass, along with orange flame and some sort of green ethereal highlights. Thunder boomed again, shaking the earth with its bellow.

Drops of rain began to fall, and Anso heard something hiss amidst the light patter. He looked at the discarded food within his mother’s bin, which seemed to be smoking. Lettuce leaves and half-eaten cucumbers curled, pockmarked.

“Ow!” Erika complained. She was holding her hand out, a blistering dot smoking from her fair skin. Another drop struck her forearm and she yelped. “Ow! Anso!” she said, shaking her arm. “It hurts!”

The temperature suddenly dropped. Anso’s eyes darted from his sister to the smoking vegetables, panicked, his breath making a puffy cloud before him. Thunder boomed again.

“Erika! Run!” Anso screamed. “Get inside!”

His sister had apparently realized the threat of the rain and was ducking, hunched to try and make herself small. Without realizing it, Anso had retreated to the far side of the street, under an awning. He reached out his hand to Erika. Several raindrops struck his outstretched arm, though, burning him and causing him to snatch his hand back.

“Aargh! Erika! Hurry! Run!”

His sister’s little stick legs tangled and she fell, then scrabbled to pop up again. She was crying, not looking where she was stumbling, guided by her brother’s voice. Thunder boomed again, and Anso could hear panicked horses screaming along with the dogs. Voices of people all around him began to yell in fear and pain. Erika was five steps away. Four.

A ball of fire fell from the sky with a whoosh, engulfing Erika in its bright blaze. The resulting explosion of fire and dirt sent Anso sprawling backwards into his father’s tavern, hitting his head hard against the wooden wall. When he looked up, disbelieving, where his sister had been there was now a five-foot circle of black earth and a charred lump. The bin of vegetables was on its side, flaming and smoking and gathering a thin film of frost.

Anso’s eyes darted left and right. He whimpered. A lightning bolt, searing itself onto his vision, struck the building across the street, immediately followed by a boom of thunder so loud it stole Anso’s breath.

Another ball of fire landed in the street. Behind eyes squeezed shut, another flash of light was immediately followed by another deafening boom. His ears rung from the cacophony, and behind the ringing he could hear people and animals screaming everywhere.

It was almost unbearably cold now, coating everything in frost. The rain increased, eating away at everything it touched. Lightning and fireballs fell constantly from the sky.

Amidst the chaos, a green mist rose from the streets as if from a haunted bog. It was the mist that killed Anso, burning his lungs from his small, strong body before he had finished taking a single breath. He dropped to his side, mouth agape, eyes bulging, and frost forming over his horror-stricken face.

Over the town of Breachill, the clouds swirled and swirled, ever darker. And from its center, drowning out all screams, explosions, and peals of a thunder, a mighty dragon roared.

Tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, Jethro Vermillion screamed into the morning darkness, the dragon’s roar still echoing in his ears.