October Event 2025 Recap pt. 2
Greetings, uniters, un-conformists, and underdogs!
I, ATLAS THE BARD, may or may not be writing my last will and testament with this report. I am reporting on the many heroic (and not-so-heroic) deeds of the group of Coalition soldiers known as the PC Party! To remind my loyal readers, the group of storied heroes just walked through an unknown glowing portal in hopes that it gets them out of the weird and magical Vault of Karna that we’ve been stuck in for some time. I am frantically recording everything that happened before I go into the portal myself because what if it leads us somewhere horrible?
My informant in the PC Party, the wonderful and incredible Kyran, has filled me in on what happened:
[Transcription: Hello Atlas,
We were split up. We all woke up in different places, I should have known something like this would happen. I can’t trust anything in here. We were in three different groups but we managed to regroup pretty quickly. We were chased into a clearing with Sanari Simoon in it. Some of the others tried to attack her but me and Ez were able to stop them. She led us to a safe place to sleep for the night.
The next day Sanari asked us to get Jonah Wyrhyot’s mask. Ez was able to convince him to give it to us in exchange for delivering a letter to Arren. We didn’t deliver it because we couldn’t find him. Apparently Jonah was not actually Jonah? He was being impersonated by someone named Truet. Sanari and Valens left to go find The Heart of Karna. They said not to follow them. Duncan Luv and Truet Wyrhyot want Arancis Independence. That seems like a bad idea. We can’t grow food here and I don’t think they have trade set up. If they kicked Corvis members out they would just be doing the same thing that happened to the woodfolk 100 years ago. I also don’t see any reason we would need independence. Independence won’t get rid of the Coltar Spawn or Blakka. I think there are more important things to worry about. Like the Coltar Spawn. Or Blakka.
We went after Valens and Sanari. As we were walking through The Vault we started seeing illusions. The first one was of a lodge member telling Commander Myrden the location of Agarion’s fort. That already happened in the past. The second one we saw was of Valens and Sanari talking about trying to find and take The Heart of Karna. I think that one was happening in the present. In the last one we saw Agarion and Valens arguing about Valens taking The Heart. Agarion looked different. He said that everyone in The Bowers was dead and that Judge Sable was dying. He started attacking us and yelling about how there was no point to anything. We were able to down and stabalize him and Ez took his sword but something, I couldn’t tell what it was, healed him. When he got back up he just kept yelling at us. He eventually took a sword off a hollowed and kept attacking us. We had to kill him. I tried to stabalize him but I couldn’t. I think that was a vision of what could happen if Valens takes The Heart.
Two people ate dark spores. I was only gone for a few hours and when I came back two people had eaten dark spores and died. Apparently it was because Dorian told them to. I don’t know why they would listen to him. If the guy who does experiments on people tells you to eat something, don’t eat it.
We caught up to Valens and Sanari. They were trying to take The Heart. Valens thinks that The Vault and everything in it is his birthright as a descendant of Cecil Corvis. He also thinks that by taking The Heart he could save Arancis. We tried to tell him that taking the Heart would kill everyone in The Bowers but he didn’t believe us. He said that even if that was true it might be a good thing, it would be a fresh start for Arancis. But if everyone is dead then that’s not saving Arancis, that’s just saving a piece of land. He said that if we could come up with another plan to save Arancis from the Coltar Spawn and Blakka he would be willing to listen. We couldn’t come up with anything. Valens and Sanari took The Heart and left. We couldn’t stop them. We failed. I failed. I’m sorry. Everyone in The Bowers might die and we can’t do anything to stop it.
Kyran Greyling]
Last I left off, the party was following two nefarious individuals — Sanari Simoon and Valens Corvis — deeper into the Vault of Karna. Sanari and Valens were in pursuit of the HEART OF KARNA, the fossilized heart of a dead God that would bring them unimaginable power if claimed. The party was trying to stop them from taking this power due to their extreme nefariousness and villainous outlook.
As the party dredged deeper into the Vault, strange visions appeared in front of the party that seemed to reflect aspects of their past. Recall that the Vault, being a horrible place, is thick with magic and grief, and things don’t quite act as they should there. As the party fought waves of Elves, familiar spectres formed. Against all odds, Commander Myrden of the (former) Souther Blakka barricade was holding a meeting with the Merchant, a dangerous member of the Cuprous Lodge that the party recently murdered. The two were discussing a deal where the Cuprous Lodge would reveal the location of the Coalition stronghold in exchange for test subjects for their evil experiments. Hold on, that sounds familiar! That’s because this happened a few months ago… What’s going on?!
The next scene that appeared was one much more urgently present. Sanari and Valens huddled, discussing in hushed tones what the two would do with if they claimed the Heart of Karna. Valens wanted to reclaim the land for House Corvis, who led the initial expedition to settle Arancis, and remove the rot and blight that plagued the cursed land. Sounds pretty good, no? BUT, he wanted to do this by releasing an enormous deadly plague that would kill all the innocent inhabitants and the meagre plant life there. Some bards live there, okay! Don’t kill the land, we need that! The Vault seemed to be warning the party that if Valens and Sanari reached their destination, things would NOT be great for Arancis.
Just to hammer this point home, the final scene the party saw appeared as a dark, twisted future. An infected, haggard Agarion (second-in-command to the Coalition and subject of a lovely song I wrote), shouted demands at a smug Valens. Agarion yelled of how the land was dying, everyone was having a BAD time, and how Valens needed to put that Heart back where he found it or so help me Gods. Valens? Unbothered. Moisturized. Skin glowing. Seemed very unbothered with what Agarion was saying. He refused to put that thing back where he found it (so help him Gods), and Agarion stormed off. Seemingly succumbing to the fungal plague that infected him, Agarion turned on the party and tried to kill them. Yikes! Though this was a vision of a potential future, the party was shaken. Is this what would come to pass if Valens and Sanari got the Heart? (This is foreshadowing).
Free from the ominous visions, the party made one final push into the deepest parts of the Vault where the Heart of Karna lay, where Sanari and Valens were nearly done with the ritual to take the Heart. It was now or never: Sanari and Valens had to be stopped. The party attacked, Elves attacked them back, and it was an all-out battle for the soul of the land (almost literally!) Sanari and Valens held a deft control of the Vault that the party couldn’t fight against, using the landscape’s natural defenses to their use while the party fought back as best they could (mostly. Some people were trying to reason with Valens and Sanari, which appeared to be a rather useless tactic, but didn’t stop them nonetheless).
Then, when the battle was perhaps finally turning towards the party, a THIRD person stepped in. Remember in my previous report when I mentioned a crazy person muttering gibberish? It turns out that crazy person was actually the crazy ELF, Za’Ithil, who stood now with a new form. Based on my research, Za’Ithil hates humans, (my research? Za’Ithil said, “I hate humans,”) and told the party very firmly and in no uncertain terms that he would be taking the Heart of Karna specifically from the party’s dead hands. Great! Not good. Za’Ithil brought with them an extremely angry, magically irradiated monster who really wanted to do a murder of several children. Focused entirely on the new threat, the party lost focus on Sanari and Valens, who, clear of distractions, were able to complete the ritual to claim the Heart of Karna for themselves.
Oops.
Sanari and Valens sauntered merrily out of the Vault holding our destructions in their hands.
And now we’re here! Well, almost. The party had to go through some more Vault shenanigans in order to even reach this mysterious portal that may or may not bring us all back to Arancis. Dear readers, I suppose I’ll see you on the other side — either of this portal, or life!! What will Sanari and Valens accomplish with this power? What will the world become? And will anyone ever read these wonderful reports?? Only time will tell. Until then: fight together, or die alone.
Signed,
Atlas the Bard
P.S. I found this strange blood-soaked note, but I can’t quite decipher it. What could it be? It looks different from the ciphers Doc Morrison has used in the past… maybe you need a key phrase to decipher it?