48 - Facing Death

It's a huge district filled in black, with cathedrals here and there. The streets are mostly emptied and desert, probably because of the war.
We fly through to the Breathforge. During our travel, it seems that the district is abandoned, and even too quiet. We notice a big government kremlin type building, where most of the vessels are entering or leaving. We notice people in uniforms, and next by, the Breathforge. It's a much bigger one than Dertrine with multiple towers, along smaller buildings around.
When floating around, we notice a bataillon of guards in front of the doors, and even if there are a few more entries, they all seem to be guarded.

We land and soldiers raise rifles towards us when we approach.

They ask us to leave, and we leave and regroup further.

Axel goes to scout to find the best entrance for the group.
[Stealth - Pass ✔] Axel finds another vent to go.

We quickly banter about wondering if the Forgemaster is already in, and the worst case scenario. After a while, we go through the vent.
We enter and go in the following order: Axel - Persy - Senri - Nesvalyn - Sabine
We sense some waves, which stops all the magical effects on us.

After a while and removing the grid to enter the catwalk, it smells like rotten trash. The whole plate is hot and lit. It's filled with trash and garbage.

[Investigation - Pass ✔] Nesvalyn and Persy look around, and notices it's just piles of trash. In the center of the room are many soul crystals. It has a kind of spiral crystals around, with what looks to be crystal flowers.
Nesvalyn looks around more, and wonders about this purple light is from, and find tubes with magenta substance. And by getting closer, and is the same color as Axel, and he realizes at it's a Plasmoid factory.
There aren't any Plasmoids around, but we're in the center of the spherical room.

[Insight (Axel)] Axel is feeling a new feeling, like a deep carnal rage within them. Everything feels familiar... It feels like... home?

[Stealth] Axel, Nesvalyn and Senri moves pretty quietly, but Persy isn't.
We're about 60ft from the Soul Crystal. As we take a few steps forward, the trash is starting to move around us. A tower is about to fall down, but they all start moving, clearing space around us. The trash reassembles near us like a throne.
Sitting at the top is a purple specter person. She leans towards us:

They keep going for a dialogue on their own, switching voice and side to simulate two sides.

Axel is trying to get closer by complimenting them.
[Persuasion] Axel manages to take one step closer.

Axel takes another step.

The Forge Mistress is trying to stop Axel, and purple goo flies into the air as we hear a gun shot, and the gun explodes immediately, making a nuclear blast with soul energy, with a wall of light flying towards us.
[Acrobatics - Pass ✔] Senri gets closer to Persy and leaps dramatically.
Persy holds the key and we're about to brace the explosion, and Sabine leaps to mitigate the damage, and we're all gone.

Axel is not here with us, and we don't know where we are. There's blackness around, and Sabine is laying on the ground near us, her back fully burned.

It's a familiar darkness for Persy, and we're turning around, to see a massive monolithic structure, like a floating skull, flanked by structures of bones, like a castle wall thing.
Persy is in shock, as he doesn't know what Axel would just do, and being back there adds another layer.

This thing floats closer to the group.

We notice that nothing changes.

Persy tries to cast [Cure Wounds] on Sabine, but nothing happens.

We decide to be honest, and start to explain that we have a hit, and we're explaining our side, hoping it will soothe up the things.

Nesvalyn makes a pause and wonders if it's really happening, to the group.

They seem to be lost in their thoughts after saying Wundera.

[Medicine - Pass ✔] Senri is able to stabilize Sabine, but she needs medical attention. This space exists between Life and Death, but she's still holding on.

✒Main quest added: ✔ A Greater Evil

Logarius opens his jaw, and appearing on the skeleton tongue is Willum, dressed in a confortable clothing, with his arm restored, looking young and happy, without any burden this time.

Willum smiles and leaves.

And we're all blinking back into the Breathforge.

We see Axel(?) seated in a perfect lotus posture pose, with a black chain around their body. In their hand there is a incense burner, but mostly... their color changed from Purple to a White Blue tone.

They open their eyes.

They jump on Persy.

Persy tries to slap them (but misses).

Axel moves to Sabine and heals her for 14 HP.

We can tell the heal worked, and we banter about moving Sabine to safety. Nesvalyn tried to slap Axel, but failed to hit, and Senri observing this, casts [Eldritch Blast], where only one blast hits.

As we're flying to the city back to the shipyard, we see an odd scene in the city. Where were was fighting, there are piles of light blue goo instead that has been thrown, which shows scenes that are frozen in time.
After a few hours, we arrive at the shipyard, where our old ship is, with a much larger recent ship next to it.
[Archaeology][History - Pass ✔] Nesvalyn recognizes it as a Wunderran' Giant ship.
Sprigg opens a door of the bigger ship.

✒✅ Quest closed: ✔The Black Dot

When we board on the ship, it's a much bigger ship, Naus makes the rundown of the ship:

• We all have our individual room.
• We can navigate using the sails or manually (if we have 60 Giants in our crew).
• We can have weapons equipped on the ship, but we have none at the moment.
• It has a bigger hyperdrive reservoir, meaning we can travel for longer.

By saying that, Persy has a doubt on how he knows that, and why he said that.

We put Sabine in a room to let her recover, and we all shower and rest a bit with what we just witnessed.

We reconvene after a bit. Sprigg asks Naus to get away from Minavra.
Sprigg let us know that while we were "fooling around", he got a contract for 50k credits.
Ludwig pays us 2k credits for his share.

With the new ship, we would be there much faster (in a day or two). Sprigg dictates the coordinates, and Persy enter them.
[Insight] Persy opens up the keypad, pauses, and before realizing, the coordinates are entered by themselves. He doubts but thinks it's what has been said by Sprigg.
Naus takes off, and makes course to the next planet.

On the travel, Axel shares their new abilities, and also shows signs of full spectre of emotions.

Once Sabine is up, they're fine we took her, and is angry towards Axel due to the injuries.

Sabine slams the door of her room.

Persy turns invisible and tries to hit Axel, but misses by nothing.

Then a banter happens, related to Persy trying to hit Axel and what is a proper punishment, as Persy thinks they deserve to be hit for what they did, but Nesvalyn counter argues that it would be Sabine the best placed, and not us, and it keeps going for a moment, ending up on Nesvalyn trying to hit Persy after he declares we can hit him if he deserves to be hit, but it happens that being physically strong isn't Nesvalyn's best feature.

The travel goes on for 3 days. When we arrive, we're not on a planet nor at a Crystal Sphere. We look out, and we see dozens of ships identical to the one we're on, floating, suspended in space. As we got closer to one of them, we see hanging on the side of the deck are massives skeleton arms.

Next session: 49 - The End of a Civilization