Ascent into Volund Etherium
The party pressed onward into the high mountains of Volund Etherium, their gamel chariot rattling along the steep, winding path northeast toward the capital city of Dextrin. The air grew thin and biting cold with every passing hour, a stark contrast to the island warmth of Samitra they had left behind. Quinlan, still recovering from the brutal fight with Colton and his cultists on the mountain path, tumbled out of the chariot at one point — though he was back on his feet soon enough. Vien consulted the party’s detailed map, confirming they were on the right heading, deep into the heart of a mountain range unlike anything they had experienced before.
The Plundered Settlement
Their journey was interrupted when they came upon a small settlement along the main thoroughfare between Shavalin and Dextrin. The villagers had initially fled indoors at the sight of approaching travelers, but upon recognizing that the party bore no resemblance to their recent attackers, they cautiously emerged. Shards of white porcelain with gold repair work littered the ground, and the Shattered Will’s symbol — a circle with five lines — was marked across the walls. The village elder explained that just the day before, thirty members of the Shattered Will had ambushed the settlement, making off with hard tack, warm clothing, and other vital supplies. The party was ushered into the town hall, where two elderly women worked tirelessly at their looms while a youth hauled in bags of wool from the local baba bear sheep to help replenish what had been stolen.
The party shared a communal meal with the villagers, contributing hearty bread, potatoes, and spices to a bubbling pot. It was during this quiet moment of reflection that Quinlan reached for his acorn pendant — and found nothing. Patting himself down in growing alarm, he noticed a faint, pearlescent marking glowing on his arm, written in Savawell Thieves Cant: a broken triangle with a grasping letter C inside it. The mark was unmistakably a message — the pendant had been stolen, and the last time Quinlan remembered seeing it was right before Colton had struck him down. The pendant had once whispered things to him, guiding him in ways he had not fully understood, and now it was gone. Before departing, the party purchased warm baba bear sheep cloaks from the villagers — hand-stitched garments with interior pockets — and paid generously, even leaving coin in advance for the supplies they intended to recover from the Shattered Will.
The Gravity Anomalies of Volund Etherium
Higher into the mountains, the world began to behave strangely. The party noticed three large rocks floating roughly eight feet off the ground before dropping back down, only to rise again at an angle as the chariot passed. Quinlan, ever curious, experimented with the anomaly — kicking pebbles across the threshold, with Sabra straddling a rising rock, and Vien even attempting to ride one upward — before being unceremoniously dropped when gravity reset, landing hard and limping back to the chariot. The party documented the location on their map and pressed on, noticing more and more of these gravitational disturbances as they climbed, some launching objects sideways rather than straight up. Then they crested a hill and were nearly knocked off their feet by a violent gust of wind — and when they steadied themselves and looked up, they saw it: giant floating islands dotting the sky, and among them, the capital city of Dextrin itself, suspended impossibly in the air.
Arrival at Dextros and the Ascent to Dextrin
The party descended to Dextros, the ground-level settlement anchored beneath the floating city by massive chains. There, Krish reunited with another of his cousins Dexter at the Dhruvian Embassy, who confirmed that thirty members of the Shattered Will had recently arrived and joined a local group — and that more had come before them. Dexter’s embassy vehicle was out for repairs, so he arranged for a gondolier named Chris Anthemum to ferry the party upward. Chris Anthemum paddled his sky ferry through the open air in a long, scenic spiral, and as they ascended, the party witnessed something breathtaking: waterfalls flowing upward along the massive anchor chains, defying gravity in a shimmering, majestic display. They arrived at the top of the floating isle, stepping out into a wide, undeveloped park that ringed the city’s gleaming central buildings.
Encounter with the Aetherborn
No sooner had the party begun walking through the park to plan their next move than the wind died completely and all sound went muted, as if cotton had been stuffed into their ears. Dirt and sand began rising from the ground, and a figure slowly materialized — cloaked in layers of fabric that moved independently of one another, his face obscured by a mask marked with the Roman numeral 19. His movements were deeply wrong: his hand shifted several seconds before the rest of his body caught up, and his head led each step while his limbs followed in delayed succession. He was the Aetherborn, a high-ranking member of the Shattered Will, and he spoke not through his sealed lips but directly into the minds of the party. He told them they had already changed the pattern, that someone had been meant to resist them longer, and that the stabilization of Rhythm had been unexpected. He called them inefficient variables, warned that the Shattered Will was not trying to stop the world — only to prevent the version of the world where the party succeeded — and cryptically insisted that the harmonics had been preventing something the party did not yet understand. When Quinlan reached out to grab him, the Aetherborn began to unravel, his scarf flying upward as he dissolved piece by piece into nothing, and the muted silence lifted as suddenly as it had fallen.
The Department of Harmonics and Reunion with the Professor
Shaken but undeterred, the party made their way to the tallest building at the center of Dextrin. A receptionist directed them to Room 19 — the Department of Harmonics — and sent them shooting upward through a pneumatic tube system that launched them along the side of the building in seconds. Stepping through the door of Room 19, gravity shifted beneath their feet, and they found themselves walking on the wall of a dark, cramped library office lit by flickering electric lights. Hunched over a desk at the back of the room, nearly invisible in the dimness, was a figure they recognized immediately: Professor Alera Vorun, the missing researcher they had been hearing about since the very beginning of their journey. She had been hiding here, safe from the Shattered Will, while working to locate the Wind Harmonic.
Professor Vorun confirmed that the Wind Harmonic was housed on a small island roughly two hours from Dextrin by air, and she marked its location on the party’s map. She had visited the island’s exterior but had been unable to bypass the complex puzzles protecting it, and had deliberately avoided returning too often for fear of alerting the Shattered Will to its true location. She provided the party with wind charts — navigational documents made from a strange, skin-like material — to help a ferryman safely navigate the aerial currents surrounding the island. Before they left, she reached under her desk and produced gifts she had been preparing for whoever came to help her: a gunsword capable of functioning as both a ranged weapon against flying enemies and a blade in close quarters, the Mind’s Eye that sapped an enemy of their mental fortitude, an Alchedagger that enhanced the potency of alchemical creations, and a Runic Shield that could punish enemies who struck a weakened wielder.
A Shadow in the Garden
As the party made their way back through the park toward Chrysanthemum, Quinlan’s arm began to burn — the tattoo-like mark left by Colton’s theft flaring with sudden heat. Both Sabra and Quinlan scanned the rooftops and spotted him: Colton, standing at the edge of one of the outermost buildings, watching them. Something sparkling was visible in his possession — the stolen acorn pendant. He held their gaze without flinching, and then, without looking away, without a single word, he stepped calmly backward off the edge of the building and vanished into thin air. The party stood in stunned silence for a moment before pressing on, the pendant’s absence weighing heavier than ever on Quinlan’s mind.
Preparations for the Flight
They found Chris Anthemum exactly where they had left him, crocheting a long and uneven scarf — though the last few rows showed noticeable improvement. The party presented him with the wind charts and the marked map, and he studied them carefully before confirming he could navigate the route to the island. With the Wind Harmonic’s location identified, their new equipment in hand, and the Aetherborn’s cryptic warning still echoing in their minds, the Astral Covenant prepared to set out by sky ferry toward whatever puzzles and dangers awaited them on the island beyond.