Session 7: Ashes Do Not Apologise

Turtle Island’s market does not forget. It only rearranges what it remembers.

Beneath flapping sails and smoke-choked awnings, amid shouted bargains and clattering coin, the party moved through a maze of noise and temptation. It was there, among trinkets and half-legal miracles, that Rhaz’korr felt the pull first. A mirror, framed in scorched brass, rested upon a merchant’s table as if it had always been waiting. Its surface did not reflect the present. Instead, it bled images of a distant homeland—unchanged, unreachable, achingly intact.

This was no illusion. No trick of glass. It was a device of remote sight, a doorway built of memory rather than stone. And for a heartbeat, Rhaz felt seen by something older than distance itself. He turned away before the mirror could decide what it wanted of him.

The market shifted after that.

Isla found Adeline alone.

There was no crowd, no shouted accusation, no blade drawn. Just a woman shaped by loss standing before another who carried more of it than she could name. The words were not kind, but they were honest. Blame was not screamed; it was assumed. Adeline did not argue. She did not justify herself. She stood and listened as someone she once trusted made it clear that forgiveness was not forthcoming.

Then came the sentence that mattered.

“You don’t betray people, Adeline. You make them believe in you. And then the world punishes them for it. If you really cared about us, you’d have stayed dead.”

The words struck like cold iron. Isla did not wait for a response. She turned and disappeared back into the crowd, leaving only the echo of what had been said.

Only then did Tobias appear.

He did not interrupt. He did not accuse. He arrived after the damage was done, posture relaxed, eyes sharp, taking in Adeline’s shaken composure with the satisfaction of a man who preferred wounds that required no further cutting.

“Look at the mess you leave behind,” he said quietly.

But even in his cruelty, there came a single, cutting truth.

“He still chose you.”

Mendoza’s name settled between them like ash. Not absolution. Not comfort. But confirmation. The admission twisted like a knife, sharpened by the venom that followed—promises of retribution and vengeance spat from Tobias’s crooked mouth. And then he was gone, leaving behind the certainty that some grudges do not need confrontation. Only patience.

Elsewhere in the market, Barry found himself in conversation with an old man whose eyes were clouded but whose smile was certain. Barry spoke of stars, of being remade, of the conviction that he had once been human before something vast and celestial had rewritten him. The old man listened without interruption, then nodded.

“Ah,” he said softly. “You’re touched.”

Not mockery. Not disbelief. Recognition.

He spoke of a miracle cure. Of rebirth. Of stars that might be persuaded to correct what they had altered. It would require faith. And gold.

Barry gave him forty coin without hesitation. Promised more. Walked away believing he had begun something important.

Something listened.

From there, the party reunited with Silas, who had spent the morning in prayer, before returning to Legrand “Blackeye” Drex. The pirate lord issued their next task without ceremony: the recovery of a crystal from an abandoned mine.

The island was wrong.

Drex’s Vein greeted them with corpses posed and half-buried in the sand, as though death itself had been interrupted mid-thought. On one body they found a note—hurried, desperate, unfinished. Whatever had happened here had not allowed time for second thoughts.

Barry, curiosity tugging him toward poor judgement, began to tamper with the dead. Silas intervened, voice firm.

Then Barry cast Starry Wisp on a skeleton.

Why, no one could later explain.

The answer came anyway.

The gods did not rage. They did not thunder. They noticed. And in that notice came a quiet curse. Barry’s magic would falter. Fate itself would lean against him for the rest of the day.

Within the mine, they found the miners dead—but not at rest. Still locked in the motions of their mortal labour, they worked mindlessly, tools scraping stone in endless, meaningless repetition.

They slipped past them like thieves in a half-forgotten story, but violence found them regardless.

When battle broke, the curse made itself known. Barry attempted to move his Moonbeam. The spell obeyed—incorrectly. Light carved not through the undead, but through Silas and Rhaz alike. Panic followed. Then worse. A luminous arrow struck Rhaz full in the chest, dropping him to the brink of death, left clinging to a single breath.

Trust bent. Blood spilled. The fight continued.

And the party prevailed.

They pressed deeper still, until they reached the heart of the mine, where a great guardian stood astride an altar of blackened stone. Before it, Silas bled willingly, hoping sacrifice might succeed where force would not.

It failed.

Barry, perhaps forgetting the lesson already written into him, attempted to read the guardian’s mind.

The guardian objected.

The battle was brutal. Barry’s curse lashed out again, Starry Wisp striking Rhaz once more, setting him aglow like a beacon of pain. The guardian fought with the fury of something bound too long to purpose without reward. Steel rang. Magic screamed. Eventually, through endurance rather than elegance, the party prevailed.

Victory tasted of iron and regret.

The fall of the guardian revealed the crystal—chalice-like in form, heavy with promise and consequence.

On the return journey, temptation whispered. Blood could empower it. Rhaz considered it.

Adeline spoke.

This time, words were enough.

Back at the mansion, Legrand “Blackeye” Drex greeted them personally. He accepted the crystal with visible shock, clearly having not expected their success. With a laugh, he tossed them a heavy sack of coin, careless as a king scattering crumbs. Adeline caught it cleanly, without flinch or flourish.

No apology was offered.

None was owed.

Ashes, after all, do not apologise.