Season 2 Finale #5 - The Crimson Shard

The outer world grinds and tears, yet the strongest push through. Stone foes hammer the ice wall while ranged attacks focus south and melee holds the north. The lit interior rotates as the misty horizon phases. Missing allies return with new arrivals, music surges, and a catastrophic blast resets the battlefield into rolling green hills, where a crimson shard descends and a lunar strike team arrives.

• Act I – The Grinder and the Assault
  • Scene: The world outside becomes a giant grinder.
    • Action: Giant stone enemies pound the ice wall; most ranged attackers target the multi-faced southern cube while the melee team engages new intruders in the north.
  • Scene: The moonlit interior breaks loose.
    • Action: The sphere rotates; the misty horizon shifts as darkness spreads and retreats in phases.

• Scene: Missing party members return with company.
  • Action: A nearly finished giant stone block-man conglomerate pursues Monroe through the chaos but fails to catch her.
• Scene: A prayer in the noise.
  • Action: Our faithful paladin chants to Bahamut, timing the rhythm to the vibrations, but the sound is drowned by the din.
• Scene: Corpse giants clash.
  • Action: Two animated-body titans fight—one petrified and evil, the other a devouring amalgam bound by dark power.
• Scene: The Eye and the music.
  • Action: Music rises from the center as The Eye arcs red energy; The warlock fails to deceive the western monstrosity. Edubeus complains just before the world detonates in a grand solo.

• Scene: After the explosion, silence returns.
  • Action: The party awakens in a dirt field as grass and flowers spread into spiraling green hills around a central knoll. The mask of Edubeus' face remains on the hill, along with a single one of his glove hands.

• Scene: The gem descends.
  • Action: The party awoke in a dirt field as grass and wildflowers spread outward, forming spiraling green hills around a central knoll. Upon that rise lay the mask of Edubeus’s face and a single gloved hand—his final remnants.
  • Action: With a sharp ker-chunk, a crystalline fragment fell from the sky, striking the sapling at the mound’s center. The young tree vanished in a flash of crimson light, and the shard embedded itself in the spot where it had stood.
  • Action: Next to the newly formed crystal, a red potion bottle glimmered in the light, but the group had no time to examine either before the next event began.

• Scene: The strike team arrives.
  • Action: A white-robed mage prays to Selûne; a red-robed mage begins ritual self-sacrifice for Selûne's glory; their leader raises his great sword, conjuring a lunar shield over the party as the Selûnar Strike Team’s battleflag waves behind them.
• Scene: Misidentification and attack.
  • Action: Adaranth Monroe is mistaken for a demon. At the paladin’s command, ZaRaSu unleashes the Lunar Rainbow Prism Blast—a spiraling beam of refracted rainbow elemental energy that strikes Monroe directly. The blast does no harm but halts her advance toward the crystal; she freezes in shock as the paladin shouts, “Get her!”

• Scene: The improvised device.
  • Action: Aroh unveils a jury-rigged explosive device featuring a glowing Helm of Brilliance with a skull inside of it. Draphi quietly steps back as the weapon activates.
• Scene: The strike and the fall.
  • Action: Hellfire tears through the lunar shield, annihilating the Selûnite battleflag. The red-robed magi dies mid-ritual. Guided by Titus Sharpe and Shady G, Aroh’s detonation shatters the barrier. The paladin falls; Aroh escapes the blast. The leader and red magi vanish as the surviving mages collapse in grief.

• Scene: A divine channel.
  • Action: In the calm following the battle, ZaRaSu—the surviving black-robed mage—suddenly convulsed as silver light flooded her eyes. Through her, Selûne spoke directly, declaring that she and her white-robed sister were henceforth entrusted to the heroes’ care. Serene and inscrutable, thanked the party for resolving the conflict and, with divine poise, presented Moon Magi twins to them as rightful spoils of war. When the vision faded, ZaRaSu collapsed, and her sister rushed to her side.

• Southern fire on the multi-faced cube; northern melee holds the breach.
• World-scale explosion resets the field into verdant hills.
• Crimson shard lands atop the knoll amid red arcs of energy.
• Selûnar Strike Team’s battleflag raised and later destroyed during the conflict.
• ZaRaSu channels Selûne, entrusting herself and her sister to the party.
• Selûnar strike team’s defense shattered by Aroh’s device and hellfire strike.
• The dead vanish; surviving mages collapse, ending the battle.

• World Impact: The frozen fortress becomes a fertile, terraced landscape centered on the crimson shard’s crater.
• Field Observation: Lunar shield and battleflag destroyed by combined magic and explosive force; celestial forces withdraw.
• Divine Mandate: Selûne’s message through ZaRaSu binds the Moon Sisters to the party’s destiny.
• Future Potential: The shard’s red arcing energy, and remnants of Selûnar magic await investigation.