Mirage in the Sky
Mirage In the Sky follows the adventures of Marwa "Mirage" Noor and her party of misfit adventurers across the Crossroad Realms. Session summaries are interspersed with short fiction fleshing out the internal dialogues, perspectives, and dramatic tensions between characters.
The Party
Mirage's adventuring party consists of:- Herself, Marwa "Mirage" Noor (she/her), a half-djinn air genasi rogue. The daughter of a famed and immortal genie vocalist, she grew up in luxury as sheltered as it was monitored. Soon as she could, she took off travelling and joined an adventuring party for kicks. But using her skills to help people and actually fight the forces of injustice in the world was more rewarding than she expected, and now her adventuring career is so much more than a fun break from routine.
- Saeldor (he/they), a firbolg paladin sworn to an oath of equity. Growing up in a hidden village in the heart of the Awakened Wood, Saeldor always loved to wander the woods, making friends as easily with the critters as the occasional traveller. He always wanted to walk the rest of the earth, himself, and views every day he gets to do so as a blessing.
- Ta'lok Keenstrider (he/him), a minotaur tactician and fighter. Ex-army from the Norish forces, Ta'lok resigned when he ran out of patience for the beurocracy, the slow turning of wheels despite the abundance of resources, the corruption of power from the top, watching the light die in the light of kids at the bottom as they realized none of the things they thought they were fighting for mattered to the ones calling to the shots. Sharp as a tack and steady as its steel, it was Ta'lok who put the party together when Saeldor's village came under siege.
- Cri (she/her), a snowy-owl aaracokra druid of the stars. Always the dreamer of her aerie, when Cri left the nest, she settled in an abandoned watchtower in the Ironspines, and quickly made it a home, though she rarely stayed there long. It was in her long flights, drifting on silent wings over the Awakened Wood, that she met Saeldor. Fast friends, they bonded over their mutual awe of an enormous, complex, interconnected, breathing world. Her study of the stars made her skilled in divination, and she was also a natural at channelling her connection to nature into druidic magic. She was the first addition to the party, and remains their main caster.
- Cypher (he/him), a human... sorcerer? Warlock? He defaults to the latter, but says neither really fits perfectly. The last to join, he answered Ta'lok's call for a magical striker, citing his ability to slip past a watch unnoticed and drop targets from range, quietly (unless they start screaming. They do that sometimes). Closed-off, suspicious, secretive to the point of paranoia and tense to the point of twitchiness, it took him a long time to lower his guard even a little.
The Story So Far
Chapter 1: The Jade Fury
After the party's latest mission - an escort job in the realm of fire, the party split, and Mirage headed home. She was stopped on sight by an armed group she didn't recognize. Accused of aiding and abetting the Ignian agenda, sabatoging Auria's efforts against it, and fraternizing with ignian nobility. With the advantage of numbers, they overwhelmed her and threw her in the prison cell of their boss, a powerful and extremist freeholder named Amir. She waited weeks for her party to rescue her, but no help came. Finally, she was bailed out by famous Airship designer Jadeira, on condition she accept a job. Jadeira's latest commission, the Jade Fury, is her greatest accomplishment yet. It's impermeable, able to extract and retrieve weapons, tech, secrets, even captives from deep in enemy territory without fear of reprisal. But not being an aggressive vessel, it's not getting as much support as she had hoped. She cited Mirage's reputation as an accomplished sneak; if she makes a genuine effort to break into the Fury, it will be a good test of the ship's defenses as well as a public proof of her loyalty to Aurian principles. She was released on this condition, but Amir's people also gave her a tracking tattoo as a contigency in case she fled. But when Mirage penetrated the ship's vault, she found not weapons or treasure, but a prisoner. An efreet woman, dressed in rags, shivering, her flames guttering in the magically-chilled space. When she saw Mirage, she immediately asked if Jadeira had sent her. As the Teeth of the Wind burst into the room, seeking the intruder, Marwa shouted the passphrase Jadeira had given her, became besties with the Earth Elemental safe, and burst through the hull of the Airship with the prisoner in tow. On the run with an Efreeti princess, Mirage would need to find some safe haven for Asmira before she could even begin figuring out what happened to her party and why they hadn't rescued her, themselves.Chapter 2: Fugitives
As the fugitives reached the southwest borders of Auria, Mirage decided to head for the home of a friend; Cri, the druid of her adventuring party. She was hesitant to implicate her friends in her mess, but had found few other options. As they flew, she thought about her time in prison. They should have come for her. It was strange that Cri, at the least, had not flown to her home to check that she was all right after so long without contact. She didn't want to believe any of her partymates could have turned her in, but was having trouble coming up with alternative explanations. And if one of them was to blame, she knew the most likely suspect. And so when she found Cypher, the party's secretive , closed-off warlock instead of Cri there, she was unhappy about it. But it turned out he wasn't just enjoying the mountain view. The party was in trouble; captured and dominated in a tower that made no sense. He'd come to collect her for a rescue mission. The next morning, when Jadeira made her Sending, they arranged a drop-off to release Asmira into the djinni's custody. After a tearful goodbye and a promise to stay in touch, Marwa set out down the mountain with Cypher to rescue the rest of the adventuring party.Chapter 3: Tower
As they travelled downhill, the trail conversation was underscored by tension; trust on a razor's edge of falling apart, anxiety for their friends, regrets and bitterness. Finally, they crouched in the bushes outside the place. The whole tower was suffused in an alien atmosphere that dissociated Mirage's elemental nature. The air was alive with sibilant whispers, the shape of the shadows seemed to move and shimmer, glimmering with the strange, lurid light of infested stars. Steeling their resolve, the duo stormed the tower, got the jump on their dominated party leader, and barely made it out, forced into a fight with the same impossible creature that clamped his mind. When the party finally reunited around the campfire that night, there was a lot to say. Mirage's absence from the mission, the party's absence from her prison cell, the uncanny similarity of Cypher's powers to those of the cultists.Chapter 4: Answers
Neither of the party's strategy leads like the vagueness of Mirage's initial capture. Until they know why she was really captured, how Amir knew her route well enough to ambush her, and whether he's trying to get her back, the party can't relax and Mirage can't feel at-ease. Reviewing the options, Cypher suggests that if the charges on basis of Aurian patriotism are plainly bullshit, and Ignia had no reason to hand her over, then the remaining player in their inter-realm war is Baator. Ta'lok instructs Saeldor to keep a lookout for fiends. Laying out their concerns, the party persuades Mirage to agree to a trip back to Auria to confront Amir, confirm her freedom, and find some answers. As they travel toward Midnight and its airship docks, Saeldor keeps their third eye open, but they feel only the occasional presence of fey. It seems coincidental, until, over drinks in a Midnight bar, on an otherwise pleasant evening with an old friend of Cypher's, a fey calling itself Jasper attempts to swindle Mirage away from her party. When they finally approach Amir's fortified palace, the party has gone through several plans, but settled on one that plays to their strength. Ta'lok and Saeldor will run distraction, playing themselves off as mercenary applicants for the djinn's private army, which is recruiting at the moment. Meanwhile, Mirage and Cypher go heist mode, searching the manor for intel. What they find is worse than any of their theories. A fiendlock for power, Amir had grown paranoid of becoming found out, and hatched a plan to escape his pact and keep his soul. He contacted a powerful fey, and made an under-the-cover deal to create an heir - a sort of clone forged from two half-djinn souls smashed together with a pinch of his own to fuse them. Horrified and incensed, Mirage led a charge to her old prison cell to free the other half-djinn, captured since her escape. Their exit was blocked by Amir's security, but ratting out his fiend contract gave them pause, enough doubt sown to cover their escape.Summaries & Fics (Chronological)
The complete play by play of game sessions and intervening fics/character reflections is collected as "articles under" this plot, arranged chronologically below.
Plot type
Solo Adventure
Related Characters
Related Organizations
Related Session Reports
- 01. The Jade Fury
- 02. The Vault's Treasure
- 03. Outfox and Outfly
- 04. The Desecrated Isle
- 05. Breaking and Entering
- 06. The Real Loot Was the Friends We Made Along the Way
- 07. Surprise Guests
- 08. Long Night
- 09. Tentative Morning
- 10. Downhill fast
- 11. Tower
- 12. Campfire Chat
- 13. A Day In Town
- 14. Midnight
- 15. A Trip to the Library
- 16. Reunion
- 17. Walk, walk, fashion baby
- 18. Night Out
- 19. Family Visit
- 20. Aboard the Merlin
- 21. Deckside
- 22. Infiltration
- 23. No Way Out But Through
- 24. Change of Plans
- 25. Exfiltration
- 26. Homecoming
- 27. Rest and Revelry-Planning
- 28. Party Time, Part 1
- 29. Party Time Part 2
- 30. The Next Step
- 31. Respite Part 1
- 32. Respite Part 2
- 33. Au Revoir
- 34. Time Apart
- 35. Mission Update
- 36. The Other Warlock
- 38. Graveyard
- 39. The Mad Manor