Academy Anthology: Tales of Home

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====== The Road to Emmaus ======

**Session Date**: 07/10/2025 \\
**Game Master**: Rew

===== Player Characters =====

  * **Balia**, College of Dance Bard (Tara)
  * **Caiel**, Great Old One Warlock (Nat)
  * **[[Dax]]**, Clockwork Automaton Druid of the Land (Jack)
  * **Kip Cescorna**, Human Chronomancer Wizard (Jian)
  * **Myrrha Venolin**, Drow Trickster Cleric (Karen)



===== Named People and Places =====

  * Prince Rebus - The scion of Gloomwrought, once a large and proud city central to the Shadowfell
  * Princess Glorianna - The current ruler of Flaygallows
  * Dr. Amazing - An insufferable Shadar-Kai Flaygallows nobleman
  * The Vault of Regret - A prison below Flaygallows from the early times of the Sundering that holds the undying souls of the war criminals of the Shadowfell during their genocide against the Feywild
  * The Ash King - The title of the ruler of the ruined Feywild in pre-Sundering times
  * Steve McSword - An ancient Shadar-Kai marshall who managed to stop the murderous wishes of the Shadowfell Warlords. Founder of Flaygallows, and barrister at the Flaygallows war crimes trials. 
  * [[ashriel|Ashriel the Mourning Saint]] -  A Daeva known in pre-Sundering times as as a Messianic Prophet. He joined the forces of the [[shadowfell arises|Shadowfell Fascists]] becoming one of their most powerful generals.  The Shadowfell Warlords praised his work crushing the peoples of the Feywild and his attacks against the civilized folk of the Prime Material Planes. A war criminal sentenced to the Vault of Regret for eternity.





===== Major Plot Points =====

  * The four Homeshard Heroes, Myrrha, Baila, Caiel, and Kip agree to meet for a drink at an establishment Flaygallows' Black and White Broadsheet describes as "Perfectly Adequate" named The Grey Rectangle. 
  * That morning, Myrrha starts her day exploring the dour and colorless market square of Flaygallows, much like [[https://youtu.be/zAzxnHP4erQ?si=IMqVUMGanJGHOJpx|the opening scene of Beauty and the Beast]] if it were [[https://youtu.be/_NFnXIyeMrg?si=_eBBcY-OLeC_-bcQ|directed by Tim Burton]]. 
  * Myrrha browses many of the shops including The Modest Fashion Hut, Porridge Pavillion, and the Flaygallows Functional Cuts salon. The Grandmas look on in scorn at the "colorful" masked drow. 
  * Myrrha is offered a proposal of marriage by a pushy Shadar-Kai nobleman named Dr. Amazing who wears a fez.
  * Myrrha settles by a fountain with a statue of Steve McSword, an elderly Shadar-Kai who helped persecute the war criminals of the Feywild Genocide. Only his sword looks familiar.
  * Dax leaves his home shard of Ry’keth on the back of a space whale looking for the appropriate Shadar-Kai monoliths to hold his lands together. He meets Myrrha and they become fast friends. 
  * Caiel suffers through yet another lecture from his father [[chads-r-us_voidships| Chaddrus]] about exploring the prisons under Flaygallows to identify more resources for voidship making. His stepmother Stacy looks on while his half-brother Damien babbles like a child and gets into trouble.  
  * Baila has a "meet cute" with Prince Rebus, who puts pushy noble Dr. Amazing in his place before a dance lesson with Princess Glorianna.
  * Kip arrives late to the Grey Rectangle half way through a bender with a young dwarven companion named Reldon. She is hammered drunk.
  * The Homeshard Heroes order shots. Over the night they all decide to try to enter the Vault of Regret.
  * At the entrance, they are challenged by devils set to guard the prison for eternity from being disturbed.
  * The party realizes that Damien, Caiel's Cambion baby half-brother has stowed away in Caiel's pack. Several times through the adventure the other party members hear dark and sinister murmurs from this child that makes it seem that there is more to this child than meets the eye. Caiel dismisses any worry as just "baby babbling."
  * Just inside the entrance, the party meets the fungus folk who are the caretakers of the place, coming and going as they please. They are peaceful and have a moment with the heroes despite the fact that Kip and Balia both steal some potions they've made in gourds. 
  * The heroes reach a processing chamber. They take four sets of magic-canceling manacles before moving on.
  * They reach a torture chamber in which three dire ghouls strip the flesh off of Shadar-Kai warlord war criiminals every day for eternity. They defeat the ghouls, but allow the war criminals in their chains. 
  * The Homeshard Heroes push on. They find the monoliths that Dax requires, but they are surrounding a large chamber that imprisons a Daeva.  
  * The Daeva is recognized as [[ashriel|Ashriel the Mourning Saint]] just as he breaks free. More devils including Samedes the Boss Devil struggle to contain the Dark Messiah but he is too powerful. The Homeshard Heroes take their loot and escape before they are slain by the contract devils who protect the prison.