The storm has not yet come. But the tide has turned.

Saltmarsh – Morning.

The bells are silent.

But the sky is not.

It splits like a wound as the airship arrives — a blade of brass and fire tearing through the morning haze. House Lyrandar’s sigil blazes across its hull, and from beneath its elemental ring, the crest of the University of Wynarn casts a long, unwelcome shadow.

It doesn’t land.

It looms.

And then:

“This is an academic site of interest. Interference will be met with force.”

Five seconds pass. A fireball falls.

The jungle screams.

Saltmarsh does not fight. It watches, stunned, as the expedition plants its flag in scorched soil.

The Sea Ghost – Dusk.

Anchored at the edge of the mist, the Sea Ghost drifts like a question waiting for an answer.

The fog before her doesn’t roll.

It waits.

And then—

The camera plunges forward.

Mist bends. The tide turns inward. The world folds.

And the party is there, at the foot of the Broken Lighthouse — black sand beneath their boots, bruised-purple sky above, and the wind whispering promises they don’t yet understand.

The Lighthouse

The Threshold Guardians

Three driftwood sentinels bar the stairway upward, their blindfolded faces turned not toward the party, but toward memory.

“Tell us what must be left behind to be truly found.”

Happy speaks:

“Memory.”

The way opens.

The Saltmirror

The chamber is still. The only light: the shimmer of a mirror that reflects not the room, but the soul.

One by one, the party speaks their truths into the still water:

• Roto: speaks of peace, of the light he longs to step into.

• Happy: admits she wishes her father dead.

• M: reveals a slow-burning desire that frightens her.

• Overhaul: confesses he doesn’t serve science — only himself.

The mirror drinks these truths and allows them to pass.

The lighthouse groans above.

The Drowned Hunger

At the summit chamber, Vargan waits.

Not whole.

Not human.

A thing sculpted in his image, but drained of warmth — pale, elegant, fanged.

His voice is low, almost loving.

“You left me.”

“But I rose. On teeth. And hunger.”

The fight is sudden. Brutal.

Roto strikes first — a blur of shadow and fury — carving deep.

But the thing that wears Vargans face is faster.

He grips Roto, sinks his fangs into his neck, and drinks.

Then hurls him like a broken toy.

Happy dives to his side, shielding him with holy defiance.

M and Overhaul flank. Spells erupt. Lightning cracks.

Vargan vanishes in mist. Reappears behind M. Slashes. Bites. Laughs.

The tide slowly turns – each blow a small reckoning. That slowly bring pain

And finally, as the Vargan thing reaches for Roto again—

M incinerates him.

His form withers in green-blue flame, sea mist rising from his ash.

A crack opens in perception — not stone — revealing the Compass of Still Waters, suspended above.

The Saltmother waits.

The Saltmoot

The lighthouse summit is not of this world. There is no roof. Only still sky and shallow water.

From the mist: the Brinewretched emerge, illusions flickering — beautiful and wrong.

“She is watching. She is willing.”

Then, the Saltmother rises — not in flesh, but in memory and mist.

Her form is elegant. Divine. Terrifying.

“Now I ask… who among you will carry my breath into the place that has forgotten me?”

Each party member is judged:

• By a Brinewretched.

• By an echo of the Saltmoot.

• And by the Saltmother herself.

“Would you carry chaos, if it held purpose?”

“Would you speak for me?”

“Would you walk with no place to hide?”

The party chooses.

Overhaul steps forward.

The Compass descends, settles into his hand — and coral spirals upward, embedding into his arm like roots claiming stone.

“You are not mine. But I am with you. For now.”

The mist parts — not lifted, but opened — and the way to the City of Dragons is revealed.

“You have done what dragons could not.”

“You have remembered me.”

The Return

The Brinewretched watch the party descend.

Their smiles stretch wider.

Their voices twist into prophecy:

“The path ahead is open — but it will not be walked unchanged.”

“There are deeper prisons than you yet imagine.”

“And when the seal breaks… you must choose what to save.”

Then they vanish.

The fog breathes in… and the party falls.

No sound.

No motion.

Just the pressure of something ending.

Back on the Echo

Wood beneath boots. Salt in the air.

They’re back — in the Captain’s cabin of the Echo. Just as they left it.

Until the hull groans.

The ship begins to sink.

Reality fractures as timbers splinter and water bursts through.

Roto dives into the sea, pushing the longboat from behind.

The rest row, the fog clearing around them.

The Sea Ghost waits, steady and real.

They escape.

Just barely.

Session Close.

The compass pulses once.

The world flinches.

The City of Dragons calls.

And something ancient now breathes through Overhaul’s veins.