This is a summary of the third and final adventure in The Branches of Time Season 2. Many thanks to all the players who participated in this season (Matt, Lindsay, Big Bear, Dae Kyum, and Pil Yeon) for creating such a fantastic story together!

Somewhere in a pocket dimension that exists beyond the walls of time, a warforged ancient is holding a cup of tea and a shadowy figure with many tentacles upon his face is sipping a martini. Before them, a holographic figure of a beautiful woman with long flowing hair and bat-like wings gives them a report. The warforged ancient’s hand noisily shakes in frustration, the tea cup rattling on its plate. The shadowy figure drawls leisurely with a voice that sounds like he is sticking his tongue down his own throat to create the semblance of words.

“Relax, my old friend” he says, as one who does not need to speak to convey his thoughts but takes pleasure in the sound of his own strange voice.

“Have you heard the story of the dragon and the egg? Which comes first, do you suppose?”

The warforged is silent. The shadowy figure continues.

“Some say that the mortals of this plane have seven stages of evolution. Wouldn’t you like to witness them all? Don’t worry, my old friend. You shall see it… in time…”

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Lord Blackfire, a dragonborn sorcerer once known as Targaryen, was a former chrononaut who had remained in the past after his failed mission to stop a rogue time traveler from changing the course of history. The new band of chrononauts – Teromil, Ronald, Jackie, Saladin, and Vaelen – were now gathered in Lord Blackfire’s keep. It was a mighty fortress with circular walls that surrounded a labyrinthine garden. In the center of the garden, there was a wide courtyard where a single young tree grew. It was tended by several caretakers, and now the chrononauts gathered around it in amazement. For it was a sapling that had been nurtured from a fruit of the Delorean Tree.

Blackfire told his companions about his own adventures since he had last been seen. He had failed in his mission to stop Stephen, the rogue time traveler and archdruid who plotted to wipe out his own shifter ancestors and lycanthropes from history. So, the dragonborn sorcerer remained in the past and bore witness to the events of the Silver Purge. During that time, he had a vision in which his own voice from the future told him to plant the remaining fruit of the Delorean Tree. He did so, and in time the seed of the fruit grew into a young sapling. To ensure its protection, the dragonborn built a garden and castle around the tree.

Then, he used the leaves of the tree to pierce the veil of time.

He found that he could not only see into other moments in history, but he could travel with both his mind and body through time. In a vision, he met his younger self as he was contemplating what to do with the last fruit of the Delorean Tree. He told his younger self to plant the fruit so that a new sapling would grow from its seed. Having ensured the existence of the scion of the Tree of Time, he used the power of its leaves to travel back through time where he became Lord Blackfire. With his knowledge of history, he tried to undo the damage to history that the archdruid Stephen had wrought. But Blackfire could only do so much to reverse the changes. The alternate timestream had already become the dominant course of history, and Blackfire’s efforts could not prevent the most dangerous schemes of all.

To ensure the elimination of all the shifters and lycanthropes in the world, Stephen had take three steps. First, he exacerbated the Silver Purge through terrorist attacks that were blamed on the shifters and lycanthropes. Second, he traveled to the future to ensure the destruction of all surviving shifters and lycanthropes who had fled to the distant continent of Sarlona. Third, he traveled to the distant past to obtain the means to severe the connection between Eberron and the plane of Lamannia, the Twilight Forest whose proximity to the material plane gave life to nature. The last of these actions would be the most disastrous, for in cutting off the world’s connection to the source of natural life and energy, the Great Forest of the future and all life in the natural world would be lost forever. However, if even a few shifters survived Stephen’s attempted genocide, they were destined to find a way to restore the connection to the Twilight Forest in the far future.

What Blackfire found perplexing was Stephen’s motivation. Why would a shifter and an archdruid want to destroy his own ancestors and the natural world? Using the leaves of Delorean’s sire, he plumbed through the deepest recesses of time. After much investigation, Blackfire concluded that some other force may have been controlling Stephen’s actions. But whether it was Stephen’s own future self or another unknown being, Blackfire did not know. He only knew that Stephen’s actions would bring ruin to the future of the world.

Now, the chrononauts had to choose where, or when, they would confront the archdruid. They decided that the best place would be the present because they believed that traveling to the ancient past or the future would only allow their enemies to track them more easily through the timestream. They decided to ride straightaway to the place where Stephen’s most destructive act would take place.

Stephen planned to create a major disaster in Flamekeep, the largest city in the province of Thrane and the seat of the Church of the Silver Flame. A large lightning rail train filled with passengers would be infected with the lycanthropic plague, and when the passengers arrived in Flamekeep they would spread the plague to the city’s population. The resulting outbreak and chaos would push the few moderates left in the Church to side with the hardliners who were eager to blame and persecute both shifters and lycanthropes alike for the epidemic. The Chrononauts could not let that happen.

Vaelen called upon the aid of his ancestors and magically summoned a majestic steed. It was a tall and fair stallion with a glistening mane and eyes full of ancient wisdom. The horse gave a great cry, and from the distance there came a group of other similar-looking horses. Vaelen spoke to them as if they were his own kinsmen, or ancestors worthy of respect, and told them his purpose. These were no ordinary steeds, but the sires of the ancient shapeshifting druids of the Valaes Tairn. They seemed to communicate with one another and spoke amongst themselves. When they were finished, they bowed their heads and suffered themselves to be ridden as mounts by the adventurers, sensing their urgency in the earnestness of Vaelen’s words.

The horses carried the Chrononauts swiftly across the countryside. Each long stride seemed to carry them over many leagues. But even as they traveled across the continent in what seemed like an impossible amount of time, it seemed to Teromil that there were others, both behind and in front of them, headed in the same direction. She looked all around and saw seven other groups of adventurers that resembled her own party. They were riding in the same direction. Each group seemed to be saying something with voices full of regret.

“Come on! We can do it this time!”

At last they came upon a long line of conductor stones that stretched toward the horizon. These were the magical devices half buried in the ground which allowed the Lightning Rail to traverse over vast distances at great speed. Jack was joined by two other versions of himself from the future, and together they used their psionic powers to destroy one of the conductor stones. The severed lightning rail line derailed the train and caused a great deal of chaos and destruction. Survivors began to trickle out of the upturned train cars, but they were followed by lycanthropes who waylaid them with their claws and teeth. The newly infected lycanthropes lumbered toward the city of Flamekeep, and all was lost.

The Chrononauts came up with a different plan and traveled through time once more. This time, they went in search of magic or technology that could help them detect lycanthropes among a crowd of innocent bystanders. In the future, Teromil discovered that a dragonshard focus device would be invented in order to combat the Silver Purge. It was a special pair of goggles that allowed a wearer with the Mark of Detection to locate lycanthropes. And in the far future, Ronald discovered a cure for lycanthropy that would be invented in days to come. He found that his future self had brought back a handful of syringes that held the precious cure.

Armed with their newfound weapons, the Chrononauts traveled through time once more. They returned to the moment when the train was about to be boarded at the last train station. Teromil put on her goggles and located the lycanthropes in the crowd of waiting passengers. She found the agents of Stephen and the lycanthropic conspiracy.

Realizing that they had been discovered, the agents began to transform into terrifying hybrid shapes. As travelers and onlookers fled in terror, the fearsome werecreatures charged at the Chrononauts. The Chrononauts used their syringes from the future to cure several of these agents of the archdruid. Those who could not be returned to their mortal shape fell upon the heroes with an animal ferocity. But the Chrononauts outmatched these agents and stopped the terrorist attack at Flamekeep. When the dust had settled, all of the lycanthropes had been either cured or subdued.

There was one last task remaining. Someone other than the shifters and lycanthropes needed to be blamed for plotting such a heinous scheme. The heroes suggested the Cult of the Dragon Below as a prime candidate. In that moment, Targaryen, as his younger self, emerged from the shadows and told everyone that he was the head of the cult that had attempted to spread disease and terror in Flamekeep. Targaryen was apprehended, and at his trial the court of the Silver Flame pronounced Targaryen to be guilty of conspiracy to commit an act of terror. The inquisitors sentenced him to be purged and purified by holy fire. The judge presiding over the trial and announcing the sentence was none other than Blackfire.

That night, while the Young Targaryen rested in his cell, the door creaked open. Blackfire furtively snuck into the room. He removed a small flask from his robes and uncorked it. He threw back his head and drank its contents in a single gulp. Immediately, his face and body began to change as he became younger in appearance. He no longer looked like an aged dragonborn. Instead, he was his younger self again, in the prime of his youth.

Then, handing his oaken staff to the younger Targaryen, Blackfire spoke at last.

“Now, it is time for you to take my place. I give you this oaken staff that you may fulfill your task. I have foreseen this moment decades ago, when I was sitting where you are seated now. For I have seen all that you have seen, Targaryen, and all that you have yet to see. Go now and become Lord Blackfire of the Inquisition. Plant the seed of the Delorean Tree so that one day its scion will bear you back in time, to this moment. I go now to meet my promised end, in the heart of the Silver Flame. That is my destiny.”

And so, Blackfire, who had become Targaryen once more, was burned upon the stake. And Targaryen, who was now Blackfire, entered the keep that his predecessor had built in the past. At the center of the keep, he found an empty courtyard. There, he planted the seed of the Delorean Tree, and when the young sapling emerged, he tended the scion of the Tree of Time.

 

Epilogue

The Chrononauts, having saved the shifters from total annihilation, now went their separate ways. Saladin, having come to Eberron from a different plane of existence, sought a means to travel once more between the planes and find new worlds to explore. Teromil, as an anthropologist, wished to see visions of people who lived in the past and future, so she remained with the new Lord Blackfire and partook of the leaves of the scion of the Delorean Tree. Ronald built a great library with ancient tomes and lore borrowed from Lord Blackfire’s Keep, and in the distant future the Ronald Library would become a sanctuary and safe haven for the survivors of the disaster that had yet to come. Vaelen returned to the future to find that the legends he had heard of his own ancestors had included a tale of six legendary steeds that had carried of a group of unknown heroes to do great deeds, but now he could not remember whether or not it was a tale that he had always known.

Lastly,  Jackie returned to the future to see the fruits of his mission. He arrived in the vault of the Delorean Tree and looked for Dr. Morris. But when he found him, Morris was much changed, at least from Jackie’s perspective. One of his arms was a robotic contraption, and the other seemed to have mutated into a strange shape. And in his hands, he held a strange weapon that fired great bolts of energy.

“Jackie!” shouted Dr. Morris. “What are you doing? Where is your plasma rifle? You must return to the front lines!”

Jackie was confused, but when he looked behind him, he saw that the world was once again changing before his eyes. It was no longer a green utopia, but a barren wasteland, and a great war was being fought between the armies of machines and terrifying alien life forms. Jackie grabbed Dr. Morris by the cuffs and demanded an explanation.

“This is not right! We completed our mission. What has happened?”

“Hurry, Jackie!” said Dr. Morris, seeming not to hear him over the din of the battle.

“We have no time!”

 

The End (?)