The chrononauts return to the Last War on a quest to bring an end to the bloody conflict. With help from a member of the Basilisk’s Gaze, they enter the Dreadhold, an impregnable prison fortress, to find the one person who may be the key to changing the course of the war.

Player Characters: Calvin, Mist, Rolf, Teromil, Vaelen

Temporal Prime

Vaelen, Teromil, and Rolf the Elder found themselves in Temporal Prime, a void in time space where all things happened at once. They were separated from Mouly who was once more lost in the time stream. But they were reunited with Mist who had returned from his failed mission to stop his nemesis Richmond Valentine. And they met an unlikely ally, the bard Calvin Eastwood, one of the other chrononauts of Doctor Morris.

The time travelers were aboard Ultron, Mist’s mechanical servant which had transformed into a speaking stone booth, drifting through the void. They had no more power left, so they were stranded. Suddenly, there came a knock on the door. It was Doctor Morris! He had found them in Temporal Prime. But he was not alone. There were others waiting outside the booth as well. Morris entered first and addressed the party.

“It seems you’ve made quite a name for yourselves among the wardens of time. I have a mission for you, as do the others waiting outside. The Forest of the Future cannot be planted while there is war on Khorvaire. The Last War must come to an end, but it must not be followed by a new more devastating war between man and machine. You must stop the Butlerian Crusade from taking place.”

Next, a dragonmarked half elf scion of House Medani entered the booth. He carried a greater dragonmark that resembled Teromil’s Mark of detection, although this one was larger than Teromil’s.

“Well met, chrononauts. I am Aiden d’Medani, a member of a special branch of the Basilisk’s Guild. Our main task is to hunt down criminals of war. But my branch of the guild has another purpose. We want to see an end to the Last War. We know that there is another timeline in which the War should have ended. We ask you to find a way to end the Last War.”

Lastly, the tip of an enormous claw opened the booth door. The face of an ancient red dragon appeared. Its enormous eye was all that could be seen through the entrance. Ultron detected other such massive life forms outside.

“Greetings, mortals. I am a representive of the Eyes of Chronepsis. We are hunting rogue time travelers through the gates of time. We believe they have all eaten the fruit of the Delorean Tree. We ask that you assist us in finding these rogues before the damage they cause to the time stream becomes irreparable.”

The chrononauts decided that their most pressing business was to bring an end to the Last War. The dragons vanished, and Dr. Morris departed after wishing them good fortune, leaving only Aiden d’Medani. Aiden carried what looked like a long black case for a fiddle but with numbered dials on the top. It was a coordinate transformer field kit – a time machine. He now used this case to retrieve an item from a House Kundarak safety deposit vault in the future, using a vault key possessed by Calvin. It was the blue ghost lantern which held the memories of Vvaraak, the rogue dragon and chrononancer slain by adventurers in the plane of Thelanis.

Along with the lantern, there was a letter from the halfling forger called the Midwife who had borrowed the lantern. It contained the knowledge that she had gained from the lantern, as per the contract she had made with the lantern’s owner Calvin. But the envelop was marked with a message from the Midwife.

“Are you sure you want to read this?”

Calvin was filled with doubt, but the chrononauts were overcome by curiosity.

“We’d like to know what it says. Or are you too scared to read a simple message?”

“Now see here, friends. NOBODY CALLS ME CHICKEN!” Calvin replied. Then he tore open the envelop and read the letter.

It revealed that the Midwife had searched for information regarding her liege, King Kaius III of Karrnath. And she had learned to her horror that even before Karrnath and Cyre had destroyed each other in the Mourning, Kaius III had not been a living mortal. Instead, a vampire had ascended the throne. The true king of Karrnath was held in the depths of the Dreadhold, the impregnable prison fortress guarded by the dwarves of House Kundarak.

In the original timeline, Kaius III had been a major proponent of peace at the Treaty of Thronehold which officially ended the Last War. In the alternate timeline, however, Kaius III had caused the Mourning and continued the war. The heroes concluded that the imposter sitting on the throne of Karrnath was to blame. They would release the true king and return him to the throne.

Aiden informed them that he could help the chrononauts jump through time, but only three more jumps could be made safely. First, the Chrononauts jumped to the distant past and ensured that a secret tunnel would be built beneath the Dreadhold which they could use to enter the prison, find the real Kaius III, and escape from the complex. Next, they disguised themselves as prisoners and Rolf as a Kundarak prison guard and jumped to the year 992 YK, one year after the false king ascended the throne of Karrnath.

The Dreadhold (992 YK, Nymm)

The heroes arrived in the courtyard of the Dreadhold. It was around noon and a mob of prisoners were gathered in the courtyard, surrounded by dwarven prison guards. The prisoners were mostly humans and other humanoids, but there was one warforged as well. And one elderly blind man sat in a corner by himself, undisturbed by the mob.

Calvin tried to cause a disturbance in the courtyard with his powers of prestigitation, but the magic was noticed by one of the guards. Rolf, seeing his opportunity, offered to take Calvin the troublemaker to solitary confinement. The rest of the party, as well as the warforged and the old man, threw rocks at Rolf and got themselves in trouble as well. Rolf led the train of prisoners to one of the eight doors leading out of the courtyard. That’s when the old man whispered to Rolf.

“If you’re looking for solitary confinement, that’s the wrong door. Solitary is that way.”

The old man called himself Travis and revealed himself to be an agent of the Basilisk’s Gaze. He had been in the Dreadhold nearly all his life. He had taken it upon himself to guide those in need within the walls of the prison.

The warforged revealed himself to be a writer named Thriller. He was the author of gritty suspense novels such as the Maltese Dragon, whose manuscript he was working on. But it seemed that he had been framed for a crime he did not commit and was sentenced to the Dreadhold.

This was not the first time that Thriller had been wronged by the fleshborn, and it would not be the last. His distaste for humanity was evident in his attitude toward the rest of the prisoners. He wanted to go to solitary confinement for some peace and quiet. But Vaelen nonetheless asked Thriller to join the party, sensing that this warforged may have a role to play in the events to come.

The party eventually found the secret tunnel they had made in the distant past. It led from the Stone section, where the most dangerous prisoners were petrified in stone, to the VIP section of the prison where nobles, aristocrats, and important political prisoners were held.

The tunnel opened into a cell that might at one time have been a splendid chamber, but now it was a drab room in disrepair. Sitting on a wooden chair, there was a tall gaunt man whose head was covered by an iron mask. The man seemed startled by their appearance at first, but when they announced that they were here to free him, he took them to be loyalists come to help him find justice for the wrongdoings done to him and return the true king to the throne of Karrnath. Kaius III thought to himself:

“Now I can be rid of his iron mask. At last, the true dragon of Karrnath will have the crown, as is my birthright.”

The chrononauts led the warforged, the blind man, and the man in the iron mask through the secret tunnels deep beneath the Dreadhold. But as the passage led to the network of tunnels leading outside the prison walls, they entered an area that was not unknown to the wardens. These outer passages were patrolled by mechanical guardians, deadly constructs built by the dwarves of House Kundarak.

The sound of blades scraping against stone echoed through the tunnel. A towering machine on six squat legs, with arms ending in long, fearsome blades, emerged from the shadows. The sensory gems in what might be discerned as the construct’s head lit up with a crimson red light as the machine readied its blades and engaged.

To be continued…