Campaign: “The Shrouded Vale”
Episode 16: Time for Change
April 15, 2025
Without hesitation, Tavi Falconheart looses an arrow mid-stride, the shaft whistling through the air and striking the root creature square in one of its glowing eyes.
The beast jerks but doesn’t flinch—no scream, no stagger. Just a deep, guttural snarl. It steps forward, unimpressed.
Tavi shifts his aim. This time, he targets the pulsing core at its chest—the knot of roots that throb like a heart. He fires again.
The arrow lands with a heavy thunk. The creature reels back, screeching. Its body pulses with light, a flare that surges outward in a sudden shockwave of energy.
The blast hits Tavi like a thunderclap—arcs of magic sparkling across his armor, hurling him backward onto the stone.
He scrambles to his feet, body aching but ready for more.
The creature’s limbs twitch. Its bark splits. Eyes dimming. Then—too quickly—it collapses inward, retreating in vines and rot until silence returns.
Tavi stares at the scorched floor, bow drawn, breath ragged.
That’s it?
he mutters, not convinced.
Behind him, Borra slips through a crumbling side passage—gone, safe for now.
And Tavi—wounded, poisoned, uncertain—presses on toward the far chamber, where the basin still glows like a wound in the dark.
He stumbles through the broken archway, the corruption still twisting cold in his veins.
The basin pulses in the center of the room, casting its green-violet light across ancient stone. Each step stirs unease in his gut.
Through the mist, he sees a figure—bow drawn, hiding in the shadow. Familiar.
It’s me.
He’s back in the chamber where it began—only now, on the other side. Watching his past self as he once watched from the dark. The cycle has looped again.
Of course,
he breathes. That’s how it survives.
The creature didn’t die. It recoiled. Reset. The basin is the anchor. The poison, just another lure to keep him coming back.
He steps closer. The basin glows brighter, sensing his pain. The corruption burns deeper. Time is short.
Drinking would save him. He knows that. But it would also seal his past self’s fate—dooming him to repeat this path.
The shadows ripple again. Borra is gone, escaped through some unseen path. Perhaps there is still another way.
Tavi tightens his grip on the bow. The chamber is silent, but the weight of choice presses in from all sides.