Into the Mirror, Session 1 (YouTube Parts 1–6 - Flynry Dies, Flynry Wakes, Flynry Walks, Survivors, Reflect…

Champions and players	BdTeej as Flynry; Miss_Magitek as Locket; Ahnubyss as Toddleheim; ParallaxStella as Elianna (listed as “BLANK” on Parts 1–2)
Result	n/a (no deathmatch; a fight with sand scorpions starts at the end)
Arena	none (campaign episode). Locations: the Grand Coliseum’s final battlefield (flashback), a dream village, the green-sand desert, the Dread Fortress throne room, the Hall of Fates
Hosts	Mudcat (Mudcat); he narrates and voices the Arbiter, Orin (Flynry’s son), Olaf, Baptiste and the other NPCs. Caustic Phoenix / the Grandmaster does not appear.

What happens

Intro narration

1. 0:00:02 Show intro: “Welcome, Acolytes, to D20 Deathmatch Into the Mirror.” The campaign continues the story that began with Fate of the Arbiter in Season 2.

Part 1: Flynry dies

2. 0:00:20 A literal meteor falls from the heavens onto the battlefield. Flynry sees visions of his friends Toddleheim and Locket standing before him, smiling. He accepts his fate, returns from his beast form to his human form, and reaches out a hand to them.
3. 0:00:57 He feels two hands on his shoulders: his fallen comrade Orin, comforting him. Then Orin’s giant werebear hands brace him for impact as his knees begin to buckle.
4. 0:02:13 Flynry thinks back to the Hall of Mirrors, where Locket and Toddleheim “gave something of themselves” to pull him back from the brink once. He realizes the mission is over and feels peace, even joy: “we did it… his role was played.”
5. 0:03:46 The visions fade and the hands vanish. He stands alone. The meteor strikes; a giant flash fills the arena while the Acolytes watch his body obliterated “by this celestial entity.”

Part 2: Flynry wakes (the dream village)

6. 0:04:03 He seems to close his eyes, then open them. The burning comet is now warm, pleasant sunshine. He wakes beneath an oak hundreds of feet tall, possibly hundreds of years old, beside a small river in a picturesque countryside. There is a cool spring breeze and the smell of flowers, grass and warm bread.
7. 0:06:24 He rolls a nat 1 on Wisdom. He becomes certain this is the true reality and that the arena, the Grandmaster, the Arbiter, Toddleheim and Locket were “a really complex and crazy dream.” He remembers it all, but as a dream.
8. 0:07:49 Flynry stretches after “the longest afternoon… a nice nap by the tree.” He follows the smell of bread east down a marked path. To him this direction feels like home, which has been the theme of his journey: he has been nomadic and never felt he had one.
9. 0:09:59 He reaches a small village. Stoves are lit, children play, and tables are being carted into the town square, normally the market, for a feast or festival.
10. 0:11:53 Faces “come back” to him, not as remembered but as if they had always been there: Gregor the Baker, and old lady Margaret beating dust out of a rug. Villagers nod and tip their hats to him.
11. 0:12:36 — “Father!” A man in his mid-twenties, in fine robes that suggest station or learning, rushes in to hug him. Flynry: “My boy!” He can’t recall the name. The son: “It’s me, Orin!” Memories flash back of naming his son after his fallen comrade.
12. 0:14:51 Flynry’s eyes well: “I’ll never forget you, my son. You look as handsome as ever.” Orin says he came “all the way from Prexmarin” (heard “Prexmarn”) and still beat his father there. Flynry admits he dozed at the tree.
13. 0:16:00 — The retirement. Everyone is there to celebrate Flynry tonight: “It’s not every day that someone retires from the Grandmaster’s service.” Flynry isn’t a center-of-attention guy. The word “Grandmaster” buzzes him, but he chooses not to break the illusion: “when you’re in service to the Grandmaster… that work never really ends, does it?”
14. 0:17:40 — The other history. New memories appear “as if they were always there.” In them he won the Battle for the Crown instead of dying, coming out triumphant with Professor Stabbz. The Grandmaster awarded him some of the highest honors in the Void and a place in her court, and called on him to serve from time to time.
15. 0:19:49 He fills a tall wooden flagon from the nearest tap. Olaf, the village blacksmith, arrives in his apron, with a burly braided beard and soot-covered clothes: “Hey, you can’t start without me.” He is a long-time friend who has forged many of Flynry’s arms and armor, competitive, with a fighter’s nature, but “pretty good dude.”
16. 0:21:35 — Olaf vs Flynry.
    • Flynry teases him: if he napped more he wouldn’t always be late.
    • Olaf: “Not all of us can afford to retire… We can’t just be handed things by the Grandmaster.” He boasts he could have won “that fight” and “Hands behind my back, I could have beat the Arbiter.”
    • Flynry: “You know very little of the Arbiter, I think.” Olaf: “He knows very little of me.”
    • Olaf pours a giant tankard over his face, drinking whatever lands in his mouth.
17. 0:22:42 — The drinking contest. Flynry loses the first round badly. He belches and says he hasn’t “quite woken up from my nap.”
    • Olaf: “You don’t have the good stuff.” He lifts his apron and pulls a skin from his pants, filling Flynry’s cup with booze so strong it can be smelled from across the table.
    • Flynry: “Olaf, if I wanted to drink oil, I think I could go find a deposit for that.” Olaf: “Oh, well, the oil wouldn’t be as smooth.”
    • Olaf leaves chugging the skin, gurgling as he tries to laugh mid-drink.
18. 0:24:25 — The feast. It is a huge potluck with every kind of food, desserts and drinks, and a small band plays in a corner.
19. 0:25:20 — Orin’s toast. Orin clinks his glass with a dagger. He is dressed like a politician, and Flynry half-remembers that Orin is an accomplished politician in Prexmarin even in his mid-twenties. Orin shows off a little for the friends who never left home, then speaks seriously: “you are one of the best leaders and men and examples that a son could ever have. And I am honored that you’re my father.” Olaf stands: “I would like to say something. Good job.” He sits back down.
20. 0:28:12 — “Did your mother not come?” Emboldened by drink, Flynry thanks Orin and asks about his mother. Orin says she was “just sitting right here at the table.” Flynry rolls a nat 1 on Perception and can’t find her. Afraid of being wrong, he covers: “She’s probably stepped out for a breath of fresh air.” Orin: “Are you sure that you’re all right? You’re being very strange today.” Flynry blames Olaf’s mixtures; Orin: “don’t let him give you the good stuff. It’s pretty much just straight fuel.”
21. 0:31:14 — Lillian. As Orin goes looking, the name Lillian rings in Flynry’s head: his wife.
    • BdTeej describes her (OOC framing): a “Beauty and the Beast” pairing. Flynry is a hulking, bearded, long-haired, linebacker-like man; Lillian is petite and Belle-like, a couple nobody would have expected.
22. 0:33:07 Night falls and floating magical lanterns, hovered by the town’s mages, light up. A woman in a green dress on the dance floor is Lillian, seen “for the first time but also for the thousandth time.” Flynry is very drunk (“the good stuff is getting to you”). From the head table he watches her dance: playful, lighthearted, linking arms and laughing with everyone.
23. 0:36:56 He crosses the dance floor “like a battlefield,” dodging drunk dancers, invigorated. She makes eye contact, smiles without a word, and holds out a hand. Flynry can’t dance, but here he’s “not terrible”; maybe she leads. More memories flood in: being young, the time after the Battle for the Crown, the Grandmaster’s service, moving to the countryside, having Orin. He feels complete; nothing has ever felt this easy or perfect.
24. 0:39:19 — The whisper and the crumbling. Lillian leans in and whispers in his ear. No words are heard in the transcript. She crumbles in his arms with a crooked smile on her face, her body falling apart into sand. Buildings collapse and people run screaming. The sky goes black, the sun darkens, and everything becomes a blowing desert of green sand. Flynry is alone.

Part 3: Flynry walks (the green desert and the minotaur)

25. 0:41:22 — The desert.
    • The sand is “like the color of a mirror, reflected too many times,” a faint pale green.
    • The sky is black space full of nebulas, black holes, suns and planets.
    • Columns of sand rise like fingers reaching to touch the heavens; their tips are pulled off into space, forming more nebulas and celestial events.
    • The sand blast is surprisingly cold, and everything wavers like a mirage.
    • No matter what point on the horizon he walks toward, he never gets closer.
26. 0:43:14 — The over-shift. In panic, Flynry shifts to feel safer and “shifts too far.” The seams of his clothes rip and he becomes more the animal than a man with a beast form. He screams in confusion, sorrow, loss and fear, and curls into a rock-like beast ball in the sand.
27. 0:44:46 — Two lives. He now holds both lives. He understands that his true reality was his death and that the village was some aberration, yet he keeps memories of a wife, a son and a whole life he never lived, though those people don’t exist.
28. 0:46:00 A sandstorm rolls in with small tornado spouts, and he feels he is not alone. He screams into the void: “WHO’S THERE?!”
29. 0:47:01 — The sand minotaur. Only the wind answers. Then the storm’s sand pulls down and swirls together into a giant minotaur of green sand with a giant axe, backlit by nebulas. It charges. Battle is the most comfortable Flynry has felt since waking, and he charges back.
30. 0:49:23 — Fight log.
    • Flynry goes first with Inflict Wounds. His claws are bigger than usual, “less an enhancement and more a transformation,” and his vertical leap has improved. He latches onto the minotaur’s broad chest going for the heart, tearing fiber away while necrotic venom oozes from the cuticles of his claws into the wounds. He follows with an unarmed strike.
    • The minotaur gores him with a horn, flipping him 10 ft onto his back (prone). It swings its greataxe recklessly and misses. The axe blade shatters into sand on the ground and reforms as it’s lifted.
    • BdTeej (OOC): “I’m kind of rooting for the Minotaur now.” Drew: “Yeah, me too.”
    • Flynry flurries and lands more unarmed strikes. One punch misses because it goes through a hole he’d already made in the chest; the sand refills the holes almost as fast as he punches them. He looks for a structural weak point but finds none: “He’s made of sand.”
    • The minotaur lands two reckless greataxe hits across his chest, then his back. The wounds are “cold and lifeless, even colder than steel… like ice,” jagged and torn like sand ripping flesh. The minotaur’s sand now struggles to hold together in places.
31. 0:59:07 — The sword from the sand.
    • Flynry, realizing this land doesn’t follow conventional physics, asks whether he can manifest power here. Survival 27.
    • Spending a hero point, he understands the sand. He plunges his arm up to the elbow into it and imagines a weapon.
    • He pulls out the hilt of a greatsword wreathed in a blue searing flame, “one that would almost be required for… glass blowing.” Drew rules it is now on his sheet and he is proficient with it.
32. 1:01:55 — Glassing the leg. Spending a ki point, Flynry buries the blade in a leg to hinder it. The sand turns molten and cauterizes into mirror on both sides of the cut, and the sand can’t reform past the reflection.
33. 1:03:54 — The kill.
    • Flynry takes a power stance and holds the sword low behind him. Its flame touches the sand and travels to the soles of his boots, so he creates glass under his feet as he sprints and the sand can’t hinder him.
    • He leaps with immense bestial power and brings the greatsword down between the minotaur’s eyes, slicing its whole body in half.
    • The cut faces become mirrors: in one he sees his human form, in the other his bestial form, both looking back with a determination and grit he hasn’t seen in a long time. “The first of many foes in a new world.”
    • The loose sand blows away. Two chunks of mirror in the minotaur’s silhouette remain on the ground.
34. 1:05:44 — The mirror sword.
    • The sword cools into a mirror finish. It is still a sword and still his.
    • In it he sees both his halves, then things that aren’t there: reflections of Toddleheim and Locket in a life after his death, and other people and places he knew.
    • Then the sand in the blade shifts, the sand at his feet shifts the same way, and it points him toward a spot on the horizon. He is now somehow connected to the sand and the mirror, and the sword gives him “the ability to travel.”
35. 1:08:54 — “Truth.” Exhausted, confused and afraid, but comforted, he looks the blade over. Where the crossguard meets the blade a small gold flicker appears: in a language he doesn’t know but can read, the word “truth” inscribes itself. He slings the sword onto his back with a feeling that it will be okay somehow.
36. 1:10:16 He walks “for days, weeks, months, maybe years. Indiscernible.” He is lost, but he has a heading.

Part 4: Survivors (Toddleheim and Locket)

37. 1:10:55 — The Battle for the Crown, from the stands.
    • Toddleheim and Locket each fought their own deathmatch for the Grandmaster’s honor and survived. They had spent months trying to make the Arbiter’s betrayal known to the people and to the Grandmaster.
    • They watch as Acolyte spectators while Flynry fights for the Grandmaster and dies under the meteor.
    • Toddleheim feels “just absolute pain.” He raises an arm toward Flynry and says only “Flynry.” Unknown to him, Flynry was reaching back toward the visions of them and Orin.
    • Locket feels “Sadness, loss, confusion. Why? It had to be Flynry.” She was at 6 HP at the end of her own battle, close to death herself.
38. 1:13:37 — A hollow victory.
    • The Grandmaster stands victorious and raises the hands of the remaining champions. The Arbiter’s attempt to overthrow her is defeated.
    • The mission succeeded, but Flynry is dead. So are other friends lost along the way: “Orin. Gon. Kenny. Dissolved into acid.” Who dissolved into acid is unclear.
39. 1:14:40 — In the Grandmaster’s service. The Grandmaster takes them into her service and offers them a place in her court, with missions, jobs, adventures or time off: “the freedom to do whatever it is you want… as a reward.”
    • Toddleheim searches his books, scrolls, tomes and every library he can find for a way to bring Flynry back.
    • Locket keeps busy on jobs for the Grandmaster. Every night she writes letters to her twin sister (a Tabaxi); all of this has taught her the importance of family.
40. 1:16:13 — Baptiste.
    • Some nights a rock hits Locket’s window. Below stands Baptiste, an elven gentleman in flowing cloaks with daggers across his body, who “often has come to call, whether it’s warranted or not.”
    • Baptiste: “Hello, my lady. Would you have any interest in practicing your stabbing?” Locket: “it would be worth giving it a stab.” Baptiste: “My knives are sharp. And I have many a honing stone.” Locket: “My suave elven.”
    • Drew fades the scene out “before we get way too involved there.” They have “made some sort of connection.”
41. 1:17:38 — The Grandmaster’s letters.
    • The Grandmaster has known of Toddleheim’s search. Flynry was also her champion, and it doesn’t sit right with her that he died this way after so much sacrifice, so she has considered a way as a reward.
    • After many months Toddleheim gets a vague letter: his friend “may not be completely gone… might still be reached.” It summons him to the Dread Fortress whenever he is ready, with whomever he wants. Locket gets a similar letter.
42. 1:20:13 Toddleheim: “Well, I can’t believe this, finally… I’ve missed him so, so very dearly.” Locket: “Me too.”
    • Someone, probably Toddleheim, teases her: “I did hear a man named Baptiste in the area.” Locket: “Oh no, Baptiste and I are just… just friends.” Her player admits no roll is needed to see she’s lying.
    • Drew: “There’s a lot of dagger strikes in your headboard.”
    • They meet in the town square and set off at once.
43. 1:21:38 — The road to the Dread Fortress. They travel through Prexmarin and many other cities and regions. The Dread Fortress stays on the horizon whichever way they turn, always following them. The orc skull across the lava field glows with the same heat they felt leaving it on their first adventure “to save the Arbiter at that time.”

Part 5: Reflections (the Arbiter and the mirrors)

44. 1:22:25 — Inside the Dread Fortress.
    • They walk through the orc’s mouth into cooling tunnels and caves that become a more ordinary castle.
    • Portraits of the Grandmaster hang on the walls, and so do portraits of “a man with a golden shield.”
    • With their status they have free rein. A goblin heaves open the large iron-and-wood doors of the throne room, where they were just before the final battle “where things went kind of sideways with the Arbiter.”
45. 1:23:21 — The Arbiter on the throne.
    • The Grandmaster’s throne, with a large stone face in her likeness above it, is occupied by the Arbiter. He sits sideways with his feet dangling off, chained hand and foot, in plain sackcloth, looking like he’s been sleeping in a cage (“because he has been”). He is picking his teeth with a knife.
    • A tiefling woman they don’t know stands beside him.
    • Arbiter: “Welcome back. It’s good to see you again.”
46. 1:24:51 Toddleheim: “Where is the Grandmaster?”
    • Arbiter: “I just missed her. She’s on a tour of the Void, taking in the sights, serving her people… she’s left me in charge of the affairs of the Dread Fortress.”
    • Toddleheim calls it a lie, given his attire. The Arbiter admits “It’s true that I’m a prisoner in this place… She beat me fair and square. I’m honoring our deal.” But he has “a certain set of expertise… the Grandmaster has found her uses for me still.”
    • “I know why you’re here.” He tells them to ask “the Grandmaster’s servant herself. One closer than I.”
47. 1:26:36 — Elianna.
    • “I am her personal assistant. Thank you very much… My name is Elianna.”
    • She is about 5’2”, with curly black hair, light violet horns, and a light purple tail swishing under her skirt. She wears bright red glasses on a reading chain woven with teal and black strands, and carries a book at her waist.
    • Reading from the book: the Grandmaster is visiting, and “She does have a spa treatment at three.” “I heard great things about you. Now, maybe we should talk without him here.”
48. 1:28:04 Elianna glares at the Arbiter and holds her nose as she passes. He is unbothered, smiling. Locket, without saying goodbye: “See you soon.” No response.
    • Elianna: “so sorry about the stench. We haven’t washed him in a few days because no one wants to go near him.”
49. 1:28:56 Locket explains they were sent to retrieve a lost friend. Elianna, scribbling notes, says they do need the Arbiter, “because he does have the information on such retrieval.” They had just left the room. Locket: “Now we gotta go back.”
    • Elianna: “I hate talking with him. You have no idea what it’s been like with him around.” Locket: “We’ve had to deal with him… many, many times.”
    • Elianna offers brandy “to take the edge off because he’s unpleasant.” She takes a very potent shot from a tiny vial in her pouch: “I’m ready to go now.”
50. 1:30:38 — The Arbiter’s offer. He is smugly aware that the Grandmaster did give him this task and that he stands between them and what they want: “So, good discussion.”
    • “Leaving the void, not an easy task. Finding the dead, even if you can make it to the plane. Not easy. But, fortunately for you, I am an accomplished mage.” Elianna: “Pardon me.”
51. 1:32:10 — Down to the Hall of Fates. He leads them down stone steps they’ve never taken. With a flick of his wrist he opens a large door with intricate locks and mechanisms. Inside is a line of mirrors floating above an abyss: the Hall of Fates.
    • Arbiter: “I thought you might be nostalgic for it.” He jabs at them, “knowing this is the place you lost Orin.”
52. 1:33:11 — What happened to Flynry’s soul.
    • The mirrors are “portals, in some ways, living creature in another way. A connection between planes.”
    • When Flynry looked into the mirrors and couldn’t pull his gaze away, a piece of his soul was taken. “And upon his death, that debt was collected. I know where he’s at. I can get you there.”
53. 1:34:34 — The test.
    • They must each look into a mirror and resist the urge to enter. Toddleheim: “This sounds awfully suspect to me.” Arbiter: “Believe me, don’t believe me. I don’t care… I’m doing this because I have to. It does give me a certain amount of pleasure to mess with you. But the Grandmaster has given her orders, and for now, I am obliged to obey them.” He raises his shackles.
    • Locket asks whether a lost soul-piece can be recovered. The Arbiter: “Not many people have taken the journey… Even fewer have returned… I’ve never been myself… I’ve heard tale of those exiting and finding their way out, but I’ve never seen it.”
    • Locket: “This seems risky… But we have done that before.” Toddleheim: “part of my soul died that day anyway. So we’ll see how much is left.”
54. 1:37:39 — Toddleheim’s mirror.
    • The Arbiter grabs his shoulder: “Remember, you must not walk into it.” Elianna gently taps Toddleheim and casts Guidance with a thumbs up: “you’ve got this.”
    • The first time here, Toddleheim was the only one who refused to look at all, though he heard squeaking, like something streaking across glass.
    • His desire hasn’t changed: “just a warm bosom to rest my head.” In the mirror is his ideal woman, pressed against the glass and squeaking back and forth.
    • He resists, sweating and leaning forward. Images of his past wife calm him. He mutters: “Well, it is a good bosom. Bless, I must take my leave.” (Speaker uncertain for the rest of that line: “Don’t keep rambling like that. You’re going to chafe.”)
    • Elianna overhears it, clears her throat to cover, and scribbles furiously. Locket doesn’t hear.
55. 1:42:40 — Locket’s mirror.
    • Last time she saw “an elven gentleman” (Baptiste). Toddleheim: “All the best, darling.”
    • This time she sees what she first takes for her reflection: it is her twin sister, where she is now. “You’ve been estranged. You’ve been looking for her.”
    • Locket: “I just want to reach out and give her a hug… This is fake. This is fake. I’ve done this before.” She resists and steps away.
56. 1:45:47 — Elianna is the chaperone. The Arbiter: “the Grandmaster did say that she thought they needed a chaperone.” Elianna shakily puts away her book and glasses and trips on the stairs going up.
57. 1:46:37 — Elianna’s mirror.
    • Drew: the mirror shows “your deepest desires… what would call on your soul to walk in.”
    • Her player: “God damn it, making me show my hand right away.”
    • Elianna sees a cozy fire in an isolated cabin, snow outside, and on a small couch, the Grandmaster snuggled up with her under a blanket.
    • She whispers “oh, my sweet lady” and clutches her chest, staring without blinking. Drew calls it “a memory of yourself with Elusia Skypiercer.”
    • She barely succeeds. She hovers her hand over where the Grandmaster’s face would be and pulls it back: “No. She wanted me to come back safely and I will do that. I’m not going to let her down.”
58. 1:48:58 — Why Elianna came. She came willingly; she’d do anything for the Grandmaster, though she is sad to leave her side.
    • Narration: the Grandmaster cared deeply for her champions, Flynry included, and trusts Elianna to help them. She sees something special in her. “Even though she is very old, she sees some of herself in you. Back when she had just arrived at Cor’thun and was lost in the world after the death of her father.”
59. 1:49:38 — Messages for the Grandmaster. Arbiter: “I guess the hard part’s over… is there anything that I should relay to the Grandmaster on your behalf before you go?”
    • Locket: they plan to be back and are very grateful.
    • Toddleheim: “Tell her I said, thank you for trying.”
    • Elianna: “Tell her I will keep our promise.” She glares at the Arbiter. Arbiter: “Very well. I will relay the message.”

Part 6: Decay

60. 1:51:31 — The betrayal. The Arbiter is in “such a good fucking mood” today: helpful, uncomplaining, twiddling his thumbs. “It’s your friend you seek… I only know of one way to get there.” He raises a hand and casts Disintegrate on all three.
61. 1:52:40 “Like Orin,” their bodies petrify: they gray, chip off and fly into oblivion while the Arbiter cackles: “That’s one way to solve my problems.” They panic, not knowing whether this was his plan, the Grandmaster’s plan, or whether any of it was true. Their eyes go black.
62. 1:53:46 — The green desert. They open their eyes together in the green-sand desert: cold, stinging wind, a black sky of nebulas and planets, sand-fingers rising into the sky to make new stars, nothing for hundreds of miles, everything tinted mirror green.
63. 1:55:22 Locket grabs for Toddleheim and Elianna to make sure they’re real. Elianna huddles them close: “What just happened?” Toddleheim: “It would appear that we are in the in-between.” Elianna: “Only heard of this place.”
    • Toddleheim kneels a short distance off, runs his hands through the sand, looks up: “Flynry, we are coming.”
64. 1:56:15 Elianna has heard of the mirror and this plane through the Grandmaster and the Arbiter. The plane has a name, but it doesn’t come to her. She confirms people rarely come back from here, only whispers, and she has never known anyone who has.
65. 1:57:09 Locket, with her Tabaxi eyes, can find no direction: no structures, just wasteland.
66. 1:58:13 — Toddleheim reads the sand.
    • “Be calm.” He meditates, reciting tomes he’s learned, and sand swirls up around him. Arcana 25.
    • The sand itself is magical; everything here is imbued with magic. He may have come across this place in some random book “sometime in your long life.”
    • Insight 25: he has felt this kind of magic before. It is “evil in nature. Not necessarily malicious in itself.”
    • In the sand’s movement he hears screams of people suffering. The sand is made of broken souls: “Souls of the dead who have been destroyed. Completely. Nothing left but this sand. And whatever imprint the magic leaves.”
67. 2:01:17 Toddleheim lowers the sand: “It’s the sand. We have to use the sand to get out of here… See how it creates new things.”
    • Elianna: “Is your friend here?” Toddleheim: “It’s too hard to tell.” Locket: “This is still part of him somewhere at least. I don’t think he’s completely gone.”
68. 2:02:18 — The scream.
    • Burning with frustration, Toddleheim falls to his hands and knees, plunges his fists into the sand and weeps. The sand vibrates wildly and he screams “Flynry!” as a wave rolls across the desert.
    • Attuned to the souls, the sand parts in a line “like the bottom has dropped out,” a crack pointing in a direction.
    • Locket: “You did it, Toddleheim. This is, this might be the way.” Toddleheim, on his back, breathing hard and wiping his tears: “Flynry, we’re coming.”
69. 2:04:32 They follow the crack and line it up with the celestial events, over and around huge dunes (someone rolls a nat 20 on Perception). They hear grunts, shouts, snaps and a blade ringing out, echoing. Elianna is taking notes the whole time, “very scared.”
70. 2:06:29 — Flynry found. From a dune crest they see Flynry surrounded by large scorpions made of sand. (Table talk: “That’s Flynry? You’ve changed.” / “Baptiste is out, baby!”)
    • His sword is now engulfed in a flame the color of the sand, “a rich flickering aqua flame that is both blade and hilts alike”, which does not burn him.
71. 2:08:11 For Flynry, years, decades really, have passed in the desert, with many creatures forming from the sand since that first minotaur. Past a scorpion he sees Toddleheim’s face, then Locket’s, then a stranger’s.
72. 2:09:18 His exhaustion turns to confidence. He twirls the greatsword stylishly and slams it into the sand, sending a jet of aqua flame at the nearest scorpion. It dodges, but the line of fire becomes a sheet of mirror glass reflecting the heavens. “Roll me initiative.” The transcript ends here.

Who and what appears

Characters

Flynry (BdTeej).

• Died in the Battle for the Crown, hit by a meteor while fighting for the Grandmaster.
• Has a beast form; in the desert he over-shifts into something more animal. Uses claws, unarmed strikes, flurry and Inflict Wounds.
• Hulking and bearded. Nomadic, never had a home, and home is his theme. Not a center-of-attention guy. Can’t dance.
• Carries memories of a dream life he never lived: retired from the Grandmaster’s service after winning the Battle for the Crown with Prof. Stabbz, honored and given a place in her court, wife Lillian, son Orin, a village home.
• Pulled a blue-flame greatsword from the sand. It cooled to a mirror finish, has “truth” inscribed in gold, guides his travel, and now burns with aqua flame.
• Wandered the desert for years or decades (by his reckoning) before his friends arrived.
• Inferred: he is in the plane where the mirror-taken piece of his soul went (from the Arbiter’s 1:33:11 line and the shared desert).

Toddleheim (Ahnubyss).

• Survived his Battle for the Crown fight and took the Grandmaster’s service.
• Spent months searching tomes and libraries to revive Flynry.
• Has a “past wife,” and lives a “long life.” Uses arcane magic (Fire Bolt).
• Desire in the mirror: a warm bosom to rest his head on. He refused to look at the mirrors on his first visit.
• Sensed the sand is made of destroyed souls and opened the crack that led to Flynry.

Locket (Miss_Magitek).

• A Tabaxi. She was at 6 HP at the end of her Battle for the Crown fight.
• Writes nightly letters to her twin sister, who appears in the mirror as estranged and sought.
• Has a flirtation with Baptiste (“just friends”; dagger strikes in her headboard). She saw Baptiste in the mirror on her first visit.

Elianna (ParallaxStella).

• A tiefling and the Grandmaster’s personal assistant; carries a book and takes notes constantly.
• About 5’2”, curly black hair, light violet horns, light purple tail, red glasses on a teal-and-black reading chain.
• Carries a vial of potent brandy and can cast Guidance.
• Loathes the Arbiter. Devoted to the Grandmaster (“oh, my sweet lady”); her mirror showed them snuggled together in a snowy cabin.
• Sent as chaperone. Made the Grandmaster a promise to come back safely. The Grandmaster sees herself in her.

The Arbiter (Drew).

• Defeated in his attempt to overthrow the Grandmaster. Now her chained prisoner in sackcloth, sleeping in a cage, unwashed, “honoring our deal.” She still finds uses for him.
• Sat on her throne picking his teeth with a knife. Opens the Hall of Fates locks with a flick of the wrist, still shackled.
• Claims never to have visited the desert plane himself.
• Cast Disintegrate on the three to send them there: “That’s one way to solve my problems.”

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (mentioned only).

• Away “on a tour of the Void,” with a spa treatment at three.
• Took Toddleheim and Locket into her court. Wrote the letters, ordered the Arbiter to help, and sent Elianna as chaperone.
• “Very old.” She arrived at Cor’thun lost after the death of her father.

Orin (Drew).

• (a) A fallen comrade, a werebear, whose hands bracing Flynry are a vision. Lost in the Hall of Fates.
• (b) Flynry’s dream son, named after him: mid-twenties, an accomplished politician in Prexmarin, robed.

Lillian. Flynry’s dream wife: petite, playful, in a green dress. She crumbled into sand after whispering to him.

Olaf. The dream village blacksmith, with a braided beard. A drinking champion who keeps rocket-fuel booze in a skin in his pants and boasts he could beat the Arbiter.

Gregor the Baker; old lady Margaret. Dream villagers.

Baptiste (Drew). An elven gentleman with flowing cloaks and many daggers. He throws rocks at Locket’s window at night to invite her to “practice stabbing.”

Professor Stabbz. In Flynry’s dream history, he won the Battle for the Crown alongside Flynry.

Gon, Kenny. Named among friends lost along the way (“Dissolved into acid”).

The goblin. Opens the Dread Fortress throne-room doors.

Sand creatures. A sand minotaur with a re-forming greataxe; it can’t re-form past glass mirror. Large sand scorpions.

Places

• The dream village: a countryside village with an ancient oak, a river and a market square. It turned to sand.
• The green-sand desert / “the in-between”:
  • Mirror-green, cold sand under a black sky of nebulas, with sand-fingers that rise to form stars.
  • You can’t reach the horizon, and time is indiscernible (years or decades for Flynry).
  • The sand is made of completely destroyed souls; its magic is “evil in nature.” It has a name not yet given; few return from it.
• Prexmarin: a city where Orin works in the dream, and a place the party travels through in reality.
• The Dread Fortress:
  • Visible from everywhere, it follows you; an orc skull across a lava field, entered through the orc’s mouth.
  • Portraits of the Grandmaster and of a man with a golden shield.
  • The throne room has a stone face of the Grandmaster above the throne, and iron-and-wood doors.
  • Deep stairs lead down to the locked Hall of Fates.
• The Hall of Fates: floating mirrors over an abyss. The mirrors are portals and “living creature,” connections between planes. They show your deepest desire or what would most tempt your soul in, and they take a piece of the soul of anyone who can’t look away. Called “the Hall of Mirrors” by BdTeej at 0:02:13.

Items

• Flynry’s mirror greatsword (“truth”).
• Olaf’s skin of “the good stuff.”
• Elianna’s book and her vial of brandy.
• The Grandmaster’s letters.
• The Arbiter’s chains.

Lore statements

• Leaving the Void and finding the dead are both “not easy.”
• A soul bargain with the Hall of Fates mirrors is collected on death.
• In this plane you can shape the sand into weapons (with effort).
• Glassing the sand into mirror stops it re-forming.

Quotes by character

Flynry

• 0:14:51 “I’ll never forget you, my son. You look as handsome as ever.”
• 0:15:53 “I think you know me a bit too well. I caught myself dozing at the tree.”
• 0:17:18 “when you’re in service to the Grandmaster that that work never really ends, does it?”
• 0:21:35 “Olaf, if you worked a little less and maybe had a few more naps like me, maybe you wouldn’t be so late all the time.”
• 0:22:12 “You know very little of the Arbiter, I think.”
• 0:22:31 “I think you certainly could beat the Arbiter if the contest had to do with consuming ale, my friend.”
• 0:24:03 “Olaf, if I wanted to drink oil, I think I could go find a deposit for that.”
• 0:28:59 “What you said tonight was one of the nicest things I’ve ever had someone say to me… Did your mother not come?”
• 0:30:31 “She’s probably stepped out for a breath of fresh air or something.”
• 0:46:56 “WHO’S THERE?!” (diarized 05)

Toddleheim

• 0:15:29 “I’m searching my books, my scrolls, my tomes, searching the libraries, everywhere I can look for a way to bring Flynry back.” (player framing)
• 1:20:27 “This could very well be the chance to bring our friend back. Yes. I’ve missed him so, so very dearly.”
• 1:25:11 “I don’t feel like you’re telling us the truth. Looking at your current attire, I would say you’re lying.”
• 1:34:26 “Well, by all means. Lead the way, accomplished mage.”
• 1:35:04 “This sounds awfully suspect to me.”
• 1:37:21 “Indeed we have. And either way, part of my soul died that day anyway. So we’ll see how much is left.”
• 1:42:12 “Well, it is a good bosom. Bless, I must take my leave.”
• 1:43:33 “All the best, darling.”
• 1:50:55 “Tell her I said, thank you for trying.”
• 1:55:47 “It would appear that we are in the in-between.”
• 2:01:17 “It’s the sand. We have to use the sand to get out of here.”
• 2:04:16 “Flynry, we’re coming.”

Locket

• 1:13:06 “Sadness, loss, confusion. Why? It had to be Flynry.” (player framing)
• 1:17:08 “Well, it has been a while. I am a little out of practice, but I think it would be worth giving it a stab.”
• 1:17:34 “My suave elven.”
• 1:20:21 “It feels like it’s been ages, but maybe we’ll actually get some answers.”
• 1:20:46 “Oh no, Baptiste and I are just, we’re just friends, you know. Just friends.”
• 1:24:49 “Arbiter.”
• 1:28:24 “See you soon.”
• 1:37:05 “This seems risky, it seems dangerous. But we have done that before.”
• 1:44:50 “I just want to reach out and give her a hug. It’s been so long… This is fake. This is fake.”
• 2:02:02 “This is still part of him somewhere at least. I don’t think he’s completely gone.”
• 2:04:13 “You did it, Toddleheim. This is, this might be the way.”

Elianna

• 1:26:36 “I am her personal assistant. Thank you very much… My name is Elianna. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
• 1:27:36 “She does have a spa treatment at three, but unfortunately she is very busy.”
• 1:28:42 “We haven’t washed him in a few days because no one wants to go near him.”
• 1:29:45 “I hate talking with him. You have no idea what it’s been like with him around.”
• 1:29:59 “would you like any brandy or something before we go in to deal with him?”
• 1:31:57 “Pardon me.”
• 1:38:30 “you’ve got this.” (casting Guidance)
• 1:47:52 “oh, my sweet lady”
• 1:48:38 “No. She wanted me to come back safely and I will do that. I’m not going to let her down.”
• 1:51:18 “Tell her I will keep our promise.”
• 1:55:39 “What just happened?”
• 1:55:53 “Only heard of this place.”

The Arbiter

• 1:24:27 “Welcome back. It’s good to see you again.”
• 1:24:54 “She’s on a tour of the Void, taking in the sights, serving her people. Don’t worry though, she’s left me in charge.”
• 1:25:26 “It’s true that I’m a prisoner in this place. Can’t deny that. She beat me fair and square. I’m honoring our deal.”
• 1:31:25 “Leaving the void, not an easy task. Finding the dead… Not easy. But, fortunately for you, I am an accomplished mage.”
• 1:33:11 “I thought you might be nostalgic for it.”
• 1:33:11 “a piece of his soul was taken. And upon his death, that debt was collected. I know where he’s at. I can get you there.”
• 1:35:16 “It does give me a certain amount of pleasure to mess with you. But the Grandmaster has given her orders, and for now, I am obliged to obey them.”
• 1:36:08 “Not many people have taken the journey that you’re asking to take. Even fewer have returned from it… I’ve never been myself.”
• 1:37:39 “Remember, you must not walk into it.”
• 1:45:49 “the Grandmaster did say that she thought they needed a chaperone.”
• 1:51:51 “I only know of one way to get there.”
• 1:52:40 “That’s one way to solve my problems.”

Orin (Flynry’s dream son)

• 0:13:51 “What’s the matter? I haven’t gotten that old, have I?… Your own son? It’s me, Orin!”
• 0:16:00 “It’s not every day that someone retires from the Grandmaster’s service.”
• 0:27:12 “you are one of the best leaders and men and examples that a son could ever have. And I am honored that you’re my father.”
• 0:30:36 “Are you sure that you’re all right? You’re being very strange today.”
• 0:30:57 “don’t let him give you the good stuff. It’s pretty much just straight fuel.”

Olaf

• 0:20:59 “Hey, you can’t start without me.”
• 0:21:54 “Not all of us can afford to retire… We can’t just be handed things by the Grandmaster.”
• 0:22:07 “Hands behind my back, I could have beat the Arbiter.”
• 0:22:39 “There’s not a man alive that could beat me in that. Would you like to try?”
• 0:23:35 “You know what it is? You don’t have the good stuff… That’ll set you right.”
• 0:24:09 “Oh, well, the oil wouldn’t be as smooth.”

Baptiste

• 1:16:58 “Hello, my lady. Would you have any interest in practicing your stabbing?”
• 1:17:23 “It’s very well. My knives are sharp. And I have many a honing stone.”

Canon notes

• The man with the golden shield in the portrait is Faucius Golden Shield.
• The Hall of Mirrors and the Hall of Fates are the same place.
• Orin was petrified in Fate of the Arbiter and turned to dust. Lyrus later sees the scene unfolding in the mirrors and goes into the mirror after his father. It’s a deception of the mirrors: they are an otherworldly entity that eats souls.
• Elianna’s cabin vision with Elusia is a canon memory.