Skypiercer Part 2

Champions and players	Caustic Phoenix as Elusia; stellaluna as Kaja; sensei_suplex as Atalantos
Hosts	Mudcat (Mudcat)

What happens

1. 0:00:03 — Recap, then the three days before leaving.
2. 0:03:04 — Atalantos trains and settles his troops. He finds the drunk soldier passed out in a tavern (Drew calls him “Lucius” here, a slip; he is Lucien, per Drew: “whatever I said first”) and asks another soldier to look after him.
3. 0:06:01 — Kaja says her associates are mostly dead, so her loose ends tie themselves. She says goodbye to the Cor’thun library and steals two books (nat 20): a steamy romance and a book on the arcane arts. (DM joke: the city is so honorable it has no librarian.)
4. 0:10:56 — Elusia meditates in the banquet hall where she first arrived 300 years ago (swords drawn on her as an unwanted guest), then in the tomb of the emperors and empresses below the temple, the “halls of the dead”, where bodies lie on stone slabs under layers of candle wax, histories carved beneath them. She brings wine. Memory of Empress Juntikar knocking her down with a tower shield in the fighting pits: stand your ground or those you protect are vulnerable. Theme of outliving everyone (0:13:59).
5. 0:17:13 — Atalantos and Elusia on worthiness. “Simply just do. Be the best that you can be today.” He was “just a simple gladiator at first,” then a soldier, and worked his way up.
6. 0:22:26 — Last mission: the aqueduct. They go after Plintos himself (“head of the snake”). Drew narrates that Cor’thun has lofty ideals but murder is not uncommon (0:31:08).
7. 0:33:22 — The Plintos estate. Gold cast an inch deep over the marble, a full-time crew re-gilding it; Roman outside, Gothic inside; diamonds and rubies left out for commoners to steal; Plintos has many wives and children, each family in a “mansion within the mansion” off the upstairs hall. Elusia pockets a pouch of diamonds; Kaja warns that history can haunt objects (0:44:49). Atalantos demands “your finest diamond.”
8. 0:52:57 — Plintos’s chambers are bare. Plans on the table: divert the southern aqueduct into a private oasis/water park with slides and a tidal pool. In the bed: Plintos’s skeleton in sleepwear, a golden dagger in the ribs. Kaja animates it (hero point) and it writes “My wife.” (1:10:30).
9. 1:16:32 — The artisan says orders come from Plintos’s eldest son, Throm.
10. 1:20:15 — Confrontation. Throm (tall, broad, black beard) speaks for the family. Kaja disguises herself as a half-decayed Plintos (nat 20) and stabs the dagger into herself. Throm blurts “You died six years ago.” All the wives are in on it. Throm attacks, is pinned to the marble by Elusia’s arrow through his Achilles (nat 20).
11. 1:45:58 — Throm’s motive: “My stupid father wanted to give all of the, all of it away. All of it to the people.” He wants an oasis “for those among us who deserve it.”
12. 1:48:45 — Throm’s mother (vibrant blue robes) breaks down: “I was only doing what he said.” She is the one who stabbed Plintos, on Throm’s orders.
13. 1:51:32 — Thea, a 16–17-year-old daughter, volunteers to lead the house. Elusia gives her House Plintos and charges her to bring wealth to the people. Kaja kills Throm with his father’s dagger. Servants clean it up without asking questions.
14. 1:57:09 — Departure. Vythorn pours a thick golden liquid from a silver ewer, adds his own blood, and opens the portal. Thornos nods his approval. (Ten-minute break, cut.)
15. 1:58:44 — The Void. They land in a dead forest in the Shadowlands. The Dread Fortress on the horizon: a rock structure shaped like an orc skull with a broken tusk, eyes ablaze, lava glowing around it. It’s in view whichever way you turn. A jagged tower is Agdrel’s former home. Chaos storms, the source of magic in the Void, are out of control. Vythorn: “This is a land of shadows where fears become real.”
16. 2:05:40 — Atheranon is the nearest pocket of resistance. Crossing a chasm of old rope bridges, shadowy tendrils grab Atalantos; then shadow creatures whose whispers stun and control minds (Kaja briefly chokes Elusia). Vythorn is too drained from the crossing to fight. Elusia’s nat 1 puts an arrow in Vythorn’s chest (2:40:10).

Fight log: the chasm and the shadow creatures (2:09:00–2:48:23)

• Elusia, Kaja (shadow-ball jumps, jump spell at will) and Vythorn fly or leap the rope bridges; Atalantos walks. His foot breaks through a board and a shadow tendril grabs his ankle; he pulls free. Kaja’s three Eldritch Blasts, shaped like silent crystalline knives, sever the tendrils.
• Four shadow creatures rise like spinning tornadoes of black tendrils. Their whispers deal psychic pain: Elusia is stunned with a pain through her left temple; another forces Kaja to attack Elusia, and she grabs Elusia’s throat and squeezes before yanking her hand away, guilty.
• Kaja takes her form of dread; her blasts become crystalline spears with jaws. Necrotic does nothing to these creatures; fire’s light is what breaks their form.
• Atalantos lights his spear with Crimson Rite of the Flame and Spartan-kicks one, its chest inverting through itself. He tries to use his blood curse to make one attack its ally.
• Elusia, freed, shoots one through the head past Atalantos’s ear. A tendril yanks her ankle on a nat 1 and her arrow lands in Vythorn’s chest (he stays bleeding with the arrow in him for the rest of the episode). Kaja: “Don’t worry, I’ve got my eye on you. I won’t let anything happen to you while I’m around.”
• Atalantos switches his Crimson Rite to cold on Elusia’s bow to test it; cold does nothing. “Sometimes sacrifices must be made for knowledge.”

17. 2:49:08 — A Nightwalker climbs out of the chasm, “an eater of life.” Its aura drains life with every moment. Atalantos reads the fight (“This thing will fuck your entire world”) and makes sure everyone gets out first. They run, Elusia grabbing Kaja’s hand; holding hands, Kaja shares her necrotic resistance so the aura can’t touch Elusia (“I feel embraced”). Vythorn flies backwards shining a light from his bloodied palm until the creature drinks the light out. Its sweeping hand flattens the forest; Elusia hurls Kaja forward by the hand so she isn’t caught: “Don’t let go of my hand.” “I won’t.” A line of mages slams staves into the ground and raises a wall of light that destroys it.
18. 3:01:03 — Craven Eldonbridge, a leonin with gray and black fur and a lit staff, leads them to Atheranon. He calls Vythorn “the Endless Scholar? Right hand of the Shadow King?” and draws on him. Vythorn: “I’ve brought with me the savior of the Void… Elusia, daughter of the Golden King.” Craven kneels.
19. 3:10:21 — The plan: the Dread Fortress is impregnable from outside, but Vythorn can come and go. Craven’s army will be the distraction outside the fortress while Vythorn takes the three inside.
20. 3:14:18 — Gifts from a chest with Faucius’s insignia, smuggled out of the Dread Fortress:
    • Defender (also called Groundbreaker), a golden longsword, Elusia’s grandfather’s and then her father’s, to Atalantos.
    • Life Stealer, Agdrel’s staff of twisted black wood, to Kaja. Elusia: “It is dangerous and it speaks things.”
    • The Oathbringer, a long ornate golden bow that belonged to Elusia’s mother, to Elusia. She binds it with her blood and swears an oath to defeat the Shadow King.
21. 3:28:07 — Weeks of preparation. Kaja teaches Atheranon’s mages and quietly builds a following around “the Great Dread” (“there is great duality in shadow and light”). She says it’s a long-term seed, meant to protect the people and restore Elusia. Atalantos trains about 500 troops and learns their names. Elusia writes letters and decrees; people pour in from Prexmarin and undiscovered lands until Atheranon is a city in the woods a mile across.
22. 3:37:47 — Ending: the camera flies into the Dread Fortress, black and red banners, to a figure shrouded in shadow on her father’s throne.

Entities

Elusia. Was named an unwanted guest at swordpoint when she first appeared in Cor’thun’s banquet hall (0:10:56). Spent her 300 years training, not reading (DM joke, 0:54:15). Wields the Oathbringer, sworn to defeat the Shadow King. Gives House Plintos to Thea. Writes the decrees that raise the resistance. Called “savior of the Void” and “Princess Elusia” by Craven.

Elusia’s mother (never named, per Drew). Owned the Oathbringer. “At the start of each morning and the end of each day, she’d go to the highest point… and light an arrow on fire to aim to the sky to remind everyone of the promise to care for this… realm” (3:24:09).

Kaja. Necromancer; “my army is portable” (0:07:58). Fond of Cor’thun’s library. Has “had a few accidents in the past” (killings) (0:30:27). Can explode a body into mist (0:31:52). Has no blood in her face, so she can’t blush (0:26:48). Wields Life Stealer. Begins teaching “the Great Dread” to Atheranon’s mages.

Atalantos. “I was just a simple gladiator at first” (0:19:18). Wields Defender / Groundbreaker. Trains ~500 at Atheranon: “We will win as brothers in arms” (3:33:11). Uses the blood curse of the anxious (hemocraft).

Lucien (“Lucius” here is a slip). Back to drinking; passed out in a tavern (0:03:04).

Plintos. Head of House Plintos, leader of the Merchants Guild. Died six years before this episode, stabbed by Throm’s mother on Throm’s orders, because he wanted to give his wealth away to the people (1:45:58). His death was hidden by the whole family.

Throm. Plintos’s eldest son. Ran the house in his father’s name and wanted the water park. Killed by Kaja (1:54:08).

Throm’s mother. One of Plintos’s wives; blue robes; stabbed Plintos.

Thea (Plintos). 16–17-year-old daughter of Plintos; made head of House Plintos by Elusia (1:52:12). (Not the later-season Thea, per Drew.)

Glotun (Drew’s spelling). “Ivy League rich,” not opulent. Seemed to believe Plintos was paying him.

Craven Eldonbridge. Leonin, gray and black fur, carries a staff that projects light. Leader of Atheranon. Holds a chest of Faucius’s treasures.

Vythorn. Known in the Void as the right hand of the Shadow King (3:06:35); free to come and go from the Dread Fortress. Drained by the crossing; took Elusia’s stray arrow to the chest.

Agdrel / the Shadow King. Craven: “People have said his mind is decaying. He’s unable to contain the energy he’s stolen from the realm” (3:03:43). His staff Life Stealer had been left behind at Atheranon. Ends the episode as the shadowed figure on Faucius’s throne.

Places

• Cor’thun library (ornate, smells of old books and dust); tomb / halls of the dead under the temple; Plintos estate (described above).
• The Shadowlands: dead forest that moves like it’s conscious, poisonous fog, obsidian scorpions and spiders, shadow creatures; spreading for years under the Shadow King.
• Agdrel’s jagged tower in the Shadowlands.
• The chasm of old rope bridges on stone pillars, home of a Nightwalker.
• The Dread Fortress: orc-skull rock with a broken tusk, burning eyes, lava; visible from every direction.
• Atheranon: once a great fort, now a wooden-walled forest village (20+ ft walls) at the edge of the Shadowlands; grows into a city in the woods.
• Prexmarin (spelling confirmed by Drew): a place people come from to join Elusia (3:36:53).

Items

• Golden dagger that killed Plintos (Kaja keeps it, kills Throm with it).
• Pouch of diamonds taken by Elusia from the Plintos estate (Kaja warns of curses).
• Two library books stolen by Kaja.
• Silver ewer and golden liquid for Vythorn’s portal (the same liquid Elusia drank in the flashback).
• Defender / Groundbreaker, Life Stealer, the Oathbringer (above).

Groups

• The resistance at Atheranon: mages “very powerful, but not well adept at controlling the chaos within individually” (3:28:35); soldiers; scouts.
• Kaja’s students of the Great Dread (seed planted).
• House Plintos (now Thea’s).

Lore statements

• Chaos storms are “the source of magic” in the Void (2:04:10).
• The Shadowlands are “a land of shadows where fears become real. Where your deepest insecurities can be turned against you” (Vythorn, 2:04:10).
• Word of Elusia’s death spread after the Shadow King’s ascension; there were always rumors she lived (Craven, 3:07:31).

Quotes by character

Elusia

• 0:12:45 “And what carvings will I have at my feet? What stories am I worthy of creating?”
• 0:17:38 “War is one thing, but leadership, to take over, to demand it is another thing. How do you know if you are worthy?”
• 1:52:15 “Thea, this house is now yours. Goodwill shall be your home. Not these golden walls…”
• 1:56:03 “Behind every gold wall is a river of blood. Wealth hoarded is life taken away.”
• 2:02:36 “Welcome to my home, everyone… Please excuse the Shadowlands, they’ve never been in the best of shape.”
• 3:09:06 “I’ve come to awaken all of the Void. To harness her, her life, her force, her spirit again.”
• 3:10:21 “300 years is long enough. I will face my uncle.”
• 3:24:09 “The oath she made to these people will not be forgotten.”

Kaja

• 0:06:16 “A person in my profession, you find that a lot of your associates are dead, so you don’t have to worry about their feelings.”
• 0:09:12 “What is morality anyway except something that gets in the way?”
• 0:44:49 “Sometimes history haunts objects.”
• 3:21:42 “Taking the weapons of a family to use it to strike down someone within it. It only seems fitting.”
• 3:29:41 “There is great duality in shadow and light. It is not an absence of the other. They coexist. Always.”

Atalantos

• 0:18:08 “Instead of thinking, simply just do. Be the best that you can be today. And then tomorrow, be even better.”
• 0:21:13 “At least believe in the me who believes in you.”
• 1:47:00 “Those who muddle around in the dirt, fight for their very lives every single day. Don’t. Please enlighten me.”
• 3:15:47 “It is a part of me. Not a weapon, but an extension of myself.” (his shield)
• 3:33:11 “You are only as strong as the shield beside you… We will win as brothers in arms.”

Throm

• 1:39:15 “No, no, no. You died six years ago.”
• 1:45:58 “I saved our house. My stupid father wanted to give all of it away. All of it to the people.”
• 1:47:16 “Their dirt taints us all.”

Thea (Plintos)

• 1:52:57 “Yes, I will do as you’ve said.”

Vythorn

• 2:03:12 “There are still people here that would see your father’s line restored, would see order return from chaos.”
• 2:04:10 “Guard your minds in this place. This is a land of shadows where fears become real.”
• 3:11:16 “Not a passage, but one such as myself who’s free to come and go from the Dread Fortress.”

Craven Eldonbridge

• 3:05:03 “My name is Craven Eldonbridge, and I’m the leader of this place.”
• 3:06:35 “Vythorn? The Endless Scholar? Right hand of the Shadow King?”
• 3:10:21 “No living creature here in the Void can breach its defenses.”