Campaign Timeline
Year 700.
Day 165 — Everyone has returned to their respective homes after the Drums of War campaign. Hejong (posing as Markus Thrain), Veladriel, Ahellion, Ravielle, Asgarion, and Arilos are reunited in Vestia. Valindra has spent the time preparing, snooping, and learning about the new world she is a part of. She has spent time with Kateran Dawnwalker, and is eager to get going on her mission to find Hestia.
Day 167 — Aster is made heir to the crown as part of a plan to marry her to Hejong, and have a god to rule Vestia and produce divine heirs. Asgarion proposes to Ravielle and runs away with her.
Day 170 — Aster and Hejong meet.
Day 172 — Aster takes Hejong to a resort in western Vestia, where he agrees to be her boyfriend.
Day 173 — Varos visits Veladriel and makes her his Chosen one, thus rendering her immortal and imbuing her with divine power. He grows angry that she will give him nothing in return, and vanishes.
Day 175 — Veladriel and Hejong speak about what it means to be "Chosen", and how a mortal can ascend to godhood.
Day 176 — Arilos sneaks out of Vestia with Valindra to hunt Hestia down. Their lead is Hestia’s signet ring being sold on Enmore’s black market.
Day 178 — Markus departs Vestia for Thrain, with Aster in tow.
Day 180 — Arilos and Valindra arrive in Enmore.
Day 181 — Markus departs Thrain after being confirmed Praetor Maximus by the Senate in Thrain's court.
Day 182 — Valindra has deduced that Chen is a fence for Hestia, and hatches a plan with Arilos to capture Chen, interrogate him, and then deliver themselves to Hestia in a grand double-crossing act.
Day 184 — Markus Thrain returns to Vestia with Aster.
Day 185 — Valindra and Arilos meet with Lyriel. Black-clad assassins attack, aiming for Lyriel, but they manage to defend her and send Lyriel north to Vestia to summon Veladriel to Enmore.
Day 186 — Arilos prays and Hejong hears the message: he needs help. Hejong alerts Veladriel, who departs immediately for Thrain. Valindra and Arilos investigate their lead: a black market fence named Chen. They capture Chen and interrogate him, learning that House Duskheart is somehow involved. Valindra promptly pretends to capture Arilos and double-plays Chen, making Chen think she is a buyer for Hestia's signet ring and that she wants to meet Hestia. Chen travels with them after Arilos tied up like a prisoner and secured with an arcana-nullifying collar.
Day 187 — Valindra, Arilos and Chen rendezvous with Lord Cassian Duskheart, Hestia's son. Together they ride to Cirhain where Hestia's castle is. As it turns out, Hestia has been posing as Duchess Duskheart, and ruling over the town of Cirhain. That evening Valindra discusses business with Hestia while Arilos manages to miraculously escape on his own. Valindra meets a succubus named Zira and has a fun night with her.
Day 188 — Valindra learns that Arilos is gone, and Hestia reveals her blood magic and her intentions to kill or infiltrate the Dawnwalker court. Valindra sneakily subdues Hestia with scorpion venom, then smashes a soulgem that Hestia was using to keep her husband's soul bound to the mortal realm. She manages to escape with Hestia and rides for Thrain.
Day 189 — Valindra eludes the guards chasing her and continues towards Thrain. She has an unsettling lesser soul bond made with Hestia and peers into the woman's insane mind for an evening. Hestia is rotten to the core and pure chaos. Veladriel reaches Thrain and unites with Lyriel.
Day 190 — Valindra eludes the guards chasing her and continues towards Thrain. She unites with Veladriel and Lyriel, who ride with her to Enmore and send Hestia home to Vestia with Veladriel's elite guards.
Day 192 — Veladriel sets out the next morning and rides for Cirhain, accompanied by almost all of Enmore’s forces. The massive warband descends on the town and soldiers question all of its inhabitants. It is discovered that the entire town has been drinking wine from the Duskheart family’s orchard — laced with Hestia’s blood. None of the citizens were ever the wiser about Hestia’s ongoing experiments, plots, or schemes; and the immaculate paperwork in the castle itself reveals that for the most part Cassian Duskheart has been conducting all of the house’s official work as a benefactor to the crown and overseeing its citizens. All of it, Veladriel concludes, was a front for Hestia — a way she could operate unnoticed in plain sight as a grieving widow whose son had taken up the family business.
The most important discovery is Arilos. Veladriel finds him in the basement, unconscious, scuffed, bruised, and bloody from extensive physical torture. She commands her forces to stay and continue the investigation — to hunt down Hestia’s servants and anyone loyal to her who actually matters, especially Cassian Duskheart. The castle has been stripped of most of its belongings, and they find a heap of burnt records, paintings, and other evidence of Hestia’s activities in the center of a reptilian exhibit; it seems there are no creatures left inside.
Frustrated by the lack of intel, but relieved to find Arilos, Veladriel takes Arilos back to Enmore. He’s been patched up somewhat by the time they arrive. The first thing Arilos does is give Lyriel and Valindra big hugs. He kisses both their foreheads and tells them over and over how worried he was, how thankful he is they’re safe, and gets a bit emotional over Lyriel. Valindra is happy Arilos has returned, and asks him a pressing question — if she can use his last name. Arilos obliges, touched by her inquiry, and pulls both of his girls into a group hug. He is very happy to add another person to his little family. Veladriel looks on from afar and finally offers for Valindra to accompany them home to Vestia, seeing as she is a member of Arilos’ family now. She is careful not to call Valindra a Dawnwalker, but Valindra can sense Veladriel’s hostility towards her is gone.
Day 194 — Veladriel charters a boat back to Vestia and assigns her high priestess to be the “Dawnwalker presence” in Enmore this year for the Summer Festival. Kateran, Lyriel, Valindra, Arilos, and Veladriel set sail.
Day 198 — The group arrives back in Vestia the day before the Festival activities. Arilos shows Valindra his seaside house and offers for her to stay there until she gets her own home. They all stay in the palace relatively close by each other and eat delicious food, are given comfortable clothes, warm beds, and general pampering by palace staff. Valindra holds a certain mysticism amongst those who know she captured Hestia; some call her a hero.
Day 200: The Summer Festival
The day of the Summer Festival, Ahellion, Veladriel, Arilos, Kateran, Lyriel, and Valindra all dress in their finest. Sunrise is when the festivities begin with a massive thanks-giving to Varos, city-wide prayer, and a parade that dances through the streets. Veladriel and her priestesses put on a grand light show from the palace, bending sunbeams and using mirrors placed on rooftops throughout the city to create a beautiful spectacle. It is Ahellion that starts the official party and feasting early in the afternoon. People dance and sing, drink and dine. Music wafts through the streets. Even the star elves take part in some of it. After the war, some kind of celebration was much-needed by the people. There are toasts to the Dawnwalker family’s good health and a general sense of love and appreciation all throughout the city.
That evening when the sun begins to set, the entire city is filled with people lighting lanterns and sending them skyward. Veladriel and Ahellion send their own lantern, inscribed with their wishes for the new year, towards the sky. It is when they retire at last from the parapet of the palace and walk back towards their chambers that the assassins strike. Knives edged with glowing cyan runes, made from the teeth of an egregious monster, plunge into Veladriel’s ribs. Ahellion uses his dagger to fend off his own assailants, and Veladriel conjures gouts of fire. They survive. Their attackers do not. Ahellion holds one at knife-point, but the man dies minutes later before admitting to anything — apparently from a strong dose of Midnight Tears poison he’d ingested earlier.
Across the palace, Lyriel, Kateran, Arilos, and Valindra are set upon by similar assailants. Arilos is the only one wounded in the altercation as he puts himself in the path of a knife meant for one of the girls. All around the kingdom similar assassinations are occurring. Coordinated killing goes on at almost every major sun elf gathering that night. Rishala in Arelas is stabbed and her heart ripped out, pierced by a soulrender dagger that prevents her from resurrecting. In Rivelin, Ravielle tries to save Asgarion, but she is strangled to death and rendered incapable of casting spells while Asgarion is slowly overcome and stabbed to death by several armed assassins in front of her.
Hejong is reading in bed at Enfelar Retreat, waiting for Aster to be done showering when he hears her scream, and is too late to save her from the knife impaling her heart. He slaughters the assassins and is left holding Aster’s bleeding, limp body in his arms, slowly rocking back and forth and begging Kerrigor to save her. Kerrigor appears and quietly informs Hejong that her soul is lost: there can be no resurrection for someone killed by a soulrender blade. He informs Hejong that she is not the only one killed by such a blade that evening; he is sorry, but there is nothing he can do. Hejong travels back to the palace.
Day 203 — News travels quicker than Hejong does. When Hejong arrives, the city is in mourning for Aster’s death. Word has not yet arrived on the other Dawnwalker children. Hejong spends a few evenings with Veladriel and Ahellion, both of whom are broken down and shaken by the loss of Aster.
Day 208 — A few days after Hejong’s arrival, the news of Asgarion, Ravielle, and Rishala’s deaths arrive simultaneously, sending their family spiraling into grief. The only remaining children of Ahellion and Veladriel are Hestia and Kateran, Arilos, and their grandchild Lyriel.