Eberron chronicle

Session 24

Date: 8 June 998 YK

📍 Location

The passage beneath Shadukar’s cathedral, the chamber of the missing heart, the Witch’s cottage in the Burnt Wood, and Flamekeep.

⚔️ The Way Was Open—But Not for Them Alone

The black wraith knight had fallen. Its destruction had opened the passage beneath the cathedral at the end of Session 23, and the party could finally follow the way toward Shadukar’s heart.

They had fought through the tunnels to reach this point. Beyond the knight’s chamber lay the thing they had come to find.

Then they looked up.

A hole broke through the ceiling of the tunnel between the wraith’s room and the heart’s chamber. Seeing it, the party realized that the warforged had reached the heart first.

Beyond the tunnel lay the dry underground grotto from Kael’s vision, with its constructed stone altar. The heart was gone.

They were too late.

The Black Colossus

The missing heart was not the end of the danger. Inside the chamber, the souls began to converge, gathering into a huge mass of black energy. Before the party, that mass took on a heavy, golem-like shape: an ugly colossus built to crush whatever stood before it.

The confrontation turned catastrophic.

The monster seized M.A.77 and tore his legs from his torso. The warforged who had helped bring down the black knight lay broken into separate pieces. Kael fell as well. Both were killed.

Renoir and Tak fled the chamber. They escaped the creature, but their companions remained behind: Kael dead, M.A.77 torn apart, and the black monster still standing over them.

The passage they had fought to enter had become their way out.

Silver Fire

Moments later, a bright silver flame erupted from Kael’s chest.

Kael returned to life. Beside him, the broken M.A.77 revived too. Death had not held either of them, though nothing about what had just happened offered a simple explanation.

The silver fire changed the course of the battle. The corruption was now weakened, and the two companions who had fallen before it faced it again.

This time, Kael and M.A.77 brought the monster down.

Renoir and Tak returned just as their companions defeated it. They had fled a chamber in which two friends lay dead; they came back to find those same friends victorious over the thing that had killed them.

Everyone was shocked. The flame had erupted from Kael’s chest. Both he and M.A.77 had revived. The impossible had happened in front of them, but witnessing it was not the same as understanding it.

One Last Tear

With the corruption defeated, Renoir turned to Shadukar’s lost souls.

The battle was over. Now he could guide them onward—not into another struggle, but into the rest that had been denied them. They appeared only as shadows, indistinct figures passing out of the world. There were no smiling faces or radiant procession. It was a quiet, bittersweet farewell.

Their suffering was finally at an end. Among the departing shadows was the small ghost of a child.

As the child passed on, it dropped a small amulet: a single teardrop, fashioned like a badge of the Silver Flame. The party received The Unspent Tomorrow, a final gift left behind at the moment of farewell.

They had reached the chamber too late to recover the heart. But they had not been too late for the souls of Shadukar.

A City Saved, a City Burning

The party left the chamber and made their way out of Shadukar.

The city they left behind was saved, but it was not untouched. Fires from the warforged attacks still burned through it. Freeing the dead had not undone the destruction around them, and the missing heart had not returned with the corruption’s defeat.

They departed with all four companions alive and the child’s teardrop amulet among their possessions. Behind them, Shadukar burned—but its lost souls no longer remained there to suffer.

The heart was gone. The dead were free.

The Cottage Is Quiet

Their journey brought them back to the home of the Witch of the Cottage in the Burnt Wood.

On their earlier visit, she had laughed at the approaching undead and performed the disturbing ritual that showed Kael a vision of the heart. They had fled her cottage after that vision. Now they returned after reaching the place she had shown him.

They found her sitting in her chair.

Only her skeleton remained. The strange old woman had been undead, too. Now, like the souls Renoir had guided onward, she finally rested.

The ravens had left after her passing. Not one remained in the cottage.

After the violence beneath the cathedral, the silver fire, and the burning city, their return ended with this quieter discovery: the Witch’s long unrest was over.

The Woman Before the Witch

The party also learned the history of the woman they had known only as the Witch of the Cottage.

During the Last War, Boris and three other deserters from Karrnath found her cottage hidden in the woods. She gave them food and a place to hide while they prepared to move on and escape the war.

The other three soldiers tried to sexually assault her. Boris killed them, then stayed to protect her. In time, he and the woman who would become the Witch became lovers.

When Karrnathi forces massacred Shadukar after its surrender, she raged and blamed Boris for the acts of his countrymen. She cursed him and took his manhood. Humiliated and unable to face his former comrades, he hanged himself inside the cottage. The skeleton hanging on the wall was Boris, the man who had once saved her.

The decades that followed fractured her mind. The strange woman the party met had lived through that history and remained long after it as one of the undead.

Now her own skeleton sat in the chair, and the ravens were gone. The woman who had sheltered deserters, lost Boris, and endured Shadukar’s long unrest was finally at rest.

Return to the City and Journey to Flamekeep

After visiting the cottage, the party returned to Shadukar. Fires from the warforged attacks still burned through the city, but the party did not leave immediately. They took time to loot it before moving on, recovering Cunning and Vitalizing runes, two Lesser Elixirs of Life, two Moderate Mistform Elixirs, a Shrinking Potion and an Invisibility Potion.

They also recovered saleable valuables worth 280 gp for the shared party stores.

The souls they had freed were gone; the destruction remained. With the city still burning behind them, the party eventually boarded a boat and travelled to Flamekeep.

Progress & Rewards

Kael, M.A.77, Renoir, and Tak each received:

50 XP for the fatal confrontation with the corruption, awarded by the GM to all four characters. Kael and M.A.77 died; Renoir and Tak escaped.
120 XP for the victory over the weakened corruption.
Session total: 170 XP per character.

Confirmed treasure:

City salvage: 280 gp worth of saleable valuables. Shared party ownership; no sale or individual distribution recorded. This is separate from the 497 gp in items recovered from the city.
Additional city loot: 1 Cunning rune (level 5, uncommon, 140 gp), 1 Vitalizing rune (level 5, 150 gp), 2 Lesser Elixirs of Life (level 5, 30 gp each), and 2 Moderate Mistform Elixirs (level 6, 56 gp each). Recovered while looting Shadukar; shared party ownership. Individual recipients and rune installation are not recorded. Total item value: 462 gp.
City loot: 1 Shrinking Potion (level 4, 15 gp) and 1 Invisibility Potion (level 4, 20 gp), recovered while looting Shadukar. Shared party ownership; individual recipients not recorded. Total item value: 35 gp.
One The Unspent Tomorrow: a teardrop amulet resembling a Silver Flame badge, left by a child’s departing ghost as Renoir guided the souls to rest. Acquired by the party; individual bearer and monetary value not recorded. By GM decision, it counts as the second level-6 permanent-item allocation for level-5 treasure budgeting, alongside the Ring of the Black Sovereign from Session 23. This is a budget classification of the existing award, not another item or a price assignment.

Loot Rules — Archives of Nethys

The party remains level 5, with 440 / 800 XP toward level 6. They need 360 XP to advance. See Campaign Progress.