balance_logs

Over the last month, the Reclaimers have been trying to investigate and uncover the odd and peculiar power that the Lamp of Unwinding has. You've all come to a town secluded intentionally by the mountains and snow that cover the region of Thay, and have met the best and brightest witch and wizard students the world has to offer. But this town, as you've come to learn, was in a state that can only be defined by the goddess of fate herself- as "time sick." The same set of hours, looped, every single day for the past several years.

You met the Council of Thay: Rainer, Casariel, Gromph and Onerion. They run the affairs of town and are deeply invested in the school's success, each holding several professorial positions to help mold the great thinkers of tomorrow. Each had their own set of personal problems to face, and a long history of deeply troubled pasts. Rainer, the great-granddaughter of the first Headmaster of Boarbumps, had to live up to the expectations her lineage offered. Casariel, a woman who intentionally wormed her way into the school grounds to further her sinister plans, had to weight the conflict of her every day life that she had built and reconcile them with her mission goal. Gromph, an archmagus who summoned demons into the world, sought redemption for the horrible atrocities he committed in the Underdark. And Onerion, an Aasimar who had lost his wings at some point, clung to order and regulation to make sense of a world that once shunned him from existence.

It was relatively quickly discovered that Rainer was the one with the Lamp of Unwinding, the events of which were fated once by the unfortunately all-knowing wizard Karsus. It had been handed down to her through generations past, with the sole intent of ensuring that, when the time came, the Reclaimers would come to town and stop something grave from happening.

Casariel waged a war, fueled on by centuries of hatred and contempt, and made her way to the Wellspring of Magic, deep below the city of Thay. There, she worked her dark powers to twist the intention of the Source of Magic, binding herself to it as a failsafe should anything come to pass that proved... difficulty in her goal. See, Casariel is an ancient being from a lost civilization that wants to see the world burn. Her kind had seen the face of the Hunger, and had worked to bring it ever closer to this plane of existence. Casariel's job was to wave the carrot stick in front of its mouth, to be the harbinger of the Apocalypse and ensure revenge for everyone that had done her wrong.

Which presented an interesting conundrum. Rainer, knowing Casariel was tied to the Wellspring of Magic, was forced to make a choice between letting magic die or letting her go through with her plan to welcome the end of days. An optimist, and someone who poured her heart into the town of Thay, the students she watched over in her career as Headmistress and eventually Regent of the High Council, she believed a middle path to exist.

The Reclaimers, with the aid of several godly blessings, went down to Wellspring of Magic to end this conflict once and for all. Upon arriving, they prepared to battle with an ancient black dragon who had been put there to protect the Wellspring, now under the thrall of the callous Casariel. And from here, everything cascaded downward. The relic was destroyed in the skrimish, the dragon escaped to an unknown fate, and as it turned out, the only way to defeat Casariel was to end her life. And with it, comes the eventual reckoning event that Rainer worked so hard to stop.

The death of all magic in Faerun.

Where do we pick up the pieces? How do we fight against The Hunger without the ability to do so? The Reclaimers head home with a lot on their minds, despondent over the conclusion of this mission. But all is not lost. Yes, it's a setback, but the Bureau of Balance will have to be more resilient than ever to the threat that they face. The threat of this world and every world after depends on them, and now- more than ever, they need each other.

Because the Hunger's here. And it's slowly eating away the Celestial plane.

A. THIS SEEMS SPOOKY

You may remember the band of skeletons Rainer has been using as a cleanup crew for Thay — and you may remember that around 6 p.m. every loop, on the dot, they all suddenly froze in place.

For those of you who are outside, as your fellow Reclaimers attempt to put an end to the Lamp of Unwinding's influence, the first signs that the bubble you've all been trapped in is on the brink of popping suddenly lurch back to life.

Indeed, these once helpful bones, not quite so much under Rainer's necromancy now as they are utterly consumed by it turn hostile, mimicking the movements of a master underground, fighting with everything in their power.

Thay's surface dissolves into chaos once again.

It's up to you to return the skeletons to a rest they once enjoyed.




B. LURCHING FORWARD

And then, just like that, Thay breaks through to 8 p.m. and beyond, the first time it's reached these particular nighttime moments in nearly a decade.

But you see, that's actually a problem in itself.

With the Lamp of Unwinding destroyed, with at least some of Rainer's goals accomplished, replaced with an even worse outcome, within the boundaries of the town exists an anomaly in the flow of time that Istus is finally able to frog, and stitch back together properly.

You Reclaimers, who are something of an anomaly yourselves, enough so that the gods themselves have reached to you, nudged you forward in your attempts to destroy the Hunger, will be able to watch, unaffected, as a time bubble corrects itself to the tune of about six or seven years, in real-time.

In a single split second, the town of Thay, and the inhabitants who were trapped inside from the beginning, age six to seven years. Trees sprout from nothing. Stone buildings, meticulously maintained, suddenly lean, on the verge of crumbling, as if they'd been abandoned for a decade. An overgrown field of flowers bloom where a tidy row of shrines once stood. Residents find themselves suddenly seven years older, inexplicably.

The Lamp of Unwinding has long been considered one of the most dangerous Grand Relics in the set. These are the consequences, this is what has to happen, to correct the damage that messing with the flow of time itself has done.



C. CLEANUP

The Lamp of Unwinding has been destroyed. Casariel is dead. The dragon she was trying to control escaped, ultimately sparing the town of Thay from destruction — at least dragon destruction.

But considering the price you all paid for it, it's difficult to call any of this a success.

In the moments after Thay is returned to the correct point in time, the Bureau of Balance — they were, you're now learning, camping a few leagues away, waiting for the time bubble to finally burst — immediately move in.

Lucretia, Dr. Tank and several assistants are among the travel party, here to tend to the wounded and offer counsel to the Red Mages, to assess their next steps. Thay has lived, but it has lost the magic, quite literally, that so heavily defined it. Without anything to study, and several years of living to make up for, the students of Boarbumps begin to pack their things and leave.

The air is tense. A sense of foreboding looms in the atmosphere itself, as the implications of what's just happened sink in. Nobody immediately blames you for this, of course, but as the hours move forward as intended, Thay's way of life grinds to a halt. There will be a lot of soul-searching to be done in the months and years ahead. It will not be easy.

And then there's you. Without healing magic to patch yourself up instantly, some of you may not be fit to travel for a day or two. The usual orbs that zip you back and forth between locations around Faerun have ceased to function, but those of you desperate to leave immediately will find carriages to take you home, under bright blue skies that don't seem to even realize what's happened on the surface.

Time always moves forward. Regardless of when you depart Thay, you will eventually.



D. WELCOME HOME ...?

New New Aspen, as you may recall, sits directly below the Moon Base. Next to it stands a tree. A Candlenights tree where, an entire year ago, the Reclaimers' very first mission took place — a Candlenights tree that had been, through the magic of the Space Mittens Grand Relic, grown to absolutely outrageous proportions, stretching almost to the Moon Base itself.

And, uh.

Weirdly. That giant tree is still there, giant and festive as ever.

That's not what the residents of New New Aspen find weird, however.

What's actually weird is the entire freaking Moon Base that appears to have gently-but-not-so-gently landed in the expansive field next to town. The loss of magic was enough to knock the base ever so slightly out of orbit, and, well, it went in a logical direction.

As you settle down, you can hear the panicked yelling of a certain completely panicking scientist who may or may not be named Lucas, and the laughter of his technomancer pal, who may or may not go by Miss Zarves:

"I can't believe I had to do that — I can't believe I did that!!!"

"Dude, you landed that better than a gymnastics meet!"



At least some things never change.

Reclaimers, welcome home. The base is intact and will keep you safe now and through the next Interlude.

We've seen and heard some voiced concerns about what to do with magic no longer an option currently. While we understand that this plot event has created a major difficulty for many characters, we want to take a moment and- first of all, thank you for bearing with us.

As this DWRP is highly experimental, we knew that there would be two possible outcomes to this mission. We've prepared for both, and want to assure you that the gears are in place to lead us to end game conditions. With any epic story, there's bound to be hills and valleys that come up in the plot along the way. While this dramatically does change the landscape of the game in the immediate, please rest assured that we have planned out where things are heading. Over the past year we've all written something spectacular together, and this particular point is no different. We honestly think that the upcoming mission and what's in store for you all will be something truly memorable. Remember, this game has always been founded on the idea that character choices and IC mechanics will shape the world and the direction the plot is heading in. And we're seeing that take shape right now, as we speak.

Those of you who have characters that run on magical energy to sustain themselves will still be able to participate- we've baked in something that we plan to share with those individuals in the upcoming few days. Those of you who are worried that your characters will be useless or face severe CR regression from here on out, fear not. The current state of the world is not permanent, nor is it intended to last through to end game.

We will get there. And you're all going to be amazing.

A few very important things we want to note here:

○ Your path actions, abilities and magic items are not gone. To pull back the curtain slightly, and without giving away upcoming plot details, you will be able to use them normally again for the next field mission. One of the major objectives of which will be to return magic to Faerun. These are pretty dire circumstances! But Lucretia seems confident that this will be fixed, and she will happily sit down with and reassure anybody who needs it.

○ To that end, if you participated in the CTA, you can roll for a new gacha item. It just will not function until the next mission.

○ Everything in the Moon Base is intact. That includes simulutions — they are not magic-based, but built on very advanced technology. The only exception at this point are the magic effects of Bender's food.

○ The people of New New Aspen will welcome you into their fold once again, and we will include a few prompts with them in the Interlude. They are not nearly as reliant on magic as the rest of Faerun might be — and they're kind of used to all the weird things you tend to bring with you at this point.

Additionally, we will be accepting re-apps for previously dropped characters who would like to join us for the final mission/game ending! More details on that soon.

A. CRESCENDO; FINALE

The beauty of the sentient mind is that hope is hard to kill. Even living in illusion for so long, the Bureau of Balance as a whole believed to the end that a happy ending was possible in Wonderland. That's a good thing, even if an unrealistic dream. Without that vision, that hope, there's no way to succeed. You all know that, don't you?

You knew it when you went back into the tree to save absolutely anyone that you could. Strangers some of them. Strangers most of them. It didn't matter. There's a happy ending to this story; everyone believed in it as surely as they carried out the innocent, as surely as they carried out each other.

You knew it when you got crafty with needle and thread, trying to reassemble the cruel joke Wonderland made with those who lost their way and fell into debt. Nine bodies are saved — including Henrik's, Henrik whose soul is reattached to his body, Henrik whose shaking arms can finally reach out to hold his son.

You knew it when you spoke to a dying Yggdrasil, Maya taking in the suffering and sickness of its years, listening with an open heart until, suddenly, as the tree's consciousness began to collapse, she was taken Somewhere Else. To speak with a man in a sharp suit with places to be. Things to do. Planar systems to devour. You know how it is. A poisoned arrow to Yggdrasil's open wound brought it down for good, leaving Shuichi to hurriedly plant the new Golden Leaf for a new World Tree; leaving Sayori and Angus McDonald to pick up the pieces of their dazed comrades.

You knew it when you tricked the Mirror Maze into glitching apart, giving it quite simply too much to keep track of. The fact that you found a helper along the way certainly didn't hurt, but let's face it: this was genius. The reward is Niel, crystallized, encasing the Compact. Suffering, as he has been for a very long time.

You knew it when three warlocks and a very angry wizard embarked on an ultimately suicidal mission, which just goes to show that the best-laid plans of mice and men sometimes lead to a 50% vore rate. A desperate attempt to keep Adrian distracted for long enough that the Compact could be retrieved was only able to delay him in the end. Just because success is possible doesn't make it guaranteed. Sometimes a fight with the villain ends in stalemate.

Sometimes a fight with the villain isn't a fight at all. Sometimes it's an outstretched hand (or two, or four), and sacrifices from each member of the party, and pain, and . . . self-awareness. Sometimes the villain just wants to let go. Sometimes there are happy endings, but this time Niel — fused into the Tree itself, his life tied up in the dying Yggdrasil, extended by the Compact — just wants it to stop. He doesn't want to hurt anyone anymore.

His friends are holding his hands as they take the Compact and make it stop.

This isn't a happy ending. But that isn't your fault. Hope for a happy ending has, quite literally, saved the world.

The nightmare is over. Wonderland slips away.

B. THE PEOPLE

And as suddenly as the myriad indulgences of Wonderland went to ... well, complete shit, there's something of a metaphorical blink of light. Those who were meant to be dead are - both your fellow Reclaimers and the Rolands who could not be fixed in time - but there is still many that are saved. Injuries knot back together at the slightest curative magic. Smog and negativity vanish like they never were, taking the last shambling monsters away with it. The souls of Shadowdale that you have returned to their respective bodies have a new life to forge. Things can be fixed.

If only it were that easy.

Shadowdale, for all intents and purposes, is uninhabitable. For the first time since the Bureau's mission began, an entire city population has lost its home, and must move on. No matter how much blame you may place on yourself for the way things turned out, whether it's guilt or hope that drives you forward, time, and the cycle of life itself, spins onward. And the people who live march on.

To New New Aspen.

Matthew has promised to bring the survivors of Shadowdale to his home, to give them a new chance. You have a couple of options here, if you would like to help them. You may serve as guard, helping escort the people of Shadowdale to New New Aspen. Super convenient for you, since it's right by the Moon Base! You may help them build and settle.

The people of New New Aspen, only months away from Candlenights, are hard at work carving their annual ornaments. You may help the new residents acclimate - whether it's helping them work the fields, start a business, or take part in their new home's most coveted tradition. And you'll have a new ornament to bring home with you, too.

C. THE FOREST

The deadened woods you traveled through to reach Shadowdale at the beginning of this mission seem somehow even more silent, cloaked in demise, than when you first stepped in it. The madness is gone, replaced with double the silence, a stillness like nothing you've ever experienced before. It's almost as if your senses, save for however you perceive the light of the sun, are gone.

At least, until someone speaks to you. A wood elf - he doesn't give you his name, but he does identify himself as someone who was trapped. Someone who, through your efforts to restore the Rolands, you gave life to again.

And he does have a request for you.

"This place has little hope for revival," he says, sniffing slightly, taking in the silence around you both. "At least, it has little hope in your lifetime.

But I do have something to ask of you. Give this place life, the way you did for the people here. Even if you, or even I, for that matter, will never likely live long enough to see it."

That's sort of an existential way of asking you to do some hardcore landscaping. But you will be provided with seeds of all sorts, and you will have the opportunity to plant them as you see fit. If you would like to build a shrine, or remember those who lost their lives here in some other way, you are free to do that as well.

There's something else curious, though: literally anything you plant, regardless of what it is, will eventually produce a viable bud sprouting from the gray, dry soil.

What does that even mean? If you plant a book of poems, are you going to get a poetree?

Are you even going to live long enough to see it in full bloom?

D. THE EXHAUSTION

You might not be on Lucretia levels of exhausted (she is, remember, zonked, and will remain so all the way back to the Moon Base and beyond for a while), but this has not been an easy mission for anyone who dared to test this Grand Relic's powers.

Whether you return from New New Aspen, or whether you finally catch a ride back to the Moon Base from the forest, you are now free to return home. This is your welcome home wildcard, a chance for you to try to recuperate, address anything at all before the next Lunar Interlude begins.

You will find that the Moon Base has an awfully somber feel to it, from the inner members of the Bureau to the people serving the Reclaimers in the town. Word is starting to trickle in on what you all went through.