The Rectifiers and their company drifted near the shore of Ignis. They found the entire city nearly destroyed. Most of the buildings were completely obliterated, a black soot covering what was left. Sat where most of the city once stood was a gargantuan sinkhole with a slight green glow coming from its depths. Near the rim of the sinkhole stood a man in black clothing with gray armor pieces dotting his body. The armor had dark red accenting. The Rectifiers disembarked and approached the man.
Upon hearing their approach, the man turned, his hands rested on his blade with a red crystal at the pommel. When he turned, the party now saw an iron mask covering his face. He magically removed it with his hand, and it turned to smoke at its removal. Behind the mask, Maron and Ed recognized the man as Borum. For Maron, it was the man who had saved his life. For Ed, it was the man who nearly took his.
The man greeted them oddly, seeming surprised that this place is where “it” would happen. He told the two that knew him he knows they had been looking for him, but that they had been looking for two different men. Ominously, he added that one of them will be quite disappointed. Both seeming to have had enough of discussion, Ed and Borum agreed to settle their differences there and then. When Ed stepped forward, drawing his blade, Borum also drew his and summoned a ring of fire around them.
A short duel unfolded, Ed’s allies unable to offer assistance through the inferno. At last, Borum struck Ed down and picked him up by the throat. He told Ed that he had failed his mission, and he drove his red-crystal blade into Ed’s gut, blood splattering on the sand behind him. His last statement to Ed was that they would have to find another way. With that, he took Ed’s blade from his hand and drove that one into his belly as well. Borum dropped Ed to the ground, pulling his own blade and facing the party.
Before Borum could address the party, the group saw a broken blade protrude through Borum’s stomach. He felt the blood on his hands, seemingly surprised that he was even bleeding. He stumbled on his feet and eventually stepped off the precipice into the gaping sinkhole. The sinkhole seemed to offer a satisfied sigh and a green glow at Borum’s fall.
Though some of the Rectifiers refused to believe what had happened, they said their goodbyes as their roguish ally drew his final breaths. With his body returned to the ship, the group approached the sinkhole and began to brainstorm how to quell this shadow storm.
With most of their ideas expended, they agreed that their best course of action would be to leap into the sinkhole itself. The Rectifiers joined hands and leaped into the darkness.
They found themselves in a chamber seemingly made of flesh. A pit of fleshy spikes sat in front of them, a cutaway opening on the other side. After a few moments, tears began to rip in the flesh near the pit, and fleshy abominations on all-fours crawled out to attack them. The Rectifiers entered combat with the creatures. They found that after each was defeated, they scurried into the fleshy spikes. After a few waves of the beasts were defeated, there was a sort of bridge over the spikes leading to the opening. The party carefully traversed the bodies and journeyed into the next chamber.
There, the Rectifiers found the magical projection of Sariel lingering yet again. She seemed relieved by them finally arriving. She told them the Candidate whose realm they were now in was quite far gone, and she could not even go much deeper than the chamber in which they found themselves. In front of her was a strange altar with a tiny contraption connected to a magical circle of runes. The door ahead also held these runes. Sariel said a strong evil guards this chamber, and that the party has to either give it an offering, or face it. With that, she said her magic tearing a hole into this realm was growing weak, but before she could finish, a tear of red magic and dark feathers appeared. Through it came some packages and an elf woman. Confused though she was, Sariel’s magic had been spent, and she faded away.
The elf woman had near shoulder-length blonde hair and mousy features. She wore mage robes with a high collar and long skirts. Nearly all the color and sigils had faded away. She introduced herself as Audrea, apparently unaware of where she was or where she had been. Audrea told the party she remembered very little of her own life before she was just drifting through a dark sea, but she knew she had to find the Rectifiers. She added that she knew not why, but she knew of them and needed to help them stop this Doom and fix the kingdom. Happy to have a new ally, the party agreed they would not sacrifice any appendages to the guardian and decided to face it directly.
What came forth from the flesh was a hulking abomination of a man. He seemed to maybe have once been a man, but he was now an abomination of flesh from various sources. His mouth was covered or nonexistent. He wielded an enormous greatsword that had bits of flesh growing on it. The flesh seemed to give it green veins flowing through the metal. He summoned flesh hounds that appeared to heal him throughout the battle as they howled.
Though their enemy was relentless with his broad swings, the Rectifiers came out battered but unbroken…