The Price of Passage
In the Court of Mist, the Veiled Vanguard bargains with the enigmatic Weirwood, each trading pieces of themselves—memories, body, and soul—for powerful truths and spells. Escaping the twisting Feywild with altered minds and deeper burdens, they reemerge in the Xoraxhan Wastes and press on toward Ro’Zaad’s mysterious headquarters, pursued by memory, monsters, and myth alike.
Standing before the massive, ancient entity known as the Weirwood, the Veiled Vanguard faced steep, permanent costs in exchange for hidden truths. Asking to learn teleportation, Emelyne sacrificed her pinky nail and traded away all memories of her sister—leaving both sisters completely unaware of each other's existence in exchange for the 7th-level Teleport spell. Craum surrendered a piece of his metallic skin, an eye, and his memories of Dakka and Orrnar to reclaim his lost history as an ambassador of the ancient Xoraxian Empire. Seeking the identity of her parents' murderer, Thalia endured a brutal extraction of her beating heart, which was replaced by a fuel-dependent black metal heart glowing blue. Fueled only by distilled pixie rose blossoms, her new heart triggered a vision of a white-scaled Dragonborn in a swampy domain. Valerie traded her physical strength and vitality to learn her mother's illness was divinely inflicted; curing it required collecting river water from the Dark Fey Lord's city, infusing it with the blood of Ebor (god of arts and song), and blessing it at the gates between crossings. The Weirwood warned Valerie she was fated to die protecting Emelyne unless she severed her emotional ties—a bargain Valerie resisted by giving up memories of her father figure instead.
Directing them to an arcane root portal that led closer to their destination, the Weirwood departed. Realizing they were trapped within the Feywild's Court of Mist, the Vanguard felt the ancient spirit eroding their memories. Valerie shifted into "Null"—a gaunt, weakened form—while Ro’Zaad also fought the mist's influence. After a hostile creature forced them into a harrowing escape, Naoki suffered a temporary reduction in intelligence. Encountering a crow and an albino raven, Emelyne incinerated the crow with a Firebolt and traded a necklace to the raven, which guided them ten feet to the portal root leading back to the Prime Material Plane.
Emerging in the Xoraxian wasteland near the Taradaxes River north of Draelwyrm, Naoki, Craum, and Renatus immediately lost all memories of their time in the Feywild. Capitalizing on their amnesia, Valerie gaslit them with a absurd fabrication—claiming Craum gouged his own eye out to marry Naoki before a crow stole it, leading to Thalia’s heart replacement when a crow shard struck her. Resuming her travels disguised as a female Orc, Valerie watched as Craum recalled that the ancient Xoraxian obelisk lay buried somewhere in the waste. Ro’Zaad activated his long-held Sending Stone to contact his headquarters to the northwest, realizing he might have to pretend Craum was his captive to safely lead the group into his faction's base.
En route, the party encountered a Thri-kreen trading caravan charging ten gold per traveler. While considering a raid to steal their mounts, the Vanguard opted to browse their wares. Emelyne identified a Xoraxian metal blade suitable for Bitty's upgrades, alongside books covering occultism, Draelwyrm plant life, and Draelwyrm history. Valerie purchased a scaled rapier for 35 gold pieces, while Ro’Zaad noted that a blue-eyed trader named Frirth Clearwater was carefully sizing up the party for potential gemstone trade deals. As the caravan traversed the desert, a colossal purple wyrm suddenly erupted from the sands, devouring a supply cart and two pack animals in a single stroke.