dungeons-and-dragons/moon-break/balrik/intro.md

# Intro

## Episode 1: The Rising Moon

The Iron Soul. He didn't promise peace, he promised survival. Under his iron fist Kaldori lived.

The people are drained of hope.

### Day 1

We are members of the guild 'Moon Break'. We existed before the scourge but was far smaller.
Once the bugs attacked there were far more jobs.

The Endless Maw is where the bugs burrowed through the land, crating a series of tunnels and caverns.
We start in the Ruins of Zerhava, the former capital of Kaldori. Many evacuated.

In the ruins is where Moon Break has formed, since no one dares enter. It has been 20 years since the bugs invaded.
The room is cold stone, one lanturn burns low. A map pinned with rusted daggers, our leader Sevrin, in the center of a table shaped like a crecent moon.
Sevrin stands, arms folded, mask tilted slightly... "I've gathered everyone here because we have been tipped off and I need all hands on deck this job is going to be limited to only the best. If you look across the Seastone Bay Coast there is an island there unmarked by any maps. The island isn't on any maps we know or trust, we are looking for a needle in a haystack. First we need to find the island and then find what is in the island. It is unknown what structures may exist or the object we are looking to find."
He shows us a symbol of an upward facing fist.

We see Thatch chuckle from across the table.

"Oh real dramatic, oh so we are looking for a thing? What is it? How big is it? How do we not know anything about it?"

Sevrin, unyielding, "Do you remember when I pulled you from the rubble, what did you say to me?"

Thatch "I said my life is owed to you..."

Sevrin "Thats right, so I need you to get me that object"

Thatch yields.

Another speaks up. The familiar face of Calder (a man everyone adores). "Are we expecting anything for resistance?"

Sevrin "Unknown, I've told you all you need to do. You are the best so it will get done. Thats the end of that. Are there any questions?"

Balrik "Where did we get the tip?"
Sevrin "We got the tip from a lender"

Sevrin "We leave in the morning".

There are a few joining us on the mission:

- A female figure, Cheshire, we don't know much about her, but she is fond of poisons.
- Thatch Morlin, a human rogue, however he has a green tint to him. He is not in it for the reward, only for the thrill.
- Calder Rusk, a human knight from before the Iron Soul was in place. Big man, gray hair gets the job done, honorable.
- Peter, apparently we all hate him. Tall skinny. Never completes his jobs, only holds a flute at all times.

> The party introduces themselves.

- Glep, goblin who got himself stuck from a waist down in a pilotable automaton. Glep has a headset type device that has a microphone.
- Ormon, apostle of the living feast, human cleric. He has two symbols the crest of ausar, and the crest of the warborn. Sometimes says some random things that only make sense to him. We know he was given the apostle of the living feast, its just something he is called.
- Balrik Blackstone, an above average height dwarf who is either roudy or brooding depending on what is in his flask that day. He is known for getting the job done in silence never really speaking out. His origin is unknown, however it is assumed he is from around here. Only Calder and Sevrin have tenure over Balrik.

Thatch "We could just leave now, I'm ready"
Ormon "The leader said to wait for morning."
Calder "The apostle is right, we wait till tomorrow."

We notice Peter to have an earpice humming a certain tune.
The earpiece belonged to Meston Menlow, blessed by the holy statue of Ananor. It was his great-great-great grandfather's.
It can download any tune you can think into it. Ormon puts it in his ear.. sounds like an amateur playing a flute.

Ole Sherie, we plan to take this vessel. It is owned by Calder.

Balrik is sipping on a silver flask as he walks away. The drink is noticed by Ormon to have an Amber hue.

The Ironbrand use the scourge. These are what the workers of the Iron Soul are called.

Ormon "Sevrin, I just had a quick question for you.. something is not sitting right. Whatever job this is it will get done. But I've never seen you act such a way when talking about an informant."

Sevrin "If I'm going to tell you anything you're going to ahve to come in and close that door.. this informant they're not just an informant, its more a business partner. I don't know how he knows what is there but he has always been right. This time he is paying not with just gold, but something that can rarely be traded: power. That we can use. Maybe we can even overthrow the Iron Brand.."
Sevrin "I don't want to be king, I just want to clean this place up."

Ormon "Thank you for your loose lips sir. Why Peter?"

Sevrin "Because I know it'll be a dangerous job."

### Day 2

We wake up and head to the plaza to meet up for the mission.
It takes us a while to get to the boat, around a week and a half, 10 days have passed.

### Day 12

We make it to the wharf, we notice some members of our guild using the docks
It takes us a while to get to the boat, around a week and a half, 10 days have passed.

We see Thunderhatch, who sparks in ack.

We see the boat, however he used to have a larger ship called the Colunga.

We set sail and 4 days pass.

### Day 16

As we explain to Glep that god may or not be real..

Calder "Do you see that?"
Thatch "Its water, its been water for 3 days!"

The air above the water has a visible wave around it.

Ormon sets off on his flying carpet to investigate. The cloudy wavy texture is an illusion and he is able to see land as he gets closer.
As he nears shore, he can see on the shore there are a number of figures and one of them begins to face him. However the thing doesn't have a face, but a silver mask.
On this part of the island there are 8 of them present.

We begin to sail towards the illusion.

Calder "There is company on the island.. 8 of them."
Gleb "What if Gleb family there inside small Glebs"

Balrik continues swigging his flask.

We hear a whirring by us as a crystal shard appears on the mast.

We approach the island, and as we get close Cheshire swallows a purple potion.
She erupts in purple hair and has large tiger claws. She erupts from the boat and shoots off to the island.

Gleb hurls a javelin at the shore and collides with a creature. It recoils slightly and does not bleed.

We see a large figure raise both hands and shoot a massive glass crystal at the ship.
Gleb throws himself in front of it.. trying to catch it.

There is a white hue around the massive figure. As it falls over on the ground.
We make it onto the shore, and there are glass shaped land mines all over the place.
Peter happens to trigger one.

Ormon and Peter are going to take the carpet over.
Leaving the rest of us to just avoid the bombs.

The tower is visibe now, it is made out of a pearl type material. Sturdy and compact, a type of metal.
The base seems normal, however as it gets higher the physics don't make sense. There are swirls and oddities.

Thatch and Balrik run across the minefield nimbly dodging through.

We hear "Hey guys."
We all turn to see a tiny rock guy, he's 2ft tall.
He claims to be 'Thomas'.

He says he needs us to do the puzzle. To enter the tower.
Once you go in, you kinda have to get to the top before you get out.
We walk to the puzzle. We see some statues in a chess type setup.
Each of the statues are doing various poses, Thomas says they didn't reset it.
If we solve the puzzle we pass the test. We could just hit the control panel to go up.
As we wait for Thomas to reset the puzzle, a large explosion eminates between us and Calder.
A massive beast takes a large first and splat she goes, she was a tiefling elf hybrid.
The massive creature falls over and loses energy.

We walk over to the control panel that controls the way up.
Peter gets shoved into the elevator as Calder presses the up button. There is a down button available.

Glep takes Thomas and goes up the elevator.

Ormon and Balrik end up flying up to the balcony. And find another elevator and button.
We fly back down and take the same teleporter everyone else took.

We go up and are in a library.
Ormon does not find any books of interest.
Balrik finds a book that contains seemingly important dates, and times written in celestial.

Glep is getting religious on us.
We all follow Glep.

Ormon "Glep what do you see?"
Glep "Well I don't see god."
Ormon "Glep thats not how gods work."

There a book on the altar of this church room we entered.
The book is filled with hymns prising someone. But none of the entries refer to a name.
The only person refered to is 'The Creator'.

As we trek forward, we begin to see different shards where it seems like we are moving through a memory tree. And each shard is a memory of someone.
They are in 3rd person pov. One memory is of a little boy in the snow, there is another memory of a tree with crystal blue leaves. There are no people just a portal in the center of a tree.
There aren't any meaningful events, its more like a birds eye view into another thing's life.

We exit the camera vault. We begin to notice a light flickering and when it flickers off power seems to be removed from everything.
We find a grand stair case, one set up one set down. We choose to go up the staircase.

We split up at the stairs, Thomas and Calder go down. We meet back up in 30 minutes and Thomas and Calder are nowhere to be seen.
We go down the stairs, and the shards of memories become more common.
They are the same birds eye view of another story. We reach an end and we see a room with a well. As we look down it, it becomes pure white.

You don't have to go down the well. All we needed was to understand that we were inside a brain. Say that out loud.
As Ormon says that out loud everything shifts and we end up in a sphere of memories. The sphere begins to shake and turn red. The Well closes up like a noodle and gets slurped.
We wake up.. corpses everywhere. Calder holding Thomas against a mound of bodies.
Ormon looks down the corridor Calder was looking towards. We see a hulking creature humanoid in nature, the size of a house. A brownish black blood drips from the goliaths mouth.

## Episode 2: Gluttany Slayer

We start off where we left off in a large area filled with mounds of corpses, and a large creature feasting on them.
We investigate the area, to his left we see a glowing blue ball in a chandalier.
Another point of interest, is that some of these piles are fresh. Blood dripping from the tops of these piles, and not every humaniod here is dead.

Ormon and Balrik make it over to a half alive body.
Ormon begins to perform a ritual that involves carving into the body.
As Ormon plops the flesh in his mouth he begins to relive some memories of the person..

**From the bodies eyes**
He is tumbling down, pulled aside by his party who notice the creature. Chowing down much like we see in the present time.
Not long after there is a *crack* and a voice. 'Guttany, they are in here now. This palce is an absolute mess, why aren't you treating your nexus'

He creeps forward to get a view and sees an angelic asimar. With bright radiant wings, the figure flutters over and grabs a chandalier and attaches it to the ceiling.

Asimar 'Gluttany, if this tower falls I will flay you myself.'
Gluttany 'Grrr Mrrr'
Asimar gives Gluttany a look of disgust. Then he feels it, the pure feeling of fear. As the Asimar locks eyes with him.

**The memory cuts out.**

Balrik sneaks around, I see a muriel of a hand with five diamonds each of varying colors: white, orange, yellow, purple, black

As I continue to move I see the familiar figure of Thatch.

Balrik 'How did you get here'
Thatch 'Funny story, before I tell you did you see Cheshire die.'
Thatch 'By the time I got to the robot things, they were gone. So I went to a sortof library but then I walked through and saw the funniest thing; the deeper in I got it was like there were images of completly random things until I saw.. well you know the story of Calder.'

We begin to search more, as we do Calder is touched by a body that is in a pile.

> The Moon Break guild has a perfect sign language system that uses minimal hand movement.

Balrik starts a fire to distract Gluttany, Ormon goes up to the chandalier on his magic carpet.

Combat begins, initiative order is: Balrik, Glep, Thomas, Calder, Gluttany, Ormon

We all make our way to the blue orb and get absorbed...

Ormon makes it to the room first, enters a circular room with decending stairs. At the bottom there is a humanoid figure that is writing frantically. All around the room is writing, undecernable jibberish. The figure is long and lengthy, with wrappings all around him like a mummmy.

Glep is next and as he is falling with Thatch yelling 'We could have had him', the individual writing ceases.

He begins to look at them..
Glep 'Hello friend!'
Figure 'Friend? Friend...?' and looks confused.

Figure 'We have to get to the top floor, but I'm not going to let you'
He moves his arm and reveals many figures that seem to be insane. Murmuring to themselves.

Gabriel wants no one in this realm.

Figure 'You are like all the others'

He raises his hand and a gust of wind hits us as something feels funny in our minds...

Balrik is not impacted however Glep doesn't look as good as he yells in brief agony.

We try and convince him we aren't here like the others, as he is making his decision an air ship crashes into the room.
30 people charge off the ship and begin to rain the area.

Initiaive is rolled: Balrik, Glep, Thatch

We end up taking the air ship and sailing out of the tower...

Ormon worships due to finding an old journal of someone named 'The Apostle'.

Balrik exposes his backstory of being enslaved before the scourge came. The invasion of the scourge gave the opportunity to escape and on that escape this staff of power was found by accident. The true power of the staff was not discovered until far later.

Calder is a true knight, Kaldori doesn't know kindness anymore. No one helps anyone in need so Calder seems to dedicate himself into over compensating. Calder 'used' to be a knight, the Iron Soul revoked him of that title, be branded as one of his own or to leave.