On the third day of training, we awoke and started whatever daily tasks we were given. The chores that somehow contribute to the Kinship functioning. Concluding those chores, Storm started trying to discretely seek out Kernick, perhaps he had successfully deserted from this ragtag military of volunteers. Eventually making his way to the Mundos camp, locating Kernick doing some maintenance on the training yard, refilling the targets with straw, flattening the sands of the sparing pit. Satisfied not with Kernicks fate, but with knowing where the orc is. Storm started heading back to the camp of Xyzs, not entirely sure what he should accomplish until the day’s training started that afternoon.

Eventually time progresses and everyone started heading to their respective training arenas. Learning their lessons about standing up when they were told not to. “I hope you’ve learned about the ideals of the kinship.” Captain Sandaman started with, her voice booming over the crowds as she started with some brief announcements. At the conclusion of which she and the other illusionists behind her on the stage start their choreographed movement, whisking all the audience off to their training, our senses to fading to black.

We start coming to, there are stone walls, buildings, a couple temporary tents. The architecture tells us where we are. We’re in the Dragon age, before the Battle of Dragons End. Memories that aren’t ours start flooding us as we learn that we’re in a fort with the simple name of Fort Joy. Xen is the marked commander of this base, everyone starts remembering what the tasks at hand were. Everyone in the fort was preparing to send a team to retrieve some material the next morning, which is only a few hours away. The general feeling of the fort is one of unease, there’s been rumors and reports of an affliction called “The Whispers” potentially happening. Guards were doubled hours ago, long before we started inhabiting these memories. Magic scrolls to assist with dispelling the affliction have been handed out, so everyone has one. It can be likened to rabies, with a further infection of the mind causing one to whisper to themselves as they turn on those nearby, friend and foe alike. Xen starts asking for anyone that can detect magic. Proceeding to pair them off, he ordered them to start checking everyone in the Fort for who could be infected. Discretely, Storm slipped Xen a numbing tonic that should assist if they get as far as needing to fight anything. Storm starts prepping for the plans the next day, finding it best to keep busy. These trainings are much more excitement than he had previously bargained for. Storm did remember he was the only logistics and supply handler in the fort, so after he concluded what prep was needed for the next day, he started digging for whatever supplies could be borrowed for this particular memory.

Xen was in the yard, running the fort when he noticed the silence. The silence that only happens when the sounds of nature disappear. A low fog on the ground starts rolling through the gaps in the portcullis of the gates. Starts building up along the outside walls, eventually rolling over and through the battlements. As the commander, he orders everyone to get to the gates, to prepare for battle. With the fog now inside the yard of the keep, they’re here. Someone or something is here, and intent on harm. Standing in the middle of the yard, Xen checks for magic and finds that there are three beings here, quickly pointing them out he sends people to investigate.

Screams. There’s now more bodies, those that have been lost are now more than there was a few minutes ago. With an attack elsewhere, they finally made themselves visible. The same blurry beings that have been present in the previous memories are now here. Their appearance coincides with chaos breaking out. Several people seemed to have suddenly been infected with The Whispers, and they turn on what was once a friend. The blurry beings moving across the fog with ease, while anyone else causes ripples and movement. They’re dispatched with only a few being lost. Those that are sick are successfully talked out of their current state of mind, as the fog starts to dissipate.

Captain Sandaman makes herself visible. She proceeds to inform and remind us about the perils of feeling too comfortable, distrust can and does occur. We were attacked by assassins, the blurry beings are called Ardaractans. They are from another plane. Many of the non-monster kinds have associated Ardaractan influence with that of dragons, but the captain informs us that is not the case, and we had simply not known that they were not allied. Training concludes for the day, and we cut to the next morning.

This is the fourth day of training and the morning occurs like any other. Alan excitedly gathers both Storm and Xen, so he can sit near them, Storm and Alan exchanging discussion of their “battle scars” which were little more than bruises at this point. Alan praises them and thanks the two of them for assisting to give him confidence. When everyone gets to the training stadium in the afternoon, the announcements largely focus around the need for increased discipline around the Kinship military. Settling in after the announcements, the coordination from the trainers leads to the by now familiar feeling of sensory deprivation as things fade to black.

When the group and their associated senses start to wake up again, they look around. Finding themselves on a sky ship, there are small birds taking advantage of the windbreak produced from the ship as it soars above the clouds. There are 5 people onboard, looking around Storm recognizes that Alan, and Xen are nearby. Looking in the direction of the other two, his senses are suddenly cut off, a new jolting sensation compared to what is normally a gentle transition into sensory deprivation.

When our senses finally return, we find ourselves overlooking a cityscape. Caverns with dwellings carved into the walls. Storm, Xen, and Alan are all present. After a brief pause, Captain Sandaman appears, but not the one we’ve grown accustomed to seeing. Her clothes are not of Sarpine. Her face, seemingly an approximation of the same face we would recognize. She also appears less focused, more blurry. With a face that appears to be concerned, she starts speaking to us, but not with words that can be heard, just felt. This being we know as Captain Sandaman informs us that they are an Ardaractan. Apologizing about the state we currently find ourselves in, they start letting us know what happened. Our minds needed to start rebuilding. The Crystal Barrier we had grown up knowing, at the south end of the continent, had shattered. Many of our colleagues had fallen both in the shockwave that came from the breaking, and the subsequent attack. It was at this that she changed where we found ourselves. Floating. Still incorporeal. Overlooking the second arena that we were familiar with, we saw the beginning of the transition, when we would normally be losing ourselves with the sensory inputs we relied on so much.

On the stage, we could see Captain Sandaman in her human glamour in what appeared to be kneeling. Deep in the concentration that would be required for this type of mass illusion. But in the crowd of trainees we could see her real form. She was walking around, performing some activity we didn’t recognize on each member of the audience. As she neared our physical bodies there was a loud crack, looking in the direction of that crack we see that the barrier now had a sizable fracture. While normally they would be uncommon and a guard would quickly be dispatched and placed at it, this one was abnormal. This abnormality primarily stemming from its size, this was larger than any that had happened before and as the party and the trainers looked onward at the barrier registering what they were looking at smaller fractures started to stem outward from it before the crystal barrier was a mosaic of rainbows and cracks. The cracks start glowing brightly, it was bright enough we instinctually look away despite not physically being there. Reaching a peak of bright light, there is another loud boom, the crystal barrier explodes.

The shockwave from this explosion starts spilling light out. The training arena closest to the barrier is quickly eradicated, as the camp of the Kinship is washed in a bright white light, there are pockets of resistance. Mages creating small barriers to protect themselves. People trying to outrun a wave of light that quickly catches up. There are bodies everywhere. As the wave gets to where our physical bodies now occupy, we see a being we know as Captain Sandaman project a bubble, she was nearby and we were closest. We were encompassed in a bubble with her, as a wave of darkness now starts rushing out of the same place that the light just came from. This wave of darkness accompanied by a road, at first it was dull but the clarity quickly comes. Small pockets of soldiers start grabbing what weapons they can as they advance towards the direction the roar came from, further into Presque. There are some that try to desert and flee, they are quickly met with a spear or arrow to the back. What started as a single roar has quickly accumulated into a series of smaller, equally loud ones. Commanders are yelling out to assume defensive positions.

Soon thereafter, a crush monster-kind start rushing over the hillsides of Presque. Some quickly falling to both arrows and spells alike. The early victor of this engagement appears to not be the monster-kind. But it’s a fleeting lead, as there are giant wormlike monsters that come bursting out of the ground to attack and subsequently eat the archers and casters that were keeping the monsters at bay. This has led to the monsters now quickly gaining the upper hand. The attack was more coordinated than expected, and the monsters are quickly overwhelming the encampment of the kinship. We see a figure at the front line glowing, “I will see you in the next life” we hear a voice in our heads echo out as the glowing being then explodes into light, the monsters that could see the light are disoriented. Along with the burst of light, our vision returns to the soft surroundings of what we learn to be Takarota. Sandaman proceeds to inform the party that we were saved by them. We were whisked into a mindscape she had, and we were temporarily just memories. But it took time for our minds to readjust and heal. The event we witnessed was several days ago.