Rift City Recap #17

Clover's Log

The fight with the Church members is over. Oman finds three Residuum coins on the leader and gives them to Brendel, since he knows what can be done with them. We drag the bodies to a corner of the cavern, and Nyx lights a bonfire. If anyone happens by, at least the bodies will be harder to identify. Then we dive to my father’s lair. When I pull out one dragon scale to open the door, it hits me that we forgot to go steal the final scale we needed from the transport, leaving us one shy. Clearly it’s been a hectic couple days to have forgotten something so important to our mission.

Inside the lair, I deflate just a little. The tabaxi standing before us is not my real father but the mechanical one we first met. I present him with the box of scales. That’s when we hear a voice alerting us to the fact that we do not have enough. The voice doesn’t come from the “dad” in front of us—it’s coming from the shadow-black tabaxi emerging from the water, fur dripping wet. Despite the fact that I’ve been waiting for this moment my entire life, I find it difficult to move. The nagging question of Why did you leave me? roots my feet to the floor a moment too long, giving my companions time to shuffle their own feet awkwardly while Brendel greets my father. This finally breaks the spell and I embrace the father I’ve never known. I know we have a pressing mission, but a lifetime’s worth of questions are swirling in my head. The most important comes out first: Where is my mother? His answer sends new spirals of dread and confusion through me. He doesn’t know. She was supposed to stay with me, watch over me when he left. So, where has she been all these years? This is when I learn that from my father’s point of view, he left me in that forest less than a year ago, not the 19 it’s actually been. He experiences time much differently, sleeping for long periods until he gets missions from the “Titans.” This is why he has so many mechanical versions of himself, out here doing the work that needs doing while he sleeps. While this makes me feel a little better about the whole abandonment thing, we still have a ways to go.

Getting down to business, my father tells us what he knows, confirming some things we’ve discovered in our travels. Since he was born during the Shattering, outside the barrier, his knowledge goes back to a time when the truth wasn’t completely obscured. He tells us that not only are these “Hearts of Power”—the machines we’ve been acquiring scales to fix—the key to restoring the Warforged, they will also help bring down the veil and restore magic, which the Dark Lady is currently syphoning for herself. It’s why no caster is too powerful. She is also syphoning the life force of the Warforged. While all of the functional Hearts are in the control of the Syndicate, Shadow knows of 6 outside the Syndicate that can be found and fixed by us, though he doesn’t have their locations. Now Shadow reveals he's rather buried the lede. He pulls out a box exactly like the one he left me with as a baby and shows us that he has acquired a bronze dragon scale, which means we have enough to fix the Heart before us.

Nyx can no longer contain herself and asks about the Mechanus book. My father has it but has been unable to defeat the guardian within to gain the truth of the text. He gives the book to us, and we assure him we will get it done. With only a little more ado—during which my father reveals the blooms on the barrier are dragon attacks, which explains my affinity for the creatures—Nyx and I set about restoring the Heart. She has experience with Warforged and manages to find a rhythm, intuitively figuring out what goes where. As the final scale slots into place, Keys’ eyes light up with something strange, and his posture becomes more assured. For all intents and purposes, he seems restored. Time will tell, as he seems to have retreated into the past again.

Nyx continues to examine Keys while the rest of us decide on next steps. My father will stay here and guard the restored Heart since his lair is protected. It’s possible the Heart coming back to life has alerted someone to its presence, but if that’s the case, nowhere is safe for it. Our party has two missions now. We decide the first will be entering the Mechanus book and getting the truth so we can go back to the “Justice Room.” Then we are going to find and steal the scale we missed so the Syndicate can’t have it. Hopefully Nyx can get new information on its location. With that decided, we step into the book, choosing to do so where my father can watch over things.

We find ourselves in some sort of moving box with nothing below us. No, not a box. We are each on a moving spoke in a massive gear. Different creatures—mostly modrons—are on various other gears around us. Then we notice a massive, hugely complex Warforged in the distance. He turns his eyes on us and heads our direction.