Chapter 1: Fire in Runemar
Runemar's Festival of Flame was meant to honor the god of fire with a grand display in the central square. Instead, a masked figure moved through the crowd, urging people toward the ritual circle while the lead mage openly denounced the god the festival was built to praise. The spell collapsed inward, then erupted outward in a devastating blast. The square became a crater. Hundreds died. Sal, Aralas, and Perric survived.
The Masked Man crawled from the wreckage and vanished into the chaos, leaving infernal signs behind. Imps clawed out of the crater, and the survivors fought them back while Aralas helped save the wounded. Captain Henry Gunn of the Firewatch gave the party a patch and a charge: find the Masked Man. Their first hunt through the ruined streets led to more imps, a Maw Demon, and the clear truth that the explosion had been more than a failed spell. It was a summoning.
Chapter 2: The Mask Falls
The Masked Man returned in the smoke, amused by the party's survival and convinced that no one in the world was truly innocent. Steel, arrows, shadow, and necrotic magic answered. Aralas's shots struck him but vanished into black mist. Perric blinked through smoke and rooftops. Sal met the impossible with brute force and one perfect greataxe swing that split the Masked Man from shoulder to hip.
The body under the mask was not the threat they expected. It was a frail old man, impossibly weak for the power he had shown. The mask still carried fading magic, and Aralas found a strange ring marked with shifting letters. Captain Gunn accepted the proof and promised payment in the morning. That night at The Dancing Dragon Inn, the party drank, gambled, traded pieces of their pasts, and found a fragile first peace while Runemar still smoldered outside.
Chapter 3: The Sage of the Forest
Morning brought Rice Cakes, Perric's improvised fried-dough triumph, and the party's first real payday from the Firewatch. Looking for answers, they took the strange ring to Beorc, a deeply suspicious gnome merchant. He identified it as a Ring of Grammarian, a rare magic item able to alter a spell by changing one letter in its name. Beorc also sold Sal a fraudulent Deck of Many Things, which would become everyone's problem.
Captain Gunn then sent them north to investigate missing lumber shipments and violence near the forest roads. The party found traps, hobgoblin guardians, a riddle that collapsed under scheduling errors, and a hidden dome containing Paige, the Sage of the Forest. She offered comfort, kale soup, and a fortune. Her vision revealed three urgent signs: a rusted bronze key, a brutal axe, and a Riffmage. Whatever was disturbing the forest, the Riffmage mattered most.
Chapter 4: The Riffmage
Paige pointed Team Biscuit toward a goblin camp where lumber shipments had been attacked and travelers had been killed. The goblins were terrified of smart people, and Sal's fake deck made matters worse by conjuring squirrels in the middle of tense diplomacy. When the goblins admitted to murdering and eating transport crews, Aralas gave the quiet signal that talking was over.
The camp battle was fast, messy, and decisive. The party fought through the goblins and reached the larger truth: the violence had been pushed along by Stratta, the Riffcaster. Stratta was not quite the villain they expected. He was a magical rock eccentric whose stolen Riffaxe had been taken by his brother, Sterling. If Team Biscuit wanted the prophecy's brutal axe, they would have to enter Sterling's tower.
Chapter 5: Tower of the Bitch Mage
Sterling's tower was a monument to sibling rivalry, bad band history, and dangerous magical architecture. Stratta explained that Sterling had stolen his Riffaxe after a feud over music, posters, and whether a critical riff belonged on guitar or bass. His plan was simple: Team Biscuit would go inside, retrieve the axe, throw it out a window, and let Stratta handle the rest. Naturally, nothing was that simple.
The party smuggled Sal inside as a bedroll delivery, fought animated armor, solved a pipe-organ riff puzzle, survived a door mimic, looted strange magical gear, and eventually found the Riffaxe. Perric threw it from the tower window. Stratta returned in a blast of rock-star magic, opened the way forward, and sent the party into the final chamber. There, Sterling waited in black, ready for battle.
Chapter 6: Battle of the Bands
Rather than kill Sterling in front of Stratta, Team Biscuit chose the only reasonable alternative: a magical Battle of the Bands. Instruments appeared. Aralas took up a saxophone, Perric a strange lute, and Sal a collapsible drum kit. Sterling raised the stakes, insisting that if Team Biscuit lost, they would have to kill Stratta.
The performance became a magical duel of pyrotechnics, grease, illusion, floating solos, flaming skeleton musicians, and impossible stage presence. Team Biscuit pushed harder every time Sterling escalated. Sal broke Sterling's instrument, the chamber fell silent, and Sterling conceded. The brothers reconciled, trained the party, and sent them back to Runemar stronger. Back in the city, the red mask vanished from Aralas's pack, Councilwoman Varris agreed to inspect the crater, and Team Biscuit returned to The Dancing Dragon with more questions than answers.
Chapter 7: Honey, Gloves, and the Blinking Spider
With several days before Varris could meet them at the crater, the party prepared. At Eddie's Eddventuring Eddtras, Sal used the last card from the fake deck and produced mysterious gloves. A nine-foot bear named Sigmond appeared selling potions, and the party somehow sold him to Eddie. At the Fighters Guild, Sal challenged Grognax the Destroyer and was instantly dropped, clarifying that confidence and victory are not always neighbors.
The next job led to the Blinking Spider Tavern, where owner Regis had gone missing near the crater. The party investigated strange runes beneath the tavern, lingering magical disturbance, and signs that something unnatural still pulled at Runemar. They earned another reward, but the spider was still out there, the crater still burned, and the vanished mask remained the sharpest loose thread.
Chapter 8: Fated Companions
Far from Runemar, Paige sent Faegan, a wandering druid, to find Team Biscuit and help guide them. He located them through rats, herbs, persistence, and a certain amount of social improvisation. Aralas trusted him quickly, Perric bonded with him over cooking and questionable plants, and Sal demanded proof of magic. A Starry Wisp was enough. Faegan joined the party.
At last, Varris met the group at the crater, where excavation had revealed a massive buried metal box marked by runes no one could read. Aralas suspected Thalanor might hold answers, and he revealed more of his past as a Warden of the Greenwood. Team Biscuit joined Therian's Thespians for the long road south. At a bridge, bandits demanded an impossible toll and agreed to accept payment in performance. Therian panicked. Team Biscuit prepared for trouble.
Chapter 9: Fisticuffs at the Footbridge
Faegan slept through the crisis, overwhelmed by herbs and poor choices, while the caravan reached the bandit-held bridge. Therian admitted he could not produce an eight-hundred-gold performance and begged the party to fight instead. Perric and Aralas began imagining a controlled surprise. Sal heard surprise and opened negotiations with a thrown javelin.
The bridge battle was brutal. Aralas went down and, as Perric forced a healing potion between his lips, saw a flash of Thalanor in ruin. Team Biscuit rallied, the bandits broke, and the survivors leapt into the ravine. Therian immediately decided the fight was art and wanted to turn it into a play. Days later, the Greenwood rose ahead. It was quiet, empty, and wrong.
Chapter 10: The Silence of Home
The closer Team Biscuit came to Thalanor, the more the forest felt drained. No birds, no insects, no wildlife, no living pulse of magic. At the gates, Aralas tried to prove himself in the worst possible way and was answered by a Warden's arrow. After giving the proper salute, he named himself Aralas Cane, son of Lord Aranor Cane. The guards had never heard Lord Cane had a son, but they let him pass.
Inside, Thalanor seemed prosperous but hollow. Aralas found his former tutor, Rin Elerval, who quietly hinted that not all was well. The Warden grounds were decayed. The new wardens were too young and too vague. High Elves from the Feywild had convinced Lord Cane to help build a siphon that would draw raw magic from their realm into the Ancient Heart. Aralas confronted his father and saw his sister Aeloria's silent fear. Then Perric glimpsed the red mask again and followed it into the city.
Chapter 11: Into the Feywild
Rin explained the danger clearly: raw Feywild magic was not a blessing. It was unstable, chaotic, and capable of destroying the Ancient Heart instead of strengthening it. If the siphon could not be stopped from Thalanor, it would have to be destroyed from the Feywild side. Aeloria arrived with the knowledge to open a path, and Aralas returned to her the knotted rope she had given him long ago as a promise of home.
Perric, meanwhile, followed the masked figure to a quiet house and saw a vine-wrapped door open into somewhere else. The masked figure noticed him, smiled, and vanished through it. Reunited, Team Biscuit followed Aeloria to an ancient tree, opened the portal, and stepped through. Aeloria was shoved in behind them. In the Feywild, a satyr named Jingles stole several of their names, renaming Aralas, Sal, and Faegan through trickery. Then a strange mephit became a horned skeletal beast, and Team Biscuit won a Javelin of Lightning from the fight.
Chapter 12: Names Restored, Magic Broken
Sylvara entered the story while searching for odd disturbances in the Feywild. Her satyr acquaintance, Jingles, finally admitted he had found strangers and stolen their names. Sylvara followed the trail to Team Biscuit and immediately understood what had happened. She let the confusion breathe just long enough to enjoy it, then restored Aralas, Sal, and Faegan to themselves. Perric, who had never given his true name away, was left with a pointed punishment: to Sylvara, he remained Ferdinand.
Sylvara led the party into the Night Court, where she was recognized by Caelith Veyrion, an admirer so pathetic that even humiliation seemed to encourage him. After Sal attempted to solve the problem with a hug, Caelith was intimidated into guiding them to the machine. There, near a pool of raw magical energy, the Birdman stood beside the siphon. Team Biscuit struck from hiding. The Birdman laughed, swallowed the field in darkness, and summoned chaos. Sal cut him down, but the pool erupted and a Hill Troll emerged, berserk and dangerous.
Chapter 13: Before the War
The fight did not end with the Birdman. The machine awakened, gears grinding as it pulled more and more raw magic from the Feywild. Lightning lashed across the field. Perric greased and ignited the machine's base. Sal absorbed terrible force. The giant touched the device, drew a storm into itself, and was split apart when the lightning surged beyond control. Then the power slammed into the machine.
Everything went white. When Team Biscuit woke, they were no longer in the Feywild. They stood in a living Greenwood, vibrant and full of animals, with a healthy leyline beneath the land. Thalanor was whole, peaceful, and flourishing. No one remembered the Shattering War. No one knew the Cane family. Drow had been seen recently, though in the party's time they had vanished a thousand years ago. The truth settled slowly: the machine had thrown them into the past.
Chapter 14: Back in Time
Perric summoned a raven familiar named Edgar, and Team Biscuit returned to Thalanor's council chambers seeking answers. The city was mundane in its normalcy, full of civic concerns rather than the fear and political rot they expected. Aralas tried to ask about the Ancient Heart through old Warden language, but no one reacted as if the Heart were in danger. That was almost more frightening.
The party went to the cavern where the Heart should have been. The later structure was gone. The cave itself was calm, healthy, and free of corruption. Faegan questioned a spider. Sylvara searched for unnatural magic and found nothing. As they explored deeper, Aralas realized the Ancient Heart did not create the leylines. It strengthened them. And in this time, before the war, the Heart was already gone. Aeloria wondered whether history had lied: perhaps the Shattering War had not been fought to protect the Heart, but to claim it. Perric's drow text pointed toward a vanished Underdark city, and Team Biscuit began preparing to seek answers below.
