Session 7: Echoes of Igni'ka

Emerging from the island’s ruins, the party encounters Shiori, a resourceful and enigmatic woman with dark skin and hair, clad in hand-crafted leathers and armed with self-made weapons. Initially wary, Shiori questions the group’s intentions and their connection to Rifters who have come to the island seeking a way into the mountain. Assured they are not allies of the Rifters, Shiori reveals her backstory: she is a shipwreck survivor from Qa’Adir, once an assassin for the Merchant Princes a guild that dealt in illegal trade. 

Shiori leads the party to her modest home within the trees, where she raised her bow and fired an arrow, releasing a rope ladder. The party climbed into her humble treehouse, a single-room dwelling with little more than a bed and a few personal effects. They sat on the floor as Shiori began her tale.

The star had fallen onto the island a month ago. Two weeks later, four ships arrived, two staying behind as the rifters began combing the island and killing its protective wildlife. Shiori, a survivor of a shipwreck years earlier and now a solitary protector of the island, killed those who ventured too close to her home. The rifters returned with reinforcements and began to dig.

“The mountain is angry,” Shiori said grimly, “but I noticed its anger started when the star fell.” She added that the island itself seemed to be changing. Flowers bloomed differently, and the land felt suffused with unfamiliar magic.

Intrigued by Shiori’s story, Mello shared her magical jar of dirt, and Porthos revealed a gruesome artifact—a severed head from the starry elves, a mystery linked to the ruins. Shiori recognized the markings but admitted she knew little about these enigmatic beings.

Shiori, who has fiercely defended the island, offers to guide the group to a nearby ruin believed to hold the path into the volcano where the star presumably lies. She offers help to the group in order to get the star into their hands rather than the Rifters, in the hopes that with the fragment taken, that they would leave the island.

The group rested at Shiori’s home, where each experienced moments of introspection. Blossom meditated at a serene spot and connected deeply to the island’s essence, pulling a glowing blue crystal from a vision of the bubbling lava. Kit’s meditation was darker, haunted by a rotting figure luring him of the sea’s embrace, leaving him coughing up seawater in reality.

Kit informs his friends and Shiori of his experiences with the pearl. The wonder if he should destroy the pearl or seek other help. Shiori asks to see the pearl. Kit is hesitant, but she insists that she is not drawn to it and snatches it out of his hand. She enters into a meditation for a long time.  She succumbs to an eerie trance, her body exuding seawater and seaweed. She speaks in a gurgling, raspy voice, warning of an endless, suffocating depth. She comes out of her meditation and identifies the presence as a sea hag who has Kit bound to the pearl.

While the rest of the group settle in for a long rest before traveling to the tunnels that night, Cuervo asks to speak to Shiori. She takes him outside where he asks her if she is familiar with Molkov Kelthorn. After some consideration, she recalls him working for or leading a guild called the the Brand of the Forsaken Souls. She tells him of a meeting one of her leaders had at Kelthorns request to work together, but her faction, the Merchant Princes, though dealing in illegal trade, did not deal in the trade of people.

At midnight, the group ventures westward to ancient ruins etched with draconic symbols, finding an entrance beneath dense foliage. The tunnels lead to a magma stream and chambers filled with heat, steam eruptions, and signs of the island’s elemental origins. They learn of the Igni’ka, a lizardfolk tribe who revered fire and water spirits for balance. The island, born from their veneration, is now destabilized by the star’s presence.

As they descended, the group faced mounting dangers: streams of magma, sulfuric fumes, and pockets of noxious gas. Blossom discovered rare Ember Blossoms, their glowing centers hinting at the star’s influence. Kit, with Mello’s help, used a seed from the flowers to resist the stifling heat.

In one chamber, they found the husk of a dryder, its remains infested by gas spores. Blossom scavenged valuables from the remains, including a drow longsword and a lapis lazuli necklace.

The party pressed onward, navigating narrow crevices and dense fog. A faint magical light, a will-o-wisp, lured them dangerously close to the pits below, where the bones of the fallen lay scattered. Porthos heroically threw Freeya across one pit, though she landed in a precarious crevice, discovering a platinum pan flute and magical goodberries capable of sustaining life for a century.

After crossing a 15-foot gap, the group entered a shrine partially destroyed by magma. The walls depicted scenes of lizardfolk walking unharmed through fire while others were consumed. At the heart of the chamber, they found a melted coffer that gave off arcane energy, which Kit knew it to be magically trapped.

Cuervo touched the coffer, spoke the word Igni'ka, and it opened, revealing a collection of stones and powerful heat-infused gems that would help them to resist the fire throughout the volcano.

While traveling forward, they come across a chamber with stalagmites and a large rock pillar in the center of the room. Upon inspection, the pillar and stalagmites move, since they were creatures mimicing the stone, and attack the group.  Blossom takes heavy damage and falls unconscious until Kit can reach her to administer a healing potion. Mello throws her alchemists fire at the creatures. Freeya pulls another panther from her bag of tricks to aid in the fight and Cuervo shoots with deadly aim. Porthos destroys two of the creatures with his heavy hits. With Blossom stabilized and the threats gone, they continue further down the tunnels. 

As the heat intensifies and tremors grow more violent, the group realizes they are nearing the heart of the volcano—and the fallen star that threatens to change the island forever.

At the end of the Igni'ka tunnels lay a massive pool of magma above them, protected and kept in place by a wall of cooled lava. Three pillars stood before it. Cuervo notices that the astral compass is humming with energy and points directly towards the large pool of liquid fire. Porthos uses the pillars to climb up to get a better vantage points and Cuervo joins him in the air. Standing within the lava is a large wolf made of fire and magma. The wolf, who is aggressive and on alert towards Porthos and Cuervo, emits a low growl and lunges at the two. Within its chest shines a fragment of the Fallen Star.