16 // Zero // Flame Strike

The Flame takes decisive action, splitting across Fey Ember to strike three critical targets:

• Liberate the imprisoned from The Kept and escort them safely to Fey Haven,

• Win the high-stakes trial and gain favor with the Arch Fey,

• Fortify the North Wall before the coming assault.

Chappy, alongside Livi and Sabaan, reaches Fey Haven where Mayor Basil personally escorts them to the Colosseum. Tens of thousands gather beneath blinding banners of light for the trial’s opening. As the crowd roars, Chappy and Gimble face off in a spontaneous hype contest, igniting the arena before the verdict is ever spoken.

Fert descends into the lower levels of The Kept with Neb scouting ahead. When Neb is ambushed and badly wounded, Fert drags him to safety, delivering a life-saving intervention with a clutch Nat 20. When an Onyx Order guard closes in, Fert locks into a brutal tug-of-war—then enlarges himself and reverses the momentum, slamming the guard between a metal door and stone wall with devastating force.

Scraat, cloaked in Smurk’s invisibility and under cover of aerial fire, teleports onto the battlements beside Lionel Lightfoot. The infiltration is clean. He slips into the northwest stairwell, making his way down toward the internal gate controls, poised to trigger the uprising from within.

Smurk, astride his flying carpet with skeletal minions flanking him, unleashes fireballs onto The Kept in a relentless diversion. For the first time since reading his mother’s grimoire, something changes -- his magic pulses with clarity and purpose. He sees the Onyx Order for what they truly are, and his spells begin to tear through them with doubled potency. The barrage is interrupted when the enemy unveils a fearsome Gatling Ballista, its whirring barrels locking skyward.

Templeton travels by foot to the northern wall to meet up with Chester Swiftwind to help motivate the rag-tag group of resistance tasked with defending the Fey Ember from the Onyx Order armies assembling outside the walls. join up with the defense force.