22 // Zero // End

ACT 1: THE CONCOURSE

Through smoke and distant echoes of war, the Flame advances toward the bridge to Ember Center, the complex that houses City Hall in its towers and the fabled Concourse below. The towers above crackle with fire. From the north rises the howl of Redcaps spilling deeper into Fey Ember. At the center of the bridge stands Daygan, Zhentarim agents braced around him, his expression stripped of bravado.

He does not posture. He negotiates.

The Onyx Order has seized the Concourse and blocked all escape. If the Flame intends to reach Fey Glade Crossing and mend the breaking Mythal, this is the only path left. He will guard their rear and hold the incoming wave in exchange for exoneration…and a chance to live. Survival, he admits plainly, now depends on them.

Fert studies him and sets the terms. Chappy seals the bargain with a subtle enchantment to ensure no betrayal follows. Templeton moves past without acknowledgment, Chester Swiftwind slumped across his shoulder in a dazed haze, murmuring to him as though he were Cecil P. Hedgepaw. The Flame follows, stepping into the dimming Concourse, their footsteps echoing across marble stained with blood.

The great hall, once bright with commerce and activity, now glows only with dying daylight filtering pink through fractured windows. Dust drifts in the air. The deeper they walk, the darker it becomes. The building groans under the strain of fire above.

The hall stands hollow and wounded. Pink light catches suspended ash and illuminates a violent trail of blood across the green-tiled floor. The tower trembles overhead as flames consume the upper offices. Templeton lowers Chester gently against the ornamental railing at the stair’s crest and turns toward the descent. Behind them, the entryway’s glow casts the five members of the Flame into sharp silhouette. Their shadows stretch long and distorted down the curving stairwell, descending first into darkness as if heralding what awaits. Scraat breaks formation without a word, slipping over the balcony into shadow along the banister and vanishing from sight while the others follow their own shadows downward.

They halt at the base of the steps.

Across the concourse floor, near the illuminated destination board, stands the Archbishop of Flesh (Fert’s father, Drek Whitestone) massive and terrible, wrapped in strips of flayed skin. An Onyx Order brooch pins his robe across his chest. Fresh blood drips from the fur cowl around his neck, a harengon leg hanging grotesquely at its front—a trophy. Two Goliath warriors flank him, still as statues. The Flame and the Order study one another across blood-streaked tiles, measuring distance and resolve.

Hours Earlier

Lionel Lightfoot remains at the tunnel mouth beneath the Kept after the last prisoner flees. He holds the opening as long as he can, knowing pursuit will catch them otherwise. When he finally collapses under the assault, the Archbishop straps him down and strips him in fury. Lionel finds peace in knowing his family is safe. That certainty steadies him in his final moments.

Tense stillness defines the present.

Then the crackle of the PA system shatters it.

Mayor Basil Scrambleton’s voice booms through smoke and flame, strained and breaking as if spoken through fire itself. “Rails… are active…” His breath falters. “To the Flame…” A pause, fire roaring in the absence of his voice. “…wherever you go, travel with purpose and conviction… and don’t be…”

The final word is swallowed by flame. The system dies in static.

Behind the Archbishop, the destination board flares bright.

RAILS: ACTIVE

Both sides charge.

Templeton and Fert collide with the two Goliaths in a thunder of steel and wood. Smurk hurls fire bolts from behind them. Chappy darts to the cover of a ruined boutique hat shop and begins weaving magic. From the shadows, Scraat fires with deadly precision while the Watcher’s voices debate inside his mind.

The Goliaths fall quickly beneath the barrage.

Then the Archbishop unfurls. Strips of flesh uncoil from his body like living whips.

Smurk, emboldened, transforms into a giant ape and charges, slamming the Archbishop with tremendous force. The creature retaliates in a storm of flensing lashes, six strikes. The first breaks Smurk’s concentration, shrinking him back into goblin form. The next tear into him.

Fear seizes Smurk, and he scrambles for safety.

Templeton steps between Smurk and death, guiding the goblin behind him. What ensues is a head-to-head duel between the young harengon and a monster.

The exchange becomes a blur. Templeton murmurs his family’s creed and ignites the brooch at his chest, doubling his speed. He weaves through lashes like wind through leaves, spear flashing with practiced precision. Years of training in the woods beside his mother’s grave carry him now.

Fert charges from the flank, but a strip of flesh snags his ankle and hurls him into stone. His body strikes the wall and falls.

Scraat adapts. His bolt slices cleanly through one of the writhing tendrils. The Watcher declares the solution, “Cut the whips!”

“Cut the whips!” Scraat squawks.

Chappy joins him, dismantling another, bolstering Templeton with every breath and spell.

Wounded and desperate, the Archbishop lunges past Templeton, obsessed with extinguishing Smurk—“the exception.” Fert intercepts and is thrown aside again. The Archbishop seizes Smurk and hurls him skyward. The goblin strikes the floor with a sickening impact.

Unconscious.

Templeton drives his spear through the Archbishop’s torso. Chappy and Scraat strip away the last few tendrils. Weaponless, ruined, the Archbishop drops to one knee.

Fert approaches his father who never looks at him. He raises his staff and crushes the Archbishop’s skull with a single, merciless strike.

Silence settles over the Concourse.

Scraat and Chappy step out from cover. Fert rushes to Smurk, pouring healing magic into him. Templeton retrieves Chester. They regroup in quiet.

Before leaving, Fert searches his father’s body. Inside the robe he finds a small wooden carving, a toy gifted to him as a child.

The confusing memento offers no closure. Just opens up more questions and old wounds.

He moves on. They move on.

ACT 2: THE STAR

Below, at the station platform, an ancient train engine and lone coach glow faintly with prepared magic. The building trembles on the verge of collapse. Chester stirs again, eyes unfocused, insisting he has seen this moment before. He tells Templeton (whom he believes to be Cecil) that they must board the vessel to the Crossing. The Flame obeys as the structure shudders around them and activates the train.

The hour-long journey grants them little more than breath. Silence weighs heavy in the compartment until Chester, voice weakening, whispers a farewell meant for Cecil but delivered to Templeton. He speaks of regret for failing his home, of admiration for the man Templeton has become, of pride long unspoken. Templeton holds his hand and lets him speak without correction.

When the words fade, the car falls silent.

Scraat the Watcher breaks it.

Calmly, methodically, he reviews the facts. The Order focuses on Smurk. The power breaking the Mythal has a source. Destroy the source and the miasma empowering the Order collapses. Smurk must channel the ritual left by his mother. He must be protected at all costs.

A plan takes shape.

Moments later, Scraat collapses into a coma, the Watcher exacting its price.

After confirming he lives, Fert turns to Chappy. The truth lingers unresolved—the trial, the changeling secret. In the tension, Fert asks what else Chappy can become. The question spreads, shifting from suspicion into possibility. When Smurk asks if Chappy can become him, realization dawns.

Chappy shifts form. The strategy takes form.

The train halts short of the Crossing, as if sensing that to go further invites destruction. Beyond the platform, Fey Glade Crossing lies torn apart, fragments of earth floating around a monolithic onyx stone pulsing a red beam into the sky, splitting the Mythal and staining the heavens crimson. At its base stand Salynnya Yor (Archbishop of Blood) and Vorgash, performing the ritual.

The plan unfolds.

Chappy, shaped as Smurk, draws Salynnya’s focus alongside Fert. Templeton moves directly toward the stone while the real Smurk seeks a hidden vantage and opens his mother’s tome. As he begins channeling, his world shifts to red and black. The monolith throbs with power. His mother appears behind him white and ethereal, one hand on his shoulder, the other pointing to the stone.

Vorgash crystallizes himself to the monolith. Salynnya transforms into a demon and lunges toward the false Smurk. Fert answers by transforming into a treant, ensnaring her with roots and branches, absorbing blow after blow as he holds her back. The monolith swells and unleashes a blast of lightning…not toward the decoy, but toward the true threat.

Templeton sees the lightning gather. And, he runs.

He plants himself between Smurk and annihilation, shield raised as the bolt strikes with overwhelming force. Pain tears through him, yet he holds. In the red-and-black plane, Smurk feels the weight of his tribe stacking behind him, hands on shoulders, mother and father closest of all.

Templeton reaches back, bridging their worlds for just a moment. He sees Smurk suffering beneath impossible power and offers to share the burden.

Smurk accepts.

Templeton returns shakeningly weak to reality to see an even greater surge gathering, aimed directly at them. He staggers into position, knowing it may end him.

Blue light erupts beside him.

Chester Swiftwind rises, no longer dazed but transformed by Lurue’s blessing, an ethereal horn juts from his brow. Healing radiates outward, restoring strength and will. He bellows, “hold” as he buckles down next to Templeton. Together they brace as the next bolt crashes against their shields.

Within the ritual space, Smurk channels deeper still, the accumulated power ripping at his soul. He looks to see his mother pointing. Behind her, stands every name inscribed in the tome, the legacy of his tribe clasped far and wide, every goblin betrayed and taken.

Now.

He draws upon the simplest spell he knows and pours into it the impossible weight of gathered power. Fireball.

What erupts is nothing ordinary.

A star ignites where the monolith stands—blinding, absolute. Across planes, archfey and distant gods turn their gaze. Waves take over the astral sea. Birds take flight and creatures find cover. Magic itself stutters for a heartbeat.

When the light fades, the onyx stone and Vorgash are gone, erased completely, leaving a perfect crater.

Smurk collapses. And, Templeton falls beside him.

Chester kneels and places his hands upon them, taking their pain into himself with the last of Lurue’s boon. He thanks them both by name and calls Templeton “Son of Fey Ember” before laying down in their place.

Salynnya screams in utter defeat and vanishes.

The Mythal restores itself. Floating debris crashes back to earth as gravity reclaims the sky. The train hums in the distance, beckoning.

The Flame regathers and flees as the ruins collapse around them.

ACT 3: VICTORY

When the train returns to Fey Ember, they disembark ready for battle only to find a bustling station and a crescent of transit guards surrounding the unidentified vessel. A teleportation circle ignites. An older woman steps through and orders the guards to stand down.

Livi, now the Mae.

She stares at them in disbelief…they have not aged a day. She welcomes them and reveals that over two hundred years have passed.

She leads them into a city reshaped and thriving, guiding them to the great dais where once stood the shrine to Lurue now in its place stands a towering memorial. At its base, Mayor Basil Scrambleton, Chester Swiftwind, Cecil P. Hedgepaw, and Lionel Lightfoot bear the weight of a stone engraved with the names of the fallen. Above them, marble unicorns spiral upward toward a final pedestal where Templeton, Chappy, Smurk, and Scraat stand around Fert, who holds aloft a bowl with an eternal flame.

After a long silence, Livi bows.

And thanks the heroes.