Session 8 — Recap

Session 8 · recap · what actually happened

The recap

• The night picked up at Miriam’s door: the shattered black pearl on the threshold, the runner already gone. Trill gave chase first. The party brought Miriam with them rather than leave her alone, and ran through Onda toward the woods.
• Cold open 13, Get This to the Sergeant, ran inside the chase. Mid-run, the woods stopped being the Darktide Isles for Haxami. He was younger, in lighter soldier’s kit, sent to find a messenger from a nearby colony. The messenger reached him (“I need to get this to you. Get this to your home”) and arrows took him before he could finish.
• Haxami froze, then training took over. He used the body as a shield, pulled a bloodied letter from the man’s coat, cast Longstrider and ran for the base, forcing through thick brush and taking the wound rather than losing time. He reached Sergeant Remper, who took the letter.
• A red mist, and he was back in the Darktide woods beside Marellius. The wound came back with him; the letter did not. “Haxami, you okay?” “I’m just fine. Thank you.” Nobody else saw anything.
• The grave was a trap. The runner led them onto the plateau. Quiet Jory, smoking, waited by Emil’s stone with armed men and his raven, Soot. Isa was in their hands, a knife at her throat.
• Jory said he was there to finish errands. The Cold Kiss was one; Isa was a loose end. The offer: the Cold Kiss for her life. The party stalled. He had Isa brought closer while they talked, and the party edged into position under Pass Without Trace.
• Trill broke it open. Trill threw the Cold Kiss itself over the cliff edge. Jory sent Soot after it (“Soot. Get it.”) and the bird dropped out of sight below the crest. Trill got the Cold Kiss back afterward and tucked it away (Jack, 2026-11-09).
• Nonne charged a boatman bodily, broke his grip on Isa, told her to run, and turned on one of Jory’s two Sai knives.
• Marellius stepped out of hiding with a third-level Chromatic Orb: a crit on the first boatman for 42 fire, then it leapt to Jory for 23 and on toward the Sai knife. Haxami hid behind a rock, out of sight of Jory and the raven, and finished the boatman near Trill. Trill Action Surged and dropped the second and third boatmen together.
• The gravestone blazed red and a roar came out of it. Nonne roared back, feeling something like it but not the same, and it lent him speed. He drove into Jory and kept driving him back. Marellius threw a Phantasmal Force at him, a T-Rex, and it broke on what the DM called Jory’s wall of hatred.
• Jory looked up at Emil’s spirit and said: “You were supposed to die a little bit earlier. Long time ago and still. You obeyed us.” Then he ran. Nonne’s opportunity attack left him on 1 hit point. Jory swan-dived off the cliff into the dark water. Nobody saw him land.
• Isa was dying. Haxami ran for her, helped her death save before he reached her, then gave her his own healing potion. She came back on 7 hit points.
• Emil’s spirit grew clearer, hovering over Isa, his anger turning to worry. Haxami asked Miriam what held him. She said the grave had been his comfort, and the Cold Kiss was what kept him from moving on.
• Emil sent off. Trill held the Cold Kiss out to him. Haxami spoke to him: “Isa is going to be fine. You should move on. Enjoy your next life.” Miriam meditated beside them. Emil said goodbye and passed into the Labyrinth.
• The cask at the grave was empty. The party went over the purple essence and the fourth symbol on the manifests and got no further on how the trapping works. The records tie the marked barrels to Losam’s warehouse; how much Losam or Dita knew is still unclear. Miriam says the Inquisition will investigate.
• Miriam had been drinking since the black pearl and was little use in the fight. Haxami told her, respectfully, that staying sober would help her if someone came for her next. She admitted she had lost her nerve and said she would try.
• Miriam insisted the dead get a proper send-off. “We don’t want them popping up again like Emil, do we?” Marellius could light the pyre, but it was done by custom. Only then did they go back to town.
• The party split for the night. Nonne walked Isa home and stayed to keep her safe. Trill went too, left goodberries and flowers, then went home with the Cold Kiss to work out how to disguise it.
• Haxami and Marellius shared old Ketsap Mead at Haxami’s. Asked what he’d learned that day, Marellius said his fire spell was a little stronger. Haxami said the true thing: “All in all, I don’t really trust anyone here” (Jack, 2026-11-09). Marellius wondered aloud whether Nonne had feelings for Isa; Haxami listened and gave nothing away.
• Dita at Trill’s door. A careful knock. Trill hid the Cold Kiss and looked out. “I just want to talk.” Trill made tea and let her in. Dita told Trill not to trust Haxami: she and Haxami are part of the same organization. She did not say which. Only Trill knows (Jack, 2026-11-08).
• The Second Thought. Before she left, Dita gave Trill the Second Thought, the black pearl, for Nonne (Jack, 2026-11-08). The party took a long rest.

What did not fire

None of these are in Damien’s notes. They may have happened off his side of the table.

• The trade’s slips. Jory paid in black pearls, the casks burn now.
• Jory shoving Isa off the cliff, the poison and the antidote. Isa dropped, but the notes do not say why.
• The sealing cask. Nobody is noted knocking it off or breaking it. It was empty afterward.
• Emil stepping into Isa and his line in her voice.
• Miriam arriving in round 3 as an ally. She was there, drunk, and did little in the fight.
• The raven across the strait. Soot went over the cliff after the Cold Kiss; nobody saw where it went after.
• Cold open 2, The Wreck.
• Losam, Toto’s cousin, the forged-page rumour, the Lantern Band. Not reached.

Loose ends

• Jory. Over the cliff on 1 hit point, into the water. Alive or not is open. His words to Emil (“You were supposed to die a little bit earlier … You obeyed us”) are unexplained.
• Dita and Trill. Dita told Trill that she and Haxami belong to the same organization, unnamed, and not to trust him. Only Trill knows. The rest of the party does not.
• The Cold Kiss. Trill has it now, and is working on a disguise.
• The Second Thought. Trill holds it, meant for Nonne. Whether Trill passes it on, and says where it came from, is Trill’s.
• Haxami’s vision. Remper, the messenger, the letter. He has told no one. Whether it was a memory or something stranger is open. The wound was real.
• Isa is alive and home, with Nonne staying over.
• Emil is sent off. Story Beats ends act one when the truth of his death is spoken over the grave (act one). That has not been said yet, and how it fits now that he is gone is open.
• Miriam is shaken, drinking, and has promised to try to stop. She expects the Inquisition.
• Haxami told Marellius he does not really trust anyone in Onda.
• Haxami’s healing potion is spent, on Isa. Each of them started with one.

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