After all their preparations, gathering resources, and strengthening the Defiant, the time had come to set sail for Magran’s Teeth and the Ashen Maw. Magran’s Teeth were a series of small volcanic islands surrounding the bleak island containing the Ashen Maw – a huge volcano – sacred to Magran (Goddess of War and Fire). The entire area was fiercely defended by the Rathun – a race of fanatical Fire Giants who attacked anyone and anything that came near.
To get there they would first have to run/fight their way past patrolling Rathun longboats, and then find someplace to safely hide the Defiant as they approached the Ashen Maw by land.
Cannon fire didn’t slow it down nearly as much as they would have hoped…
But Sapphire had another solution ready
When they made their way to the foreboding entrance to the Fortress at Ashen Maw, they did not meet the resistance they expected. Instead the bridge was guarded by the slumped bodies of dead and dying fire giants…
A dying giant on the bridge told them that Eothas had come to steal the power from the Ashen Maw, and that scores of giants had died fighting him. He requested that Grim give him a quick death, as he was far too greviously injured to revive.
Inside the fortress they saw signs of battle, with dead giants and ruined fortifications… as well as living patrols in no mood to talk.
They came to a Rathun priestess holed up in a forge, and they were able to get in enough of a word to convince her that they were not in league with Eothas. She told them that Eothas had headed down to the volcano’s core, and that the remaining Rathun were gathering for a final assault in an attempt to drive him away.
In the main keep they found the Rathun gathering in a shrine to Magran. They intended a final last-ditch assault on Eothas to drive him off. But they needed their priestess in order to descend, as she held the Torc necessary to activate the lift. She had gone to recruit the help of Jadaferlas – an ancient Dragon living in the Maw who had made a pact to aid the Rathun centuries ago. But she had not returned… The Rathun were willing to let them through to talk to Eothas – in the hopes that they could get him to leave. But without the Torc no-one could descend.
As Grim looked at the shrine, he felt himself drawn into the other realm. Apparently Magran wanted a word… She told him that she intended to blow up the volcano entirely – hoping to destroy Eothas with it. She seemed entirely unfazed by the resulting loss of her Rathun servants – “they had served their purpose and could be replaced”. She was warning Grim as a courtesy to Berath. One more God treating mortal lives as disposable currency. Grim had just about had his fill of those.
Grim tried to warn the Rathun about Magran’s threat… but they were uninterested. They would do as Magran willed, regardless of where that might lead. Grim just rolled his eyes at the devotion to what he considered an undeserving Goddess. They had tried. But now they had to hurry.
The path down into the Dragon’s Lair was strewn with Fire Elementals… and dead Rathun.
When they reached the Dragon’s lair, they found why… The Dragon itself had slain the Priestess, breaking the Covenant rather than being forced to fight a God. Not because it feared Eothas… but because the Priestess had wanted to actually *ride* it into battle. Star was able to talk it into letting them have the Torc rather than eating them, but it had absolutely no interest in participating in the battle.
Star said a blessing for the dead priestess. Whatever else she had been, she had died attempting to save her people, serve her Goddess, and oppose Eothas’ destruction.
When they returned to the Shrine they were *finally* able to talk some sense into the Fire Giants – convincing them that they could better serve Magran by still being alive tomorrow rather than sticking around to be needlessly incinerated.
Then they used the Torc to descend into the Volcano, where they found Eothas’ giant form draining a huge Adra pillar in the heart of the Volcano. He turned his massive head to face them as they appeared.
Grim asked him, point blank, what he was *doing*. And this time Eothas answered. Eothas told them that the Gods were not “natural”. They had been created by the Engwithians. The great machines they had tricked the Huana into building in ancient Ukaizo had collected the souls of *tens of thousands* of Huana and used them to empower select Engwithians as Gods. They had also “refined” the natural process of re-incarnation, harnessing it to a Great Wheel in Ukaizo which now managed the re-distribution of souls after death – and in the process gave the Gods their power. Eothas wanted to end this parasitic relationship… by destroying the Great Wheel in Ukaizo!
Grim asked what this would do to the cycle of life and death. And Eothas’ answer shocked even him. The natural process had been irrevocably altered by the creation of the Gods and the Wheel. Destroying the Wheel would destroy the cycle *without* reverting or replacing it. Eothas thought this would force Gods and Mortals to work together to build something better rather than face extinction. To which Grim’s growled answer was,
“Are you barking mad?!?! The Gods can’t even cooperate with *each other* long enough to stop You from breaking everything! And none of us mortals know how to build anything like what the Ancients did! You will end the World – destroying us all – because you find the process distasteful!!! And you and your “healing light” have already slaughtered *thousands* to gain the power to do it!”
But Eothas was undeterred. “A necessary sacrifice to light the way to a better world. And if you cannot build a better path, then the world was meant to end”.
Grim was by no means done with the conversation, but apparently Eothas was. He picked them up like pebbles in his massive hand, wrapped them up in his fist, and began to move.
The volcano exploded as Magran attempted to stop him, but he had grown too strong. Fortunately his impervious fist protected Grim and his companions as well.
As he waded out to sea, Ondra sent tidal waves and Krakens to stop him. But Eothas merely tossed the Krakens aside and waded through – still undeterred. He stopped to deposit them on the Defiant, and then left on his way to Ukaizo. And all went black.
When Grim awoke, he was back in the palace in Neketaka. The ambassadors of the RDC and the VTC were arguing furiously, as the Queen stared at Grim waking up. She did not even wait for him to clear his head before immediately demanding an update. So he told them. Everything.
And, as usual, they found a way to disappoint even his low expectations. They agreed that Eothas could not be allowed to destroy the Wheel at Ukaizo. They agreed that it was a World-Ending threat… But they could not agree to cooperate. The Queen would not allow any but Huana to enter the fabled capital of her ancestors. Neither the RDC nor the VTC were willing to tolerate the other glimpsing its secrets. And none of them were willing to share knowledge / magic / technology to discover how to pass through the divine storms that kept Ukaizo hidden from the world. They would apparently rather the World come to an end rather than see a rival gain a potential advantage!@#!
As the Huana and the Ambassadors argued, the great doors opened and a Huana guard rushed in. “Your Majesty, there were too many! They came too fast! We didn’t expect…” and then the cause for the commotion became apparent. As Captain Aeldys strode in at the vanguard of a pirate contingent. She nodded to Grim, and then addressed the shocked dignitaries.
“What we have here, is what we in the trade like to call a Bloody Shitstorm! So whatever wheeling and dealing you think you can pull off here, take it from a true scoundrel. When the Gods step in, we all live or die just the same. So lets bloody well blast this cock-rot Eothas to kingdom come before he ends the bloody world, and then we can all get back to killing each other civilized like!”
Grim could scarcely believe it. Out of all the players to decide to talk sense here, at the end, it was *Aeldys* and the New Blood pirates. Which, of course, meant that absolutely *nobody* else listened to a word of it. Aeldys stormed off, the Queen and the ambassadors went back to arguing. All of them snuck in whispered comments indicating that they and they alone could help Grim get to Ukaizo to end the threat… if he would only do them one last job… To Hell with all of them!
They set sail for the Pirate Council at Dunnage. Seeking what seemed to be the only source of sanity left in the Deadfire. Only to find that even there sanity was in short supply.
Furrante had declared Aeldys a traitor, accusing her of all manner of violations of Pirate Code. He had convinced, threatened, or blackmailed enough of the other Captains to have forced her to barricade herself in Fort Deadlight. And he wanted *Grim* to assault the Fort and take her out so that he could consolidate the Principi and they could “properly concentrate on the pressing issues at hand”.
At this point Grim had *had* it. Furrante wanted to play games with politics and the Pirate Code now? Grim could do that. In front of the Council he directly accused Furrante of conspiring with the VTC to help the Slavers of Crookspur. Furrante was *furious*, denied the accusations, and denounced Grim for the slander. And then grew very, very pale as Grim slowly pulled out a package. Letters. Receipts. Spoils from Master Kua’s office at Crookspur. Grim may have been angry when assaulting the Slaver Fort, but he was never a fool.
On the weight of evidence, Pirate Justice was swift and unyielding.
And with Aeldys re-instated, she filled them in on her plan. They now knew Ukaizo was at the center of an area known as Ondra’s Mortar. An area considered utterly impassible due to the treacherous waters and massive permanent storms. But she knew of one ship that could entirely ignore the weather – commanding its own seas and appearing and disappearing at will. The other Captains gasped as comprehension dawned. “That’s right you scalawags. We’re going to steal the bloody Floating Hangman, keel-haul the bony crew, and lead every pirate ship in the bloody Deadfire into Ukaizo to blow the bastard God to his own afterlife!”
Grim had to admit, he was impressed. She certainly didn’t think small. And with that she began laying out exactly what she thought they needed to do.
Author’s Notes:
I’ve never before run a crew through Deadfire that would have even considered allying with the pirates. But looked at through Grim’s eyes, wow does it make a lot of sense! The degree to which the other factions are willing to damn the world rather than cooperate with rivals is mind boggling! They just can’t see the forest for the trees. Sure Aeldys sees the potential to loot Ukaizo as the icing on the cake, but at least she’s got a firm grasp of the stakes! Her initial plan is to either steal or destroy the Great Wheel, but when told that won’t work she quickly accepts it and adapts rather than arguing. And man, does she ever pull off the Pirates of the Caribbean style with her approach to the endgame!
Rendering-wise, OpenAI GPT 1.5 is really starting to push out DALL-E as a primary renderer. I still use DALL-E for generating my reference imagery – partly because of the greater control of image style and partly because you get so many more “daily credits” to work with. But man – GPT is just *so* much better at understanding what I want and *so* much better about not hitting me with content filters .
I have also discovered that even with DALL-E changing the aspect ratio of the renderer can really help with the layout. Wide images are good for when you want combatants further apart, when you went more spread out action, etc. Tall images are good for when you really want to emphasize height and height differences. As a bonus, DALLE’s filters appear to have been trained on square imagery, and sometimes let a little bit more through with Landscape than they might otherwise.
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