The Journey of Brogmar

Shipwrecked

The sea is a greedy mistress. She took the Opulence, my family's pride, and left me crawling onto the sands of a lonely island in the Zendrian Sea. For five years, I was lost to the world, alone with the spirits and the silence. But a vision of Marterus called me back. The spirits weren't done with me yet.

Port Starvryn & The Kestrel

I found my way to Port Starvryn and caught the Kestrel, a grand airship, bound for Marterus. It was there I met my companions. I shared my special mushrooms to help them see the world's true colors. We crashed, of course—life is rarely a smooth flight—but we survived. Unlike those cowards Groff and his friend.

Eastport

In Eastport, we faced the Voidbloom, a drug as dark as the shadows it hid in. We found Maynard Krensch with an octopus for a hat, and a witch named Margeth who turned villagers into plants. We fought her in the woods, freed the children, and became the so-called "Heroes of Eastport."

Brae & The Cow of Chaos

Our hunt for Margeth led us to Brae, where the wizard Ethor was playing god with the flesh of the innocent. In his hideout, amongst the skeletons and the traps, I called down the Cownado. A storm of beef to end his madness. It was then I remembered Garron, and the weight of my past as Harry Dennison began to press heavy once more.

Passage to Felldrei

Aboard the Stubborn Arse, we faced the freezing winds and the merfolk of the Kalani Strait. I realized then that Eldath's peace must be guarded by Silvanus's strength. We celebrated Frostfeast, but the joy was cut short by the "Crooked Man." He took Marta, leaving Muffin broken and the rest of us looking into the dark.

Marterus: A City of Ghosts

We arrived at the Stone Circle of Marterus, the air thick with the smell of coal and old stone. It's a city that remembers me as Harry Dennison, the socialite who vanished, but I walk its streets as a ghost in leather and mud. We spoke with King Edor Bren, a man whose alertness is a flickering candle against the shadows of his mid-70s. He offered us caution and a search for experts, while we offered him a leaf sculpture and a demand for gold.

But the true weight of Marterus lay in the Cloudcombe. I found my sister, Lithen, and my mother, Jolene. Seeing her under that mysterious affliction—a slow, silent withering—was a blow to the heart I wasn't prepared for. And while my family fades, the Dennison legacy has been seized by Polin Garten. "Scales of Garten" they call it now. A family friend who stepped into the vacuum I left behind.

We tracked the whispers to the Abashed Angel, a high-class shop where Treynor held court. We played the game of merchants and Lords, seeking a meeting with Polin, only to find that the Thieves' Guild—the "Rat and the King"—are the only ones standing against the Garten takeover. While Skaf and Elion hunted for shadows in the Cloudcombe, Panda and I went to the light.

In the Banniatear rare bookshop, Aegebras led us down stairs that had no right to be there.

He told us the story of the ancient heroes: Aurelius Vane the breach-holder, Kaelen Moonwhisper the Druid who wove the roots of the world, Bram Ironfoot the cleric, Sariel the ghost, Thorvus Marshall the giant, and Valerius Thorne. They were the ones who first bound Ithak'var, the shepherd of countless faces. A demon who enslaved his own creators. The Mirrorwind isn't just a storm—it's his breath, set to unmake Lyra. The cultists with the root tattoos follow a master who is bound in the Abyss, but waiting to be brought forth.

The Scales of Garten

To reach Polin Garten, we struck a bargain with the Thieves' Guild, the "Rat and the King," the only souls in Marterus with the spine to stand against him. They lent us scouts, and Treynor arranged our meeting. But the man who greeted us as Lord Boumont wore a stolen face—a monster in a lord's clothing. The fight was brief and brutal. When the king's guard came through the door, I chose to stop hiding. I stood before King Edor Bren and named myself: Harry Dennison, returned from the sea. I asked him to shelter my mother and sister until we come back. If we come back.

Outside those gates, Muffin found us. The great gentle fool gave a speech that broke us all a little—he has laid down his trident. He's settled in Marterus with his Kaia, and they've opened a woodworking shop, "The Knotty Carver," where he carves his bowls in peace. I'll miss him. But a man who finds his roots should be left to grow in them.

The Road to Greygate

We took horses and rode south—my Kalli, and mounts for Skaf, Elion, Panda, and Zolik. Three days through sprawling farmland and quiet hamlets under the eyes of the wolfguard. We found a hollow with a music box crying like a lost child, a strange thing that remembers the sounds it hears. Elion shot a riderless horse dead on the road, cold as ever—there's a place kept warm for him below for such mercies. On the third day the land gave way to an enormous gray wall running east to west, and the guarded town of Greygate crouched beside its gate. Beyond it lies the Fen: a drowned, dead land that even the patrols fear to enter.

Into the Fen

The guards took us halfway through the tunnel and no further. Beyond its last door waited warm, foul water and endless swamp. Skaf vanished as we crossed the threshold. I led us through the mire to a magical tree that offered healing and silver leaves, then flashing lights drew us to a ring of blue mushrooms. Skaf touched one, because of course he did, and the earth rose against us.

An Ancient Gully-maw swallowed Panda whole. Skaf tore him from its belly with impossible strength, and together we brought the great knot of root, bark, and fungus down. I traded its heart to the Peddler for refinement and left his tent wearing brass dragonscale mail. After a creature of mist tested us and vanished, we came at last to a temple smothered in black obsidian roots.

The Temple in the Fen

The temple scattered us through its caverns. Panda and I escaped cages and traps together while Elion cut through a door of flesh and Skaf hid from a moss-covered beast inside his ring. We found one another before a stone door carved with anguished faces, paid its thirst in blood, and were sealed inside with a Shadow Harlequin.

Its faces wore the likenesses of Sloane, Rike, King Edor, Margeth, my mother, and a stranger. Its presence smothered magic and filled the chamber with pain, blindness, and despair. My draconic spirit struck the final blow. Among the thing's spoils was a journal naming people marked by the Crooked Man, proof that the roots strangling this world reach farther than we knew.

At the top of the pit, Elion finally told us his own terrible purpose: the Raven Queen had ordered him to kill King Edor. In a flickering Fey settlement I found my father, Urgin, alive in the town of Eilor. He warned us to hurry against the Crooked Man. Even the Peddler, pressed by Skaf, admitted he had once escaped that same horror. We returned to Marterus by Skaf's magic carrying more answers than comfort.

The False King

King Edor greeted news of our success with rage, then shed his borrowed form. The false king and several false guards became hideous things and attacked us in Ulfhold. We killed them, but victory left Marterus without a known monarch and gave us no answer as to whether the true Edor lives.

Skaf borrowed the king's face long enough to get us into his chambers. Then we chose truth. Captain Stephen Reynaud and the two surviving guards, Gregory and Gragory, heard our account and saw Skaf drop the disguise. For the moment, they believe us. In a city built on masks, that is a thin sort of mercy.

Where the World Stands

I returned to the Cloudcombe and found Lithen dead on the floor of that poor little house, a wound across her neck. Jolene was gone, and in her place a great bat-like creature fell upon us. Grief rooted me to the corner while Elion and Skaf fought. Skaf banished the creature—banished the thing that may have been my mother—and left me with no sister to save and no certainty of where Jolene has gone.

We carried Lithen north of the city and laid her beneath the tree we climbed as children. The Cloudcombe followed us to the lakeside. I returned her body to the earth, then stood before the crowd and told them it was time to leave the shadows. Their grief has become something harder. For the first time, the people are gathering openly against Polin Garten and the hold he has taken over Marterus.

The city now has no king anyone can find, only the corpse of an impostor and Captain Reynaud trying to hold the truth together. Polin still commands the Scales of Garten and much of Marterus's trade. The Thieves' Guild remains his only organized rival, and the Cloudcombe may be waking into another. Muffin is here with Kaia, building a peaceful life while the rest of us stand on the edge of a very unpeaceful reckoning.

Beyond the city, the Crooked Man still moves his pieces. Marta is missing. Seraphina seems trapped. Urgin waits in Eilor in the Fey. The true Edor is missing, perhaps dead, while Elion carries an order from the Raven Queen to kill him. My mother may be a monster, a prisoner, or both. We have survived the Fen and exposed one stolen face, but the Mirrorwind is still coming—and now Marterus must decide whether it will face the storm standing up.