The Fog Claims Its Own

Summary of Events (1/22/2025):
11/29/4722

Ahhhh, victory! But at what cost?

The battle raged in flooded Lepidstadt streets! Sweet Back Willie fought from underwater, breaking free from an animated drawing’s grasp! Nadja fell—critically wounded, dying upon the cobblestones! Kong’s wooden sentinels absorbed devastating blows!

But then—triumph!

Shakoom channeled his orcish fury, swinging his staff with ancestral rage landing a blow that shatter the a word cloud into scattered and broken letters! Sweet Back Willie, bloodied but defiant, took aim at the final animated drawing. His rifle thundered—wreaking such devastation that the graffiti drawing collapsed, paints and pigments melting into flood waters!

The living graffiti were destroyed!

But victory’s celebration proved premature…

The fog moved. Not drifting—moving with terrible purpose! It thickened, spiraling inward like water circling a drain, forming a white tornado around Sweet Back Willie!

Three gunshots rang out: BANG! BANG! BANG!

Sweet Back’s final words echoed: “Come and get me, bitch!”

Then—silence.

The tornado dispersed. And Sweet Back Willie was GONE. Not dead. Not unconscious. Not dragged away. Simply… erased from existence.

Temperature plummeted. Ice crystals formed. She appeared—Eis of the Winter Court!

“The hungry fog has taken him to the Phantom Islands,” she explained. “The waters of Mist and Veils opened their throat and selected your friend.”

She revealed terrible truths:

The Phantom Islands are CAGES—constructions built around rulers trapped by their own nature! Each lord imprisoned by obsession, sin, unable to leave, endlessly enacting their own punishment! The entity that creates them predates the gods, feeding on suffering and stories!

Sweet Back now resides in one such domain. Servant? Victim? Or worse—ruler of his own cage forged from depravity and sin?

Eis told them to take a book that had appeared at Shakoom’s feet. A biochemistry book by Dr. Markov which would lead guide them when the time was right. She also provided a crystalline snowflake that would aid them but gave no details of how but Shakoom took it anyways.

“You walk toward a convergence. Multiple threats intersect. The entity’s domain is merely the most immediate danger” was her final wors.

Then she vanished. The waters receded.

The party returned to the Golden Stag Inn, battered and diminished.

One companion lost. One rescue mission added. And the Phantom Islands await…