And these are the tokens I'm putting on the map under the assumption they'll be the ones to return from the Absent. Guess we'll see?

Meet the new Future Party.

Enjoying the life of a Dungeon Master for just a little longer...

And nobody wanted to search around the Penultimate room, other than opening the obvious chests. Which means they didn't trigger any other traps. But also means they didn't find this.

We're going in to the last session and BREEZE STILL DOESN'T KNOW SHE'S DEAD. I honestly did not think we'd make it to where she finds out by NOT seeing the Wellspring. So... DO I actually have to write Death Flashes for her now to drive home the revelation?

Damn, I even fed Veil helpful information about how people in the Absent don't sleep and more Agrid monologuing about controlling the Wellspring, but then Veil took a nap during all the helpful conversation. 🤦

If things had worked out differently, there was a good chance Akumano-As-Veil was going to get ahead of them through the scary-blade room and then be waiting for everyone. What could have been.

WE'RE DOING IT

Just ran a test run of the final encounter, over about 3 hours w/ work interruptions.

Terra died in battle, so the other 4 must save Terra, save Breeze, close the Absent, & go home.

Hopefully without interruptions & smart players, we fit it in a max of 2.5 hours leaving time for everyone to argue what they're doing with the Wellspring then the quick timey wimey wrap up?

I was going to add more with Prismata going all Demilich out of Eli, but I don't think there's time and also I'm exhausted.

Hey look, it's all the things they could have learned from Burton's nothic. Womp womp.

You can tell from the upcoming maps, THIS SHIT GETTIN' REAL

This was when everybody started talking about how they're going to take care of the horse ghost just as soon as we get back from The Absent.

(And they did it YEARS ago!)

Fun fact: I still don't exactly know what the Final Battle is.

Eli shows up at the Infernal Wellspring and... there's a fight of some kind... [end of campaign]

Yep, this'll go fine.

I'm considering making Akumano-as-Veil making his/herself more clearly known next week. I think he should be able to follow them through the door. How far can we get with the "yarr, it be a pirate test" excuse? It's kind of a fun play on their expectations, and really, I need to get Akumano back in the mix eventually.

Breeze still doesn't know she's dead and nobody's overly suspicious about her continuing to get singled out for things and like... I didn't think we would get this far with this? We'll see if there's any attention on the situation after she's the only one with no shadow next week.

And if they still don't know... well, I'd sort of decided to not write death flashes for Breeze, but maybe I will actually, as a reveal? Hmm.

Listen, they COULD fail the Sphinx questions and fight lots of undead... [maths] 21 of them in total (those pictured, plus 8 mummies). Despite the Kobold Fight Club assessment, I'm sure they'll win. And get XP out of it. But is that really worth it, guys?

WHAT IF, they get to the Wellspring and convince Ember to use his command to bring back Breeze. He agrees (probably after trying to convince Flicker to NOT bring him back to life) except he wants his friend Breeze to be powerful so he brings her back as a vampire.

🤯!!
That's part of the cliffhanger! And also a super fitting turn for Breeze because her primary character trait was supposed to be "nocturnal"!

GM Layer lines of sight for Spined Devil attacks. We'll see if this actually works at all, lol.

I think I'm going to make a tough call and leave some intended death flashes on the cutting room floor. There's just not time.

I NEED to do
Ember
Harlavan
Burton
Breeze, probably

I think need to cut
Stahlven
Raelene
Bizzy's brother, Bu

Those could have been fun, but there's not enough value to add to what we already know.

Ember and Burton have reveals. Harlavan... is mostly the final chapter in a story only told by these death flashes, lol.

I still have two credit scenes to script, too.

I thought I presented them a simple solution with the idea that they could use the Infernal Wellspring together and each just get a single command, no one getting TOTAL control.

Hahaha, NOPE. This party has such intense trust issues that they're all just scheming how to keep each other away.

Currently, the only person not being actively schemed against is Flicker. YES, give FLICKER phenomenal cosmic powers over life and death, that should work out splendidly!