[Calaethis Dragonsbane]

Thunder boomed, and the luminous blue-green fire continued to flare, the very clouds touched by their eerie light.

While the party scattered, Asokil did what Asokil did best: looking out for number one, and of course, the pretty damsel in distress - that is, watching Jason flee towards the nearby forest, and glancing back towards the village as the fire spread, and edging his horse to steer clear of the flames and smoke.

Through the fire, thunder, lightning and meteorites, ice began to fall in the form of shards. Wild surges erupted, flashing across the sky and striking down and blasting the very earth itself. Magic, in its rawest, untainted, un-channelled form spewed across the world. In an instant, everything was changed. Folk, common, and noble, were caught up in it; altered by the sheer volume of naked power. Some were untouched; left as they were. Others were imbued with it.

Jason was one of these: his sabres turned black, as dark as the storm clouds above it, and forever he was changed as the raw energies filled him. Dark fire surrounded his blades and when it faded, an after-glow lingered permanently. His face turned black, as dark as coal, and his eyes were as fire, burning embers. His hood was black, as were all his clothes, until finally, he no longer resembled a mortal.

He was not the only one, for other villagers were turned into the same black humanoid figures; some mutated, holding various limbs, their skin turning charcoal and scaly. Others held horns, spikes, ‘chitin’, their teeth replaced by mandibles.

This was no dream. This was real. A reality superimposed by prophecy, the dawn of the Master’s Return.

Asokil and Dot were also affected, but in another way; rather than turn dark, they turned light, a bolt of lightning that should have obliterated them, flaring their skin with luminous energy. After it faded, there was a faint glow, as if there was something more to their eyes, a lingering whiteness that transcended all but magic. What new abilities they gained was uncertain; even the horse was affected. Somehow, their very hair seemed to carry a sheen that was not there before, Asokil’s black hair gleaming like a black opal.

Elsewhere, having made her discrete exit, Isokla left her wayward followers to their demise. No a single one survived, to her knowledge. In anger born of frustration and annoyance, she glanced up to see the skies too late. A meteor, a stray, fell to the earth and struck her; surging with wild energy, the rock burned brighter than a star. Her own magics were not enough to save her, but in the instant of impact, the rock’s energy fused with her own.
Later, when she awoke, her eyes were as blue fire, and she no longer seemed the mortal she once was.


As the surges continued, the village brewery exploded, and lightning-filled-with-wild-surge struck the fountain of ale, torching it. The resulting explosion devastated the village, but when the ash finally settled, there was a pool of alcohol in its place, the likes of which no one had ever tasted, or ever would taste again. Somehow… it seemed magical.


Those affected by the wild surges or ‘star rain’, as it would later be called, became known as ‘monsters’, or ‘intransient mortals’; somehow, they seemed more than mortal, but at the same time, less. It was theorised that from the stars, the first ‘star rain’, magic awoke within the land, within mortals, and now, that time had come again.

It would not be long before the Master Returned, no long before he claimed his brides. Battered and bruised, Isokla set off to find him…

As to the rest of the party? Who was to say who was affected, and how? Truly, that was for them to decide, a mystery for the sages.