WRITTEN RECAP
Eldoria — Episode 7: We Should Not Have Lit Those Candles
Back in Shade Karn, the Old Dudes finally have time to examine everything that followed their visit to the ruined temple.
The conclusion is straightforward.
They really should not have lit those candles.
Norak is free. The party encountered a gate into a horrifying planar space. Zayon experienced something that felt less like a random vision and more like Varian showing him a possible future. And Fars has returned carrying a purple crystal shard that he absolutely did not intend to attune to.
The shard has other ideas.
Even though Fars resists it, the object forces the magical bond. At first the exact nature of the curse is unclear. He simply looks worse. Paler. Weaker. Something is draining him.
The group returns to Bravaro Glitterhorn and updates him on the temple expedition, including the small detail that they released an ancient being who had been imprisoned there for millennia.
Bravaro is also still working on the other mysteries the party brought home. The encrypted courier message remains only partly solved, and the black ichor seen on the lizardfolk continues to worry him.
The crystal, however, is immediately urgent.
Bravaro sends the party to the Umbra Lysum, Shade Karn's great center of scholarship, to speak with Melith, an archivist whose work focuses on the moons and celestial history.
Melith examines the shard and identifies it as a corrupted fragment of Nairo, the moon destroyed in an earlier age.
That is not the sort of sentence anyone wants to hear while one of those fragments is magically attached to a member of the party.
Worse, the corruption is not passive. The shard is consuming Fars's vitality. Over time it is reducing his health and his ability to recover. Left alone, it will eventually kill him.
There is a possible solution.
Melith knows of an old lunar rite that can cleanse the shard, but it must be performed at an open-air altar under a full moon. The next full moon is six days away. The ritual will require the shard's bearer as well as people to sanctify and anchor the rite, and the site is several days from Shade Karn through dangerous territory.
Naturally, the Old Dudes immediately begin discussing “moon glue.”
If a moon broke, perhaps the ritual simply glues it back together.
Melith is forced to clarify that this is not how ancient celestial purification works.
The group begins preparing for the expedition. Supplies are purchased, healing potions discussed, arrows counted, and every possible way of making a several-day trek more complicated is considered.
Melith and her scribe, Nulan, will accompany them.
That gives the party an actual expert on the ritual, which is reassuring until everyone remembers what happened the last time the Old Dudes were placed near an ancient magical site with instructions.
Fars's worsening condition gives the planning a deadline. This is not a quest they can postpone while chasing the next interesting rumor. Every day the shard remains corrupted is another day it takes something from him.
At the same time, the wider campaign continues pressing in around them.
The black ichor has not been explained.
Bravaro still has the courier's encrypted warning.
The strange plane beyond the gate looked disturbingly real.
And Norak is somewhere in the world because the party personally released him.
For now, those problems have to wait.
The Old Dudes have one immediate job: get Fars and the corrupted moon shard to the cleansing site before the artifact finishes what it started.
Episode Seven ends with the expedition being assembled for the journey to the frozen peak.
The party survived the consequences of lighting the candles.
Now they have to survive the souvenir they brought home.