Episode 21 Recap Here

Episode 21 marked the end of the “Malleficum Summons” arc of How Not to End the World - covering the investigation into the Malleficum Ichthys ritual, the Twisted Fang, the Blood Tides, and the Wakesplinter ritual. The Wakesplinter ritual in particular threatened to use shards of Vallast the Bloodtide Soverign’s[1] soul to draw the rest of her from an inter-dimensional prison into Unatowa. With a clear path forward to counteracting the Wakesplinter ritual, we’ve moved onto the Summons End arc, covering - broadly speaking - the effort to counteract the Wakesplinter Ritual and pickup the pieces left behind.

Episode 22 kicked off the new arc with a look at Ethren as he gathered ingredients and began preparations for the the Counter Ritual coming up in a week on the Third Plow of the Fruit. After bringing Sasha to go trap a deer and find some wood for an instrument, he enlisted Milo’s help in helping make the raw materials needed for his craft and set about his work.

Meanwhile, Ymitri and Rhea got together to play some games to pass the time with Sasha and Satina. Things started off innocently enough, but quickly got side tracked when the topic turned to Rhea and Ymitri’s long, slow-burning flirtation with romance. After dancing around the issue, though, they finally reached a common understanding - retreating to their makeshift room in the warehouse to finally tell each other how they’ve felt - with only a minimum of eaves dropping roommates.

From there, we moved onto a visit from the local Tarinous[2], the Twilight Cudgel. In addition to collecting “rent” (read: “protection money”), he explained that the northern Rosewood district was being evacuated during the Votive and the Plow - the day before and the day of the ritual, giving a hint as to what exactly would be going down in a week.

After discussing the implications of that meeting (and Milo tailing the Tarinous, following him back to a local bar slash guard post, although his ends weren’t made clear) the party moved on to a meeting with the mysterious Dr. Drazgrul[3].

Meeting at Malliman’s Magnificent Merchandise[4], tensions hit a boiling point immediately. Drazgrul intimated quite a bit to the party. She told Ymitri about his mother, Lina (with whom Pyotr seemed to have some familiarity) - and also described a sister of Ymitri’s, Rellis, who had also been uncooperative and apparently been taken by the Ordemists in response.

This lead to an ultimatum:

You can either be my friend, or my enemy. And I promise you, my enemies tend not to last too long”

After a tense moment, the party let their answer be known, and initiative was rolled.

The battle burned fast and hot. Rhea’s flurry of blows and a massive impact from Ymitri’s signature spell, Magic Missile, brought the hurt to Drazgrul with a vengence. But she wouldn’t just sit back and let the party wail on her - she summoned three giant Desmoden[5] slugs to fight back - covered in eyes and teeth, and spewing acidic ichor everywhere. To this, Milo responded with a volley of Alchemist Fire, setting the building alight and multiplying the pandemonium of the scene ten fold. Meanwhile, even with chaos dancing around him, Malliman stayed out of the fight - wearing a blank expression and standing in the corner.

Things turned bad for Drazgrul from there - clearly out-mached and outgunned after the party brought down another round of pain on her, she attempted to flee - grabbing a necklace from Malliman and beginning an incantation. Rhea thwarted her plans though - decking Drazgrul just as she finished the incantation to activate the necklace’s magic. Her body vanished a second after hitting the ground.

The party finished mopping up the slugs, and stopped to take stock of the situation. The building burned with Milo’s alchemist’s fire, Malliman still stood vacant in the corner, and the whole building threatened to fall on them if they didn’t act soon.

They snapped Malliman back to reality, then hurried him outside - taking a second to "salvage” (read: commandeer) some of the store’s goods before figuring out where Drazgrul ended up. Malliman explained that the necklace acted like an inter-dimensional slingshot through the Ordemist’s plane - bringing the user to any of his stores in an instant (thus ending the mystery behind his ability to be at all of his stores seemingly at once).

Pyotr made slow work of hunting down Drazgrul - facing miserable luck as store after store turned up empty .Fortunately, however, when he did finally reach the last store, he found Drazgrul dead in a heap. Pyotr set about doing he does best and disposed of the evidence, but not before swiping the necklace, and then returned to the party at the warehouse.

With that finally over, the party went to sleep. But their slumber would not go uninterrupted, as Pyotr was suddenly faced with a vision. He saw Morrahk and Calix underneath the city in the Aftercrypts, having a tense discussion. Through their conversation, they revealed Calix’s intention to carry out the Malleficum Ichthys on himself, and additionally that Calix was actually married to Mirrah[6] - although this conspicuously conflicted with a previous scene where Calix was apparently married to a Dirgish woman named Bella.

The session ended with the revelation that the ritual was carried out that night - with Pyotr waking up just after seeing a light shooting into Calix’s recently-drowned body…

[1] Vallast: An ancient deity from the Wild Wars - one of the Sisters of Cinder, she wreaked havoc all across the oceans of Unatowa - to the point that many of the Old Gods from the Wild Wars refused to even speak about her to their followers.

She also goes by the name “The Blood Mother”, among others.

[2] The Tarinous: The privatized police forces that act as law enforcement for the city of Aquilla

[3] Dr. Drazgrul: First mentioned in Episode 20, Dr. Drazgrul is a part of the Cult of the Astrologian’s Moon - a shadowy organization dedicated to the Ordemists.

[4] Malliman’s Magnificent Merchandise: A chain of stores dotted around Aquilla. They’re known for their eccentric owner, Malliman, who somehow manages to staff every single one of his stores simultaneously

[5] Desmoden: Refers to the world/language of the Ordemists[7]. Ordemist is to Human as Desmoden is to Towan, basically.

[6] Mirrah: The shadowy figure near the top of the Aquillan branch of the Twisted Fang[8]

[7] Ordemists: A mysterious race of nightmarish figures, which seem to live in a plane separate from the Towans, and which seem to be able to manipulate and control perceptions and cognitive thought. Introduced in Episode 4, and further explored in Episode 11 and 12

[8] The Twisted Fang: An organization working with the Ash’kin to attempt to transfer the world’s power from Ur’Goth - god of light