• We open with Evelyne (theyre being introduced)
    • They witness The Red Sun rising
    • They’re heading to some kind of hut
    • They see some kind of large ritual gathering (where the rest of the party is)
  • We’re mid Altaeum vs random dude fight (at Kerlan’s Last Stand)
    • Kaelen re-corporates and climbs onto the bowl to get
    • Soren is fighting against the ritual leader
    • People are doing things
    • We see Evelyne, who is bad at hiding
    • The leader screms at Kaelen for standing on the ritual bowl, they have something something The One Eyed God
    • The blood is very liquid
    • Altaeum goes down
    • Kaelen uses blood from the blood bowl and feels something
      • “He” is pleased by the action
      • Kaelen casts the Blood Curse of the Fallen Puppet
        • He uses a lot of blood from the bowl
      • Altaeum manages to defeat the guy
        • he finally bleeds, in dying, his face is consumed by a rose blossom and hes covered in vines and bits of wood
        • His blood smells sickly sweet
  • The party begins chanting when the champion goes down
  • Kaelen feels magnificantly powerful, he feels like he has a bonfires worth of power
    • He plunges face first into the bowl of blood
    • He’s back in the place where he was durign aether walk
    • Tall white tree, ground is covered in red leaves
      • On the tree is carved “Kaelen” in Ost
      • Kaelens face stares back at the from the ground
    • He’s dressed in his monk robes (he hasnt worn these in years)
    • No scars from lifelong blood magic, from like before he started doing blood magic
    • He tries punching the tree but cannot destroy it
  • Evelyne witnesses Altaeum
    • Altaeum has a deep festering wound across his chest
    • His lungs are visibly moving, his upper ribcage is exposed
    • His ribs pierce through his skin, and where his heart would be is a dripping black mass that drips black blood
    • Everywhere below his neck, his arteries and veins are very visible
    • His flesh warps helically whereever his veins are particularly visible
    • When you look at his chest, something makes eye contact with you (not Altaeum)
    • Several gashes on his body have grown teeth
  • Soren is talking to the ritual leader
    • Apparently the ritual needs to happen every year on this day
    • The bowl of blood was drained, Kaelen’s markings are glowing a deep crimson
    • Evelyne touches Kaelen and theres some strange crackling going on
      • Also Kaelen is a sponge
      • Its like juicing an apple????
      • Kaelen erupts in a shower of crimson light
      • Evelyne got covered in blood (and may not have skin anymore)
        • They don’t have a face anymore :/
      • They do it again
  • Barney uses the power of the Lightbringer to cast mending as an action
    • He fixes Altaeum’s clothes with some burning light??
    • Barney’s fingers are see-through now!!
    • the crowd seems mad at Barney
  • Soren lets the ritual leader stab Kaelen in the thigh
    • The ritual leader begins chanting while stabbling kaelen
  • Kaelen is still in the white forest
    • Theres a voice echoing inside them
    • The voice asks why kaelen fights destiny so much
    • Theres a rustling behind Kaelen
      • There are a set of tracks leading deeper into the white woods
      • Kaelen enters a grove with a throne of vines and roots, of blossoming roses
      • A figure sits on it, armored in silver with carved imagery of roses
      • The figure speaks to Kaelen
        • The reaping is a product of greater sins, the last gambit of a fool who has clothed himself in gold and calls himself lord of all under the sun, see that we can forge a better future, one where there is no enslavement to gold, foul gold.
        • He raises a hand toward Kaelen, offering him a liquid of red liquid that will reveal the truth and path forward
        • The liquid is clear and sweet, Kaelen understands something
          • They have a vision of the ritual site before the bowl was there
          • There are men with the same face, Kaelen attacks whem with axes
            • It feels amazing, to be a victor??
          • Kaelen is following some guy in crimson
        • The gold is false, the church is a lie? Kaelen
    • Kaelen has learned the the church is false, the Abbey of St. Beltramus was built upon a pool of blood (maybe literal AND metaphorical)
      • The only way forward is to destroy the church
    • Kaelen awakens being stabbed by the ritual leader
      • “Oh child of blood, how fares The Red Swordsman
        • Confirms that the guy in silver is the Red Swordman
    • The Ritual Leader wants to continue the ritual with more blood, so he wants to use party members for it
  • Soren punches the guy holding Evelyne (and kills him)
  • Altaeum tries to get the ritual to stop
    • He tries to head toward the ritual leader but gets stopped
    • He gets called ‘Blackblood’ by the crowd (who miraculously speaks common AND Altaeum can understand them)
  • The ritual leader is named Garag
    • Has been gifted with an army, and seeks the way of the red swordsman
    • He wants Kaelen to help him do these sacrifices, take over Greenmont and put a false king on so that they can overturn the order of The Host of Saints
    • Kaelen tries convincing Garag that this murder is not a good idea, it does not work
    • Kaelen tries making a speech convincing the warriors that they are the true speaker for The Red Swordsman, fails badly. Yells to attack
  • Evelyne casts hypontic pattern on many people
    • Kaelen casts a blood curse on Garag
    • Soren and Altaeum start waking people up
    • We dont manage to kill Garag, but we do make it out from the ritual
    • We lost Barney (they went to find water)