The prologue is over. The loop has begun.
We hit the moment. I wasn’t sure if we’d get there this session, but we did. The players made it through the wizardball heist, the glass-elf con man Syb’i’l got handled (not killed, just gently restrained), and nobody even fought the elf. No Mephits. No backup combat. Just a steady escalation that ended exactly where I’d hoped: the Stairs of Allegiance, the wrong place at the worst time, watching a city sized problem unfold.
And it worked. I was nervous. My players were on edge. But when the moment hit, the loop reset, it landed. Clean. Heavy. Worth it.
They even made it there organically. The Bard had a gig at the Stairs, that’s it. Pure roleplay momentum. I didn’t have a finished map, I didn’t have half the pieces I wanted to include, and still, the whole thing clicked. One of them critted while canvassing the crowd and now, canonically, the revolutionaries wear masks with diamonds sewn over one eye. That’s how worldbuilding happens sometimes. You say it once, and now it’s true.
They met Advantage (briefly). Syb’l got out-schemed. And now the party wakes up again. Same morning. New memories.
We’re done with the on-rails intro. From here, it’s city time. They’ve got three sprawling districts full of mysteries and I have no idea where they’re headed next. I tried to get a read at the end of session, but they’re still thinking. So now I prep a half-built dungeon, write some random encounters, and hope I’ve got what I need when they choose a direction.
The time loop is real. This is the point where the campaign finally starts to become their story, and not mine. When I let go of the reigns and let it become about their characters and how they become heroes.
The first sign is Nero’s voice, piercing from floats away:
“Oh, Cheers. the time is now. We are open.”
And then, quiet. A stillness settles. Every magical light flickers out. Wards vanish. Enchantments die. Spells falter, half formed in the mouths of parade mages. The air feels absent, like a breath held too long. You breathe in.
Then, a thundercrack of light and heat. Something almost like a fireball emanating from inside the floats right in front of you. And yet, no magic is working. A flash that leaves nothing but splintering wood, twisted metal, and flame. Screams tear the silence apart. Shrapnel sails. Dust clouds towards you.
And then the bass drops.
An impossibly deep, warping hum swells through the plate. The ground trembles. The Stairs of Allegiance twist inward, like softened wax. From underneath, something words have a difficult time describing. It is dark, or, well, it is non-light. A wave of unbeing spills from the base of the monument. You cannot forget how it moves.
This is what you saw, the first time you died.
Do you turn to speak? Do you run? It’s already happening.
People around you begin to let off some strange voidlike exhaust, smolder. Their edges fray and shimmer with darkness. Faces you saw smiling seconds ago dissolve into the darkness as the darkness spills forth. As if people were crochet and the darkness pulled them apart by the strings.
You watch the unraveling spread.
And then, as it reaches you, you blink, and find yourself elsewhere…