Overview
The party arrived at Thornreach Crossing to find a silent crowd gathered around the small stone bridge. As they watched, a lone traveler seemed to skip impossibly from one point along the crossing to another. At the bridge’s center, he turned toward empty air as though greeting an old friend—then suddenly collapsed and died.
Nearby, Seren Vell, a reclusive member of the Cartographers’ Guild, was frantically sketching overlapping versions of the bridge and the traveler’s impossible movements. Seren explained that strange anomalies had become increasingly common in the region: roads changing course, signs reversing direction, rivers flowing backward, and reality appearing unable to settle on a single version of events. More troublingly, he claimed this was not the first time each member of the party had visited Thornreach Crossing—only the first time they had arrived together.
The party examined the body without stepping onto the bridge, but found no injury, illness, or apparent cause of death. The man seemed to have simply stopped existing.
Their investigation was interrupted by the arrival of the Axiom Ward, led by the stern Warden Maelis Vjorn, who immediately began containing the site. After a tense exchange between Maelis and Seren, the party agreed to accompany Seren to his workshop in Briar Hollow.
Key Moments
- Arrival at Thornreach Crossing
- Discovery of bizarre glitching events
- Introduction of Seren Vell and the Cartographer's Guild
- Introduction of the Axiom Ward and Warden Maelis Vjorn
- Discovery that the party has been here before with no memory of doing so
NPCs Involved
- Seren Vell
- Warden Maelis Vjorn
Notes
The party arrived at Thornreach Crossing, a small stone bridge on the route to Briar Hollow. As they approached the bridge, the party noticed that there seemed to be a small crowd of people standing on either side, standing idly by the way people stand when they are trying not to acknowledge a thing that everyone knows. Something was off. Crossing the bridge was a single figure that seemed to be lagging or glitching, jumping to different spots along the bridge impossibly fast, like a poor quality video skipping from point to point. As the man reached the center of the bridge, he turned his head to look behind him at the empty air like one looks at an old friend arriving after years of absense. The man immediately dropped dead.
Sitting near one side of the bridge was an older man with salt and pepper hair furiously scribbling in his notebook. The party approached from behind to see that the man was drawing the bridge in various overlapping positions, along with a single man in standing in different spots along the bridge. Beside him were various loose pages that looked to be Thornreach Crossing at different points in time from diffferent perspectives. "It doesn't always happen like this," said the man matter-of-factly without looking away from his sketchbook.
The party decided to investigate the body on the bridge. Nigh threw a small stone across the bridge, which skipped across the stone with sound that didn't seem to match what they were seeing. The sounds of the stone hitting the stone of the bridge came seconds too late and overlapped with one another. The stone also seemed to glitch back and forth, appearing at the center of the bridge before the beginning and the end and back again.
The man identified himself as Seren Vell, a member of the Cartographer's Guild and local hermit. Shiny asked Seren about the strange events and Seren discussed the recent anomalies at Thornreach Crossing as well as some others throughout the area, noting that as a Cartographer he has been documenting these anomalies as they arise. He told them that sometimes roads change course, signs point in opposite directions, rivers switch direction, and reality seems to be unable to decide which version of events is correct. While these anomalies only happen a few times a month at Thornreach Crossing specifically, Seren noted that the frequency and intensity of the glitches at Thornreach have been drastically increasing over the last three weeks or so.
He also indicated that this was not the first time the party had arrived at Thornreach Crossing. Sometimes two out of the three party members arrived alone, sometimes with a separate third party member not present, sometimes alone, but never all three together until now. Seren showed the party his sketchbook, inside of which were various drawings from page to page with figures that bore an uncanny resemblance to Nigh, Shiny, and Feltein but with different armor and different companions. He explained that, while they had been here in various forms before, this was the first time all three were together. He encountered different versions of the party about 7 or 8 times before this one.
Continuing the investigation, Feltein cast Detect Magic, which revealed layers of magic from different schools overlapping and cycling all around the party and the bridge with the most concentrated magic at the center of the bridge where the man lay dead. It was as though Thornreach Crossing could not decide which school of magic was the correct school and which version of reality was the correct version. The party had also noticed that their map was shifting impatiently in real time the closer they got to Thonreach.
It was at this point that a militant looking group arrived at Thornreach. The people surrounding the bridge parted to make way without being asked, like the group had an unspoken authority. Several members of the group spread out around Thornreach hammering silver spikes into the ground on either side of the bridge. Seren seemed annoyed by this intrusion.
The party then met Warden Maelis Vjorn of The Axiom Ward, a state sanctioned magical order dedicated to stabilizing reality, containing magical anomalies, unstable magical sites, fae distortions, and any other reality drift or anomaly that arises. Maelis and Seren seem to have a history and do not seem to like one another.
Maelis explained that they were given authority by the highest levels of government to contain anomalies, eliminate them, and/or prevent them from spreading. The strongly suggested the party vacate the area. After some intense back and forth, the party agreed to accompany Seren back to his workshop in Briar Hollow.
Next Steps
The party agreed to accompany Seren Vell to his workshop in Briar Hollow.