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Session Zero

The sisters began far apart.

Elara and Briar were living on separate planets when the same recording came through their bell-cats at the same time: F14's voice, carried as a message and a song. She needed help. She told them to find each other, and then find her.

Through East and West, the sisters made a plan. Elara reached Lun-X first, a wasteland planet with few villages, and found shelter there for two days while she waited. When Briar arrived, HEC came to meet them.

HEC reached out massive mech hands and said:

Take my hands.

Each finger opened a different memory.

The First Meeting​

The first memory returned to the day the sisters met as children on an unknown world.

Elara came from the east side of the city, where the sun rises. Briar came from the west side, where the sun sets. A firestorm struck the east, and a thunderstorm struck the west. The disasters pushed both girls toward the center of the city with nothing in their hands and no thought except survival.

At the center, F14 intervened. She broke the bell, caught the magic of the storms, and saved them.

Afterward, she asked one simple question:

Will you come with me?

Both girls said yes.

The Shifting Tower​

In another memory, F14 conjured an ever-shifting tower of cobblestone and brick and sent the sisters to recover one of her tokens: a small golden apple, beautiful but not magically powerful.

The tower's stairway built itself up the walls and fell apart as it formed. The sisters sent East and West upward to find the token, then had to solve how to bring the stairs back down.

Briar listened to the wall and heard a riddle, remembered roughly as:

14 tiles, 14 squares, save your felines, reclaim them there.

The sisters deciphered the pattern together, turned the stairs downward, and brought the cats back safely with the golden apple.

Old Nettle's Bargain​

F14's token appeared again when Old Nettle won it from her in a game of chance.

The sisters were sent to retrieve it. Old Nettle wanted a cat in trade and gave them one hour to return. Refusing to give up East or West, the sisters found a tabby cat at a nearby farm.

When Briar realized Old Nettle intended to eat the cat, she made a minor illusion of the cat and slipped the real one safely into her pocket. Old Nettle received the false cat. The sisters recovered the golden apple.

The Center Apple​

The combat trial echoed the sisters' first meeting.

Ember-things came from one side. Storm-wisps came from the other. The sisters had to protect the center apple and destroy the threats.

Briar discovered that storm-wisps would vanish if they touched each other. Elara acted on the discovery, whacking the storm-wisps together and casting them into oblivion. The ember-things went down one by one, and the sisters defended the apple.

When the trial ended, the scene reset cleanly.

The Witching Rite​

The last memory was the capstone of the sisters' hedgewitch training.

F14 congratulated them and told them there was nothing more she could teach them. She wanted them to go explore the world, though her words landed more sharply than she meant. The sisters took the idea of going their separate ways literally.

Elara chose the Sniper Star. Briar chose the Bone Lantern.

Then they separated for seventeen years.

What Changed​

  • The sisters answered F14's call and reunited on Lun-X.
  • HEC opened five memories through a smooth, controlled flashback spell.
  • The sisters remembered how F14 saved them, mentored them, tested them, and graduated them.
  • The golden apple became the repeated lesson-token across the trials.
  • Elara and Briar's long separation began with F14's graduation advice, taken too literally.
  • F14's message ended seventeen years apart.

Known Relics From Session Zero​

Elara's known set:

  • Eastfell Half
  • Star-Map Splinter
  • Hearth Sparrow Whistle
  • Thunderstep Locket
  • Sniper Star

Briar's known set:

  • Halo of the Ninth Door
  • Market-Faced Veil
  • Bride Glass Veil
  • West Bellhalf
  • Bone Lantern