Chapter 19

~ When You Wish Upon A Star ~

As the party is deep into the Queen's Mission of slaying the Rewich Clan, let us take a brief flashback.

Prior to setting off to the Rewich Castle and taking refuge in Bellthorne for various quests in the meantime, the party comes across a cheerful Eladrin sailor down by the docks. Peddling and transporting boxes of fish, he seems to be a flirty fellow, immediately redirecting the conversation to the local brothel and his esteemed company, all while introducing himself as Caliban.

As it happens, Caliban grew tired of life at sea, and took our chance encounter as an excuse to join our adventures. Regardless, it seems he has some moxie to him, and perhaps experience in combat. No one survives the Setsuna Seas without battlescars and trauma. A welcome and useful addition to the party.

The following is an account of the party's encounter at Bridgewater, as Celestia tended to the preparations for the Queen's Mission.

As the caravan grew tired of its weary journey to the Rewich Castle, the party decided to rest at the nearby town of Bridgewater. It's a picturesque place, with a gushing river under its main gate bridge, as is its namesake.

Upon arrival, the town is noticeably empty. None of the hustle and bustle, no storekeepers hollering advertisements on their products, no paperboys with their ‘extras’, no townsfolk going about their daily lives.

The party then decides to investigate the local tavern, finding no one, but food in pristine condition. It was as though the townsfolk disappeared overnight. The only shop still open in town was the famous Toymaker's, for which Bridgewater was renowned for - all sorts of children's trinkets and particularly their prized Porcelain Dolls.

However, the Toymaker himself was dead - stone cold and slumped on the counter top. Caliban deduced that the Toymaker's soul was willingly transferred elsewhere, and recently too, before the Porcelain Dolls revealed their own souls, with motes glowing and rushing towards the local cemetery.

There, the party fought valiantly against a demented, smiling demon - the Toymaker himself. As it turns out, the Toymaker wanted to achieve immortality in his growing age, and transferred his own soul into a twisted demonic body, all the while creating possessed Porcelain Dolls to murder the townsfolk, harvesting their souls for eventual ascension into demonic immortality.

It was a good thing the party stopped the Toymaker in his tracks, for it would have birthed a Greater Evil. The innocent souls, though mortals slain, peacefully passed into the skylight afterlife.