Adventure Arc the First Synopsis

ADVENTURE ARC THE FIRST:

ENTITY OF ASCENDANCY

THREE PAGE SYNOPSIS

In the year 1890, six men are walking down a road. They are attacked by a group of muggers. Without saying a word, they kill all of them in brutal ways. Then they resume their journey to the city of Vallone.

As it turns out, they are on the hunt for an artifact called the Tablet of Omainu. The travelers know its name and it is evil, but that is about it. Their goal is to find it before it falls into the wrong hands. They decide to go around town and ask people about it. They find a shop called The Dark Zethen and figure the people who work there might know more about it. Once there, they meet Potav. He is the owner of the shop. After he introduces himself, the group of men does the same. The name of their group is Hex Immortal. It consists of Tearthis, Artain, Mondren, Nios, Rykarn, and Dragus. Tearthis is the leader while everybody else holds the same rank beneath him. Then they ask him about the tablet. He says their government has it. He also says their government is oppressive and is run by a man who goes by "Overlord Contanis." Hex Immortal then decides to free the city from his rule.

While this is going on, a man is dragging a woman across a road in the city. He is taking her to Contanis's throne room. The man turns out to be Contanis's second in command and goes by "Lord Kotlor." Apparently, she was hiding food from them so Contanis decides to make an example out of her by killing her. Afterwards they leave her body there and go play chess.

Meanwhile, Hex Immortal leaves the shop. They find a hotel to stay in because they figure they are going to be here for awhile. They find one called the Tranquility Inn and decide to stay there. After meeting the owner, Yi, and her assistant, Talez, they pay for a room and plan their attack on the government. They decide to raid the government compound at midnight so they rest until then. At 9:00 PM, Dragus and Mondren discuss the engravings on their swords. None of them know anything about the engravings. In fact, this information is not revealed in this adventure arc at all.

When the clock strikes midnight, they follow through with their plan. They scale the wall that surrounds it and take out the guards in the area. They also find a storage shed. After all the outside guards are killed, they then make their way into the main building. They decide to spread out and enter the building from all different sides and floors to cover more ground. Once inside, they continue to kill guards they come across. However, one of the guards manages to escape and goes to alert Contanis. Once he learns about this invasion, he tells Kotlor about it.

Meanwhile, Hex Immortal is still trying to find the tablet. They come across a soldier from a special unit known as the Shadow Sifters. They struggle with him more than with the previous soldiers, but manage to kill him. Then they find a stairwell and head down to the first underground floor. This is where they fight another Shadow Sifter and kill him as well. Next they go down to the second underground floor. After fighting and killing a third Shadow Sifter, they find some doors. They go through them and end up in a torture chamber with bodies in it. After that, they find a prison. Nobody is in it though. The next thing they find on this floor is a rape chamber. A girl named Gosunie is in one of the rooms and still alive. They talk with her for a while before she succumbs to her injuries incurred from her abusers.

They leave and continue their hike to the final underground floor. This floor turns out to be a hallway that leads nowhere. However, they figure out the back wall is actually a hidden door. Then they figure out how to get through it. It turns out it leads to another room. Inside is a bunch of valuables, but the Tablet of Omainu is nowhere to be found. They figure out there is actually a secret door in this room as well. Once they figure out how to open this door, they go through it. Another room greets them.

This time though, the Tablet of Omainu is in it. They take it and backtrack into the hallway. However, they accidentally set off a trap. A door closes on each end of the hallway. Then wind starts to come out of a vent on the right wall, while spikes protrude out of the left one. The idea is for the wind to blow the individual into the spikes. Eventually they escape this and get back into the stairwell. More guards await them, but this time they have crossbows. Hex Immortal fights them off while getting back up to the first floor. When they reach it, they run into Kotlor. He is accompanied by a rotary cannon. Mondren persuades him to tell him how he joined up with Contanis before they fight. This story is told though a flashback.

He is a farmer with a wife named Losa and a daughter named Jezry. They live in a village called Iptun. One day, Contanis and some of his men show up at their house. Kotlor is the only one home though. Their plan is to rob him for supplies because they are on their way to Vallone. Kotlor fights Contanis, but Contanis decides to let him live because he is impressed with his fighting skill. He tells him he would like to talk with him more, so he sets up a meeting with him. Contanis and his men then leave. Losa and Jezry come home and he tells them what happened. During dinner, he tells them he wants to report intruders to the police, but it is a lie. He really wants to meet with Contanis again.

When Kotlor meets with him again, he has another fight with him. After it finishes they talk some more. Contanis tells him he and his men are stronger than everybody else. This means they have the right to rule over those who are weaker than them. He also tells Kotlor he can join their elite group. However, he has to bring back the heads of his wife and daughter before he can. The last thing he tells Kotlor is where they are hiding out so he can find them. Kotlor leaves the campfire and goes back home.

During the next couple days, Kotlor thinks about what Contanis told him while he does various chores. Then one evening, he goes to a bar in the city to think about it some more. With the help of the bartender, he eventually comes to the conclusion that Contanis is right. He goes back home to accomplish the task Contanis told him about. Once Losa and Jezry realize what iss going on, they make a run for it and get out of the house. Kotlor catches Losa though and brings her back to the house where he tortures and then kills her.

Meanwhile, Jezry decides to try and get to the city because it will be easier for her to hide there and get some help. Kotlor gets their horse, Ternay, and rides around looking for her. He finds her and captures her. He then takes her back to their house where he kills her as well. He cuts of their heads and disposes the bodies in a river. Then he takes their heads to the location Contanis told him about at the campsite. Contanis lets Kotlor join their group and tells him to get ready to leave, so Kotlor sells his house and packs some belongings. Then one morning he meets Contanis and the rest of his men on the outskirts of the city. They then leave for Vallone via horses. The flashback is over.

It is the present again and Kotlor is ready to kill Hex Immortal. He starts to shoot some bullets at them with his rotary cannon. They take cover behind some pillars that are in the room to avoid the bullets. Artain decides to throw their last bomb at Kotlor, while Mondren distracts him by throwing a knife at him. When the time is right, Artain pelts the bomb at him and blows his legs off. Then when the coast is clear, Artain goes up to him to see what happened. Kotlor's still alive and attacks Artain, but Mondren saves him. He hangs him from one of the pillars so he will bleed out faster. Within a minute or so, Kotlor finally dies.

Tearthis decides to fight Contanis alone, while the rest of Hex Immortal finishes off the remaining guards. Tearthis goes to the throne room where he finds Contanis. They have a battle of words for a little bit and then physically engage in combat. While they do this, Rykarn and Artain find two people and kill them. Mondren and Dragus find two other people and kill them too. Nios finds one guard, but before he can kill him, he commits suicide. As for Contanis and Tearthis, after a long hard fight Tearthis prevails in the end and Contanis is killed. He leaves and finds his friends. They tell each other what each of them ran into and then head back to the hotel.

         As it turns out, some Shadow Sifters were in the city during the compound invasion, so they were not killed along with the rest of the guards. They go back to the compound and figure out what happened. They decide to go into hiding and leave the city immediately. Since Contanis's reign of terror is now over, Hex Immortal holds a meeting with the residents of the city to tell them this. They are skeptical at first, so Hex Immortal takes some of the people to the compound to show them that what they had told them was indeed true. While they are all there, they help clean up the building and collect the bodies.

During this time, Hex Immortal learns who the dead woman in the throne room is; finds a secret armory; discovers cocaine in the shed; and discover Contanis's diary. As for the secret armory, Hex Immortal decides to give the weapons that are in it to the residents for protection as opposed to keeping them for themselves. At the end of the day, they go back to the hotel. Artain then goes to a small store called "General's Store" to buy some food. When he does this, he meets the owner. He then heads back to the hotel and uses the kitchen to prepare supper for himself and his teammates.

The next day, Hex immortal finds out that the town wants them to be pallbearers at the funeral for the woman whom Contanis killed. They go down to Saint Lasarious's Cathedral where they talk to the priest, Father Garsine. There is some tension between him and Rykarn, but nobody seems to notice. This is not explained to the reader in this in this novel. However, it will be in the second one. Later in the day, the funeral starts. They hear some eulogies from her friends and children about what kind of person she was. It is here where they learn that she was the mastermind behind an attack against Contanis a couple years ago. After the mass is done, Hex Immortal carries her coffin to the gravesite. Rykarn seems the most bothered by this despite the fact that he and the rest of Hex Immortal did not personally know her.

After she is buried, they go to a feast at the cathedral in memory of her. Here, they tell all the attendees about how they want to tear down a statue of Contanis that was located in the center of Vallone. After they are done eating, Hex Immortal goes back to their hotel home. A few hours later, they go to the statue and have some residents take it down. Once it is removed, they go back to the hotel again. A few hours later, they go to a bond fire. Its purpose is to burn all the bodies of the people in the government. While they are there, Potav talks to them. He finds out that Hex Immortal does not know what the Tablet of Omainu does so he decides to tell them about it at a later date. They pick a day to go see him. After a few more hours, Hex Immortal returns to the hotel. However, a woman is watching them from an alley. Her name, or anything about her for that matter, is not revealed in this novel. Information about her will be revealed in the second adventure arc.