The party destroys Aeris's indestructible space-time phylactery in Kairos, the plane without time. Back in Hollin, the young Hobnail Karn asks Kasskar to get his brother back from an Admiralty press gang, who kidnapped him despite the desperate ruin caused by Firestorm. Searching at the Admiralty forge, they're attacked by a disturbed and inexplicably psychic press gang.
At the end of Game 31, the regular party killed their former friend Aeris, who'd become a lich and burned Hollin with the spell Firestorm. Aeris's allies Kane and Treasach surrendered alive, and the party now decided to imprison them.
With Aeris dead, his brother Jaris resolved to right his wrongs. Aeris had killed his (and Jaris's) parents and resurrected them as undead. They died again now when Aeris's power ended, so Jaris decided to start by burying them.
The party had been burned when the lich Ishild returned to his phylactery in Game 11, so Kasskar suggested destroying Aeris's space-time phylactery as soon as possible, and Jaris took it from Aeris's body. On the face of it, the space-time shell was indestructible. But in a revelation, Wren told them that the shell would be rendered inert in a place without time - like the plane Kairos.
She says there is, and has always been, a horse and carriage in Braddock's market that can take them there. She describes it as a highly polished black carriage with wheels painted silver, fine trim, and a black horse. She says you can distinguish it from other black carriages because it has no windows and no driver.
Given this description, Kasskar realized he'd seen a carriage like that in the market hundreds of times when he was working there as a child. He never thought about it, and he can't say he's ever seen the driver or seen anyone use the carriage. Kasskar remembers that children in the market used to say that the horse could quote "count" by pounding its hoof, but no one was ever able to actually make the horse count.
If the party looks down into the Braddock market now, they can actually see a shining black carriage with a black horse and no driver, standing unhurt among all the destruction.
While the party and their allies looked down at the carriage in the Shambles, Captain Burns's eye fell on the Hedgepeth, anchored on the river. He told Kasskar that the Hedgepeth was cursed, and he was going to burn it. But looking down, Kasskar was confused to see that Hedgepeth had already been completely burned by Firestorm.
Nonetheless, the party took Burns to the Hedgepeth on their way to the Shambles. Burns went aboard the charred hulk and, seemingly incognizant that it was already burned, went about reburning it. The party watched in confusion and growing sadness, and soon Kasskar took Burns off the ship and asked some friends to take care of him while they dealt with the phylactery. Burns's sudden madness remained unexplained.
The party continued to the carriage at the Shambles. Starting with the partially informative, partially misleading clue that the horse could count, the party soon figured out that the horse instead played Master Mind - given a sequence of numbers, the horse would whinny for each correct number if the correct place in sequence, and would pound its hoof for each correct number in the wrong place.
Within a few guesses, the party found the combination, 2231.
When the party gets the combination right, the horse whinnies four times and the door of the carriage pops open. When they get in and close the door, they can feel the carriage start to move, and they hear the clip-clop of the horse's hooves. The clip-clops go at a walking pace for a little while, then accelerate to a hard gallop. After a few minutes, the carriage stops rudely like it has hit a difficulty and the party is thrown around inside the carriage a little. They notice that the space-time shell around the phylactery dissolves, leaving just a chunk of the meteor Noreste spinning to a stop in Jaris's hand - the carriage must be in the plane without time. You're still sitting in the carriage looking at the piece of Noreste when you feel the carriage start rocking.
When they get out of the carriage, they're on a desert plane that stretches to the horizon in all directions, next to a long, deep blue river running to the horizon in both directions. The wind blows a tumbleweed by.
You see that the carriage is stuck in deep mud, and that there are already four guys trying to push it out - who you recognize as Beowolf, Kasskar, Jaris, and Ord. The Beowolf says, "Hey - quit standing there and help us push the carriage out of the mud."
If the players help them push the carriage out of the mud, the second party thanks them. If the "real" party asks this second party what's happening, they say that since there's no time in Kairos, events have no order. So, it seems that the party's carriage left Kairos before it arrived.
This second party proposed to take the "real" party's carriage back to the Shambles, saying that the real party could take the next carriage to arrive. Beowolf, Jaris, and Kasskar argued against this, but the other party said it didn't matter which Beowolf, Jaris, or Kasskar went back - the "real" Beowolf and second Beowolf were the same person, and similarly for the others. So, the "real" Beowolf, Jaris, and Kasskar, and the second Ord got into the freed carriage and went back to the Shambles.
After the second Beowolf, Jaris, and Kasskar and the first Ord watched the carriage drive to the horizon, they turned around to find the Witches' Chorus standing behind them.
The young witch Irja says, "Well met, Kasskar, Ord, Beowolf, and now Jaris."
Beowolf. Irja, the young witch with dark skin, says, "Beowolf Sinister, your animal spirit is the white dragon Celendril, who protected the Inkeri from the horrors of Hilde's waste in ages past. But, traitors were able to drive you out of Hilde."
"Hilde's horrors are awakening again, and the city of Highpyre is the Inkeri's real protection against them. In times past, the jewel called Lethe's Star lit Highpyre through Hilde's sunless winter. You could rally the Inkeri there by finding the star and raising it there again."
Kasskar. The pale-skinned red-haired witch Kaisa says, "We've come to talk to you, Kasskar. Although you're Good, self-interest has been your real game. But, after fighting Krill and the dragon Vecassitrix, killing Lahar, and watching Hollin burn, we find it hard to believe that pocketing a little shady cash is still your life goal." Kaisa says, "Besides self-interested, you can also be vengeful. Aeris betrayed you, and you battled to destroy him. Now destroying the phylactery will stop Aeris from returning to Hollin at will, but Aeris's spirit will still live." Kaisa says, "If we offered you the the choice between true-deathing Aeris for vengeance or doing something truly good, which would you choose?"
Ord. Alissa, the young witch with copper skin and intense eyes, says, "Ord Redding. Aeris helped you find Prosper and put down the usurper Zephyr. But in the last few hours, your friend Aeris and his evil party have burned Hollin and raised the victims as undead to attack the living. Are you sure that your other friends aren't evil as well?"
"Aeris's spirit also killed Kidu, Gradska's Angel of Death, in the royal mummy cache. With Kasskar killing Lahar/Gradska, and Aeris killing Kidu, Krohn believes there are no wildcards left to keep him from wiping out the Ninety-Nine. The Ninety-Nine represent vices or virtues - patience, mercy, destruction - but they came to our world, Balaal, to preserve our universe. If Krohn kills the Ninety-Nine, the universe's existence will be laid bare to possible extinction."
Jaris. The crone Kanna says "Jaris, or should I say Eldred the harpooner? You killed your brother Aeris, who loved you and gave you this perfect specimen for a body. Didn't you have just as much cause for revenge on Hollin as Aeris?"
Kanna says "I told Aeris where Firestorm and Yawning Graves were, and I stand behind that decision - Aeris accomplished his destiny in spectacular fashion."
Kanna says, "I believe that Aeris still has something of yours [meaning the skull]."
Although Kaisa had described Kasskar's lukewarm Goodness accurately, Kasskar bristled at the suggestion that he wouldn't want to do something truly Good, and declined to true-death Aeris.
Although the witches were done lecturing the party members as individuals, they still had more to say.
As the party finishes talking with the witches, one of them spots a black speck on the horizon. As the speck gets closer, they can see that it's a black carriage, being pulled along the river by a hard-galloping black horse. As it's about to blast past the party, it suddenly gets caught in the mud and is nearly wrecked. Four disheveled guys get out - Beowolf, Kasskar, Jaris, and Ord. If the two parties get it out of the mud, the "real" party can assert themselves to take it back to Hollin.
After each of you have climbed into the carriage, the pale-skinned, dark-haired witch Lahja steps up and puts her hand on the carriage door to close it. She looks into the carriage to make sure that everyone's hands are clear of the door. She says, "You know, if you wanted to go to a place without time, there's a place without time right in the middle of Hollin." Looking at each of you a last time, she says, "Our drama is approaching its end." She shuts the door, and you can feel the horse start to pull the carriage and accelerate to the same hard gallop as before. Soon, the carriage slows and the door pops open. When you get out, you're back in the Shambles.
When the party returns from Kairos to the marketplace, they can see that they lost a little time in Kairos, maybe a few weeks.
Although the Shambles is still a charred ruin, there are people there getting a few of the stalls repaired. Even in the charred ruin, people still have to eat, and a few people have started to buy and sell some animals and fruits and vegetables already.
With the bitter fight with Aeris finished, the characters decided to each return home to get some sleep and have some baths. Maybe 10% of the undead that Aeris raised had survived Aeris's death, and Jaris decided to start hunting those undead and helping to rebuilt Hollin.
While the party was still coming to terms with Hollin's destruction, Kasskar was approached by some young Hobnails, including Karn, who said his brother had been taken by a press gang.
After Kasskar has been staying at the burned-out Mooncalf for a few days, a young Hobnail named Karn goes there to talk with him. He says he understands that Kasskar killed the Hobnail kingpin Horst and his second-in-command. So, maybe he has the cajones to claim some leadership among the Hobnails.
But, Karn asks because he has a specific problem. A lot of their time was spent protecting the locals from Admiralty press gangs, and as perverse as it seems, it appears that press gangs have been taking some of the few survivors in Braddock even despite its near destruction. Karn and his crew tried to fight off a largish press gang but they were outnumbered and the press gang took Karn's brother Early to the Admiralty forge.
The party went to the forge, where they were attacked by an inexplicably psychic press gang, who had these stats. The party fought them among a jumble of stacked crates full of goods and tied-up farm animals, which seemed out of place at the forge. They beat the press gang while protecting the young Hobnails who'd led them there, and freed three impressed men imprisoned there, Mayfield, Avens, and Gower. In turn, Mayfield, Avens, and Gower told the party that some other impressed men, possibly including Karn's brother, were being held at the crime family complex Enfield Yard.
Rereading the Kairos material, Wren tells the party that Kairos is "without time," and the second party there tells them that "since there's no time in Kairos, events have no order." It's not clear to me why events having no order could mean there'd be two parties. It made sense to me when I originally wrote it up, but now I think you'd have to broaden "without time" to also mean that "events don't happen at a unique time" to have the party arrive twice.
Tolkien said a story should leave some mysteries unexplained, especially if there actually is an explanation. So, the party never discovered the place without time in Hollin that Lahja mentioned.
