Magic: The Gathering Edge of Eternities Episode 8 begins with Sami and Tan rushing into the cargo bay, just seconds before being killed by Haliya.
Instead of Sami and Tan meeting their demise, something has changed – time seemingly reversed and manipulated by Alpharael and the stone.
“She killed you,” Alpharael says. “I saw it. But—she didn’t. I think … I don’t know.”
While Tan prepares the ship and Sami examines Haliya, who is paralyzed from the jet injector, Alpharael explains that she was going to kill him, but instead asked him to use the stone to change the events of the past. As Alpharael and Tan discuss the Summist’s request, a voice comes through Haliya’s comm – Syr Vondam.
“Haliya. I’m sorry.” And then the quick trill of a channel change. “Vondam to all units. We are going to protocol seven. You have two minutes. Flare Three, I want you over Star Two’s last position, fangs out. She’s gone silent and the target may rabbit. Galvarinha, get in there and help Star Two.“
Realizing they’ve got two minutes before the Free Company ships raze the entire settlement, the trio loads the paralyzed Haliya into the ship’s hold and prepares to make a hasty escape. While Sami and Tan prep the cockpit, Alpharael moves to store the stone in the stasis cask, but they hadn’t counted on Haliya’s armor being able to administer a “counteragent” against the paralytic. As the ship takes flight, Haliya finds herself able to move again, and quickly grabs Alpharael, marching him at blade point to the cockpit.
Reaching Sami and Tan, Haliya demands that they land the ship and patch her through on a comm frequency that she knows Syr Vondam will hear. Sami obliges the comm link request, but tells her landing wouldn’t be a great idea, and points out the Free Company Hopelight behind them, and a massive craft, the Sundog, hovering ahead of them, directly over Taro-duend.
Moments later, Haliya and the others watch as the Sundog opens fire – its laser weapons targeting anything below with a heat signature.
“I saw this,” the captain says. “On Sigma. Glass flowers burned into the clay. The viy said they were lightning strikes. but they weren’t. It was laser fire. And then it … unhappened. The patrol ship never caught us. Now it’s happening here, instead. Anywhere the Metalman’s rock goes, the Free Company kills everyone.”
Shocked at the devastation unfolding before her, Haliya desperately tries to reach Vondam. Despite the signal interference, she finally succeeds, and pleads with him to stop firing on the civilians. She tells him that she has the stone and Alpharael on the ship and to just destroy them instead, but Vondam refuses, telling her to just kill them and bring the ship down. Haliya responds saying “Sir, you are killing every Kav in sight, you are murdering their children, you cannot spare me!” but is only met with silence on the other end.
As the Sundog runs out of targets, Sami and the others watch as it ignites its main fusion engine, preparing to climb away from “…Taro-duend on a nuclear blast” that will surely eradicate any remaining Kav below. Haliya tries one last time to get through to Vondam, but gets no response, and it becomes clear that he will not sacrifice her just to eliminate Alpharael. Realizing the Free Company wasn’t going to destroy their ship, Sami fires up whats left of their fusion engine, which sends the Hopelight behind them reeling long enough for them to rocket off into open space.
After putting as much distance as possible between them and the Free Company, Sami turns to their new crewmates and orders “mallowmass,” a colloquial parlay. Under mallowmass, which all parties are (evidently) required to abide by, Alpharael and Haliya are restricted from harming each other or anyone else on the ship. Suffering silently at the loss of more of his people, Tan turns his focus to repairing the numerous damages the ship suffered while Sami makes for the galley, beckoning for Alpharael and Haliya to join them.
Despite the mallowmass, Alpharael and Haliya continue to bicker, but Sami manages to steer their conversation to the events leading up to and proceeding the two of them meeting.
“Together the two of them explain to Captain Sami how they came to Kavaron. Alpharael’s aborted sekhar, his capture and release; Syr Vondam’s brief death and partial recovery; Syr Vondam’s belief that Alpharael could only have been released under the malign influence of an object. The object now in stasis in the Seriema‘s hold.”
As the conversation flows, Sami remarks that Alpharael’s emergency landing on Kavron likely killed a lot of Kav, but when he attempts to apologize, Haliya defends him, saying “…Alpharael didn’t murder anyone. We shot his ship down. If it irradiated someone on its way down, ultimately that’s our responsibility. He’s not responsible for the dead Kav at Taro-duend, either. We are.”
Despite her allegiance to Syr Vondam and the Free Company, it’s clear that everything she witnessed on Taro-duend had shaken her values to the core and now, just like Alpharael, she too was second-guessing everything she knew about her beliefs.
“I haven’t seen this object do anything sinister at all,” she says. “I saw it, maybe, save your life—you, Captain, and your first mate. I think I remember killing you. Just like we killed everyone else in Taro-duend. If we hadn’t intervened, all the Kav in Taro-duend would still be alive, and you’d be off to—what is it you’re doing, anyway? How did you find the object?”
The conversation shifts focus to Sami, with Haliya asking about them and Tan, the artifact, and what they were doing to get caught up in everything. Sami tells them about the Metalman, how he was a “wizard” that had sent them to Sigma’s Reach to retrieve the stone with the promise of fixing their ship, and how Sami was doing all this just to track down their cat, Mirri.
Brandishing a picture of the feline, Alpharael and Haliya are both surprisingly sympathetic to Sami’s plight, and having turned their backs on their respective factions, the pair agree to accompany Sami and Tan on their search for Mirri.
Read Edge of Eternities Episode 8 in full from Wizards of the Coast.
