Episode 4 of the Edge of Eternities story resumes with Alpharael, who has composed himself after realizing he had signed up for a suicide mission.
In the seconds before impact, Alpharael familiarizes himself with the other people aboard the transport. He learns several of their names and what motivated them to join the one-way campaign. Most are like Alpharael – wanting to die for one reason or another – but unlike himself, they all still hold firm to the belief that entering the void will lead them to their next life. Cutting the conversation short, the inevitor gives a signal and the group braces for impact.
Upon impact, the inevitor activates the cherezad, delaying the effects of the impact for 10 minutes, and the crew spills out into the Dawnsire prepared for battle. Reaching the ships inner hull, the Monoists are engaged by the Free Company, but make quick work of the foot soldiers who have been cut off from reinforcements thanks to the cherezad.
While briefly unopposed, members of the group rush to a nearby hatch and manage to rip it open. Using their gear and weapons, the Monoists push through the hatch into a new room – a massive basilica with gilded features and rows of pews. Alpharael hears someone shout the order to split off, and half the group push onward toward the Dawnsire’s bridge while the other stays in the basilica to cause as much damage as possible. As Alpharael moves to follow one of his shipmates toward the bridge, he is suddenly shot by energy beams from above. The lasers pierce his armor, but a nearby ally manages to knock him loose before they can finish the job, and together the pair runs deeper into the ship.
Switching perspectives, Haliya and Syr Vondam race through the ship toward the invaders. Reaching the space affected by the event horizon, the pair stops and is shortly joined by another Knight and his squire. The new arrivals relay that the enemy has reached the basilica, and the Knights conclude the fastest way to intercept them is to drop from above.
Readying their energy weapons, the Knights fire into the floor beneath them. Alerted by the chaos, the enemy below scrambles to retaliate. Before Haliya has the chance to reassure her Knight that she would do her best to protect him, the deck collapses and she plummets into a water tank below.
Managing to ignite her energy weapon, Haliya slices a hole in the side of the tank, and the pressure pushes her out just moments before being crushed by pieces of the falling deck. Composing herself, Haliya looks ahead to see an enemy soldier rushing toward her — Alpharael.
“Gliding toward her head first is a sideways thing. A shape so dark and drooling, layered in tongues of alabile rot, that it can only be a Monoist. Not one of their gravkill paladins—she’d be dead already, stretched into a ribbon of Haliya or compressed into a little human meatball—but a fighter still, a militant zealot.”
Acting fast, she raises her weapon and fires, but the debris-coated device explodes instead, launching her backwards. Pushing his advantage, Alpharael jumps to attack, but Haliya manages to switch her weapon to a close-range, melee mode just in time. Her weapon connects, piercing with the Monoist’s armor as he slams into her. Wrapped in violent embrace, Alpharael grabs hold of Haliya’s head, shaking it harshly against her helmet as she struggles to push the blade of her weapon deeper into his armor.
Finally, Haliya’s blade fully pierces Alpharael’s armor, and the protective biosuit begins to melt away. At that same time, Syr Vondam arrives and knocks Alpharael off his squire. Before the Knight can tend to her however, the other Monoist accompanying Alpharael leaps from the rubble behind the Knight and the two begin fighting.
Alpharael attempts to move to assist his comrade, but what remains of his damaged suit refuses to move. He struggles to remove the armor, but realizes that Haliya has gripped his foot, doing all she can to keep him from interfering in the fight. Refusing to give up, Alpharael repeatedly kicks Haliya, but she holds strong long enough for Syr Vondam to dispatch his adversary.
Concussed but conscious, Haliya witnesses her Knight’s victory, but in doing so, relaxes her grip just enough for Alpharael to break loose, and shed his armor. The Knight calls out, telling Alpharael that he’s been beaten and demands that he yield. Haliya pleads with Vondam to just finish the job, reminding him that the Monoist won’t relent, as “…he’ll be dead in five minutes, and he knows it. He won’t yield. He won’t. He’ll do something fantastically cruel.”
To the surprise of both, Alpharael shouts back, declaring his will to live – something that any other Monoist in his position would never do. As her vision stabilizes, Haliya watches as Alpharael wrestles his sekhar, the blackhole bead, free from his armor and does the unthinkable by throwing it directly at the Knight.
“The singularity bead flashes violet. The collapse takes the Monoist’s right hand with it, and he screams in agony, but it’s done. He’s done it. He has thrown away his sekhar. The newborn microvoid hurtles across the chamber and through the wall, penetrating all that sacred gold and iron like so much rotten fruit. Along the way, it goes directly through Syr Vondam’s head.
What was meant to be an escape to salvation had instead become a weapon, and it had worked. Turning to make his escape, Alpharael is immediately intercepted by another Knight. The Knight asks how much longer is left on the cherezad, to which his squire replies “four minutes.”
Moments later, Captain Slats blinks into the room and begins to interrogate Alpharael. He asks the Monoist “You struck dead a man who was my friend. I foresaw this. I want to know why…” to which he responds by saying: “I want to live,” he chokes. “I just want to live. But I want it to be me who lives. Don’t burn me hollow. Don’t shoot lasers into my head until I’m someone else. I know what you do to prisoners. Don’t do it to me.”
“I was given the chance to fall! I was offered the Plummet, and I refused! I’m a coward! I can’t go back! Even if I went now, even if I fell to the Next Eternity, what would they think of me? What would Raphaella—”
Convinced of the man’s convictions, the Captain tells him he is free to go, and to live if he can find a way to survive the cherezad. Justifiably confused, Alpharael asks him why he would spare a man who just killed his friend, to which Slats tells him that by “…killing him, you were converted. You see that life now, in this bright span of energy at the beginning of time, is worth more than a long, slow death. Syr Vondam died to show you this truth. I cannot waste that sacrifice. I sentence you to live.” With only three minutes left, Captain Slats tells Alpharael where to find a functioning spacecraft, and the newly converted Summist races off to seize his freedom.
Having defeated the Monoist boarding party, Haliya allows herself to grieve the loss of her Knight, but is promptly interrupted by the other squire, Quinidad, who approaches and tells her that there’s something she needs to see. Struggling her way over to where Vondam should be lying dead, Haliya finds her Knight alive and well.
“He shows Haliya the hole in his helmet, then the hole in his face, just to the left of his nose. Then he turns carefully and shows her the matching black hole in the back of his skull. It’s scorched and perfectly round and no bigger than a pinhead.”
With Knight and squire reunited, the Captain explains to them the circumstances around the improbable situation before ushering the pair off to receive medical care. Turning attention back to his duties, Slats phases back to the bridge of the Dawnsire and orders for a full retaliation against the Monoist monastery.
Read Edge of Eternities Episode 4 in full from Wizards of the Coast.
