The fifth installment of the Edge of Eternities story picks back up with Sami and Tan as they begin their descent onto Kavaron, Tan’s home planet, to retrieve a cache he left behind.
Having been exiled by his people, Tan has reservations about returning to Kavaron, but Sami reminds him that they need the stasis cask from his cache and reassures him their visit will be quick and quiet. All is going according to plan as the pair enters the planet’s atmosphere, but any hope for a stealthy landing is dashed when they realize a Free Company Hopelight has followed them.
Observing the craft, Sami and Tan realize that the Hopelight wasn’t actually following them, but was trying to escape pursuit, and they just happened to be in the way. Speeding recklessly downward, it becomes clear that the Hopelight’s high-speed entry would not only result in a brutal crash landing, but also attract a ton of attention.
As predicted, the Hopelight slams into the ground just moments later, and Sami decides they need to go and investigate. Landing nearby, the pair rush over to the crashed spaceship and begin working on getting the pilot out. Locating a “…carabiner of interface adapters”, Sami is able to patch into the ship’s communication link and calls out for any crew, but only one voice replies — Alpharael.
Against the odds, Alpharael was able to live by commandeering a Hopelight and using the craft’s high speeds to off-set the delayed effects from the event horizon. Working quickly, Tan manages to break through a “cell of cockpit panel,” but before Sami can crawl in to aid Alpharael, a voice from behind commands them to freeze, and they turn to see the entire crash site is now surrounded by the Kav military.
The Commander, who has recognized Tan, motions to the other Kav to arrest the trespassers, but thinking fast, Sami calls out and declares that they are a Monoist, sent by the Susur Secundi to recover their crashed comrade, and that Tan is under their protection. Despite missing a hand and actively bleeding out, Alpharael is able to play along with Sami’s story, and together they weave the narrative of needing the content’s of Tan’s cache in order to safely secure a damaged sekhar.
Not fully buying the story, but also not wanting to cause friction with the faction, the Kav Commander tells Sami that they’ll escort them to the cache and help secure the sekhar onboard their ship, at which point they’ll be handed over to the Kav government to have their identities confirmed.
After recovering the stasis cask from the cache and returning to their ship, Sami asks Alpharael to do the honors of moving the “sekhar” to the cask. Playing along, Alpharael drags himself over to the hold where Tan had stored the mysterious artifact they found back on Sigma’s Reach. Despite not knowing what a damaged sekhar actually looks like, the Kav Commander becomes suspicious, and not wanting to drop the ruse, Alpharael reaches into the storage locker and removes the artifact.
At first, the object is heavy in his hands, but quickly becomes lighter as Alpharael finds himself slowly rising off his feet, levitating upward. Recognizing something is very wrong, the Kav Commander gives the order to kill the trio, but it’s too late. All at once Alpharael’s voice changes and the Kavs begin to moan in agony as “…their armor twists and shudders because the bodies within are twisting and shuddering.”
“INEVITA! Begin in me thy ending! Chart my winds so I may blow like a shroud. Shrive me! Make me fringent to the narrowing course of thy heart. Pare from me fate’s gore. Let me begin with thee. Even and event. O INEVITA, draw me down! Crush my hands and flatten my feet so I may pass only on the flat way of thy preparation! How perfect, how final you are! Brush me with the omens of thy coming! Eat me with the teeth of thy throat! INEVITA my fate and love! Oh, INEVITA, I see thy hip, I see thy shoulder, I see thy empty face!”
Read Edge of Eternities Episode 5 in full from Wizards of the Coast.
