This article recaps the official Outlaws of Thunder Junction Magic short story, “Epilogue 2: Bring the End, Part 2“. It contains spoilers for “Bring the End, Part 1”; the main Outlaws of Thunder Junction storyline; and storylines leading up to them.
“Bring the End, Part 1” brought Jace and Vraska back to Jace’s childhood home on Vryn, where his mother, the healer Ranna Beleren, still lives.
Ranna sets to saving Jace and Vraska immediately. Vraska asks Ranna to save Jace first. Ranna puts a question in her mind for Jace to read telepathically: “Is she your wife?” Jace finds the idea appealing, and answers, “She is my world, mother.”
Ranna sedates them both. When Jace regains consciousness, Ranna is struggling with Vraska’s fever. Jace takes responsibility for that, and Ranna then asks Jace what happened between him and the Sphinx Alhammarret, whom Ranna and her then-husband had given Jace to for training.
Jace telepathically reveals his past to his mother, including the forced forgetting and other abuses Alhammarret inflicted on Jace. Ranna then asks Jace, “Did you kill him?” Ranna reads the answer in Jace’s facial expression, and tells him, “Good.”
Phoenix Feathers and Long Talks
When Jace wakes next, he notes that Vraska has a feather across her forehead. Ranna tells Jace that it is a phoenix feather, part of Ranna’s innovations in helping bodies regenerate themselves. Ranna tells Jace that she and Jace’s father separated, each going to war in their own way; Jace notes an empty bottle of alcohol, and Ranna tells of her shame at her personal downfall since Jace’s disappearance.
Later, Jace wakes to Ranna and Vraska talking. Ranna tells Vraska that a general recognized Jace during the Phyrexian invasion of Vryn, and there is a warrant for Jace’s arrest and execution, so he will have to keep hiding or disguise himself at all times. Vraska tells Ranna a sanitized version of how she and Jace met, and Ranna shares a story of how Jace created an illusion of the cart-horse Pewter while still a child. Ranna then asks how Vraska is doing, and shares advice she meant to keep secret:
‘I’ll tell you what I could never tell my son,’ Jace hears, unseen in the other room, ‘The old you is dead. You can never be that person ever again.’
The Omenpaths’ Menace
After Ranna returns from the hospital with news about an Omenpath on Vryn and meeting a kor, Jace and Vraska disguise themselves to inspect the Omenpath. Both find the implications horrifying, based on their experiences fighting the War of the Spark against Nicol Bolas, who had only one similar portal. Their talk turns to love and the desire to adopt, but Vraska questions, “Does it make sense to raise a child in this Multiverse?” before concluding, “The Multiverse is too broken to fix.”
Jace imagines an alternative, a Multiverse reborn. And over the following months, Jace and Vraska form an unexplained but grand plan.
The Plot Unfolds
The story then shifts to a series of moments, revealing each stage leading to the events of Outlaws of Thunder Junction.
- Nine years prior, Jace travels to Thunder Junction on Tezzeret’s orders, finds the Fomori vault, and detects a sleepy, childlike mind. Tezzeret, despite knowing Nicol Bolas fears the vault’s contents, ends the inquiry.
- Two years prior, on Ravnica, Tamiyo tells Jace the story of the Fomori vault and the boy locked inside.
- Some time later, on Vryn, as Jace and Vraska prepare to leave Ranna, Vraska discovers she has lost her spark and cannot planeswalk. Jace confirms Vraska’s spark is gone; Vraska grieves it, and goes back to planning.
- Twelve months prior, Jace adopts Ashiok’s face for a disguise and recruits the witch Eriette on Eldraine, as seen in the Wilds of Eldraine story “Episode 5: Broken Oaths“.
- Six months prior, Vraska travels by Omenpath to Ixalan to recruit Malcolm and Breeches at the floating city High and Dry, where they were traveling at the conclusion of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan‘s story, “Episode 6“.
- One month prior, Jace tracks down Alquist Proft on Ravnica, hits him with a Lead Pipe, and plunders his mind palace for his psychic ability to project thoughts into reality, as depicted in the Murders at Karlov Manor story “Episode 7: Rot Before Recovery“.
Family of Three
The story then jumps to the present, after the events of Outlaws of Thunder Junction story “Episode 6: The Ballad of Thieves and Thunderslingers“. Having tricked the rest of the crew and escaped the Fomori vault with the child, Jace and Vraska meet up elsewhere on Thunder Junction, the child clinging to Vraska as he might his birth mother. Jace introduces himself to the child and asks his name; telepathically, Jace comes up with “Loot”.
Loot is a young child, but also a toddling map of the Multiverse. By linking with Loot, Jace can see every plane, and all the Omenpath connections between them, enabling him, Vraska, and Loot to travel wherever they wish. Jace honors Loot and promises that he and Vraska will keep him safe.
The three of them take shelter at a tiny town’s inn. While Jace holds a sleepy Loot, he asks Vraska about places in the Multiverse. After Jace mentions Qarsi on Tarkir, Vraska baby-talks to Loot about the place, mentioning “the good tea” among its virtues. Jace asks if it has coffee; on hearing it has chilled coffee, Jace planeswalks there alone and comes back with chilled coffee and a small feast.
Though scarred, Jace and Vraska have a plot to remake the Multiverse, and a child who is the means to make it happen. The story ends with Jace reflecting on his and Vraska’s plans to travel via an otherwise unknown Omenpath to a lush plane far different from Thunder Junction, one that will not expect their arrival:
He will hold tight to the hand of his beloved and his ward and walk into the Blind Eternities of a miserable Multiverse and say to himself with resolution and phoenix fire:
Ours will be better.
