Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — Flowers before the four forges

Thelima sends the party off as heroes. Citizens celebrate Tara, the Hero of the Alliance and the returned first Champion of Fire, while Aleister has to learn what to do with the flowers they offer him. Tara stops him from eating them; the Hero explains that flowers convey gratitude and happiness. Warlic is less reassured by the celebration. He asks how Aleister can exist while Galanoth is already Champion of Fire. A message has been sent to Galanoth, but his arrival will take time.

Song has notified the Queen that the Magnum Opus Forges are too dangerous to keep using. Their defenses are failing, and their spreading flames cannot be extinguished. The expedition splits to seal all four: Snowbeard and Svala will go to Albedo, the safest mountain, with the cooperation of the Clerics at Aiwass Sanctuary. Visiting Paladins will take Citrinitas; Muusa has asked Maya to help negotiate with Emissary Astero because the Lightguard occupies the mountain. Lord Henry and his knights will accompany Song and Muusa to Rubedo, with Felix needed to decipher an old map made by his colleague.

The Hero remembers the beast flying toward Mount Maleno. Tranquility believes it must be the Flame of the Beyond, and the Law removes the usual limitations on the Hero’s response, ordering its destruction with every available means. Infamy is harsher: casualties do not matter, and rewinding time for a reason they consider foolish will bring their intervention. The Hero is frightened because the creature noticed the rewind. Tranquility warns that their power carries consequences they must live with forever.

The memory of the burns interrupts the Hero, and Tara reassures them that they have help. Aleister confidently offers to kill the beast again and then to crack open a squirrel as a snack, leaving Tara to correct him once more. Dahlia announces that she will guide all six travelers—Hero, Tara, Aleister, Warlic, Volgritian and herself. She claims Tara hired her; Tara immediately denies it. Dahlia talks over the objection and turns the departure back into a public promise that the heroes will save the day.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — What Volgritian remembers

Volgritian’s insistence on accompanying the Hero comes with both guilt and separation anxiety. In the attack on Thelima, the golden gates almost crushed evacuees as the guards shut in the spreading flames after panicked tourists attacked them. Volgritian says that he once would have killed the people responsible. Instead he rammed the gates open, keeping his temper because another outburst would have made the Hero’s troubles worse.

The Great Dragon can still smell the burns under the bandages Warlic wrapped around the Hero’s arms. They are healing too slowly, and he recognizes the suffering from his own long experience. He urges the Hero to rely on him, Tara and Warlic rather than face the attacker alone. He also finds Aleister’s fearlessness startling: his surviving memories of the Planar Conflict recall Fiamme’s defender as easily frightened, quite unlike this squirrel-eating adventurer. To Volgritian, the change makes the amnesia seem real.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — The whistling path

Dahlia calls Astrum Argentum the most thoroughly mapped route to the black forge, but warns that holes in the trees whistle loudly enough to disorient hikers. She tells the travelers to follow her humming. Volgritian moves through the forest more easily than they do and suggests growling to cover the noise. Dahlia also refuses to take an unprepared party onward, directing them back to Warlic in Thelima first.

Dahlia’s four main tasks cover the approach. In A-Luring Song, the Hero silences the Soul Ravens and speaks to Volgritian: the warning is that missing travelers are found, but return changed. Fire Dragons have sensed heat returning to the mountains and are fighting for lairs, losing their way and panicking as well. Splendid Ashes, Pompous Grave deals with the Maleno Matches, who may have escaped from Thelima or caught fire while trying to steal from the forge. Their ashes and coals are buried with Tara and Aleister’s help, containing rather than extinguishing the flames. Smoke has already reddened the Hero’s eyes.

Echolocation sends the Hero to locate the forge door and plug five whistling tree cavities before they become loud enough to explode. Dahlia warns against sudden movement or noise if targeting dots appear on the Hero. Chymerical Ash clears more Soul Ravens and Maleno Matches so the guardian will not take the party for thieves. Dahlia boasts that she visits often and puts their chance of being blown up at one in five. It is her reassurance, with all the uncertainty that implies.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — Noche Oscura: a gate for no humans

At the forge entrance, Dahlia celebrates making the trip in two days; Tara points out that they were allowed neither rest nor sleep. The Hero whispers that stopping time could have made the journey easier. Tara reminds them that the beast noticed the rewind and might sense another use of that power. They also need to watch Dahlia. Warlic senses no one inside the facility, but Dahlia explains that its guardian handles operations and security alone. When Aleister offers to blast open the doors, Warlic sharply orders him to control himself. The Hero and Tara object to his harshness, while Aleister asks what he should say after making a mistake.

The P.A. system reports that Admin V’s and Admin G’s data is lost, but Admin B’s personality scan is functioning. Admin B introduces itself as guardian and overseer; its voice seems familiar to the Hero and Tara. Dahlia explains the attempt to seal the forge, and the Hero warns that permanent fires could turn Lore into a new sun. Admin B finds the possibility exciting, then submits to the protocols it must follow as a machine. It cannot readily extinguish the flames, but can put the forge into hibernation and lower it beneath the mountain. Here it names the destination Floor B777.

Before sealing the facility, Admin B needs a nesting Dragon removed. The Hero briefly fears that the beast has already arrived, but the guardian distinguishes this scaly intruder from the greater threat. Another restriction then intervenes: because humans caused most security breaches, all humans are barred. Admin B cannot override that system. Its scan counts six living organisms, detects no humans, and grants entry. Aleister simply heads in; Tara is disappointed, and Dahlia treats the result as a reason to leave her own secrets alone. She adds that the Hero’s shadow looks lumpy and ugly, drawing a silent response from the Stranger.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — Learning an adventure

Inside, Aleister stays with the Hero while the others scatter. He catches himself calling the task easy because Tara has warned him against it, and hopes she can help him get along with Warlic. His memory loss reaches beyond forgotten experiences: Tara has described it as forgetting what a key is, rather than merely where he left one. Yet he is enjoying himself. The stories Tara tells about the Hero make him want an adventure of his own, and the cheers in Thelima make him want to help people again. Tara has told him that the moments along the way matter more than an ending.

He wants to apologize for upsetting Warlic and asks what the mage likes. Somewhere in his mind is a sense that he ought to know, though he can only wonder whether they met before. He also tries to understand Admin B. After learning about personality scans, he describes them as copies of real people; the lost data for Admin V and G had sounded to him like deaths. His excitement about Undine’s technology is another glimpse of how much of the world he is discovering anew.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — A book left on four mountains

Journey Through the Dark Night asks the Hero to speak to Tara and read the guestbook. Aleister is not certain he can read, but likes the adventure stories Tara has written down. Brentan and Sigrid’s names interest him because he did not meet them in Thelima. He suggests taking the book, then pauses to think when the others call that selfish.

Tara recognizes Brentan’s visit as earlier than his pursuit of the Hero to Skye. She remembers that he came with the Ring of Dragon Control and wanted to return it to her. Sigrid appears to have been searching for clarity, while the first writer was Lucas Bligh. Tara says Felix identified him as a Court Mage who died during the rebellion. Those recollections identify the guestbook writers without resolving the separate man between the pages at Tercesamileht.

The welcome note describes a visit made while the forges were cold: House Noelle’s lord allowed the writer to explore, and the writer plans to leave a book on all four peaks. The next entry describes the hollow trees along Astrum Argenteum and a forest nearly emptied of wildlife. Its author blames the forge’s indiscriminate defenses and recounts almost being shot. Rather than disabling them, he changes them to target loud and fast-moving objects every other day, treating the remaining danger as entertainment.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — Lucas, Brentan and Sigrid

A coded passage offers instructions supposedly related to disabling the defenses, then veers into scrambling mortal vision, reversing north and south, and a spell that makes someone get lost and turn inside out. The literal native Morse includes the odd words TWOUR, STROTEG, ATRCIDENT and UEUNNY where the community transcription supplies YOUR, STRONG, ACCIDENT and FUNNY. The warning is disturbing, but the text does not demonstrate a spell taking effect. Lucas’s following account says that a blinding flash enveloped his body and that something then disappeared. He reports no pain, says he could still leave, and claims to have waved goodbye to himself. He signs with a choice between Lucas and Lukas Bligh; the passage leaves the disappearance unexplained.

Brentan calls the earlier writer condemned and tries to cross out the cursed text, but the ink sinks into the page. He came with a ring cherished by his wife’s little sister, whom he regrets treating poorly. His hope was to forge it into an amulet protecting her and a dear friend. The forges were cold, he was no blacksmith, and he feared the ring itself might be cursed. He warns against reading Lucas’s entry, but the first page swallows the ink when he tries to add that warning. His signature closes this account at the top of the next visible page.

Sigrid’s next entry addresses Brentan and echoes his fear that her best efforts achieve nothing or make things worse. In the Sandsea she saw Tara and the Hero defending the people, and the Shadowscythe Empress protecting Lynaria’s daughter with her life. It recalled the Queen and Valen’s happier days. Astero sensed her renewed weakness and reminded her why she had let Lynaria chase a lost cause. Sigrid then reasons that if she had stopped Lynaria or killed Sepulchure, the princesses would still have their mother. These are her guilt and counterfactual judgments. Looking inward has shown her mistakes she believes the Light cannot fix.

A further warning signed by Sigrid asks later travelers to postpone their expeditions. The Lightguard and its Emissary have entered the forge, and she does not yet know what they tempered in its flames. Even visitors devoted to the Light may be in danger. She intends to send word to Thelima as soon as she can.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — Dahlia’s errand and Warlic’s distance

Lunar Caustic takes the Hero west to clear Maleno Elementals and speak to Dahlia. They leave her alone, prompting Aleister to wonder whether she is an Elemental or otherwise nonhuman. Tara believes she needed protection to get inside and will not interfere with their mission. Aleister accepts that assessment and puts down the brick he was prepared to use, though he wonders whether his readiness to fight was once necessary to save anyone during the Planar Conflict.

Dahlia is looking for someone she describes as enormous, even at half-and-half. She asks the Hero to listen for a sequence of short and long beeps, but does not name the friend. Tara keeps track of her and recalls stopping Aleister from burning her. At this stage Tara thinks Dahlia is neither stealing nor preparing a betrayal; that is her judgment before the later confession.

Like Water and Lithium sends the Hero east to speak with Warlic and fight the Draconians that accompanied the nesting Dragon. Aleister wants the shared task to mend their quarrel. After overhearing the conversation, he offers to take Volgritian away to chase squirrels so Warlic, Tara and the Hero can speak privately. They must first seal the forge before the beast catches up. Not knowing what Warlic wants leaves Aleister trying to name a new feeling: sadness.

Warlic apologizes for his outburst and asks for a private conversation with the Hero and Tara. He says there are matters troubling him, but does not explain them in this exchange.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — Rooms the guardian can hear

Admin B says the flame room is locked, sending the Hero to find a Carcossa Card Key in The Shadows Lengthen in…. Aleister then discovers that the main doors already open a little and that the key was unnecessary. Why Admin B sent them to find it—and why it does not ask for the card back—remains an open question.

The rooms behind those doors offer disturbing glimpses. Handprints multiply across one window until the watching Hero no longer sees them as human. The lunchroom is drenched in what the description calls red jam, with a coppery smell and something moving inside. The Hero locks that door and smears soot across its window before Tara and Aleister can look. A defense-control screen describes suspending the order to shoot at loud noises so microphones can record visitors’ interesting ideas. It then switches to security footage of the Hero peeking in.

In Blithe Hospitality, Tara suspects a trap and prepares with Aleister while the Hero clears the remaining Elementals and Draconians. Their precautions are not private. Admin B shows them a moving picture of their whispered discussion about cutting wires and offers a close tour of its motherboard. They decline.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — Idalion and the promise of hibernation

The Dragon’s Draconians are burned like the Maleno Matches, and Tara fears they could spread the fire if they escape. Friendship with the Hero and Volgritian has changed how she thinks about slaying Dragons: like people, they can be good, bad or something between. Aleister has reached a different hard question. The Dragon burns in flames that will not stop even if it leaves; he asks whether destroying it can really count as mercy.

Sal Volatile names the Dragon Idalion the Elegant and sends the Hero to defeat it inside the flames. With Tara reluctant to hurt Dragons, Aleister frames the task as something they must do while hoping Admin B keeps its promise. His completion remark accepts a lesson against fighting fire with fire. This ends the ten once-only main quests, rather than the dangers still unfolding in the final scene.

Admin B celebrates the Dragon’s destruction as so complete that no trace remains, though both the Hero and Tara deny attacking that hard. Warlic is silent. The guardian wants to review the footage, fondly recalling execution films, until Aleister reminds it to seal the forge. Admin B instead asks the party to stand guard against the greater threat while its sensors check the facility. It now promises to lower the flame to Floor B107, a different floor from the earlier B777. Neither statement yet confirms that hibernation has happened.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — Massa Confusa: a flower and a warning

Tara goes to find Dahlia, first prompting Aleister to try the apology they practiced. He offers Warlic a flower, explaining that the gifts in Thelima made him happy and hoping to make the mage feel better. When Warlic remains silent, the Hero invites him to confide. Warlic finally says that two Elemental Champions cannot coexist in the realm without severe repercussions, beyond even his magic to prevent. Asked specifically about two of the same Champion, he says one will lose memories and die.

The Hero still does not know whether Aleister truly is the Champion he claims to be, and wants to wait for Galanoth before deciding. Aleister has been helpful despite his amnesia. He responds to Warlic’s warning with apparent relief: if he is the one forgetting, then their friend Galanoth is not dying. He has to ask what dying is like. Admin B interrupts this painful exchange with a sensor anomaly: the flames should be in the forge room, but it is seeing double. The Hero wonders whether another flame has appeared or they spread it accidentally.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — The signal and the beast

Elsewhere, Dahlia follows a signal that does not sound quite right. When Tara catches her, she admits using the party to reach the forge safely so she could steal. Tara demands to know what she is looking for and what she knows; Dahlia asks what Tara wants with the signal. Neither exchange identifies the person Dahlia was seeking. Her admission also overturns Tara’s earlier belief that stealing was not her purpose.

The beast from beyond confronts Tara and Dahlia. Tara conjures a glowing polearm and then a rounded shield around them both, insisting Dahlia take cover rather than run for the exit. The attacker speaks in fragments about Champions strangled in the crib. A later image brings its black-and-white body against Tara’s raised weapon, while its next utterance remains unreadable. The scene shows Tara defending Dahlia; it does not explain the beast’s identity or the origin of its words.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — Time fails to hold the beast

Outside the forge, the Hero stops time and pursues the beast. The gray landscape frames their confidence that it cannot escape, but the creature is soon beside them anyway. Its taunts call someone worthless and unable to do anything right. The Hero screams as their silhouettes overlap and ordinary color returns. Warlic calls to the Hero, and Aleister answers that he is there. The scene establishes a threat the Hero’s control of time has not contained, without explaining how the beast moves through it.

Aleister and the beast end up entangled on the ground while he urges the others to kill it. Warlic raises his staff, but the Hero confronts him: he is trying to kill both of them. The Hero begs him to explain what is wrong. Aleister cries for everyone to get away from them, while the beast declares that it must kill them all. Their overlapping bodies and alternating speech do not by themselves explain the relationship between them.

Tara arrives to find Aleister still caught up with the creature. Volgritian intervenes; the next exchange has the Hero shouting for him to spit Aleister out. Aleister emerges, insists he is all right, and asks whether the Dragon is all right too. Tara checks on Volgritian and receives a satisfied growl. Admin B calls the display beautiful and asks them to do it again because it missed the shot. The immediate rescue is clear, while the beast’s final fate is left to the party’s uncertain later assessment.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — A checkup that cannot wait

After the confrontation, Tara asks whether the Hero, Aleister and Volgritian are all right. She says the guardian will examine them and suggests the Hero get checked too. She calls the beast dead, then immediately qualifies it: probably, maybe. Its ability to move when the Hero stopped time still troubles her. Once everyone has a clean bill of health, she wants Warlic to teleport them to the next mountain.

Aleister says he has no scratches or burns, though his throat briefly seemed to close before he reached the outside. He connects that feeling to the Hero stopping time and asks why the monster was unaffected. Yet he wants the Hero to go easy on Warlic. In Aleister’s account, Warlic was trying to stop the stalker from hurting the Hero and Aleister was merely in the way. That defense does not erase the Hero’s accusation during the fight.

Warlic stands gripping his staff with shaking hands, eyes down, refusing to answer the Hero. His racing heart and blistering heat overwhelm the attempted conversation. The sensation recalls how the black-flamed beast made the Hero’s skin crawl, melt and slither. The comparison belongs to the Hero’s experience, while the silence leaves the rift with Warlic unresolved.

Dahlia later acknowledges Tara’s help even when she was being sharp with her. She dislikes both Tara’s goodness and the debt it leaves her, then considers whether Tara might like a dagger or wand to match the weapons she conjures. She breaks off when she notices the Hero. The thought offers a possible gesture of gratitude without explaining the signal or what she hoped to steal.

Age of Ruin III: Mount Maleno — Argyria: supplies during the scan

Argyria and its membership-only Legend variant are optional repeatable reward tasks after Sal Volatile. Both tell the same story and request the same three supplies: 9 Lapis Infernalis, 3 Plumbago and 1 Powder of Algaroth. Aleister proposes gathering alchemic materials while the guardian scans him and Volgritian; the flame cannot be sealed until that check is finished. At completion he feels an unease in his heart rather than ordinary bodily sickness, while Tara finds the guardian’s scrutiny excessive. Repeating either variant repeats this exchange; it does not establish another battle or confirm that the forge has finally been sealed.