Immortal Moments recap

Elaine travels with the immortal elves toward a low-experience region while incubating a mysterious egg. After learning that healing can free unwilling Shimagu hosts, she joins the elves in liberating a city built on possession, slavery, and cannibalism. The victory leaves mass casualties and a lasting conflict over the elves' methods, so Elaine ends her relationship with Serondes and returns alone to her homeland. As Sentinel Dawn, she warns the capital about the Shimagu, escapes a corrupt guard scheme, and prepares for the road home just as her egg hatches into a dangerous bird-like creature. The closing interlude follows Iona, a Valkyrie seeking a companion. A frost wyvern maims and swallows her, but she kills it from within, gains the Paladin of the Moons class, and survives in its nest with crude prosthetics and one spared hatchling.

Previously: Elaine is a human healer whose classes include Dawn Sentinel and Butterfly Mystic. She is also known as Dawn and Sentinel Dawn.

Elaine begins a relationship with Serondes while traveling with him, Aegion, and Awarthril. She insists on moving slowly, and both Serondes and the protective Awarthril respect her need for safety. Serondes builds a flexible glass harness that lets Elaine continue warming the unidentified egg she carries. The elves also explain that immortals receive unpredictable curses, though their own curse is protected by a lethal taboo. The group accepts a troll chief's invitation to an equinoctial festival despite concerns about the settlement's strength and capacity for violence. They prepare gifts, adapt to the trolls' nocturnal schedule, and witness rites involving darkness, eight elements, and a young troll's passage into adulthood. Before the celebration, Serondes turns a nearby lake into heated pools using glass and lava. During the final procession, Awarthril realizes too late that this lake is sacred. The trolls react with anger, and Elaine's party abandons its camp and flees.

The party escapes the trolls after two days, but the offense to their sacred lake remains unrepaired. Elaine briefly befriends an owl, only for Cordamo to kill it. Her oath prevents revenge, so Aegion disciplines his companion instead. Cordamo later offers his shed skin as an apology, and Elaine reaches a cautious reconciliation with him. The group then finds a road and accepts the hospitality of a gnoll caravan. Elaine heals several travelers, earning trade credit and gifts from its elderly leader. A one-eyed caravan guard suddenly ambushes Elaine with a spear and effects that obstruct her healing. Elaine realizes that a Shimagu is controlling him and kills both creature and host while protecting the egg. Her oath treats the host as an unwilling victim, punishing her with overwhelming pain and a lost level. Serondes saves her by destroying and regenerating her damaged organs. No other confirmed Shimagu is found in the caravan, but Elaine is left to determine how she can defend herself without killing captive hosts.

During recovery, Elaine concludes that her oath permits proportionate defense against an attacking host but not an avoidable killing. She also decides that a restrained, nonattacking host remains a patient rather than a target. Hoping to test The Stars Never Fade, she offers its first deliberate use to the caravan leader after Awarthril explains the risks. The skill restores his youth while preserving his experience. White Dove then appears, curses the merchant's senses and trading instinct, accuses Elaine of stealing time, and departs as Black Crow after promising another meeting. The merchant gives Elaine a ring that can disguise its nature and her displayed level. Elaine and Serondes define consent, monogamy, and other boundaries before deepening their relationship. Weeks later, a powerful Spinosaurus attacks the sleeping camp. Elaine repeatedly restores her companions through its destructive aura while Aegion, Cordamo, Awarthril, and Serondes fight it. They prevail, but the aura destroys Elaine's last keepsake from her mother. Afterward, an unidentified multivoiced presence announces that it has found her.

Shaken by the Spinosaurus attack, Aegion asks Elaine for instruction in safer watchkeeping and supports a faster route toward her home. The group soon finds a large city inhabited by humans and ogres. Elaine believes her Sentinel duty requires investigating possible Shimagu control, so the party enters while her ring displays her as an extremely powerful healer. Inside, the absence of visible skill use and the presence of class-selection lights reveal that many residents are controlled hosts. Yigruk's experience shows the system from within. Recruited as an ogre seeking opportunity, he was possessed and forced into years of labor while remaining conscious. When his controller attacks Elaine, her healing destroys the Shimagu and restores Yigruk's agency. He immediately attacks another host, helping ignite wider violence. Elaine cures wounded people, but her oath only allows the anti-Shimagu treatment after an attack or while healing serious injuries. Awarthril deliberately wounds suspected hosts to enable cures, and the elves assault fleeing hosts. Elaine rejects that approach and concentrates on rescuing civilians until an unknown force immobilizes her.

Awarthril saves Elaine from a suppressed-magic ambush, and Elaine raises her Sentinel insignia over the city to rally captives from her homeland. She purges Shimagu from soldiers, but confused liberated groups turn on one another while the elves' attacks add casualties. A powerful enemy rains heated metal pillars onto the area, forcing the party through buildings until Aegion brings the attacker down. A flying devil and a cooperating Shimagu then join the battle. Elaine discovers that the city depends on enslaved hosts and the sale of human flesh. The revelation breaks her earlier restraint, and she flies across the city purging Shimagu from crowds until rage and depleted mana make her stop. The assault kills more than ten thousand creatures and leaves the city burning. Though many freed hosts fight their oppressors, Elaine is horrified by the cost. The elves choose to build a fortified refuge and continue the campaign. Elaine refuses to participate in the siege, amicably ends her relationship with Serondes, and says goodbye to the group. She flies east and reaches a human port, finally returning to her homeland after roughly a year and a half away.

Back in her homeland, Elaine identifies herself as Sentinel Dawn to a coastal ranger team. She joins their training, gathers political news, and plans to resupply before traveling home. City guards then arrest her on fabricated charges, confiscate her belongings, and claim that a local man has purchased decades of ownership over her. Elaine escapes the corrupt scheme and summons the rangers, who recover her bag and take over the investigation. Elaine sends the capital a warning that Shimagu hosts cannot use their host's skills and that healing can kill the parasite. She also asks officials to tell her family that she is alive. After helping the rangers deal with a lightning-casting cow, she chooses a road route home. During another training session, the egg finally hatches in a burst of fire. The defenses and Elaine's healing prevent casualties, but the new creature is a tiny, intelligent, unidentified female with a bird-like form. Elaine gains Hatchling Rearing and must camp outside the city while she learns to feed and protect her hazardous dependent.

The closing interlude follows Iona, a Valkyrie blessed by two moon goddesses and able to speak every language. She arrives too late to save an immortal healer whose power to grant immortality has caused war, then sees masked wardens entering with the Wound Spear. Back at the depleted Valkyrie Order, Sigrun directs Iona to find a companion before attending the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft. During her journey, Iona receives an overwhelming divine message, after which her goddesses fall silent. A companion market cannot provide a suitable bond, so she searches the frozen wilderness of Modu. A level-1045 frost wyvern ambushes Iona, maims her, carries her to its nest, and swallows her. From inside, Iona exploits the creature's damaged defenses and kills it. The victory carries her beyond level 512 and unlocks Paladin of the Moons, a gravity-based third class. Missing both lower legs and one hand, she uses gravity magic and wyvern scales to make crude prosthetics, insulation, and shelter. She kills the hatching offspring except for one, which she feeds and begins raising as a possible companion. Iona remains stranded in the nest with an uncertain bond and silent goddesses.

Elaine is back in her homeland and has sent the capital a practical warning about identifying and curing Shimagu hosts. She leaves a corrupt-guard investigation with local rangers and plans to continue home by road, but the egg she carried has hatched into an unidentified female bird-like creature. Elaine must camp outside the coastal city and begin raising the hazardous hatchling. Serondes, Aegion, Awarthril, Kiyaya, and Cordamo remain at the devastated Shimagu city to continue their campaign, while Elaine has rejected their siege tactics and amicably ended her relationship with Serondes. White Dove's threat over Elaine's age-reversal power remains unresolved. In the final interlude, Iona is stranded in Modu after killing a frost wyvern from inside its body. She has lost both lower legs and one hand, chosen Paladin of the Moons as her third class, and fashioned crude prosthetics and shelter. She begins caring for one spared wyvern hatchling, though their bond is not confirmed. Her moon goddesses remain silent, and she has not yet reached the school Sigrun selected for her.