Mage Tank 4 recap

An outside influence has distorted Fortune's Folly's priorities. The party traces it to Hysteria, uses Etja's retained fragment to empower Arlo's Soul Sight, removes the alterations with Varrin's soul-cutting and Nuralie's poison, and destroys the fragment. Avarice then apparently kills the imprisoned Hysteria. After individual ruler trials, the party meets ancient dragon rulers who explain that avatar disasters recur and that six monoliths are feeding a system orphan. Closetland gains friendly relations and a dragon ambassador. Fortune's Folly joins a Littan forest expedition, where an unknown force drives mana monsters against a border city. The attackers are controlled by the Hierophant, whose body conceals a surviving staff entity. A soul rite gives Arlo enough temporary blessed power for him and Etja to move the whole city into Closetland. Arlo and the Littan major destroy the staff, leaving the city alive but damaged, displaced, and in urgent need of aid.

Previously: Arlo Xor'Drel travels with Varrin, Xim, Etja, and Nuralie as Fortune's Folly. Grotto is Arlo's soul-linked Delve partner, and together they oversee the developing refuge of Closetland. The party has already become entangled with avatars and other higher powers, including Avarice, Fortune, and the hostile Orexis. Those conflicts have left them wary of divine bargains, spiritual coercion, and the System's larger purposes. Their unusual advancement and access to a Pocket Delve also make them important to neighboring powers. Arlo's dimensional abilities give the group exceptional mobility. Varrin supplies frontline force, Xim combines divine combat with healing, Etja controls and reshapes magic, and Nuralie joins alchemy and archery with reconnaissance. Grotto supports both the group and Closetland through his Delve abilities. Fortune's Folly begins this volume with a capable, closely linked team, a growing territory to protect, and unresolved avatar threats that make further advancement and outside alliances increasingly important.

Avarice supplies essences for Closetland and warns that most of Fortune's Folly is under an outside influence that changes decisions while preventing the affected members from retaining an explanation. Grotto is unaffected, and Etja resists enough of the effect to receive veto power over the party's dealings. The group cautiously accepts the prospect of a joint Littan dungeon expedition, then travels north to advance. In a buried expansion Delve, the party faces ancient undead legions, steals prismatite and weapons from an armory, and frees a spectral guardian from its bindings. The Delve Core retaliates by sending them into a killbox filled with undead forces and soul-collecting machinery. Fortune's Folly destroys the first commander and damages the collectors, but the resulting containment failure reveals a masked Grade 51 elder lich. The depleted party now faces an opponent far beyond the Delve's earlier commanders, while the hidden influence on its own members remains unresolved.

The Elder Lich general withdraws after explaining that his army pursues avatars rather than territory and that it condemns involuntary control. Fortune's Folly defeats the hostile Delve Core, takes it into custody as Throne, and considers Heavenly Gates, a Dread Star evolution that would make Arlo's travel magic deific. The party's concern about its compromised reasoning grows. Arlo and Etja map abnormal threads within their companions' souls and use Varrin's unaffected ancestral clone as a baseline. Their working theory is that the influence changes emotional importance rather than memories. Nuralie adapts earlier anti-Orexis work into a focused soul poison, while Etja's retained Hysteria fragment offers the power needed to reveal the corruption. The party prepares toxin-bearing spiritual scalpels and a ritual intended to keep divine energy from killing Arlo. He accepts Heavenly Gates, confirms that its travel effects operate through his soul, and commits to being the first subject of the dangerous procedure.

Fortune's Folly conducts its soul operation inside the Pocket Delve. Xim creates a shared ritual space, Etja contains Hysteria's fragment, Arlo uses its essence to sharpen Soul Sight, Varrin cuts out the altered portions, and Nuralie's poison destroys them. When the fragment tries to restore the corruption through a concealed channel, the party forces it into the open and destroys its identity. The members separate to recover, with Arlo suffering the deepest soul damage. Elsewhere, Avarice tests the imprisoned Hysteria after the avatar's wound changes. Her soul-draining golem reduces Hysteria's manifested soul to nothing, and the System later credits Fortune's Folly with contributing to the death. Arlo's recovery confirms that Hysteria's influence has left his soul, although its earlier goals remain only partly understood. The party receives rare rewards and postpones further travel long enough to investigate whether its captive beastmaster still carries the same manipulation.

Arlo examines the captive beastmaster with her consent and finds that Hysteria exploited existing trauma, strengthening anger and misplaced trust without creating the original wounds. He maps and then removes the remaining influence at her request. Accepting that her earlier actions were conditioned, he offers a path toward freedom, citizenship, or work in Closetland after recovery. The party also studies captured ancient rifles and armor, deciding against creating intelligent weapons without meaningful freedom while preparing practical equipment upgrades. Etja receives prismatite-infused armor and develops a party-wide use of Haste. Fortune's Folly then resumes its northern journey and reaches a mountain protected by an extraordinarily powerful gatekeeper. Avarice's token grants entry, but each member must face an individual test. The entrance separates the party, and Arlo finds himself trapped in a shifting Dimensional Dungeon beyond the reach of normal party links.

The separated party members undertake ruler trials. Arlo bypasses spatial traps with deific teleportation and draws the attention of a younger dimensional ruler and an older ruler. Etja turns a predatory mass of pure mana against itself by opening the internal emptiness within her, though that emptiness is becoming harder to contain. Varrin duels a far stronger elemental remembrance, wins the physical trial, receives equipment for controlling his rage, and improves his understanding of physical magic. Nuralie enters a spiritually divided forest where undead hunters feed living prey to a vast soul-devouring creature. She builds a soulless stealth construct, attacks through it with holy soul-poisoned arrows, and escapes the target's destructive counterattack. The poison kills both the creature and most of its defenders, although the construct is lost. Etja has reversed the immediate mana threat, Varrin has won his trial, Nuralie has eliminated her target, and Arlo continues down an extremely long corridor.

Arlo trains until his dimensional skill reaches a new threshold, then duels the ruler's daughter under rules that allow equipment and ordinary abilities but forbid higher-power intervention. He uses Closetland portals, redirected attacks, and a ring of dimensional beams to overcome her defenses. She transforms into a silver dragon, revealing the nature she had concealed, but the older ruler declares her defeated and ends the contest. The party reunites after its separate trials, except for Xim. Her test is administered by a crystalline divine figure who identifies her as a seeker pursuing all seven organ-based revelations toward becoming her deity's vessel. Xim accepts an overwhelming grant of divine knowledge and survives. In the resulting vision she sees six monoliths receiving power through a tear in the heavens, with two already active. She concludes that the coming catastrophe is unnatural and that she is obligated to oppose it.

Fortune's Folly receives an audience with five dragon rulers and presents its evidence concerning Hysteria. The Scarlet ruler recounts repeated avatar wars, failed prisons, and earlier catastrophes that destroyed advanced civilizations. The dragons once worked with Avarice and Fortune to build an avatar cage, but even that effort failed to end the cycle. Silver's attempt to flee the planet also failed, leading the rulers to believe the System prevented escape. Violet warns privately that killing current avatars cannot solve a threat the System can recreate. Gold explains that the six monoliths nourish the first and greatest system orphan, with two active and another activation near. The rulers do not promise military support, but Silver appoints the dragon princess as ambassador to Closetland. Formal friendly relations follow, including an embassy plan and controlled access through Arlo's checkpoint. After months of training and administration, Closetland has recognition and new growth plans, but no binding alliance.

Heavenly Gates changes Arlo's Delve assignments into missions to repair or shut down dangerous malfunctions. Fortune's Folly completes three such interventions, reaches level 16, and prepares for the delayed Littan expedition. Arlo strengthens his armor, regeneration, and healing, while the party questions the Dread Star about its motives. Its answers suggest that it needed a free-willed mortal channel after serious violations, but the party's theory that avatars are remnants cast off by flawed Ascension remains an interpretation rather than settled truth. At the Littan fortress, the major reports that the conflict with Eshendur has formally ended through shared institutions and improved trade. Fortune's Folly will serve as foreign consultants outside the Imperial command chain but still subject to Imperial law. The party meets the level-16 Littan captain who leads the accompanying five-person team and prepares to depart for the vast, only partly mapped forest dungeon.

Imperial analysts consider it plausible, but unconfirmed, that one of the six monoliths lies within the forest. Fortune's Folly proceeds with its assigned exploration mission rather than treating the journey as a monolith search. During the flight, the party meets the Littan captain's dimensional mage, frontline defender, and identical twins with complementary martial and stealth abilities. The Littan mage studies Arlo's Pocket Delve and deduces that Grotto is the surviving Core of the destroyed creation Delve. Arlo confirms the relationship, and the Littan officers accept the disclosure without conflict. An enormous swarm of nearly invisible silica swifts then attacks the transport. After the Littan team breaks much of the flock, unexplained pressure pulses drive both birds and the hammerhead toward a border city. The transport falls when the animal breaks free, but Varrin replaces it in flight and carries the cabin onward. Communication with the city fails, so both parties prepare for a high-speed emergency approach.

The expedition finds a Littan border city overwhelmed by avian mana monsters and missing its strongest defenders. The swarm is being empowered by a huge Hierophant whose living canopy upgrades birds. Fortune's Folly agrees to attack the alpha while the Littan team handles its elite guards, and the dragon princess supplies fifty juvenile red dragons to defend the airspace. The combined force turns its aircraft into a trapped, poisoned projectile and strikes the creature at extreme speed, but the opening blow removes only a small portion of its health. The Hierophant reaches Grade 34, heals through stolen humanoid heads, spreads a toxic aura, and bombards Arlo and the city with mystical attacks. The party and dragons gradually prevent replacement heads from reaching it. A coordinated anti-magic opening lets Arlo and Etja blast the body into the forest and destroy it. The apparent victory fails when the staff detaches from the corpse, survives, and reveals itself as the true active entity preparing a larger attack.

The surviving staff offers to spare the city only if its people are surrendered as food and a nest. It also claims that a stronger corrupting beast drove it from the forest center. The defenders reject the demand. The Littan major, captain, frontline fighter, dimensional mage, and Xim conduct a soul-linked rite using the battlefield dead, granting Arlo an immense temporary reserve of blessed power. When the staff fires catastrophic beams, the frontline fighter partly deflects one, but the city cannot survive a continuing exchange. The major and captain secure mass consent, allowing Arlo and Etja to expand Shortcut and Siphon across the entire settlement. They teleport the city and its inhabitants into Closetland before the next beam arrives. Arlo and the major then attack the staff directly, interrupt its final cleansing attempt, and destroy it. The Hierophant is dead, but the displaced city has structural damage and injured residents, and Arlo lacks the extraordinary power needed to return it. Relief and restoration begin under the continuing threats of the forest beast, the monoliths, and the wider avatar cycle.

Fortune's Folly and the Littan expedition destroy the Hierophant, but only after its fallen body releases the staff that is its true surviving form. A battlefield soul rite gives Arlo an immense but temporary reserve of blessed power. With the Littan major and captain obtaining consent, Arlo and Etja teleport the entire threatened city into Closetland before the staff's next catastrophic beam lands. Arlo and the major then destroy the staff. The major players survive, but the displaced city has collapsed structures, injured residents, and immediate relief needs. Arlo cannot return it with his ordinary resources. Closetland remains on friendly terms with the dragon rulers and hosts their ambassadorial project, while Littan cooperation has deepened through the expedition and the Empire's acceptance of Grotto's identity. The stronger corrupting beast in the forest center remains at large. The six monoliths, the system orphan they feed, the recurring avatar cycle, Etja's growing internal emptiness, and the final consequences of Hysteria's apparent death also remain unresolved.