The Tales of Exandria: The Bright Queen 2

Critical Role: The Tales of Exandria: The Bright Queen #2 is the second issue of the comic miniseries The Tales of Exandria: The Bright Queen, written by Darcy Van Poelgeest and Matthew Mercer, with art by CoupleOfKooks and cover art by Andrea Kendrick. The comic was published by Dark Horse Comics on November 24, 2021. Set around 19 years after the end of Campaign 2 in about 855 PD, the miniseries focuses on Leylas Kryn as she and Quana Kryn try to collect a sixth beacon for the Kryn Dynasty.

A variant cover featuring art by David Mack was available from Things From Another World by pre-order.

Plot summary
Abrianna Mirimm and the drow adolescent discuss the abduction of Quana Kryn, now known as the Battle of Ghostwall.

In the days after, the Aurora Watch search the Ghostlands for anyone that escaped Leylas Kryn. Dryca is found in the Barbed Fields and brought to Leylas. Dryca says he was going to Bazzoxan and wishes to fix things. She threatens to kill him, but he insists the attack on Quana and the Aurora Watch was not within in control. When he promises he offers something of value, Leylas is receptive.

Dryca tells her that Lolth orchestrated the ambush, and his role was necessary to protect the nether gnomes. Lolth gave him a luxon beacon to bait Leylas, but he has a plan to help Leylas. Leylas gathers her Umavi to perform a dunamantic ritual over her.

Leylas, Dryca, Roshan, and the Aurora Watch travel to the temple at Bazzoxan, descending into its depths. Dryca explains that, before the Divergence, Kord created a means for his mortal champions to enter the Dreadnest in the Abyss should the Prime Deities fall in the last battles of the Calamity. The line entrusted with this knowledge died long ago, but Dryca acquired it before then: a pendant, the Stormlord's Heart, housed in this temple and used by touching the wearer's blood to it. As Leylas prepares to use it, Dryca asks if she remembers the cost. She confirms she willingly bears it.

She uses the heart. To the horror of the others, everyone is engulfed in black web. While Abrianna narrates it seemed that Leylas had not entered the Abyss but rather released the Abyss onto Exandria, Leylas cuts herself free and sees a light at the apex of a spire. She travels to it across fields of decomposing corpses and climbing over bodies embedded into the spire. At the top, she finds a Luxon beacon and Quana, trapped in web nearby. She frees Quana, but they are attacked by driders, who accuse Leylas of treason.

Leylas and Quana escape with the beacon, but the driders pursue. Leylas gives Quana the Stormlord's Heart and instructs her on using it. Quana asks Leylas if she feels something within the beacon, but Leylas urges her to hurry and bring the beacon home. Denouncing Leylas as a false queen, a drider impales Leylas, apparently killing her. Quana uses the Stormlord's Heart and returns to Exandria, apparently in the town at Bazzoxan. Roshan and Dryca rush to Quana. Finding only Quana, Roshan demands Dryca explain where Leylas is. Dryca says that Leylas understood that only one may return using the Stormlord's Heart and willingly accepted those terms.

The adolescent tells Abrianna they remember, then clarifies it is not a memory but "a dull, distant ache from a wound that never healed". Abrianna says perhaps it is a beginning, and she adds, over images of a child inside the Luxon beacon, "It's speaking to you, child. Your story, it calls to you."

Returning

 * Leylas Kryn
 * Quana Kryn
 * Abrianna Mirimm
 * Dryca

New

 * Roshan, member of the Aurora Watch
 * Lightbroker, an Umavi