"Anevia! I thought you were dead! I never..." Tears come to her eyes and she buries her head in the crippled woman's shoulder. "I never thought I'd see you again..." She mumbles, through sobs of joy.
For her part, Anevia says nothing, her joyful tears too much for her to speak through.
Nearly unnoticed is the squad of heavily armed knights that come behind the half-orc. They spread out in a semi-circle between you and the inn, and they are all business.
"Commander." their sergeant says after a moment. "We should not tarry here."
The woman sets Anevia down gently on the stone pavings of the street, and turns to him. "Yes Sergeant, I know. Now is not the time to let down our guard. Carry on."
She turns to you. "I am Irabeth Tirablade, and I am in your debt. Come inside, where we may talk in safety...such as it is..."
She lifts Anevia up to carry her, and leads the way into Defender's Heart.
Waiting that everyone else is safely inside the building, the Paladin moves in last into the haven, feeling for one moment the weight of the world leave his shoulders till he straightens himself ramrod straight and replies."You have my thanks. Please give me a moment to sit and then.... I have questions in need of answering. But the most important one first. Is any of the leaders of the crusade who was in the city still alive?"
Kazul is on edge when he sees the guards, gripping his falchion tightly, but once the pair hugs, he relaxes and walks inside, hopeful for the first time this day.
Your are led into the Defender's Heart, all the signs pointing to a fortress under siege. Most of the soldiers you see wear the uniform of the Eagle's Watch - a very reputable outfit - but there are smatterings of others. The Gold Hawks are immediately picked up at a word from Irabeth, and taken away to be assigned new duties. At Bollwerk's question, Irabeth stops and turns around to face him.
"No." She says brusquely, and turns away again. Leading you down a long hall, she only stops when she reaches the door to a good sized room, now turned into a war room of sorts. Maps of the city line the walls, as well as troop lists, many with names of units crossed out. Gently, she sets Anevia down on a chair. Then straightens and faces you.
"I have many questions, as do you, I don't doubt. Sit. You start."
Sitting down Bollwerk exhaltes twice and looks around. Finally he speaks."You are right. I have many questions. But right now only two are really important. Who leads the defence? And how by Asmodeus bony... bottom do we get those" He slowly exhales to control his feelings... twice..."demons and demonkisser out of our city so that it is safe again! We do know that their goal is the wardstone, and that they hope to have command of drezen shorty."
"As far as the leader of the resistance, you are looking at her. I am the ranking person left alive in Kenabres. There is one other, Quednys Orlun, the leader of the Riftwardens, he knows you are here and will be arriving shortly. Regarding other points of resistance, this is it. I was hoping you would be able to tell me of more."
She sits down heavily, her bright armor dull in the dim room.
"We..." she begins slowly, "know very little. There is word that the demons have hit all along the border, but nowhere harder than Kenabres. They have hit the capital of Nerosyan, but they were beaten back by Queen Galfrey's legions. The line holds...for now. The queen marches for Kenabres at the head of an army, but that is days away at best."
"Now. What can YOU tell me?"
Taking out the letter as first evidence Bollwerk starts to give a precise report of what happened, leaving nothing out, neither the shards, the alliance with the mongrels nor the bad treatment of horgues by some. But not naming them.
Looking at Kazul and the wizard to add anything to his report.
Fabian says, "Do you know... my mother, the paladin Alicia Moldando. Have you heard from her? Do you know if she survived?"
"As for us -- we were there at the festival for Armasse when the attack happened. We saw Terendelev go down in the face of the demon attacking him-- the Storm King, with flaming whip and sword. The chasm opened in the ground, and we fell... and, somehow, we were spared. It was Terendelev who did it. Why us, I do not know, I can only think his grace, and the grace of the Inheritor, that he had mercy on us. He cast a Feather Fall spell, or a similar enchantment, that allowed us to survive the fall."
Fabian pulls out the Scale of Terendelev that he has. "We found these at the bottom of the chasm after we fell. They seem to have minor magical abilities. Mine is able to produce a levitation enchantment. We also took this as a sign that we were meant, somehow, to soldier on."
"Anevia was down there with us, her leg broken. As was the wizard Aravashnial, who was blinded, and the businessman Horgus Gwerm. We tried to figure out where we were to find a way back to the surface, to find what had happened to Kenbares."
Fabian continues to summarize what had happened. He leaves out some of the tension between Horgus and Anevia (and some of the other members of the impromptu expedition).
"We fought past some creatures of the deep, finding tunnels that led us out of the chamber where we fell. We found a building in a cave-- one that looked to be an old temple to Torag, for it had a symbol of a hammer on it. Alas, it was not a refuge, for there was a foul undead beast of some sort kneeling within the temple, and it attacked us when we approached-- but Kazul quickly cut it open with his falchion. We did what we could to remove the taint on the temple, before resting there to recover from the combats we had fought."
"The next day, we found a cavern with statues of armed warriors that bore no heraldry. Aravashaial, upon having them described to him, identified them as representing the 'children of the first crusaders', descendants of the soldiers of the first crusade who bore various horrible mutations. As we were regarding them, we were attacked by a crazed dwarf who called himself 'Millorn'-- or, at least, who claimed to fight in the name of Millorn."
Taking a spellbook out of his pack, Fabian says, "We were able to defeat this dwarf. I still have his spellbook, and am indeed hoping for some quiet time when I will get a chance to study the spells and add see if there are any I can add to my own repertoire."
Fabian puts the spellbook back amongst his stuff. "After that, we found an encampment of these children of the first crusade. They are mutants who live deep below Kenbares, but many of them are good and righteous people. Some of our group had some trouble trusting them, but in the end they proved to be allies to us, and provided us some refuge in their village, that they call Neatholm. They had been in conflict with another subgroup of their kind, and we helped them defeat them. These other mutants had fallen in with false followers of Iomedae -- Aravashnial identified them as members of the Temple of the Ivory Labyrinth."
"As we went to confront the foes of the residents of Neatholm, we found among them unholy symbols dedicated to the demon Baphomet. It was clear that even as there were righteous people deep underground underneath Kenbares, there were also demonic cultists."
"We were able to defeat the nest of cultists down there-- but these would not be the last cultists of Baphomet we would come across. In their temple, among other things, we found a finely crafted sword that bore the symbols of the Inheritor-- it was none other than Radiance, the sword of Yaniel. I believe Bollwerk still has it with him."
"We also found a letter addressed to 'Hosilla', signed by 'S.V.' in a tag that praised both Deskari and Baphomet-- we don't know who S.V. is. It made clear, however, that the cultists knew of the attack on Kenbares before it happened. In this letter, S.V., whoever that is, said he would be assuming comand of Drezen. He (or she?) also said that one named Vorlesh would 'finish' with the wardstone. They spoke of plans to corrupt Yaniel, which I am glad we were able to interrupt. And, finally, the letter mentioned three 'safe houses', in particular, Nyserian Manor, Topaz Solutions, and the Tower of Estrod. The letter also gave a passphrase, 'I've new material for the archives'."
If he has it, Fabian will hand the letter over to Irabeth for her to example. If not, he'll nod to whoever does have it....
"With our having defeated their enemies, the residents of Neatholm helped us find our way back to the surface, by sending scouts ahead, and leading us along the path. We were horrified by what we saw as we arrived back at the surface. Anevia, Aravashnial, and Hogrus disagreedas to where we should go next. Aravashnial wanted to seek out the Librarium of the Blackwing, the headquarters of the Riftwardens. Anevia wanted to find you. Hogrus wanted to find his estate. At this point, some of us split up, and I separated from the rest of those who have continued here."
"Needless to say, we came across various evidence of demonic cult activity within the ruins of Kenbares. It weighs heavily on my heart to report this, as it did to witness it. The group that did not travel with me saw the ruins of the Librarium. There, they fought some cultists, and rescued Sjurd. Some of the 'cultists' were in fact crusaders, claiming to have been taken over by some kind of madness. At the time, they believed they were just weak-willed traitors. They left Aravashnial there at the Librarium, to help try to put together the pieces of his headquarters and his order, together with Fenna, the assistant head librarian, who had also survived."
"Next, the group, joined by Sjurd, made their way to Horgus' manor. On the way there, they found a group of people wearing the livery of the Gold Hawks, about to sacrifice the life of a sobbing girl. They claimed that they were sacrificing her to get power to fight the demons. It was there that I rejoined the others. Between us, we were able to stop these Gold Hawks from killing the girl. We have tied them up, and brought them here to you."
"After this, we took Horgus Gwerm to his manor, which seems to have survived the attack on Kenbares. He should still be there, I hope."
"Next, we went to your house, for Anevia hoped that we might find some indication there as to where you might be. On the way, we found yet another scene of demonic madness, with cultists involved in a vile ritual, bearing the unholy symbol of Baphomet-- operating again under the Temple of the Ivory Labyrinth. We fought and defeated those cultists. Coming to your house, we were attacked by a fire beetle (summoned, I believe), and a half-orc wearing red armor and weilding a ranseur, but also capable of casting spells-- a sorcerer, I believe. Anevia was badly wounded in the attack. He called himself Vagorg, and referred to you, I believe, as a 'half-orc traitor'."
Fabian nods in apology to Irabeth. "[b]I do not share the sentiment myself, but merely report what he said. After we had defeated him, Anevia indicated that she recognized this individual, and told us of your history with him. It was there that Anevia found the note saying that you were at here at Defenders Heart, and she led us here."
Stopping to think to make sure he hasn't left anything out, Fabian says, "That's a full report of what has happened to us. It seems that these cultists of Baphomet, even before the attack, had infiltrated Kenbares to a truly disturbing degree. Right now, after we have a chance to rest and recover, I would like to offer at least my services to help investigate these three 'safe-houses' we found on the cultists underground. If Kenbares is ever to recover, we have to root out the corroputin within."
Farasha, always ready to listen to a story, sits rapt the entire time Fabian is telling the group's story. She nods in several places
I don't believe there is anything further to add, our wizard has used all the relevant words we might have cared to offer
she winks at Fabian.
Is there a plan to regroup or are you still in the scouting phase. Whilst I don't speak for our group as a whole, we all have a stake in Kenabres, not to mention the interest Terendelev seems to have taken... What I'm trying to say is, tell us where we can be useful to you...we want to help
The half-orc paladin listens intently to Bollwerk and Fabian as they go through their tale. When Fabian reaches the part of the story involving Vagorg, she stands up smashing her fist into her open hand.
"That scum. He felt that because we shared a half-orc ancestry that I should let him go. Of course I refused, and threw him in jail. Frankly, we had forgotten him. Apparently, he hadn't forgotten us. Good riddance."
She paces for a moment, lost in thought. "S.V. Hmm...S.V. could it be? He would raise his head at this moment..." She sits back down.
I know of only one SV. And you won't like it. Staunton Vhane. A dwarven paladin...or was. I exposed him as the traitor he was, an infiltrator of Ivory Labyrinth. We battled, and he fled on that damned giant bee of his. Fled into the Worldwound in fact. Now I see this has been long-planned and precisely executed. Surprising for demons, I guess, surprised all of us. Now Kenabres lies in ruins." She speaks, half to you, half to herself.
She looks up. "Sorry." She gives you a weak smile, and you can she hasn't slept in days. "As for your mother Fabian, I have not seen her. If she hasn't made it here yet, I fear the worst." Irabeth rises to clap a hand on the wizard's shoulder.
"Right now, we need to think about ourselves, I'm afraid. We aren't out of this yet. I am glad to hear that some of the Riftwardens survived. Quednys will be as well. Also I am glad to hear of the alliance with the First Descendants beneath the city. I will send scouts to contact them at once. We will need them. As for you all, my suggestion would to find these safe houses and take them down. See if there is any more information we can find.
She stands, putting a hand on her blade. "It's time we take the fight to them."
We are only too happy to aid the cause. Tell me though, is there somewhere to replenish supplies? I have grown low on arrows since leaving the underground. Also, I agree with Sjurd, we should rest for a short while to recover our strength, we're all pretty much spent having made it this far
"I have no problems taking the safe houses down. They shall pay for what they did to my home and friends."
Fabian says, "If we think we can afford to wait, I would like to start this tomorrow. I would do well to rest and refresh my mental energies. That would make it possible for me to cast more spells. If we have the time, I may also be able to copy some spells from Millorn's spellbook into my own."
Bollwerk looking at the exhausted eyes of his companions just nods.I wonder if I can remember the face if I look into a mirror Sitting down and accepting his share he moves to a bedroom and after a prayer to his godess, falls soundly asleep, for once not in armor, but still with a dagger under his pillow and radiance laying by his side.
After doing some quick shopping, Farasha finds a group of people gathered around one of the fireplaces, and sits herself cross-legged on the floor before laying out the materials for making some arrows.
She encourages the children present to come over and watch, asking them to hold the wood, the feathers, helping them bind thin twine around the shafts to hold the fletching in place, offering the eldest her knife and showing him how to cut a notch in the top of each arrow. The smallest holding one of the pointy sticks as Farasha twists an arrowhead in to place on the end with a smile at the girl's pride in helping. Each child participates in crafting her two quivers full of arrows, and afterwards she thanks them sincerely, offering up a prayer to Desna and grabbing a handful of plums from a nearby merchant as their reward. She says they can tell all their friends that this night they helped a warrior of light to prepare to fight the darkness, they are heros of Kenabres.
Each time she draws one of these arrows, she will remember this night, and let the memory of community and joy soothe her mind in battle, helping her arrows to find their targets.
Lets start wit the first... Nyserian Manor.
Farasha agrees and stands ready to depart, until everyone else is ready she spends the time saying goodbye to a gaggle of children milling around her.
While a night of rest in relative safety was certainly refreshing, stepping out of the doors of the Defender's Heart is a stark reminder of tasks are before you.
The skies roil with black and red clouds, and the rumble of thunder is ever present. A storm brews away west over the Worldwound.
Irabeth meets you at the door. "Keep your eyes open, and your wits about you. When you traveled here, you were a larger group. Now with less, you may be seen as an easier target. Iomedae watch over you."
The journey to the location marked as Nyserian Manor is easy enough - if picking your way through rubbled and blood-stained streets can be considered 'easy'. It isn't long before you come upon the manor, only...
...what was once surely a stately manor is now nothing more than a pile of rubble and a gouged trough of ruin.
"It seems sometimes the ladys justice works in mysterious ways. Let us check for any unwanted surprises and if this is clear... we can move to the next hideout of the list!"
Farasha nods in approval, quickly checking around the site to ensure there is nothing left to benefit any cultists coming to seek refuge.
Once satisfied there is nothing of use, she will head to the next safehouse with everyone.
Kazul sporting his new falchion takes a look around the ruin.
Whatever came through here was big, and it doesn't look like it stopped at all. The crevasse it left is similar to the ones you have seen throughout Kenabres. One thing is for sure, the demonic forces unleashed their fury on the city, and where they are now is anyone's guess.
There is nothing left in the rubble of the manor. You make a note to ask Horgus when you see him next about the Nyserian family.
Topaz solutions then, and we should stop at Horgus' manor if we pass by, to check on him and see what he knows as well!
Farasha strides after Bollwerk.
Fabian nods. "Yes, let's check in on Horgus. It's a new day, and things are not stable in Kenbares. We should make sure he is still OK."
You cross the ruins following the directions given to you. It isn't long before you are standing in front of Topaz Solutions.
A wooden sign above the door bears a carving of a bundle of orange herbs and flowers hovering over a beaker filled with smoking orange liquid. The building’s windows are tightly shuttered, but the front door hangs halfway off its hinges.
Farasha considers the building, then gestures quickly with her free hand, causing her arrow tip to glow brightly with soft arcane light. She carefully uses it to twist her hair up, and her impromptu styling leaves the tip pointing upwards over her head, providing illumination around her almost like a halo.
Kazul I know you prefer the dark, but my poor eyes won't be able to see in there otherwise! Go in ahead if you want to, we'll wait one minute then follow
Kazul smiles and goes forth as stealthily as possible, javelin in one hand, falchion in other..
Kazul creeps forward through the rubble in front of the door. The low sounds of voices comes from inside the shop, but just he leans to peer inside, the unstable door frame creaks and shifts, causing the voices to go silent...