As agents of the Red Mantis, you know that the Vernai dwell not in Ilizmagorti but in the lavish upper chambers of the Crimson Citadel, which perches atop the highest jungle-covered peak on Mediogalti Isle. Most Red Mantis assassins and very few of the group’s agents and mercenaries are ever allowed to visit the Crimson Citadel, but you are among those who were granted permission to visit and even train in its upper halls in the past, a benefit granted to them by virtue of being in Blood Mistress Jakalyn’s good graces.
As such, you knows both the best routes to the Crimson Citadel and that it is the duty of any Red Mantis assassin to report treachery among the ranks to the agents of the Vernai, if not directly to the Vernai itself.
The trek to the mountaintop fortress is, by design, a journey through trackless jungle. Ancient wards cloak the sight of the fortress with mist and foliage, obscuring it from those who approach until they reach the mountain, at which point the fortress is visible in all its glory. Likewise, the view out over Mediogalti from within the Crimson Citadel is unobscured except by natural weather conditions.
Those who don’t know the Crimson Citadel’s location might wander lost and aimless for days, even weeks, through the dangerous jungle, but you know the route. If you decide to travel there on foot, it’s approximately a 100-mile journey from Ilizmagorti through dense jungle under thick cover. With no complications, the journey would take around 10 days.
You hustle your way through the market. Though the disruption you caused at the tea house certainly has people on edge, it turns out the the brothers were probably the primary people watching the marketplace.
Your sending spell to Vatumledor reaches the dragon successfully, and he responses: "With the evidence you have gathered, the Vernai must respond. Demand an audience at the Citadel. You must surrender your weapons for an audience."[/b]
Your sending to Jakalyn receives no response.
The night before they teleport in to the Cathedral Yuki takes some time to reach out into the dream world and attempts to give Saviya some really bad dreams.
"Let me see if i can nudge things in our favor."
Yuki casts Nightmare. DC 37
"I was in Galt one time, for some low-level assassination -- typical Galtan thing, a concubine was upset that her lover's wife was reading some sort of treatise on philosphy or something. Anyway, I go in and there's this monkey, just sitting there eating cheese. I look at it, it looks at me. And I think it's probably going to defend the woman who's just sitting there with her book of philosophy in her lap looking stunned that I've arrived to murder her. So I get ready to fit it. And it just puts down its cheese and scampers away. Stupid cheese-eating surrender monkey. Anyway, I killed the wife and stabbed the philosophy book for good measure. But my point is, if you just lay down your arms, you're going to end up dead. So, no, I don't think I'll be surrendering my weapons."
Dianora thinks for a moment.
"Though maybe we want to see if we can hide our weapons, just in case the dragon isn't joking."
Preparations made, and rested up, you teleport yourselves into a little-used storeroom within the Crimson Citadel. Venturing into the hallway, you're soon confronted by a sentinel--it's Golrain, an assassin that you recognize from training and a few briefings.
"You! Well, that's a surprise to see you in the Citadel. I heard you had turned rogue," the young man human comments. "I hope you aren't trying to cut your way through this place...I'm sure others will notice my absence and track you down fairly quickly."
"I'd rather not fight; could I escort you to the Chamber of the Vernai?"
Yuki thinks for a moment about this Golrain individual.
”Well I for one wouldn’t mind getting there without a fight. We do have information of note to share. And our Mistress will appreciate your support. Tell me, what have you heard?”
Kimmich never considered Golrain a threat and thus completely fails to remember him as well. The orc has taken the time today to paint his mask upon his face, the red lines standing stark against his green skin. "Those who tell of our rogue-ish-ness are potentially rogues themselves. Watch yourself, Mantis - such naive acceptance of rumors as facts can be deadly to a assassin." The orc follows their guide stoically after his warning.
"Who of the Vernai are here?" Dianora asks. "And more importantly, who's lying about our loyalty to Achaekek? I think they'll find such accusations can turn around to bite their heads off."
"I heard that you assassinated a legitimate ruler and then killed the team that was sent to take you in," the guard offers. "I imagine the full weekly council of 13 will be in attendance. You're the talk of the Citadel."
You follow the guard to an antechamber where you are relieved of your obvious weapons.
The guards believe in your non-violent intent and ask you to wait while the council is summoned. In about 10 minutes, you are ushered into the room.
The walls of this twenty-foot-wide, fourteen-sided stone chamber are of polished crimson porphyry, as is the floor below. Above, the interior of the hollow hundred-foot-high minaret rises to a crimson dome. A total of fourteen separate balconies encircle the room at a height of ten feet. Thirteen of these have a single stone chair draped with red silks and cushions, while the fourteenth, looming above the single door that provides entrance and exit, displays a statue of Achaekek, his claws appearing to drip with blood that flows in rivulets down supporting pillars to narrow grates in the floor. The room’s acoustics are unsettling, and the dripping of this blood sounds almost as if it were right next to the ear. A beam of red light shines down from above, illuminating the windowless room in its radiance.
A few moments after you take these sights in, seated figures manifest silently from red mist in each of the 13 chairs. Each is clad in the signature Red Mantis armor, and each wears a greater mask of the mantis that obscures their faces. One of the figures calls down to the party in a soft voice, but the room’s unique acoustic features carry her voice easily so that her every word is audible.
"Agents of righteous death, you stand before this council for judgment, accused of unlawful murder rather than sacred and contracted assassination. Moreover, you are accused of murdering of a rightful ruler: General Ordulf Bladecaller, an Ulfen warlord who had conquered a small part of the Land of the Linnorm Kings.
“The penalty for this is execution, so that your souls may be judged to stand before He Who Walks in Blood for absolution or destruction, but before this sentence is carried out, we stop to listen, as we understand there are complications and angles that have yet to be brought to our attention. We will ask three questions of you and are eager to hear in your own words justification for your blasphemy.”
Dianora nods her head in assent. "We will prove our innocence in this matter, and then execute judgment on those who've lied and brought us to this point."
The Vernai lead with their first question: “Did General Ordulf Bladecaller deserve to die?"
Dianora shrugs. "Since when do we care if someone deserves to die? We're hired to assassinate, and do so in fulfillment of Achaekek's will," she replies. "He was a powerful cleric, certainly, but a rightful ruler? Only in his own mind, and if we went by people who think they're rulers, well, who wouldn't measure up, in that case? We might as well go out of business and theology."
Crystal sighs and shrugs her shoulders. "Well you'd have to tell me. As a loyal Red Mantis I usually expect the Vernai to vet any job or contract given to me. It's not my job to know what rulers are rightful and what aren't, that's the job of those whose contracts I enact. Certainly our contracts are anonymous so we cannot check the bias of who gave it but we did not act of our own selection when we killed him, so certainly if he deserved to die someone at one of your own tables that thought so. I can only tell you what I was told at the time, which was that he was an unlawful usurper."
Yuki stands straight and looks at each vernai as she presents her case.
”The social contract we follow is one where we trust the contract we are given to be true. But more importantly, we succeeded in the mission, and succeeded in defending our very lives from those who were lied to about us. And, they did not seem interested in taking us in. More importantly, He Who Walks in Blood guided our hands or we would not have been successful.”
”But I wander and stray into theology. Would a rightful ruler have been betrayed by his allies at the point he needed them most. Some of them were powerful and could easily have turned the tide in his favor! The tribes that came to beat their drums in war as he fell did not see him as their ruler.”