The Governor Strikes Back!
- Amon escorts the mostly Dwarf group to the Villa, Relin is a friend / ally of Sarin’s. Both Sarin and Aethylthryth inquire about the situation in Kracken’s Fall, it seems for the most part the city still goes on like before, only the upper and upper-middle class non-humans have been harassed and had property confiscated. For the majority of non-humans nothing much has changed in day to day lives at the moment, work permits have been issued and apart from not being allowed to carry weapons and a few shop keepers refusing service these new laws have had little impact. So far at least.
- Among these refugees was the Halfling saved the other day, says his name is Fade, tells Sur Albert that a bunch of Half-Orcs have been killed and handed over in hopes of getting the reward for Sur Albert. Also berates both Sur Albert and Fia over their tactics in saving his life. Saying the collateral damage was excessive and Fia Summoning Demons on Holy Ground is a great way to turn even more people against them. Fade mutters something about owing the group his life so he has to help them out even if he seems to think they are a bunch of fuck ups.
- Fia spends most of the even absorbed trying to decipher “The Untempered Schism”
- Sur Albert, overcome by guilt over deaths caused by his actions leaves a note saying he will hand himself over to the Governor so no one else dies and rides off to Kracken’s Fall.
- Amon still on watch sees him ride off and chases him down, after an impassioned speech by Amon, Sur Albert agrees that he can do the most good. They both return, and Sur Albert spends the night drinking while Amon goes back to being on Watch.
- Arux spends the day chatting with Amon and Sarin to get to know them a bit better, being the more down to earth members of the group, and learns a bit about their adventures (The Hero of Glass Shadow happy to tell tales as they remind him of his friend Anton the Swan)
- Sarin practicing her abilities has an idea, she focus her mind to see the Truth behind reality, to see falsehoods and illusions and turns her gaze upon Fia… who looks exactly like she does normally to Sarin’s disappointment… But the fireplace has an illusionary brick that is in fact a pressure plate.
- Fia notices Sarin stare at the fireplace and mutters under her breath “best not to deal with the fireplace while we have company” and as she leans back Sarin noticed that the book “The Untempered Schism” had an illusionary cover. Using her powers of telepathy she tells Fia who answers out loud at first then realises she sounds crazy and just uses a combination of eye rolls and glares to converse with Sarin. Fia dispels “The Untempered Schism” and all the pages fall apart… they are no longer jumbled up and all readable. Quickly she gathers them up as Arux comes into the room.
- Arux tries to ask Fia if he can take a look at the Amulet of the Archmage they found buried outside. Fia shouts “NOT NOW!” and storms out glaring at Fade as she leaves (He referred to Arux as her lover before which did NOT sit well with Fia) to the barn to read in peace. Sarin noticed the real cover of the book said “Musings on Tim” By Allegra Darklighter-Blackhand.
- A little put out Arux talks to Sarin about his own new found powers of magic and asks about hers (Sarin is overjoyed that somebody FINNALLY asked about all the cool things she can do) and Sarin explains what she knows about Sorcerers to Arux till late into the night.
Day 4:
- 6am in the morning the Refugees leave going North East to “Baron Stormbringer’s” land, Susan Stormbringer has a keep that was being repaired a few months ago. A retired dwarf hero, part of the Tarsonis Ten, is unlikely to be removed from his lands without a major fight. So, a relatively safe place for the refugees to go to.
- The whole party gathers + Brock the Half-Orc Brawler + Fade the Halfling foulmouthed priest. They discuss plans, how more refugees are due this evening and how they want to attack the Training Camp outside the city of Kracken’s Fall (where many of those who protested the new laws where being held)
- Sarin asks Amon to open the fireplace to have a look what’s inside, Fia comes in looking like she hasn’t slept at all and agrees. Amon uses a magical ability he’d been practicing opening it by way of a magical spectral hand while he stands safely back.
- The stones make a grinding sound and part to reveal a lead lined safe, inside they saw a large crystal decanter filled with a swirling Red and Black liquid and two large crystal goblets. A small folded note resting against it with the name “Leonis” written upon it. The note was read out loud by Sarin with Fia correcting her mispronunciation of most the names though there was one Fia wouldn’t say and flinched at when Sarin tried to say it.
- “Father,
Nothing we’ve found out has done nothing but prove that Rhyxali would not release her soul for any price we could offer, you need to let her go. Please. Please! For the love we bare you please let her go, you deserve better than this!
In the vain hope that you find your way back to the rest of us I leave you this gift, a potion blessed to cleanse old bindings and forge new ones with someone worthy of your love.
It is never too late, Your loving son Telannon”
- A small simple ring of silver and violet fell from the curled up note, Fia and Amon both tried to catch it but Sarin was faster but before she could examine the ring Fia angerly snatched it out of her hand pushing her back.
- Fia visibly shaking and crying fiery tears started whispering at the ring in what sounded like Old Drazi though no one in the party could speak it. As the tears fell her skin started showing cracks, her armour started melting and lumps of molten metal started burning into the floor. Fia staggered back and her hoofed leg snapped off revealing a bare human foot, Fia gave off a great shout and reaching up ripped off her Tiefling horns as her whole form started turning to ash around her.
- Leaving only a young 20ish small, dark haired human woman in a nightgown crying holding the ring. All of Fia’s equipment had either turned to ash or fallen upon the floor as the straps were set for a much larger creature wearing armour. The Amulet of the Archmage was glowing brightly at her loosely strapped belt.
- Now understandably the whole party was WTF?!? Though Sarin seemed to have an idea about what just happened.
- Still distraught the young woman snatched up one of Fia’s javelins and with a cry of pain she snapped it in half (A lot more impressive due to her size) Abyssal writing flared as it snapped, and the Amulet again glowed brightly as a tear opened up before her.
- For a moment the group thought that an abomination rift was opening or a summon of some kind, but this rift was not a jagged tear but a neat rectangle that expanded and formed into a lady’s wardrobe which opened revealing a fully stocked set of supplies.
- As this woman reached for the items in the wardrobe a ghostly head shrouded in darkness appeared and it spoke at the group not too them with a familiar voice, yet another pre-set illusion from Garak The Destroyer. It said:
- “I see you’ve gotten my little gift, it is unclear to me how much of you will be you, how much will be that young woman whose wedding I attended a few hours ago and during polite conversation I happened to mention that an interesting book.
Likely a blending will occur, you may even believe that you’ve opened up your secret stash, if you think about it you obviously couldn’t have because you never fashioned it in the first place and since you would never teach me the trick of it I could only do a limited copy though I do hope you notice and appreciate the irony of the situation.
I have no idea what state you’ll be in when open this and while I couldn’t fill it with your usual toys seeing as you never crafted them I did manage to recreate a few of your favourites and toys for those pets you tend to acquire.
We will need to speak, come to the Shrine of St Gellar, seek me below.
Oh, if by some twist of fate a stranger has opened this….. I know you now, I will find you and I will burn your soul to ash.
Be seeing you soon.”
- The young woman started handing out magical items to the group while taking a formal dress off the side and walked off to get changed, Sarin asked if she was Allegra Blackhand and followed her to make sure Allegra/Fia didn’t run off. As she left the wardrobe disappeared.
- Now there was a lot of confusion about what the hell just happened, Brock offered to take Sarin’s watch as this was just too weird for him remarking that the new girl was cute, but he liked horns just as much while leaving. Fade just went to get some more sleep in the corner complaining that you guys were fucking insane and how he’d never seen a hell beast turn into a person before.
- There was a lot of explaining and speculation for the next few hours of the day when Allegra came back dressed in a stylish if a little dated formal dress. Basically, it comes down to this: They believe Allegra is a real human, Aethylthryth heard about a Drazi noble being burnt alive by an angry mob about 75 years ago back when Aethylthryth lived in Minbari lands. This Allegra Blackhand (A Blackhand by marriage) was rumoured to be involved in a number of crimes and deep in forbidden magic, the only reason Aethylthryth heard about it because a Noble was killed by a mob and the Ruling Duke at the time Rasalas Blackhand did nothing but say she deserved it. Allegra didn’t seem phased by these accusations. Sarin believes that the book Fia was reading has something to do with why she got back the memories of Allegra as well as that amulet, Sarin was given the book to have a look at.
- Allegra was burnt alive and her soul sent to The Pit, came back and is now human again. She remembers her time as “Fia” but a lot of details about her life seem fuzzy, being tormented in the abyss will do that to you. But for now, Allegra has the same goals as the party, or so she claims. And they should continue their plans to raid the Training Camp and free those political prisoners. There was some vague talk of how Allegra remembers her life and death, her time as Fia and oddly knowing Garak in the future/another future that could never happen now. But typically of Fia/Allegra she was non-committal deflected away questions with a lot of shark (which kind of reminds you of the way Garak handles questions).
- This went on for some time, Arux went off to eat some food and prosses all this weirdness.
- The wall just beside the fireplace disintegrated into dust and a glass ball was thrown through causing bright Daylight to fill the room as a bunch of Royal Guard and City Guard came charging through the breach ambushing the party.
- A massive villa wrecking fight erupted between the party and forces from Kracken’s Fall lead by Strax the Minster of Magic, who had a wand of disintegration that wreaked havoc on the party. And while they had the element of surprise the party responded well, and the tide of battle turned in their favour, the Drazi Commissars who kept countering the parties magic were slain and the guards quickly died though the Knights of the Royal Guard where much harder to put down.
- Amon’s point-blank archery and telekinetic magics wrecking his foes, Sur Albert cleaving City Guards in two and hammering down on the Zealots of Grabthar, Sarin’s physic attacks at Strax when he tried another disintegration causing him to try and flank and then dying under yet another psychic onslaught but this time from Aethylthryth whose magic had been countered by the Commissars and sounded by guards for most the fight. Brock had jumped into the fray and got shot by the archers waiting outside the villa for anyone to flee, while he caught one arrow the others hit home.
- Fade cursed guards but his new allies failed to react fast enough to take advantage of this though Allegra did turn him into a Huge Ape and he smashed the guards (and a lot of the villa)
- Allegra dealt well with the second group attacking from the front of the villa, countering the Commissars counter magic and summoning a Wall of Fire to burn some alive and block off attack from that direction though as soon as the spell ended more archers fired at her, along with an archer using a strange booming weapon.
- Arux was eating by himself in the villa and heard the sounds of battle as a knight and commissar (who fled from Allegra’s wall of fire) attacked him. It was a close call for Aurx who still didn’t quiet understand his own magic, and the commissar somehow countered it. Trying again to unleash the forces within he remembered what Sarin had said about focusing his mind using set phases and actions he summoned forth once again the power of the elemental plane of water sending forth a Tidal Wave at the knight he fought and using the commissars own counter magic on him (Unknown to him but exactly like Allegra had done to that same commissar moments before) making the table come alive Arux charged through the Villa towards the group and the sounds of battle.
- Some of the archers did flee with Amon sending a volley of arrows at them to keep them running he noticed a strange figure standing outside, Sarin had seen him before when fighting but had other things to deal with such as a Minster of Magic, disintegrating things all over the place.
- This bald humanoid stood over 7ft tall and had the darkest skin Amon had even seen, it seemed to almost absorb light, he stood their swaying slightly as if stunned so Amon and his faithful panther Satin attacked and killed this stranger. His blood spilt forth like fire burning Satin. After slaying him there were slightly shocked to see the creature come back to life, Amon having dealt with creatures who could heal from any wound quickly drew his Blackhand Blade and cut off the creature’s head. The severed head spoke in a strange language while the body thrashed around with Satin pinning it down, Amon quickly took out his Drazi General’s Dagger and stuck it in the creature’s head and tied up the body.
- And that is where we left the game, with Strax dead (The rather Evil Dagger that they were looking for now theirs) they decided they have to leave the Villa lest some of those archers come running back with aid. They may well run off into the fields and open a Gateway to Sanctuary to make the deal, or maybe something else.