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Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
I have eliminated the campaign background from this list. It is now located on my Campaign Webpage
You will find there a description of the world, the characters and some older story hours. I have also included a number of maps of the world and other great info. Feel free to visit anytime.
This campaign is more than two years old in real time. The party completed one story arc in which they rescued the Alexandran Empire from an Undead Army raised by Tychon of Pella, who claims to be the King of Khalkis (the old name for the Empire). They also rescued a strange young man with long white hair named Arin from a glass tube in Khalkis' lair. At the start of this story, they have arrived in Sazon seeking information about Arin's master, Horus, and the Companions of Alexander.
Campaign Introduction:
417 years ago, the Triad, the gods of evil, tried to destroy the free kingdoms in a sudden massive invasion from the mountains of Irmak. They seemed on the verge of success when a little-known noble named Alexander rose to become the greatest general of his era and drive them back. Championing the Seven gods of good, he forged an alliance from the fractious western kingdoms. At the battle of Dranas, he and the great alliance utterly destroyed the army of evil and secured peace and freedom for the west. In the aftermath of his stunning victory, the allies determined never to be caught by surprise again. They elected Alexander to be emperor of all the major kingdoms and arranged for the position to continue. Alexander's own land, Khalkis, had been virtually destroyed in the invasion so it became the seat of his power. Alexander became titular overlord of all the kingdoms and built towers and castles to set watch on the land of Irmak.
That was a long time ago.
Now the kingdoms have fallen back into old habits. With the threat of evil gone, they war with each other and engage in their petty grabs for power. Fantastic creatures known in the ancient days are thought to be myths now. Dragons, and demons are stories for little children. The emperor still exists, but he rules only the lands of old Khalkis now. The Free Kingdoms have not paid the price for their lack of diligence for twenty generations.
Now evil is returning.
The Triad shows signs of preparing another attack from Irmak. While the leaders of the west ignore the threat, the Lady, leader of the Seven, chooses her Champions to fight the rising tide before it is too late...
The characters have been touched by the Lady. They are her chosen champions to serve her and humanity against the coming crisis. They know each other by an undefinable glow of the Lady's blessing on each of them. Some accept her blessing whole-heartedly and become advocates of her in the world. Others resent her influence in their destiny, don't believe their importance, or reject her part in their lives. Whatever their reaction, all the characters are people destined for great things
Last edited by DoctorB; 27th July 2002 at 03:39 PM..
The low hills stretch away to the horizon though those opposite you are darkened with the numbers of the enemy. Looking at your own lines, your spirits rise. Lady Breda prances in place. You can feel her eagerness for battle and glory. There is Joy glowing with a blue light astride Blueberry. She gives you a brave smile. Galena also glows but with a different power as she calls on her magic. A shadowy presence to your left is your only view of Liana, but you know she will be just as hard for the enemy to find. Further on your right, you see Bacha marching alongside his Irmakian tribe. He calls out a battle cry in salute. Toiva anchors your left with a troop of Dibran warriors drawn from many cities. They sing a bawdy song about landlocked maidens. A shame no more than the few hundred he commands could fight alongside you.
At your back sits the entire strength of Imperial horse and foot. All of them have chosen to be here and you are confident they will acquit themselves well. Looking closely, you make out the contingent from Pella; among them are Orace and Jarrik. You nod at Krum and he seems to understand. He will keep them as safe as he can. Nearby ride the Grey Knights. One of their lieutenants is familiar in the way she rides and sits. Of course Sheranise would be here. The Lady does not unchoose her champions. Hope rises as you see the brave swords and spears....
Then you look across the field. The enemy blackens the horizon with soldiers. Against your few thousand are arrayed fifty or one hundred times that number. Among them stride trolls and giants, ogres and hobgoblins. Other creatures you have never seen or heard of before walk or shamble among them. Riding a dragon above them is a man in black armor. The Warlord. You realize with honest appraisal that you will die today.
Why would the Lady choose you and the others to be her champions if you were doomed to fall before the might of the Triad? Are you and the others merely the last desperate cry of the defeated Seven? Then you think of what might have been. Where are the shining Argesian knights and the Dwarven legions to anchor your center? You have no berserkers from Varna to confuse the enemy ranks, no deadly archers from Streda and Tolna to fill the air with arrows. Absent is the magical power of Sindaria or the solid infantry of Lublin.
Grimly, you put your past failures behind you. You can only use the ingredients at hand. Wishing for saffron doesn’t make it appear. Failing all else, you rely on duty and faith. You call on the Lady and all of the Seven for their blessing and signal the attack…
[You awaken covered in sweat and reach for your mace. Lady Breda is kicking the sides of her stall. The adrenaline of battle is still with you and you find it impossible to return to sleep
Last edited by DoctorB; 7th March 2002 at 03:11 AM..
The Champions are in Sazon trying to find out more about Horus, an important advisor to the ancient hero, Alexander, and Arin's master. They also want to find out more about the Companions of Alexander.
The next day, the Champions went to the Great Library and showed the keepers their token. It turned out they had an appointment to work with the chief Loremaster, and man named Luan. After some difficulty with the oath swearing not to damage any of the library materials or fight in the Library, Luan took the party to a reading room and they began research. After a couple of days of working, they had discovered a great deal about the seven companions of Alexander and that they were somehow linked to Horace, Arin’s master.
On the third day, they were in the Library again when things suddenly changed. Two worms had appeared in the courtyard in front of the Library and Toiva, Liana and Claudia were fighting them when the entire building was suddenly somewhere else. They found themselves looking at an ever-changing chaotic landscape that confused them even while they fought the two creatures that had come with them.
Here is Toiva’s description to Bacha of what was happening:
Cobb and Toiva had a long discussion about the appropriate way to get something done. Joy was pretty upset that the temple seemed to be too caught up in the whole "Yay Sazon" thing. Much research was done in the Library; we learned some stuff that makes it sound like we need to recover stuff from the seven companions of Alexander and return to a battlefield from Alexander's War to call back Horace (or Horus?), the kid's mentor, from where he has sequestered himself until he was needed. We discovered that riding Griffons can be learned from books. Toiva and Liana did some snooping. Joy ate a whole lot of Dibrean food. Galena was aloof. Toiva refrained from adding more verses to the Straw Hat Knight song. There was a wine emergency, involving Toiva and the Knight Defender of the Temple, who protected him for a couple of nights.
And then big freaking worms with tentacles appeared and the entire Library,
including the PC's and some random other folks in the Library, got plane-shifted
somewhere, according to our resident expert on the planes. We killed the two big
freaking worms, taking a ton of damage in the process (Cobb, Alexander, Toiva and Bacha get about half dead each), but more worms are on the way crossing the
blighted and twisted alien landscape infused with primal chaos that confuses the
weak-willed (that's you, Bacha) just looking at it, accompanied by "other
things." Joy did her "Healing Hand" thing. We have closed up the Library. It has
a bunch of magic items, and we are hoping that there is something in the Library
that can get us home, but in the mean time, monsters are knocking at the door.
Last edited by DoctorB; 1st March 2002 at 04:08 PM..
As the warrior types (Bacha, Alexander, Toiva) held the front door, the others went into the center of the library where Luan had all of the magic items in the place brought. This was the senior loremasters’ study and already had in it a strange orrery and a large box with mysterious writing on it. Liana went exploring and Galena and Joy got down to the business of figuring out what was going on. Galena had detected that the force that sent them to this chaos plane came from somewhere inside the building but not where. She found that the large box had abjuration magic on it and the writing was old draconic giving warnings against opening it so she decided not to.
At the same time, Liana had discovered some writing on one of the stairwells saying “The Door is Open” in some form of Khal. She, Galena, and Joy went upstairs and detect magic found that one of the cells on the second floor had magic in it. When Liana opened the door, a man appeared and cast a Magic Missile into her.
Meanwhile downstairs, the gibbering mouthers (the other things Toiva saw) had burned through the stone on each side of the door. Something big gray and humanoid with a froglike head ripped the weakened doors away and the battle started in earnest. Three of the worm things and several mouthers entered the Library. Toiva, Bacha and Alexander started a fighting retreat intending to defend the narrow corridor into the main reading room.
Upstairs, the battle was over pretty quick. Liana did not attack right away. Joy cast a searing light that killed the guy where he stood. This was the first living creature she had ever killed. Searching the guy showed he had some kind of spiral symbol and burned into his left arm were seven strange symbols, which Lux said were not language. Galena ordered “bring that arm” and rushed downstairs again to continue the examination of the items in the study. Galena quickly discovered that the symbols were the same as the ones on the strange orrery which had seven faintly glowing symbols. Touching one of these using prestidigitation brought up about twenty similar signs to choose from. The party quickly figured out this object was what had brought them here and that the symbols were somehow linked to this plane. If only they knew the combination for their own plane! Luan offered that there was a room of works no one could read. Maybe something there would be useful. Galena went with him to see while the others went to aid with the combat.
In the main entranceway, barricading the narrow passageway into the main reading room had bought them some time but they found the gray thing was nowhere to be seen. Bacha held the barricade against the strength of one of the strange wormlike things and the others used missile weapons against it. Suddenly, the door to their right burst open and the missing monsters came through. Seeing themselves flanked, the three fighting at the front door retreated to the doorway leading toward the loremaster study. Using the narrow corridors to their advantage, they set up ambushes at four-way intersections. Joy and Cobb showed up to help with healing.
Galena looked through the scrolls Luan showed her and found she could read them. Several were in Celestial, some in Infernal and others in elemental languages. She looked at the Celestial ones first. One of them had a symbol she recognized from the set above one of the symbols on the orrery upstairs. Looking through it, it was an account of someone who had journeyed to the Heavens and returned. He had found these symbols in various places and had just copied them down, not knowing what they were. There were seven. Running back to the study, she lined up the seven symbols from the scroll on the orrery and cast spells into it to power it. With the seventh spell level, everyone felt the library shift.
The fight continued in the corridors as the chaos beasts slowly gained ground. Suddenly a blinding flash went through the building blinding many of the Champions and others. The creatures were gone. Going downstairs, they saw a beautific landscape outside. Galena had transported them to Heaven.
Only Joy, Bacha, and Toiva went outside. There they met a celestial who called herself Herald. She said she was sent by the Lady to help them home. After much questioning and very little answering she showed Bacha a vision of his people and assured Joy her great-great-great-grandmother was there but did not let her see her. Finally, Herald gave them the seven symbols they needed to get home. She also sensed Joy’s desire to become a direct servant of the Lady and offered her the chance if she could restore the Lady’s shrine at Merowe.
Galena powered the device again and brought them back to Sazon. There they discovered that Claudia and the city guard had been fighting worms that had come through the Temple. It seems that the door between Library and Temple had allowed the chaos creatures to come through into the world. They also had to answer lots of questions from Lord Victor and others about what happened. After an exhausting day, they convinced Luan to let them stay in the Library with the loremasters in case something else happened. Galena refused to leave the study, thinking she might not get another chance to study the planar orrery if she left.
In the middle of the night, they heard the sounds of yelling and battle…
After the day of the chaos plane, the last thing the Champions wanted was to be awakened by battle outside. Rushing outside, they found Claudia and Alexander locked in battle with another of the chaos worms. Before they could go out to help, the thing struck with its seven tentacles and dropped Claudia. As Alexander fought on, the remaining Champions rushed in against the creature. Toiva finally killed it with a mighty blow. Unlike the ones in the chaos plane, this one poofed, indicating it had been summoned.
Detecting evil in the area, Cobbe found there was someone on the roof. Liana climbed up after him and heard an invisible person running across the roof. At sight of Liana, he ran to the other side and jumped off. Toiva, Bacha, and Galena circled around the building and when the man jumped, Galena webbed the area. Bacha found him enough with his glaive to kill him. When the man appeared, he was wearing robes and had badly burned hands. He also had a spiral symbol and another scroll case on him.
Claudia, it turns out, was dead from the beast’s attack. Alexander was inconsolable and spent some time in the Shrine of the Lady inside the Temple. He then disappeared for a while.
The others began investigating the spiral symbol.
Meanwhile, Galena found the real treasure of the senior loremaster’s room in the Library: a crystal ball. She and Joy then took the opportunity to try and scry on every enemy, and most of their friends. Here is some of what they found:
The remaining scroll from the Spiral guy revealed a man sitting in a room writing. After watching him for a while, he got up and went outside to stretch and they saw the spiral symbol on a sign. It was a place called the Whirlpool Bookstore and was known for having a very strange collection. The Champions decided this was the source of the problems.
Marigold Healinghand (Joy’s mother) was busy in the infirmary at Shrinehill working on people wounded in battle
Scale (the Priest of the Other) was lecturing to Kua-Toa about the Other
Sorin was involved in negotiations to repopulate the eastern Empire after the depredations of the undead army.
Barak Orsay (a priest of the Triad) was busy overseeing the training of hobgoblins in the mountains (Irmak?).
Lord Victor seemed to be worried about the new political aspirations of Lord Nasser, the old governor of Sazon (chosen because he was politically neutral).
The Yakuni (Bacha’s tribe) was moving from higher mountains into lower ones going west.
Tychon of Pella (the undead king of Khalkis) and Henric Dobos came up blank.
Having discovered where the spiral people were, the Champions prepared to attack the bookshop. They gained permission from the Temple to fight in the city limits to apprehend these criminals with the understanding they would try to bring them in alive. Bacha, Liana and Galena went with Lady Breda to the back door while Cobbe, Joy, Toiva and Alexander went to the front.
Opening the front door, Toiva used his bardic song to fascinate the clerk there. The entire place is piled high with stacks of books on very arcane subjects. Cobbe opens the door to the room the scribe was in and Joy casts hold person on him but it fails. She then blinds him successfully. He had already cast a spell to summon one of the chaos worms. Alexander went in and attacked the clerk breaking the fascinate. With a hmmf, Toiva begins to inspire courage.
In the back, Bacha breaks down the door and he Liana and Galena charge in. They find themselves attacked from guys in a neighboring room. As Bacha and Liana wade in, Galena finds another door leading upstairs and goes up to investigate.
The summoned worm attacks Joy and half kills her before she turns and dismisses it. The other spiral people are no match for the Champions. Cobbe and Toiva are careful to attack to subdue so there will be prisoners to arrest. Alexander and Bacha both kill several of them. Three are left to question.
Upstairs, they find one large room with a creature chained with silver chains in the center. He looks like a large frog-headed humanoid who calls himself a Slaad. After determining he is not evil, they questioned him about how he came to be there. The spiral people were using him to get information about his home plane it seems. The Champions agree to free him if he showed them where the gate was. They broke out the floor and brought him chains and all to the square in front of the Library to point out the gate. He told them there was no gate there or anywhere nearby. The party freed him from the chains and he opened a door and seemed to disappear.
From History of the Battle of Alexander,
written by Marko Vandus in the year 43 NE
(Written in Old Khal)
…As Alexander and his generals gathered to plan the following days battle on the plain of Dranas, Lord Horus entered the tent. Remembering the wisdom and skill of Horus which had guided him from the darkest days of the Warlord’s advance, Alexander waited to hear what the old sage would say.
I am leaving you now, Horus said.
Confused, Alexander asked him if he had caused some offense.
No, Horus responded. I have completed a working that will serve you better than my wisdom in the coming battle. The legions of the enemy are too many. Therefore, I will seek to reduce them so that the world will not be plunged into an age of darkness. This working will mean my own removal from the battle.
How can we continue without your guidance? the General asked.
I have already taught you much in the short time we have had together. I will be reduced by what I am about to do but not destroyed. In the years to come you will succeed or fail on your own merits.
But My Lord, what if we require your aid in the future?
The old man looked at each of the seven companions arrayed around their leader. Remember the knowledge and the gifts I have given you, he said. The seven felt his gaze as though Horus was testing them for their loyalty and worthiness. Finally, he nodded.
If you should need me again you must return to this place. Bring before me the seals of our alliance and call my name. Do not do this thing lightly. Only when the world itself is threatened should I be called from my rest.
Before the others could speak or move, Horus turned and strode from the tent, never to be seen or heard from again.
No one knows what the old sage did to aid the forces of light on that dreadful day, but Alexander defeated the Warlord on the fields of Dranas and established the world we know today…
The others don't know much about Joy's orders to restore The Lady's shrine at Merowe. Cobbe heard her say the name, and she has been asking a lot of questions about the Empire of Sand (where Merowe is located). Alexander may have the best clue, since he and Joy had a long talk about the Empire of Sand and it's people's fighting techniques. Joy has the impression that Alexander would go with her if she asked. However, she is not sure what to do. She feels that she is not up to the task at this point, perhaps when she gains greater abilities...(9th level and 5th level spells ) Even then she is not sure if she should tell her friends or not. Well, she can't just run off because Cobbe will get mad again (she only went off for one day while they were all at Shrinehill so that she could do some thinking, and Cobbe yelled at her for it, even though Mother wasn't worried at all), but she is not sure if she can or should ask them to come with her. It is her quest after all.
Joy is just begining to realize that becoming a Divine Agent of The Lady has huge ramifications on the course her life with take--leaving her parents forever, inheriting the shrine at Shrinehill, having her own children..., and she is trying desperatly to work through them. But she still has time; she is not skilled enough yet for this task. It could take months and months before her skill in channeling The Lady's glorious powers improve to the point where she is ready. Until then the Campions have a very important mission (and is that mission more important than Joy's quest?!?).
__________________ May the blessings of The Lady be on us all.
Last edited by JoyHealinghand; 20th January 2002 at 10:39 PM..
The researchers hired by the Champions found the final piece of the Companions of Alexander puzzle in the list of the objects that Horus gave to the seven companions before the battle of Dranas. The party now suspects that these objects are the "seals" referred to by Horus in his final speech before disappearing.
Alexander was not dealing well with the death of his sister, and Joy tried to comfort him. He finally asked her to use the crystal ball to try and locate his father. She cast telepathic bond to see what was in his mind. He first showed her a picture of a severe gray-haired man. Joy felt that she used it well, but the crystal just clouded and then cleared. Using other images from his mind, she did see another man of a similar age going to fat but wearing plate armor and a dark haired woman overseeing decoration of a manor. Alexander would not tell Joy who they were, but just walked away.
In recognition of their accomplishment in rooting out the spiral people, Lord Victor invited the Champions to receive a commendation from Sazon and honorary citizenship in the city (which gives them legal rights in town. Toiva was thrilled). The ceremony was to be on Nonus 9, second Knightsday.
As the Champions traveled to the meeting, most were on foot except for Joy on Blueberry and Cobbe on Lady Breda. Suddenly, a Slaad jumped out of a side alley and cast Chain Lightning on Joy primarily and everyone else secondarily. Blueberry died in the attack and everyone was injured. Most of the party followed the creature into the alley.
There they found several enemies. Four warriors attacked on the ground while three rogues attacked from the roof along with a sorcerer. Cobb walked into this ambush first, and the others quickly followed. Alexander ended up in a side-alley fighting two of the fighters while Cobbe, Lady Breda, Bacha, and Toiva fought the main attack. Toiva disarmed two of the fighters, then subdued them when they went for their weapons. Joy worked her way in behind while Liana snuck up a wall ahead of the ambush. Liana discovered that another woman in black armor was watching the party from the rooftop. Having snuck up on her, she saw this person fire a composite longbow at Joy with a sneak attack. Liana attacked and hit the woman but not very well. The two of them started fighting on the rooftop with neither gaining the advantage.
At the same time, Galena summoned first a Xorn and then two air elementals. She instructed the Xorn to fight whomever Cobbe fought and sent one of the air elementals against the sorcerer and the other against one of the rogues. The Slaad turned itself invisible, but the Xorn could attack it because of tremorsense while Joy cast Invisibility Purge. The Slaad tried to flee up the building but was caught there and sent to his own plane. At this point, most of the enemies realized that the battle had gone against them.
The remaining rogue on the roof ran, followed by Bacha. Meanwhile, Toiva made his way to the roof to aid Liana against the black armored assassin. The woman tried to cast a spell and was struck twice for her trouble, and finally she just ran off the roof and back toward the entrance of the alley. She was subdued there.
The two warriors fighting Alexander did not realize the battle had gone against their comrades and continued to fight. One of them finally dropped as Toiva arrived on the scene. He cast a sleep spell on the other one only to see Alexander execute a coup-de-grace and kill him. Toiva tried to talk to Alexander about this but the monk just walked away from him.
Cleaning themselves up with a little help from Toiva and Galena’s prestidigitation, the Champions dropped the prisoners, including the unconcious assasin, at the jail. They finally arrived at the ceremony and endured the small talk of some of the important citizens of Sazon. Victor presented them with medals honoring their accomplishment and made them honorary citizens of the city.
While there, Cobbe tried to convince Lord Victor that the real war was coming when the forces of evil attack from Irmak. Remembering his vision, the paladin was convinced he could change that past and give the forces of the Free Kingdoms a chance. He suggested that Victor should send his army east when the time was right to aid in the battle. Though he listened carefully to everything Cobbe said, Victor was noncommittal about sending his forces to a distant war.
When the Champions returned to the Great Library for a much-deserved rest, they saw a notice being posted:
"By Order of Lord Nasser, Governor of Sazon. Due to the infiltration of dwarves intent on destroying the city, Sazon shall now be under a curfew from dusk to dawn and only militia will be allowed to carry weapons at any time."
Spying on Lord Nasser using the crystal ball, the party saw him speaking with a group of guardsmen. Some of those guards were not human but demonic in appearance. Nasser spoke to the group about the importance of patrolling the streets and other mundane tasks, seemingly unaware that creatures of evil were among the audience…
Last edited by DoctorB; 22nd February 2002 at 07:49 PM..
That night, the Champions prepared to undertake a meeting with Governor Nasser. They spoke with the Priests of the Knight and the Lady at the Temple about gaining some kind of dispensation to take their weapons. The priests explained that Lord Nasser was within his rights and the legal arguments to overturn the order would take months.
They finally sent Liana over to Lord Victor’s mansion with a note asking for an audience. She arrived there seemingly without being followed and entered through the side door. After some discussion she convinced Victor’s seneschal to allow a meeting in the morning.
Meanwhile, the others were using the crystal ball to spy on the demonic things they had seen in the meeting. There were two types, one was tall and skeletal with a great barbed tail like a scorpion while the other was human sized but covered with chains. Galena knew they were other-planar creatures but no more than that about their exact capabilities. Finding the creatures, the party saw them attacking civilians in various parts of town. Though the guards themselves did not seem to think it unusual that these monsters were patrolling with them, the populace caught outside ran in panic at the sight of them. Some were caught and killed by the creatures. Unable to watch this, the Champions prepared to attack the monsters immediately.
They met Liana as they left the Library and went patrolling for the guard patrols. The Champions met with success not far from the Library/Temple complex with one of the skeletal creatures and half a dozen guards.
The devil put up an ice wall to separate Cobbe and Toiva from the others while Galena cast a web to try and immobilize the thing. What she got was a web with a hole in it where the magic did not function on the creature (she missed the spell resistance roll badly). Liana fired an arrow at the devil, but it just bounced off. The guards, thinking one of their own was under attack, went after the Champions. Toiva fought two of them beside the web, trying not to kill them.
Lady Breda and Cobbe dealt with their section of the ice wall by going through it while Bacha jumped up and over instead. The devil took the opportunity to try and charm Bacha, but he fought off the effect (no small feat considering his +0 will save).
Liana and Alexander moved into the web to attack the thing while Galena tried a magic missile with also fizzled against the monster. The devil attacked Alexander and hit him with the tail, draining his strength. As the others moved into the web, Galena dispelled it. Toiva ran in and crited the thing. Alexander hit it, but his hands are not magical, so to no effect. Bacha ran in and finished it. The remaining guards ran away, presumably to get help.
The devil’s body did not disappear, meaning it was physically on this plane. The party gathered it up for evidence and went back to the Library to rest and recover.
That night, Cobbe had a dream of Bacha meeting the Yakuni somewhere in the hills of the Empire. Everyone realized that the Lady needed Bacha to be with his people so he left Sazon immediately to travel to the east and help refound Pella. Cobbe wrote him a note saying he and the Yakuni had the permission of Lord Almer of Pella (that’s Cobbe) to settle in the environs of Pella.
As the party left the Library in the morning, a little girl pulled on Galena’s robe and gave her a silver ring with a sapphire. “You dropped this, Lady” she said. By the time Galena had looked at the ring and back again, the girl was gone. After some consideration, she decided to wear the ring though she does not know what it does.
The Champions arrived at their meeting with Lord Victor with the body of the devil slain the night before. After seeing that, Victor seemed eager to help. He wrote them a note that would get them in to see Lord Nasser on his authority, and another deputizing them to investigate the corruption of the governor. Putting his seal on both, he sent them on their way a little surprised at his cooperation.
Legally and physically armed, the Champions went to the governor’s palace to confront Lord Nasser. Was he an unwitting agent of the Triad allowing these devils into the city, or a servant of evil?
Hey Dr. B. Nice story. But here's a question. How is Galena directing her summoned creatures so exactly? Is she casting tongues? Otherwise they just attack your enemies, at their own discretion. Or is she just cooler than everyone else?
Its true that Galena is a specialist in extra-planar creatures (something that is only possible in the erudite Tower) and speaks all the relevant languages.
I am also pretty lenient in how I allow her to command summoned creatures. I assume that if she is in shouting distance, she can direct them to a new target. The command that has drawn the most discussion was her order to a Xorn to attack whatever Cobbe was fighting. I only allowed it finally because he was the only one there on horseback.
Going directly from Lord Victor’s mansion, the Champions traveled across town to the palace of the governor of Sazon. It was a tall structure with intricate carvings and gold leaf done in the standard over-the-top gaudy style of Sazon.
Cobbe used his diplomacy and the first letter from Lord Victor to get them an almost immediate audience. After waiting a few minutes, they were directed into the throne room. A large room two stories tall, it had balconies on the other three walls and tapestries below them showing General Zenon, the Sazon hero of Alexander’ day, a map of the ancient Sazon Empire, and a map of ancient Sazon itself at its height.
Sitting behind a desk on a raised dais was Governor Nasser along with an advisor in a fine white robe beside him. The guards immediately tried to take the weapons of the Champions, but Alexander and Toiva convinced the governor that they had only the interests of Sazon at heart given their rescue of the Great Library. Nasser seemed distracted and uncertain.
The Governor did not believe them that members of the guard were actually devils or that these creatures had been responsible for the deaths of townspeople the night before. He assumed those deaths were due to dwarven infiltration of the city.
Cobbe detected evil as the governor spoke, and found several presences. One of them seemed to be the white-robed man and another was on the balcony above. He was relieved to find that Nasser himself did not seem to be evil.
At that moment, a woman appeared on the balcony above the governor and shot a well-aimed arrow at Joy. It was the same assassin they had sent to jail yesterday! Joy managed to dodge just enough so that the arrow missed her heart but still seriously wounded her.
Meanwhile, a woman in a large black robe came from behind the edge of a tapestry beside the dais and brought with her several large dog-like creatures spitting fire. The woman had a prominently placed silver triangle symbol and carried a staff that glowed with a black radiance.
The guards, confused at this turn of events, surrounded Lord Nasser and tried to keep everyone away from him. The man in the white robe fled through a door opposite the priestess. The Champions had other things to worry about.
Galena immediately cast a web to block the entrance of the balcony with the assassin, while Cobbe and Toiva engaged the hell hounds. Alexander tumbled past the beasts to the priestess herself and attacked her.
In the midst of this, Liana felt a strange pressure on her mind and heard a now trusted voice in her head telling her that Lord Nasser and his advisors were not her enemy and that she should not attack them. Since this good advice did not include the hell hounds, she attacked them. Arin positioned himself opposite her against one of the monsters and looked threatening enough for her to sneak attack the beast repeatedly.
As the others fought the hell hounds, the priestess swung her staff at Alexander and hit him in the right arm. To everyone’s surprise, he yelled in pain and collapsed as a black energy engulfed his arm. Both Joy and Cobbe could see that his arm was shriveling before their eyes as he writhed on the floor.
As Toiva and Liana continued to beat on the hell hounds, Cobbe moved to attack the priestess as well. In the midst of this, he tried his cure disease on Alexander but to no avail. With a cry, Joy ran up and tried to dispel the magic that seemed to be attacking him. She was able to heal his wounds, but the arm continued to wither at a frightening rate.
Galena summoned an Arrowhawk to attack the assassin, but the web was empty. Frustrated, she had the summoned creature shoot lightning bolts up the corridor in case she was there invisible.
After standing in combat against Cobbe for a few moments, the priestess saw that she was overmatched. Though she hit him with the glowing staff, his limbs did not rot as Alexander’s had. Perhaps it took a mighty blow to call forth the power of death in the staff. The hell hounds were all defeated by now, and she looked to retreat. As Galena cast haste on Toiva, the Triad priestess fled back through the door behind the edge of the tapestry she had entered from.
A shadowy figure behind the curtains of the right hand balcony had tried to control others besides Liana, and Arin tried to subtly indicate to Cobbe that there was an enemy there, but the paladin was more concerned with getting Lord Nasser out of there. Even as he moved the there, Liana heard her friend tell her that Nasser had turned on them and should be killed. Pulling out her bow, she shot the governor, but only wounded him.
Meanwhile, Toiva and Galena followed the priestess. She went into what looked like a waiting room. It was sparsely furnished by Sazon standards, but had a glowing portal in the middle of it. As the hasted Toiva moved into the room, the priestess stepped into the portal. On his action, he followed her in.
Inside, he was suddenly in a much more imposing fortress of iron. The priestess was nearby and still badly wounded. Also in the room were two devils. One of them looked like the tall bony one they had fought the night before, while the other looked male but inhumanly beautiful. Risking attack from the devils, Toiva used his second action to swing his two-handed sword at the priestess. She went down at the strike, and Toiva fled back through the portal with his last action.
Convincing Liana to stop her attack for now, Cobbe and the others hustled the confused Governor Nasser from the throne room as the cowled figure in the balcony slipped behind the curtains and disappeared.
Outside the governor’s palace, the Champions were met with a large force of guards in the livery of the city led by their captain. After some discussion, Cobbe and Toiva convinced them that the governor could be in danger and agreed that the Captain of the Guard and an escort should go with them back to the Temple with Lord Nasser for his own protection.
Alexander, now without a right arm, was taken from the palace to the infirmary in the Temple complex for such healing as could be found. Joy felt that someday she would be able to restore his arm, but that it was beyond her power for now. Alexander settled into a bed.
“I am reflecting on the blessings of the Lady” he said bitterly and then lay there quietly. Joy stayed with him and sang songs to try and encourage him.
The unassuming servant woman ducks into Lord Gunter’s study. Standing in his gray cowled robe, he is waiting for her. Only the lower part of his face is visible beneath the dark hood. All she can clearly see is a stern mouth and strong jaw, though occasionally she glimpses something not at all human in its place. Azar quickly kneels at his feet.
“Master” she says with conviction.
“Gather your gang and discover what those adventurers are doing.” She hears the order with her mind rather than her ears. The master does not have to speak aloud.
She nods, “I am going to meet with them now”
“Good, report back to me when you have more information. Use care. These so-called Champions of the Lady are powerful.”
Azar bows again and quickly takes her leave. As she winds her way through the corridors of the governor’s palace, she reflects on what she has already lost. The armor and war hammer acquired for murdering the leader of Corovade’s underworld, lost, taken by these Champions.
She had designed two ambushes to kill these foreigners. The first failed even as she had the hobbit priestess in her sights, and the second one when her arrow went astray. She had warned the master against alliance with the priestess of the Triad, but to no avail. Now the paladin and his band knew of her and possibly her master. They would probably be hunting for both. The adventurers had taken the governor out of the master’s reach and now threatened all of his plans.
Carefully winding her way through the merchant quarter of town, she seems only a palace servant on an errand from the governor. She makes her way through the new walls of Sazon and into the slums beyond. How mighty the city must once have been to cover so much space! The remains of the old walls sit more than half a mile from the new ones. In between are ruined shops and villas from the distant past. Now these are the homes of the destitute and the desperate.
Azar ducks into one of these homes and unwraps her disguise kit. Turning her dress inside out reveals rags and tatters. She dirties her face and changes the color of her hair. The master said to be careful. The poor woman who exits from the rear of the hovel looks nothing like the one who had entered the front.
Careful to take a circuitous route and assure herself she is not followed, Azar comes at last to the meeting place. It was the foundation of some ancient shop with a tarp thrown over the top. Inside are her three remaining boys.
They are deep in a discussion about scouting when all hell breaks loose. The tarp above them explodes downward in flame. Two of the rogues die immediately. As the third one runs away, Azar sees several armored people charging through the ruins at her. The Champions!
As she fights desperately for her life, she goes over every step of her way here. She was careful! Even as the enchanted war hammer that used to be hers slams her to unconsciousness in the hands of the paladin of the Lady, her last thought is:
How did they know?
-----
Though her face is calm, Galena seems to be beaming. If only we could take the Crystal Ball with us, she thinks. The loremasters of the Great Library have little use for it anyway.
“Ok, now we ah have to deal with this master of hers” Cobbe points out
“I couldn’t scry him, but I did make a map of the path the assassin used to get out of the palace. We could follow it back in and finish with him,” she responds.
“Tomorrow,” Toiva reminds them. “Joy is out of miracles and several of us are hurt. At least this troublesome assassin is dead.”
Last edited by DoctorB; 30th January 2002 at 03:57 AM..
The Sazon camp smelled like a dung heap. Even the cold late-autumn wind could not drive it away.
Petar, Captain of Sazon, looked over his bedraggled men and sighed. The high walls of Sarande stood above them, defiant as always. Though he trusted Lord Altan and his generals, Petar suspected that the siege of this powerful city would fail. The Sarandi could always supply themselves by sea, while the army of Sazon had to live off the land. The enemy had burned everything they could before retreating behind the walls and the great army had stripped everything else bare. The besiegers were starving while the besieged lived in luxury.
Well, most of the besieging army anyway. Lord Altan lived in the huge tent in the center of camp. The soldiers could hear his laughter and that of his family at all hours of the night. Somehow, even while he flaunted his comfort in the midst of their misery, the soldiers remembered his victories and kept their silence… so far.
As dawn broke over the encampment, Petar walked to the edge of their lines and looked at the great city. Sarande fairly glowed in the sunlight. He could make out the sentries on their rounds on the walls. Both sides had given up firing arrows. The Sazoni were almost out of arrows and had moved their encampments out of arrow shot of the walls. After the destruction of the siege engines early in the attack by a Sarandi sortie, both sides had little appetite for fighting. The Captain wondered again if they would all die here. Sazon had the greatest army on the Dibre Coast, but the weakest navy. Sazon’s ships were manned with impressed enemies and the destitute. They were no match for the mighty navies of Koplik and the others. Only at land could Sazon succeed against her enemies. But they must take the cities by storm. A siege without a navy was futile.
Movement stirred around Lord Altan’s tent. Runners spread throughout the camp. They were to prepare for battle! For the first time in weeks, Petar’s soldiers would have something else to do but gamble and brawl amongst themselves. Now at least they would have an enemy to spend their frustration on. An enemy of stone anyway.
No new siege engines appeared. Were they to storm the walls with nothing but their dead to climb upon? Nonetheless, it seemed a cleaner death than slow starvation.
In their ranks, with lion standards raised, they marched toward Sarande. Petar braced for the hail of arrows. Surely the city’s supply would not be exhausted. Nothing came. As they marched closer Petar could hear the sounds of battle inside the walls. Abruptly, the gates began to open. A grin spread across Petar’s face. The old bastard had won again! Not only through great arms were generals made but through guile and cleverness. He had subverted some of the Sarandi. Let him have his parties!
With a cry, the army of Sazon rushed into the city. They swept aside the remnants of the defending army and began their well-earned sack of the city. Smoke rose over the proud harbor of Sarande.
Last edited by DoctorB; 3rd February 2002 at 06:28 PM..
) Even then she is not sure if she should tell her friends or not. Well, she can't just run off because Cobbe will get mad again (she only went off for one day while they were all at Shrinehill so that she could do some thinking, and Cobbe yelled at her for it, even though Mother wasn't worried at all), but she is not sure if she can or should ask them to come with her. It is her quest after all. 
