When they return to Gallo's Fend, Cuin'halar and Tinuviel are greeted by Lord Gallo's soldiers and treated most respectfully. They learn that Lord Gallo is already busy with preparations for the upcoming battle. When they meet up with him, he is more than just relieved to hear that the elves managed to eliminate the dragon, wizard and siege weapon threat in one swipe. He congratulates them on their clever plot to poison the dragon and let the enemies sabotage themselves. Gallo adds that he wished he could have been there to witness the chaos and mayhem, but “unfortunately had other things to do”.
The elves and Torrent ask Gallo about the upcoming battle as they plan to support the “rebel forces” to their best abilities. As Gallo is already sure that the Seaquenians are more than capable combatants, he offers them to be part of a mixed group of infantry, healers and war wizards of Timor. The overall command of this group falls to commander Hertiage whom they already know and trust. The party agrees to this proposal and get ready for battle.
During the first attack on Hertiage's group, Cuin and Tinuviel make sure to intercept the stronger foes like the sphinxes and Brakken as they try to keep them away from the “softer targets” (read: the wizards and the foot soldiers). Torrent goes into melee and heals the wounded soldiers while Hertiage directs their attacks.
Then the invisible sphinx strikes terror to their group. Half of the foot soldiers and Hertiage flee in fear. As they fear things going downhill, Cuin turns Tinu invisible and starts taunting the whole approaching second wave. They coordinate with the still standing wizards who use their fireballs to nuke the cavalry. Before they can trample down the wizards, Cuin calls for the soldiers to halt their horses while he sword-dances through several of the knights. Meanwhile, Tinuviel sneaks up on the trolls while Torrent tries to impose a threat by whirling her acidic axe around.
After several rounds of battle, they manage to save all of their soldiers and chase the enemies away. Hertiage returns, looking pretty embarassed ater his sudden flight. He thanks the party for keeping an eye on his troop and keeping everyone safe.
Note: I let my players play all the defenders while playing the Steppengard forces. While we all found the idea of mass combat pretty charming, it quickly became complicated and pretty time-consuming and we came to the conclusion that maybe D&D/PF are not the best systems to play big battles with. I promised my players to use the unit template for most of the upcoming mass combat battles to speed up combat. I did use the full amount of soldiers for Second General Signus' forces in adventure 5 though.
After a while, a messenger of Lord Gallo arrives on the field. He asks them to come to his Lord as he has an interesting, albeit dangerous proposal for them.
In his planning tent, Gallo explains the party that the battle is basically won. However, combat might not end until later this afternoon and might cost more lives on both sides. He assumes that Königsmarschall Malkan, the strategic mastermind of the Queen, might have orders to fight until the very end. Therefore, further combat could be prevented by eliminating (or, preferabley, capturing) the Marschall and forcing the Steppengard forces to yield and accept defeat. In addition, intel told him that Nina Glibglammer might be in the very same bunker where Malkan is currently operating. He knows, however, that this mission is pretty dangerous and possibly lethal. Gallo doesn't want his most trusted allies to risk too much, so he leaves the decision on whether or not to go on this mission up to them.
Note: They already had more than enough VP to win the battle. But after the mass combat, I wanted to offer them both a challenge and a satisfying end to the “civil war” as goodie.
Needless to say that they all immediately agreed. After all, they still have to settle some scores with Glibglammer and suicidal is their favorite middle name or so. They team up with some dwarven sappers who wait for them at the entrance of the tunnel which leads to the bunker. The dwarves explain their tactics of breaching the final wall with explosives and they warn them that the detonation will cause a lot of noise and will attract attention from the other Steppengard soldiers. Torrent offers them to dampen the noises with a well-timed silence spell.
For the ambush, both Tinuviel and Cuin'halar turn invisible. Then Torrent casts her silence spell and the sappers set off the detonation. They quickly climb the ladder they brought with them and see that a very dusty Marschall has barricaded himself behind his planning table while Nina took a dive and crouches below the table. Two guards guard their commander.
The two elves use the element of surprise to block the doors leading to the tent in hope to delay reinforcements. Malkan calls for help and speaks of a supposed ambush from below. Then Cuin summons an unseen servant and turns visible. He orders the servant to harass/poke Glibglammer, hoping that she might get horrified and flee from her hideout. Malkan does not seem that surprised and fires at the “assassin” Cuin with his crosssbow, but misses. Cuin taunts the man, doubting that he'd know how to properly handle such a complicated weapon. Malkan laughs at the “cocky boy” and promises that his next bolt will hit its mark.
Glibglammer doesn't seem too concerned with the unseen servant. Then Tinuviel starts singing the Song of Forms and Nina cries out in horror and pain. She instantly transforms to her multi-tentacled Madness form which surprises everyone in the room. Tinu, Torrent and Cuin realize the aberration from the failed abduction of Erdan Menash in Gate Pass and they instantly link it to some sort of mind control. Cuin calls for a ceasefire with Malkan and declares this “snake madness” the enemy of Dassen. He says that this entity has somehow hexed the Queen and hopes that Malkan might help them defeat it.
Malkan believes the evidence in front of him. He had never been very fond of Nina Glibglammer and finally understands why he was feeling so uncomfortable in her presence. So he joins them n combat and together they slay the Trillith. In her dying breath, Madness declares that the end of this world is nigh, but her words are ignored as they are relieved to see the schemer gone for good.
In the light of these events, Malkan agrees to end this battle and capitulate. He is relieved to see that the war against “Gallo the Rebel” will come to an end soon, even if the Queen has yet to sign her agreement to the ceasefire and a possible peace treaty. Cuin apologizes for taunting Malkan and he praises his prowess and calm mind in the battle against Nina/Madness.
They return to a more than happy Lord. Gallo is as relieved as Malkan to hear that the whole battle and conflict was set up by a third party who wanted to re-ignite the Blood Wars. They even have come evidence that the Ragesians might have set this all up as the nascent Madness in Gate Pass was used by a Ragesian spy against their Councilman Menash. They muse about whether or not Kelkin Thravamvost might have already found out more about the case of the Book of the Eight Lands and why the Queen is no longer protected by the artifact.
Gallo then invites them to dinner and all of a sudden promotes them to knights of the Lands of Gallo and proud defenders of his realm. The group feels more than honored and thanks their new Lord. They swear to stay by Lord Gallo's side until this conflict has come to an end and hope that the Queen might be free of Madness' influence now.
A few days later, they receive word from Queen Steppengard. She agrees to an end of the hostilities and invites them all to a peace conference which shall be celebrated by a grand tourney and festival. In the light of the news of the ragesian conquest of an outpost in the Alydi Gap, the Queen has ordered her troops to stay in Gallo and defend the Gap, should the need arise. Still, Gallo is worried that this all might be a well-planned trap. He says that he trusts Malkan and his integrity and that he will travel alongside the Königsmarschall to Bresk. He still asks his knights to keep an eye open for any kind of nasty surprise and he orders Hertiage to send word to him immediately should something suspicious happen in his absence.
On their way to Bresk, the Gallo entourage meets up with the representatives of Dashgoban and Timor. Cuin'halar and Lady Timor use the time to inform each other about the course of events and the Lady seems glad that the newly knighted Cuin is doing well. She says that her cousin and proxy, Melanie Ursin, insisted to accompany her to Bresk when she heard that the Seaquenians would attend the conference as well. Speaking of Melanie, the young proxy is more than happy to see Tinuviel, her “hero”, again. She is obviously crushing on the handsome elf who risked his life to rescue her from the Queen's prison and doesn't want to leave his side which makes Tinu feel a bit uncomfortable. After all, he helped Melanie because it was their fault that she got imprisoned, so he was just doing what's right. Entering a committed relationship with her would be on a whole different level, though...
Note: Seems like Tinuviel does love his freedom. In her eyes, Melanie did risk her life for “him”, so she kind of wants to see that it was worth it. Plus she's still recovering from her interrogation by the Talons, so she's in desperate need of comfort. Lady Timor on the other hand is fascinated with Cuin, but she's much more realistic.
As my party not only defeated, but killed Madness, I had to somehow explain why the Queen would still be under her influence at the conference. I imagined a sort of psicrystal-like shard of madness' essence which she implanted in Steppengard and which contained a good portion of her essence. So they would have to beat that out of her as well to finally set her free of Madness.