There, in a corner, we were able to see that the pit fiend was busily trying to re-establish the ritual. He also had two companions now. Creatures which superficially looked like skeletons but which also had large scorpion tails which huge stingers. I recognised immediately: they were osyluths, more commonly known as Bone Devils. Powerful denizens of the hells themselves, they were also known to act as servants to stronger devils such as pit fiends.
We wasted no time. Longhelim immediately moved in the direction of the pit fiend. Drudge tried to shoot him but was very disappointed when he saw his arrows bounce off its skin. I had told him that these devils were incredibly difficult to hurt but I don’t think he truly believed me until he actually saw this happening. I was gratified to see that the portal had not been re-drawn as yet but I had no doubts that it was only a matter of time before this happened.
Suddenly, one of the bone devils cast a spell which caused a green beam to strike Longhelim. Outwardly nothing happened but I grimaced as I recognised a spell which would prevent magical travel on the paladin for a little time. It cut down our options.
The pit fiend moved towards Longhelim and cast his various spells but this time the paladin was resistant to the foul magic. I managed to cast spell. I was able to affect the bone devils but the pit fiend’s resistance to magic proved too powerful for me. However, the bone devils were quite badly hurt by my magic which was gratifying.
I had moved to a corner to be close to Drudge while Felix and John stayed in the middle of the room to help the warriors with healing. I saw Victor move up to the pit fiend and Drudge shot one of the bone devils and sent it back to whatever hell it came from. He then fired a few more arrows into the pit fiend itself which seemed to annoy it more than anything else.
At this point, my line of sight was cut off as a wall of ice cut Drudge and I from the rest of the group. A moment later, the pit fiend appeared in the gap next to us. Drudge must have really annoyed it with those arrows. Thankfully, as it was still recovering from its spell, I moved up to Drudge and took both of us beyond the wall. He shot me a grateful look before beginning to load his bow again.
A quick look around showed that everyone else had moved to the wall of ice. Victor moved forward towards it; I could see that Longhelim had been badly mauled. . Although the wall was opaque, we could see a shape inside; unfortunately, there was no way we could reach the figure beyond. Thankfully, I had a spell which could fix that though as green beam shot from my hands and a hole appeared in the wall, revealing the pit fiend which even looked startled for a moment. Victor surged forward and even struck it a couple of times.
It was then that we could see that the devil had another couple of bone devils with him. They both cast spells but both Drudge and Longhelim managed to side step the circular walls of ice that had appeared next to them this time. That was a stroke of good luck. Drudge shot another volley of arrows at the pit fiend but again, to little effect.
More importantly, Felix cast a spell and this time a green ray shot out of the priest’s hands and hit the pit fiend. His god must have been with him because the devil began to glow green! That meant that it couldn’t transport itself anywhere. This nullified a huge advantage that the creature had. Encouraged, Victor went in and managed strike the devil several times in one of his devastating combinations. Then the devil reciprocated and Victor looked badly mauled. It was obvious that the only reason he was still standing was the magical spell which I had put on both him and Longhelim.
Felix stepped up behind the warrior and healed him only for us to see the wounds on the pit fiend closing in the same manner as those of Victor! I had never seen anything like that and in the very limited records about pit fiends, nothing like that had ever been written. This had to be written down immediately, their ability to steal healing magic. It was unprecedented! More importantly, it became obvious that the priest could not heal either of the warriors while they were fighting the devil as it would just steal their healing magic.
I cast as spell which affected the bone devils, making them slower and weaker and Drudge began to methodically shoot them. The pit fiend tore into Victor again, finally beating his way through my defensive magic. Victor and Longhelim somehow were resisting the devils spells as well as his blows and it was also badly hurt but this point. The confident grin it had been sporting was long gone. Unfortunately, Victor looked to be on his last legs and the pit fiend was obviously gearing itself up for another mighty set of blows; which promptly fell on the warrior who fell over, burning.
At this moment, though, I finally managed to get one of my spells to affect the devil as a black ray shot out from my hand and hit it. It shuddered and looked at me; there was a lot of pain and suffering promised to me in that look. Then Drudge shot a volley of arrows at him and the devil staggered. I felt a shaft of hope. He actually staggered and looked badly hurt. With a snarl he gestured furiously and the very air shimmered in darkness and enveloped Longhelim and the others but at the end, they still stood. John ran in and tried to slash at the outsider with his dagger, or Freedom’s dagger, I should say but the devil struck out and hit him; yet, as he did so, he collapsed!
As he did so, Felix made as if to heal Victor but I shouted:
“Stop! You’ll heal the devil! He’s using some sort of sympathetic magic we don’t know!”
The priest stopped himself and then Longhelim moved forward and looked at the devil on the ground in front of him.
I shouted at the paladin:
“Hit him again! He’s drawing energy from somewhere!”
Without hurry, Longhelim struck a precise and mighty blow which crushed the skull of the pit fiend. I thought a heard a small moan from the Torch of the Burning Sky, but it may have been my imagination. Be that as it may, the body shimmered and then disappeared although as he did so, a disembodied voice grated:
“If not Leska then one of you. She too had good intentions once.”
I looked at the spot where the body had been and then asked what everyone was thinking:
“What did he say?”
John, ever practical, replied:
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Let’s go.”
We gathered Victor’s body and then I transported us to the area around the city of Bresk, capital of Dessan. That was the agreed mustering point of the armies arrayed against Leska and her Ragesian troops.
As we arrived, we could hear a great deal of shouting and troop movement. There was activity everywhere and for once, there was little attention paid to us initially. Felix quickly healed Victor and warrior rose to his feet. I could hear Longhelim whispering to him, so I presumed that he was being told what happened and where we were.
A few moments later, there was a shout as we were spotted and a squad quickly ushered us to a command post. There, we saw several individuals sitting down, looking over several maps and discussing.
I recognised Xavious Foebane the overall commander of our forces, General Gaspard, commander of the forces of Sindaire, Shalaadel of the Shining Lands and King Steppengaard. Each of these individuals also brought an entourage, many of whom I also recognised. Princess Shalosha was there, attending to her father; Generals Magdus and Danaava were there, looking a little uncomfortable as the only Ragesians, yet they both represented sizeable forces of well-trained Ragesian soldiers. I must say I was still very curious to find out just why they were willing to fight against Leska but the others seemed to trust them.
Simeon, Kiernan and the mages of the Lyceum were there of course as was Duke Gallo. There were other familiar faces but my musings were interrupted as Foebane spotted us and approached:
“Oh well done, all of you, well done! As soon as the ritual ceased, we were able to pierce the illusions and the magic that had been hiding Leska’s forces. Simeon, Kiernan and all of the diviners have been casting spells non-stop and have been very successful.
“Come and see this. We need to explain the terrain to you. Also, as you are some of our most powerful individuals, I need to go over your role in the coming battles.”
He led us to the table and showed us a map:
“As I said, you have succeeded admirably. Simeon and the others have been able to scry Leska and her surroundings. This is what we have been able to discern so far.”
He began gesturing at various points on the map:
“Leska is here, inside a canyon that leads to a cave in a mountain; this cave has two large dragons carved above its entrance. Beyond the carving is a tunnel leading into the mountain and it is there, in its centre, that we believe Leska is performing her ritual with the Heart. The defences of this tunnel are being handled by the Ragesian Sixth army which is encamped here. Our plan is to have you transport the armies to the East, out of sight of their camp where we will muster and march upon the enemy.
I have discussed the role of the various armies with their respective commanders and I believe I have found the roles where they will be most effective. “
At this point, Foebane looked around at everyone else around the table but no one said a word although I did notice that Shalaadel’s face briefly lost its elven composure, as if he had smelled something bad.
Foebane continued:
“For you, I have several tasks in mind but in general, I would like to you to be a flying squad of reserves, designed to support and shore up our forces. It will mean that you will be fighting alongside the army but also be on your own; I believe that with your flexibility, that will be your best function. It will also mean that you will need to get around the battlefield very quickly and to aid you in this I have a representative of the Wayfinders.”
He gestured and a figure stepped forward from the back of the tent:
“Tiljann!” I exclaimed.
And indeed it was; our Seelah companion from the Fire Forest but very different now. The shy, nervous fey being who looked around everything with a mixture of wonder and naïve incomprehension had grown into a far more self-assured person, now wearing the bright coloured clothes which were a uniform for Wayfinders.
Foebane looked her and then turned to us:
“I will want to give you a more full briefing as we get closer to the missions but that is the overall scope of your missions. Please go and see Simeon and Kiernan now; I think they have things to tell you.”
After that he turned to the map and began to speak to Steppengaard. Obviously we had been dismissed; as we turned to Simeon, I heard Victor whisper to Longhelim:
“Amazing! He sounds as if he knows what he’s talking about!”
The paladin nodded absently and then we faced the diviner:
“Ah, Faden, Longhelim, and the rest of you…..we have been able to find out a few things about Leska’s motives and what’s she trying to do:
In essence, she’s trying to bind herself to the Aquiline Heart. In some ways, the Heart is also the Heart of our world and if she does so, than her very nature will influence the Heart and therefore the world. Since Leska is bent on conquest, so the world will be enveloped in an eternal cycle of conquest. She is immortal and will be very difficult to kill. In fact, we believe the only method of killing her would be to break the Heart and the only item that could do that is the Torch of the Burning Sky. The Torch is an artifact of Flame and thus strongly associated with the Great Dragon of Fire; the Heart is associated with the Eagle of the Air; the Heart may be the only soul that the Torch cannot consume and thus this clash should result in the breaking of the Heart and the destruction of the Torch and also in the transformation of Leska into a vulnerable mortal.”
I interrupted at this point:
“Yes, but will that not destroy the world as well?”
Simeon looked troubled:
“Yeeesss……our research suggests that that will be one of the side effects of this, yes. Obviously, we need to do more research.
One of the suggestions is that if a sacrifice of a noble soul is made at the right instant, then the Heart survives, the Torch is destroyed and Leska becomes mortal but we are not sure of our findings yet.”
We just stared at him, not quite being able to believe what he had just said. We were supposed to sacrifice ourselves or one of us for this? After all we had done already?
Longhelim quietly said:
“Thank you Simeon. You have been most helpful.”
The diviner looked as if he wanted to say or tell us more but we had already turned away from him.
Longhelim walked out of the tent and we waited outside.
Kiernan hurried after us and said:
“We have a group of traitors we have managed to capture; individuals who decided to sell Seaquen or the Lyceum to the Ragesians; we will be using their souls to enable the Torch to move the armies to the Opaline Wastes.”
After informing us of that, he walked away.
We all began to prepare for the campaign. As we did so, John asked:
“So, does anyone have any ideas about the whole Heart, Torch, Leska, souls, end of the world, noble sacrifice, elemental Lord theory?”
Longhelim grunted:
“As usual, no one seems to have any hard facts. Our divinations have revealed a lot of myths and legends together with half baked ideas. We will just have to go along and do what we think is right at the time and what our instincts tell us. It’s worked so far. One thing we do know is that we have a very long and hard fight ahead of us.”
I had also been doing a little thinking and said:
“From what I gather, immortal doesn’t mean unkillable. Look at Coaltongue: he was supposed to be immortal but he was killed by Rhuark and his two girlfriends. I am also not sure why we have to destroy the Heart to make her mortal to get rid of Leska; we can just keep knock her unconscious and deal with her later.”
Felix replied quietly:
“I think that Leska’s soul is tied to the Heart in such a way that it is invulnerable until the Heart is destroyed.”
John frowned:
“Well if that’s the case, then surely the Heart is contaminated already?”
Felix shrugged:
“Longhelim is right. As usual, we know very little, suspect a little more and will no doubt be surprised by everything else.”
I muttered something under my breath that point.
Longhelim looked at me, took out his pipe and said:
“What are you saying, Faden? You know that you can say anything you like in front us.”
I voiced my concerns with more precision:
“Whatever we do, we have to be prepared for the fact that Leska will be ahead of us by several steps. She always has been. Look, Kiernan captured a bunch of spies, which means that there will be lots of more of them around; which means that as usual, she’ll know exactly what we are planning, where we are going and how we are going to be doing it. I also don’t like the numbers. She only has one army defending her? Where are the others? She’s got far more soldiers than we do. Where are her dragons and the rest of the devils? She had a pit fiend helping her in the palace for goodness sake!
Longhelim has the best idea; the divinations are useless. We’ll just have to take everything as it comes and act on our instincts.
One final thing though; Leska will have contingencies within contingencies. She will have planned for this campaign assiduously.”
Longhelim puffed on his pipe and we carried on with our preparations.
There is no need to go into the details of the movement of the armies but suffice it to say that it was as distasteful as ever. The sooner that artifact was destroyed the better. However, we were in the Opaline Wastes and they were as inhospitable as they had been described and very much lived up to their name. Hot, white, with the harsh glare of the sun hurting everyone’s eyes.
Thankfully, Foebane had given a speech before we used the Torch and that kept up the spirits of the troops.
We wasted no time. Longhelim immediately moved in the direction of the pit fiend. Drudge tried to shoot him but was very disappointed when he saw his arrows bounce off its skin. I had told him that these devils were incredibly difficult to hurt but I don’t think he truly believed me until he actually saw this happening. I was gratified to see that the portal had not been re-drawn as yet but I had no doubts that it was only a matter of time before this happened.
Suddenly, one of the bone devils cast a spell which caused a green beam to strike Longhelim. Outwardly nothing happened but I grimaced as I recognised a spell which would prevent magical travel on the paladin for a little time. It cut down our options.
The pit fiend moved towards Longhelim and cast his various spells but this time the paladin was resistant to the foul magic. I managed to cast spell. I was able to affect the bone devils but the pit fiend’s resistance to magic proved too powerful for me. However, the bone devils were quite badly hurt by my magic which was gratifying.
I had moved to a corner to be close to Drudge while Felix and John stayed in the middle of the room to help the warriors with healing. I saw Victor move up to the pit fiend and Drudge shot one of the bone devils and sent it back to whatever hell it came from. He then fired a few more arrows into the pit fiend itself which seemed to annoy it more than anything else.
At this point, my line of sight was cut off as a wall of ice cut Drudge and I from the rest of the group. A moment later, the pit fiend appeared in the gap next to us. Drudge must have really annoyed it with those arrows. Thankfully, as it was still recovering from its spell, I moved up to Drudge and took both of us beyond the wall. He shot me a grateful look before beginning to load his bow again.
A quick look around showed that everyone else had moved to the wall of ice. Victor moved forward towards it; I could see that Longhelim had been badly mauled. . Although the wall was opaque, we could see a shape inside; unfortunately, there was no way we could reach the figure beyond. Thankfully, I had a spell which could fix that though as green beam shot from my hands and a hole appeared in the wall, revealing the pit fiend which even looked startled for a moment. Victor surged forward and even struck it a couple of times.
It was then that we could see that the devil had another couple of bone devils with him. They both cast spells but both Drudge and Longhelim managed to side step the circular walls of ice that had appeared next to them this time. That was a stroke of good luck. Drudge shot another volley of arrows at the pit fiend but again, to little effect.
More importantly, Felix cast a spell and this time a green ray shot out of the priest’s hands and hit the pit fiend. His god must have been with him because the devil began to glow green! That meant that it couldn’t transport itself anywhere. This nullified a huge advantage that the creature had. Encouraged, Victor went in and managed strike the devil several times in one of his devastating combinations. Then the devil reciprocated and Victor looked badly mauled. It was obvious that the only reason he was still standing was the magical spell which I had put on both him and Longhelim.
Felix stepped up behind the warrior and healed him only for us to see the wounds on the pit fiend closing in the same manner as those of Victor! I had never seen anything like that and in the very limited records about pit fiends, nothing like that had ever been written. This had to be written down immediately, their ability to steal healing magic. It was unprecedented! More importantly, it became obvious that the priest could not heal either of the warriors while they were fighting the devil as it would just steal their healing magic.
I cast as spell which affected the bone devils, making them slower and weaker and Drudge began to methodically shoot them. The pit fiend tore into Victor again, finally beating his way through my defensive magic. Victor and Longhelim somehow were resisting the devils spells as well as his blows and it was also badly hurt but this point. The confident grin it had been sporting was long gone. Unfortunately, Victor looked to be on his last legs and the pit fiend was obviously gearing itself up for another mighty set of blows; which promptly fell on the warrior who fell over, burning.
At this moment, though, I finally managed to get one of my spells to affect the devil as a black ray shot out from my hand and hit it. It shuddered and looked at me; there was a lot of pain and suffering promised to me in that look. Then Drudge shot a volley of arrows at him and the devil staggered. I felt a shaft of hope. He actually staggered and looked badly hurt. With a snarl he gestured furiously and the very air shimmered in darkness and enveloped Longhelim and the others but at the end, they still stood. John ran in and tried to slash at the outsider with his dagger, or Freedom’s dagger, I should say but the devil struck out and hit him; yet, as he did so, he collapsed!
As he did so, Felix made as if to heal Victor but I shouted:
“Stop! You’ll heal the devil! He’s using some sort of sympathetic magic we don’t know!”
The priest stopped himself and then Longhelim moved forward and looked at the devil on the ground in front of him.
I shouted at the paladin:
“Hit him again! He’s drawing energy from somewhere!”
Without hurry, Longhelim struck a precise and mighty blow which crushed the skull of the pit fiend. I thought a heard a small moan from the Torch of the Burning Sky, but it may have been my imagination. Be that as it may, the body shimmered and then disappeared although as he did so, a disembodied voice grated:
“If not Leska then one of you. She too had good intentions once.”
I looked at the spot where the body had been and then asked what everyone was thinking:
“What did he say?”
John, ever practical, replied:
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Let’s go.”
We gathered Victor’s body and then I transported us to the area around the city of Bresk, capital of Dessan. That was the agreed mustering point of the armies arrayed against Leska and her Ragesian troops.
As we arrived, we could hear a great deal of shouting and troop movement. There was activity everywhere and for once, there was little attention paid to us initially. Felix quickly healed Victor and warrior rose to his feet. I could hear Longhelim whispering to him, so I presumed that he was being told what happened and where we were.
A few moments later, there was a shout as we were spotted and a squad quickly ushered us to a command post. There, we saw several individuals sitting down, looking over several maps and discussing.
I recognised Xavious Foebane the overall commander of our forces, General Gaspard, commander of the forces of Sindaire, Shalaadel of the Shining Lands and King Steppengaard. Each of these individuals also brought an entourage, many of whom I also recognised. Princess Shalosha was there, attending to her father; Generals Magdus and Danaava were there, looking a little uncomfortable as the only Ragesians, yet they both represented sizeable forces of well-trained Ragesian soldiers. I must say I was still very curious to find out just why they were willing to fight against Leska but the others seemed to trust them.
Simeon, Kiernan and the mages of the Lyceum were there of course as was Duke Gallo. There were other familiar faces but my musings were interrupted as Foebane spotted us and approached:
“Oh well done, all of you, well done! As soon as the ritual ceased, we were able to pierce the illusions and the magic that had been hiding Leska’s forces. Simeon, Kiernan and all of the diviners have been casting spells non-stop and have been very successful.
“Come and see this. We need to explain the terrain to you. Also, as you are some of our most powerful individuals, I need to go over your role in the coming battles.”
He led us to the table and showed us a map:
“As I said, you have succeeded admirably. Simeon and the others have been able to scry Leska and her surroundings. This is what we have been able to discern so far.”
He began gesturing at various points on the map:
“Leska is here, inside a canyon that leads to a cave in a mountain; this cave has two large dragons carved above its entrance. Beyond the carving is a tunnel leading into the mountain and it is there, in its centre, that we believe Leska is performing her ritual with the Heart. The defences of this tunnel are being handled by the Ragesian Sixth army which is encamped here. Our plan is to have you transport the armies to the East, out of sight of their camp where we will muster and march upon the enemy.
I have discussed the role of the various armies with their respective commanders and I believe I have found the roles where they will be most effective. “
At this point, Foebane looked around at everyone else around the table but no one said a word although I did notice that Shalaadel’s face briefly lost its elven composure, as if he had smelled something bad.
Foebane continued:
“For you, I have several tasks in mind but in general, I would like to you to be a flying squad of reserves, designed to support and shore up our forces. It will mean that you will be fighting alongside the army but also be on your own; I believe that with your flexibility, that will be your best function. It will also mean that you will need to get around the battlefield very quickly and to aid you in this I have a representative of the Wayfinders.”
He gestured and a figure stepped forward from the back of the tent:
“Tiljann!” I exclaimed.
And indeed it was; our Seelah companion from the Fire Forest but very different now. The shy, nervous fey being who looked around everything with a mixture of wonder and naïve incomprehension had grown into a far more self-assured person, now wearing the bright coloured clothes which were a uniform for Wayfinders.
Foebane looked her and then turned to us:
“I will want to give you a more full briefing as we get closer to the missions but that is the overall scope of your missions. Please go and see Simeon and Kiernan now; I think they have things to tell you.”
After that he turned to the map and began to speak to Steppengaard. Obviously we had been dismissed; as we turned to Simeon, I heard Victor whisper to Longhelim:
“Amazing! He sounds as if he knows what he’s talking about!”
The paladin nodded absently and then we faced the diviner:
“Ah, Faden, Longhelim, and the rest of you…..we have been able to find out a few things about Leska’s motives and what’s she trying to do:
In essence, she’s trying to bind herself to the Aquiline Heart. In some ways, the Heart is also the Heart of our world and if she does so, than her very nature will influence the Heart and therefore the world. Since Leska is bent on conquest, so the world will be enveloped in an eternal cycle of conquest. She is immortal and will be very difficult to kill. In fact, we believe the only method of killing her would be to break the Heart and the only item that could do that is the Torch of the Burning Sky. The Torch is an artifact of Flame and thus strongly associated with the Great Dragon of Fire; the Heart is associated with the Eagle of the Air; the Heart may be the only soul that the Torch cannot consume and thus this clash should result in the breaking of the Heart and the destruction of the Torch and also in the transformation of Leska into a vulnerable mortal.”
I interrupted at this point:
“Yes, but will that not destroy the world as well?”
Simeon looked troubled:
“Yeeesss……our research suggests that that will be one of the side effects of this, yes. Obviously, we need to do more research.
One of the suggestions is that if a sacrifice of a noble soul is made at the right instant, then the Heart survives, the Torch is destroyed and Leska becomes mortal but we are not sure of our findings yet.”
We just stared at him, not quite being able to believe what he had just said. We were supposed to sacrifice ourselves or one of us for this? After all we had done already?
Longhelim quietly said:
“Thank you Simeon. You have been most helpful.”
The diviner looked as if he wanted to say or tell us more but we had already turned away from him.
Longhelim walked out of the tent and we waited outside.
Kiernan hurried after us and said:
“We have a group of traitors we have managed to capture; individuals who decided to sell Seaquen or the Lyceum to the Ragesians; we will be using their souls to enable the Torch to move the armies to the Opaline Wastes.”
After informing us of that, he walked away.
We all began to prepare for the campaign. As we did so, John asked:
“So, does anyone have any ideas about the whole Heart, Torch, Leska, souls, end of the world, noble sacrifice, elemental Lord theory?”
Longhelim grunted:
“As usual, no one seems to have any hard facts. Our divinations have revealed a lot of myths and legends together with half baked ideas. We will just have to go along and do what we think is right at the time and what our instincts tell us. It’s worked so far. One thing we do know is that we have a very long and hard fight ahead of us.”
I had also been doing a little thinking and said:
“From what I gather, immortal doesn’t mean unkillable. Look at Coaltongue: he was supposed to be immortal but he was killed by Rhuark and his two girlfriends. I am also not sure why we have to destroy the Heart to make her mortal to get rid of Leska; we can just keep knock her unconscious and deal with her later.”
Felix replied quietly:
“I think that Leska’s soul is tied to the Heart in such a way that it is invulnerable until the Heart is destroyed.”
John frowned:
“Well if that’s the case, then surely the Heart is contaminated already?”
Felix shrugged:
“Longhelim is right. As usual, we know very little, suspect a little more and will no doubt be surprised by everything else.”
I muttered something under my breath that point.
Longhelim looked at me, took out his pipe and said:
“What are you saying, Faden? You know that you can say anything you like in front us.”
I voiced my concerns with more precision:
“Whatever we do, we have to be prepared for the fact that Leska will be ahead of us by several steps. She always has been. Look, Kiernan captured a bunch of spies, which means that there will be lots of more of them around; which means that as usual, she’ll know exactly what we are planning, where we are going and how we are going to be doing it. I also don’t like the numbers. She only has one army defending her? Where are the others? She’s got far more soldiers than we do. Where are her dragons and the rest of the devils? She had a pit fiend helping her in the palace for goodness sake!
Longhelim has the best idea; the divinations are useless. We’ll just have to take everything as it comes and act on our instincts.
One final thing though; Leska will have contingencies within contingencies. She will have planned for this campaign assiduously.”
Longhelim puffed on his pipe and we carried on with our preparations.
There is no need to go into the details of the movement of the armies but suffice it to say that it was as distasteful as ever. The sooner that artifact was destroyed the better. However, we were in the Opaline Wastes and they were as inhospitable as they had been described and very much lived up to their name. Hot, white, with the harsh glare of the sun hurting everyone’s eyes.
Thankfully, Foebane had given a speech before we used the Torch and that kept up the spirits of the troops.