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<blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 7532638" data-attributes="member: 6816692"><p><strong>The ghoul nation of Ashanti</strong></p><p></p><p>Before we travel to Elfaivar, Auryn needs to know about Carlyle's role in the Second war as she doesn't wish to be surprised by any accusation. So she asks him about the worst deeds the eladrin could rightfully accuse him of. Carlyle explains that he was more or less simply a combatant in the recon squad and got chosen to serve there due to his abilities to move quietly and unseen. He was also found to be a good judge of truths and falsehoods, so he participated in questioning prisoners, trying to use his skills to keep the level of physical force as low as possible. He also mentions that there were others who enjoyed torturing their prisoners, but he always found this abhorrent. All in all he was drafted to fight in a war that he then deemed necessary to defend his homeland. </p><p></p><p>Auryn replies that being a soldier in a war isn't really a crime by itself, so she guesses he will be fine. She then transfers her memory of a unique landmark near Pallita to Carlyle so he may teleport the two of them there. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(He always gets lucky with his teleport rolls. If I remember correctly, we never had a single mis-port so far.)</span></p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p><p>We land in the middle of the jungle near an old elfaivaran statue that's overgrown with vines. Knowing her homeland quite well, Auryn then leads Carlyle straight towards a place where the borders between Dreaming and the material world grow thin, then follows a narrow path until the air seems to blur and the reality shifts a bit. After a few more steps, Auryn's mood brightens as two familiar looking figures appear in front of us. </p><p></p><p>One of them is a man who's quite muscular for an eladrin. He's wearing leather armor, seems to be armed to the teeth and his head is crowned by lots of thick, ashen-blond braids. The other is far leaner built and more modestly armed. He has striking, emerald eyes and silken black hair that's already turning to a silvery hue at some spots.</p><p></p><p>“Kalaren! It is so good to see you again. And Meloreen, what a pleasant surprise!”</p><p></p><p>The two men seem pleasantly surprised as well to see Auryn return to Pallita after eight long years. Before they introduce themselves properly, Kalaren hugs Auryn tightly. Auryn then embraces Meloreen who she hasn't seen for almost three decades and the eladrin seems very relieved to see her in such a good state. She then introduces Gabriel Carlyle, her Sahomi, to the two. They react a bit surprised but are pretty sure that there is a tale behind that as well. Auryn then turns to Carlyle. </p><p></p><p>“Gabriel, may I introduce you to Kalaren, third husband of Matriarch Galadin, and Meloreen, veteran of the second war. He's the one I told you about.”</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(Yep, he's Auryn's ex. They mutually went separate ways ~30 years ago, so no bad feelings between these two. I was still intrigued about why Meloreen was in Pallita and thought someone would suggest taking him as husband to Auryn, something she clearly wouldn't have objected to before. But he was just... there I guess. Still a sweet opportunity for a reunion.)</span></p><p></p><p>Carlyle greets the two men respectfully, but also makes it clear that he's not there for the hugging. Kalaran laughs a bit.</p><p></p><p>“Well then, Gabriel Carlyle, I wouldn't dare deny a Sahomi of my dear Auryn to enter our enclave. Welcome to Pallita!”</p><p></p><p>Kalaren then adds that he's also seneschal of Pallita right now as the Matriarch and her other two husbands are currently absent. He explains that they are investigating an unnatural darkness that has manifested nearby Pallita, but they should be back soon. Auryn is intrigued by the fact that this darkness seems troubling enough to warrant her mother and two of her husbands to leave the enclave, so she asks for more information. </p><p></p><p>“Actually, it isn't only the Matriarch and her two esteemed husbands, but also a small band of warriors in their company. They left immediately after I told them what I found on my way to Pallita. Necromany of the worst kind, I fear. Severed eladrin heads placed on spikes near the ancient temple city. I didn't dare to exame the place on my own.” </p><p></p><p>Meloreen sighs heavily after his revelation as he seems embarrassed by the fact that he's now a guest of Pallita while the others, including his old comrade Thorandil, are going after this darkness. Now this sounds troubling indeed, especially because Meloreen is a veteran and quite the capable warrior. So we decide to go after the small group in case they need help.</p><p></p><p>On our way through the jungle we find cadavers of half-eaten animals. A closer look reveals that they weren't eaten by other predators, but by something humanoid. Carlyle's fine nose smells something rotten and this way we're able to follow the culprit's trail to a high tree. To our surprise, a small group of what appears to be undead eladrin seems to be resting on the branches of said tree. </p><p></p><p>While we're no experts on undead behavior, we do find “resting” to be an odd activity for them, so we try to greet them in our usual fashion to examine their reaction. One of the ghouls, a guy who calls himself Alarak, returns the greeting. We ask him about his personal state and he explains that he feels an unnatural, insatiable hunger. He also feels drawn towards a place he calls Ashanti, a sanctuary for his kind. We explain that we're from the nearby enclave of Pallita, so we cannot let him or his brethren endanger our citizens. Alarak returns that “our kind” doesn't know about living in the wilderness of the jungle as the enclave citizens are sheltered and weak. He and the other ghouls simply wish to survive and to do so they need food. </p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, Alarak's hunger grows too strong after a while and he and the others attack us as they believe we're easy prey. But they're quite wrong and we cannot do anything else but slay them. We then perform a short funeral rite where we deliver their bodies to Srasama's purifying fire. </p><p></p><p>With the ghouls' possessions we find a crude map that leads to the ancient temple city, so we assume that the darkness might be the reason behind these ghouls' hunger. We continue our journey towards the city and come across a small farm after a day's travel. There we find signs that someone performed another funeral and more signs that a small group has rested here not too long ago. As these people might be Galadin's company, we follow their trails until we reach the outskirts of the temple city. </p><p></p><p>At first glance, the city seems to be as abandoned as it was when Auryn visited it the last time. Once we take a closer look however, we see erect spears that have been placed in the ground. We also see footsteps and smell the rotten smell of the undead. And last but not least there are occasional signs where the name “ghoul nation of Ahsanti” is written all over them. As we assume that this city might very well be filled with undead, we decide to continue our search for the Matriarch under the veil of an invisibility spell. </p><p></p><p>After a few minutes of searching, Auryn is suddenly attacked out of nowhere. Struck by an arrow, she turns around and sees a gruesome sight: Her mother, as well as her husbands Thorandil and Estelar stand in front of her, and they are all ghasts. They call her a traitor who deserves to die and continue to strike her with their weapons and magic. </p><p></p><p>Auryn is horrified by this development and tries to call out to the three. She draws her own weapon, ready to defend herself.</p><p></p><p>“Stop, please! Return to your senses! I'm not your enemy!”</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Carlyle is utterly confused by the situation. He tries to make sense of the scene he's witnessing and then hears a quiet, calm voice inside his head:</p><p></p><p>“This is not what it seems. Please help my child so she doesn't make a terrible mistake”</p><p></p><p>He then calls upon his inner magic to protect himself from evil influences. Now the situation shifts a bit. The ghasts are still there, but they don't spit any more curses at Auryn. Instead, the female ghast speaks words of remorse and grief as she has to put her “cursed undead child” to rest. Now this doesn't make much more sense, but he does believe that someone or something is trying to make Auryn and her family kill each other. So he reveals himself and uses another, more powerful protection spell to shield them all from evil influences. </p><p></p><p>He then asks them all to stop fighting as they've all fallen victim to foul magic. As Auryn lowers her weapon, the other three follow as well. And it turns out that both parties perceive the others to be ghasts instead of living people. We assume that this might be a strong curse that effects everyone who enters Ashanti, so we retreat for the moment to dispel the curse and discuss how to proceed further. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(Tiz almost got me with this one. While I had hoped that Galadin, Thorandil and Estelar were still alive, killing them off would be in his repertoire as DM. So yeah, of course Auryn would be wary and not strike first, but if they'd truly been undead, then she'd had no other choice but release them from their cursed state and become Pallita's next Matriarch. Which... would have put the two PCs in a rather complicated situation.) </span></p><p></p><p>Once the curse is lifted, the three eladrin are quite surprised to see Carlyle as the deva he is. They are even more surprised when Auryn introduces him as her Sahomi and partner. Carlyle courteously calls it an honor to be finally able to meet the Matriarch and her husbands before quickly trying to explain how he, a Risuri, ended up with Auryn. He adds that the divine spark of Srasama is quite influential, so he also feels responsible for both Auryn and the remaining eladrin. Last but not least, it was the voice of Srasama that warned him about the curse of Ashanti, so he thinks this is exactly where she wanted him to be. </p><p></p><p>The three eladrin seem satisfied for now and they agree to team up with us to find the source of the curse. We find out that the spears might be responsible for our shifted perception, so we dispel their magic and see that we're able to proceed without being “turned to ghasts” again. We cautiously proceed to enter the city and spot small groups of ghouls every now and then. </p><p></p><p>On our way through the city, Carlyle wishes to find out what might have happened here, so he tries to sense the presence of nearby spirits. What he experiences then is quite overwhelming as he hears echoes of thousands of female voices, all crying out as one before falling eerily silent. He realizes that this must have been a vision from the Fall of Srasama when all of the city's women – mostly priestesses – died 500 years ago, but it still shakes him to the core. </p><p></p><p>Auryn senses Carlyle's distress, so she quietly takes his hand to comfort him and let him shake off the cruel past. Thorandil takes notice of her gesture and grins happily while whispering to Galadin that their daughter and her Sahomi are quite the pair. </p><p></p><p>While we march through the city, we have to slay a lot of ghouls who cannot control their hunger and try to feed on us. After what seems to be an eternity, we finally reach the main temple, a grand pyramid made of stone which is at least partially overgrown with plants. There, we are quite surprised that this temple's entrance is guarded by two ghouls that must have once been ogres. As we're pretty sure that these were no eladrin in life, we confront them and bring them down as well, even if they last much longer than the other ghouls in battle. </p><p></p><p>Then, an illusory image of an old eladrin appears in midair. He's surprised that the living managed to enter his city and asks us why we've come to slay his citizens. He explains that all he wanted was to create a sanctuary for his ghouls who are obviously not welcome in other eladrin communities. This way, he also does his part to ensure that their people can survive in the aftermath of the Malice. </p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, the ghoul citizens see the illusory man and all kneel down before him as if he was a semi-divine being. Matriarch Galadin explains that this city is very close to the enclave of Pallia, her enclave. This alone would mean too much danger for her people, as the ghouls feel an insatiable hunger for eladrin flesh, but she also cannot let him and his undead defile this holy site any further.</p><p></p><p>The man returns that the eladrin people are doomed to die in their current state anyway. Humans already begun to claim their lands, to settle down on eladrin territory and drive away her people. He's certain that his path is the only way for the eladrin to survive and eventually kill the human invaders. As we grow more and more suspicious of the eladrin man's ambitions, we assume that he didn't kindly take in every tragic ghoul but rather created them himself. We also get the feeling that he wishes to use the eladrin ghouls as weapons against the human conquerors and that the curse which afflicted us all could have turned us undead in time as well. </p><p></p><p>So Auryn intervenes and adds that there are far less fatal ways of dealing with humans. She calls Risur a positive example of a place where people of all kinds and races can live together while sharing the same rules and rights. </p><p></p><p>“Don't try to educate me on these bigoted risuri.” the illusion curses. “They establish their colonies like every other foreign nation, chipping away our ancient homeland. If we don't slay them all, there will be no Elfaivar left for us survivors to inhabit.”</p><p></p><p>Auryn is a bit surprised by the eladrin's revelation. She doesn't change her mind though and says that she has the ear of the king or Risur and so he will most likely listen to the troubles of his trusted knight. This visibly enrages the illusory man who calls her a traitor. He then vanishes and the ghouls start attacking us. Fortunately, while they are great in number, they are not really strong in terms of power. The fight ends in a big massacre with lots of ghouls dead on the floor of the temple entrance. </p><p></p><p>After combat, we proceed to enter the temple. Inside we find a ritual chamber that had been adorned by several murals depicting eladrin gods and goddesses. Now the murals are lying on the ground, carefully removed and placed on the ground. In the center of the room lies a glass sarcophagus which carries a seemingly sleeping eladrin, the same man we saw in the illusory image. </p><p></p><p>Carlyle gets quite nervous in these surroundings, so he decides to check up on suspicious magic inside this room just in case we're about to get surprised by a nasty trap. He doesn't find one though, but what he does find troubles him as much: It appears as if the whole sarcophagus is just another elaborate illusion spell. He also sees a grand source of ever increasing magic in one corner of the inner temple. From the shifting pattern he can deduce that this is the place where the real necromancer must be hiding, so he just tries to hit the right spot blindly in hope to stop the mage's incantation.</p><p></p><p>To his and our surprise, he does not only land his strikes but also drops the frail eladrin unconscious in a few seconds. A quick dispel reveals that this is actually the real one who had been hiding under an invisibility spell all the time. Exhaling audibly, he hands the man to the eladrin trio.</p><p></p><p>“He's your prisoner now, Matriarch. Do with him as you wish. It is not my place to make judgments here.”</p><p></p><p>“Very well, Gabriel Carlyle. And while it pains me to put an end to one of our kind, he leaves me with no other choice. He threatened my enclave. He's responsible for the death of so many of our people. The sentence for his crimes shall be death.”</p><p></p><p>She then nods to Thorandil, her first husband and closes her eyes. Thorandil's otherwise relaxed, open and friendly stance and expression seem to shift and change entirely as he lifts his massive curved blade over his head. With a stern, hard and almost bitter voice he exclaims that he's carrying out the sentence of Matriarch Galadin of Pallita before he brings down the blade and beheads the eladrin in one blow. </p><p></p><p>He then drags the body of the necromancer outside the temple and raises his voice so that all of Ashanti can hear it.</p><p></p><p>“Your leader is dead! This holy site will be defiled no longer! Matriarch Galadin of Pallita claims this land as part of her territory as it has always been. Leave now or suffer the consequences!”</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(It was quite intriguing to see Galadin's reaction of the necromancer's execution put in so much contrast with Auryn's when Carlyle carried out the sentence of the Unseen against Ekossigan.</span></p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p><p><span style="color: #008000">Also, ugh, one can feel sorry for Thorandil. He completely abandoned using deadly force after the war of the Malice and embraced his new life as a poet and artist who almost always smiled and spoke in a soft voice. He also wouldn't speak about the war to anyone, including Auryn, and he really really loathes violence. This gave us a glance at the warrior he must have been before the tragedy. But yeah, the threat of the undead was big enough to bring back this side he had shut off)</span></p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lylandra, post: 7532638, member: 6816692"] [b]The ghoul nation of Ashanti[/b] Before we travel to Elfaivar, Auryn needs to know about Carlyle's role in the Second war as she doesn't wish to be surprised by any accusation. So she asks him about the worst deeds the eladrin could rightfully accuse him of. Carlyle explains that he was more or less simply a combatant in the recon squad and got chosen to serve there due to his abilities to move quietly and unseen. He was also found to be a good judge of truths and falsehoods, so he participated in questioning prisoners, trying to use his skills to keep the level of physical force as low as possible. He also mentions that there were others who enjoyed torturing their prisoners, but he always found this abhorrent. All in all he was drafted to fight in a war that he then deemed necessary to defend his homeland. Auryn replies that being a soldier in a war isn't really a crime by itself, so she guesses he will be fine. She then transfers her memory of a unique landmark near Pallita to Carlyle so he may teleport the two of them there. [COLOR="#008000"](He always gets lucky with his teleport rolls. If I remember correctly, we never had a single mis-port so far.) [/COLOR] We land in the middle of the jungle near an old elfaivaran statue that's overgrown with vines. Knowing her homeland quite well, Auryn then leads Carlyle straight towards a place where the borders between Dreaming and the material world grow thin, then follows a narrow path until the air seems to blur and the reality shifts a bit. After a few more steps, Auryn's mood brightens as two familiar looking figures appear in front of us. One of them is a man who's quite muscular for an eladrin. He's wearing leather armor, seems to be armed to the teeth and his head is crowned by lots of thick, ashen-blond braids. The other is far leaner built and more modestly armed. He has striking, emerald eyes and silken black hair that's already turning to a silvery hue at some spots. “Kalaren! It is so good to see you again. And Meloreen, what a pleasant surprise!” The two men seem pleasantly surprised as well to see Auryn return to Pallita after eight long years. Before they introduce themselves properly, Kalaren hugs Auryn tightly. Auryn then embraces Meloreen who she hasn't seen for almost three decades and the eladrin seems very relieved to see her in such a good state. She then introduces Gabriel Carlyle, her Sahomi, to the two. They react a bit surprised but are pretty sure that there is a tale behind that as well. Auryn then turns to Carlyle. “Gabriel, may I introduce you to Kalaren, third husband of Matriarch Galadin, and Meloreen, veteran of the second war. He's the one I told you about.” [COLOR="#008000"](Yep, he's Auryn's ex. They mutually went separate ways ~30 years ago, so no bad feelings between these two. I was still intrigued about why Meloreen was in Pallita and thought someone would suggest taking him as husband to Auryn, something she clearly wouldn't have objected to before. But he was just... there I guess. Still a sweet opportunity for a reunion.)[/COLOR] Carlyle greets the two men respectfully, but also makes it clear that he's not there for the hugging. Kalaran laughs a bit. “Well then, Gabriel Carlyle, I wouldn't dare deny a Sahomi of my dear Auryn to enter our enclave. Welcome to Pallita!” Kalaren then adds that he's also seneschal of Pallita right now as the Matriarch and her other two husbands are currently absent. He explains that they are investigating an unnatural darkness that has manifested nearby Pallita, but they should be back soon. Auryn is intrigued by the fact that this darkness seems troubling enough to warrant her mother and two of her husbands to leave the enclave, so she asks for more information. “Actually, it isn't only the Matriarch and her two esteemed husbands, but also a small band of warriors in their company. They left immediately after I told them what I found on my way to Pallita. Necromany of the worst kind, I fear. Severed eladrin heads placed on spikes near the ancient temple city. I didn't dare to exame the place on my own.” Meloreen sighs heavily after his revelation as he seems embarrassed by the fact that he's now a guest of Pallita while the others, including his old comrade Thorandil, are going after this darkness. Now this sounds troubling indeed, especially because Meloreen is a veteran and quite the capable warrior. So we decide to go after the small group in case they need help. On our way through the jungle we find cadavers of half-eaten animals. A closer look reveals that they weren't eaten by other predators, but by something humanoid. Carlyle's fine nose smells something rotten and this way we're able to follow the culprit's trail to a high tree. To our surprise, a small group of what appears to be undead eladrin seems to be resting on the branches of said tree. While we're no experts on undead behavior, we do find “resting” to be an odd activity for them, so we try to greet them in our usual fashion to examine their reaction. One of the ghouls, a guy who calls himself Alarak, returns the greeting. We ask him about his personal state and he explains that he feels an unnatural, insatiable hunger. He also feels drawn towards a place he calls Ashanti, a sanctuary for his kind. We explain that we're from the nearby enclave of Pallita, so we cannot let him or his brethren endanger our citizens. Alarak returns that “our kind” doesn't know about living in the wilderness of the jungle as the enclave citizens are sheltered and weak. He and the other ghouls simply wish to survive and to do so they need food. Unfortunately, Alarak's hunger grows too strong after a while and he and the others attack us as they believe we're easy prey. But they're quite wrong and we cannot do anything else but slay them. We then perform a short funeral rite where we deliver their bodies to Srasama's purifying fire. With the ghouls' possessions we find a crude map that leads to the ancient temple city, so we assume that the darkness might be the reason behind these ghouls' hunger. We continue our journey towards the city and come across a small farm after a day's travel. There we find signs that someone performed another funeral and more signs that a small group has rested here not too long ago. As these people might be Galadin's company, we follow their trails until we reach the outskirts of the temple city. At first glance, the city seems to be as abandoned as it was when Auryn visited it the last time. Once we take a closer look however, we see erect spears that have been placed in the ground. We also see footsteps and smell the rotten smell of the undead. And last but not least there are occasional signs where the name “ghoul nation of Ahsanti” is written all over them. As we assume that this city might very well be filled with undead, we decide to continue our search for the Matriarch under the veil of an invisibility spell. After a few minutes of searching, Auryn is suddenly attacked out of nowhere. Struck by an arrow, she turns around and sees a gruesome sight: Her mother, as well as her husbands Thorandil and Estelar stand in front of her, and they are all ghasts. They call her a traitor who deserves to die and continue to strike her with their weapons and magic. Auryn is horrified by this development and tries to call out to the three. She draws her own weapon, ready to defend herself. “Stop, please! Return to your senses! I'm not your enemy!” Meanwhile, Carlyle is utterly confused by the situation. He tries to make sense of the scene he's witnessing and then hears a quiet, calm voice inside his head: “This is not what it seems. Please help my child so she doesn't make a terrible mistake” He then calls upon his inner magic to protect himself from evil influences. Now the situation shifts a bit. The ghasts are still there, but they don't spit any more curses at Auryn. Instead, the female ghast speaks words of remorse and grief as she has to put her “cursed undead child” to rest. Now this doesn't make much more sense, but he does believe that someone or something is trying to make Auryn and her family kill each other. So he reveals himself and uses another, more powerful protection spell to shield them all from evil influences. He then asks them all to stop fighting as they've all fallen victim to foul magic. As Auryn lowers her weapon, the other three follow as well. And it turns out that both parties perceive the others to be ghasts instead of living people. We assume that this might be a strong curse that effects everyone who enters Ashanti, so we retreat for the moment to dispel the curse and discuss how to proceed further. [COLOR="#008000"](Tiz almost got me with this one. While I had hoped that Galadin, Thorandil and Estelar were still alive, killing them off would be in his repertoire as DM. So yeah, of course Auryn would be wary and not strike first, but if they'd truly been undead, then she'd had no other choice but release them from their cursed state and become Pallita's next Matriarch. Which... would have put the two PCs in a rather complicated situation.) [/COLOR] Once the curse is lifted, the three eladrin are quite surprised to see Carlyle as the deva he is. They are even more surprised when Auryn introduces him as her Sahomi and partner. Carlyle courteously calls it an honor to be finally able to meet the Matriarch and her husbands before quickly trying to explain how he, a Risuri, ended up with Auryn. He adds that the divine spark of Srasama is quite influential, so he also feels responsible for both Auryn and the remaining eladrin. Last but not least, it was the voice of Srasama that warned him about the curse of Ashanti, so he thinks this is exactly where she wanted him to be. The three eladrin seem satisfied for now and they agree to team up with us to find the source of the curse. We find out that the spears might be responsible for our shifted perception, so we dispel their magic and see that we're able to proceed without being “turned to ghasts” again. We cautiously proceed to enter the city and spot small groups of ghouls every now and then. On our way through the city, Carlyle wishes to find out what might have happened here, so he tries to sense the presence of nearby spirits. What he experiences then is quite overwhelming as he hears echoes of thousands of female voices, all crying out as one before falling eerily silent. He realizes that this must have been a vision from the Fall of Srasama when all of the city's women – mostly priestesses – died 500 years ago, but it still shakes him to the core. Auryn senses Carlyle's distress, so she quietly takes his hand to comfort him and let him shake off the cruel past. Thorandil takes notice of her gesture and grins happily while whispering to Galadin that their daughter and her Sahomi are quite the pair. While we march through the city, we have to slay a lot of ghouls who cannot control their hunger and try to feed on us. After what seems to be an eternity, we finally reach the main temple, a grand pyramid made of stone which is at least partially overgrown with plants. There, we are quite surprised that this temple's entrance is guarded by two ghouls that must have once been ogres. As we're pretty sure that these were no eladrin in life, we confront them and bring them down as well, even if they last much longer than the other ghouls in battle. Then, an illusory image of an old eladrin appears in midair. He's surprised that the living managed to enter his city and asks us why we've come to slay his citizens. He explains that all he wanted was to create a sanctuary for his ghouls who are obviously not welcome in other eladrin communities. This way, he also does his part to ensure that their people can survive in the aftermath of the Malice. Meanwhile, the ghoul citizens see the illusory man and all kneel down before him as if he was a semi-divine being. Matriarch Galadin explains that this city is very close to the enclave of Pallia, her enclave. This alone would mean too much danger for her people, as the ghouls feel an insatiable hunger for eladrin flesh, but she also cannot let him and his undead defile this holy site any further. The man returns that the eladrin people are doomed to die in their current state anyway. Humans already begun to claim their lands, to settle down on eladrin territory and drive away her people. He's certain that his path is the only way for the eladrin to survive and eventually kill the human invaders. As we grow more and more suspicious of the eladrin man's ambitions, we assume that he didn't kindly take in every tragic ghoul but rather created them himself. We also get the feeling that he wishes to use the eladrin ghouls as weapons against the human conquerors and that the curse which afflicted us all could have turned us undead in time as well. So Auryn intervenes and adds that there are far less fatal ways of dealing with humans. She calls Risur a positive example of a place where people of all kinds and races can live together while sharing the same rules and rights. “Don't try to educate me on these bigoted risuri.” the illusion curses. “They establish their colonies like every other foreign nation, chipping away our ancient homeland. If we don't slay them all, there will be no Elfaivar left for us survivors to inhabit.” Auryn is a bit surprised by the eladrin's revelation. She doesn't change her mind though and says that she has the ear of the king or Risur and so he will most likely listen to the troubles of his trusted knight. This visibly enrages the illusory man who calls her a traitor. He then vanishes and the ghouls start attacking us. Fortunately, while they are great in number, they are not really strong in terms of power. The fight ends in a big massacre with lots of ghouls dead on the floor of the temple entrance. After combat, we proceed to enter the temple. Inside we find a ritual chamber that had been adorned by several murals depicting eladrin gods and goddesses. Now the murals are lying on the ground, carefully removed and placed on the ground. In the center of the room lies a glass sarcophagus which carries a seemingly sleeping eladrin, the same man we saw in the illusory image. Carlyle gets quite nervous in these surroundings, so he decides to check up on suspicious magic inside this room just in case we're about to get surprised by a nasty trap. He doesn't find one though, but what he does find troubles him as much: It appears as if the whole sarcophagus is just another elaborate illusion spell. He also sees a grand source of ever increasing magic in one corner of the inner temple. From the shifting pattern he can deduce that this is the place where the real necromancer must be hiding, so he just tries to hit the right spot blindly in hope to stop the mage's incantation. To his and our surprise, he does not only land his strikes but also drops the frail eladrin unconscious in a few seconds. A quick dispel reveals that this is actually the real one who had been hiding under an invisibility spell all the time. Exhaling audibly, he hands the man to the eladrin trio. “He's your prisoner now, Matriarch. Do with him as you wish. It is not my place to make judgments here.” “Very well, Gabriel Carlyle. And while it pains me to put an end to one of our kind, he leaves me with no other choice. He threatened my enclave. He's responsible for the death of so many of our people. The sentence for his crimes shall be death.” She then nods to Thorandil, her first husband and closes her eyes. Thorandil's otherwise relaxed, open and friendly stance and expression seem to shift and change entirely as he lifts his massive curved blade over his head. With a stern, hard and almost bitter voice he exclaims that he's carrying out the sentence of Matriarch Galadin of Pallita before he brings down the blade and beheads the eladrin in one blow. He then drags the body of the necromancer outside the temple and raises his voice so that all of Ashanti can hear it. “Your leader is dead! This holy site will be defiled no longer! Matriarch Galadin of Pallita claims this land as part of her territory as it has always been. Leave now or suffer the consequences!” [COLOR="#008000"](It was quite intriguing to see Galadin's reaction of the necromancer's execution put in so much contrast with Auryn's when Carlyle carried out the sentence of the Unseen against Ekossigan. Also, ugh, one can feel sorry for Thorandil. He completely abandoned using deadly force after the war of the Malice and embraced his new life as a poet and artist who almost always smiled and spoke in a soft voice. He also wouldn't speak about the war to anyone, including Auryn, and he really really loathes violence. This gave us a glance at the warrior he must have been before the tragedy. But yeah, the threat of the undead was big enough to bring back this side he had shut off) [/COLOR] [/QUOTE]
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