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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Old One" data-source="post: 166901" data-attributes="member: 83">InterludeSince it has been s-o-o-o-o-o incredibly long since our last update...our intrepid band was retained by Lady Andrimia, Captain Rook and the "Reds" to raid one of the Shadowblade hideouts to seek information linking Antoinine Sestius of the "Greens" to the Oar underground.  Unfortunately, what was intended as a quick "hit-and-run" rapidly degenerated into a battle royale.  The five companions, along with Drusilla Cassuvius, fought their way deep into the Shadowblade lair, encountering ever fiercer resistance.  The finale left  Rosë dead, Sextus and Drusilla unconscious and the rest badly injured.  Worse, the enemy wizard had escaped behind a magically barred door...AftermathGrim silence reigned in the bloody hall for a quarter turn of the hourglass.  Rosë, who had survived every challenge and each grievous injury, was dead.  The pain of his loss threatened to overwhelm Rowan.  The ranger had just managed to get over the loss of Marcus Tiro and Garrick, locking away the sorrow and the guilt in a secret place deep within his soul.  The barbarian’s death battered at that alcove of misery with a heavy hand.Quintus felt drained, mentally and physically.  Although a scant two hours had passed since they slipped into the Shadowblade hideout, it felt like a lifetime.  The events leading up to Rosë’s fall passed again and again through his addled mind’s eye, mingling with tenuousness of Sextus’ breathing and the closeness of his own demise.Lew remained as still as a woodland fawn catching the scent of a hunting wolf, hand resting on his friend’s massive chest.  The wounds that had stolen the Brigante’s life had not reached his face, but a mixture of drying blood and spittle was caked around his mouth.  The priest couldn’t even summon the strength to wipe it clean.Quintus was the first to stir.  “Where’s Drusilla?” He asked in a dull, detached voice.Lew responded with grunt and a vague wave of his hand, “She is over there, next to the do…”His voice trailed off as his gaze followed his gesture.  He had placed her carefully to the side of the door, wounds bound and covered with a cloak, yet the spot was empty.  He struggled to his feet and stumbled to the spot, finding naught but an unsealed bone scroll case.“I left her right here!  Rowan, didn’t I leave her right here?” Lew’s tone bore a hint of panic.Quintus and Rowan moved up next to Lew and the ranger placed a comforting hand on the priest’s shaking arm.  Quintus gingerly retrieved the case and removed a rolled parchment, expecting some magical conflagration with every motion.  Barely legible, scrawled in a hastily written and shaky hand, he found:Your friend is quite lovely.  I shall have a grand time with her…thank you so much for coming to visit!The sorcerer involuntarily crumpled the parchment as he swore, “That bastard has Drusilla!  He must die and die soon!”Anger lent his aching muscles new life as he strode to his brother’s side, knelt and began rifling through Sextus’ pack.  He stood a moment later, clutching a wooden tube in triumph.  “Arm yourselves!  The magic in this scroll will help us pass through yonder door.  We can be on the wizard before he can rest and recover his spells!”Lew looked at him in disbelief.  “You mean to press on?  Quintus, we are in no condition to mount a chase.  Rosë is gone and Sextus is sorely wounded.  I am nearly out of favors and we are all battered.  This is folly!”Quintus stepped over to the barbarian’s body and picked up his axe.  “We will carry Sextus with us and we will take Rosë’s axe to give to his son.”“No!”Quintus jumped as Rowan’s stinging slap sent the axe spinning from his grasp.  He whirled to find the woodsman standing less than a pace from him, red-faced and clutching his gladius.“I will not leave him here to suffer whatever indignities our enemies might heap upon him.  I will see him returned to the North and buried properly in the lands of his people.  Whether we press on or turn back, Rosë is coming with us!”Quintus was incredulous.  “He weighs almost a hundred and fifty stones!  How will we manage both he and Sextus?”By way of reply, Rowan crouched, grasped the barbarian’s body and heaved the still pliant form over his shoulder.  He staggered slightly under the load, and then steadied.  “I’ll manage.”(DM’s Note: Rowan was still under the effect of a Bull’s Strength spell.)“Let’s go find Drusilla.”Lew opened his mouth to urge caution and prudence, but closed it again when he saw the determination reflected in Rowan and Quintus’ faces.  ‘They will not listen to reason,’ he lamented silently to himself, ‘this will end badly!’“Lew, help me with Sextus.”They moved quickly to the magically barred door that Rowan had unsuccessfully assaulted before.  “I believe this magic will only last for a short period of time,” Quintus said softly.  “Let’s be quick about it.”Rowan had Rosë slung over one shoulder like an oversized sack of potatoes and the Old Man’s sword in the other.  Lew struggled to keep Sextus propped up while clutching his stave and Quintus placed a loaded crossbow at his feet within easy reach.  The sorcerer took a deep breath and invoked the magic inscribed on the vellum.An opaque band of whitish energy shimmered around the outline of the portal for a moment before sinking into the frame.  The door swung silently inward and the companions burst into a well-lit and well-appointed sleeping chamber.  Rich tapestries lined the wall and delicately carved furniture lined the perimeter of the room.  There were no exits evident, but a magnificent four-poster bed stood against the far wall and maniacal laughter peeled forth from it.Kneeling on the bed was the enemy wizard, holding a wickedly curved dagger to the throat of a badly wounded Drusilla.  Lew and Rowan deposited their charges gently onto the carpeted floor and grimly readied bow and crossbow.  Quintus stepped forward and snarled, “Your henchmen are dead or fled…unhand her at once and we will think about letting you live!”The maddening laughter rose to a fever pitch and the dagger inched closer to the Cassuvius daughter’s neck.  The sorcerer tried a different tack.  “Be reasonable, nothing is gained by continuing to oppose us.  You may harm the girl, but you will not live to see another sunrise!”The laughter continued.“You will release her now!” The Elder Scipio roared, taking several involuntary steps forward as his temper slipped away.  “By the Light, I will rend you asunder with my bare hands!”Laughter.Lew kept his crossbow trained on the figures huddled in the center of the bed.  The longer he stared at the wizard and Drusilla, the uneasier he became.  He focused all of his considerable willpower on the two forms as his suspicions grew with each peal of the annoying laughter.  ‘There is a repeating pattern to that hideous laughter…yet the mouth is not moving!’He continued to concentrate and the outline of the pair began to waver.  He blinked the sweat out of his eyes and shook his head hard.  As his vision cleared, he saw naught but a fine bed with brocade hangings, empty.  He lowered his weapon and stepped forward, laying a hand on Quintus’ quivering shoulder.  “Look closely,” he whispered to his friend, “I don’t believe they are really there!”Quintus fought for control and narrowed his gaze.  True to Lew’s words, the image frayed and melted away.  Rowan moved up to join them, shaking his head.  After a moment of calm, Quintus began to rage.  “A damn illusion!  I will have Maythrax’s head!  Tear this place apart and find out where they went!”(DM’s Note: I had great fun with this!  The more the party threatened, the more I laughed a very annoying laugh!  It took them several minutes of real time to figure out that it was probably an illusion…ah, the good times of DMing<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />!)Lew and Rowan exchanged worried looks.  The priest spoke, seeking to soothe his friend, “If we tarry too long, the magic allowing us to pass through the portal may fade, trapping us in here.  Perhaps we should withdraw.”Quintus shook his head slowly and deliberately, “He is on the run…he must be low on spells…if we can reach him before he finds help, we can finish this!”Lew looked to Rowan for support, but the ranger shrugged his shoulders helplessly while nodding in agreement.  Lew slumped in defeat, “Very well.”A quick but thorough search showed signs of a hasty, but equally thorough departure.  A writing desk and heavy chest were empty save for scattered sheets of parchment and some well made, but unremarkable garments.  Rowan’s practiced hands found a concealed door in the back of a large wardrobe.  Several smears of fresh blood marked recent use.He alerted his companions to his find and the group quickly manhandled Sextus and Rosë’s corpse through the narrow opening.  Beyond the wardrobe, they found an ancient sewer passage, older even than the other tunnels they had grown accustomed to.  This one, however, was bone dry…no damp spots or slime marred the stone surfaces.  Rowan lit a lantern, shut the wardrobe door and scouted ahead down the passage.Within twenty paces, he came to a “T” intersection.  He scanned the floor and walls carefully for signs of passage, but the smooth bare stone revealed little.  He stepped towards the left-hand passage, but his eye caught a slight irregularity in the floor.  He crouched down and probed with the tip of his blade.With the slightest pressure, the center section of the “T” dropped away from him, swinging downward on well-oiled hinges to reveal a yawning pit.  It descended for fifteen paces or more and the half-light from his lantern revealed sharpened stakes and skeletal remains.  ‘That was a touch closer than I care to admit,’ he thought to himself.He returned to the others.“Maythrax left us a little present.”He described the trap as he retrieved Rosë.  “Bring Sextus up and I will see if I can find a way to bypass this so we don’t have to maneuver around the gap.”The party moved forward, halting several paces from the intersection.  The cover for the pit had swung back up into position.  Rowan gently laid Rosë on the floor, and then craned his neck around each corner while holding his lantern aloft.  He took care not to step too close to the very sensitive pit trap.  Quintus paced back and forth – still fuming – while Lew checked Sextus bandages.He changed out one particular blood-soaked rag, binding it tightly into place.  More from force of habit than anything else, he moved to Rosë and idly fingered the barbarian’s coverings, now stiff from crusted blood.Quintus forced himself to halt as Rowan returned.  “Well?”“There are two small levers, one down each corridor.  They probably lock and unlock the pit cover.  I can slip around the corner and try each one…whichever one works on the first try probably indicates the direction they went in.  Just give me some cover from your crossbow while I…”The ranger trailed off, raising his lantern while looking past Quintus’ right shoulder.  Quintus whirled to find Lew frantically running his hands over Rosë’s corpse.  A dozen fears raced through the sorcerer’s mind and he began to summon his only remaining spell that could affect undead.  “What is it?”He and Rowan stepped towards Lew, who was hunched over their dead friend, mumbling furiously.  The priest straightened slightly and looked up, tears streaming down his face.  His movement exposed Rosë’s face.  Quintus stared, unbelieving as Rowan’s lantern light revealed not the pale mask of death, but a slight hint of color.  The ranger slowly dropped to his knees.  Lew met his quizzical gaze with a mixture amazement and disbelief.  Rowan’s eyes flicked down, taking in the almost imperceptible rise and fall of Rosë’s chest and then stared hard at Lew.The priest lifted trembling hands, holding them palm out while shaking his head.  A barely audible whisper followed.“He lives!”To Be Continued…Next: Interlude – Questions and Answers~ Old One</blockquote>

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