Aphonion Tales (New posts 6/13, 6/15, 6/19)

[Cerebral Paladin]

Dame Brionna cleared her throat. “What are we to do with the babe, your grace? People will assume that he is an illegitimate son of yours.”

“I think we’ll give him over to the care of Mommy Cupcakes. He’ll be well taken care of that way, and we wouldn’t be able to place him with a family outside of the palace without it creating even more rumors.”

Kit cursed. “All the efforts to make sure that there are no actual illegitimate children, and we’ll still need to worry about succession issues.”

“Not for a long time, I hope,” said Alistair. “And by then, if things go according to plan, there will be a well-established legitimate heir to ensure there are no problems. Although I suppose we could use him as an illegitimate heir if Lord Davion loses… do you think that succession would be smoother than the ones we have discussed?”

“Your grace, we couldn’t,” said Dame Brionna determinedly. “His father is a rapist, and possibly worse. For all we know, he is half-demon.”

Kit nodded. “I hope the baby is fine, but it can’t be the Archduke.”

“And we would need to have a regency for years; it’s hard to imagine that a regent could keep Brightspan, at least without a war. And you are right. Besides, at least if we follow our current plan, a true descendant of the House of Ashberry will be on the throne. I owe my family at least that much.” Alistair nodded. “Very well. Who should we claim the baby is?”

Dame Brionna swallowed hard. “Your grace… if you wish, we could claim that it was mine. I would not wish the harm to my reputation, but if it protects the Archduchy, I will agree.”

“Thank you, Dame Brionna, but that will not be necessary.”

“I don’t think we could make the story stick, anyway,” added Kit. “You would have had to give birth right around when you left the Archduchy to find Alistair. Too many people know that you were not pregnant then. And even if we also lied about the baby’s age, no one will believe that you were in the late stages of pregnancy and then gave birth while defending Alistair on his return to Canberry. It would be recognized as a lie, and people would assume that Alistair was actually the father, with an unknown mother.” She thought about it some more. “What about one of your half-brothers? We could claim that they were taking after your father, and that the baby is a nephew of yours. That would be believable.”

Alistair rubbed his chin. “Or even make the baby another half-brother himself. The timing would work; he could be the result of a fling of my father’s, shortly before his death. And there would be no other household, not even one of my siblings’, to take the baby in.”

“It could work, your grace. There will still be rumors, but I fear there is nothing we could do to prevent that.”

“I like it,” said Kit. “It gives us just the right level of connection, while also keeping the baby safely far from the succession.”

They quickly passed the baby off to Mommy Cupcakes, who was thrilled to learn that Alistair’s father had had another baby that she would need to care for.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

With that matter dealt with, the Council retired, even though it was still early. Dame Brionna continued working and planning long into the night, while Alistair and Kit made the most of what might be one of their last nights together.

The Master Unbidden still lived in the morning of the day before the coronation, even as the dust consumed his body. He had a brush with permanent insanity in the middle of the night, but he came back from the brink. By the morning, he was visibly thinner and gave forth a pale glow. He ate breakfast quietly, talking to any who spoke to him, but conserving his energy. Now, there was only waiting and then the duel the following day.

Abigail knocked quietly on the private door between Kit’s room and Alistair’s chambers in the morning. “Dame Katherine? There is a package for you that was delivered to the palace this morning. It’s been checked for traps, and none were found. It was addressed ‘To the Mouth.’”

Kit quickly returned to her chambers, dressed for the day, and went to examine the package. The writing on the outside of the small pouch was clearly done by a professional scribe; even Kit could recognize that from the perfectly formed, measured letters. The package’s contents were more interesting: three strange coins or discs, each a precise circle, formed from laen. The discs glowed when she touched them, and a cursory psionic examination revealed a small reserve of power within each coin along with the presence of thoughts. Kit decided to call the Minister of the Mind as psionic back-up before doing anything further, along with Alistair and Dame Brionna because it seemed like these could be of some importance.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Once they were gathered, with Alistair at a safe remove, Kit reached out with her mind and examined the discs more closely. The thoughts she had detected were there, but not because there was a mind present or even in communication. Rather, they were memories, psionically inscribed into the high glass receptacles, waiting to be unreeled but nothing more. She probed deeper, and a voice echoed in her head.

<< This is the declaration of the death time of a master of the Order of the Black Tear. It is delivered unto the one who best represents the goals and the understanding of the Black Tear, within the organization of the purchased foe.>>

The mind fell silent and then a very different mind continued. << You are smart. You move wisely. Your people are weak. You make up for weakness with thoughts. Only I remain. Dust begins to take its toll. I wait. Your lord has a great one who speaks for him. I wait. There is no personal hatred of me for you or for him. I think we had been deceived. Many innocents. Many innocents. Some have already died. This is not the Way. But I am stupid. I should not think. I wished you to have this declaration, because there is no one else. Win or lose, your people will remember that I was here.>>

Kit continued to hear the presence of the discs in her mind for quite some time, but no further thoughts--apparently, the people who prepared the discs expected them to be used for a longer message than the Master Unbidden placed in them. Kit repeated the message to the Council.

“Much the same as we have heard from the other Harlequins,” noted Dame Brionna. “They are being used by Quinliart for a purpose that they don’t support. Of course, they are assassins for hire, so why they think they could end up being honorable anyway is beyond comprehension.”

“Still. Interesting, but nothing we need to deal with,” said Alistair.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

“There are a few more tasks we should try to get done today, starting with the woman with the lynx jewelry. Since she isn’t the Baroness, she must be someone else in the City.”

“Yes, your grace. It would be stupid to spend so much time on stopping the Harlequins only to allow a much less dangerous assassin to make an attempt.” Dame Brionna adjusted her armor as she thought. “Perhaps Reverend Canon Toddle could detect her?”

“Worth a try,” said Kit. “Besides, he’s always at least entertaining.”

They called the diviner over and asked if he knew anything of the woman assassin with lynx jewelry.

“Yes… She walks often in my dreams.”

“Have you seen anything distinctive about her? Any way we might recognize her?” asked Dame Brionna.

“She dresses in beautiful clothes, but the lynx is her only jewelry. Or almost her only jewelry--she wears earrings. Those earrings. They are opals, but carved to look like drops of blood. Beyond that, I see nothing of her.”

“Opals like drops of blood? Ugh. Anybody know what that could mean?” asked Kit.

“There are two possibilities I can think of,” said Alistair. “There is a subgroup of the Sisters of the Weeping Woman who use drops of blood as port of their symbols, instead of the more normal tears. And the actual priesthood of Borsh’tro--not the priests of the servant deities, not the various demon cultists, but the priesthood of Borsh’tro directly--use drops of blood as part of their symbology. I fear the second group is more likely, though I was not aware of any priests of Borsh’tro in this region, or even on Drucien at all.”

“It fits the overall plan well, your grace. But even if we know more of what she is, how do we find her?”

“Perhaps the Eshen Bladelord would know something?”

“He won’t cooperate honorably like the Drow, your grace.”

“No. But we might be able to trick him into cooperating all the same.”

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

They proceeded to the dungeon, and Alistair used the helm to project his image into the Bladelord’s cell. The ratman raged, almost frothing at the mouth, and slammed against the chains that bound him but to no avail.

“You will die a thousand deaths! We will rip you to pieces and feed on the corpses of you and your kin!”

“I think not. You have already failed. It must sting to not even know how we found you.”

“You found me, but your death will still come!”

“Not from your kind. Not when one of your allies decided they would rather have you eliminated, to keep all the gains for themselves. The information from the priestess of Borsh’tro was most useful.”

“Rargh!” growled the Skaven, fury overwhelming its ability to speak. “The torments of your death will be nothing to how she will suffer. She thought she was so clever, coming here with entourage, living in shell. Sell me out, will she? I will get free one day. If not, she will be hunted down by others.”

Alistair probed further, but was able to get no additional information.

He shook his head dejectedly as he rejoined his friends. “I guess we won’t be getting anything from him. Too bad--I was hopeful. But that was pretty much a bust.”

Kit’s brow furrowed in thought. “Maybe not completely. We know that she has an entourage. And what does ‘living in shell’ mean?”

“Good point. That’s a pretty common way to describe a demon that has possessed a body.”

“Then we can find her based on the evil aura, your grace,” said Dame Brionna. “If she has an entourage, she is almost certainly staying within the Inner City. That’s a small enough area that we can sweep it with detect evil--we can make that look like a routine pre-coronation check. There will be other evil people, but a demon should show up as a bright spot of iniquity.”

“And then, since we know the threat is extra-planar, we can send in priests to use holy word to neutralize the threat safely,” added Alistair. “Remind the searchers that she may be in a second story, or a basement. They will need to search up and down as well as sweeping side to side.”

They quickly dispatched paladins and a few priests for the search. Within a few hours, word returned of an intense knot of evil in one of the finest inns in all of Canberry. Dame Brionna quickly prepared a strike force: several priests to cast holy word, reinforced by one hundred church knights as back-up if the demon were able to resist. The group of church knights began with all of the remaining knights who wore black armbands, just in case. But the precaution was not necessary: the priests entered the inn and let loose the powerful magic of the holy words, and then they swept unopposed through the building. In the entourage from the Cities of the Gates was a beautiful woman whose jewelry matched the description given by Reverend Canon Toddle. She had collapsed at the first of the holy words, and no amount of effort could revive her. Dame Brionna checked the last pre-coronation threat besides the Master Unbidden off her list, and Alistair prepared a letter to Princess Mirabelle informing her of what had happened and suggesting that she might wish to investigate the noble whose “companion” the possessed woman had been.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

The Council spent a little additional time wrapping up loose ends. Alistair drew up, signed, and sealed a bill of attainder declaring the eldest son of the Duke of Brightspan guilty of treason and ordering his execution. The execution could not be carried out as long as he was surrounded by a hostile army, but attainting him would ensure that he could not inherit the Duchy of Brightspan if the current Duke died, and that if Alistair were replaced as Archduke, his heir would know of the threat. Alistair took care in drafting the bill to make sure that it specified that the attainder did not work corruption of blood, but instead accelerated the inheritance of Lord Brightspan’s children. The other nobles would revolt, possibly literally, if the Archduke tried to declare the lands of one of the great houses forfeit, and the Duke of Brightspan’s eldest grandson, serving as a page to the Archduke, remained completely loyal. Alistair also decided that a young boy, even one who would be a high noble one day, did not need to know that his father had been condemned to death and his father’s lands and holdings transferred to him.

With everything taken care of except the great duel, Alistair and Kit retired to privacy, to make the most of the last day before the coronation.

The dust burned brightly within the Master Unbidden on the night before the duel, but through shear force of will he continued to live. Indeed, he managed to maintain his full concentration and showed no signs of imminent death. [The DM had us roll an additional three saving throws for the last night for the Master Unbidden. Suffice to say, we did not consider it an auspicious sign when we rolled three consecutive 20s.] The Master Unbidden then went about a series of ritual preparations. He ate a fine breakfast and carefully dressed in his crystal armor--armor that he normally wore at all times, but had not since accepting the challenge. His clothing-- Noldar silk clothes of enormous value--went to the poor as charity. He carefully boxed his favorite swords and then asked the innkeep to throw them in the river. Finally prepared, he hired a boy to carry the banner of his order to the field of honor, and brought only himself, his armor, and his unenchanted rapiers.

Lord Davion, for his part, brought a large entourage to the field of battle, including uruk drummers, a drow carrying the banner of House Aufaugauthal’arim--a deliberate slap at his house, with its refusal to tolerate drow children, but one they could do nothing about, because using the banner was clearly his right-- and the bishop who served as his chaplain to heal him after the battle, assuming he was victorious.

 

[Quartz]

Encore! Encore!

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Well, since you asked...

-------

The Council gathered in a private chamber to watch the duel via a scrying. Alistair and Kit clutched each other’s hands nervously as they waited the gamble that would determine whether Alistair lived or died. Dame Brionna simply stared at the image, outwardly stoic but inwardly panicking about a threat to her liege that she could do nothing to stop.

Lord Davion and the Master Unbidden discussed dispositions of bodies and then crossed to opposite sides of the field to begin. They executed flawless salutes. And then Lord Davion’s banner bearer called out the first form. They both responded almost instantly, with their swords flashing as swiftly as lightning, but the drow was a hair’s breadth faster, raining blows upon Lord Davion’s armor. Lord Davion’s armor glowed brightly as it blocked most of the attacks that made it past his guard, but blood flew from the handful that penetrated. Lord Davion’s counterattack was every bit as vigorous, and he weaved a few more blows through than the Master Unbidden had managed, aided by the Master’s inability to charge his armor with psionic energy.

Lord Davion overextended slightly on one blow. A lesser swordsman would have risked catastrophe, but even Lord Davion suffered several trying blows before getting his guard back in position. He also put rather more weight than he would have preferred on one foot. If luck had been an issue, the ground might well have given ground, tumbling him down and making his defeat inevitable. But with the Lady of Fate excluding all chance, his foot landed on a particularly firm patch of the field, and the ground held.

They battled on, far longer than any true fight the Council had ever witnessed before, with Lord Davion’s herald calling each successive form. They fought through stylized forms, following ancient rituals of dueling that were all but forgotten in this Age. Both warriors suffered terribly. Finally, a rapier snaked in completely past both defense and armor. For a single protracted moment, all movement stopped, and then Lord Davion stepped back as the Master Unbidden fell. Lord Davion very ceremoniously decapitated the Master Unbidden, and then announced, “Davion of the House of Aufaugauthala’rim declares on the behalf of Alistair, Archduke incipient of the Archduchy of Canberry, victory over the Order of the Black Tear, and an end to the feud with the Controller of Region 6, now and for all time.” Even as he spoke, the body of the Master Unbidden became desiccated and withered. With the battle over, Lord Davion cleaned and sheathed his blades, while his chaplain cast more healing spells than the Council would have imagined possible--heal after heal.

 

[Alratan]

Wonder what's going to happen to the armour....

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Actually, I'm not sure that we ever determined what happened to the armor. I'm confident that we didn't just leave it there, but whether Lord Davion took it, or it went to the Treasury, no clue.

---

The Council gave a collective sigh of relief. After a few moments of giddy happiness, Dame Brionna cleared her throat. “Your grace, perhaps it is time for the formal coronation robes.” Dame Brionna turned to Kit. “Do you have the ring of invisibility?” she asked, referring to a plan they had adopted for her to invisibly accompany Alistair in the procession.

“Yeah. Time for you to go become Archduke,” Kit said to Alistair. “Time for me to become invisible.”

Alistair looked sharply at Kit. She covered it fairly well, but there was an unmistakeable note of bitterness in Kit’s voice as she referred to becoming invisible. He resolved to speak with her about it later, but immediately before the coronation was not the time.

The Council made its way to the Vale of Tabewatha, along with a small army as a largely ceremonial honor guard. A large number of fey appeared as the procession began its long progression into the City--mostly sidhe, but with a smattering of lesser fey. They watched with a mix of curiosity and approval before disappearing completely as the procession left the Vale.

All told, the coronation procession took hours, as they looped three times around each of the three walls of the city, before finally making their way through the Inner City to the Cathedral of the Sun. Huge crowds surrounded them at every step of the progression, with great cheering for the Archduke as he passed by his people. The cheering was distinctly loudest in the Outer City, perhaps because the people there felt less of a need to maintain a sense of decorum. With the last of the assassins dead, the progression was a formal event of pomp and ritual. While Dame Brionna and her chosen guards spent the entire procession searching for hidden threats or blades, they saw nothing untoward. And finally, the procession crossed the Cathedral Square and entered the Cathedral itself.

Alistair strode through the nave where only a few short days ago they had fought the rat-ogre and knelt before the high altar. The Archbishop led Alistair and those honored with places within the Cathedral through a brief prayer and asked for the blessings of Glor’diadel upon Alistair and Canberry. He then lifted up the crown of the Archduke of Canberry and spoke in a loud, ringing voice. “By the authority vested in me by the Holy Mother Church; by the authority vested in you and your family by your bloodline as Archdukes and Emperors of this land; and by this land itself and its people, I invest you as Archduke. You are bound to the land, and the land to you, from now until you die.”

The Archbishop placed the crown upon Alistair’s head, crying “Long live the Archduke!.” Alistair felt a rush of energy rising up through his feet and filling his entire body. Suddenly, in a much more concrete way than he had ever experienced before, Alistair was the Archduke of Canberry.

[End session 19]
-----

A couple of notes. First, I hope the tension was apparent-- as players, we were very worried going into that duel. The Master Unbidden rolling three consecutive 20s on his last three saves before the duel didn't help. Fortunately, his rolls on the representative round of combat were so lousy that it all turned out okay.

Second, we asked whether we got any bonus XP for the Master Unbidden's death (beyond the plot arc completion bonus that we got). The DM's response: no, but Lord Davion leveled up. Given how many XP it takes him to level at this point, we were just fine with that.

Finally, we all leveled as a result of this session. Back in the day, the norm was that you wouldn't get land until "name level", or more or less 9th level. I was tremendously amused that Alistair became 9th level in the same session that he officially became Archduke.

As a thread management question: I'm thinking of starting a new thread for the continuing adventures, since this is the end of a major storyarc. I would include a link in this thread, of course, to facillitate following it. Do people like this idea? Dislike? I'm hoping to bring in some new readers who may not want to start reading a thread this long, but might start in the middle.