Aphonion Tales: The Archducal Council -- Unedited notes; later posts are edited transcripts (posts MWF, update 3/1/23)

[CPaladin]

Session 65 (June 12, 2014)

4 Tar-Skard
Kit meets with the Guildmaster in the same room in the palace with the screen and voice altering magic to interrogate Jerrit the Ferret. They bring in Jerrit, by a group of bruisers.

“So, Ferret. I hear you’ve taken some interesting jobs lately.”

“Yes… I always have interesting jobs.”

“Do you know the one I’m thinking of?”

“They came in the middle of the night. They didn’t ask me—they told me. Group of three of them. Biggest one was a wererat, I think. One faceless man—he creeped me out. I’ve dealt with wererats before. Just smooth skin on his face where there should have been features. The third one was just muscle—he used to sell his service, before the Archduke came. I said it was stupid—no one would believe it without the seal—but they said to just write it, and that everyone would believe it when they were done. Master told me to learn the hand—he used to work in the palace. He was Gavin—to us he was Gavin the Fox, don’t know what his name was here. He was a scribe here—no one knew he did other business. Or maybe she did.

"They said they could make it work, but they knew how, but that I knew the hand.”

“Who else knew you could do this hand?”

“No one alive. Just Gavin, but he’s been dead for a while.”

“Afterwards, what did you do?”

“Nothing—but they let my sister go. She lived in the flat above me…. They had the real paper, the right paper even. I couldn’t remember the name after I finished—like they had erased it from my mind. You don’t think somehow… Gavin’s alive? I went to his funeral.”

“When did he die?”

“Not long before the Archduchess. But dead’s dead!”

“So they tell me,” Kit says wryly.

“The muscle, if he’s local, we’ll find him.”

“I can tell you his haunts.”

“You’ll do that. And then we’ll keep your sister safe. The muscle, you tell us where to find him, and we’ll find him.”

“I thought they’d wiped out all of the wererats, but he were one, sure as I’m telling you. They have a certain stink to them. But he was a big one, bigger than most of them, 6’3” or 6’4”, carried a big hand and a half sword over his shoulder, a big sword, and I think he had chain on, though he had leather over it. But they both yielded all the time to that faceless one. And you could feel when he was looking at you, even though he had no eyes to look. It was like he could look into your mind, but no one can do that.”

“Did the wererat seem local?”

“No, he had a southerly accent. Most of my work has been for people coming from the south. But this? This could be thought of as treason. At the time, I had more focus than I’ve ever had in my life. I could only think of one letter at a time. It was only afterwards that I thought about it.”

Kit sends him out of the room, and sends the guards to secure the sister.

“There have been some rumors among the gutterrunners, the lowest thieves, of someone moving through the passages and not being there. A few weeks—I marked it up to getting a new crop and them being shaky.”

"What about the other that Jerrit mentioned?"

"I’m pretty sure I know who the muscle is. We’ll bring him in.”

“Thank you, Guildmaster. I know you want to keep a clean city as much as I do.”

“I know this Gavin. Best damn forger I’d ever seen. He worked for the Mouth. I can’t imagine him grooming the Ferret. Although if he weren’t a drunk…”
[cont'd]

 

[CPaladin]

[Session 65, cont'd]
The Council discusses the matter; they presumably have a traitor among the royal scribes—the paper, the seal—too many things that indicate access to the royal scriptorium. The Privy Secretary was corrupt, with unseelie ancestry.

The faceless one could be a sluaghe—they’re rare, but they can make themselves look like anything, but if they’re not fascinated by something, then they look like nothing. They are the ultimate devotees of eradication and oblivion among the unseelie—not as well known as the unseelie sidhe or redcaps. Each sluaghe pursues its goals in its own way—groups are almost never seen. The sluaghe’s greatest failing is that they never make simple plans—they love byzantine and complex plans.

The Council checks whether the Privy Secretary had any siblings or other relatives. Does have a distant cousin, serving in the city of Enclaves, but no other recorded family. Her cousin served as a Secretary to the Glordiadelian Bishop.

The Council plans to have Aunt Cecilia check the scribes; the Tor to hunt the sluaghe; and the skaven to deal with the wererat/skaven; Kit is also to talk to her scribe about how useful the Ferret would be.

"There is a messenger for the Archduke, from the most beautiful airship I've ever seen," reports a scribe. A dark elf officer, in a truly elaborate dress uniform, who has handed off his glass blade to a page, performs a ridiculously bow, and presents a platinum tube.

"I represent Sir Galeth Palantil of the Cadet House of Clenorim, and the party that has been sent by the lord of Aufalgautharim."

[letter attached]

The war sloop is completely made of black laen—anyone riding on it is completely immune to magic.

"The Aufalgautharim will not bestir himself from the City of Pain—especially not now. The King of Pain has not returned, and we believe that he has been destroyed. Perhaps by Morgroth in a fit of rage—they disagree from time to time. He may be a balrog of godlike power, but to Morgroth…"

Alistair invites Caitlyn to a private lunch in his private chambers.

She joins him. They have a very awkward conversation.

After the conversation, they have Dame Brionna send for the Drow. Dame Brionna dresses up in a ridiculous Guard Captain outfit. Caitlyn receives them in her receiving room, with us there as her fiancé and company.

“I greet you in the name of Aufalgautharim. These are my bona fides.” They appear to be on etched glass.

“It’s speaking to me and describing him, and every exploit he’s done in the last 400 years.” Caitlyn is taken aback, but then accepts his service.

After they leave, “Many Hands? He reacted to you.”

“Yes, Princess.”

“Do you know why?”

“Probably, Princess. My ancestors were fiddled with by the Goldorim. I think they were being cute. But I find my hands useful, and here I am. We were discarded. We were intended to be more capable at rune magic—one of the few forms of magic the Noldar do not get that the Eldar do. But we were no more capable than they were. I believe that I am the last of my kind.”

Lord Goldorim is mad, as are many of his close family. Lady Goldorim has been dead for centuries, but three of the four he keeps close are insane, and the last may be, but is more benevolent. He directed that we all be killed because we were defective, but we were released instead. Even the other Noldar fear him—except perhaps Lord Aufalgautharim. Even the Bleeding Lady does not get near him. But he rarely takes interest in affairs outside of Krashmere any more.

When did he?

In the old days, after the Kinslaying. That’s when he went mad originally. I was taught, originally, entirely a matter of the Eldar doing in the Noldar, although I learned later much the other way around. He went mad, and began taking innocents and changing them. He used so many drow for experiments, that his own cadet houses fled in fear, and some others followed them. His treatment of slaves is unimaginable. It is said he may have killed his own wife, though they were life bonded. If that happened, it deepened his madness further.
[End session 65]

 

[CPaladin]

Session 66 (June 26, 2014)

5 Tar-Skard
Kit gets a morning report about a drow mercenary offering information for pay; currently in a safe house. [Attached]

Kit asks her scribe, Alonzo, who Lord Dillion was. He was evacuated from the near Underdark by Enclaves to this palace. He was the leader of a trade expedition to a Drowan city, and he discovered a flesheating cult of death worshippers. He became a little paranoiac, so he was evacuated. His entire band was killed, he was from Mandrath, I’m quite sure.

Also asks her scribe whether he could use a good forger; he says, yes, definitely, he has several, but could always use more.

Alistair asks Bishop Waters to curse Jerrit the Ferret with a curse that makes him become violently ill after drinking alcohol. He’s then sent over to Alonzo.

The Council has the Minister of Magic summon Ak’dravon, the drow mercenary captain. They verify his identity via young Lord Brightspan. He’s one of the grungier and more flea bitten dark elves Lord Brightspan has ever seen.

He’s flea bitten, but actually muscular, wearing a mix of drowan and dwarven armor, with a high glass shield off to one side.

"I’m captain of a small band of drowan mercenaries. I’ve been through hell, and you were the only people who I thought I could sell the information to. I was traveling through the Underdark with a medium sized caravan when we met a mixed group of humans, who were doing surprisingly well for the Underdark, and a group of demons. Not the demons from my home city, but demons nonetheless. They weren’t after us, we were just in the way, but they killed us anyway. They turned aside into the old south tunnel. We went into one of the way houses after escorting the merchants out, and creatures came after us. Not demons, not humans, not were, I’ve spent 80 years in the Underdark, but I don’t know what type of creatures they were. Two of my men and I escaped. Moriquendarim destroyed the creatures.

"Legend says that there was a shrine up the Southern tunnel. The energies that come out of that place, those alone can slay you. I went up that tunnel a little way, far enough to see the energies—the light, the darkness, the colors—you could smell it. And they went straight up that tunnel like a burst.

"I did bring this with me. He pulls out a small pouch that seemed very heavy and lays it on the table. The Moriquendarim captain didn’t mind that I took it."

The Southern tunnel runs to underneath the Fallen Enclave in the north of Enclaves.

"The demons were goat demons, bull demons, but mostly goat demons. And one great thing—I think it’s called a thrall-carrier, a great big thing. Each carries a casket, with either its summoner or a more intelligent demon on its back. But the enormous strength or power they can bring to bear if you need to break something down, enormous. But if your concentration lapses for a second, just a second, my brother used to say, they’ll have killed five innocents or collapsed a building. That’s why they’re banned.

"You start to change if you get too close to the magical energy. They have no Noldar among them, and without that they would be changed.

"Didn’t perceive a creature there, but it was shaking—almost an earthquake, but not quite. A terrible thing in the Underdark.

"I will offer my maps, and my guiding skills to the group that you be sending. If we survive, then I dinnae ever want to return to the Underdark." (The Council promises that if they succeed he’ll be granted knightly rank and an appropriate position.)

He pulls out a head, clearly dead, with a silvery sheen over the flesh. Very gradually as we watch, it continually changes shape, just a little.

“You notice how it could almost be our cousin, but not quite? It almost looks like an elf, but not quite. Unseelie fae do you think?”

"Did you keep any treasure or trophies when you fought your way through?"

"Only a few things." He drops one in front of the Council (that he says he doesn’t want to sell), "and this that I probably will sell". The other thing is a huge plate, cut out of mother of pearl, with runic markings. The first one is a strange, shapechanging metal map, hanging from a chain of adamantium.

Alistair studies the “map” and gets a vision of small colored nodes, almost like a map, and then he basically gets a mind filled with a blast of colors. The small colored nodes rearrange themselves, and Alistair believes that that is the actual physical configuration of the area around the target changing.

Dame Brionna’s page reports that the front gate is under assault.

We tell Ak’dravon to put the map back in an extraplanar space, tell the guards to move him to a different secure location, and then Alistair and Caitlyn get sent to separate secure areas.
[cont'd]

 

[CPaladin]

[session 66, cont'd]
Two figures, both with silver sheens over their shifting monstrous features, are attacking the front gate. One of them is advancing on the gate, holding a long high glass sword that seems to be shifting in and out of reality. The other is just concentrating, but probably holding the gates open psionically. Dame Brionna orders the guards to dump the holy water cauldrons over the wall. It misses the warrior, but hits the psion squarely, who gives out a psionic shriek.

Kit calls to Grandmaster Farsensor, asking him to go to the gate, and then calls for the Minister of the Mind to reinforce him.

Dame Brionna orders the gate closed while the psion is distracted. The knight dives through the closing gate. “The Seal! Deliver the Seal of Ways to me!”

Dame Brionna draws her sword and actually manages to beat him on initiative.

“I have no wish to kill you, but I must have the Seal!”

Dame Brionna attacks, missing with the first attack but hitting with the second (a smite evil), hitting him for 26 points of damage. His armor attempts to grab the sword and steal it from her, and the sight of the appendages is nauseating and profoundly wrong.

The knight goes next, followed by the guards.

“May the Insanity of the Maelstrom take you, woman!” A flurry of blows come in, and Dame Brionna gets hit three times. He rolls absolute minimum damage and does 36 hp of damage. The light and power of Glordiadel blocks something from her soul.

The guards don’t accomplish much, but foul the knight’s sword a little.

Dame Brionna flings an orb of dispel magic. The humanoid component of the appearance fades considerably; it’s now much more of a gibbering monstrosity. The silvery sheen remains, but is now dull and less natural. And it’s armor class is lowered by 3 to 28. And there was a brief flare around him, as it came to the final thing. Dame Brionna then hits him twice with her sword, for 30 damage and 22 damage. The edges of the first wound are acting like troll wounds—regenerating back together.

He shrieks wildly. “It’s gone again! It’s gone again! It’s been concealed!” He shrieks, as if he’s lost his mind, and goes into a spinning dervish attack.

Guards 1 (11), 2 (21), 4 (13), 7 (will not be having children, 46 points of damage, falls in shock for 6 hours, bleeding profusely) hit once

Guards 3 (59 total) and 5 (28) get hit twice

Guard 6 missed.

Dame Brionna gets hit for 32 in two attacks.

Guards attack, hitting 3 times for 30 points of damage, plus a 54 sword crit (inapplicable, changed to 10), doing an additional 21 points of damage and cutting out a piece of his shoulder.

Round 3:A page runs up and hands Dame Brionna her spear. Dame Brionna attacks 3 times, hitting all three times. For 25 damage, 20 damage, and 26 damage.

His blood is very odd—it’s silver.

He drops out of the odd attacks he’s been doing, and his eyes lock on Dame Brionna.

The knight spits on Dame Brionna. Silver spit sprays on her. It burns her as it makes contact. She saves and takes half damage (19 hp). He then attacks guard 3, and fumbles, getting a 46 on the fumble roll, missing completely.

The guards attack, hitting 5 times including one crit. 50 hit points from the noncrits, 24 hit points from the crit, which is a 71 on the sword crits, and removes the knight’s eye.

Dame Brionna’s warhorse arrives, kicks him for 14 hp damage.

Outside the gate, it is now quiet.

Dame Brionna leaps onto her warhorse and heals herself.

One of the guards gives a shriek and collapses. Another guard bellows “The blood! The blood is moving!”

Dame Brionna crits him with her spear, rolls a 99 on the crit check, and decapitates him. The body is writhing. Dame Brionna orders the guards to back away. It is beginning to glow. After a moment, it explodes, because it cannot regenerate the spear’s damage. Dame Brionna gets splattered for an additional 24 hit points of damage, and goes unconscious.

<<Grandmaster Farsensor, is Dame Brionna alright?>>

<<I am without—I’ve defeated the sidhe. I think it was a sidhe, one time>>

<<Dame Constance, is Dame Brionna alive?>>

<<I’m moving towards her—there’s crawling blood about, but she’s alive. That thing might be a sidhe, or might have been once. Have a paladin heal Dame Brionna. They are absolutely inundated in madness—it’s not even Chaos, I’ve never seen anything like it.>>

<<How can we safely contain the bodies?>>

<<Lead—there are lead lined corpse boxes in my laboratory.>>
They send for the boxes.

Grandmaster Farsensor was able to defeat the psion, but was seriously challenged.

Alistair asks Grandmaster Farsensor to contact the local Tor and ask a leader from the Tor if they would be willing to meet him at the elven tree in the garden.
[cont'd]

 

[CPaladin]

[Session 66, cont'd]
Dame Brionna detects evil, and gets inconsistent results—sometimes detecting evil, sometimes not.

Dame Constance says, "If you need to summon the Librarian, let me know. He owes me a favor." Asked which Librarian, she says, "I was thinking of the Librarian of Dis."

Alistair meets with a sidhe from the Tor.

The sidhe wants to see the bodies himself. Alistair warns him that it’s in a less congenial location and then leads him to the laboratory.

The sidhe examines the body. “Your Grace. This is not an unseelie fae, originally. Unimaginably long ago, this was a seelie knight. Oh my—look at the energy infusions.”

He speculates that this may have been sent by the Archangel, not by the Order of the Ram. When the artifact was sealed away, legend said that both dark and light elves, and dark and light fae were part of the guard. His guess is that that was one of the light fae.

"It’s very difficult to predict, but my guess would be that they are all mad, but not all turned to this. By our nature, we are not easy to regiment, and to all be mad like this creature would be regimentation. All will be mad, but some will be responsive. This one you could never have reasoned with. Assume his master is ten times worse, because no fae ever willingly became this. And no Archangel would ever deliberately do something like this to a creature that did not wish it.

"Perhaps you should not open that casket… It is back to a semblance of life.

"The head is of a lesser creature—at one time a wood elf. There were 50 light and 50 dark that entered those chambers. All of the creatures that you have seen so far were once of light.

"If you are willing, my nephew will accompany your expedition."

They also talk about the sluagh. If it were an unseelie, they may have pointed out that they and they alone might be able to end everything.

The seelie promise to track down the sluagh.

The psion was a sidhe lady, the wife of the knight. There is nothing intelligent left there, but she cannot pass to the west until destroyed. They were battered by waves of evil and good, from balrog and archangel, until nothing but madness remained.

"The dark ones are probably even worse than these."

Alistair asks, "Might they be more influenced by the balrog’s goals, perhaps to take and wield the treasures instead of to guard them?"

"They might—that seems reasonable. Be extraordinarily careful in selecting only the most stable possible people."

The Council then plans for Alistair to make the rounds of the city to reassure the people (with Caitlyn, and watched over by a raft of Kit’s people and Dame Brionna’s people to keep him safe).

[End session 66]

 

[CPaladin]

Session 67 (August 14, 2014)

6 Tar-Skard
Alistair and Caitlyn make a grand tour through the city, screened by a whole bunch of both Kit and Dame Brionna’s people, with true sight and detect evil and psions keeping an eye out for trouble. Alistair’s aunt Cecilia leads the way.

Aunt Cecilia abruptly stops, and forges into the crowd, immediately followed by her assigned guards. She kneels down in front of a small child, and begins having a conversation with the six year old.

Alistair: “Lord Brightspan, can you tell me anything about that child?”

“Yes, your grace. He has the sight, but is blind.”

An old lady, clearly in massive deference to Aunt Cecilia (so she even recognizes extended members of the royal family).

Kit asks after her.

“I remembered her from her youth and mine. She used to serve in the palace. She was put out, through no fault of her own.”

“Someone wanted to break up a relationship?”

“If you want to be so crass. The other sister, who is now on Khamista, was more straight-laced than our Archduchess. She is not related to anyone, but the boy’s great-grandfather may be the Archduke’s grandfather.”

“His third-eye is strongly open, more than I’ve seen in anyone that young who was not psionic.”

The aunt on Khamista may have had her done away with if Aunt Cecilia hadn’t intervened. Gwendolyn’s son drank himself to death, but there may be other grandchildren.

The Council arranges for them all to be brought to the palace afterwards.

Nothing even vaguely negative happens.

The guards pick up several bullies that try to take the coins that have been given to young children.

At the edge of the middle city, Lady Cecilia rushes over to a Halfling woman (Mother Beatrice) and begins remonstrating about how she can’t tell a soul about what she knows, not even her acolytes. [I'm not sure what this is about. This may be a priestess of Gunnora realizing that Caitlyn is already pregnant, despite the fact that the formal public wedding has not yet taken place.]

"Who’s the second best?"

"Goody Margaret’s out in the farmlands—there’s been a rash of recent pregnancies, all due around the same time. These things happen. And things are much easier now that they’re not killing us. They? The goat. I mean, not him personally, I don’t think I’d be here. But his people."

In the lower city, everyone thinks that Dame Kit is the brains of the Council, and Dame Brionna is the brawn, with Alistair as just a figurehead.

They reach the palace. As soon as they walk in, Dame Kit notices that one of her people in the house staff is signaling for her.

“There’s a visitor that you may not want to bring to the Archduke. Not one that I know, but knows all the signs and cross-signs and says that she is the Northerly Innards.”

Dame Kit meets with the Northerly Innards. There is a young drow lady, who seems completely fine about meeting behind a screen. “Gisella Alleval, 5th daughter of the first house in Veldrinashar, reporting. Hail Glordiadel.

"The deep berthing beneath Zorplona Argoni should not be used to pass agents into the Underdark. While House Curinirim and Moriquendarim will never lose it completely, it cannot be used safely without sending through too many people to not be noticed throughout the Underdark. There are at least 30 agents placed—most drow hirelings, some of those creatures, 2 or 3 cambions, and a small group of men who bear about them talismans of the Ram. They all entered after the man passed through to reach you, and they all seek the thing he carried. There is an alternative—City of the Gates. There is a way into the deeps from the City of the Gates, where there is some business. It would require them to travel underground for most of the way. I am willing to offer myself as a guide to them.

"Dame Griselda Tharsveld will have to be spoken to—she is a hereditary knight approved by all four gatelords as gate guard, both the two of Darkness and the two of Light. She is Paranswarmian, with considerable devotion. If she gives you access there, you will be able to bypass the agents inserted into the underberth in Enclaves.

"I would present her with the reasons that it is necessary, and that there is no way that we will conduct trade in the underdark without their permission."
[cont'd]

 

[CPaladin]

[Session 67, cont'd]
Dame Brionna sets out into the farmlands with a midwife-priestess of Gunnora, an exorcist priest of Glordiadel, and a bunch of Glordiadelian guards. All of the increased pregnancy rates are associated with an area around a river, with a waterfall. There’s magic around the water, and chaos, but no evil.

“Good fairies of the river, if ye be here, greetings and we would speak with you.”

A group of 5 river spirits, mostly women, but some men, come out of the water.

“We were left behind by our patron—he was rather in a hurry.”

“Who was your patron?”

“The Mad God, the consort of Whimsey. He told us to make the humans happier, and so we decided that humans are happiest when copulating, so we encouraged them to do so. Are you a holy knight?"

"Yes."

"Then you should know about the pair of sluagh. Instead of killing each other, they are working towards a common goal. One of them went to the City, and the other went off somewhere and hasn’t been back to its camp. They weren’t very far, just outside the range of our magic. I don’t think they wanted to copulate."

They lead Brionna to the camp, and then she gets touched on the eyes and everything she normally sees becomes wavy, but she can see many additional things, including little fae dancing around the feet of the big fae, and an almost-abyssal encampment that could hold 4 creatures. They only said there were 2, but there are 4 tents.

We tell the Tor about this. We also ask specifically what the issue is with the other two tents.

That night, there are flashes of light and flame that can be seen from the city walls. About 2 in the morning, a ragged young sidhe runner appears, and asks to see us.

He meets with Dame Brionna. “My lord bids me inform you… oh, just take them.” He hands her two bags. “The threat has been dealt with. He suggests you not display them on spikes as some humans are wont to do.”

“There were four tents. You have two bags.”

“That is true. It appears they expected two additional cohorts who did not arrive, but they prepared for them.” Their banners have sigils. “Oh—the lord suggests that if you are going to keep these, you keep them in the bags in which they are currently, which is lined with silver thread and threaded with moonlight, or in lead caskets that are properly sealed with magic. They shouldn’t be able to regenerate, but he isn’t taking any chances. We are forgoing the victory feast to bury our dead.”

“My liege bade me say that the idea of four sluagh operating in one unit is unthinkable. They are the most hateful and individualistic of all the unseelie, and but for the sidhe the most powerful. They are few in number, fewer than the sidhe. But they are also so, so difficult to breed, even many in the unseelie court would be happy to see them cease.”

“Would they be united in the service of one greater?”

“It would have to be great indeed, and the reward promised would have to be tremendous.”

“We would ask 3 days before any visitors come that we may honor our dead.”

7 Tar-Skard
Very familiar tapping on the door during breakfast.

Dame Constance reports that the sluagh heads have been separated into multiple different rooms and the spells have been reinforced. Several of the things are only mostly dead. According to the old tomes, it is nearly impossible to keep a sluagh entirely dead. And then they reincarnate, so it may be better to keep them imprisoned.

Dame Constance asks for more rooms, and more lead lined boxes.

The Council asks her to check the sluagh for demonic or pariah deity influence. The sluagh are very bad at reproduction, especially because they are all male, so they have to breed with other creatures. There were once only a dozen or so on the whole world, although they are now up to 3 or 4 dozen. The Council speculates that this may be the influence of the Ram.

The Council consults with the Mistress of Etiquette about the proper gift to the fae in condolence of loss of battle. “Oh, dear. The traditional gift would be a human child for a changeling. Failing that, a remembrance of their deeds, first read at the three day mark, and then at the rising of the Silver Moon each time for a year. One could attend the deed ritual, not the first one, which is highly ritual, and then commemorating their deeds.”

Do you know whether they were male or female? We don’t know. Statues for men are easier, because those should be in silver or white gold, whereas statues for women should be in yellow gold or high glass. What about poetry? Yes but it would have to be published widely abroad. The fae view humans as transient, even more so than elves do—the elves pass to the west, but the fae are linked to the land, much as the Archduke is, so when they die, they don’t really die, except in battle with their own kind, or with great powers of others. To lose a seelie fae now, in summer, when they are stronger—their enemies must have been of great power.

Dame Brionna meets with the elders of the four thorps, who are very elderly indeed.

The conversation goes poorly.

Eventually she explains that there are some fae by that waterfall making people randy.

They’ve basically resolved this issue. Also, the fae might clean up people’s memories a little.

Dame Constance reports: All right. I’ve looked at them. They’ve got interworkings with the Ram up to their eyeballs. Probably the rest is infected as well. Intersected for decades, probably a deal to increase their numbers. Question is what they agreed to in exchange.

Grandmaster Farsensor arrives; the Council asks him to scry on the pennants. He requests some pure salt, so that he can ward himself. He does not use his crystal, lest it bond to his skin, but does have it out and available in case it can advise him. “Yes, they are both alive. This one—he indicates one banner—is somewhere on an Abyssal plane, and he’s traveling, and there are human soldiers, a few hundred of them, with him. A handful of cambions with them as well. They are in a tight formation, and making good speed, they will eventually emerge again on the prime, but I don’t know where. This one—the grove that surrounds him smells of mango and cinnamon. He is sunk in water, his form altered so he almost appears to be a creature of the water. An oasis I think. He is waiting, watching the setting sun. Should I determine what he is waiting for? There’s a nontrivial chance that he would sense us. He’s very heavily shielded by magic, but I sense no psionics.

"He’s an hour west of us or so, based on the setting sun. An oasis an hour west—likely in the Spice Lands perhaps near the Seachen lands."

"If he’s trying to break the seal, we need to know."

"He awaits the presence of a woman, of considerable power. I see her face, but he does not know her name. He waits for her because she bears a key. He intends to take the key. He does not intend to kill her, but he would if he has to. The key leads to an ancient passage that only she is aware of, and he is aware of somehow. He intends to use the key to enter the passage because he believes it will take him to his goal. He aims for a way in so that he can emerge… is that possible? He intends to emerge beneath the seal. He bears a dimensional device with him linked to the Ram’s plane."

A loyal merchant identifies her as the Spice Mistress of Seachen. "Incredibly honest. Only woman who deals with any male merchants. I knew a man who tried to bribe her once…"

Many of the spices are as if they were freshly picked, even if they are years old. She is aging extremely well.

The Council summons the Seachen ambassador. She arrives to meet with Dame Brionna and Dame Kit.

Dame Brionna: "We have learned of a grave threat to one of your leaders. The Spice Mistress—we have information of an immediate threat to her."

"I have no means of contacting her quickly—I will need to send a messenger."

The Council has a device to enable a sending.

"She needs to turn away from her current plans and get to safety. There is an ambush at the oasis."

"The oasis of turquoise fountains? But that is the only source of…"

They describe it... a small oasis with a grove of mangos and cinnamon.

"That is it."

"There is an ambush there."

"She will need to go to safety and we will send troops…"

"No. Your troops would die. We intend to call on the great elves to deal with it—it is beyond humans."

Grandmaster Farsensor contacts Singing Leaves, and the Queen agrees to send a strike force. Grey elves, for there are so few Eldar, but the Council will hope they will be enough. The Council warns them to dimensionally lock the area.
[End Session 67]

 

[Quartz]

Several of the things are only mostly dead.

Paging Miracle Max! Or not, in this case.

 

[CPaladin]

Session 68 (August 21, 2014)

8 Tar-Skard
Dame Brionna reports that a letter has arrived from Meredith the Dazzling. She reports an invading force of humans and demons, roughly equivalent to 8 field armies, attacked Zorplona Argoni. If Princess Curinirim herself had not been present, they might not have held the Enclave. However, they did. Moreover, this appears to have been a feint intended to keep Moriquendarim busy and out of the Underdark.

She also reports that her divinations report that for religious harmony and general peace, we must achieve our goals in the Underdark.

She reports that there were three breeds of demons present: marim, sharim, and tolrim, all wearing green. The only thing the Council can make of the green is that that is the color of Hanal—this might be connected to Hanal.

The Council asks Dame Constance about those varieties of demons.

“Those are the three breeds of goatmen in the Abyss. Only the tolrim are of great power, but they are not very numerous. The marim are not very powerful, but very numerous. The sharim could pass themselves off for satyrs if they could clean themselves up and become more amorous. The marim could be defeated by an ordinary human force, perhaps with a ratio of 3 or 4 humans to one. The sharim would take somewhat more. The tolrim would require heroes—they are immune to normal weapons, resistant to fire, and potent.

“It might be a voluntary association through a gate. I would request a report from the Mouth on Hanal. Masque’s loyalty is largely unquestioned, although there is an Order of the Goat. But it would have to be a large enough, organized enough country to support large scale summoning or gate work. There were three, but the southern kingdoms are essentially gone as organized forces. That leaves Masque and Hanal.

"What proof do we have that everything that landed in the far north, beyond the final mountains has departed? We were told that they had departed—after the demonologists failed to find the Wing of Ancalagon the Black and clashed with Lady Peryton’s forces. But that doesn’t make much sense, because we have reasons to know that neither of the wings were available there. (The Temple of Paranswarm has some scales; one claw was reputed to have been made into a powerful wand; of the rest of the body, we know not.)"

Dame Constance plans on making an astral and divinatory survey.

Also reports that there is a man with a clock on his head waiting.

Kit reaches out to her agents in Hanal and in Masque.

“Ah. I was hoping you would contact me. There’s been a purge. The Order of Man struck in the middle of the night against the Order of the Goat, on behalf of the Holy Inquisition. We are fortunate that there were Mantis with them—I’m not certain that the Man and the Wolf would have been enough when they assaulted the Palace of the Goat in the capital. The local Inquisitor General ordered the purge, because the pregnancy rates of that speed and that number were not possible and that they had to be stopped. Many of the women… require more help than the Order of Man can offer. They… some of them… the older ones… are barely human anymore. Goat is one of the orders that historically kept their women away from the battlefield, cloistered. They took part of the Queen’s Guard, the Order of the Mantis, with their flame lances. When they cut their way into the harems, the older women… they were mindless, they had been turned into just living wombs. The Inquisitor General ordered that those that could no longer communicate be put down. Hundreds of prisoners have been taken to the temples by the Order of Man. They are systematically executing those with demon taint. The Inquisitor General has been granted a dispensation by the Adjunct, in the absence of the Protector, to see which of the prisoners were unwillingly coerced. The Society of the Hands of Hell have three valars en route, with those who can clean the unwillingly coerced. But several thousands of the Goat have escaped. The Queen has asked all her ambassadors to ask that no quarter be given to any refugees from Masque. Some might say that Queen Flana is less grounded than some, but I have never seen her as determined as this.

"Especially with the reports we are getting from Hanal… The reports that she is getting are that there is open rebellion now, that they have turned on the clergy in many places, and that the nobility are warring with the clergy and some of the common folk. We also hear that the common folk are fleeing their own farms, but with the nobles taking slaves to work their farms. It looks like the country may split in half. The Kov of Snatterkaz is still besieged, by a force of approximately 4 times his force. One of the nobles who are rallying to the Kov has reached him, a wealthy Strom. The rest are fleeing to the ice line, to the north. They need more flying ships. Without more vollers, it is very hard for an army to survive in the field in Hanal. The Queen has also offered 100 ornithopters. They are not very valuable in a pitched battle with vollers, but they can snipe and run.

"The malaise in the countryside seems to be lifting since the fall of the Palace of the Goat. Many people were reporting stillbirths, many more than expected. We’ve heard rumors that it was both in the capital and moving west towards the Brownlands, but we can’t verify those. It’s so difficult to get reports out of Yael. Will gather info and report back again in two days."

Alistair asks Bishop Waters to reach out to ecumenically minded members of the Inquisition, to get their report.

Dame Brionna and Alistair argue a bit about how much Canberry can intervene in this.
[cont'd]

 

[Quartz]

I don't know if anyone else is reading this Story Hour but I for one continue to appreciate it.