Ekossigan greets us and mocks the Court’s watchdog, Lord Varal. He asks whether we understand what is happening in the Bleak Gate. According to him, Lord Varal’s wife,
Kasvarina, is responsible. To uproot the evil at its source, he must enter the gate, and doing so requires the sacrifice of the children.
Ekossigan’s form becomes more solid, and the rain outside begins to freeze.
The great tree starts to tremble as though an army is approaching from outside. Lord Varal rushes out to hold off Ekossigan’s forces, leaving us to deal with Ekossigan himself.
Ekossigan of Winter fully manifests. Three white feline creatures appear and immediately attack Kane. Ekossigan follows with a blast of icy breath that strikes hard. Ayleen fires back, but the damage is disappointing. Sarïa casts
Font of Moonlight.
Ekossigan shouts:
“Within the belly of your mountain sleeps a child that must never be awakened!”
Felix unleashes a
Chromatic Orb at Ekossigan, knocking the elf unconscious before the spell continues onward into the snow leopards. The cold outside immediately begins to subside.
Kane heals himself while the rest of the group shoots down the cats. Sarïa examines the fallen creature and determines that he is unconscious but not dying.
At the base of the tree, Asrabey Varal is speaking with the fey creatures and appears able to calm them. Before long, they disperse. The orphaned children are safe, though badly shaken. Gianni frees them from their bonds.
Lord Varal returns to the top of the tree and pulls something from his pocket: a
cold iron nail. He revives Ekossigan and demands to know where Kasvarina is.
“Inside Cauldron Hill, in the Bleak Gate,” is all Ekossigan knows.
Varal then declares Ekossigan a traitor to the Court and drives the iron nail into his chest. The fey immediately crumbles into dust. The same burst of energy heals us, and the tree spontaneously blossoms.
Lord Varal announces that he will ask the king’s permission to enter the Bleak Gate in search of his wife. He then teleports away.
We spend the night with the children.
B-Team
That evening Ambassador
Brakken wishes to visit the
Sunset Bench Club with
Geoff Massarde and Captain
Rosalyn Taylor of the Danoran Navy to attend a performance by
Rock Rackus.
We sit at a table directly in front of the stage, where Brakken casually sends a few people away to make room. Rosalyn, captain of the sailing ship
Freux Rouge, has red hair and wears an eyepatch.
In one of the private boxes, two people are engaged in conversation. One of them is
Quentin August, Kell’s lawyer.
Rackus announces a performance at the opera house the following day.
Suddenly Quentin shouts from his box:
“That’s a waste of money! We need firepower, not an escape route! Now I’ve missed half the show!”
He storms out, followed by three bodyguards. He gives an order to one of them, who immediately hurls an oil bomb at the bar. Surrounded by bottles of liquor, it erupts into a massive blaze.
The B-team takes down one of the gangsters while the man who had been speaking with August flees in the opposite direction, accompanied by another individual. The crowd panics.
Josiah and Serena run outside in pursuit of the lawyer. Meanwhile, Kaea escorts the ambassador and his guests toward the emergency exit.
Brakken overhears someone say:
“We have to kill him before he can talk.”
Josiah and Serena see Quentin climb into a carriage. Serena jumps onto the roof and lies flat, but the driver spots her.
The two gangster bodyguards dismount and confront us. Lawyer Quentin attempts to magically charm Serena and invites her into the carriage, but she resists.
The carriage drives off again, but Serena catches up.
Josiah receives assistance from Dima in dealing with the two gangsters. Meanwhile, Serena follows the carriage to a mansion where Quentin August disembarks and enters the building. The RHC agent memorizes the address.
Josiah shoots one gangster dead and, after wounding the other, manages to place him in handcuffs.
Dima casts
Zone of Truth. Josiah questions the captive. The man knows August’s address but does not know where Kell is hiding.
Behind the club, another body is discovered—the man who had pursued August’s mysterious contact.
Gaetan interrogates the corpse with
Speak with Dead.
The dead man’s name was
Bjorn. He does not know the name of the man he was chasing, nor what that man discussed with August.
That same man killed him.
After escorting the ambassador home, we consider using a
Sending scroll to inform Kane of August’s address, but our supervisor encourages us to handle the matter ourselves.
At the villa, two guards stand watch at the gate in the outer wall.
We climb over the wall and spot two guard dogs in the garden. We attempt to kill the animals. One goes down quickly, but the other manages to bark before it dies.
The guards are alerted and ring an alarm bell.
We sprint toward the house and smash a window to gain entry, arriving in an office.
Two guards stand in the hallway. We dispatch them fairly quickly. We hear movement upstairs, and outside the gate guards come running toward the house.
Carlao blocks the doorway against them, while his teammates behind him gun them down.
When we reach the upper floor, we find a heavy iron security door leading to a shaft.
One floor below, Dima spends ten minutes breaking through a wall. Beyond it lies a tunnel leading into the sewers.
Gaetan finds tracks that eventually emerge from a manhole cover some distance away. We return to the streets.
Suddenly we hear panic nearby, and a gigantic
three-eyed ape appears around the corner.
The beast knocks Carlao unconscious twice before finally succumbing to Josiah’s gunfire and the rest of the team’s comparatively minor attacks.
