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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jfdlsjfd" data-source="post: 9635934" data-attributes="member: 42856">In the next section, we're awed by how cool Hasan, the leader of the Marijah sect of Assassins that plagued our friend (?) Tobias de Vantery's Templars, is. He avoids traps, display the strength of three men despite having a wiry frame... and so on. He also does some long explaining of the twin Swords of Life and Death... So long I was afraid we would be killing or insulting us as we're won't to do. Hasan takes the blade of Death he was seeking, casually adding that Sussurien would have betrayed us and he hopes we'll meet again... as allies.Well... he just sliced Prince Sussurien's throat, stealing both the kill and the loot -- I was looking forward to poaching that gem the size of duck egg -- he wasn't going to say something like "He was really a nice guy, always ready to please!"We bow slightly toward him to say the same, and when we get our heads up again, he's vanished away. Thankfully, he left the blade of the Sword of Life here, and <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The sword magically reforms as one item, which apparently includes the hilt, for inventory carrying capacity,</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">We get 1,000 xp to be gained at the end of the book,</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">We can now discard it freely without fearing to be victim of the curse of the True Magi.</li> </ul>I am tempted to discard it RIGHT NOW in order to pick a random item, like an iron ration, just to cause some discontinuity in the next two books, who will certainly assume we have the Sword. As we reach the exit, we see a tall slender figure clad in exotically fashioned armour, waiting for us on the steps by the door. Wait, are we being ambushed by a bad guy?We recognize him instantly, it's our old foe... Icon.Actually, the book adds a sentence to explain he's our deadliest foe back from before we started our quest, in the Battlepits of Krarth. Which is nice, because, honestly, I barely remembered him (if I hadn't already played this book several time, I'd saying "hum, I remember the barbarians, the gonzo strategy game player and the three witches, or Echidna, and the dead Magus who took 1,000 years to come up with... the exact same plan that failed last time, but not him. It would have been more satisfying to have Prince Sussurien as a boss fight, TBH.We tell him to brush off, that we don't want to kill him, and he starts ranting.Here it is, and honestly, I'd have expected our heroines to kill him before he ended, but they are abiding by the code that forbids anyone to act while the BBEG is doing his Evil Speech of Time Freezing."By my honour, this is a call to battle! Do you mean I am to suggest I am unable to destroy you? Like the merest ant, I'll crush you! Like a thing without bone, you'll squirm and die under the heel of my boot! For five years I have pursued you, since the day of your callow youth when by stark chance you managed to get the better of me in Krarth. When I arrived in Crescentium [redacted] I discovered you were also in Outremer. Since then, I have remained on your spoor, prepared to hunt you for hate's sake to the very boundaries of the Earth if need be. The petty concern of yours for the magic blade is nothing! My feud with you is like thunder, my wrath is spitting with lightning! He then proceeds to cast the Spell of Retributive Fire before proceeding to insult us again.At this point, we decide to react by shouting a roar of anger and rushing toward him. This guy is really a frothing lunatic![ATTACH=full]402391[/ATTACH]Note that he's also wearing a jewel on his turban. Maybe the illustrator mistook him for Susurrien as well.[ATTACH=full]402392[/ATTACH]He can't be enthralled. Whomever hits him also take 1 HP of damage from his flame armour.Round 1:Trixie moves 1 square right, so Icon can't attack right now, but at the same time Icon moves to the right to meet Winny. Next turn, he'll be adjacent to both of them, and the rules say he'll focus on the one with the lowest FP... which is Trixie, who is also, unfortunately, the hardest to hit...Winny attacks, since Icon went into melee (8) for a 5 damage, and takes 1 one damage.Salvia won't even bother to use an arrow, since the damage is paltry (1d6-2)... She could be wielding a gem doing 3d6 damage...Esmeralda casts Nemesis Bolt (5) for a net 22 damage. Trixie uses her extra action to attack (3) for 5 damage.Round 2:Trixie defends at the same time Icon attacks. 3d6+1 against a paltry FP 9 is hard. The roll of 12 means he misses.Winny attacks (3) for 8 net damage. Icon is down to 15 HP. Salvia starts praying for his soul, as the poor deranged warrior certainly doesn't deserve to go in Hell. Esmeralda casts Sheet Lightning (more useful against a mob, but hey, she might not have the chance to cast Nemesis Bolt against him again...). The roll is 9, an easy pass, for 11 net damage. Round 3: Trixie keeps defending, Icon keeps missing (9). What, NINE? Well, that's a hit on poor Trixie. For 14 net damage. She's down to 21.Winny attacks (3) for 6 net damage, killing Icon (and incurring a second HP of fire damage).Reduced at 0 HP, Icon casts the Vaporization spell, and turns to mist. He claims to retire to restore his strength. We see that behind him, the fire wall he created earlier is dying down, but still emitting a considerable heat. We are offered the opportunity to either run through it or use an item. Which we will, if only to allow Salvia to spend 4 HP to creatie a healing pool of (die roll 2-2 = 0 HP, boo). The only object we have here is the Jinni's copper bottle. Let's try it...(This time, Salvia only gets back 3 HP in the pool healing herself after just spending 3 more HP...) We see that in gaseous form, Icon is trying to reach the place where the Sword of Life used to be, in order to bath into the light, hoping it would heal him. We trick him into reaching up... into our copper bottle instead, and we put the stopper back in.His voice rings from inside the bottle, where he calls us spawn of peasantry and other unpleasing names. He also cast a spell summoning spirits of his clan from the Underworld and task them to take from us what is the most precious to us.By which, of course, he means the Blood Sword.The one I had discarded earlier? Please, feel free, ancestral spirits, to take my iron ration instead. I'll now proceed to conveniently happen to find a random sword lying on the cavern's floor...Instead, we're glum and despondent. We move out of the cave, only to see a door popping out of nowhere, through which Hasan and Fatima look at us. Hasan tries to say that we were relieved from this burden and of our destiny, but Fatima says that we're heroes, and that striving is what we do. She suggests that since the spirits of the dead took the sword, the only way to take it back is to... enter the realm of dead and get back from it, which is fraught with peril but possible. Which we'll do in the next book, after two tasks: leveling up and reviewing some aspects of the book and unexplored paths...</blockquote>

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