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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 2822061" data-attributes="member: 11">Session #82 (part i)Ratchis made his way around the Militant of Anhur with his great sword over his head, hanging down loosely, waiting to strike.  Kazrack harried the warrior-priest from the other side, driving him further back from his spearmen who could not keep up as they were slowed.  Ancellus’ helmet rang with a downward blow from Ratchis that would have cut a normal man in two lengthwise.  However, the knights of Anhur do not fall so easily.  Kazrack felt the punch of the spear against the coif of his armor and then the point scraped the dwarf’s face and neck, sending out a gout of blood.  Dorn became visible as he cut one of the spearmen down, and quickly had another one reeling, before having to back off some and take in the three remaining men.  Logan danced back again and again to keep from being flanked, but even the enlarged sergeant’s parried blows sent tremors down his arm that made it feel as if it might shake off.  The other soldier kept moving as well, to keep Logan between them.  Finally, Logan dove into a tumble and through the sergeant’s legs, cutting him deep in the calf as he went by.  He brought his sword around for another blow, but the sergeant blocked it on his shield.  For a moment the sword was wedged there, and Logan jerked it free by dropping into a crouch, dodging his foe’s gigantic sword as it came around for his head.  Logan’s blade wobbled and crunched near the center and was now bent at an odd angle.(1)“Balls!” Logan swore.  He only avoided the follow up blow because Roland’s great lion leapt into the fray.  A moment before Roland had licked the lion, calling to Bast to heal him, as Heriot the battle-mage continued to bleed out.“Watch-mage! Call off your beasts that we may parlay!” Clerebold, Inquisitor of Thoth called to Martin, who watched the action from behind a tree.  It was not clear if the paladin saw Martin, however, or if he was simply calling out in hopes of being heard.Roland and his lion faltered, as Martin stepped into the clear.  “Throw down your weapons, then we’ll parley,” Kazrack called, holding back a blow against Ancellus.Dorn moved back, keeping up his guard, cursing that he was now back in the range of the three remaining soldiers’ long spears.  “Nobody try anything,” Dorn warned.“Sir, we are ready to stand down when your men have,” Martin said.  Six more spearmen came around the southwestern side of the temple.“Yeah, back off or the mage buys it,” Logan tumbled over to Heriot and held his bent sword to her neck.  She coughed and a bubble of blood appeared on her lips.  She was very pale.Ratchis moved back as if to lower his sword, but Ancellus was wrapped up in the lust of battle and the honor it did his god.  He thrust forward with his spear and Ratchis was barely able to parry it away with his great sword.  The militant of Anhur spun around to knock Kazrack’s blows back, and continued, using the momentum of the spin to renew his attack on the half-orc.  The paladin gestured for the spearmen to lower their spears.  The enlarged sergeant lowered his sword, and the other soldiers followed suit.“You had better tell this one to calm down or parley will be impossible,” Kazrack said.“Stay away from him and his fit shall pass,” Clerebold advised.  “Or drop your weapons, he will not strike those he deems as defenseless even in his fury.”“You drop your weapons first, we are certainly not surrendering to you,” Martin replied.Not sure such a man would ever deem him defenseless while he yet stood, Ratchis rained down a series of vicious blows that bent and scored the militant’s armor, but still the Spear of Anhur would not fall.“Fall! So I don’t have to kill you!” Ratchis swore, but he felt the shaft of the spear slap the side of his head again, and had to duck to avoid the accompanying thrust.Roland nudged Logan out of the way and growled a prayer to stabilize Heriot.Two more heavy blows and Ancellus fell, dead.“Watch-mage! Come forward and make an oath to Thoth that if we surrender you will spare the lives of my men.  I give you my word we will make ourselves your honorable prisoners, or else we might as well meet our ends fighting.”“I will,” Martin said, and he stepped forward, with his own hands open and in front of him.  He placed his hand on the holy symbol about the paladin’s neck and swore.“We have made our oath. Now, you have until the count of five or I will fell you,” Kazrack said, sternly.“I will drop my sword,” Clerebold said, doing so. “But I was rather hoping we could come to an agreement without being stripped of arms; that is, depending on your sense of honor.”“Yeah, and maybe if you’re real nice, maybe we’ll still let you arrest us,” Logan rolled his eyes, his sword still at the ready.Ratchis looked up from casting Nephthys’ healing graces on himself.  “I will not approach closer than twenty feet until this thing is settled,” he said, his great sword biting into the bloody earth beside the corpse of Ancellus.“I accept your surrender,” Martin the Green said, and he scooped up the paladin’s sword.  “But we will have to insist that your men surrender their weapons.  We would not want one of them to think to play the hero, when real heroes come to agreements with honor and abide by them.  Don’t you agree?”Clerebold nodded dumbly.“Have your men drop their spears and weapon belts and they will be collected and returned,” Martin said.  “We have no desire to leave you defenseless in this dangerous environment.”One by one, the mercenaries dropped their weapons and lined up to enter the temple.  Kazrack applied divine healing to one of the bleeding soldiers, while Clerebold took care of others.  Some of the soldiers carefully carried the wounded in as well.“I am sorry that we had to slay the militant,” Kazrack said, coming over to shake the hand of his foe.“Waste no tears for that one,” Clerebold replied. “He died as he would have wanted, fighting, regardless of the reason.”He entered the temple as well, followed by Kazrack and Dorn.“Well, this is the better bargaining position,” Roland said, transforming back into his human self   “Shall we hold the wizard separately to assure their good behavior?”“We are being honorable about this,” Martin replied.“But you are going to look through her spellbook while she’s out, right?” Roland winked, walking towards the temple doors.“Um… I hadn’t thought of that,” Martin said. “I probably won’t have time to learn any new ones anyway.”“I still think we can’t trust them,” Logan said.  “You know we’re only going to have to fight them again if we let them go. Might be best to just kill them now.”“You must miss, Gunthar,” Ratchis said, angrily, as he went in as well. “Because you are in an awful hurry to take his place.”Logan sneered.The other mercenaries were rounded up.  There were a half-dozen exploring the edge of the rent in the ridge that could not climb up fast enough to join the fight before it was ended.  There were four more who had returned to Summit for news and supplies and arrived as the sun set to find themselves quickly taken.  Soon, the Keepers of the Gate were in the absurd position of guarding nearly four times their number.“Should we lock them in the basement?” Kazrack asked, not sure what to do.“Inquisitor Clerebold has given his word for him and his men and that is more than sufficient for me,” Martin replied.“That, it certainly is. However,” the paladin cleared his throat.  “Now that I have done you a favor and surrendered to keep my men from being killed, would you please return the favor by explaining why it is than an obvious man of honor such as yourself would ignore the king’s calling and his duty to the kingdom he swore to help, both as a man and as representative of your Academy?”Martin sighed.“I shall endeavor to explain it all once we have worked out a promise that you will not seek to delay us,” Martin said.“Our intention was never to delay you, or to keep you from any mission, but rather to come to the king to face charges.  No exceptions could be made.  I have no authority to accept excuses for the king, only the king can do that,” Clerebold said.  “And now?” Kazrack asked.“Now? Now, we have failed to arrest you.  We must return to Twelve Trolls to alert him and discover our next instructions, if he is even still willing to keep us in his employ,” the paladin explained. “And if not?  We may turn our eye to the conflict in the Black Islands.”“On whose side?” Logan asked.“The law says we must tolerate the snake-worshipers, but when they have turned against a king anointed by god and his people in order to carve their own kingdom?  There is no law that says I cannot relish in bringing them justice,” Clerebold’s eyes shone.  “Now that Ancellus is dead, there is no one’s vote to stop us.” (2)“So you feel your duty is to return to the king and tell him what happened here?” Martin asked.“And anything else I have learned,” the paladin replied, quite honestly.The Keepers of the Gate went into the vestry to confer, leaving Dorn in the main chamber to watch over the small army by himself.  “When is the beam of light supposed to hit?” Kazrack asked.Martin looked at Ratchis. “Fuh… No, three days at sunrise,” the watch-mage said.Ratchis counted on his fingers and nodded his agreement.“We can’t keep them here and we can’t let them go, if the king is what we think he is, he might be able to get something ready and back here in that time,” Ratchis said.  (3)“We can lock them in the basement,” Kazrack suggested again.“Or kill them,” Logan suggested in a whisper.  “I know we are only going to have to fight these guys again.”No one replied to the suggestion. Back in the main temple chamber a few moments later, Martin continued. “You understand that we cannot let you go and talk to the king.  At least not yet.  He might be able to muster some other force that would delay us, and we cannot be delayed.”“What is it that is so important?” Clerebold asked.Martin the Green began a brief overview of everything the Keepers of the Gate had done since leaving the Garvan Gnomes at the tail end of the previous winter.  He concentrated on how figuring out how to get into Hurgun’s Maze at the proper time was of the utmost importance.  The party could risk no chance of missing it.“Even though not going to the Key Room might mean just that,” Richard the Red said, appearing at the door to the vestry.“Where have you been?” Ratchis demanded.“I told you before, Ratchis, once I have gone to the realm of shadow sometimes it takes me a long time to return,” Richard smiled as if not some afflicted by a horrible fate.“We are not going to the Key Room,” Kazrack stated flatly.“Wait!” Clerebold stood.  “I do not know who this person is, or what this ‘Key Room’ argument is about, but we have not yet come to binding terms of our compromise, and I would rather know the disposition of my men and myself before you move on to other matters.”In the end, Martin and Clerebold were able to hammer out an agreement.  The Inquisitor of Thoth and his soldiers, along with Heriot of the Ironstaff, would wait at the temple of Bast for four days before leaving to return to Twelve Trolls.  However, Clerebold made no promise to withhold information from any other of his men who might be missing and return or other agents of the king that might arrive, or to keep them from leaving.With that settled, the party could get back to arguing about the Key Room as they been before the Company of the Impervious Ward had arrived.As evening fell, Cordell of Thoth and Razzle Greyish returned, looking a little tired, but Razzle was immaculate and smiling as always.  They explained that they sought out another way out of the caverns they knew of, but that was many miles distant.“The soldiers aren’t worth much, but I am sure we can get a lovely ransom on the wizardess and the paladin,” Razzle suggested.“They are free to go in four days time,” Roland explained.“Some people have no sense of tradition anymore,” Razzle replied, and tucking his plumed hat beneath his arm, he went down to the larder to find more wine.“Anyway, I believe Bast’s words made it clearest,” Roland said, getting back to the argument.  “I believe we are making a grave error to not go to the Key Room.”“We do not have time,” Ratchis said.“We have reason to believe time will not be an issue wherever the Key Room is,” Logan said. “It moves slower there, or something?  I vote we go.  I mean, you know…knowing where the door is, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a key.”“I wish Chance were still here,” Martin sighed. “He could have settled this with a coin toss and we would have had faith in it.””I thought we had settled this foolishness?” Kazrack was exasperated.  “We cannot go.”Martin nodded his agreement.“And you Dorn?” Ratchis asked.Dorn shook his head, unsure what to say.“I notice that the two who most want to go are the two with the least experience with Richard the Red,” Ratchis said.“We need a formal vote,” Kazrack said.  “All for going to Key Room?”Dorn, Roland and Logan said, “Aye.”“Those opposed?”Martin and Kazrack said, “Nay.”Ratchis looked around and then said, “Nay” as well.“We are at an impasse,” Martin said.“What do you think?” Kazrack turned to Clerebold. “You have overheard our discussions, what would you do?”“I would seek out a temple of Thoth and do more research,” the paladin of Thoth responded.“I only voted to go straight for the Maze and forgetting the Key Room because if we are going to fail, at least let it be actually getting into Hurgun’s Maze, not some side place that we may or may not need to go to.” Martin explained.“And I only voted as I did because I wanted to insure a tie,” Ratchis said. “I want more time to think.”  The arguing started up again, but soon Kazrack had everyone quiet down.“I have an opinion that is unswayable by any means,” the dwarf said.  “I know where my faith lies and nothing anyone says can change that.”“And I feel the same way about my position,” said Roland.“Exactly, but we are all willing to accept the decision of the majority of the group, correct?” Kazrack asked.Everyone nodded.“Then I shall remove myself from further debate, as should Roland,” Kazrack said.  “Obviously, it is the choices the others make that matters in this case.”“Well, I already said why I am making my decision, one chance to fail is better than two chances to fail,” Martin said.“And I am certain we should go because I think we may find something in there that will give us a fighting chance while in the Maze,” Logan said. “If the one chance of failure is a big one, but you have an opportunity for it be two with smaller chances of failure, then you trade up.”“So they will leave as well,” Kazrack said. “Leaving the undecideds to talk.”“We’ll go,” Ratchis said, and he stalked out of the temple.  Dorn followed soon after.Meanwhile, Kazrack went back down to the caverns and cast the runes once again.“I apologize for the temerity to bother you again so soon,” Kazrack said to his gods.  “But the circumstances have changed  since the last time. Should we stop at the Key Room on the way to Maze, or go directly to the Maze?”The rune-thrower moved the stones about some, but he did not feel the elation of enlightenment and saw no patterns in the runes.  All he felt a was a great sadness wash over him. (4) -----------------------------------------Notes:(1)    DM’s Note: Logan’s second strike fumbled getting this result: Hard Awkward Blow, Roll weapon’s damage, double and add Strength bonus. Compare this to weapon’s hardness and hps to see if it breaks.(2)    DM’s Note: Read more about The Company of the Impervious Ward and see their stat blocks <a href="http://aquerra.wikispaces.com/Company+of+the+Impervious+Ward" target="_blank">here</a>.(3)    The party found what they think is evidence the king might be of demonic origins as well.(4)    DM’s Note: Kazrack’s player botched his rune-throwing skill roll.</blockquote>

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