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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 2901981" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chapter Thirty, “Cassie Awakens“, August 8th, 1018 Back at the tavern, Jerry observes a large group of monsters approaching, comprised primarily of Bugbears. Bruce is once again sent out to blend in with the enemy, which he is able to do very easily, by merging with a group of wounded bugbears in the rear of the new group, assisting one of the more severely injured. This group heads into the tavern, where most begin drinking. A human fighter wearing ill-fitting bugbear armor leads this group. He orders the bugbears accompanying him to “have no more than two drinks, and eat some food with it.” He then supervises the movement of six of his most injured bugbears into the inn, where they are placed in beds in three of the first floor rooms. Bruce is then able to eavesdrop on a conversation between this new group’s leader and a mage leader of the group that was at the inn. Bruce lingers around, feigning concern about his injured comrade, and overhears that this new group encountered their enemies a few hours earlier, and that these enemies were riding a “magical metal dragon”. During their courageous battle with the dragon, half of the bugbears were killed or injured. This “dragon” then attacked the stagecoach, capturing it and all of its occupants except for the fighter. “How is it that you alone escaped, and without your armor?” the mage asks. The fighter replies “I was attacked by the dragon, which chewed up my armor, and tried to swallow me whole, but I fought it off with my sword”. The mage appears skeptical of the fighter’s story, but informs him that “My Orange Squad now includes members of both the Red and Turquoise Squads, and we would welcome the addition of a Gold Squad member too.” The fighter declines, saying that the Gold Squad is far from beaten, that his leader had a contingency plan in case of her capture, and that he will stay loyal to that group until he sees a gold flare in the sky. The fighter then criticizes the mage for allowing his troops to get drunk. The Mage says that they cannot move on the enemy until they know where they are hiding, and that morale was so low among his monsters that he needed to do something to lift their spirits before asking them to fight on in these ever-deteriorating weather conditions. Bruce is seen loitering about by a different man who yells at him “Hey you, what’sa matter, don’t like the dampness in the tavern. Get the hell back there, you wimp.” Bruce takes this as a cue to leave, and returns to the tavern. As before, he offers to deliver beverages to those guarding outside, taking a small keg out on his shoulder, which he uses to refill all of the mugs of the guards with. After this, he again disappears into the woods and returns to Reginon’s house. Bruce tells Jerry what he had heard, Jerry deciding that the enemies don’t appear to be going anywhere soon, so the information can wait until Immy wakes up. Finding the ever-increasing wind troublesome to navigate in, Timothy and Serita eventually complete their three-mile flight back to Crystull’s house. They land, Serita opting to remain in Pegasus form. Timothy enters the building and lets the others out of the bag of holding. They also unload the bodies from the second bag of holding, and strip the magical armor off of the thief. Meanwhile, on the southeastern coast of the island, the Viking longboat carrying the Sea Castle Adventurers and Silver Moon Second Mate Hans, comes to shore. They carry the boat into the woods and hide it beneath branches, then start to head north on foot towards the town. The Anti-magic barrier has wiped Aurora and Razou of their spells, as well as temporarily negating the magical properties of all magic items. Aurora suggests that the group keep a low profile until their magic items function again, although Billy Bob is quick to point out that his M-1 Rifle was unaffected by the barrier. “Fine, you cover the rest of us,” is Aurora’s reply. Elsewhere, after nearly three days of being unconscious, Cassie-Andra finally awakens. She is in an unusual location that is covered by a pink-and-blue colored fog, where she appears to be floating on air. She sees occasional flashes of light, and also what appears to be several floating geometric shapes of various size and color, with a texture that resembles stone. She has no possessions of any kind, and her body appears to be made of iridescent golden light. In addition to being unclothed, she also notices that she is currently bald. Near her, sitting on the edge of a light green oval shaped flat rock, are two men. Their bodies are also made of the same type of iridescent light, although with more a silvery hue. The men are also without any possessions. They bear a very strong resemble to each other, and look to be tall, healthy, muscular and robust humans in their early twenties. Both men have long flowing hair nearly down to their waists. One is clean-shaven, while the other has a neatly cropped beard and mustache. They gesture for Cassie to approach them, the one with the beard calling her by name. Cassie is suspicious of them, and very angry about what has transpired. She begins her conversation with them by rattling off a series of accusations and angry questions. They calmly answer her questions, and soon convince her that they mean her no harm, telling her that they are on a specific section of the astral plane. They also explain how the brightness of their forms is a reflection of alignment, and how evil thoughts and lying causes the hue to change, so that it is impossible to tell lies undetected. They explain her brighter hue than theirs being her good alignment and theirs being closer to neutral. They introduce themselves to her as Hendry and Rainville, and that they are twins. They explain how in their culture the father is the absolute ruler, and how it was their father who committed them to working with Morgarth, and this was not of their choosing. She asks where their father is now, to which Rainville, the one without the beard, replies “Dead. He was the first casualty in this confrontation.” She notices Hendry briefly flush with the color of negative emotions. His silvery hue returns, and he adds “You killed him. While in dragon form you grabbed him and crushed him against a wall of force. It took us a few days to get over our anger towards you for that, eventually coming to realize that you were merely defending your home, and that the fault of his death lied with another mage. That magician was the one who first blew our father’s ambush plan by altering you prematurely to their presence, and the same mage who later kept the wall of force up while father was being beaten into it.” They then relate to her their family history. They are from the Forrest Dawn Kingdom, a distant land, where the practice of primogeniture (land and power passing to the eldest male) is strictly practiced. They tell how their grandfather, Carter, is the leader of the land, which she would equate as the King. Carter had several sons, but only one daughter, Carlissa, who he regarded as his precious baby. When Carlissa was a teenager, thirty years earlier she fell in love with a young mage named Hendry. “So you are Hendry Junior?” Cassie asks the bearded one. “I was, but with our father’s death I am now just Hendry” is his reply. Rainville continues the tale “Grandfather had not yet arranged a marriage for his daughter, but was against her marrying this commoner. Rather than breaking her heart by forbidding the union, Grandfather decided to let Hendry break her heart instead, by requiring both Hendry and his father to relinquish their claim to primogeniture, with Hendry agreeing to become subservient to his bride and her family. Grandfather was certain that no man would ever agree to this, to essentially deny his manhood, so this would end any talk of marriage. Hendry, however, was so deeply in love that he would have agreed to anything to marry Carlissa, and Hendry’s father was pragmatic enough to realize that his son’s future would have more opportunity as a member of the royal family, so also agreed. The two soon married. Although Grandfather’s plan had backfired, he now became the absolute ruler over our father, beginning what to our father turned into three decades of utter hell. Hendry was appointed the title of Chief Mage and Ambassador, a role intended to keep him away from both the Kingdom and his bride. Our mother, however, had a mind of her own and insisted upon accompanying her husband on as many trips abroad as she could. Grandfather objected, but was never able to deny our mother anything she truly wanted, so eventually gave in. This was, however, curtailed when she became pregnant with our older sister, then later our older brother Carl, and then finally with us. For the next decade she again was confined to the kingdom to raise the children, and we saw very little of our father who was kept away on diplomatic missions. Grandfather became a surrogate father to our sister Carrie, training her to be a fighter like himself. Our brother Carl would also have become a fighter, were it not for his natural tendencies towards sneakiness. When we became teenagers and it came time for us to choose professions, Grandfather insisted that I too become a fighter.” Hendry interrupts “Yes, in spite of both of us showing an inherent disposition towards magic. Thankfully Grandfather did permit me to study magic, as he always hated me for being named after our father, and Grandfather recommended that I accompany my father on missions, where I suspect he hoped we might both perish.” Rainville continues “This plan of Grandfather’s also backfired. For with our mother having been trained as a Priestess, our family unit of six now had representation from all major classes, so was able to travel abroad as a self-contained adventuring team. This we did for eight years, up until last year when tragedy struck. While fighting a Demon on another plane our mother perished. Upon return to the Forest Dawn Kingdom, Grandfather tried to have her resurrected, but that proved to be unsuccessful. In a fit of rage, Grandfather blamed Hendry for her death, and permanently banished him from the kingdom and his family. Hendry then pointed out how, with the permanent death of his wife, his contractual agreement with Carter had ended. While as King Carter could indeed banish him from the Kingdom, Hendry had now become the head of his family, and decreed they would all leave with him. We left the Kingdom that day, never to return.” Hendry picks up the story from there “To my brother and me this past year has had many great opportunities. We were never happy in our Grandfather’s kingdom, and also never completely happy with the occupations chosen for us. During the past year I have begun to also learn the fighting occupation while my brother has begun to learn to use magic. Unfortunately, our father has been depressed and despondent over the loss of our mother. This has turned him into a bitter man, exacerbated by our sister who wishes to return to the Forest Dawn Kingdom. Our brother’s wife also misses her home, and continuously nags Carl about returning.” Cassie asks how they came to be associated with Morgarth. They state that, twenty years earlier, their father had been apprenticed once by the chaotic evil arch mage. While the two then parted company due to their different outlooks on life, the arch mage always kept in touch with his pupil after that. Morgarth recently initiated contact again with their father, taking advantage of their father’s current bitterness. Their father saw this current mission as an opportunity to enrich their family again, hoping to again provide his children with a lifestyle similar to that which they had become accustomed to in their Grandfather’s land. Rainville and Hendry point out how, with the death of their father, there is no clear line of succession. Normally, their older brother would take charge, however their sister has pointed out that she is the oldest, and since their family had been a Matriarchy, she should rule. Their sister Carrie wishes to leave the island now, and return to their homeland, bringing with them the body of their father. Both Rainville and Hendry strongly oppose this, as they not only do not wish to return there and also feel that Grandfather would not have Hendry’s body resurrected and would instead permanently destroy it. “Brother Carl is torn as to what to do, but has declared that they we an obligation to continue the mission to which father had committed the family to.” Cassie comments about how “he’s just thinking with his groin, and will do what his wife wants.” Rainville adds “Perhaps, although Carl’s wife Lisa is also at an impasse, in that she would like to follow Carrie’s suggestion, but does not want her husband to relinquish control of the family to his sister, wishing for him to be the new head.” “Which would, in effect, let her rule,” adds Hendry, “Whereas she is the least experienced one of our team, being only a fourth level monk, that would probably not be wise.” Rainville continues “The discussion, however, was a moot point until about an hour ago. With father’s death, Morgarth’s second in command, a powerful cleric named Roger, was put in charge of our group. It was only an hour ago that he departed on an errand. At that point we initiated a family discussion as to our next course of action. Hendry continues “We did get them to agree to allow us to bring you here for this conversation. We wanted to get to know you better, and find out what type of person you really were.” They then ask Cassie to tell them about herself, which she does for the next half-hour. Back at the Tavern, Immy wakes up. Jerry fills him in about the new enemies next door. Immy studies his Whispering Wind spell, and to send a message to the others, putting together a twelve-word message to Serita stating “Serita, at Reginon’s, almost one-hundred drunk enemies at tavern and staying, Immy. The message goes off in the breeze, traveling twelve miles west and hitting the ear of the Pegasus Serita. She transforms back into the half-elf form in order to relate the message to the others, beginning with “Immy is doing something weird” and then telling them the message content. Lono and Mojo are noticeably upset about the idea of the monsters drinking all of the booze at the tavern. They suggest sending Timothy to scout out the tavern, in Pegasus form via the Belt of Shape Change, but disregard this idea once they realize that in that form he would not be able to bugger any gnomes. They decide to talk again to the cleric Barry, who had previously been forthcoming with information. They choose to not tell him about them killing his magician friend, as he had been concerned before about her safety. They ask him again about the number of groups of enemies, and find out that initially there were 500, but that 92 were killed during the initial assault on the island on the fifth. Prior to Morgarth threatening the other group in the city of Cortange another 92 bugbears were sent as replacements (and were the first ones hit once the big guns arrived). Fiona complains “See, he cheated. He said 500 but he actually sent more.” “What’s this world coming to when you can’t trust the word of a chaotic evil villain” comments Kruk.</blockquote>

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