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The Gate Pass Irregulars: A War of the Burning Sky Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Cafu" data-source="post: 6234246" data-attributes="member: 6692807"><p>Victor approached, gently twisted the handle and pushed…….</p><p> </p><p>Several things happened at once then; suddenly five of the undead flew through the walls and tried to engulf Drudge, only to be repulsed by his spell. I could also hear Victor shouting:</p><p> </p><p>“One big room; large pentagram in the middle; looks very bad!”</p><p> </p><p>A pentagram! Maybe we had finally found where all those demons were coming from; but we had other worries right now. The undead, finding it impossible to get a Drudge, decided to attack the rest of us. I was also protected in the same way as the ranger and so was Victor for that matter but Longhelim, Felix and John were not and it was only a matter of time before they found out.</p><p> </p><p>John shouted:</p><p> </p><p>“Felix, get down here; we need to find out if this room is safe! You said that you had your cantrip for magic!”</p><p> </p><p>Seeing a wall of undead in front of me, I cast a spell at them; I realised this would jeopardize my protection but it couldn’t be helped. The spell, a bolt of lightning, was only partly successful, with three targets, two of which were completely unharmed by the spell. Thankfully, Victor had arrived from the doorway and stepped in front of me; he began his methodical fencing and even managed to connect with these incorporeal creatures a few times. At least he was able to stop them from surging forward. He was quickly joined by Longhelim. As Victor had actually struck at the undead, he had also lost his magical protection.</p><p> </p><p>Both warriors were having great trouble with the incorporeal nature of the undead this time around.</p><p> </p><p>Then, there were two simultaneous shouts from near the door. One from Felix and the other from Drudge:</p><p> </p><p>The first was:</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a huge area of strong magic just behind the door! Don’t go in!”</p><p> </p><p>The second:</p><p> </p><p>“Rhuarc’s in the room!”</p><p> </p><p>I glanced from the undead, only to see an arrow hit John, who grunted. I glanced back and decided to use one of my most powerful bolts of lightning; this one would strike all of the undead. Again, it was semi successful, with several of them being unaffected while others had smoking holes through their torsos. The warriors were also managing to score some hits on them but it was all terribly slow; the only advantage we had was that Victor was using that peculiar dodging, defensive style of swordplay which was very effective against the touches of the undead; they seemed confused, as if they had never come across it before. The warrior was leading a charmed life.</p><p> </p><p>“Got you!”</p><p> </p><p>A cry from the doorway, in Drudge’s voice. Then, with horror, I saw that one of the undead had obviously gone through the room and was now attacking John and Drudge at the rear of the group. The warriors were still keeping the others away from me; one of them had been hit badly by Victor and dissipated; another was very badly weakened by Longhelim and I cast my last spell of force bolts at it, also dissipating it with just one bolt; the rest of the spell I directed at another one. John was fighting furiously with his wooden rapier which was particularly deadly to them. He was looking badly shaken though. Drudge was not being distracted by the undead and instead he was watching the doorway like a hawk, bow drawn.</p><p> </p><p>Victor and Longhelim managed to defeat another couple of the undead, now leaving only two. Felix had moved away, using the warriors as protection. Then, suddenly, the last two undead just vanished. I knew exactly what had happened:</p><p> </p><p>“The summoning is finished. Quick, are we ready to take on Rhuarc? I still have some magic left.”</p><p> </p><p>Drudge shouted:</p><p> </p><p>“We’re not going to get a better chance. Do what it is you plan to do now!”</p><p> </p><p>So I shouted at everyone:</p><p> </p><p>“Ready!”</p><p> </p><p>Running forward I cast a spell on the wall, gambling that it would lead into the room. The wall disappeared, creating a new doorway, bypassing the magical trap in the obvious one; Drudge grinned ferally as he rushed in, quickly followed by Victor and Longhelim. John and Felix were still in the corridor, badly weakened by the undead.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s bloody hiding again!”</p><p> </p><p>This was a shout from the ranger. Then there was grunt:</p><p> </p><p>“There he is!”</p><p> </p><p>I stepped in myself at this point and saw that Rhuarc was very close to the doorway; three of the undead were in the pentagram; Rhuarc had obviously just shot Drudge with an arrow but had dropped his bow. The first thing I did was cast my spell on him. A cloud of golden motes and dust settled all around the area, making him shine like a beacon.</p><p> </p><p>“Let’s see you hide now!” I shouted at him.</p><p> </p><p>Then, with horror, I realised what he planned to do.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s planning to jump into the magical trap. We won’t be able to get at him!” I shouted again.</p><p> </p><p>“Nooooo,” this was a shout from behind us and with a mixture of shock and awe, I saw John running down the corridor. The new undead had gone through the wall and were attacking him as he ran through them in an extraordinary dash, flipping his way on the floor and on the walls; unfortunately, I saw that he hadn’t been completely successful as several of the undead tapped him as he sped by. It wasn’t enough to stop him though, as he ran through their midst, dove into the magical trap and let the devil take the consequences; probably literally.</p><p> </p><p>It was heroic; it was magnificent; it was insane!</p><p> </p><p>The trap activated and something appeared but my attention was taken by Rhuarc; for the first time his iron countenance cracked as he watched John’s extraordinary dive; his face formed a mask of rage and he drew his scimitar. He was now faced by Victor, with Longhelim following up behind; instantly, Drudge loosed a volley against him. Several arrows skewered his torso. He still had one last trick to play though; he swung his scimitar against Victor and I swear that the ugly thing actually moaned as it hit him several times; it also erupted in a sickly green light as it struck and Victor swayed badly as he was hit. It looked as if that weapon had an even more evil purpose than just summoning undead; I had a dreadful suspicion as I had read about such evil weapons of legend and I prayed that Victor proved strong enough to resist it.</p><p> </p><p>Evidently he did, since although he swayed, he then steadied himself and proceeded to literally dismember Rhuarc in front of him.</p><p> </p><p>Even in his last moments, Rhuarc did not make a sound.</p><p> </p><p>Quickly, I turned into the cage and saw that this time the creature standing there was a devil; it was a tall humanoid, its body covered in barbs of all sizes. I recognized it immediately; it was a barbed devil. It had already dealt with John; the rogue was in one corner of the trap, a burning figure, prostrate on the floor. The devil grinned at us and then gathered John on his arms and impaled him on various barbs, relishing the contact.</p><p> </p><p>Felix shouted:</p><p> </p><p>“Victor, with me!”</p><p> </p><p>Without hesitation, the warrior stepped next to Felix who disappeared in a flash of flame and re-appeared next to the devil in the same way. Victor was in action immediately and began to strike the outsider; I was worried; this was going to be a hard combat; we couldn’t get into the cage to support them; Victor had been badly weakened by the undead previously and I could see that as usual with an outsider, Victor’s falchion was not biting as deeply as it should have been. Victor was doing his best and the two exchanged a series of blows and counterblows of such speed and strength that I doubted that anyone else could have withstood them; although the devil was hurt, it was Victor who staggered. The devil took advantage of this momentary loss of balance to sweep Victor into a bear hug and impale him onto his barbs. The warrior struggled mightily but he was up against an infernal champion who had had centuries of training; he was also the size of a troll and weighed about twice as much as the warrior did.</p><p> </p><p>Nevertheless, Victor struggled and wriggled so expertly that he was finally able to escape the deadly embrace and slash the devil one more time. The creature gave as good as it got and this time I groaned inwardly as Victor collapsed, wreathed in flames. Thankfully, Felix managed to tap Victor with his healing wand and the warrior stirred and gamely, attempted to slash at the devil from the ground; the creature jumped over the warrior contemptuously and then backhanded him contemptuously across the face, causing him to become wreathed in flames again; then he turned to Felix and hit the cleric this time; the priest had suffered from the undead even more than Victor and looked badly battered but he managed to tap the warrior yet again.</p><p> </p><p>Victor stirred weakly yet again; he took his time, lined up his sword and swung, this time connecting solidly. The devil looked surprised at the falchion striking his ankle, almost severing it. He had been concentrating on the priest.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll see you again!”</p><p> </p><p>He was looking at Victor as he shouted this and then he disappeared in a wreath of flame.</p><p> </p><p>Victor collapsed onto the ground, small flames almost taking him; Felix quickly tapped him once with the wand to save him from unconsciousness before beginning to look after John. Several taps of the wand and the rogue was stirring; wan, pale and listless after his near-death experience but at least he was conscious. He was given the cape and Victor, Felix and he appeared outside the cage in a flash of flame.</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim, John, Drudge and John then began to heal everyone. We also had to clean ourselves up a bit and check on equipment, bruises and magic. Once all that had been done, we began to take an interest in Rhuarc’s corpse. He was searched carefully by John; this was particularly necessary as we were well aware that he poisoned his arrows and we suspected that even in death he may have left some nasty traps for anyone bold enough to search his belongings. Thankfully, this was not the case and we soon had a tidy pile of what looked like well made, and in some cases bespoke equipment. His body was also covered in tattoos; these were magical and explained how he had so many different magical powers.</p><p> </p><p>At this stage, we were unable to find out what was magical; no one had any of those cantrips left but there were some pieces that were obvious. One of these was quickly recognized by Drudge:</p><p> </p><p>“That’s an Efficient Quiver; it stores lots of arrows; and bows and other things but mainly arrows.”</p><p> </p><p>There was also a couple of wands, some empty potion bottles and of course, his scimitar lying on the floor near his corpse.</p><p> </p><p>“No sign of the Torch then?” asked Longhelim.</p><p> </p><p>John replied:</p><p> </p><p>“No, that is most likely in his secret stash if it is even here. The only place that could be is the cave with the waterfall. It’s the only location of note we haven’t yet searched yet.”</p><p> </p><p>“You mean the only trap we haven’t set off yet,” I muttered.</p><p> </p><p>Suddenly, I picked up the Efficient Quiver. I remembered Drudge saying that it carried arrows; maybe there were some more of them in there; nice, magical arrows for Drudge. I took it to John; he was skilled at avoiding sharp points and poison.</p><p> </p><p>“John, could you take out the arrows from here; Drudge, these could be useful for you.”</p><p> </p><p>So the rogue began to pull out various types of arrows; or rather arrows with different points; there were some with tips made of cold iron; others with silver; fortunately, there were none that were poisoned. Then John said:</p><p> </p><p>“Hold on a moment; there’s this last compartment…….I think there’s something else in here……let’s have you……”</p><p> </p><p>He took out a long, thin bone with one end that was fire blackened and a leather handle at the other extremity.</p><p> </p><p>We stared at it breathlessly. I whispered:</p><p> </p><p>“Is that what I think it is?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, Faden, I think that is the Torch of the Burning Sky.”</p><p> </p><p>Felix also spoke in hushed tones, as if he was also awed at this piece of history we held in our hand; the one item which allowed Ragesia to rise above all the other nations in our land; but there was something wrong. The torch was inert, cold and lifeless.</p><p> </p><p>It was Victor who summed it up:</p><p> </p><p>“Shouldn’t it be burning or something…..it looks like just a burned bone.”</p><p> </p><p>“I think Rhuarc has tampered with it. It seems to be snuffed out for the moment,” was the reply from Felix.</p><p> </p><p>I was already thinking of the consequences of our retrieval of this thing.</p><p> </p><p>“We need to get it back to the Resistance as quickly as possible. Hopefully, Simeon will be able to sort find out what’s wrong with it with his Loremaster powers but so long as we have it, we will be the world’s number one target; for everyone: the elves, the orcs, the monks, Dassenians, you name them and they’ll want it; even the gnomes will have a go if they think they can get away with it.”</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim said:</p><p> </p><p>“Let’s not be too hasty in our decision. I agree that we will need to move fast; the elves are coming so we have to make a decision but I think we need to get some rest and recover spells. Hopefully, Felix will be able to cast his spell that allows us to fly in the clouds. That will give us a lot of added flexibility. Let’s sleep on it and make some decisions then.”</p><p> </p><p>I shrugged. We were reasonably safe; I had suspected that the elves would be on their way. That was how Longhelim managed to obtain the freedom of Liat. However, I hoped that we still had one night’s rest of grace and then we would come to a decision about the Torch; although as both Longhelim and Victor were unwilling to combat good outsiders, that was a foregone conclusion as well.</p><p> </p><p>I glanced to the side and then caught sight of the scimitar on the floor. I pointed it out:</p><p> </p><p>“We should probably put that somewhere as well. It summons undead so it’s probably evil and I have a dreadful suspicion that it traps souls as well. I have heard of such weapons but only in legends. I don’t think it’s safe to touch. Could someone wrap it up in a cloak and put it somewhere safe?”</p><p> </p><p>As Victor was taking out a spare cloak I walked over and looked at it more closely. There was no doubt that the scimitar was highly magical. Its blade was made of adamantine, and it was embedded with several diamonds of superlative quality; in fact, I recognized them as being similar in size and shape as those present in Castle Korstull and specifically designed to trap souls.</p><p> </p><p>I pointed these out to Felix, who nodded:</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, souls could be trapped in those.”</p><p> </p><p>Then he mused:</p><p> </p><p>“I wonder if Coaltongue’s soul is trapped in there? And if that is why he cannot be resurrected?”</p><p> </p><p>Closer examination showed that one of the diamonds at least had a soul in it. There was also a gap where a diamond should have been but had been prised out. The hilt had been wrapped in black velvet that had seen better days and on the pommel there was a large black pearl. I looked enquiringly at Felix, who said:</p><p> </p><p>“I doubt there’s anything in the pearl but one never knows; this kind of magic is very much theoretical for me.”</p><p> </p><p>“And me” I muttered.</p><p> </p><p>At this point, Drudge advanced with Victor’s cloak and scooped it up without touching it; as he picked it up though, he dropped it immediately:</p><p> </p><p>“It spoke to me! The sword spoke to me!”</p><p> </p><p>The scimitar was sentient! Yet another legend proving to be true; there were many references to sentient swords in books I had read but they were of the lighter type of books I read for leisure, full of myths and legends; most scholars dismissed sentient weapons as wishful thinking; they must have been so rare as to be unbelievable.</p><p> </p><p>“What did it say?” I asked.</p><p> </p><p>“It said its name was Shaalguenyaver,” replied Drudge.</p><p> </p><p>That meant Bright Shadow in elven.</p><p> </p><p>“What else?” I demanded.</p><p> </p><p>“It didn’t have time to say anything else before I dropped it. Let’s see if it says anything else.”</p><p> </p><p>Rather gingerly, the ranger picked up the scimitar quite carefully and held it for quite some time. Then he turned to us and said:</p><p> </p><p>“Apart from its name, it is offering a pact. It protects its owner from ghosts and various types of incorporeal undead. If the pact is formalized, than these beings cannot approach the owner. This is a very powerful protection; the owner is also not subject to the negative energy attacks of powerful undead. However, in return it demands the soul of its owner; once he or she is slain, the soul belongs to the Bright Shadow forever with no possibility of resurrection.</p><p> </p><p>Oh, she also says that if we go back to the South with the Torch, then it will be too late to repair it. She seems to know about both the Torch and the fact that it’s defective.”</p><p> </p><p>“She?” I asked.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s a woman’s voice,” replied Drudge.</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim was frowning:</p><p> </p><p>“Oddly, despite how it looks and what we have seen it do, there’s is no aura of evil from it. However, it is also a major decision and I think we need to sleep on it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Here?” asked Drudge.</p><p> </p><p>I looked around:</p><p> </p><p>“It’s as safe a place as any; safer than most in fact, with all those traps around. We know where they are but others don’t.”</p><p> </p><p>So we settled down for the night and thankfully nothing disturbed us.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cafu, post: 6234246, member: 6692807"] Victor approached, gently twisted the handle and pushed……. Several things happened at once then; suddenly five of the undead flew through the walls and tried to engulf Drudge, only to be repulsed by his spell. I could also hear Victor shouting: “One big room; large pentagram in the middle; looks very bad!” A pentagram! Maybe we had finally found where all those demons were coming from; but we had other worries right now. The undead, finding it impossible to get a Drudge, decided to attack the rest of us. I was also protected in the same way as the ranger and so was Victor for that matter but Longhelim, Felix and John were not and it was only a matter of time before they found out. John shouted: “Felix, get down here; we need to find out if this room is safe! You said that you had your cantrip for magic!” Seeing a wall of undead in front of me, I cast a spell at them; I realised this would jeopardize my protection but it couldn’t be helped. The spell, a bolt of lightning, was only partly successful, with three targets, two of which were completely unharmed by the spell. Thankfully, Victor had arrived from the doorway and stepped in front of me; he began his methodical fencing and even managed to connect with these incorporeal creatures a few times. At least he was able to stop them from surging forward. He was quickly joined by Longhelim. As Victor had actually struck at the undead, he had also lost his magical protection. Both warriors were having great trouble with the incorporeal nature of the undead this time around. Then, there were two simultaneous shouts from near the door. One from Felix and the other from Drudge: The first was: “There’s a huge area of strong magic just behind the door! Don’t go in!” The second: “Rhuarc’s in the room!” I glanced from the undead, only to see an arrow hit John, who grunted. I glanced back and decided to use one of my most powerful bolts of lightning; this one would strike all of the undead. Again, it was semi successful, with several of them being unaffected while others had smoking holes through their torsos. The warriors were also managing to score some hits on them but it was all terribly slow; the only advantage we had was that Victor was using that peculiar dodging, defensive style of swordplay which was very effective against the touches of the undead; they seemed confused, as if they had never come across it before. The warrior was leading a charmed life. “Got you!” A cry from the doorway, in Drudge’s voice. Then, with horror, I saw that one of the undead had obviously gone through the room and was now attacking John and Drudge at the rear of the group. The warriors were still keeping the others away from me; one of them had been hit badly by Victor and dissipated; another was very badly weakened by Longhelim and I cast my last spell of force bolts at it, also dissipating it with just one bolt; the rest of the spell I directed at another one. John was fighting furiously with his wooden rapier which was particularly deadly to them. He was looking badly shaken though. Drudge was not being distracted by the undead and instead he was watching the doorway like a hawk, bow drawn. Victor and Longhelim managed to defeat another couple of the undead, now leaving only two. Felix had moved away, using the warriors as protection. Then, suddenly, the last two undead just vanished. I knew exactly what had happened: “The summoning is finished. Quick, are we ready to take on Rhuarc? I still have some magic left.” Drudge shouted: “We’re not going to get a better chance. Do what it is you plan to do now!” So I shouted at everyone: “Ready!” Running forward I cast a spell on the wall, gambling that it would lead into the room. The wall disappeared, creating a new doorway, bypassing the magical trap in the obvious one; Drudge grinned ferally as he rushed in, quickly followed by Victor and Longhelim. John and Felix were still in the corridor, badly weakened by the undead. “He’s bloody hiding again!” This was a shout from the ranger. Then there was grunt: “There he is!” I stepped in myself at this point and saw that Rhuarc was very close to the doorway; three of the undead were in the pentagram; Rhuarc had obviously just shot Drudge with an arrow but had dropped his bow. The first thing I did was cast my spell on him. A cloud of golden motes and dust settled all around the area, making him shine like a beacon. “Let’s see you hide now!” I shouted at him. Then, with horror, I realised what he planned to do. “He’s planning to jump into the magical trap. We won’t be able to get at him!” I shouted again. “Nooooo,” this was a shout from behind us and with a mixture of shock and awe, I saw John running down the corridor. The new undead had gone through the wall and were attacking him as he ran through them in an extraordinary dash, flipping his way on the floor and on the walls; unfortunately, I saw that he hadn’t been completely successful as several of the undead tapped him as he sped by. It wasn’t enough to stop him though, as he ran through their midst, dove into the magical trap and let the devil take the consequences; probably literally. It was heroic; it was magnificent; it was insane! The trap activated and something appeared but my attention was taken by Rhuarc; for the first time his iron countenance cracked as he watched John’s extraordinary dive; his face formed a mask of rage and he drew his scimitar. He was now faced by Victor, with Longhelim following up behind; instantly, Drudge loosed a volley against him. Several arrows skewered his torso. He still had one last trick to play though; he swung his scimitar against Victor and I swear that the ugly thing actually moaned as it hit him several times; it also erupted in a sickly green light as it struck and Victor swayed badly as he was hit. It looked as if that weapon had an even more evil purpose than just summoning undead; I had a dreadful suspicion as I had read about such evil weapons of legend and I prayed that Victor proved strong enough to resist it. Evidently he did, since although he swayed, he then steadied himself and proceeded to literally dismember Rhuarc in front of him. Even in his last moments, Rhuarc did not make a sound. Quickly, I turned into the cage and saw that this time the creature standing there was a devil; it was a tall humanoid, its body covered in barbs of all sizes. I recognized it immediately; it was a barbed devil. It had already dealt with John; the rogue was in one corner of the trap, a burning figure, prostrate on the floor. The devil grinned at us and then gathered John on his arms and impaled him on various barbs, relishing the contact. Felix shouted: “Victor, with me!” Without hesitation, the warrior stepped next to Felix who disappeared in a flash of flame and re-appeared next to the devil in the same way. Victor was in action immediately and began to strike the outsider; I was worried; this was going to be a hard combat; we couldn’t get into the cage to support them; Victor had been badly weakened by the undead previously and I could see that as usual with an outsider, Victor’s falchion was not biting as deeply as it should have been. Victor was doing his best and the two exchanged a series of blows and counterblows of such speed and strength that I doubted that anyone else could have withstood them; although the devil was hurt, it was Victor who staggered. The devil took advantage of this momentary loss of balance to sweep Victor into a bear hug and impale him onto his barbs. The warrior struggled mightily but he was up against an infernal champion who had had centuries of training; he was also the size of a troll and weighed about twice as much as the warrior did. Nevertheless, Victor struggled and wriggled so expertly that he was finally able to escape the deadly embrace and slash the devil one more time. The creature gave as good as it got and this time I groaned inwardly as Victor collapsed, wreathed in flames. Thankfully, Felix managed to tap Victor with his healing wand and the warrior stirred and gamely, attempted to slash at the devil from the ground; the creature jumped over the warrior contemptuously and then backhanded him contemptuously across the face, causing him to become wreathed in flames again; then he turned to Felix and hit the cleric this time; the priest had suffered from the undead even more than Victor and looked badly battered but he managed to tap the warrior yet again. Victor stirred weakly yet again; he took his time, lined up his sword and swung, this time connecting solidly. The devil looked surprised at the falchion striking his ankle, almost severing it. He had been concentrating on the priest. “I’ll see you again!” He was looking at Victor as he shouted this and then he disappeared in a wreath of flame. Victor collapsed onto the ground, small flames almost taking him; Felix quickly tapped him once with the wand to save him from unconsciousness before beginning to look after John. Several taps of the wand and the rogue was stirring; wan, pale and listless after his near-death experience but at least he was conscious. He was given the cape and Victor, Felix and he appeared outside the cage in a flash of flame. Longhelim, John, Drudge and John then began to heal everyone. We also had to clean ourselves up a bit and check on equipment, bruises and magic. Once all that had been done, we began to take an interest in Rhuarc’s corpse. He was searched carefully by John; this was particularly necessary as we were well aware that he poisoned his arrows and we suspected that even in death he may have left some nasty traps for anyone bold enough to search his belongings. Thankfully, this was not the case and we soon had a tidy pile of what looked like well made, and in some cases bespoke equipment. His body was also covered in tattoos; these were magical and explained how he had so many different magical powers. At this stage, we were unable to find out what was magical; no one had any of those cantrips left but there were some pieces that were obvious. One of these was quickly recognized by Drudge: “That’s an Efficient Quiver; it stores lots of arrows; and bows and other things but mainly arrows.” There was also a couple of wands, some empty potion bottles and of course, his scimitar lying on the floor near his corpse. “No sign of the Torch then?” asked Longhelim. John replied: “No, that is most likely in his secret stash if it is even here. The only place that could be is the cave with the waterfall. It’s the only location of note we haven’t yet searched yet.” “You mean the only trap we haven’t set off yet,” I muttered. Suddenly, I picked up the Efficient Quiver. I remembered Drudge saying that it carried arrows; maybe there were some more of them in there; nice, magical arrows for Drudge. I took it to John; he was skilled at avoiding sharp points and poison. “John, could you take out the arrows from here; Drudge, these could be useful for you.” So the rogue began to pull out various types of arrows; or rather arrows with different points; there were some with tips made of cold iron; others with silver; fortunately, there were none that were poisoned. Then John said: “Hold on a moment; there’s this last compartment…….I think there’s something else in here……let’s have you……” He took out a long, thin bone with one end that was fire blackened and a leather handle at the other extremity. We stared at it breathlessly. I whispered: “Is that what I think it is?” “Yes, Faden, I think that is the Torch of the Burning Sky.” Felix also spoke in hushed tones, as if he was also awed at this piece of history we held in our hand; the one item which allowed Ragesia to rise above all the other nations in our land; but there was something wrong. The torch was inert, cold and lifeless. It was Victor who summed it up: “Shouldn’t it be burning or something…..it looks like just a burned bone.” “I think Rhuarc has tampered with it. It seems to be snuffed out for the moment,” was the reply from Felix. I was already thinking of the consequences of our retrieval of this thing. “We need to get it back to the Resistance as quickly as possible. Hopefully, Simeon will be able to sort find out what’s wrong with it with his Loremaster powers but so long as we have it, we will be the world’s number one target; for everyone: the elves, the orcs, the monks, Dassenians, you name them and they’ll want it; even the gnomes will have a go if they think they can get away with it.” Longhelim said: “Let’s not be too hasty in our decision. I agree that we will need to move fast; the elves are coming so we have to make a decision but I think we need to get some rest and recover spells. Hopefully, Felix will be able to cast his spell that allows us to fly in the clouds. That will give us a lot of added flexibility. Let’s sleep on it and make some decisions then.” I shrugged. We were reasonably safe; I had suspected that the elves would be on their way. That was how Longhelim managed to obtain the freedom of Liat. However, I hoped that we still had one night’s rest of grace and then we would come to a decision about the Torch; although as both Longhelim and Victor were unwilling to combat good outsiders, that was a foregone conclusion as well. I glanced to the side and then caught sight of the scimitar on the floor. I pointed it out: “We should probably put that somewhere as well. It summons undead so it’s probably evil and I have a dreadful suspicion that it traps souls as well. I have heard of such weapons but only in legends. I don’t think it’s safe to touch. Could someone wrap it up in a cloak and put it somewhere safe?” As Victor was taking out a spare cloak I walked over and looked at it more closely. There was no doubt that the scimitar was highly magical. Its blade was made of adamantine, and it was embedded with several diamonds of superlative quality; in fact, I recognized them as being similar in size and shape as those present in Castle Korstull and specifically designed to trap souls. I pointed these out to Felix, who nodded: “Yes, souls could be trapped in those.” Then he mused: “I wonder if Coaltongue’s soul is trapped in there? And if that is why he cannot be resurrected?” Closer examination showed that one of the diamonds at least had a soul in it. There was also a gap where a diamond should have been but had been prised out. The hilt had been wrapped in black velvet that had seen better days and on the pommel there was a large black pearl. I looked enquiringly at Felix, who said: “I doubt there’s anything in the pearl but one never knows; this kind of magic is very much theoretical for me.” “And me” I muttered. At this point, Drudge advanced with Victor’s cloak and scooped it up without touching it; as he picked it up though, he dropped it immediately: “It spoke to me! The sword spoke to me!” The scimitar was sentient! Yet another legend proving to be true; there were many references to sentient swords in books I had read but they were of the lighter type of books I read for leisure, full of myths and legends; most scholars dismissed sentient weapons as wishful thinking; they must have been so rare as to be unbelievable. “What did it say?” I asked. “It said its name was Shaalguenyaver,” replied Drudge. That meant Bright Shadow in elven. “What else?” I demanded. “It didn’t have time to say anything else before I dropped it. Let’s see if it says anything else.” Rather gingerly, the ranger picked up the scimitar quite carefully and held it for quite some time. Then he turned to us and said: “Apart from its name, it is offering a pact. It protects its owner from ghosts and various types of incorporeal undead. If the pact is formalized, than these beings cannot approach the owner. This is a very powerful protection; the owner is also not subject to the negative energy attacks of powerful undead. However, in return it demands the soul of its owner; once he or she is slain, the soul belongs to the Bright Shadow forever with no possibility of resurrection. Oh, she also says that if we go back to the South with the Torch, then it will be too late to repair it. She seems to know about both the Torch and the fact that it’s defective.” “She?” I asked. “It’s a woman’s voice,” replied Drudge. Longhelim was frowning: “Oddly, despite how it looks and what we have seen it do, there’s is no aura of evil from it. However, it is also a major decision and I think we need to sleep on it.” “Here?” asked Drudge. I looked around: “It’s as safe a place as any; safer than most in fact, with all those traps around. We know where they are but others don’t.” So we settled down for the night and thankfully nothing disturbed us. [/QUOTE]
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The Gate Pass Irregulars: A War of the Burning Sky Campaign
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