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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cafu" data-source="post: 6384597" data-attributes="member: 6692807">Except that if it was a trap, it was being shut in a very leisurely manner; the three newcomers sauntered between us and Danava and as they did, the figure in the forefront spoke and a drawling, bored tone: “Ah Danava, I knew that it was only a matter of time before you betrayed the Empire. I told my mistress so. Well, I have prepared for this day. Most of your officer corps now belongs to me; it only remains for me to arrest you for treason before we take this wretched shell of a city and add it to the Empire! Though why anyone would want it is beyond me!” He spoke in such a clear tone of voice and with such an accent that it was obvious that he had been taught to project his voice to intimidate or charm; much like Longhelim, except that the paladin’s talent for this was innate. The odd thing was that he seemed to be almost ignoring us. His conversation was directed at Danava alone. As he finished talking, the general and his bodyguards were already to beginning to edge back while Shaaladel turned towards Longhelim and asked casually: “Which one shall we kill first?” Without hesitation, Longhelim replied: “The three in front!” The talker in front of us made a minor sign with his hand, almost a twitch but this had a dramatic effect; a black miasma of evil, like a pall of despair descended upon our group. I recognized it; it was an ability natural to evil outsiders but it usually took more effort to cast; this individual, Legate Kolvus I assumed, looked to be most powerful. Just to prove this, a moment later, with consummate skill, he drew his bow and shot the paladin several times in succession. Everyone exploded into action at that point; Aurana flew into the air but not before she cast a spell on Shaaladel, making it look as if he moved slightly to the left; he looked oddly translucent. Then she cast another spell on herself; a mass of shadowy tendrils enveloped her form; I recognized the spell; it was a very powerful form of defense as the tendrils could make attacks against any foes who approached her too closely. The two devas reacted differently; one had to heal itself; they had both been affected badly by the first power which Kolvus had emitted but that one had suffered in particular; the other began to radiate an aura which enveloped all of us; I had seen it before as Felix had used it; it had powerful defensive abilities. Shaaladel began to shout in elvish while Kolvus’s two companions began to act; one of them made a waving motion with his hand and suddenly Victor flew some distance into the air, as if flung by a huge force. Thankfully, he was able to fly magically and immediately began flying back. The other just seemed to concentrate and suddenly I saw a blade made of force appear in the middle of our group and begin whirling around; in many cases, it struck armour or shield but it cut me badly; thankfully, I had my magical defense active, which took the brunt of the blow. Drudge immediately began to fire at Kolvus while Felix began praying to Farlangh; then another unpleasant surprise arrived in the magical appearance of a large creature behind us, an enormous snake with the torso and upper body of a woman with six arms, each of which bore a weapon. I recognized it immediately! It was a marilith! One of the most powerful of all demons. I gaped; a demon working with an erinyes? It was impossible! Demons and devils had been foes for millennia, to the exclusion of everyone else; unless the marilith somehow had been subjugated by the devil; which meant that Kolvus indeed was far more than he seemed. Fortunately, Victor had returned and landed next to the demon; John took that opportunity to cast a our spell of speed while Kolvus did his trick with the black miasma again; the devas suffered very badly once more and Aurana cast a spell on Shaaladel; he looked at the two bodyguards and seemed to start slightly as if he had never seen anything like them before. Then he struck the one nearest to him with his swords, shouting in elvish again; I wasn’t sure if he was swearing, shouting orders or uttering elven war cries. Drudge exchanged arrow fire with Kolvus but then had to hurriedly step away from the marilith; it was actually concentrating mainly on Victor, who was skillfully using his floating shield as usual but as it had six arms and was so large, it was actually quite difficult to dodge its attacks; thankfully, he also had been magically protected. Despite the danger, I began to edge back and cast a powerful debilitating spell towards Kolvus and his bodyguards; I knew I did not affect the erinyes but it was impossible to tell with the other two. Felix, in the meantime, had cast a powerful spell on his hand; if successful, it could dismiss the demon from this plane; unfortunately, she recognized it and stalked the priest, slicing him with her weapons again and again until he slumped over, his body a wreath of flames; Victor took the opportunity to assault her viciously, but I knew that her flesh was unnaturally resilient to his adamantite weapon; one needed cold iron which had been blessed to hurt her fully. Just as the priest fell, I managed to land a black ray the demon; it weakened her badly and she reacted by casting a spell which aided her defences; I recognized it as well. It was the evil equivalent of the spell which the deva had cast; one of its most dangerous aspects was that every time she was hit, there was a possibility that the striker could be badly weakened. It was very powerful magic! Kolvus triggered his miasma again, and poor Felix’s flames went out; on our side though, Kolvus’s female bodyguard dropped under concentrated blows from Shaaladel and Longhelim; then Shaaladel was flung high into the air; he hung up there, obviously flying but also looking so outraged that I was sure that something like this had not happened to him for centuries. “Welcome to our world!” I couldn’t help but think, rather mischievously. John’s hands emitted a ray of light which went into the other bodyguard, the first time that individual had been hurt and Victor continued to concentrate on the marilith. Unfortunately, before he was able to do so, the erinyes hurled his rope at Drudge; it wrapped itself around him and prevented the archer from doing anything; the marilith then edged towards me and proceeded to use every single one of its attacks on me. Even in its weakened state, it sliced its way through my magical defence as if it wasn’t there. A strange thing happened a moment later as Aurala called out: “That…..thing; whatever it is, is now under my control!” And indeed it moved over to Kolvus and attempted to hit him as the Legate ducked rather hurriedly. At the same time, the one remaining deva in the battle cast a powerful spell; a barrier of whirling blades appeared on top of the bodyguard; I could hear an exasperated hiss from above as this was very likely to interfere with Aurala’s controlling magic. Be that as it may, I had other things to worry about; the marilith was still in front of me, readying its swords for another strike. Thankfully, Victor moved up in a studied manner and almost as an afterthought, aimed, struck and moved at the same time; yet his blow was of such speed, accuracy and power that the marilith was sucked back into its plane; but not before she looked at me and one of its hands made a universal slicing motion under its neck and it mouthed: “You and me; next time.” Sighing in relief, I looked up to see that Drudge had somehow freed himself from the rope that had been wound around him and began to shoot arrows at Kolvus again. Despite these, Kolvus still managed to produce his dark miasma but that was his last action as more sword blows and arrows found him. Just before he was pulled back to his plane he just grinned and shouted: “Goodbye my friends. It has been fun but there are plenty of other evil empires out there who have need of my services!” That only left the last bodyguard which was quickly subdued by Shaaladel, Aurala and Longhelim. We still looked around for a few moments until the two elves came down. Then Danava edged forward again, speaking as he approached: “Well done! I am under magic which compels me to serve Ragesia but with Kolvus gone, the compulsion is far weaker and I can prepare for the surrender of the army; after all, as I mentioned, with all the forces of men and elves now arrayed against me, as well as the power of the Torch, this can only result in the destruction of my army and the Empire of Ragesia can certainly ill afford to lose a whole army!” I knew of the compulsion magic about which he spoke and thought that he was taking a risk in interpreting it that way but ultimately, it was not my decision and anything which aided the surrender of the Ragesians was not something I was going to argue about. Danava continued: “So, what next?” Longhelim thought briefly and then spoke: “You have to make your declaration of surrender somewhere. I would suggest Summer’s Bluff.” Summer’s Bluff was a large mound upon which stood the colossal statue of Drakus Coaltongue; it was also the largest open area in the city and the place where the Festival of Dreams took place. It had long been mooted that the only reason why Coaltongue put his statue up there was to remind people of his presence as they celebrated the Festival; it was the largest annual gathering of Gate Pass inhabitants and the statue was no doubt an important psychological prod when the city was under Ragesian domination. It would be a fitting irony to take the surrender of a Ragesian army under the watchful eyes of their dead emperor; particularly since we were carrying his head in our luggage. I came to the conclusion that it would be better not to mention that to anyone in the Ragesian side; or the elves for that matter. Danava just nodded replied: “I will go and order my army to stand down.” Then he left with his bodyguards.     Victor, in the meantime, had gone over to Felix and was examining him; moments later his just stood up and sadly shook his head; Shaaladel noticed the movement and said: “You have done quite well for humans and the lesser races; better than I expected.” With a motion of his hand towards Felix, he added: “I have people who will be able to do something about him, if you have the diamonds.” We all nodded and immediately began rummage through our possessions, getting the gemstones together; having put them all in one container, we gave it to the elven King who took them and then motioned for one of the Devas to  pick up the priest ‘s body. As he was getting ready, I had to ask: “Your Majesty: my friend the priest described the creatures who were Kolvus’s bodyguards; in fact I believe the Aurana cast a spell on you which allowed you to see through their illusions; please tell me if you would: in all your centuries, have you seen anything like them before? Or anything even related to them?” Shaaladel gave a moue of distaste, as if admitting this was painful: “No! Neither Aurana or I have ever seen anything like them! Something I find very disconcerting. Your friend will be back in the morning.” With that, he and his entourage turned on their heel and flew away. Longhelim watched them go and then said softly: “Faden? From the description, do you think you know what they were?” “I think, they are some form of trillith we have not seen before; we have heard them described as something from a nightmare and those were the exact words that Felix used when he was describing them; that was what made me think of them. Let’s go and speak to Vigilance; he may know what they are.” Slowly, we retreated back to a Resistance safe area. There we were met by an anxious command group; Rantle had obviously spread the word that the Ragesians had retreated. Both he and Diogenes were waiting anxiously and ran towards us as soon as we were spotted. “Well?” demanded Rantle. Longhelim said: “Danava will formally surrender at midday tomorrow at Summer’s Bluff. In return, we will allow him to withdraw his army”. There was an enormous cry as Rantle shouted: “The Ragesians will surrender!” There was no stopping people after that; some of the people began crying, others laughing; there were cheers, shouts and laughter. Someone took out a lute, someone else a pair of drums and soon there was an impromptu musical group; that of course meant that people began to dance. Longhelim spoke briefly to Drudge, who nodded and ran into the night. I looked askance at the paladin who said: “I told him to get to the Resistance of Seaquen and let them know what was happening. They should be there tomorrow as well.” The celebration was in full swing at this point; Erdin Menash had also arrived and was being his usual voluble self. “I can’t believe it! A few days ago, we were wondering how we were going to last the month and now, the Ragesians are going to surrender! And the elves are here! This will be a tale that will be told for centuries to come!” I was keeping quiet; I couldn’t help but remember that nearly a third of the population of Gate Pass had died; thousands of people; among them my father as well as Victor’s brother; we didn’t know where his father was and I had no clue as to where the rest of my family was. Most spell casters of any power in the city had been killed and many of the structures in the city had been destroyed. It was going to take generations before Gate Pass was going to recover fully from this catastrophe, if it was going to at all. Skilled workers were going to leave the city because there will be no jobs for them; except for stone masons; they would be busy; providing there was enough wealth to pay them of course; as for everyone else, there was no money in the city. Most of it either become dragon’s treasure, now melted slag, loot for Ragesian soldiers or had been used to buy supplies. There had been no  true commerce of any type in over a year.   So I wasn’t really in a celebratory mood; neither was Victor; I could see that the soldier was just looking into the darkness; thinking about his brother no doubt. Some time later, Drudge returned; he nodded to Longhelim: “The Resistance know; Kiernan, Simeon and the others will wait for us. Then we’ll need to get them back to Seaquen as soon as possible.” The paladin nodded and then continued to watch the celebrations, smoking his pipe as usual.</blockquote>

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