Patchwall 14, CY 593
79—The spirit of the letter.
The arrow whistles into and through a pillar of sunlight beaming in from the sky-light; the missile pulls a funnel of dust motes behind it, leaving a pixie-dust trail marking the intersection between the will of Lucius Maturin and the Will of the Pale. This boundary-bridging object, imbued with meaning, strikes Sir Mathor in the crease between his gorget and his breastplate. There is a screeching sound as it ruins the hand-tooled engravings, putting a line through the phrase “exalted be His name.” The quarrel embeds itself in the muscle alongside Sir Mathor’s neck, a painful wound, but not immediately deadly. Sir Mathor jerks once as the arrow of slaying discharges its magic into his frame, but Pholtus is with him, and he does not succumb to its charge. His eyes flash with the anticipation of glory as he rips his sword from his jeweled scabbard. A moment later, his saturnine scowl slowly turns to a rictus grimace as the purple worm poison constricts his airways and begins to freeze the muscles around the wound.
Jepso Crim displaces Redga, and she uses an ioun stone to invoke a greater magic weapon into her brilliant energy morning star before moving forward. Heydricus invokes Tritherion’s favor before moving to stand beside Redga in front of the two knights.
Sir Amara’s mount, Triumphant, rears backward on its hind-legs and roars—a sound so loud and pure that Lucius is shaken and taken aback, fumbling with his cache of poisoned arrows. Sir Amara raises his lance heavenward, and places it within the nimbus of light streaming down from the ceiling, sanctifying it with a holy weapon invocation. The light plays across the lance, and continues to dance up and down its length as Amara levels it at Heydricus. Mathor’s mount joins the fury with a roar of its own, and Mathor touches its brow, placing a bull’s strength on the beast.
As soon as she sees the two judges finish their preparatory spells, Prisantha sweeps them with Mordenkainen’s disjunction, tearing spell from target, and rendering their efforts worthless. She finishes with a quickened stoneskin and a wink.
Lucius fires a second poisoned arrow into Mathor, provoking a rare curse from the pious man. At that moment, Jespo Crim dominates Amara, seizing his mind with a self-satisfied cackle. At Jespo’s direction, Amara dismisses his celestial mount, and as the golden lion fades back into Pholtus’ realm, the paladin abandons the fight, fleeing behind the large tapestry for the unseen parts of the hall.
Mathor spurs his mount toward Heydricus, but he is met halfway through his charge by Regda, who nearly dismounts him with a single powerful blow from her brilliant energy weapon. The morningstar she took from Piscean’s henchmen is semi-real—as light as a feather and only truly “there” for organic matter, say, paladin skin for example. Mathor twists in the saddle, grunting as each of her sledgehammer blows strikes skin through his plate armor. Mathor’s mount seizes Redga in its paws, and attempts to take her to the ground, but she keeps her feet beneath her. Mathor drops his lance and removes a mace from his belt, breathing in short gasps.
As Regda and the lion wrestle for position, there is a sudden flare of light in the chamber, and at three equidistant points, small motes of light grow and coalesce into the form of tall otherworldly winged humans, clutching two-handed swords in a reverse grip and levitating fifteen feet from the floor—each of them an identical asexual being, perfectly beautiful save for the fact that their faces are featureless ovals of smooth, unblemished skin.
“The Three Judgments!” Cochrane screams. “We’re doomed!”
“Prisantha of Verbobonc,” one angel says. “We Judge you Guilty.”
Prisantha sighs once and collapses to the floor, dead.
Tau cries out—the first noise he has made since entering the room—and rushes toward Prisantha’s side. He takes her head in his arms, and mumbles softly to himself.
Heydricus charges the angel who spoke, and leaps high into the air, running his sword twice across the being’s torso before landing lightly on his feet. Beams of bright white light leak from the wounds on the celestial’s chest, and mark the arc of the Liberator’s sword with a slowly fading trail.
Lucius pulls his bow and fires three shots at Mathor in a quick sequence. One of them sings harmlessly off his visor, but other two punch through the chainmail protecting his weapon arm. Mathor slumps in his saddle, and his lion releases Regda and prepares to flee. But before it can fully disengage itself, Regda destroys Mathor’s head with one clean stroke. The helmet, of course, is completely unmarred, save for the thick coating of its former owner staining its interior.
The lion fades away, leaving the headless corpse no support, and it crashes to the ground with a clattering ring, a life-size puppet dressed in the Pale’s most expensive armor.
Lucius giggles despite himself, but fortunately for his dignity, no one notices.
Jespo Crim points his finger at one of the Three Judgements, and mazes the angel with a smirk. The creature disappears into extra-dimensional space and Jespo favors Heydricus with a “see, this isn’t so bad as one might think” look.
The two remaining angels turn to Jespo. “Jespo Crim, We Judge you Guilty.” Jespo sucks a faint last breath, and collapses.
“Jespie, no!” Redga screams.
“Lucius Maturin,We Judge you Guilty.” Lucius’ laughter stops suddenly and he pitches face-first into the buffed marble floor.
“Goddamnit, stop killing my friends!” Heydricus strikes the angel one more time, a tremendous blow that crumples the creature, and brings it to the ground. Before the last of its feathers flutters to a rest beside its lifeless form, Heydricus has charged the intervening distance to confront the last remaining angel. He is met by an enraged Redga, who has left the corpse of Sir Mathor behind with tears in her eyes.
Finding himself suddenly free from his domination, Sir Amara calls Triumphant back to his side, and shamefully returns to the fray to find that the unthinkable has happened. Mathor is dead, but worst of all, one of the Judgments lies in a bloodless heap near the door, and a second is missing. That heretic Tritherionite and his filthy mercenary whore are even now attacking the third. Amara levels his lance, and charges Heydricus, striking the Liberator with a glancing blow. Motivated by spite, or perhaps just impotent fury, Amara’s Lion cuffs Cocraine as it passes with one huge paw. The gnome cries out and flies literally parallel with the ground, spinning like a top before coming to rest in a pile next to the dead angel. Cocrane shudders and manages to mutter, “if it please the court, I’m hurt . . .” before passing out.
Regda batters at the angel furiously, her weapon pounding home again and again. The angel’s wings flex reflectively before it joins its companion on the floor in a lifeless heap.
Tau looks up from his reverie at Prisantha’s side, his eyes wide. “She’s still breathing!” he says. “Heydricus! She’s still alive!”
“Heal her, goddamnit!” Heydricus yells, but he knows Pholtus will not heed his former priest. “There’s a potion on Lu . . . on the body of the Marklander—feed it to her!”
Sir Amara swings Triumphant around for another pass, but this time, both Heydricus and Redga are prepared to receive his charge. Triumphant pounces upon Heydricus, who levers his sword in both hands against the animal’s bulk, while Redga slips around Amara’s side, and lashes the lion’s flank. Triumphant’s guts do not function very will in their new arrangement, and it sags limply against Heydricus. Regda windmills her final stroke away from the dead beast and onto the meat of Amara’s leg. The Pholtan knight cries out and releases his lance, sliding backward off his mount even as the creature fades away. He stumbles until he can get his weight over his remaining good leg, and readies his mace for a charge.
Heydricus glares at this Pholtan who, moments earlier, had threatened to murder him (in the form of a Wintershiven trial). “See where your high-and-mighty airs got you?” Heydricus snarls. “I cut my teeth fighting the Old One—you cut yours sitting in judgment over impoverished priests.”
Amara does not flinch. “I serve the Flan people, halfbreed.”
“You keep thinking that as you die. I’ll live knowing the truth. Regda, kill this a-shole.”
Regda kills the sh-t out of him.
Prisantha stands up, regarding her hands suspiciously. “I’m alive?” she asks. “Or are we all dead together? I swear that angel killed me.”
“Gods of my fathers, the pain!” Cochrane moans.
“We are alive,” Heydricus says, moving toward the gnome with a healing potion.
“Well, I wish Jespo were restored to life,” Prisantha says.
Jespo sits up, checks his familiar pouch, and after a glance around the room (and crushing hug from Regda), somewhat self-consciously limited wishes that Lucius were also raised from the dead.
“Crim, when is that angel coming back?” Heydricus demands.
“Which one?”
“The one you mazed away.”
“Well. That is a complicated question.”
“F-cking summarize!”
Jespo’s mouth opens and closes. “Any time now. No longer than ten minutes,” he says.
“Fair enough.” Heydricus positions himself and Redga next to the spot the angel was last in.
Prisantha walks across the room, and pulls Tau to his feet. The former Pholtan is still kneeling where she fell. “Tau, how do we get out of here?”
Heydricus laughs. “We walk out the front door!”
Pris wrinkles her nose. “Please don’t be such a zealot, Heydricus.”
“Heydricus Tritherionson, I Judge you G . . . “ the angel begins, even as Heydricus and Redga lash it into suddenly smaller really Lawful pieces.
Tau leaps forward and throws his arms around Heydricus. “I never dreamed you would come for me. Thank you.” He raises his head from the Liberators’ barrel chest. “Thank all of you.”
“Well.” Jespo says.
“But I have a favor to beg of you,” Tau continues, his eyes pleading. “There is someone very special to me who is also held here—he is to be executed, I am sure. Could we . . . could you?”
“Hell yes we’ll free your friend!” Heydricus says. “Can Wintershiven get any worse than this?”
!
Click the link at the top, or go here: 
