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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(contact)" data-source="post: 480459" data-attributes="member: 41">Coldeven 19, CY 59329:  Practice Makes PerfectThe next morning, Heydricus and Halrond examine the body of Dabus, the fallen cleric’s skin flayed from his bones by his own spell.  Halrond tells Heydricus that as a Holy Liberator, the onus of petitioning for the return of Dabus’ life must fall to Heydricus, as he is both Dabus’ field commander and his spiritual mentor.While Heydricus is guided through the purification ritual and fasting, Prisantha teleports to the Academy of Magic, to speak with her associates there, and check in.  In the library, she encounters Gwendolyn, her rival and all around unpleasant wizardess.Gwendolyn, is as usual, dressed to the nines in the height of courtly fashion, and she sniffs disdainfully as she regards Prisantha’s battle torn and sweat-stained clothing.“You’ve been . . . busy, I see,” Gwendolyn says through a stiff smile.  “Yes,” Pris replies.  “We’ve been fighting Iuzians.  And quite successfully I might add.  Yourself?”Never one to back down from a contest of one-upmanship and name-dropping, Gwendolyn says, “Oh, I’ve been working very closely with the Council of Four.  Thrommel’s dead, haven’t you heard, and the search for a suitable successor has become paramount.  In fact, I daresay it’s the issue facing our Kingdom, and I’m honored to have been hand-picked by the Four to lead the search.”“Facinating,” Pris says.“Yes.  It really is.  I’ve been spending quite a bit of time in the South with the Baron Butrain.”“Oh, I know him,” Prisantha says.  “In fact, I was just there myself, as it happens.”“Really,” Gwendolyn sniffs.  “Well. I myself just returned from an evening at the theatre there.  Butrain is quite the patron of the arts, you know.”“Yes.  We took in a play together,” Pris snaps back.“As did we.  Of course, we saw the new show.”“Yes, the Seven Halfling Brothers.  Butrain took me to opening night.  He must have really enjoyed the performance, to go a second time with you.”Score one for the Enchantress of Verbobonc.  Chastised, Gwendolyn takes a tense farewell, shooting daggers at Pris with her eyes as she goes.That evening, Pris relives more carefree days, falling asleep studying in the library as was her custom over the long Summer of peace.  She dozes at her study desk in the library, four books open around her, and if no one notices that the one directly in front of her is A Handbook of Ladylike Fashion, by the Viscountess Trill, it is because Pris has slipped the book inside a larger tome, Fundamental Principles of Transubstantive Drift, revised third edition.Heydricus, meanwhile has been left to his vigil over the body of Dabus in Halrond’s personal chapel.  As he prays and meditates, Heydricus is struck by the sensation of dampness about his feet and knees.  Opening his eyes, he sees that the small chamber is rapidly flooding with water.  He wets his fingers, and tastes the liquid—saltwater.In a dream-like haze, the room fills with an ocean swell, and the walls of the place seem to fade out to the horizon and disappear, leaving Heydricus floating in a sea not of this world.  A large shape appears in the distance, breaking the surface again and again, each time drawing closer.  Then suddenly, Heydricus is confronted by the maw of a massive sea-serpent that swallows him whole in one ferocious attack!As the Liberator of Tenh descends into the belly of the beast, he is filled with an unusual sensation—at once comforting and overwhelming.A voice wells up from the depth of Heydricus’ being, and echoes in his mind.  “I am your father, and your mother.  I am your child and your sibling.  I am your nation, your liege-- and all your loyalty is due to me.  What you are, I made you.  What you have, I gave you.  What you do, I set you to.  Name Me, Heydricus and Know Me.”“You are my Lord Tritherion, my God,” Heydricus replies.“What would you have of Me, Heydricus Tritherionson?”“I would have a brave fighter returned to my side, Lord.  I would have his spell and arm fight with me against our enemy.  Now, more than ever, we need him in the world.”“What you ask of Me cannot be done, Heydricus.  A pact was made before the essence of you was created.  Those of my clergy who die in honorable combat against tyranny are to be set above all others in My realm.  Dabus sits at my right hand, and I cannot break my vow.”Heydricus is crestfallen.“Yet you please Me, Heydricus, so I will do this great thing for you; I will set time back, and return you to the morning before your battle.  If you can face your foes honorably, and retain his life, he is yours.”“You honor me, Great One,” Heydricus says.“And because you are Mine, I will tell you this—beware, for your enemies are multiplied, and they have discovered the knowledge of one another.”And with that, Heydricus finds himself standing in the mines of Cur’ruth, looking over Pris’s shoulder, as she scrys C’mine.This time around, Prisantha’s first teleport is successful, and they arrive several hours earlier than they had the last time they lived through this day.C’min is as surprised to see them the second time as she was the first, and her sword leaps from her scabbard before she recognizes her old friends.  She is tending the wounds of her feverish and delirous companion, but this time the fallen Knight of the High Forest is not yet dead.  Heydricus introduces Dabus, and the priest of Tritherion heals the dying knight.Of everyone in the dingy tent, only Heydricus and Prisantha realize that they have been here before.Heydricus briefs C’mine on the happenings since she took her position with the High Forest Knights, and surprises her with his knowledge of the fell sorcerer that has been dogging her heels, playing with her small band like a cat with a mouse.Surprised, C’mine says, “You know much Heydricus.”“More than I can tell you, my old friend,” is his reply.C’mine, the former Hero of the Temple of Elemental Evil becomes a Liberator of Tenh in that moment, as the four adventurers plan their assault.  This time, they intend to take full advantage of their surprise.Preparatory spells are cast, and the adventurers fly invisibly toward the Iuzian encampment in the ruined keep.  Heydricus carries Prisantha in his arms, apparently oblivious to her new glamorous hairstyle, and the fashionable cut of her new adventuring blouse.The group’s invisible movement is unnoticed by a pair of eyes belonging to a severed head that lies on the damp ground, concealed among the rocks a few yards from the elven encampment.They steal up onto the roof, and are shocked to hear an otherworldly and anguished moaning emanating from within the place.  Shivers of dread worm their way through the nerves of the battle-hardened adventurers.  Of the trio, only Heydricus and C’mine have heard a more fearsome noise—the banshee’s wail that ended Heydricus’ first life in the Temple of Elemental Evil.They press on, creeping into the ruined tower, and as they descend the stairs into the keep proper, a bizarre and terrible sight unfolds before them.The main hall of the keep is pitted and crumbling, and most of the interior walls have collapsed.  The few walls that remain are little more than chest-high to a giant, although the ceiling is unusually tall for an orcish fortress.The horrible wailing is coming from a spectral being, dressed in ancient orcish tribal regalia, and it is kneeling before a broken shield on the ground.  The shield radiates a Bright and Pure light, and the apparition is crying out in anguish as it is repeatedly forced to place its hands into and through the Holy shield.The feindish sorcerer is standing in front of his spectral victim, his filthy wings opening and closing rhythmically as he clutches a wicked-looking barbed medallion and concentrates on his torture.  The sorcerer’s ettin bodyguard stands behind him, one head keeping an eye on the room, the other smirking at the spectre’s pain.C’mine is the first to react, opening the festivities with a pair of shots from her bow that strike the fiendish sorcerer just below the ribs and directly into his shoulder-joint on his right side, crippling him.The ettin is quick to defend his master, launching a devastating volley of thrown javelins with both hands, striking C’mine to the ground, and wounding Dabus.But not wounding him enough to disrupt his holy smite.A wave of Tritherion’s Virtue cascades through the area, heartening the Liberators, and scattering their foes.  The spectre, freed from its bondage, wisps away into the darkness, while the fiendish sorcerer screeches an altogether inhuman litany of unholy curses.Curses that rapidly degenerate into child-like Abyssal babbling as the fiend is feebleminded by Pris.Heydricus leaps forward to strike at the half-fiend, and cuts him deeply twice.  As the sorcerer falls to the ground and shudders in his death-convulsions, Heydricus takes his guard position with his Spear of Tritherion, readying himself to meet the charge of a half-dozen ettins and four trolls rushing the group from the other end of the compound.  Unfortunately for the giants, they charge directly into the path of a blade barrier, courtesy of Dabus.Things go downhill for the Iuzians from there, with several of their number forced back into the blade barrier by Prisantha’s magical compulsions, and when the dust clears, the day has played itself out quite differently from the first encounter.  This time, the Liberators of Tenh have achieved a resounding victory, and have very little of their own blood to show for it.As the group is picking through the remains of their fallen foes, they notice a strange sight—the severed head that was positioned near the elven camp is hovering over the body of the half-fiend sorcerer, muttering to itself in Abyssal.  Its face was never handsome in life, but in undeath, the head’s normally gaunt features are uniquely horrific.  His face is heavily lacerated and small bits of jagged metal are driven into the skin and bones, at the pain centers of the face.  In addition, the skull is pierced through the back of the cranium with a wicked-looking spike of dull black metal.Heydricus, ever the friendly sort, strikes up a conversation with the head, who introduces himself as Misath, a former lieutenant in Iuz’s elite Dorrakan Irregulars sentenced to this horrific state for Insubordination in the Face of the Enemy.Misath is appropriately humble, and expresses what must pass for gratitude in his mind for the Liberators having, well . . . liberated him from his bondage to the half-fiend.  Apparently, Misath is looking forward to re-establishing himself as a Very Important Head in the Iuzian ranks, hoping to become the commanding officer of an internment camp.The Liberators let the thing go about its way, and Misath implies that someday they might meet again, when the Marklands have finally fallen under the Indomitable Tyranny of Iuz.The group returns to Chendl with C’mine in tow, and they brief her on the happenings of the last few months.  She gladly offers to join the cause in Tenh, and pledges whatever support she might be able to give.While the four heroes are relaxing in the noonday sun, newly clean and enjoying fresh figs and summer wine, a young acolyte of Tritherion interrupts them, explaining that a message has been delivered for Heydricus, Prisantha, and Jespo Crim.“Dearest friends,” it begins.“Consider this note a friendly reminder from your former compatriots.  Your ties to life make you vulnerable through your effeminate attachment to sentiment.  Surrender yourselves to our clutching gloom, and spare your loved-ones any unnecessary suffering.“Make yourselves seen, and come unarmed, why don’t you?  Your families, of course, will thank you for it.“Best regards,“Anton, et al.”-----Next:  Family Day for the Liberators.</blockquote>

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