NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 6235464" data-attributes="member: 79141">Session 97c - Gallo's School for Boys‏Three miles into the jungle their suspicions that Ekossigan was at large were confirmed: A familiar voice arrested the unit on a switchback trail not far from the school.  Despite the howling wind, they could hear Gale's warnings as intimately as whispers.  Ekossigan was not to be trifled with, she said.  She enjoined them to advance no further, and there was a tremor of sadness and pain in her voice.  Gale made it clear that if they advanced she would be forced to take action, but she pleaded with them not to force her hand.  "I am bound to serve Ekossigan of Spring," she said, "and cannot allow you to approach him." They told her that they could not do so while Ekossigan threatened the Peace Conference.  Gale replied, "All the more reason to depart. Ekossigan has no such plans. He has come to take care of a problem you have too long overlooked.  A year ago I warned you of the canker that bloomed in the Bleak Gate and you have done nothing.  Now Ekossigan means to cut it out!" Leon asked if they could speak with Ekossigan, but Gale replied that it was too late for that now. Warily, they pressed on. Asrabey said that he would not risk harming a female eladrin, and could take no part in opposing her.  Leon responded with the assurance that she would be taken alive.  They needn't have feared: From her vantage high up in the canopy, Gale beset them with magic: whirling cyclones, blinding mists and livid arcs of lightning.  They were thrown about like rag dolls and struggled to advance any further.  When they managed to pinpoint Gale, she flew to another hiding place. Their ranged attacks were futile, and not one made contact with the sorceress, even on the rare occasions when they could see her.  Had she maintained her bombardment they would surely have been forced to flee.  But when a conjured tornado dropped Rumdoom to the ground with such force it would  have killed a normal man, Gale gave an agonized cry of frustration and vanished, taking the winds with her. Leon now saw that Gale was under some sort of compulsion, similar to that which had almost affected Uru when he was called to serve Ekossigan by Ellik and had been forced to renounce his Regalia to avoid servitude.  Uru knew a thing or two about fey curses and began to think how to break  it.  It seemed as though Gale was reluctant to harm them and that Rumdoom's fall had enabled her to break off the attack.  He wondered if Leon, master of subterfuge, might fake his own death if she reengaged.After some healing, Rumdoom got to his feet and straightened his helmet.  The others patched up their wounds and together they pressed on towards a huge tree, that they now realised must hold the orphanage: an old wooden sign declared as much, and a vertiginous spiral staircase wound around  the massive trunk.  From the undergrowth they heard high-pitched squeals and cries, growing closer. "Ekossigan  calls an army to him," said Asrabey.  They ran for the great tree, dispatching a few gremlins that hurled themselves in their path.  Darts spat out from the foliage, and rained down from above as when they gained the stairs. Tiny missiles, they were coated with a fiery poison. They ignored the pain, and climbed on. The stairs wound up for a hundred feet and gave on to a railed walkway surrounding the main school building.  It was well kept, but the presence of the fey had seen the wooden walls warp and sprout fresh shoots.  Through the spaces they could see movement in the darkness beyond.  An unpleasant odour wafted from within - the smell of dead things and rot.  Wooden bridges led to small, round dormitories whence the muffled sobs of children could be heard.  All around them was a steady background hum, modulated and repetitive.  It seemed as if the air itself was chanting. At once they were assailed by tiny pugwampi gremlins and their larger, rougher nuglub kin.  These were lesser fey, but they drew power from their master.  They hurled more poison darts through the cracks in the buildings, and cursed the metal worn by the intruders so that it heated and began to burn.  Asrabey warned them that a huge throng of such creatures was now swarming up the spiral stairs from below.  He stood at the top, lion shield firm, sword blazing, fleet braced. Rumdoom kicked open the doors to the school and hurled a grenade inside.  Leon, Uru and Matunaaga dispatched a few more gremlins, but more appeared, some from inside the dormitories. Gale's voice reached them again.  "You should not have come here," she said. "It is too late." But Gale did not reveal herself right away.  Instead, a wooden mask  appeared, floating in mid-air. Huge antlers or branches swept back from its jaw.  Its eyes were hollow, head titled back as if appraising them.   The ambient chant was louder, closer now.  Slowly, a hood faded in behind the mask, giving the impression of an unseen head, with a mantle of leaves over the shoulders of this invisible being. "Greetings," said a mellifluous voice inside their heads. "I am Ekossigan of Spring."</blockquote>

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