giraine:summary-373
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| - | ====== Summary 373: Effervescent Puzzle | + | ====== Summary 373: Artukan' |
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| + | You begin devising your plan to take out Artukan Goldminder. | ||
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| + | First, in the daytime Shrett and Boamund take a casual stroll past the mansion and observe its structure from the outside: sheer walls of 6m around 2 sides facing the busiest streets, and 12m around the other 2 sides of the rectangular compound. There is 1 gatehouse with big, fortified double doors and then there are 2 towers peeking barely over the walls, toward the back of the main building inside the walls. They head past it to the burnt out hulk of the ruin and ask around if there’s any news about it. All that’s known to those gawking or aiding in sifting through the wreckage is that the inn is basically a total loss, nothing of yours survived, and apparently some servant spread the fire from the outside (stables) to the inside, and there are doubts they made it out alive. They return to the tavern, where Fraud remains, trying to ensure that your movements are not so obvious to the Archon. | ||
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| + | The three of you await contact via the fox spirit, which comes soon enough and tells Shrett that friends of Black Eyes will meet you in an alley by the mansion. You follow its directions and meet three people, all young adults in their early 20s, with the look of Hsunchen/ | ||
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| + | Mindari looks you over, saying that he’s heard plenty about you and you don’t disappoint in-person. Black Eyes is not around, but Mindari will tell you what his people, a subgroup of the Ancient Beast Society called the Wise Beasts, have learned via spirit and animal spies. He warns again of Artukan’s danger-- this is not a place he welcomes many visitors. It is his home. Not a business. And he has the means to keep it very well guarded. Mindari says that if you wish to harm Artukan’s agenda, you could do easier things like attack his businesses. He presses you about this when you reply that you aim to see what’s going on with Artukan and take action – he insists, this task is going to be of great danger. But you persist, so he goes on with information. | ||
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| + | Mindari traces a fairly detailed map in the muddy, slushy snow. There is the gatehouse with an inner set of double doors, and beside that in the main entry yard there is a store-house and stable, usually with a couple more guards. These guards are chosen by Artukan’s servant Pvaksi from various mercenary guilds, highly selective and considered an honour; and well paid. But they are not a private army or strange cultists. Most are Galanini. They rotate in and out of service, or are moved to other businesses, so no guards remain there for long. The outer walls do not have protective magics but it is not clear what main building has. Few have seen it, but there is rumour of some roaming essence, an orb that flies without wind, that wanders the compound sometimes. Artukan himself is a Henotheist Issaries/ | ||
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| + | Mindari does not hide his anger toward the rulers. You think about all the strife you’ve seen and heard of in Ralios, including before you even got here, with your Pralori friends telling you of how the Galanini Queen’s adulthood ceremony was disrupted, and so on. You think, too, about Black Eyes. His words had a similar tone. There is deep animosity toward the horse-riders, | ||
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| + | Mindari also gives news on what his contacts have learned about what happened at the inn, which was revaled by a Lhankor Mhy sage using a Reconstruction spell to see the events. At the stable, the ground erupted and krarshtkids killed the beasts, then vanished back into the ground. A servant of the inn set herself aflame and ran into the inn with flaming objects, dropping some along the way, spreading the flames quickly, and she died in the inferno. Well, at least you know for sure that Krarsht cultists were involved in this. All the more reason, you figure, to strike swiftly before the snow hurricane hits (coming sometime in >24 hours) and flee to elsewhere for improved safety. Mindari then takes his leave, with the other two nodding respectfully with him to you as they go. | ||
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| + | You wait until Bog returns that night and fill him in on the news, and ensure you’re rested so you can confront Artukan’s fortress fresh. You go there later in the night with a plan, and enact it. Bog uses his Fly spell to carry a rope over the back wall and land on the rooftop, securing the rope to the crenellations, | ||
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| + | You are by a rectangular building on the roof “plaza”, | ||
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| + | Bog floats over the Jolanti and hits it, then a warrior in iron plate armour steps out of the door, followed by another. They wield broadswords and shields. You keep hitting the construct. Bog and Fraud also fight the guards, one of whom calls out “So cometh Urcheth” and nothing happens but a twitch of his face, then the other does it and his skin ripples as if fluid, and then the other tries again and a misshapen tentacle erupts from his forehead. Emboldened by his hatred of this Chaos blasphemy, Boamund pushes the fight. It doesn’t take long—you wear the Crystal Jolanti’s head down until it cracks apart, its crystal shattering into shards, and it falls face down. Fraud cuts his foe’s head off and the other is finished off quickly enough. It didn’t take long, but the guards had shouted out, so someone may have heard the noise. Shrett checks out the inside of the building. It’s a barracks with four beds and some tables, chairs, shelves, chests, etc.; nothing exciting. Not even decorated. | ||
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| + | You hurry over to the tower across the roof. Shrett disables the lock again and opens the door, and another walking statue strides forth! This one is tall and lanky and segmented, and made of iron. It smashes at him with a swing of its fist and he avoids it, and the rest of you engage it although Bog takes a while to float over and surprise-attack it from above. Fraud damages the right leg heavily while Boamund delivers a wicked blow to the chest, but you find that each blow by your metal weapons sticks to its magnetic essence, and the stronger the blows are the harder they are to withdraw. Shrett manages to pull his sword free after one such episode, but Fraud and Boamund have to switch weapons. Bog finds that his mace does not stick. Soon, though, you smash the thing’s chest enough that it all falls to pieces. | ||
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| + | A strange mechanical sphere with little wings and a big organic-looking eye floats down, thrumming gently as it flies without any apparent support from the stairs above inside the tower, takes a look at you from the doorway, and floats back up. You hear more noises, like clanking and clicking. Something has stirred. You hurry across the roof to the main building, and Shrett opens the door there. He sees a room that looks like a residence, very simply decorated, where two people in humble garb; a man and woman; huddle behind furniture at the back of the room. He tries addressing them but they can’t understand him, so Boamund comes in with the others and speaks. They say they are but servants of Master Artukan and they beg for mercy. Boamund grants it, although he is seething about the Chaos-tainted guards you slew, and suspects everyone in this complex might be so blighted. | ||
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| + | As you consider this, you hear gongs clash inside the main building, and shouting voices, and movement. Shrett goes to an interior door, which isn’t locked, and opens it to find three other guards, these ones looking more like spear-armed Galanini types (with Solar runes and such), rushing in. Shrett tries to lure the first one into the room, with Bog awaiting in ambush nearby, but the guard doesn’t take the bait. The three of them cast magics on themselves (glimmering with golden light that makes them harder to see) and their weapons (likewise invoking golden light) and one manages to curse Fraud with a Befuddle spell, so he stands there in confusion, losing track of what has happened. Boamund hits the front guard with some strong Disrupt magics and his chest and head are hurt. | ||
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| + | It gets worse. There are sounds of more foes coming. But one makes no sound. Pvaksi, Artukan’s innocent-looking young female servant, appears behind Shrett in the main room, from out of nowhere. She is glistening and a ghastly, ropy, thorny, engorged tongue projects from her distorted mouth. She whips at Shrett with this and the monstrous tongue wraps around his head, ripping into the flesh and rendering him unconscious. A guard who had been at the back of the three by the door comes in through another door. Boamund steps up and knocks him out with a sword-slash. Bog takes Shrett’s place at the door, now infused with Zorak Zorani berserk fury, and fights the guard there. The Chaos-tainted servant woman Pvaksi vanishes, releasing Shrett to slump to the floor. The second guard, who has in vain tried casting some Befuddle spells at Boamund and then Bog, tries to sorcerously shift the first guard’s chest wound to Bog’s, but Bog stoutly denies this. | ||
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| + | The tongue-bearing woman appears elsewhere in the room and whips at Boamund with her tongue but he knocks this aside. He steps up to Pvaksi and many jointed arthropod limbs sprout from her, trying to push him away, but he forces himself closer. He notices her glistening skin emits droplets that hiss when they hit the ground – acid! He doesn’t hold back. In one clean blow, his sword slashes her leg off at mid-thigh. She dies as blood spurts in jets from the massive wound. But his precious Northwinds Blade is terribly pitted and scored by the acid secretions that protected her. Nonetheless, | ||
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| + | Boamund leaves the body and rushes to aid Bog, punching Fraud in the face as he goes. Fraud’s armour means this just draws his attention, snapping him out of the confusion curse, but there’s a bit of satisfaction from Boamund at ending his frustration with the uselessly baffled Fraud. And a bit of humiliation for Fraud. But there’s no time for pondering this—battle continues! And it sounds like the whole fortress is alerted to you. There’s no time to linger—you need to find and kill Artukan, or flee the city for who knows how long – if you even can escape. | ||
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giraine/summary-373.1744295226.txt.gz · Last modified: 2025/04/10 14:27 by tim45tenwa
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