Hello,
It was another episode of serendipity, or tragedy depending on your view, where Fraud had to come to terms with the history of his life after a quick series of unfortunate events overtook him.
At the geyser, Fraud started to say that he wanted to reach out to Quick Sister and apologise but you hauled him away. Night was approaching and you knew you could not stay here, so you legged it for Toadhaven to the northeast. It was a good plan, but…
After maybe 30 minutes, a voice from above shouted “It IS them, get them!” And crossbow bolts whooshed at you from an arc across the swamp's tree cover ahead of you. You deftly parried them with shields, but only Fraud saw the enemy: four Seshnelan army scouts of St Orvar hidden behind trees, and a Zzaburi-type figure behind them, and two vague figures near that ?Zzaburi, and glimpses of another person flying high above the tree canopy.
Fraud charged the Zzaburi, finding that it was Brother Quasim, the last Evracian monk left, who had escaped you quite a while ago (at the monastery). He was casting a spell, which he threw at all of you soon thereafter, sending the Blinding Truth of Rokar to leave your eyes dazzled with intense white light - Bog and Shrett were caught by it, and Shrett in particular was almost incapacitated by the relentless glare. Yet before then, Boamund had spotted one of the scouts and charged him, followed by Shrett, and Bog followed Fraud while that first scout and another and another quickly got taken down. However, the figure above, which turned out to be Captain Bertramn Farsight of the Seshnelan marines, kept sending volleys of searing light at you. The first wave blasted Bog's leg and wounded Fraud, and Boamund took some burns despite his ancestral resistance, as the spells kept coming. You had nothing that could reach this foe. The balance of the fight kept tipping from them to your favour, as Fraud cleanly severed Brother Quasim's head.
As usual, the soldiers were way outclassed by your skills, but they were still dangerous. One, before Boamund cut him down, caught Fraud defenceless with a stab to the neck, leaving his broadsword stuck in the wound. By then, two wailing spirits had formed near the dead monk, each a vague human-like grey shape whose presence brought up sad memories and regrets.
One spirit quickly slipped into Fraud, leaving him disconsolate with overwhelming grief, reckoning with all the bad things he'd done: Inyana's death to bring him to life, his betrayal of Quick Sister (and her saving him just today, leaving him doubly in debt), his betrayal and killing of his own brother, his degraded relationships with others such as Boamund, and so much more! Bog, intimidated by the spirit that faced him, forced it to go elsewhere; it went to Boamund. Boamund on the other hand, didn't take long to fend off this spirit and send it whimpering away from this plane. Bog stayed cowering under his huge shield and Shrett hid in the brush, so they were safe from Bertramn's bolts, and those magics didn't have their full effect on Boamund or Fraud (thanks to his great armour!), either. The scouts were all dead and the Captain's barrage stopped; he must have left, depleted in magic and alone against you. But your victory was dear in cost. You did what healing you could, and made it safely back to Toadhaven– after a lengthy discussion with Shrett, who kept trying to come up with other solutions to Fraud's possession by the spirit, and the blindness that still afflicted him and Bog. But the proved to be all for naught as the magic disappeared shortly after you left the site of battle. Shrett called on St Avlor's blessing, which assuaged Fraud's grief for some time, although Fraud still felt it here, welling up at the edges of his soul.
You made it to Toadhaven and found a healer who easily cured Bog's leg wound; and Fraud's head wound had already been treated. Word in town was that the final assault on St Thosos was very near, just days away, so if you had business elsewhere it needed to be fast, if you were to take part! Sadly there was no spirit-expert in town, to aid Fraud. After a desperately needed night's rest, you hiked to Jett's camp, where the same lack of a spirit-expert troubled you; the Giranois would be the best ones to seek. Your old friend Maugis had now left Giraine to aid the Whyte Wyzards in Seshela, where they struggled via words and war to bring peace to the land. So after another night of rest, you came to Cjed's home along the seashore, hoping that Apatune would be able to aid you with the spirit, but all she could add was that this was a Grief Passion-Spirit, and the Giranois elders would be the ones able to rid Fraud of it. Still, Shrett had another agenda here. He spoke gently with his sister Micaela, telling her that the Rokari had hunted his father and that he was now buried. She broke into terrible sobbing, only worsened when he dealt the next blow, that the Hero Wars had swept him up and he must leave her until they were over, as he could not safely care for her. With an angry edge, she told him to go away then, that her new family would care for her, and Cjed confirmed (pouring salt in Shrett's wounded heart, a bit) that she would only die if left with Shrett, so he would keep caring for her.
You left the next day, quickly coming to the Sharde ritual ground where you'd been told that some of the clan still were. Indeed, war leader Jzhurte was there with some warriors, readying to return to bring the final fight to the “evil necromancers” of the Rokari invasion; and Elder Shoor was there, too. Boamund asked for Sesgallah and her muddy head formed there in the ritual ground, saying that she knew the way to stop the mud's magic at the sorcerer Vran's “new tower” for you, and she would meet you there to do so. Jzhurte had plenty of information about that tower and its residents; long had he and his forces been watching it warily, hateful of its occupants, but not strong enough to end the menace themselves, with all of the foes around them that they faced. His hint of fear, and relief that he could instead fight the Seshnelans, was evident.
The residents are: The Majestic Vran the Conjurer, bodyguard Sir Balaur the Iron-Skinned, and 9 Talari-type minions; all except Vran always seen in iron plate armour with iron swords. They seldom leave the tower at all. They have around a dozen peasants who live outside the tower and mud, but are not dangerous; probably enslaved. They sometimes get magically flown into the tower's doorway. Other things do, too, like items the peasants bring to and from the tower. The tower's door is magically protected by some sort of deadly magic using black lightning - one hapless Giranois had tried to open it, and had his arm charred off, killing him. Since then, no others had dared the entrance. The same magic has sometimes projected long distances from the tower's top. The tower's top has an opening where the three-blazing eyes of the Demon of the Book of Eyes hover. Dark demons are sometimes seen around the tower, so clearly Vran indeed has powers of conjuring.The tower has varied visitors sometimes, but nothing important has been learned about them. There are no apparent openings to the tower except arrow-slit like windows in the second storey. The tower is 6m square at its base, 22m tall, four storeys, and with a thick wooden door bound in iron. It is a fearsome fortress, risen from the times of the Godlearners by some infernal sorcery that Vran had brought from the Castle Coast, far to Seshnela's western border.
Indeed, Boamund had been vexed these past few nights with visions of Seshnelans and his disturbing feelings of hunger for them. He saw himself gnawing the last foes whose bodies you'd burned, regretful that he hadn't the chance to taste their blood first. But now he saw a new foe that might sate his thirst for that blood, for a while: Vran's people were Old Seshnelans, and so they were suitable targets for the fierce feelings he kept suppressed. He said nothing of this to you.
They knew of your victories with Umbrodriith and Quick Sister; the toads had spoken. Shoor directed Shrett to have Fraud kneel in the mud, and Sesgallah slithered happily around him as Shoor muttered a slur of ancient Giranois spirit-commands. The Grief spirit slinked woefully out of Fraud and into the mud, where its essence became one with the land again. It had come forth in the sadness brought by the war on Giraine, and now it had found peace, at last. Fraud, with some final tears but also a sudden turn toward embarrassment, was grateful.
You discussed the big problem of how to get through the tower's door, the only apparent way to get in. You settled on the plan to get a battering ram from Fort Mudlark nearby, then go there, camp 1 night inside the “Dead Mist” full of Blue Corpse Flowers, which surrounded the Bad Place itself that housed the tower, which Vran called The Tower of Uncertainties. That place also held much worse things, and you braced yourselves for you might see therein. It was going to be one of the hardest onslaughts you'd tried, with the defensive edge of your opponents so strong-but then, maybe they had nowhere to run to if you caught them holed up in their tower?
You went to Fort Mudlark, spending the night there, and easily got a battering ram that four of you could carry. It had been reserved for just such an occasion.
There was grim news there, though: Fort Mudlark barely has enough forces to defend its walls. It has sent many of its soldiers to aid the assault on St Thosos. The remaining troops can only occasionally manage to defend their supply lines against zombies, skeletons and ghouls, which are the least of the terrors that issue forth from the Bad Place. Now and then things that are far more deadly come, and the Sharde allies are seldom able to help much too; being overcommitted themselves. Baronet Mudlark has fallen back on bad old habits, deep in his cups again after having recovered some sobriety while he aided in the fight against Seshnela. But almost everyone there agrees that it is just a short matter of time before the Fort must be abandoned to whatever fate would be in store for it, and survivors beat a retreat down to New Arvonesse. Preparations for that were under way. You probably would not be able to return here to any allies at all.
The urgency to defeat Seshnela, so the new allegiance of powers on Giraine could finally focus on the Library and Vadeli and their allies, was clear. And if you stopped Vran, that would buy time. At a cost. A dear cost, you reckoned. You may need every trick and talent you have to defeat Vran.
-John
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