Session 56

The Shroud sets off for their final battle.  Enveloping themselves in a variety of powerful divination magics and setting off to their first target, the Titan.

The massive brute was moving onto the bridge, trampling over man & beast alike.  As the Shroud moved in, Wasyli spotted an invisible Ghaele backing him up.  And he, along with Yvainne & Quell spotted the Princess off in the distance, commanding the heart of her army on the other side of the river.  Wasyli sounded a silent prayer to the Lord of Hell that his King did not see her.  For the rash Emmerick would have simply flown over the river & attacked her directly.  And the Lich sorcerer feared they'd relive history, as the old Barca king fell to the Markadian rebel in a similar maneuver.

Wasyli called out the Ghaele.  Yvainne was angry she could not she the creature.  So the vampire priestess of death made the only logical choice & gouged out her own eye & stuffed the massive emerald Eye of Vitra-Kali into the open socket.  The true seeing let her see the Ghaele.  And also see the Princess is actually Lord Havelyn.  She shouted out that the Princess was actually Havelyn.

Emmerick barked out "Where!"  His eyes glaring out across the field of battle, looking for them.  But before he could find anything, the Titan spotted the King & his allies & surged forward.  The King turned his attention to the matter at hand.

The huge creature stomping any soldier who stood in his way while his Ghaele companion called out for him to stop, but the Titan would have none of it.  He was going straight for the King.

He was greeted by the full might & fury of the Shroud.  Quell & Mardus moved forward, steel in hand.  Quell landing a powerful flanking attack.  Then Emerick took one step forward and slashed Helbrand back and forth.  The steel biting through the flesh of the titan.  The flashing of steel stopped as the blade was coated in Titan blood.  With a groan, the Titan fell forward.  The bridge shook as the massive creature fell before the King of Talengarde.

The Ghalee looked on in horror as in under a matter of seconds, her ally was dead.  She finally started to fumble with her backpack & got out some odd looking device.  Brother Summit shadow stepped right next to her & she quickly fell under his flurry of blows.

In under ten seconds, the Shroud was victorious.  Then off in the distance two objects came hurtling down from the sky.  But it was no angelic being coming from the Heavens.  It was instead two fiery meteor like objects.  Yet the flames were half fire, half pitch black.  There was no doubt.  The pit fiend had arrived.  The fiend & his companion landed in the heart of the battle between the two major armies.  There, near the last sighting of the Solar, the forces of Hell would be bolstered.

Quell paused a moment to collect some of the blood of the Titan.  He felt his ring try to overpower him and force him to drench it in the blood.  But with an Iron Will, Quell resisted the urge & put the vial of blood in his pocket instead before he & the rest of the Shroud quickly ducked back into their army as it surged forward across the bridge.  The six of them using the speed of the fight along with the number of their soldiers to stealth away.

With no apparent response forthcoming, the Shroud considered their next move.  Emmerick demanded to know about the Princess & Havelyn.  Wasyli & Yvainne filled him in.  But they were split on what to do.  The Pit Fined would have a hard fight against a Solar.  Even with an ally & the larger army.  But others argued to strike at Havelyn now.  While they had such a good opportunity.

As they argued, Emmerick got his Black Dragon, mounted it & said simply that the discussion was over.  He was going off to kill Havelyn.  And before waiting for a response, took off and started to fly across the river.  The rest of the Shroud rushed to follow their bold and crazy leader.

So, like the battle eighty years ago that happened in the same location, the Barcan King would fly across the lake & do battle with the Darian usurpers.  But that was were the similarities with history ended.

The Shroud, led by Emmerick swooped down into the heart of the enemy army and right in front of Havelyn.  As the fight began, the rest of the Sons of Balentyne moved forward from where they were hiding amongst the regular soldiers.

The wizard Eric had a powerful wish cast ahead of time.  He wished to go first in the Son's battle with the Shroud.  And it worked.  The evocer opened up by stripping some of the Shroud of their Resist Energy: Fire before casting timestop and buffing himself with displacement, mirror image and a host of other buffs.  As well as leveling the area in delayed blast fireballs.  As the damage piled up, Yvainne was sorely regretting the shield other spells she had cast on Quell & Emmerick.  As she felt the powerful fire magic burn her to a crisp.

Emmerick & Havelyn slowly moved forward, powering themselves up as they went.

Yvainne dropped her protection of Emmerick as she frantically tried to heal herself.  Unfortuantely for her, the hidden Ranger started to rain down arrows from over a thousand feet away from her hiding spot on the spire.  And her target was Quell.  Yvainne & Quell shared the pain as he was shot over & over again.

Mardus quickly got the resist energy: fire back up & had to start healing his companions too, as they continued to take more damage.

Wasyli tried to strip Eric the Wizard, but the Evoker had Spell Turning up, just as Wasyli did.  A powerful resonance was formed and the spell failed.  After that Wasyli focused on readying to Greater Dispel Magic whatever the wizard would try next.  And he did, as the next time the Wizard tried to remove the Shroud's fire resistance, Wasyli dispelled it.  The Sorcerer & Wizard got in a stalemate with their arcane magic countering each other.

Brother Donnagin followed with Havelyn & blasted Yvainne with a sunburst hoping to destroy the vampire outright.  But she managed to survive the blast.

Emmerick moved forward and taunted Havelyn calling out.  "Come here!"

Havelyn have him a grimace and responded "Not yet" before he moved past the King and savaged into the already floundering Yvainne.  Brother Donnagin following behind & bursting positive energy.  Under the combined assault the undead priestess was teetering.

The Shroud's cleric was badly hurt.  However, the Shroud was exercising the same maneuver.  Brother Summit shadow stepping next to the Cleric of Mitra & beating him down blow after blow.  Quell tried to get in on the fight, but was still getting badly hurt by the never ending rain of Arrows falling down on him.

Mardus rushed in and cast waves of ecstasy.  It was enough to stagger the Paladin & Cleric if nothing else.  And that gave Yvainne enough time to flee & try to heal herself and while at it, she managed to use unholy word to blind, deafen & stun the Ghaele, removing her from the fight.  And made it to Quell in time to see the rogue fall under another barrage of arrows.

Lord Havelyn, staggered, with Yvainne out of reach, turned to meet Emmerick.  "It it time false King!"  Emmerick gave a wicked grin  "Not yet" and he stepped past the Paladin and slashed Brother Donnagin over and over again.  Helbrand drenched in the blood of the holy man.  When Emmerick was done, the Priest lay dead on the ground.

Emmerick then turned to meet Havelyn, with Mardus backing him up.

Before Yvainne could bring her rogue friend up, both of them got blasted by another fireball from Eric.  The damage was enough to cause Yvainne to revert to her gaseous form, as the vampire had taken too much damage.  Quell would surely have been dead but for his Ring, which having been charged with the blood of a fiend, was granting the elven rogue immunity to fire.

Emmerick was blind to the plight of his allies.  He and Helbrand were blood drunk.  He advanced on Havelyn, Mardus & Brother Summit there backing him up.  And the King of Talengarde killed his third enemy of the day.  For when he was done, the Paladin lay dead on the ground.  To make sure the paladin would not be rescued, Mardus stuffed his body into his large bag of holding.

With three of the five sons of Balentyne lay dead, only two of the six Shroud had fallen the Ranger knew what was coming.  She had but a moment to act, so she reached into her handy haversack and quickly removed her magical rocket, the same kind as the Titan and Ghaele had at the bridge.  But this time, she was able to fire it off.

It burst overhead, in a shower of sparks & fire.  As the booming faded, it was replaced by the low roar of a Dragon.

Session 55

The Shroud considers what last minute moves they need to make before the final battle.  Quell urges they return to the Kraken and slay it.  They have no need for it and it's titan-tainted blood would power his ring.  The rest of the group was unsure.  Attacking a Kraken under water, in it's lair, still seemed too much of a risk.  Quell was unhappy but deferred to the ruling of the group.

One concession the group made was that perhaps the killing of a fiend might help and there were some on the group, like Wassili that were worried about the presence of powerful angels.  Perhaps by contacting their patron, the Pit Fiend Naburus, they could garner a favor by dealing with a rival and get his help, along with a more powerful ring.

A sending to the Fourth Marquee of Misery returned a positive response & the quick arrival of the contract devil Dessiter to spirit the Shroud to the pocket plane that was the Pit Fiend's lair.

The Shroud put forth a rousing case for help from the Pit Fiend with Yvainne leading the way.  Highlighting among other things, that divine agents would be arrayed against them, and that if they won, Hell would hold Talengarde forever.

In the end, the words of the Shroud rang true in the ears of the Fiend.  The Fourth Marque of Misery would come and aid them in the final battle.

The Shroud went on to ask if he had any minor rivals that needed to be eliminated.  They had an artifact ring they wished to power up.  The Marque was surprised, but he mentioned a minor bone devil who was hassling some of his agents.  Not a caring leader, he had no interest in intervening to help his underlings, but if the Shroud needed something to slaughter, that was an option.

But he further urged caution on the ring.  It was a powerful artifact, that if fully powered, would summon it's Titan master.  And further, even increasing it's power a little might corrupt it's wearer.  The Shroud took the Pit Fiend's warnings under advisement and left.

Once back in the capital, Wasyli cast a powerful wish spell that would alert the Shroud if the Sons teleported into Talengarde.  During the following week the Shroud considered what to do about the noblewoman interested in their King.  They announced an engagement, but decided they would not have time for a proper wedding.

And that proved correct, for at the end of the week, the wish alert triggered.  Their scouts were placed on heightened alert.  But they still failed to see any major enemy troop movements over the next day.  So, the Shroud prepared their final ploy by marshelling their remaining soldiers in the capital and prepared to leave the following day.

That night, on the eve of their departure, Emmerick woke to the sounds of combat and his bedroom door crashing open.  There, standing in the doorway was the High Inquisitor of Mitra.  His inquisition allies assaulting Emmerick's royal body guards as he rushed into the room.

The guards tried to push their way in, one managing to get into the room to the Kings side as others tripped the inquisitors outside.  But the High Inquisitor was all over Emmerick, slashing him with his powerful blade as Emmerick touched him with his touch of corruption causing the inquisitor to wince in pain.  Before long Brother Summit and Wasyli responded to the sounds of combat, teleporting in.

Wasyli cast suffocation and at first it seemed like the Inquisitor would shrug off the effects, but then he finally fell down, chocking.  Emmerick stepped over the chocking High Inquisitor, still in his nightshirt, as other inquisitors fell and gave a speech to his guards.  Thanking the one guard for rushing through attacks to come to his aid.  Wasyli gave a dour look and Brother Summit rolled his eyes at it as the other Shroud members came rushing with more guards to quite the odd scene.  And no one noticed the High Inquisitor, ignored, slowly suffocate to death.

The following morning the King was roused to alerts from across the city.  Angels were spotted flying above the skies over the capital.  Four planetars in total, preaching the return of the Princess and the end of the wicked false rule of the usurper.

The shroud readied themselves and then Emmerick strode out onto his balcony overlooking the old palace in the heart of the city.  From there he called out the Angels as they flew by.  The angels turned & sneered at the King before drawing steel and swooping down on the monarch as the rest of the Shroud burst out onto the balcony met them.

Wasyli cast fly on everyone and Emmerick & Brother Summit flew and twirled into the air, clashing with the leading angel as another came down onto the balcony.  Another angel cast Holy Aura on it's allies and the last brought a blade barrier down over the doorway.  Yvainne managed to dismiss one of the angels immediately back to it's home plane as Quell ducked through the blades & struck the angel on the balcony, only to be blinded by it's holy aura.  He then had to blindly flee back into the castle where the vampire priestess was waiting in the dark to heal him.  Blindly dodging spinning blades in the process.  The death priestess restored his sight and told him to get back out there & forcefully shoved him back through the blades, the rogue had to jump & weave out of the way as he was pushed back through.

By the time Quell got back out there, he was shocked to see the Angels all destroyed.  Wasyli had used his magic to rend into the Angels.  While Brother Summit & Emmerick had savaged them with blades.  But Mardus was a sight, enlarged & taking on a celestial aspect himself.  Whatever the commoners must have though is hard to say, an Angel fighting along side the King against four other angels.  What they saw for sure was, the four angels all falling to the ground far below.  Destroyed by the King & the might of the Shroud.

With the angels out of the way, Emmerick rallied his army & marched from the city with much fanfare.  And as soon as they were out of sight, they marched their forces straight into Mardus' pocket plane.

The bait worked as planned.  Within a day scouts reported seeing an army emerge from the forest, apparently from a massive slopped earthwork underground entrance that showed up overnight.  And the fears of the Shroud were realized.  The army included not only the Sons, but some kind of Titan, the Princess, her dragon mother & some sort of powerful angel, likely a Solar of Mitra.

The only small benefit, the actual size of the army was relatively small.  In fact, only a fifth the size of Emmerick's large host.  And very few resistance or freedom fighters flocked to the Princess' white unicorn banner.  Still, it was small army & it was quickly moving toward the capital.

The Shroud used the pocket plane to drop a quarter of their army to guard a choke point on a bridge while they used the rest to flank the army from the other side of the river.  As the Princesses forces started to push on the bridge, the flank army moved in.  Splitting the Princesses forces with the Titan and a small force of fighters moving on the bridge head, the Angel leading the host toward the large battle on the open field and the Dragon apparently no were to be seen.

The pieces in place, the Shroud prepared to move.  Yvainne requesting a miracle from the midnight lord to be clocked in night and as she walked into the morning sunlight her form and the area around her turned pitch black.  The Lord of Darkness heard her prayer.

Would the Lord of Hell hear the prayers of his followers & deliver Emmerick victory.  Or would it be the pleas of Mitra that would finally be heard.

It was time to find out.