The Aneman-Pirran Border Wars - Sessions 7 and 8

The Party:

• David Van Stone, 7th level Half-elf Warlock (Celestial Patron) - Former Aneman army officer.
• Van Darkholme, 7th level Half-elf Warlock (Sentinel Patron) - Vigilante crime fighter and former Aneman city planner.
• Wellston Plumbago, 7th level Half-elf Warlock (Great Old One Patron) - The world's only known Drow "ambassador".

The trio finished cataloging the treasure in the iron vault and prepared to get filthy as they cleared out the lair of the fungus goblins. Although they had some concerns about getting infected by fungus goblins spores (?????), a few castings of Hunger of Hadar and the liberal application of flaming oil to a vile spawning chamber were enough to cleanse the place of its sticky, mildewy taint. Wellston appropriated the CROWN OF THE FUNGUS GOBLIN KING (a woven bundle of muddy twigs and bent forks) and wore it proudly out of the burning chambers.

Before departing, the trio scouted beyond the ledge covered in deadly dungeon barnacles (their terrible, rasping tongues! their horrible, paralytic embrace!) and found astonishing secrets. Deeper into the cavern was the imposing marble and gold edifice of an armored Imperial vault, a massively built 40ft-square door that had been teleported directly into the bedrock. Three barrel-sized locks with equally enormous keyholes dominated the face of the door--and in the center, a blood-red pustule that throbbed to the beat of an unseen heart.

Recognizing the door for what it was, the trio set to opening it. They discovered that the large key Van had been using as an arcane focus opened the first lock, but any attempt to bypass the other two resulted in the growth on the door leeching their precious bodily fluids straight out of their pores from any distance within sight. Worse still, the knobby thing seemed to quickly recover from any wounds inflicted on it.

The trio effected a tactical retreat and made some plans. A ritual bubble of safety from Leomund's Tiny Hut was erected, and a pair of Hunger of Hadars were dumped on the terrible thing, which withered from the extended milky caress of extraplanar tentacles. With the magical defense removed, the party continued their examination of the door--but ultimately found it impenetrable. Wellston transformed himself into a cloud of vapor to explore the inner workings of the locks and found the actual mechanisms extended at least 20 feet into the door--if not magical, then complex beyond comprehension. Van resealed the first lock and the three Warlocks departed, wondering aloud how to find other keys that might open the door. 

With goblins slain and treasure gathered, they returned to the surface and gathered their retainers before retracing their steps to Ironfork. The townsfolk were both relieved and baffled to hear that their woes had been the result of a strange goblin infestation, and were more than happy to listen to the trio's advice to leave the complex entirely alone. 

The Warlocks rested and recovered, identifying their newfound gear and attending to their various wounds. Van took a long bath to discover if his hollow body was watertight from the inside (it wasn't) and attempting to discover just how stretchy he now was (no more than normal).

The party figured out that the arrow that was putting Wellston directly into a panic/fight-or-flight response was a +3 Arrow of Drow Slaying, and they resolved to generally keep it hidden when they didn't want Wellston to climb the tallest person in the room like a tree and attempt to nest in their hair. The strange ceramic cube was discovered to be a magical box containing a floating ceramic orb. Wellston determined that it contained a very low-level intelligence, "much like a dog", and pronounced a warning that it would attempt to have sex with each of them, "much like a dog." 

Nobody felt like arguing with him, and the box and orb went back into the Bag of Holding where everyone did their best to forget about them as quickly as possible.

~ ~ ~

The next day, the trio and their retainers return to the Archpriest's fortress at Mt. Gaspar. There, they presented the spoils of their expedition to the Archpriest:

• One (1) entirely invulnerable lemon-yellow skeleton jelly (frozen in a block of horse-trough water).
• Three (3) whole occultum coins, which Wellston has only barely resisted liquifying and injecting directly into himself.
• One (1) CROWN OF THE FUNGUS GOBLIN KING
• A lengthy description of their encounter with the berbalang in the depths of the Tomb of the Serpent Kings
• An additional explanation of Van's new hollow body and the serpent-man lich, Xiximanter, that inflicted it on him, as well as a vivid description of Xiximanter's deranged mental state.

The Archpriest advised the trio to return to Libussa for some brief rest and an exploration of their new homes and duties. Church scribes, he explained, were hard at work decoding a cyphered document listing other places of potential worth for the war effort. The party said their goodbyes and departed by train.

The Pirran capital bustled, even in the thick winter snow, and the trio parted ways for a while to attend to their own business. Van retained their half-elf alchemist, Eva Benedict, for the production of alchemical silver essence, when David and Wellston enjoyed the comforts and pleasures of their new homes. Wellston bought a fancy admiral's hat.

~

A week later, Van abruptly heard the voice of the Archpriest ringing clearly in his mind. The sending spell intoned: 

CYPHER DESTROYED BEFORE TRANSLATION COMPLETE.

SABOTEUR AMONG US. GUARD TRIPLED.

NEW PLAN. ANEM DESTROYED NEURIED DAM, SEARCHING BEYOND FOR MAGIC?

HELP FLOODED TOWN. DENY ANEM.

Van gathered his companions, more or less stormed the Libussan academy to find a mage who personally knew the Archpriest in order to send a reply, and asked for confirmation of both the Archpriest's identity and of their new mission.

Mission confirmation requested. Restate mission location and objective. What did Wellston call you?

The response was immediate: 

HELP REMAINING VILLAGERS IN NEURIED.

RACE ANEM ARMY TO SALVAGE.

BEWARE THIRD-PARTY SCAVENGERS.

WELLSTON OFTEN CALLED ME TOP DADDY.

UNFORTUNATELY. GOOD LUCK.

~

The trio prepared to leave immediately. Eva was handed 1,000 GP and a mandate to research "whatever she wanted". The journeyman alchemist accepted the research funding with aplomb.

The train took the Warlocks to the southern border of Pirra. Broom flight carried them across warped terrain--huge chunks of turf and stone plucked from the earth like a child's blocks pulled from wet sand--and eventually the trio arrived at the outskirts of the flooded country closest to the town of Neuried.

Broken, starving people lined the drowned fields. Every fifty feet, some new horror greeted them--an overturning canoe full of the elderly; a schoolteacher surrounded by screaming children; a pale matron hauling a corpse from a tangled shrub with hunger in her eyes.

There was much to be done.

The Aneman-Pirran Border Wars - Session 6

The Party:

• David Van Stone, 6th level Half-elf Warlock (Celestial Patron) - Former Aneman army officer.
• Van Darkholme, 6th level Half-elf Warlock (Sentinel Patron) - Vigilante crime fighter and former Aneman city planner.
• Wellston Plumbago, 6th level Half-elf Warlock (Great Old One Patron) - Rake, roustabout, and the world's only known Drow ambassador.

The next morning, the trio of Warlocks confirmed that their captured Skeleton Jelly had frozen solid in the horse trough, collected an alarmingly toxic fire suppression grenade from their hired alchemist, Eva, and returned to the tomb with all but one of their retainers in tow.

Highlights of expedition #2:

• The trio noticed that the remains of the black pudding they destroyed are entirely missing. Black puddings don't evaporate, so they concluded that something strange was afoot.
• The fire in the octagonal chamber had gone out overnight--no longer requiring the use of the astoundingly toxic fire suppression grenade--and the trio were able to dredge the reeking pool by hand, recovering a magic bottle, a magic ring, a golden chain, and a ragged, insane mummy head that spun in circles on the floor as it alternated between soundless jawing and attempts to chew on their boots. The chain turned out to be simple metal, and the bottle was full of oil of etherealness, but the ring proved to be unique. 
• Putting the ring on his finger in the course of examining it, Van felt his eye pop out of his head and roll around on the floor with the sound of a bouncing glass marble. His eyesight remained undiminished, and there was a brief and careful scramble to recover the organ and quickly re-insert it before Van removed the ring and vowed to never touch the item again.
• The party finds and carefully scoops up a pile of ancient serpent-man scrolls for later translation. A massive stone scroll case is knocked over in the search for secret passages.
• While exploring the ritual area of the complex, the party finds the laboratory of Xiximanter, an undead serpent-man alchemist. 
• The creature is accommodating, polite, chatty, and entirely unaware that the tomb is no longer full of hundreds of other priests. Nobody disabuses it of this notion.
• After confirming that the party has neither wives, children, or slaves to offer him for his experiments toward immortality, Xiximanter asks if the party would help him test a new potion. Van and Wellston reluctantly agree, and consume the draught handed them.
• Wellston's fundamental understanding of his suggestion spell warps--it now compels belief, rather than action.
• Van's eldritch blast changes from a long, accurate beam to a powerful and concussive short-range blast.
• Xiximanter asks if they'll help him gather data on one more concoction. Wellston demures, but Van accepts the proposal. Drinking the potion, Van's body mutates--the half-elf's body is reduced to a hollow shell of living skin, his flesh, blood, and bone supernaturally displaced to parts unknown. Van is displeased. The trio departs, happy to have escaped the maddened alchemist with their lives and most of their organs present.
• The party spends some time ascertaining the extent of Van's mutation. Offers to plumb his newfound depths are refused, although Piple is convinced to turn into a spider and crawl around for a bit inside of Van. Wellston suggests Van fill himself with wasps as a secret attack.
• A large jade door made of stone snakes is discovered, but the party can't open it. It's obviously missing a piece. Nearby, the trio find a revolving cylinder that opens into a very smelly collapsed cave system, then get stabbed a few times by a spear trap before retreating to the hissing sulfur chambers and scraping some molten gold out of a natural fire pit.
• The Warlocks are ambushed by a large crowd of fungus goblins near the fire pit. All but one of the goblins are slain within seconds, and the remaining one yanks a boot down over his head and does a headstand, insisting "I'M A LEG" when questioned. Little useful information is extracted from the captive before it wanders into a spiked pit entirely by accident.
• A sealed chamber is opened, revealing a trapped berbalang. The party bargains with the creature at great length, trading its release from an intact summoning circle for the skull of the dead Basilisk and answers to a number of questions. 
• Van opts to ask about the fate of the vanished Empire, and gets a BEWILDERING series of questions in response, rather than any clear answers. The berbalang implies that it can't offer the answer directly without incurring some terrible consequence, but the creature's questions lead the party to conclude a number of profound things. (See the bottom of this post.)
• The missing magic snake is discovered, and the jade door is opened, revealing a golden throne surrounded by elaborate mirrors. The mirrors are disassembled, looted, and the throne is entirely ignored after it is discovered to be radiating Enchantment magic.
• Wandering back across the tomb complex, the party finds a heavy iron vault door that is opened by the key they found wedged under the basilisk's collar. Inside, they find a huge pile of ancient and modern coins, cut gems, a golden statue of a three-eyed humanoid head on a tripod, and a number of strange magic items:
• A seamless ceramic cube about the size of a grapefruit
• A silver-headed arrow, the presence of which immediately and inexplicably makes Wellston break into a cold sweat
• In a plain silver box of Drow make: Three occultum coins. Glassy, massless, gold-black. Just enough to start a war--or perhaps end one.
• Within the box, a note in the handwriting of Wellston's father--but written in third-person--on the various uses of occultum. Curious.

~ ~ ~

Conclusions the party reached after speaking with the berbalang (reproduced exactly as they wrote them):

1. The imperials did accomplish what they set out to do.
2. The events surrounding the moon shadow involved intervention by divine agents.
3. So far as we know - divine agents can only act on the world through human requests.
4. If this is true, then the imperials accomplished what they intended to do through divine intervention.
5. If 3) and 4) are true, then the divine entity Ahta was likely involved, which means that there was a request that allowed her to act.
6. Troublingly, the Berbalang made an implication that our understanding of what prevents direct divine action may be in error.
7. Our understanding of what prevents direct divine action is that all gods have a divine treaty that states that all gods will prevent/punish other gods from acting without a request.
8. If 6) is true, then either the nature of the request from the Imperium is very important, OR a majority of gods were acting in concert, thus invalidating the pact, OR there is some other extremely powerful universal force enforcing the rule.

The Aneman-Pirran Border Wars - Session 5

Why is it so much easier to write these reports in present tense, rather than past tense? I think it's because I take the notes in present and try to produce the reports in past. Anyway, let's try a different format for the recap this week.

~

The Party:

• David Van Stone, 6th level Half-elf Warlock (Celestial Patron) - Former Aneman army officer.
• Van Darkholme, 6th level Half-elf Warlock (Sentinel Patron) - Vigilante crime fighter and former Aneman city planner.
• Wellston Plumbago, 6th level Half-elf Warlock (Great Old One Patron) - Rake, roustabout, and the world's only known Drow ambassador.

The party continued exploring the tomb. The pool of black, oily water was still entirely ablaze and slowly filling the octagonal chamber with thick smoke, so the trio quickly moved on to deeper areas (after Van suggested shooting more Eldritch Blasts into it and David suggested trying to put the fire out with massive quantities of mayonnaise from his Jug of Alchemy).

The underground complex was discovered to be large and varied. Some highlights of the trio's exploration:

• A room was discovered to be almost entirely filled with clay statues of snake-man warriors. The party left it largely unmolested, save for the discovery of a secret passage underneath a statue of a serpent god. The party did not enter the narrow crawlspace.
• A scroll of an ancient, poison-based variation on what was now a common combat spell was discovered in a sarcophagus. None of the Warlocks could cast it, but they keep it for later sale.
• The party discovered a collapsed tomb chamber, and thumping sounds from beyond the rubble were found to come from a large and furious mutated snake-man skeleton wielding a jagged khopesh. Seeing no treasure, the party resealed the tomb door and decided to leave that guy alone.
• The Warlocks realized that they could just fly everywhere, even inside the tomb, and mounted their brooms more or less permanently.
• A particularly old and crudely-made tomb was found to house a strange ooze full of skeletal snake-man remains and hundreds of mirror-polished bronze rings. The caustic pudding was blasted apart and harvested for alchemical reagents, and David collected the rings for later use or sale.
• The most ornate door in the octagonal chamber opened onto stairs leading to an arena, where an animated stone knight with a cobra-hooded face waited to attack. Unsurprisingly, the stone guardian was almost immediately blasted to pieces.
• Wellston, on the stone knight's rapid defeat: "No wonder this civilization died out."
• Beyond the stone cobra knight's arena, the party discovered what seemed like a broad and bottomless chasm with a narrow, bat-shit covered ledge running along the edge of the pit. Despite being able to permanently fly, they're pretty freaked out by the idea of slipping in the guano and falling into endless darkness.
• Partway along the ledge, they found a sturdily-made stone door with a heavy stone bar set across it--just like the trapped door near the entrance to the tomb. Rather than attempt to disarm or circumvent the trap, the trio hovered twenty feet away and obliterated the door with a barrage of Eldritch Blasts. A large stone hammer swung out toward the chasm as the stone crossbar crumbled away. The party considered the avoidance of this trap a sign of their wisdom and prudence.
• While digging for gold foil in the drain trap of a dry fountain, the party was attacked by a Skeleton Jelly. Well, approached is probably a better word. The blobby, idiot thing was repeatedly battered backwards by their attacks but remained unharmed, and the Warlocks flew out over the chasm to put some distance between themselves and the invulnerable creature. When it didn't hurl itself into the abyss in an attempt to reach them, they knocked it into the chasm themselves.
• Van was particularly alarmed that they didn't hear it hit the bottom.
• The party spotted a dangerous patch of dungeon barnacles covering the chasm-edge walkway further to the east, but opt to leave them alone.
• Van found some incredibly lifelike snake-man statues and concluded that some element of petrification might be lurking nearby. He then, unreleatedly, proceeded to mess with a statue that (first) dumped a bunch of gold out of a recess in the base and (second) puffed out caustic powder all over the party.
• The party found some magical stone eggs that have been spattered with old blood, but stuffed them into Van's bag of holding without identifying them, as David's miniature manticore familiar heard something scuttling in the tunnels behind them. When David chased after the noise, he saw beady, red eyes glowing in the dark. Whatever it is, it retreated into the southern tunnels.
• Van really wanted to keep exploring the area with the eggs, rather than chase down weird critters in the dark. He's very sad.
• The party headed south anyway and found a filthy room suffused with a continuous hissing noise and a nasty, eggy smell. They're grossed out and don't enter. They were so grossed out, in fact, that they slammed the stone door hard with a Thaumaturgy spell and David spent ten minutes spiking it semi-permanently closed.
• While he waited for David to finish sealing the door, Wellston spotted almost a dozen pairs of beady red eyes lurking at the edge of his darkvision and making noises like a small dog choking to death. He immediately cast Hunger of Hadar on the pack of critters. Van and David heard the noise and rushed to rejoin Wellston. Whatever was in the Hunger was obliterated...
• ...but Van spotted the serpentine form of a six-legged basilisk in an untarnished bronze helmet watching them from a large room to the west. Van warned the party of the creature's presence, and David immediately turned and blasted it.
• In the ensuing combat, Van surrounded himself with magical darkness, causing Wellston to be restricted to blindly firing into the chaos of combat. The creature nearly bit David in half before also nearly turning him into solid stone while casually slapping Wellston across the room with a flick of its tail. Van dismissed his magical darkness, allowing all three Warlocks to bring their power to bear on the creature, killing it.
• Van made a mighty--but entirely fruitless--attempt to harvest useful alchemical reagents from the basilisk's corpse. In the process of butchering the thing, Van discovered a similarly-untarnished bronze key wedged between the creature's helmet and neck. He pocketed it.
• While resting after the fight with the basilisk, a skeleton jelly appeared. The ensuing flurry of blasts battered it into a previously-unseen swinging blade trap, and the skeleton jelly was bounced back and forth like a pinball for several seconds before the entire trap mechanism collapsed out of the ceiling, burying it under a pile of rubble save for a single foot.
• The Warlocks took the opportunity to test out the creature's invulnerability, and found it to be proof against any kind of attack they could muster. They literally mummified the thing in all the rope they had, cleared a path through the rubble, and returned to Ironfork with their hired help.

Once back in town, the trio dumped the squirming Skeleton Jelly ropemummy in a horse trough to freeze solid overnight, gave their samples of black pudding to Eva for use in exotic alchemical concoctions, and made a request for something that could put out the massive, permanent fire they started in the octagonal chamber near the entrance to the dungeon.

Next time: Back into the tomb for further exploration, and perhaps the presentation of a solid block of ice-skeleton-jelly-ropemummy to the Archpriest?

The Aneman-Pirran Border Wars - Session 4

The Party:

• David Van Stone, 5th level Half-elf Warlock (Celestial Patron) - Former Aneman army officer.
• Van Darkholme, 5th level Half-elf Warlock (Sentinel Patron) - Vigilante crime fighter and former Aneman city planner.
• Wellston Plumbago, 5th level Half-elf Warlock (Great Old One Patron) - Rake, roustabout, and the world's only known Drow ambassador.

The party and the Archpriest found it easy to lose themselves in the shouting crowd when their smoldering train pulled into the station. Even before the cars had stopped moving, shouting passengers wrenched the doors open and flooded onto the platform. Some sprinted off into town, while a few captured the attention of alarmed guards and station agents. In the chaos, Wellston, David, and Van were unopposed as they passed through the hubbub and onto their connecting train.

As they pulled away, Van remarked that whomever had sent the assassins after the Archpriest had been willing to kill a surprisingly large number of civilians to achieve their goal.

In the week of steady rail travel that followed, no other attackers found the four, leaving more than enough time to examine the items retrieved from Barnabus--a suit of ring mail made from leather and magically hardened rings of glass, and an iron wand capable of hurling invisible razors. The four travelers arrived in Libussa without further incident.

The party was on edge--either they were to receive all of the rewards the Archpriest had promised over the recent weeks, or they were about to be swarmed by a mass of Pirran soldiers. The Archpriest stepped out of the train car, bereft of any disguise, and was immediately recognized by a pair of Black Endoguard--but Thomasz remained true to his word, and a brief command in flowing Temenite held their attention.

One Endoguard called to another, who called to another, and a mass of black armor and shifting bodies surrounded the Archpriest and the Warlocks like a human wall. The bow wave of black armor swept out of the station and through the streets of the holy quarter. The crowd parted in fear and surprise before the Archpriest's marching retinue, and the within minutes the party was escorted into the heart of the castle of St. Logan. Thomasz addressed the staff of the castle with aplomb, and the party watched as the entire mechanism of the Iadesian church lurched into motion as if the Archpriest's presence were a master cog slotted neatly back into a waiting mechanism.

~

A few hours later, the party found themselves bathed, fed, and alone with the Archpriest again in his private study--no more than a few score feet away from where Van had first plucked Thomasz from his private chapel. Thomasz made good on his promises, signing the documents assigning the trio their wealth, land, and titles in the name of the Church of Iades. In addition to 50,000 gold pieces each held in a Bharakat Holdings account, the trio found themselves homeowners and sinecures:

• Wellston received a townhouse built over a Libussan bridge, as well as responsibility over certain shipping tolls and a steward to manage his affairs.
• David received a manor on the outskirts of Libussa, an extensive greenhouse famous for producing heirloom fruits and orchids, as well as gardeners trained in the day-to-day care of the flora.
• Van received ownership of a comfortable gatehouse built into one of the old Libussan city walls. The city walls had long-since expanded beyond the radius of the gatehouse, but the building had been transformed into a barracks for a tax-supported city guard. Rather than resting solely on Van's shoulders, the management of the gatehouse barracks and guard was to be overseen by a career Captain and his support staff who would report to Van.

Remembering the notes he took shortly after their discussion with Isaac Bacterian, David handed over his diagram of the secret military tunnels beneath Salera to Thomasz. The Archpriest made a careful copy of the directions before returning David's scrawled notes.

The Archpriest was quite serious about putting his three erstwhile kidnappers to good use. Pirra had been established on ancient lands, and the tombs of forgotten nations were scattered throughout the hills and mountains. With the armies of Pirra and Anem locked in a standstill along the border, the Libussan government, academy, and Iadesian church all kept an ear open for rumors of magical artifacts that might tilt the balance of the war in their favor. Prior to the Archpriest's surprise vacation, the Church's efforts had been desultory at best--but, as Thomasz exclaimed to his newly-minted Prefects, he would not waste the opportunity before them.

Two days later, the party found themselves aboard a private train headed northwest to Seeseeden and the Archpriest's "winter chalet"--the impenetrable mountain fortress stacked on the side of Mt. Gaspar that Isaac Bacterian had first described to them. The entirety of the Black Endoguard rode with the Church's upper hierarchy, along with a trio of Pirran porters, two chatty scouts, and Eva Benedict, a diminutive half-elven Libussan alchemist kept on retainer at the party's request. As they parted ways, the Archpriest shook each Warlock's hand warmly, and reminded them of their first Prefectural mission--discover the fate of the Church Militant scout sent to investigate the nearby tomb, and plumb the depths of whatever they found in search of anything that might help turn the tide of the border war. The trio hefted their bags, tightened their winter coats, and marched off into the snow and wind.

~

Ironfork was a small mountain town three days' travel northeast from Seeseeden. The roads leading to the alpine herding village were snowy and treacherous but not yet impassable, and all nine travelers were happy to duck under a low wooden lintel and into the warmth of the rough-hewn tavern at the heart of Ironfork. While the porters, scouts, and shivering alchemist devoured bowls of warm stew, the three Warlocks asked the tavern owner about the rumors of local disappearances that had first attracted the attention of the Church, and were a potential explanation for the disappearance of the Church Militant scout.

The trio opted to frame this query within the fiction that they were Libussan academy birdwatchers on the trail of rare and dangerous quarry. The tavern owner was nonplussed, but answered their questions with a motivation born from the flowing coins of nine indefinite-stay guests (and their mounts) appearing out of nowhere during low season.

People had been occasionally vanishing if they spent the night in the alpine near a certain gorge. At first, people had attributed the disappearances to hungry wolves--a common threat, especially before and during the winter months--but the most recent event had turned minds toward darker theories. A traveling minstrel had recently made a drunken boast that he would explore the gorge on his own, but the only sign of him was the return of his horse several days later, exhausted and covered in strange bites all over its legs and hindquarters. The animal had been taken in and left to recover in the tavern's stables until either the minstrel returned to claim it or it healed enough to be put to work or sold.

The trio did not lessen the tavern keeper's confusion when they asked if the horse was available for questioning. It was, and the tavern keeper shook his head in wonderment as the three Warlocks dutifully trooped off toward the barn.

Wellston enacted a short ritual that would allow him to speak with the horse, and it offered several useful insights between bites of a fresh apple. The minstrel had lead the horse toward the gorge just as the tavern owner had described. The two had been caught in the alpine after dark and without good light, and when the minstrel had stopped to relieve himself, horse and rider were set upon by tiny, pale figures--"It was like a whole herd of baby people tried to eat my ass," to quote the horse.

David noticed that in addition to toddler-sized bite marks, the horse also bore wounds from what looked like a handful of stabs with a three-tined dinner fork.

Left with more questions than answers, the party turned in for the evening, ready to gather their retainers and head for the gorge at dawn.

In the morning, Eva handed them a small parcel of alchemical concoctions that the trio had requested the night before. She also gave them a fearful warning about the potential for triggering an avalanche if they misused the brick of fireclay she had prepared. Thanking Eva and leaving her in the warmth of the tavern, the three warlocks departed along with their trio of laborers and pair of scouts for the gorge. The plan was to find the tomb sought by the church and set up a defensible camp nearby before beginning to explore it.

A few hours later, the party lingered warily at a cleft in the canyon wall. Rusted fragments of a traveler's iron cook pot poked out of the shallow snow covering an old fire pit beside the ragged hole in the stone, and sunlight reflecting off the bright blanket of snowfall revealed a dun-colored skeleton in faded clothing lying a few dozen feet beyond the entrance. Below the most recent layer of snow, David found bootprints leading directly into the cleft.

Leaving their porters and scouts behind with instructions to return to town if they didn't emerge within a day, the trio entered what they could only assume was the tomb they had been seeking.

~

The tunnel was sparse, but obviously formed with intent. Side rooms held shabby wooden coffins on stone biers, and within the coffins were ancient clay statues of snake-headed warriors and scholars lying in repose. The walls were covered in sloppy, crumbling paintings of abstract geometric shapes and ubiquitous snake motifs--designs that none of the Warlocks recognized.

The skeleton, on closer examination, was browned by rot, its bones deeply pitted and corroded. Its clothes were bleached of all color--but clearly made in the style of a Church Militant scout. Wellston opined on the threat of "animating oozes" that squeezed off your skin and wore it among civilized people, and the party filed that thought away for future nightmares. A broken clay statue was discovered in the room nearest the scout's remains; it contained little more than a few serpentine bones, a small golden amulet, and a sharp, acrid stink.

The party opted to disturb nothing and approached the broad stone door at the end of the tunnel, which was barred by a heavy stone crossbeam resting on ancient iron pegs. Shifting the stone block required the effort of all three explorers--and all three were caught under the weight of the block when a portion of the ceiling swung down toward them like a huge stone hammer!

Wellston barked an arcane syllable and vanished in an oily cloud, reappearing further down the tunnel. Van and David weren't as quick to react, and the stone weight slammed into both of them. The two half-elves were smashed to the sides of the tunnel, and the hammer pounded loudly against the stone door, which gave way under the heavy blow. Harshly battered but alive, the three gathered themselves and advanced before the hammer mechanism finished resetting itself. They left the treacherous stone block where it lay.

A larger chamber loomed beyond the stone door. The walls of the room beyond were daubed with serpentine designs and forms. Gravel crunching under their feet, the three observed the centerpiece of the room--a massive lacquered wooden coffin on a raised stone platform, flanked by two of the lesser coffins they had already seen. Cautious as ever, Wellston searched for magic in the room and found lingering necromancy within the coffins. They debated setting the entire mess on fire as a preemptive tactic, but Wellston demurred.

Wellston: "While I do appreciate the idea of an ambulatory man-candle, it's only on an aesthetic level."

Van moved to open the central coffin. His efforts were assisted from within as three skeletons rose to face them! Dull red light leaked from their eye sockets, and the forms groaned and clattered as their movements stretched ancient wrappings and shook mantles of corroded bronze jewellery. Their jaws gaped at the trio, showing long fangs growing from humanoid skulls.

The warlocks made brief work of the ancient undead; a flurry of eldritch power blasted apart one, and the others were shattered by frigid retributive power when they laid their claws on Van's magically warded body. The trio examined the teeth of their foes. Finding them entirely unlike the wounds on the minstrel's horse, they concurred--"These are not the ass-eating skeletons we seek."

Across the chamber from the trio of (blasted, ruined) coffins loomed a grotesque statue. Part human, part snake, the stone idol alternatively beckoned and threatened with eight muscular arms. Its hooded head was lit by flaming jewels inserted into its eye sockets. The trio contemplated removing them, but held off from abject tomb robbery after discovering that the aura of flame surrounding each eye-jewel was quite real and quite hot--and they had nowhere obvious to store a perpetually burning gemstone. A note was made, and the party proceeded down a manhole-sized erosion in the floor that Van discovered behind the ominous statue.

Below the shabby burial chamber, a finely-cut stone tunnel extended into darkness. The tunnel was flanked on both sides by massive stone snake-god idols in the style of the first they had seen, albeit bereft of flaming eyes. Beyond the gallery, a murky pool of anise-scented water waited in the center of an octagonal room flanked by a heavy door on all but one wall.

The trio suddenly remembered that they still carried their magical flying brooms. After so many consecutive weeks of travel by train, each was eager to remount the devices, even within the confines of the chilly, alien tomb. They advanced as one into the chamber under the looming, graven eyes of snake gods. As they hovered over the noisome waters, David noticed movement--two wakes pulsing through the water directly toward Van!

The trio ascended as far over the pool as they could get. They debated how whatever was moving within the pool might respond to conversation. Van ended the debate:

Van: "Whatever's in the pool of water will respond to being shelled."

The chamber--perhaps for the first time in centuries, if not millennia--echoed with a weird roar as the three warlocks spent the next five minutes circling above the pool and blasting it with eldritch force. The water was churned to a froth, and the smell of anise and oil boiled up even to the ceiling's height.

The warlocks paused, surveying their work. Two dismembered, shredded arms floated to the top of the pool, barely identifiable for the pounding they had received.

The warlocks glanced warily at each other, then wordlessly repeated their onslaught of indiscriminate violence for several more minutes before dumping an entire flask of alchemist's fire over the surface of the black pool, setting it ablaze.

The Aneman-Pirran Border Wars - Session 3

The Party:

• David Van Stone, 5th level Half-elf Warlock (Celestial Patron) - Former Aneman army officer.
• Van Darkholme, 5th level Half-elf Warlock (Sentinel Patron) - Vigilante crime fighter and former Aneman city planner.
• Wellston Plumbago, 5th level Half-elf Warlock (Great Old One Patron) - Rake, roustabout, and the world's only known Drow ambassador.

The plan, then, was to get the Archpriest back to Libussa as fast as possible. All three kidnappers were concerned that their absence would be noticed by Isaac Bacterian (despite their conclusion that he had expected them to fail), and so they plotted a northern course, swapping between broom flight and passenger trains.

A small amount of cold-weather travel preparation was all that was required before leaving, although Wellston found it necessary to passionately kiss the sputtering Captain Hans as a precursor to their departure.

The flight over the border was brief and uneventful. The three warlocks and the Archpriest passed over a border skirmish, but opted not to stop--they couldn’t tell which side was Aneman and which was Pirran, and nobody wanted to catch a stray bullet. After landing, the Archpriest was fitted with a false nose and nondescript, dirty clothing to better blend in with the other travelers. The trio debated arming Thomasz, but concluded that it was a poor idea.

David: "Should we give the Archpriest a weapon in case something bad happens?" 

Wellston: "What, so he can kill himself?"

As the train passed along the inland sea coast between Horrisch and Rencher, the Archpriest described in greater detail the rewards that would await them if they safely escorted him back to Libussa--they would take on the station of “Prefects to the Archpriest”, outranking everyone but the Archpriest, his Cardinals, and any Church Militant cleric in matters of Pirran and Church security. Furthermore, they would each receive Church lands as their personal domain or manor, and an account drawn from Iadesian funds totaling 50,000 gold pieces.

The three warlocks found this acceptable, but dreams of wealthy retirement were interrupted when a large group of Church Militant soldiers boarded the train at a small coastal town. The Archpriest’s earlier warnings about the machinations of traitorous Cardinals came to mind, and the party debated what to do as the soldiers moved through the train cars, inspecting passengers in each carriage as they advanced. No clear decision was reached before the sliding door of their compartment was wrenched open and a look of recognition passed across the faces of the soldiers.

The trio was asked their names. All three lied unsuccessfully. The Archpriest was addressed by name, but Thomasz wasn’t put at ease by the presence of the soldiers. Requesting a moment to pray for his mysteriously identifiable kidnappers, Thomasz joined hands with all of them, locking his hand firmly around the soldier’s hand and loosely gripping that of Van. The Archpriest launched into a rapid-fire patter of prayer--which the soldier, supposedly a sworn member of the Iadesian Church Militant, was entirely unable to repeat, let alone keep pace.

The trio caught on to the Archpriest’s message, and cast the entire train car into magical darkness before leaping up to engage the soldiers.

Startled, the soldiers unleashed a barrage of blind gunfire into the darkness. In response, each of the trio fired back with eldritch blasts of power, slaying soldiers almost as fast as they were replaced by reinforcements rushing down the line of train cars. One soldier, still standing in the open cabin doorway, drew a fighting knife and slashed the Archpriest, who barely managed to dive to the floor. What would have been an arterial spray was only a brutal gash on the forearm, and the knife-wielding soldier was quickly blown away by Van. David rushed to magically heal the wound.

The soldiers retreated up the train’s length, firing wildly into the swirling mass of darkness and the sound of Van’s menacing voice, heedless of bystanders. The soldiers loudly called for backup from their unseen leader, Barnabus. 

The trio split into two groups--David and Van remained in the train car to fight off the soldiers while Wellston and the Archpriest moved further back along the train to get beyond the range of flying carbine rounds and flying splinters of shattered wood and glass.

Van and David chased the retreating soldiers with blasts of eldritch force, but were rebuked when the soldiers’ leader, a man in a Church Militant tabard and steel helmet, pointed an iron wand at them and growled out a resonant spell. A glowing orange bead hissed down the length of three train cars before blossoming into a storm of roaring flame. The car was instantly set ablaze, and the two warlocks were badly burned. David retreated to heal his wounds, leaving Van alone to face off against the war mage Barnabus from within the burning train car.

Wreathing himself in mystic ice, Van mounted his broom and hurled himself through the train at the war mage--but not before Barnabus pointed the wand again at Van and unleashed a bolt of white lightning straight into his chest. When his eyes cleared and his ears stopped ringing, Van briefly noted that the carpet and walls between himself and the war mage had also been set aflame. He wouldn not survive another unmitigated strike.

Meanwhile, David and Wellston concerned themselves with the handful of still-living bystanders that the war mage’s fireball hadn’t already killed. Wellston had little sympathy for them.

Wellston: "Civilians are combatants that haven't realized it yet."

Wellston, hiding in a conjured illusion of even more fire, poked his head out of the heatless flames and saw that Van’s duel with Barnabus was going poorly. He turned back to Thomasz.

Wellston: “How does Iades feel about collateral damage?”

Thomasz: “The Church tries to avoid it at all costs!”

Wellston: “That’s unfortunate.”

Wellston walked up the train, made sure that Van wasn’t in the radius of his spell, and ripped open a gateway to the darkness of space, unleashing the Hunger of Hadar on the train car occupied by Barnabus and a score of screaming passengers. Boiling darkness spilled from the hole in reality and impossible tentacles ripped the car and everything that remained in it into frozen, corroded chunks.

But another shouted spell could be heard from within the darkness. Barnabus, mauled but alive, launched into the open air above the train car on invisible wings. The war mage leveled his iron wand at the train car containing the Archpriest and prepared to blast it off the rails--but Van was waiting for him and unleashed a point-blank flurry of eldritch power, ripping him apart like a hammered apricot.

The last Church Militant soldier swore loudly, threw down his rifle, and leaped from the train. His jump was ill-timed, however, and the passing bough of a tree swatted him from the air with a crunching finality.

After ensuring the survival of the Archpriest, the trio busied themselves with escorting what few survivors they could find to the front of the train and separating the burning train cars from the undamaged ones.

The Aneman-Pirran Border Wars - Session 2

The Party:

• David Van Stone - 5th level Half-elf Warlock (Celestial Patron) - Former Aneman army officer.
• Van Darkholme - 5th level Half-elf Warlock (Sentinel Patron) - Vigilante crime fighter and former (?) Aneman city planner.
• Wellston Plumbago - 5th level Half-elf Warlock (Great Old One Patron) - Rake, roustabout, and the world's only known Drow ambassador.

David Van Stone (L), Van Darkholme (C), Wellston Plumbago (R)

A map of Eloran, for reference.

Northern coast of Pirra - Early Winter

The three papal kidnappers debated between the western or eastern route from Libussa back to Salera.

Although the total time at sea was roughly equivalent, the eastern trek involved sailing through the edge of the moonshadow, down the full length of the eastern Pirran coast, through the strait of Chernik and potentially encounters with Chernikan privateers or Jhil corsairs, and around the full southern coastal face of the Imperial Diaspora.

The western route, by comparison, involved tracing the length of the western Pirran coast and the floating cannon batteries meant to repel Temenite raiders, dodging the Temenite raiders themselves, and potentially making landfall at any Aneman town once the border was crossed.

The party opted for the western passage and set sail for the warm embrace of His Dread Majesty.

The Angel Wings was not a large vessel, and ship stores of water and food required frequent refreshment. The party was able to procure a large quantity of fresh fish with the help of their invisible familiars, and buckets of sea water were easily rendered potable by the party's basic magic. The ship's passage along the Pirran coast was unremarkable for the first week, but the seventh day at sea threatened the two-masted yawl with a looming storm large enough to give the first mate pause. First Mate Rashad ul'Hatim, a tall Jhil man, was so nervous that the party opted to consult Wellston's magical patron for advice on braving the storm or risking discovery by putting in at a Pirran harbor.

After completing his divinatory ritual, thick black oil full of broken teeth welled up from between the top deck planks. Wellston assured his companions that this was what the ritual was intended to do, and that it was an ill omen for passing through the storm. They took the matter to Captain Hans, who insisted that the Angel Wings would hold against the gale--but that the party, as his employer, was welcome to take command of the vessel for the remainder of the journey (at which point Captain Hans would retire to his stateroom until their travel was entirely complete).

Wellston considered the Archpriest's feelings on the matter. "Can you swim? And if not, can you hold your breath for three to four months?"

The party opted to trust the captain. To his credit, the Angel Wings held together with only minor damage. Not wanting to put into a harbor for repairs and unable to meaningfully do so while under way, Van mounted his broom and did the best he could magically, using a mending spell to repair small cracks and rips in the ship one excruciatingly small patch at a time.

~

The days following were mercifully calm. After entering the cargo hold every morning to deposit the honey that he had been magically creating with his jug of alchemy, David was selected to regularly bring the Archpriest food and drink. The two began to play daily games of dragonchess. David had a slight suspicion that the Archpriest was allowing him to win, but the conversation stayed airy and polite--the Archpriest didn't seem interested in berating his kidnappers, only enjoying a small amount of pleasant chatter as a break in the monotony of cold days at sea in the ship's lamp-lit hold.

Day nine at sea found them closest to the horn of Launin on the northern Pirran coast. The sun rose early in such northern latitudes, and the Archpriest asked David if his captors would allow him to perform a benediction over the crew each dawn. This prompted fierce debate in private; all three men were aware of the eagerness of the gods to answer prayers, and placing the Archpriest of a sun-worshipping religion in full view of his god at the moment of its appearance each day seemed somewhat hazardous.

Van: "Can you trick the Archpriest with an illusion of the sun?"
Wellston: "Van, that would be lying, and lying is wrong."

The three Warlocks ultimately agreed that the Archpriest would be allowed to perform a daily benediction over the crew at dawn, but only within the hold of the ship. Everyone seemed satisfied with this arrangement, and the next morning, the four crew and David Van Stone lined up shoulder-to-shoulder among the scents of old sweat, wet rope and honey to receive their blessing from the highest-ranking member of the Church of Iades. The service was brief, but heartfelt, and David reported back to Wellston and Van that the Archpriest didn't seem to be fomenting rebellion or inciting mutiny.

David felt so inspired that he was able to magically cure a large goiter on the neck of one of the crew. Possibly in response, Wellston allowed himself to be caught by David on the Archpriest's lap, bemoaning their "doomed, impossible love," and insisting to David and Van that "Archpriest" was old Imperial for "Top Daddy".

~

Day 12 saw the Angel Wings pass under the gaze of the Pirran cannon battery at the Steschal inlet. 120 feet from stem to stern and bristling with turreted guns, the battery guarded the inland Pirran sea from Temenite raiders and served as a major stronghold of the Pirran navy. Currently, the navy was floating customs frigates beside the battery and running cutters out to search and interrogate every ship that passed the inlet.

The party opted to play things straight--the Angel Wings was fast, but not fast enough to outrun a Pirran customs frigate at full sail, let alone the outrunners the Pirrans would dispatch to hound anyone trying to flee. Van bound and gagged the Archpriest, settled him into a ship's hammock tied underneath his Broom of Flying, rendered them both magically invisible, and soared off to observe the Angel Wings from a distance measured by several minutes' flight. As long as the customs inspection took less than two hours, there was virtually no way Van could imagine anyone discovering the presence of their captive.

The cutter approached them backlit by the setting sun. The deck was a sea-glare smear of movement and the shouts of marines as lines were tossed between vessels and the two ships secured starboard-to-port. Three figures stood unmoving among the marines--a shaven-headed, furtive young man in the greasy robes of a Libussan journeyman mage, and behind him, two burly men in mismatched brigandine lightly cradling hand mortars. The marine captain lightly stepped aboard the Angel Wings and droned through standard exclamations of the navy's intent to search the hold to confirm both cargo and the absence of the kidnapped Archpriest. The formalities seemed as if they would carry the day until the young man blurted his concern from the deck of the cutter, only to be dismissed by the marine captain's attempts to complete the inspection.

"I have SEEN this before. WILL see it. I WILL HAVE SEEN IT. There is..." The young man leered at David. "...a UNICORN among these men. I have seen HONEY and HORN here. I KNOW this. I WILL HAVE known this."

David darted a glance at Wellston, who had shifted from his usual insouciant stance into something colder and harder. Wellston's usual bawdy persona was absent, utterly replaced with the gaze of a shepherd deciding which of the flock would be most valuable for wool or for meat. Currently, Wellston seemed to regard the disruptive young mage only as meat.

The mage took several unsteady steps toward the edge of the cutter's deck, and his armored gunmen followed behind with level, practiced steps. The young man's eyes tracked the passage of unknowable things through the open air. Up close, the stains on his sleeves--and the smell clouding him--resolved as burns and the scent of heavy wood smoke. Wellston asked the marine captain if this man represented the Pirran navy's procedures, pointedly speaking directly past the mage at the scowling marine over his shoulder. The captain grit his teeth and responded that the mage was not a customs official.

It was clear that Wellston was deliberately antagonizing the strange man. The sailors visibly tensed as the mage's insistent shouting peaked--but the marine captain cut him off.

"I don't care HOW much your father is paying to station you aboard my ship, Cadex! You'll return to the hold immediately!"

Water lapped against the hulls. The young mage turned back toward the marine captain, revealing an arcane rod tucked into the belt within the inner folds of his scorched robes--a magical weapon of brutal force. Hands twitched toward hilts. Breath was held.

A seagull's idiot caw broke the frozen moment, and the shaven-headed mage stomped back into the hold of the cutter, spitting oaths as he went. His bodyguards followed without comment.

The marine turned to Captain Hans. "I'll need your ship's log before we can be done with this. How many aboard and what are you hauling?"
"Four crew, three passengers, sir, and a cargo full of honey."
The captain angrily scrawled a few lines in his notes and handed back the ship's log.
"Fine. Be on your way."

The marines cast off. It was only after Van landed back on deck with the Archpriest that they realized the captain's mistake--only two passengers had been visible after an extremely thorough search of the ship. Swearing sulfurously, Captain Hans ordered all their sail unfurled. It was the wind as much as the universal dread of the battery's booming report that drove the Angel Wings toward the lip of the inlet and the utmost range of the Navy's gentle touch.

~

Cadex remained unsatisfied. Almost a full day later, the party spotted the single mast of a small ship in pursuit. Invisible observation revealed that the crew consisted of four Pirran sailors, the young mage Cadex, and his heavily armed bodyguards. The wind was unfavorable for the Angel Wings; Cadex's cutter would eventually catch up with them, even if it took several days. Captain Hans and the party convened privately in the Captain's stateroom. They couldn't outrun Cadex, and they couldn't attack and burn the ship to the waterline--the smoke plume would be seen, and the navy would begin patrolling the coastal waters in their faster ships to investigate the attack. They weren't close enough to Temen to blame it on raiders, either. The Captain looked deeply concerned, but Wellston suddenly perked up.

"You know, I could Open the Gate." Wellston reached into a pocket and placed a small glass jar between them all. Inside the jar was a small sliver of pickled octopus tentacle.

David looked baffled. Van looked equal parts intrigued and horrified. The Captain grunted and left the warlocks to their "witchcraft". A terrible plan was put into effect just after sundown.

As Cadex's 20-foot cutter came within a bowshot of the Angel Wings, Wellston and Van invisibly took to the night sky on their brooms. With Cadex, his bodyguards, and all of his crew visible among the ship's running lights, Wellston opened a gateway to the unknowable gulfs between the stars directly over the deck of Cadex's ship.

A howling wind picked up, and the sound of distant, echoing flutes filled the air. The sea groaned and flash-froze for a stone's throw from the ship. A tarry darkness frothed and boiled over the sides of the vessel. The obfuscation was merciful--the sounds of wet slurping, the crunch of bones being wrenched from sockets, and the sizzle of dissolving flesh and wood wafted up from Cadex's ship and across the water toward the Angel Wings. David blanched, and the crew near him turned away from the noises--several making warding signs and whispering prayers.

Van Darkholme was forced to observe, however. He alone among the three eldritch companions could see through the depths of supernatural night. He watched Cadex, his bodyguards, and his sailors get torn apart like hot roast chickens jointed by careless hands. To his supernatural vision, the thick tentacles reaching through the tear in space were the color of spoiled whey. Whatever they touched--gently, almost lovingly--was destroyed. Flesh melted, bone crumbled, blood instantly boiled to a thick vapor. Wood and iron rotted, splintered, and broke. Finally, when the screaming had guttered out, the spray of blind tendrils swept slowly through the blackened, icy water. They gathered the remains of body and ship like a mother gathering her children to her breast, and drew the undifferentiated bolus toward Wellston's open gate before pulling the pool of darkness behind them like a trailing skirt. The last notes of distant flutes echoed over a sea dotted with nothing more than melting fragments of black ice and splinters of corroded wood.

The crew would not meet their eye when Wellston and Van returned to the Angel Wings. David sat on deck, his jug of alchemy turned from producing an alibi of honey to jack after jack of frothy beer, which he drank and freely shared with harrowed purpose.

~

In private, the three Warlocks debated the potential reprisal of Cadex's family. As the night wore on and the beer took hold, the topic wandered.

Wellston: "You saw how much the marines feared his father. Powerful, important fathers don't care about their sons. We'll be perfectly safe."
David: "Did someone hurt you? Who made you this way?"

And later:

Dave: "What if a child saw you? Would you kill it?"
Wellston: "No, the proper thing to do at that point would be to kidnap the child and give it a *proper* upbringing."

~

Two days later, the crew had largely recovered from the horror they'd overheard (as well as the brutal hangover produced by David's honey-sweetened magical beer) when they were caught between an unescorted Pirran merchant convoy heading north up the Pirran coast and a Temenite raiding fleet sailing over the western horizon. Unable to outrun either group, Wellston invoked one of his many rituals to twist the clouds overhead into the words "IT'S BAIT". Either no Temenite aboard the war fleet could read Imperial Common or they simply didn't care, as their course remained unchanged--but the merchant convoy abruptly swept around and made for the nearby port of Haunauberg. Hoping that the Temenite fleet would try to wait out the valuable merchant convoy instead of their tiny vessel, the party opted to continue south--a gambit which paid off as the Temenite fleet weighed anchor in the port's bay for as long as they dared before the navy would arrive.

David: "I feel bad about leaving the merchant ships to the Temen fleet."
Van: "You feel bad about everything! You need to get a handle on having emotions and stop it."

~

Day 24 found the Angel Wings closing in on the Aneman-Pirran border with a violent storm chasing them. The winter weather had been worsening, and the storm had been building for several days. Captain Hans, normally stoic, was pacing the deck and shouting orders in a whip-crack cadence. The thunderhead loomed like a black hammer. The charts showed it would fall just as the ship crossed the border--too far to turn back and make for Pirran Etnauhau, too far to push forward and find safe harbor in Aneman Hofsbach just on the other side of the skirmish lines. No safe landing to be found on the shores between.

A plan was hatched--the trio's flying brooms would be lashed to the front of the ship like sled dogs to scrape whatever extra speed they could from the hull. Any non-essential cargo would be jettisoned. All sail available would be run up the mast. Anyone keen to pray would be encouraged to do so. The hammer fell.

14 brutal hours later, the Angel Wings--all hands worked to exhaustion, hull battered, sails torn, mast cracked, but vitally intact--limped into Hofsbach harbor. Nobody stood at the docks to greet them, or even take note that the ship had arrived and charge a slip fee. What few lights shone from the rain-blasted windows seemed to fill one in three houses at best. Ruined ships rotted along the tiny quay. Shell craters marred the streets. The border war had not been kind to Hofsbach.

Captain Hans assessed the damage and informed the trio that the Angel Wings would require weeks of repairs to be seaworthy again. The party opted to remain aboard for the evening to retain their low profile, then look for a train in the morning. The trio mumbled something about disguising the Archpriest as a bank debtor being transported back to Salera, realized that they didn't actually know where they were meant to drop off their captive, and fell to brooding. With no plan emerging from their exhausted conversation, all hands quickly seized what rest they could find while the implications of their final delivery haunted them.

~

The party woke to the sounds of hammers and saws. The storm had passed overnight, and the captain had hired locals to refit and tar the damage to his ship as quickly as possible. Van, realizing that the fiction of transporting a debt defaulter across all of Anem would require the permanent presence of his masked, nocturnal vigilante persona, "The Obsidian Skull", put on his leather armor and full face mask in preparation of wearing it for the next several consecutive weeks. Wellston aggressively pretended not to notice that The Obsidian Skull was very obviously Van Darkholme.

With the crew out purchasing provisions and supplies for repairs, the party found themselves alone in the hold of the Angel Wings with Thomasz I, Archpriest of Iades.

The Archpriest had been pleasant, cooperative, understanding, and polite for the entirety of their 24 days at sea. He had blessed the crew and their voyage at every opportunity. He'd played about 20 excellent games of dragonchess with David.

The Archpriest addressed the trio in a steady, gentle voice.

He'd overheard their plan for transporting him to Salera, as well as their consternation that they didn't have any idea where they were meant to leave him. He asked why they thought things had turned out like that. The party concluded that they were the dog that had caught the carriage. They'd been compelled with threats of death or a lifetime of slavery to attempt an impossible task with no support. They'd never been meant to succeed.

The Archpriest asked why they were working so hard for His Dread Majesty, who was clearly planning to kill them on their return with their captive. The party didn't have an answer.

The Archpriest repeated the offer he had made weeks earlier, when Van had slapped irons on him and flown him across the holy quarter of Libussa: Switch sides. Turn their backs on someone who would discard and ruin them without a thought and work for the Archpriest--and not for free. Titles, property, land, and a true payment ten times the value of the false offering made by Isaac Bacterian would be theirs--along with the Archpriest's personal favor--if they would escort him back across the border and safely return him to Libussa.

David sighed deeply. "Well, today's another beer day, gentlemen." He pulled out the alchemy jug and began producing more honeyed beer. It was a day for drinking. Everyone, including the Archpriest, accepted a full mug and drank deeply.

Wellston commented that the titles held no draw for him--he was already an ambassador.

David: "A GOVERNMENT PAYS YOU TO REPRESENT THEM?! Were you chosen by lottery?"

The Obsidian Skull seemed deeply perturbed. He was ready to refuse the offer, but it seemed his companions were swayed. He apologized to the Archpriest--he was compelled to honor his word to the city and the king.

The Archpriest thought for a moment. "Do you serve the city, or do you serve the king?"
"The city," replied Van.
"Does the king serve the city?"

Van had no answer.

Asking for time to think, he removed his disguise ("Oh my god, The Obsidian Skull is VAN DARKHOLME!" "Shut it, Wellston.") and walked into the battered port town to commune with his patron.

Van Darkholme's patron was neither god nor demon, but the First City, a genius loci of an archetypal metropolis. Civic duty was as important to his relationship with his patron as the daily solar benediction was to the Archpriest. Lacking a position on a council or the means to build a curtain wall, Van Darkholme found a bucket of tar and some gravel, and with his magical capacity to shift earth and stone began repairing the craters and potholes in Hofsbach's main street. Hours passed in walking, working meditation. He felt a potent presence, and asked what he should do.

"What the hell has been going on over the past three months? I'm so confused. What I knew has been betrayed."

The answer came like dawn over a skyline, or birds alighting on a fence, or a market gathering people until the moment arrived when it shifted from random carts and workers to a living, breathing thing.

"Support civilization and progress. The people matter less than the institutions. You are an agent of the First City as much as the First City is your patron. Your choices matter."

~

When Van returned to the Angel Wings, everyone--Wellston, David, and the Archpriest--was royally drunk on David's magic beer. Wellston was in the process of trying to convince David that His Dread Majesty was an outright nut job while simultaneously trying to explain magical philosophy. David continued to hand out brimming mugs, which Van accepted. The knot of turmoil drained from his face as quickly as he finished his drink.

They were agreed. It was to be treason.

The Aneman-Pirran Border Wars - Session 1

GM's notes: This is the first session of a D&D 5E campaign I've been writing for the past ~8 months. My players requested that I put together an original setting that would allow for proactive player choices and political/factional intrigue in a high-magic environment. I happily obliged.

I opted to start the game using Kidnap the Archpriest by Skerples, the human behind the excellent Coins and Scrolls blog. This was an easy choice--the writing in KtA is clear, easy to use, and I knew it fairly well from several readings and a few test runs with other groups. 

Success or failure by the party would ideally provide an unambiguous inciting event for the rest of the campaign's political and factional events, and the fallout from whatever they ended up attempting would give me direction to write further material.

To my surprise, I didn't end up getting to use as much material from Kidnap the Archpriest as I might have preferred!

~

Salera, Capital of Anem - Late Autumn

After several unpleasant weeks in a Saleran jail, three unusual men were unceremoniously hauled from the reeking ranks of prisoners by the firm hand of compulsory international intrigue. In a cold interrogation room, Isaac Bacterian--via a projected illusionary duplicate --ignored his steaming tea and reviewed his notes.

• David Van Stone - Former officer of the Aneman Army, now a vagabond accused of killing two city guards with sorcery during his arrest for burglary of government property. Proposed penalty: Execution.
• Van Darkholme - City planning committee lead, now accused of thievery of government documents. Proposed penalty: 60 years imprisonment and hard labor.
• Wellston Plumbago - "Drow" "Ambassador". Diplomatic nightmare. Deliberately requested incarceration; accused of nonspecific but catastrophic indecency. Proposed penalty: Deportation and sale to Chernikan slavers.

All of these accusations and sentences were wholesale nonsense, of course. Isaac Bacterian explained to the three men that, due to their facility with magical flight, they had been forcibly recruited as agents to exercise the wishes of His Dread Majesty, Gulfrey II. The Archpriest of Iades, Thomasz I, had recently refused a royal summons. It would be their duty to rectify the Archpriest's error by traveling to Libussa, the capital of Pirra, acquiring the Archpriest's person, and transporting him--willing or unwilling--back to Salera, where His Dread Majesty would receive him as a personal guest.

Success would be rewarded with 5,000 gold pieces each and, doubtless, the favor of His Dread Majesty. Failure--or revelation of their status as agents of the Aneman Crown--would be punished as befitting the nature and severity of their indiscretion.

With less than an hour to decide in the privacy of their own company (and that of the six silent, armed guards in full battle armor lining the walls of the frigid interrogation chamber), the three men accepted the task. Only after they had acquiesced were their brooms returned to them--the true reason for their imprisonment, each broom was a rarity enchanted to fly faster than a horse could run, and each man one of the few who could use the wonder reliably.

After a few choice items were retrieved from homes, the trio were informed that the location to which they were being taken was a state secret, and they were black-bagged and frog-marched into the depths of the Aneman capital. That two of the three men had invisible familiars keeping pace with their passage seemed to go unnoticed by Isaac.

The Saleran bureaucrat, his clanking guards, the three unwilling provocateurs, and their invisible familiars arrived at a chamber filled with the crackle of magic and the shuffling of paper and feet. While other uniformed military rushed past on unknowable errands, six Saleran military mages stood in a loose circle around a concrete arch that hissed with orange arcs of power--a transcontinental gateway from the days of the Empire. The mages swept steel wands through the air, calling to each other like nervous sailors as they manipulated the energies of the gateway between them.

David, Van, and Wellston were informed of their schedule--the gateway would leave them on the southern end of Lake Stuh, just inside the wilderness of the Imperial Diaspora and south of the Pirran border. A precise sequence of broom flight to Sasbad, a Pirran train to Aichwal, and a riverboat voyage to Breitters would carry them to the northern Pirran coast, where the captain of the Angel Wings would take them aboard his two-masted yawl for a single day's sail into the Libussan harbor.

The trio acknowledged the schedule with varying levels of attention, stepped through the magical gateway, and witnessed the plan immediately dissolve.

~

Lake Stuh, Northern Imperial Diaspora Border

The three men found themselves on the banks of a frozen lake that extended over the northern horizon. Snow smothered the dense pines lining the strand, but none of them felt the bite of the cold--none of the three felt anything, in fact. Nor could they move, save to stare straight ahead at the field of snowflakes fixed, unmoving, in midair before them.

Wellston cheerfully pointed out that his telepathy would at least let them converse amongst themselves if they were to remain frozen for all eternity. As neither of the other two had mastered the skill of telepathy, the concept of one-way missives sent at the whim of a half-Drow pervert, forever, did little to soothe.

Gradually, the snowflakes began to drift again, a millimeter a minute, as whatever stretching of space and time wrought by the gateway caught up to the present. Although the three men remained helpless observers in their own bodies, time sped up; sheets of falling snow whipped past their eyes like sand pouring from a ripped bag, and the sun's overhead arc accelerated from a glowing slash across the sky to a painful strobing glare that flashed before and behind the ever-present moon.

The celestial sequence ended as abruptly as it had begun. The trio fell to their knees in the snow, aching from the sudden release, and did their best to gather themselves. Van's fine pocket watch revealed that they had stood motionless on that icy strand for a full 30 days. After briefly debating if the mission was still even possible (and consulting with Wellston's mysterious supernatural patron), the three agents decided to continue as best they could.

The trio grimly charted a flight plan calling for sixty hours of travel in six days from Lake Stuh to the northeast, hoping to catch the train at Donau. There, they learned that the train wouldn't arrive for several days. Not wanting to waste any more time, they resupplied with several flasks of bitter, potent coffee and flew another miserable long-haul north to Achengen, a larger coastal town, where they finally--snow-blasted and wind-whipped--sat down inside the pilgrim-packed passenger carriage of a train bound for Breitters.

Their efforts paid off, however; when they stepped off the platform, they were precisely on schedule as per Isaac's original orders, and the Angel Wings was waiting to provide an inconspicuous ingress to the holy quarter of Libussa. The exhausted party slept for most of the day-long voyage up the coast.

~

Libussa, Capital of Pirra - Early Winter

The coastal approach to the Holy Quarter of Libussa was a tangle of broken aqueducts and gap-walled, goat-haunted villas. The sea docks were crowded with merchant ships pressing for a slip and dodging the lumbering mass of a Libussan naval hulk. The trio disembarked, found an inn with a slow proprietor and private rooms, and laid out their plan--gather information, scout the area around the castle of St. Logan, and figure out where the Archpriest's daily schedule might allow them a chance to capture him. After a brief ritual attempt to bribe some city rats with peanut butter in order to act as spies, the trio approached the gates of the castle through the busy streets of the Holy Quarter. A careful illusion of a fake street-side shed was erected and Dave slipped inside while Wellston approached the heavily-manned portal into the castle.

Meanwhile, Van Darkholme, magically invisible and wearing the trademark leathers of his nocturnal career as a crime-fighting vigilante city planner, approached the castle through the open air on his broom. He spotted a broad balcony containing a private garden--perhaps this would be an opportune place to find the Archpriest? Van opted to peer through the iron-barred, stained-glass windows in search of his quarry.

Through sheer dumb goddamned luck, the Archpriest happened to be praying in the private chapel just beyond the first window into which Van stared.

Abandoning caution for opportunity, Van picked the lock on the balcony garden door and found himself facing a curtain of thick white mist. He gulped, passed through it, and found his magical invisibility stripped and his way blocked by a hulking Temenite bruiser in beetle-black plate armor--a member of the Black Endoguard, the Archpriest's personal enforcers. The Endoguard tore his sword from the scabbard and bellowed, and Van hurled a glass globe of alchemical reagents at the guard's feet. The resulting flash of light that burst from the shattered flask was brighter than the mid-day sun, and the guard reeled backwards, clawing at his own eyes.

Van darted into the Archpriest's glittering personal chapel and--ignoring the threat of imminent dismemberment, the presence of more gold and jewels than he'd ever seen in his life, and the protesting screams of the Archpriest--slapped manacles on the holy man, threw him over his broom, and darted out the balcony door into the open air high over Libussa.

Far below, Dave and Wellston saw a dark form launch from the Archpriest's balcony like a loosed arrow, white robes cracking like whips in the sea breeze. Wellston immediately began asking the gate guards for directions to somewhere irrelevant in broken Imperial Common, while Dave lurked in the illusory shed and kept a wary eye trained on the group in case things turned violent. When Van's broom looked like little more than a sea bird in flight, Wellston broke off his circuitous conversation with the exasperated guards--just as the bells of the White Cathedral began to toll.

Guards and passers-by looked up in confusion--it was nowhere near the end of the hour--and confusion turned to shock and fear as the hundreds of other churches in the holy quarter rang their bells in response. Chaos! Panic! Was Libussa under attack? Were they being invaded? A frisson rippled through the streets as the gates of the castle opened and a double-column of Black Endoguard poured out, charging into the winding alleys and roads of the holy quarter, cutting down any men or livestock that barred their path.

The holy quarter erupted into a riot. Van's broom--Archpriest securely attached--landed on the deck of the Angel Wings, which immediately cast off. The dockmaster's complaints were silenced by the brandishing of the first mate's heavy pistol, and the ship raised sail and headed for open water just as the first columns of smoke began to rise from fires in the city.

Lagging behind and unwilling to draw attention by riding flying brooms over the quarter, Dave and Wellston made their way on foot toward the quay. The docks swarmed with shouting, angry voices, worried sailors, wary merchants, and a rattling, metallic storm of Black Endoguard forcing their way onto vessels in order to search their holds. Wellston called on his powers of illusion again to conjure the image of a swooping red dragon harassing the upper rigging of the Libussan navy hulk in the harbor, and then called on his powers of rampant arson to hurl a burning bundle of lit torches into the hulk's rigging and sails. Distraction established, Wellston and Dave took flight and left the chaos and noise of the spasming Pirran capital behind them.

~

They heard the powder stores of the naval hulk touch off just as their feet touched the deck of the Angel Wings. Burning debris left spectacular, arcing trails of smoke as it scattered over the Libussan docks--but the three kidnappers (after a brief but vigorous debate on the anti-scrying merits of shaving their captive) were busy binding the hands, legs, eyes, and mouth of the Archpriest of Iades, Thomasz I, before carefully locking him in the toilet below deck.

Now all they had to do was keep the Archpriest secure while they sailed around the entirety of the Aneman-Pirran continent.