Act II

**Act II** was the second part of *The First Horseman*. The Act was focused on the party's dealings with the Infernal Pact after learning of their affiliation with the assassin in the previous Act, an enemy undoubtedly evil yet not the true villains behind the priest-slayings. With Solveig's help, the party manage to track down the missing Dulcinea Gardner and Aeron Cyrill, finding the latter in a cell beneath the Thorne estate in Bregate. There, the party slew Farquhar Thorne; afterwards, Peredur Gower departed, and the party failed to find any further leads on the Infernal Pact, eventually breaking. Certain members of the party would later start a new adventuring party, leading into the Interlude.

## Prologue

*Swords fell on swords in the dark as night came to the ruins of Bregate. Beneath banners bearing red roses and black skulls was a flurry of chainmail and steel, of shield and weapon, of men and orcs. “For House Gardner!” cried the kingdom’s defenders. “For the kingdom of Bregate!”*

*The orcs pushed back. “For Ghamorz.” And the men fell beneath their bloodied axes, green grass stained red with their innards.*

*In the ruins above the battlefield, a scarred orc with a steel, horned greathelm pressed a meaty, green finger to his mouth. The sky above was lit with flaming arrows, like burning stars reflected in the water of Lake Loinnir. Beneath him, the air was alive with the cries of men. “For every orc that dies for King Ghamorz, ten men die for King Aeron.”*

*The orc smirked as he stood tall on the ramparts. “King Aeron will never retake this city. This is orc land now!” shouted the warlord, and the ten thousand orcs beneath him cried out victory.*

*The warlord leapt from the ramparts, landing amongst his hordes with a sound like the crack of thunder. His plated boots sounded like the footsteps of a thousand as he pushed through the field.*

*With a swift turn of his warhammer, a knight was knocked from his horse. Ghamorz bludgeoned the man’s chest, denting his armor. A weakened cry escaped from the knight’s lips. Ghamorz knelt down, pulled the helmet from the human’s head, and spat. “Where is your king?” He shouted. “Where does the coward hide?”*

*His hordes swept through another line of ironclad men, and he knew now that the humans were desperate. The end of a year-long siege with the simple mistake of meeting Ghamorz’s ten thousand orcs in the open field.*

*A cacophony of horns rang through the air. Cavalry appeared from the west, knights wearing gold, holding swords and lances. In the front, blade outstretched, stood their leader. A crown was affixed to his greathelm, molded to the gold-plated steel. A lonely red rose was drawn on his green tabard.*

*“My quarry!” shouted the orc as he rushed through the battlefield to meet the royal guest. “The coward reveals himself at last.”*

*With a single swing of his warhammer, Ghamorz struck the king’s horse. The mount fell to the ground, and the king screamed, his plated legs crushed, his body stuck beneath his mount as the hulking orc warlord stood above him. “This ends now!” The orc screamed, and slammed his warhammer into the king’s golden chestplate nine times, denting the plate each time, breaking bones and pounding his ribs into dust, and the king grew motionless.*

*Grinning, the orc lifted the king’s helm. He snapped the crown and threw it to the ground, and let his steel sabatons crush the helmet underfoot. And he looked to the king’s face and saw that it was not Aeron. And then his face came alight like with fire, and pain ran through his body from his forehead. A pain unknown before now. Ghamorz screamed.*

*The field, then, was full of cries of agony. Foe and friend fell to the ground, blood running from their eyes and their skin falling from their bones like sand. Ten thousand orcs were dying, and a thousand men were trying to run, and dying, too.*

*King Ghamorz lifted a shaking hand to his face, and the pain stung a thousand times worse. He choked as he attempted to breathe in, his mouth filling with blood. Slumped over the false King Aeron’s corpse, he looked at the human’s face, and saw a star with nine points in a circle branded crudely and callously into the dead doppleganger’s forehead. King Ghamorz felt the same outline on his forehead with his fingers as his flesh dripped to the ground and his eyes melted away. “By Gruumsh…”*

*He screamed again, and the night’s wind blew his face away like a sheet of sand, his bones scattering to the ground in a battlefield-turned-graveyard.*

## Summary

After a long and arduous journey, the party arrived in the eastern Godsgrove district of Bregate. After Peredur bluffed their way past the guards at the city's gates, Raiwen departed in a hurry to the dormitories at the Arcane Academy. One member down, the party traveled to Solveig's safehouse, finding it in an old and dilapidated wooden tavern called the Broken Sword that served as a front for a stone sanctuary used by the Inquisition during the previous plague outbreak. There, they met Banys Cindershield, a dwarven Inquisitor; two silent initiates of the Order of the White Rose; Lord-Inquisitor Judicaël, the enigmatic leader of the Inquisition; and Solveig, Knight of the Order of the White Rose and pursuer of the Infernal Pact in Bregate. The Lord-Inquisitor revealed that the assassinations beginning with Father Tihomir had continued throughout Noslith, with even Bishop Niall of Bregate being assassinated, and posited that Tegwen might be behind the darkness encroaching on Noslith, and gave Lemuel a two-way communication ring should they learn anything.

Solveig informed them of three recent ills plaguing the city and encouraged them to investigate, although acknowledging that they are only chasing shadows. First, that someone had raided the alchemic stores of the Arcane Academy; second, that two local noble scions - first Dulcinea Gardner, then Aeron Cyrill, had gone missing - and third, that a novice of the Lowport Priory had died mysteriously of arrest of the lungs. Solveig promised that Headmaster Anduil Amonwel and the lords Gardner and Cyrill would be willing to meet with the party, as well as the prior in Lowport.

Pursuing the missing noble scions, the party met with Aeronwen, the enigmatic court wizard of Bregate, at Elden Fortress, House Gardner's seat; the witch alone spoke for Duke Duncan Gardner, who seemed filled with grief. The party met then with the Lord Cyrill, who lead them to the estate of House Thorne, revealing that his son seemed to have had a relationship Dulcinea before her disappearance and then later, with Lady Isolde Thorne before his own disappearance. Lord Thorne proved uninterested in the affairs of the city, and pointed them to his son, Farquhar. In Farquhar's study in Thorne Manor, the party solved a puzzle based on ancient Bregatian royal and noble lineages, opening a massive hole leading to the depths of the estate that the Heroes of Blackbridge bravely spelunked down.

Combat soon engaged with Infernal Pact guards, the bloody battle ending with the apparent death of Farquhar Thorne. After exploring the depths of the estate, they discovered that Dulcinea was taken by a dark-cowled woman but managed to save Aeron and other Pact slave-stock. A dangerous encounter with duergar slaver Rogar Magrimgun occurred while they waited for the Inquisition to clean up after the scuffle; victorious, the party reported to Banys and Solveig, accepted a pending favor from Lord Cyrill, and met with Father Anselm, who was in the process of being interviewed to take the place of the assassinated Bishop of Bregate.

Rest brought morning, and with morning the strange departure of Peredur, with Orc's Lament and one hundred platinum also missing. Pursuing the other leads left the party with nothing, the Infernal Pact proving far too elusive for the remaining heroes of Blackbridge; eventually, the party split up, with most of its members going on their separate ways.

In the ensuing months, Father Anselm became bishop of Bregate while the Cardinals invoked the Writ of Redoubt and reformed the Crusade. This new Crusade soon proved unwieldy, sewing chaos under the guise of pursuing the Infernal Pact, yet they also seemingly proved effective at stopping the spree of priest killings. However, the Fifth Crusade's chaos often harmed innocents, and demanded absolute reign to do so; the chaos they sew, along with the plans of the true enemies, would give rise to great trouble in the Hinterlands.