Picking the Right Fights

## **Synopsis**

In Chapter 61: Picking the Right Fights, Beezaura did her best to glean any information she could from the mysterious stranger who had come to examine the Crownsgold tree – but his stubbornness to reveal specifics was matched only by the intensity of his "requests".  With a few flicks of the wrist that sent waves of searing radiant energy crashing down on her, Beezaura felt her options dwindling and acquiesced to retrieving Graven from the Soul Shelter down below.

It was there that the rest of the party was finishing up a conversation about Graven's past – noting also the curious involvement of Lady Sengri'la and the various paths that all seemed to lead to Finlock Forest.  The appearance of the halfling signaled reason for concern – and after an explanation of what she'd seen, Graven knew in his bones that it was Q'usni who had come to confront him in a mortal form.

We scraped together a plan, but our disadvantages seemed insurmountable – there was only one way out, Orba's flower  appeared only to work on one person at a time and negotiation had already proven to be an ineffective tactic.  With nothing to do but face him, Graven passed beyond the threshold of the chamber and stood opposite the vengeful God of Light who was seething with anger and resentment.

The use of the Soul Shelter was the final blasphemous straw in the eyes of Q'usni, who bound the party in searing chains and shrugged off a pair of optimistic attacks while reprimanding his cleric.  His power was too great, and there was nothing to do but watch as he summoned a radiant dagger to pry the holy relic from Graven's scarred palm.  With a sickening snap that reverberated throughout the Goliath's body, Q'usni broke the relic in two and foretold the selection of a new chosen one – who would be sure to finish the job of hunting the Chimera if Graven failed to do so.

Another great flash of light and the man was gone – leaving the party to tend to their wounds and leaving Graven to retrieve his partial relic from the dirt, which he did so while feeling that his ability to unlock his power within had been stunted… perhaps permanently.

From here it was a quiet and uneventful ride up the ISI-MIL border – the hours passed quickly and we reached the signs for VER, which signaled to us it was time to head west and reconnect with the Acqly Grove Road.  It was a welcome change of pace for our progress to be unhindered, and as the sun began to fall after a full day of travel we caught sight of another settlement – the first we'd seen since meeting Daud at the southern end of the Grove.  Nursing a number of small injuries, it seemed this group of elves had just returned from a fight – and we learned of their predicament from their leader Nynke, who was apprehensive of appealing to strangers but who felt he had little choice with time against him.

Apparently the new Warden of the Grove was a reptile, which was emboldening the Lizardfolk to reclaim portions of the forest – a notion we could confirm given our frequent run-ins with their kind around the ruins of Joiruk.  To limit the spread of violence, the Acqly Elves had prepared offerings for a great tortoise – whose spirit was believed to be a calming force among the beasts.  Finding the tortoise's habitat to be overrun with Copper Claw bears, a group of hunters had been hired to scare them off – but the hunters discovered the tortoise and turned on the elves in favor of claiming the creature's shell, which was believed to be immensely valuable.

The hunters were holding a defensive position at a nearby stone monument, waiting for friends to arrive from Leopold's Garrison to help transport their bounty.  Believing that this would anger the animal spirits, the Acqly Elves pleaded for our help in preventing this – and beyond considering it the right thing to do, we didn't mind the potential reward, either.

We took a moment to rest while the elves got themselves battle-ready, and then marched on foot toward the monument with a plan in place.  A distraction from the front would allow Erland and two swordsmen to scale the walls in the back – and Orba would use her powers of levitation to bring Beezaura up from the center in a surprise attack.  The hunters were undoubtedly skilled and ready for a fight – they fielded a diverse array of attacks both physical and magical, and they were smart enough to focus their strikes when the opportunity presented itself.

Erland broke up their ranks by shoving a pair of the hunters down off the monument, but even so they had enough sustained power to knock both Beezaura and Safira unconscious.  Still, at the first kill we could feel our momentum rising, and we cut down one after the other until the sole remaining survivor gave us one final surprise: he surrendered.  The Acqly Elves looked to us to make the decision of whether to spare his life.

## Trivia

* Natural one count: five natural ones were rolled in this Chapter. 1 each by John and Riley, 3 by Matt.