Duel of Fates

The night before the duel with Gok the Reckless, K'harth takes his Paindeer to Kinna to repair, and she fixes it, turning it into a bat figure called Ulu'goth. On the morning of the duel, Bliss arrives at the Outpost of Maw ready to fight alongside Ghorza. They head to Fort Maw and challenge Gok to the orc ritual duel of Mok'gorah. The pair are lead to the arena by orc guards. In the arena staging room, Ghorza learns from a goblin bystander, Sam Smorkle, that Gok is not an orc, he's a pseudo, the offspring of a god and a mortal being. Bliss and Ghorza are summoned to the arena, where the ferocious crowd is chanting for Gok. He rides out on a fearsome velociraptor mount named Beasto with a glowing gem around his neck. The Trapper Ball announcer kicks things off, and the fight begins. Gak pins Bliss against a wall, but Ghorza wounds the mount with a fireball dagger. Ghorza tries to reach for Guardian, but its not by her side. When Gok is wounded, they see shiny green scales beneath his orc skin. He tells Ghorza his father was Venomfang, and breathes poison. Bliss slays Beasto, and the crowd boos, throwing random arms and armor into the arena in protest. Ghorza's scimitar returns to her (with a note from Mar she would later read: "we can't keep doing this, it's killing us. I'm so tired"), and she summons its partner and strikes Gok while Thunderstruck starts playing. Bliss is very hurt, but Ghorza strikes Gok's neck and separates the necklace from his body. Gok grabs it, declares that his defeat wasn't supposed to happen this way, and swallows the gem. As he turns to flee, Bliss trips him and Ghorza stabs his prone body, killing him. Orcs in the stands riot and flee for the exits. When the current King of the Savage Frontier is killed, another battle at the Hill of the King must commence.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party observe the walls of the Fort and approach during a changing of the guard. Sirrias creates a passageway through the wall into the general store and locates Sev, who appears to be in the Great Lodge. Kinna distracts two guards and the group sneak into the Lodge. There, they find two orcs tormeting Sev. Brodo accidently slams the door to the room. The orcs try to sound the alarm, but K'harth stops them and they attack. After defeating the orcs, they shackle Sev and head to the Tower of the First Hunter, where they find coffins containing the First Hunters, a set of three adventurers. As they disturb the mausoleum, skeletal animal figures stir. Sev wakes up and calls the guardians to attack, and the figures transform into a basilisk, boar, and lizard creature. An errant bolt from the one of the creatures kills Sev. The gang finish off the guardians and hear a roar from the arena.

Ghorza reclaims the gem, a Shard, from Gok's body and touches it. She receives a vision of a red/orange purgatory with two elvish women, one in a green verdant dress and the other in an orange autumnal tunic. They say they are Silvanas and Melike, guardians of the forest. They ask if Ghorza wishes to be king, and she says she doesn't know. They say Gok was given a vision to lead him to this place, and that he would be defeated by the wielder of that sword. Ghorza is then given a vision of her own death - she is lying defeated on a cave floor surrounded by flames, her companions around her. A figure in a blue robe with white tipped flames approaches her, and she sees his face: it's Sirrias, with a shard of obsidian in his pompadour. He says her time as chieftain is over.

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