Session 79

### Previously...

Having pursued Emricht and his dreadful forces throughout Daelroch Manor, they chased him through the Shadow Realm at great cost as Lady Jayne sacrificed herself to help the heroes survive its perils. Emerging from a portal, they find themselves in the halls of Corvid Keep, ancestral seat of the Pryor family. Close by are the sounds of battle and smell of smoke. The attack has begun!

## And Now...

### A Fortress Aflame!

Moving towards the sounds of battle, the heroes discover a crew of black robed, ashen-faced fanatics violently destroying a room, as though searching for something. Bug asks politely if they've found it yet, and the group turn as one, the leader snarling, "Where have you hidden the Baroness?"

Almost as soon as the words leave his lips, though, Leo has brought down the iron head of his lead-filled 'walking stick' into the leader's skull."You pack of unmitigated bastards," he hisses, enraged. Bug follows up this attack, swinging their staff with intent, felling a second opponent. Hugh picks up the remnants of a half-destroyed table and hurls it through a window. The room begins to fill with smoke, and the sounds of nearby fire becomes louder.

Rast attempts to make some sense of the chaos, and it would appear that the Innominate's plan would have gone somewhat awry. Hoping to seize the Baroness quickly, they found themselves stymied when she was not where they expected her. Splitting into small groups, they they proceeded to frantically spread out amongst the house's many rooms. Rast also noticed several peculiar qualities about the smoke; an odd smell and a faint, purplish undertone. He surmises that alchemy is at work, almost certainly the work of Wewethi Goldbrew.

### Into the Walls.

Between them, the four make quick work of the remaining intruders in this group. Rast quickly informs the group of the peculiar smoke and that it may have been released to cover the Baroness' escape. Having experienced some of them in the past, Hugh suggests the Baroness and her retainer may have fled into one of the Keep's various secret passageways. All four begin to search for secret doors and, discovering one, search the passageways for signs of recent use.

Bug discovers a torch sconce missing its torch and the agents proceed quickly down a series of narrow, twisting corridors until they find the Baroness. She has been grievously wounded, and has a knife protruding from her belly. Nearby, Wewethi is sitting in a lotus position, ringed by a hastily scribbled magic circle. She appears to be maintaining a defensive barrier of some kind. On the far side of the barrier, Emricht, several of his acolytes and a number of shadow creatures can be seen trying to find a way through.

### A Desperate Siege.

Hugh suggests using his knowledge of calligraphy and penmanship to shore up Goldbrew's magic circle. Leo concurs and moves to assist. Rast conjures a field of searing holy light, dispelling the shadows and driving Emricht and his henchmen back momentarily. Bug offers medical assistance to the Baroness and manages to stabilize her, but she is still weak from long-term illness and what appears to be long-term poisoning. Leo curses the "wretched bloody Barallon butler" under his breath, but Rast, overhearing him, seems skeptical. Once they're certain doing so will cause no further harm, Bug attempts to ascertain the nature of the poison and discovers it to be an unholy mix of dwarven alchemy and necromancy of the sort used to create alchemical zombies.

Beyond the magical barrier, Emricht continues his evil ranting. The Baroness asks if Bug will carry her closer so that she may talk to her son. As Bug goes to pick her up, Wewethi puts an arm on their shoulder and whispers to the Baroness, "Remember our deal." Rast nods almost imperceptably, as though something has just been confirmed for him.

### A New Threat is Revealed.

The Baroness attempts to reason with her son, but he is blinded by hatred. During the exchange, Rast invokes his zone of truth. Upon seeing this, Bug asks Wewethi what she means by 'Remember our deal'. Wewethi, unaware of the zone of truth, casually responds that she is working for Waiquir - apparently Waiquir's tendrils have reached deep into the various alchemical guilds across Terrinoth - and that her master commanded her to kill Lady Pryor.

She continues that she refused to follow the orders and went so far as to offer the Baroness a deal wherein she would be protected from Waiquir. This was a theory postulated by Rast earlier, but it shocked Leo who begins to feel very much as though he has been wilfully blind to quite a lot for quite some time.

Distracted by these revelations, the heroes don't notice that the conversation between Emricht and his mother has ended, and that Emricht is leaving. Leo, desperate for a final attempt to rescue Emricht after his failure to save Jayne, weakly tries to call him back, but to no avail.

### A Melancholy Retreat.

With the immediate threat gone, Bug offers sanctuary for Wewethi in Al-Kalim among the alchemists there, which Wewethi meekly accepts.

At this point, there seems to be nothing for it but to flee. After a few minutes, Hugh recognizes the passage he had used to escape earlier and everyone follows. Rast briefly remains to shore up the Light of Kellios barrier and prevent Emricht's followers from following them. At the end of the passage, they emerge and look back towards the Keep, which is largely ablaze.

Between them and the keep, they see something strange... as though someone had built a low, black wall around the Keep's perimeter. As they continue to move, the wall appears to be moving, and as they begin to climb a nearby hill, they can see it start to uncoil as is reveals itself as an monstrous black serpent made of darkness. And it would appear to have noticed them.

### A War Against The Wyrm.

Momentarily, it seems as though our heroes are on the verge of surrendering to despair, but Rast rallies the group and casts a Holy Light spell, which wounds the serpent terribly. Bug and Leo exchange a glance, and Leo breaks cover, screaming at the serpent and waving his arms frantically. Meanwhile, Bug looks for somewhere they can conceal the Baroness, settling on a small but resilient decorative hollow in the manicured gardens.

Bug manages this just in time as the serpents vast tail lashes out like a tsunami, knocking everyone flying. Rast is hurled against a tree, knocking him unconscious, Bug reverts to Sandcat form and Leo and Hugh are both stunned and rattled, trying to gather their senses. Hugh's vision clears just in time to spot Rast's holy symbol and he picks it up and throws it at the serpent. Unfortunately, his aim is still not at a hundred per cent, and the symbol goes flying through the air, landing in a flower bed. The serpent's eyes follow it and it plunges down towards it. Hugh and Bug (in cat form), both rush towards the symbol, racing the serpent. Bug gets there first and snatches it up into their mouth, dodging and weaving frantically in amongst the foliage, trying to evade the serpent's striking maw.

Leo calls out to Bug to bring him the symbol and, snatching it up, he turns to face the terrible black snake, trying against hope to rally what remains of his long-lost faith to drive the snake back. Unfortunately, his faith is weak and, while he is able to conjure up a faintly luminous mark, making the snake a slightly easier target to hit, his attempt is otherwise unsuccessful. He slumps back against a nearby tree, his reserves of endurance nearly exhausted and awaits his fate. Fortunately, Hugh and Bug are able to divert the snake's attention and manage to confuse it momentarily by appearing and vanishing amongst the shrubbery.

### A Momentary Hope.

Wewethi has used this series of distractions to make her way to Rast, and manages to revive him with a potion. Seeing the faintly glowing sigil on the beast's side from Leo's spell, he draws deep within himself to conjure up another burst of Kellosian flame, which grievously injures the monster. Seeing this, the others are rallied against the snake and rush towards it.

Bug's claws clatter ineffectually off the snake's scales and they are snapped up into the creature's gaping maw. Hugh attempts to free Bug and strikes the snake in the side of the head with a decorative stone plant pot. This rattles the snake, causing it to lose its train of thought and forget its commands to seek out and kill the Baroness. It is enraged, and can think of nothing else but slaughtering the insignificant insects who would dare fight against it.

Rast attempts to follow up, charging towards the beast Before he can make it, he is swatted violently by a stray coil, landing limp and unconscious on the ground. The creature rears back and catches him up in its terrible mouth.

### Rage Against the Light.

Seeing this, Leo pushes his exhausted body off of the tree against which he had been leaning. He stumbled forward, clutching the holy symbol tightly in his hand, and began to curse in profane fury, "Listen Kellios, you sanctimonious ass; I know I've not had much use for you, and you could give two shits for me, but that young man there does. And if you can't find it within your allmighty bloody heart to intercede on his behalf, then what bloody good are you?"

Within the beast's mouth, a bright light flares up, revitalizing Bug and Rast. Bug slashes away furiously at the inside of the snake's mouth, causing it to rear back and open. With the last of his strength, Leo tosses the holy symbol to Rast and swoons, collapsing to the ground. Snatching the symbol out of the air, Rast thrusts the symbol up against the roof of the serpent's mouth and invokes Kellos again. A bright light lances down from the heavens, piercing the snake's head and its body begins to discorporate, folding away into drifting and fading sheets of scattered darkness.

In the aftermath of the battle, Rast surveys the landscape. Once glorious ornamental gardens lay in ruins in a mass of deep gouges, splintered trees and smashed walls and statuary. At his feet, Bug and Kelek look up at him with brief hope. He can see Hugh, bruised and bloodied among the wreckage of a once beautiful clump of shrubbery and nearby, Leo's body has fallen, limp and unconscious. Unfortunately, he can also see a number of shadow acolytes not far away who have spotted him as well.

### Distance and Desperation.

Kelek and Bug head off to try and intercept the acolytes and hopefully slow them down, while Rast gathers his allies, as well as Wewethi and the Baroness, and attempts a movement spell to get us out of here, alas, given Rast's level of exhaustion and the number of people being transported, the spell goes awry and everyone is scattered across a wide area, separate from one another. The only person Rast is able to keep hold of is the Baroness, who appears with him.

Just as Rast is preparing himself to try again, a shadowy portal opens nearby. Emricht emerges and tells Rast to stand down and accept his loss if he wants to survive. The Baroness clambers to her feet and takes a step towards her son, but before she can take another, Rast's hand falls upon her shoulder and casts another spell. She vanishes as Emricht, a look of rage carved across his face lunges at Rast and viciously stabs him.

### Meanwhile...

Hugh appears within sight of the stables which, surprisingly, appear largely unharmed. He manages to find a horse and is able to haul himself onto its back and ride away.

Leo awakens in the foothills north of Corvus Keep. In the darkness, he can barely make out the glow of flames in the distance. Unable to find the others, he begins a slow, trudging walk towards the road and back to the farmhouse.

Bug appears in a smallish thicket. Not knowing where they are or what direction to go, they curl up in a hollow formed by tree roots and go to sleep.

Rast draws on his inner reserves of healing and draws himself up again. In a fit of rage, Emricht charges him, clasping hands about Rast's throat to try and strangle him. In response, Rast wraps his arms around Emricht and summons a burst of light bright enough to separate the shadow and drive it out of Emricht's body. A black silhouette is thrown backwards by the sudden flare and disintegrates. In its wake, Emricht's eyes roll back in his head and he collapses, reverting to the person he was when the Innominate took him - a child of twelve years.

### After the War: Tomorrow and the Days After.

En route back to the farmhouse, Hugh encounters Rast and Emricht and helps them back to the farmhouse. They encounter Leo, passed out by the side of the road and help him onto a horse. Over the next day or so, Bug and Kelek make their respective returns with Wewethi in tow.

Over the following days, they discover that everyone in the Pryor Family had been targeted by assassins and all of the had been killed. Only Emricht and his mother remain. When Rast cast his spell of transport on the Baroness, he gave it no target save "a place of safety". This would turn out to be a small enclave of nature wizards in the Gardens of Tarn, who were more than capable of seeing to the Baroness' immediate health concerns.

Leo would receive news from the League of his plan to raid the bank and get the information out. While the plan was largely successful, with the League currently being in possession of a wide range of incriminating and potentially incendiary documentation, Bretta's father was arrested by the City Watch and Bentil had gone missing. The most likely supposition was that, having realized he was in over his head, he had taken the change to do a runner, and set up somewhere else under a new name.

With that said, Bretta and several members of her family had performed exceptionally well throughout the entire operation. They had been offered lands and titles in recompense for the wrongs done them, but had refused, choosing to come and work as agents of the League of Daqan.

In unrelated news from the realm, there had been a successful assassination attempt on one of the Barons. It would seem that there was still plenty of work for the League to do.

### This Concludes the First Adventure featuring the Agents of Daqan.

*20xp (400xp Total)*

(**Book Two** of the Adventures of our Regular Crew of Intrepid Heroes begins in **Session 80...**)

**The Agents of Daqan May Return.**