Session 15

Vireya’s eyes were closed. She basked in the warm sunlight of a late spring day and listened to the birdsong. The grass beneath her back was soft. It was the most comfortable she had been in a long time, as she laid and warmed she felt so light it was as if her body was floating upwards towards the sky. Everything about her senses right now told her to let go and enjoy her nap. And for an indefinite period of time, she did. As she continued to float upward, however, the sounds of the meadow began to fade, and instead of the chirps and birds and leaves rustling in the wind, she heard a soft heartbeat. Hers? No, it couldn’t be. It was coming from below her. As she tried to ignore the sound, it grew louder, and louder, and louder, until it threatened to swallow her up and pull her back down and deep beneath the dirt. Vireya woke up.

When our heroes are torn from their subconscious wanderings, their awareness has normally returned immediately. Vireya was no exception, but had a great deal of trouble opening her eyes. She quickly realized that she couldn’t open her eyes at all. No, it wasn’t that she couldn’t open her eyes, she had no eyes. Her only sense of feeling was something touching her lower stomach. Two hands? Before she could process further, a massive flow of Essence poured into her body. Far more than she thought she’d be able to handle, the Essence filled every pore of her body, twisting and restoring her missing parts. Vireya hadn’t realized how much of her body was actually missing until the Essence began to fill it in. Her lungs were restored first, and she took her first gasp of hot, ashy air. Bones, muscle, skin. Eventually her ears grew back, and she began to hear the sounds of screaming, clashes of metal, and fire. A lot of fire.

Vireya finally felt the slimy squish of eyes growing back inside of her skull, and her vision returned. Her restoration was more uncomfortable than any experience she had fathomed up to this point. As her nerves began functioning, they began tingling. Everywhere. Her entire body felt like an arm that she had fallen asleep on. The tingling didn’t fade, by a horrid undercurrent of agony began sweeping her body, her limbs, and her face. The pain helped serve to clear her mind, however, and she finally managed to focus her vision. Staring down at her, inches from her face, was Chastity. Her clothing ruined, face bleeding, and golden eyes glowing bright, the head priestess of El held Vireya down as her body adjusted to the healing. Eventually, she helped the tiefling to her feet. She explained that things had gone very wrong and that Vireya was extremely lucky to be alive.

As she processed this, Vireya indeed realized that she had never been so close to death. Her adventures in the mountains and valleys in the northern regions of Serulea had been nothing more than idle fun. She explored, looted, haggled, ate, and danced. Joining YFPB was a fantastic change of pace, but she at this point grappled with the fact that she was as close to death as she would ever be without making the final crossing. Separated from her teammates (and she was, she confirmed, alone with Chastity), she did not even have the insurance of a Revival Gem. Vireya edged close to a breakdown, wrapping her arms around her naked body. Chastity wrapped the tiefling in a spare cloak, and held her shoulders. Chastity had lost her haughty, aloof manner from the church and began speaking slowly and clearly to Vireya.

Chastity explained that her scythe, though still worthy of revulsion, was Vireya’s only chance at surviving her upcoming trials. Chastity also warned Vireya that all her friends would need her help soon. With that, Chastity vanished. Vierya’s misery was yet to stymie, however, and her first step was into a pile of broken glass. The crunch drew her gaze down, and she realized immediately that the glass was the broken body of Peebles. His acidic liquid was pooling around the shards and soaking into the stones, and Vireya dropped to her knees sobbing. With her Essence-enhanced senses, she could tell that Peebles, though “dead” in the physical sense, still emanated magic from his shards. Vieyra pocketed the glass shards and Peebles’ cork in hopes of finding someone to repair him in the future. It was at this point that she took a longer look at her surroundings. Her last memory was of the mage attacking the city walls and their boat, and yet she seemed to be far inside the city. The city also appeared to be in a dismal state. The stone walls and stairs she began limping up had been cracked and destroyed, and every piece of greenery in sight was the midst of a roaring inferno.

Vireya continued limping up the stairs, unsure of her destination. Chastity had told her to find and save her friends, but that doesn’t mean she had any idea where they were. The sound of fighting drew Vireya out of her foggy thinking and she readied herself as best she could. Past the top of the stairs she spotted a Kalzaharn mage battling with a hunched, hooded figure draped in red and wearing a golden mask. She was reminded immediately of the leader of the Torvani squad that attempted to kidnap Irene. The mage, draped in golden fabric and wielding a twisted staff, shot out spectral chains that wrapped around the hooded figure. The hooded figure then revealed a serrated dagger from under his cloak and, straining against his magical bonds, sliced the chains apart the dagger. Vireya recognized the dagger immediately: it was Spellrender, of the same type that Alkamer had employed against Archmage Ullic at Attwen Manor.

The Torvani Spellrender (so deemed for his use of the anti-magic dagger) leapt forward and buried the blade into the mage’s chest. She crumpled with a muffled scream, and the Spellrender turned to advance on Vireya. Still off-guard, she summoned her scythe for fear of having her magic defeated. As the Spellrender closed the distance, Vireya twisted over her feet backwards, dodging his stab forward. She realized that with her body more magic than blood, she risked quite a lot more than a normal stab wound if the anti-magic blade connected. She swung wildly, but her scythe seemed to hum with excitement and readjusted itself directly into the throat of her assailant. The Spellrender fell with a gurgle, spraying blood. But not just blood; as Vireya removed her scythe it seemed to draw out a glowing energy. The scythe devoured the assassin’s Essence as greedily as it had drunk the Wizling’s. Her victim’s Essence added to Chastity’s, Vireya continued forward with her entire body shivering and twitching. She sensed before she heard the soft footsteps of someone approaching through the smoke.

Lorien was shook out of his stupor by the sound of an explosion and the rumbling of the room he was in. As he glanced around, he realized that he was in a small underground library. In front of him lay Astrid’s journal, open to a random page. Horrifyingly, a bottle of ink was tipped over and had soaked through the entire book. Every page was ruined, soggy and black. Even the first page that had given him the first lead he’d gotten on Astrid was destroyed. The only part of the journal with legible symbols was the inside cover; the interlocking circles remained intact. Actually, upon further inspection, someone had written something inside the central design: “Beware the Black Crow”. The same warning that the rest of YFPB had found on the note attached to Peebles. Strange. Lorien too entertained the idea that the warning was referring to the small, silly crows that had played pranks on the group, but also felt that the warning meant something else.

As he stood, ruined journal clutched in hand, a voice from behind startled him. A man lounging on the nearby stairs clad in beige informed Lorien that he had upgraded Dispositor. Before Lorien could ask any follow-up questions, the stranger strode briskly to a gilded door and disappeared within, locking it behind him. Lorien pocketed his journal and inspected his rifle. Indeed, it appeared to have certain pieces filed down; his gun could be reloaded in half the time now. The upgrade came not a moment too soon, as the main doorway to the library, placed at the top of the long, wide staircase burst open to reveal a Torvani soldier. Lorien quickly slotted his Essence cards into a new format (Green-Red-Blue) and tested his fire against the convenient foe. The arcane missile upon slamming into the soldier’s helmet burst into a searing flash of light that left him confused and dazed. The concussive blast from the attack was nearly enough to defeat him outright, and, blinded by the flash as he was, the soldier fell down the long tiled staircase to lay, unmoving, at Lorien’s feet. The bard took the chance to ascend and leave the library.

It was Lorien’s footsteps that Vireya had heard, and the pair happily reunited and questioned what had happened to each other. After a short discussion, they decided to push further into the city to find the other two members of their group. They didn’t have to wander far. Past several burning hedges and a shattered fountain they saw two figures engaged in a fierce argument. It became clearer as they approached that the argument was, in fact, one-sided, as T’Sais, the massive barbarian woman from the city wall, continued to yell and gesture at a wholly taciturn Crisanta. They appeared to be arguing over a broken pillar, but the cause of which was horrifyingly revealed to Harlan trapped underneath. The Paladin’s entire left side was crushed under a crumbled religious mosaic, and he was fighting to stay conscious. The pain was indescribable. His leg was protected in most places by the heavy armor guards he was wearing, but his arm was worryingly numb. Then it was hot, then cold, then tingling, then raw agony, then all of the above. T’Sais wanted to amputate both of his limbs, but Crisanta was preventing her from doing so.

Lorien proposed an attempt to push the pillar off of Harlan, which normally would not have been possible. However, with T’Sais’s superhuman strength coupled with Vireya’s artificial energy levels, the group actually managed to push an entire marble column off of Harlan. The sight underneath was not pretty. As he had suspected, his leg was heavily damaged but would likely heal with time (and magic). But his arm was utterly managed. A picture of gore, his arm and sleeves were ripped out of his shoulder leaving only a sinewy mess in between. Vireya had to look away to prevent throwing up. Lorien tried to heal Harlan’s arm, but, like with the Justicar in the war camp, the degrading potential of healing magic in Serulea prevented him from reversing grievous wounds. Even if his magic had been fully functioning, it was unlikely that the damage to Harlan’s arm could have been reversed without Greater Restoration.

After taking a short time to consider their options, the group gave their blessing to T’Sais. To her credit, she made the procedure fast. A swing of her massive axe, and Harlan was officially maimed. But he was alive. Lorien rifled through his pack looking for something to comfort the wounded man and eventually pulled out a waterkin filled with stale beer. Harlan drank of the ale greedily, wetting his dried throat and taking the most biting edge of the pain. The three heroes had each been faced with severe trauma, but there was too little time to process. Vireya was now worried about Irene, who she could not even contact with her Echo Earring (hearing only a slow, heavy bubbling noise). The group, now flanked by the warriors T’Sais and Cristana, pushed deeper into the city.

Ai’Renia awoke with a startled gasp. Her head was pounding, and she had no idea where she was. She was reminded of her childhood strangely, and thought of the path she had taken to become a Sanguine Blade, a high-ranking anti-magic assassin in the Torvani military (called the Hive). In any case, she struggled to her feet and found that she was wearing strange, restrictive clothing. She scouted her nearby surroundings and found two long blades of acceptable quality from some corpses. By now, she had regained enough of her senses to make out the nearby sounds of battle. Hoping to figure out where she was and how much time she had lost to (what she assumed was) the explosion that had taken her out during the battle within the city. She came upon a red-armored spearman battling an acrobatic woman wielding a spear of her own. She threw magical stars at the red spearman, marking her as Ai’Renia’s enemy. With preternatural dexterity, the assassin stalked up behind the woman and pierced her heart from behind with both of her blades. The woman looked back, shocked, before crumpling to the ground.

The red spearman took up a defensive pose before pausing, then dropping his spear in shock. The man recognized Ai’Renia, but could not believe it was truly her. The man was Jalek, one of the closest things to a friend Ai’Renia had made during her military career. She questioned him about their whereabouts while remaining evasive with her own answers, and learned that she had apparently been missing for quite a long time. At one point, Jalek remembered something and leapt through the fiery smoke of a nearby building. He returned with a steaming but unscathed box. Inside was Ai’Renia’s Cloak of Solitude, a powerful anti-magic cape that she had earned with distinction. She draped the cloak over her shoulders, and began to slaughter once more. No one the disgusting magic users of Serulea could offer posed a challenge to her and Jalek’s combined might. They even managed to wrangle two Spellrenders to their group as they marched through the city.

Jalek took his leave at some point, chasing down a high-ranking Kalzaharn member of some kind. It didn’t matter much to Ai’Renia. She worked better alone, anyway. She eventually found the ruins of what looked to be like a temple in a large garden, and began searching for survivors to finish off. As she stared down some precarious stairs, a large group turned their own corner in the garden. Ai’Renia’s migraine continued to pulse, but something about this group sent a new spike of pain through her eyes. She readied her blades for a lethal preemptive strike.

Vireya was immensely glad to have found Irene so quickly. She even appeared uninjured, though she wasn’t wielding her normal spear. In any case, Vireya rushed forward to give Irene a hug, but stopped short as Irene descended the stairs with a corrosive expression. Lorien called her back, warning that that woman may not be Irene. Vireya turned to argue with Lorien, but caught movement from a nearby rooftop. An elven man with red and white hair wearing blood-colored armor gazed down at all of them with a sardonic smirk. He called out to Ai’Renia, praising her return and wishing her well in her fight. Although Harlan and T’Sais had been moving forward to intercept Ai’Renia, the appearance of the man on the rooftop stalled them long enough for Ai’Renia to complete her attack. Vireya’s hopped-up instincts managed to warn her early enough to twist her body and avoid a blade through the heart, but one managed to pierce through her lower stomach and deal heavy damage.

Vireya leapt back, dismayed and betrayed. T’Sais banged her axe against her chest and declared Irene a traitor worthy of death. Harlan and Lorien concurred, and Cristanta slammed her thin sword into the ground to begin channeling a ritual. The right against Irene, who had become Ai’Renia through the restoration of (some of) her memories, had begun.

Ai’Renia proved to be a lethal and vicious fighter, twisting past a charging Harlan and flipping her foes into the ground. As her Spellrenders distracted T’Sais, Lorien, and Harlan, she hunted Vireya past Crisanta and continued to land slashes and stabs until the tiefling fell to the ground, bleeding from a dozen deep wounds. The Sanguine Blade was not one to leave her foes unfinished, though, and attempted to stab Vireya’s unconscious body to confirm a kill. Her cloak disrupted Lorien’s attempt to restrain her with magic, and Harlan was nearly nonfunctional with his wound and lack of shield. It was only through the help of T’Sais, who was strong enough to cleave a Spellrender in twain, and Cristanta’s heavy and searing blows that Ai’Renia was cowed. The group managed to avoid losing anyone to Ai’Renia’s blades, but they all took heavy damage as she continued to stab and slash and dance out of reach.

Cristanta struck the final blow with a sword swing that created a light that sliced Ai’Renia’s body open from her right hip to her left eye. The assassin fell backwards from the blow, organs exposed. She quickly stopped breathing. As the group caught their breath and attempted to figure out what had happened to their friend, Irene’s body began to twitch. With a strange feeling of psychic suction, everyone near Irene their stamina drain and flow into her ruined body. Quietly, slowly, Irene’s body began to heal starting from her shoulder. Cristanta’s slice was stitched and healed downward, pulling together her chest and stomach, leaving a nasty but intact scar. The healing slowed as it reached her neck and face, and stopped entirely before finishing her eye. Irene was left nearly fully healed despite being moments from death, but her left eye remained milky and damaged.

As she tried to sit up, Harlan placed a foot on her chest to prevent her from moving. Irene began mewling pitifully as she threw up. She remembered being Ai’Renia, killing her allies and attacking her friends. Her worst fear had come true. T’Sais moved to kill her, but Cristanta dragged her away and the two began arguing again. Irene begged for death, and Harlan and Lorien were in agreement that that course of action was probably best. Who knew if Ai’Renia would surface again? Vireya argued to save her friend, but was persuaded to support her execution when reminded of the copious stab wounds all along her body. T’Sais eventually returned and, without consulting YFPB, slung Irene over her shoulder. Irene threw up again and began wiggling pitifully. T’Sais, irate, explained that Roland had sent her and Cristanta to save the members of YFPB and escort them to their next destination.

Fortunately for Irene, Roland, like Chastity, had emphasized “all” members of YFPB, which included Irene the traitor. T’Sais and Cristanta claimed ownership over the girl’s life, which meant temporary protection from execution. But that did not mean absolution. In any case, the two female warriors of El led the rest of YFPB out of the city, westward and into Torvani-occupied territory. It was finally time to continue on the path to Calloway