Session XVI: Eye of the Storm Division

The party was introduced to the joint leaders of the Highforest Waystation upon arrival: Geramon, Nylathria, and Bard Hallsson, each representing one powerful interest group with a presence in the Hinterlands, namely Akkon, Rûn Tel'Kar, and Mountain Massive Continental. They decided to enter the waystation's modest saloon and have a few refreshments before going to bed. Del'Gado was rebuffed when requesting milk, and later changed to some dwarven stout. He then joined the only other travellers at the waystation, an MMC merchant caravan led by Holmfast and five battle-weathered guards. During the course of their conversation, Del'Gado suggested that since they both were headed towards Tarentan, that they cover the remaining journey together, which was a possibility. He also learned from Holmfast that MMC's agricultural enterprises had recently gone up into a stir about something. After indulging these evening drinks, the party went to rest for the night.   Jacqualine, in a semi-conscious state of trance, heard hooves approach the waystation at midnight and decided to listen it. Loud shouts, seemingly friendly, were exchanged between the local sentries and the unknown guests. The hooves continued farther, stopped, and soon arrows were loosened and a horn was sounded. The heavy marching of a formation in advance quickly crept closer, and as Jacqualine and the rest of the party hurriedly got up and prepared themselves, it stopped and volleys came raining down outside. Leaving their lodgings, Jacqualine and Del'Gado both immediately recognised the armoured line of interlocking shields and long pikes as that of a small Akkonian phalanx supported by a contingent of armoured archers and cavalry scouts. The waystation's sentries, two of the caravan's guards, and representative Nylathria had been killed by the time the party joined the fray. Jacqualine tried to resolve the situation peacefully by teleporting to the phalanx officer and brandishing her Twilight Advocate insignia, which was met with an order to attack and quick, but unsuccessful, slashes from the officer's sabre. The phalanx was, in short and in truth, destroyed by the spells used against them by Jacqualine and Caerlin. The four cavalry scouts mainly engaged Del'Gado and Imaros. The satyr entered a rage of legend and displayed pure, animalistic, unrepentant fury against his victims of the hour, killing two of the scouts in quick succession. He beheaded and consumed the head of the last cavalryman, which made the last scout rout, but he was approached by a flying Del'Gado and shot in the back of the head with the golden wheellock. Caerlin had cast sleep on the phalanx officer (who was the only one deliberately spared), and they prepared to interrogate him. He was tied up and put in a hole in the ground. The officer was somewhat uncooperative, which provoked Caerlin, who mindspiked and killed him. This upset the rest of the party and Jacqualine revived him with her clerical powers. This chain of events proved fortuitous, because the officer seemed to have been under a magical effect or curse which did not persist after death. Although he could not recall who was responsible for it, he had been made to use his phalanx to attack the waystation and to leave one survivor for unknown purposes. He speculated that this could serve to undermine the royal stewardship of the Noble Alliance Army and possibly force the Crown to relinquish oversight back to the nobility. Further, before this event occurred, the officer described how they had stopped receiving missives, supplies, and their last salary, which gave rise to talks of desertion, but this ceased after the spell took hold. The party assisted the officer in properly disposing the bodies for the rest of the night. Geramon inquired with Baldur about the possibility of enlisting a group of Hellknights of the Order of the Vice to provide defence for the Highforest Waystation.   In the morning, the Advocates left alongside Holmfast's decimated caravan; one guard had been sent back to escort the venture's bodies to Malakad. Three days went by until the trader opened a conversation with Del'Gado in a clandestine dialect. He offered a proposition, mainly motivated by the fact that the party had more or less saved the waystation: he and his remaining guard Brynhild would take the mules, turn back, and leave the carriage with the party, which contained some undisclosed and possibly useful merchandise. He only asked that Del'Gado temporarily distract Baldur the Hellknight whilst they made their leave. Thus, Del'Gado and Baldur went ahead to do some forward scouting. Amongst the goods, the party found some barrels containing the highly restricted Runed Garnet Ale, magical weapons that had been enchanted to appear and feel mundane, and potions of Haste and Protection from Demonkind. The journey continued.   During the travel, Caerlin undertook a futile effort to find a roadside snake to befriend. Imaros handed him two worms as substitution. The impostor knight was also asked about what he did after he assumed his false identity; he explained that he met a lot of dwarves when passing through the Deep-Holds. Later, the party came upon the site of a massacre: around 30 corpses had been left at the side of the road, either hanging from trees or lying on the ground. Imaros quickly deduced that the people had likely been executed and had been rotting in the wind for approximately 40 days. Caerlin recognised the victims' garb as that of indebted prisoners belonging to Akkon. Though the Advocates had different conclusions about what could have happened, they unanimously continued forwards. A few days later, Del'Gado spotted three dishevelled humans that were barely within sight from the road. They decided to approach: Del'Gado from the air, and Jacqualine and Caerlin on the ground (though invisible). The tabaxi startled the ragged group, but managed to talk to them; shortly thereafter, the rest of the party was introduced, and the two sides shared camp. The group was led by a woman called Davke, and she explained that they were refugees from Vindova. She said that an armed insurrection had taken place in the city; just preceding it, the city's messengers and birds had vanished, which triggered mass unrest. However, the local garrison was unable to effectively respond as the conspirators quickly eliminated leading officers, hampering their capacity to coordinate, and thus causing most of them to surrender to the insurrectionists. Davke also said that though the insurrectionists were locals, they also had help from an outside party, which she believed had been hunting them after their escape; still, she expressed confidence that they were now relatively safe, as they had been moving in circles and confusing patterns for several weeks now. Jacqualine found it interesting how Davke had said so much without mentioning anything about who they were. On request, Davke, Ammon, and Targon revealed that they were a weaver, potter, and blacksmith, in that order. The party was a little apprehensive about these claims, and pressed them slightly to test them. Eventually, Caerlin used a non-verbal spell of suggestion against Ammon, urging him to tell the truth; to Davke's visible annoyance, Ammon revealed that they were not quite the people they claimed to be, but actually three of the senior commanders of the Vindovan Garrison. Realising that the woman was almost certainly Davke Sakkan, one of the five people that the Advocates had been instructed to eliminate, Caerlin again used a mindspike, but she survived this psychic attack. The other members of the party drew weapons to stop Caerlin from doing anything further; it became obvious that there were differences in opinion regarding their assignment. This heated argument was broken up by loud thuds coming from the forest followed by thick clouds of smoke obscuring the tree-line, and three explosive sounds fired in quick succession which left Davke, Ammon, and Targon dead on the ground. The party could hear a mass of footsteps rapidly closing in, accompanied by rustling sounds and unnatural voices barking commands.   When the smoke had dissipated, humanoid figures wearing black helmets, face-covering masks, matching uniforms, and wielding weapons in darkened wood and metal, could be seen taking cover from a distance overlooking the party's camp. Jacqualine recognised the white 55's on the distinctive helmets from her vision of the desert landscape; they were identical, albeit in much better shape. A deep and artificial voice instructed them, in the name of the Unitary Mandate of Kaedra, to stand in place, lay down their armaments, and identify themselves. The Advocates eventually complied, and three unarmed soldiers led by someone who only called herself Disciple Two approached them whilst four other soldiers approached the dead commanders. The party was searched and soldiers seized most of their equipment, including the ring of sending that Jacqualine had used to communicate with Varkallin and the assassination orders from the Radiant Throne. Disciple Two declared that they were now detained by the 55th Storm Division and would face a military tribunal in Tarentan for the Advocates' membership of the criminal state of Akkon and for Baldur's unreported paramilitary activities and association with the former. They were then escorted to the border village, deriding the Storm Division for their unwieldy communications equipment on the way, to which Disciple Two demonstrated that only the long-range instrument was somewhat cumbersome. However, Del'Gado quipped that it was still quite loud. During the nights, Caerlin sent careful messages to Izubar, informing them of their current predicament and location. Before reaching Tarentan proper, the squad handed the party over to a group of Hellknights led by Paralictor Hildegard, who escorted them into the village.