Session XX: Jaktkommando

Immediately after finding themselves back in the enigmatic mansion, the party reels from the unexpected battle that just happened. They briefly theorise about what it was and who it could have been, but quickly decide to take a rest and recuperate their wounds. Baldur and Jacqualine, before joining the others, inspect the immobilised remains of the silver knight and retrieve both the glaive and broken armour, after which they give her a short burial, with Baldur casting funeral rite before they burn the body in the mansion's hearth. Later during the night, after her trance has run its course, Jacqualine keeps sight on the soldiers on observation duty. She sees several pairs of bright red eyes staring in her direction from the woods. Though she tries to make contact with Ordinal Four via sending, the spell seems to cease functioning instead of making it through: she does this twice before abandoning the effort. Instead, she reads Hazred's The New Order and becomes very familiar with then-contemporary Hyxian political philosophy, which was evidently a hotly contested field of study with a strong pluralist tradition.   In the morning, the adventurers begin speculating about the answers to the other statuette pillars. Baldur comes up with several tentative guesses regarding the question on the scholar-bureaucrat's statuette: time and mind being some of the concepts discussed. The unfound books by Hazred are brought up, and eventually Baldur tries to move the pillars, possibly to keep an eye on them. However, this fails, just as it did last time, and Del'Gado insinuates that the Hellknight could be seen as weak, which causes him to throw his helm at him in response. Unfortunately, or fortunately, he misses and the helm smashes into the wall instead. After this transpired Caerlin takes it upon himself to summon Izdubar for assistance. He arrives and manages to give some helpful information, primarily that the woman they faced was a Silverhallow Knight, which was a venerable order of twenty mage-knights. This particular one, he surmised, was the last remaining member of that order, and their survival against one was an impressive feat. He then translates some of the words that the party had come up with into Hyxian, but politely declines taking part in this discovery due to already being somewhat swamped with his own goals and the party's existing requests. Still, he continued to encourage them to unveil the mystery, albeit with due caution. When their attempts to breach the third statuette pillar failed, the adventurers decided to move out and rely on Hazred's markings for answers. Soon after they left the mansion, four soldiers from squad Ordinal approached them and remarked that they had spent three days in the building. The party was, understandably, surprised and skeptical towards this statement. But, after some discussion with the squad, they soon accepted their story, likely because the mansion was a strange place with still-unknown capabilities. After all, they had been transported to an unknown Hyxian palace, fought against non-real armoured assassins, and met the last Silverhallow Knight in combat. The party did emphasise that the mansion was now empty but questions remained; as such, it was unfortunate that one of the people with some inside knowledge had met an early end. The squad reiterated that they were on observation duty, and wished them a safe journey. Upon leaving, Baldur could overhear them talking about their previous discussion about reinforcements: they agreed that they no longer required additional manpower.   On their way back to the main road, Del'Gado's adoptive mother and Shadow Regime affiliate, Axia, contacted him. First, she wanted his opinion about Varkallin's character. Their liaison, who had already been in contact with the Regime, wanted access to a witness in their custody. This particular witness, a Twilight Advocate, had some very contradictory experiences surrounding the destruction of Akkon's winter stockpiles and was now wanted by the Crown. Therefore, Axia wanted Del'Gado's professional assurance in the matter. Which he gave, because Varkallin has proven to be dedicated and diligent in her extracurricular duties. Then, Axia offered a proposition that was unrelated to the Shadow Regime but instead connected to a plot Axia and another network were working on. She offered him and his group a chance to execute a heist against the Crown of Akkon. Del'Gado first wished to counsel with his associates, and would get back with an answer. Baldur and Jacqualine were skeptical whilst Imaros and Caerlin were quite enthusiastic, and so this question was put on hold for now.   A few days later on the road, during Del'Gado's night watch, a thick fog suddenly crept into the camp. From his lookout position in a tree, he could see a vaguely familiar figure slowly approaching from the road. The figure was headed right towards Del'Gado, and he soon saw that it resembled his adoptive mother, but something was quite clearly not right. When she was standing just beneath the branches, a red mist emanated from her, and the form of Axia was replaced with that of a humanoid clad in red and black wearing a distinctive insectoid mask in the likeness of a praying mantis. The figure held two serrated swords with the tips pointed against the ground and began weaving them in an enthralling pattern. This fascinated Del'Gado, who began descending from the tree. Jacqualine saw this transpire and began waking the others. The assassin performed a motion with one of the swords and an ominous black blade emerged from the hilt of it. They struck Del'Gado twice after: once with a serrated blade, and once with the extended hilt-dagger, which hurt, but not quite enough to eliminate Del'Gado outright. The rest of the party was quick to react, but only Imaros and Jacqualine managed to. In the end, the assassin disengaged and disappeared in a red mist, which also made the fog dissipate from the area. Baldur told the party that this was a Red Mantis Assassin, which is an infamous order of killers who will stop at nothing to see their target dead: in addition to being highly selective in who they target. That one of their kind hunted a member of the party was concerning, and so they decided to alter their night schedules: two people would concurrently be up at any given time.   The day after, the party encountered an encamped mercenary band: the Rose Heralds. They were cordially invited by one of their lookouts and entered the captain's tent. He introduced himself as captain Candac and the groups talked about current events. The Rose Heralds had been on contract with the Vindovan authorities to exterminate a ghoul infestation, but when they returned, the authorities had had a changing of the guard. They received payment but were turned away from further employment, and now pondered what to do. Captain Candac, upon learning that Baldur was a Hellknight, shared with him that their company had some history of working with the Disciplinator Chapter, and after a symbolic transaction was conducted, informed him that the remnants of that chapter, including its paralictor, had a well-hidden refuge in Legions' Grave to the west. Further, he told him that the Rose Heralds were watching the roads for them. Baldur thanked him for this information, and after their shared lunch with the company, the party departed and continued with their journey.   A letter arrived from Kadaron Hoymat which concerned the missing heiress to Akkon, Roxana. Despite his faction's desire to change the kingdom's general policy and direction, he sought to ensure some semblance of stability now that war was all but guaranteed by having her return to Morrowfall Redoubt. This was exacerbated by the long absence of King Gilgenon. This time around, a greater debate ensued within the party, mainly about priorities. Baldur was dead-set on the road to Vyriavaxus, and much less so about the current political developments around the continent (but still acknowledging their importance). He also wondered if this Kaedra was so bad, since they had enjoyed general safety since entering its territory, Red Mantis Assassins notwithstanding. Kadaron's request saw some support in the party: Jacqualine was particularly interested after hearing from Del'Gado that Roxana was a rival of the Karapanate. Therefore, the party agrees to Kadaron's task, and plan to utilise Izdubar's offer of teleportation to get back to Greyhyx as to not arouse suspicion later. Using the scroll of teleportation that led to the Temple of the Second Pilgrimage just outside the Clearwood, Jacqualine leads the way into the forest and finds traces of a campsite. Del'Gado finds tracks going east, and with Jacqualine's guidance, the adventurers accomplish to move quickly through the woods, finding previous campsites along the way. In total, they spend ten days tracking down Roxana's retinue in the Clearwood.   One late evening in the Clearwood, during Del'Gado and Caerlin's watch, the howl of a wolf interrupts the calm stillness of the deep forest. Del'Gado ascertains that it is not just wolves that are descending upon them; soon, numerous other howls start to sound around the party's camp, as if it was coordinated. Jacqualine manages to catch a glimpse of the figures accompanying the wolves, and they are distinctly familiar. They are humanoids wearing rough, dark-green uniforms with patterned steel helmets and bearing the insignia of a wolf's head on their left shoulders. Most of them are wielding Akkonian-style bows, but some brandish the unusual weapons of wood and steel that the party know from the 55th Storm Division. Although their helmets match the style of the 55th, none are wearing the matching faceplate. They inform the party that they are surrounded, but before anything else can be said, Jacqualine starts talking about the Abyss and miraculously naming their unit commander, major general Maxine Helionen. Clearly taken by surprise, they talk briefly amongst themselves and offer to escort them to their camp so that they can talk with major general Helionen directly. This takes little less than a day, and the party arrives at a modest and organised bivouac that could not possibly house more than fifty people. They are approached by the major general, a blonde woman wearing an eyepatch, and a discussion ensues. Helionen's unit had suffered an enormous casualty rate from their time in the Abyss, and have been in the Clearwood for several months. Exactly what they have been doing was not made obvious, but they have taken several Akkonian officers prisoner, which also includes Roxana. She was positively surprised to hear that other divisions from her army were present here, which Jacqualine proved by showing the uniform she now owns (and being able to name the 55th Storm Division specifically). An exchange presented itself: the party wants to talk and leave with Roxana, and Helionen wants to have a map drawn that indicates where her people are. An agreement is reached, and the party is allowed to speak with Roxana, and take her from the camp if they convince her, on the condition that Jacqualine draws up the map afterwards.   The prisoners' quarters was an unusual sight: they were all under guard, but none were chained. Indeed, some appeared to be performing camp duties. Roxana was called, and a young woman sporting rich garments and a carefree attitude responded. Del'Gado tried to speak to her with dignity, but the heiress quickly established herself as not caring in the slightest about titles, or ruling (which made her a perfect ruler, according to the party). Taking point, Baldur gave an unusually impassioned plea for her to return to Akk-Ur, mentioning that millions will die in an upcoming war with an insurmountable enemy unless she is there to steer the ship. This seemed to slightly affect Roxana, who started to consider that it might be an option for her to return to the capital. But she wanted a guarantee: to know for certain that her father is still present in the palace, owing to her unfavourable reputation with some of the noble houses. She delved into some details of this with Jacqualine, who quickly described her insubordinate behaviour towards a member of the Fellowship itself. Roxana described how, on her eighth birthday, mobad Tamzi warned her to not accept an invitation from a group of mobads. Being rebellious, she ignored this, and found herself in front of an apparent ritual led by a circle of maskless clergy; she sensed ill intents and turned tail immediately, but not before stabbing her escorting mobad in the abdomen, presumably leading to his death (and, unless he was somewhat important, was likely not resurrected). This resulted in a 'shadow conflict' between Roxana and the Karapanate, with neither side being able to describe the incident without appearing to be complete lunatics. The Karapanate instead encouraged their close allies to heckle and distrust the heiress at all times, leading to her current disposition. In order to help the party, Roxana showed them how to access the secret Adytum, which was likely where Gilgenon resided. After the adventurers had established the facts, they were to contact Roxana again. When they left the bivouac, the jaktkommandos were in the process of packing up, presumably to link up with the 55th. Most of the captive officers seemed to join them. Likely to avoid accusations of desertion.