Vanquishing Porvinius Alca'setra

As you move through the thick jungle underbrush of the Reni Thickets, chasing the foul Fael lord and his entourage after your initial clash, you pass by a strange looking tree, an old hardwood of some kind with knots a plenty......then another, this one the wood seeming foreign, almost out of place in the jungle. Then another.....similiarly seeming out of place.....and as you pass into a clearing, what you saw suddenly hits you and your companions, in this clearing now, surrounded on all sides by Dryaeds and Threshens, the pixie still with his honor guard of Crixen. Those were northern trees. An ash, an oak, and a maple, that was why they didn't fit, they didn't belong. Now the Dryaeds and Threshn move to encircle and surround you, as the pixie's cackling reaches your ears from across the clearing. You realize the distance seems impossibly fair, the air feels impossibly empty, and that the night sky is gone, replaced with a swirling mess of multicolor, of manna.....Poirvinius, the pixie raises his revolver once more, sweeping his stolen hat wide from his head as he bows low in mocking. His high pitched voice rings out to you all, even as he begins to move beyond your view with his trusted guard, and your companion Liesa chained and unconscious in tow.

"You got the jump on me and mine, yes you did, but you weren't fast enough when you struck us at the crossing. Poor Renegades, the Exemplari want-to-bes from Port Renis, what will you do now, alone without one of your number, taken from your home and allies. How will you fair now that you've stepped into the Feywylde?"

The Conflict

Prelude

This story and conflict begin nearly two decades ago in truth, with an unexpected birth and blessing. A mother to be wondering why her belly was so heavy, and why she felt movements that didn't make sense or track with but only one babe being within, well on the day of the birth, she was gifted with an interesting surpise. Twins!, a boy and a girl. However tragedy, the girl was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, the face of the babe tinged blue upon birth already. However a mother's love knows no bounds, and left crying after the cord was cut free, this mother, knowledgable in old marsh tales, just enough so to be truly dangerous, did not sit idle even after childbirth. Bound and determined, even as she held her living son, letting him feed and feel skin to skin, she went about an old folk ritual involving herbs, fire, blood, and muttered prayers in the dark facing the shadowed jungle undergrowth at midnight, her front door open, an invitation. It was an invitation that would not be ignored. A friendly smile, a flash of blue flesh, a touch of fae power, though corrupted by a touch of nightmare, and the babe breathed her first breath, as if naught had ever been wrong. The mother accepted the bargain price, not truly knowing she had marked her babe forever, touching the child with Arcanis, and marking them for Soliqua, the Thorn Queen, a favored choice of vessel. For she remembered not the whole story, merely that the Pixie Porvinius would answer the call of mothers of still born babes. For a price of blood and promise, he could save them, but only the night of the stillbirth. This indeed the pixie did do, and as promised, three years later, once both babes were weaned off their mother's milk.....he came for her in the night, taking what had been promised, his pleasure and her blood, blowing her brains out along the wall of the twins bedroom. He killed the father, who sought foolishly to fight back against the faellen collecting on his fae deal, but left the brother with the sister.

The pair would grow into adulthood, living interesting and busy lives, and unknowing of the source of the powers, Liesa would utilize her Fey-Touched soul, teaching herself

Show spoiler

not at all, she was being guided in her dreams by Porvinius himself

to manifest and wield a variety of strange fey like magicks and powers. The twins soon found themselves in an adventuring companionship with Ivellios Zastriel, Drard Fizbogwaan, and Gizmo, Drard's Magnemech. An elven warrior and a gnomish magnetech pilot and tinkerer. The four of them would make some name for themselves in and around the city of Port Renis, becoming well known, some might even say Exemplari. They earned a name and a reputation befitting it to be sure. The Renis Renegades were known for being a little unorthodox, but skilled monster hunters, brave and friendly folk all around, though with a penchant for getting into trouble.

However, one dark and stormy night at the height of monsoon season, the eve of Liesa and her twin brother Alexi's 25th birthdays.....well the clock struck midnight for Liesa. In her unknowing and uneducated state in her dreams, she had consciously been manipulated from a young age to giving her consent, in writing no less. The Aethyr and the Void places where they overlap are the domain and home of the Faellen Kindred and Port Renis happened to lay in a region where for every direction within a hundred miles such an overlap was near seamless. Thus in her sleep, only her body had been sleeping all these years. Her soul and mind had been at rest, yet had been taken to the Feywylde, where she could be plied, trained, taught magicks and trickery of the Fae, but then have her memory augmented. Of some unknown number of fae-touched children, she was the one to reach adulthood with the right balance of power and hardiness required for the body to survive the ritual to force her soul out and allow the soul of Soliqua the Thorn Queen to take up residence from the stasis that was protecting her from the Void. This stasis was fading of course, and thus it was now or never.

As the friends sat drinking at their favorite ale house, the lights suddenly went out, Liesa collapsed, her head lolling to one side, her eyelids flittering, but she didn't make it to the floor. Two Crixen, swift moving and generally brutally homicidal Faellen, caught her, seeming to step from the shadows, as five more and Porvinius showed themselves, to facedown the friends. Porvinius didn't even engage the three of them, simply shooting the proprietor twice with his lightning revolver, letting the blinding flashes cover his escape as he and half his Crixen swiftly stepped out, fleeing. Three of the Crixen stayed behind, throwing themselves with a deep aggression and thirst for violence at the three friends.

This first of two hard fought skirmishes was short, bloody and brutal with Alexi nearly losing an arm. In the end, they found victory and took off in chase, Alexi making due with potions they possessed from their last big contract to heal himself as best he could. They gave chase, joined by a few loyal friends and bold militia from the city they knew and had been drinking with. About a dozen individuals gave chase into the darkness of the jungle that night. They actually made good time, it turns out lugging an unconscious body really impacts the speed at which you can flee.

After about a half mile, they actually caught the Faellen at a river crossing and swiftly engaged them. The fight was bloody and brutal, with half the eight militia men who had joined the case left for dead in the first few moments, another pair greviously injured. Of these, Porvinius and his revolver had accounted for four. Three dead, one greviously injured and likely to die, as well as wounding Ivellios twice. The elf had managed to get to the pixie gun-slinger, nearly disarming him, but landing a few brutal blows with his flail. Drard, piloting Gizmo, made short work of a pair of the Crixen, the mech's rifle making watermelon sized holes in the scrawny faellen kindred's chests. However one of them managed to get on the mech and wrench partially open the cockpit, getting its fell knife into Drard's flesh, biting deep into the gnome's chest, narrowly missing his heart.

Alexi fought like a man possessed, the scoundrel dancing blade for blade with three Crixen, leaving them dead on the loamy soil, however it was at this point that a horn, soft and inviting, in a deeply disturbing sort of way, sounded. The two Crixen dragging Liesa suddenly leapt, without warning, across the bridge, as Porvinius suddenly seemed to turn to mist, reappearing across the bridge, which he then swiftly cut both ropes of, sending it into the monsoon flooded current.

This would not stop the trio however, as they knew of a second crossing, thankfully still intact, though risky the river narrowed only some three hundred feet south, and two partially fallen trees were locked together over it. Climbing them and shimmying your way between the two was a highly dangerous task, doublely so in the dark, when one couldn't see if an anaconda or jaguar or some other predator was awaiting them amidst the foliage. However no such threat awaited the trio and they were soon back on the trail again.

Battlefield

Material Plane, in a tavern and then on a bridge, and the final showdown to play out in two parts in the Feywylde.

Author note, this conflict is on-going in a game I run 1/month, so if I get time I will finish the tale after the next session near the end of Summercamp (third sunday of the month) if I have time in my chase for Feral 40. However it is just to fitting for the changing environment part of the prompt to not include at least the cliffnotes and cool background of this sudden conflict from one of the campaigns I'm running in Valerick as the prompt.

Conflict Type

Skirmish

Belligerents

Porvinius Alca'setra's Faellen Raiders

The Renis Renegades

Strength

19 total

1 Pixie Gunsinger (not a typo) level 12 - Provinius Alca'setra

4 Crixen Blood-dancers (elite guard)

14 Crixen Raiders

Reinforcements in the Feywylde

4 Threshen

4 Dryaed

4 Total

Ivellios Zastriel, Elven Warrior 8th level

Alexi Tomlinson, Human Thief-Scoundrel 8th level

Liesa Tomlinson, Human Fey-Touched Shaman 8th level

Drard Fizbogwann and Gizmo, gnomish Magicore Engineer Tinker and his Magnimech, 8th level.

Casualties

8 Crixen Raiders

Liesa Tomlinson (taken prisoner)

Objectives

To get Liesa's unconscious body to the dream well where Soliqua's soul lies in stasis and complete the thorn-claim ritual to allow the Queen of Thorns to forcibly take up residence in the Fey-Touched Shaman's body and evict Liesa's soul and psyche into the Void directly where it will be shredded and consumed, lost for all time.

To rescue Liesa before the Faellen can accomplish whatever it is they kidnapped her for.