Chapter 51 - Roma

After killing the stone jaguars, we grabbed all our stuff and continued our trip to the Imperial palace. When we got near, the legionnaires led us to one of the side entrances, the same we used after our return from Teclá. They led us to our quarters and were told to wash ourselves. At this point, it was well past midnight.

A little later, some guard knocked at our doors, saying the Emperor was waiting for us. We put on some clean garbs and followed him to a big room where we were greeted by Vasili. He immediately asked for the artifact, so we gave it to him. He then asked for a resume of our adventures. We complied, deliberately omitting any reference to the Isle of Sorcery, the crazy barbarian island, and Leif's father's revelations about the four Ages of the world.

Making our omissions somewhat moot, the Emperor asked us if we had learned anything new about the different ages of the world. Mushamee told him part of what we knew. Vasili showed us a very well-known Imperial crest with three symbols in line representing the Age of the Gods, the Age of Men, and the Age of Reckoning. Between the first two symbols, and underneath them, was a fourth symbol representing something called the Age of Blood and Iron, although no one really understood what it really represented. He said that lately, he had started to have visions about this Age of Blood and Iron, and he hadn't like what he saw.

There and then, we decided to tell him everything we knew about the four Ages, and how the age of Blood and Iron came to disappear from the timeline and the memory of man. This in turn allowed us to talk openly about the famous ritual the Inquisitors want to perform to open the gates of magic. We made clear to Vasili that the artifacts could be used to perform evil as well as good, and someone could use them to open the gates for the Mad Things to come back. He said he knew there was some danger, but magic had to be restored. We replied that it was already coming back, even without the ritual; Recnam and Vinz were proof enough. Vasili said he trusted the Inquisitors, but for reasons he was not at liberty to say.

We asked him where the artifacts were stored. He said the Inquisitors were responsible for keeping them safe. We warned him about them acting as some kind of magical beacons, attracting the presence of magical beings (like the stone jaguars we had just killed).

After ordering some food for Leif, the Emperor said we would have the rest of the winter off. The ocean was freezing for a couple of months, and the civil war had cooled off for the winter, making it very hard to cross the western mountains without being noticed by Ruinas' troops.

When asked about how the war was going, Vasili said it was still a stalemate. The Teclans to the South were causing a big problem for Ruinas, especially since there was a rumor about a gigantic being helping them in the fight (probably the "God" that destroyed the Teclan temple after we had stolen the stone artifact).

At this time we were all pretty tired, so Vasili concluded the meeting. We went back to our rooms. Leif brought most of the leftover food with him.

As Mushamee entered his room, he saw a small black box on top of one of the stone chests. He opened it carefully using his sword's blade. Inside he found a rolled paper note with the Mark of the Ages imprinted on the seal. He sent Leif to get the rest of the group.

When we were all together, Mushamee broke the seal and gave the note to Rufus. The note was all of one line long. It said we were to go to the west court within the hour. We could guess who was probably waiting for us, so Kaeso decided to stay behind, since he's the only one not "stamped" with the Mark of Ages and we wanted to keep him away from the Inquisitors.

We quickly went to our respective room to get our equipment. We left the Palace by one of the western doors and entered the courtyard. There was a couple of statues in its center. As we approched, one of them turned its head in our direction and started to talk. After a brief moment of surprise, we realized it was Petr the vampire. He told us we had to follow him.

We left the palace grounds and went to the religious district. Petr stopped in front of the Temple of the Sun and told us to go in. We obeyed. The Temple's architecture was similar to the other Sun Temples we had visited in Tenosia and Kapital. It consisted of a big, open area with offices on each side. Even at this advanced hour, there was still activities in the courtyard, and we couldn't help noticing the guards lining the walls. When we reached the ceremonial place at the back of the courtyard, we were greeted by a couple of priests who handed us blinding hoods to put on. This made Mushamee mumble, but he did gave in.

Hands were put on our shoulders to guide us through the Temple. We walked for a little while, then climbed down some spiraling stairs. During the trip, Mushamee grabbed the hand on his shoulder and felt it was female. Its owner jumbed back in surprise, then told him she was one of the Temple virgins and he had no right to grab her like that.

We reached the bottom of the stairs, and walked a little bit again. We were then told to stop, and our hoods were removed. We found ourselves face to face with the six Inquisitors. Leif and Rufus looked at them with their special senses, but could see nothing; the Inquisitors were not showing up to their special senses at all.

They first asked us where Kaeso was. We told them he had decided not to come. They said that six was the magic number, and since Vladimir wasn't showing any signs of coming back, they'd like to put the Mark of Ages on the engineer. When asked why, they said it was for his own good, as the Mark was considered a symbol of protection. We expressed serious doubts about that, saying it had brought us much more trouble than anything else. They seemed surprised by that.

They thanked us for the good work we had done getting the first two artifacts. They also asked us how things went on the Isle of Sorcery, and if we had learned anything about the Ages of the World. Seeing our reluctance to speak, they said that from now on, we should all share the information we possessed. And they would start by sharing some information they had kept from us until now.

They said they had acquired the knowledge of the summoning rituals, of the different Ages of the world, and of the ritual to open the gates of magic, from a lifetime study of old scrolls. Those scrolls gave additional information about the four artifacts we were tasked to retrieve:

• The artifact of Earth is a massive stone slab name the Tablet of Elder Stone. It is the table we stole from the Holy Temple in Teclá.
• The artifact of Water is named the Heart of Ice. It is a solid-yet-watery globe that feels cool and wet, and glows with an inner blue light. We found it on the Island at the End of the World.
• The artifact of Air is named the Vortex of Thunder. Purportedly a tiny whirlwind someone can carry in his/her hand. Last seen on the Isle of Uviks, which is inhabited by half-man, half-ape creatures.
• The artifact of Fire is named the Eternal Flame and is some kind of fire that burns without being hot to the touch, and can be handled like a material object. Reputed to be south of Kotan, on yet another island.

They also discussed Ruinas' role in the Age of Reckoning. According to them, he could actually be dealing with extremely dangerous supernatural beings, like those Mad Things called during the Age of Blood and Iron.

Since the Inquisitors seemed quite sincere in their new resolution, we told them most of our adventures in details. This led to a discussion of a possible correlation between the prophecy known by the Patriarch of Necros (about the Son of the South, the Son of Necros, and the Son of the Emperor), and the three possible outcomes of the Age of Reckoning (a new Age of Gods, a new Age of Men and a new Age of Blood and Iron). The Son of Necros (Recnam) could be associated with a new Age of Gods; the Son of the South (Ruinas) with a new Age of Blood and Iron; and the Son of the Emperor (Vasili) with a new Age of Men. As for which should be preferred, obviously the Age of Blood and Iron is right out. And frankly, an Age where Men is nothing more than slave to the Gods is not that prefferable either.

One of the Inquisitors unfolded a big world map on a table to show us the islands on which the Vortex of Thunder and the Eternal Flame were supposedly hidden. Since there is no big body of water crossing the continent, and going around it by boat would be so time consuming, we will have to go by foot and get both artifacts before coming back. The Inquisitors told us securing them would probably be a lot more difficult than anything we've done before.

At this point we told them that if they were right, we were gonna have some serious problems since our weapons were somewhat innapropriate. One the Inquisitors stood up and put a package on the table. He then removed the shift surrounding it to reveal a set of six black shortswords. He presented them to us as the Swords of Su, a set of powerful weapons capable of going through armors like butter.

When all was said and done, they bade us goodbye and good luck. As the servants were about to put the hoods back on our heads, Mushamee said that letting us go unblinded would be a good sign of trust. The Inquisitors thought about it, then agreed.

On our way back, we had to pass through some kind of black hole in the air, surrounded by a strange shimmering. The transition made our bodies shake violently, and we each had to make a HT roll not to throw up. We found ourselves on the characteristic Temple grounds. A couple minutes later, we were back in the street outside the Temple. Petr was nowhere in sight, so we walked back to the palace by ourselves.

When we reached one of the Palace entrance, we noticed it was deserted. We entered. In the courtyard, we found the dead bodies of two guards. The soldiers guarding the door to our wing were also dead. We went in and followed a long corridor. Vinz, being an expert in this kind of operation, deducted it was impossible for the assassins to have made it this far without inside help.

In Mushamee's room, Kaeso was reading a book when he heard the noise of doors being opened. He hid behind Mushamee's bed. One or two minutes later, he heard the room's door being opened. He waited a couple of seconds, then the door was closed again.

When we reached the door leading to our quarters, we heard some noises coming from behind it and decided to call for the guards. Leif jumped through the window to the ground, a two-story-and-a-half fall, without hurting himself. He was immediately confronted by some guards. He presented himself as Primus Pilus Leif, and told that the Palace was under attack. One of the legionnaires finally recognized him and ran to inform his decurion.

In Mushamee's room, Kaeso silently grabbed his crossbow, walked to the door, opened it, and took a peek in the corridor. He saw eight shadowy figures silently moving away from him. He took a couple of steps in the corridor, and fired his crossbow. He missed his target. All the forms turned around and brough crossbows to bear. Kaeso imitated Leif by jumping out the window. Unluckily for him, he didn't knew any Acrobatics and landed badly, more or less breaking one of his knees. (he took more than HT/2 damage, and missed his HT roll for a crippling injury). It was not a permanent injury, but it would take up to six months to heal correctly.

Meanwhile, the decurion had gathered many soldiers and joined us at the still closed doors. When they were in position, we opened them. The assassins and soldiers exchanged a voley of arrows and bolts, then the soldiers rushed in. As we came after them, we saw one of the assassins plunge a sword in his gut. The others were rapidly overwhelmed by the Imperial Guards and all but one of them were killed. We singled the one who killed himself for later interrogation by Recnam.

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Chapter 52 - Roma

As we started this week, the corpses of the dead assassins were carried to the palace crypt while the prisoner was escorted to prison. Recnam went with the corpses to interrogate the man who had commited suicide. Rufus decided he would prefer to go to sleep and interrogate the prisoner in the morning.

Down in the crypt, the bodies were disposed on slabs to be prepared for their entombments. Recnam concentrated and contacted the spirit of the presumed leader. It was not really happy to see him, and called him a false priest. Recnam convinced him otherwise with the help of other spirits who vouched for him. He then promised to send the assassin to his father in exchange for information. The spirit accepted.

The spirit said he was part of a secret group specialized in assassination, operating from Kapital. They had been contacted anonymously to go to Roma and assassinate the false Priest of Necros and all his companions. When they reached the Palace, the outside gate was already unlocked. He has no idea who the traitor is.

When the conversation was over, the priest performed the sending ceremony and went to sleep. It was around 3h00 AM at this point.

Around 11h00 in the morning, Rufus, Recnam and Vinz went to the Palace jail to interrogate the prisoner. There, we were met by the Imperial jailer who led us to his cell. To the surprise of everyone, it was empty. We investigated but couldn't find any clue as to what had happened. Recnam tried to contact any dead spirit in the vicinity in case they saw something, but no one responded.

Rufus went to interrogate the prisoners in the other cells. The first one he spoke to didn't see or hear anything out of the ordinary, except for the jailer snoring the entire night. The second one didn't let Rufus place a word and immediately went about how he had been unjustly imprisoned, how he was only walking in the courtyard near the statues of the dead emperors when he was unjustly apprehended by a legionnaire and put in a cell. It quickly became clear to Rufus that this man would say whatever he, Rufus, wanted to hear just to get out of his predicament, so he decided to give him no credibility.

Since we had no leads left, Vinz casted See Secrets on himself. He didn't spot anything in the cell, but the moment he stepped into the corridor, he immediately noticed a very well hidden trap door in the floor. He quickly found the opening mechanism, but was not strong enough to activate it. He called the other two to help him. We decided that before proceeding, Vinz would go get the others and our equipment.

A couple minutes later, we were all down in the jail. Leif used his skill to track two sets of footprints going from the empty cell to the trapdoor. He and Mushamee grabbed the hidden lever and pulled the door open. The Imperial jailer, who until then was skeptical of the trapdoor's existence, grabbed his head with his hands and lamented about how he would be ridiculed by everybody for having missed such an obvious means of escape right in the middle of his prison. We told him to keep it under wrap for now.

Under the door was a 10' deep hole. At its bottom we saw the opening of a small passage. Leif and Vinz climbed down first, and were handed some torches. They could only see the passage disappearing in the distance. They signalled the others to join them, then we all followed the passage. After a couple of minutes, we had to dodge a trap on the floor. Finally, we reached some kind of complex mechanical door that none of us could open. Vinz tried Lockmaster on it, but since it wasn't really locked, it didn't help.

We realized we would probably need an engineer to help us, so Mushamee and Rufus volunteered to get Kaeso. As they reached the start of the passage, they saw the trapdoor above had been closed. Rufus climbed on Mushamee's shoulders and tried to push it up, but it didn't bulge. He tried to get the attention of the jailer by knocking on it with his sword, but all he heared was the noise of something being dragged on it. Him and Mushamee switched position, and with Leif's help, they were able to push the door open. When Mushamee climbed out of the hole, he saw that the jailer himself had moved his table and chair on the trapdoor, 'so that no one would ever use this escape route again'.

Mushamee and Rufus found Kaeso in his room. When they brought him back to the prison, the jailer asked him if he could find a way to permanently seal the passage and destroy the trapdoor. Kaeso said he'd think about it.

They went back down in the passage. When they reached the door at the other end, Kaeso only took a couple of seconds to figure out how to activate its mechanism. It moved aside and we found ourselves in the courtyard. We looked around and saw we had come out of the statue of Emperor Aurelianus IV. Leif got on all four and sniffed around. Then he said not only was he just abled to pick up the scent of the two fugitives, but also the scent of a third person who was waiting for them here, and who led them somewhere else.

We followed the scents to one of the gates, where Leif said they had split in two groups, the escapee and his escaper going toward the city, and the helper going back toward the Palace. We tried to follow the escapee's trail, but his scent rapidly disappeared among the thousand other scents of the city. We came back to follow the third scent, but it disappeared into the Palace.

As we were about to abandon the search, Rufus remembered the second prisoner interrogated saying he had been falsely arrested while prowling the Palace courtyard near one of the statues. He decided to interrogate the man once again, so he went back to the jail. The others decided to wait for him in the courtyard, except Recnam who decided it was time to go to the Temple of Necros to prepare for the Smert festival.

In the jail, Rufus learned from the jailer that the prisoner had already been sent to Officius' office for interrogation. He ran to the civil servant's office, where he saw the prisoner in an adjascent room with a decurion and two legionnaires. Officius was sitting at his desk, reading some report. Rufus briefly explained what had just happened, and said he needed to interrogate the thief a second time. Officius gave him permission. As he was about to enter the interrogation room, Rufus saw the decurion put his sword through the thief's chest. Rufus ran in and told the decurion to step back. The decurion said the man had tried to assault him, and he was only protecting himself. Rufus knelt beside the thief and saw that luckily, the wound was not mortal. A quick interrogation revealed that the night before, the thief was in the courtyard looking for a way inside the palace, when this lone soldier (pointing at the decurion) arrested him and threw him in jail. Rufus asked the decurion to explain himself. The decurion said he was making his normal round near the statue of Emperor Aurelianus IV, when he saw this man who was obviously a thief walking around. As is job asked, he apprehended the thief and threw him in jail. <

Rufus knew that accusing a decurion without proof would be considered treason and reason enough for prompt beheading. He went back to Officius and said he had strong suspicions about the decurion, but no proof. He asked permission to take the decurion to the courtyard. Officius accepted.

They joined the rest of the group in the courtyard. There, Rufus showed the secret door to the decurion and asked him to explain his actions once more. The decurion repeated his story, except this time it all happened near the statue of Emperor Nicolai I. Rufus immediately confronted him with this change. Mushamee added that no guard ever patrolled the palace grounds alone. Leif sniffed the decurion and said he was the third man.

We pushed the decurion until he finally confessed. He said he was at the service of a man named Porcinus, as were many other decurions. He did not know who the guys he helped where; he only knew he had to be near the statue at a certain time in the night and let the two people who would join him there out of the Palace grounds.

To keep this thing under wrap, we led the decurion to our quarters, under the guard of Ilya and Josef. We went to Officius and asked him about this Porcinus. Surprisingly, Officius knew this man very well. His real name was Marcus Altov and he was a civil servant a little lower than him on the hierarchical scale. The prospect of bringing this Altov down seemed to please Officius immensely because he gave us the location of his house where we could probably found him in a big orgy. We fetched Mushamee's four allies, dropped the decurion in the prison, and went on our way.

Meanwhile, Kaeso started looking for a good surgeon. He finally found one who seemed to know his stuff. In a long and painful procedure, he fixed Kaeso's leg so that it would heal in two months instead of six (which would have been a real problem since we have to leave in two).

When Recnam reached the Temple of Necros, he was led to Katya Markhova, the leader of the Night Guard in Kapital. She told him all the important members of the Church had left Kapital some weeks ago. Recnam asked if one of the members of her organization could teach him how to use a shortsword. She said most of her personnel had been killed in a bandit ambush just outside Kapital, although unofficially she is convinced they were paid by Ruinas. She told him the Patriarch was here in Roma, and he wanted to meet Recnam as soon as possible.

A couple of minutes later, Recnam was face to face with the Patriarch. The priest narrated our adventures to the old man. In return, the Patriarch explained that they had decided to leave Kapital when Ruinas started ignoring the churches in their official functions, and behind the scenes had even started causing them trouble. He had decided it would be better to officially support Vasili, and would like Recnam to go back to the Palace and invite Vasili to participate in an official fashion to the celebration of the Smert festival; a new promotion would be in order if he succeeded. Recnam accepted to go back, but he asked, as a favor, if he could be the one performing the celebration. The Patriarch thought about it for a couple of seconds, then accepted, saying he wanted to keep his own presence in Roma a secret. As Recnam was about to leave, the Patriarch added that even Recnam's companions shouldn't know of his presence here. He gave the priest some trinket to show to Vasili, as a proof Recnam would be speaking for the entire Church of Necros.

Recnam went back to the Palace and met Officius. The civil servant told him Vasili was away for the rest of the day and would only come back at night. Recnam decided to wait.

Vinz, Mushamee, Leif and Rufus reached Altov' house. Leif decided to hide near the back door in case Altov decided to escape this way. The three others made their way to the main entrance. Since they all had official Imperial positions, they were all let in (the four High Imperial Guards stayed outside). In one big room, they found a big orgy, with naked men and women eating, playing and screwing around. They found a fat and slimy Altov at the end of the room, stretched on a big cushion and surrounded by two servant girls. They told him he had to follow them to the palace. One thing they didn't think about, however, was that they had no direct authority on Altov. He asked on who's order. They improvised and told him Officius. He said that contrary to what Officius could think, the two were of the same rank, so Officius had no authority over him. He said he would accompany us to the Palace, but only after the festival. He then invited them to participate in his little orgy. Vinz declined, but Rufus and Mushamee decided to stay for a while.

Vinz left the house and went to inform Leif that he could stop his surveillance. When he reached the place where the barbarian was hiding, he could only see his armor, clothes and weapon lying on the ground. The only living thing around was a dog rummaging in a pile of garbage. Vinz is a pretty bright guy, so he put 2 and 2 together and concluded Leif had shape-shifted into a dog. By looking intensely at the animal, he could even recognized some of Leif's traits in its face. Vinz decided to let him be. At this point, night was falling. He went to the Temple of Necros to find Recnam (and get paid), but a priest told him Recnam had returned to the Imperial Palace.

In the Palace, Recnam was informed that the Emperor was back. He had a little talk with Vasili, who accepted Recnam's proposition to ally himself with the Church of Necros (the deciding moment being when Recnam presented him with the Patriarch's small trinket). To justify his role as the celebration leader for the Smert festival, Recnam asked Vasili to officially ask the Church of Necros to let him conduct the ceremony (knowing full well the church had already accepted). Vasili said he would do it.

After the discussion, Officius came to talk to Recnam and told him where his companions were. He invited the priest to his own house, just next to Altov's house. Recnam accepted. They both left.

When Vinz got to the Palace, he was told Recnam had gone to Officius' house. He asked some official where it was, then went on his way.

Back at Altov's house, Rufus and Mushamee refrained from participating in the orgy, just in case Altov tried to poison them. At most, they drank some of the same wine the other guests were drinking, and did some gambling. They did see a lot of perverted stuff, including the use of sheeps for non-food related activities. Finally, noticing their non-participation, Altov asked them to go to Officius' house and give him an invitation to come to his orgy. The two men left.

At Officius' house, they met him and Recnam. Officius told them he accepted the invitation, but would only go after midnight, with Recnam. According to him, being the day of the Smert festival would give the priest an additional religious authority he doesn't have usually. If there was anything at all at Altov's orgy that would break the sacred rules of the festival, Recnam could even arrest him.

A little later, Vinz arrived in the vicinity of the two houses. He went to the back of Altov's house and saw Leif, fully clothed and armed, watching the house. A couple of questions showed Leif did not remember turning into a dog at all. Vinz told him he could stop his watch. They both went to Officius' house, where they met the rest of the group.

We waited a couple of hours, then Officius announced it was past midnight. We all went to Altov's house. As we walked through the room where the orgy was taking place, Recnam could see many people engaged in "activities" formally prohibited during the festival, the worst being the bestiality. We also noticed that some people were eating some ham; when asked, they said it came directly from the famous Petrovius in Kapital. We grabbed some of it, and Recnam confirmed it was made of human flesh; we now had Altov for cannibalism.

When we reached Altov, Recnam announced he was being arrested for breaking many rules of the festival of Smert. Altov was visibly taken aback, and desperately asked for some leniancy. Recnam denied it, and said he has to follow us. Altov asked one of his maid to fetch him a robe.

As we waited for the robe, Recnam casted Death Vision on himself. He saw us ambushed by a group of mercenaries on our way back with the prisoner. He then saw a black circle materializes in front of him, vaguely ressembling the ones we saw in the Holy Temple in Teclá. Two hands came out of the blackness and passed through his body, chilling him to his core and sucking the life out of him.

The maid returned, Altov put the robe on, and we left his house.

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Chapter 53 - Roma

Knowing about the ambush Recnam saw in his vision, we sent Leif to scout ahead. When he returned some minutes later, he said he saw about 50 mercenaries, some hidden behind a trio of walls and armed with melee weapons, and the rest on top of buildings armed with crossbows. They had carefully chosen their location not far from here, a place we had to cross to get back to the Imperial or religious quarters. Luckily, Rufus had some knowledge of the city and was able to come up with a way to flank them by using the river bank. We decided that Recnam and Kaeso would stay near Altov's house, with the prisoner, and wait for our signal.

We followed Rufus on the river bank. When we estimated we were at the same level as the ambushers, we left the river bank and slowly walked toward the street. We stopped when we saw the first group of 12 men hiding behind a wall. Since they had their backs to us, they didn't noticed us. We estimated it would take ten seconds to reach them at full run, but by doing so they would have all the time in the world to call for the others. We decided to try to surprise them. Mushamee, Leif, Vinz and Rufus were not armored, so sneaking up wouldn't be a problem. The four Imperial Guards, however, were wearing their full legionnaire garments. We decided to let them wait here until they could hear the sound of combat, then they would start running toward us. They'll most certainly arrive after the fight is over, but they'll be able to help against eventual reinforcements.

We activated one of Kaeso's smoke bomb to create some cover. When the fog was thick enough to cover our presence, we moved toward the ambushers. We were silent enought not to be noticed. When we got near enough, we jumped out of the fog and surprised our enemies. They were separated in two groups of six. Mushamee and Rufus took on the first group while Vinz and Leif jumped the second one.

The fight only lasted four or five seconds max. Mushamee went through his opponents like a knife through butter. In two seconds, he decapited or skewered four of them. Rufus took one down, then finished a second that had already been wounded by the legionnaire. The fight on the other side went as well, if not as quickly. Four had their throats cut by Vinz, while Leif took one down. The barbarian was slightly hurt when he missed a slam and was hit from behind, but Mushamee and Rufus came to his help and finished the last guy off.

With the almost complete surprise and the constant throat cuttings taking place, the fight stayed pretty quiet. At its, only two or three ambushers were still alive, unconscious. Five seconds later, the four Imperial Guards catched up with us.

One interesting note about the fight is when Vinz used his Sword of Su (of all the sword users in the group, only he and Kaeso had decided to use one). As it went through his opponent's neck, he immediately felt energized; a small leftover wound from another fight instantly healed itself. Since the others pussied out of using one of these swords, he decided to keep this effect to himself.

Back in front of Altov's house, Recnam was in some argument with the prisoner when the civil servant's eyes went wide with fear at something behind the priest. Recnam turned around and saw the black swirling vortex he had seen in his Death Vision. Altov feinted. Two four-fingered hands came out of the vortex and directly through Recnam's body, draining some of his life force. Recnam jumped back. Kaeso ran as quickly as he could and hacked one of the hands with his Sword of Su, severing it neatly at the wrist. As the engineer felt a real rush inside him, the two arms retreated into the vortex. The severed hand quickly moved away by itself. Kaeso tried to follow it, but it disappeared in the night.

They waited a bit, but the vortex did not disappear. Kaeso put his sword through it, but had to remove it when he felt a deep cold crawl up his hand and arm. Calling on the power of his father, Recnam grabbed the edges of the vortex and pushed inward. A couple of Will battles later and it started shrinking, slowly. Another set of arms and hands came through and did additional damage to the priest, but again Kaeso slapped them down with his sword (taking care to not sever anything this time). Finally, the vortex popped out of existence.

Only in the aftermath did Kaeso noticed that his leg was no longer crippled.

Back at the ambush site, we decided to try and scare the hell out of the remaining mercenaries. For this, we grabbed some of the decapitated heads, covered our faces with blood, then started walking in the fog, all the while making scrapping and guttural noises. Vinz, being a great actor, was at the front. As we got near the next group of enemies, all but Vinz threw their heads in their direction. Finally, as we slowly emerged from the fog, Vinz took a convincing bite out of his trophy (making a great acting roll). This was enough to convince the mercenaries they were facing undead monsters (this being the festival of the Dead) and to run in fear. They met with the last group of mercenaries and decided to form a new line. As we got near, however, we could see it was barely holding together, and guessed that a single assault would break it. As we picked up the pace a bit, they started shooting some arrows, but the fog and the night provided good cover. The only wounded was Vinz who took an arrow in his torso. We decided to charge. As we guessed, the line simply disintegrated, and every mercenary ran away in fear.

Leif decided to follow them while the others went back to Altov's house. Vinz stopped on the way to cut the throat of one of the unconscious men we had left behind, thus healing himself completely. We brought the last survivor with us for interrogating, joined back with Kaeso, Recnam and Altov, and started for the Temple of Necros.

At the temple, there were a lot of followers in the courtyard. We were led inside, where we were greeted by priests. Altov was taken in custody. At the news that Kaeso had saved Recnam's life, he was offered to be part of an initiation into the Temple at a further time. A priest explained the initiation was basically screwing the dead body of a Temple virgin (they couldn't do it while alive, but it was all right when they were dead :) ).

Leif followed the tracks of the mercenaries back to the commercial quarters. There, he saw someone ordering the others to wait for the rest of the troops. A couple of minutes later, some guys with crossbows joined them. The leader spoke to them a bit, then they splitted in many groups and went in many different inns. Leif followed the group with the leader. By checking the rooms that suddenly became lighted (it was the middle of the night), he was able to find which one was the leader's. He moved near its window and was able to hear some man explained to some other men why he had ordered a retreat. Leif left for the Temple of Necros.

When we were all reunited in the Temple, the Patriarch came to meet us. We talked a bit about the political situation. Then, as it was near dawn, he offered to give us some kind of drink to boost us up for the rest of the day. We accepted.

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Chapter 54 - Roma (The Festival of Smert)

Festival of Smert

As dawn was rising in Roma, we decided it would be a good idea to go to the inns where our ambushers were sleeping to arrest them. Leif informed Kaeso and Vinz his grandfather had told him yesterday that the Swords of Su were extremely dangerous. Of course, Kaeso and Vinz gave him no mind, at least until this information was confirmed by someone else.

Before going, Recnam casted Death Vision on himself; he saw us going out the front of the Temple through a group of followers. Then a blade swiftly hit him in the back. He told us what we saw, so we asked the Patriarch to use one of the secret ways out. The old man accepted, under the condition that we would wear a blindfold. We accepted.

A couple minutes later, we were out in the city. Leif guided us to the inn where the ambush leader was sleeping. He, Rufus and Leif went in, while Mushamee was checking the front entrance, Kaeso the back, and Vinz the stables.

Inside the inn, they bribed the innkeeper to get the exact room of the leader. They climbed the stairs, then Rufus used his sword as an improvised lockpick to unlock the appropriate door. As they opened it, they smelled a foul stench filtering from the bedroom into the corridor. Lying on the bed was the dead body of a man Leif identified as the ambush leader. The cause of death was not apparent, so Recnam examined the body in details. The only thing he found was a group of eight black marks on its back, but the epiderm hasn't been broken. Recnam studied the marks carefully until he realized they were probably made by the same kind of demons that attacked him earlier in the night.

Rufus signaled Mushamee through the window to join them. They then went in the henchmen's room, where they found two other dead bodies bearing the same marks. They went to talk to the innkeeper who said he didn't noticed anything during the night. He told them this seemed to be some kind of epidemic as he heard at least three other men died in a similar fashion in another inn during last night.

As all left the inn, Mushamee, Leif and Kaeso decided to go to the palace to get some rest. The others went back to the Temple of Necros. Recnam asked to be led to the room where Altov was being kept. Vinz and Rufus followed. They went down a set of stairs, then met a couple of guards who showed them the way. In Altov's room it was still dark, but at least it didn't smell of death like in the inn. Recnam walked to the window and pushed the curtains aside. That's when we saw Altov's lifeless body lying in the bed. We expected to find the same set of black marks on him, but to our surprise, it was not the case. Instead, we found a knife buried deep in his chest with enough force to pierce through his sternum and into his heart.

As Recnam started his ceremony to talk to the dead, Rufus and Vinz went to interrogate the guards. They say they were not on duty for a long time, and gave us the name of the two guards they relieved. They say the only person they had seen this morning was 'that leader chick of the Night Guard.' Vinz asked if they were talking about Katya Markova. They nodded.

Vinz went back in the room and casted See Secrets on himself. He immediately noticed a secret passage behind a curtain. He found its mechanism and opened it. A small corridor was revealed, leading to a ladder. He hesitated a moment in leaving Recnam alone, but then realized one who would try to kill the Son of Necros, in Necros' most sacred place, during Necros' most sacred day, would definitely deserve the divine smithing one would inevitably received.

Vinz and Rufus entered the corridor, with the assassin leading. After climbing the ladder, he found himself facing another secret door. He opened it. The other side was hidden by a big curtain. Some voices could be heard, so he stopped and listened. He immediately recognized the voice of the Patriarch giving some orders. Vinz signaled Rufus to back off then retreated, closing the secret door behind . They both went back in Altov's room, and waited for Recnam.

The priest finished his ritual and successfully contacted Altov's spirit. He learned the following things:

• Altov considers Recnam a false priest. When asked what was a false priest, he said a Necromancer. Recnam told him he was indeed part necromancer, but was mostly a real priest of Necros. Altov didn't really believed him.
• Altov was killed in his sleep, so he didn't see who did it.
• Altov still considers himself working for the real Emperor, Nicolai XIV. He said as long as he doesn't see a body, he won't believe the emperor is really dead. He was acting by himself, and no one was giving him orders.

Facing Altov's lack of cooperation, Recnam put an end to the conversation without sending him away to his father. When the priest came out of his trance, Vinz told him about the secret passage and where it was leading. They decided to go talk to the Patriarch.

They took the secret passage and came out in an empty room. Recnam called out. The Patriarch came out of the next room and asked us what were we doing in his quarters. When told about the secret passage, he said he supposedly knew about all the passages in the Temple, but he didn't knew about this one. They told him about Altov being murdered, and that the culprit had probably used this passage. He said only high level members of his Temple had access to this chamber. They said the guards had seen Katya walking near the room this morning.

Hearing her name, she entered the room, saying it wasn't worth staying hidden since we knew of her presence here. She said yes, she was had made a patrol alone this morning, but she hadn't gone inside Altov's room. She also said she knew about the secret passage; she suggested the murderer could very well be a zealot priest who had learned of Altov's sins and thought he deserved to die immediately.

We left the Patriarch and Katya using the secret passage (going out of his quarters without being seen going in would have been suspicious). Recnam decided it was time for him to go to sleep. Vinz asked him if he could try to contact the Serpent Queen for some information about the Swords of Su.

Rufus and Vinz went to see the Captain of the Guards. Rufus (foolishly) told him about Altov's murder. When asked if he could talk to the two guards on duty during the night, the Captain told him he would take care of it himself. Rufus tried to budge him, to no effect. Even Vinz being a member of the Night Guard was not enough, as they were different factions and one had no authority over the other. Vinz immediately saw that their efforts would be in vain, so he left. Rufus continued trying to convince the Captain of the legitimacy of his demand. The Captain said both main charges brought against Altov (bestiality and cannibalism) were punishable by death, and now Altov was dead, and he didn't really see what the problem was. Justice was served, after all. Rufus finally realized he was wasting his time, so he left and went to sleep.

Recnam successfully contacted the Serpent Queen. She said that the Swords of Su were incredibly dangerous weapons from the Age of Blood and Iron. When they kill something, they actually heal some of the wielder's wounds, but the energy used is taken from the dimension of Mad Things. After each use, the wielder would become less and less human, and eventually would not be able to live without the sword. The changing process is even ten times faster when killing demons, something Kaeso had just done this same morning.

When asked why the Inquisitors would give us such poisoned gifts, she said they were basically a bunch of amateurs who didn't knew anything about anything. Much of the knowledge needed, especially for the ritual, is contained in the Tome of Power, written in a long forgotten language unknown by the Inquisitors. She said it would probably take them a lifetime just to acquire the basic knowledge to read the book.

Recnam told her about the demon attack. She showed him the image of many different types of gates. He did find one identical to the one he saw, and pointed it to her. She said this was bad news as this kind of gate led to the dimension outside of Time and Space, where the Mad Things were. Recnam described to her the way the ambushers were killed. She said things were progressing much faster than she thought. Such a controlled use of gates could not be done from something on the other side, meaning there is a powerful sorceror, in our dimension and near us, capable of creating such things. She warned the priest that going through such a gate would be worst than death for any of us.

Finally, Recnam asked her about the hand Kaeso had cut. She said not to worry about it, that it couldn't survive very long by itself in our dimension.

When Recnam woke up, he met with the rest of the group to discuss what the Serpent Queen had told him. We realized our only chance of learning the old language was if Vinz could "remember" it. We also decided to never use the Swords of Su again, and discussed ways to get rid of them. The preferred method seemed to be to throw them in a volcano. :)

After our little meeting, dusk was falling and Recnam left us to attend to the festival ceremonies. It lasted a couple of hours, and many dignitaries participated, including Vasili. After the ceremony, Recnam tried to engage conversation with the Emperor, but missed his default Diplomacy roll. Still, a good time was had by all.

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Chapter 55 - Roma (Rufus's marriage)

The day after the Smert Festival, we all met together to prepare our trip to the west. Kaeso announced he was willing to work on some new types of armors and weapons. He gave us the list of what was available. Quoting Sean:

'He offered two forms of improved mail: augmented mail (mail with strips of tough leather armor woven through the links) and double mail (extra-heavy mail made from links of double-thickness wire; "Less hole, more filling!"). He also offered three kinds of rigid steel armor: lamellar (basically high-tech lorica segmentata, built up from horizontal bands and small plates), laminate (plate armor built up from riveted-together plates), and plate (a single-piece steel cuirass). And he offered some heavier gauntlets (made of overlapping steel bands intead of just metal bits on leather) and full-face helmets.'

Leif announced from the get go he would get the best available armor, putting him in heavy encumbrance. Since we would be as quick as the slowest of us, we knew there was not much to gain for being less encumbered, so we all went for the best armor possible. Kaeso would also make composite crossbows for him and Vinz, and a composite longbow for Leif.

We also decided to bring heavy cloaks, the Swords of Su (to get rid of them), disguises and lockpicks for Vinz, a 40-pound toolkit for Kaeso, and a set of priestly clothes for Recnam. We also decided to bring $125,000 in gold in case we needed to buy a boat (we valued the gold in the two treasure chests at around $1,800,000).

For the next 72 days, we worked, partied, screwed and relaxed. Mushamee spent his time in parties, learning some diplomacy and raising his Status Level (he is now level 3). Kaeso spend litterally all his time working in his forge on the new armors and weapons, learning quite a bit about Armory in the same time. Recnam spent most of his time in the Temple of Necros, probably raising his Status in the church and learning to use his quarterstaff as a spear (he had a pointy metal bit attached to one end of his staff). Vinz spent his days meditating extensively, getting full Litteracy (he was already semi-litterate) and "remembering" the old and forgotten sacred language used in the Tome of Power (while spending many of his nights with Locla). Leif disappeared for the whole two months; when he came back, he was sporting some kind of fur coat made of bear skin. As for Rufus, he stayed mostly out of sight, having to deal with ''personal problems.''

The day before leaving, Rufus, sporting a brand new black eye, came to see Mushamee and asked him to be his witness for his marriage this same day. Mushamee acted surprised (we knew about it, but Rufus didn't knew we knew), then accepted. The others were invited for the reception.

Later in the afternoon, the reception got under way. Everyone was here (although Vinz was disguised as Reyna). We met Rufus' new wife, a good-looking woman named Helena. She was the daughter of a Roman general, as well as the niece of Lucius Gordianus, Rufus' senatorial patron. She was friendly and seemed quite intelligent, and expressed her desire to see the world to write about it. She said that she would accompany us on our trip tomorrow, up to Toshtanag, capital of the Dominion of Kotan. There, she would wait for our return.

Most of us almost immediately tried to discourage her to do so. Mushamee talked about the dangers involved, and how Helena was ill-prepared to face them. Recnam gave her his "special" blessing, i.e. a Death Vision and a benediction on the part of the God of Death. Reyna even tried to pass herself as the party whore, implicating many sexual ''encounter'' which each member of the group, Rufus included. Then Mushamee went on about how Helena would have to behave like a commoner, wear travel clothes, and not bring any maid with her.

Surprisingly (or maybe not), she pushed aside all objections. Seeing how Rufus was practically crawling before her, it became evident who was wearing the pants in the couple. The informatore took Mushamee apart and admitted that some of the papers the legionnaire had to sign at the wedding made him directly responsible for Helena's safety during the trip. Mushamee immediately accused Rufus of betraying his confidence, using the legionnaire's lack of reading skills to his own advantage. The whole thing also stank of the basest kind of manipulation, something the group is not necessarily ready to accept. Mushamee walked away, pretty pissed off.

Later, Vinz realized there was something more going on when Emperor Vasili in person showed up to congratulate the newly wedded. While he was kissing Helena, Vinz saw him slip a piece of paper in her hands. The assassin guessed that she was probably an Imperial spy. His round finished, Vasili left the reception, invoking some other obligations he had to fulfill.

As there was no dissuading Helena, we discussed with her how she should dress and how she should conduct herself. She wanted to bring many of her maids; we told her she shouldn't bring any. After some discussion, we finally decided that she could bring one. She settled on a girl named Diandra and sent for her. Diandra seemed like a nice enough girl, although young and probably inexperienced.

Eventually, the reception wound down, and we all left.

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Chapter 56 - Roma - Circus of Death

As the night was falling, we left the wedding celebration and went to sleep. Recnam went back to the Temple of Necros. Vinz went to see Loclá. Leif and Mushamee went back to their quarters in the Imperial Palace.

During the night, Mushamee was woken up by someone tapping on his window shutters. He opened them with his sword and came face to face with the naked body of Leif. The barbarian jumped in the legionnaire's room and started talking in Leif's granddad's voice. He warned Mushamee that there would be demons on the mountain road. Before Mushamee could ask him what he meant by that, Leif lied down on the floor and went back to sleep. Mushamee covered him, then decided to wait the next morning for an explanation.

When he woke up, Vinz gave Loclá the money he made by being Recnam's bodyguard, so she wouldn't have to sleep with someone if she didn't want to.

In the morning, we all met at the Imperial Palace for breakfast and to discuss the logistics of our trip. Leif reveiled he had spent the last two months exploring the different ways through the eastern mountains and had found the best way through. When Mushamee talked about Leif's dad's nightly visit, Vinz postulated that he was probably talking about these mountains, and not the mountains on the island of Uviks where the Vortex of Thunder is.

Since almost all the lands on this side of the mountains were cultivated, we decided that each night, Vinz (always in disguise) and Diandra would go to the nearest farm to buy the necessary food for everyone. On the other side of the mountains, we knew the land was much wilder, thus allowing us to use Leif's hunting and Kaeso's trapping skills.

A little later, Helena and Diandra joined us with their equipment, and we went on our way.

It took us 25 days to reach the mountains. Using Disguise and Streetwise, Vinz made it very hard for anybody to follow our steps.

Night was falling as we finally reached the mountains. While Leif was searching for a suitable place to sleep, the others heard some muted noises, from not far in front of us. Vinz, Mushamee and Kaeso decided to investigate.

For the next five minutes, they walked through the grass so that they wouldn't be noticed. The noise was becoming louder and louder; they could hear people yelling, and even some music. They could also see some lights flashing in the night. As they got nearer they realized that a circus was in the plain just in front of them! They could see some tents with people encouraging visitors to go inside. Some performers were walking around, doing some magic tricks. Many visitors were walking around, although most were alone. We evaluated the total number of people present at around 100.

The three men decided to explore the circus for a little while. Kaeso immediately left the others to go to a tent where they were showing freaks of nature. Vinz and Mushamee walked a little, until one of the perfomer came to try and convince them to go to a tent where a great challenge was waiting for them. He then made something he had in his hand disappear. Now Vinz himself is very agile with his hands and knows a lot about sleight-of-hands, but even he couldn't detect how the guy did it. But as the object actually disappeared, Vinz sensed his danger sense flared up very briefly. This convinced him maybe they were dealing with real magicians, and not simply illusionists. After warning Mushamee to be on his guard, they both went to the tent the entertainer had mentioned. There was a man outside, promising great entertainment and challenge to anyone wanting to go in. Both guys wanted to, but the man said it could only be one at a time. Mushamee went first while Vinz waited outside.

Inside the tent, the legionnaire saw a half-human, half-snake woman sitting at a table (she was human and naked from the waist up, and snakey from the waist down). She told Mushamee that if he accepts the challenge, he would have to fight bare-handed against an adversary. She refused to describe this adversary, except to mention that it was demonic in nature. Mushamee went outside to discuss things with Vinz, then went back in. Since he had some kind of vow about detroying anything demonic, he decided to accept the challenge. He then learned from the half-woman that this circus was called the Circus of Death and that all its performers and visitors were in fact dead and caught in some kind of purgatory because they have meddled in forbidden magics. They were all condemned to stay this way until ''their'' demon was killed in a fight. When asked about the beast, the woman said the demon's appearance was never the same; it takes the form most appropriate to fight its opponent. She said this fight would prepare us for what is coming up, as the demons we already met were nothing to the demons we were about to face. If Mushamee wins, he will receive a price that should prove a great help in the future.

Meanwhile, Kaeso was busy visiting the freak tent. He couldn't help noticed that most of them seemed pretty real even to his eyes, contrary to most circus where they looked pretty fake. He then heard an announcement that the next challenger had arrived and would fight the demon in the main tent. Everybody around stopped what they were doing to walk to the biggest tent of the circus. Kaeso decided to follow them. As he was walking, he suddenly realized what it was that was nagging at the back of his head. Although he had not been here for long, he had not seen any new visitor arrive, nor seen any visitor leave.

As he reached the big tent, he was joined by Vinz who had also heard the announcement. Inside the tent was a big set of seats surrounding a circular area. In the middle of this area was a completely enclosed metal cage with a floor made of long wooden planks. It was empty for now.

Meanwhile, Leif went back to the other groups and learned what had happened. Suspicious about the presence of demons in the area, he decided it was a good idea to go keep an eye on the three explorers.

Back at the circus, a practically naked Mushamee had his hand bandaged and was led inside the cage. The announcer presented him, then his demonic adversary, who, according to him, had around 6200 victories and no defeat. At this moment, part of the floor inside the cage moved aside and the demon jumped out of a flaming pit. It was somewhat bigger than Mushamee, with horns on each side of his head and on his forehead, spikes on the knees and elbows, a nose ring made of iron, a shortsword in each hand, and a set of heavy chain mail covering his body. Judging the contest completely unbalanced, Vinz made his way toward the cage to lend a hand, but was warned that any outside intervention would send Mushamee to Hell for all eternity. He went back to his place (while still looking for a way to help without being noticed). Some betting took place (with Kaeso and Vinz betting a couple hundred bucks on the legionnaire), then the fight began.

It lasted all of two or three seconds. After a double attack from its swords, the demon kicked Mushamee in the groin. The legionnaire critically failed his HT roll and fell unconcious. The demon threw him on the ground, then piledrove him. Victorious, he saluted the audience and went back to his pit. Vinz ran to the cage, but before he could even open its door, a crow went through its bars and landed near Mushamee's still-breathing body. Its form started to change, becoming bigger and larger and taking a familiar barbaric shape. A naked Leif healed Mushamee with a rat, then he and Vinz escorted the legionnaire out of the cage. Kaeso joined them and they decided to go back to the others for now. Before leaving, Kaeso asked a performer if the circus would still be there the next night; the man said no, as they are constantly moving from place to place.

When we were all together , we discussed what had just happened. Then Leif surprised everyone by announcing he was going to fight the demon. We asked him why, since he would surely be killed (or at least greviously wounded), and nobody could heal him. He said his granddad had told him the weak point of the demon he would be facing, and anyway, he didn't had a choice as a demon hunter. He just wanted some time off to recuperate his fatigue.

When he was ready, we all went back to the circus. Just before entering the snake-woman tent, Leif stopped to prepare himself.

That's when things took a really bizarre turn.

Rufus suddenly said that as being the best bare-handed fighter of the group, he would also like to fight the demon. Leif jockingly told him to go ahead. Before anyone could do anything, Rufus entered the tent! We all started yelling at him to 'come back here, you imbecile.' Leif was particularly pissed, and even told he would simply refuse to heal his wounds if he was hurt (which was practically a given). Rufus was unfazed. Recnam casted a Death Vision on him, and the informatore saw himself being ripped apart by a different demon than the one Mushamee faced. Again, it didn't fazed him.

Resigned to seeing Rufus die (although I'm sure some of our characters would actually be glad if it happens; Vinz would), we all went to the main tent and waited for the massacre. Kaeso was the only one who actually betted on Rufus.

When the demon appeared, it was the same that Mushamee had fought. (guess something's not telling the truth around here). Knowing karate and wrestling, Rufus tried to stay in close combat with the demon, but unluckily for the informatore, the beast also knew about unarmed combat. Even when Rufus grappled its hands, it head-butted him on the head a couple of time with his horn. After many five or six seconds of combat, the demon hit Rufus in the head critically, rolling a 4 on the critical head blow table. Rufus was instantly knocked out. The beast chopped at Rufus' arms, crippling both of them (although not permanently), then disappeared.

We went in the cage and pulled Rufus out of there. As he said before, Leif refused to heal him. Helena did some first aid on him. One of the dead keepers told us that Rufus and Mushamee were actually the first humans to have survived a fight with the demon.

Leif went to the snake woman to enter the contest. As he was announced, Vinz, Mushamee and Kaeso decided to bet a couple of gold coins on the barbarian (two for Kaeso, five for Vinz and six for Mushamee). Then Leif was escorted in the cage, and the same demon as before appeared (seems the thing about the demon changing form each fight was bullshit after all). Leif used the couple of seconds he had before the start of the fight to rip ou one of the floor's wooden planks. It was good enough to be used as a crude greatsword.

Leif started by parrying and dodging two sword slashes, then stepped in close combat with the beast and grabbed its nosering. The beast just had the time to yell 'NO!' before Leif ripped it from its face. The demon immediately started melting. He yelled that no human should have known about his weakness and tried to hit Leif another time. The barbarian managed to get out of the way. The demon quickly dissolved in a flaming goo. Leif poked it with his plank to make sure the demon was completely gone.

Leif was declared the winner. The three gamblers learned that Leif was quoted as 5:1, so Mushamee made 3000 bucks, Vinz 2500, and Kaeso 1000. Still, all the dead people were happy as they were now free from the curse, and could be sent to the after-life. If they could find a priest to do it.

Leif took a look at the nosering and realized it had transmuted into some kind of flat, metallic badge, like a big coin. There were weird runes etched on it, but nothing he could read. Vinz touched the object and detected it was very much magical. He also recognized the runes as being written in the Elder tongue, the old and forgotten language he had just remembered. He was able to decipher some of the words, but decided to keep this knowledge to himself for now.

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Chapter 57 - Circus of Death - Valley of the Gods

As we started this week, we were still with the people from the circus. They asked Recnam if he would send them away. The priest asked them in return if they were ready to accept his father Necros. They said after all this time waiting, they could never be readier. This was good enough for the priest, who immediately started his sending-away ceremony. When it was sucessfully completed, the entire circus shimmered for a couple of seconds before disappearing.

Meanwhile, Leif healed Rufus just enough so that he wouldn't slow us up, but not enough to heal his crippled arms. We then set up camp and went to sleep.

The next morning, we resumed our trip and soon reached the base of the mountains. Recnam's Death Vision showed him falling into a crevasse; although he was roped to the others, his small frame caused him to slip through the knot and fall down a long time before landing on his head and dying.

We roped ourselves together, and started to climb. It took us five long days to climb. Because of some good rolling by Leif, it was mostly uneventful. During the nights, as Vinz predicted a month ago, Diandra started sleeping with Leif-the-Demon-Killer :) During the third night, some of us were woken up by some chanting coming from way above us. Leif looked up and saw some humanoid shapes higher in the mountain side. They disappeared, and so did the noises.

The next morning, Rufus informed us that these mountains were inhabited by some kind of beast people since immemorial times. Long ago, they were living in peace with the humans, allowing them to go through the mountains in exchange for some food. Then one day, for an unknown reason, the humans went up and started attacking the beasts. They in turn climbed down and attacked some communities as revenge. And that hostility had been present ever since.

During the fourth night, Vinz suddenly woke up with an intense sensation of danger. He looked up and saw a gigantic boulder starting to roll down the mountain slope toward the camp. He woke everybody up (except Diandra who continued sleeping). We all moved out of the way of the boulder, with Leif carrying Diandra and Kaeso tackling a not-quick-enough Josef in passing. Looking up, Leif was able to spot another one of these strange silhouettes far above us. Josef told Kaeso he owed him his life.

At the end of the fifth day, we finally reached a pass through the mountain, approximately six hundred yards wide, and at least ten miles long. We camped for the night, with the usual watch. When Vinz's turn came (with, IIRC, Vladimir), he decided to climb one of the frozen wall for maybe 50 meters and set his watchpost there. He guessed right, as a little later, he noticed a dozen humanoid forms higher up, six on each wall. He took aim at one on his wall and waited. The forms started running down. Vinz simultaneously fired and yelled a warning. His shot hit, but didn't do enough damage. The beasts ran past the assassin, completely ignoring him.

Down in the camp, everyone woke up in time to prepare for the assault. Back on the wall, Vinz casted Balance on himself then did the little Legolas trick of sliding down the mountain wall standing on his shield (no, he didn't fire his crossbow in the same time :)).

The beasts abruptly stopped ten yards in front of our camps, then threw their spears, hitting two of the Imperial Guards. They then ran back toward the walls. One went past near Vinz, so the assassin slashed it across the throat. The thing was seriously hurt, but not enough to kill it. It continued on his way.

Leif healed the two Imperial Guards, then we went back to sleep. The rest of the night passed without incident. The next day, we walked through the pass. When we reached its end toward dusk, a surprising view revealed itself. We could see a gigantic valley disappearing in the horizon on each side, with another chain of mountains many miles ahead. It was filled with a lush, vivid forest (which was strange in itself since we were still in late winter). While the valley ground was a lot lower than us, we estimated it was still way above normal ground level.

We spent another night in the pass. During his watch, Recnam tried to sneak up on Helena to cast Death Vision on her, but she instantly woke up and put a dagger at the priest's throat, telling him to back off. Recnam retreated while apologizing profusely. The next morning, we started on our way down.

It took us two days to reach the valley. The mountain beasts didn't bothered us at all. The temperature in the valley was hot and humid. We set up our camp just at the base of the mountain. Recnam used one of his plant-killing spells to clear the area in and around it.

During the night, Kaeso had some strange nightmares, but couldn't recall them when morning came. Vinz and Leif had a little private chat where they discussed the badge Leif had received for defeating the demon in the Circus. Vinz told him of the words he was able to decipher. Leif told him the badge has to be affixed permanently to some object, and this object would help against demons (although its effects are mostly unknown).

The next morning, Recnam casted Death Vision on himself. He saw himself walking in the forest, then suddenly he felled in some kind of really deep tunnel. He was able to momentarily stop his fall using his staff. Looking around, he could see some strange runes all around him. Then the pressure on his staff became too great and it broke, chopping Recnam's head in the process. Body and head fell down some more before hitting bottom. Recnam's head saw that it was in a big black deserted tunnel, then it died.

Recnam told the others of his vision. Leif contacted his granddad to ask him about this place. Granddad told him this place has been here since the beginning of time, and that no human being had ever set foot in it. It was somehow connected to the gods.

While this was taking place, the others watched the barbarian with fascination, as both he and his granddad were talking aloud, through Leif's mouth.

We took a couple minutes to decide we have to find this tunnel. We grabbed all our stuff and prepared to leave.

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Chapter 58 - Valley of the Gods

As we started this week, it was morning and we were just about ready to make our way into the forest. Before going, Rufus took a good look at it with his special awareness. He saw the trees transformed themselves into some kind of demonic, spidery things.

To find the tunnel, we had to rely on Recnam's intuition. After concentrating a moment, not only did the priest had a good idea of the direction we should take, but also that there was something there who wanted us to find it. He also got the impression that he had to lead the group.

Just before going, Leif, recalling Recnam's Death Vision, suggested we put a rope around the priest and attached it around Vinz's waist, just in case.

We walked for all the rest of the morning and a good part of the afternoon. Then Recnam, knowing nothing about survival in such an environment, noticed something strange just beside his feet. He poked it with his staff. The ground immediately opened around him, and he fell through. Warned by his danger sense, Vinz just had time to brace himself to help support the impact when the rope reaching its end.

In the hole, Recnam looked around (with his Night Vision) and saw he was in the tunnel he saw in his vision. Most of the runes were covered by moss. He casted Death Vision on himself once more, and got a vision where the others simply abandoned him to his fate, and he died of thirst after a couple of days.

Meanwhile, back outside the tunnel, Leif and Mushamee grabbed a section of the rope, and they and Vinz pulled the priest out of the tunnel. We then took a couple of minutes to examine the ground. The hole was somewhat hidden by grass and roots, so the first step was to clean its border to make it clearly visible. That took us the rest of the afternoon. As dusk was falling, Vinz was impatient to climb down the tunnel to check the runes, but was convinced to wait for the next morning.

Curious, Rufus took a good look at the hole with his special awareness. He couldn't see anything bizarre, except that something hidden was coming out of the tunnel and went to some kind of mound a couple of yards away. He pointed it to the rest of the group. Recnam used his plant-killing spell on the mound, then the others cleared the dead debris. When the job was finished, we found ourselves in front of a pillar a yard high, with a circular top. Part of this top was a smooth, inclined surface with the cast of a human-shaped hand, except the hand was ten times as big as any normal hand. Vinz didn't sensed any danger coming from it. Still, something told us we shouldn't play with this thing.

In a effort to get some information about this place and the pillar, Recnam tried to contact some local spirit. There were none (after all, no one had ever been here). But he did felt something strange; even with no spirit, the place was reeking of spiritual energy. His knowledge of the spirit world told him this could be a place where the energy used by the gods to create spirits was taken.

Leif contacted his granddad who told him all he knew is that the pillar was not demon-related. At all. Rufus tried to search the memories of his ancestors for some information; he suddenly started yelling 'Oh My God! The God!', and didn't stop for the next hour.

We decided to go to sleep. Recnam contacted the Serpent Queen (he had just raised his frequency of success). He found her on a big galley navigating some river. He asked her first about the pillar. She told him to follow her, and they went in one of the galley's room. She grabbed a scroll, unrolled it until she reached a series of pillar images. She asked Recnam if the pillar he saw was one of them. He couln't exactly find the same, but pointed to one who was almost identical except that the top was square instead of circular. She mumbled something about how "they" had changing tastes. She said the only thing she knew about the pillar was that it is associated with the Gods who created this planet, and was used to keep demons and Mad Things away. Any human trying to use it would probably be blasted out of existence for good.

Recnam asked her about Leif's badge. She told him she didn't knew much about demon-killing tools, and that Leif should ask his grandfather. He was, after all, the expert on demon killing.

When he woke up in the middle of the night, Recnam decided to ask his father for council. He concentrated... and concentrated... He finally stopped when he sensed somebody pushing him with his boots. He opened his eyes and saw an illuminated Vinz staring at him. He got up, then walked to the pillar. Suddenly, the hand cast didn't seem so big to him. He put his small hand in it; some black stuff immediately filled the empty space. We then felt the ground starting to tremble around the hole. Looking down, we saw something slowly rising toward us. As it got nearer, we saw it was some kind of flat, round, slowly rotating platform. When it reached ground level, it stopped its rise and stayed there, waiting.

Meanwhile, Leif took Mushamee apart and, after a little discussion, he took his demon badge out and put it on Mushamee's magical bronze sword. Silver immediately appeared along the weapon's edge, as well as some runes Vinz looked at the weapon and said they were telling of some 'Bane of Demons' (or something to that effect).

When everyone was ready, we all stepped on the platform. It didn't move. Recnam ordered it down, then Vinz used the Elder tongue word for down. All in vain. The priest walked back to the pillar, put his hand back in the cast, and ordered the platform down. It started lowering itself. Recnam ran and jumped back on it.

As we slowly went down, Vinz tried to read some of the runes on the wall. They were all written in the Elder tongue, so he was partly successful. They were bizarre readings, mostly consisting of small phrases about the building of the world, how the planet was much bigger than what was supposed to be, how the creation of humans was a big mistake, etc.

By Kaeso's estimates, we were 100 yards down when the platform stopped. We found ourselves in a tunnel sculpted in the rock, 20 feet high and 10 feet wide at its base (although the inclination of the walls toward each other lowered this to 5 feet at the top). Leif noticed that the air was surprisingly clear and fresh, with neither dust nor smells.

The moment we stepped off the platform into the tunnel, a bright light irrupted all around us. We had to close our eyes for a moment to let them get use to it. When we opened them again, we saw that the tunnel was disappearing in the distance in both direction, making this tunnel exceptionally long. At regular intervals there was some pillars and beams to support the structure. There was no evident light source anywhere; it was as if the air itself had become illuminated. We also noticed that althoug a long section of the tunnel was illuminated, it wasn't all of it. If fact, as we would find out later, the illuminated section was centered on us and moved around with us.

Recnam tried to intuitively decide in which direction we should go to find the presence he had felt earlier, but he draw a blank. Since Rufus wanted to go left, we decided to go right.

We walked for many hours. From time to time, Vinz could read some other runes; he could almost compare them to grafitis made by godlike beings, i.e. perfectly written and sculpted, but with insignificant messages. One even told about how the writer had fucked the Serpent woman bitch. During the trip, we realized that the tunnel was not really straight, but had a slight curvature to it.

We finally stopped to eat and sleep. We had only some small provisions, so we had to ration ourselves. Kaeso estimated that if this tunnel formed a circle, we could only had walked 5 to 7% of its circumference in the entire day. That could cause a problem since we were already at the end of our provisions.

After lunch Vinz decided to take a little run ahead with his See Secrets spell activated. After maybe 30 seconds, he noticed a square opening in one of the walls and called out to the others. He, Kaeso and Recnam tried to open it, but without success. Leif tried to smash it, but couldn't even dent its material. We decided to wait for the next "morning" before trying anything else.

Nothing troubled us during our sleep. After woking up, we ate the last crumbs of food we had. As we got ready, we suddenly saw some kind of wall of light coming toward us from somewhere in front. Since it was coming at us at the speed of a charriot and we had nowhere to hide, we didn't even tried to run. The light wall went through our ranks, continued a bit, then stopped. It then slowly came back, carefully stopping before each of us. Its mission done, it retreated to where it was coming from at full speed.

In a last effort, Vinz casted Lockmaster on the closed door, but it didn't work; the door was probably not locked at all.

It was Leif who first heard the cliqueting noise. When he looked at each end of the tunnel, he could see some movement in the distance. The thought we had at this moment was, 'the cleaners are coming'. Kaeso helped Rufus put on a sword and shield. We then separated in two fronts, one in the front, and one in the back. On the back front was Mushamee in the center, flanked by Rufus on his left and Ylia on his right. The second line consisted of Recnam behind Rufus, and Vladimir behind Mushamee. On the forward front was Vinz in the center, flanked by Kaeso on his right and Josef on his left. In the second line, Leif was behind Vinz and Oleg behind Kaeso. We left maybe three yards between the two fronts to give us a little maneuverability. We told Helena and Diandra to stay in this little space.

As the shapes got nearer, we saw they were eight-legged metal spiders, each one approximately one cubic yard in size. There were six coming from each side of the tunnel. Each spider had a big metal mandible used to bite things. Leif, Kaeso and Vinz each fired their ranged weapons, but the missiles were either dodged or just bounced on the metal.

The spiders reached each front at the same time, in two lines of three. While the first line directly attacked those facing them, the second line simply jumped over the melee to land in the small place between the two ranks. All those in both second lines had to turn around to face them. As we figured out during the fight, the buggers had a dodge of 11, and a DR of 6.

On the back front, things went relatively smoothly. Mushamee basically just ripped through them, first with four attacks, then, after they dodged most of his attacks, with feint and three attacks. Although resistent to damage, the spiders only had 15 HP, so the legionnaire was able to destroy one every round. He breezed through the three in front of him, then turned around and destroyed two of the three spiders in the second line (the last one was destroyed by Ylia after being grieviously wounded by the legionnaire). Rufus hit a spider once, and was surprised to feel some energy enter his body and some of his wounds healing. He looked at his sword, and realized Kaeso had given him a Sword of Su! Still, there was no time to switch weapon, so he had to continue using it. Luckily, he didn't damage any spider after that.

On the forward front, things were (not surprisingly) a little more complicated. Josef and Oleg were wounded seriously, with Josef eventually falling unconscious. Vinz had some success feint-and-attacking, but he lost two turns on cricital parrying failures; first his sword became unready, and then he dropped it on the ground and had to take it back. Poor Leif was extremely unlucky when trying to hit the spider facing him. He hit it every time, but it kept dodging his attacks. Kaeso was defending himself quite successfully, but his attacks were either dodged, or did at most 1 or 2 points of damage. Helena aimed at and shot one of the spiders attacking Josef; she actually damaged it! The spider facing Leif judged her to be a greater threat than the barbarian (who hasn't done any damage at this point) and bit her deeply. She fell on the ground, unconscious.

At this point, all spiders on the back front had been eliminated, so the three spiders attacking the second line of the forward front decided the back front was a bigger threat and turned around to attack them. Meanwhile, Vinz finally destroyed the spider in front of him. He then hit the one on his left. Leif all-out-attacked it, (finally) hitting once, and hard enough to destroy it. Vinz solidly hit the one in front of Kaeso, then the engineer took a big swing, critically hit the spider for double damage, and sended it to its maker.

On the back front, the three spiders left didn't had much success, as Mushamee destroyed two of them. The guys from the forward front ran to help them. The last spider was quickly surrounded and destroyed, either by Recnam, or one of the Imperial Guards.

Thanks to Kaeso's wonderful armors, damage to our group was somewhat light. Vinz, Mushamee, Recnam, Vladimir, Ylia and Diandra were unhurt, Rufus and Kaeso were slightly wounded, Oleg was seriously hurt, and Josef and Helena were unconcious but not in mortal danger.

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Chapter 59 - Valley of the Gods - Mountains near Shag

After having destroyed the metal spiders, Leif tried to heal the seriously wounded, but failed miserably to contact his granddad (he missed his 10-or-less roll six times in a row :)). Since we were pretty fatigued from the battle, we decided to relax for an hour. Kaeso used that time to improvise a little cart to carry Josef using the destroyed spiders' bodies.

Leif got rid of all his armor and morphed into a crow to scout ahead. Fifteen-twenty minutes later, he came back, morphed back to his original form and annouced he had found a side tunnel, even bigger than the tunnel we were in, not far ahead. Its entry was blocked by a wall of shimmering light. This wall was not opaque, however, so Leif had been able to see that on the other side, the tunnel was going down; and, most surprising, he saw a boat waiting.

We immediately resumed our trip. A couple hours later, we reached the side tunnel. We we went through the shimmering wall, we immediately felt cleaner and in better shape. All our wounds were completely healed, and our fatigue disappeared.

As Leif said, a ship was waiting at the start of the tunnel on the other side of the wall. We climbed onboard. At one of its end was a big rudder with a big hand cast. Recnam put his hand on it, and again a black substance immediately filled the empty space. The priest concentrated. We heard some noise from aournd the boat. We looked at the ground and saw water flowing under the boat. Rufus, with his special vision, said we were surrounded by water elementals. The boat rose a little, then started gliding down the passage.

Mushamee and Rufus went to explore the ship's forward cabin. The moment they set foot in it, some strange music started playing. They saw the room had a table containing some kind of fruits. A couple of big statues were standing on each side. One represented the body of a woman. Rufus found himself strangely attracted to one of its nipples. When he touched it, a strange liquid flowed out. He dranked it and found it was the best wine he had ever drank. Meanwhile, Mushamee had found some giant-sized dolls laid out on the floor. He had the distinct impression they were to be used for sexual activities.

Rufus went outside and called for the others. Most of us went into the cabin to eat and drink. Kaeso was the only one to refuse. Vinz brought a fruit to Recnam, who couldn't let the rudder go (he had tried, but as soon as he did, the boat came to an abrupt halt). Leif also took some and went back to his position at the front of the boat.

For a good part of the trip, Recnam was pushing the boat to go faster and faster. Eventually, we started to feel the boat shaking, as if it had difficulty keeping itself together. Intrigued by all this noise, Kaeso opened one of the doors in the back and found himself face-to-face with the propulsion "mechanism" of the boat. Although it was not mechanical in any way he knew. The best way he could described it was that it was made of some madness-inducing 'elemental forces' acting in cohesion. Kaeso tried to close his eyes, but found he couldn't move his eyes away from this strange spectacle. He started to feel his sanity slowly slipping away. Luckily, one of the others closed the doors for him and he snapped back to consciousness. We also talked to Recnam about lowering the boat's speed. The priest grudgingly agreed.

The entire trip took around an hour. Three-fourth of the way, Leif, still on the prowl, noted some openings in the tunnel walls from which emanated some demonic scents. Nothing attacked us however. A little later, we were all suddenly struck by intense stomach cramps. We all succeeded at a HT roll, taking light damage, except for Josef, who missed and was grievously wounded. Vinz likened this experience to a man who has just taken a virulent poison.

We finally reached the end of the tunnel and found ourselves in some kind of gigantic garden. The general form of the place was of a half-sphere a couple of miles in diameters, with soft light coming out of the ceilling. We could see the end of three other tunnels identical to ours distributed evenly around the perimeter wall. More intriguing was a pentacle-shaped platform 30 to 40 yards wide hanging out 50 yards in the air in the middle of the garden. We could see no visible means of support. In its middle was a small hole. On each side of the platform was an arch going from one end of the side to the other. Looking at this entire place with his special awareness, Rufus had the distinct impression he was looking at some part of the Garden of Creation.

We walked toward the middle of the garden. When we reached it, we saw a stone plate on the ground beside another pillar. The stone was exactly underneath the hole in the floating platform. We climbed on it and Recnam activated the pilar. The plate started to rise.

When we reached the platform, we saw it was empty beside a portal aside the stone disc and the five arches. We noticed the same hand cast as before on the base of each arches. We reasoned that they could probably be some transporting devices. Recnam used his intuition to select which one we should activate, and put his hand in its cast. The space beneath the selected arch instantly became opaque. Vinz went through, followed by Leif. They found themselves on an identical platform in an identical garden, except the others were not there. The others soon followed.

The stone plate of this particular platform was down on the ground, so Recnam put his hand in the pillar cast to call it. When it arrived, we climbed on and Recnam send it down.

Looking around more attentively, we saw that two of the four tunnel entries had boats waiting. We walked to one of them and climbed on board. Recnam took the rudder again and we started up. Nothing bothered us during the trip. When we reached the end, we found ourselves in the circular tunnel, like before. Knowing there was four tunnels, that we had two walk a little more than a day to reach one, and the approximate size of the circle the tunnel made, Kaeso was able to guess that there probably was four wells with stone plates like the one we used initially, disposed equidistantly between each side tunnel going down.

We chose one direction and walked for a day. This time, we weren't scanned, or attacked by mechanical spiders. As expected, we reached one of the wells. Its stone disc took us outside. We found ourselves in a valley full of trees surrounded by high mountains.

Since we were completely out of food, we decided to take a day off to hunt and trap. Everyone participated, except for Leif. The barbarian transformed into a crow and went on a little reconnaissance. He flew over the mountains to the east and found himself flying over a midsized city. He looked at the flags floating around and saw none of them were the three arrows symbol of Ruinas. He continued flying around for a while, then came back.

The sun was going down when he rejoined the group. He described the city as well as he could. Mushamee identified it as the kotanese city of Shag, approximately 500 miles west of Toshtanag, our current destination. This meant using the arch saved us maybe five months of travel. Leif said we would probably need another five days to reach the city. We checked the supplies we had gathered and concluded we needed more. We all went to sleep.

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Chapter 60 - Shag

Nothing happened during our first night in the valley. On the next day, we gathered enough provision (in small games and plants) for the trip to Shag. We spent another night alone, then the next morning, we went on our way.

It took us two days to reach the pass through the mountain and spent the third day to go through it. This time we didn't see any humanoid shapes.

On the third night of the trip, the day before our trip down to Shag, Recnam notices a strange rock move in the distance, up on one of the side mountain walls. When morning came, he told the others of what he saw. Leif transformed into a crow and flew to the approximate location indicated by the priest to investigate. The only bizarre thing he saw was a big reddish rock, warm to the touch in this cold temperature. He also saw a trail leading from the rock to somewhere else in the mountain. He went back to the others.

Back at the camp, Rufus used his Awareness to look around and had the distinct impression there were elemental forces around. Leif, having transformed back into a man, contacted his grandfather. Granddad told him this particular place was occupied by very dangerous Earth Elementals, and that we should get out of there as soon as possible. So we did.

Our trip down took another two days. At the end of the fourth day, we found a relatively straight place to set up camp. On the last watch, Vinz suddenly felt some danger and woke everybody up. A form slowly emerged from the darkness: it has a distinctly bulky, humanoid shape. It stopped some distance from us and waited. With his Nightvision, Recnam was able to see it was formed exclusively of rocks, confirming Rufus's and Leif's sayings. Recnam stepped forward and said that we were not enemies and we would leave soon. Leif started to sense some kind of rumble coming from the mountain. After asking the others, he realized he was the only one who could feel it. He listened carefully; at first, he wasn't able to make out anything, but in time (and with the help of a critical success) he realized it was some kind of guttural voice coming from the mountain. It said we had to get out of the mountain right now, otherwise we would be crushed. Not wanting to antagonize such a powerful force, we cleared up the camp and resumed our trip down while it was still dark.

When we reached the city gates the next day, it was already dark. Vinz made Recnam's awful smell disappear with the No-Smell spell, then we walked to the guards. They were suspicious at first, but Helena said she was here to visit her uncle Claudius, one of the city's nobles. The guards let us in and provided us with an armed escort, saying the city streets were not sure at night . We asked Helena about her uncle, but she said she didn't really know him well since the last time she saw him, she was still a child.

We reached Claudius' domain. One of the private guards at the gate went in the house to announce our presence. Soon, Claudius himself came to greet us. He seemed really happy to see Helena and her new husband. She presented her maid Diandra, her garderner Recnam, and her bodyguards (the rest of us). The three of them went inside the big house, while the rest were led to the servants' quarters. Learning he had to use those quarters, Kaeso started complaining loudly (to the point of menacing to blow our covers). Recnam spiked himself in the foot and cast a spell to shut the engineer up. Kaeso resisted, but at least got the message and closed his mouth.

In the house, Claudius led Helena and Rufus to the living room where they started a discussion that, after the usual query about each other's family, turned to the current situation in Shag. Claudius said that there was a group of Ruinas' people here trying to form a new legion with Kotanese young men, if not boys, and that made a lot of people angry. The city was supposedly filled with spies and has become very dangerous at night.

In the stable quarters, Vinz, Mushamee and Leif had a big argument about how to continue our mission. Mushamee and Leif wanted to stay in Shag for a while and try to rally some support to Vasili. Vinz wanted to go find the artifacts as soon as possible. Mushamee and Leif's arguments were that we had some time available because we had just save five months on the trip to Kotan, that we were not really on a deadline, and that here was a good occasion to help Vasili. Vinz's arguments were that there was no deadlines simply because we didn't know anything about Ruinas' plans, and we didn't knew when the artifacts would be needed; it could be the next year, it could be the next day, we didn't knew. He also wanted to go back to Roma as soon as possible since for all he knows, he is the only human who can read the ancient language used in the Tome of Power. Leif expressed doubts that the Inquisitors would give him access to the book. Vinz said that the last time they saw them, they seemed to be a lot more cooperative than before, and so maybe they would accept some help with the book.

Of course nobody convinced nobody else, so we agreed to stop for the night and we went to sleep. Half an hour later, Helena entered the room, handed a parchment to both Mushamee and Vinz, and left. Vinz read his; it was coming from Vasili and asked him to contact one his agent when he reached one of the kotanese cities. He also wrote Vinz would know where to look. Following was a list of kotanese cities, each with a name written beside it. The name next to Shag was Tomek Kobov.

Mushamee had an interesting problem with his as he is unable to read :). He had to ask Recnam to read it to him. The message was also from Vasili, and was asking Mushamee and the group to do whatever was necessary to foment trouble in Kotan, in the hope of creating a third war front for Ruinas.

The next morning, in bed, Helena told Rufus she had delivered the messages. She couldn't say what they contained, but she gave Rufus the order to arrest Vinz and / or Mushamee if they didn't do what they were ordered to do. Rufus spent some time contemplating how hard it would be to do that little trick...

After breakfast, Claudius called for Kaeso. He told the engineer how he admired him for creating such exotic new sets of armors, and could he create one for him? Kaeso accepted and said it would take him a week to do it (when in fact it will probably take him a single afternoon). He asked for a big enough space where he wouldn't be disturbed. Claudius told him he could use the basement, as nobody goes there anymore.

When afternoon came, the engineer was busy working on the armor and his secret project. Mushamee and Leif went separately into town to get the general feeling of the place, found where Ruinas' people were staying, and if there was some signs of resistance from the local population. The place housing Ruinas' people was easy to find, as they were not trying to be discreet. Leif evaluated their numbers at around a hundred. Meanwhile, Mushamee had less chance with finding the resistance; they knew how to keep hidden.

Vinz escorted Recnam to the Temple of Necros, then left him to go to the local chapter of the Mercenary's Guild. At the counter, he asked to see Kobov. The clerk looked at him in surprise, then got up and started climbing the stairs, signaling Vinz to follow him. He was led to a little room on the second floor where a man presented himself as Kobov. Vinz presented himself as Regis. "Kobov" (which was problably not his real name anyway) implied that he was under Vasili's command, and he was leading a small group of people charged with helping anyone who came seeking for him. He basically told Vinz his group was at his disposition if and when something needed to be done. Before leaving, him and Vinz set up a secret code to exchange messages if needed (including passphrases and secret handshakes). Vinz left the guild to go back to the Temple of Necros.

Meanwhile, at the Temple, Recnam was introduced to Maria, the abbess of the Temple. He asked where friar Nebulus was, as he had an important message for him. She said he had left a month ago for an important council meeting in Toshtanag, and didn't know if/when he would come back. She said most of the people here knew about him being the Son of Necros, and that they were all blessed by his presence. Recnam told her about how the big Temple in Kapital had been burned to the ground, and that how from now on the Church of Necros was officially supporting Emperor Vasili. She asked if the Patriarch was still alive. Since the Patriarch had expressed a desire to keep his presence in Roma secret, Recnam said he didn't know.

To make sure Recnam really was really speaking for the entire church, Maria asked Recnam a set of precise theological questions. She was so impressed by his answers (he rolled a critical success on his Theology skill) that she basically handed him the leadership of the Temple. Since it was a pretty poor temple, Recnam started by donating 50 gold zolotos ($5000) to its coffer. He took the rest of the afternoon studying reports of the situation in Shag.

Toward the end of the afternoon, Mushamee and Leif came back to Claudius' domain and prepared to leave for the temple of Bacchus. They planned to gamble and drink alot, but their man reason was to try to find local people to join us.

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