Paul McCartney and Wings

June 25th (night) through July 1st, Albanus 1.

As the rain began to pour down, the party re-united outside of the Temple of Dulcea.  Severus fidgeted the door open and they stepped inside... to what looked like a normal, clean shrine.  Searching revealed no secret doors.  However the noise did summon a young priestess, Susalla.  After getting over her initial fright, the young woman explained that the true priestess of the temple, Alba, was extremely old and feeble.  She was managing things until Alba's replacement arrived from Rostilla.  A quick trip upstairs confirmed that Alba was indeed senile (she croaked, "What?  What??" after every question the party asked).  No one seemed to have any idea what the code word, "I have seen her face" meant, and the paladins could find nothing evil.  So Corvina warned Susalla that any replacement sent by Rostilla might be corrupt.  Then the party headed across the town square to the Temple of Crescens, to see if they could find Mores there.

This temple, unlike any of the others, had lights inside.  Peering in through the stained glass window, Gaius spotted four priestesses, sitting and talking.  One was a middle-aged woman, the other three younger acolytes.  Again, the paladins found nothing evil, and the band chose not to burst into the temple.

At that point, the deep, booming sounds of an alarm bell began to echo through the night.  Something was up... perhaps something had been discovered... and the town roused itself into a true alert.

Fearing (rightly...) that it would soon grow impossible to search the city, the band convinced Lucellus that there was a chance Mores was being held at the ruined Temple of Lil outside of town.  The band then split up.  Severus headed south, alone, saying he'd meet people outside the western gate before dawn.  Leyna, Gaius, and the three paladins headed west, towards the gate.  And Corvina rode Letha south, confident she could get the sure-footed horse up and over that wall.  She planned to collect the horses outside and lead them to the western gate.

The main group headed north -- only to hear the sounds of hobnailed boots on the cobblestones ahead of them.  They ducked around a corner, let a squad of guards run east... then spotted a smaller group heading west.  Gaius recognized the smaller group's leader:  it was Sir Pelius himself.  He was heading towards the western guard tower;  Gaius overheard him snarling to his men, "Where the hell can they be?"

Since people in platemail make lousy spies, Titus, Leyna, Lucellus and Regulus headed north to the docks (leaving Gaius to follow the Bad Guys).  Once there, they got out of their armor and half swam, half scrambled around the city wall.  Sinister was loathe to enter the choppy, muddy water, but he followed Titus.  Soon, they made it safely to the rendezvous point.

Gaius climbed onto the rooftops and staked out the guard tower.  Perhaps fifteen minutes later a breathless messenger arrived.  A few moments after that Pelius stomped out into the street, yelling for a horse.  He and his men rode off (to the east) at top speeds, leaving a disgruntled Vermilla/Lara in the guard tower's doorway.  Unable to follow, Gaius slipped over the town walls and joined the main party.

During all of this, Severus made his way to Sir Pelius' house and slipped in the servants' entrance.  He crept upstairs (overhearing Pelius' wife telling a messenger at the front door that she had no idea where her husband was).  Earlier the paladins had found two faint auras of evil in the house, close together -- Pelius' two eldest sons, the party assumed.  Severus glided silently over to where those auras had been... and did indeed find the bedrooms of the two boys (ages 16 and 14).  He crept into the first room and drove a dagger into the eye of the sleeping youngster, who died without a sound.  A few moments later Severus did the same to his younger brother.  Dipping his signet ring in the boys' blood, Severus stamped the Surrexus symbol on each room's walls.  Then he dipped a cloth in their blood and draw a red line across the lintels of the two youngest boys' bedrooms.  (Such marks are part of the Dulcean sacrifices at Mother Night.)

Leaving the two children unharmed, Severus slipped back outside -- just in time to see a large squad of guards riding towards the temples of the town square.  In their midst was a man he could barely see:  handsome, dark-haired, dressed in fine velvets and wearing a jewelled hat with an ostraka-feather (which was quickly becoming bedraggled in all of the rain).  Severus couldn't make out his face, but he assumed he was Magnus Tillaford.  While they rode west, Severus headed south and over the city walls.

Maybe a half hour later, the party met at the rendezvous.  They rode to the Temple of Lil... and to their disappointment discovered no sign of Mores here either.  Someone had been there, but hours earlier -- before the rain had begun to fall.

After some discussion, the band agreed that the sensible thing was to head for Benobles and the Golden House.  The one sticking point was Lucellus, who was desperately unhappy about the prospect of abandoning his squire in Tillaford.  He wanted to ride back and demand that Count Robertus released the boy.  And he was willing to give Ancilla, his Council Blade, into Regulus' keeping, for safety.  It was a long debate, but in time the party managed to convince him that only a fool would depend on the honor of dishonorable people.  In the end Lucellus looked at Titus and said, "You've had wonderful ideas all evening.  Can't you think of any way to save Mores?"  Titus, sadly, admitted he couldn't, and Lucellus agreed to ride for the Golden House.  The abbess could no doubt create a "refuge" ring -- a blessed object that teleported its wearer back to a religious sanctuary.  If they could find a way to deliver this ring to Mores, they might be able to snatch him out of Tillaford's dungeons.

It was 3:00 am by the time they hooked back up with Marius, Clarissa Benobles, and the others, hiding in a kind peasant's barn.  Exhausted, they collapsed in the straw and grabbed three hours' of sleep.  But they rose at dawn and straggled out, trying to stay ahead of their pursuers.

Gaius led them south, into Tillaford's famous Fens.  Threading their way through pampas grass and fat, contented fen-cows, they rode to the banks of the Maternus River, which spilled down from Benobles' hills.  By sunset they'd found a shallow river bend where they could ford to the river's uninhabited southern shore.  The rain and their odd path seemed to have thrown off the pursuit -- though in the night, Titus heard demonic yeth hounds coursing through the air along the north bank of the Maternus.

For three more days they followed the Maternus, through sun-dappled woods and gentle hills.  Corvina, Marius, Severus, and Clarissa Benobles found the going hard;  twelve hours in the saddle was a bit much for them.  But they persevered.  Eventually they began to skirt past stone terraces full of vines -- the first of Benobles famous vinyards.  On the fourth day they passed the source of the Maternus and dropped over the crest of the Benobles hills, into the valley of the Golden House.

The setting sun revealed an idyllic scene.  Rich fields, glowing with grain.  Peasants working their farms.  In the distance, gold glittered on the roof of the great temple -- explaining how the Golden House got its name.  Commoners gawped at the sight of three paladins, all together.  Mothers grabbed their young sons and pushed them out into the streets as the party passed (hoping that one of the paladins might be looking for a squire, a likely little lad like their young Bobby!).  Just before they reached the temple, the party passed a small lake.  Pale swans glided across its waters and swam beside the band for a ways, eyeing them.  Then the birds threw back their heads and began to sing, a beautiful, clarion chorus -- which sounded nothing like a swan's harsh croak.

At their call, a custodian emerged from the temple's gate.  He greeted the party and promised to give the abbess the message that they needed to talk to her immediately.  A boy led them to a clean, quiet inn, where the inn-keeper heated up two bath-houses for them and got them settled in bright rooms with soft, down-filled beds.

An hour later they were fed, washed, and felt like human beings again.  But before they could test the downy beds, a messenger arrived from the Golden House and said that Abbess Halaessa would see them at once.