Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods

October 10th - 11th, Albanus 1.

<Slight temporal anomaly, as the GM neglected to give Marius one of his spells, which he would have used before you left Invictus.>

Before the paladins headed into the Fallen Lands, Marius offered to cast one of his strongest prayers on them:  Test of Souls.  The Test gave a priest a true assessment of a willing supplicant's soul.  And, occasionally, a glimpse of some important event in their future.  All of the senior paladins and young Balthasar were eager to have some insight into their condition;  especially given the recent events which had plagued the Order.

None of the results were particularly surprising.  Tinnius' soul appeared as a bright diamond -- beatiful but rigid.  Strong enough to withstand nearly any blow from without... but easily chipped when struck from within.  Flecks of darkness marred the gem's light, remnants of the Order's lapse.  Darius' soul was a sphere of crystal mountain water, fluid and gleaming.  Nothing could disrupt it, for it simply flowed around any obstacles with a pliant, yielding grace.  Only the faintest hint of silt could be seen within it.  Regulus' soul had more problems.  It appeared as a silver cup, beautiful and ornate, but tarnished in many places.  Like Tinnius' soul, it was speckled with dots of grime.  Lucellus' spirit was a cheerful bonfire, blazing happily away.  Bright and hot, despite the occasional puff of soot (again, Marius thought, the Order's legacy).

But within this light, Marius saw a vision of Lucellus' future, in which Lucellus appeared to be willing to damn himself in a futile attempt to save his squire, Mores.  Marius warned Lucellus about this, and counselled him that the best he could hope for was to save Mores' soul -- not his life.  This suggestion infuriated the paladin;  he insisted that giving up on Mores' life was a form of despair, and he wouldn't do it.  The young priest pointed out that the Gods had shown Mores dying.  Lucellus' responses were "No" and "I don't care what you say you saw."  The more Marius tried to reason with him, the more irate he got, until the generally good-natured man stood up, snapped, "Thank you.  Goodbye," and stormed out the door.

The rest of the family had taken a day-trip south to Queen's Gate, with Sir Silvestrius and some of the Invictus knights.  The former paladin escorted them to the edges of the Fallen Lands, where they could see endless Witch Lights playing over the lands ahead of them.  Queen's Gate itself was a narrow pass with two enormous statues, perhaps 300 feet tall, carved into the mountain sides.  Each appeared to be a woman, though badly eroded.  One held a scale in her right hand;  her left hand, once upraised, had collapsed onto the valley floor.  The other woman's head had shattered;  her hands were wrapped around the hilt of a greatsword she held in front of herself.  Silvestrius didn't know who the woman, or women, were.  "Some queen I guess, since they call it Queen's Gate.  It's an old Vestran statue.  Made by the people who lived in the Fallen Lands before they fell."

When they returned to Invictus in the evening, Marius informed them of his vision -- and Lucellus' reaction to it.  Lucellus himself was hiding in his room, having spent the afternoon in bitter argument with the other senior paladins who, like Marius, were trying to reconcile him to the idea that Mores might be lost.

Corvina got a plate of dinner and went in to chat with him.  Lucellus snapped at her too.  The sorceress snapped right back, calling him an ingrate and a boor for biting her head off.  Lucellus blinked... asked if the food was some sort of a trap...  To which Corvina said no, it was just food.  She wanted to talk to him and help, and he needed to eat.  The paladin replied that the only help he needed was to make people shut up.  He didn't want to hear any more nonsense about giving up on Mores.  From anybody.  But he did, at least, stop pacing long enough to gulp his dinner down.

Corvina tried a more indirect approach.  What was more important, she asked?  A person's life or their soul?  Soul, Lucellus said, because it's eternal.  And if you could only save one of these things, which would you save?  The soul, Lucellus growled, with the surliness of a dog that suspects it's being led into a snare.  He agreed, reluctantly, that he would surrender Mores' life to save his soul... IF it was necessary.  But he simply wasn't convinced it would be.  "I won't give up on him," Lucellus said.  "That's despair.  We're forbidden to do that."

Having gotten Lucellus to Square One, Corvina made a bid for the next step.  Since souls were more important than lives, he wouldn't damn his soul to save Mores' life, would he?  "Yes of course," Lucellus said, cheerfully.  "Well, I mean, life, no.  But if he was alive, somebody could take care of his soul.  And yes, I'd give mine to save his.  He's my squire.  He's my responsibility.  I never should have left him in that inn.  This is all my fault -- I'm an idiot."

Since no amount of logic swayed him, Corvina decided to take a few strategic shots below the belt.  He did realize, didn't he, that if he damned himself, he damned many others?  Ancilla.  Regulus, who'd never abandon him.  Probably Tinnius and Darius.  And her.  She loved him, she said, even if she knew they could never be together.  And she'd walk all the way to Theodosius' throne to kill him, if that was what it took to save his soul.

That seemed to finally reach him.  Lucellus blinked in confusion as she spoke, having never considered what impact his decision might have on his friends.  And when Corvina confessed she loved him, he stood up silently and gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead.  Corvina burst into tears then, and Lucellus barely managed to catch her before she collapsed in sobs.  He held her till she calmed, then promised to think about what she'd said.  Corvina wrapped her necklace, a little carved wooden hound, around his right wrist.  "That way if you ever try to throw Ancilla away you'll see it," she said, "and remember your promise."

The next day, the paladins and elves set out for the Fallen Lands.  Balthasar and Tinnius' squire remained behind in Invictus, where it was safe.  Relatively speaking.  Marius, having rested, performed the Test of Souls on Balthasar.  The squire's soul was a glittering crystal -- beautiful, but a bit fragile.  Still, it was certainly pure enough to indicate a calling, to either the priesthood or the paladin's path.  And a moment later, Marius had a vision which made it clear which path Balthasar would choose.

This vision disturbed Marius.  He wasn't sure what was happening in it.  Why was Balthasar acting as an Imperial bodyguard?  Why were there only four pontifices present?  Why was Mara Gentillia Augusta still alive ten years from now?  Why was the Praetor attempting to kill her -- or was it Balthasar he attacked?  Marius also didn't think that mentioning the Council Blade would be good for Balthasar's humility.  So he told the squire that he definitely did have a calling, and that he'd be a paladin.  (Reassuring him that yes, he was going to grow a bit more and get big enough to wield a sword without tipping over.)  Balthasar, he said, would one day be very close to the Empress (an idea that enthralled the boy).  And he should be wary of the Praetor.  Later, Marius shared the full vision with his family.  None of them quite knew what to make of it, either.

Divinations done, the party then continued on to Ossarius.  <end of temporal anomaly>

Slipping into the caves was a snap with windwalk.  Severus precipitated first and scratched out the symbol of pain he and Titus had set off.  Then the rest of the family joined him, and they crept silently into the room where the sixty slaves were being held in shackles.  The slaves, mostly children, watched them with dull and disspirited eyes.  Until one tow-headed boy noticed Titus' tabard and began to babble, "Apade!  Apade!" over and over again.  Verch, for "paladin".  (Brief linguistic aside:  Padino is the Altanian for paladin -- just remembered it today.  And palatinus is Old Viridian/Old Rostillan.)  

The party shushed him before he made too much racket.  Severus was the only person who spoke Verch, and he assured the boy that yes, Titus was a paladin and was here to save them.  But they had to be quiet.  "There are demon-women here," the boy said.  "Three.  They live in the next cavern."  Severus assured him that Titus would kill them, just fine.  A quick survey revealed an odd mix of slaves.  Half (30) were Verchmai children, which was no surprise.  Verchmai has great population problems and frequently sells its children.  However 15 were Altanians who had been taken from Madreponas to Viridia, and from there across High Hold to Ossarius.  Five were Dulsanian women, young and pretty.  And 10 were Sobellian slaves, formerly owned by the House of Thule.

From Severus and Titus' description, Marius deduced that the demons were pain devils.  Such creatures were known for their ability to dominate with their gaze alone.  The best bet, they decided, was fall back to Standard Paladin Operating Procedures:  charge on sight.  And so the band crept to the edge of the demons' cave... and then sprinted around the corner.

There were three pain devils, hovering about three brawny men dangling in chains from the ceiling.  Tiny lances siphoned liquid pain out of the slaves' bodies.  The madwoman still huddled, muttering, in the corner.  The band's sudden attack caught the demons flat-footed, and the first wave of blows killed one before she could as much as scream.  Her two sisters were further back, unfortunately.  One locked eyes on Severus -- whereupon Gaius sank a couple arrows into her shoulder and broke her dominate.  His shots missed the other demon, however, and she successfully dropped a darkness spell on the party, blinding them all.  Neither Marius nor Corvina was able to dispell it, and so the party began groping slowly ahead.

Titus was the first to find his way out of the gloom.  He emerged right beside a demon... who immediately slashed at him.  Her claws didn't penetrate his plate mail -- but they made a nasty grating squeal as they slid across the metal.  The other devil gazed at the paladin, attempting to dominate him.  But Corvina had cast "protection from evil" on her twin, and he was immune to the infernal's power.  Titus' blows crippled the devil, and when Leyna emerged from the darkness a moment later, she ran the creature through.

Titus and Leyna both charged the last remaining devil, raining blows down upon her.  She managed to slash Leyna's arm.  A minor wound which, somehow, caused excruciating pain to the young paladin.  As the demon staggered beneath the paladins' attacks, Marius ran up wielding the Dagger of Banishment.  He visciously drove the dagger into the demon's chest.  The bad news was, it didn't banish her.  The good news was, it DID kill her.

With the Forces of Evil dispatched, the healers in the troupe carefully disentangled the poor tortured men.  Once they were down, they told the band that they were all Rostillans.  One was a Rostillan slave -- a rarity -- who'd been sold by his master in Rostilla.  The other two were sailors who'd been shanghaid in Tillaford.  None of them knew who the madwoman in the corner was.

Examining her, the party found that she was fairly young -- in her mid or late twenties.  She wore the remains of a tattered velvet dress.  Around her neck was a pretty bronze locket with a chest of gold on its cover (symbol of the County of Largitas);  it opened to reveal a tiny cameo of the Count of Ossorius.  With a shock, Severus guessed that this woman was probably the Countess Ossorius -- daughter of the Count of Largitas.  But why was she here?  Why had her husband locked her up?  How had she gone mad?

No answers presented themselves immediately.  However there were still many more things to kill.  And the party was quite sure that if enough things died, the mystery would be solved!