12th Gozran 18 - The Rushlight Tournament Day 5 - Oops! He did it again!

“I present thee King Otto VonBismark of Dragonmere the tourney award of the ‘Rod of Lordly Might’ as a reward for your kingdoms efforts for winning the tournament”

As a cheer rises amongst the on watchers whilst Otto accepts the rod from king Irovetti.

“Though next year I feel we’ll have to make sure that no fey are able to compete in the competition as it’s hardly fair!” King Irovetti retorted.

Emissary on hearing this steps up towards the king, but just far enough behind Otto as to not prove an instant threat, “You sir! Could learn a lot from the Kingdom of Dragonmere.  The leaders there have made great strides to foster a beneficial relationship with the fey.  As a result the whole country is very much pro-fey.  Please General Miro, do tell the King all about the beneficial dealings You have had with fey."  Emissary spins on the spot and clasps Miro’s shoulder as he walks down from the ceremonial stage, away from everyone gathered.

Within an instant Miro begins to speak as a worried look appears on his face as he begins to divulge all of the deals that the group had made with Emissary and the various other fey that they have encountered in their years of adventuring and ruling, including a couple that Miro had made privately unknown to the group till now:
·         After finding a severed unicorn’s horn (harvested for some hitherto unknown nefarious purpose) we sold it to a fey in exchange for gold and a future favour.
·         I cashed in the aforementioned favour to foil an assassination attempt on my own life at a state banquet and had the assassin dispatched instead.
·         In order to secure financial support to fund Wyvernshore, we instating equality and laws for fey.
·         Attending a fey banquet, our party met a number of good and evil fey and attempted to woe them and secure their aid to rescue a citizen and defeat the perpetrators.
·         We use many different fey allies to secure the nation’s borders and gather information.
·         A couple of us have had trysts with said fey.
·         We employ a bogeyman to act as the kingdom’s spymaster and occasional assassin and he freely patrols the city cemetaries at his leisure!
·         Otto traded away land to the fey in order to rescue his first born son from kidnappers.
·         We travelling to a fey realm, meet a fey queen and ‘liberated’ a number of valuable magical items in the process.  [This one particularly seemed to disturb King Irovetti]
·         We’re currently amassing a fey army (amongst others) to fight off any invading forces.
·         We accepting a quest on behalf of a fey to return a valuable fey artifact to him which had been used to spirit away townsfolk by a lich.
·         After gaining a third teritory I felt that further conquest was required and used a fey to send out messages of potential threats to other states.
·         I used fey services to assassinate a member of House Surtova and ignite a civil war in preparation for conquest of their lands!  [Ooops]

Miro finally finished, with a panicked look at what he had revealed.

As he looked around him he could see a look of shock and disappointment on his friends face, well except for Vaneer’s, the cleric oddly looked pleased at the deluge of truths. King Irovetti on the other hand, well his face was a scrunched mixture of shock, fear, disapproval, wonder and anger all in one mass explosion.

Before Otto could at least attempt some form of damage control to the situation a cloud of smoke suddenly appears next to King Irovetti which quickly disperses as it appeared to reveal a fey-like creature holding a raised dagger staring at the king of Pitax.

“DIE!!! Die with regards from Dragonmere you fey hating…….” The fey screamed at the king but was unable to finish as Villamore the kings right hand had dispatched of the would be assassin.

King Irovetti now foaming at the mouth with rage at Dragonmere’s brash attempt to kill him in front of his subjects screams an order to his guards.

“Two thousand! NO!!! Two HUNDRED Thousand for the heads of all the Dragonmere scum standing before me!” as a twisted smile appears on the king’s face.

All the group could hear around them was the sound of metal being drawn from their scabbards as the Pitax guards and a number of former contestants began to circle them.

Otto tries to reason with Irovetti over the noise of the booing and hissing crowds but it has no success when he then feels a hand on his shoulder as he looks back to see Vaneer smile and wink at him before the light around him suddenly darkens.

The next thing Otto hears is Vaneer shouting “What the hell Miro!” at the Halfling.

“I’m….I’m sorry guys I couldn’t control it, it was like someone else was speaking for me I couldn’t stop it.  Honestly!” the Halfling pleaded.

“Not that you idiot! We all know you're weak minded! You swore to us that you had nothing to do with the Surtova assassination attempt” the cleric had pretty much picked him up by now and their faces were so close Miro was getting covered in spittle from the ranting cleric.

“It was the truth, put me in a zone of truth if you don’t believe me! I’m willing to be subjected to it, I thought I had NOTHING to do with it!” the Rogue pleaded again.

“Vaneer?” Natalia’s voice calmly piped up causing the cleric to look back at the rest of the group.

“Yes we’re all rather pissed at Miro but when all this was happening you were calm as anything if not smiling why the change?” she continued.

Vaneer’s attention returned to the Halfling, “Because I always knew this fart was keeping secrets and that he’d slip up sooner or later.” He then allowed the Halfling to drop to the ground as he headed to Otto to help him up from the ground.

“Honestly! I didn’t do it, If it was me then it must have been that sword, you all said it made me do weird things” exclaimed Miro as he picked himself off the floor.

“Where are we?” Otto asked as he looked around all he could see was various shades of black and grey around them,

“The realm of Shadows” Vaneer answered,

Otto gave a questioning look to which Vaneer knew what he was asking,

“It was either here or the Astral and so I thought if Irovetti sent people to chase after us then it be easier to lose them in the realm of shadows, I had enough spells to get us all here but we’ll need to wait till tomorrow before I can return us all back to our normal plane”. The cleric explained,

“Miro’s probably right, he swore previously in a zone of truth it was nothing to do with him. So it must have been the sword but I don’t think it’s going to be easy to convince Irovetti and Surtova of that fact.” Said Otto.

“So what now?” asked Natalia,

“Don’t think it’s a little convenient that Vaneer happened to have a couple of Plane Shifts handy to cast?” Miro smirked at the cleric.

The group thought for a moment and then they all looked at the cleric with a concerned look.

“Now! Wait a minute! It’s not what you think!” Vaneer proclaimed,

“I hate to admit it but…We’re only safe because of Emissary” he continued,

“Emissary?” Otto questioned,

“He came to me yesterday and said that I might want to make sure I ask Erastil for a couple of planar travel spells but he wouldn’t say why, but I thought I’d be prepared just incase.” The cleric explained,

“I’m confused, can we or can we not trust that fey?” asked Natalia,

“Your guess is as good as mine” replied Otto

“Well if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be alive right now” added Hugo,

“If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place” spat Boss,

“It doesn’t matter now, the issue is to resolve the attack on Pitax.” Otto interjected,

“Vaneer, where on the shadow realm are we?” Otto asked,

“The Pitax area, we’ll need to travel in the direction of Dragonmere before I return us otherwise I doubt it would be safe.” The cleric responded.

“I could teleport us there then?” Otto asked again,

“Yeah that could work but we’d still have to wait till tomorrow for me to be able to send us back” the cleric returned.

They took some time to gather round and tend to their bruised reputations before Otto finally teleported the group and company to where he believed Wyvernshore to be before setting up a make shift camp for the rest of the day as they talked through their options going forward.

Whilst the group is resting something amongst the shadows attacks Natalia who screams as she shoots 20 foot into the air as a pair of crimson red eyes appear out of the blackness with the outline of shadowy wings (Nightshade).

Vaneer is the first to respond by hurling a Holy Smite spell at the creature,

Natalia shape changes into a form of a fire elemental,

The creature moves to hover over Vaneer and bites the cleric,

Hugo attacks and hits the creature but appears to deal no damage to it,

Miro attempts to jump and attack but the half-pint is just too short to reach,

Otto lets off a quickened haste spell followed by a chain lightening spell which does nothing more than tickle the creature.

 

Boss shots and hits with one arrow,

Vaneer casts daylight on himself causing a blinding light to emit around him,

Natalia slams the creature twice and hits,

Creature ascends higher into the air and casts finger of death at Vaneer which fails to affect the cleric,

Miro sulks about being too short to be of any use,

Otto casts another chain lightening but again only tickles the creature before letting off a quickened fireball in anger which has no effect on the creature,

Boss shoots at the creature which lodges itself in the creature’s eye,

Vaneer lets out a healing burst over the group,

Creature casts cone of cold over the group hitting Vaneer, Hugo and Boss,

Natalia casts flamestrike and hits causing the creature to stagger,

Otto casts chain lightening again and this time the spell hits hard killing the creature.