A New ... Friend?

“I’m telling you, we need to wait for these suckers to come back and then … pow! We take ‘em off the board.” Shadow was eager to ambush the next pair of Red Mantis assassins who were due to show up in a few hours for their shift lying in wait for Vencarlo Orsini, and Nat was right there with him. “Yeah – I want some payback. I mean, they caught be by surprise last time; I wasn’t looking, and it’s not fair to stab someone in the back when they’re not looking. So I say we wait until they’re not looking and then…”

Wanted!

“I think we need to look for a new place to live,” Jax said. It had been two days since Queen Ileosa disbanded the Sable Company so violently, and the group was still reeling from what they’d seen. “We haven’t made any secret of where we’re staying, and you have to believe the Queen knows we were involved in taking down Dr. Davaulus. That means she knows that we know she was involved. I don’t think we’re safe.”

The Third Harrowing

As soon as the group returned from Queen Ileosa’s bloody proclamation, Wren felt a stirring in her pocket. The dust in the room began to swirl, and Zellara’s insubstantial form materialized. “The spirits!’ she moaned. “There are so many of them. They call out for justice, and in warning. Please – my deck. I must perform another reading.” Wren removed the Harrow Deck from its box and placed it on the table, and the cards sorted themselves. “The suit of Books – it holds the power we need this day.” Each person drew one card from the selected suit, then Zellara shuffled the cards together and began to lay them out in three rows on the tabletop.

A Crown Revealed

Two weeks passed after the party penetrated the Temple of Urgathoa deep beneath the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden. Using the notes they’d recovered, the city’s religious orders and surviving alchemists worked together and within a few days had developed, manufactured, and distributed a cure for Blood Veil. Because of the mystical nature of the disease, not only did the cure halt the disease and confer immunity to future infection to those who received it, each cured person actually spread the immunity to all those they came in contact with, similar to the spread of the disease itself.

The Daughter of Urgathoa

The party stood guard outside the elevator through the night, but no one emerged from the Temple of Urgathoa hidden beneath the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden. As they waited, Wren studied the notes they’d recovered from the body of Dr. Davaulus. “We need to get these to the Temple,” she said when she’d finished. “They’re incomplete, but I think they could help more experienced healers develop a cure.”

“But not until we’ve finished with the Urgathoans,” Erin said grimly. “According to that vampire, Lady Andaisin is still down there somewhere, and she’s the one behind all this.”

The Halls of Pestilence

“How you doing out there, Tomas?” Nat whispered through his Message spell. After Rolth Lamm’s disappearance, everyone had barricaded them in themselves in the room Rolth had vanished from, worried he’d come at them again from a new direction. But Tomas had taken off chasing the necromancer’s familiar.

“I’ve almost got that damn rat,” Tomas replied as he nocked an arrow to his bowstring. “Be back in a minute.” He loosed the arrow, drawing a squeal of pain from the rat. But instead of continuing to flee, the creature suddenly reversed direction and charged directly at Tomas. Surprised, Tomas was unable to avoid its attack, and it clawed at his ankle. Tomas felt the discharge of some magic as its paws struck, and his muscles began to cramp. In an instant, he was totally paralyzed.