The Avengers

With a slightly disorienting jolt, the party appeared in the seldom-visited region of the Gray District that hid the secret headquarters of Korvosa’s budding rebellion. After communing with his ancestors to reveal the secret history of the warlord/dragon Kazavon, whose fangs now adorned Queen Ileosa’s crown, the Shoanti shaman, One-Life, had agreed to travel to Korvosa with the party, to consult with Thousand Bones and Field Marshall Kroft on how the Shoanti might be able to aid the rebellion.

The party descended into the mausoleum that housed the secret entrance, and spoke the password – ‘Blackjack’ – that allowed them to enter. As they came into the headquarters’ meeting room they saw Cressida Kroft sitting at the table, her head down and cradled in her hands. Bishop d’Bear stood behind her, her hand on her shoulder, while Thousand Bones and Boule stood off in a corner, eyes averted. As the group entered, Kroft raised her head, and her eyes were red from crying. “Vencarlo Orsini is dead!” she sobbed.

The Saga of Kazavon

One-Life, the Shoanti Sun-Shaman, marched in silence with the party as they made their way away from Citadel Vraid. The party stayed well away from the village of Colmar, remembering their anti-Shoanti bias. Several of them tried to make small talk with the Shoanti, but their efforts earned nothing, not even a grunt.

Jailbreak!

 “We obviously need to report back to the Lictor,” Wren insisted. They’d gone to Hell and back (literally) in order to get Lictor DiViri to agree to release the Shoanti shaman, One-Life, into their custody only to discover that the Hellknight jailer who’d been guarding him had apparently traded him to some devil in exchange for a Hell Hound. At least that’s what the other prisoners had told them. Either way, One-Life was nowhere to be found, and to Wren’s mind, that was DiViri’s problem, not theirs. “We had a deal with him, and he hasn’t held up his end of it. He seems like an honorable man – or at least someone who believes in rules. Once we tell him his man cheated us out of our prisoner, I’m sure he’ll send his people in to get him back.”

To Hell And Back

“But all your pain could be gone,” the devil purred.

“My pain is what makes me what I am!” Shadow snarled with uncharacteristic venom. “Take your contract and shove it!”

“You could save Brigitte,” Chyvvom promised.

“Only to have her fall to Blood Veil, or some other horror,” Erin countered. “Your offer is a hollow lie.”

“I’ve been a slave to others,” Jax snapped. “I won’t be a slave to you!”

One by one, each person heard the Contract Devil promise them the very thing they’d most longed for – and one by one, they turned it down. With a sigh of sadness, Chyvvom strolled back to the magic circle in the center of the rotunda, where he’d stood when they first saw him. He gave the party one final, sad smile. “Alas – you had the opportunity to remake your lives, to save those whom you loved. Now you will spend the rest of eternity wondering why you threw that opportunity away.” Time resumed its normal flow: breathing and heartbeats resumed, and the summoning circle again crackled with arcane energy. Chyvvom nodded with a slight bow, and vanished from sight.

A Deal With The Devil

“We need to put these back!” Nat said urgently as he struggled to put the two scrolls they’d found back into the hidden pocket in the dead man’s sleeve. His hands were trembling so badly that it took him several tries; ultimately, he just wadded the papers into a ball and shoved them in. The others watched him in shock – they’d never seen Nat pass up the opportunity to grab some magical loot. The wizard saw their looks. “The Lictor! He told us not to take anything! We don’t want to leave any trace we were here!”

The Lictor’s Price

“Let’s just let Shadow do the talking,” Erin told Nat firmly as they hiked up the road leading to Citadel Vraid. They were still debating strategies for convincing the Hellknights to release their Shoanti prisoner, the shaman One-Life, to them, and some of Nat’s suggestions were, well, a bit out there.

“I still think all we have to do is convince them that we’re working to undermine the Queen, and they’ll jump at the opportunity,” Jax offered. He remained optimistic that the Knights of the Nail would be willing allies. “We all want the same thing.”

“We don’t know what they want,” Wren snapped. “These are Hellknights! We don’t know who’s side they’re on, or what their motives are. We don’t have any idea why they left Korvosa. All we do know is that they answer to Asmodeus, and that means they can’t really be trusted.”

Assassin Ambush

Nat’s ears were still ringing from the screaming crossbow bolts that had just flown past Erin. He saw an arrow strike a nearby tree, the shaft quivering. A pit had suddenly opened up right beside him, swallowing their fire and plunging everything into darkness. They seemed to be surrounded by enemies, but he couldn’t see anyone. It seemed to be a well-planned and coordinated ambush, which meant the bad guys thought they had them right where they wanted them. Time to change that. Dancing along the crumbling edges of the pit, he grabbed Erin and Wren each by one arm. “Heading about a hundred feet north-northwest!” he yelled out in Elvish (praying their enemies wouldn’t understand him) then cast Dimension Door.