Radegast shivered with fright before Javen,
the High Commander’s mental assault burning like a hot knife stabbed into her
psyche, but her mind was still sharp enough to formulate a plan.
I
might not be the hero today, she thought to herself.
But I know who will be.
She reached out and touched Erwen-Snake and
Jamie together, casting heroism .
“Your spell is countered!” shouted Brother
Vartan, who quickly cast counterspell to
disrupt Radegast’s efforts.
Damn
it , Radegast thought. She shrugged and hurled
herself at Javen, intending to put Erwen-Snake in a more advantageous
constricting position.
“Will someone get this confounded
constrictor off of me?” Javen shouted.
One of his paladin guards raised his sword
and swung it at Erwen-Snake, intending to cut off his head.
Varien reached out with his shield arm and
blocked the strike.
Erwen-Snake felt a stab of psychic energy
slice deep into his snake-brain. He attempted to bite at Javen’s face, but the
High Commander managed to duck out of the way. The wild-shaped druid began to
constrict his snake body around the inquisitor again. Javen’s armor creaked in
protest and the High Commander winced.
“I was serious!” Javen shouted to his minions. “Stab this snake!”
Another paladin struck at Erwen-Snake,
delivering a divine strike that had the druid seeing stars.
Jamie grit his teeth and got to his feet.
He inhaled deeply, curling his hands into fists. His eyes began to glow a solid
white, betraying his Celestial heritage.
“Javen Tarmikos,” Jamie shouted. “You are
hereby marked!” He cast hunter’s mark
on the restrained High Commander and struck at him with his trident.
Bob pulled his wand of magic missile from the sleeve of his robe and aimed at
Brother Vartan, hoping to trick the priest into burning off a protective spell
rather than cast something dangerous at some of his friends. The magical darts
arced out through the library and struck the cleric of Oghma squarely. Vartan
shook his head silently as he took the blows without flinching.
Bob followed up by casting a healing word on Jamie.
Varien shook his head as a psychic ringing
sound in his mind threatened to overpower him. He raised his sword and struck
Javen with a divine smite , sending
the High Commander reeling.
Varien turned and slammed the nearest
Gilded Eye guard with his shield, knocking the man to the floor with a crash of
plate armor.
Javen found his footing. In spite of the
snake constricted tight around him, he still looked like he was in control of
the situation.
The bells outside continued to ring. Javen
cocked an ear and listened, and then turned to the adventurers. He began to
speak, his tone shot through with a hint of regret.
“You fight well, brave and benevolent
ones,” he intoned. “But your hateful energy is misplaced. This is a waste of
our time!”
“I agree!” Varien said.
“There is still a chance for you to put
down your swords and live to serve the forces of good another day,” Javen
continued. “Some of you-”—at this he looked squarely at Varien—“may yet prove
yourselves capable of being redeemed.”
“You speak of redemption?” Varien replied.
“Then let us down into the pits below, and when we return, you may try us for
whichever crimes you see fit!”
Javen stood stonefaced.
“Well, Tarmikos?” Varien said.
“Some of you,” Javen repeated. “May prove
yourselves worthy to go into the dark below, but some of you have already
proven yourselves unworthy of the Gilded Eye’s trust.” At this he glared at
Jamie and Radegast.
“We’re kind of a package deal,” Varien
said.
Javen sighed deeply.
“Well,” he said slowly. “Let it be written
that I, Javen Tarmikos, High Commander of the Order of the Gilded Eye, tried to
be reasonable with the lot of you.”
He pressed his hands to his chest, which
glowed with divine energy. The party’s eyes widened as divine light healed the
scars on his chest and restored some order to his ravaged face.
“Oh, no,” Bob whispered.
“And as for you,” Brother Vartan hissed,
beginning to wave his hands in a complicated pattern, “I think it’s high time
that you went somewhere to think about what you’ve done!”
The priest cast banishment on Bob.
A glowing arcane circle began to sketch
itself into existence beneath the sorcerer’s feet.
“No, no, no!” Bob said, wagging his finger
at Vartan as he cast counterspell .
To Bob’s horror, Vartan began to make a
sign with his free hand. “Yes, yes, yes!” he sneered, counterspelling Bob’s spell.
The arcane energy of Bob and Vartan’s
arcane attacks met in the air above the library stacks like a miniature
fireworks display, sending tendrils of molten magic hissing to the carpet where
they sizzled like cinders as the sorcerer and cleric hurled counterspells at
one another.
In the end, Vartan prevailed.
The arcane circle formed fully where Bob
stood. The sorcerer leapt out of the way, grabbing onto the bookshelf and
holding on for dear life as a portal opened in the floor. Glowing orange
tentacles unfurled from the blank void of the portal, searching hungrily for
prey. A vortex of wind and scraps of parchment was sucked into the portal,
including more than a few loose books from the shelves where Bob’s booted feet
kicked to find purchase.
“My books!” Vartan shouted in dismay.
Bob laughed from his perch on the shelf.
Vartan frowned, whirled and cast shield of faith on Javen out of spite.
Javen ordered a guard to take another swing
at Erwen-Snake. The paladin obliged and struck Erwen with a ringing blow, his
sword charged with radiant energy. Erwen-Snake hissed in pain.
There was the sound of booted feet and the
jangling of armour in the hallway outside the library.
A cleric of Helm, flanked by three
crossbowmen, took up positions at the entrance of the library.
“Ah, crap,” Bob said.
The cleric of Helm pointed his maul at
Varien. “You will stand where you are and face the justice of the Gilded Eye!”
He cast hold person .
Varien felt his joints freeze. He was
helpless and could only watch what unfolded.
What happened next happened very quickly.
The paladin that Varien knocked over got to
his feet and slashed at Erwen-Snake.
The druid felt a second sword slice into him
as another guard took a turn with his greatsword.
There was the sound of slithering snakeskin
and Erwen fell out of wildshape, landing at the feet of Javen Tarmikos.
“Now, the traitor!” Javen shouted.
One of the guards stabbed at Jamie, who let
out a gasping curse and staggered.
Radegast brought up her silvered shortsword
to parry an attack from one of the Gilded Eye guards, but the paladin’s first
stab was a vicious feint that she fell for hook, line, and sinker. The
paladin’s second strike slipped past the bard’s defenses and stabbed deeply
into her chest.
“No!” Jamie cried.
Radegast sagged on the paladin’s blade, but stood her ground, pulling herself towards the
paladin as she drove the sword point deeper through her sternum. The blade
grated on bone. Lightning arced down from the roof of the library, infusing
Radegast’s body with blue light and turning the sword inside her into a
conductor that shocked the paladin with electric energy. The guard shook as
electricity coursed through his body.
As smoke from the lightning strike still
curled from her body, the light went out of Radegast’s eyes.
The paladin facing Bob slashed at him from
where he crouched on the bookshelf, wounding him.
The crossbowmen opened fire. One bolt found
its mark in Bob’s midsection while another thunked into the bookshelf next to
his head.
Vartan seethed.
Another bolt struck the floor near Erwen.
“Finish the traitor, please,” Javen
sneered.
The guard nearest Jamie, who was staring at
Radegast’s unconscious body still held upright by the paladin’s blade, opened a
deep wound across the aasimar’s back. Jamie shuddered and his eyes unfocused.
He fell to the floor, still staring at Radegast.
Javen stared down at the injured Erwen.
“And as for you, my confounded constrictor…”
A nearby guard put his sword through
Erwen’s body. The shocked Halfling fell back, unconscious.
“And so it is done,” Javen said grimly,
looking at three bodies and one paralyzed paladin.
Bob jumped down from the bookshelf. “Is it,
though?” he coughed, casting cure wounds
on Jamie and using his metamagic to pump a healing
word into Radegast and Erwen. "Heroes never die!" he shouted defiantly.
There were groans from the three injured as
they came around. Radegast grinned at the paladin who had impaled her through a mouthful of bloody teeth, spitting as she pulled herself off the sword.
Javen shook his head. “You are cruel in
your kindness, cleric.” He indicated the number of guards around the room ready
and willing to put the party members back down.
“I’ll admit, this isn’t looking too good,”
Bob said. “Friends, what should we do?”
Varien remained silent, though he was
having a mental argument with Fiendsbane about whose fault this was.
“Can you teleport us out of here?” Radegast
asked sarcastically.
“High Commander, if I surrender to you,
will you let everyone go?” Bob asked Javen.
“Let’s hear your terms, cleric,” Javen
said. “What mean you by surrender?”
“Look, I was in your secret room with
Radegast,” Bob said. “I know what she knows.”
“And what is it that you know?” Javen
asked.
“All the things,” Bob said. “I know about
your inquisitions, your plans for Neverwinter.”
“And what have you taken from my study?”
Javen asked.
Bob hesitated.
“It’s your lives for my failed quest,”
Radegast said to him.
“I do not wish for my friends to die,” Bob
said simply.
He upended the bag of holding.
The files and folios began to spill out of
the bag until they were in a shin-deep pile scattered across the floor before
Bob. Vartan cringed some of as the papers picked up smears of blood and gore
from the fight.
Jamie painfully got to his feet, leaning on
his trident like a walking stick.
On the floor before Javen, Erwen’s eyes
fluttered open. He stared at the skylight in the library’s roof, watching as
stormclouds twisted and lightning crackled across them.
I am
the last of my tribe , he thought. It is up to me to ensure their names enter
legend.
In his hand he held an eagle’s feather.
He caught Jamie’s eye. Jamie blinked, and
nodded in silent understanding.
“At last you begin to see reason,” Javen
said. “Your hesitation has proven costly, and-”
“High Commander Tarmikos!” Jamie shouted.
“I beg you leave to speak.”
“Have you a valediction, traitor?” Javen
asked.
Erwen began to whisper an incantation.
“It is true that I joined the Gilded Eye
while secretly an agent of the Order of the Gauntlet, but I will admit freely
that as I worked with you, I began to see aspects of your ideology that were
tempting to me.”
“Your point?” Javen asked.
“My point, High Commander, is that I was
very near to giving myself over to the Gilded Eye in spirit and in truth, but
it took the actions of these brave, foolish friends to show me the errors of
your ways.” Jamie indicated the adventurers around him, pausing significantly at Radegast.
“Your apostasy will be added to your list
of crimes, traitor.” Javen hissed. “The sentence is death.”
Jamie’s eyes once again glowed white. “So
be it, High Commander. But if on this day the sun of my life is to set, then I
shall die for the Order of the Gauntlet!” He threw his arms wide as
angelic wings materialized from his shoulder blades, unfurling with
gossamer-like delicateness before shining bright with celestial luminosity.
The sound of an eagle’s scream was
deafening in the confines of the library.
Two giant eagles materialized in mid-air,
swooping between the stacks to snatch up Bob, Radegast, Varien and Erwen, who
leapt onto the back of one of the creatures.
“What the devil?” Javen roared.
Bob and Radegast desperately grabbed for
the Gilded Eye papers, securing a handful as they were buoyed upwards by the
eagle.
Varien felt himself grasped in the talons
of an eagle. It’s the wyvern all over
again , he thought.
Shut
up and enjoy the ride , Fiendsbane said.
The eagles and their riders made for the library’s
skylight.
Jamie leapt after them, swinging his
trident to ensure that none of the Gilded Eye agents got too close. His blows
struck at the Gilded Eye guards with radiant energy.
Bob leaned over to cast a spell as they
departed. He hurled a fire bolt into
the nearest bookshelf.
Vartan wailed as the books caught fire.
“Take them down!” Javen shouted.
The crossbowmen began to fire.
Jamie threw himself in between the
crossbows and the eagles, his body jerking as bolt after bolt found their mark.
He stabbed at the nearest Gilded Eye guard, laughing as he did so.
There was a shattering sound as the first
eagle broke through the skylight and flew into the air over the chapterhouse,
followed quickly by the second. At Erwen's urging, one of the birds let go a clot of running poop that splattered Javen and Vartan.
Radegast felt for the shard of the ise rune as her eagle gained altitude. Bob was
shouting a litany of cursewords in a dialect she couldn’t place as he threw his
hands around the eagle’s neck. Radegast let herself dangle from the eagle’s
talons.
She waited. She prayed.
And there was Jamie, beating his wings
furiously as he covered the party’s escape, twisting about to throw his trident
down at the Gilded Eye attackers below.
He was the very picture of heroism.
Jamie turned and locked eyes with Radegast.
And smiled.
Radegast smiled back, but as she caught
sight of something over Jamie’s shoulder, her smile froze.
Below him, Javen Tarmikos stood framed by
the broken skylight, sighting on Jamie with a curved bow he had grabbed from
over his shoulder.
A look of hateful determination was frozen
on his face as he pulled back the bowstring and let fly.
Radegast didn’t have time to scream a
warning, or if she did, it was lost in the warding
wind Erwen cast to aid in the party’s escape.
The arrow struck true, driving deep into
Jamie’s back until the arrowhead protruded from his chest.
“No,” whispered Radegast. She reached out
towards her comrade-in-arms, her former lover. Her friend.
Jamie shuddered and wheeled like a wounded
bird, spinning out of control as he plummeted back towards the chapterhouse.
Radegast’s screams were echoed by the
thunder that rattled the clouds above them.
She cast sleet storm , aiming through the skylight.
The chapterhouse was obscured by the sudden
onslaught of freezing rain and wet snow.
Tears soaked Radegast’s cheeks as Jamie’s body
disappeared into the maelstrom.
Bob was shouting something at her. She
shook her head, trying to clear the stormclouds of rage and grief.
“Alec!” he was shouting. “We have to pick
up Alec!”
Radegast nodded absently.
Bob waved to Erwen and pointed in the
direction of the Venturer’s Rest.
Erwen’s eagle screamed.
The Inner Court below them was crawling
with antlike Gilded Eye soldiers, some of whom had the presence of mind to
unlimber their bows and fire arrows while others stood, mouths agape and flatfooted
as the giant eagles and their quarry flew out of range.
In the common room of the Venturer’s Rest,
a half-orc sat with his back to the wall, requisite mug of ale in hand,
observing.
His quarry had departed from the inn some
time ago, but they had left one of their number behind, and the quiet observer
was certain the rest of them would return soon. All he had to do was watch and
wait.
He did not drink from the mug.
The inn’s door opened and a man walked
determinedly into the common room.
The half-orc straightened. Here was
something unexpected.
The man was wearing the face of Alec
Trevelyan, whom the observer knew for a fact was still in his rented room
upstairs.
The observer whispered an incantation and
cast detect thoughts on the approaching
man.
The man had murder and deceit on his mind. I will go to Dalleg’s room. I will complete
my mission . These thoughts were first and foremost on the man’s mind.
The false Alec made a beeline for the
stairs to the inn’s second floor.
The observer set his mug of ale down
carefully, stood, and walked after him.
The false Alec mounted the stairs.
The observer looked over his shoulder to
see if anyone was watching. Then he, too, took on the appearance of Alec
Trevelyan and followed after.
The second false Alec poked his head around
the corner of the corridor of the inn’s second floor. The first false Alec had
paused at the room where Alec had been staying, and was fumbling with the lock
with one hand while gripping his sword with the other.
The observer extended his detect thoughts spell to search for
other presences in the rooms. As he suspected, there was a person in Alec’s
room, humming a song about the Trevelyan family and their past glories.
The second false Alec smiled and crept up
to the first false Alec. He leaned in and spoke.
“What’cha doing?” he said in a singsong
voice.
Alec Trevelyan stood staring out the window
at the stormclouds that were gathering over Helm’s Hold. He heard the sound of
the lock on his door being played with.
So,
the inevitable is about to unfold , he thought. He
pulled out his greatsword and walked to the door.
As he neared the door to his room, he heard
the sound of his own voice from the hallway outside.
“What’cha doing?”
Frowning, Alec threw open the door.
He saw two other Alec Trevelyans standing
in the hallway.
“What trickery is this?” Alec shouted,
swinging his greatsword at the Alec nearest him. The false Alec deftly parried
his first blow, but Alec’s second strike struck the false Alec squarely. The
false Alec stumbled back under the force of Alec’s blow.
The false Alec collected himself, then
swung at Alec, who parried. A second strike found its way past Alec’s sword,
slicing his shoulder. The false Alec then pivoted on one foot, stabbed at the
second false Alec.
The second false Alec cast shield and warded off the first false
Alec’s attack.
The first false Alec dove through the door,
blurring past Alec as he did so.
The second false Alec squeezed past Alec,
intent on pursuing his prey. “Pardon me,” he said to an increasingly
perplexed Alec, who half-heartedly stabbed after him as his mind tried to
reconcile what he was seeing.
The second false Alec cast a hex on the first and worked his sword in
a flourish, stabbing deftly at the first false Alec and hitting him once,
twisting the blade to widen the wound.
“Sorry to barge in, friend,” the second
false Alec said over his shoulder. “Just helping out a brother!”
Alec grimaced and gripped his sword,
swinging wildly at the two interlopers. He cut both of them with savage
strikes, punctuating his attacks with “Will! Someone explain! Why! I’m seeing
double!”
“Oh, happily!” the second false Alec
replied, dancing away from Alec’s attacks. “With first light, this Alec here
has come to kill you!” He pointed his sword at the first false Alec.
Alec frowned. “But that doesn’t explain
what you’re doing here, wearing my face!”
“Ah,” the second Alec said, bowing slightly.
“I only have your best interests at heart.”
The first false Alec took advantage of the
conversation to slash at Alec, striking him twice before stabbing at the second
false Alec, running him through.
“Ouch!” the second false Alec shouted.
“Have at you!”
The first false Alec threw something at the
bed upon which Dalleg’s corpse rested, and defenestrated, shattering the
windowpanes as he dove out.
“Out the window?” the second false Alec
said in wonderment. “That’s a power move.”
A noise outside caught his ear.
It was the sound of the town watch, coming
to investigate. The second false Alec looked at the corpse in the bed and put
two and two together.
He turned to Alec and for a moment showed
him his true face, that of a half-orc who carried himself like a noble.
“Listen, friend, you can die here when the Town Watch catches you with a murder
victim, or you can trust me and cut loose, living to fight another day.”
Outside the window, the sound of an eagle’s
scream carried on the wind.
Alec lowered his sword, standing between
the bed and the window. “You wore my face,” he said. “But you stood shoulder to
shoulder in my defense. For now, we are allies.”
“Good,” the second false Alec said. He
launched a kick at Alec and knocked him out the window.
Varien felt the paralysis wearing off and
thrashed for a moment before going limp once again in the eagle’s talons.
No
use fighting it , Fiendsbane whispered. But you can’t deny that view, can you?
Atop the eagle carrying the paladin, Erwen
pointed as the Venturer’s Rest came into view. “Look there!”
He saw Alec Trevelyan jump out the window
of his room, landing in the alley below and darting out of sight. He was joined
by a second Alec Trevelyan, who didn’t jump so much as fall from the window,
arms and legs pinwheeling in mid-air. A split-second later, a third Alec
Trevelyan appeared at the window, waved his hands, and polymorphed Alec into a giant eagle.
Radegast, Bob, Erwen and Varien gaped as
the third Alec leapt onto the back of the Giant Eagle-Alec and rose up to meet
them.
The Alec saluted the rest of the party.
“Siegfried Thann, at your service. I believe I have your Alec right here!” he
patted the flank of a very confused-looking giant eagle who was inexpertly
beating his wings, as if for the first time.
“What the hell?” Bob shouted.
“No time for that!” Erwen shouted. “We can
sort this out later!” He grabbed a double handful of feathers and leaned down,
whispering to the giant eagle he was riding. “Back to the woods!” he called to
the others.
Erwen’s eagle screamed, wheeled about, and
headed east, followed by the second eagle, and followed after that by an
awkward, unsteady eagle straining to catch up. Later, Brother Vartan stood in the ruin of his library, a keening sound escaping his lips involuntarily as he regarded the half-burned, half-soaked bookshelves and piles of shredded parchment ground into the carpets below. Somewhere nearby, he could hear the sound of High Commander Javen Tarmikos roaring to his subordinates. The cleric picked up a piece of parchment and used prestidigitation to dry it. He set it on a table and then looked at the reams of damaged folios, chapbooks and scrolls before him. Vartan sighed. It was going to be a long night.