Midnight Marauders

As the cloaked spellcaster performed his incantation, the chain-wielding attackers moved on Varien and Siegfried. Their chains failed to find their marks, however, as Varien’s shield of faith and Siegfried’s shield spells blocked their attacks. The Tiefling aimed his hand crossbow and fired two shots at Varien. Both bolts splintered harmlessly against the paladin’s divine protection. The Tiefling frowned, surveyed the bedroom battlefield, and made a calculation. “To Hell with this!” he shouted, and skittered across the wall to the chimney, diving into the infernal flames that licked out from the hearth. “Where do you think you’re going?” Siegfried shouted back, a frown on his face.   Outside in the hallway, Theryn squared off against his two opponents. While one stayed down, stunned, the other got to his feet and brandished his sharp blade. Theryn attempted to defend himself against the attacker’s deft thrusts and slashes, and found himself bleeding profusely yet again from expertly-applied incisions on his forearm. Theryn rounded on his opponent, battering him with hits from his quarterstaff and a flurry of unarmed strikes that pounded him back against the wall yet again. Without looking behind him, Theryn bashed the prone assassin on the head once more, ensuring that he’d stay down. The monk ignored the spatters of his own blood that accompanied each swing and punch. He didn’t have time to worry about bleeding. Down the hall, Alec’s opponent spun on their heel and pursued Bob, not flinching as Alec landed a riposte that drew blood on the attacker’s back. The assassin’s dagger flicked out, but Bob managed to duck, dive and dodge each attack. Silently, the attacker drew themselves up to their full height, gave Bob a mocking bow, and then dove for a side door into Siegfried’s drawing room. Alec ran after the fleeing assassin, swinging the Sword of Trevelyan and getting nothing in return but a shattered vase and broken statue as his swings went wide. Bob was about to join in the pursuit when he heard the sound of sobbing from the first-floor stairwell.   The cloaked caster brought down a pillar of hellfire square onto Siegfried, blasting him with fire and radiant damage. Siegfried turned to look at the caster and his pet imp, and pointed a warning finger. “Wait. Your. Turn.” Siegfried dashed towards the fireplace, ignoring an ineffective dagger strike from the cloaked attacker, and got nothing but a face-full of cinders for his trouble as he tried to figure out where the Tiefling had disappeared to. There’s no teleportation magic I’m aware of that could have let him just sneak off like that , he thought. Sure enough though, Siegfried could tell that the target of his hex had traveled more than 90 feet away, and was out of range for the time being. He stepped back, dusted off his soot-covered hands, and turned around to face the cloaked attacker, making sure to mentally transfer the hex to his new target. “Now then,” Siegfried said, casting charm person . “Let’s see if we can’t have a friendly chat about this whole imbroglio.” The caster’s face darkened with a scornful smile. “My dark devotion leaves me little room for making new friends!” he snarled. Siegfried gave a condescending chuckle. “I do not require friendship or devotion, foolish one, only submission!” His eyes flared with ill intent. Varien stepped forward. “You might not submit willingly, but you might yield!” He cast destructive wave and struck the floor with the pommel of Fiendsbane’s hilt, creating a burst of divine energy that rippled outward. There was a thunderous boom as the concussive wave swept up his targets. The tiny imp on the shoulder of the cloaked spellcaster cried out as he disintegrated into a glob of green goo that painted wall, floor and ceiling. The branding iron-wielding attackers shook their heads and steadied themselves, and with hoarse cries rushed at Varien and Siegfried. Varien managed to block the attacks that came in his direction. Siegfried shuddered as the branding iron struck home with searing intensity once and then a second time.   Alec found himself on the defensive as the masked assassin slashed at him with their shortsword. He felt the cold chill of poison on the assassin’s blade, but managed to stay upright. The assassin backed away from Alec and then dove through the window. There was no sound of impact on the street below. “Alec!” Bob called from the hallway. “We’ve got trouble downstairs!” Alec growled, turned on his heel, and rushed towards the stairwell. As the barbarian rushed by, Theryn’s masked attacker stabbed the monk twice. Theryn shuddered as he began to feel the effects of so many cuts and slashes.   The cloaked attacker wiped the remains of his pet imp from his face and glared at Varien. Speaking a cadence of infernal incantation, he released a concussive inferno that blasted both the bard and the paladin with fire and force damage. Both stayed on their feet. Siegfried sighed and lashed out with Lightbringer, bashing the cloaked caster’s brains out. As the man’s body slumped to the ground, he turned to face the two remaining intruders. “You now have a choice to make between you,” he thundered. “Which one of you will be a corpse, and which one of you will be our prisoner? Decide amongst yourselves.” The attackers gave each other an uneasy glance.   Alec bounded down the stairs and found himself in the spacious front foyer of House Nidris. There on the floor was the prone, bloody body of Talzu, the house seneschal, who was being cradled in the arms of Arris, the head butler. “No, Talzu, no!” the man wailed as he rocked back and forth. Talzu was bleeding profusely from an obviously mortal stab wound. “We need a cleric!” Alec shouted upstairs. “Hurry, brother!” Bob rushed downstairs and took in the scene. Arris looked at Bob with pleading eyes. “Please, save him!” Bob nodded and did a demonstrative healing dance. Talzu’s eyes fluttered open as his wounds closed. “Oh, thank the gods!” Arris said. Then he shook Talzu fiercely. “You old fool, answering doors to assassins when you should be locking them!” Talzu raised a bloody hand to pat Arris’s face. He then turned to look at Alec and Bob. “They…they were as silent as the grave,” he whispered. “Two of them.” Bob nodded. “They’re upstairs being dealt with as we speak.” To his brother he said. “Better secure the main floor.” “We need to get Talzu to safety,” Arris said. “House staff are supposed to hide in the redoubt near the pantry in times of trouble. “A panic room, then?” Alec said. “Lead the way.” He gently helped Talzu to his feet, Arris taking the seneschal’s other arm over his shoulder.   As blood flowed down his arms, Theryn tried to press the attack, only to find that his strength was fading. “Discretion is the better part of valour,” he said, and jumped away from his enemies, landing in the bedroom. “Ah,” Siegfried called out to Varien as he pointed at Theryn. “This is my close friend who came out of the ceiling and I’m sorry but I didn’t catch your name.” Varien’s eyes widened. “It’s good to see you, Theryn,” he hooked his sword under his arm and extended a gauntlet in greeting. “Oh, you’ve met, apparently,” Siegfried said. He turned to the attackers. “Well, our numbers are growing while yours are shrinking. Have you decided?” “There is no glory in surrender,” one of the attackers growled. “Ah, so you have decided!” Siegfried said jovially. He attempted to polymorph one of the attackers into a small pig, but his spell failed. He sighed. “Varien, your choice of prisoner, then.” Varien nodded. “Welcome back, Theryn. Now.” He turned to face the two attackers. “If it’s to be a choice between mercy or death-” He swung Friendsbane in a wide arc. His target managed to duck and was about to deliver a witty retort when the paladin caught him on the backswing. Friendsbane flashed with holy light as the paladin invoked a divine smite that sent the attacker’s corpse sprawling. The last attacker’s eyes widened. “Time’s up,” Varien said. “No!” the attacker screeched. “According to my Dark Lord, your time will soon be up!” He fled towards the open door. “All will cower before his Black MajestEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” The man’s departing words dissolved into a scream of agony as he ran full-tilt into a flashing maelstrom of assassin’s blades from beyond the threshold. “Wait, so this is a three-party-battle?” Varien asked. The masked assassins shredded the intruder’s leather armor with deft spins of their sharpened blades. Theryn shrugged and with a spin of his quarterstaff crushed the attacker’s skull. Siegfried somersaulted past Theryn and ended up in the hallway behind the masked assassins. “Oh, were you looking for me?” he hissed, and then Hack filled his free hand. He slashed violently downward, splitting the masked assassin’s torso in two. The assassin had enough time to look down and regard his innards as they spilled through the widening crack in his body before he disintegrated into a cloud of ash. “Excuse me, coming through,” Varien said as he stabbed at the last masked attacker, pinning him to the wall for a moment before he too disintegrated into oblivion.

Varien turned to Theryn. “Did you see any more attackers on your way into the villa?” Theryn frowned “I took the way the crow flies,” he explained, looking up at the ceiling. Varien and Siegfried stared at him. “So, no.” Theryn shrugged. There was a flash of magical energy as the  wall of stone  disappeared, revealing the prone, groaning figure of Vees Windrivver on the bed. Varien healed the wicked-looking scorch wound on the genasi’s chest. “So, Vees Windrivver, was it?” The bodyguard sat up painfully, rubbing at his injury. “Yes.” “Who were these invaders?” Varien asked. “Devil-worshippers, most like,” the genasi said. “I was momentarily distracted and didn’t see them coming.” Varien looked at the half-dressed bodyguard and the pile of weapons and armor sitting on a settee nearby. “Yes, I see. And where’s Lady Nidris now?” “The Lady would have taken the boy to safety as per protocol,” Vees said. “Thank you for intervening.” “What can I say except you’re welcome!” Siegfried called out. Varien could see that the genasi was wounded with professional embarrassment more than anything else at this point. “Distracted…” Vees muttered. “failed the lady…” “What was that?” Varien asked innocently. “Nothing,” Vees fixed him with a steely glare as he began to collect his weapons. “Well then,” Varien said to Siegfried. “You should probably mention this to your boy Rattigan.” “Rattigan?” Siegfried replied. “I don’t know any Rattigan.” “That inspector at the Moonstone Mask?” Varien said. “You sent him in our direction during the Challenge of the Spheres.” “Ah, I was just trying to get a good seat at the table, if I recall,” Siegfried said. “Just exchanged pleasantries and shuffled the old boy off. Didn’t he have a lengthy conversation with Radegast?” “Maybe,” Varien said. Siegfried turned to Vees and clucked his tongue. “At least keep a dagger under your pillow, man.” Vees gave him a curt nod as embarrassment flushed his face further. “And give my regards to the Lady Nidris,” Varien said, heading for the door. “What, heading out?” Siegfried asked. “I could use a rest,” Theryn muttered. Varien turned. “I thought you said we were in a race with your orcish brethren,” Varien said. “You want us to start that race horizontally?” Siegfried waved his hands around. “But what about all this? Infernal intruders in a lady’s bedchambers, and masked assassins in the hallway? And the two parties at odds with the other? Aren’t you curious at all?” Varien shrugged. “Well, a moment’s consideration, I suppose.” Siegfried paced around the room. “Well, first of all, you can obviously smell the brimstone and sulphur that our intruders brought with them, right?” Varien sniffed and nodded. “But beneath that, our intruders brought with them the faint reek of rotting fish and seawater, likely originating from the docks district.” Varien sniffed again. “Seawater, of course.” “And,” Siegfried pointed at the nearest corpse. “ The intruders also tracked a considerable amount of reddish mud on the, dare I say it, pristine hardwood and fine rug-decorated floor of this bedroom. Look at the hobnailed boots and you’ll find the mud.” He knelt to take a sample of the mud. “I have someone who can look into this.” “Great,” Varien said, beginning to pile the corpses for disposal. Vees raised a hand. “Please, we have people who can take care of that.” Siegfried checked out the fireplace, which had gone cold. “Hmmm, an aura of conjuration magic in the chimney,” he muttered. He spilled out the ash from the hearth and and came up with the scraps of a spell scroll. “Interesting,” he murmured. “Sign of a scroll here, but is that beyond the budget of a local cult, I wonder?” Varien nodded. He turned to Siegfried. “What about these masked assassins?” “Yes,” Siegfried said, checking out the piles of fine grey dust left behind by the dead assassins. “Well for obvious reasons, evidence is scant, but I’m picking up a fading aura of transmutation magic from the ashes. They could have been conjured golems.” “They were rather agile and cunning for golems,” Theryn said. “Yes,” Siegfried mused, “although  disintegrate  is a transmutation spell, which means they could have been wearing  rings of disintegrate , or perhaps enchanted masks, but the cost to enchant them would have been steep.” Siegfried frowned. “There’s also the tiniest whiff of abjuration magic fading from their remains.” He straightened up. “Check the windows in my stateroom: I think you’ll find they’ve been picked expertly. Same as the front doors, to account for the downstairs contingent. Note that they made no sound at all, not even footfalls or grunts during combat – I’ll wager they were using  pass without trace .” “Interesting,” Varien said. He turned to Theryn. “So, what brings you back around to Neverwinter?” “Well,” Theryn said as he bandaged his wounds. “Lately I’ve been having dreams - nightmares really - of blood-red clouds engulfing the Sword Mountains. These clouds circle and roil above the peaks, until the vortex parts and a great meteor of white-hot stone impacts on the mountainside. The slopes of the mountains then run with blood. For days.” “Wild,” Varien said. “I kept thinking that there was something special about this meteor,” Theryn continued. “Or something special left behind by its impact. And by special I mean worrisomely foreboding.” “That’s fair,” Varien replied. “So I visited the House of Knowledge here in Neverwinter to do some research.” “Do go on,” Varien prompted. “I learned that what I witnessed in my dream was in fact a historical event of great significance to the orcs of the Sword Mountains,” Theryn said. “It apparently fulfilled some sort of prophecy that united the orcs under the banner of the same warlord who overran Phandalin about 500 years ago.” “Wow,” Varien said. “Siegfried over there was mentioning something about orc prophecies recently.” “This chunk of plague-bringing rock was known as the White Hand of Yurtrus and was hidden away by the forces of Uruth Ukrypt deep in the Sword Mountains,” Theryn continued. “This made me think about the orcs we fought at Wyvern Tor, who were searching for relics of Uruth Ukrypt to rally warriors to their banner.” “I remember Wyvern Tor,” Varien said uncomfortably. “I got a pretty good look at it from way up in the air, if you’ll recall.” “Yes, while, I was planning on making a trek to the Sword Mountains myself,” Theryn said. “But there is strength in numbers.” “Indeed,” Varien said. “We're also heading there for reasons.” “Yes, but now I’m really tired,” Theryn said. “I’d like to lie down for a spell.” “Hmm, perhaps a short rest is called for before we strike out to the Sword Mountains,” Varien said. Suddenly, Fiendsbane rumbled in his scabbard.  What is Siegfried doing? “Hey Siegfried,” Varien called to Siegfried. “What are you doing?” Siegfried was picking up the hellfire chains and branding irons left by the dead kidnappers. “You don’t want to be touching those demonic artifacts,” Varien said in a warning tone. Siegfried shrugged. “Sometimes you need to rely on those who you do not have respect for,” he said. “We didn’t respect these intruders, but that doesn’t stop me from needing their stuff.” He examined the branding iron. “Ah yes, as I suspected.” He turned the iron around to show the symbol on its end. “The symbol of Asmodeus. And I’m detecting an aura of divination magic on these brands.” Siegfried frowned, and then slapped his forehead. “Varien, we can’t leave!” “What are you talking about?” Varien asked. “These branding irons,” Siegfried said. “We were both branded. We’ve been marked by minions of Asmodeus.” “What’s that matter?” Varien said, looking down at the scorch marks. “We don’t want the Ashmadai to know where we’re going, do we?” Siegfried asked. “Whether we need someone to dispel magic or remove a curse, either way we need a cleric.” “So, Vees,” Varien asked. “What do you know about the Ashmadai, and why would they want to kidnap Zan Nidris?” Vees shrugged. “They raise hell now and then, branding buildings with their infernal graffiti and scaring the townspeople,” the bodyguard said. “Our house was hit this week and so we doubled our security patrols. The Ashmadai have been known to kidnap people and hold them for ransom.” “Speaking of which,” Siegfried said. “How did these nefarious agents get past your increased patrols?” “Are you impugning the abilities of my security staff?” Vees asked. “Not at all,” Siegfried said. “I’m opening questioning your hiring practices. I’d be willing to bet that among your new hires were planted these very agents – a theory,” he said as Vees bristled. “You mentioned a ransom?” Varien said. “Why would devil-worshippers want with money?” “Who said anything about money?” Vees said. “Some objects are beyond the price of gold or silver, and some ransoms can only be paid in blood or worse.” “Speaking of  that , tell me Vees – is the boy Zan your son?” Siegfried asked. Vees’s eyes bulged. “What are you implying?” “Implying? Nothing,” Siegfried said. “I’m investigating an attack and attempted kidnapping of a Neverwintan noble, and I’m trying to find out everything I can about the stakes involved. Now then, answer the question.” Vees exhaled sharply. “The boy is…I protect the boy as if he was my own son.” “Ah, so you’re the father, good to know,” Siegfried said brusquely, too tired to play games with the help. “That will be all, then.” Vees stood and stared at Siegfried, then gathered his belongings. “I must see to the Lady. And the boy.” He stalked out. Siegfried examined the fireplace again and made notes in chalk on the inside of the flue. “They need to install a proper anti-burglar’s gate,” he muttered to himself before straightening up. “I will inform the Seneschal. I wonder if he had time to gather the items I requested.” Stepping back, he surveyed the corpses and the piles of dust left behind and frowned. “You know Varien,” he said. “There are times when having a necromancer in our party would be most advantageous.” “Come over here and say that a little louder,” Varien snarled as he stared daggers at Siegfried. Before Siegfried could answer, the house shook and there was a terrific crash from downstairs.