04 - 7/3/25 : Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

 

"By the guidance of the Muse, my hands will heal no longer. I take up this spear with fury in my heart, aflame with an anger that shall purge all who dare cross my path. I leave not hope nor joy in my wake, I will provide no shelter nor guidance. In Muir's name, my enemies will feel my rage."  

Elseth Atlasia, Valkyr of Muir

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  Once the battle against the minotaur had passed, Satomi questioned Wenduag about her allegiances and what else she was hiding from the party. Wenduag revealed how Hosilla had saved her from starvation and how she gave her fealty to Hosilla for it. She also conferred her desire to raise her people up from their short miserable lives, and also elaborated on the nature of the ritual practiced on the mongrels.   The ritual involved cannibalizing the flesh of aasimar captives taken by Hosilla; Wenduag was not sure about the specifics, but she assumed that because demons were naturally inclined to corrupt and despoil the pure, introducing holy flesh to a mongrelman's tainted body likely 'awoke' the demonic potential within. Following the ritual, Wenduag felt stronger, faster, and even theorized that she would live much longer than the average neather, who rarely saw their fortieth year. However, she was also the only one to survive the ritual with her mind intact, at least to her knowledge.   The party understood Wenduag's reasons for secrecy, though they did wish she had come clean beforehand, and accepted her help after seeing how she had already stood by them against her former mistress. With that taken care of, the group went back for Anevia and Horgus, and then finally pushed ahead to the surface.   As the party breathed the ash-filled, above-ground air of burning Kenabres, Anevia noted lack of a locust swarm, in the air, meaning Deskari was likely no longer physically present. She guessed that either the demon lord fled to avoid tipping the balance of the planes and provoking the good gods to intervene, or merely achieved his goals and left the rest to his minions; both were possibly true.   Anevia suggested one of two approaches now that they were in the city once again; either the party could proceed west to the Tirabade residence to see if Irabeth had left anything for her to help find each other, or to press on to the northeast to reach Saint Clydwell's Cathedral, a place Anevia deemed likely for Irabeth to have chosen to host an organized resistance. The party decided to prioritize reaching the cathedral.   As they began moving, Satomi noted the nearby 'party house' owned by Count Daeran Arendae (which she refused to call anything but 'Arendae Manor') as a potential resting spot, but Satomi's distaste for the place had them press on to Gwerm Manor.   On their way, the party encountered a terrifying sight; a horse that had been completely skinned, yet continued to walk slowly through the streets as if in a daze. They decided to put the wretched creature down, and its subsequent dissolution into abyssal ash revealed it to have been a malformed demon.   Not long after, the group made it to Gwerm Manor, still in good condition but abandoned by its guardsmen. Upon poking inside, Horgus learned his vault had been opened and looted. He suspected the brotherhood of mages that had enchanted the vault in the first place, a group known as the Ashen Order, had either allowed the vault's passphrase incantations to be leaked or that they had opened the vault themselves. Satomi noted that Lord Tacitus was the chairman of the Ashen Order, though Horgus did not recall Tacitus himself being present for the enchanting.   Horgus' physical fortune in the vault had been stolen, but a pair of paintings he was searching for were still present. Elseth also discovered a ledger detailing Horgus' anonymous donations to the crusaders. Horgus asked Hilda to burn the paintings; the party noted both paintings were labeled "Horgus Gwerm", but one was of Horgus in the present day, while the other was of a young boy that bore no resemblance to him whatsoever.   When asked about this, Lord Gwerm revealed that his true name was Darian Wytt, and he was not the real Horgus Gwerm. Years ago he had been a commoner servant of the Gwerms and a playmate of their heir Horgus, and survived a demon attack on the manor that had slaughtered the whole family. When paladins arrived and discovered him, he panicked and identified himself as Horgus Gwerm, and he had lived as the sole inheritor of the noble house ever since. He believed he was helping keep the true Horgus' legacy alive.   With his money gone and his vault compromised, Lord Gwerm was unable to pay the party or take shelter, and thus stayed with the party for safety, promising to pay them once his money had been recovered or when he had access to his liquid assets once more.   The group took a moment to rest at the manor and then continued pressing north. At the gigantic rift left behind by Deskari's scythe Riftcarver, they encountered a score of looters and bandits capitalizing on the loot left after a recent slaughter; Elseth convinced them to stand down and let them pass.   They soon made it to Saint Clydwell's Cathedral but found it to be empty, and badly damaged. They realized that much of the structure had crumbled under the weight of Terendelev after Deskari threw her into the Cathedral's walls, making it a poor defensive stronghold. However, the golden statue of Muir at the Cathedral's center remained standing.   Distraught at the destruction surrounding her, Elseth took a knee at the statue of the Muse and offered a desperate prayer. She had come to realize that her healing hands and oath of pacifism were no longer sufficient to defend her home, and it was time for her to take up a weapon of her own.   As if to respond, the stone spear carried by the statue clattered to the ground at Elseth's feet, now made of shimmering golden metal. Taking it into her hands, Elseth began to change as the Muse's divine energy flowed through her, transforming her from a kindly cleric to a deadly valkyr, her hair now white and stained with crimson, her eyes now darkened and lacking mercy.   Rising from her place at the statue, Elseth rejoined her companions and accompanied them further north as they continued searching for Irabeth and the rest of the Eagle Watch. The group also discovered a third scale left behind by Terendelev in the rubble of the Cathedral.   Haliel, having come to trust the party due to their actions and pragmatism, conferred to them that there was a hidden safehouse kept by the Order of the Godclaw in the city, and that it would likely contain valuable equipment and other supplies. The group agreed that it would be worth checking out.   As the group passed the city center, they spied the large glowing crystal wedged into the side of the fortress known as the Grey Garrison. They realized that this crystal was the great wardstone of Kenabres, pried from its stone casing and launched from its original home in the now-fallen fortress known as the Kite to be wedged into the Grey Garrison. Anevia suspected that such a thing would likely be heavily defended by the demons, and so the party decided to avoid it for the moment.   The survivors reached the Defender's Heart Tavern, which they found to be surrounded by palisades and hastily constructed wooden gates. They had finally found the Eagle Watch, who let the group inside once they heard Anevia offer a passphrase.   Standing at the front entrance of the tavern was none other than Irabeth, who tearfully reunited with her wife at last. The paladin thanked the group for returning her beloved to her, saying that she would never be able to repay such a deed.   Noting that the party managed to survive the deadly tunnels below Kenabres and the war-torn streets above, Irabeth asked if they would be willing to continue serving the crusades and help to mount an eventual counterattack. Her people were occupied with defending the tavern and the civilians hiding inside, leaving them with few people to take to the streets and fight back against the demons or find allies in the wreckage; a small but competent group such as the party would be ideal to start looking for a foothold against the cultists and their demonic overlords.   The survivors agreed to this offer, intending to venture back out into the city after they had a moment to rest. They encountered Staunton Vhane once again, who remained dour and silent as he held watch at the tavern's door, as well as Seelah - a cheerful and somewhat lax paladin of Muir, who offered her aid in combat to the party should they need it while out in the streets of Kenabres.   Once inside, the group encountered a few shopkeepers from Clydwell Plaza, as well as the tavern's owner; Gemyl Hawkes, a charming man with an odd aura about him. Elseth's newfound senses, bolstered by her recent transformation, gave her the unshakable feeling that Gemyl was an undead, and she decided to ask Irabeth to confirm this.   To her surprise, Irabeth plainly stated that she was already aware, and that Gemyl was in fact a vampire spawn. However, he had lived in Kenabres for longer than she had been alive, having remained an ethical feeder for all those decades, and had even managed to avoid the ire of the inquisitors thanks to having a few friends in the right circles. Since he was gracious enough to allow the Eagle Watch to take shelter at his tavern, Irabeth was willing to overlook his condition; something Elseth was able to agree with.   The party turned in for the night, with Elseth and Alanis sharing a room, Satomi and Hilda sharing another, and Wenduag and Haliel taking a third. Before resting, Satomi pulled Wenduag aside and confessed that she sensed a kinship between the two of them. Because of this connection, she revealed to the huntress that she had a plan; she wished to use the chaos engulfing Kenabres as a cover to find and kill her master, Lord Tacitus. She described how she had essentially been enslaved by the House Tacitus since her arrival in Kenabres decades ago, further bolstering Wenduag's interest. Wenduag gleefully agreed to aid in the plan, finding Satomi's ruthlessness and desire for revenge against those who wronged her to be quite admirable.   In the morning, the party met with Irabeth to discuss targets in the city for investigation. She was able to provide a list of varying points of interest that she wished for the party to check out;  

• A crusader had apparently gone rogue and began attacking civilians, and had been spotted at the Blackwing Library in the north-central section of the city. Irabeth wished for such a person to be taken into custody or simply put down.
• Two scouts of the Eagle Watch - a tiefling named Rekarth and a gnome named Sendri - had been sent to scout out the Tower of Estrod in the southern section of the city, where it was believed the demons had an entrenched outpost. They had not been heard from in some time, and Irabeth wished them found.
• The temples of Desna and Anumon in Kenabres remained (somewhat) standing despite everything, and Irabeth asked the party to seek out any surviving priests that would possibly be able to lend their healing prowess to the defenders.
• The surviving embassies in Kenabres - those of Revelmoore and Foere - possibly had surviving diplomats hiding within. Irabeth feared what political consequences might befall Mendev if such dignitaries perished under their watch, and asked the party to search for any survivors.
• Joran Vhane, the brother of Staunton, had not been able to return to his forge since the attack. Such a place might contain valuable weapons and armor, assuming the cultists had not yet looted the place, and was worth an investigation.

  In addition to these goals and their intent to reach the Order of the Godclaw's safehouse, Satomi also brought up visiting Tacitus manor to see if the lord of the house still lived, so that they might investigate him and the Ashen Order mages on behalf of Lord Gwerm and his compromised magic vault. Unbeknownst to her companions save Wenduag, Satomi wished to seek an opportunity to kill the man during this visit if possible.   Deciding to make a loop in the northern section of the city, the party set out to the Hellknight safehouse, with the intention of thereafter proceeding to Tacitus Manor and then Blackwing Library. Since their initial target was the safehouse, it was decided that Haliel would accompany the group while Seelah and Wenduag remained with the Eagle Watch to assist in other matters.   En route to the safehouse, the party encountered their first demons in the ruins of Kenabres; a foul goat-faced bulezau, accompanied by a small horde of abyssal wretches. Battle would soon be upon them…