After several months, the war has reached a stalemate; Cardinal Laroche returns to send us on to attack Flowerhedge. Following his resurrection, Forkbeard is now styling himself as Forkbeard the Unslain. Before we leave, we meet Cardinal Marcion who is even higher ranked than LaRoche and has been keeping an eye on things in the central area of the invasion.
Durest dresses up - very successfully - and comes into town as a priest of Helios. He’s greeted by a very farmer, Walter, who… well… wants to have someone help him have a son. He and his wife have been, you know, doing things, but it hasn’t taken. Durest disguises his reluctance and agrees to help, and then has to listen to the man as he discusses his entire life’s history.
As we approach the waterfront, Durest sees the bridge: there are about a dozen little things flying around the bridge. On second look, they look like large, ebony-colored flies with people on them. And there are a lot of patrollers on there, too. And quite a number of them are Solari.
Durest comes up with a plan to help after looking the woman over; he then gets a hotel room – for free, in exchange for a plenary indulgence – and attempts to summon a demon.
He gets the now-demonically-enslaved Azrael, from the Elf party. (Somewhere, Indra is laughing his ass off.) They talk this through, and then Durest leads him to the home of Walter and poor Jezebel. Twenty minutes later, Azrael emerges and Durest dismisses him. He then teleports back out and explains to the others that there are twelve Solari on ebony flies, and twenty-one on the bridge: thirty-three Solari total.
If we take them on directly, we are all going to die. Like, permanently.
So, Durest teleports the rest of the group into the hotel suite, and after dark Chuck goes out to scout in bat form. They’re cycling their shifts so that they have the entire force at night, and sleep in shifts in the day. We play with some ideas while Chuck gathers some more information.
Chuck attempts gathers a lock of hair from the missing lord and lady – the Bastion family (Baron and Baroness) have fled the palace – and Durest scries. He sees the Baroness having dinner with a woman in wizard’s robes. They are in a stone room, along with a HUGE fucking ogre standing behind the baroness; his abs have abs, but he’s also well-dressed and armed with a very nice flail. Plus, two angels are hovering around the edges of the room: a planetar and an astral deva. There are no windows, no decorations, nothing to tells us where this is; it’s clearly some sort of safe room. There are also tons of papers on the tables; she’s working from whatever bunker this is. Her ten-year-old-son is there with her.
We’ve been told that she runs things here, and apparently it’s true; it’s also apparent that she’s training her son to be a better baron than his father.
We lay low and continue scouting. The mood of the town seems to be optimistic; with this many Solari, what could go wrong? Chuck disguises himself and does some more listening as a beggar. He starts at the fringes of the market at night, and finds one of the fancier restaurant stalls that seems to be serving the bridge. He makes a note of the more popular food vendors. He moves from there to a tavern, but hears nothing of interest; he moves to a second bar, and notices that someone is following him.
Chuck ducks around a corner, and the moment he’s out of sight he drops Greater Invisibility and waits.
The person is very careful, but finally a guy comes around the corner. He’s really only noticeable because he’s looking down the alleys; he’s using a group of drunks for cover. He’s wearing armor under his cloak. He pretends to pee in the alley, and then catches up with the drunks. Chuck follows him, and when the drunks go into a bar he keeps going. After a while he sheds the disguise and is just walking the streets in his armor. After a while he turns into a tavern, and Chuck thinks he’s going in there for his own reasons.
Chuck also notices three kids playing in front of the place, and wanders over to make friends with them in his role as a hobo.
Kid: “Get out of here you smelly bum!” he throws a rock.
Chuck catches it.
Their eyes go wide, and the take off in three different directions at top speed. Chuck fires the rock at the back of the kid’s head. The child is now out cold and laying in the street. The guy Chuck was following is looking out the window at him; he comes out and leans again the wall. “You know, I’ve seen people be more subtle than this.”
This is John. John deals in information. John is willing to sell information if the money is right.
Chuck: “I got the coin if you got the knowledge.”
John: “We have the knowledge. Come inside, and see what the Dark Knives can teach you.”
He leads Chuck in and up to a back room, and explains the costs and risks involved when the Solari are involved. Not to mention that some of the Solari out there doubtless have eyes and ears in the town. 50 gold buys his silence – in theory – but he trusts that we’re not going to tell him anything too sensitive.
Chuck: “Even with everything that’s going on in the south, that’s a lot of guys on that bridge.”
John: “It’s a valuable bridge. It would cut the army off if anything happened to it.”
Chuck: “Damn, that’s a lot of Solari.”
John: “A hundred gold.” Chuck pays. “The Count at Brightland is concerns; he sent his own Solari as reinforcements.”
Chuck: “Between the empty castle and that many Solari, there’s obviously danger.”
John: “Anybody with a brain can see that. If the army came, we would take advantage as we could, and if it turned bad we would leave.”
Chuck: “But your loyalty could be bought.”
John shrugs: “You’re asking cheap questions. You want information on fortifications, dossiers on people, that kind of thing… that’ll cost.”
Chuck: “If I leave a note with the bartender, it will get to you?”
John: “To John, from the Old Man. That’ll get to me.”
We discuss this, and then Chuck goes back to ask John about who’s left defending the Earl in Brightland. For Brightland, he can give us the roster for 12,000; for Flowerhedge, 5,000; double for exact locations; it’ll take a week. We buy the full package, and add an extra thousand to hold their silence. We spend a week sealing off the palace and dropping vampires in there: ourt own private pen of undead. Then we retrieve John’s report.
Brightland has about twenty-five Solari, and the Count has two dragons, two angels, and an ogre barbarian named Dozer, plus a bunch of lesser Solari who have almost all been sent to Flowerhedge.
The Baron is up in Brightland under the Count’s protection, but the Baroness is commanding operations from a safehouse here. She’s in charge of the Solari. She’s guarded by the two angels, the ogre barbarian, and her own Solari, a sorceress. The Black Knives believe that the Baroness is in the back of a particular tavern. The two bronze dragons are guarding the Earl.
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