Good!Party: Grand Marshall Giselle

So at this point the elf Tauriel is dead, Tavros’ mother has been resurrected, and she has judged that Rona deserves to hang for crimes, and Tavros has declared himself the King in the East. Caristhium is liberated, but in bad shape. 

He still needs properly noble clothes. 

That was in July; also in July, Ruin, Geddy, Eva, and Leira go to rescue the besieged mages. 

Overall: Lamont, former Duke of Janbridge and notable bigot, is King in the North. The High Provost and Bauregard are definitely gone; Joe R Pious is probably still around up there. The True Elven army is scatter throughout Duendewood and has largely gone into hiding. The druids have also vanished into the forest – so those are two formidable forces which might be worth rallying. The centaurs have also withdrawn. 

Meanwhile, elvish revolutionaries have spilled out of the forest and taken over the northeastern cities of Sol Povos. The priests of Vecna and the dark army are just gone; this allowed commander Giles to take over Welfort, probably with an eye towards eventual rulership. Sacha is somewhere down in that area too. 

Giselle, who had commanded the northern army, took the other half ot the army away from the capital. The remaining solari forces have reinforced various local cities. Crime lords took over Brightland and imposed their own order there. Vampires still rule Flowerhedge. The mages have been rooted out of their tower at Springmage, which is now the demonic seat of power, and taken shelter in Starroads Inn. 

The Iron Company is mercenaries, so they could be brought over to our side. The same is true for the Wildlanders; they’re barbarian hordes. 

So, having discussed the disposition of all these forces, we teleport to an area outside the influence of both demons and storm. Eva then carries us the rest of the way – invisibly – to Giselle and the remains of the eastern army. They notice us anyway when we get close enough, but Geddy manages to signal that we’re friendly. 

We land, and a big man in armor comes striding over. “Who goes there?”

Geddy: “It is I, Geddy, the bringer of…” He drops invisibility. “help!”

Phaneas, captain of the White Warriors of Lakemont, introduces himself. “He calls on us to identify ourselves.”

Geddy introduces himself, then introduces Eva, who curtsies; Ruin, whose presence causes a great deal of consternation; and finally Leira, who is using his shiny armor to fix her hair. He immediately starts hitting on Leira, and he’s pretty good looking; and Geddy in turn starts turning on the charm towards Phaneas. Phaneas is… flustered. 

Apparently we’ll need to meet with Duke Dearborn as well as Grand Marshall Giselle. Geddy looks around at the cloud, pulls out the Lute of Destiny, and starts singing, and uses Mass Charm to suggest that they take us to Giselle. They sweep us up and carry us along. He dresses down the guards for being not up to the standards of the WHite Warriors. 

Lakemont is a very traditional town, with a lot of canals – think Venice. It’s very devoted to Helios, and most of the local Solari are paladins and clerics. The paladin Solari are the White Warriors of Lakemont. There are a significant number of other Solari and soldiers, and it’s all very orderly and very well-organized. Leira pulls out her Solari badge, which she wears on a headband like a very soft tiara. Geddy is one of the heroes of Fort Dedo, and Ruin is… unknown, but probably just some sort of servant. 

We reach the room with the duke, and a woman with very nice (and probably magical) equipment. 

The Duke stands up. “Geddy Lee Geddy! It is quite an honor for you to come visit us. I have heard much of your exploits…” Someone whispers in his ear and he looks around: “Really?” He looks at Leira: “My lady Solari, you are welcome here.” 

Duke: “So, we have not heard of you in many months. What has happened to you?” 

Geddy immediately dumps all of his trauma in the form of song, and of course he’s Geddy. Women weep, men faint, small children swoon. One of the court bards grabs a sword from a nearby guard and tries to throw himself on it; the guard wrestles him away from it. 

He follows it up with the Ballad of Tavros Fontaine. (Sung, I might add, to the tune of Walking in a Winter Wonderland – don’t ask.) The introduction turns into a sort of impromptu ball, followed by a banquet. 

Leira and Geddy are taken to rooms; Eva and Ruin are gone. They have both taken the opportunity to hook up while they’re out here. 

Geddy wakes up and four a.m. and shuffles off to find breakfast. He stumbles into three of the local governors, who are also elderly, and they start exchanging notes on their various aches and pains. He takes the opportunity to pump them for information about Lady Giselle. She still fights for the crown, and is loyal to the crown. She is extremely torn about having fled the capital. She is, however, very popular here; she brought the army, and the town is not only well-run by the duke, but extremely well defended. Lakemont is to some extent unaware of what’s going on elsewhere, which is as much a problem as it is a good thing. Convincing everyone to follow Tavros is going to be a bit tricky, since Giselle is going to want to be sure that the king is truly dead. 

Phaneas walks in with Eva, both of them looking a bit… ruffled. Geddy starts trying to convince Phaneas that he’s going to need to marry Eva and come up with a dowry and all like that. Phaneas turns pale and stumbles back across a chair. “I, um, I have to go check on my men.”

Eva: “Careful there. You take this too far, I’m not going to be able to get any around here.”

Leira and Ruin come wandering in, Leira staggering and clutching at her head. She’s a lightweight, and now very hung-over. 

The conversation turns to the refugee mages. There’s some sort of force field over Starroads Inn that’s preventing them from teleporting away. The mages are apparently putting up quite a fight. We’re talking about Lady Giuselle when she walks in. She spots us, and comes over to sit with us. 

Atrix the White may be leading the refugee mages. There are force fields keeping the mages in, and keeping the demons out. Lady Giselle knows nothing of the vault, but she does know Giles and they were both part of the Privy Council when the occasion called for it, but not part of the inner circle. She considers King Luc to be her king until his death is proven. 

The inn at Starroads is sort of the Buckey’s of Sol Povos. There are around a hundred mages and three hundred initiates, many of them children. 

She starts laying out her intelligence. The demons are led by three balors; they have Maralith bodyguards, and they don’t know who they report to – they report to The High One. Each baalor also has one of the rolling eyes-and-hands things, which may be responsible for the magics. There are also some large snake-warriors. There are a bunch of other demons, including some of the Retrievers. 

We meet with the Duke once he’s awake. He’s in a meeting room with a couple of his advisors. He’s a bit troubled that Tavros worships Amun, but Geddy points out that they belong to the same Covenant and have much in common. He also laments the lack of leadership in the church of Helios. We bring up Clovis Cloverfield, and Geddy manages to sell him as a new potentate. Might he be the new Avatar of Helios? We can’t be sure. 

And, of course, the death of King Luc hasn’t been established. Ruin: “And you have no idea how quickly and happily he would step aside were King Luc to reappear.”

It doesn’t seem like they believe him, but it was the right thing to say. Then the Duke asks about the Elvish land and title claims, and Tavros’ position on them. Geddy spews a huge line of bullshit that says more or less nothing; then he starts selling them on the benefits of supporting Tavros. 

He gets one of his magisters to explain about the College at Springhollow. There are eight archmagisters, one for each school of magic; of the the eight, Verhad of Many Faces was killed during the attack. The Evocation guy made it to the Starroads in made to the inn but then died. Strogan the Transmuter escaped the attack but his whereabouts are unknown. The other five are at the Starroads Inn. The Necromancy master was a big fan of Durest Inglorian, which might be a problem. Below them are the Masters. And below them a few dozen adepts. 

The magister believes that the mages inside are maintaining overlapping dimensional anchors to prevent the demons from teleporting in; the demons also have dimensional anchors preventing the mages from teleporting out. The inn has been fortified with walls of stone and iron and like that. The demons have laid webs around, encircled the place with Unholy Blights; stormclouds lurk overhead, and retrievers patrol the dead zone. The mages have covered the place in magic circles against evil, black tentacles to surround them on the ground, minor globes of invulnerability at choke poiints. 

We could possibly get inside on dragonback, and the mages inside know best what their situation actually is. That’s probably the plan.