GURPS Fantasy Warriors Session 36: Running in Circles

Characters:

Granmarg The Striking Vanguard, The Boulderstruck, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate
Pomegranite The Treefallen, The Spymaster

Mielikki The Field Marshal, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

Thicket The Grandmaster Terramorpher, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

 

Threats Old and New

While the Triumvirate were preparing for the journey to Wrost to find Curzo, they heard news from Lumene.  In the dead of winter, demons had attacked Baron Hugo's manse outside Mont Villay, and he and his daughter had been slain.  Empress Edelina had called the armies of Tauschun and the Segretan League to aid in tracking down the demons, but had declined to call on the provinces of the Empire that did not fall under her authority.  The earthlings continued with their plan and left the Highland Forests with only their personal retinues.

 

Once they were in Lumene, they heard more dire news: when the sun god Astraeus had returned, Edelina, her brother Eremon, and many other nobles had been there to meet him, when demons had attacked.  Many were slain, including Eremon, while Edelina had been gravely wounded.  At this point, Mielikki realized that the Segretan army would naturally march through Halberst, where they would likely fall under the dominion of Queen Baelynna.  To counter this, Pomegranite dispatched his bird, Bird, to Ulrich with an ensorcelled letter that only he would be able to read, asking for him to attempt to convince the Segretan leadership to march around and through Baronde instead.

 

The rest of their journey through the borderlands of Lumene was uneventful, and they proceeded down a series of gentle slopes into the marshes and swamplands of the Grand Duchy of Wrost.  Confusingly, the grand duchy was named after the capitol, so their journey to Wrost wasn't over yet.  On their way, they heard no news of Consus, which was likely due to him being god of secrets, but many had fled the city when the mazes had appeared.  Indeed, on arriving in the orcish city, they found that it was still struggling with the aftermath, and that many thoroughfares now suddenly ended in a ten foot blue stone wall.

Quite a few mercenary companies had been hired to work as guards for various districts of the city, some even contracted to guard a single merchant's home, suggesting that there were difficulties administering the city following the revolution.  Pomegranite arranged for a secret nighttime meeting at a burned out warehouse on the docks with Veronika, the spymaster and member of Wrost's ruling council.

 

On The Hunt

With the moon in the sky behind her, Veronika asked what they were doing in Wrost.  Mielikki said they had come looking for Emperor Curzo after going to Halberst and then Lumene on his trail, and lied that it was in order to work out a trade deal.  While the trade deal story didn't really add up, he presented it with enough confidence that Veronika didn't question it.  She relayed that Curzo had been here as part of his initial tour after becoming Triumvirate Emperor, and had helped navigate the mazes to some parts of the city that had been fully sealed off.  He had left several weeks ago for Baronde. 

 

Granmarg brought up the topic of the returned gods, and Veronika responded that they'd had no experience with them in Wrost, though they expected only good things to come.  Terra and Carmenta had both stayed in Baronde before leaving to the west, and Astraeus had only just appeared in Lumene.  Perhaps they were all gathering there.  Going by what she didn't mention, they realized she didn't know of Baelynna, and that Consus hadn't revealed himself to the ruling council.  She was, despite being a Magister of the Path of Change, a sincere believer of the Imperial Faith, and so was deemed unfit to join their conspiracy.  Hopefully, when the gods inevitably did something evil, the orcs would come around.

Changing the subject, Mielikki mentioned that several Imperial Messengers they'd sent through Halberst had vanished, and so wanted to establish an alternate method of communication.  Veronika nodded, then asked what they knew of Halberst.  When Curzo had been in Wrost, he'd mentioned none of this, but apparently they'd been there more recently.  The earthlings looked at each other and said they'd seen nothing out of the ordinary.  She continued questioning them, turning the conversation back to the gods.  What did they know of Terra and her actions in the south?  She was from their province, after all.

 

Again, the earthlings shared a glance and said they hadn't seen her since she'd abandoned them more than a year ago at the onset of the Demonwar.  Veronika wondered if she'd disappeared in Halberst, like the messengers, and Mielikki agreed in a credible manner that it was possible.  Next, she asked if Terra and Carmenta's aiding Baronde against the famine didn't disprove the earthlings' pessimism.  They muttered some non-committal things, and Veronika wished them luck on their search for Emperor Curzo.

 

Pomegranite went to go meet with one of his agents in the Imperial Messengers, and learned that the message Edelina had supposedly sent along had never arrived, which was very suspicious.  Additionally, as Curzo had been travelling officially, he had sent an advisor to receive any messages and so the agents had not seen him.  Knowing that Curzo was due to head back to Halberst at any time, they dispatched a message to Grand Appleton, capitol of Baronde, asking him to stay in place if he was still there. They then rushed south to the main road he would probably take to hopefully intercept him if he had already left.

 

The Conspiracy Grows
They arrived at the main road after a few weeks, then turned east toward the capitol.  The earthlings dispatched scouts who asked around the towns they figured Curzo would have passed through, but nobody reported having seen an Emperor's entourage.  Continuing to Grand Appleton, they checked with the Messengers: Curzo had left for the Elven Forests several days before their message had arrived.  Without meeting with any of the halfling rulers, they continued south after him.  On the way, they observed the columns of Segreta's armies marching north, and were satisfied that their warning to avoid Halberst had gotten through.  They found their way to the edge of the Elven Forest and were led through to the main settlement of the elves, where they finally found the man they were looking for.

 

The good news was that he had already been informed about Baelynna seizing the College, and he had agreed to join their god-killing conspiracy.  The plan he and the elves had worked out was for Curzo to raise the armies of his third of the Empire (namely Wrost, Baronde, and any parts of Halberst not under Baelynna's sway) and join with Uthemar's third.  They would also call on Edelina but they did not have high hopes.  Granmarg advised that the demons that had attacked during the return of Astraeus were surely under his control, and perhaps Edelina was not as unreachable as they thought.

 

Pomegranite relayed his discovery of both the preventative and curative measures against Baelynna's mental domination, taking all the credit in the process.  Curzo, a High Magister of Secrets, complimented him on his work, while Uthemar noted with some regret that the elves' lack of College education would mean they themselves could make little use of these innovations.  There was some worrying over whether Baronde would join them given the aid Terra and Carmenta had provided, but Curzo reasoned that when it came to the Queen of Halberst, he could present it as a political rather than spiritual matter.  They also had the benefit that Baelynna hadn't provided any assistance herself, and was going by that rather than Bellona, the name given in the Book for the Goddess of Thought.

 

Next was the matter of the mirror shards, and so Curzo and Pomegranite created a warded room where no scrying would be able to penetrate such that they could observe the shards safely.  After several days of observation they came to the conclusion that not only were the shards non-magical now, they had never been enchanted in the first place.  Further, the mirror seemed to be the kind one could buy in any major city, not some special ancient godmirror made from "moonmetal".  Granmarg theorized that whatever outsider had been using the white flame could live inside of mirrors, though that didn't explain the moon.  Perhaps it was any round objects?  Mielikki worried if it was every reflective surface, but they had no way of knowing.

 

When it came to Consus, who they suspected was responsible, nobody knew much.  Curzo was a secular scholar, and the elves and earthlings didn't follow the Imperial Faith either.   The mirror being silver might be something, as it was a material commonly viewed as aligned to the Path of the Moon due to its use in scrying.  Those were largely outdated folk beliefs, though, and even prior to the College it had been known that any reflective surface would work for such magic.  It was suspected that many Revealers, pre-College users of the Path, had simply used silver because it was expensive and lent a sense of mystique.

 

Next was the matter of the demons.  Granmarg suggested that these were the leftovers that had escaped the Demonwar with the Eyes Demon, which prompted some confusion as only a few minutes prior he had proclaimed that they were being controlled by Astraeus who had only just returned.  While the second attack may have been something Astraeus had done, the first, where Hugo had been slain, had taken place before his return and must have been something else.  Regardless, it had been scores of demons that had attacked, and it was certainly unlikely for demons, unsubtle by nature, to have made it unnoticed all the way to western Lumene, around a month's travel through populated lands.

 

They agreed that the earthlings would return to the Highland Forests and wait for the summons from Uthemar to raise their troops and march to Lumene, ostensibly to help hunt down any remaining demons.  Thicket would split off and travel with Curzo's retinues.  While the Triumvirate Emperor would raise the armies of Baronde and Wrost, the Grandmaster Terramorpher would go to Wrost and use his magic to remove the blue stone walls and ingratiate the earthlings with the orcs.  Since the cover was that this was a continuation of the Demonwar, that meant that the earthlings would be under Cliffside, who was to be designated Supreme Commander once more.

 

To Lumene 

Pomegranite decided to tag along with Thicket, while Mielikki and Granmarg sailed back.  Thicket, who was now after the death of Terra the most powerful terramorpher in the world, completed his work of lowering the maze walls in under a week.  Cliffside was still in his estate, pruning a tiny decorative tree, when Mielikki and Granmarg found him and told him that the Demonwar wasn't over yet.  Bird had returned to Pomegranite's chambers, and bore a message from Ulrich thanking them for the idea of the detour, as he had forgotten.

 

As the earthling armies were marching across the Sunstone Bridge, they received word from Tauschun and the League that enormous waves had struck then entire southern coast of the Empire, causing untold damage and all but wiping out the elector-city of Liguria.  Granmarg wondered what all that water meant for the Labyrinth.  Surely it would be flooded?  Mielikki groaned upon realizing he probably wouldn't be getting any more artefacts if all the adventurers he was funding had drowned.

 

They joined with the other provincial armies outside Lumene's capitol of Courcillon.  No demons were discovered on their march, and Astraeus was nowhere to be seen.  The triumvirate met with Ulrich in his command tent, and he reported that the armies of Tauschun and the League had been ranging all over the countryside but had also failed to find any demons.  He had heard one interesting rumour, however.

 

When Astraeus had returned, Edelina, Eremon, and a number of high nobles had been in a field, waiting for him; apparently the Book of the Faith had been accurate.  Shortly after his return, the demons had attacked from the rear, and Astraeus just stood and watched.  The demons were slain largely by Edelina, Eremon, the child Felix, and Baron Hugo's widow, Petronilla.  Felix was now acting as Edelina's bodyguard while she recovered, and Astraeus had sequestered himself in chambers in the palace he had been offered.  For now they were waiting for the other provinces' armies to arrive, and so the triumvirate found ways to busy themselves.

 

Granmarg went around the army camps looking for potential champions, and eventually found a big meaty country boy from one of the mercenary bands from the League.  He introduced himself, and offered an invitation to this man named Alonzo who carried a massive flail, to come train on his estate in the Highland Forests when the fighting had ended.    Alonzo said that he'd come for sure, but he'd signed up for two years, so it wouldn't be for a while.  He asked if they had good eats up in the Highland Forests, to which Granmarg replied that they had only the finest rockflower.  The crunch was really quite exquisite.  

 

Mielikki and Pomegranite, meanwhile, arranged an audience with Empress Edelina, as representatives of Emperor Uthemar.  Perhaps unsurprisingly given the provinces' rocky relations, there were many bodyguards for the Empress; her prince-consort, Louis, Felix, two angels, Hugo's widow and son, now Baron Phillippe, as well as some regular soldiers.  Edelina herself had clearly been seriously wounded and was still wrapped in bloodstained bandages some months later.  Mielikki offered his condolences for Eremon's and Hugo's deaths.

 

They chatted about the demonic attack, and Edelina was obviously annoyed that they were coming to her to learn of this firsthand when she'd already informed the other commanders from Tauschun and the League.  It had been too chaotic to notice any demon commanders or if any demons had escaped.  In her retelling, Pomegranite noted that she omitted Astraeus doing nothing to help, and got the sense from a few awkward stumbles in her speech that she was hiding something.

 

Pomegranite suggested that Astraeus' return was something truly momentous, and asked if he might be able to locate any surviving demons.  Off-handedly, Edelina again made the offer to convert, noting that it still wasn't too late to be saved, then continued on.  Astraeus was busy with something very important and had claimed that he would end the demons once and for all.  Of course, a god didn't have to tell them what he was doing, and so she hadn't pried.

 

 

Notes:

Due to the PC's (deliberately) mislabelling Astraeus as "Sungreta" in their notes, they're now constantly referring to him as her, which is confusing for all.  We can all see why Mielikki and Thicket are so mad about others misgendering Terra.

Granmarg's player when Mielikki remarked that he doesn't trust Ulrich: "Ulrich has never backstabbed anyone in the back.  It's always right to your face".

 

Pomegranite at one point mentioned that Terra had killed "half the highland forests".  Reminder that it was a dozen or so priests, and not millions of dead earthlings.  She did bring back animals, however, which everyone can agree makes her irredeemably evil.

Minor trivia note, Liguria was the homeland of Dina, the bodyguard of Luana and, formerly, the old Empress.

Lumene was formerly a Prince-Bishopric, but with Eremon's death it is now just a Kingdom (Queendom?), and Edelina controls both the elector seat and the throne.

 

In the audience with Edelina, Granmarg remarked that he wanted to seduce her so that he could get her alone and interrogate her on how her summoned angels worked.  I noted that her husband was also in the room, to which he replied "that's fine, seduce him too". 

 

Granmarg has added Edelina to the kill list.