Session 10

The party left the caves and spent another night in the remains of the dwarf village. When the awoke they found Dour'khan pouring his highly flammable alcohol all throughout the village. When questioned, he said that he intended to give his people a proper dwarven funeral, and that he intended to burn with them. After some pleading the members of the party managed to convince him that he would be better served getting revenge against the demon lords by working with the Scioni. They joined him in the funeral and Skarl Hrolfson song a traditional dwarven funeral song.

They met Paris outside the village. Paris told them that "things had changed" since they had been gone and they were needed back in Auria immedietly. He teleported them all to his sanctuary to explain the situation, where Lancaster was waiting. Beil's followers were on the move in Auria, taking action against the Church and the Scioni. Somehow Beil had become aware of the Scioni and knew where they where as well as what they were up to. Someone was leaking information about their activities. All Scioni activities were temporarily suspended until this leak was dealt with.

Paris had only one lead as to who the leak could be: the famous detective She'k Helmes. He was thought to be in Auria and known to be investigating the activities of the Scioni. Being a man of an incredibly powerful mind Paris was unable to scry his location, so he made it the party's new mission to locate She'k and deal with the leak.

Before leaving, the party let Lancaster have the demonic artifact they found in the dwarf village. They figured it would be safer with him than with Paris. They made sure to not let him handle it directly for fear of corruption. Once that was handled Paris teleported them to Auria.

They arrived near the location of the Church, or at least where the Church once was. The Church had been burned to the ground. They arrived just in time to see the body of Aravo Zacksted's mentor, Spymaster Tyle, being pulled from the debris. He appeared to be the only casuality. The investigators on the scene discovered a Vesta insignia near the site and it was determined that the likely culprits were Vesta worshippers, and the party was unable to convince them that this was the work of the demons.

The party decided on a direct method of contacting She'k. They left a cryptic message on a noticeable wall in the market district, one they were sure he would see and decypher. It pointed to the location they would meet, an abandonded building behind the market district. They spent the night in the building and awoke in the morning to find themselves being watched over by an enfeebled-looking old man. It was She'k in another one of his disguises.

She'k was investigating the Scioni on behalf of a client he wished not to disclose. He insisted that the information he had discovered on the Scioni's true purpose had not been leaked to anyone, but he had his own theories as to who was causing them. He would share them on the condition that he be allowed to speak to whoever was in charge. She'k had not been able to figure out who the leader was and was anxious to solve that mystery once and for all. The party agreed and arranged a meeting with Paris.

Once back in Paris's sanctuary She'k finally got to meet with the mysterious leader of the organization he was investigating. Him and Paris briefly exchanged information and more was learned about why She'k was interested in them. It seems in the early days of the Scioni's existense their first major supporters were the Royal Hunter's Guild. The Hunter's Guild provided the members of the Scioni with Guild credentials so they could travel freely under the guise of the nuetral organization. However, eventually the ideas of General Rover and and the Scioni differred on the course of action and the groups split.

She'k was working for the wife of a missing Hunter's Guild member. Upon his investigation he learned that he was really a Scioni using the false Hunter's Guild credentials provided to him. Paris knew the man he was speaking of but informed She'k that after the split he followed General Rover on his search for the Zenith. She'k was intrigued by this new turn of his investigation.

Before following this new lead She'k kept his end of the deal. He told them that there were other forces at work in the shadow of the city and that the party would be well served seeking out someone familiar with those shadows, such as Icabob Trainor.

While searching for Icabob the party came past the Chuch of the Demon Worshippers in Auria. Aravo decided he wanted to go inside "undercover" as a new potential member of the Church. Despite the rest of the parties concerns about his competence he went inside anyway. There he was interviewed amd "accepted" into the church. He was even introduced to Beil himself, who projected his image in a manner similiar to in the dwarven mines. Aravo hoped wouldn't be able to see through his disguise. Aravo was marked with the sign of the Church on his left hand. Once he left, he was berated by the party for not being able to find any useful information while exposing himself to the demons and getting himself branded. He insisted it was no big deal and they continued their investigation.

Shortly after they learned that Beil's men where doing everything they could to make their lives miserable. Skarl's little group of street kids he had taken under his wing had been murderer after one of the kids had his mind controlled. Afterwards the party was ambushed in the street by the city gaurds, who were arresting them for the buirning of the church. They learned that several of these guards were working under orders of the demon worshippers, but that didn't keep them from being thrown in jail while the whole situation was "sorted out." They were put into a cell across from one of the demon-worshipping guards who set them up. They were unsure how they could get into this situation without becoming enemies of Auria when suddenly the Crossbow Sniper, disguised as an Aurian guard, entered into the cells and shot the demon worshipper and then disappeared. Without his testimony there was no evidence left to hold them.

They came to the realization that the mark on Aravo's hand allowed Beil to track them. They covered his hand in heavy metal gauntlets in hopes that this would block the magic.

They finally found Icabob outside an orphanage. He was arguing with city guards about his right to go inside becuase there was great evil underneath the orphanage. The guards were trying to keep him away because he scared the children and the orphanage's matron didn't want him anywhere near them. Having learned in the past that as crazy as Icabob was, he was usually right, the party agreed to talk to the matron on Icabob's behalf. Sam Fariman gave the matron a gold bribe to take the kids out for the day, and to pay for any damages that might be done when they dug through the orphanage's floor. It was a substantial bribe for the poor orphanage so they agreed.

They told Icabob to wait outside since the matron still didn't want him to step foot on the property and began to dig themselves. They found that the orphanage was directly ontop of a cave system that ran underneath the entire city. In the main chamber of these caves they found a collective of vampires, led by Vampress Elanor. They recognized her as a woman who had been arguing with Paris a while before. She explained that her and her vampires worked loosely as allies to the Scioni. They shared similiar goals and the vampires felt that feeding on "bad guys" made their abilities 'noble.'

As the party was in the midst of negotations with the vampress Icabob and a group of his civilian "monster hunters" broke into the cave. They were ready to kill the vampires and nothing the party could say could convince them to stop. Fariman tried to stand between the two groups but ended up taking the full front of the monster hunters' fire bombs. Soon a full fight broke out between the two groups and the party was indecisive as to who to back. The entire fight turned into a huge mess as the members if the party fought on opposite sides against one another. Several of them were severly wounded and many members of both sides died. Eventually Zathras decided he had enough of it and started tossing fireballs to clear the room of both sides. Elanor was killed and Icabob was severly wounded, being dragged out at the last second by one of the surviving hunters. Aravo made it a point to finish off any surviving vampires before the party stopped to treat their wounds. They decided this incident was something that was best put behind them.

Unfortunetly the party was given little time to recover after this trauma. As they left the cave they were met by Maric Hyrogashi, who had searched out the party due to the death of his son, Byras. While he wasn't particularly upset about the death of his outcast son his death had brought dishonor to the Hyrogashi name that it fell on Maric to reclaim. He demanded a public, honorable fight-to-the-death with one of the members of the party to be held in Auria's arena. Skarl, who was quite upset about recent events, insisted that he be the party's combatant, despite Fariman's pleas that he be the fighter. Skarl met Maric in the arena and they fought an intense battle, but in the end Skarl found himself well outmatched by Maric. Maric offered him a chance to surrender and save his life if he would only lay down his honor and admit the Hyrogashi clan's superiority to his family, a proposition which caused Skarl to spit in his face. With his next blow Maric ended Skarl's life.

The other members of the party recovered Skarl's body and gave it a properal cremation and funeral service. They took his family sword and sent it, along with a message detailing Skarl's recent activities that led up to his death, to his sister, Freyja Hrolfsdottir.

Despite being a member down, the remaining party members needed to pick themselves up and continue. They still had an investigation to complete. The only problem was the vampires had all been killed off and they had isolated themselves from Icabob, leaving them with no leads. They decided to go back to the beginning, with the burned church, and investigate the death of the spymaster. They learned that the investigators in the city guard where going to conduct a ceremony to speak with the dead man's spirit and ask him personally what had happened. After some "convincing" the party got themselves an invitation to participate in the ritual.

The ceremony went as planned and the gathering was given a chance to talk to the spirit of Tyle. What they learned was shocking. Tyle had been investigating the higher-ups in the Church and learned that the High Priest, Octo, had been associating with some shady characters: vampires, criminals, even demon worshippers. He was attempting to gain power and influence for the church by any means neccessary. His plan involved burning down the church and putting the blaim on the dragon worshippers, thus causing the Aurians to put restrictions on the dragon temples and making way for a more powerful church in Auria. He also wanted the Scioni out of the way becuase he considered them a threat to his power. When Tyle confronted Octo about this plan he was attacked and locked in the church as it burned.

Octo was currently staying in the headquarters of the Crusade of Light. The city guard was going to raid the crusade headquarters and kill anyone who resisted. The party managed to show up first and convince Bastion that Octo was a traitor. Bastion dedicated the Crusaders to removing Octo from power. The guards showed up, as did Paris, and together the large group raided the headquarters. They confronted Octo who put up a great resistance despite being so outnumbered but was eventually killed.

Paris learned from his mind that Octo was being fed information about the Scioni's activity by Lancaster. Lancaster was looking to the church for support and thought he could trust Octo with this information. Paris no longer felt the church splinter faction could be trusted and the two groups went their seperate ways. The party was forced to pick a side between Paris and his Scioni and Lancaster and the church. They decided that, even though they had their disagreements with Paris they trusted the Scioni more than the Church. They sided with Paris and had to cut their ties with Lancaster.

Paris told them to rest up. With the leak plugged it was time to resume normal operations and the next demon artifact had already been located and as soon as the party had recovered from recent events they would need to move out once more.