Session 4

After escaping the prison into the sewers beneath Pax the Party rejected Raven's idea that they go seperate ways through sewer in order to avoid detection and instead followed Raven's route through the sewer. On the way they were attacked by an undead monstrosity, which Raven claimed to have been formed from the bodies of executed prisoners that have washed up into the sewers. The party took the monster head on, with Samuel Bayard Fariman jumping through the water to get on the other side of the creature, and Skarl Hrolfson paying no mind to the filthy water and fighting waste deep in the muck. They killed it and succeeded in thier escape, where they finally allowed Raven to be on his way, his part of the deal complete. As he left, he was given a stern warning as to the consequences should they find him breaking the law again.

The alarms of Pax where blaring, and the Pax military was obviously still on thier tail. They made a run south, hoping to reach forests which they could conceal themselves in. As they crossed a small road they came across a familiar carraige, it was the one they had, for a brief time, travelled in with Lady Bastier. They halted the carriage and where greeted by both the Lady and the mysterious man, Paris. They expressed thier anger at Paris's action in teleporting them into danger, to which Paris replied he had only intended to send them to Pax, but unwilling subject sometimes get thrown a little off course. He tried to play the whole thing off light-heartedly, even after he was told of the (albeit temporary) death of Aravo Zacksted.

At some point, the wandering wizard Altarius Aurelius chance to wander across the path. At first sight of the strange encounter, he thought that perhaps the party were bandits, holding up the carriage. Upon listening to the conversation taking place, he realized that something far stranger was taking place.

With the Pax militia closing in, Aravo asked Paris to transport them to thier next destination, Pacil, in order to help make up for his earlier action. Fariman was reluctant to leave behind the horses he had been so long ago promised, but soon found he had no choice.

Paris transported the party, and for some reason, Altarius, to the town of Pacil, where they appeared in a flash of light. Marcus Hildebrand had apparently saved this town from destruction at the hands of ogres once before, though he now had no recollection of it, and seeing him appear as such caused the townspeople to believe he had truely been sent by the gods to save them. The seal Marcus had placed on his last visit was beginning to fade, and the Royal Hunter's Guild was hard-pressed to defend the town. The party met with Lieutenant Lawrence, who had a small contingent of three hunters with him to defend the town. He remembered Marcus, who had fought alongside him on previous occasions. Lawrence, though a bit unwelcoming, invited the party to help him fight back the ogres. He and his men went to defend the north gate, while he sent Marcus and the party were sent to defend the south gate. Alteruis accompanied them, and the party was more than glad to have the assistance of a master of the arcane. Several waves of ogres attacked the town, but niether the north nor south gate was breached.

After the battle, the Lawrence congratulated the party on thier victory and apologized for being short with them earlier. He explained that ever since General Rover went on a "quest," taking with him much of the high-ranking officials of the guild, they had been shorthanded and Lawrence, despite being only a Lieutanant, had become the defacto leader, putting him under a lot of stress. He extended an invitation to Marcus to join the guild, which he said wasn't the first time he had made the offer, but Marcus had to decline, saying there was much work he had to do in his quest for justice.

After a rest, the party met with the innkeeper Raven had mentioned, who apparently had struck up something of a friendship with Marcus during his last stay here. They found the innkeeper in conversation with Ronald, the bard who was striving to write the adventure's of the party. After losing track of the party do to all the teleporting, he had come to Pacil in hopes to learn more about Marcus. He had explained to the innkeeper already the conditions of Marcus's amnesia. In his effort to help, the innkeeper talked about Marcus's last stay, and mentioned that Marcus had come across this town as he was on his way to Auria, apparently responding to a letter. Marcus had fought off some ogres and left his sword, covered in seals, in order to cover the town in an aura that would repel evil. The innkeeper then led Marcus to the sword.

Upon touching the sword, Marcus began to regain a fragment of his memories. He had been leaving Auria on one of his journies when he was approached by a man in snake robes, who introduced himself as one of the Scioni. At the time, Marcus only vaugely knew the term, but knew the rumors that they were criminals. The representative told him that the Scioni are not what they appear, and presented him with the Sword of Fiery Justice as a gift, a sword which existed to slay evil. He told Marcus to try to sword's powers for himself to test its abilities, and assured him that if the Scioni were truely evil they would not grant him such a sword. He told Marcus that he would find him later.

Inquiring about the letter he was responding to, the innkeeper said that it is a possibility that he left it in his old room, seeing as he left the town in a hurry and left several items behind. Upon searching the room he found the letter, which was from the Scioni representative, asking him to meet him in Auria in regards to a meeting with Hector, the Black.

Lawrence was still in town, attempting to devise a way to deal with the ogres problem for good. The party volunteered to look into the ogre caves, though Lawrence had never been able to locate them. Lawrence led the party as close as he had ever been able to trace them and returned to the town. The party was able to find the caves after surveying the area. They fought a surprisingly small number of ogres inside, and some of the ogres seemed uninterested in them. They found an old cave hermit, who hid from the ogres using a magical amulet, who let the party in on one of the secrets of the cave: the other exit was underwater in a cavern lake filled with sharks. After wandering around for a while, and getting the impression that the ogres were under some magical influence, the party found the shark tank. Marcus jumped in head first while Fariman tried to devise a method to fish the sharks out of the water using a grappling hook. He succeeded once, but on the second try he and the rest of the party were dragged into the water. They struggled against the wieght of thier armor in the water and the sharks, but eventually they were victorious and found the underwater exit.

On the other side of the cave they found a large group of ogres under the influence of a powerful mage. On closer inspection, the mage was recognized to the the Dragon Speaker of Solon, Li'liok. Li'liok noticed thier presence after Fariman attempted to sneak up onto his platform using his grappling hook. He recognized Fariman immedietly, and revealed that Fariman was in fact the Dragon Speaker in training under him. He berated Fariman for his failures, and told him that he was considered a traitor for his involvement in the purging of the Soren Labs. Fariman tried to defend himself, saying that it was not his choice, but Marcus's, and that he had no choice as the party would have overpowered him if he had tried to intervene. When questioned about his choice in companions, Fariman said, much to the shock and dismay of the rest of the party, that he had merely been using them this entire time as a means to an end becuase he had been left with no resources. Fariman argued passionately against the Dragon Speaker's accusations of treason, failure, and incompetance. The Dragon Speaker then granted Fariman one opportunity for redemption: if he truely blaimed Marcus for the destruction of the Soren Labs, then kill him now.

Fariman accepted the task with only a moment's hesistation, his loyalty to his mentor greatly outwieghing his loyalty to his new companions. Altaruis, a devout follower of Solon himself, was willing to lend his support to Fariman, as Aravo and Skarl were ready to back Marcus, but Li'liok waved his hands over his ogre horde and warned them that if anyone interfered the ogres would be upon them. This needed to be a one-on-one fight. Marcus warned Fariman that if tried to attack him, he would kill him. Fariman thanked Marcus for his services up until this point. Then the fight was on. The two clashed blade and blows, and found themselves to be evenly matched. The rest of the party was powerless to do nothing but watch as thier two comrades fought a battle that was to be to the death. They both grew weary and were covered in blood from thier wounds from the extended battle, and it was obvious that the victor would be decided soon. But then both thier bodies froze up and absolutely refused to move.

Paris walked onto the scene. But he was not the light-hearted, witty Paris they had met, he was filled with anger and frustration. He had stopped the fight with his magic and expressed his annoyance that, even without thier memories, the two had become enemies. He then teleported the ogres away before they could do any harm. Li'liok was annoyed at this interruption, and asked angrily what his former student and now traitor was doing here. Paris responded by calling him a relic of a dead age. Enraged, Li'liok conjured a fireball and sent it at Paris, only to have it reflected. Paris then teleported Li'liok away as well.

He then turned his attention to the party. He made no effort to hide his frustration at them. He told them they were supposed to be destined for something greater, that they had the potential to change the world forever, but they couldn't do that if they killed one another. He explained that "all things are part of a whole," and that they, his meeting with the Lady, thier lost memories, thier journey, all of it, was all a part of greater plan that would save the world from destruction. He then said that they needed to be made understand "the consequences of thier actions" and teleported them away.