Session 7

On the road to Auria, the party comes across roadblock in the middle of two narrow canyon pass. Fariman brazenly states out loud that it looks like a trap, and gets a response of "Well, it is a trap," from the side of the canyon. A man accompanied by two orc mercenaries and a kobold makes himself known. He introduces himself as Byras Hyrogashi, a swordsman of the famous Hyrogashi Clan and bounty hunter. Someone had put a bounty out on the heads of the party members, though he wouldn't say who, just saying, "At some point, for some reason, you pissed someone off, and now they want you dead. Simple as that." He was dissapointed that Marcus wasn't among them and would have to be hunted down individually, but was eager to start with the bounty on these three. He engaged Fariman as his companions engaged the rest of the party. Unfortunetly for him, the kobold betrayed him and sapped his strength with its arcane magic, causing him to be unable to stand up properly against the party. His other companions were killed and he was knocked unconscious then tied up.

The kobold introduced himself as Zathras. He had joined Byras's mercenary gang when he had learned who he was hunting. While being somewhat cryptic about his reasons for seeking the party out, whom he called his "prey," he did say that he knew that the party was "very important" and he wished to aid them. He introduced them all to his wyrmling charge, whom he called "the young master." While somewhat curious about the kobold's true intentions, the members of the party decided he could be useful to bring along.

The party rested from thier fight, and eventually Byras began to stir. They questioned him in every manner they could think of, but he would not, or perhaps could not, tell them who had hired him. Fariman ended up knocking him back out and the party left him, naked, and made to continue on thier way to Auria. As they left him, a quiet wooshing sound alerted the party to a crossbow bolt, fired from an unknown location, hitting Byras in the neck, killing him.

The party, Zathras included, continued on thier way to Auria. As night began to fall, they came across a small sheep farm. Apparently, in this sheep farm the sheep weren't raised for food or wool, but as "attack sheep." The prospect interested Skarl Hrolfson greatly, and the party paid for a sheep, which they named Fenris, as well as a wagon to cart him around in. After a nights rest at the farm they continued on the last leg of thier journey.

They finally arrived in Auria to find the gates closed and a long line to get in thanks to Arena Week. There they met Icabob Trainor, a monster hunter, who was in argument with one of the town gaurds. He insisted that he be let in the city to fight the monsters hidden within it, monsters that looked and acted like average people. His rantings came off sounding paraniod, but he certainly was convinced of what he was saying. After the guards refusal to let him in, he left in a huff.

The members of the party were at a loss of how they were going to get through the line without having to wait several days when the line parted for someone coming out the gate. It was Raven. To the party's surprise, and Fariman's dismay, the gaurds referred to him as "Sir Raven." Raven explained that he had finally acquired the wealth he had always dreamed in a legal fashion: instead of stealing the gold, steal the heart of a woman with plenty of gold to spare. He was now engaged to be married to one of the women of the Aurian Royal Family, and becuase it would be a disgrace to the family for one of thier women to marry a common blacksmith he was knighted and made into nobility. Fariman grumbled about him not earning his status, but Skarl was quite proud of him and wondered why he had never thought of doing something like that before.

Raven escorted the party inside the city's walls. He told them that they were being expected, and someone higher up in the Aurian Family than he was had given him the order to get them inside and instruct them to make thier way to the Church of the Trinity, where they would be expected. The party did some shopping in the city's thriving market district before making thier way towards the church.

Along the way, they came across the familiar symbol of the Crusade of Light on the door of a building near the church. They entered out of curiosity and met Richard Bastion, the leader / founder of the crusade, who looked a lot like his apparent descendant, James Bastion, whom they met in the future. In the present, the Crusade is a small start-up, an off-shoot of the Royal Hunter's Guild who believe that all evil needs to be hunted, not just the planar monster the Guild hunts. The members of the party donated a few supplies to the organization to help it get started.

They finally arrived at the church and were greeted excitedly by Spymaster Tyle. Tyle was happy to see Aravo Zacksted was still alive after he disappeared on his last mission. Aravo explained that he had lost his memories and didn't even know what mission he was supposed to be on. Tyle explained that Aravo was sent to keep an eye on Marcus Hildebrand, who had been acting strangely. Aravo told Tyle everything he had been through with Marcus. He then told Tyle he would not be staying because the mission they were currently on was more important. Tyle's feelings were hurt and he left Aravo to his business.

In the church, they met a cloaked man who told them to follow him. They followed him into a dark corner of the church and through a hidden passageway that took them through several winding, maze-like corridors. At the end of it, they came the Scioni's hidden base. The cloaked man revealed himself as Hector, the Black and they were introduced to Scioni Agent Morian as well as the contact for the Holy Trinity splinter faction, Verice Lanchaster. Paris would join them momentarily via teleportation. Hector would reveal more about his past with Paris, as they took on Vesta together and despite coming away with a trophy it was definetly a failure, as one of thier friends died and Paris was left permenately deformed.

It was explained that thier role in the quest to stop the Demon Lords was to track down powerful demonic artifacts since they had a natural resistance to thier influence. Thier first mission for the Scioni was explained to them: a rogue law-mage from Astraea's Academy of Lawful Magics had come across one such artifact: Biel's Temptation. This artifact had the power to allow you to control hundreds, if not more, minds. The mage, Pell Lent, was last seen near McTint in Astraea territory. It was explained that they would either need to destroy the artifact, as Lanchaster suggested, or bring it back for use in the war against the demons, as was suggested by Morian.

The party set out and arrived in McTint with no trouble. The town was absolutely abandoned when they found it, like everyone had just one day gotten up and walked away. Zathras divined that there would someone still lingering about the town, and with the help of his wyrmling the lone resident was discovered. He explained that shortly after a Guild hunter had arrived to do battle with ice monsters plauging the area both the hunter and the monsters had dissapeared. After that, the citizens of the town had just started walking away from the town, one by one.

During this conversation the sheep, Fenris, had begun acting strangely and walked away from the party and out of town. The party followed him to the entrance of a cave system, which the lone survivor explained was a cave they used to do activities that weren't exactly "legal" in Astraea lands. The party set down into the caves to investigate. While down there, they encountered some of the ice creatures that had been mentioned, who were for some reason guarding the cave. They also found some of the townspeople, lost in some kind of trance.

They found the source of the problems further in: the rogue mage Lent. Kneeling at his feet was the missing guild hunter and the party's friend Pierson Grey. Grey had resisted for some time, Lent had explained, due to his desire not to harm innocents, but now he was completely under Lent's control. To Lent's surprise, however, the amulet had no power over Fariman or Skarl. Fariman took the opportunity to try to grab Lent. Lent ordered Grey to attack and the fight was on. The members of the party did not want to harm Grey, as he was innocent in all this, but it became difficult as Grey was incredibly strong and nearly dropped Fariman with a single attack. Lent tried to get away from the melee by flying up on a magic disk, but Fariman was not about to let him go. He pulled out his rope, tied it into a lasso, and tossed the rope around Lent. Lent was constricted and unable to use his magic, however he was not about to be pulled from his disk. He tried to get Grey to assist him, but Zathras was doing a good job keeping Grey busy with distracting, though harmless, magic. Eventually Fariman decided if he couldn't get Lent down he would go up. He climbed the rope to Lent's disk and began clawing at the amulet, forcing Lent to drop it. Zathras's wyrmling swooped in and picked it up, releasing Grey from Lent's control. One well placed ice blast later and Zathras came tumbling down, though Fariman almost also met his death in the fall.

The amulet was given to Aravo, who had some success with a demonic artifact in the tower, and he succeeded in freeing the captivated minds of the townspeople. However, the party could not figure out how to destroy the thing, no amount of force seemed to be able to smash it. Furthermore, they needed to get Grey to help, as he was silent and unresponsive, obviously some severe damage had been done to his mind. Skarl grabbed Grey by the hand and the party set out to leave the cave and figure out what to do with the amulet.