The Assault on the Persian Line
Lords Krishna and Agni escort you to the front; Surya and Indra are here as well, but they are in direct command of the troops and will lead the attack. They don't really have the time to talk to you, and in Surya's case, any desire to do so. The current front in this area is a river valley that runs roughly North/South. The Persians control the west bank, and have fortified it in this sector. The actual attack by Indian forces will be to the south of you, where the terrain is more open. It is mainly to provide a diversion from your target, but it is being conducted in enough force to be a real threat. If they do manage to break through, Surya has enough cavalry in reserve to exploit any initial success.
Your group moves into position; you are just east of a ford in the river, behind the Indian lines. Across the river, you can see a line of fortifications manned by Kurdish hillmen, backed by Arab cavalry. West of the ford, there is a strongpoint on the ridge overlooking the valley, with at least two walls protecting a relatively level area, which is backed by cliffs that soar hundreds of feet above the river. The level area or plateau behind the walls is where your targets are believed to be. Indian intelligence reports that the walled strongpoint is defended by non-humans; type: unknown.
The diversion is launched several miles to the south of you, in the shallow bend of the river, and Lord Indra leads the assault. He suppresses the persian archers opposite his force with a series of pin-point cloudbursts, and then rakes the enemy line with more than a dozen lightning strikes. His bowmen launch thousands of arrows to rain down on the persians while Indra himself leads the advance across the river; even from this distance, you can see the light of his sword, which is said to have been fashioned by Lord Yama from powdered diamonds, the heart of a fallen star and a living thunderbolt. Time to go.
You head for the river, and the wind, pulled by Indra's power, shifts. Something on the west bank catches your scent and a roar that sounds familiar greets you as a massive shape lifts into the air on black wings: it is an assyrian sphinx, male rather than female like the Egyptian sphinx. You have fought a monster like this before, and it appears that Assurbanipal learned a new trick since then. This monster, larger than an elephant, wears iron armor that glows with magic. As it rises into the air over the west bank of the river, its shadow blots out the light around you and then Agni strikes. He is the Lord of Fire, and his power manifests as a beam of fire that shears through the sphinx to score the mountainside behind it. He then draws this lash of fire from the northern side of the enemy river defenses to a point past the southern end of the ford, leaving a swath of destruction 800 yards wide in the enemy fortifications. Agni then collapses, exhausted, but he has done his part: any horses within sight or scent of his attack are uncontrollable and flee in a panic. The surviving human defenders break and run, allowing your group to cross the ford unopposed. But the non-human defenders have been awakened, and there are two sets of walls, an outer one of stone and an inner wall of timber.
The first group of defenders to oppose the party were the inhumans tasked with moving the siege engines: a band of giants, who Assurbanipal has altered in order to resist Seelie magic. The down side of this alteration is that while they are extremely resistant to fairie magic, they are more vulnerable to physical combat (their natural armor and strength have been reduced). They unleash a hail of rocks at the party and one manages to kill Nick's faithful mount with a lucky shot to the head. (Scott, with the exception of Keith's warhorse Buster, your horse survived longer than any other player character mount in the past 20 years).
The party closed with the giants and a nasty melee ensued. The giants were holding their own until Durandal took control and made Nick go berzerk.
NICK THE GREEK & DURANDAL
When your party made the jump into the world gate beneath Malachi's castle last meeting, you did something that was unprecedented, and which had huge potential benefits but also a real risk of destruction. Each of you had to roll multiple times, but one die roll was crucial, and Scott's roll for that was 00. If we had been face to face, I would have destroyed Nick and everything he possessed, with the possible exceptions of Durandal and Hector's Armor. As it was, something possibly worse happened: Nick was magically bound to Durandal, joined in such a way that he was the perfect Feet, the wielder Durandal had been waiting for because the sword could (under certain circumstances) wield Nick. One sign of this was that when Nick succeeded with a power gain roll, Durandal always got the first point of POW.
There were certain points at which Nick would have a chance to break free of Durandal or to bend or persuade the Black Blade towards a particular goal, but it was always going to be hard to do, and had the potential for being irreversible if Durandal rolled well. That is what happened during the fight in Ra's Sanctuary: Scott rolled an 11, but Durandal rolled an 05, and given Durandal's advantage on the resistance table, 05 was a critical and 11 was just a normal success. That die roll finished it: from that point on, Nick the Greek is Durandal's Slave.
The inner wall has a gate with 4 stone statues flanking it, two on either side. You decide to avoid the possibility of the statues coming to life and give the inner gate a pass. The party was able to penetrate the second wall by climbing over it(for the most part; at one point several party members were involved in what appeared to be an attempt to throw Aurelius THROUGH that wall).
Durandal's lethality in the hands of a berzerker enabled the party to hack the last of the giants down before one of Assurbanipal's favorite pets was able to free itself and join the fight. Party members sensed Chaos and the party was attacked by a huge boar (SIZ 60+) with chaotic abilities; it caught your scent and broke its bonds. You managed to hack the boar down, but were then faced with the dilemma of dealing with a berzerk party member, while also having to align one siege engine, sabotage the other two and steal an enchanted metal plate that is associated with the teleportation magic of the towers. In the midst of this, the party senses chaos when a series of flickering lights appear to the north; members of the party remember that those kinds of lights are visible indications that Assurbanipal is opening a teleportation gate of his own, and shortly afterwards, the party is attacked by a flock of Assurbanipal's pet demons.
You manage to incapacitate Nick, destroy two of the siege towers, align the 3rd siege tower (and set it on fire), steal the enchanted metal plate, open the portal to Ra's Sanctuary, and get most of the party through, all the while keeping Nick from killing anyone and slaughtering a whole bunch of Assurbanipal's demons. All of this attracts the wrong kind of attention: the flickering lights appear at the northern end of the plateau again and this time, Aurelius (the last one through the portal) can literally SEE the cloud of demons come pouring through.
There are hundreds of them, and everyone near the portal on either side can feel the pull of a powerful magic that violates all the laws of nature, and you suspect that Assurbanipal himself has come through that gate. Aurelius runs for the portal and is jumped by half a dozen demons, who attempt to force him off of the tower. They fail, but Aurelius is forced to drop one of the swords he is carrying, an enchanted weapon made for him in Calcutta. The other sword is Durandal (who got stuck in something while Nick was berzerk); the demons fail and Aurelius makes it to the end of the siege tower's platform just as the Lords of India spring their trap.
Shiva is here; he made his way to the front in secret, hoping that the Persians would commit significant resources in an attempt to wipe your party out. He could then crush them with nothing more than the possible loss of the bait (You). The plan worked better than the Seelie could hope, because it looks like their hated foe has made a personal appearance, and Shiva unleashes his full power. Shiva is the Lord of Destruction and his power is the ability to break the bonds that bind one molecule to another. He draws his power down the west side of the valley from north to south, to cut Assurbanipal off from the gate that brought him (or whoever that is with the demons), and the devastation left in the wake of his magic is terrifying. Rock is turned to fine sand, wood to drifting ash and flesh and blood into an oily red mist.
Then Aurelius plunges through the portal and it closes behind him. The party has escaped into the sanctuary of Ra's Refuge. Aurelius returns Durandal to Nick and you look at the small but magical land around you.
The quiet valley you found several years ago has changed. It looks…bigger. Brighter too. The sparkling stream that runs through the center of it is wider and deeper, and the mallorn sapling that Arre planted has grown to a height of 100 feet with golden foliage that seems to glow with a light of its own. There is a constant breeze blowing through the Refuge, and it comes from the double doors standing wide open on the northern side of the valley, the doors through which the party came when you first opened the sanctuary to the outside world. This wind is actually visible at the point where it passes through the doors, and you realize that it is not a normal wind, but visible magic; the power that Ra gains from his followers' adoration as it pours into the Refuge, and into Ra's grasp.
All of your wounds are healed, and you are enveloped by a feeling of good will as Ra welcomes you back to his home.
Ra summons Aurelius, his loyal follower, and the party sets off towards a marble shrine set atop a low hill at the southern end of the valley. The stone of the shrine has a golden sheen of its own, and you realize that this is the spot where Aurelius turned to gold when you first found the valley. The shrine was visible only to Aurelius at that time, but it is visible to everyone now. You open the doors to the shrine and sunlight pours out, but it does not blind you; you are welcome here.
The shrine is very simple, but beautiful. It is designed to focus everyone's attention on the golden sarcophagus standing upright at the northern of the shrine, which glows of its own light. Your party files into the shrine and Aurelius opens the sarcophagus; it is mostly empty, except for the severed and still living head of Ra. (If you know the story of Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, you have heard of the legend that the most powerful figures of Fairy legend could survive decapitation.)
The head's eyes open, and Ra speaks to the party, thanking them for their aid and support, and promising them suitable rewards when "our struggle is over". But first, Ra must regain his full strength, and that requires that he take possession of the body which he has been preparing for this event for the past few years. Aurelius's body.
Ra orders Namon to cut Aurelius's head from his body, and place the head in the sarcophagus. Namon is to then place Ra's head on Aurelius's body, so that Ra can complete the process of joining the two together and lead you and his armies in the looming war with the Seelie Courts of Europe. One of the first acts of Ra will be to find a suitable body for Aurelius, of course. Aurelius stands and waits for Namon to sever his head. Namon draws his sword and approaches Aurelius, and is going to strike when Baclane invokes Divine Intervention from Ma'at. Baclane wants to know if he should allow this to happen, and when Ma'at answers, her voice is heard by all of her followers in the shrine.
"This is wrong!!!" is her response, and the rest of the party acts to stop Namon from cutting Aurelius's head off, and both of Ra's followers turn their weapons on those who would oppose Ra's will. And so begins the first full-scale player on player combat in any of my campaigns in a very long time. I honestly cannot remember any time in the last 25 years that I allowed this to happen. This went far beyond dealing with the occasional berzerker.
Ra takes part in the combat by slamming multiple Sunspears onto party members every round of combat. The two seelie played by Bob and Rich Frantz drew a lot of this away from the rest of the party by diving out of the shrine and bolting for the doors in the north end of the valley. If they could close those doors, they could cut Ra off from a great deal of his power. In doing so, both characters set records for surviving multiple Sunspears over consecutive rounds of combat.
The melee that followed was a nasty one, complicated by Durandal and Ra's defenses. Nick tried to turn Durandal on Ra, but Durandal succeeded in imposing his will on Nick; with a critical success, that control is complete and permanent. When Nick told Durandal that he wanted to kill Ra, the sword replied in a way that everyone in the shrine could hear: "We're going to kill them ALL!!!" Apparently, Durandal has gone round the bend.
Ra's defenses were imposing; basically any attack with a non-magical weapon was going to fail, as was any normal spell. Anyone who actually swung or fired a weapon at Ra's head would be struck by a magical counterattack. Any attack with any of the five elements (earth, air, fire, water, darkness) or chaos would have been absorbed by the sarcophagus and either used to fuel Ra's magic or turn against the party if it was an elemental creature. The only things that could kill Ra were a successful Sever Spirit delivered by touch, a killing blow with Durandal, Forodnaur, Mark's bow, Thad's bow or Aurelius's sling, or a lethal dose of magic that Ra had never seen before.
Enter Gupta the God Slayer.
Gupta gained access to the elemental magic of plasma after living through the deluge of magic that poured out of the world gate beneath Malachi's Castle of Iron. Ra has never seen plasma magic before, and his defenses are weakest against it. Gupta had been working on this new type of magic (these things take time) and he unleashed it to devastating effect in the shrine. He used the ball spell, which is area effect and which did not have the huge penalties to hit that the bolt spell would have had, and granted, his first spell went a bit off (he blasted Arre and Baclane and knocked them both out of the fight temporarily). But his second spell managed to do critical damage to Ra (not easy) and then Dwayne (for the 2nd time that weekend) managed to open-end his critical roll TWICE. This meant 3 die rolls for a total number in the mid 200s on the Role Master super large creature crit table, resulting in a blast of magic that entered Ra's eye sockets and blasted his brains to cinders.
Ra died, finally. Aurelius and Namon lost any type of magic that they gained from Ra, and the valley of Ra's Refuge, Ra's very own pocket universe, started to come apart at the seams. Leaving Durandal behind (I believe he got stuck in Aurelius's shield) as the shrine collapsed, the party ran like heck for the northern gates. Only Arre tarried slightly to gather a seed from the Mallorn tree before high-tailing it out the gate. The party then began the long journey north up the tunnel that led back to the normal world and to the island in the harbor of Alexandria.
The party spent a day resting on the northern shore of Pharos island, and were rescued by Barinthus, the powerful old Seelie lord of the sea; he had been scouting the northern frontier of Ra's domain when he spotted you. He's delighted (and impressed) to hear that you have put paid to Ra's attempted comeback. He says that Taranis, Lord of Light and Illusion, and Anandais, Queen of Air and Darkness and the rest of the Seelie of Europe will want to thank the party. He summons several braces of whales and dolphins to help, and after the party builds a raft from the fishing boats that Barinthus brings you, uses his minions to pull the party north and west by easy stages, past Rhodes and Greece, south around the island of Sicily and then north past Corsica and Sardinia to Marsallia, the port that is now Marseille, on the southern coast of France. There the party rested and refitted, while waiting for the royal summons to the joint Seelie Courts; apparently, they've got something significant planned for the heroes who prevented another cataclysmic war with Ra. (you have of course left out the part where Aurelius and Namon sided with Ra in your little argument). While you're getting some well-earned R&R, you receive word from the harbormaster that a ship flying the flag of Assurbanipal has approached the harbor flying the flag of truce and towing a heavily laden barge. They want to talk to you, and the Frankish military governor of this area has the barge and the Persian emissary brought in to the docks.
The barge is loaded with something fairly heavy that is well and tightly covered by waterproof materials; members of the party can tell that it contains something intensely magical. But what draws you attention at first is what (or who) is sitting on top of the barge. It is a nightgaunt, a member of the seelie High Hunt, and not just anyone, but the friend and companion of Lysteria who was captured by Assurbanipal's scouts in eastern europe nearly two years ago. It has some unusual scars on its torso and limbs but…no, no, it's fine. And overjoyed to see you all again. The Persian emissary clears his throat theatrically and proceeds to read from an embossed parchment the following:
quote:
"From Asshurbanipall, Lord of all of Arabia, Warlord of Islam, Heir of Hittia, Scion of Nineveh, Child of Erluk, of the Blood of Enlil, the Feared, The Wise, Lord of Wizardry, Sorcerer Paramount of the Known World, Inheritor of Alexander, Conqueror of India, to those who follow the Banner of Hector and who sail the ship called Liafail III:
Dearest Friends,
Please I beg you, Forgive Me. All the ill will that hath passed between us has been a horrible mistake on my part. I, and I alone am to blame for this. Had I known that those benighted ones, the followers of the Red Moon were plotting against our world, I would never have aided them. And had I known that the son of a pustulent camel known as the Emir of North Africa had planned the death of your companion, the Frankish lord Roland, I would have warned you, even though you did not need my humble aid in your inevitable victory.
To those who say that I danced a jig around my tower in Mecca when I heard that you had put down that diseased scorpion Malachi, disrupted his power and pulled down his fortress in the space of a day and a night, I can only admit that sheer unadulterated joy at your success lent wings to my feet. So imagine my dismay, my horror, my tears of frustration to find that my servants impeded you (however briefly) in your defeat of that mad dog Ra. Had I only known that you needed my siege towers, I would have given them to you! Rest assured that their loss is a mere inconvenience; indeed I'm glad that they were of service to you.
I beg you to allow me to make some measure of restitution for my rudeness and my offenses, and to express to you in some small way my gratitude for all you have done for me. This barge contains not only your companion (who has been a truly delightful guest this past while with me), but also 15 million silver pieces (10 million in silver and gold bars and specie, 5 million in assorted gems, spices etc, see attached list) and this magical artifact called by some the Orb of Worlds. I believe it is of some interest to you.
I realize that our past disagreements might seem to be obstacles to a close relationship: yes, you defeated my armies, sunk my ships, sacked one of my cities, and slaughtered my pets with a joyous abandon that was really rather impressive. But I can get more. What does worry me is that I might not get is another chance for us to be the comrades we were obviously meant to be. I am your greatest admirer, and I hope we can meet soon to our mutual advantage.
Sincerely,
Your Bunny Slippers
In an ivory box on the barge, you find the Orb of Worlds, and you are able to test its authenticity with the Sword of Macedon. You now have all three artifacts that you need to open the world gates: the Horn of Nearchos, the Sword of Macedon and the Orb of Worlds. It would be easier to wait for the Liafail III to return (which will take some months), but you now have the basic tools you need to leave this world.
A few nights later, you meet the assembled Lords of the Seelie Courts in the hills above Marsala. The Seelie are extending their influence now that Malachi is gone, and they are returning to areas they have not seen since the time of Julius Caesar. The Courts reward all of the party handsomely for their defeat of Ra. You have literally prevented a war of potentially catastrophic scope, and they appreciate it.
Indeed, the followers of the King of Light and the Queen of Darkness strive to outdo each other in trying to reward you, which leads to some confusion when you finally return to your homebase in Kael. Overlapping enchantments cast by different Seelie Lords cause your home to disappear until you stumble onto the problem and set things right. On your way north, you stop in at Aachen to report to King Louis; while paying your respects, and receiving his thanks again for taking down Malachi, you hear news of the world.
Africa is a mess, with rival warlords fighting over different provinces, and the Berbers resurgent in response to some prophecy from a woman said to be a ghost. No coherent news is available from Egypt, although there are rumors of war. The Byzantine Empire is quiet; Prince Michael's Turks are settling in on the Danube frontier and are already serving the Empire as a buffer: a new nomadic tribe, the Magyars have come riding out of the east, and they prefer not to fight their Turkish relatives. They have instead moved into the area north of the Danube and are making life miserable for the Bulgar and Slav tribes in that area.
The Northlands are quiet, although there are rumors that the King of the Swedes is building ships.
There is no news of India; you may not get any that is reliable until the Liafail III makes it back, and that will take some months yet.
As you settle into your home at Kael, life seems to be going rather well.
It is now January 1, 815 A.D.