Hiding from tomorrow
and hades wrapped in clouds
ride the breeze
so cold as ice

The faithful, the fallen
have faith to the ones with pride
the faithful, the fallen
and glance of day will never shine

We find our heroes at a moment of crisis. They have negotiated their way out of a tense and complex situation with a band of 20 knights of the Order of the Morrigan, an order of ruthless mercenaries who go to war in honour of their foul Fomori wargods. Although they have avoided slaughter at the hands of these evil folk, they watched as 10 of the knights departed in haste for the town of Crois Arald to hunt down the Fomori deserter that the PCs knew was hidden there. Having already hatched a suspicion that these Morrigan were somehow connected to the slaughter of those deserter Fomori, the PCs needed to get back to town quickly to help the lone Fomori hiding there. They took their leave of the leader of the Morrigan and headed as fast as they could back to the town.

Unfortunately the PCs were slowed down by two wagons – Xenobia of course rode in her noblewoman’s wagon, accompanied by her manservant Wagonsworth, and also by her maid Purple; but they were also slowed down by the wagon of a Korr called Percivole, who they had rescued from the necromancer[1]. So they were not able to keep up with the detachment of Morrigan, and by the time they reached the town the Morrigan had already begun to execute their search. They had begun dragging people out of their houses and forcing them into the central square, while some knights had fanned out to search more outlying buildings. In the center of the square a Far Daragh stood on a platform, massive sword in hand, red armour gleaming in the sun – Far Daragh are Fomori executioners, tasked with killing Fomori who have broken the strange and evil codes of that ancient and vicious race. No one was yet hurt, although they had beaten the sheriff unconscious when he tried to assert his authority, but it was obvious that if anyone resisted they would die. Worse still, the PCs knew that the Fomori deserter, Ilid, was hiding in a building on the southern side of the town, and the Morrigan were approaching it. They were accompanied by a Seacal, a kind of dog-human race that is renowned for its tracking skills. They had to act fast.

They split up. Ichimusai and Leantoir walked towards the main square from the east, to disrupt the rounding up of citizens and in hope of making a distraction. Xenobia and Korr parked his wagon on the road heading out of town, to block entrance to more knights from the north, and headed along a different road to the square in Xenobia’s wagon. Idril climbed a watchtower on the edge of town to get an overview of the area and be able to cast spells at anyone in the area. Fellan slipped into the shadows of the buildings and headed south to try and get to their Fomori deserter before the Morrigan.

Xenobia and Persivore reached the square from the northern road and began talking to the guards just as Ichimusai and Leantoir were stopped by three guards on the eastern road. Ichimusai was wearing a banner that proclaimed him “Ichimusai, greatest fighter under heaven”, intended as a challenge, but the Morrigan were not stupid enough to accept his challenge, so they stood in the road watching each other warily. Xenobia began asking the guards who stopped her what was happening, but as the conversation began the Seacal saw Fellan, and fired at him with a bow. The arrow struck Fellan hard in the side and as he fell the Seacal let out an unholy howl. Hearing that howl the Morrigan grabbed their swords, which Ichimusai interpreted as a challenge, and battle was joined. As the battle started the guards speaking to Xenobia panicked and, thinking her a normal noblewoman accompanied by her manservant, dragged her from her cart and into a nearby building for her own protection, one standing in the room facing the door as a guard while two more stood outside covering the door.

Xenobia waited until the guard’s back was turned and, gesturing to Persivole to draw his pistol, stepped forward, touched the man on the back of the head, and began to rip his soul from his body. He resisted, but the pain and damage was intense, and as he struggled he turned, wreathed in crackling black lightning, to face Persivole, his face drawn and withered, skin taught, veins standing out black and pulsing against unnaturally pale skin, eyes pools of black dripping tears of blood. Persivole shuddered and shot him in the face, blowing his head across the windows and walls and making a huge hole in the door. The guards outside turned in shock, not yet knowing what horrors lay inside that room.

Across the square Ichimusai and Leaintor went to work on their opponents, who acted first, attacking the huge and intimidating druid with their great swords and beating him near to death. Ichimusai killed one with the first swift and silent draw of his weapon, and Leaintor beat on another one. From the tower Idlir cast healing magic on both Leaintor and Fellan, who rushed towards the house where the Fomori was hiding. Unfortunately for everyone, as Fellan was rushing towards the house the Fomori emerged and ran towards the Seacal and one of her accompanying Knights, attacking them in a mad suicide mission. The other two Knights accompanying the Seacal had broken back to the square, hearing sounds of slaughter and gunfire.

Xenobia and Persivole stood in the room, waiting patiently for the guards to enter as Xenobia screamed for help and the Korr reloaded his pistol. Smoke and cordite mingled with the steely smell of blood and the strange, oily stench of dark magic. The guards rushed into the room and Xenobia hit both of them with a crackling nimbus of dark energies, rotting the flesh on their bones as they rushed in to come to her aid. Persivole shot one in the chest, blasting him back out of the door. He flicked the shell from his pistol and tried to act calm as the room filled with the cawing of distant crows and the stench of rotting corpses. Xenobia’s magic has a certain signature.

On the far side of the square Ichimusai and Leaintor pummeled on the remaining two soldiers, killing one and badly injuring another. Idlir stunned the knights facing Fellan and the Fomori as Fellan, dodging another arrow from the Seacal, charged into battle and struck the dog-man in the face with a powerful sweep of his longsword. Now the Seacal was injured and Fellan was whole, the tide of battle turning slightly towards the Sidhe assassin.

In the room Xenobia and Persivole shared a brief glance as Persivole dodged the surviving guard’s sword blow. Xenobia stepped forward and touched the Morrigan, striking him with such a wave of black power that his soul was pushed from his body whole, briefly appearing whole and intact and glowing pure and steady in the air of the room before turning black and crystalline, mouth opened in a silent scream of terror, and then dissipating on invisible winds of dark magic. Somewhere funeral bells rang and the room hung heavy and cloying with the smell of charnel houses and rose incense. Persivole, gagging, flung open the door and fired his pistol at a guard standing on the far side of the square. At the same time Ichimusai and Leaintor entered the square, Ichimusai leaping over one guard to land on the far side of the square facing the guards coming from the south.

Down the south road the Seacal dropped her bow and leapt at Fellan, attempting to knock him over and savage him but missing. Fellan pushed her down and beat her with both his swords, hacking at her head until she lay still and broken on the roadside. Then he and the Fomori set about the callous murder of the other Morrigan soldier while in the square Persivole, Leaintor, Ichimusai and Xenobia teamed up to finish off the remaining three Morrigan. Moments later the battle was done as fast as it had begun, 10 Morrigan and a Seacal dead and the party largely unharmed, except for Ichimusai who stood purring and swaying at the edge of the square, near done for under the weight of multiple sword strikes. Leaintor stepped forward and placed a gentle hand on the giant cat man’s arm, suffusing him with the glow of druidic healing magic. Xenobia moved to pat Persivole on the shoulder in a gesture of triumph, but he ducked away from her touch with an expression of horror. Behind them blood dripped off the windows, and whispering spirits subsided into silence.

They saw the citizens of the town back to their homes and negotiated with the Far Daragh, who looked nonchalantly about him at the ruins of the Morrigan, announced “Nothing to execute here” and walked away. Fellan followed him at a discreet distance, hoping to find out how the Fomori returned to their kingdom beyond the mists. Ichimusai fashioned a banner that stated “Your men were slain by ichimusai, unequalled under heaven” and planted it in the middle of the square. Hours later Fellan returned to tell them that the Far Daragh had taken a horse, and he had lost track of him, but before then the Far Daragh had met with the other half of the Morrigan force and told them about the events in the town. They debated whether to set up an ambush in the town, and finally decided to head out of town and lay an ambush in the hills to the east. If the Far Daragh’s report did not convince the Morrigan to seek vengeance on the party, Ichimusai’s banner surely would.

Before they left the town the Fomori deserter thanked them, and by way of thanks gave them a fragment of a diary she had found in the ruins of a church to the north east. This document described the final movements of a famous woman who had previously defeated the Fomori in an earth shattering war 300 years ago. The Fomori deserter thought that this letter might be relevant to the reason the Fomori had recently made war in this area – perhaps they were seeking the “memento” the woman mentioned in the diary. The characters decided that once they had killed the remaining portion of the Morrigan they would seek more information about the contents of this diary entry. Thanking the Fomori deserter, they headed out of the town towards the east, to set up an ambush for the Morrigan and lead them to a certain fate…

fn1: I completely forgot to mention this in the previous write up. Korr are a kind of dwarf-like race of engineers and grumps, and this Korr had been turned into a chicken by a trap in the necromancer’s lair, but when they killed the necromancer he returned to his previously slightly larger form. They recovered his gear and his wagon, and now he traveled with them