Wandering Wolves: The Fury's Tinderbox (2)

Barrakas 25 - Rhaan 21, YK 999

Though some of the Wolves, notably William, were skeptical of Kalibar's plan, the Wolves nonetheless boarded the Brelish Stormship Galifar's Pride and took the seven-day journey across the Thunder Sea and into Manta Bay, where a simple rowboat took them to the shore, less than 20 miles from Shaarat Kol, fortress of the kobold lord Kethelrax the Cunning.

The Wolves traveled quietly and carefully along the Graywall Mountains, following a map given to them by Kalibar. During their three-day journey, they saw a flight of gargoyles and harpies, as well as a massed army of kobolds and goblins, but no one saw them. Finally, as the sun began to set on the third day of travel, they spotted what they thought was the cave entrance.

Pel went in first, scouting to see what was inside. He saw a group of 10 gnolls and their hyenas waiting inside, clearly on some kind of guard duty, but there was no sign of Ambassador Nashar the medusa. He went back to the Wolves and they discussed diplomatic options, but quickly and correctly guessed that the gnolls wouldn't greet visitors with any kind of open mind.

Instead, the Wolves moved in to fight in the choke point of the cave, trying to prevent the gnolls from using their mobile pack tactics. William drew in several of the gnolls while Brand and Luggoth closed in to attack two of the claw fighters and Pel moved in stealthily to attack their acolyte. The Wolves quickly learned that the hyenas had acid for blood and saliva.

The battle lasted for over a minute, and the hyenas and gnolls fought effectively, ganging up on William and even bringing him down temporarily, although Pel and Lysander were able to heal him quickly and get him back into the fight. However, it became clear to the gnoll acolyte that the battle was lost, so he and his hyena withdrew to a deeper part of the cave. The Wolves, battered and winded from the fight, took a moment to rest before chasing after them, and although Lysander was able to use his magic to coax the acolyte back in so that Brand, Luggoth and William could finish him off, the Wolves were unable to chase down the hyena, who fled down a side passage.

With no time to rest, the Wolves got into a defensive position, and they heard a loud thudding sound coming from the passageway. A few seconds later, a massive ogre Warhulk emerged, swinging his mace around menacingly. All around him, undead Witherlings hopped and jumped, eager to battle their master's foes, Brand spotted a flickering shadow as the Medusa's Venom-Eye Basilisk darted into the room and seconds later, Nashar the Medusa herself stepped into view, her bow at the ready.

While Pel unleashed a torrent of holy fire on the ogre, William, Brand and Luggoth moved in to destroy the Witherlings before they could use their numbers to overwhelm the adventurers. Luggoth and Lysander moved in to attack Nashar while William and Brand focused on the basilisk and the Ogre. Luggoth fell to Nashar's attacks, calcifying into a stone form, and despite their success at destroying the Witherlings, it became clear to the Wolves that they were on the losing side of this battle.

Lysander, snatching a sort of victory out of certain defeat, used arcane magic to enhance his already formidable diplomatic skills and convinced Nashar that the Wolves were there to protect her from the Shifting Blades. Or at least, he convinced her enough to let them surrender as prisoners, rather than having them killed. She insinuated that she'd take them to Lord Kor as an offering of good faith, and he could decide whether they were telling the truth or not.

Not a minute later, the Oni Mage Crezyan Rrac and his retinue of ogres and trolls entered the cave, meeting their appointed rendezvous with Nashar and helping her to secure her newfound prisoners.

XP Earned: 546

The Wolves were traveling in supply wagons, part of the convoy that the Oni Mage Crezyan Rrac had put together to get Nashar safely to their ship. Crezyan rode in one of the secure armored wagons at the front, as did Nashar and her pet basilisk, and alongside them walked over a dozen Ogres and two Bladerager trolls. Pel and Lysander were in one wagon, William and Brand in another, and Whitehearth and the stone form of Luggoth in the third.

On the night of the second day of travel, the Wolves, tied-up and disarmed but otherwise still packing their usual equipment, heard the ogres inviting the goblin wagon drivers over to the fire to eat. The Wolves were tired, and some of them were dozing, but Brand realized that he hadn't heard any sound for several minutes.

He poked his head out just in time to see Nashar's ogre bodyguard flailing toward them, falling heavily to the ground and crying out "Wolves! Ambush!" before succumbing to his wounds. On the ground amongst the wagons, ten of the ogres and one of the trolls lay dead, as did the basilisk. Nashar, however, was running toward the supply wagons as the trolls and ogres turned to follow her.

Lysander escaped from his restraints and called Nashar over to their wagon as Brand cut himself free with a hidden dagger, which he then handed over so that William could do the same. The troll and ogres began moving toward the supply wagons, and Lysander produced his scimitar from one glove of storing, handing it to Pel, and produced his lute from his other glove, singing a song to deflect attention away from himself and Nashar.

Crezyan took to the air, revealing himself not as a fellow ogre but an Oni Mage for the first time, and fired lightning at the Wolves, as Brand ordered Whitehearth to grab William's sword and bring it to him. Just in time, as William got Terminus in his hand just as he was surrounded by ogres and the troll.

"Nashar" stabbed Lysander with a vicious sneak attack and then continued to attack him as the other Wolves battled the ogres, troll and oni, all the while trying to figure out what was going on. Who was being ambushed? What had happened? Were any of these the Shifting Blades?

Lysander cleverly used his veil spell to make all the Wolves appear as Nashar. This stymied the ogres momentarily, until Crezyan blasted them with his freezing blast and yelled "Attack them all, you fools! I can take Wereath's place if need be!"

Wereath was a name that Pel had heard before, someone who worked for the Tyrants, and he began taunting "Nashar" and trying to argue that his allies had turned on him. "Nashar," now revealed as Wereath, shifted form into that of a hobgoblin to differentiate himself from the Wolves and responded that "that's how it goes in the heat of battle, Pel."

While Pel and Wereath sparred both verbally and literally, William continued to battle the ogres and troll almost single-handedly, and Brand used his dimensional bond to tie himself to the Oni Mage so he couldn't escape. Wereath, badly wounded, attempted to flee, but Lysander bit the head off an arrow and fired the blunt shaft into the back of the doppelganger's head, knocking him out cold.

Crezyan turned invisible and flew toward Nashar's wagon, although Brand was in hot pursuit thanks to his dimensional bond. The two of them battled briefly inside the wagon, standing astride the real Nashar's dead body, until Lysander threw open the door to join the fray, ruining Crezyan's plan to defeat Brand and shapeshift to take his place.

William, with late assistance from Pel, finished off the last of the ogres, and the two bloodied Wolves turned to face the unharmed Troll Bladerager, who grinned widely. However, Crezyan, badly beaten and in danger of losing and being captured, decided to flee, and even Brand's last-ditch teleportation, which sent him forty feet into the air for one last strike at the invisible foe couldn't bring him down.

Disgusted, the Troll yelled out "Crezyan, you coward! I could have murdered them all!" before rushing off into the night himself.

XP Gained: 713

After casting their gentle repose scroll on Nashar and cutting two of the wagons free, the Wolves took Wereath prisoner and began traveling towards their rendezvous point on the shore with the Galifar's Pride. They stopped briefly when Wereath woke up to interrogate him, and learned that "he" was in fact a her.

Their intimidation went fairly easily, as no one corrected Wereath's assumption that William was still a vampire, and Lysander and Pel were able to bluff and get Wereath to agree to tell them what she knew in exchange for being released here in Droaam, instead of taken back to Breland. A "professional courtesy," she told Pel, adding that if he were to become Tyrant One, she would serve him if he wanted.

Wereath revealed everything she knew about the Shifting Blades' plan. Their orders had come from Tyrant One, and he had been operating under orders from some higher power. This same higher power had gotten their hooks into Crezyan Rrac and convinced him to betray his uncle Tzaryan and his ally the Queen of Stone by helping the Wereath replace Nashar. Crezyan and his ogre allies had, under the cover of a silence ritual, attempted to murder Nashar and her bodyguards, with the intent of replacing her with Wereath.

At that point, Wereath would go to the Trolanport rendezvous, make a mark outside the safehouse to let the Shifting Blade ally watching know that the switch had successfully taken place, and then go to the meeting with Lord Kor. This meeting was to take place at the Trolanport Platinum Theatre, where Lord Kor was attending a short-run new play by House Phiarlan, Delkan & Lyrich. With the Shifting Blades in place at the theater in various capacities to act as backup, Nashar would publicly assassinate Lord Kor, further cementing hostilities between Droaam and Breland.

In the event that Nashar didn't make the mark, indicating that the switch had not successfully taken place, the backup plan was for the Shifting Blades to again play the role of the Wolves and to assassinate both Nashar and Lord Kor.

Satisfied that her information was good, Pel released Wereath, over some grumblings from William, and the Wolves began planning for what to do. They developed a plan that involved Pel taking Nashar's place, pretending to have foiled the attack by Wereath and Crezyan so that the Shifting Blades would attack Lord Kor. Using Lysander's Phiarlan contacts, the Wolves would infiltrate the production as well, and defeat the Shifting Blades in full view of a huge crowd, including Lord Kor, thus proving their own innocence. Brand searched Crezyan Rrac's wagon and found that he had the materials to make up new batches of Oil of Flesh Returned, enough to restore Luggoth and give him one extra. It would take some time, so they traveled the rest of the way with Luggoth in stone form in the wagon.

XP Gained: 100

The Wolves made their rendezvous with the Galifar's Pride and sailed back towards Trolanport. However, only a few hours away from the Droaamish shore, they were attacked, as a band of Sahuagin raiders swarmed onto the ship!

The Brelish sailors defended their ship while the Wolves moved to engage the monstrous Sahuagin Baron and his priests. The battle was tough, severely wounding Brand, William and Lysander, but through applications of healing magic and deadly force, the Wolves managed to slay the Baron, causing the remaining Sahuagin survivors to abandon their attack.

XP Gained: 676

The Wolves had learned from Wereath that there were five remaining Shifting Blades. One of them, Bella Gorram, was a Briar Hag, a new addition to the group that Wereath knew little about. The other four, however, were all Changelings. There was Coltak the Beastmaster, Fezyek the Poisoner, Valeris the Arcane and Borath the Blade.

Brand had managed to put together enough Oil of Flesh Returned to restore Luggoth, and so the Wolves were at full strength as they disembarked from the Galifar's Pride and rowed into the port of Trolanport, one night before Lord Kor was to see the curtains rise on Delkan & Lyrich, and possibly set on his life.

They again settled in at The Witchfire House as a base of operations from which to plan and operate. While Lysander went to the Platinum Theater to get them in, William went to the airship tower where he had fallen to his death, nearly a year ago. He was surprised when he got there to see a Deneith sentry guarding something below. Upon closer inspection, it was a plaque of remembrance for him, saying very kind things about his courage and ability, apparently placed there at the request of his mother. Surprised and more than a little pleased at this revelation, he returned to the inn.

Lysander went to the theater and met with Diandra d'Phiarlan, an older elf whose interests in the House lay strictly with performance. She had little interest in the doings of the Serpentine Table, and though she respected Lysander for his performance abilities, she left little doubt that his skill as a spy was a detriment in her eyes.

Still, Lysander was charming enough convince her not to inform Lord Kor's Red Cloak security about the impending attack, and to allow his friends to take places during the show. She insisted, however, that they didn't have room for layabouts, and that if Lysander and the Wolves wanted to be in the show, they would have to really be in the show. She demanded that he bring his friends back to audition the next morning.

Slipping past the Red Cloaks at the door, who viewed them with no small amount of suspicion, the Wolves could see that the Platinum Theater was busy in anticipation of the important performance. Waiters prepared trays for food, illusionists practiced their spells, musicians tuned their instruments, actors practiced their choreography and lines and the animal trainers did their best to keep the horses and wolves calm. The Wolves couldn't help but feel that the sound of actual wolves yipping in the background was a good sign for them. While the rest of the Wolves went to audition, Pel slipped away quietly to investigate the theater.

Unfortunately, the auditions did not go particularly well. Brand attempted to get Whitehearth to do tricks to impress Diandra, but he misunderstood at first. Once he realized what was going on, however, he performed well enough that Diandra let Brand and Whitehearth settle in with the animals and their trainers. Luggoth proved that he could move boxes easily and became a stage hand. William offered to play a role in the staged battles, but when faced with an actor in mock combat, even holding back, he was unable to stop himself from knocking the poor man silly with a wooden sword. Diandra refused to let William into the show, and the Wolves decided instead that he could pose as the anonymous Deneith bodyguard of Nashar. Lysander had no trouble convincing Diandra to let him play his instrument with the rest of the orchestra in the pit.

Pel, meanwhile, moved about the theater gathering information both tangible and less-so. He nabbed production schedules and other notes that led him to believe that the ideal time for the Shifting Blades to strike at Lord Kor would be during the third act, when the cacophony of battle was being simulated during the epic ballad that closed out the show. He also decided that the waiters would have the easiest time moving freely throughout the theater, and that one of the valets or waiters must have been one of the Shifting Blades.

Brand learned that the dire wolf in the production was a recent replacement, which made him suspicious, but he was unable to discern any sinister intent, or to read any relationship with one of the trainers over any of the others.

Pel (disguised as Nashar) and William went to Kalibar's safe house later that afternoon to let him know what was going on. Kalibar was nervous about a plan that involved putting Lord Kor in jeopardy, but acknowledged that he owed the Wolves a huge debt, and decided that risking his own neck by not informing Lord Kor's security would make them even. He learned the basics of the Wolves plan and sent them on their way so that he could have the Jorasco healer at the safe house, who had been blackmailed by Kalibar in his role as a Boromar Clan enforcer, could restore Nashar to life when the time came.

XP Gained: 50

The night of the performance came, and the Wolves were in their places. Luggoth waited on one side of the stage, while Brand watched from the wings of the other, and Lysander played in the orchestra. During the intermission, Lysander used a ritual to give himself a booming voice, a necessity for making sure he could be heard over the din of the crowd when the ambush came.

As the wolves and horses moved onto the stage for the climactic battle of the performance, Pel and William made their way to Lord Kor's private box. One of the two King's Shields guarding the door knocked, and a beautiful young woman who had been sitting with Lord Kor stepped out into the hallway. Seconds later, her form melted into that of the briar hag Bella Gorram, and she launched a barrage of thorny briars that entrapped Lord Kor.

Most of the Red Cloaks throughout the theater, including one of those guarding Kor's box, fell to the ground, succumbing to poison placed in their food by Fezyek. The other Red Cloak at the box, however, revealed himself as Borath the Blade by transforming into Brand. Pel responded by slashing his rapier into Bella's throat, slicing it open and leaving blood trailing down her shirt.

As Fezyek, now disguising himself as Lysander, ran up the stairs to join Borath and Bella, Brand threw a tanglefoot bag from behind the curtain to trap the dire wolf. Coltak, who had been posing as an animal trainer, transformed into Luggoth and attacked Brand behind the curtain backstage, and Valeris revealed herself and blasted Brand with a magic missile before disappearing again behind a spell of invisibility.

The Shifting Blades were posing as the Wolves again, but this time the real Wolves were there to battle them, and the crowd, around its panicked flight for the doors, could see what was going on. Luggoth, Brand, Lysander and Whitehearth battled Coltak and Valeris on the stage as Pel and William fought Fezyek, Bella and Borath up in the box seats. Bella, badly wounded, tried to flee by slashing William in the eyes, but he was still able to battle both of her allies while blinded, and when she tried to run past him, he swung Terminus in a high arc and finished the job Pel had started, severing her head from her neck.

Fezyek managed to stab Lord Kor with a poisoned rapier, felling him temporarily, but Pel gave him a potion of vitality to let him wake up, and then William was able to keep the attention of Borath and Fezyek on him as Lord Kor continued to struggle with Bella's bonds. It was at this point that someone in the crowd yelled out that the theater doors were locked... clearly, the Blades had wanted an audience for their assassination.

Lysander was badly wounded by Coltak and his dire wolf, but Brand teleported into his place to help him, and Brand and Luggoth wore down Coltak together. Valeris gave everyone a scare when she re-appeared and used lightning on Lysander and Lord Kor, once again causing Kor to fall to the ground, but this time Pel used the healing magics of the Traveler to restore him. Before Fezyek could strike again, Lysander used a compelling song to draw the doppelganger to him, and Fezyek leaped to his own death, his neck snapping as he hit the theater floor forty feet below.

Borath, alone and facing an angry William and Pel, rushed away and out into the night, followed closely by the dire wolf. Valeris also fled, using her invisibility and rushing out despite Brand's attempt to follow her with dimensional bond. Coltak's flight attempt was unsuccessful, however. He had taken quite a beating from Brand and Luggoth, and as he tried to rush past the door, Pel lay in wait, stepping out at the last minute to stab him right through the heart. The Beastmaster stared in surprise at his chest, then looked up at Pel before the light went out of his eyes and he collapsed with a heavy thump.

Red Cloak reinforcements rushed into the theater, bows drawn on the Wolves, but a booming voice called out from the balcony "Lay down your arms! These heroes just saved my life!" The Wolves had defeated their enemies and cleared their names.

XP Gained: 2200

The Wolves were invited to stay in the suites reserved for Lord Kor in the Brelish Embassy, so they got to relax and recuperate in style. After they rested, and after he had met briefly with Nashar, Lord Kor came to see them.

He apologized profusely for his role in their frame, which as it turned out was fairly significant. His brother, King Boranel, had not believed the Wolves were responsible, but Kor was so furious that his brother had been attacked that he had no trouble believing that a morally questionable band of adventurers with ties to criminal organizations would work for the Hags. He was the one who sent Lucan Stellos on their trail in Xen'drik, and he was also one of the loudest voices who counseled war with Droaam, believing that if they would dare attempt to kill the king in Sharn, who knew what else they were capable of.

Now he knows that he has been made a fool of, but he can't have King Boranel, or any of the heads of Thrane or Aundair, look foolish. He asked Pel and Lysander to help him come up with a plan to end the war in a way that saved face for everyone, and when Brand suggested that an attempted assassination (or rumors of same) on the Hags might work, he began to consider that.

When prodded by William, Lord Kor offered generous rewards to the Wolves, agreeing to their request for a grant of land and favors in getting their new base of operations built. He also agreed to make certain that Tock was restored to life and Gareth's Gear restored to operation. He then asked to speak with Pel privately.

Lord Kor revealed that Viorr Maelak, the lieutenant in the King's Dark Lanterns that the Wolves had previously worked for, had been murdered recently. Viorr had been the one who put Kalibar to work helping the Wolves, so Kor believes the murder was related to the Shifting Blades' plot. He asked Pel to swear an oath of loyalty to Breland and to become Viorr part-time so that few would know that he was successfully killed. In exchange, Pel would be a lieutenant in the Dark Lanterns, with all the perks and privileges that entailed.

Pel thought for only a few moments before accepting the position. Lord Kor asked that he not tell the rest of the Wolves about this position, and then asked them back in. With more words of thanks and humble requests for forgiveness, Lord Kor told the Wolves that he had arranged for a House Orien teleport circle to get them all back to Sharn.