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--- legend_of_the_ark [2025/09/05 06:46] – [Session 15: Fire In My Brain] spiffgent
+++ legend_of_the_ark [2026/03/08 08:39] (current) – [Session 16: Where The Sign Will Be Shown] spiffgent
@@ Line 246: / Line 246: @@
 In the morning, Keith and Callie, under invisibility, snuck to Mary-Ann Sow's tower, and enlisted her help in striking against Fitzroy now. While everyone took positions hidden in a bush, Sow summoned a huge illusion of Gyre Carline. The plan was for them to use the distraction to sneak the witch to her tower to produce a greater illusion to scare him outside while the rest of the party took positions. However, Fitzroy was more cowardly than expected, and instantly ran from his boarded-up keep to enlist help from the guards. Once he saw through the illusion, Otto immediately sprung to almost disembowel him while Keith swung wildly with his hammers. Callie and Cairo ran above the keep, speeding to the tower just in case it was required anyway, and through Fitzroy's wild flaming attacks. Rioux ducked in and out of cover to make strikes on Fitzroy, while Cairo kept the innocent away with a wall of fire. Fitzroy wasn't felled in time, but Finrick's intercession and horror kept him from annihilating the party at once. Keith struck the last hit on the Peasant King, and did so non-lethally, hoping to interrogate him as to his power later.
+===== Session 16: Where The Sign Will Be Shown =====
+**26th – 28th Dariksay**
+Fitzroy was bound and gagged, and was interrogated as soon as he was roused by a fly-shrouded Keith. He told (under Cairo's zone of truth) how he had been approached by an angel and given Ahm's mastery over demons to stand against Akselmarch (although enslaving his town and occupying the Turtle was his own idea). Keith's blood ran cold when he revealed the name of the angel: Aristotle. The town gave the party the gold that Fitzroy had stolen as thanks, and Otto negotiated a deal whereby the party would take Fitzroy to Armick Helcullen and would avoid leading Taronsawk to their own town, in exchange for a small donation of grain. With Mary Ann Sow left in charge of her tower again and Fitzroy and Maria in tow, the party set off for Taronsawk once again. In the night, Keith asked his patron why he had given greater power to Fitzroy than he had to Keith: Aristotle replied that he simply needed the heroes distracted from Taronsawk for a few days, and that he had no need for a soldier in Jean-luc anymore.
+In the pouring rain, the party rode back to Taronsawk in the evening to find the whole town in church. Cairo and Rioux told Armick of all that transpired, and everyone cheered the return of Maria. He too had his own news for the adventurers: Karver had discovered a map of the highest level of Olson's Ruin, and it indicated there were easily-openable tunnels leading South, to friendly and live Dwarven towns that could accept the town if they ever needed to flee. The town could remain in place longer with this new escape route opened, seemingly a solution that satisfied, for now, everyone. Upon hearing the news, Rioux suddenly collapsed in a state of shock, claiming they had received a vision of Ahm that portented doom for the town.
+Rioux excused herself to a cloister while everyone went their ways for the evening: Keith to drink, Callie to patrol, Otto to wait for Rioux, and Cairo to investigate a wide perimeter of the town to search for Moira, glimpsing her briefly in a flash of lightning. The Tabaxi discovered that the graves of the Dwarves had been exhumed, including Taron Territ's, and concluded that Karver had taken the map from the graves. When he looked at the stone again, he saw that the writing had somehow transformed: Thaurivald translated it as "REMEMBER US, THAT ONCE LIVED" and pointed out that it contained the mine sign for The Fleeing Dark, a Dwarven sign of finality.
+The party reconvened, and Rioux explained what had happened earlier: they had received a vision of the town ensared in black tendrils, stretching from ground to cloud, and they knew from similar such visions that this foreshadowed great calamity. The party attempted to piece together the meaning, believing that it possibly indicated an Akselian attack, but still concluded that the tunnels in Olson's Ruin was the town's greatest chance at survival. Later in the evening, a tearful Moira reappeared to Cairo, to discuss the Light and whether or not every sacrifice made in service of a goal was truly worth it: she was consumed by thoughts of turning back time using the Poteus Ark to before Taron had died.
+While they talked, and Keith dreamed of the Fleeing Dark, the fires from Akselmarch started at the break of dawn. A cloud of red-hot shot descended through the air, with seven striking Taronsawk: one hit the tavern, and Moira disappeared in the carnage; others tore through the ground and farmsteads. Keith and Cairo attempted to tend to the wounded while Rioux went to find Moira at her house unsuccessfully. Otto took a second to survey the situation while Armick Helcullen gave the order for the town to arm themselves, and reasoned that the shots came from over the Wall, and that no attack was imminent. Armick readied to fight in case an attack would hit immediately, but hearing from Otto that there was indeed a window, he instead gave the order to retreat. He had seen someone struck directly by a shot from Akselmarch's Gonnes, and had no faith that Akselmarch would wait for them to dig their escape tunnel.
+Keith and Cairo failed to contain this order, so Karver took it upon himself to physically stop Armick Helcullen, thinking that their pact had been broken: he told his supporters to get the grain stored in Maine-Roche so that the Helcullens could not unilaterally order a retreat. Armick waited for Karver to lead his supporters away, before killing the man who had apprehended him, and calmly gave the order to the remaining villagers to start fires in the houses of those seeking to break into his manor: they who wanted to stay would not allow their homesteads to burn while they attempted to breach the manor. Cairo attempted but failed to scare them off from this purpose with a //Wall of Fire// while still convincing some of those at Maine-Roche that fires had indeed started. Keith threatened Helcullen to stop his course, but neither man would back down, and Armick attacked. Cairo used a harming spell on Armick to try and force him to back down, but the spell ran wild, and he died in utter disbelief at the creatures that had let themselves loose on his town. Moira watched all of this happen, and resolutely decided to run for the Poteus Ark and undo all the errors that had transpired. She delivered a //Divine Smite// to Cairo, and warned the party not to try to stop her plans, before disappearing behind an Angel Door that hung in the air.