The Sanguine Scrolls

[SorenKnight]

The central headquarters of the Order isn't the most pleasant of places, but then again, it doesn't contain the most pleasant of people. Killing is grim work, and those who enjoy it are more likely to find themselves the Order's targets than its members. Still, even this place can't be completely hopeless and the desks you walk past are't completely bare but rather strewn with both the tools of the diviner's trade and personal knickknacks alike.

The scryer's room is bustling with activity, dozens of diviners and oracles scribbling reports as their eyes stare off into unseen vistas and dozens of couriers snatching up completed documents and replacing them with yet unknown names to decipher, but you slip through the chaos to reach the towering double doors at the back. Your business is not with the common mages, not today. You open the smaller postern embedded in the massive portal and slip through to see the master of this division of the order, Lykourgos Vlidkos.

The hulking 25-foot figure is hunching over his equally massive desk, scribbling some notes with a roc-feather quill, his hasty movements coming dangerously close to spilling the bubbling bowl of boiling water sitting on the desk next to him. His singular eye socket is covered beneath wound bandages, but nonetheless he looks up as you enter.

"Ah, it is good to see you. We have a mild issue on our hands."

[Lioslaith]

Sammael moves into the chamber quietly and nods to Lykourgos as he stands in his usual position near the door. As he waits for the others to arrive he ponders Something must be dire for such a summons.

[cybric]

Alondi enters the chamber with a atypical spring in his step. Aldoni was a strange creature to be sure. Years and years of experimentation with organ grafting had left him a bit mangled but the most noticable thing was the claws, wings and scales. It had been dragons blood that had stabilized his mutations and it had given him many gifts.

His blond hair was worn long and he had a eye patch over one eye. Another thing someone would would be that the elf had four arms where normally you'd find two.

The lower two arms were fiddling with a cube with rotating panels. The point of the excersise was the get all the panels on the cube to match.

He shaddled up next to Sammael and continued fiddling.

He acknowledges Lykourgos with a nod and turns his attention back to the cube.

Sammael, pleasure as always

[Lioslaith]

"Greetings Alondi, I trust things are ... holding together for you?" Sammael says in response to the greeting. There were days when the greetings took him by surprise. Most of the order's members thought him some sort of vampire and avoided him accordingly, which was something he didn't mind at all. However here, in this chamber, it should be expected.

[Heavenblade]

Dathrian enters the room, and scan everything and everyone with his reptilian eyes. he steps forward, gives a small bow to Lykourgos and then asks in a voice no higher than a whisper "what is the problem?", and when he finish speaking faint echoes are heard, like he spoke into the mouth of a cave.

[cybric]

Alondi was still fiddling with the puzzle while his upper arms prepped and lit a pipe he carried with him. The light from the match casting his Victorian vest and clothes in a dim light.

Oh yeah holding together just fine
Found out that yes indeed my urine is flamable so that's something new but other than that no new developments


Sammael and Alondi were two of the more distinct looking members although not the strangest. A lesser death and a half dragon what's not to like

[SorenKnight]

Lykourgos raises his single eyebrow.

"Well, its good to see you're all in one piece, we're going to need you. I know that we don't always have enough work to keep you supplied with targets, but it seems the universe has been so kind as to provide a multitude of threats recently."

Lykourgos plunges his hand into the boiling water on his desk and yanks it out, wincing, but clutching a crystal ball in his hand. The water immediately stills, only to resume is roiling boil when he drops the ball back in.

"Not quite cooled down yet I'm afraid. I'll have to do without for a bit longer."

Lykourgos claps his hands.

"Alright, down to business proper, I have three targets for you, each its own uniquely persistent form of evil.

“First among them, Sistrunnos. The name came up a few weeks back, we pinned it to a human necromancer operating out of the Whispering Ways and sent a mid-rank team to eliminate him. They finished the job with no casualties and returned within a few days, excellent work overall. We forgot it and moved on, right up until the entire team was found dead in their beds this morning.”

Lykourgos grits his teeth, massive jaw muscles producing a sound like grinding millstones. “This bastard eviscerated his own comrades, even ripping out their hearts to prevent resurrection. And… it's my fault. I’m in charge of divinations, but I let a critical fact slip through my fingers: Sistrunnnos is no human name, but a demon one. I’m responsible for every name that gets cleared for assassination, whether I personally check it or not, and not only did good people die because I failed them, but gods know what secrets that demon stole before it left.”

“All divinations point to our own ex-member as the target, marking Sistrunnos as some kind of possessor entity. Eliminate the true force behind the evil, and with it erase my mistake before it costs us any more lives.”



"The second threat, Vath'takag, well we never bothered sending anyone else after him, it'd be nothing less than a suicide mission. Someone roundabouts the Nazara Desert actually managed to gate in a pit fiend despot, and worst of all, the fool wizard didn't get himself killed in the process. Instead Vath'takag took him as a slave and wasted no time setting him to calling over his diabolic legion, one by one."

Lykourgos pauses. "This is, needless to say, unacceptable. Major planar incursions of this nature cannot be permitted. Vath'takag must be snuffed out, and his burgeoning empire with him. The human Bariya Alliance is doing well enough against his forces for now, but he gains ground every day and his eastern border is not so protected. There's nothing there but a few scattered tribes and the efreeti of the deep desert."

“Every day costs new lives, and I have it on good authority that the devils and efreeti are in negotiations. Together, there is no telling where their conquest might end. Cut out this evil at its root, kill Vath’takag and ensure the one who summoned him never calls up another fiend again, by any means necessary.”


Lykourgos looks down at his parchment, seeming to read it just fine, eye or no eye. “And the last… We’ve identified the name ‘Phase’. Not a usual mortal name, so our hackles were immediately raised and the matter skipped over the lower ranks to be addressed by more competent diviners. In short order they brought it straight to me. Every time they attempted to divine anything about this Phase they got completely different answers. The first diviner tagged him as a dwarven baker in the Dwegeruem foothills, while the second identified the target as a roving half-elf merchant named Krilahne Norviel. After that it wasn’t too hard to spot the pattern. Whoever is truly behind the name of Phase possesses a method of forcing false returns to divinations, with each false return corresponding to some false identity.”

“The logical next step was research on those false identities, and what we discovered wasn’t pleasant. That dwarven baker? He had a full life, a backstory of at least eighty years. Not the facade of a spell, but real people with real memories of him and very real loss at his recent disappearance. Norviel was a bit harder to track, but we eventually found a Halelor Norviel and he definitely remembers his runaway daughter. It's clear Phase earned their place on the scrolls, gods know how many people they’ve killed and replaced over the years.”

“We continued to research them, hoping to find a method of identifying their next step, but we were forced to move our timetable up a notch when they entered the City of Cinders. I’ve no idea whether you’ve ever been to that world, but let’s call the political situation… delicate. They’ve just barely managed to overthrow a dangerous tyrant and elements of the previous government are nowhere near fully integrated. Nearly every part of the country’s previous government is under some sort of investigation and even a small spark could easily lead to a full on civil war. Not only would the loss of life be extreme, but any sign of the previous tyranny reinstating itself might well motivate the neighboring countries to invade.”

“We can’t let a serial killer anywhere near this powder keg. Find Phase, and kill them.”

[OracleofSilence]

Sadi was late. He was always late, but at least he had made the briefing this time. "Well. They sound like a lovely bunch. Have scryers been able to get anything on Sistrunnos since this morning? Or is this on being kept under wraps."

[SorenKnight]

"Not that under wraps. We've tracked Sistrunnos to a specific layer of the Abyss, but the planar interference isn't letting us get a better reading. I'm afraid that the only way to track him more precisely is going to require boots on the ground."

[Lioslaith]

"I have not been to the abyss in some time. I think we should eliminate Sistrunnos first then see to the others."

[cybric]

Alondi cups his hands and thinks about the information that he was just given


eidetic recollection lets me take 10 on all knowledge rolls even while in danger or distracted.

I'll take 10 for each knowledge skill which gives me 20 to know relevant information for everything that was just given to us.

Just want more info before chiming in.

[Heavenblade]

Dathrian listens to everyone talking, and then he closes his eyes, listens to the horror within, to the screams of tortured souls that will join the endless symphony in his head if they will fail. he speaks quietly, gently, with a slight lisp

"the first is a matter of revenge. the second is the matter of challenge, the third one is the matter of catastrophe. we can postpone our revenge and delay the army, but the catastrophe will not wait for us. I propose we go after Phase."

[Lioslaith]

"Sound reasoning, though I fear it may take quite a while to get a handle on this Phase. And our mere presence while attempting to locate him may set off the strife. Yet I have no qualms and am ready to go after whomever."

[SorenKnight]

Lykourgos nods. "You're the master assassins, it's your decision which to eliminate first. If you reach an impasse I'd be happy to act as tiebreaker, but otherwise it's up to you."

[cybric]

Alondi steeples his fingers and says yes Phase must be the priority. The other concerns must be held in check out this can not wait

[SorenKnight]

Lykourgos nods. "Good to see a consensus, I hate having to adjudicate disputes in other departments."

Lykourgos reaches into the slowly cooling bowl of water and retrieves his crystal ball, polishing it with the edge of his tunic. "Just in time too, this thing is just about cool enough to use again."

He pulls down the bandage across his missing eye and plops the crystal ball into the gaping hole with a sucking squelch. He blinks twice before the scrying orb starts rotating around in its socket. "Ah, that's better. So where were we? Ah, yes, Phase." He stares intently down at his desk. "Hmmm, divination's returning the bio of a scullery maid in the... imperial palace."

"Hells!" Lykourgos's crystal eye snaps back up to you. "The imperial palace is being used as temporary storage for all manner of decommissioned magic! We can't let a target anywhere near that kind of gear, quick, do you all have fire protection?"

[Lioslaith]

”I have no particular protections against flame.”

[cybric]

Alondi raises his head and snorts out a gout of smoke

I'm good for flame protection

[SorenKnight]

Lykourgos nods hurriedly. "Good. The slain tyrant built his palace in and around an active volcano, because of course he did. I don't have any abjuration spells prepared, if any of you have the magic to cast them then I'd recommend warding your allies, otherwise you might be able to scrounge up a ring or amulet from the Vault."

"Once you reach the city see if you can find one 'Regina Rolfton' before Phase switches identities. If you can't... well you can always send back to me for more divinations, but every time you stop to cast a ritual like that gives Phase more time to slip through our fingers."

[Lioslaith]

Sammael nods and turns to leave, "I shall meet you all in the great hall to leave, I am headed to the vault to see what can be found there."

[Heavenblade]

Dathrian start following sammael "I lack any magical protection against fire as well", and his swift steps make almost no sounds when he is walking quietly to the vault, looking for an item that will protect him from the flames of the enemy and the environment.

[SorenKnight]

When you reach the Vault its guardian, Paithaes, looks up and nods in acknowledgement. "Greetings. Lykourgos sent word, no time to waste I've gathered!"

He slides a tray across his desk. Two rings sit upon it, one wrought of finely engraved red gold, the other carved from plain wood charred a deep black. "All I could find on such short notice I'm afraid, but either should protect well enough from ambient heat. Just don't go taking any fireballs in the face!"

Paithaes nervously pushes up his spectacles. "Uh, I do think the wood one has a bit more oomph if you know what I mean. Up to you who gets what. Good luck!"


Sorry for not posting for so long. I'll try to do better.

In game terms the gold ring grants fire resistance 10 and the wood one grants fire resistance 15.

[Lioslaith]

Sammael reaches out calmly and takes up the wooden ring nodding his thanks to the quartermaster.

[Heavenblade]

Darthian takes the other ringwithout a word, puts it on his finger, and the whispering voices intestify for a moment, as small whisps of fire appear in his continious aura of spirits. he breathes deeply, looks around, and a small smile appears on his face.
"I am ready"

[SorenKnight]

Prepared for the mission, the team gathers around the gate and ports out of the Order's demiplane HQ. You feel the familiar tug of sliding across the Plane of Shadows before you arrive at your destination, stepping from the darkness between one blink and the next.

It appears to be night in local time, although the thick smog makes it hard to be sure. The four of you are in an alley just outside the palace's wards, looking up at the basalt walls and black iron spires. Fifty feet of open ground stretch out between you and the base of the walls, but if any guards stand watch you can't see them. The only movement atop the ramparts is a single iron golem, slowly trudging along.

If you want any help visualizing the palace, imagine the layout of Minas Tirith with the design aesthetic of Mordor.

[Lioslaith]

"Have any of you ever been inside the palace?" Sammael says the word palace with audible disgust. "I typically have awaited any target to leave, though a scullery maid may well simply live inside it and have no need to venture outside. Plus our time to find her seems short." He pauses for a moment and chuckles slightly, "Surely there is only the one maid in such a place." Sarcasm literally drips from that last statement.