The Blood Royal

Over the next couple of days, the group prepared for their confrontation with the would-be liberators of Cain. Rolc, the street urchin, was detailed to gather a number of his peers and watch the gate unobtrusively, reporting anything of interest.

On the day, a very web of prepratory magic was woven to bolster the forces of Good. Hildraft Imbued Surya with the spell Daylight, and cast a Heal into his spell-storing Ioun stone. The Hand of Kord then laid powerful Glyphs of Warding on the Vintares Gate, linking them to a spell of Forbiddance specifically tuned to the priest himself. Sack added to this his Alarm magic, setting it to sound a silent alarm in his own head if a member of the Undead were to approach the arch of the Gate.

With this done. Sack and Surya went to visit the world-famous Sorcerer's Guild. Only the Academy of Magic - also in Thornal - was a greater centre of arcane learning, research and study. There, they negotiated for the provision of some enchanted equipment to aid their endeavours. Custom enchantment was out of the question; as Surya had discovered when commissioning the shield Lordsguard in Reital, creating enchanted items was not a quick process. But the Guild did maintain some stock of premade magical items - at a premium price of course - and after some skillful haggling, the pair emerged with five Rods of Daylight, usable by anyone, and good for fifty casts of the spell, for eighteen thousand gold the lot.

Sack then made sure everyone who would be involved was equipped with his patent garlic naptha bombs, and double-checked Greygill and Luregon had successfully mastered the technique of Inner Strike.

Still no word was heard from the palace regarding an audience with the Emperor. Although such a ruler must perforce deal with many such requests - either in person or through his appointed ministers - the Hunters of Cain were beginning to feel that perhaps there was someone working against them in this. Gravincia, perhaps?

Finally, night fell on the 20^th. Sack made his way across the Thieves' Highway to the roof of the Jealous Wench, and scattered a few caltrops across the tiles before settling down to wait, directly above the function room Crixus' party was planned to occupy.

Surya, Hildraft, Greygill, Luregon and Hansen entered the building, and hid themselves in the bedrooms they'd hired. Surya drilled some peepholes in the flimsy internal walls, allowing him to peer out at the narrow passage, and the door of the function room opposite his hiding place - an added extra not covered in the rental, he guessed.

Quiet fell, broken only by the sound of the inn's slaves fetching things to the room booked for the Prince's party.

An hour or so later, the Prince and his party made their noisy appearance, and were soon installed ln the function room along with musicians, food, wine, ale, women and so on. The noise level rose from loud towards incredible.

About an hour after that, the watching Surya suddenly noticed a curl of smoke rising from the floor of the passage he was watching. Smoke? No, it was vapour... as he watched it, it rapidly formed and firmed into a humanoid shape. Twisting his head and peering the other way, he observed other twists of vapour forming up and down the passage. Within seconds it was done; ten vampires, armed in mail and wearing swords, stood in the passage, and - just outside the Prince's door - a vampire dressed in the rotted and grave-stained robes of a respectable merchant; clearly Volstat.

With a harsh cry, the Tellaran kicked the door violently open and fell on the vampire-sorcerer. Surprise was complete, and the two damned swords slashed terrible wounds into the undead flesh before Volstat could make a move. Then strife erupted up and down the corridor.

Volstat, having batted rather innefectually at Surya in his surprise, stepped backwards with blinding speed, and moved his fingers quickly in a spell. For an instant Surya felt all the strength go out of his thews; his armour dragged and he couldn't lift his weapons. Then he shrugged the magic off, and returned to the fray.

Hildraft, emerging around the corner from the longer corridor occupied by everyone else, found himself unexpectedly face to face with a Lasombra vampire. Too enraged to wield magic effectively, the dwarf charged in with the Axe of Glass and was soon exchanging blows with his foe as a second came to its' support.

Greygill and Luregon, emerging from the room they'd been hiding in, started hacking their way down the corridor towards Surya. Behind them, Hansen emerged, but seeing that there was no way he could contribute much, contented himself with drinking in the deeds for future immortlization.

Above, Sack, perched on the tiles, could hear none of this over the din coming from the party, and perched quietly, awaiting a sign, unaware of the life-and-death struggle going on below.

Surya and Hildraft were both in trouble. The Tellaran had been struck by a loping blow from the merchant-sorcerer's undead fist, and felt to his despair the drain of his very essence as his soul was tapped. He lashed out in fury, and brought his foeman down.

Hildraft, engaging his second Lasombra, wasn't quick enough, and a sword crashed through his helmet. Blood spattered as the Hand of Kord fell, mortally wounded. The vampire stared hungrily at the pooling blood for a moment, before turning and loping back down the corridor to join its' comrades trying to pull down the warrior as he battled an ever-growing number of Lasombra foes.

Worse, one had slipped behind Suyra and through the door into the Prince's room, where it was standing, enjoying the sensation as the Prince and his retinue cowered back in fear.

With a shattering crash, Sack - who'd heard the fighting now that the revellers had shut up - plunged through the ceiling, dropping to the floor with perfect balance and grace amdist a shower of terracotta roofing tiles. With two swift, surgical strikes, he cut down the monster menacing the next Emperor of the Erlyid, then turned to indicate he and his friends should stay put before facing back to the door, blades ready, prepared to defend the Prince should anything else come through.

Outside, though, the tide had turned. Greygill and Luregon had cut their way down the hall as far as Surya, who, in a mighty feat of arms, had defeated all the vampires who'd mobbed him, and thrown off the effects of Volstat's attempt to drain his soul. It struck the Tellaran as the last one fell that it had come around the corner, which was where Hildraft should have been; something was wrong... He stepped to the corner and poked his head around - then sprinted down the hall to where his comrade-in-arms lay sprawled on the filthy floor.

Blessing the time he'd spent combing Varkar's mighty hoard, the warrior looked up at the little crystal quietly orbiting his head, and called up the magic he'd asked Hildraft to store in there in case of need. The Ioun Stone duly delivered the stored Heal spell and Hildraft - who'd already been hearing the hooves of the Choosers of the Slain - groaned and sat up.

As he did so, Sack's head shot up. His mental alarms had gone off - there were vampires at the Vintares Gate! With a tap of his Helm, he was gone across the darkened city.

Something was wrong however. Instead of instantaneous relocation, he found himself floating in limbo, nothingness, for an endless helpless minute - and then appeared atop the mighty structure. A flare of arcane power was just dying down, and in a flash he realized what had happened. Hildraft's Forbiddance had taken effect, and had blocked his teleportation as well as the vampires' more mundane approach.

As his feet settled on the stone, he heard a shouted spell from below, and a crack! of splintering stone. He crept to the edge and peered over.

Below, he saw an unexpectedly large crowd of people. Ten armed and armoured figures were deploying around the Gate - these appeared to be the same as the ones the Hunters of Cain had just fought. Slightly further away than they was a female vampire, dressed in peculiar loose-fitting shirt and trousers, with light shoes and no visible weapons. At the edge of the square was a hooded, cloaked, muffled figure - also a vampire - Sack couldn't clearly see. Ascending the steps of the Gate were a tall, angular male vampire in peculiar all-over shiny black leather armour, a loose over-robe and a plain helmet, with two short swords hanging from his belt; and a graceful, slender woman, clad only in a thin white shift, dragging along another young woman, this dressed as a maid of some sort, and the only living human in the scene. Both the others were vampires - Sack could feel it with his Render's senses - but the woman reminded him unaccountably of Crixus. It drove in on him all at once. This was Imperial Princess Calpurnia. Crixus was a decoy! The vampires had never intended to use him at all; the whole reason for the confrontation at the Jealous Wench was to decoy the heroes - Slaughter's only real threat - away from the Gate at the critical moment. A new interpretation of Gravincia's role in all this sprang up on the heels of this realization.

He now saw that by some means the leatherclad vampire - presumably Slaughter - had blasted off a section of the facing covering the real Gate, and that he and Calpurnia were heading for this. Calpurnia had a wicked curved dagger in her hand, and in a flash of intuition Sack deduced the plan. Hers - vampire or not - was the Blood Royal as well. Not only was she quite willing - now - to shed it to open the Gate; with a ready meal along in the shape of the unfortunate maid, she could restore what she'd lost and survive the experience, unlike any other source of the blood required.

The half-orc sprang into action. Easing over the edge of the Gate's parapet, he Spider Climbed down the walls until he was directly above Calpurnia, who was now being lashed to the stone, presumably to stop her falling away and bleeding in the wrong direction. With a sudden bound, Sack dropped straight down in front of the startled Princess. The Blade of the Sun sheared through her slender body, virtually bisecting her, and showering her black vampire blood in all directions. With a cry, Sack triggered the Sunburst power of his sword, unleashing a blast of positive energy that sent the vampires around the Gate stumbling backwards.

The exposed face of the real Gate began to spark and crackle with energy; Sack looked worriedly at the blood spread across it and wondered if there was enough of it to open the Gate anyway. No time to hang around though; to tackle this lot, he'd need reinforcements. In the blink of an eye, he was gone, Teleported back across the city to the Jealous Wench, where the rest awaited his news.