War Clouds Gather in New Tellare

Reital, New Tellare, 8th October 1601

Sack was very impressed with Bramandin's armour, and appropriated it for his own use. It turned out to be a good fit, and the half-orc packed his admantine mailshirt into his Bag of Holding. He also took the neshnahmohn, mostly out of curiosity.

Surya slid the scimitar into his Quiver, though being designed for use by a psionic it was of little use to him. As he did so, he noticed a small pouch on the cambion's belt. Investigating, he found it to contain ten small, shaped slots, three occupied by vials rather smaller than a standard potion bottle. Each held a quantity of a viscous dark red fluid, and radiated slight magic and enormous evil. The Identify spell described them as vials of Agony, which wasn't a great deal of help. Neither was Hildraft, who refused to touch them and suggested they should be destroyed at once.

Surya had asked Hildraft if he could ensure that the fledgeling  temple of Kord was going to be ready to provide the priestly support the armies of New Tellare would need. The dwarf went off to  start work on this, glad to be away from the dreadful vials, and Sack and Surya teleported off to discuss things with the only dark magician they knew - Yakov.

Cave, The Desolation, 8th October 1601

Calling on his memories of the previous events, Sack teleported the pair neatly into the cave Hildraft had fortified for the Redeemers. Appearing in the dimness near the back, the pair stood still and listened.

Several blanket-wrapped lumps emitted the sounds of sleep, while near the mouth of the cave a nearly-dead fire guttered, illuminating the huddled figure of a guard.

Sack moved like a ghost across the stone floor, checking that the inhabitants of the cave were who they were supposed to be, and quietly tying together the bootlaces of some of the new guards Blaunchard had hired. Reaching Yakov, he quietly drew Bloodfang and laid the blade across his throat. He was going to hold the dark wizard's nose to wake him, but the touch was enough; Yakov's eyes flew open.

With great presence of mind the specialist did not move, but blinked up at Sack until he could tell who was there. The half-orc removed his weapon and Yakov sat back. "You have a bad way of waking people," said Yakov in a normal speaking voice.

Immediately all the other members of the Redeemer group sprang up, scrabbling for weapons, while Blaunchard flashed a Light spell to reveal what was happening. Once they  realized that the "intruders" were friendly, they relaxed, though the glances the druid flashed at the man who'd been on guard augured for a bad couple of days to come for that worthy.

Surya quickly explained why they'd come, and produced the vials of Agony for Yakov to examine.  Both he and Blaunchard had reacted on hearing that name, Yakov much more so, but confronted with the actuality he was very taken aback.

He explained that the dark red fluid was a distillate created by twisted magical items from the suffering of a sentient being undergoing torture. It was quite literally liquid pain. Greatly prized by dark magicians, it could be used as a spell component, or to provide the power to create magcial items, or as a poison, 'both physical and moral'. This phrase sparked a memory with the pair, and they realized that there was a close correlation between the substance they had here and the Bloodbane used by vampires like Vane the Mace and Rhendal.

It was quite clear that Yakov was hoping to obtain the vials, skilled as he was in the terrible ways they could be used. Once Surya had disabused him of this idea, he fixed the pair with a determined looks and asked - begged! - them that, whatever they should do with the vials, they should under no circumstances allow them to fall into the hands of the Elves of Belamir. When asked why, he explained that living as they did in the midst of the Desolation, the elves would inevitably fall under the temptation to harness and use its'  dark power in the coming war rather than continuing to disperse it. Were they to obtain the secret of liquid pain, they would be an enormous step closer to that catastrophic step.  Yakov and his comrades were sworn to the destruction of the Desolation and the restoration of Sildor; to allow this to happen would undo everything they had achieved since the Dragon's fall.

The pair did not commit themselves one way or the other, rather to Yakov's disquiet, and teleported back to Reital shortly afterwards.

Reital, New Tellare, 9th October 1601

Preparing his nation to survive the inevitable war bearing down on it was now Surya's main priority. A major step in achieving this would be to strengthen the links established by Skufruss with his eastern neighbor, Enning, once famous for horses, and to negotiate provision of horses and cadre to help build up a cavalry wing for the New Tellaran military. The Dragon had not liked cavalry - it was of little use to him as the horses had a tendency to bolt when he was near - but Tyrkor had built on the strengths of his realm once he took control, and cavalry was one of those strengths. Enning was still famous for its' horses and cavalry.

Sack, Surya and Hildraft then prepared to ride east and visit Enning. They rode partially at least in order to look over the country's preparations, with a stopover at Rhorien to visit Countess Leonora.

Rhorien, New Tellare, 18th October 1601

As they rode through the countryside, the readiness for war was all around them. Stores were being laid in, troops moved around, the last of the harvest gathered and secured (Morganna had been kind, and the yield was good). Gradually, though, they became aware of something.

The Dragonarmy that had occupied Tellare from its' fall in 1390 until the defeat of Vane the Mace in 1601 had comprised both humans and lizardmen, as did most of Varkar's forces. The human soldiers had settled into the re-evolving nation of New Tellare fairly easily; but the former lizard soldiers appeared to have been relegated to labouring work, treated more as prisoners of war than as residents. So they were to be seem digging ditches, building roads and walls, and most of all working the fields as the stocks of provisions were built up ready for the winter. Surya shook his head; this was storing up trouble as well as grain.

Arriving at Rhorien, they guested with the noble lady Leonora, Countess of that city and last surviving scion of the old Tellaran nobility - though not as pure-blooded as Surya himself. She welcomed them handsomely, feasting them and taking them on a tour of her defences and lands. It was noticable that, in contrast to what had been seen elsewhere, in Leonora's lands the lizardmen were firmly integrated into the population and the military, with no apparent resentment from the humans. She was clearly nervous of the Lord Protector's reaction to this, half expecting him to be angry at her trust for these non-humans. Surya, however, made it plain that he trusted her judgement, and went so far as to request an honour guard for the trip to Enning to be made up exclusively of lizard soldiers. Once word of this spread, the morale and pride of the lizard troops could be seen to rise, another good sign.

Leonora congratulated Surya on his speech to the troops at Thallan, describing how it had lifted the confidence of her forces as well as those who'd been there. He responded by telling her to send word of her techniques for integrating the lizards to General Harker at the Dragon Tower, backed by his personal suggestion that such be done elsewhere. Clearly, though, if the war proved to be with Skufruss, there would be doubts about the lizard troops - given the power of the Sceptre of the Dragon Lords - and they agreed that in such an event the nonhumans would be best deployed at the southern border.

Through all this, the beautiful Leonora was clearly paying great attention to Surya the man as well as Surya the Lord Protector, and the suggestions that the two clearest old Tellaran bloodlines be mingled returned to his memory. The last thing he needed to do at this point, however, was to settle down, and he kept the atmosphere cordial and no warmer.

Rhorien, New Tellare, 19th October 1601

The next morning, the group set out, flanked by a hundred lizardman infantrymen. Although extremely successful as troops for the Dragonarmies, no-one had ever managed to achieve the feat of getting a lizardman to ride a horse; and so progress was limited to that of marching footmen.

This did, however provide leisure to observe the countryside. Once across the border, the travellers discovered a wide, rolling land dotted with small, well-fortified settlements. Bodies of cavalry could be seen moving to and fro regularly, and within a day of crossing into Enning, one of these intercepted the embassy.

The leader of this squadron, one Kheltran, seemed to be expecting them - reasonable from a servant to a lord described as 'warrior and seer', and took them under escort to conduct them to the capital city, Dorsal.

Dorsal, Enning, 6th November 1601

Thelvian Tyrkor's city was well laid-out, and bears less resemblance to what it was 'in their day' than any other unruined Northland town. Never having been conquered or fought over, there were no ruins or repairs, but the considerable Elven influences it once displayed had been very thoroughly removed. The result was completely different and very human.

The one exception was the city's walls; built by Elven masons as a defence against the Orc raiders who came down from the Ereans, and captured intact when the city surrendered to the Dragon, the walls were so much better than anything the Dragonarmy could build that Tyrkor left them up.

In the centre of the city was a large lake, apparently created by flooding the old royal palace grounds. In the middle of this rose an artificial island, and on that island was built Thelvian Tyrkor's castle.

Lordsisle had one drawbridge leading on to it, and was heavily fortified. Castle Skaven itself was a formidable concentric structure, layered walls dotted with turrets, offset gatehouses defended by clear fields of fire, traps, murder holes, strategical tricks, the works. Although not a patch on the fortifications of Thornal (nothing was, after all!), Skaven Castle, like Dun Tolk, was a work of defensive genius.