Tokahimo City and Clan Mehitaka
Plain of Vlan Gera, Sasutora, 8th October 1607
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All three of the heroes knew more than a little about the Undead, from various sources, and were quite aware that to physically slay a lich was by no means to destroy one. The spirit of the man Artila had once been was safe, securely drawn back to the magic jar created when he enacted the foul rituals required for cheating death in this way. If a new host corpse were provided for him, Artila could resume his unlife fully. The location of said jar was the closest guarded secret of any lich, for if it were destroyed the lich would be slain forever.
Both Hildraft and Surya now had magic capable of scrying, and each tried in turn. Both made contact, and were shocked to see Artila, fully recovered and armoured, on a reviewing stand, watching a huge army of Shadowkami march past. Not only had he recovered unexpectedly quickly, but he seemed to have acquired another mighty fighting force from somewhere! Watching this vision, however, tiny alarm bells began to ring in the heroes' minds. Surya, his sight sharpened by the Robe of Eyes, noticed that - while the actual time of year was autumn - the trees visible at the edge of the Scrying were in bud - springtime. Also, they spotted that Artila was wearing the katana currently riding in Surya's Quiver of Efficiency. The truth dawned. They were watching a recording. The spell Screen had been used to block the scrying of the dead lich-kin. Plain of Vlan Gera, Sasutora, 9th October 1607Such magics had limits, however, and the next morning, the Scry produced a very different result. A small crystal jar, glowing faintly from inside, stood on a floor made of dressed stone slabs. Next to it were shards of broken gemstone, as if a second much smaller crystal had been recently destroyed. Just visible was a sprawled corpse, freshly killed. Hildraft then followed up with a Discern Location spell, targeting the location of what they were seeing as within the Imperial City of Tokahimo, on the eastern coast of Sasutora. Windwalking across the plains and into the interior of Sasutora, Surya, Hildraft, Sack, Duzmakhmol and Mehitaka Kaisigi soon began to see the signs of civilization. Below them was laid out a society of rigid order and structure. Geometrically precise fields carpeted the landscape, worked by peasants in baggy clothes and conical straw hats. Small villages, the houses of a strange design, appeared here and there, with folk of the same sort in their streets. Occasionally, they passed towering castles, ornate and outlandish, built of square layers like some vast decoration. From time to time they passed temples, usually large, low sprawls of construction. Everyday life was woven with the unique powers of the Shadowkami. Craftsmen would reach through a shadow to pick up a tool from the other side of a half-built building; Goods would be moved from place to place via shadowstep; travellers flitted along the roads in a series of mighty leaps. This was the original face of the shadow elves' power; the peaceful and creative use of the mastery of shadows. This was what Artila had taken, and channelled his power into, and corrupted into a tool for his use. Tokahimo, Sasutora, 9th October 1607The Imperial City of Tokahimo was an impressive sight. Vast, sloping walls ringed the inner city, with a dense cluster of lesser buildings around the outside. Within, there were large, dominant buildings, mostly of stone and similar in design to the castles in the countryside. Several were clearly temples. The central one had to be the citadel and main castle, surrounded by the smaller castles of the clanlords. The lesser castles were eleven in number, and each was behung with massive, tall, thin silk banners, easily fifty feet long. These were marked with the bold, sweeping characters of the Shadowkami language, as well as the Mon of a noble house. The central castle had no banner, no insignia, and needed none. It was shrouded in unnatural shadow..... Clearly, more information would be desirable before making a direct attempt to penetrate the Palace. What they really needed was an ally. Fortunately, they had brought along their co-operative prisoner, Mehitaka Kaisigi, and he had filled them in on the basics of Sasutoran politics. The noble families of the empire were organized into eleven clans, each ruled by a clan lord. These clans were grouped into three blocs, typified by their view of the empire and headed by the clan-lord of the strongest clan in the bloc. Thus, Clan Mori and their followers whole-heartedly supported the Dark One as the leader who would take the Shadowkami to dominion over the gaijin in the west and the human lands to the south; Clan Yoshitori and their bloc supported the expansionist approach, but still wanted to replace the Dark One with a more conventional Emperor (i.e. Yoshitori Sempai). The smallest bloc, headed by Clan Mehitaka, favoured more radical change, and a more peaceful relationship with the outside world. The lord of Clan Mehitaka, Mehitaka Hirayama, was Kaisigi's uncle, and it was to him that the heroes decided to make their first approach. Arriving in the courtyard of his castle, they were admitted - with reservations - by the guards once it was seen they accompanied Kaisigi. He led them through the inside of the castle, past strange rooms and decorations, airy spaces, paper walls, intricate pottery. Some of the floors sounded to the westerners as if a carpenter was needed, squealing loudly as they were walked across, but none of the locals seemed to notice. A strange place indeed. Then they were brought before the clan-lord. Mehitaka Hirayama was a large-boned but graceful man, with elegant, strong hands and unsettling black eyes. Kaisigi went down in a deep obeisance, and even Surya and Hildraft bowed, sensing the authority in this man. Sack remained obstinately erect; he bowed to no elf. Mehitaka Hirayama's first action was to question his nephew. What was he doing here, disarmed, accompanied by gaijin, and alone, when he should have been with the army? Surya answered for him, his Tongues spell giving him the ability to speak the language perfectly. "They lost," he said bluntly. Hirayama looked at him for a moment, shocked. "How could they lose?" he said, "All our advisors told us we had ten times the numbers of the Gaijin nations, even if they were to unite, superior discipline, the shadow-lore - how could we have lost?" "They weren't enough," replied Hildraft. The clanlord's eyes moved between the Tellaran and the dwarf, reassessing them. Their faultless command of court Sasutoran brought respect. They discussed the matter of the Dark One, and the certainty of his return despite death at the hands of the westerners. They asked Hirayama whether he would help them, and explained their plans for permanent removal of the current Emperor. The clan-lord indicated a desire for them to succeed, but refused them overt help; he, and all his clan, and all their families, could not risk their lives on three untried gaijin. This statement revealed much about Artila's rule of these people! However, he was willing to provide less perceptible assitance. Maps, local information, disguises, and access to warriors not directly connected to his Clan, all these he could provide. Surya, having got a good look at the Sasutorans by now, cast a Polymorph Self spell and transformed himself into a faultlessly accurate citizen of the city. Disguises were removed from the requirements list. The next step was to do some scouting. Despite the nasty scare they'd had in Cyrn Sharresh, the idea of working on the Ethereal plane was agreed on, and, duly magicked, the party floated through the walls of Clan Mehitaka's fortress and into the air above the city of Tokahimo. Instantly, they realized they were not alone in the ether. Coiled around the fortress of the Mehitaka were ghostly forms; giant heroes with ferocious, distorted faces, mighty slender dragons, different to the ones the westerners were familiar with, horrific demons. Swirling gently around the castle, these spirits gave no feelings of hostility, only vigilance and protection, and the travellers realized that these were the ancestral spirits of the clan, guarding their descendants on the spirit plane. They offered the visitors no hinderance, and the ethereal forms drifted across the city towards the Palace. As they did so, they saw similar gatherings of spirits clustered around the other clan castles. Artila's fortress, however, had no such guardians; instead, it was enwrapped in swirling shadow, formless and hostile. As they approached, the shades began to thicken nearest to them, and when Surya tried to penetrate them, they coalesced into a ten-foot humanoid form, armed with a polearm of strange design, blocking the way and clearly ready to fight him if he were to proceed. He backed off.
The sensation he felt on arriving was that of being 'pulled up short'. He recognized it; he'd felt the same trying to Teleport into the Fens of Korvux, five years ago - there was a teleportation block of some sort in place here. However, he appeared not to be too wide of the mark; he was in a sealed, dimly-lit room of considerable size, made of the same dressed stone as the chamber they'd scryed. In the centre was a cubic stone structure, almost exactly the right size to contain the target room. Sure he'd located their target, the half-orc Teleported out, and loaded the rest of the party into the Bag of Holding before leaping back. Battle was about to be joined......
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Sack,
seeing a parallel, made contact with Vlaakith the Queen of the Githyanki.
She was feeding - draining the soul of one of her best warriors to prolong
her own existence - and warned Sack sharply that unannounced scrying
of herself would not be tolerated again. Sack apologized, and asked of
her how she would locate a lich's jar. Vlaakith was amused
by the effrontery of this question, making it perfectly clear that she
would give no clues that would possibly lead to the location of her own.
Her hint was to look in places no one else was allowed to go.
Having
seen Artila's jar, Hildraft now felt confident enough to try Locate
Object on it, and deduced its' location as being below the Palace,
probably in the cellars. Emboldened by this, Sack felt prepared to risk
a Teleport into the crypt they'd scryed. Donning his Helm,
he leaped into the dark.
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