The Duke falls dead with a poison arrow in his ear. Hidden on one balcony, Guy collapses unconscious, as does Dink on the other balcony.

With the Emperor beheaded, about a dozen Sardovar in the throne room stand stunned. They come to their senses and continue the melee. Ladiana mass-suggests most of them to surrender, but as two try to escape she fires a massive fireball, incinerating the escaping Sardovar amount of civilians in the doorway (she’s no longer dominated, by the way).

Mugul takes a spear and skewers the Emperor’s head on it and erects it next to the throne and looks to Clarys and whispers “Speech, speech!”. Clarys stands in front of the throne and gives a motivational speech to the (charred and whimpering) nobility that remain.

Allentians start filtering in to the throne room, including Winthrup and the Baron of Southmore.

Nobody has heard from Guy. Clarys casts locate object on DeRosen’s ring and is able to determine that Guy is on the other side of the wall on the balcony. Eph bamffs into the room, scoops up unconscious Guy, then uses the trapdoor to remerge into the hallway.

Clarys tries to heal Guy, but it doesn’t seem to help much.

Ladiana can hear the screams of the Tharaci in her head. They’re under attack from High Elves, Drow, Orcs, and Sardovar. Ladiana sends the Tharaci to attack specifically the High Elves. The Drow take the opportunity to flee to the caves.

Clarys gathers info from the Paladins filtering into the Throne room. Apparently, the Sardovar have been largely overcome in the city. Their remaining army is mostly fleeing back towards Mystvale. No word on the giants. We do know there is no ice storm around Mystvale.

Clarys orders Southmore and Winthrup to lead the cleanup efforts outside the city. The Allentian army will guide the cleanup within the city.

Guy is in very rough shape. They lay him in a bedroom to recover.

Of the 1000 Paladin, only 450 remain after the battle.

Within an hour, only ~50,000 Tharaci remain, the Orcs are slaughtering them. Eph and Ladiana use Dimension Door to appear at the Tharaci-Orc battle. Ladiana rains fire/lighting/horror down on the orcs. The orcs scatter.

Ladiana looks Northwest and sees a path of where the Tharaci chased the High Elves back into the forest. She commands her remaining 40,000 Tharaci to pursue and eliminate the High Elves. Ladiana is starting to feel light headed, the purple crystal wearing off. She orders the Tharaci to wipe out the High Elves, and to bring her Sufi, alive. Then she and Eph Dimension Door back to Allentia, and she collapses.

Clarys at the Temple. One of the clerics approaches Clarys and asks what became of Lady Amara. Clayrys just dismisses the cleric without providing an answer.

Mugul is coordinating cleanup with the remaining militia from his favorite table at the Widow’s End. His underworld connections let him know that the unions stand to make a lot of money from the cleanup effort. Lots of refugees are moving into the city in search of work during the cleanup. Many new criminals are moving in too. Mugul sends word that any criminals that aren’t willing to pay up should be executed, tattooed with the Emperor’s sigil, and dumped in the river.

Clarys receives word that only about 100 High Elves remain in the forest after the slaughter. She declines to send aid. On the fourth day, an entourage of Tharaci show up at the Western Gate. Mugul gets word through the militia, sends word to Clarys, and goes to the gate (with Eph, coincidently). Clarys and Ladiana arrive at the gate. The Tharaci are standing silently with the High Elf nobility on their laps. There are about ~50 Tharaci.

The gate is carefully raised, the militia keep their halfling body shields at the ready, and Clarys marches out on her war steed. As Clarys and her small entourage of paladins and militia, the Tharaci raise their spears to all of their captives (two nobels and Sufi) heads.

Ladiana (telepathically, with her amulet), tells the Tharaci to kill the two nobels, but spare Sufi. On the horizon, a band of High Elf rangers appear and loose arrows on to the Tharaci. Ladiana raises her crossbow to execute Sufi—- both Eph and Clarys see this. Eph bamffs down to block the crossbow shot, Clarys sends vines to bind her. Sufi is spared. The militia engage the Tharaci.

The Elf rangers pour in, start attacking the Tharaci along with the militia. Eph grabs Sufi, bamffs away from Ladiana and puts her down unconscious. A few remaining elves pickup Sufi, thank Eph, and scour at Clarys, thinking that she is responsible for the Tharaci attack.

Clarys misty steps into the retreating band of elves. Ladiana fires a lightning bolt at the elves. Sufi and four elves are writhing in pain on the ground, the rest of the elves (maybe 12), flee.

In the distance, another platoon of thirty Tharaci appear. Clarys commands her war steed to attack Ladiana. Ladiana makes her self invisible, evades the horse. Ladiana commands the Tharaci to retreat for now. They do.

Clarys sends some militia to help the elves back to the forest. Ladiana reappears. Clarys storms toward her, sword drawn. Clarys and Ladiana proceed to argue about why Ladiana wants to kill Sufi. Ladiana dimension doors back into the palace. About half an hour later, the militia return. They say only about thirty elves survived the Tharaci attack on the forest. Clarys sends Mugul to carry a message welcoming the elves into the city to live.

Mugul takes the message to the elves. They tell him that they are regrouping and want the best weapons he has so they can kill Ladiana. He asks them how their alchemy skills are. They say, “the best”. He proposes they start a working relationship. Mugul goes back to tell Clarys that the elves were greatful for her message, but are so distraught, they don’t know if they’ll take her up on her offer.

Word comes from Mystvale, where the leaders of the other five cities have assembled. The Sardovar have scattered, but they are worried they are regrouping somewhere. Mystvale wants Clarys to come for a council, to determine how to redistribute the riches of Mystvale amoungst the five cities. They expect her to arrive in two weeks.

Guy finally recovers. He suggests that Eph and his sister go ahead to Mystvale to scout things out first.

Ladiana sends her 50,000 Tharaci to go hide out in the caves.

Guy and Clarys are vetting nobility for replacements in the dead cabinet memebers.

In the Widow’s End, a half-dwarf, half-orc (a Dworc, apparently), named Breegan comes in to pay Mugul protection money. He says he’s from the city Daruken, and he got an opperation producing what he calls crystal. He wants to start moving it into Allentia, and then move on into the very wealthy city Specularum. He gives Mugul a sample vial of his crystal, is a pale, cloudy, white color. Mugul is surprised that it is not blue. Breegan says that the blue is very valuable, and they’d love to move it. Mugul grants him permission to start an opperation in Allentia, and tells him he’s going to be getting some Blue Crystal and wants him to start moving it in Specularum. Mugul sees him off, and sends some of his most loyal thugs to keep an eye one him.

Eph and Oriana (and some of her people) start their voyage to Mystvale. They end up in the small village North of the city where Asani set up shop. It was ravaged by Sardovar, and is in very rough shape. As they’re passing through the village, they come upon a circle of monks, kneeling, humming, and blocking the road. Eph tries to walk through, the monks raise their hands and stop his horse. Eph gets kicked in the face by a monk. A fight erupts. Monks flow from everywhere to join the fray, Eph, Oriana, and her crew are beating and killing them. More and more monks flow into the streets. Eph is over taken and disarmed. Oriana grabs him and pulls him out of the crowd. Eph, Oriana, and crew ride out of the city. About 15 minutes later, as they’re riding hard, Eph realizes he no longer has his BAG OF HOLDING. He wants to go back for it, but Oriana stops him (he doesn’t explain what is in the bag).

Ladiana receives telepathic word that the Tharaci have settled into the caves. Ladiana packs all her stuff up at night with Silverspear and leaves the palace. They head to the forest to kill High Elves.

Silverspear and Ladiana sneak into the forest. Ladiana can sense people watching her. She can hear elvish and a strangely accented common. A group comes out of the trees, there are two elves (not High Elves) and a Dworc. Silverspear subdues the three, Ladiana tells them they’re looking for only Celestine (Sufi). They say they don’t know who she is. Silverspear pokes around, there are several more Dworcs. Silverspear slits their throats. Ladiana and Silverpear poke around the forest, they detect lots of magic, but don’t find any High Elves. Disappointed, Ladiana decides that she and Silverpear should head to Mystvale… there’s a power vacuum there, afterall…

At the Widow’s End, Breegan arrives to talk to Mugul. He says he was attacked by a Forest Witch while doing buisness with the Elves there. It was, of course, Ladiana, but he doesn’t describe her well enough for Mugul to realize this. Mugul probes to find out what kind of business he’s doing with the Elves. He’s evasive, says the Elves are looking to get their hands on some forbidden weapons and are willing to pay handsomely for it. He asks Mugul if he has any connections with Asani… Mugul lets him know that Asani and Torrenega’s territory are now under his control. This seems to really impress Breegan.

Ladiana and Silverpear arrive at the village that Eph was at earlier. He encounters some hostile monks. They approach the monastery. A black robed abbot comes out of the monastery, sees Ladiana’s amulet around her neck, and bows before her. She asks if she and Silverspear and stay there that night, and the abbot tells her they’ll be the guests of honor. This is clearly some kind of monastery of Arioch. The monastery gives off a powerful feeling of dread. Ladiana sees a black orb with marbled blue on a pedestal. She does not sense anything from the orb itself. She asks what the orb is, the abbot says it is the orb of Arioch that they pray to. Ladiana puts her hand on the orb. She feels nothing. She picks it up and slams it onto the floor. Nothing happens. It is just a piece of marble. She asks them to show her how they pray to the orb, the abbot brings in some monks to demonstrate the prayer. (Aside, the village is called Northville). Ladiana sends a hafling with a message back to Allentia:

“Evil has come to Northville”.

That night as she sleeps, Ladiana has a vision in her dreams. A vision of conquest. She wakes, feeling unbelievably rested and rejuvinated, almost like she’s been drinking the purple crystal.

Back to Eph. Eph is distraught because he lost his bag of holding.

At the palace, Mugul goes to talk to Ladiana at the same time as Clarys is checking up on her. They both find her quarters empty and cleaned out. Mugul tells Clarys he fears the worst, because the elves told him they wanted to kill her and he recently heard that the elves have a powerful a forest witch. As their figuring out what to do, a hafling arrives and deliver’s Ladiana’s “Evil has come”. Mugul and Clarys decide to head to Northville with a squad of paladins.

Ladiana wakes up and snoops around the monastery. In the basement, monks are chanting. She feels overwhelming urge to kneel and chant too. She kneels, and feel a surge of power. She can sense her friends riding toward Northville. She looks back, Silverspear is terrified standing by the stairs. All the rooms energy seems to be coming from the back wall, which is all black. It makes her feel like she’s on purple crystal. She reaches a hand out, the wall isn’t a wall. It’s just open, black, space. Clarys, Mugul, & Co arrive at Northville. They question a halfling, he tells them that he saw Ladiana at the monastery yesterday. He says the monastery has been here forever, but it has just started to become popular in the last few days. Pilgrims have been arriving from all over, shaving their heads, and praying.

Ladiana moves into the black space. She sees a large humanoid without features (only an upper torso) floating toward her. She asks him who he is, it says that most people know it as an orb. The orb identifies itself as a servant of the One True God. She suggests they could work together. It is intrigued by this offer. She asks what they can do together. It says, step back out. She does. The monks all look up to her expectantly.

As Clarys, Mugul, and Guy approach the monastery, Pants-soiler begins to hum. Mugul handles it and feels like it is ready to draw blood. Everyone feels great dread as they approach the doors of the monastery.

As Ladiana steps out, she reaches her hand back to bring the being with her. It tells her to ask, and she does. The black, smoky being emerges from the blackness. Ladiana feels godlike.

Pants-soiler is begging Mugul to draw soils. He asks Clarys if she thinks there’s going to be trouble. She says yes. He draws the sword, ready to spill blood. Guy sends his weasel, it runs up the steps but gets scared, wets itself, and scampers off. They enter the monastery and see all the monks facing the stairs at the back.

The being asks Ladiana what is her wish. She says, “It is the time the world has an empress”. It says, but first, and Celestine/Sufi materializes into the room, shivering and whimpering on the floor.

Everyone decends the stairs. They see Ladiana, the being, Sufi.

Guy creates an image of the little girl avatar of Mystra, the being zaps at it with energy from its eyes. Clarys steps forward to turn the unholy, this causes the being to start to retreat back into the wall.

Ladiana grabs Sufi and drags her with her back into the abyss. The wall solidifies. Everyone briefly hears Sufi screaming. To be continued…