Resuming in the basement of library.
Guy searches DeRozan after he expires. He finds some letters and three rings. He also has a pouch with 50gp. Two daggers, very ornate, look valuable, curved blades, with several gem stones on them. His clothing is very fine. He also has some darts in a secret pocket, they have a greenish substance on the tips. And another six darts in his left secret pocket, also green-stuff tipped.
As we go up stairs, there are two of DeRozen's spies w/ crossbows sliced up. (There were six guarding that level when we were here before). The other four are missing.
As we go upstairs, there are more dead nuns, all slashed to death.
Top floor: front entrance is bashed open. Clear there was a struggle. Bloody; obvious carnage.
We get outside and it's daytime. It's snowing, again.
Mugul talks to some militia, they say that all of the militia are gathering, setting up trenches North of the city (along with the Orcs and Allentian armies) to meet the incoming invasion.
(Because Dean is't here) Ladiana leaves to go join her Orcs. She has some psychic control of the approaching Tharaci. She's going to go deal with that. She departs.
Amara's followers are all around outside the library. They're bowing to Clarys, but asking for Amara.
Talking to Amara's followers, we establish we were gone for two days (even though we feel it was only a few hours).
We go to the temple. Lots of people praying for good health, better weather, and Amara. Clarys asks for Amara, she's told Amara went to the library two days ago, and no one has scene her since. There are only ~20 paladin there, the rest are at the front.
We stay to have a meal at the temple. No one knows anything about Sardovar entering the city. No one's seen them or knows anything.
A spy approaches Guy in the temple. The spy says he heard some people walked out of the library in disguises and merged their way into the city. Approx. 10, in “normal” clothing. Two still in armor. They went South, heading toward seedier taverns in the South. Spies are still watching them. They split up into five groups of two. They have distinctive, short-cropped hair cuts. Amara went into the temple with a female paladin, has not come out.
Eph goes to the palace to check on Oriana. Mugul heads to Widow's end. Clarys stays at the temple for now.
Guy goes back to the library. There's a man there helping to clean up that indicates he's a spy. He tells Guy ten soldiers came through, killed everyone in site, and infiltrated into the city, South. He saw Amara and a paladin (Rachel) go down into the basement. She hasn't come back.
Guy checks to the two “special doors” in the basement (portal and scroll room). No sign of Amara around them.
Ephraim walks over to the palace. Guards are minimal. He makes it into the palace. He is greeted by Orianna. Eph doesn't tell her where he has been. She says Winthrup has been holding the fort, no talk of sedition. Eph asks her if she's interested in assembling her team and taking a trip to Mistvale. She is very apprehensive at the mention of Mistvale. Very against the idea.
Mugul arrives at the at The Widow's End. There are two hulking strangers with distinctive hair cuts. He sits down and talks to them. They claim to be trappers from out west passing through looking for work. He offers to pay them to shovel snow. They grudgingly accept. They ask for a room, he tells them they can stay in the onion cellar. They go outside to shovel. One of Mugul's henchmen tells him they showed up 4h earlier and have been probing for details. He tells them to keep an eye on them and to find out if anyone else like them have shown up.
Back at the temple, Clarys. She talks to someone there, they say that Rachel has gone missing. Guy arrives, tells Clarys about the undercover Sardovar(?). He tells Clarys about Amara and Rachel disappearing into the library yesterday.
Clarys and Guy head to the palace. Meetup with Ephraim. The Minister of Defense comes to talk to Clarys, lets her know about the situation on the front. The discuss redistributing forces to protect the borken wall. Clarys schedules the execution of the Minister of the Interior for the next morning. She assigns Orianna as the executioner. Doesn't need to be public.
Mugul tries to bring one of the thugs down to the cellar, tries to kill him. He attacks back, the other guy comes. They fight, they are really tough, almost him out, but he kills one, and his henchmen from upstairs come running down and kill the other. Just then, Guy, Clarys, and Ephraim arrive. The bodies have a bunch of special weapons (fancy looking short swords), and gold pieces with the emperor's likeness on them.
We tell Orianna (and her network) to go and kill the Sardovar thugs at another tavern. One of Guy's spies reports back that it's not going well. We all run over to help. There are three tieflings (Orianna's) getting destroyed by the two undercover Sardovar. Clarys kills one, and we beat the crap out of another and try to take him prisoner.
Guy goes to the next tavern to see what's up. Two tiefling's being destroyed by the Sardovar. He tells his spies to keep an eye on them. The Sardovar bolt. Guy casts hypntoic distraction on one of them. He stops and stares into space. He chases the other one, casts phantasmal force on him. Clarys arrives at the frozen one and chops his head off. They both attack the second guy, kill'em.
As Mugul and Eph are carrying out the prisoner, two heavily armored Sardovar emerge from the shadows. One looks like a captain. Eph teleports them both and drops them to Mugul's feet, dazed. Mugul stabs them. One is killed outright, the other, the captain, is severely wounded. Eph kills the captain. The captain had papers on him, couting militia numbers and gates into the city (4). His name was Captain Maezer.
Guy and Clarys are directed to the last two Sardovar. They're sketching the wall. They attack and kill them. As they're dying, Clarys talks to them. Asks them if they know who she is, they say she's the lady from the crypts. They say the emperor is coming.
Later, we all meet up at the palace. It seems all the Sardovar were killed except for the prisoner. The prisoner is zone of truth'd and interrogated. The invasion is set for tomorrow, from all sides. Two storm giants and 60,000 troops. The giants are coming from the East (he thinks, doesn't really know). 20,000 troops attacking from the South. He doesn't know who or what is attacking from the west, but he thinks something is attacking. The plan is for the Giant(s) to breech the Eastern wall and the forces to pour in. He says the emperor will be present. He says they're here to shut down the alliances between the Duke and the other cities. The Duke is held in the North Tower of the Emperor's palace.
After the interrogation, Clarys notifies the defense minister of the plan of the invasion.
Just then, Ladiana marches in with Silverspear. The Orcs are moving their forces to the West because of advancing Elves from NW and Tharaci. Silverpear can no longer control them. They're acting on their own, their new leader is Hanagark (sounds like its Mugul's father.)
We go on and on trying to decide what to do, we start thinking about opening the portal. We decide Amara must have had a way to open the portal. We go to her room in the palace, and find several scrolls written in draconic. Guy can sort of read them, they seem to be portal opening incantations. We find Amara's diary. It starts of lucid, saying she's devoted to Mistra and Lady Clarys. Then it starts to go off the rails, lots of gibberish, something about “free the Duke, the Duke is the answer”, and “I am the answer, through me all things are free” and more “free the Duke, the Duke is the answer”.
Guy read the prisoner's thoughts and learned that the Sardovar were going to use the tunnels to reach the palace and burn it as the signal to attack. We decide we need to block the tunnels some how to slow down the burning. Guy talks to spies about collapsing the tunnels in a controlled way instead of just flooding them. The spies recommend flooding. We decide they will be flooded.
Clarys asks Orianna to kill Amara if she shows up back in town. Make the assasination discreet—— don't want to upset Amara's followers.
Everyone sleeps, rests up.
The next morning, Sage Morinar, the (former) Minister of the Interior is executed in his cell. His last words are “I regret I have but one life to give for my emperor.”
Before we go through the portal, Mugul dons the dead Sardovar Prime armor (it covers his brass arm). Guy wears a magical disguise to look like one too (he uses a ring from DeRozan that allows him to do that). Before leaving, Guy picks up 5 more vials of Black Crystal from Alex, he passes one to each of us. No one drinks it yet. Ladiana (via Jon) says she'll drink hers the second the portal opens.
At the library, we get to the portal. Guy uses a wand from Arkasan to open the portal (and using the Amara spells). As we pass through the portal, we see The Emperor moving in the opposite direction.