The Crimson Door, Pt 3: It Was Better When Roland Was Running Things
General Summary
Excerpted from the Journal of Shroud Agent Matt Harlow...
Month 6, Week 1, Year 908
I'm writing this as fast as I can, it feels like my body's on fire after that spell Aufiel cat on me. I've already told Chamberlain to file the report if I don't make it out of this hick town alive, a large Shroud presence is needed here to save the city from itself. Back at the gates of Watchtower we ran into a bit of drama with Helm's paladins, turns out one of them was playing both sides in this Aufiel/Ickathon duel. Vicktor, the paladin, had killed one of his allies at the temple to steal some kind of gauntlet for Aufiel. Me and the other weirdos all saw this encounter happening from afar, but rather than waiting to get the jump on Aufiel and his cultists back at the camp our paladin friend Augustus jumped out into the open and ruined our entire element of surprise. The fight was pretty brutal, and this is coming from someone who's good at avoiding attacks. We dealt with Vicktor and the cultists, but Aufiel escaped despite my best efforts. But just when I thought we'd chase after him, a whole bunch of monsters jumped out from the wild and KO'd half our group! I rushed through the gate as soon as I could, but Sonia needed to drag an unconscious Lellia through the door and I had to rush back to slam it shut. Augustus was still knocked out outside, but I say Shroud members come first in a do-or-die situation like this. Then Ickathon showed up a few moments later, yelling at us for leaving a paladin to die out there. Has he seen the monsters outside? I thought we were on ok terms after our last meeting, but Ickathon kept going on about how we were disrespecting his authority in the city and had no right to make calls about saving our lives or whatever. Listen, the Shroud isn't the one with traitors in our ranks, and the Shroud isn't the one who got one of their super-powerful relics stolen. I didn't want to put up with the old man's lectures anymore, so I set up a 'Tiny Hut' for me and the others a mile outside of town. The weirdos slept a lot better that night, and I made it crystal clear to Augustus and Aurellia that they couldn't be rushing into combat like that anymore. This morning we woke up and made our way over to Aufiel's camp, thankfully avoiding an ambush from some of his cultists on the edge of camp. From Ickathon's rantings it sounds like Aufiel having that gauntlet isn't a good thing, so we tried sneaking up to the camp to see what he was planning to do. Nobody noticed my invisible ass, but it's hard to do a stealth mission when the half the group's wearing plate armor. We found Aufiel and Zuula around a campfire performing some of kind of ritual, and Aufiel nearly murked us with some insane spell I'd never seen before. I know enough about spellcasting to at least get a heads-up and try to avoid the worst of the damage, but this spell happened so fast and so ruthlessly that I couldn't even try to avoid it. On the plus side, neither could his cultists: some of them came out of their tents and died the moment Aufiel cast it. On the down side, the cultists killed by the spell turned into half a dozen zombies for us to fight. I managed to rush away from the group before Zuula cast some kind of 'Slow' spell, definitely not a point in her favor when we decide whether to let her live or die. I managed to get close enough to Aufiel to give him a little curse of do-nothing, but in return Aufiel decided to nearly kill me with some wild necromancy spell. It took everything I had left to escape in one piece, and I had to leave it to the pallys to finish the job on Aufiel. It took us an hour to recover from that fight and rest up, and now we're about to give Zuula the third degree. Chamberlain, piece together this conspiracy for Medraad if I don't make it back...
Month 6, Week 1, Year 908
I'm writing this as fast as I can, it feels like my body's on fire after that spell Aufiel cat on me. I've already told Chamberlain to file the report if I don't make it out of this hick town alive, a large Shroud presence is needed here to save the city from itself. Back at the gates of Watchtower we ran into a bit of drama with Helm's paladins, turns out one of them was playing both sides in this Aufiel/Ickathon duel. Vicktor, the paladin, had killed one of his allies at the temple to steal some kind of gauntlet for Aufiel. Me and the other weirdos all saw this encounter happening from afar, but rather than waiting to get the jump on Aufiel and his cultists back at the camp our paladin friend Augustus jumped out into the open and ruined our entire element of surprise. The fight was pretty brutal, and this is coming from someone who's good at avoiding attacks. We dealt with Vicktor and the cultists, but Aufiel escaped despite my best efforts. But just when I thought we'd chase after him, a whole bunch of monsters jumped out from the wild and KO'd half our group! I rushed through the gate as soon as I could, but Sonia needed to drag an unconscious Lellia through the door and I had to rush back to slam it shut. Augustus was still knocked out outside, but I say Shroud members come first in a do-or-die situation like this. Then Ickathon showed up a few moments later, yelling at us for leaving a paladin to die out there. Has he seen the monsters outside? I thought we were on ok terms after our last meeting, but Ickathon kept going on about how we were disrespecting his authority in the city and had no right to make calls about saving our lives or whatever. Listen, the Shroud isn't the one with traitors in our ranks, and the Shroud isn't the one who got one of their super-powerful relics stolen. I didn't want to put up with the old man's lectures anymore, so I set up a 'Tiny Hut' for me and the others a mile outside of town. The weirdos slept a lot better that night, and I made it crystal clear to Augustus and Aurellia that they couldn't be rushing into combat like that anymore. This morning we woke up and made our way over to Aufiel's camp, thankfully avoiding an ambush from some of his cultists on the edge of camp. From Ickathon's rantings it sounds like Aufiel having that gauntlet isn't a good thing, so we tried sneaking up to the camp to see what he was planning to do. Nobody noticed my invisible ass, but it's hard to do a stealth mission when the half the group's wearing plate armor. We found Aufiel and Zuula around a campfire performing some of kind of ritual, and Aufiel nearly murked us with some insane spell I'd never seen before. I know enough about spellcasting to at least get a heads-up and try to avoid the worst of the damage, but this spell happened so fast and so ruthlessly that I couldn't even try to avoid it. On the plus side, neither could his cultists: some of them came out of their tents and died the moment Aufiel cast it. On the down side, the cultists killed by the spell turned into half a dozen zombies for us to fight. I managed to rush away from the group before Zuula cast some kind of 'Slow' spell, definitely not a point in her favor when we decide whether to let her live or die. I managed to get close enough to Aufiel to give him a little curse of do-nothing, but in return Aufiel decided to nearly kill me with some wild necromancy spell. It took everything I had left to escape in one piece, and I had to leave it to the pallys to finish the job on Aufiel. It took us an hour to recover from that fight and rest up, and now we're about to give Zuula the third degree. Chamberlain, piece together this conspiracy for Medraad if I don't make it back...
Character(s) interacted with
- Augustus and Aurellia - Two paladin's from Watchtower's Temple of Helm who were assigned to help us take down Aufiel. They're ok people when they're not foiling out plans
- Ickathon - Leader of the Helm's temple and the local order of paladins. He didn't take it well when we left behind one of his paladins as monsters attacked us from the gate
- Aufiel - a cult leader worshiping the fallen angel Abbadon capable of some crazy spells. I should know, I almost died.
- Zuula - a former Shroud agent who decided to shack up with Aufiel for some reason. It's getting harder and harder to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Report Date
08 Nov 2020
Primary Location
Featured Players
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