Journal Entry 32.00 The Final Battle

The party seeks to find the remains of Morvion's family. Through an elaborate plan, Letheria eliminates Majalacturis and secures her priesthood a place in Chrailis.

Events were beginning to align well for Morvion to head out on the task for which he had himself. Two days earlier, he had received a missive from someone referring to herself as the Lady of Pain, telling him that he was now cleared to go and kill the priestess of Letheria. The terms he had sought, where he would lead her remaining flock back to Chrailis, were accepted. She said she would bless his planned excursion and promised to receive the new flock into hers. While Morvion had serious misgivings about handing several fanatical elves over to the one who he believed to be Lady Sherayne, his goal to retrieve his missing family was paramount. He was going to do this and deal with the consequences later. Still, a hint of caution lingered. He once again sought an audience with the Coterie leaders. To his surprise, the answer came within in an hour from a single brown-robed member of House Zaytaltarn. Morvion was hesitant to explain the involvement of Letheria, then thought best not to hide anything. He outlined the plan as he knew it.
The Coterie bowed her head briefly, then raised it looking at Morvion eye to eye. Outside of Kinsi, he had never seen a clear view of one of their faces. Her skin was golden, as if painted with gold dust, and tight, not from youth, but from the tightness of being healthy with age. As she spoke, her eyes began glowing a bright amber. While there are never any guarantees, what you propose has no objection from our Eternal Mother. Go with Chrailis in your heart, brother elf.
Feeling his path was set, he began talking to the others. Aja wanted another two days to finish setting up the winery’s staff and operation. Though Zurrelevants wasn’t coming back, he was able to give Aja the contact information needed to bring back several of the former winery employees and even gave her a few names of prominent administrators in the city who might be able to run the winery for her. In the end, she chose Zurrelevant’s assistant, Berlenna. Berlenna was a gnome who had over fifty years of experience in the business. Though she had never run a full estate, based on her previous experience with the winery and the high praise from Zurrelevants, Aja was comfortable in the decision.
With that settled, Aja teleported the group to the jungle location far south of Canton where she had previously picked Morvion up when he had last scouted the area. Morvion then summoned steeds for the party and they rode hard through the day to find the lizard encampment he and Graykar had befriended a month earlier.
The lizard camp was in the same location as was the camp of Letheria. The Letheria encampment had ceased their wicked ceremonies a few days after Morvion had last seen it, and to date, hadn’t started up again. When Morvion asked, the lizards told him that the unholy camp was in the process of building more permanent dwellings and had started farming the land. Morvion had originally assumed they were nomadic and gathered with a purpose.
Urik wondered aloud, “Why are they setting up out here?”
Thinking it through, Morvion could only come back with, “Unless they are waiting for our arrival, which I wouldn’t put past them, I don’t know. However, let’s not make them wait. I say we scout them out tomorrow morning and then attack as soon as we see an opening. I don’t fully trust this and want this situation over with.”
The party agreed.
Taking a deep breath, Morvion decided now was as good as time as any to broach another subject he had been avoiding. “Everyone, I have a confession, and something I need to say before we go any further. While the reasoning of why we are here is sound, there is more to the story than I have let on.”
He told them of his worship of Letheria. Expecting Urik to be the one to become hostile, Morvion kept his eyes on the orc, gauging his reactions. Morvion didn’t want to fight Urik, but at the same time, wasn’t going to be stopped by him either.
Uncharacteristically, Urik didn’t react. He looked at Morvion with a wisdom the elf had never seen before. “Friend Morvion, I had already suspected as much. And I have spent many hours in prayer. It has been my hope to redeem you from this dark path.”
“Thank you Urik, that means more than you know. And in truth, I have serious questions about this path. I have been using my service to Letheria as a means to an end. I have also suspected this was known to her, in truth, I believe she has always known I was not fully devoted. The terms for her help in this are as follows. Once we killed the current priestess, I am to lead any survivors back to Chrailis and turn them over to the high priestess of Letheria in Chrailis.”
Urik growled. “And who might that be?”
Morvion started to say, but then found his memory clouded. “I, uh, I can’t say. I don’t think I have ever met her directly.” He felt he knew who it should be, but couldn’t recall. It was then that he remember that another part of the agreement was that he would give control of his body to Letheria for a day. He now knew that day was at hand. And as he realized that, his thoughts clouded slightly more and he forgot about his most recent revelation.
Continuing, Morvion said, “Urik, it is my plan that once this is done, I will renounce my following of Letheria. The religion is one of cruelty for no other sake than cruelty, from what I can see. It is a religion of gaining power only for the sake of gaining power, a religion fit for narcissistic tyrants. Urik – I vow when I say this, I intend to take these elves back to Chrailis, but then I will hunt down the leadership of Letheria within the city and eradicate it. I will at that time redeem those I can from the flock out here, and help eliminate the rest. Are you good with this promise?”
Urik thought about it. Aja said some words of encouragement to Urik in how she trusted in Morvion. After more thought, Urik said, “I am good with this.”
Smiling, Morvion revealed the next part of his plan. “Good. Now, these words have been spoken, but I want them unspoken. Urik, can you do your turn back time trick. And then when I start to talk, make sure I am unable to say what I want?”
Urik smiles, “Sure thing.” And with that, he concentrates, turning back time in the vicinity so all events were undone.
Morvion took a deep breath and started to say, “I have a confess . . .”
Urik belted out a loud battle cheer, “Death to all that is Letheria, let’s get to this battle,” raising his ax and started striding from the meeting they were having.
Aja jumped, Graykar looked around thinking they might be under attack. Morvion thought of trying to make his confession again, but decided against it, wondering if Urik had already turned back time. Hoping that was the case, Morvion went to the leaders of the lizards and asked for an escort to the camp of Letheria.
The leaders picked their four best scouts and wished the party well as they headed out. It took an hour of travel for the party to arrive near the outskirts of where the Letheria camp was set up.
Sure enough, the followers of Letheria had erected several wooden buildings since Graykar and Morvion were last here. The party could also see the beginnings of several farmed fields, earth recently upturned for new crops to be planted.
As they watched, they could see in the distance in a depression underneath a large embankment what looked to be an active congregation in the middle of a service. Graykar announced he was going to explore and vanished sight, moving quickly toward the encampment.
He snuck along the embankment above where the service was taking place and saw behind the priestess who was leading the ceremony a cave mouth large enough to walk in.
As he snuck along toward the cave entrance, he listened to what she was saying. “Soon, my flock, they will arrive. Our Mistress’s holy purpose will have been achieved, then those that wish to stay may stay. The rest will follow me north.”
He snuck on into the cave and moving deeper and deeper through the passages and caverns he saw summoned creatures he had only seen a few times before. One was some type of reaver creature with black leathery skin and four arms he thought they had fought back around the glass tower of the Yellow Wizard. Even now the hideous nature of the multi-eyed freak gave him slight shivers. Continuing further back, he saw a pool of water with a female naga like creature with eight arms. She was slithering around, talking to herself in some form of demonic language that Graykar could understand with effort, and doing so gave him a headache. After listening to her ranting for a few sentences, he was happy to ignore her and move on.
Seeing that the cave ended here, he began working his way back to the entrance when he saw a single jewelry box sitting on the floor opposite any entrance to that particular cavern. It was made of dark lacquered rosewood, engraved with a scenic display of a field and trees. The box itself was about 15 inches long and only four inches tall. Approaching it, he bumped into an invisible wall. Feeling around, he deduced there was a cube of force surrounding the box. Not wanting to reveal himself, he tried a few tricks to bypass or bring down the cube, but none of them worked. He would save this for later, he needed to get back and report.
Having searched the cave, he retreated out. The ceremony was still going on, but wrapping up. Listening once again as he snuck by, he gathered that whatever was going to happen was bound to happen soon. It didn’t sound like a trap for his party, it sounded like they were waiting for someone else to arrive.
He made his way back to the party and reported what he had seen. That was enough for Urik, “We attack now, before whatever it is they are waiting on arrives.”
Agreeing to that, the whole party began to move forward into position.
As they did, several dozen yards to their south, they saw multiple disturbances in the air, starting out by heat waves distorting the air which then coalesced into discs of spinning blue lights floating in the air. Aja says with a sharp whisper, “Portals are opening.”
Thinking that this might be controlled by the congregation in front of the cave, Morvion initiated the attack by teleporting in. He attacked the priestess leading the ceremony, wounding her, but failing to take her out with his first salvo of attacks.
Graykar rushed in second and attacked, followed by Aja casting multiple lightning strikes on the congregation, killing many of the followers in mass.
The elven priests and guards reacted, moving in to defend against the party. The rest of the elves, especially the weaker members of the congregation and the farmers in the lands up above the embankment began to flee. From above the embankment which held the cave mouth, several archers lined up at the edge and began to fire down upon the party members below.
Urik rushed over to one of the opening portals, as it was closer than engaging the other elves. Gathering his will, he reached out with his hand and concentrated on disrupting the magic of the opening portal. The portal collapsed. Unfortunately, several of the other portals continued to open.
Once the portals fully opened, in a single file, various types of giants started marching through.
Then one of the head elves of Letheria yelled out, “The giants have betrayed us, Azurellicus is attacking. Everyone focus to the west.” As this was said, many of the elves which were beginning to attack the party turned and instead attacked the giants. The giants attacked back in turn.
The party knew they weren’t with the giants, but if the elves wanted to think that and divide their attacks, all the better.
That was when Maugrin stepped through one of the portals. He was one giant that the party immediately recognized from his solid encasement of gray plate mail. And out of another portal they saw their former adversary, the green stone giant, Kraus come through, carrying his large golden bow.
Realizing they might be in trouble, the party started to huddle up near the cave entrance, keeping their focus on the head priests of Letheria. Morvion yelled out, “Once we kill her, we port out.”
Graykar pointed out, “There seem to be multiple priestesses. Which one.”
Morvion answered, “Kill them all. Be certain. Let’s get this done before the giants can close, or closer.”
The party could now see that at least thirty giants had taken the field. Maugren was marching slowly toward the party and unleashed one of the special attacks of his armor. At the same time, his armor began glowing brighter with each step. The attack he released caused the gravity beneath Morvion to increase multiple times, pinning him and all around him to the ground.
While Maugren was attacking, Klaus was calling out to the party, “Followers of Chrailis, we mean you no harm. Leave the field of battle to us, and there will be no more conflict, we seek not your deaths. We don’t need to fight, we just want the box.”
Aja finished casting Puddlejump to move near Morvion and then quickly grabbed Morvion using her augmented strength which she could call upon once a day. She risked stepping into the increased gravity, hoping she wouldn’t succumb herself, and pulled him out of the area of effect. As she pulled, she could hear the tendons pop in his arms from his increased weight. However, the edge of the gravity’s area of effect was close and she had him across the threshold. He had taken some damage just from the ordeal, but nothing unhealable the next time his healing bracer activated.
The final troops to come through the summoning circles were not giants, but blue-robed men. Twelve in total floated through the portal. The party all recognized that they looked very similar to the coterie of their own Chrailis, but instead of brown robes, they work bright blue robes. Each of the robed figures had to be at least 10’ tall.
Recognizing that they might truly be in trouble, Aja began preparing to cast a teleport spell to simply get them out of there.
Each member of the party had a connection to Chrailis, even at this distance. Through this connection, they had increased vigor, had a limited level of resistance to harmful magic, always knew in what direction Chrailis lay, and could even use the connection for a major healing which would remove most harmful effects. This connection went both ways. Through it, the Coteries could keep track of the characters if they desired.
For reasons the characters wouldn’t understand until later, the Coteries had anticipated the presence of Azurellicus’s followers. Using the connection, the Coterie had felt the presence of their counterparts arrive on the battlefield. Once that happened, four Coterie members who had placed a portion of their essence in the breast of each of the party members manifested. Rising out of the party members as glowing balls of green energy and then solidifying, they flew high above the forested plain. With their arrival, the blue-robed followers of Azurellicus also floated high above the ground. Then both sides froze in place. All assembled on the ground below that could sense magic felt the power emanating from both groups floating figures, each one holding the other to a standstill.
Even though the robed members of the two sides were at a standstill, the giants, elves, and party members continued fighting.
Aja started calling for everyone to close in. Maugrig’s next attack allowed the giants to kill the final priestess of Letheria.
Before the party could close up, the noonday sky went dark. Everyone on the field of battle briefly paused to look up, the suns were gone. It was night. The suns had disappeared, only a single silver moon could be seen.
And with the night’s arrival, a commotion could be heard to the south. At first, in the darkness, nothing could be made out. Then they heard the footsteps, something massive was approaching. In the next few seconds a dim image of a humanoid in black plate mail could be made out approaching, one that had to be at least 100’ tall. As all on the battlefield witnessed the figure continue to approach, they all also knew with a certainty that Majalacturis had arrived on the battlefield.
With his arrival, both the Coterie and their blue-robed counterparts ceased their standoff and began launching spells of destruction toward Majalacturis. With a single wave of his hand, balls of molten iron sprang into being and hurtled toward the robed figures, a loud rumbling thunder marking the glowing spheres arc across the sky before striking and exploding in a flash of burning metallic shrapnel. With that one attack, over half of the robed figures were taken out, robed figures falling out of the sky lifeless.
During the few seconds that the first exchange took place, Morvion felt a change come over the entire plane. As the darkness had settled in, a second effect had also appeared. The only reason Morvion felt it was also the same reason he recognized it for what it was. Letheria was making her presence known, she had locked down the field of battle. Nothing was teleporting in or out. As the Letheria’s prohibitive shield slid into place, all of the mystical portals the giants had used winked out of existence. There were now two gods directly involved in this fight.
With the appearance of Majalacturis, most of the giants began to flee. Klaus and Maugrin had a brief conversation about staying for the box before Klaus yelled out, “Retreat, we can’t stand against the godling.”
Morvion called out to the party, “Retreat as well, we can’t teleport out, the whole area has been dimension locked.”
“Get into the cave, I can still get us out, I have a plan,” Graykar yelled out. He believed that whatever Morvion was worried about wouldn’t be any match for the abilities of his satchel, he just needed to get to the body of water at the back of the cave. Then he would be able to spirit everyone out to his water world.
Retreating into the cave, the could hear the footsteps as Majalacturis approached. Entering the part of the cavern which held the box in the force cube, the party began a quick discussion on how to get it.
Not wasting time, Aja cast Puddlejumped again, transforming into a ray of light, bypassed the walls of the cube, materialized back into corporeal form and then grabbed the box. She then attempted to dematerialize to light a second time but the spell didn’t work. The entire volume inside the cube was a field of complete magic suppression. She was trapped.
Knowing the needed to get to the water, the rest of the party members tried dispelling the cube and a few other tactics before Morvion said, “I can feel this cube, it is of Letheria itself also. It won’t go down till she wills it down.” Morvion wonder if he could pray the cube away. He thought that maybe he should be the one to try dispelling it, but figured it wouldn’t work unless he cast dispel as divine magic, a trick he hadn’t learned yet.
Urik knew that unless Josca herself took a similar interest in this battle, Morvion was correct. No earthly magic was going to bring the cube down.
Believing they still needed to get to the water, Graykar pulled out a rope, wrapped it around the cube, and told everyone to help drag it. The plan worked great until the passageway to the final chamber with the water narrowed too much for the cube to fit.
While the party worked on the cube, Aja sat down on the floor made of force and opened the box. Inside she saw two crystal rods, both about a foot in length and a half-inch in diameter. One was made of solid ruby glass, the other of solid emerald glass. She let out a slight gasp.
Even Graykar recognized what they rods might be, “I know those wands,” he said.
These couldn’t be the mythical wands of the Cyrkransis, certainly not, Aja thought. Yet, before her, she couldn’t deny the evidence of everything going on. To have all these groups meet like this, having a god on the battlefield, Si’Nassa manifesting her own Coterie members, the presence of the Giants, and Letheria powering various magical effects directly could only mean the wands were real. These wands had the power to reshape nations. They were items of ultimate destruction. Whoever possessed them would be able to eliminate any enemy.
They were out of time. Majalacturis was now directly above and starting to tear thought the cavern ceiling, clawing great clumps of rock and dirt out of the ground. As soon as he broke through the earth, he reached down and grabbed the cube Aja was in, lifting her up out of the cavern and bringing her to eye level, a single gauntleted hand of his large enough to hold the cube. Aja immediately did her best to brace herself in the center of the cube, just in case the god started shaking it.
Out of options, Graykar yelled out, “Should we try the solar titan?”
Morvion asked, not wanting to debate the matter, “Will it work? I don’t know if we’ll get another chance should we fail.”
Urik followed with, “We don’t have a choice. We could lose Aja if we don’t act now.”
Though Graykar had asked the question about whether to use the wand, he hadn’t waited for an answer. He had already reached into his pouch and pulled the rod forth. Seeing Majalacturis standing above them focusing his will on the cube of force surrounding Aja and the box, Graykar, in turn, focused all his skills of magic on activating the wand. Though he had never used the wand, he had studied it enough that he felt he could trigger the magic when the time came.
The wand powered up and triggered. As it did so, the shield lock Letheria had in place disappeared, and at that moment, the wand summoned into being a humanoid figure made of rock and of immense size, standing over 450’ tall. Graykar had summoned a solar titan.
The force of the magic knocked Graykar down to his backside. Staring at the thing he had just summoned, he mouthed, “Now that is something I’ve not done before.”
Along with Letheria’s teleportation lock going down, so did the cube of force. Aja started to fall to the ground then caught herself as her fly spell reactivated. Box in hand, she flew down the rest of the party, ready now to teleport out.
The titan glowed with the brightness of the suns, eradicating the darkness Majalacturis had placed upon the field of battle. Night disappeared and the suns once again blazed in the sky. Bright as daylight, the solar titan began to take a step toward the dark god. The radiance emitted by the titan also revealed the dozens of followers that Majalacturis had also brought with him which were circling ready to attack. Twelve children of Majalacturis shrank away from the brightness before turning to run away along with about fifty of the corrupted and mutated elves the god had created as his new warriors.
Weakened from the light, Majalacturis tried to manifest himself away. Failing that, he relied on a more basic means of his current form and started to run away from the titan. The titan flashed and an aura of solar radiance burst from him, bright than any of the suns above, an intense heat setting aflame everything combustible within a quarter of a mile.
The brightness of the flash pushed Majalacturis to his knees.
The titan continued to stride forward. Once created, it would never stop, it would slowly keep walking the direction it had started. That it was walking toward Majalacturis was only because Graykar had utilized the wand in that direction.
Seeing the godling go down, Morvion saw his chance to kill Majalacturis. He took his spear, charged it with every last bit of power he could, and hurled it toward the god. The spear struck, delivered a crippling blow, then vanished, returning to Morvion’s hand.
Graykar also attacked. His skin was smoky from the radiance of the solar titan, but he hoped the rings of fire protection he had on would keep him from being incinerated. He ran up and struck, his blows doing no damage. Aja yelled out, “Attaunia’s staff, it was made to fight gods, use that.” Graykar pulled the staff and attacked again, using the staffs deadly magic to create a ray of destruction, firing it at the gods back.
Majalacturis, climbing back to his feet swiped out at Graykar, landing a solid blow. Graykar’s body went flying, landing with the grace of a lifeless corpse. The force of the blow had killed him.
Getting ready to start running again, the solar titan took another step and flashed again. Wincing from the pain of the heat, Morvion’s various protections from flame barely kept him standing. Majalacturis stumbled again. Lining up his attack, Morvion once again threw his spear. His aim was true. Though Majalacturis wasn’t human, he had chosen a humanoid shape and Morvion hoped because of that, the god would also have humanoid’s vulnerabilities to attacks aimed at vital areas. With this throw, the spear lived up to its name. Godkiller slew Majalacturis.
As the god fell to the ground, the titan flashed again. Majalacturis’s body started to disintegrate from the heat and brightness into black smoke.
Knowing they couldn’t withstand very many more flashes from the titan, and knowing the giants were just out of range waiting for the field of battle to clear, Aja ran to Graykar and instructed Urik and Morvion to meet her there. As soon as they gathered, they teleported back to Chrailis. As her spell ended, Morvion looked over Urik and said nodding his head with a rare smile, “Morvion Godkiller, I like it!”
Upon arriving back at Chrailis, the attending Coterie at the insertion zone demanded the wands. Before any of the party could even object, Aja handed them over. The party was then told to go in peace.
From that point forward, life slowed down for the party, as all major threats to Chrailis faded to the background of day to day toils. Majalacturis was dead. Lord Azurellicus ceased his aggression toward Chrailis. Even the orcs to the east ceased their hostilities on First Dawn Lake.