Session 39 - In Death Comes Rebirth

17/06/5-10

The group was deciding whether to kill the Emisar immediately or capture him, but Milivoj was undecided on it right now. Sapphira said that the man might have similar effects to a vampire. With Pass Without Trace, they ascended to the room, where the iron wagon, the chest and bookshelf were. There Shiek started trying to open the chest and shelves. He was particularly interested in the purple book depicting a pillar of flame, likely related to the Violet Flame. He took it and handed it to Milivoj, on it read "The Violet Consume". Inside the chest, he found one half of a pair of Sending Stones, a bag of platinum coins, an open letter bearing the seal of Stendolin and another open letter.

With that they began marching upstairs. The room was quite dark, there was a table and a cabinet on the said and an open door to the balcony. The bed seemed to have a figure sleeping in it. Everyone else creeped their way up the stairs, except Valeyo, who remained partly on the stairs. Shiek moved towards the bed, ready to grab the sleeping figure. As raised the covers, it instead revealed a armoured figure, which he then attacked. As that happened, the people noticed that the Emisar was floating outside, when he raised his hand and a pink font of energy appeared in the room, pulling everyone in. The walls buckled and cracked and the roof appeared as if it will collapse. Seeing him Milivoj dashed out of the window and jumped at the floating man, collapsing part of the balcony beneath him. Grabbing onto him, he smashed with his flail. But the man deflected it with his magic, back at Milivoj. The second hit landed true and knocked them both down.

The remaining party jumped off, just in time to be caught in another Gravity Collapse from the Emisar, knocking both Sapphira and Otto out. Cassine jumped off the tower, face first into a tree falling unconscious to the ground. As the Emisar went to leave, Milivoj stood up, bursting into violet flames. He chased the Emisar down and strangled the man using the flail's chain. In that process, he telepathically screamed at the Emisar. Valeyo witnessed this from his prone state and saw a look of happiness, come over  the Emisar, as Milivoj finished him off. The remaining knight, climbed out of the rubble and rushed towards Milivoj, the Violet Flame overtaking them. As he began swinging he chanted "In death comes rebirth". Milivoj smashed him in the head with the flail and out of their mouth, Violet Flame burst out, filling the air.

The fire burned the surroundings, before coalescing into a purple bead, which flew back to the Emisar, entering his mouth. His neck, snapped back into place and fire filled his eyes as they opened. Milivoj smashed into him again, and Shiek finished him off again, by cutting his head off. Milivoj grabbed the body and started running to the gatehouse. The others wondered what to do, but Valeyo insisted they had done nothing wrong and told them to go to the front of the temple and get things under control.

In his fleeing, Milivoj ran into a pair of guards and told them to get the First Boyar. They put their spears to him and told him to put the body down. One went to pull out a whistle, but Milivoj drew he sword to his neck and told him to get the First Boyar, NOW. The rest of the party, ran into a group of guards and were shackled, except Shiek who ran away immediately. They started being dragged towards the Keep. Milivoj was lead there as well, at spearpoint.

On the way to the fort, lights began shining, as people began looking at the commotion. The first group arrived at the keep, escorted by guards, where much of the staff was clearly swiftly awoken and Borek waiting in the courtyard. Valeyo sent him a message, telling him that the did something about the Emisar as promised and if he wanted to help the city, he should go along with what they are about to do. He them spoke out to him normally and after a short conversation, it became clear that they would be kept for questioning. Before they were brought inside, Valeyo spotted a dragonborn, who he knew was from a member of the ICM and told him to get to Simona and start spreading a story of the Emisar's misdoings. He told them to prepare the crowd as they will likely speak before the public soon. A short while later, Milivoj was lead to the fort as well. Seeing that it would be hard to follow unnoticed, Shiek shouted at Milivoj, who explained that he was a member of his retinue and the two of them were lead up the hill to the courtyard.

Milivoj tried to strongarm the First Boyar into talking in his office, but the man was having none of it, calling him  a northern knight who just killed the king's man, so he should go to the dungeon with the rest of them. Milivoj kept insisting an complained about having to drag an Emisar's body through the streets, calling it preventable, if not for the guards'  incompetence. Eventually they agreed to go in the dungeon, unbound, so as to avoid a fight. There the saw the rest of the party and Milivoj refused to enter the cell until the body is destroyed, to which the First Boyar relented and they were lead to a large kitchen fire. Shiek pointed out that the orb had entered his mouth, and now he had no head, but Milivoj asking Shiek to trust him, mentioning that he knew more about this. Before burning the body, he took three rings from the Emisar's fingers. With that the First Boyar lead them to the cell and prepared to leave, but before doing so, he turned around and said he was very unhappy with what had happened.

While waiting they talked about the night's events. Shiek said that he didn't come here to get involved in such trouble. Valeyo insisted that the situation was under control, but Shiek was displeased with how it had ended up. He worried about the Emisar coming back, despite Milivoj burning the body, since the head was still intact. Valeyo explained to them that resurrection magic comes in two main varieties - one that simply closes wounds and one which can reconstruct a body. If the Emisar's spell was of the latter kind, there was nothing they could do. They kept going over that for a while, until Shiek remembered the two letters he had found in the Emisar's chest.

The first letter, seemed mundane, but in certain letters in the writing, was a squiggle, which resembles a circle with a squiggly line - the symbol of the group Viper belongs to: "T.B info was good, other group killed Sarge and Caster, more info soon.". Before passing it around, he felt something weird with the wax seal. When he touched it, the imprint felt different to way the symbol looked - it was the same circle with wavy line. Valeyo pointed out that T.B could be Theodore Berkinsail. The professor may have been captured by this group or perhaps he was a spy for them, but either way it is likely he had survived the attack in Dragomir. The other letter was quire brief, mentioning an explosion in Dragomir and information found from the explosion that might be relevant to the Emisar's locale. It also mention looking forward to hearing about his research. An indent in the paper matched the size of the sending stone the group found in the same chest.

Shiek started shouting about not wanting to be chased by another group or having Viper and her ilk coming for them. Valeyo argued that they couldn't get to them anytime soon, since doing so would require exceptionally powerful magic. Regardless, it seemed that the second letter was likely send from Dragomir, so they had a few days, before they could get to Stendolin. While they were arguing Milivoj took a look at the rings he had taken from the Emisar's body - the Ring of Fire Resistance, Ring of Protection and a ring bearing the symbol of Dragomir. Checking the final ring, Milivoj noticed that hidden under the symbol was that of the circle with the wavy line. Valeyo mentioned that the symbol was the same as the wax seal and proposed that the Emisar, might be a fake. The letter that Borek had send years ago, when Danil first arrived, could have been intercepted or perhaps someone from the King's inner circle was a member of this organization and send the response telling him it was none of his business. Following this, Valeyo wondered how Danil knew Milivoj's brother, but Milivoj said that is a conversation for later. As for their next steps, Valeyo wanted for them to be present at any public judgements or announcements, as he was confident he could win the people over, but Shiek doubted the First Boyar would go for that. Just then Borek entered the dungeon and asked what it was they wanted him to "go for".