Lucien surveyed the scene — I can probably take them, he thought to himself, but it would be close. Putting his keen mind to work, he broke the silence by offering a truce, and took leave of them to consider his next steps.

Better check these bodies, George said to himself — maybe there is a clue that will help us find Idon. Searching the corpses, George found a small parchment written in a language that none of them understood — the only discernable feature was the signature, which was a single letter “L”. Lilith went over and stabilized General Ollk, and Vetos persuaded the group to let him take Ollk to a trusted friend who could heal her injuries. Reluctantly, the group agreed and made their way back to Axis.

After arriving at the safe house, Ollk began to stir — although still weak, she thanked the group for assisting her. Vetos remained behind to help heal and protect her — with the general secure for now, the group decided to head to Ollk’s garrison in an effort to find more information and to persuade her forces to help unravel the mystery of the missing wizard once and for all.

On the way to her garrison, however, they were intercepted by a familiar face — Lucien stepped from the shadows, followed by Hendorn who, in a shocking turn, placed them under arrest for the attempted murder of General Ollk and with the undermining of the truce between the Emperor and the Crusader. They were bound and taken before an Arbiter’s Court.

At trial, the Arbiter allowed each of them to give opening statements. As the person bringing the charges, Lucien was allowed to go first and painted a truly tragic story, implicating the five Inquisitors in the murder of General Ollk, the murder of his lover who was also a member of The Five, and in an ongoing conspiracy to undermine the critical truce between the Emperor and the Crusader.

On their turn, the four present Inquisitors denied the charges, and in their defense, repeatedly claimed that General Ollk was not dead and that Lucien had twisted the facts in order to avenge the death of his lover. They claimed that it was Hendorn who had sent them on their mission to find the missing wizard Idon and that Lucien was obfuscating the facts in order to prevent them from completing their assignment.

The Arbiter then called Hendorn to the stand who denied ever sending the five on any mission — he told the court that such an assignment was unnecessary, as Idon had never gone missing. At that moment, Idon appeared in the court, stunning the four Inquisitors — Idon proceeded to tell the court that he has been working secretly for the Emperor in an effort to uncover a nefarious plot to undermine peace with the Crusader, and that he suspected these five Inquisitors as the primary agents sowing discord throughout Axis and the Dragon Empire.

Having heard enough, the Arbiter passed judgment, sentencing the five, one in absentia, to an immediate death. After the sentence, Lucien offered some final thoughts on how it was good to see justice being done, and George offered a powerful reflection on the obvious lack of justice that the Inquisitors had received.

With that they were surrounded and bound by the guards — as they were about to be led out of court, a voice called out from the back of the room. Gingerly leaning on Vetos, the quiet but determined voice of General Ollk cut across the room.

“If it please the court,” she said, “I’d like to offer additional evidence.”

PLAYER GENERATED MEMES

The group decided to head over to General Ollk’s garrison as quickly as possible — no sense in delaying their search for Idon. After receiving some flak at the entry gate, they were eventually let into the barracks, although they received a cold reception all the way to the main hall. As they entered they noticed General Ollk sitting alone at the dining table, preparing for her evening meal. Off to the side was a servant, tendering to her every need.

General Ollk bade them to take a seat and offered them food and drink — her assistant seemed annoyed by this, but General Ollk brushed him aside. She offered a toast to good health, and each of them drank the wine, except for Clayton — as the meal was being served, the assistant began lighting candles placed on the table.

The Inquisitors began to pepper General Ollk with questions regarding the disappearance of Idon, although she offered them little by way of answers. As the meal progressed, George noticed that General Ollk seemed to be a bit foggy in her recollection of her memories in general — in fact, he began to feel a sense of confusion as well. Looking around the room, each of his comrades, with the exception of Vetos grew increasingly agitated and confused and nearly unable to string basic sentences together.

Suddenly, General Ollk’s head slumped down onto the table — she was still alive, but completely unconscious. As the Inquisitors began to fade away from reality themselves, Vetos noticed how the smoke from the candles seemed heavy — he got up and opened the windows, breaking the enchantment that was dulling their senses and putting them to sleep.

With General Ollk still out, Lucien revealed his true motives. He claimed to be one of The Five, specifically, The Eye, one of the members of the elite squad of spies that serve the Crusader. The reason he had tried to prevent their admittance into the dining hall and then had allowed them to come under the effect of the enchanted candles was so that he could quietly take General Ollk to a discrete location to interrogate her about the disappearance of Idon. Lucien claimed that he saw Ollk’s troops binding and taking Idon away, and he figured that taking Ollk to a discrete location in order to question her — along with the other members of The Five — would be the best way to retrieve Idon as quickly and as safely as possible.

Pressed as to where he was taking the general, Lucien said that he was planning on meeting up with the other members of The Five at Mandrake Grove, an area just outside of Axis that was beyond prying eyes. Figuring this was the next best option to getting information out of General Ollk, the group went with Lucien carrying the heavy body of the general along with them.

Along the way Lucien asked them about a certain junior officer that had, at the time, been serving with Lt. Dea. He told them that he was really a member of The Five, and also his lover and that he had just recently discovered that Lt. Dea was a secret necromancer. Lucien suspected that Lt. Dea might kill his lover if she knew that her secret had been revealed, and figuring it might turn Lucien against them, they lied and said that Lt. Dea had indeed killed him in the fight (they recalled a junior officer they had slain in their first and second battle). Saddened by the news of the death of his lover, he quietly led them outside of Axis to Mandrake Grove.

As the entered Mandrake Grove, from a distance they could see four figures waiting in a clearing — strange, Lilith thought to herself, why are there four? Shouldn’t there only be three since Lucien’s lover, the fifth member of The Five, is dead? Before she could pursue the question further, though, a fight ensued. It began because the four hooded figures demanded that they turn General Ollk over to them, which they refused to do until they learned something regarding the whereabouts of Idon. Lucien, unable to to smooth over the misunderstanding, initially aided the Inquisitors in the battle, but surreptitiously — by placing his hand on Lilith and peering into her soul — discovered that his lover had in fact been killed by Lilith and not Lt. Dea at all.

To prevent Lucien from causing too much trouble for the group, Vis attempted to control his mind, and was seemingly successful at doing this — perhaps too successful, as Lucien turned his wrath towards General Ollk. Eventually three of the four hooded figures were destroyed, while the fourth escaped into the darkness. Lucien, after briefly disappearing, now stood before the group alone, looking for an opportunity to avenge the death of his friend and lover…

They tied Lt. Dea to a chair and placed her against the wall. Although this wasn’t the first time she’d found herself in the crosshairs of the Imperial Inquisitors, this felt pretty serious. She braced herself for whatever would come next — after all, she thought to herself, I really don’t know anything about this missing wizard.

It had been some time since Clayton had engaged the art of “truth extraction” — as he prepared to question Lt. Dea the rest of the group seemed more than happy to let him do the work. Why bloody their own hands too?

Unfortunately for Clayton, Lt. Dea seemed unfazed by his attempts to gain any information from her. As the tension in the room began to escalate, Vis went over and looked into her eyes — into Lt. Dea’s soul. After a brief moment had passed, Vis told the group that Lt. Dea truly did not have any information to give them regarding the disappearnce of Idon.

As the five Imperial Inquisitors pondered their next steps, they noticed that Lt. Dea’s eyes had rolled into the back of her head, and her head was slumped against the wall — she was chanting something in a language that none of them recognized, at least not at first. Suddenly they could hear the sound of banging on the door to the safehouse — Clayton, standing closest to the door, opened it slightly and thrust his sword out — but he didn’t hit anything at all. Then, to their dismay, several ghosts began to materialize through the wall.

They recognized the ghosts as the spirits of Lt. Dea’s recently fallen comrades — great, Lilith thought to herself — a necromancer.

In death these soldiers, especially Lt. Dea’s direct subordinate, packed a powerful punch — or at least Clayton came to learn this lesson in a painful way. Eventually the ghosts were overcome and dispensed from this realm — as the ghosts vanished, Lt. Dea began uttering the name of Atsu Ollk, the Crusader’s top general in Garrison — then she died.

Realizing that they couldn’t leave Lt. Dea’s body laying around, Lilith, Vis, and Vetos consecrated her body in order to prevent any further necromancer activity. Debating their next steps, they decided to bring in a clean up crew to dispose of Lt. Dea’s body, and to have around as reinforcements just in case it was needed. They also agreed that they would leave out the necromancy part in their report to headquarters — that would be helpful information for the second part of their plan, which was to convince Atsu Ollk that it was in her best interest to cooperate in their search for Idon less it be discovered that one of her closest officers was dabbling in the dark arts, a development likely to displease the Crusader.

Collecting their strength, they left the safehouse and headed towards Atsu’s garrison, confident in their plan and in their ability to find the missing wizard…

George stared at the mission notice on the wall — I wonder who they’ve teamed me up with this time, he thought to himself. He noticed one of the names on the parchment — Vis Niller, one of the Emperor’s fateweavers — must be an important job, he mused.

Various Imperial Inquisitors wandered over to check out the list, but eventually George could make out the rest of the team. There was Vetos Dracofilius, the wizard with an exceptional passion for colorful robes, whose attraction to high fashion was equally matched by his magical prowess. Clayton Garavini, a fighter with some skill in extracting information from people and Lilith Fotha, a quiet yet foreboding paladin who rounded out the team. Should be an easy mission, George thought to himself.

After all of the various pleasantries were exchanged, the group headed over to Hendorn to receive their mission. Hendorn assured them it was an easy missing person’s case — a powerful member of the Emperor’s Imperial wizarding circle had gone missing, Idon Mernotva, and it was up to them to find him and return him to the Emperor’s court as quickly as possible. Hendorn told them that Idon had last been seen in Garrison, somewhere likely in the southern section — rumors had been received that the Crusader’s agents had been involved. Although the Crusader was permitted to keep forces in Garrison it was not unusual that from time to time tensions boiled over into the occasional kidnapping or skirmish.

Heading out they made their way to the dividing line between the northern and southern sections of Garrison — the boundary wasn’t official — in fact, it moved from time to time. The only real way it could be identified was by the presence of Imperial and Crusader forces in close proximity to one another. They interviewed both of the guards — the Imperial guard knew nothing, and they suspected he was telling the truth. The Crusader representative was typically evasive and abrupt.

Walking away from the guards and into the southern section, they were approached by a hooded figure who told them that he had overheard a conversation regarding the disappearance of an Imperial wizard, and that he would be more than happy to assist them in their endeavor for a small fee. After paying the man five pieces of gold, he told them that a Lt. Dea, a loyal officer of General Atsu Ollk, was possibly involved in Idon’s disappearance. He gave them her patrol location and disappeared back into the shadows.

After tracking her down, they attempted to persuade her to come with them for questioning — she declined their offer, at which point an intense yet quick fight ensued. After seeing the destruction of her comrades, she relented, and the group took her to one of their safehouses in Garrison. She adamantly denied having any knowledge of the disappearance of Idon, but they didn’t really believe her. Perhaps Clayton would be able to get some information out of her…