The Seventh Sword
Session Forty-Six of the Notoriety of Kings Campaign

Terday, 9 Late Harvest 204 [continued]

Staying awake all night, after running through the jungle for several hours does not thrill the party. It may not be a problem for Brack or Raza, but the rest of the group have trouble keeping their eyes open. Nicos and Elias play cards to stay awake. Nicos cheats badly.

Alessandre seems to have a surfeit of energy, however. Since the meeting with Etched she has been stoked. “I still can’t believe we’ve met an elf!” she exclaims. “You’ll get used to it,” says Ravenna. “When they’ve tried to kill you as many times as they’ve tired to kill us, they lose their appeal.” – “They’re all nancy boys, anyway,” says Nicos. Alessandre takes exception to this. “Oh, Nicos! They’re not, they couldn’t be further from it.”

The bard continues, “There are many tales of the elves, and the way they lived. The cities they built, the songs they sang,” she quivers slightly. “The songs! That poem that Klazid read to us – the one he couldn’t do justice to. He said it was written in a mixture of elvish and Sonorism. Although, I’m sure the elves don’t call it Sonorism. It’s their magic. Their magic is sound and song! Not like anything I can do – not like anything any bard can do. My magic is a poor cousin compared to them.”

Ravenna sighs. “So what you’re saying is one decent Silence spell and they’re stuffed?” Alessandre shakes her head, angrily. For once she seems desperate to be taken seriously. “That wouldn’t work on an elf,” she shouts. “I would give anything to hear the elves sing, Elias. We have to use that leaf. We have to go there!” Raza looks a little scared. “No,” Elias says firmly. “It has to be the last resort.” Nicos agrees, saying something about not wanting to go to a namby-pamby land of the elves. Alessandre sits down and folds her arms. She has a good sulk.

The night is long and hard. Gassan and Heru have been awake for three days and it is starting to take its toll on them. Of the nine, it is Gassan and Alessandre that succumb to sleep. Elias soon notices what is happening, and shakes Alessandre awake. It takes a few minutes to rouse her, and when her eyes finally open she is obviously terrified. Elias holds her close as Alessandre mutters something about being chased by a beast. Gassan is a little better. Fear doesn’t touch a paladin as it touches normal people. But still he is shaken.

As Heru warned, the Nightmare Beast has tried to strike at them through their dreams. Gassan and Alessandre are fatigued, and everyone is on edge. “It will attack us tomorrow,” says Heru. “We must be prepared.”

Zephday, 10 Late Harvest 204

Before they have managed to scotch the campfire in the morning, The Blade of Prudence bursts into light, endowing Elias with the power of Foresight. “Trouble!” he yells, drawing his sword. The other members of the Chosen quickly follow their lead, as does Alessandre and the paladins. “Where?” asks Arvan. Elias points to the north of the camp, just as a tremendous bellowing roar can be heard coming from that direction. Something very large is charging through the jungle toward them.

Arvan draws on his druidic powers and gestures in that direction. The soft ground hardens. Dangerously wicked spikes appear from otherwise innocuous stones and plants. Then the trees before them crash to the ground and the beast races across the deadly ground toward them.

It is made in the shape and proportion of a bulldog, but a bulldog that is reptilian and stands twenty feet at the shoulder. The hide is rock solid, changing from grey to purple in the light. On the end of each of its four legs are razor-sharp claws as long as a man’s arm, but it is its maw that draws all eyes. It possesses a set of teeth that makes a shark look old and gummy. The incisors in the upper and lower jaw are larger than its skull and protrude well over its upper and lower lips. On its head are horns like a ram, but so large they almost touch the ground. There is a sly intelligence in its eyes as it makes a bee-line for Elias.

Foresight barely saves him as he turns aside at the last instant and the horn rakes the back of his armour. Nicos reacts quickly and casts haste upon himself and Ravenna. Although their swords are drawn they won’t be engaging this thing in melee. Lightning bolt and fireball streak from the pair at the creature, followed a second later by two more. The beast evidently has some resistance to spells, but enough of the magic gets through to cause it great damage and distress. Gassan, Heru, Brack and Arvan race forward to battle the creature. The paladins batter the creature’s legs to very little effect, but the blades of virtue slice through its armour like a hot knife through butter.

The fight is not a walk-over for the Chosen. That is something that should be underlined. Nicos is downed by one of the creature’s horns and Alessandre bravely risks herself to save him. Raza is almost cut in two by the creature’s powerful bite and only an application of Heru’s healing hand saves his life. However, Gassan and Heru are impressed (nay, amazed) at the performance of the Chosen of Narramac. Ravenna takes a horn through the midriff and still has sufficient presence of mind to send a lightning bolt arcing toward the target. Something she will crow about for weeks afterward. The blades of Elias, Brack and Arvan make mincemeat of the beast as it realises that is has bitten off far more than it can chew. Arvan makes particular use of his great strength by tearing chunks out of the creature’s flesh. Even Shredder has his part to play, although even he could not successfully grapple this opponent.

The end is inevitable. The beast shudders and collapses to the jungle floor fountaining blood. Heru congratulate the Chosen on a battle well fought. Any misgivings he may have had about their presence here, has evaporated. He will certainly take them to see the Lord Marshal. Raza asks whether they should take the body of the creature back. Heru says that they will not. Despite the fact that all of them would be hard-pressed to carry one leg, Tollomor and the Cadre will want to examine it where it fell.

It is then that Raza notices something about the armour of the knights here on the girdle. He has seen it before. In the Dreamheart, where he experienced the vision of The End of Days, there were a number of knights nailed to the prow of dark ships sailing from the south. The armour they wore were the armour of this order. He asks about the order. Elias is all ears at this point.

“We are the Saldarím,” says Heru. “It is our duty to guard the Girdle and make sure than no evil passes from the southern lands. After the Mannenites sacked the Hadradan Empire two hundred years ago, the Elyastic knights pursued them south. We followed them across the sea and fought them here against the Great Wall. They fled into the southern world, but we remained. We became the Saldarím – a tribute to our commander, Saldar. Beyond the girdle are the outlands of Hell. Come.”

The paladins continue to lead the party through the jungle, passing huge nests heaving with ants as large as a man’s palm. Nicos volunteers to fireball them, but Heru advises against it. The ants of the girdle can scour the flesh from a man’s body in seconds. Eventually, they enter a tunnel carved into a rockface before them. Gassan carefully cuts away the spider webs that run across, and head-sized red and orange spiders scuttle back into the darkness. The cave runs for several hundred yards, although they can see daylight at the far-end all this time. There is a pungent smell in the air, detritus from the thousands of birds and bats that roost on the ceiling above. Brack can hear something far off. It sounds like a storm. They press onwards. The tunnel is at a steep incline, so they exit much further above the ground than they entered. When they do so, they are looking down at something truly remarkable.

The group emerges onto a cliff ledge three hundred feet above the ground. Pathways to the left and right lead down to the jungle below. Beyond the jungle, roughly two miles distant, is The Great Wall. A huge structure built right on the southern coast of the Girdle. It is a hundred feet tall and fifty feet wide and stretches to the east and the west as far as the eye can see. The wall is patrolled by groups of armoured figures clad in silver and white. Equidistant along the wall are huge towers with ramparts and embrasures. But all this is not the sight that gives our heroes pause. Above, the sky is a brilliant blue, the sun beats down warmly, and there is but a faint breeze. Beyond the wall it is different. It is as if some hand has drawn an unseen line between two worlds. Beyond the wall the sky is black, the wind howls and jagged lightning forks across the sky. The sea boils in a violent storm that batters the foot of the great wall. In the sky above there is a distinct line where blue meets black.

“We stand on the edge of the Abyss, and none may pass,” says Heru slowly. “Behold the southern world in all its infamy. The Saldarím have chosen to make their stand here. South of us are all the corrupted lands. And at their heart is The Great Dark. Before you is The Tower of the Marshal, the greatest of the towers built along the wall. It is here that Lord Marshal Nareem commands our forces. Come, I will take you to him.”

“You take me to the best places,” Alessandre whispers to Elias, kissing him on the cheek. The party descends slowly down the path toward the edifice. Before the wall, in a clearing several hundred yards across, is a village of wood and stone where (presumably) the families and the support for the Saldarím dwell. As they walk through the village, the party is amazed two out of every three people seems to be a paladin. Elias says that he wants everyone to behave themselves hear. Ravenna is not happy. All these paladins! She has bad memories of Minsc and being forcibly shaved in Castle Northmeet. Alessandre seems to agree with her, which disquiets Elias a little. “Paladins are people too,” he says.

It is only when they pass through the village and begin to walk pass the barns and towards the vast wall that they see something else that prompts a dozen questions. The wall is made of ancient stone, that seems to have been quarried from a thousand different sources. But the Tower of the Marshal is something different. Its body is the same as the wall, is as old as the wall….. but its foundations…. They are the made of the same seamless black stone as Ashardon in Norandor and Raith Keep in Tibrai. The party has discovered the location of the third of the nine Temples of Concordance. Is there a guardian here like Dralcarnus?

“Who built this?” asks Elias, desperately trying to conceal his excitement. Heru shrugs. He does not know. The wall was all ready in existence when the Saldarím arrived on the Girdle two hundred years ago. “We do not know who the original architects are. It could have been the Mannenites, it could even have been the elves.” When Elias points out the lower levels, Heru is also in the dark. “They have been sealed for as long as we have been here. Nothing evil lurks within.”

They leave Gassan at the foot of the tower and follow Heru up the stone steps. Everywhere there is activity. Sword-wielding holy knights, some on horseback, patrol the wall. And just on the other side of the wall is the back sky an the storm. The sound of the waves striking the wall is all around them, they can even feel the vibrations through their feet. But there is not a breath of wind. Alessandre walks up to the edge and looks down into the churning waters. A passing paladin advises her against extending her arm into the storm. The winds have been known to flay flesh from the bone.

Heru leads them into the cavernous opening of the Tower of the Marshal and says that he must make a report to Marshal Nareem. He expects that the Lord Marshal will want to see the party soon after. The inside of the tower is spartan. Functional is probably the best word to describe it. There are none of the frills or trappings that go along with orders of Norandon paladins. It conveys a deep sense of duty. The Saldarím obviously have a job to do, and don’t have time for much else.

Within twenty minutes, Heru returns and leads the party up bare stone steps and into a long audience chamber where he leaves them. The chamber takes up the entire floor of the tower and is completely devoid of any furniture, paintings or anything. Six archways in the east and west walls lead to corridors that are shrouded in darkness. In the northern wall behind them the stone has been magically transmuted to resemble glass. Through it the party can see the red glow of a glorious evening. In the southern wall is another window. Through that is nothing but darkness, and the odd bolt of lightning. The dichotomy is telling.

It is then that they hear the foot-steps of metal shod boots on stone. A single figure enters through the far eastern archway and walks toward the party. He is dressed in full plate armour of the same design as Heru, although his helmet seems a little grander. He also wears a cape of white and gold, and there is gold piping around his left shoulder. That is all the ornamentation he has. He stops in front of them and removes his helmet. An ageing knight is revealed. The Lord Marshal has grey hair that is only flecked with black. He might be more than twice Elias’s age, but he has not gone to seed. There is strength in him yet and he has eyes that seem to miss nothing. He places the helmet on a hook in his belt and eyes the seven suspiciously.

The silence is palpable. Eventually Ravenna steps forward. “We were sent to you by Hadala Klazid. He gave us this letter of introduction.” The Marshal takes the scroll from Ravenna’s outstretched hand and breaks the seal upon it. Without saying anything he begins to read it. As he reads, he paces. It takes several minutes to read through the letter. Once he has finished, the knight reads it again to be sure.

“Heru has informed me of your courage and skill in despatching the Nightmare Beast,” he says at last. “It was a startling achievement. Such creatures are exceedingly powerful and mired in the corruption of the southern world. But then, to the wielders of the Blades of Virtue, it is perhaps not so much of an accomplishment.” Lord Marshal Nareem regards the party gravely. “I have the utmost respect for the Klazid family, but they are historians not warriors. They say the seventh sword still exists, I believe them. They say that it is in the Great Dark, I believe them. They say the future of all depends on retrieving it….. I do not know. Even six blades of virtue are powerful weapons in the fight against evil. You proved that against the nightmare beast. To risk the six to recover the one seems a dangerous gambit. And even if you can retrieve the sword how will you escape The Great Dark?”

“We were hoping you could help us with that,” Ravenna says quickly. “Such a thing may be possible,” says Nareem, “but this is not solely for me to decide. I am commander of all the Saldarím, but The Assembly must speak on such matters.” Nareem explains that the Assembly is made up of himself, fourteen of the greatest members of the Saldarím, elders of the Elyastic faith and members of the Cadre of arcanists who aid the paladins.

The party ask Nareem to tell them more about the Saldarím and its work. Despite being the de facto commander of every paladin on the girdle, and responsible for the safety of the Northern World, Nareem seems very giving of his time. Firstly he tells them all that Heru has all ready told them, but then he continues. “Belsinor’s Girdle” is sixty-thousand miles in length, the Great Wall on which you now stand extends only two thirds of this distance. Once twelve million paladins made up the Saldarím. Each was proud to guard his ten – his ten yards of the wall. Now, our numbers have diminished by half.”

“Six million paladins!” Ravenna exclaims, the thought of it too horrible to contemplate. Nareem nods sadly, misinterpreting the horror in her outburst. “Twenty yards is too much for one man to protect,” he sighs. Nareem is incredibly interested that Arvan has been to the Great Dark, and spends almost an hour talking with him about it. This, more so even than the fact the party carries the Blades of Virtue, is enough for Nareem to take them extremely seriously. “Heru will take you to some quarters where you can rest. I will go and speak to the Assembly. We will summon you back in two hours with our decision.” Two hours! What Urovan (or even Hadradan) political institution would make a decision so quickly. The party are quick to conclude that Saldarím don’t have a lot of time for bullshit.

Two hours later, the party return to find a table in the shape of a ring. Seated around are Nareem and twenty-six others of great importance. A part of the table is opened, very much like a bar in tavern, and the party step into the middle of the ring. They are at the centre of the room. Between the light of the northern window and the dark of the southern one.

Nareem stands and says to the party, “This may seem intimidating, but it is not a tribunal. You stand before the Assembly. The Council of Fourteen to my left are the wisest and most noble members of the Saldarím. To my right are eight elders of the Elyastic faith, and The Cadre. The arcanists who have joined with us to protect the northern world. Your mission is perilous to yourselves and – should you fail – to us all. We respect both Hadala Klazid and Glyphmir, but it is you who must justify your mission to us.”

Ravenna summons her courage and begins to tell the Assembly why she believes that they and only they can do this. She tells them of Mínaris and how six Blades of Virtue were powerless against his evil. “The Saldarím are a great defence against an attacking army,” says Elias, “but there are powerful beings who do not need to go through the Girdle to reach the northern world.” Arvan says how he has been to the Great Dark and returned. Their reasons and their talk lasts for an hour before the next person speaks. It is Tollomor, the leader of the Cadre.

“There is much danger in all this,” says the severe wizard who is evidently much older than he appears. “Glyphmir has always been a dangerous element. These Chosen of his may do more harm than good. If the Blades of Virtue were ever to fall into the hands of the Enemy, then it would be a dark day for all of us. Still, these things must be said in private discussion.” But Tollomor is not quite done. He offers the party a powerful magic scroll that, when cast, will breach the barrier between worlds and send them home. “Are you capable of wielding this magic?” he asks pointedly. Ravenna studies the scroll. It is completely beyond her. “I see,” says Tollomor, “so how do you intend to escape the Great Dark.” – “We have a way!” says Nicos. “And would you share with us what that way is?” – Tollomor and Nareem’s eyes burn into Nicos. The cleric smiles affably. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that!” he says. He is utterly stoked. He knows something that is too dangerous to tell his allies. He feels just like Narramac.

“I see,” says Tollomor. “I suggest we withdraw and discuss.” As the Assembly breaks up to discuss whether or not to help the Chosen. “That was fun!” says Nicos. “If that scroll was the only way out they could offer us,” says Ravenna, “we will have to use Etchen’s option.” Raza looks terrified, but Alessandre couldn’t be happier. It looks as though the back-up just became the only plan.

Raza, for no reason that anyone can discern called Nicos a ‘nancy-boy.’ Nicos explodes with anger, “Are you calling me an elf?” he asks. Raza says that he is and much to Elias’s despair, the fire cleric challenges the monk to duel. Alessandre takes the idea to heart and soon arranges a fair fight between the monk and the cleric. Both are clad in heavy armour so that Raza cannot use any of his monkish abilities. Nicos promises not to use his spells. And how shall they fight? They will fight with weapons of great honour: two socks filled with coins!

A great crowd of paladins comes to watch possibly the most bizarre duel ever staged, as Nicos and Raza go to every length to make themselves look ridiculous. Elias is just thankful that this happened after the meeting with the Assembly, but he doesn’t fancy his chances of being let into this order now.

The fight takes absolutely ages, as the combatants try to hammer each other into unconsciousness with their weighted socks. Nicos keeps disarming Raza of his sock and then hammering him over the head two or three times as the monk bends over to pick it up. This happens again and again and again, and eventually begins to take its toll on Raza. Eventually, Nicos renders Raza unconscious, but the cheating monk uses the Blade of Temperance to keep himself awake! Still Nicos presses on, until eventually he kayos Raza with a mighty barrage of sock to the temples. Raza falls to the ground, Nicos is victorious! Alessandre rushes in and hugs the cleric. What’s left of the watching crowd clap politely.

Nicos uses his fire magic to revive Raza who is a little annoyed. This is the second duel he has lost to a party member. The first was against Minsc, a very long time ago. However, the upshot of all this sock-twirling is to forge a strange bond between Nicos and Raza. “You’re all right,” the fire cleric declares and promises to make Raza those ‘Boots of Striding and Springing’ that the monk has been pestering him about ever since her learned Nicos had the skill.

Caladay, 11 Late Harvest 204

The Chosen have discovered this morning that they will not be able to continue the journey south for a few weeks because of unusually severe storms in the black southern sea. This gives the Assembly more time to come up with ways to help them, it also means they can mull over what other magical items Nicos can make for them while they are on the Girdle. Pointing out that each item costs a little of his soul does not seem to do much good for Nicos, as the ideas become and more and more ludicrous. He is beginning to regret promising the boots to Raza.

Meanwhile, Raza taps Elias for money. Nicos needs funds to make the boots, and he doesn’t want to find them himself. Elias sighs. Ever since he became a baron, everyone seems to have looked on him as a bottomless bank account. Raza is really beginning to annoy him, therefore he promises the funds on the proviso that Raza swears a vow of silence for one week. Raza agrees! One week from the moment he has the boots.

Brack starts joining the Saldarím on their local patrols of the wall around the Tower of the Marshal. Although nothing has crawled over the wall recently, the paladins are glad to have Brack (and Shredder) with them.

It is the mid afternoon when Nareem drops by to see the party. Brack saw a rider hurtle along the wall carrying a message earlier today, and they wonder if it is connected. Nareem answers the obvious question first. “The Assembly have not yet reached a decision. Tomorrow perhaps. However, something has occurred that must be brought to your attention. A ship filled with your countrymen has landed a thousand miles to the west. They mostly seem to be paladin knights in the service of the moon god, Terranor. I received the was received by touchstone. They are making their way to the Tower of the Marshal and will be here in three weeks.”

“Minsc!” exclaims Nicos. It has to be Minsc. Minsc and Lady Patricia and a ship full of Urovan paladins. “But why are they here?” Elias muses aloud. “I will show you,” says Nareem and bids them come with him. As they walk, Nareem tells them that he knows absolutely nothing about Barbrasan politics and hopes that the party can be of some insight in this matter.

Nareem takes the party deep higher in the Tower of the Marshal to a room guarded by a minotaur clad in shining silver armour. Nareem nods at the minotaur, “Hedley,” he says. The minotaur takes an enormous silver key and unlocks the door he was guarding. Inside, the room looks like an armoury. Suits of armour stand on frames, weapons are on the wall. Nareem explains that this is a repository of magical weapons and artefacts – although none are as powerful as the Blades of Virtue. He takes the party to a glass case. Within is a an ornate cross worked in gold and rubies.

“This artefact was brought to the girdle in the year 18 of your calendar by a knight called Sir Nybor. Word had somehow reached him of our mission against evil and he came to throw in his support. He died seven years later in a battle with a huge sea monster that tried to crawl over the wall. This artefact has miraculous powers of healing, enabling a wielder to regrow severed limbs, cure diseases and even bring someone back from the dead. Nybor called it The Cross of Vítaeous. This is what the Urovan paladins have come all this way for. They wish to return this artefact to Norandor.”

The party agree. Nicos says that Minsc was always going on about his quest to find the Cross of Vítaeous. Ravenna is not happy by this turn of events. Her last meeting with Minsc was not a pleasant one. Being shaved and thrown into the dungeons of Castle Northmeet are events not easily forgotten.

Elias says that the party will help as much as they can, and then begs a moment Nareem’s time. In private Elias tells Nareem about his past. He tells the leader of the Saldarím about his home in Tibrai, about the hundreds of dragons his father summoned that laid waste to that land and of the great dragon of unknown hue that came later and rules his home still. He tells Nareem how he wandered directionless for seven seasons trying to find a way to save his home. Directionless until he joined Narramac’s quest, and that quest has ultimately led him here. Elias also speaks of mysteries. Of the connection between Raith Keep, Ashardon and the Tower of the Marshal. He tells Nareem of Dralcarnus and the Custodians of Concordance.

Nareem listens intently. The lower levels of the Tower have never been opened (to his knowledge). He does not know what is down there, or if a guardian like Dralcarnus exists. He doubts it, but then much of the wall was built long before the Elyastic Knights came here, and the foundations of the Tower of the Marshal seem older than that.

Elias also tells Nareem that his directionless life seems to be at an end. Elias wants to be a paladin, and he wants to join the Saldarím. “I see,” says Nareem, seriously. “I see that you have thought about this, and everyone has the right to try to be a member of the Saldarím. I welcome anyone with the will to do so, and I sense great good in you. But what do you actually know about our order, Elias?”

Elias confesses that he doesn’t know very much. Nareem smiles. “Chastity, celibacy, poverty – these are the not tenants of the Saldarím. You will find us very different to our northern cousins. A paladin does not draw his power from a god, he draws his power from The Light. The Light is the embodiment of all that is pure and good and true. Urovan paladins may worship gods, but it is not from gods that their power comes, remember that. You have to appeal directly to the Light. How is that achieved? It is achieved by doing Good, Elias. Nothing else. There is no need of ceremony or other such trappings. However, your mind can convince you that there is a need. Urovan paladins are taught to be paladins through religion, through ritual. They need this religion and this ritual for their powers. They need it as a means to contact the light. It is a crutch. If they stray from the strict path they have set themselves they lose their link to the Light. They make their jobs too hard. Here there are but fourteen laws. Do you know what they are?”

Elias stumbles slightly. “We follow the Thirteen Laws of Elyas,” says Nareem, “the original thirteen laws, now the revisions made by Vanda. Those thirteen laws and one other. The Fourteenth Law that makes us the Saldarím. Hold the words of the Fourteenth Law close to your heart, Elias, for if you do decide to join us it will govern every day of your life.” He pauses, and then says in a cold, clear voice, “Defend the Northern World from the horrors of the South in the all their guises and disguises. Be forever Vigilant. Know that it is your duty to stand between Evil and Innocence.”

“Could you live your life to that vow, Elias?” Elias says that he could, he’s just having problems with the other thirteen laws. He speaks of his failings and most especially of the situation between Drasha and Alessandre.

Nareem smiles. "Answer me this," he says, "What is the most important of all the laws?" This is evidently a test, and Elias thinks long and hard before replying. "As it encompasses all the others, I would say the thirteenth." Nareem nods, "And you would be correct. The thirteenth law commands that we follow all the other laws with honour and without deception. That is so difficult because the only person who can define honour is oneself."

"The Hadradan answer would be to marry them both but I know the Barbrasan culture is not like that. The only thing you can do is choose between them, and make sure your decision honours them both. As for the other mistakes on your part, to recognise your failings is to be Saldarím. You have to rise above them and learn to forgive yourself. You must atone. Atonement is a personal thing, only you will know when you are ready to put the past behind you. Only then can you open yourself to the Light."

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