Live in Infamy

You look down at the knight in the manor's garden for a long moment, and somewhere in your heart the conflicting maelstrom of emotion hardens into a single nugget of hate. This is the man who sent you to Branderscar, who ruined all of your ambitions, who set you on this path and all that might come later. Now fate (or more likely the Cardinal's machinations) have placed him in your path once more, and you will not be denied.

"I am going to kill him," you say, turning away from the window and snatching up your staff from where it rests against the desk, mind already turning with strategies and contingencies.

"Correct," Cardinal Thorn says genially, raising one hand, "allow me to reward your commitment with a suitable stage."

There is a sense of motion, a faint lurch in your gut, and suddenly you are standing at the very top of the stairs in the manor's great entry hall. Your companions enter through doors scattered around the upper walkway, more than one looking back at the doorway they just passed through in confusion, but before any can react further the main doors to the manor house open and Sir Balin of Karfeld strides through.

"At last," he says with visible irritation, stopping at the bottom of the stairs, "You! You are the mistress of this property?"

Despite yourself, you laugh. Once the arrival of such a man on your doorstep filled you with terror, but now you feel nothing save anticipation. "In a manner of speaking, Sir Balin."

Off to one side, you see Mikael tense up suddenly, leaning against the balcony rail as though he intends to vault the gap and charge directly home. Neither Lisara nor Dorgo show such reaction, but they clearly pick up on his distress, letting hands drift to weapons.

"Then you will answer for the wards and magical barriers surrounding this place," Sir Balin proclaims, levelling an accusing finger at you, "Seeking to turn aside servants of the throne in pursuit of their duties is justifiable grounds for a full inquest."

He doesn't recognise you. Some part of you feels vaguely offended by that, but you suppose to the famed Sir Balin, you were just one more face in a long litany of triumphs. Or perhaps these past months of training have changed you more than you were willing to credit.

"Where are your soldiers, Templar?" you say softly, smiling down at the man so far below. For a moment Sir Balin looks confused, before he glances over his shoulder and sees what you already marked - sometime between your decision and his entry into this hall, the soldiers that accomplished the templar here disappeared. Thorn's doing, you suppose. "Where is your god?"

"Blasphemy," Sir Balin hisses, unslinging from across his back a great two-handed axe. The weapon of an executioner. "Mitra as my witness, you will return those men to me unharmed or I will strike you down where you stand."

You look down at him for a long moment, then slowly shake your head. With care you lift your arm and pull back your sleeve, baring the old and mottled brand to the light once more. "We've unfinished business, templar. The lives of your men are the first payment, but our debt is far from settled."

"Forsaken?" The templar blinks, utterly shocked, then his gaze hardens. "I see. You are the escapees from Branderscar. I know not what devilry has delivered you from your justly deserved fate, but the Shining Lord has seen fit to place your necks before my axe, and I will see his foresight justified."

"Enough!" Mikael barks, leaping the balcony and kicking off the railing in a single fluid motion, "Just die!"

The monk falls towards the witch hunter like a meteor, but his blows are filled with more enthusiasm than focus and Sir Balin slides smoothly back out of reach before they can connect. You mutter a curse and rap the base of your staff against the ground, conjuring from your memories and magic a skeletal simulacrum, the very image of an undead warrior in rusted mail centuries out of date. The construct can do little more than execute simple mechanical thrusts and swings, but Mikael needs assistance now and this is the best you have to offer.

"Val, dearest, who's your friend?" Lisara drawls, strolling along the balcony railing with exaggerated nonchalance. "You really should have warned us we'd be having company."

Beyond her, you see Dorgo fling a shimmering column of heated air at the witch hunter, but Sir Balin simply ducks out of the way before it can land. To evade such subtle magic while also defending himself from two attackers in close quarters is the kind of thing your training stressed was not to be taken as possible, but it seems the templar does not subscribe to the same principles.

"That is Sir Balin of Karfeld," you grunt, studying the warrior as he deflects another strike from your summoned construct and gritting your teeth. "The templar who put me in that prison to begin with."

As if to underline your point, Sir Balin finds a moment's gap in Mikael's offensive and exploits it mercilessly. The great two-handed axe splits your comrade like firewood and shatters your summoned construct into pieces, and though the former stays standing and the latter explodes violently at your urging, Sir Balin allows neither to distract him. He sets his eyes on you and begins to advance, climbing the stairs one step at a time.

"Ooh, a celebrity," Lisara laughs brightly, though you've known her long enough to feel the tension under her levity. She steps forward and darts down the bannister, booted feet keeping her perfectly balanced on the narrow surface, and with a flash of her rapier she too is engaged. "What do you say, tall dark and handsome - want to dance?"


"Save your wordplay, wench," Sir Balin growls, hefting his axe and bringing it back for a hacking cut at Lisara's calves, "I have no interest in…"

Before he can finish either the sentence or the blow, a bloodstainted hand closes on the blade of the axe and holds it in place like a vice. Soaked in his own blood, visibly swaying where he stands, Mikael bares bloodstained teeth at the templar and hammers a blow into the man's armoured chest hard enough to crack the metal.

Sir Balin coughs, a fleck of red staining his lips, but before either of his current opponents can capitalise he twists in place and hammers the shaft of his axe into Mikael's exposed face. The monk falls, unconscious or dead you cannot tell, and rolls three steps down the stairs with all the elegance of a sack of grain.

"Damn it," you hiss, but even as your concern mounts your mind is working, cataloguing details and assessing variables. The knight is heavily armoured, has both his hands occupied, and is on an incline. You intone the familiar words, substitute the carpeted stairs beneath his feet with shimmering ice, and watch with satisfaction as the templar topples and rolls all the way to the very base. He makes a very satisfying noise as he rebounds from each and every step along the way.

"Foolish brat," Dorgo growls as he stalks down the stairs, jabbing Mikael's broken body with the base of his own staff and filling the air with the scent of spring. The human coughs and rolls to his knees, grasping weakly for the bannister to prevent himself falling further, and you feel a bit of your tension leech away. "What were you taught about rushing in alone?"

"Once damned, forever lost," Sir Balin growls in turn, carefully levering himself upright and stepping off the icy slick at the bottom of the stairs, fixing your comrade with a baleful gaze. "You knew the fate you were courting, Mikael of Ghastenhall, and be it by my hand or anothers, there will be an accounting."

Mikael blanches at that, but Lisara merely scoffs. Stepping off her railing and onto the ice that you conjured, the elf allows gravity to pull her down in a headlong plummet, her rapier flickering out at the last moment to score a slender cut across Balin's cheek. The templar flinches back from it, then turns his burning gaze on this new assailant.

"It's always the same thing with you zealots," Lisara sighs, faux-theatrics sculpting her voice as she raises her blade into a classic duelist's parry, "I expect the next dozen or so templars we kill will growl something similar."


Mikael straightens, popping the cork on a small glass bottle and pouring the elixir down his throat. Then, with Dorgo at his side, he advances down the staircase towards your enemy. Templar or not, three foes at once is too much for even Sir Balin to easily account for. He staggers beneath a kick to the jaw, flinches back from a rapier's probing strike, grunts in pain as clawed hands tear into his flesh, but still he does not fall. He stands and he fights and he does not yield, and on some level you can almost respect that. It doesn't stop you from reaching out from the top of the stairs and wrapping a spectral shadow of your fist around the haft of his axe, however, nor from wrenching hard to the side as he is about to deliver a successful blow.

For a moment, just a moment, you see the flicker of fear in the templar's eyes. He is outnumbered and outmatched, and struggle though he might, he is not getting out of this room alive. Then his gaze hardens and his mouth curves into something too ghoulish to be called a smile, and he reacts as only a zealot can.

"So be it," he proclaims, lifting his executioner's axe high, "Lord of Light, receive my soul! MITRA!"

With his god's name on bloodied lips, he charges, greataxe swinging in devastating arcs that give no thought to preservation or survival. Mikael reels back, knocked sprawling by a backhand blow. Lisara flinches, her sword arm bruised and battered from the force conveyed even through her parry. Dorgo falls, his throat opened in a welter of red, pale bone gleaming amid the ruined meat.

"MITRA!" the templar screams, lifting his axe high over his fallen foe, "MIT-"

Lisara's rapier takes him through the throat, and with a final burbling sigh, Sir Balin of Karfeld falls to his knees. He dies with a smile on his lips and his gaze fixed on something none of you can see.


"Well done," Adrastus Thorn says, suddenly present at your side in a way your mind rebels at accepting, "A trifle messier than I might have preferred, but there is a lesson in this as well."

The Cardinal stretches forth his hand, and with a wave of divine energy that makes your teeth ache every wound sustained by your allies fades away to nothing. Dorgo lurches back to life with a hacking cough, one scarred hand going to his neck in alarm, while Mikael and Lisara just grimace and try not to look too affected.

"Mitra's fanatics are delusional and unworthy, but they are not weak," Thorn says calmly, descending the stairs towards the kneeling corpse at the bottom of it, "Remember this, all of you, for success offers far more than survival, and failure far worse than death."

He stops by the templar's corpse, considering it at length, then gives a slight shrug and pulls a silver chain from around the dead man's neck. There is a small pendant hanging from the end of it, a sapphire starburst set in silver.

"Templars of Mitra often wear such trinkets. Keepsakes, mostly, or favours bestowed by those they serve," the Cardinal says idly, before flicking his hands in a negligent gesture and throwing the icon to Lisara. "Keep it. A memento of your victory, and perhaps an aid to any future disguise."

Lisara snatches the icon out of the air with ease, looking down at it with a frown. A moment passes, and then the elf's face pales and her arms tremble violently. She says nothing, however, and Thorn makes no remark.

"Dismissed, all of you. Rest and recover," he says, turning away, "Tonight you will be initiated and briefed upon your mission. You will leave this house before dawn, and never return."

Article:

Which of your comrades do you wish to talk to in the aftermath of that fight?

[ ] Lisara
The elf had a surprisingly strong reaction to the pendant, and to striking down the templar who bore it. See if you can find out what is going on there.

[ ] Dorgo
The orc was critically injured and nearly died at the templar's hands. Make sure he is coping with that.

[ ] Mikael
The human seemed particularly rattled by the templar's taunts, and displayed a remarkable viciousness in fighting him. See if he will open up about why.

In addition, with the completion of her training Valka has improved to level 3. She gains a general feat, and also increases her proficiency in one of her skills - being trained in a skill gives you a modifier of (2 + your level + attribute), while expert proficiency raises that to (4 + your level +attribute). Choose one of the following combinations.

[ ] Arcana and Identify Spell
You improve your Arcana skill to expert, allowing you to perform rituals, and can automatically identify any spell of 4th rank or lower without a roll. This applies whether it is cast by an enemy or incorporated in an item or trap.

[ ] Crafting and Magical Crafting
You improve your Crafting skill to expert, and can now attempt to craft magical items, including transferring magical runes from one item to another. You cannot create an item higher than your level.

[ ] Society and Streetwise
You improve your Society to expert, and can now roll it in place of diplomacy to gather information in settlements, or in place of lore to recall information about the Kingdom of Talingarde.