Interlude 3: The Sword, part 1

Two years ago.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” I replied. Arueshalae and I sat beneath Mendev’s stars in the courtyard of the Queen’s castle. It was my shift to guard Galfrey’s partner.

“Your sword… you seem attached to it. I’ve never seen you without it, in fact. Does it have some kind of sentimental value?”

I sat in silence for a moment. “It’s from someone I cared about very much. It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got all night,” she smiled at me.

I couldn’t resist that smile. “Very well. I had almost completed my crusader training…”

______________________________________________________________________________

Fifty-five years ago.

“And here we are,” announced Thais as we approached the warcamp.

There were four of us including Thais, our trainer up until that point. The middle-aged human woman was a friend of my mother’s; we got along well, and she had taken on a bit of a secondary mother role for me. The other three in our little group were teenaged crusader trainees finally ready for our first field assignment. There was Harriett, a halfling cleric of

Sarenrae, more jolly and playful than most clergyfolk; Ramazi, a young human wizard, serious and studious; and myself, a tiefling who had ambitiously chosen the path of the paladin. We’d all proved ourselves worthy of trying to become full-fledged crusaders; just one more test lay ahead of us.

Thais gestured for the three of us to enter the camp. We marched in slowly, feeling a mixture of excitement and dread. The crusaders inside, at least the ones who were outside their tents, were of a mix of ages, but all looked haggard and battle-worn. They stopped what they were doing to watch us - or more accurately, me. Their eyes seemed to burn holes in my face. Thais put her hand on my shoulder as we stepped forward.

“Now then, crusaders,” Thais said. “These three are here for their first field assignments as full members of Mendev’s sacred army. Please, show them the ropes and treat them with respect - I’m sure you all remember when you stood in their shoes.” She turned to me then and said softly, “Good luck. I have to get back to Nerosyan within two days, so I can’t stay to help you integrate. Just stick with each other and you’ll all be fine.” She kissed me on the cheek, then turned and left.

The three of us trainees stood at the entrance to the warcamp. I took a deep breath. “Don’t worry, Casimir!” exclaimed bubbly Harriett; she was always able to read me like a book. “These crusaders are the best people. Just wait and see, I’m sure they’ll all welcome us like family!”

A tall, muscular elf approached us, wearing leather armor and a greataxe on his back. He stood uncomfortably close as he spoke. “Fresh meat, I see.” He sneered at Ramazi and Harriett in turn. “What does the Queen think she’s sending us now? A scrawny mage and a little girl… oh look, and you brought us a demon to practice on!” He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and leaned in close to my face. Some of the other crusaders laughed; none of them did anything to intervene. “What do you think you’re doing here, demon boy? Didn’t you know we eat your kind for breakfast around here?”

“Hey, you let go of him!” shouted Harriett, and started pounding her little fists on the side of the elf’s leg. The elf paid her no mind.

“That’s enough, Onesimus,” said a voice from behind the elf. Onesimus dropped me onto the ground and stepped back. “This isn’t over, demon boy,” he sneered, then walked away further into the camp.

I turned towards where the voice came from, ready to thank our rescuer. Walking towards us out of a nearby tent was a surprisingly young man in paladin armor marked with the holy symbol of Iomedae, wearing a distinctive cold iron greatsword on his back. He had long golden hair and bright blue eyes. He stopped in front of me and extended a hand to help me up, which I gladly took. “The name’s Leocadio; I’m the commander of this camp.” He turned toward the crusaders, who were all staring at us. “What are you all looking at? Back to work!” They obliged; it seemed Leocadio was respected.

“Th-thank you, sir,” I stuttered.

“Oh, dispense with the formalities,” he grinned. “Call me Leo. And you all are?”

“I’m Casimir Barristan,” I said. “These are my friends Harriett and Ramazi.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said, and shook each of our hands in turn.

Ramazi spoke up. “You’re the commander here? You look awfully young for it.”

Leo smiled again. “Looks can be deceiving.” He brushed his hair away from the side of his head, revealing subtly pointed ears. “I’m half-elven. We age slowly; I look in my early 20s, but in truth I just turned 38. Still, I am one of the most junior commanders in Mendev’s army.”

“We… tieflings… are the same way. I’m 35 myself, but I just finished my training. It took a bit longer because of the long adolescence.”

“I know how that goes. You said your name was… Barristan, correct?”

“Yes, si- Leo.”

“I do believe I know your mother. She’s the one who trained me, in fact. We’ll have to talk sometime, I’d like to know how she’s doing. In the meantime, though, let me show you all around.” He started leading us down the dirt road through the middle of the camp. “Oh, and don’t let Onesimus get to you; he’s got a chip on his shoulder, but he’s more bark than bite. Most of us are much nicer than him; he’s here for the glory and the fun, not for the righteousness of the cause. Just stay out of his way and you’ll be fine.”

Chapters 2-3

I’ve been such an idiot.

When I first saw Arueshalae for what she truly is, my heart filled with rage and sorrow. After all, I’ve been trained and taught my whole life to destroy demons, the most hateful monsters in all the planes. So when my best friend, the woman I loved, was revealed to be one, you can imagine my reaction. I said some horribly hurtful things to her, which I regret with all my being, but in the moment I was incredibly hurt myself and lashed out at her with my words.

I turned away from her, assuming that she was evil and that she was manipulating not only Queen Galfrey but the entire crusade with some dark trickery.

When I confronted Galfrey, however, she did not seem to be under the influence of any enchantments, and she told the story of how she and Arueshalae met - that Arueshalae was imprisoned and left for dead by the demons because she was redeemed. Still, the shock I was still feeling kept me from understanding. I was angry at Galfrey for not telling me about Arueshalae from the start, and I was still furious at Arueshalae just for being what she is.

I didn’t understand until I died. I’d never admit this to her, but when that chimera took my life - just like last time when the vrocks killed me - my last thought was of Arueshalae; specifically, how horribly I’d treated her. I hadn’t been fighting a demon - I’d betrayed a friend. And she was right, the two of us aren’t so different when you really think about it, both struggling to rise above our heritage and become something greater than what we are.

When I was resurrected, however (thanks, Fay), Arueshalae didn’t seem happy that I was alive, and that hurt worst of all. My guilt almost overwhelmed me, but I masked it - as always - under my gruff demeanor and went on with our mission. Fay also delivered us our rewards for rescuing Admiral Thrune from that shadow demon; interestingly, Saggaroth’s included a suggestively-worded letter inviting him to her office anytime he wanted.

We found Inquisitor Pesch in a cage, but he seemed to be under some sort of mental magic; Saggaroth said he had “Wisdom damage”, whatever that means. Also in the room were two thrones. Saggaroth and I each sat on one, and each of them lowered into the floor. Mine revealed a small room with a chest holding a minor magical item, but Saggaroth’s lowered into a larger room filled with some kind of insect hive. A fight ensued between us and many swarms of demonic vermin, as well as a gigantic version of one of them, and several of us almost went down. My comrades fled the room while I stayed and fought… just like the chimera fight. (This is developing into an unpleasant pattern.) Thanks to Arueshalae’s timely intervention, however, the fight turned back in our favor, and we got out of the room without casualties. Arueshalae suggested taking a blood sample of the giant vermin for testing.

When we got back upstairs, Pesch had disappeared from his still-locked cage, which was somewhat distressing. But we couldn’t do anything about it at the time, so we decided simply to head back to Westcrown and get some much-needed rest. Felix cooked us a wonderful dinner, we sold some treasure to Ruta, and we got to bed.

The next morning was… interesting, to say the least. Arueshalae was still irritable towards us, and I couldn’t really blame her. I had planned on speaking to her in private to apologize for my behavior and try to get her to understand how I felt, but that plan was quickened when Fay, sensing the tension, cast a Zone of Truth at the breakfast table. Arueshalae blew up at me, shouting about how hurt she was that her best friend betrayed her like that, and she was absolutely right. I apologized, which she seemed somewhat surprised by; she said she needed some time away from me to handle her feelings, which I agreed to.

After that, and after Fay had a Zone of Truth-empowered chat with her father, and after we had received our reward for rescuing Pesch (apparently he had made it back to the city on his own), we had to get back to the mission at hand. We had some questions for Pesch, so we headed over to Admiral Thrune’s office to ask her where he might be. Since she had invited Saggaroth to her office, we sent him up to ask her. He came sprinting out a minute later, because he didn’t know what to say. I gave him a bit of coaching and sent him back in. A few minutes after that, he sprinted out again, seeming quite flushed and distressed. I don’t think I want to know what happened in there, but we got Pesch’s location - a warehouse by the docks.

We arrived at the warehouse. Inside it, Pesch was painting a quite large and intricate design on the ground. Before we could stop him, he stuck his sword into the center, summoning a group of swarms to attack us. The swarms went down immediately thanks to Saggaroth, but Pesch was another matter. He was quite a skilled combatant, and my three companions all suffered some grievous wounds, but we brought him down. After taking what useful equipment we could find from his body, we went outside.

The sky had been blotted out by swarms of locusts, and high in the sky, riding on a red fiendish dragon, was the Red Rasper.

Interlude 2: The Mission, part 2

Still flying, I dove towards her falling form as quickly as I could, praying to Iomedae for speed. I reached her just ten feet above the ground, catching her and landing safely.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Don’t mention it.” I gazed into her blue eyes for a moment.

“Um… Casimir?”

“Yes?”

“You can put me down now.”

“Oh. Right.” I set her on her feet and looked around for the vrock. It was nowhere to be seen. “Guess it teleported off. We should get a move on before it brings friends.” We quickly gathered up our supplies and started the hike back to Mendev. “You know, I’ve seen you teleport before. If you can get back there, you should go ahead. Don’t worry about me, I can handle myself out here.”

“Oh, and you think I can’t?” Her eyes flashed with indignance, but also a hint of playfulness.

“That’s not what I meant. There’s just no reason for you to walk back with me when you could be there instantly.”

“Of course there’s a reason. I need to look after you and keep you safe, big guy.” She reached out and ruffled my hair. I suppressed a smile as I flattened it back out. Her hand brushed my horn stubs as she brought it back. “I meant to ask about those earlier… if it’s alright.”

“Of course. I cut them off as a teenager, as a sign that I was more than just my demon heritage. A silly thing to do, really, but I still file them down - more because I’m used to it now than anything else.”

“I don’t think it’s silly at all,” she said softly. “I think it’s a great thing to remember. You are more than what you were born as.” Before she could continue, she stiffened in alarm and started looking around.

“What is it?”

“The vrock is back. And it brought friends.”

I followed her gaze up high in the sky. Three large, winged shapes were circling above us as they descended. I pulled out my sword, ready to fight. “You should go, Arueshalae. There’s not much hope for us to beat them, but one of us needs to return to camp.”

“I’m not leaving you to die, Casimir!”

“Don’t be foolish, girl. If they leave my body, you can bring back a search party and have me resurrected. If we’re both killed here we’ll be gone forever. Now go!”

She stood there a moment, her mouth open as if to protest some more, but as we felt the wind from the vrocks’ wings she bowed her head. “I’ll come back for you,” she said, and vanished.

The vrocks landed in a triangle formation around me, blocking any escape. “Come on then, you demon bastards,” I growled. “Show me what you’ve got.” Instead of attacking, though, the three of them started a strange dance as they circled me. My eyes widened as I realized what was happening - if they finished their dance, they would produce an enormous blast of electricity that would surely kill me. I howled a battlecry to Iomedae and rushed to the nearest one, delivering a fierce blow with my greatsword. I had resigned myself to dying here, but that didn’t mean I was going down without a fight.

The three vrocks kept dancing. I only had to kill one of them to interrupt it, so I kept waling on the injured vrock with my sword, alternating with magical blasts of fire and diamonds, but it became clear that I couldn’t kill it fast enough. In the last moments of the dance, I was about to lower my sword and accept my fate, but I felt something strange rise within me - some sort of powerful will I didn’t know I had. Raising my blade back up and shouting another battlecry, I took two more swings at it, and faster than I thought was possible, I cast an offensive spell in the same action, as if I was slowing down time to be able to act. The burst of diamonds tore through the vrock’s body, finally felling the creature and interrupting the dance of ruin.

The two other vrocks howled with rage at their fallen companion and lunged at me. I smiled, thinking that with this newfound power I might actually have a chance. I fought as fiercely as I could, throwing out blows at both vrocks and casting mighty spells, using my strange power as best I could - I even killed another one of them - but alas, I was overwhelmed by the last one. A claw tore through my gut, bringing my to my knees, and as I knelt there witnessing the fangs of my death approach, my last thought was of Arueshalae.

Incidentally, the first thing I saw when I woke up in the healer’s tent in Nerosyan was also Arueshalae. She was sitting by the side of my body as the healer worked, clutching my hand in both of hers. When my eyes opened, she shouted my name and lunged onto me with a tight hug. I wrapped my arms around her in return and looked around the tent.

To my surprise, Queen Galfrey herself was standing at the foot of my bed, in battle gear stained with black demonic ichor. “We thought you’d never wake up,” she said with a smile.

I thanked the healer and sat up, Arueshalae finally letting go of me. “What happened?” I said.

The Queen responded. “Arueshalae here appeared back in the city suddenly, saying we needed to get a search party together for you immediately. Once I calmed her down to explain what was going on better, I led the search party myself. She showed us where she last saw you. There were the bodies of two vrocks there along with yours - you brought them down all by yourself? I’m amazed!”

“Yes. Something… strange happened to me in that fight. Some sort of power from within me I didn’t know I had - it was like I was bending reality to my will, if that makes any sense.” The Queen’s and Arueshalae’s eyes widened; they both knew what I was talking about, it seemed.

The Queen dismissed the healer and closed the tent. “As you know, your mother served my grandfather when he was king of Mendev. He spoke to me of her sometimes, and said she possessed incredible power; those who witnessed her on the battlefield said she could perform feats that seemed impossible to most men.”

Arueshalae spoke up. “That power also has been said to be possessed by certain warlords and tyrants, though those reports aren’t verified. And… I know exactly what you mean, because I have it too.”

I stared at her a moment, then looked to the Queen. She nodded. “Maybe the two of us really could have taken them down, then,” I said with a wry smile.

“I’m glad we didn’t have to find out,” Arueshalae responded. “And I’m glad you’re back here with us, Casimir.” I smiled even wider at that.

“So am I,” said the Queen. After a pause, she continued. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course, your majesty.”

“The reason I wanted you to take Arueshalae on this mission is because you’re the best guard I have... and I wouldn’t trust anyone else to keep my new girlfriend safe.” She put her arm around Arueshalae, and I faked a smile.

Interlude 1: The Mission, part 1

Four years ago.

Not even half a day into the Worldwound and we were already surrounded by demons.

Not a problem. A magical diamond spray from me took out a third of them, while Arueshalae’s bow killed one and wounded two more. The new recruit was doing well for herself. The remaining demons circled us cautiously, seeing our prowess, and a couple of them charged. A claw bounced off my armor and another was dodged by Arueshalae. Six seconds later and the two of us were alone once more.

“Not bad,” I said to Arueshalae. “But those were weak scouts. You’ll have to do better against babaus and invidiaks. Don’t you have any cold iron arrows?”

“Don’t worry, I can take care of myself. You should watch your own technique - you could’ve hit two more of them with that spell if you’d aimed it more carefully,” she smirked. “As for cold iron… I don’t like carrying it. Feels like a crutch.”

“This is a training mission, girl. Keeping tabs on how you actually perform in the field is the entire reason we were sent out here.”

We cleaned up our wounds and equipment, then marched a while longer in silence. This girl was getting on my nerves a bit, acting reckless, as if she wasn’t taking this mission seriously. She had come back with the Queen on one of her patrols last year and joined the crusade; nobody had heard of her before then, but she quickly became fairly popular in the group - particularly with Queen Galfrey. I saw the two of them spending a lot of time together… rather suspiciously, considering how busy the Queen is.

Arueshalae trained with the crusaders for a while and went out on a few field missions as part of a group; I was on a few of those and had gotten to know her pretty well. I liked her; she was fierce and brave, and fit in with the group, even though she never talked about her past. Eventually, she was finally judged to be ready to go out on her own… after one more test. She and I were sent out on a scouting mission alone so I could watch her in action and judge her abilities. So far, it was going well for her, though I’d never admit it.

“So tell me, Casimir,” she said after a while. “How does a tiefling end up as a holy Mendev crusader?”

I bristled; I hated this topic. “You’re thinking I was sent here as a criminal. Because that’s what all tieflings are like, right? We can’t just happen to be somewhere or be doing something like normal people.”

“No - gods, no. I was just curious, and you’re the only one I’ve seen here. I’m sorry, forget I brought it up.”

I sighed. “No, I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I just get that question all the time, usually with worse intentions. This looks like a good place to rest and eat.”

We sat down on some rocks and lay down our weapons next to us. “I was raised here”, I began. “My mother’s name was Iris; she was a human cleric of Iomedae and a great crusader.”

“Oh,” Arueshalae said. Then after a pause, “Oh.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking. I was adopted. She found me in a cult’s den; they had been breeding themselves with demons trying to gain power. She and her team wiped out the cult, and in the bloodbath she found a baby. Well, she wasn’t going to kill the infant, so she took it in and raised it.”

“That’s actually really nice. Tell me more about your mother,” Arueshalae said with a smile as she took out some rations.

“She’s the one who trained me in the ways of Iomedae. She was hard but fair, as you’d expect a professional crusader to be.”

“Is she still alive?”

“I’m ninety years old, Arueshalae. She died over fifty years ago.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Now, what about your past? I never hear you talk about it. I barely know anything about you at all, in fact.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could make a sound a shadow passed over her. Before either of us could react, a great purple monster that looked vulture-like swooped down and grabbed her in its talons, then started flying back up.

A vrock. Dammit. We let our guards down too much and didn’t notice it coming. This was bad, these things were tough. I’d fought them before, but always as part of a team; I didn’t know if I could save Arueshalae from it by myself. Still, as a paladin of Iomedae, I had to try. “Hold on!” I yelled as I cast a spell of flight on myself and took off after the vulture demon.

It was flying erratically, leaving a trail of green spores that made it hard to get close to it. I could blast it with a spell, but I’d risk hitting Arueshalae, so I needed to rely on my sword. I decided to just fly straight through the spores to the vrock, letting them do their damage; I could take it. I charged through the air at the vrock and my blade connected with one of its wings. In response, it shrieked in agony; the horrible sound stunned me for a moment and it attacked me, wounding me several times before flying upwards. I watched in horror as it dropped Arueshalae from its talons and she fell limply towards the ground.

Chapter 1

After spending the night at the city’s temple to Iomedae, I returned to the docks to wait once more. Today, the Ninth Circle did arrive. The High Inquisitor of Asmodeus walked off, asked me what I was doing there, then rudely left in the middle of my explanation. Truly, this place’s corruption is a blight on the world just short of that of the Worldwound, and as soon as we crusaders are done with the demons we will come here to take care of the devils and Hellknights.

Following him off the ship was Arueshalae herself, accompanied by another Hellknight. I walked up to her and greeted her: “It’s good to see you again, your highness.” It seems, however, that for reasons I do not understand, she had neglected to tell her traveling companions about her engagement to Queen Galfrey. Consequently, they have not been treating her with the respect she is due; in the future I will attempt to get them to address her properly. Once we explained things to them, she introduced us to each other. I met Fay, an aasimar cleric of Shelyn decorated with many colorful feathers, and Saggaroth “the Thunderer” - I think he may have been an elf, but I’m not positive. He was covered in many tattoos that seemed to be of an arcane nature, and was very blunt of speech - to our chagrin, as he seemed overly eager to criticize Cheliax. In addition, there was a half-orc named Felix who was apparently a cook of some kind.

Once we got that out of the way, and Arueshalae explained their mission to me, we were escorted by that Hellknight, Vincent, to their outpost where we were to be staying for the duration of our stay. We discussed the investigation and decided to head immediately back to the docks to question the harbormaster to find out about the ship that brought the plague from Absalom. To our surprise, the ship was not only Chelish, but belonged to the very important Admiral Thrune. We decided that we needed to question her, but to do that we needed permits to enter her building.

So we went back to the outpost and asked Vincent about it, and he said he could get us permits by the next day. Then it was time for dinner, and there was a quite embarrassing incident involving Felix and the halfling slaves that I have not the heart or patience to describe here.

The next morning, we were given our permits and went to the port building to find the Admiral. After being let into the building, we found Admiral Thrune’s office which was very well-kept and well-decorated. Thrune turned out to be neither pleasant nor all that helpful, though we did find out that she was indeed carrying cargo from Absalom at the time, which she got from a man named Vill. We also found out that High Inquisitor Pesh was her personal bodyguard. She told us that he had been sent to capture a unique chimera a couple miles down the coast, so we thought it best to go question him outside the city limits.

It wasn’t long before we ran into Pesh’s caravan, with the chimera in a cage being transported back for study. Pesh was surprisingly helpful for an inquisitor of House Thrune; he sent his men away so that he could speak with us freely. He admitted that on the way back from the Absalom mission six weeks ago, Admiral Thrune seemed somewhat different. Because of Arueshalae’s party’s experience with shadow demons, and because they knew that this Vill character had been involved with the cult of Baphomet, we theorized that one of them may have possessed Thrune in Absalom.

I formulated a plan to exorcise and destroy the demon from Thrune so that we could get some real answers from her. First, Arueshalae insisted on watching over the chimera to make sure the cults weren’t trying to do anything with it. I was reluctant to let her go alone, but she is quite capable and she insisted; I always find it hard to say no to her. I did make her promise to teleport straight to me if she got in any trouble. Then we decided that the best way to take care of Thrune would be simply to walk in and meet her in her office again, using our permits and social skills to talk our way through the building. Then Fay, the cleric of Shelyn, would use her divine magic to drive the demon out of Thrune’s body, and we would destroy it.

Our permits got us into the building, and we started making our way to her office. It appears, however, that she knew we were coming, for we soon encountered some guards that weren’t there before. They insisted we leave before drawing weapons on us, so Saggaroth used some of his magic to blast them with electricity. Rash, certainly, but effective, as it revealed the two guards to be illusions. When we tried making our way through the rest of the passageway we were ambushed by several demons that had remained invisible. Seeing that invidiak were involved, Saggaroth lit up his sword with daylight, driving them away. I’m starting to respect that strange elf, if not exactly like him.

The next room held even more demonic servants; the demon controlling Thrune had prepared for us. Two half-fiend minotaurs in armor and a hellish apocalypse locust awaited us. We made short work of the minotaurs, of course, and the locust teleported away. Another room in this area held the six-week-old corpses of numerous Hellknights; this was getting ominous. In the next room we once again encountered the apocalypse locust. Unfortunately, it used illusion magic to trick me into letting my guard down, and it hit me from behind and knocked me out, so I did not get to participate in that battle. Fortunately, it seems the other three were more than a match for the creature.

Finally we reached Thrune’s office. She greeted us thusly: “Lay down your weapons, we wouldn’t want this fleshbag to get hurt,” confirming our suspicions of demonic possession. Fortunately, we planned for this, and Fay cast her spell. The invidiak was driven out of Thrune’s body, and the Admiral fell to the ground unconscious. This invidiak, however, was tougher than the others and seemed to possess the same strange power that Arueshalae and I do. Like a coward, it used magical trickery to possess each of us in turn, trying to turn us against each other, but Fay’s magic protected us from the worst of it. Still, both Fay and Saggaroth fell in that battle, leaving just me and Felix.

Felix’s unarmed attacks were proving ineffective against the incorporeal demon, so the invidiak focused just on me. It tried using its silver tongue to talk me into surrender for the sake of my teammates, but it didn’t count on me being a Paladin of Iomedae; surrender is not an option for us. However, it said something else that troubles me still - it said that her allies had captured Arueshalae and that she would be spared if I gave up. I still hope with all my heart that it was lying, but I will have to investigate immediately.

I successfully held off the invidiak until Felix was able to revive Saggaroth, who weakened it with a great blast of fire allowing me to finish it off. As I write this, we are taking a moment after the battle to search the invidiak’s body for useful items and patch up our wounds before we see to Admiral Thrune and figure out what’s really going on here. If it is true that they have Arueshalae captive, I swear on my sword that all the legions of the Abyss will not stop me from saving her.