Chapter LXII
in which the Foxes return to the Seige
A Reprieve
The Silver Foxes return to Brenthia where they use the loot from their recent blood mage raid to finance new armor and new weapons and other additions to their inventory. Saba ends up with wyvern hide and a flame sword. Maus buys more raw material for transmutation. Glad duplicates his diamond enchantment on his hidden, spring-triggered obsidian dagger. And Frax opens up potential new lines of revenue with Gorbie. Red continues his inquiry into his parentage. He still doesn't know exactly who his father is, but he is directed toward a Shul'Garoth deserter who may have known him. He also learns from his correspondence with the First that a great many Shul'Garoth have deserted their posts and been redirected to various deserter camps. Meanwhile, Xisben helps Haas with her blood predicament. He directs her to an eccentric alchemist who, given some of Vorshen's copied literature, says he'll see what he can do about helping her generate blood that will let her use magic with the ease she used to be able to while also protecting against blood magic. Glad's mercs return from the Brenthian tunnels with news that the Tuskers do seem to be turning back.
Haas and Glad also begin to mobilize their forces. They both send out a call to arms and Glad offers has two of the military strategists from Encatus' ruling council help the Vulshik prepare for modern military warfare.
An Audience with the King
At the siege, the Foxes get an update from Cadence about what's going on in the war and update her in kind about whatever is coming down the line from the Heretic. The group sets about integrating the desertlanders, Vulshik, and Western deserters into the allied continental force. They also get a first hand look of the magical defenses of the walled city, which Glad further tests on his own, discovering that enchantments are reaped within 100 m of the walls. Likewise, Haas probes their spiritual defenses and manages to glimpse the Western spellcasters weaving their spells around Emeri.
The next day, they group is given an audience with King Cyax in which he describes, vaguely but to the best of his ability, what happened when he met Shul in battle. What he describes is enough to put the Foxes at ease about the possibility of Cyax having brokered some kind of deal with Shul in lieu of actually fighting him. But they are disheartened to learn that Cyax will hold himself back from direct participation in taking the city. He sees himself as the backup plan for dealing with Shul if he were ever summoned ... the only person who stands a shot at holding him off. So he doesn't want to risk exerting himself in an effort to take the city before Shul can be summoned only to arrive too late and find himself standing exhausted before Shul.
Cyax mentions that he created a magical construct of some kind during their battle decades ago wherein Shul should not have been allowed to repeat the tragedy of Mercayan elsewhere without disqualifying himself from a seat at the next table. However, Shul has found some way of bypassing the rules that Cyax was trying to tie him to which makes it much more difficult to keep him in check. He also states that Shul has mastered quasith based magic to the point that he can't imagine anyone, aside from maybe a dragon, injuring him through that means. This leads into a more abstract discussion of magic and the kinds of people the Foxes need to ally with or become in order to make Glad's goal of killing Shul a reality. At discussions end, they've warned cyax of the danger posed by the Heretic, received protection from suppression, and asked him to look into protections against reaping. They also have a general idea for how to take the city ... using null field creating enchanted items to blindside the Westerners and give the Allied Army the chance to physically engage the Westerners on more equal footing. Glad also lectures Chracio into training so that he's in battle shape in the event that he has to fight Shul.
Ambush
The Silver Foxes fly to the Attrian border to pick up the Leader of the Attiran Shul'Garoth Defector Camp, stopping at the First on the way back so that Glad can clear more of the prisons out for new attunement recruits. When they return, they find Cadence lunching with Syntyria. The Foxes try to pry more information about Cyax's battle with Shul from her, but unfortunately, she only has incomplete historical records of the war. She doesn't possess any accounts of the metaphysical clash between the two. The Camp Leader is brought to a meeting with Cadence where he is reassured that the integration of his men into the allied forces can be done in a way that avoids the risk of friendly fire or discrimination. The meeting is interrupted when Syntyria draws, in one of her fits, a prophetic image of Esseldi's people slaughtered after a major battle. The Foxes pry Cadence for more information about the nature of Syntyria's abilities and the what prophecies have already been made, but are interrupted by the sound of explosions from outside.
They find their ship aflame in free fall and quickly breaking apart. Glad and Haas are able to slow the damage and descent enough to save all but the captain of their vessel, although Phrixus and Tilly sustain potentially paralytic injuries in the crash. Glad will determine in later investigation that the explosion was caused by someone teleporting a burning log into Tilly's lab where she had been working on a new type of explosive accelerant. In the now, however, the group rushes to the siege lines, which are overrun with enemies who turn out to be tunneling into the trenches from underground. The main enemy forces are not-attuned humans. As they clash with the Felspar military in chaotic battle, the Westerners lob exploding boulders and the corpses of those humans who refused their call to re-attune at the siege lines. During the course of the battle, Glad accidently strikes Syntyria, who had been observing the battle from the air, with an errant lightning strike will protecting Cadence from a volley of boulders. As she's blown backwards, a spear shoots out, impales her, and spirits her within the city walls. Eventually, the Felspar army is able to reign in the chaos with the help of the Silver Foxes.
An Uncertain Future
In the aftermath of the attack, Haas makes use of the situation to procure a Westerner corpse, which she eats to refuel her hampered ability to perform magic. Glad uses this opportunity as well to stock up on Westerner blood and begin teaching his acolytes about blood magic. When they later regroup, Glad will able detect that consuming the Shul'Garoth flesh has somewhat changed Haas but he's not able to narrow down the how or what of the change. However, Haas is able to get the Xisben follower who was previously helping her to return to his home and continue his research into fixing her body. She also helps Glad brokers an exchange of research samples for this guy's magical insight.
The investigation into their airship's explosion leads the Silver Foxes to Cadence's lieutenant who informs them that their army has discovered many scrying antennas in their camp similar to the one that was planted on their airship. In this case, the antenna was used to triangulate the exact location of their ship so that an incendiary devices could be accurately teleported aboard. This has been quite the problem for the Felspar army because they know there are active enemy agents in the camp ... a theory further proven by the intel Glad connects from mission briefings glimpsed and recorded from the memories of the Westerner dead. Unfortunately for the Foxes and Felspar, the army has had no luck apprehending whoever is responsible. The Foxes are able to figure out that their own saboteur is one of their two surviving crewman, thanks to Haas' acute sense of smell. They storm into his medbay seeking answers and/or vengeance. Maus provides the former. His mental magic reveals that a hooded figure in Calarco offered the crewman gold in exchange for placing the antenna on the ship. Frax provides the vengeance. He forces the crewman to blink to the pit where Glad is prepared to throw him into Chracio's pit. Before he can, though, Frax snaps the saboteur's neck. Red objects to the retributive display but is unable to stop it. He'll later chastise Frax for giving into his anger.
Back in the Felspar camp, Frax enlists the help of his party to track down prophetic images so that he can prove the seriousness of Syntyria's vision to his people. They investigate her living quarters and find that all the walls are painted collage style with various prophecies. They also discover her notebook, which is similarly filled with dark visions. Each member of the group present finds something within pertaining to the dragon, save for Glad, who would rather not know Chracio's ultimate fate. He was content enough to look deeper into those rare individuals whose faces or defining features Syntyria was unable to draw. One of the drawings the Foxes found showed the Archon of Esseldi sharing a drink with a Legionnaire. Another showed the Vulshik assembled on Kiteki shores. Yet another showed Vormylll hand and hand with a faceless man, looking over a destroyed table. And another showed Den dead, her power being subsumed by a faceless individual.
Haas' search for the Archon of Emeri sees her teleporting to him as he reassured his followers to the North. Unable to persuade the army to push up their timetable, he's been doing what he can to prevent/delay the destruction of his pillar by convincing his flock to keep the faith. Haas is able to convince him to part with a sigil of Emeri that she might be able to use to prevent Emeri from further hemorrhaging followers.