Chapter LVIII
in which many meetings are had
Excluded From Conflict
The Silver Foxes make a lot of noise when they arrive in Vormyll. Maus enchants Glad's propaganda missives to show brief flashes of the war, which Glad spreads around town. They group arrive at the Black Flame for payment. There, Red is able to put in an order for Vormyllean Steel chainmail, Haas an order for obsidian spears, and Maus an order of savorite. Glad takes his payment in gold, but is able to barter four obsidian blades from the Black Flame in exchange for the intel he's been gathering about how to fight Westerners.
They visit the pillar and attempt to get directions on how best to find Jas'ro. Eventually, Haas gives up doing things the long way and spirit walks to the Archon's office. He's not particularly pleased to see her. Jas'ro had hoped the Foxes would take his refusal of a meeting as message enough, but the propaganda has become an inconvenience he can't ignore. In exchange for an immediate stop to the propaganda, he shares what he knows about the conflict. Apparently, Vormyll is exempt from conflict with the Westerners because they've survived their previous testing and Jas'Ro does not want to risk that exemption by directly supporting the war effort. He has not, however, shared this intel with the rest of Vormyll or Felspar.
Delocated
At the First, the Foxes find the city closed and the city guards manning the walls in response to a young Westerner deserter who has been denied entry. Glad draws the attention of the angry mob and Haas works to settle them down. When the Westerner is able to enter, the Foxes escort him to Father Benjamin where he proves the sincerity of his attentions to leave his old life behind. With that settled, the Foxes share what they've learned with Father Benjamin, leading him to share that he received news from Cyax that he would join the siege. But he worries that something about the letter is not right. After the meeting, Haas checks in with the leader of the mob that wanted to riot because of the Westerner deserter, Rom'lin. Glad sneaks away and uses the prisoner transfer order he got from Father Benjamin to claim 30 or so violent criminals for Chracio.
The Three Archons
While their airship flies North to the waypoint where they'll drop off Rom'lin, the Foxes teleport to the Marsh to take care of alliance business. They arrive to find Nykulss standing protectively between the Claw and Irik delegates. The rest of the Vulshik are just as ware of the visitors. Noticing that the Archon of Irik, Onitir, and the Sentinel of Irk, Rikiks, are on edge in the presence of the Claw, the negotiation is moved to a clearing not much farther away. Gaskim joins as well, being called there last minute by Glad who forgot to give him a heads up. The negotiations start off tense. Onitir agreed to hear what Haas had to say out of respect for Sisare. He is not, however, swayed by the sentimentality that is driving Vulsh to reunite his children. Glad offers a more concrete picture of glory and ambition in the way of Ussetra. If Irik set itself to ever conquering the nation, it would be helpful to have allies to help in the campaign and Chracio willingly blocking Ussetra in from the North.
Onitir dismisses the necessity of allies. He claims that Irik could conquer Ussetra alone. He does, however, desire expansion. There is a marsh in the east that his people have had visions of that he wants to colonize in an area that Glad believes Og was once worshiped. Onitir offers a truce with Vulsh in exchange for the Foxes providing recon of the area's ripeness for settlement and transportation to this Eastern Marsh. In return, Vulsh and Irik will enter a pact of mutual protection and respect the border between their territories. Onitir is able to further persuade Haas to gift them 5% of their Vulshik land so long as the Vulshik who reside in the once contested territory are allowed to continue their lives their. The idea clearly bothers Nykulss, but he stays his opinion. Gaskim and Onitir cement an the alliance between Irk and Chracio next. In exchange for Rikiks delivering 100 Westerner scalps, Glad agrees to look into Irik's red & gold brother at Serosan.
The three Archons cement the deal by drinking a spiritwalking drought that reveals the true intentions of all involved. Then, Glad offers Onitir a chance to meet Chracio. Chracio, surprisingly, responds to the visitor with a wistful eagerness to see his brother again, which Haas and Glad take to mean that Irik will be returning. After the Irik delegation leaves, Haas sees to it that her people are satisfied about the deal made and understand its terms. Glad leaves Gaskim gold to be used in bettering the infrastructure of the desert. And then everyone returns to their regular business.
A Shul'Garoth in the Desert
The Foxes are able to introduce Rom'lin to some settled Westerners without much problem. They tell him that he will have to re-attune to a new pillar if he wishes to stay with them and list some options. Since there's no telling when the Foxes will ever be in the area again, Glad offers Rom'lin a chance to see Chracio for himself before they depart. In the desert, Glad tells him about the attunement process and how Chracio sometimes tosses people in the pit himself. Rom'lin walks up to the dragon and an amused Chracio tosses him into the middle of the pit. Rom'lin manages to swim his way free and pukes at the edge. The bystanders get hyped for what is possibly the first Shul'Garoth to attune to Chracio. Rom'lin decides to stay in the desert since that is where the dragon is. Glad leaves orders for him to be employed in a position that best utilizes his experience and knowledge. Blinking back to the other side of the continent, the Foxes apologize to the deserter Shul'Garoth for wasting their time.
At Red's behest, they're taken to their settlement in a network of sea caves where Red makes inquiries into the battle of Mercayen and his parentage. Red passes along his mothers name and various Westerners describe the invasion from their perspective. They tell of the unexpectedly strong resistance they encountered in the city to the east and of their leaders being satisfied enough with pushing Brenthia into hiding. But nothing they say corroborates a battle or meeting with Cyax. Nor do they have the sense that they left the continent in defeat or shame. After their business concludes, the Foxes are invited to return so that the deserters can throw a feast for Asoth's defeat.
The Wanderer
Two days later, the Foxes landed at Pan where Frax helps them push their way past the crowds in search of an audience with the dragon. Pan asserts that the vagrant nature of his followers means that they are, perhaps, the most spread out such group of any pillar. Thus, Pan believes he has a broader perspective than his peers, as seen in his advocacy for peace and understanding. He argues that there may still be a non-violent means of ending the Westerner invasion. So long as empathy exists in one side, say ... in the honor system of the shul'garoth, then understanding should possible as long as dialogue remains open. The problem, as Pan sees it, is that there is a suspicious lack of dialogue among the many global powers at play. Jurlim's followers seem to be moving in ways that benefit Shul. Serosan remains silent and closed off. Dionastra provokes Chracio into returning and remains elusive to all parties thereafter. He also expands a bit on what it means for a dragon to become one color, the nature of this current cycle, Den's intentions regarding Shul, and who is in charge of creating this new table for the dragons.
When Pan mentions his concern, the Foxes worry that Shul and Jurlim are allies or that there is a possible child of Shul and Jurlim where their colors mix on the map ... a super predator inheriting the worst traits of either dragon. In trying to convince Pan to help fix the hole in Den's barrier, he's persuaded to see how Chracio feels about the idea that maybe his return was purposefully masterminded. Chracio gets angry at the realization that he may have been playing into Dionastra's hand and orders Glad to find out, the most direct order he's received yet as Sentinel.
The party brainstorms how best to proceed with these considerations. They hash out a way to use the discrepancy between the honor instilled in shul'garoth from childhood and the horrors they're called upon to inflict as a form of de-motivational psychological warfare. Something akin to what Maus did on Glad's propaganda letters on steroids. They also think it might be worth leveraging their victory against Asoth into a parlay with the remaining legionnaires to get the room temperature of the war. At this, Pan offers the services of his Sentinel, Tonla. He asks Glad to attack her and go all out to demonstrate her impressive Truce magic, which pacifies anyone within its radius of effect. Nothing Glad or Maus try is able to overcome it except the fear effect on one of Glad's swords, although that effect was not intended to physically harm her. The Foxes decide to take her along with them to Reck and arrange for Brenthia to escort her to Jurlim's representatives in a bid to get to the bottom of why Jurlim's followers continue to attack Brenthia at this inopportune time.
Before they leave, Glad blinks to the desert with a set of marching orders for the Encatus Council. He doubles down on the need to make sure the desert is adequately fortified and patrolled and to keep an eye on their neighbors in the north. He's surprised to find that Pan blinked there along with him and watches in confusion as he grows to his larger dragon form. Pan and Chracio dance around each other in the sky before taking off towards an unknown destination.
Spooker
At Reck, the Foxes walk in on the dragon and his followers engaging in some kind of game wherein Reck creates a rock that his followers attempt to smash into the most people. Naturally, Glad gets in on the fun and Frax steps in to try to one up him. Red sits the competition out but helps Reck in remaking the rocks, finding creation more meaningful than destruction. Afterwards, they're able to get to the point with Reck far more quickly than they could with Pan. He tells them that he's eager for his to help fight the Westerners, but his followers are preoccupied with renewed tusker incursions which takes higher priority, which is what's keeping Sentinel Tirsa tied up. The Foxes offer their services in helping solve this conflict since it's in everyone's shared benefit for the anti-Shul coalition to be as complete as possible. Reck gives the group a hardening blessing, which is wasted on the unarmored Frax, and makes them a compass to help lead the way to his Sentinel. Glad grabs a dozen of his own men, and the assembled posse finds Tirsa by following the bearing Reck gave them.
Tirsa gives them a sit rep. Despite her exhaustive work, she's been unable to make much headway. There are no direct lines of communication to Jurlim or indication of what, aside from greed and conquest, is motivating recent tusker movement. They only have a vague directional sense of where the Archon and Sentinel might be. Not because the tuskers are hard to interrogate. Tirsa thinks the tusker's she has asked legitimately don't know or particularly care where their leadership is or what its up to. So she's been helping put down individual clans as they invade Brenthian territory. Sometimes these victories are enough to persuade the another clan to turn away. But there is always some other, undissuaded clan waiting to test the Brenthians.
Glad asks to be escorted to the most recent battlefield. There, he uses his necromancer abilities to deduce that the defeated clan was brought there by their chief, whose prime motivation was a vision he received of the Brenthians. He also detects trace amount of occult presence he's unable to identify. Glad suggests to the group that they find another clan, one headed their way, and try to determine through their combined abilities if this vision is being spread around. Tirsa assembles everyone and prepares to engage an appropriate target is located, but Glad skips the whole engaging tusker's process by intimidating the tusker scouting party with his battle magic, preventing them from fleeing, and repeatedly demanding tribute. Once they're properly cowed, they take Glad to meet their chief. When he arrives at their camp, he doesn't wait for an invite and bulldozes his way through, making non-apologies for his rudeness along the way.
In no time at all, the Silver Foxes are talking with the clan chief and are able to determine that he too received a vision not many sleeps ago. The Chief believes the dream came from Jurlim himself, but only by assumption. Glad asks him some questions to determine if the occult signature he's picking up from the Chief is from the Chief's own magics or external. After Glad's satisfied that it's external, Maus probes the chief and one of the Chief's shaman's checks the Chief for spooker magic. The shaman confirms that the Chief was indeed spooked and that the culprit was a tribe a Red Tusks who have a spooker friend who walks through walls. The Foxes figure out that they're referring to a wraith. Upon further questioning, the Chief reveals that this rival clan he spits at worships a red dragon. With all the pieces clicking in place, the Foxes get this clan to forgo their incursion into Brenthian territory. In exchange, the Foxes will raid and take care of this red clan and their spooker magic. Red is able to trade some tunnel digging work for a similar promise to spread the news of this spooker magic and the real source of these visions to other clans they encounter.
When they share what they learn with Tirsa, she reveals that it'll be hard to move through the indicated tunnel, one which runs west towards Serosan, with a host of their size. They settle on a party including the Foxes, Sentinel Tirsa, Sentinel Tonla, the dozen Chracioites, and a dozen Brenthians. While preparations are being made, Glad blinks to the desert and has a messenger send word to Encatus that they should send diplomatic emissaries to scope out what's going on in Serosan topside.
The Red Tunnel
Haas finds the group after treating with Ytura and they head along the path that the tuskers pointed them on. Along the way, the Foxes come into contact with a greenscale subspecies that hunts and resides in the lush tangle of vines that hang from the ceilings in some of these subterranean caverns. After treating with one of them, they learn that these Serosan attuned greenscales have tangled with the Red Tusks before heading on their way. Eventually, they reach a fork in the tunnel after passing a cavern with a dried out lake. The left path is marked with a Tusker looking symbol. The right path heads slightly upwards and sets off Haas' danger sense. Later on, they'll learn that a massive beast resides there. Not wanting to draw Tirsa and her men into unnecessary conflict, the Foxes decide to pursue the left path after backtracking to rest in one of those hanging vine caverns.
The left path leads the Silver Foxes to the tuskers they were trying to find, the Blood Drink clan, who are not very surprised that above-grounders want to talk to their chief. The Foxes are granted an audience without the need for any violence, which is likely thanks to Tonla's truce magic. The Foxes try to determine whether or not the Blood Drink clan is responsible for the dreams that the Brenthian tusker chiefs have been having and are unable to find any evidence linking this clan to that magic. Glad's occult check only confirms that the clan engages in blood magic. That spooker magical signature is no where to be found. However, using Glad and his necromantically pulled memories as a conduit, Haas and a Blood Drink shaman are able to trace the source of the magic to Serosan. The Blood Drink chief and shaman claim that the Serosan spookers are very clever and probably know that their spooker is being looked for. The Blood Drink clan shows the Foxes and their assembled small army a path they can use that leads to Serosan, one which the clan uses to bring their young to attune to a third pillar of Shul.