Chapter LXIX
in which a dark god is slain
Dark Wounds
The Foxes attempt to recuperate in the aftermath of their battle with the cultists. Every member of the party but the Glad of War is significantly injured and they all find that their obtenebration wounds are hard to heal. Glad sets about finding medical help and works with an alchemist on a makeshift body magic potion that causes the body to target the linger magical affect as though it were disease and vomit up the dark substance. Bobbi further refines the potion by adding a light evocation effect that proves and makes batches to hand out to the other injured. The wounded Frax hears the call of Esseldi and convinces the group to teleport to his pillar where the falls hasten the healing of their wounds.
They draw the attention of an Ent while there who insists on the destruction of the obtenebration book looted from the cultists' temple. Before they comply, Bobbi uses her lore magic to discover the nature of the Morthuna priest's relationship with Thune. She learns that that he had an apprentice and is able to scry his location and see that he's the one who kidnapped the missing Sophia.
The Fall of the House Coran
Bobbi, Frax, and the Glad of War teleport blindly into what turns out to be a basement room of the Coran mansion. Followed by a downsized Ent and a handful of other silvestri, they quickly subdue the apprentice and his fellow cultists before waking and seeing to Sophia. It doesn't take them long to clear out the rest of the house, where they apprehend the head of the Coran family, who happens to be the apprentice's father, and his wife. The commotion draws the city guard but the situation is easily explained the prisoners are taken in for questioning.
The Foxes play father and son against each other and end up learning of the full reach of the cult. The father, who initially downplayed his involvement in the cult and sought immunity, is revealed to have been an active member and the one responsible for his daughter, Emily's, death. Although he tries to leverage his Vormyllean connections to stay Duke Okmark's justice, he and his wife are publicly executed in the morning. The son, who became fully cooperative when he learned the extent to which his father was willing to scapegoat him, chooses to comply with the Foxes and help them scry the location of every Cult of Morthuna member using his obtenebration. To do so, he needs the shadow marble that the Glad of War looted from their temple and hid in Encatus for safe-keeping, so the group blinks over to the Pit of Chracio.
Battle at the Pit III
While the Foxes discuss how they're going to go about tracking down the cultists, Chracio tells Glad they should instead use the marble to summon Thune so they can slay the dark god at the pit and be done with it. Seeing this as a good opportunity to abate Chracio's boredom, Glad agrees. Bobbi summons and binds the creature Thune. As this begins, Chracio's siblings Pan and Xisben arrive to spectate and usher the nearby humans to safety. Emeri shows up as well, circling the scene from above. And Reck arrives ready for battle.
Khalmer shows up and is ambivalent about whether or not he will join in, but decides to participate after talking to Glad. He grants Bobbi the clarity needed to observe the creature without recoiling in terror and together they work on binding and revoking the creature. Glad eats half of his preserved Westerner horn and is also able to focus on Thune without flinching. From his vantage point, he stages massive amounts of quasith and smites the thralls that Thune summons with lightning as Reck and Chracio swipe at Thune with their claws. Eventually, Reck and Glad start up a sandstorm that perpetually tears into Thune's body as Bobbi and Emeri deliver killing blows with their magic.
Almost immediately, Bobbi sets about recreating the magical barrier around the planet that Chracio broke, using the energy from Thune's corpse to fuel the spell. She doesn't close the four planar gates that exist, but she notes their casters and locations. She then attunes to Khalmer and speaks to each of the dragons at the scene as an emissary of her sun god.
Legendary Lore
In determining their next steps, Haas mentions a theory about the nulls that she's been working on and the Foxes decide its best to verify whether all the nulls are capable of being their own source of quasith like Okmark and whether the occurrence of null births is related to whatever edits are being made to the Den's game.
Back at Kingsport, they run into the new Sentinel of Emeri. Glad relays the story of their Battle at the pit and gives him gold to finance a retelling of it. They then track down the Duke and Soren, who's there in case the Duke needs calming down. They share their theory about the nulls and all involved agree they need to know more about what made the Duke what he is. He's hesitant though to reveal his parentage out of worry about his father, Cyax's, safety. What little Bobbi is able to figure out with her lore magic without delving too deeply into his occluded and protected lore unsettles the duke more. She offers to press on, but he needs to make that decision himself.
A King of Lies and Secrets
Glad remembers that Vorshen had mentioned and written about an ability similar to lore magic using blood. He uses his blood magic to determine that alongside Cyax and the powerful human woman who mothered him, the Duke inherited something else akin to divinity. He has Shul's blood running in him, or some non-literal equivalent. This revelation gives the Duke the resolve he needs and he okays Bobbi pressing further into his and Cyax's lore. She discovers that Cyax is in league with the Triumvirate and definitely inherited Shul's divinity. She also reveals that the reason Cyax has been so cagey about his history is that he is responsible for the Duke's null condition. It was an unexpected, averse reaction to the 'pillaring' process he was trying to replicate in his son. Likewise, Cyax is responsible for Malokai's pillaring and the death of Sovelus' wife. She relays all this and tells the group that Cyax and the triumvirate have detected her prying and know their secrets are exposed.