CHAPTER XLIV
in which hands are hired ...
Good Help ... Not That Hard to Find
After gearing up, the gang sets out to the temple of Azzur the following morning. While they wait for the archon Gabriel to arrive, they talk with Father Paul about Haas' search for the green pillar Jurlim and other matters concerning the quasith/pillar map she was instrumental in finding. Their scholars debate the accuracy/bias of the map and believe there is a mechanism for updating it, but have no idea on how to trigger an update. Glad mentions his dream encounter on Pan of a room where all the pillar lights originate and suggests they try to trigger an update via dreamwalking. Gabriel joins the discussion then gifts each of the group with gear and upgrades. Ra'jira gets an alchemy glass and recipe book, Haas gets an improvement for her net, Glad gets a safety for his sword, and Maus gets an improvement for his gloves.
Before leaving, Glad picks up a couple of mercenaries, a greenscale woman named Yeeli and a human woman named Ryla. He hires them for 2 gold a day, with negotiated bonus, to assist in killing Ixidor. On the way to the airship docks, an old man follows Glad and warns him about keeping his quasith staged up. At the docks, they find a Brenthian cargo ship that offers to take them to Brenthia free of charge on account of the Silver Foxes helping during the trouble with the centaurs. They prove their claim by showing their Medals of High Command. On the ship they drink, hunt, and generally relax. Glad makes a point of testing out the mercenaries skills in practice combat. He finds that Yeeli has a solid skill with the sword and traditional combat but was not well prepared for his improvisational attack style. He trains with her so that she's better prepared for whatever chaos they find in the desert. Glad is forced to take his fight against Ryla more seriously after she uses her mind magic and skill with a sword to evade his early attacks and get solid blows in. Despite going barehanded against a bladed opponent, he's able to turn the tides with some light electric evocation, and really tests her mettle with some invisible sword play. Maus takes her on as well, later in the day, and the two have a battle of mental magics. Ryla's able to unnerve him early on, but she proves susceptible to his emotional manipulation later. When they land in Brenthia, they detour to pick up Doug and for Haas to donate the majority of the water she collected from Mercayen to its former followers.
Unto the Breach
While in Brenthia, Glad invests 400 gold in establishing a second location for Gorbie's Gorbs, for which Haas provides poison for goods. With their business in Brenthia taken care of, the Silver Foxes are given a lift all the way to Encatus, a desert town a little north of Chracio. The town has a higher population percentage of nonhumans than Glad remembers. There, they learn from a merchant that Ixidor has a much more solid position than they were led to believe, thanks mostly to a mysterious fissure that appeared after an earthquake, creating a natural northern border for his territory. There have been rumors that the earthquake is unnatural and that all manner of beasts have escaped from the crack to terrorize desert inhabitants. Haas spiritwalks and concludes that Shul's presence can definitely be found in the crevice. Glad relays this information to both his archon and by mail to the Brenthia School of Thought. Shortly after, he's summoned to the Encatus citadel during prayer. The gang find a blind follower of Chracio, Nef, waiting for them. He tells them about Gaskim and Encis' recent movements and wishes to accompany them to Chracio and later the crevice.
At Chracio, they find a group of followers watch a young man struggling in vain to escape the quicksand pit. Red refuses to stand idly by while the young man suffers and attempts to interrupt the atonement process, drawing the ire of all else present. While there, Glad offers up tributes of the dead and gets a directive from Chracio to check out the fissure. When the young man fails and is swallowed by the pit, Red tries unsuccessfully to console his now family-less sister. He suggests going to the First, which she doesn't take kindly to. Glad, instead, gives her the hard sell on Chracio and encourages her to survive and honor her brother by becoming someone who can survive the atunement process. He gifts the girl, Aidra, the oblivion dagger replica that Sentinel Tiersa made for him. Haas suggests that, in the meantime, she find refuge in service to Chracio and convinces Nef to giver her a trial period to demonstrate her usefulness. Glad then rallies the other followers of Chracio for a raid on the fissure in their land, leading them, Nef, Aidra, and the Silver Foxes west.
Along the way, they encounter Encis' army and relay important information learned along the chain of command. Continuing on, they encounter the aftermath of an attack on some portion of Encis' force. The lone survivor tells of scarabs and other desert beasts. He's then escorted back to his army's encampment. In the morning, they begin their raid. Glad stages quasith and launches an opening salvo of lightning at the rift. This sends a wave of scarabs towards them. The followers of Chracio charge in to meet them. Five will die by battle's end. Aidra and Nef are left on the raft, with Aidra charged with protecting the old man. Yeeli and Ryla join the charge. Rajira begins picking off scarabs one by one from afar by bow. Maus attempts to confuse the scarabs' movement with scent illusion magic that happens to affect everyone on the field. Red creates sand pits to trap and split up groups of coming scarabs. Glad watches and waits from the sky. And Haas transforms into a giant dragon. She strafes handfuls of scarabs and spits acid at them and smashes them with tail and claw. Later on, she'll be mounted by Rajira, Maus, and Red. They move to help the followers of Chracio. Glad will channel more staged energy into an attack that fries every scarab flying in the sky. Afterwards, he teleports to the ground to help a struggling Yeeli by firebreathing on an incoming scarab. Unfortunately, she doesn't see him coming and her attack injures Glad in the process. With the first wave defeated, Haas flies off towards the fissure as a strange shape crawls out.
One More Unto the Breach
The Silver Foxes and Chracioites heal the wounds they suffered after the first wave and figure out what to do next. Glad scopes the fissure from the sky with his life detecting googles and reports the hundreds upon hundreds of scarabs he counts and the half dozen stranger life signals he notices. Haas and Ra'jira fly by for a closer look. They notice centaur like scarab lifeforms that lineup with the intel received. Everyone decides that the best plan is to lure out one of these intelligent scarabs, capture it (preferably) alive, and then flee. Not knowing how deep the fissure is and what more awaits, this seems like the prudent course.
While Glad stages in preparation, two much larger scarabs emerge from the crack. Smaller scarabs swarm beneath these and use this new larger breed as transport. Yeeli shoots both with revocation arrows and the marshaled beetles scatter once the transports are hit. Red traps one of them with sand, hopeful for a sample. Then an intelligent scarab rises with a new wave of scarabs in tow. Once he's spotted, Glad revokes all of the area, causing the scarab mass to scatter uncontrollably. The smart scarab attempts to retreat to the crack, but Ra'jira shoots him with a fire arrow before he can. And his retreat is blocked with earthen walls by Red. Glad goes invisible and disappears. He tries to cut off the arm of the smart scarab clawing his way to the fissure's edge, but misses when a second shot from Ra'jira causes the creature to stumble. By this point, Maus has disguised himself as beetle and run towards the edge, testing the limits of illusion on their insect minds. When Glad signals his presence, Maus creates space with illusory vibrations that draw the scarab minions elsewhere. Haas pursues worriedly, since neither Maus nor Glad gave indication of what they planned.
Meanwhile, Red begins encasing the wounded smart scarab in a ball of sand. Ra'jira begins blinking over to that area. Glad flies above the crack and and looses an arrow at a second smart scarab some 70 feet away, but the glancing shot drives it to hide below its minions for protections. From further beneath, a spine shoots up. Everyone sees it spear something in the air and then watch it get snapped in half. The piercing half that's stuck in Glad turns invisible. Wanting revenge against the different variant of smart scarab he spotted, Glad strikes repeatedly with lightning while Ra'jira, Haas, and the Chractioites roll the captured scarab towards the raft on a sand runaway that Red creates. Regrouped at the Doug, and some short time into Glad's lightning assault on the spearing scarab, an oppressive atmosphere descends on the group.
This Shit Again
The group begins to experience the tell tale signs of suppression as they leave. And while they're familiar with it and mostly able to fight it off, helped by timely revocation attacks by Ra'jira, a couple of Chracioites quickly succumb to its effects ... one of whom has his head nearly chopped off and requires extensive medical aid to heal. As they continue to flee, a second wave hits the group. This time four Chracioites succumb, along with Ra'jira, who suppression Haas is able to dispel with her net, and Red. Glad revokes all the affected Chracioites before they can harm each other, but Ra'jira is not quite in time to stop Red from stabbing his heart with an obsidian dagger. Luckily, he has Tilly there to tackle him and wrest the dagger away before he's revoked. As the group feels a third suppression attempt coming on, Nef starts chanting in a desert dialogue. Trusting him, Glad goes along with it and soon all the Chracioites are repeating his words. The group flees as Nef stays behind to ward off the suppression and when clear, Glad flies the still chanting Nef away.
The Chracioites are dropped off at the nearest encampment where they recover from their traumatic experience. They also share intel with the camp and warm them of the extreme dangers lying in wait at the fissure. Then the Silver Foxes return to Encatus where they meet with Encis. He interrogates and takes a look at their prisoner, performing all sorts of biological probes oblivious to the creature's screams. They share information and he reveals that Ixidor is following a red pillar now. Gaskim has confirmed with the sentinel that Ixidor is completely divorced from Chracio. The Silver Foxes discuss Shul's movements and the real dangers going on. And their mission to kill Ixidor, though they don't mention why. Encis agrees to accompany them with his men and kill Ixidor, and in exchange, the Silver Foxes will help take back his land if any Southern upstarts makes a move on Encis' territory while he's away dealing with Ixidor. Encis heals Red's shoulders and the Foxes find themselves with a few days rest until the campaign against Ixidor begins.