CHAPTER XLV
in which the Silver Foxes survive multiple bad ideas
Bad Dreams, Bad Ideas
Red barely sleeps through the night, still unnerved by his suppression. He seeks spiritual guidance at Encatus' Temple of the First on waking. Afterwards he's able to feel a little better about the experience but he's still pretty shaken. He also returns the money of the injured soldier who thought he was going to die to his confused wife. The rest of the group starts the day split up. Glad and Maus hock their Scarab trophies and Maus commissions some Scarab leather gear. Haas and Ra'jira practice dragon shape-shifting and riding a dragon respectfully. While outside the city walls, they give one poor rider a scare that sends him running away. Later this incident will get reported to Encis as an impending attack on the city. They commission some gear to help Ra'jira better ride Haas and then the group eventually regroups.
When they meet up with Red, the group attempts to dispel his concerns over the previous days actions. Still shaken up, he is not looking forward to return trips to the rift to collect scarab corpses to sell and study, worried about more suppression. He also believes that the Chracio followers that died did so needlessly and were innocent lives led to slaughter. He, Glad, and Haas have a spirited debate about the differences in perspective belonging to each pillar and respecting those differences. Maus declines to participate because he feels above the matter. And Glad really only cares that Red understands how dangerous and different the culture here really is. Haas sneakily follows Red back to the inn and watches him pray. There she learns that he is half-Westerner and keeps this knowledge to herself.
That night, the Silver Foxes pay Encis a visit. He relates that they've learned a bit about the creatures but they haven't cracked full communication yet. Only feelings and abstract concepts. Glad suggests giving the dreaming a try as that may allow for clearer communication. He and Maus dream to find themselves in a room much like the interrogation room, with walls of sand. They can see the prisoner Chitter on the other side of a stone barrier under the sand that they're unable to dig to. Maus shape-shifts into a beetle but is unable to really communicate with the Chitter. Glad shape-shifts into Chracio and is unable to communicate. He shape-shifts an arm into an obsidian sword and cuts through the barrier. Both descend to the other side, a dark corridor whose stone walls are lined with glowing red veins.
There, the fearful Chitter backs up. A larger one appears between him and the two Foxes, buffing himself up to be big. Communication still fails. When the intimidation continues, Glad makes himself bigger and roars. A roar follows from further in. The two Chitter hurriedly disappear and a red mists approaches. Glad and Maus retreat. Glad sticks his head back down and says "Fuck Shul", further agitating the mist. Neither can close the gap in the barrier. He decides to resurrect three of the fallen Chracioites from the other day to protect them from the mist. The scene changes. Chracio gives Glad really bad feelings about all of this.
In the waking world, Glad begins bleeding from the eyes, prompting Haas to join them in the dreaming. She is started to find herself in what is now a half sand, half red-veined stone arena next to Chitter-Maus, Chracio-Glad, and his summoned dead. They stand across from a towering, Westerner like being wielding a two-hander red sword. It defeats and devours the dead. Glad summons another shade and this is eaten as well. Then all four are vomited from the Westerner and fight for it. It mentions being hungry and thanks Glad for the meal. Haas readies her weapons. Maus boosts Glads mental focus. And Glad unleashes a stream of firebreath on the enemies half of the field, frying the souls and causing the enemy to recoil and hide behind his sword. Haas jumps into the fire and gashes it with the trident. It creates a concussive force that throws them all backward and it loses its sword. Haas throws her net about it, but he melts the net. Maus boosts Glad again and Glad telekinetically sends the sword flying. Their enemy congratulates their effort and cedes his sword to Glad. Then he vanishes. Maus, having a great time, wants to keep the party going. So he summons the shades back, unbeknownst to his allies, and makes Glad and Haas fend them off before waking.
Their efforts in the dreaming pay off and break through the Chitters mental defenses. Encis' people can now open its mind and the gang learn that its allies have abandoned it, weakening its protection against interrogation. It also reveals the scope and hierarchy of its side. And its defection from Thisius to Shul. After the Foxes finish, Encis silently interrogates the subject for 15 minutes and tells Glad after that Chracio will be watching him more closely.
Continuing Adventures in Even More Bad Ideas
Red and Haas spend the afternoon getting intel from a priest of the First, leading them to a town north of Ensatis called Carcosa. [You two should expand this bit] When Glad returns from his afternoon debauchery, they share their findings. Haas proposes that they explore the city by spiritwalking tonight before travelling to it tomorrow. She leads them through the experience and they wake in a wasteland area, travelling for miles until they reach their destination. When they arrive, they find a territory shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Glad stages revocation and is able to cut a swath through the darkness that reveals the town. All three of them sense another person about, so Glad and Haas ready their weapons. On seeing Glad's Westerner sword, a teenage redscale approaches, confused by their appearance. He claims to own the town and warns them away. Though they refuse, he seems to have some dominion over the landscape in the spirit world.
Not taking no for an answer and unable to physically pass the teen, Glad attacks with a concussive blast from his Shul sword. The teen avoids it but again mentions that he "doesn't want this." He puts out a suppresive force that interferes with Haas' ability to contact her shaman. Glad raises a Tusker from the dead who is then dispelled by the kid. Red is able to stab and surprise the kid. And Haas is able to assert her presence. She attempts to reason with him to no avail. He reveals his name is Oshim and that he and his have held Carseca under dominion of Shul as a means of survival and keeping the peace. The suppresive force continues and Glad summons aid from Chracio in the form of a fellow follower. The Chracioite looks around and proclaims "this will be glorious", an ill omen. And fighting begins.
Oshim bleeds both arms and sacrifices them to bring forth two Westeners to aid him, which is when things get dire. Before Onish can summon a third, Red revokes his magic. He continues revoking Oshim to prevent another summoning, which results in Oshim's spiritual self-image being dispelled, revealing an armored, adult age redscale who then flees. The Westerner with the hammer comes in for an attack on Glad and the Chracioite, but the Chracioite repels the blow with some kind of magic. Glad slices the hammer hilt while the hammerman recoils, forcing the hammerman to retreat to a safe distance. The hammerman begins conjuring something smoky in his hands. Glad tries but is unable to lift the hammer. And the Chracioite does something dangerous that backfires with Glad's dream sword. Haas gets a blow in on the Westerner with the ax but his ax comes down dealing a lethal blow. Haas passes out. While the axman is stunned from the damage he took, Glad jams his obsidian dagger through the axman's throat clean through to the brain. He dedicates the kill to Chracio and the Chracioite rushes over to do some magic that consumes the body in black and silver light. The hammerman finishes conjuring another hammer and makes for Red. Haas, having dreamed herself escaping the Clutch of Vulsh again in her near death experience, is revived. She protects Red, who was healing her, from the coming hammer and Glad blasts a hole through the hammerman's heart with lightning. Glad dedicates the kill to Chracio and the Chracioite consumes the second body and their foes' weapons with more magic. Through a group effort, the gang is able to revoke the closing shell of darkness and escape the spirit world.
Haas' shaman friend appears in spirit form in the waking world and consuls the gang to seek out Carseca with the aid of allies.
Ensatis Intrigue
After everyone's caught up on what happened to Red, Glad, and Haas, the gang spend the next day fairly split. They start out by trying to recruit Nef for their raid on Carseca. In the middle of their conversation, Ra'jira overhears some redscales teasing Haas just barely within earshot. He blinks into their circle and takes on the leader. Haas involves herself only to mind fear the leader's posse and keep them out of the bout. It takes some finessing, but after a lot of grappling, Ra'jira is able to best and embarrass the much larger Redscale who should have done better against an opponent of his size. Having already lost face, Maus compounds the kids embarrassment by inducing whatever the lizard equivalent of crying is.
After the fight, Glad convinces Nef to take a trip to the dream world, which he is unfamiliar with. There, Glad shows him his Westerner sword, but Nef has no answers. He decides to raise the soul of the Westener he slew in the spirit world, though he believes himself to be alive, and this one is able to answer some basic questions. The sword is the boon of a legionnaire ... a piece of the gifter's power imparted to the claimant. It can have side effects, it's hard to come by, it can be re-gifted, and it should have a physical manifestation in the real world. Out of the dreaming, Glad tests this out by crushing rocks in the palm of his hand with magics he's not familiar with. Haas recognizes the quasith as Shul's and Glad revokes it, happy with his answers. Glad and Haas also come across a potential recruit to either of their pillars and make the case for each being better than the other. Haas sticks at it longer but grows wary of how monstrously predatory this young redscale is. The kid doesn't seem able to comprehend the ethics and morals that also come with being aligned with Vulsh. Maus, meanwhile, finds a fellow follower of Vormyll who commands a lot of respect from the mercs following him. He also witnesses this mercenary enigmatically intimidate owed pay out of someone he caught buying goods in the marketplace.
Off on his own, Red follows up with a construction job offer from the enchanter with an ax to grind with Haas and the gang. Believing he's hired for some nighttime construction work, Red begins unwittingly casing the inn the Foxes are staying at for an assassination that would see their rooms collapse on them in their sleep. Luckily, Ra'jira overhears this and warns the others. Haas stops Red and Glad alerts the inn keeper. Then, in turn, a city guard is summoned and mediates between the Foxes and enchanter with both parties told not to mess with the other further. Glad being Glad, he gets a last warning in to the enchanter when the affair's wrapped up. Later in the day, an orphaned boy comes looking for Maus. He wants Maus to talk to his new Vormyllean buddy on his behalf because his brother went missing after paying that guy to transport him to the pillar of Vormyll. Haas sets him up at the inn for a few months stay and promises to find out what happened.
At nights end, the Foxes see Encis. They share everything they've learned of Carseca and Shul's influence in the area. Encis pops off for a quick look. Minutes later he blinks back. The town is thriving and well populated, but also protected by something that now knows the town has been discovered. Someone protects it. Someone who considered but thought better of trying to suppress Encis.
An Inhabitant of Carseca
Glad, Maus, Red, and Ra'jira each have strange dreams that night and wake from those to a shared dream in the dreaming, whereupon they meet the Weaver again. He has sensed they were headed to Carseca and warns them that its territory is watched over by an ancient and malevolent wraith called the Trader. He is a rival of sorts to the Weaver and dangerous. And the Weaver is hesitant to intervene. Instead, he offers some guidance, mentioning they may be able to procure passage by offering up something for trade ... like more spiritual constructs similar to Glad's sword. Each crafts a construct and it seems they may have enough potential to at least entice the Trader to materialize in the waking world. Afterwards, the Foxes wake and meet up with Encis, sharing this new intel with him. Then the party sets off to Carseca. Along the way, Ra'jira hunts for the red flowered cactus and Glad attempts to raise the dead and send them to Carseca as an advance party. But the group intervenes. He's almost convinced to leave well enough alone by Red, but Ra'jira accidentally knocks Red out with a dart, giving Glad free reign for his necromancy until a lengthy skirmish results in his raised dead being revoked.