Session 10 recap: Nothing but Nemeses

We kicked things off by asking for Caesar’s advice, and he asked us to find an architect to help build our new castle, as progress was slow. Lucky for us, we knew exactly where to find such a tradesman. But to our surprise, we found Lindermill in a rather different state than when we left it with Katherine and company. Harmonian soldiers were everywhere, enforcing a new draft that hadn’t been activated in many years. Amelia the bathmaker’s house was unguarded, but she refused to join us unless Reynaldo the architect chose to. So we swung by Reynaldo’s place next door and found him and his architects being dragged away for the draft by none other than Henry, Harold’s humorless brother and a Harmonian army captain. The fight was brutal and some unfortunate words were exchanged, but Henry was eventually forced to flee our onslaught once again. Reynaldo and his men joined us out of gratitude, and Amelia soon followed suit, obviously surprised at what had come to pass.

The team heard some rumors during our travels, like the fact that we might be meeting elves in the forest one of these days, but the most significant was learning the identity of the three Camaro generals. It turns out that Yuber is working for Camaro these days, and may have been summoned by Queen Diana herself, who is rumored to bear the True Piety Rune. As for the full extent of that rune’s power or what might come of enlisting Yuber’s services, that much is still unknown.

The safety of Royce’s dragon continued to be an important concern, as his rival Felicia had twice used the power of forbidden runes to affect his dragon’s mind. Caesar explained that we might be able to counter the power of Felicia’s runes (the Black/Conqueror rune put his dragon to sleep, while the Howling rune sent Vasuki into an uncontrollable bloodlust rage) if we visited the dwarves again. Cyrus the dwarven leader agreed to help us and sent for his son, Mitch, to help us. Mitch turned out to be a skilled potion-maker, trap-maker, and inventor, who happened to have developed and brewed a large quantity of anti-mind-control potion, which we fed to Vasuki. Meanwhile, we heard rumors from Ramza that the kobolds seemed to be preparing for war, and that this might be related to Felicia being spotted meeting with the kobold leader shortly before his disappearance. Guessing that Felicia was using the Howling rune to control the kobolds, Mitch prepared copious amounts of anti-mind-control potion and kobold-strength knockout gas and traveled with us to the kobold village.

It was obvious the minute we entered the village that every single kobold was in a mindless frenzy. Luckily, we were able to avoid killing the kobolds thanks to Mitch’s knockout gas, and we administered the antidote potion to every kobold we came across. Felicia showed up with her dragon, Felix, and attacked. After another tough fight, the FFs were defeated and set fire to the kobold village to cover their escape. Compelled to rescue the kobolds, we had to let the pair escape yet again.

Once the kobolds had all been restored to normal, Wayne the kobold leader told us of Felicia’s evil plan to use the mind-controlled kobolds as cannon fodder against Camaro. While the kobolds attacked the Camaro knights from one side, Felicia planned to use the dwarves the same way and create enough of a distraction for Harmonia to overcome the invaders. Disgusted by Harmonia’s utter disregard for the lives of non-humans and grateful for our help, Wayne agreed to join us, and Monty the kobold trader finally did the same. Once they heard what Harmonia had planned to do, Cyrus and Mitch joined us as well, and they decided to defy Harmonia by moving back into the old dwarven castle as a prologue to open war.

It was with mixed feelings that we heard the news of Camaro beating Harmonia at Coldwall castle due to the missing kobold and dwarf reinforcements, because the loss of life was severe. On the other hand, Harmonia’s defeat diverted their forces away towards the borders, leaving Sorrowyn prison relatively defenseless. Next time, we will take Sorrowyn by storm and finally rescue Daisy’s father!