Sephiria's Account
Letters that will never be sent…
My dearest sister, it is time to once again update you on our progress but in this instance I’m not too sure exactly where to start. I believe I had left things last time with our party being on the point of entering a teleport in order to ascend the tower of the Lady’s Light. Our Grey Maiden allies had little knowledge of these rooms but warned that there were fanatics amongst their number who had taken up residence there to be closer to their liege, led by one Quenelle Page.
It really is quite difficult to manage a large skirmishing force, particularly in a confined space, so we determined to split our cadre of Grey Maidens into two groups and send some of our party with each. Anastasia, it seemed, was having a “moment” and needed to be elsewhere. On the chance this might relate to her imprisoned half-sister-Sorshen-pretender, we had to give her a strong escort so along with half the Grey Maidens, she was accompanied by Neril and Gedout.
The rest of us proceeded from the hall where we had fought the four half-dressed Sin Spawn creatures with Keelan’s Faerie dragon Trix scouting ahead invisibly. It was due to their efforts that we were able to easily determine that the chamber ahead of us was not infact a gathering of Runelords and their followers, but instead an illusion of the same designed to intimidate and obfuscate, hiding the true enemy: the Captain of the Sin Spawn.
She proved to be a ferocious enemy, summoning fiendish spiders to block our advance while all the time blasting us with her own magic. In the end, Keelan’s magic and my own Acid Arrow wand proved sufficient to defeat her though at high cost as many of us and our allies were sorely wounded. However even as she fell, she was able to sound the alarm.
Disdaining the need to rest and hopeful that we might fight the next foe before their defences were readied, we hastened forwards. Before us was Lieutenant Quenelle Page and her troop, hurrying to gird themselves against us. Keelan-Sorshen tried to reason with her, urging her to stand down and join us against the fake Sorshen, but there’s no reasoning with a fanatic. Angered by this apparent heresy against her liege, Page leapt to the attack; battle was joined and very soon it became clear that Page was a formidable foe and, bereft of the support of Neril and Gedout, we were in trouble.
Quillax managed to close the door on Page’s reinforcements, using her own bulk to keep them from forcing it open and separating her from her troops, but even with her alone and unsupported we were unable to defeat her. Quillax-Bear locked her jaws on Page’s torso, pulling her to the ground, but just that small movement away from the door proved our downfall. With a strength born of desperation Page’s Grey Maidens were able to force the door and rush to their leader’s aid.
Encouraged by the arrival of her allies, Page shrugged off Quillax’s attack and pressed her attacks on Keelan. It was no contest: exhausted and injured from the earlier fight, Keelan could not fend off Page’s attacks and with a shout of triumph, she killed him even as he lay bleeding on the ground. Quillax too was in trouble, surrounded by the Grey Maiden reinforcements. We called the retreat and started pulling back, but then Quillax fell. Corporal Gert held the door enabling the rest of our Grey Maiden allies to fall back before she too was overcome. Weary, angry and worried for our friends we pulled back to catch our breath and work out what to do next.
Sometime later as we were trying to come up with a way to rescue our friends, Quillax returned to us accompanied by a young half-elf cleric named Elwin who was the sole survivor of another group of adventurers and who had been imprisoned by the Grey Maidens. They told us what had happened: stripped of their armour and equipment – including Quillax’s Shard of Pride – they had been interrogated by Quenelle Page. Quillax told the story of the false Sorshen, but swayed by Elwin’s magic, she viewed Quillax’s arguments as nothing more than deranged ramblings and thus neither Quillax nor Elwin was any threat to her.
So Page released them with a warning that should they return, no quarter would be given. They were bidden to speak to the Grey Maidens with us and order them to abandon us and return to Page’s command. And a final warning: Corporal Gert would be held as a hostage, and should we attack again she would be the first to be killed.
We drew back once more to the lair of Mochtau the Cave-Giantess-fake-Sorshen to await the return of our allies and draw plans for defeating Quenelle Page. I’ve never been a particularly vengeful person, but in this instance I believe I may make an exception…
