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Dawn of Magic
Time: Night, Dva 6, 1003 Imperial Reckoning.
Place: Hippolyte's palace, Tenosia.
Last Event: Finishing war preparations.
As previously agreed, the heroes return from their personal missions to meet on the night of Dva 6. Hippolyte informs them that things went well with Black Adolph, and that his forces can be relied upon to support the military strategy cooked up to crush the Starfish-Men. Of course, that plan depends on successfully luring the enemy legions into the mortal world. This becomes the next item on the agenda.
Initial thinking is to simulate the events leading up to the last great conflict between the mortal world and the Starfish-Men. This would surely provoke the desired reaction, given how bad the outcome was for the Starfish-Men when they failed to react swiftly the last time. Mythology suggests that this would take the acts of many gods to pull off, however. In the end, a simple ruse seems more workable: Rely on the presence of the world's leaders as bait to lure a modest enemy expedition on a snatch-and-grab mission, and then give the opposition the impression that the forces protecting their objective are much stronger than 20 legions and therefore merit a greater commitment of troops.
Further brainstorming leads to the conclusion that the best way to pull off this ruse would be to pay an "army" of civilians to stand around with spears and look like real soldiers for a few weeks. Spears and bribes will cost a lot of coin, of course, and the plan will require the aid of the temples to convince ordinary men that the gods require such action on short notice. However, Roma is full of refugees from the collapse of Kapital, while Indu and Mahash have vast camps of people displaced by the Starfish-Man incursion into Kali, so there's a ready-made pool of manpower – and these are people who need money and want revenge. Since the portals still stand, getting everyone to Tenosia should be trivial.
With that, discussion turns to the issue of neutralizing the Nybboth. The existence of that horrid "plant" gives the opposition the ability to retreat almost instantly should the battle turn against them. It's clear that removing it will require a hard-hitting, lightning-fast raid by a tiny number of highly skilled people who can slip past the enemy's rear-area security – that is, by the heroes themselves. But a little extra strength never hurts, and Kaeso's disc has room for at least one more passenger.
Everybody fields a few suggestions – people who have, over the years, aided the group in sticky situations. In the end, though, two names meet with unanimous approval. The first is Petr the Vampire. By virtue of his ability to become a small beast or a shadow, he won't require a seat on the disc, making his involvement a bonus. The second is Su, Kali's mythical hero, called by the scroll of summoning that Rufus found in the library in Mahash. Both a great warrior and a dire enemy of the Starfish-Men, his assistance would be invaluable.
The next step is to start hiring mobs. Since Emperor Nicolai needs to be told of the plan, Roma is the first stop. The group leaves Tenosia and passes through the portal to the great western city, where the sun has only just set. They quickly make their way to the Imperial Palace, where they ask the guards and functionaries to tell Nicolai that they come bearing an important message.
As the party waits for an audience, Leif thinks he sees someone up a darkened corridor, lurking in the shadows and spying on the group. He quietly tells his companions. Mushamee, in turn, casually informs the guards and asks permission to investigate. The guards state that Rufus and Vinz have suitable privilege, and stand aside to let them go take a look. Leif calls on Granddad and sends him along in spirit to help.
After a "casual" walk around the dim corridors, looking in corners, Rufus spots the outline of someone hiding behind a wall hanging in the passage leading from the antechamber. Leif can see this as well, just across the hall from where he first saw something. Once Vinz is in a position to intercept the spy, Rufus strikes, stabbing through the tapestry with his sword and then kicking the figure who staggers out from behind it. Soon, he has subdued what proves to be a Starfish-Man! The guards rush in, bind the prisoner, and hold him at spearpoint.
Rufus uses his information-extracting abilities on the captive, but can learn only that the prisoner is an enemy spy, sent to learn about the Empire's military planning. Moments later, a functionary rushes up to say that Nicolai wishes to see his visitors. Leif volunteers to escort the Starfish-Man to the dungeons and stand watch over him while the others go to meet with the Emperor.
The meeting with Nicolai is speedy: Mushamee updates the Emperor on the latest military planning. When Mushamee explains the need to hire refugees in Roma, Nicolai is willing to go along with it – and adds the spin that he will publicly decree that the camps are to be emptied to "rebuild Tenosia" and free real troops for war. Next, because Nicolai is Petr's patron, Mushamee formally requests the vampire's aid on the upcoming strike mission. Nicolai agrees to this, too. As for the captured spy, Nicolai seems unfazed; he claims that he "humors" a few enemy spies so that he can use them to pass disinformation. With that, it is time to rest, and Nicolai offers his visitors rooms for the night.
As Kaeso doesn't sleep, he decides to head to his workshop across town to get some work done. To do so safely, he quaffs potions of flight and invisibility. This proves wise . . . when he reaches his shop, he sees the front door hanging open. On sneaking in via the roof entrance, he discovers that the place is crawling with Starfish-Men. His clever traps got a few – their bodies are stacked nearby – but plenty of other agents are busily ransacking the place and packing his experiments into crates.
Flitting around invisibly, Kaeso sets about dealing with this intrusion. First, he resets sprung traps and sets new ones. Then he loosens the bolts on the stairs to the upper galleries, making them wobbly and treacherous. Finally, he weakens the cables suspending several heavy items, including a small sailboat and a large scorpion.
With those preparations made, Kaeso puts his plan into motion. He begins by setting fires and blocking the lower exits with falling objects. When the spies try to clamber up to the roof exit, the stairs collapse . . . and the invisible Kaeso cuts the intruders' climbing lines when they attempt to escape that way. Soon the entire place is consumed in a massive conflagration fueled by several large vats of Tenosian fire. Kaeso makes sure that the burning shop collapses in on the Starfish-Men trapped in the blaze.
At the Imperial Palace, Mushamee is awakened by a servant shouting that the Imperial Inventor's shop is ablaze, and burning too fast for the Vigiles to deal with. He gathers Rufus and Vinz (Leif is still guarding the prisoner) and races across town to the workshop. There he finds the firefighters standing back from a collapsing, exploding ruin; fortunately for all, Kaeso's shop was intentionally some distance from other structures. Rufus hears cries for help, and rescues one of Kaeso's servants, who miraculously survived the disaster in a heavy chest that was ejected from the wreckage.
Seeing his allies arrive on the scene, the invisible Kaeso flies down and makes his presence known. Mushamee, realizing that Kaeso is invisible and that the evidence of what really happened here has been utterly destroyed, sees a possible upside to the situation: Kaeso could be dead, as far as the enemy knows. And if Kaeso is dead, he won't be around to tamper with Tenosia's portals or fly discs into the Starfish-Man realm. The general tells Kaeso this and asks him to remain invisible. Then Rufus puts on a long face and informs Kaeso's rescued servant that his master has burned to death . . .
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