Chapter Thirteen: Ambush

We rest before we arrive in Tyr. We set up our ambush under the cover of darkness. Vex uses a mundane disguise to blend in as a local tanner selling animal teeth and skins. Xa'oc stays nearby on street level. Aruna, Tenneth, and Kriv climb up on the roof. In the morning Vex notices that some of the stuff she is pretending to sell is missing. We wait an entire day and don't see Ramas. Midday the next day we see Ramas walking down the street passing the building on whose roof we are waiting.

Kriv pulls him onto the roof using psionics, Xa'oc leaps onto the roof, Vex stays on the street to keep watch. Kriv threatens Ramas with physical force. Ramas tries to drain Kriv's lifeforce and only partially succeeds, but Kriv is in bad shape. Aruna tries to intimidate him, but he is unfazed. Xa'oc uses Mind Meld and tries to convince him to talk peacefully. Xa'oc shares Ramas's memory with Kriv: he's up in the mountains, wandering around, getting frustrated, happening upon the village.

Ramas swipes at Kriv with a steel sword and misses. Aruna hits him. Vex readies an action to blast Ramas on sight. Kriv heals himself, then threatens him again. Ramas banishes Kriv. Tenneth grapples him and demands he returns Kriv. Ramas conjures black energy and damages Tenneth. Aruna attacks him a bunch. Xa'oc attacks him a bunch, and bites him, and tries to stun him. Vex teleports onto the roof and blasts Ramas with the lightning wand.

Kriv finds himself in an empty void.

Ramas stabs Tennth. Tenneth attacks him a bunch. Ramas curses Tenneth and he takes a bunch of damage. Ramas says he will kill us unless we continue to work with him. Aruna tries to tie his hands but he evades her. Ramas heals himself somewhat.

Xa'oc uses Mind Meld and says "if you want the sword, you'll bring back Kriv!" Ramas's memory: he's standing in a dark stone room with a huge mirror with an elaborate frame. Xa'oc tries to reason with him and it doesn't work. Vex begs everyone to stop reasoning with him and blasts him with the last charge of her lightning wand. Ramas tries to attack Tenneth again. Kriv meditates. Tenneth keeps attacking him and finally Kriv reappears. Ramas uses necromancy on Tenneth and almost kills him. Aruna attacks him a bunch. Ramas heals himself again.

Xa'oc tells Kriv that the fighting is getting us nowhere. Kriv responds that Xa'oc may be right. Feeling that we can't defeat Ramas, Xa'oc pulls Tenneth off of Ramas, keeping Tenneth out of reach, and Tenneth does not resist, Xa'oc keeps him in his arms. Vex backs away and readies an action to blast him if he attacks anyone. Kriv also steps back and says, "cast a spell and we go again, but we'll hurt you before you kill us"

Kriv: "Explain why you think it's alright to have us tossed into the underworld"

Ramas: "Would you like to have this conversation elsewhere?"

Kriv: "No."

- Ramas: "I didn't want you all to die, I needed the sword in the pit, I assumed Xa'oc would go in.  I was willing to let you die, but that wasn't really my concern. What I really wanted was to get the sword in the pit after he refused to sell it to me."

Kriv: "You could have paid us to throw the sword in the pit"

Ramas: "My goal was accomplished. Your friend isn't attached to the sword anymore."

Aruna: "Why did you need the sword in the pit?"

Ramas: "It's not about you.  You are insignificant. It's about the whole world. I'm trying to prevent literally everyone from dying."

Kriv: "You are thousands of years too late."

Ramas: "Everyone that's currently on the world would be dead. Sacrificing five people for that doesn't bother me."

Kriv: "It should bother you."

Ramas: "There's something in the Gray that I need. Here's the silver you are owed."

Aruna: "How are you trying to prevent the apocalypse?"

Ramas: "There's a book in the pit. It is very, very, very old. It is said to have hidden knowledge. There is someone who wants it and assumes it can bring back the Green Age."

Tenneth and Vex know that the Green Age was thousands upon thousands of years ago when the world was covered in forests until the world was destroyed by magic discovered by super ancient beings.

Vex: "How is that going to prevent us from dying?"

Ramas: "There is someone who wants to use the book to reset the world and bring back the old races, which would sacrifice everyone in the world now. I need to get to it before Nibenay does."

Ramas: "The sword creates a link between this world and the Gray and makes it easier to get in without losing yourself. We can't get book yet because it is protected by a seal, and there is a entity, the soul storm, The Caller in the Darkness, in the Gray that is becoming more powerful and will be able to break the seal in a week. It needs more souls to become stronger, but it absorbs the souls in the Gray. It's a collection of souls that have been pulled together."

Ramas: "In a week's time, during the Dragon's Levy, the souls that go to the Gray will be collected by the Caller. The Caller is going to break the seal, and we need to grab the book first."

The Dragon's Levy is when a sorcerer king sacrifices slaves every year, and every city state gives a thousand slaves every year to the dragon Borys, because he's keeping something sealed away that almost destroyed the world.

Ramas: "If you go in with the sword you won't lose yourselves in the Gray like most people do. Nibenay has people who will get the book."

Ramas: "I didn't know halflings were eating the villagers. I didn't know exactly where the pit was. I am not associated with the creepy halflings."

Ramas: "I'm an information gatherer. I have glimpsed some of Nibenay's library in his secret palace without permission and learned about the book, and Nibenay's plans to get it. His people will try to get the book when the seal is broken, but he might not yet know where the portal is. But Nibenay has some control over the Caller in the Darkness."

Vex thinks he is being both genuine and secretive. Aruna doesn't think he is working with Nibenay and seems to be working against Nibenay. Kriv thinks this might be his first time hiring adventurers. Kriv gives up and go gets a drink at the Simple Squirrel.

Vex explains that we are at the Simple Squirrel and we can talk about taking the job when he's willing to be fully honest with us. She asks him to explain how to fix Tenneth and Ramas refuses until we become his employees. Finally, Vex warns him that if he tries to steal the sword from us we will try to kill him again.

We're not actually going to stay at the Simple Squirrel.

Vex asks Rivlen if anyone in town can fix Tenneth. He says he'll ask around. We plan to rest underground outside the city and give Kriv a chance to try and fix Tenneth.

Xa'oc says that Ramas is right about the book and the Caller. Kriv believes that Ramas wants the book for himself. We don't want Nibenay to get the book. We can get it for ourselves and destroy it. We have to wait a week for the Caller to break the seal.

Xa'oc hears a voice in his head that says, "Bug? Where are we? What's happening?"

Xa'oc: "Master? Where are you?"

Navarro: "I don't know. I don't see anything. I just feel you.  I got us out from the Gray. And I don't know what happened after that."

Xa'oc: "You did not stay in the Gray?"

Navarro: "I was with everyone else, and I sensed you, I reached out to you, I grabbed the sword, then I was with you. I think I'm in the sword. I don't know how this happened."

Xa'oc: "I no longer have the sword. Vex has it, she's part of the clutch. I trust her. I don't know if she trusts me at the moment. I abandoned my clutch and jumped into a giant pit before I found you, and the Caller of Darkness, and a book that can end the world. The book had green pictures, and writing, but I couldn't take it even though I tried."

Navarro: "I think I've seen the book. We saw it. We wanted it."

Xa'oc: "How do we get the book?"

Navarro: "We were waiting. I know this is a bad idea, and it shouldn't happen, but I feel like I want to go back. But not for the book, but it feels like I should be back with everyone else, even though I don't want that."

Xa'oc: "If I take the sword, will it make me go back?"

Navarro: "I don't know. I don't know what the sword is."

Xa'oc: "Ramas said it was a key, a link."

Navarro: "When you held it out I felt like I could take it, which let me get out through it."

Vex asks Xa'oc what's going on.

Navarro can hear Vex talking to Xa'oc, but not see.

Navarro: "The Caller in the Darkness wants the book very badly. It's called the book of Kemalok."

Xa'oc: "We have the Sword of Kemalok. It has something to do with the sun. I'll see if I can get the sword from Vex without making her suspicious."

Navarro: "I'm remembering more. I'm more aware of you. This has never happened to me before, and I'm not sure what's going to happen."

Xa'oc, sadly: "I'm sorry I failed you. I tried to protect you, but I could not. The others ran."

Navarro: "People die, no one expects to live long here. I know you did what you could. I failed me too, so."

Xa'oc: "I should have done better, but I was not strong enough. I trusted the sword to make me stronger, to protect the clutch. But I could not protect Kriv.  Ramas sent him away, and he is my friend, and I believe he trusts me."

Xa'oc says to Kriv, "Navarro, my master, is here, in the sword. I have no idea what that means. When I offered Mistsong to the Caller, he helped me break free, and helped me escape."

Kriv tells the rest of us that the sword is haunted, and that the soul of Xa'oc's old master came with him and is talking to him.

But it's not like it was before, when it was like a shroud around his mind and he couldn't think clearly, or remember names, only feel directed towards things. Vex cannot detect the sword's thoughts.

Vex detects Rivlen's thoughts and determines that we don't need to kill him yet because he's not paying much attention to us. Kriv uses primeval awareness to detect undead, and he does detect some of them within a mile.

Xa'oc asks Navarro how we can get the book without the Caller getting it. He doesn't have any useful suggestions. Xa'oc asks Navarro why the Caller wants the book. Apparently it has instructions from somewhere else to get it. Xa'oc asks Navarro about Nibenay. Navarro confirms that Nibenay is connected to the Caller. "And someone else that was telling us what to do." Xa'oc asks Navarro about why the Caller wanted Kriv to have the sword. "There were dray in the collective." We go outside the city to make camp and rest so that we can fix Tenneth. We get a long rest. Xa'oc spends the night catching up with Navarro. Kriv uses psionics to restore vigor on Tenneth.