 |
Let the Numbers fall where they may when
they are sent on missions. |
As the party is swarmed and nearly overcome by the avenging horde of bluetongues, things go from bad to even worse with the sudden arrival of Chaos’s LADY BLIGHT and her troop, comprising TISIPHONE, Carnifex Black; ARIADNE, Beloved of Spiders; and CARESS of the Pallid. The bluetongues are decimated and various terrible effects are visited upon the party by dint of the quartet’s mere presence, and one of them coolly disintegrates
ALECTO’S left leg, as she realizes she has been singled out because this particular group once held Sanomagus prisoner for 300 to 30,000 years. Fortunately,
MANTIUS is able to draw upon his abilities as
Renegade Warder to get himself,
CATALINA, and
VARIAN (who has realized with dismay that “
All Saints is already theirs”) out of the area, which is rapidly being altered to suit the preferences of the blue.
The trio arrives in a gray between-space, in which Mantius promptly goes into a sort of trance in order to resolve a matter of karmic debt. In response to the army-wide alert and mission abort heard by both
Cat and
Mantius earlier, a rescue team of warders soon appears, comprising TOLIRUS, AENEAS, ELINORA, TERENTIUS, ALOYSIUS, and ORANA, the
Copper Tear Helm Warder of the Seventh. After some debate—during which Orana attempts to coerce shards out of
Catalina and is soundly rebuffed and eventually slapped by Elinora—the team, now including
Cat, resolves to rescue the party members left behind in Charexes, leaving Aeneas in the between-space to serve as a kind of home base, along with Varian.
The
Tearstained Warder goes into a trance state as well, leaving
Varian on his own to deal with the scout sent by Tisiphone, a spiky-carapaced creature that is just on the verge of reporting the two warders’ vulnerability to its mistress when it is assaulted by
Varian, concealed and protected both by the
Saint of Shadows and his own clever use of salt. Sacrificing one of the silence stones to keep the creature speechless,
Varian manages to defeat it, rendering it helpless by turning it over on its shell.
Despite Tolirus falling en route and Orana nearly breaking and running,
Catalina is able to use her abilities as
Unconquered Warder to support the rescue effort, stubbornly denying the very real probabilities of the team’s death, defeat, or even partial failure. When
Mantius awakens and sends the
Diamond Azure Cloak Warder shard from the between-space to mount
Aly, the team is finally able to transport ALINA,
ARCTURUS, and
DUMAS, as well as all warders—alive if far from well—out.
Spotting
Varian’s captive,
Mantius realizes that they are still not safe, even in the gray area, and worse, that he will not be able to convey the entire group to the designated extraction point. He is wrestling with the necessity of leaving four behind when he hits upon a practical but unsavory solution—destroying the
Geometer shard to enable the number that he needs. With the shard’s unhesitating consent, this is done and the party and warders flee, leaving the
Geometer behind, where it makes the most of its sacrifice by detonating Tisiphone’s hapless scout creature.
At the extraction point,
Mantius collapses alongside the other warders, leaving
Varian once more on his own in the face of the Chaos troop’s rapid pursuit. After some moments of extreme panic, he uses a god-touched leaf to awaken
Mantius so that the latter is able to confirm the extraction; and the group escapes at last to safety.
Nearly a month later at Temple Mount,
Varian remains unscathed—having thoroughly if worriedly enjoyed the run of the Citadel hospice in his guise as ‘Clemens’--
Aly’s leg has been regrown, and
Cat has been restored to human form from her traumatizing but temporary transformation into a shapeless mass of flesh. However, Alina is being held at a separate facility;
Dumas remains physically well but unspeaking and unresponsive;
Mantius continues to lapse into bouts of frantic shouting about some debt that he promises to pay; and
Arc, although recovered from the transmutation of his legs into a mass of tentacles, is in danger of being recommended for removal from service by the
Essence Lancer AMIA, on the grounds that stress may cause him to revert.
All but the first of these are instantly resolved, however, when
Mantius emerges from his room in apparent full possession of his facilities, thanks the physician while blithely disregarding her reservations, and sweeps his number out of the hospice (including
Dumas who, as it turns out, was simply keeping silent by choice). Their warder then makes contact with the
Diamond Blood Cloak Warder (since
Varian learned that Alina is under the latter’s supervision), whereupon he turns over the
Diamond Azure Cloak Warder shard, is granted the opportunity to see Alina in the near future, and learns that:
- Tolirus is dead, and a cerement will be held in his honor
- Four unique missions were compromised; those of the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Numbers, the Tenth having been decimated.
- Other numbers—particularly their warders—are also in convalescence at Sigil, Water, and Garden Mounts.
- Diamond Blood Cloak is the assignator of missions.
Having scheduled their visit to Alina, the party hastens to the
Emerald Mask Warder to receive their mission rewards, and proceeds to their assigned living quarters to rest and make preparations to attend the cerement.
