The Fall of the Granite Citadel

Week 6, The Fall
GMs: Ciaran, Rackle, Quentin, Robert, Declan, Steve

Players: ... Many

General overview
Several of the Oligs, or angels, of the gods have been corrupted and some launched an attack on the granite citadel.

Olig-Pon, the Necromancer, flew his dragon to the citadel and beseiged it with undead while attempting to find and remove from the keepers tower lore that would describe to us their weaknesses. Thanks to the quick thinking of Tarthus, Meira's personal notes on this have been saved. The tower was partially collapsed, the dragon slain inside, and the tower has become winged and leathery in nature. The powerful artifacts beneath the tower were found to be missing - sold by the keepers - with only a few odds and ends and a pile of receipts remaining.

Olig-Dak, the elven emperor, sent strike teams in to destroy the Unicorn - his creation which wants to return him to un-corruptedness. They pursued it through the magically enhanced citadel gardens but the Unicorn was saved by adventurers.

Olig-Riss, a brown haired healer, came to the citadel to cause chaos and get revenge for their meddling in his plans. He was vanquished in some way by adventurers who stumbled upon a weakness of his - he disappeared, thanking them before he left. Has he been killed? Cured? Neither? Both? These adventurers then found a secret demon chained beneath the citadel, which Nat insisted on releasing and killing at once (a poor move, since the vanguard were in dire need of reinforcements at the time - as a result she has stepped down).

Olig-Moch, who was uncorrupted, came to slay Olig-Riss, who had imprisoned him before. He was later killed in the fighting by Olig-Strom.

Olig-Strom, the angel of war, attended her champion Keerl'an, the hobgoblin warlord. Left alone by the granite citadel adventurers in port plenty for several months, they had traded enough to fully outfit their army with the best weapons and armour and had time to broker an alliance with the southern raiding dwarves, who tunnelled into the citadel.

Under the brutal might of this army, the south wall and main gates of the citadel were breached, the vanguard tower lost, and the hiding villagers slaughtered. This despite the best efforts of the adventurers, the brief-lived intervention of Olig-Moch, and the legendary sword/artifact Experience (an extremely dangerous magical item which the vanguard kept instead of destroying because it was so useful...).

Imelda sacrificed herself to Keerla'n to allow those still alive in the citadel to flee. Now he sits on a throne in the granite citadel, and we have fled.

Report from Solene (Christy)
The citadel was under attack, however before I get to the action, I found myself waking in the garden with a sword pointed at me. Elves had infiltrated the citadel and wanted to know the location of the unicorn. An innocent died in the confrontation but a small group of citadel fighters and I managed to overcome the elves. We then found the unicorn, who told us we could take it’s tears to hopefully cleanse the tainted beings.

After gathering this valuable liquid, Remy and I see a fire at the lore keeper tower, we run into the courtyard where we can see the skeleton dragon wrapped around the tower attacking it so we run/climb up the dragon’s tail.

The dragon falls to the ground, taking us with it, Remy breaks its connection with the rider who is now in the tower (who we now know was the necromancer Olig-Pon) while an orc and I attack the dragon with blade and crossbow. The dragon takes to the air and we stay with it, the orc is killed when he falls into the ball of summoned lightning that the dragon was creating in his skeletal chest. The golden golum that had latched on to the inside of the dragon, trying to break its spine falls into the courtyard and Remy also falls after dampening the dragon’s magic.

The dragon is injured and almost ridged, but still collides with the tower, cutting into the bottom two stories of supports and putting the entire structure in peril. It begins to rise up attempting to destroy the third floor, a druid in the form of an eagle (before the dragon kills him) tells me of the three necromantic power nexuses on the dragon, force will not work so I use divine healing magic on one of the points and the dragons tail loses the magic that is animating it. I yell out to those on the third floor for help and Cassius Invictus jumps on the back of the dragon distracting it (before being slammed into the roof) but it gives me enough time to destroy the nexus connected to the head and the beast finally slumps down.

The tower is still in great peril and Remy makes it back to us, with a cleric and an Olig no less. We begin a dangerous ritual to use the remaining power of the dragon and the dragon bones to shore up the tower. We succeed, only to realise that the fourth and fifth floor are on fire. After fighting a mangled abomination on our way up, we raced up through the flames (with Remy’s aid) and make it to the ultra-restricted section of the tower. The portals here lead to the elemental plains; we note that a fifth portal of darkness that we can barely focus on should not be there. Remy conducted another ritual to use the portal of air to suck the oxygen out to starve the fire. The spell goes off but Remy and I are pulled from our stations and dragged into the portal. We manage to hold on and the paladin manages to pull me out first. As she turned to help Remy out, I noticed a bookcase that had been revealed by the maelstrom was now detaching and in danger of flying through the portal, I managed to save four books (one of particular interest to relevant events and beings) and Remy managed to get through the portal before the rest of the bookcase (containing Olig lore) flew through into the realm of Air.

We quickly gathered the most valuable and dangerous books and put them through a portal to a safe location. We then told the wounded from the infirmary and the beleaguered citadel forces outside to retreat towards us. We all travelled through a portal, but almost all of us arrived in different locations.

Gregarious' Report (Jesse)
With sadness and a burning vengeance in my heart, I write this character report, for the benefit and understanding of recent events.

The Vanguard is almost completely destroyed. Only a handful of adventurer's are left. We could not hold the walls, they were too strong, too numerous.

Sure we held them for a little bit, but then that damned golem walked right through our wall and busted it open. And then that damned battering ram of holy power busted the wall even more. We could not stop the flowing horde of goblinoids.

I challenged that Warlord Keelan to a duel at the front gate, but it was a stalemate after the first strike, so the others came to help, leaving the gate open. one by one I watched old residents of the Granite Citadel fall.

It was at that point Olig Moch, the Angel that I helped rescue last week, came barreling through the castle wall. It was then that I made the gravest mistake of my life. I called for Olig Moch's assistance, which was enough to distract him for that split second. It felt like an eternity as a large hooded figure dashed forward and split Olig Moch in half with a single strike. It was...all my fault. And that was when I made my second mistake. I ignored Keelan, leaving Hepatitis to fight him alone, and charged at this new figure.

I should have known. I should have known it was an Olig. It was Olig Strom. She attempted to make me quiver in fear at the mere sight of her, but as I was in too much of a frenzy, I managed to stave off the effects, and charged her. Waving her arm, she attempted to steal my soul, but Moch must have been on my side as my soul stayed in my body. I managed to pierce her once, but she retaliated with a mighty swing of her own, imploding my shield and sending me flying into the wall. I was not about to be taken down though, so I charged at her again and pierced through her body. That was my third mistake. Her weapon came crashing down upon me, and I awoke standing at the gates of Pon.

I began to accept my situation, until the furred paw of Moch lay upon me and said that it was not my time. I would be allowed to return to the land of the living, under the condition that I retreat, gather the forces, and come back when we are stronger. With my heart and soul, and desire to avenge Olig Moch, I agreed. When I woke up, I saw the adventurers I had fought on the walls with, a retreat was being sounded. I looked back once. I wish I had never seen Keelan execute Imelda.

I screamed through the city that I swear one day it will be my spear that pierces and finally destroys the Angel of War, Olig Strom.

Let it be known that I burn with a desire for revenge. And I will stop at nothing to get it. I shall never fail to defend my city like I did this time, whilst I still draw breath.

Ethanwe's Report (Emma)
All who were able to fight were called to an attack on the Citadel led by some of the corrupted Angels, Hobgoblin Warlord and Southern Dwarves.

Merlin, Spudacous, a Battlemaster whose name I do not know and myself, along with Nat, fought our way through some spider abominations to the Sentinel tower. There we encountered a skin covered monster, together with considerable effort we took down the creature.

But it was not alone, the corrupted Olig Riss was here and too and determined to make us pay for interfering with his plans a while back. None of our attacks seemed to hurt him however, except it seemed, the bone daggers some of the others had and my fangs and claws. Olig Moch appeared and joined the fight just as we finished of Olig Riss who thanked us for freeing him before fading away.

Roaring sounded throughout the tower from an enraged Olig Moch who was furious that somebody had stolen his kill and wanted vengeance upon Merlin who had been the unfortunate one to deliver the killing blow. Guilt washed over me, I had thought we were aiding Olig Moch in killing Olig Riss but he was here for revenge for what the corrupted Angel of Riss had done to him, I should have known better, this was not Merlin's fault but my own. I pleaded with him for Merlin's life, explaining to him that it was all a misunderstanding, thankfully he understood and spared Merlin.

Remy and I then flew with Olig Moch to the Keepers Tower, about to fall, held up only by an undead Dragon bought to life by Necromancers. Olig Moch attacked it and the tower shook violently, if he continued this the tower would fall and people would die, I cried out to him. Instead he agreed to hold the Dragon steadfast while the others performed a ritual to deal with it and keep the structure from falling. Olig Moch left not long after and I with him, ending up in the Courtyard while he flew off into the distance.

That was last time I ever saw him.

The Courtyard was under attack from Goblinoids and Dwarves and it was all we could do hold them back, just when we thought we might succeed a flood of new enemies began to storm the gates. Horrified, I knew I had to do something or the Courtyard would fall and everyone would die! So I called out to the earth to crush my enemies and everything went dark.

Next thing I knew I was floating, I could feel Moch's presence surround me, he was furious, Olig Strom had killed his Angel! Olig Moch was dead?! Filled with grief and rage I accepted Moch's proposal and felt his power course through me and my body return to life.

Returning to the world of living, I dug myself out of the avalanche I had buried myself in, changed into a Bull and trampled the few enemies left. Hearing the horn sound for retreat, I took my few remaing companions with me and together we fled the fallen Citadel.

Moch's rage is my rage, he will have his vegeance and so will I! Olig Strom will die at my own hands, blessed by the power of Moch!