Gorakheel ended up training under Cambra as a generic Cuthbert paladin affiliated with the Hollerith Temple (which is a first for the generally pacifistic Western sages), figuring that involvement with the Holleriths was least likely to interfere with his eventual desire to return to Banzeel and reopen his shop in peace. Meanwhile, Rillohar has been considering staking out part of Lifeblood for his druidic grove.
Shortly after the Bloodheart was transported offplane, Omimajish summoned Silvana for a meeting, which was also attended by Stealth and Beeel. Omimajish had to admit that he was impressed with the overall outcome and had noted the party's accomplishments for the Council, who might decide to pass on some of Epicenter's magic items in appreciation. Silvana asked for the release of a circlet of grey elven origin that's been held by the Hollerith Temple for investigation; it's made of mithril and dwarven metal, seems to have anti-magical properties, and was made by an insane grey elf called "Sword Maker" once upon a time. Silvana wants to use the item; Omimajish said he'd bring up the matter with the Council.
The Western army moved out, and after a week they fought their first battle at the western edge of Lifeblood. (The party traveled with the skirmishers, who were generally NG and CG and were also keeping their distance from the Cuthbert.) In a nutshell:
- Omimajish and Rogash led a force of peasant infantry and heavy cavalry against a team of zombies and owlbears and forced them back into the forest.
- Pepper and Frankel led the skirmishers deep into Lifeblood and took out 60% of the zombies they faced, taking 30% casualties in the process.
- The halfling forces engaged mercenaries from Banzeel, took 20% losses, and retreated; the mercenaries were basically unscathed. (Gorakheel believes the mercenaries may have been hired by House Borine.)
- Heavy cavalry led by two non-Council rogs took negligible losses in decimating a group of zombies and light infantry from Banzeel.
- The archers faced a group of zombies; neither side accomplished much of anything.
Overall, the Eastern position in the western part of the forest was overrun, leaving Lifeblood open for Western occupation. Many of the defeated mercenaries were taken prisoner; those willing to convert to Good have been sent to the stronghold to be Cuthbertized, while the unwilling ones have been detained closer to the skirmisher positions. The prisoners and the Western forces both partook of the free healing from Silvana's staff, reducing fatalities all around. Neither Drakos nor the Ravens put in an appearance here, but Omimajish expects much stiffer resistance at the eastern end of the forest.
After the battle, the skirmishers headed into Lifeblood to take out enemy priests who were probably going around trying to animate the conveniently plentiful corpses. The party, being generally good at hosing evil spellcasting types, was asked to assist, and Gorakheel was asked to accompany them. (Cmdr. Frankel stayed back with the main body of skirmishers.) Silvana opened the proceedings by communing with nature; she learned that the forest was in decent shape overall, humans and undead could be found a few hours north of the C-Ra/Banzeel road, no extraplanars were in the spell's range, a plant door was a day's travel away northeast, three beetles were in the southern part of the forest, and some spiders were a few days off to the east.
After a few hours of northward travel, the party found the site of the halflings' engagement. A while later, the party happened upon a group of eight zombies standing in a clearing and re-deanimated them all in a round. A round later, an Eastern priest and an owlbear came to investigate.
- DM:
- "She seems horrified at finding them all dead."
- Roger:
- "They were dead when we got here."
Silvana charmed the owlbear, Gorakheel dispelled a bunch of the priest's protections (and caused a shovel to burst out of her pocket), and the fighters took the priest down before she could re-reanimate her beloved zombies. As the party discussed taking her head for questioning, her body aged itself into oblivion, and her life force, having magic jarred into a little skull necklace she was wearing, tried to possess Beeel. Gorakheel used his other dispel magic to neutralize the jar, which was then stuffed into an extradimensional bag. (A lifeforce in a standard magic jar would have been destroyed after the dispel, since the original body was toast, but with Death priests, take no chances.) The priest's other goodies were a mace, some chain mail, a brooch, a knife, her shoes, two rings, three potions (some of which may have been dispelled), unholy water, and a figurine of a mantis in a fighting stance.
Thorongil started following the tracks the owlbear made on its way in (and the rest of the party naturally followed him). After about ten minutes, the party found a 20'x20' pile of bodies guarded by four skeletons (one at each corner); there was also a nice pile of rot grubs among the corpses. The skeletons were quickly dispatched, Stealth summoned some muckdwellers into the center of the body pile to attract and concentrate all the rot grubs, and the sound of imminent reinforcements was noted. Thorongil crept off to do an end run around the newcomers and ended up flame-bolting a stoneskinned priest in mid-cast, Gorakheel and Ganeth waded into the pile to fry the rot grubs (and, incidentally, the muckdwellers), Beeel disarmed the arriving stoneskinned archer, and Silvana turned the arriving zombies. The following round, Stealth ran the priest over with an ice trail, and the archer surrendered after his stoneskin gave out (4 pops, so 7th level caster). The priest decided that surrender was preferable to suffocation in the ice, so she did; Silvana broke her out of the ice and then healed herself the damage she took doing it. And the new, improved translator was summoned; this one just does straightforward translation, perhaps on the theory that if it doesn't annoy us, we'll keep it away from mountain giant boulders.
- Silvana:
- "Greetings. I am Silvana, Champion of Good."
- Death priest:
- "We have heard of you. You are a misguided, insane creature, but I thank you deeply."
The Death priest didn't give her name but said she looked forward to spitting in Omimajish's face before she died; apparently her purpose in life is to bring death to him. So naturally the party looked for cyanide capsules in her teeth, etc., but didn't find anything beyond a normal assortment of items and animate dead components. Her stoneskin lasted a total of 6 pops (determined empirically during the search).
The archer's name was Pazazeel, and he'd been hired for this mission through House Borine. After a bit of questioning, he told Gorakheel that they'd just started creating the latest batch of zombies, and the only others he knew of were with the "scary priestess" whose description matched the magic jar hopeful. So mission accomplished. Pazazeel was also wearing an evil ring, which the party wanted removed.
- Gorakheel: [to party]
- "Gee, you don't make it easy. `Give up your ring, now.'"
- Stealth: [helpful as ever]
- "Either he gives it up or we kill him and take it off his dead body?"
- Ganeth: [that old softie]
- "We could tie a blade of grass around his finger if it'd make him feel better."
But the evil ring was cursed on; Silvana noted that using items such as rings to bind people is not uncommon in the East. He'd been given it at the beginning of the mission, and it let him feign death once per week.
- Pazazeel:
- "Part of the contract. I didn't read the fine print carefully. My pals said that if I die, I come back as an undead."
- Ganeth:
- "And this was a perk?"
The party brought the two prisoners back to the army camp, where the priest was taken away and questioned by Omijarvis, a mid-level Truth priest (who speaks Eastern Common). A bit later, Omijarvis joined the party in talking to Pazazeel, who wasn't interested in "becoming a traitor" for the Westerners. Gorakheel, who believes that the Banzeelites will drop out of the war if they can be convinced that the West isn't going to invade the city, tried to convince Omijarvis that Pazazeel (at least sans evil ring) wasn't a threat and should be let go with his stuff; Omijarvis agreed that there seemed to be some hint of potential goodness buried under the profit-oriented merc exterior and scheduled him for daily Truth Meetings instead (with his normal equipment, but without his armor and weapons). Gorakheel also probed the idea of using Pazazeel as-is and was surprised to learn that the Westerners aren't employing mercenaries in the war; all of their troops are Good-aligned volunteers. And during this discussion, Pazazeel overheard that Gorakheel is a paladin. (It's hard keeping secrets around Truth priests.)
- Pazazeel:
- "A paladin is like a zombie who fights for Good."
- Erich:
- "But with special abilities and magic items!"
There followed some discussion of what the West wants for Banzeel (no more Evil rule) vs what Gorakheel wants for Banzeel (rule by Banzeelites, with influence from neither Marakeel nor the West), and of the role of mercenaries and middlemen in sustaining the Empire's evil. No clear common ground emerged: Gorakheel believes the evil mercenary types will vanish once Marakeel's influence is removed and should be left alone, while most of the others believe that making life difficult for the mercs is necessary to drive the Empire (and the Death and Insanity Temples) out and think that great care must be taken to insure that the rulers from Marakeel aren't simply replaced by similarly evil Banzeelites. Gorakheel continued to work on Pazazeel and got him to admit that becoming Good might be worthwhile -- but only because he was impressed by the party's firepower.