Be the Wardstone, Queen Galfrey, Medals? I don't need no stinking medals.

Campaign Log of Autec the Landbound, Day 9-18

A week has passed since we cleared the Garrison out. A demon hasn't been spotted in three days, it certainly seems like they've vacated the city entirely. Thus, it is rather surprising that Queen Galfrey declared martial law upon arriving in the city earlier today, I guess these human leaders need to feel important? Though I'm not actually sure she is human despite appearances, Aravashniel assures me she has been ruler of Mendev for well over 100 years. Our presence has been requested at the freshly cleaned Garrison for a meeting with her in a few hours. I suspect we are in for more excitement.

During our downtime, we were able to completely recover from our wounds and sold off the copious amount of magical goodies we liberated from evil. Quendnys has also been of great assistance in turning that cash into more useable gear and Pax's new Amulet of Mighty Fists-cum-Tentacles should be a big boost for +1 to hit/dmg on her four attacks.

Irabeth refused our attempt to return her sword we had located in the Garrison. Apparently, it had been her father's and she had sold it some time previously for Annevia's sex-change magic. She claims the sword is "bad-luck", (maybe just memories of Annevia?) but my detect magic disagrees and I'm fine taking it. (+1 Evil Outsider Bane Longsword)

http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Galfrey

Galfrey is...interesting. Forceful and intelligent, I can see how these humans have managed to survive so close to the Worldwound with her in charge. Turns out breaking the wardstone had very far reaching effects indeed. They're all broken now, and our group is now the new "wardstone". I don't see any choice but to continue until the Worldwound is closed or we die. I am sure that the demonic commanders are planning to exploit the exposed borders of the lands of men. Should they fall, my own home will face even greater danger. Best to cut the head of the beast off now, but they are so very powerful and we are so few...

At Galfrey's request, we have all officially joined the freshly instituted 5th Mendevian Crusade as Knights of Mendev. As Knights, we were rewarded for our efforts at the Garrison with medals of recognition and a pile of coin.

• Medal of Righteous Agility- Kesh - for slaying a demon before it had a chance to act.
• Medal of Righteous Clarity- Kesh + Ralan - for recovering information of value to the crusade.
• Medal of Righteous Command- Ralan - for convincing the First Descendants to join the cause.
• Medal of Righteous Valor- Sitzva - for applying the finishing blow to a powerful demon.

(OOC) Lol achievements! Medals give minor bonuses to a save/maneuver and can be activated for +2 to a stat for 1 minute. Kinda meh, but fun.

The medals were just buttering us up for our next mission though. The demons are already on the move and are launching an assault on the Southern outposts. Specifically, the maralith Aponavicius, recently led a march out of the occupied citadel Drezen to the north, leaving unguarded a powerful artifact that could turn the tides. The artifact, a crimson banner known as the Sword of Valor, is capable of denying the teleportation abilities of our demonic foes and would be of great aid in securing Kenabres against future incursion. Galfrey has ordered us to lead a small force of hand-picked, loyal paladins of Iomedae into the Worldwound to liberate Drezen and secure the Sword.

Accompanying us will be:

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• Aravashniel, the blinded conjurer we saved during the initial attack and a Riftwarden. Now not blind thanks to Galfrey.

http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Irabeth_Tirabade

• Irabeth, as de-facto commander of our army

  

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• Aron, our highly-skilled guide and a siege engineer

  

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• Sociel, a cleric specializing in healing and divination

  

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• Nurah, a bard with knowledge of Drezen and the citadel

We spend the rest of the day planning our route with Aron and figure the march at approximately 160 miles to Drezen. Our force of 100-odd paladins can travel 36-miles a day and we'll be moving through demon territory, so some delays are anticipated.

Our first waypoint is Valis' Gift, a village recently engulfed by the Wound approximately one day away. The sky takes on an ominous red glow that grows more menacing with every step we take on the cracked clay that was once fertile farmlands. The few streams we find steam with demonic acid and we dare not let the horses drink.

We arrive at the Gift tired, thirsty, and not at all surprised that is has been razed to the ground. Clearly, the demons destroyed all they could in the area around Kenabres during the attack. We take an hour to search the ruins and locate a few underground food caches, but no survivors. Irabeth arranges the army into squads to keep watch as we rest that evening and we make it through the night without interruption.

Irabeth calls a halt fifteen minutes before reaching Vilareth Ford the next day to tell us that scouts have sighted a force of Tieflings ahead. We decide to take the the opportunity to ambush them by luring them away with a small portion of our forces. It, uh, works, and the armies clash with us having a major advantage.

(OOC) Okay, things are going to get a little awkward here. While the AP provided rules for managing these army fights as a separate mini-game, we all agreed it wasn't very well done and we'd just skip them entirely. Basically, it led to one person making all the decisions and making a few simple choices each fight to add/subtract modifiers for regular combat rolls. Our DM handwaved these and just had us engage the command center during each battle guerrilla style. While I would've liked the opportunity to actually use our army in an intelligent manner (and particularly augment them with our buffs and area effect abilities) this was not allowed to keep things simple. Shrug. Major problem here is that the fights don't make a whole lot of sense, so, take continuity with a grain of salt when anything dealing with the army is considered.

Kesh manages to locate what appears to be their command center after we send him up as an invisible, tethered, levitating cat balloon. We skirt the armies clashing and Haste our way in.

Our speed gets us across the field undetected and Katsa levitates Pax and I up the walls of the small camp while Ralan approaches a gap nearby on foot. Upon surmounting the wall, I quickly spot and identify a brimorak demon standing motionless. I realize he is likely telepathically commanding the army of Tieflings.

http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Brimorak

These nasty little jerks are surprisingly strong and capable of various sorts of fiery, area effect badness. Fortunately, he is in charge range and we do the obvious. Pax connects, but I miss. Fiery blood showers out of the claw wounds and burns Pax. Must've missed that bit in my studies. Sorry Pax!

Three ghasts emerge from nearby tents as the rest of the party joins the battle. Ralan quickly slays one with a charge and Katsa burns both a ghast and the brimorak I am engaged with. Kesh lands a few shots, Sitzva's holy ray goes awry and the brimorak teleports away. An uninjured one appears on the ledge of a small building and launches a fireball, hitting all of us for significant damage. We finish off the ghasts and Ralan gets a levitate boosty from Katsa to ascend the building and rip the little blue bugger apart. The one we damaged earlier reappears, fireballs 3/5 of us, then meets the same end as Katsa helps Pax and I climb up for a lethal charge across the rooftops.

Our army finishes the now leader-less mob up quickly, suffering only 1 casualty. We search the camp thoroughly and find ten survivors from the Ford garrison that had been being used a playthings for the occupying demons. They agree to join us and seek retribution. We take a well deserved rest for the remainder of the day and will set out for Keeper's Canyon on the morrow.