Moonday, Sarenith 27 (evening)

Getting weapons and armor into a venue that allowed neither was not a difficult challenge. We banked on the fact that security had not been searching bags or packs (though as team managers, neither Meril nor I had to worry about that—it was common practice to bring equipment for the teams in and out in this manner) or examining people for enchantments. Everyone took a different approach. In my case, I carefully stuffed my horsechopper into my magical storage pack before heading out. Donning armor would not be practical, of course, but I had a spell that I typically reserve for social situations that would be good enough, and a couple of long-duration protective spells that we cast before we entered.

We arrived at the arena well before noon. Unlike on previous days, we sat more or less together: by prior arrangement, Meril and I took seats in back of the section reserved for managers and sponsors, and my friends sat in the general seating right behind us. We were expecting the arena to be full, hence the early arrival to ensure we were all together.

As I sat down next to Meril, I handed him a potion that would give him the ability to fly.

“If you tell anyone I gave this to you without charging you for it,” I said, “I will deny it until my dying breath.”

Our plan started going awry almost immediately. The master of ceremonies, Talabir, took to the field to start the games off, and he had Auric and Khellek in tow. A number of questions raced through my head: Why was Auric walking out onto the field? Had Celeste gotten the message to him? Did he believe it? What in the name of the gods was he thinking? And so on in that fashion. They all boiled down to a single, alarming thought: Auric is right there, and we are in deep trouble.

We didn’t have to wait long for that trouble to start, either. Talabir barely got through his opening when we heard a loud bang! as the ground shook violently. I immediately reached into my pack and pulled out my horsechopper, and called upon a divine spirit to enhance it. Next to me, Meril had pulled out his crossbow, and I quickly cast an enchantment spell on it. Behind me, I heard my friends casting various spells. None of us were worried about attracting attention at this point.

Down on the field, our two teams exchanged long glances and steeled themselves for battle. Then the ground shook again, and the Apostle of Kyuss erupted from the center of the arena. More spells fired off behind me as my friends prepared to enter the fray. I pulled out my potion for flight and cast a spell to imbue my horsechopper with divine power.

And then it all went wrong. We heard Raknian yell out from his box in the stands, “Yes! The hour is here! Lo, the Apostle of Kyuss has emerged! There is your champion! There! There!”

In a single motion, the Apostle leaned over and closed its maw around Auric. His screams cut off as he disappeared from view. We never had a chance to save him. Around us, the crowd erupted into a panic and people started running for the exits.

“Shoot Raknian,” I said to Meril as I stood up. I reached out to form a human chain with Sera, Zhog, and Viktor. In an instant, we vanished from the stands and reappeared on the ground, barely 50 feet away from the giant maggot as hundreds of tendrils emerged from its body, writhing in all directions.

A barrage of arrows arrived from up in the stands, courtesy of Arcane Auriga, and from the two teams on the field. The Apostle’s tendrils deflected most of them, but a few got through and sank into its flesh.

From up in his box, we heard Raknian scream in pain. I looked up just in time to see him drop to the ground. Then all around us, ghostly figures rose up out of the arena grounds. The panicking crowd became a stampede as people trampled one another to escape.

On the field, the Apostle turned to face Ilthane’s Fury and spewed a torrent of acid, burning them all to within inches of their lives. They couldn’t stay in this fight with injuries that severe, so we needed to give this thing a much bigger target.

“Viktor!” I called out. “Enlarge me, please!”

I downed my potion and flew forward to engage it, growing in size as Viktor’s spell enveloped me. Sera flew into view ahead of me, darting around the Apostle to try and flank it. In my peripheral vision, I saw Viore, Cress, and Dave jump onto the field from the stands behind us.

Zhog sent arrows flying past me towards the maggot, but each one was deflected by the beast’s tendrils and fell harmlessly to the ground. I heard him scream in frustration.

Up in Raknian’s box, black smoke appeared and coalesced into a skeletal horse. I risked a glance to see Raknian, transformed into some undead knight with dessicated skin, mount this new steed. He paused briefly to survey the scene.

Another barrage of arrows from our allies arrived, most deflected again, but some striking true. The Apostle turned towards me as I approached, and it spewed acid a second time, engulfing me, Viktor and Zhog, but fortunately our protective spells prevented any injury. As my vision cleared, I saw the near-skeletal form of Auric on the ground, advancing in front of us, his armor melted and the remains of his body crawling with worms.

There was a burst of flame as Flit, now flying directly above us, dropped a vial of alchemist’s fire onto the maggot. Sera moved in to follow up with a strike, and the Apostle reared around to grab her in its maw much like it had done to Auric. I panicked, ready to throw a spell to help free her from it’s grasp, but a talisman she was wearing shattered and she magically slipped away.

Auric’s skeleton came after me and hit me hard. I ignored it and went for the Apostle. Calling on Abadar’s power, I smited it three times, leaving terrible wounds across its body. After the third blow, I saw a cloud of golden, sparkling dust explode in front of it, and could see that it had been blinded. Behind me, Zhog took the skeleton down with a volley of arrows.

Up in the box, Raknian launched his steed into the air, cleared the top of the arena, and dropped down out of sight. He was not sticking around to see how this ended, and that meant we’d have to give chase.

Another volley of arrows arrived from our allies, several of them striking the Apostle as it lashed out blindly at Sera. From above, two more vials shattered across its back, one holy water and the other alchemist’s fire, as Flit made another pass. Then Cress sank four arrows into the Apostel’s flesh and it fell to the ground, dead, with a loud crash.

“I’m going after Raknian!” I said, and launched myself up into the air at full speed, arcing over the top of the stands to the north.

I saw Celeste and Rennida directly below me. “Which way did he go?” I called out. They pointed to the northeast, and ahead in the distance I could see him moving through the streets. And that’s when I realized he couldn’t stay in the air for long, which also meant he couldn’t clear the city walls. He had to maneuver through the streets.

We had better options. We could catch him.

“He’s headed for the gate!” I yelled as loudly as I could, and changed course to intercept. I flew over rooftops, trying to cut him off, but he was too fast with too much of a lead. If he made it out of the city we’d never catch him.

Fortunately, Viktor had a better idea. In the distance ahead of me, three figures appeared out of thin air, just ahead of the Bloodsworn Road gate.

One of the figures drew their bow and shot at Raknian. I saw him take an evasive maneuver with his steed, but it was no good: the phantom horse shuddered as two arrows struck it, and then it vanished in a cloud of black smoke, sending Raknian rolling on the ground. He yelled something I couldn’t hear, and as I closed in I could see Cress, Viktor, and Zhog blocking his escape.

Viktor cast a spell, and a huge pit opened underneath Raknian, sending him tumbling down.  Then Cress and Zhog ran to the edge of it, and loosed their arrows.

Yeah, I could have just stood back as they used him for target practice, but I was way too gods-be-damned angry for that, so I floated down into the pit to finish him off, just as Flit dropped two more vials on him. And then it was done.

Sorry, my friends, but I wanted a piece of him, too.

To their credit, the town guard was on the scene quickly, but not half a minute had passed from when the Apostle emerged to when it fell. While I have no doubt that the guard, or failing that, the Order of the Nail, could have stopped it, the biggest obstacle to doing that quickly was not being there at the start.

We spent a couple of hours with the guard, being questioned and essentially debriefed. The captain they sent was surprised Raknian was behind all of this, though he found something about thousands of eye witnesses to be pretty convincing. We took him down to the altar room, now sporting a new entrance in the form of a gaping hole in the ground, and showed him the Apostolic Scrolls. They were sitting there inert, their magic expended.

We convinced the guard to search the manor as well, and learned that Okoral was gone. It looked like he had cleared his belongings out a day or two ago. We figured him for killing Eligos and Pollard, but of course we don’t have any proof of that.

That evening, we met up with the other teams for a well-deserved celebratory dinner (we had no problem finding a place to serve the lot of us: if anything, it was just the opposite, as everyone seemed to want our business just to say we were there). As I sat at that table, looking at all those faces, many of them competitors turned friends, some of them just people doing a job but who stepped up when the call came, I couldn’t help but feel proud of what we had accomplished and how we had done it.

“Every one of you,” I said, standing up to speak. “Is an honest to gods hero of this city. We all did this together.”

“Props to you all,” Viktor added.

We toasted to that, and I sat back down. I was seated next to Meril, of course, and smiled at him as I sat back down. And then suddenly we were kissing, and it was warm, and sweet, and wonderful. Hoots and cheers rose up from around us.

So we kissed again.

Oh, I could get use to this, too.