Chapter 15: The Harbingers

Scenario Text
You come upon Hadrian's Quarry, where around an old abandoned tower marked with the royal crest, you see the most people you have ever seen in your life. An entire troop of soldiers, numbering in the thousands, and they all lie on the now-reddened grass, barely any of them moving. In the field you see what looks like an enormous hand print in the ground and slashes that appear to have eroded several layers of earth. As you begin to move closer to the quarry, a dark blue clad figure appears in the sky above. A massive green light emerges from the figure’s hands and is launched, brightening the entire field in blinding light. The figure flies away as quickly as it came. A few hundred still-living soldiers stand up, all of their injuries gone, and from the murmurs you gather one thing above all: three people did this.

What do you do?

Calen
Calen begins indiscriminately killing soldiers, felling dozens, but they move to surround him with numbers in time for a young blond soldier in an adorned uniform to begin chanting

“let us make peasants of the lords

And break what cannot be restored

To strip the virtue from their soul

And leave our foes but less than whole

Zero mace, I name thee, mazel tov!”

He manages to strike Calen two times, which causes him to fall over, now forgetting how to walk or open and close his hands. The soldier, introducing himself as Jezzare Ultima, remarks that war drives the best men mad and it would not be worth killing one who is now harmless.

Jack
Jack asks Ba'az about the building. Ba’az informs Jack that the tower was once a mark of the furthest outpost of Leonnesh territory, and served as a temporary bunker for soldiers who patrolled the frontier. Jack tells Mika to ask around regarding what happened. He then begins to loot corpses. Jack finds several weapons that look fancy, one a sword with a triple-strike and lightness enchantment, and a set of rings that can be called together no matter how far away. He also puts on a suit of armor taken from a soldier.

Jatin
Jatin tells Solomon, Maolo, and the Rose Lady to gather information about the event. He gets a complete picture of what happened. He asks the Hanged Man, Under-the-Valley, Siphon Flickerfoot, Vision, and Prophet to explore the tower, but they find it all ransacked and looted.

Jatin learns of the direction the three men went and follows them on the chaos horse. He quickly spots a group of three riding horses, matching the descriptions gathered, observing them from far above. The man in purple turns around on his horse, however, and looks up at the sky, right at Jatin. He then appears to leap into the air from his horse and disappear from sight. Jatin feels a tap on his shoulder and turns around to see a handsome man in purple with two small metal balls rotating around his body calmly standing on the back of his horse. “Interesting beast you have, traveller,” he says, “what would your name be?” Jatin, startled, tells him his name is Sybiline Horseshadow. “that’s not your name,” he laughs, “men who can fly love going by false names for some reason. Though I suppose it can be. There are very few things about us that we are unable to change. I am Sozhin Brightpath. I hope I will be seeing you again, ‘Smoke Rider’.”He takes a thousand foot fall out of the sky.

Kate
Kate trains with her swords.

Michael
Michael asks around regarding what happened. He asks about the battle, the tower, and the cloaked figure. He gets a rough description of the three warriors who slaughtered the soldiers and what they did, people don't seem to know a lot about the tower, and a soldier from the capital region tells Michael it was a legendary figure called the Shrouded Angel known to heal scores of wounded men and disappear.

Nick
Nick sees a complete picture of what happened by touching the ground, seeing the faces of Sozhin Brightpath, Hikkoru Bladefeather, and Letha Asmodeum, and how they slaughtered the soldiers with fearsome power and broke into the tower, removing what looked like a large box from it.

Nicole
Nicole asks around regarding what happened, and is directed by Pippin towards a Palace Guard captain's seal among the corpses.

Ending
Michael, Nicole, Solomon, Maolo, and Mika ask around about the event and discover that the three people who attacked the soldiers were a man in a torn purple jacket who wielded no proper weapons, fighting with half of a wheel and then picking up a broom to use when that broke, whose entire body seemed to pulse and glow with golden light, a man in a light blue robe with a long, thin sword that unleashed waves and gusts with its slashes, and a woman in black leather with a red sword that seemed to write and bleed, its roots spreading up her arm and across her body as she continued to cut through hordes of soldiers with ease. Ba’az informs Jack that the tower was once a mark of the furthest outpost of Leonnesh territory, and served as a temporary bunker for soldiers who patrolled the frontier. It was said that Vasshal Stonefinger, the architect who built most of the capital, was buried there. In the tower, Under-the-Valley and Siphon find several floors reaching deep underground, where what looks like tomb has been ransacked at the bottom. Not much about the dark blue clad flying figure can be gathered, although one soldier mentions rumors of a figure matching the description they call the Shrouded Angel have been spread in the capital region. Calen begins indiscriminately killing soldiers, felling dozens, but they move to surround him with numbers in time for a young blond soldier in an adorned uniform to begin chanting

“let us make peasants of the lords

And break what cannot be restored

To strip the virtue from their soul

And leave our foes but less than whole

Zero mace, I name thee, mazel tov!”

He manages to strike Calen two times, which causes him to fall over, now forgetting how to walk or open and close his hands. The soldier, introducing himself as Jezzare Ultima, remarks that war drives the best men mad and it would not be worth killing one who is now harmless. Jack finds several weapons that look fancy, one a sword with a triple-strike and lightness enchantment, and a set of rings that can be called together no matter how far away. Pippin notices what he believes is the royal seal of a Palace Guard captain placed on what seems like an intentionally composed pile of corpses. He worriedly points this out to Nicole and falls silent.

Jatin learns of the direction the three men went and follows them on the chaos horse. He quickly spots a group of three riding horses, matching the descriptions gathered, observing them from far above. The man in purple turns around on his horse, however, and looks up at the sky, right at Jatin. He then appears to leap into the air from his horse and disappear from sight. Jatin feels a tap on his shoulder and turns around to see a handsome man in purple with two small metal balls rotating around his body calmly standing on the back of his horse. “interesting beast you have, traveller,” he says, “what would your name be?” Jatin, startled, tells him his name is Sybiline Horseshadow. “that’s not your name,” he laughs, “men who can fly love going by false names for some reason. Though I suppose it can be. There are very few things about us that we are unable to change. I am Sozhin Brightpath. I hope I will be seeing you again, ‘Smoke Rider’.”He takes a thousand foot fall out of the sky.