45: Portal

[Start from the beginning]

The fireball had had the desired effect, sowing confusion among the cloaked figures conducting the ceremony. Calleslyn had, at least for the moment, saved the intended victim from her fate, but that hardly meant that the danger was over. As she had said to Dolrim just moments before, there were too many of them, and it was likely that at least some were capable of fighting back. Valmor certainly would be, and it was unlikely he was alone.

She had had no choice but to attack when she did, but she and Dolrim were heavily outnumbered. She just had to hope that the sudden explosion and magical assault had evened up the odds a little.

"I'm going to try and protect her," she told the dwarf. After all, the conspirators were surely still desperate to complete their ritual, and that would mean taking their sacrifice back. The woman was a nun, helpless against them at the best of times. Even if she tried running, the building was surrounded by a ring of undead, and that wouldn't end well. So Calleslyn had to do something.

44: Ceremony

[Start from the beginning]
Lady Tarissa bit back the angry words she had been planning when she saw the desperate look on Almandar's face. She had specifically told him to be quick when he went to talk to the bard, Yarai, and yet he had, in fact, been some hours, leaving her on her own back at the villa waiting for him. She could guess what he had been doing; she wasn't that naïve. Yet it looked as if something really had him worried, and her recriminations could wait. No matter his peccadilloes, he was an experienced adventurer, and he wouldn't look quite so rushed without good reason.

"What is it?" she asked curtly, instead of delivering her rebuke.

"It's tonight!" said the magician, somewhat breathlessly, "and the sun is almost set now! That's when they're starting it!"

"Explain," she snapped, "what have you learned?"

He visibly steadied himself, clearly flushed from having run most of the way here from… well half-way across town, presumably. "There's a ceremony that somebody has to conduct to summon this thing called 'the Presence'… I'm still not clear what it is, but it's something very powerful and demonic. It's been here since before the city even existed, and tonight, somebody is planning to summon it. It will give them power over demons, or something… Hell on Earth quite literally, or something much like it."

"Where is this ceremony? Who's behind it?"