Bane the Barbarian – Session 4

DAY 4 (cont.)

When Ichabard and I finally scrambled out of the passage from the moat-house, we discovered to our dismay that Tangrel was dead… in fact he was very dead. I don’t think I had ever seen anyone quite that dead before. Looking at what was left of Tangrel it was hard not to be sceptical about Rae’s story that she had been “forced” to kill him. From what I could make out none of the blood spattered across her full plate armour was her own. In fact I couldn’t see a scratch on her. Despite Tangrel’s aberrant behaviour, the whole thing seemed somewhat underhand. For reasons best known to him, Muratis chose not to contradict Rae’s story.

During the journey back to Hommlet, Rae, who seemed to have taken it upon herself to adopt the role of group leader, called us to halt. She dismounted and said that it was time to clear the air. Warily we gathered around a small campfire and listened to what she had to say.

Apparently she did not want to discuss what had happened to Tangrel. From her perspective, he had fallen into the service of the Enemy and would serve Him no longer. What was done was done, and that was the end of it.

I couldn’t help feeling that it was easy for her to say. After all, she wasn’t the one who was dead. In my mind, I kept returning to the ease with which I had been controlled by a servant of the Enemy only a few days before. Did the fact that Tangrel had succumbed to the power of the Enemy justify his slaughter? Did he deserve to die? I thought not. It was inconceivable to me that someone as implacably opposed to the Enemy as Tangrel had been, could be corrupted beyond redemption. And if he was not irredeemable then we should have done more to save him.

It was the Enemy who had won the victory this day, for we had failed by allowing one of our own to pass into shadow.

Instead of explaining what had transpired prior to Tangrel’s death, Rae chose to speak to us about the building of trust and how we should not compound the events of that day by allowing them to divide the fellowship. They were noble sentiments but to me Rae’s words were tainted by her earlier actions. It became clear that she felt no remorse for killing Tangrel and that if I too was to come under the Enemy’s sway then she would have no hesitation in putting me to the sword. I found it hard to put my trust in such a companion.

Subsequently, in an attempt to gain the trust she was asking us to have in her, Rae elected to reveal certain facts that she had until that point kept secret.

She spoke of how she had been sold into slavery as a child, and how in time she had become a part of some Elven organisation similar to the Med-Jai. She gave us a lengthy history of the Med-Jai and this other group, the Hu-Ren Dai I think she called them. I have to say I was losing interest at that point. Politics has never been a subject I have found particularly enthralling. Supposedly there is no love lost between the two groups, since the Med-Jai don’t approve of the methods used by the Hu-Ren Dai. As told by Rae, this is because the majority of the Med-Jai are too ignorant to recognise that the Hu-Ren Dai are far more effective and do all the dirty work that the Med-Jai aren’t equipped to do. For example, the Med-Jai aren’t prepared to embrace the tenets of the Black Guard in order to be in a better position to fight the Enemy, whereas the Hu-Ren Dai are.

“I’m sorry…. What did you say?”

“When?”

“Umm… The last bit… Perhaps you could just go over it again… I think I must have misheard you. You were saying something about the Black Guard…?”

And so it was, we came to discover that the Hu-Ren Dai, including Rae, are all part of the Black Guard, the most hated and feared servants of the Evil Gods.

An old man had once said to me that the Black Guard were called the “Soulless Ones”, for when a mortal fell into their service his soul, that which made him human, was left behind because it could not follow along the same path that they trod.

Were the Hu-Ren Dai really so arrogant as to believe they could successfully infiltrate the Black Guard without being twisted into the very evil which they sought to destroy? Apparently the answer was “Yes”. I suspected that Rae was typical of their kind; egocentric, uncompromising. They would never be able to see the truth.

Rae stressed her continued commitment to opposing the Enemy and sought assurances from each of us that we were equally committed to that cause. I found that having her question my devotion was vaguely distasteful, but I made no mention of it. She knows nothing of my past. From what I have seen, I have more reason to hate the Enemy than any of them.

We made a somewhat uneasy pact. We have the same enemy and are bound together by our mutual desire to oppose him. Rae was right about one thing and that was that to divide the fellowship would only weaken us further and strengthen the Enemy’s position. So I would stay. But I also believed that by courting evil to become a part of the Black Guard every member of the Hu-Ren Dai would eventually be consumed. The signs were already there. Rae had a taste for killing and she had enjoyed killing Tangrel, I saw it in her eyes. The day would come when she ceased to see me as an ally and then I must beware. Until then I would fight at her side.

We took Tangrel’s remains to the Church of St. Cuthbert and made arrangements for him to be laid to rest. I did not know what he would have wanted but I hoped that this would allow his spirit to find some measure of peace.

THE NEXT FEW DAYS

After the death of Tangrel our fellowship took a few days to regroup. Muratis and Ichabard busied themselves with identifying and cataloguing the growing hoard of loot that had been collected, Rae honed her fighting skills and I spent the time alone. I thought a great deal about Tangrel’s death. It had disturbed and saddened me. During my introspection I kept returning to the fact that, although I could think of nothing more I could have done, in my heart I did not feel I had done enough.

A few days after Tangrel’s passing my spirits were raised by the unexpected arrival of an old friend, Azannyrovar Drukarabatov, a Dwarf of the Metalhaft Clan. It had been nigh on a year since I had seen him last, but I knew him to be a solid and dependable sort. On a number of occasions in the past we had fought side-by-side against the servants of Evil.

As it turned out, Az was to be joining us in order to repay a clan-debt that the Metalhaft Clan owed Muratis’s father. He had been sent to keep Muratis alive for a year and a day or save his life three times, whichever came sooner. I was very glad to have him with us and it looked like he was going to be around for some time.

I supposed that it was also quite fortunate that Az had been sent to look after Muratis and not Ichabard, since based on the events of the last few days, he would probably have had plenty of opportunity to save Ichabard three times and be gone before the week was out! In fact I was becoming quite concerned for the safety of my erstwhile companion. Though we had both been a little out of our depth since we had come here, I knew my own mind, but I could not help wondering what motivated him to continue risking his life. There was no questioning his heart but with each new encounter I had begun to doubt that he had the ability to survive.

I spent much of the next couple of days with Az, filling him in on what had happened since last we met and talking with him of old times. It was a pleasant diversion from more sombre matters, but as the days went by I grew more and more conscious of the feeling that we were wasting precious time. It was a relief when Muratis eventually called the fellowship together once more.

The loot and items were divided amongst us. When it came to my turn I chose Tangrel’s sword, in the hopes that I would honour him by continuing to use it in the fight against the Enemy. I also received money, Tangrel’s magic cloak, a healing potion and a small bead with mysterious magical powers. I wasn’t too keen on the latter, particularly when Muratis told me that it was one of these beads that had exploded at the Mill-House nearly killing Ichabard and trapping me within a ball of energy, but everyone seemed to think that I should be the one to have it, so I took it and kept it where it would be safe until it was needed.

After a lengthy discussion and reappraisal of the information they had gathered, Rae and Muratis decided that the next logical step was to explore northward, toward where the ruins of the Temple of Elemental Evil itself were said to lie. Few had ventured that way in recent years but those who remembered said that if we followed the North-road to the abandoned village of Nulb then the temple would only be a short ride south from there.

DAY 12

And so on the morning of the twelfth day after my arrival, Rae, Muratis, Ichabard, Az and I mounted our horses and set out northward toward the deserted village of Nulb. We were not sure what we would find there but it was a good bet that it wouldn’t be anything pleasant…