(Yay, the RNG look favourably on us!)
I agree that the villagers should be told to worship the gods. No sense in pissing them off... yet? 
As for the prisoners we should give them all a chance to repent.
If the Necromancer repents honestly he should be given a quick death in the name of the gods. If he refuses I would go for the vengeful path and eat his soul.
If the other guards repent, they may join the group. Otherwise execute them in the name of the gods.
The villagers gather around the three prisoners on the village green. The prisoners are bound, knelt on the floor. Two have their heads hanging low. The necromancer does not. You stand before them, holding the necromancer's own longsword above them.
You have sinned, she said. You have sinned blacker than the midnight sky and now your reckoning has come. The gods have watched you. The gods have judged you. You have been found wanting.
Your life is forfeit, necromancer. Thus is the punishment for employing the magic of demons, for raising damned hordes and for the slaughter of scores. Look instead to your soul, the wretched, bloodied, broken part of you that you have most neglected. Will the gods take your soul? Will the forces of darkness? Will it be left to wander, broken and alone? These are questions you might ask, but I ask you another; will your soul, the only eternal part of you, persist at all?
Repent, necromancer. Repent for your life of misdeeds. Renounce the dark forces you hoped to call your own. Renounce the terrible things you have done and weep. Weep for the lives you have taken, the families destroyed, the bodies desecrated by your art. Weep, weep and be truly sorrowful, for if you do not then you will not pass on. You will not stay here. If your soul is so black, so rotted that not a single part of it is worth saving, not a single part shall be. Repent, or suffer true loss.
Did the necromancer believe her? I will never know. Perhaps he did not. Perhaps he did, but his commitment to the dark arts, his spiteful nature was so strong that he could not renounce his deeds, could not repent even in that darkest of hours. He spat. The spittle coursed through the air directly toward her face and it hung there. It hung there, still in the air, then dropped to the ground.
She lowered the sword and lifted her free arm. The wings came again, sprouting in brilliant light from her back, then changed. Six tendrils lifted the necromancer into the air and held him there as she stared at him with shining white eyes.
So be it, she said.
She turned from silver to golden, her tendrils turning to flames. Not the yellow of mere fire, but rich as mature barley, as the purest coin. Golden fire enveloped the wizard and he screamed. He screamed a scream so unnatural it haunts me to this day. As the flames consumed him, we saw for the faintest of moments a dark shadow in the air around him, a presence. Later, she would tell us that this was the evil within him, breaking free. It did not. The golden flames burned brighter and the shadow burned away with them. When at last she withdrew her tendrils and returned to her more mortal form nothing remained but fine dust, which blew away with the breeze.
She turned to the two remaining prisoners and asked them to repent. They did so instantly and most piteously, throwing themselves to the ground and weeping openly, begging for forgiveness for all they had done. She raised the sword again.
She touched both on the shoulder, once. I forgive you, she said. I forgive you, but you must earn the forgiveness of the gods. She took the right wrists of both men and held them tight in her hand. Golden flame licked from the sides and the men moaned in pain, but when she withdrew them a white scar in the shape of six curves, three pairs, remained on the wrist to mark them. She commanded them stand and told them they would follow her, that they would earn their redemption in her service. They cast themselves down once again and thanked her for sparing their lives.
She told them that she had not, yet. She merely held their sentence in abeyance.The prisoners dealt with, having worded your speeches in the right way you tell the villagers that you are merely a servant of the gods and it is the gods they should thank for their deliverance. You appoint one of them as a new priest to Tokchoko, not the wisest or well-read but a man you can trust; the old gatekeeper who you first met. Together you rededicate the temple to the gods. Amongst the old priest's possessions were holy scripture and icons the new priest uses to familiarise himself with the secrets of the clergy, and a key to what you thought was the temple cellar but in fact turns out to be an ossuary. Beneath the temple are the stacked bones of hundreds if not over a thousand former parishioners, a welcome boon for any necromancer. More than that, there are still the faint traces of some of the departed, restless souls too weak to impact the world but too guilt-ridden, greedy or wrathful to leave it. If you wanted, you could give some of them strength and redemption in exchange for service.
Amongst the various relics of the tomb, there is also a longsword of rather old design, wrapped in oilcloth to keep it intact. It could use sharpening, but upon touching it you are flooded with tantalising hints and echoes of memories, thousands of years old. In a moment, they are gone, absorbed into you like the cinders of the necromancer's soul.
The sword belonged to an angel once, far before your time. You will never know his name. You will never know anything more than the faintest impression of his life. All that remained of him is within you now, and you thank him for his blessing. In addition, the sword itself has changed from long harbouring the traces of pure good within it - it is far more effective against demonic forces than an ordinary sword. To you, this translates to a minor bonus, but a mortal champion would receive a greater boon.
Rested and refreshed, you are ready to journey on. The soldiers explain to you that their captain was one of several under the command of Lord Thrane, himself a capable necromancer and having recently claimed this area as his own. You ask why they chose to serve such a man and they explain that they were mercenaries, having served two or three such lords before in the last few years. You ask a little more and it soon becomes clear that the whole western reach of this continent was in chaos. The Mughae imperial dynasty that ruled them was wiped out by plague, along with much of the population. Since then the former empire has descended into anarchy and chaos, with dozens of new kingdoms and fiefdoms emerging from it. Up here in the north is essentially a no-man's land, a place where any warlord with enough could can try to carve out a fief of his own.
Another of their captains was sent to deal with this region's current protector, Sir Townsend, in the town of Ferrun. Ferrun is about a week's travel away and would be a small market town if trade was more stable in these regions. You consider investigating this place. Or not. Either way, you have probably done all you can with Fere's Pike. Time to move on.
Will you:
- Go to Ferrun by foot (a week's travel)?
- Go to Ferrun by air (a day, but only you and one other can go)?
- Do something else?
Optional: Give that sword a name.
Name: Lvantha Talaoia
Strength: 13 manpower (+2 Omnomnom)
Mind: 13 menminds (+2 Angel Absorption)
Followers: 1 luxpanap (John)
5 peasants
2 macemen
Slaves: 0
Servants: 0 (Beings under your command - be they mutated mortals or lesser angels.)
Holdings:
1 village (1 Resource)
Items:
Angelic Sword: +2 vs undead & demons if you wield it. More effective when a mortal holds it.
Author
Topic: Divinity. - Dreams Invaded: 2 (Read 58369 times)