So we knew where the Keepers of Enma were holed up, we just needed to come up with a plan. Doing some intel in the house, we saw there were only nine individuals in there. It did have a large two floor basement in there, though, probably where they were committing their nefarious magicks. That would be our point of entry- Grey would tunnel to the basement wall, then Trent would suppress the ward on it so Grey could make an opening. Then we would charge in.
Disguising ourselves as sewer maintenance, we made our way to their basement, and waited until there were only a couple of people in the basement before we attacked. Once the situation arose, Grey and Trent did their thing, and we charged in. Well, Trent went back out to direct his spirits (who were blocking the front door) and snipe anyone trying to get out that way.
As we entered, we saw a gate on the far wall, but made our way to attack the two cultists. We got some hits in, but then they tried to mesmerize us. Cassie was unaffected, but even after she erected a mind shield on me, the bastards still manage to stun me. One of the cultists was about to try and implant one of those devils in me, but luckily Cassie was able to slay them before he did.
But, they had already alerted their comrades we were down here, and another couple of cultists, plus a couple of those templars came charging down the stairs. Cassie faced the first templar, hoping to tie them up on the stairs so only one of them could face us at the time. But, he managed to jump over her and get into the room proper.
So, I went to attack him so he couldn't double team Cassie with his allies on the stairs. Like me, he was wielding two weapons, but he was using both for offense, as opposed to me keeping my main gauche for parrying attacks. We traded blows, but I eventually came out the victor. I saw Cassie decapitate another cultist, but the one behind him managed to weave past her, leaving her to face another templar.
The remaining cultist was pretty cute, clad only in this skimpy chainmail bikini. I wasn't wanting to cut her down, but she kept coming at me. Eventually, she split into 5 mirror images, and since my heart wasn't in it, I decided to dimension door behind the templar to help her finish him off and then we could take on the cultist together.
Caught between us, I did a feint that left him defenseless against Cassie's attack, and he quickly went down. That's when I remembered the gate was in the room, and that we needed to stop the girl from escaping through it or worse, calling reinforcements in. I stepped off the slain templar's back and jumped down the stairs, quickly rushing up to seal the gate. I managed to do it just in time, pissing the cutie off. There were still 5 of them, but luckily Cassie pointed out which one to take down. I was hesitant, but the lady gave me no choice. And Cassie had no time to stabilize her once she was went down.
We ran up the stairs, past some weird altar, and then up another flight to the house proper. A cultist was fighting it out with Willow, and Cassie could sense the remaining two Keepers on the second floor of the house. Since Willow and Trent seemed to have it handled, we skipped the lone cultist at the front door and went to face the people upstairs. Cassie offered to heal me, though although I was relatively cut up, I turned her down, confident that I would be fine and not wanting to waste her magic just yet.
I stealthily crept up the stairs so they wouldn't know there were more of us when Cassie kicked down the door. She narrowly avoided a rushing fireball that blew up part of the house. In the chaos, I teleported into the corner of the room, opposite from the guy who shot the fireball (who also seemed to be the leader of this group), but I failed to notice he had a bodyguard right next to where I popped in.
He was pretty fast and nimble with his daggers, able to penetrate my defenses and give me some wicked slashes that put me close to unconsciousness. Guess I should've gotten some healing first? Anyways, I noticed Cassie knock the big hat's fireball wand out of his hands and onto the floor. I distracted two-knives by tossing my parrying dagger at him. It missed, but it allowed me to safely backflip away and grab the wand and get close to Cassie so she could heal me.
She did, but not very well. Still, it was enough to stop the knife guy from taking me down. Remembering my studies, I figured out how to activate the wand, I shot a fireball at the guy, but alas, I missed again. Cassie dropped another healing spell, and this time it did rejuvenate me. We switched places so she would take on knifey, and I would take on big boss (who we would later learn was named Pope Magenes).
I think the two of them were so surprised that Pope swung wildly and dropped his sword at my feet. Cass knocked one of the knives out of the other guy's hand, and once he only had the one blade, made short work of him. As for Pope, that surge of life energy must've gone to my head, because he drew one of those poisoned daggers, and I actually motioned for him to come at me. I mean, I figured I could easily side step his attack and counter attack him, so I let him make the first move. I easily avoided his clumsy attack, but didn't manage to hit him that well. Maybe because I was trying not to kill him.
His attack wide and Cassie no longer occupied, she quickly turned and knocked the blade out of his hand. With no weapons and 2 armed people threatening him, he quickly surrendered. I kept his wand, because it could prove to be useful.
As we made our way back down to the basement, we heard the clanging of metal. We rushed downstairs to see Grey fighting a female templar wielding a big-ass sword. Looks like someone opened the gate from the other side. I left Grey and Cassie to take out (I said knock out, because I didn't want them killing another cutie) the armored bitch, and dove through the gate. It was a replica of Manderbel, and the villagers were safe and sound, if not a little scared. Once templar girl (who we learned was named Anora Levillet) was down, I convinced the villagers to return with me. It was no easy task, was flaring a little from the battle so I think I was freaking them out a little bit.
Anyways, with the day won, we turned Pope and Anora over to the Alestian authorities. With the threat over and the villagers returned, our banishment was rescinded and Nicele decided to finally complete the process of adopting us so we would be baronets. It involved a fancy party with the who's who of the Alestia aristocracy, so I was excited.
But, we had a few days, so we interrogated these Keepers of Enma. We learned that Enma where the black oil devil things that they would possess people with. We also learned Anzja was actually a cleric of Fugiri, with about 50 to 60 of her own followers plus a couple hundred templars. Pope actually had no idea about the Kazgem, other than it was used to create these pocket dimensions to steal groups of villagers with.
He did know about the three- Grave was the muscle, and trained the templars. Nemesis was the information gatherer- she actually had an idea of where we are at times and would report that to the others. Hmm, I have to figure out how the hell she's doing that and try to counteract that. He had know idea what the hot one, Serendipity, did, but I had a few thoughts, if you know what I mean.
Anyways, once we got all we could from them, we, or at least Cassie and I, went shopping for fancy clothes for this upcoming party. I mean, even though Cassie didn't seem to keen on such a gathering given what we've been through these past few weeks (though for me, it was all the more reason to celebrate and cut loose), she at least knew proper etiquette and wanted to look good for this thing. Alas, that's not the sort of thing that concerns Trent and Grey. They'd rather act all ascetic and sit around in a plain room contemplating boring stuff or frolicking in a spring meadow or whatever.
I thought this would be the perfect occasion to ask Rei to for another date. From the short time I spent with her, I can tell she's an ambitious girl, and I figured, there's no way she'd turn down an opportunity to rub elbows with the Alestian elite. I figured it would make me look good. Yes, I did want to get into her pants (because why wouldn't I hit that?!), but that's not all I want from her. She seems like a girl who wants to be going places, who's working to be a big shot when she comes of age. And even though I haven't put much thought into my future other than being rich and famous, I figure she'd be a good ally to have. And given the inroads we've been making with the Cranes in researching Kaz, I would think I could prove useful to her. I didn't think she'd turn me down, and she didn't, but if she did, I was gonna ask Sina as a backup.
The party went well, the Alestians were impressed by our heroic actions as of late, and I'd like to think coming with the pretty daughter of a rich Masayuman diplomat made me look good in their eyes. I wasn't some poor, scruffy looking serf. I think Rei enjoyed herself. Not enough for me to get any, but I think my stock is increasing in her eyes. I think the only disappointing thing was that Searn was not at the party. (Why wouldn't Nicele have her most trusted knight there?!)
With that done, we were trying to figure out what to do. We told Kaz about Anzja being a cleric of Fugiri, and Kaz mentioned how that seemed familiar, he thinks he might have fought Fugiri once. Since Pope had informed us about the pocket dimension thing, we asked Kaz about it. Doing that took a lot of energy, and he sensed whenever that happened, though he didn't really know that's what the energy was going to. He did say he'd only felt it once in a long while, so it looks like Manderbel was the only missing village and there weren't other people we needed to rescue. We didn't get that much more info after telling him what we got out of the interrogation of Pope and Anora, so we decided to do some more investigation and research.
I gated us to Tusbel. We did some research on the Dukes at that library where I met Mags and Lainey (who thankfully weren't there to recognize me). That way we could put faces to names. We pondered grabbing one of the redheads from Veris' compound in the city, but we thought that would prove too dangerous. So, instead, we decided to venture into Duchess Parnth's territory to try and find her, since there were rumors going around that she was still alive.
Oh, we also learned at some point that Veris and Melfir were getting married. Cassie seemed to be grossed out by the idea because Meflir was old, but I think despite his age he gives off a tough, commanding presence.
Anyways, I jumped us to Ward, and on the way to the nearest Parnthian city, Arkenfels, a patrol met up with us. Seems they were looking for Parnth as well. But they seemed to believe we were Ankenfelans returning to the city now the the civil war was effectively over. Cassie flirted with the patrol leader a little, but luckily he did not follow up on his offer to safely escort us to the nearest village on the path to Arkenfels.
We ended up stopping at a couple of small villages along the way, and Cassie got the idea to use her magic to disguise herself as Parnth, show up, give some rousing speeches to her (well, Parnth's) people and then take her leave. You know, to give them hope and foster the seeds of insurrection in their heart since the more people against this Veris and Melfir, the better. Plus, it would totally screw with Veris and freak her out.
The first village we tried this at, there was the unfortunate consequence that since I was an outsider, the locals didn't trust me and were worried I was a spy who would inform Veris' patrols that I had seen Parnth. But, they weren't suspicious enough to try anything stupid.
The next time Cassie did it, I decided to busy myself with a cute barmaid named Kaya. So, when Cass did the Parnthian thing, they weren't immediately staring at me like I was a spy since I was busy flirting with this Kaya girl. Well, her father, the barkeep was still staring angrily, but for another reason. Parnth's appearance did have the effect of making everyone all excited, which I managed to parlay into getting into Kaya's skirt. I managed to sneak Kaya up to my room and out of the watchful gaze of her father for a bit of fun. I was almost disappointed when Kaya told me she was a virgin and wanted to stay that way until she was married, but then reassured me that all that meant was that we just had to use the other holes. Which was certainly fine by me!
We left the next morning, and after a couple more uneventful days of travel, we made it to Arkenfals.