The Unswerving Path

The Arch of Triumph

A couple of months after the events in Automata, Vega was summoned to the Great Foundry and offered a mission – to deliver an casket to the sword-saint Li Po on Mount Celestia. After conferring with her colleagues she accepted the mission and next day they collected the casket and went through the portal to Mount Celestia in the Lady’s Ward. On arrival on the shores of the Silver Sea they wandered about aimlessly for a while before asking a passing lantern archon for help. The lantern archon happily led them to Li Po’s home, where they were greeted courteously by the sword-saint. The casket was duly delivered and revealed to contain green tea. After taking tea with the aged warrior they left and headed back towards the portal. On their way they were approached by another lantern archon who requested they accompany him to meet with his superior. The party readily agreed and followed on.
 
The superior turned out to be a sword archon, who informed them that the modron march was currently crossing Mount Celestia and was heading toward the town of Heart’s Faith. The archons had been instructed to avoid all contact with the modrons for fear of the taint of chaos that hung over this most unusual March. However, conscious of the devastating effect the March could have on the town, they were seeking adventurers to help  either to  persuade the modron to deviate their course or help the citizend of Heart’s Faith deal with the fallout of the March’s progress.  The party agreed., feeling it might be useful for the future to have the sword archons in their debt.

Heart’s Faith

 The party followed one of the lantern archons across the foothills of Mount Celestia, to where the uncountable Modron hordes were marching out of the Silver Sea and forming up on the beach. In serried ranks they began marching along the coastline heading directly towards the town of Heart’s Faith some 15 miles along the shore. While the others broke into a run in order to get to the town before the modrons, Petherwick decided to go and try to reason with the leaders of the March, and matching his footsteps carefully joined it. He eventually made his way up through the ranks till he eventually engaged a quadrone in what passed for conversation. His attempts at reasoning with them proved futile as the modrons seemed completely unwilling, or indeed unable, to accept that they could in any way deviate from their agreed course.
 
The others arrived at the gates of Heart’s Faith to find it guarded by a motley crew of low-level militia. When asked why there were no more serious troops on duty, they were told that the Winged Lions the town’s lammasu guardians had left the city two days earlier for a clan conclave, and a messenger had been sent to them. Hothfin, his old sergeant major instincts kicking-in, immediately took charge of the gate guards and began trying to knock them into some semblance of military order, to face the March.   Vega and Atreuss took up position in a nearby building and began watching over the scene. Vega tried contacting the lantern archons to see if they could provide her with a view of the route the modrons might take through the city. A map of the city popped into her head with the route defined – unfortunately the street layout she could see in her mind did not map to the streets she could see laid out before her. She began a quick sketch, but it was obvious the city had obviously changed and the Modrons would cause havoc as the marched along streets that were no longer there! Dronic headed into the town making for the cathedral of Mitra to try and make contact with the town authorities. Fiara meanwhile took the more direct route and began trying to round up citizens to start some kind of evacuation from the city.
 
 
From their vantage in the nearby building, Vega and Atreuss watched as modrons poured into the town, they neatly split into three streams and began marching through the town on their programmed route crashing through anything up to and including buildings that was in their way. Suddenly as they watched, Cauldronborn marched up to the gateway – he actually got the March to stop for a moment as he addressed the quintone that was leading the March. Unfortunately his entreaties, like Hothfin’s, were falling on deaf ears.  Sensing trouble Vega and Atreuss headed down, just as the quintone declared Cauldronborn “an obstruction” to the March. The dashed forward quickly and dragged the Aasimar out of the path before he was trampled to death as the March restarted – unfortunately in the process the Aasimar banged his head and was knocked unconscious.
 
Dronic meanwhile was organising a work party to clear the route when he passed near the Old Philosopher’s Inn. He saw three aged sages step purposefully out of the Inn and face down the modrons marching toward them. Th oldes sage leaned heavily on his staff and attempted to divert the modrons from the Inn using logic. It wasn’t working. As the modrons advanced, his two more sprightly colleagues took to their heels. Dronic had to dash forward and save the old boy before he got crushed. As Dronic dashed down an alleyway with the sage hoisted over his shoulder he could hear the Old Philosopher’s Inn being reduced to rubble behind them.
 
Across the town, Fiara was continuing trying to get citizens out of the way. She had been joined in her efforts by the three militiamen who had fled the gate. As they worked they could see an ill-assorted group of poorly armed citizens taking up defensive positions around a small house that was directly in the path of the March. Fiara went over to remonstrate with the townsfolk. The leader of the groups said they were defending the home of Saint Kralina which was a sacred relic in the cult of Mitra. Fiara did some fast talking and eventually managed to persuade the townsfolk to abandon their hopeless task and promised to help them build a chapel to Saint Kralina near the Cathedral.
 
In another part of the town, Vega and Atreus, still dragging an unconscious Cauldronborn with them, passed near a building the modrons were in the process of crashing through the ground floor. They could hear children screaming for m the floor above and acted quickly. They left Cauldronborn in a nearby alleyway - well away from the route of the modrons. Vega dashed into the building dodging her way past the marching modrons and dashed up the stairs. Breaking down the door at the top, she found three elderly people trying to comfort two young children. Realising that the structural damage done by the modrons crashing through the walls below meant the building was likely to collapse she smashed a window  an passed the children down to the waiting Atreuss below.   She then helped the three elderly people out as well, passing them one-by-one into the waiting arms of the elf fighter. Unable to take any more damage from the modrons the building collapsed with a great crash – just as she was about to jump down herself, Fortunately she emerged from the rubble with only minor wounds.
 
Petherwick meanwhile had managed to extricate himself from the March and found himself near the Library, where an elderly librarian was desperately trying to persuade a quadrone not to march his detachment right through the library. Petherwick joined her and made an entreaty to the quadrone on the basis that the purpose of the great March was to gather knowledge not destroy it. The quadrone paused, and seeing he was getting somewhere Petherwick redoubled his efforts, eventually managing to persuade the quadrone to march it’s modrons through the library carefully in single file and out the back door!
 
Hothfin, had finally managed to make his way back into the city via a sally-port and joined up with the others. They barely had time to catch up when one Cauldronborn’s runners – the modrons were marching on the orphanage. They immediately headed there to discover that someone had erected a magical wall of force round the front of the building which the modrons were busy bashing down. Some of the older children were escaping via upper windows and shinning down drainpipes. Fiara immediately dashed across and moved to help them. While Petherwick went round the front to monitor the modrons’ progress, Dronic headed to the next building and began rigging a hoist across to the roof of the orphanage. The others meanwhile broke down the back door and began scooping up kids and getting them out.  Petherwick tried to engage the quadrone in charge to persuade it to not destroy the orphanage, but quickly found himself labelled an “obstruction” and under attack. Quite wisely, the wizard fled the scene! Fortunately he ran into a group of militiamen and rounding them up to  engage the modrons attempting to break the wall. This gave the others enough time to get the kids out.
 
Having rescued the kids, they followed the modrons on their route to the harbour, where the modrons were busy dismantling wharves and building a bridge to the Gate which hung 20 feet above the sea. Hothfin began shouting and organising the ship’s captains, whose ships were crowded with refugees, to begin evacuating the harbour before the modrons began dismantling the ships as well! Eventually the modrons completed their bridge and they began streaming through the Gate.
 
It took the rest of that day and night for all the modrons to pass through.  The Winged Lions finally arrived at dusk to help out and were very grateful to the party for aiding the town in their absence. Once the last modrons had passed the Gate the damage to the town could be seen. It was extensive. Vega shared her sketch of the modron route with Cauldronborn who promised that when they rebuilt the city they would ensure the modrons’ path would be left clear for the future.