After a restful night’s sleep, we emerged fully prepared (so we thought) for our anticipated initiation into the Order of Feathergale Spire.  Once accepted by Thurl, we would hopefully be able to use his antagonism towards the earth and water cults to attack them with his blessing and using his resources, while evaluating his strengths in order to take him down in his turn.

We arrived at the pinnacle where the initiation, appropriately, was to take place (we have been curious yesterday to find a lack of a chapel or temple in the spire before realising that for an air cult, the top of the pinnacle was obviously where your temple would be).  Thurl was up there, with four of his knights, plus a priest of some kind that we had not seen before.  They were gathered by the edge of the spire.  We approached, thinking that the facade of a nobleman’s club would mean that the initiation ceremony would not involve any deep binding to some kind of evil spirit or the like.  Thurl welcomed us, but his speech of praise for the spirit of the air became more and more manic before he announced that no good initiation could take place without sacrifices.  There was an evil glint in his eye by this stage, and three of the strange emaciated men led some captives up onto the spire.  With horror, we recognised the shepherd who had led us to the graves, and our two hirelings, Therel and Theodorm.  Thurl announced with glee that in order by prove our worth to Yan-C-Bin, we must hurl these captives off the side of the tower as a sacrifice…

We hastily conferred by significant glances.  While we had all been prepared to cross our fingers behind our backs and swear false allegiance to the cult to infiltrate it, we all drew the line at sacrificing innocents to that end, especially those who had helped us and were friends of ours.  So, making a show of herding them to the edge of the drop, we subtly reassured them that they should trust us.  Sorrell then approached Thurl and started on some cock and bull story about how each of them should be given a chance of survival each – a feather from his cloak, ya-de-ya.  Whatever rubbish he was spouting, it convinced Thurl by some utter miracle, and he started to pluck some feathers from his cloak.  Sorrell used the opportunity to cast Thunderwave, as both Thurl and the priest were standing with the backs to the edge and right by the parapet.  Unfortunately the spell was unable to knock them from their feet, but the three emaciated ones were killed by it.  I quickly stabbed the knight standing next to me, and ran for the central stair.  Feyabelle, backed up and shot the other knight.  Arielle cast silence on the priest to stop him casting any spells, while Thorg charged at Thurl, but again he was able to keep his footing.  This was unfortunate, as he slashed at Sorrell with his sword, greviously wounding her.  Fortunately neither of the knights standing by her were able to hit her before she turned into a lion and pounced on the priest, knocking him off the parapet.  The two knights on the other side attacked Arielle, but did not hurt her badly.  I now fired my crossbow at one knight, and Feyabelle hit him with another arrow.  Thorg charged again at Thurl, and this time pitched him over the edge.  Looking over, he saw the priest floating slowly down the side of the tower to the ground, while Thurl had caught the tower about half way down and was climbing back up again.

Without Thurl and the priest though, the fight at the top was brief.  A single mightly blow from Thorg’s maul smashed the head of one knight from his shoulders, and the others were also soon dispatched by the rest of us.  Thurl had now disappeared, we assumed into the tower, so Erky scattered some ball-bearings down the steps, which Feyabelle followed with one of the bodies of the emaciated ones.  We could now hear Thurl charging up, so Erky cast fog cloud into the stairwell, to make the obstacles less apparent.  An incantation from below blasted to fog out of the stair case though, and Thurl emerged, shouting encouragement to his knights.  His face fell as he saw their corpses on the sward, and then Sorrell charged into him, knocking him back down the stairs.  He was now prone, halfway down the stairs, being mauled by a raging lion.  I lobbed the occasional magic missile at him (since those were guaranteed not to hit Sorrell) as Sorrell gradually gnawed his head off.  The rest released the captives.  Thurl was soon dead, at about which point Savra and the last knight appeared up the stairs.  Thurl’s headless body rapidly sapped their morale and they surrendered on the spot.  We accepted the surrender and disarmed them.  Thorg used the opportunity to grab Thurl’s greatsword, which shone with blue light when wielded – as sure a sign as any of magical enchantment.  What with his own greataxe, Jollivar’s maul and now Thurl’s greatsword, Thorg is now looking like a great-weapon salesman.  It’s amazing he is actually capable of standing upright…

Next steps, in case I forget in the dizzying excitement of being on top of the world:

There are a bunch of those emaciated guys in the basement that we could do with killing.  I’m not normally a fan of genocide, but they seem to be heavy duty cultists or something, so probably not best to allow them to pinky swear that they will be nice people from now on.

We should search through Thurl’s office now that we have a better opportunity and are not relying on a rat to work out which documents are important.

Return to Red Larch to touch base with the Harpers (and possibly some of the other factions as well).  I think I have some books somewhere that I should be returning (it’s like the library).  Maybe if we use the cloaks and Savra helps us, we can use the hippogriffs?

Which brings us onto the topic of Savra and the other knight that surrendered.  Need to work out if they are heavy duty evil dudes or just misguided like Therel.  If the former, who can we turn them over to?

Where is the River Maid?  Do we need it again?  If we can find it, and bag some hippogriffs, maybe we could build some sort of stable and flying off platform on it?  We could call it a hippogriff carrier…