Oh… and my Rillifane is VERY different from the game, and some of the things there are contradicting the canon as well – but since I wanted to make the whole talk more lighter and humorous, I chose to abuse the canon a bit.
Rush Of Blood To The Head, part 7.9.
We return to the campsite at about nightfall, the small meadow sinking in twilight. I am not sure why I do not feel any tiredness at all, after our exertions at the brook, perhaps it is the mysterious magic of this place… or perhaps it is simply because this time we chose to exchange the fiery passion for quiet tenderness? In any case, this is not the time to ponder about such things or spend the time revelling in the pleasant memories about the occurrences of the past few hours… the most important thing is that it has instilled in me such will to live and succeed, that I truly believe that we will not fail in our quest.
Viconia is the only one who isn’t sleeping and I see that even Keldorn is taking a peaceful nap, having finally chosen to remove his beloved full plate whose color to me has always resembled that of rotten oranges. It would be such a shame to wake everyone up, now that they are sleeping so calmly… but luckily that wonderfully remorseless woman, whose arm is still wrapped around my waist, harbours no such silly and sentimental notions as she yells for everyone to get up and ready for the battles to come.
With our help, Keldorn gets canned into his full plate rather quickly and we move out of the glade and up the stairs towards the city proper. Luckily no huge crowds of monsters await us in our path and the road we cleared on our way here still looks quite safe. However, our plan is not to return to where we came from, but instead to locate the second artifact, according to Demin it is in a house in near vicinity and likely held by enemies.
The tedious job to inspect every house on our way resumes, as we push towards the palace. Imoen has her work cut out, exploring and informing us of what lies ahead and in one of the houses near the palace we stumble upon a group of those carnivorous predators known to us as rakshasa.
The ensuing battle is quick and hectic, Edwin and Imoen casting wilting spells and immediately killing off some of the tiger-headed creatures, the rest of us engaging in melee fight. The leader of this gang goes down as the last, but not before hitting us with some very nasty spells – the cloud of those noxious fumes that appeared in the room after the creature’s chanting was especially dangerous and only quick thinking from Jaheira as she countered the spell with one of her own, refreshing the air and removing the poisonous gases, saved us from more serious harm.
Edwin explains that the leader of this group was indeed one of those rakshasa maharajahs, very dangerous opponents and I silently hope that we do not meet any of these again – for the reasons Edwin mentioned before, our weapons seemed to do very little damage to the critter and only with the combined efforts of the four of us, we managed to take him down. While Viconia and Jaheira are casting healing spells on us, Imoen is busy searching the bodies for valuable treasure and much to the delight of us all, she retrieves an amulet with an oak tree engraved on it and Jaheira recognizes it as the symbol of Rillifane Ralathil.
We leave the house in high spirits and cross a half-circle around the city centre to avoid the palace gates and start to look for a structure that would resemble a temple of sorts. After a few fights with golems and elementals, we reach a building that can’t be mistaken for a normal dwelling… just as the palace, its design is fully artificial, but it is so well integrated into the surrounding landscape that the resulting view can be considered as a dessert for the aesthete’s eyes… though, of course, from us only Edwin considers himself to be one.
Since we know that the enemy is inside the temple and Imoen concludes that she can’t get past the main door without attracting attention of those inside, we make our preparations outside and once the spells have been cast, we push the wide doors aside and step into the temple. And what awaits us inside is a rather unpleasant combination of enemies, indeed… a human male, wearing mage robes, a huge iron golem, a demon and one of those rakshasa’s…
“A Balor! Ah, I have something special for you, twerp!” Edwin exclaims and starts to recite a spell, I realize that the best I can do is to hope that he knows what he is doing and leave the demon as his responsibility.
Meanwhile, Imoen and Nalia both react quickly, casting their spells and afterwards immediately starting to toss small, fiery pebbles at the carcass of the iron golem and the construct starts to glow from the magical heat. Viconia jumps to face the rakshasa in hopes to distract it from the spell casting.
“You and Keldorn take the mage, I will distract the golem,” Jaheira yells and rushes towards the iron construct that is struggling to get to Nalia and Imoen, eager to crush them to pieces. Keldorn and I lounge forwards and come face to face with the sneering mage; he is obviously feeling quite confident behind the layers of magical protections.
Edwin’s spell goes off and a burning portal appears in the middle of the hall and much to my dismay a Pit Fiend of huge proportions steps through it… but thankfully Edwin’s calculations have not been wrong and it immediately focuses it’s attention on the most hated Balor and soon enough the two demons are engaged in a deadly battle. Edwin now comes to help Keldorn and me by stripping the enemy mage’s protections, but he is a touch too late and the mage manages to get a spell off…
Streams of hot, burning fire envelop us and I feel my flesh getting scorched as I roar in pain, but continue to hack at the mage, gritting my teeth and ignoring the insufferable heat that surrounds us. The spell seems to have helped Imoen and Nalia’s efforts in getting rid of the golem, as it glows in a burning red before Jaheira whacks it with her scimitar on the side and huge cracks appear in the golem’s carcass, before it shatters and bits and pieces of iron drop on the floor.
Edwin finally casts the counter-spell and as it takes the effect on the mage, all of his protections are removed at once and the self-satisfied expression on his face changes to the one of fear and disbelief. Keldorn wastes no more time to run through a sword through his stomach before we all hastily retreat from the radius of the enemy mage’s spell in order to avoid getting even more burns.
The demons are still battling each other, thus we charge to help Viconia, who is involved in fighting the rakshasa and shortly after our arrival the creature falls on the floor, dead. Now, the only thing to do is to wait for the winner of the fight of the demons and then present him with a prize – swift death from our hands.
“How’s about a bet, Eddie?” Imoen asks cheerfully, while Jaheira and Viconia, treat Keldorn and I with healing spells to remedy our burns and hopefully to help the skin to regenerate as fast as possible.
“Ha! There can only be one winner, the demons that I summon never lose,” Edwin retorts.
“Fine, I’m putting hundred coppers on the Balor,” Imoen laughs.
“Pah! That just shows how foolish you are… I’ll put a hundred on my Pit Fiend, of course,” Edwin smirks, before addressing us, “what about the rest of you, fools? Except the paladin of course, no doubt he considers betting to be abhorrent and sinful.”
“A hundred on… ouch… the Pit Fiend,” Keldorn says, wincing at the pain of injury, waiting for Viconia to follow up with more healing spells.
“Really, can’t you think of anything more inappropriate to do than betting on the fight of two demons in the temple of Rillifane?” Jaheira makes her feelings known, after she has finished patching me up.
Luckily, there is no time for anyone to argue back as the Balor falls under the Pit Fiend’s assault and we move to swiftly dispose of the weakened enemy, before it has managed to use any of its powerful spell-like abilities on us. Imoen then searches the bloodied corpse of the mage to retrieve an ancient elven moonblade and I produce the amulet and the goblet from my pack. Jaheira takes the items from our hands and carefully places them on the altar in the middle of the room…
We all await for something remarkable to occur, thinking that Rillifane will reveal himself to us with a great pomp… instead, we only feel the sound of rustling leaves and a faint smell of freshly cut grass spreading around us. We all turn around to stand face to face with a very awkward looking figure… an elven man, no taller than I, and of much more slender build, his hair raven black and falling down in long unkempt strands. I have difficulties to discern whether the strange outfit he wears is actually a cloth or is it his own skin… looking like a tree-bark, overgrown with leaves of many different colors. In his hands, he holds large oaken staff, still sprouting fresh leaves… and I gather that this is Rillifane himself, but he looks so… casual and… awkwardly unimpressive.
“This better be good, mortals,” the elven god speaks in a quiet and pleasant voice, “you have disturbed me in the middle of my date with Sehanine… and even talking her into it was awfully difficult. So, what transpires here that requires my attention?”
Jaheira looks at me before speaking as if to check if this all is real, then she licks her lips before addressing the Leaflord, “Jon Irenicus… The Exile, he…”
“Ah, so the madman has returned,” Rillifane looks grim, “and once again he pushes ahead with his plan, committing sacrilege against the Tree of Life. I tried to convince Ellesime that her idea of punishment was not just and would only lead to more suffering in the future, but no… she just whined and whined, until I finally had to give in. If any of you mortals have daughters, you would know that sometimes it is impossible to refuse them…”
Keldorn only coughs politely and I gather the courage to address the god myself, “Um… we were told that you will be able to help against The Exile…”
“You would want that mortal, wouldn’t you?” Rillifane grins, “However, The Exile holds my daughter imprisoned within his corruptive magics… they prevent me to come near him, or my daughter will be harmed. He uses her link to the Tree… to drain it of its power.”
“Why is he draining the Tree? What are his goals?” Jaheira asks and the veneration that was in her voice moments before appears to have vanished.
“The Exile seeks to join the Seldarine, to become a god, as he sought once before,” Rillifane explains.
“So… he seeks to actually become an elven god…” Viconia whispers, “I have to hand it to him, he is more ambitious like anyone I have ever known… fascinating…”
“But how would he achieve it? Corellon would never allow that, he would never accept-” Jaheira is shocked.
“That is assuming he has a say in it,” I add my comment.
“Mortals! The Tree of Life must not perish, or the elven race will suffer,” Rillifane raises his voice, perhaps slightly annoyed at our disrespectful chatting, “I have called the spirits of this wood to defeat the evil that the Exile has brought amongst us. The streets of the city are cleansed. Mortals, you seek to defeat The Exile. Free she who is of my blood from his imprisonment, and she will sever the link he uses with the Tree.”
“We must get into the palace, in order to do that,” Viconia points out.
“The Gates are unsealed. That is all I can do, mortals,” Rillifane says, “With this I shall take my leave… and for your sake, I hope that Sehanine is still waiting for me, or else I will haunt you in your dreams for the next century. I wish you luck, mortals.”
And with these words, the avatar of the Leaflord disappears from our sight. There are no more obstacles between Jon Irenicus and us.
