Scapegoat

Thay

Once returned to Eltabbar the household is somewhat scattered as civilians and soldiers go to their respective homes and garrisons and their respective temples.

Zárisse is called to a hearing by her Peers to explain why an entire border province is lost while under her custody. The hearing drags on for a while and it soon becomes obvious that this is an attempt to pin the blame on Zárisse rather than anything else. Furthermore there are hints that this is not aimed so much at her as against the Necromancer-community as headed by Szass Tamm!

Lothar is denied the right to bear witness in the hearings and is kept at his Temple. Nestor and Fandamm are slaves and don't matter. Only Varadíya and Adventure Kids are allwoed to speak on behalf [Zárisse]]'s cause and most of the blame is averted thanks to their loyalty to their Mistress.

Nevertheless it is decreed that Varadíya may not serve as a Thayan Knight for the duration of the "investigation" of the matter and Zárisse is tild that she may not practice magic during the same period but rather serve as a customs clerk down south.

Infuriated at this Zárisse decides to take action. Fandamm and Nestor steal a lot of stuff out of spite from the hall of justice, including a potted plant.

Rather than going to the southern ports, Zárisse sends Adventure Kids to obtain her spellbooks by hook or crook and then she summons her entourage and sets off to talk to what few contacts she has in the necromantic community.

Lothar eagerly joins up again, having grown used to be part of the household. Varadíya is at her family home and Zárisse puts her skills ofintimidation and her social status to good use, pressuring the Knight's Barracks to reinstate Varadíya as a knight again.

In the hurry Nestor is left behind and is forced to fend for himself for a few weeks, on the streets of Eltabbar until he is picked up by the Adventure Kids who've returned from their successful mission. Durr and Tubby are found and recalled for duty again.

The journey brings them to Malkor, a former fellow student of Zárisse who is her polar opposite. He is a fun-loving, gracious and jolly fellow living in a beautiful house surrounded by well-tended undead and other items of luxury. He listens to the stories told and decides to help his old class-mate along, giving her his pass to the upper Thayan plateu so that she will be able to get in touch with more powerful people.

Boldly, Zárisse and her retinue press on towards Thaymount proper encountering a tribe of wild orcs doing battle with a local garrison. This is nothing out of the ordinary but a way to keep garrisons battle-hardened and the local orcs both in check and as a reserve for potential slave-soldiers in the future. After the battle a bunch of surviving orcs are recruited as cannon-fodder. Some of the fallen are reanimated.

Some other orcs are forced aside and eventually the intrepid protagonists reach Thaymount and to their surprise are actually admitted without any fuzz.

They are given lodgings (austere for the commoners, luxurious for Zárisse ) and only after about a week are they allowed to meet someone of importance. This turns out to be none other than Szass Tamm who keeps the two first Thayan Knights ever as his, now undead, bodyguards. The mighty scholar is generally a good host, if somewhat aloof and takes some amusement at My and Nestor but declines to tell anyone why.

He listens to Zárisse's story and her warnings regarding the other schools of magic trying to wrest power from the necromantic faculty. Szass Tamm expresses his gratitude and tells Zárisse to enjoy his library to increase her repertoire of spells. He then proceeds to say that this is only fair to his new and promising young Client.

Eventually the household decides it is a good idea to return to the lands in the shadow of Thaymount and this time they have powerful backing indeed...