It was a lovely wedding, up until the point where my sisters kicked in the door, beat up the guards, and "abducted" me, which was totally sweet. Oh? Right...introductions. I guess I'll back up a bit.
My name is Imogen Jedea, daughter of Kassur Jedea, the Crown Duke of Threskul. A little over a year ago I ran away from home and joined a group of totally kick-ass adventurers known as the Amazons. A few months ago I got magically transported back home, where I immediately got forced-engaged to this sniveling weasel of a middle-aged count. Luckily I had my scroll of communication, so I could keep in touch with my girls. Needless to say, they came and saved me.
During the winter, the girls had found a magical forge in an enchanted forest protected by a dragon. Cool huh? Long story short, the dragon killed our friend Worthy and I wasn't even there to help. Some new girls whom I had not met helped kill the dragon, then helped turn Worthy into a totally awesome talking sword.
Since my scheduled wedding was still several months out (for all that my dad is pushy he likes to do things "right" and do it with style, so he was planning a big one), Hot Flanks, who is totally hot by the way, convinced the girls to stick around for several weeks to customize some other gear. We'd been working for a while to track down an evil minor nobleman cum undead warlord cum demon worshiper (or some such) and had gotten our asses kicked a few times, so it made sense to prepare as much as possible. I told them as much in writing if you don't believe me.
So, they hung out in the woods until late Mirtul, mixing and matching things we had on hand to make some totally sweet magic items, with the occasional trip back and forth to Phlan for supplies (but that's boring). There were a couple of minor skirmishes with bandits, faeries, undead, and wolves on the road and around the forge while they worked, but nothing too serious. Just enough to be good practice and keep them on their toes without killing anyone.
Then they headed back to Phlan to talk to our patroness, the totally awesome and not-at-all-evil, Councilwoman Elissa Bivant-Mondaviak. It's amazing how people who don't work for Lady Elissa get the wrong idea about her sometimes. Probably because they are jealous of a girl being better at politics than them.
With Elissa's help, the girls chartered a ship to take them down to Messemprar, where the wedding would be happening. Elissa told the girls that she was really concerned about the events of the last few months: the evil squire's escape, the giant army of undead we saw in the mountains, some colossal giant god-thing waking up and causing earthquakes in the mountains, the government in Hillsfar (which had always been a close ally of Phlan) being overthrown by a coup...things were not going well for Phlan. Elissa understood that the girls had personal business--saving me--and agreed that we should all be present and ready for the coming battle. She even covered the entire cost of the round-trip passage, and included a wedding present of sorts, a big stack of books for us to study on the way back.
The wedding ceremony was scheduled to take place on Shieldmeet (because, hey, leap years are awesome). The ship was fully stocked and they sailed out on the first of Kythorn. The trip to Messemprar took more than two weeks, which the girls spent reading and hanging out, broken up with a small skirmish with some buccaneers from the Pirate Isles, just off the coast of Altumbel. Again, quick, easy, and none of the girls got seriously hurt--though the same could not be said of the pirates after Don't Fail and Hot Flanks both fireballed their ship. Apparently the book-learning really helped.
The ship docked in Messemprar the day before the wedding. I invited the girls to stand in as my maids of honor (it was a political marriage, I figured I might as well go through with it, so long as I could escape before I had to consummate the damned thing). Unfortunately, my prick of a father refused to even let them into the palace, despite them having a hand-written invitation from yours truly. It's like the old meany didn't trust my sisters-in-arms or something...
Luckily the wedding was open to the peasantry (nice thing about big royal functions, you have to let the rabble watch or else you risk an uprising), so the girls were able to sneak in close as the thing started. Like I said, it was a lovely affair. Everything was festooned with flowers. All of my father's knights showed in in full polished plate (though that made things harder later). I got to wear the most gorgeous gown of my life, white with a silver-mesh veil and my crown, and just enough of a bustle to hide the Handsome Prince (that's my sword, not a literal prince) underneath. If only my husband-to-be wasn't such an old, bearded, codger (though he did look pretty good in his armor).
We processed, and danced, and said our vows and our "I dos". Then the old priest of Tchazzar said the whole, "you may kiss the bride" thing (which was the official precursor to the public bedding--yuck!) the girls kicked in the door. Literally.
Dragon Bait raged out and blew the big doors off their hinges.
Don't Fail and Hot Flanks burst into the ball room, cowing the less militant spectators with a few well-placed (above their heads so as to not kill everyone) fireballs. , Doesn't Shake, Finds Them, and Battle Cry charged forward, clearing a path to the dais with a mixture of spells, gunshots (Finds Them apparently packs a really loud toy she calls a "arquebus"), and deliberately extra-creepy illusory monsters.
I did my part, acting just-scared-enough to get my new husband to step in front to protect me, then kicked the armor-laden windbag down the stairs face first, before drawing Handsome Prince and shadow-stepping down to join the other girls. I thought it would be all shock-and-awe and an easy run for the boat from there, but, like I said, my dad had all of his knights standing in for the procession, and fully geared up. So, we fought.
It was tough, mostly because we were trying to NOT kill everyone. It's amazing how hard that is really. Especially for Dragon Bait apparently. When she goes into fighting mode, she turns into some kind of spike-covered raging demon thing. If she hadn't had Worthy (our paladin turned awesome sword) in her hands, shouting at her to calm down and pulling her blows a bit, she probably would have killed every last one of my dad's knights. Instead we just maimed them a bit.
I aimed for a lot of hamstrings and tendons. Handsome Prince helped as usual, turning even tiny cuts into wickedly bleeding messes (it's awesome how quickly you can convince someone to retreat from a fight when you knick an artery). Battle Cry did her usual grab their arms and break it routine. Don't Fail froze them in their tracks with her spells. Doesn't Shake kept them off balance and swinging wildly at her illusions. Hot Flanks blasted them into submission with her mind powers. And Finds Them deafened them with her boom stick.
All told, there were some thirty-odd fully armored, well trained knights. And we totally kicked all of their asses.
Just for giggles I tagged my new husband with a "potion of ugliness":https://ruins-of-adventure.obsidianportal.com/items/potion-of-ugliness on the way out, turning him into a toad (temporarily). Adding insult to injury like that was probably not the best move. I'm sure I left my dad with a national crisis and potential war on his hands, but, that was not really my problem. I have no intention of going back there (baring another blast from that wand of cruel banishment).
Once out of the palace, we ran like hell. The general hue and cry ran out before us, both yelling and trumpets calling the castle guards, city watch, and every other man at my father's disposal to come out and catch us. We bull-rushed our way to the ship, beating guardsmen like baby seals. Our hired crew had been given the word that morning to be ready to sail at a moment's notice, and so they were.
Then, with a pop, Mahāna, my dad's court wizard, appeared in our path, along with a solid iron wall. It was a tall wall and he was a tough wizard, but I'm a shadow walker, and I laugh at walls. Literally, walls are funny, especially when you can step right through them. I never liked Mahāna anyways, and we were so close, so I stepped out of the wall right behind him and planted Handsome Prince between his shoulder blades (yeah, that one is REALLY going to piss daddy off).
We hauled ass onto the ship and cast off.
As we pulled away, I pointed out my dad's fastest naval vessels in the harbor and we nuked their sails with fireballs...not enough to ruin the ships for good, but enough to keep them from following us (again my dad is probably going to kill me, hard, if he ever catches me).
The winds were against us going north so it was a long ride back to Phlan. I caught up on my reading on the way back. It turned out the wedding gift that Elissa had sent along was a Manual of Stealthy Pilfering, sweetness.
On the 19th of Eliasias we got a sending from Elissa informing us that while we were gone the Squire had hijacked some powerful artifact of law that the Council had been using to help keep the precarious peace in Phlan. With this artifact gone, the peasants in the slums, the orcs and Xvimlar on the north side of the river, and the monsters in the ruins had risen up en masse, torn down the walls, and torched New Phlan. She asked us to meet her in Mulmaster, where the Council had fled to, to discuss how we might find and put a stop to the villain for good...
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