EP25: Bend the Knee

Weisa attempts to save Titus life with her own uncanny blood magic, but for once she seems on the brink of failure and thus death for them both before they are saved by Marcus.

As the culmination of their previous decisions, the Fellowship finds itself in dire combat. While still battling the flesh apes of the Killing Fields, the death tamer Caepio Secundus has alerted yet another party to their sabotage attempts. Borolas, the master of the camp the Fellowship has just sabotaged and is in the act of leaving, descends upon the group in a fighting rage. Despite being bare chested, the patrician warrior displays a level of physical resilience unknown even to Titus or Nilishli. In addition, Avad Borolas, second in command, expertly guides an ever increasing number of his master's men to rain down arrows onto the intrepid adventurers. Caepio himself enters the fray from a distance, although perhaps without unleashing his full suite of will working. Finally, yet another massive figure hurtles into the melee, a hulking brute by the name of Constantine. Like Borolas, Constantine fights with such power that no doubt remains. Both are chosen. Although the Fellowship fights to its best ability, the sheer might of the combined adversaries soon begin to overwhelm them. Titus tries several times to order the others to flee. For various reasons, however, he is unable to compel them to do so. Young Jason in particular seems fearless to the point of recklessness. Marcus ability with the golden light roars into being, reviving Titus not once, not twice, but three times from the verge of death. Indeed, only the true cleric's appeal to Borolas own self interest prevents the enraged lord from taking an unconscious Titus head. Weisa attempts to save Titus life with her own uncanny blood magic, but for once she seems on the brink of failure and thus death for them both before they are saved by Marcus. Healing overpowered, the Fellowship is compelled to return to the camp, wherein Borolas turns upon Avid furious for having brought these traitorous outsiders into his home, Marcus once more successfully intervenes, somehow convincing the mad patrician to spare Ovid's life. He bids the Fellowship to leave and return by dawn with a sign of good faith from his objective to the north. As a guarantee of this, he holds Weisa prisoner, vowing to give her a clean death should the party fail to return on time. As she is an advisor of House Voorne, Jason is compelled to stay as well, whom Borolas promises to feed to Constantine should the Fellowship fail.