The Battle of Bloody Kithicor

Nurgal’s stone

The Pickclaw goblins mined under High Keep, digging up ore that the keep’s humans bought cheaply. They also traded in secret with the dark elves of Neriak, who paid best and were the likeliest to kill them. One day the miner Nurgal hit something his pick could not scratch: a faintly glowing blue sphere about eight inches across. He carried it straight to Tyrana Slil, the Teir’Dal ambassador in the keep.

Tyrana, a necromancer of Innoruuk, cast a simple identifying spell on the orb and burned her fingers for her trouble, then laughed. It held the strongest magic she had ever seen. She plied Nurgal with wine until he showed her the vein, thanked him sweetly, and drained his life where he stood. Then she set off for Neriak with the stone and an orc escort.

The council of High Keep

News of the Teir’Dal plans reached High Keep, where Lord Tephys of the Fier’Dal and Carson McCabe sat at a council that was going badly. Its merchant lords talked of buying their way out. Antonius Bayle would not send help, fearing the gnolls and the Bloodsabers would take Qeynos behind his back. Freeport’s Militia and paladins were too busy watching each other, King Kazon kept his dwarves home, and the Erudites promised only to discuss it.

Then two high elves walked in. Galeth Veredeth, High Paladin of Tunare and adviser to King Tearis Thex, brought his finest student, the young Firiona Vie. He promised every Paladin of Tunare, already sailing across the Ocean of Tears, on the condition that Lord Tephys lead the defence. Adventurers from across Norrath were volunteering by the dozen.

The march

The dark elves marched on a cold, rainy morning under Lanys T’Vyl, the Child of Hate, and her mentor Laarthik K’Shin. They staged in the Commonlands, crushed the scattered bands that rose against them, and left a rear guard as they spread into Kithicor. Thirty Teir’Dal slipped into Rivervale and took the halfling town with almost no resistance.

In the forest the defenders sprang ambush after ambush, and neither side could tell who was winning. The defenders gathered at High Keep while Tephys, Galeth and Firiona waited at the mouth of the pass. A stampede of fleeing animals told them the army was close.

Duels at the mouth of the pass

Lord Tephys swore Lanys would go no farther. She laughed that his hatred only proved her father’s strength, and fell on him. When he healed a wound with Tunare’s blessing she struck him with a burst of dark magic and killed him. Across the field Laarthik, an old soul in a young borrowed body, fought Galeth to a standstill, and the aged paladin knew he was slowly losing.

Firiona met Lanys calmly where Tephys had failed, parrying until the dark elf’s fury began to tire. Then she turned the fight, filled with the Mother’s favour as the ground trembled. Exhausted, Lanys cried out for Laarthik.

Innoruuk comes

Laarthik clubbed Galeth senseless and lifted Nurgal’s blue orb to the sky, calling on Innoruuk to attend his daughter. The orb tore open a rift to the Plane of Hate. A pillar of fire destroyed Laarthik’s borrowed body, and Lanys, glowing crimson, rose laughing into the rift.

Firiona cried for everyone to flee and dragged Galeth away. A wave of dread swept the forest, and in an instant every living thing in Kithicor, dark elf, defender and animal alike, was dead. The allies held a grim “victory” party at High Pass, the dark elves went home to Neriak, and the forest has been haunted by the fallen ever since.

Afterward

Innoruuk was not pleased with his daughter. He took her to the Plane of Hate and tortured her there for years, so that her hatred would become pure. History counts Firiona Vie as the victor, though the full story leaves her fleeing and the field emptied by a god.

A battle rewritten in time

In 2008 Seeds of Destruction reopened the battle through a rift in the Plane of Time. Agents of Discord tried to change the fates of Firiona and Lanys, knowing the ripples would be catastrophic, and adventurers had to protect the battle as history recorded it.

Legacy

Bloody Kithicor explains why the forest turns deadly after dark, why Firiona Vie is the hero she is, and why Lanys came back from the Plane of Hate so changed. Read it with Firiona Vie, Lanys T’Vyl, Highpass Hold and the McCabes, Innoruuk and Rivervale.