Long Live the... Who?

Lance's high level campaign was very interesting Saturday. B, me (Dave), Mat & Ava, Rob, Rod, and Jesse B. enjoyed some political intrigue with good roleplay and then a good combat. Whitewall's king has been missing for 4 days. Esmarelda is uneasy as are the other inner circle advisors. Queen Verisa pays the heroes of Whitewall their wages, 50,000 gp each. She is 8 months pregnant with the crown prince. She happens to be an elf. A tiefling appears almost out of nowhere. "Hey friend," he says. He's wearing fine clothes that are hanging off of him with about 3,000 years of dusty aging and seems not to care. He has been spying on our conversation in a routine and reckless way. His name is Carsh Tarkassis and the more he tries to gain trust the less he is trusted. He seems eager to help but Ruin is highly skeptical, this new guy seems slippery. Regarding the king, whenever questions are asked, members of the inner circle make uncomfortable faces, look away and change the subject. The curious among the heroes begin to quietly dig to learn what they can. Conspiracy theories abound: was King Leonid grabbed by a tentacle and dragged to the Far Realm? Did the orcs of Gorkni kidnap him? Or... dare we think the unthinkable and speculate the king could be dead? No one is saying anything. In the meantime, we are mercenaries with a new boss: Queen Verisa. As far as we are concerned that's good enough for us. Our marching orders are to go to Gorkni and fight the orcs there. As we near the city we make some basic preparations to not be too obvious about or plans. Kontor encamps his 400 giants some distance away and prepares teleportation circles to bring them close when the time comes. Giants are not easy to hide otherwise. Carsh Tarkassis "befriends" a couple of orc scouts who are then slain anyway by Zuzu and Kontor. Carsh is not pleased, and neither is Esmarelda or Ruin because not only can we not question the scouts, Gorkni will know something is up when they don't report in. So we will have to attack immediately this night and not in the morning as originally planned. So be it. Just before Ruin blows up Gorkni's wall with his alchemical charges, B's ranger makes a ladder out of arrows and Zuzu charges up them. The ranger and the fighter leap from the wall to the tower behind it right before it collapses inward on the enemy behind it. Atop the tower appear to be enemy commanders or dignitaries of some kind and Zuzu is making a beeline for them, right up the tower. On the other side of the wall it is not orcs who await the heroes, but mind flayers. The orcs are effectively their cattle, being bred and herded to fight for them but cattle nonetheless. The mind flayers are gigantic too, not typical and seem to be under the command of the dignitaries on the tower. 100' or so atop the tower, Zuzu is fighting Dorsain, Dr. Wiley and Crotus. They should be much more than he can handle but he doesn't care. Kontor summons a huge monster made of chains to join the fight up there but otherwise the party are focused on the mind flayers. The chain monster knocks Dorsain off of the tower and after he lands he is dominated by Carsh Tarkassis. Dr. Wiley and Dorsain are defeated, mind flayers are slain and tentacles from the Far Realm whisk Crotus and the remains of Dorsain and Dr. Wiley away. Zuzu is challenged by a bold orc survivor and defeats him in a single attack. Zuzu's first act as new Warchief of Gorkni is to replace Gruumsh worship with Kord/Marishten. Yes, Gruumsh is not going to be happy about this! Ruin takes the heroes aside in a confidential meeting and reveals that King Leonid had lost his mind and was decapitated by his own personal guard, to save him from himself and preserve the kingdom of Whitewall. The king's head has been preserved in a jar. The populous is not to know however. Currently the pregnant Queen Verisa and her advisors rule. Oh, and we're learning more about Ruin and his strange re-occurances. He was slain by the mind flayers, but a new version of him appears before us bearing his memories and scars, including six black horns on his pale head to represent the mental damage inflicted by the mind flayers, now repaired. Replaced, more like it. But back to matters of the Crown. Succession might not be quite so simple. Esmeralda's bastard son could contend for the throne in theory and other developments are possible. For now, Whitewall is holding together but it is spread thin across both geography and many alliances, races and powerful armies with huge differences: orcs, elves, giants, wildlings, dragons, dragonborn, humans, heroes, golems. And in Lance's campaign resurrection is not a routine matter. Enemies without and rumors of intrigue within. Hmm. We are now 19th level and encouraged to make our characters pretty epic, within reason. We each get two +4 magic items.