Chapter Summaries

Little Smo and the Blade of Freedom discovered that the Gray Bear Tribe of Orcs still occupied the nearby forest and prepared to defend or flee their shelter. Lame Bob negotiated with Chief Bi Ger, but their meeting took an unexpected turn when an Orc named Howler revealed that he knew Lord Annan.

• Little Smo found fresh Orc tracks and droppings near the bear totem, then returned to warn Lame Bob that the Orcs were still nearby.
• The Blade of Freedom strengthened its shelter with a wooden wall and escape rafts while avoiding Orc territory.
• A war eagle delivered a letter from Chief Bi Ger demanding the humans hand over their valuables, and Lame Bob decided to negotiate with the Orcs.
• Little Smo, Lame Bob, and two companions entered the Gray Bear Tribe's settlement and offered Chief Bi Ger their money in exchange for peace.
• Lame Bob mentioned Lord Annan and Free City, prompting the Orc Shaman to question him and the scarred Orc Howler to reveal that he knew Annan.

Howler reunited with the Blade of Freedom after years away and joined them at their shelter, where they gained food and an Orc ally. When Lame Bob learned the Rat Plague had reached the Orc tribe near Ize Bay, Little Smo decided they had to warn the region.

• Howler persuaded the Orc Shaman and Chieftain Bi Ger to let the Blade of Freedom go after they surrendered money and received food.
• Howler helped Orcs hunt wild boars, then gave the Blade of Freedom the prey and returned with them to their shelter.
• Lame Bob gave the Orc tribe two carts, and Howler chose to join the Blade of Freedom because they needed his strength.
• After Howler and Lame Bob found Orc Warriors sick following contact with Ratfolk, the Orc Shaman confirmed they had caught a disease.
• Howler and Lame Bob warned Little Smo that Ratfolk were spreading the plague toward Ize Bay, and Little Smo resolved to alert the region.

Little Smo and Lame Bob tried to warn Ize Bay that a plague was approaching, while Claude and the Kingdom’s knights attacked the Blade of Freedom’s camp. The Knight Captain ordered every member of the group killed, even after hearing they had gone to warn the city.

• Little Smo, Lame Bob, and Howler traveled toward Ize Bay and left carved warnings about the plague on passing cargo wagons.
• When Ize Bay showed no sign of reacting, Little Smo and Lame Bob disguised themselves as refugees and headed for the city gates.
• Claude wrote to Miss Yanes as the knights pursued the Blade of Freedom through the mountains and discovered its unfinished Wooden Wall.
• The knights attacked the camp, and a captured member told them the leaders had gone to Ize Bay to warn the city about the plague.
• The Knight Captain dismissed the warning, killed the captured member and a boy who had left trail markers, and ordered the knights to leave no one alive.

Little Smo and Lame Bob were arrested after warning Ize Bay that ratfolk carrying the Plague were approaching, then condemned to public execution. As the Hanging began, a cloaked Elite and hidden agents stormed the execution ground and cut their ropes.

• City guards arrested Little Smo and Lame Bob and beat them after they warned that Plague-carrying ratfolk were heading for Ize Bay.
• Claude wrote to Miss Yanes about the Blade of Freedom and vowed to hunt down the Rats, while his knights returned to Ize Bay by boat.
• The Deputy City Lord ordered Little Smo and Lame Bob executed publicly to suppress talk of the Plague and intimidate Free City People.
• At the execution, Little Smo denounced the Rikaner Kingdom before a Jailer beat him, while Lame Bob accepted his fate.
• A cloaked Elite charged the execution ground, and agents in the crowd rushed forward as two arrows severed the Hemp Ropes above Little Smo and Lame Bob.

Little Smo used a wounded Mage’s Amplification Spell to tell the execution-ground crowd that the Kingdom had concealed the Ratfolk threat and betrayed its people. The Knight Captain sealed off the execution ground, leaving the Blade of Freedom fighters surrounded as they tried to get Little Smo out alive.

• Howler freed Little Smo and Lame Bob during the attackers’ assault, and Little Smo seized a Mage to make him amplify his voice.
• Little Smo urged the crowd to unite against corrupt officials and the Ratfolk, describing the Kingdom’s betrayals and its concealment of the Rat Plague.
• The Knight Captain killed a Free City man and ordered the Guards to seal off the execution ground so no one could spread the news.
• The undercover fighters regrouped and resolved to get Little Smo out, while several shared their last wishes.
• Lame Bob, struck by an Arcane Missile, told Little Smo to do what was right as he looked west toward the New Royal Capital.

Annan responded to the Ize Bay Massacre by exposing the Rikaner Kingdom’s atrocities and ordering a broader offensive. Free City’s forces began advancing on multiple fronts as other powers watched to see whether the city-state could defeat the Kingdom.

• Gale picked Cathy up from the Orphanage, and they went to see Annan.
• Annan’s ministers discussed the Ize Bay Massacre, and he ordered the Disciplinary Legion to Starer City to face the Royal Guard.
• Evelyn’s Voice of Freedom published evidence of the massacre, prompting nobles with ties to the Rikaner Kingdom to cut them and the Kingdom to deny responsibility.
• Free City launched the Battle of Starer City and sent the Foreign Races Legion across the Kingdom’s border from the Violet Oldlands.
• The Foreign Races Legion routed the corrupt, under-supplied Border Guard and displayed the officials’ heads as the Rikaner Kingdom condemned Free City’s brutality.

Free City led an economic blockade against the Rikaner Kingdom while Annan spent a day out with Gale and Cathy. Maria warned Annan that Gale was a Ratfolk spy sent to corrupt him, then Annan realized he had exposed Jerry.

• Minister of Finance Fronning and Minister of the Interior Brink offered the Commercial Street three ways to pressure the Rikaner Kingdom, all of which preserved the Duchy of Keating's trade.
• Annan watched a Magic Film with Gale and Cathy, then received a note directing him to the Morning Breeze Inn.
• Maria told Annan that Gale was a Greyfur Rat working for the Elder Council and explained the plan to ensnare him and exploit his cooperation with the Ratfolk.
• Maria thanked Annan for what he had done for Jerry, and Annan suddenly realized he had exposed Jerry.

Annan and Maria worked together to exploit Gale’s plan to sway Annan, using Maria’s apparent interest to make Gale more anxious and draw her closer to him. As war approached, Annan pressured Gale to reveal what she knew about the Rikaner Kingdom’s defenses and secrets.

• Annan suggested turning Gale’s plan against her, and Maria explained that she represented a moderate faction within the Stuen Clan’s Elder Council.
• Annan gave Gale a bouquet and then used Maria’s arrival and apparent interest in him to make Gale feel threatened.
• Maria refused Gale’s attempts to meet and spent time with Olmedo, while Annan cultivated Gale’s hopes for a life of freedom and learned secrets of the Elder Council.
• News arrived that the Prince of the Rikaner Kingdom and his Imperial Guard had reached Starer City and taken command of the Green Rose Knights’ Order.
• Annan confronted Gale about the Rikaner Kingdom’s defenses and secrets, warning that the Elder Council could learn she had colluded with Free City.

Francois and Free City defended Starer City against the prince’s forces as the Green Rose Knights' Order was forced to charge under suspicion of betrayal. The prince fled after Magic Cannons devastated his guard and Mage Corps, leaving the battle unresolved.

• Francois reread Jones’s letter, in which the Green Rose Knights' Order commander regretted their conflict but chose to settle their fate on the battlefield.
• The prince ordered Jones and the Green Rose Knights' Order to charge Starer City, while his personal guard advanced behind them to prevent retreat.
• Francois called on the Kingdom’s soldiers to stop fighting and accused them of ignoring the Ratfolk threat, but the battle continued.
• Femi ordered the Magic Cannons to fire, and their cannonballs shattered the prince’s Mage Corps and devastated his personal guard.
• The prince accused the Green Rose Knights' Order of betrayal, then escaped in a dazzling beam of light.

Francois took control of Starer City, recruited some of the captured Kingdom guards, and executed Prince Omo Montreal after exposing his crimes. Free City faced outrage from the Rikaner Kingdom, while Annan spent time with Maria and Gale and found himself mediating their renewed feud with the Centurion.

• Francois offered the captured knights intelligence about coming Ratfolk attacks, and the Green Rose Knights' Order later died fighting Elite Ratfolk at a border town.
• Francois refused Omo Montreal's ransom offer, questioned the captured guards' loyalty, and arranged for willing recruits' families to be brought to Free City.
• Francois publicly listed Omo Montreal's crimes and had him hanged in Starer City as the first snow fell.
• The Rikaner Kingdom condemned Free City for executing a prince, and Free City revealed that the Kingdom had ignored its warnings about Ratfolk attacks.
• Annan spent time with Maria and Gale, then tried to calm Maria and the Centurion when their old hatred flared up again.

Annan faced Clo Montreal’s accusation before the Holy Council and turned the dispute against him by exposing his role in the Northern Frontier’s disaster. The confrontation ended with Annan asserting that Clo could not control the consequences of starting a war.

• Maria continued helping Annan control Gale, while observers noticed that Annan had changed companions again.
• Annan was summoned to the Holy Human Hall, where Clo Montreal accused him of starting a war in the Rikaner Kingdom.
• Annan admitted that Free City was at war with Rikaner but accused Clo of selling intelligence to the Ratfolk and allowing them to breach Snow Mountain Fortress.
• Clo accused Annan’s priests of stirring rebellion and blamed him for Prince Omo’s execution, but Annan challenged his claims and pointed to the Bone King’s silence.
• Annan warned Clo that nations could vanish quickly and told him that starting a war meant accepting consequences beyond his control.

Annan recounted his victory over Clo at the Holy Council, where the Rikaner Kingdom failed to stop the war. As the Kingdom weakened and the Blade of Freedom spread, Little Smo and the surviving escapees reunited with Annan in Free City, leaving Ogre's fate unknown.

• Annan told Olmedo that Clo's accusations at the Holy Council had backfired, and the Golden King allowed the war to continue as long as it stayed between Free City and the Rikaner Kingdom.
• Annan said Vitalig's phylactery had been handed to the Empire, which had not responded, and declared that Free City would settle matters with the Kingdom that winter.
• After escaping Ize Bay, Little Smo and the surviving undercover agents joined an Orc tribe, which agreed to shelter them but not fight for them.
• The undercover agents opened a Portal to Free City, where Annan reunited with Howler and learned that Ogre was missing.
• Annan thanked Little Smo for his work, and Little Smo replied that he had acted for the people.

Annan sent reinforcements to support the Blade of Freedom’s campaign to take Ize Bay, while King Clo ordered Minister Reynaldo to crush Free City’s forces and warned that the Kingdom’s real enemy was within. A Blade of Freedom agent approached Reynaldo with a Letter of Recommendation, leaving the minister to consider what Free City wanted from him.

• Annan told Little Smo that the people of Ize Bay would only support Free City once they believed it could win, and assigned undercover agents to help take control of the city.
• Annan left Howler to win over the Orc tribe as supplies arrived, then opened a Portal for Femi and a Legion to reinforce the Blade of Freedom.
• Clo angrily demanded that Reynaldo send Soldiers to Ize Bay, then warned him that the Kingdom’s greatest enemy was within and insisted that the country belonged to Montreal.
• Reynaldo dismissed a Merchant’s complaint on his way to the Military Affairs Department, where a Blade of Freedom agent confronted him in his office.
• The agent offered Reynaldo a Letter of Recommendation for a position in Free City, and Reynaldo asked what he would have to do.

Reynaldo agreed to cooperate with Free City as the Kingdom weakened, while Free City captured Ize Bay and prisoners there waited to learn their fates. Annan and the Stuen Ratfolk both began reaching toward the New Royal Capital, where King Clo received a Councilor with a plan.

• Reynaldo accepted the Letter of Recommendation and agreed to cooperate with Free City, and news arrived that Ize Bay had fallen.
• Claude wrote to Miss Yanes from his prison cell, then fought a prisoner who taunted him about his hometown and asked a jailer what had happened to Longlake Territory.
• Annan continued the Red Witch’s raids along the West Coast and saw Reynaldo’s allegiance as an opportunity to influence the New Royal Capital.
• Gale told Annan that the Stuen Ratfolk were also trying to take control of the New Royal Capital, though he and Maria did not know whether Clo was a Ratfolk.
• A Councilor volunteered to visit the Royal Capital with an idea, and Clo asked him to explain it.

A disguised Cavalry posing as the Blade of Freedom infiltrated Long Lake Town, then killed the Town Chief’s Younger Son and breached the Ploney River embankment. The resulting flood devastated the town and swept downstream.

• A Woodcutter named Rad welcomed the disguised Cavalry into Long Lake Town, where townsfolk and the Town Chief mistook them for the Blade of Freedom.
• The Cavalry claimed Ratfolk were spreading plague and persuaded the Town Chief to send his Younger Son to guide them upriver.
• A girl asked the Cavalry whether they knew Claude, but they denied knowing him and continued to the Ploney River.
• The Cavalry killed the Town Chief’s Younger Son and began digging through the riverbank as Ratfolk tried to stop them.
• The Ploney River breached its banks, and the flood overwhelmed Long Lake Town, carrying away its people and buildings.

A winter Flood destroyed Ize Bay, and the Blade of Freedom evacuated most residents before the city froze over. Little Smo led survivors back to the icebound city, where they found the dead trapped beneath the ice and vowed revenge.

• A Flood swept through Ize Bay, but Annan and Howler warned the surrounding towns and helped evacuate most residents.
• Femi suspected the Rikaner Kingdom had caused the Flood, while Claude mourned Yanes and vowed to make those responsible pay.
• A cold snap froze the floodwater across Ize Bay, trapping people who had not escaped beneath the ice.
• Little Smo led hundreds of locals down the mountain into the frozen city, where they found the dead preserved beneath the ice.
• Little Smo clenched his fists and swore, "Blood for blood..."

After the Rikaner Kingdom’s flood devastated the region, Annan prepared to take the fight to the kingdom, recruiting Maria and gaining Lady Deepwinter’s support. On the way to meet Illymoyas, he encountered a band of Fairies whose Queen immediately proposed marriage to him.

• The Blade of Freedom found the ruined Long Lake Town and reported that the Rikaner Kingdom had sabotaged the Ploney River levee, while more than two thousand people in Ize Bay and many others died in the flood.
• Annan displayed the Orc Legion’s captured skulls in a growing head-mound outside the cemetery and declared that the Rikaner King’s skull would eventually top it.
• Annan decided to visit the Rikaner Kingdom with Illymoyas, persuaded Olmedo to let him go, and accepted Maria as a companion.
• Annan approved Lady Deepwinter’s request to join the war and leased her land east of Free City to rebuild her strength.
• Illymoyas carried Annan and Maria over the Violet Oldlands, where they encountered Fairies and their Queen, who demanded that Annan marry her.

Annan and his companions crossed the Wildlands, escaped a spider swarm by invoking Spider Queen Lolth, and continued toward Ize Bay. At a town near Starer City, guards mistook them for enemies and Annan subdued them, discovering they were merely opportunistic militia.

• The Fairy Queen threatened Annan and his companions, but Illymoyas drove the fairies away with her Dragon Might.
• Maria needed to rest during the journey, and the group landed in a woodland covered in Spider Web.
• A swarm of Spiders trapped Illymoyas, but Annan used Spider Queen Lolth's God Statue to convince them to let the group go.
• Annan told the Spiders to wait for Spider Queen Lolth and then continued with Illymoyas and Maria toward a town near Starer City.
• The town guards accused Annan and his companions of being Blade of Freedom spies and tried to seize them.
• Annan summoned Lemon to immobilize the guards, and their captain admitted they were not with the Blade of Freedom.

Annan confronted a town whose citizens robbed and killed travelers on the Town chief’s orders, then subdued its deputy Town chief and summoned the Auxiliary Legion to secure the town. He identified himself to the sweating Town chief as a member of the Blade of Freedom.

• The guard Captain admitted that the townspeople became bandits when travelers without protection passed through, and Annan sent him to fetch the Town chief.
• A young Elite Mage attacked Annan’s group, but Illymoyas revealed her Blue Dragon form and forced him to surrender; he dispelled the spells afflicting Lemon.
• The young Mage claimed to be the deputy Town chief and went into town to bring out his superior.
• Illymoyas struck down the fleeing Captain, and Annan opened a Portal to Free City to bring in the Auxiliary Legion and surround the town.
• The deputy returned with the fat Town chief, whom Annan confronted about the town’s daytime farmers and nighttime bandits before revealing he was with the Blade of Freedom.

Annan took control of a Town whose chief and residents had been complicit in robbing travelers, then discovered a Wanted Poster depicting him as a traitor. The young mage Tabareo offered a secret in exchange for leniency, claiming he had seen Fel Energy beside the King, and Annan asked Maria to investigate.

• Annan learned that the Town chief and his people had robbed travelers, and took the young mage's Spellbook.
• Annan entered Town with Illymoyas and Maria, saw the gathered residents, and found a Wanted Poster falsely portraying him as a traitor.
• Annan told Tabareo he would face punishment but could receive leniency for useful information, then heard Tabareo's secret privately.
• Tabareo claimed he had seen a flash of Fel Energy beside the King when fleeing the Old Royal Capital.
• Annan asked Maria to consult the Elders and investigate Tabareo's claim.