The Conferences of Victor Gagné V

A netzine article in Quoth the Raven Issue 28. The Conferences of Victor Gagné Part the Fourth; Part the Last: Our Final Confrontation is a collaborative effort between series creator Benjamin Bauml and M.H. Bartels. The story details the further misadventures of protagonist Victor Gagné after his escape from the Red Haunt.

Summary

Victor awakens in Paridon, in the company of Paloma. Although the two of them plan to flee the Zherisia Cluster by ways of the Mordentish embassy, they are soon separated due to an attack by dread doppelgangers, who seek to capture Paloma.

Victor is saved by a man out of his past; the great composer and musician Georg Talbann, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances years ago. Georg helps Victor reach Twice-Risen Manor, an oubliette created by Ciphramir, the same man who helped him to escape the Shadow Rift before. Ciphramir offers Victor his hospitality and help in pursuing Zaxxott Ssentroi, the tsochar who tormented him and is responsible for the transposition of his old friend Nikolai Kazić. Some of the help is mundane, in the form of supplies. Some is arcane, as Ciphramir grants Victor the use of an evil artefact, related to a mighty rakshasa beyond the Mists. And finally, some is lugubrious, as Ciphramir arranges access to Georg, whose rare blood disease requires him to regularly siphon off excess blood before it can congeal in his veins; this access can keep Victor fed with blood without having to take the step of assaulting innocents.

Victor is unaware that Ciphramir has desires all his own, which he is feeding without Victor's knowledge or consent. Ciphramir is himself a rakshasa Margrave and an Ultimate Magus, who is an expert in gathering the stories of others, as he forever seeks the right tale to involve himself with. While Victor is held in sorcerous sleep by Ciphramir's Sloth Imp minion, the Marquis magically disassembles a prisoner taken during an assault on faraway Castra to magically hook Victor up to a vile construct known as the Scrivener, which transcribed Victor's whole life up to his arrival at Twice-Risen Manor--and perhaps beyond--for Ciphramir's reading pleasure.

Even while Victor is deciding what the best way forward might be, a holy amulet he received at the Retreat spell-binds the mind of the Sloth Imp into a nightmare from which it cannot wake itself. As the Imp's reality wrinkle forms the basis for Twice-Risen Manor, that very foundation falls under the sway of the power animating the amulet. Reality twists and changes around Victor, and he is subjected to hideous visions of a woman tortured and abused, then confronted by a flame-haired Succubus - and Genevieve Schlosser, the one Good-aligned identity of the Red Haunt. It conspires that the Succubus may be an avatar of Brightwell, who gives Victor several cryptic warnings before Georg finds Victor in the shifting labyrinth and helps Ciphramir to locate and expel Victor.

Victor and Georg emerge in Darkon, a fair distance away from where Zaxxott Ssentroi was last seen. Victor succumbs to the hunger for blood, consuming some of the vitae bottled by Georg for his convenience, and resolves to pursue his enemy.

Epilogue I

In Paridon, Ciphramir and the Red Haunt confront one another in battle. The Red Haunt gains an advantage by releasing opium gas into the area, weakening Ciphramir enough for Charissa Schlosser to be able to beat him bloody under cover of an antimagic ward raised by Imogen Schlosser. Ciphramir is undaunted, revealing faces of the mighty tanar'ri he has defeated before her, then withdraws under the power of his infernal artefact. Unknown to Ciphramir, the Devoratrix had arranged for the other Centurions of the Night to observe the confrontation, after Ciphramir had assaulted Castra in retribution for his previous bout with the Red Haunt. While the Margrave is alive and well, he is now on the Centurions' black list.

Epilogue II

Paloma awakens in Paridon, having been saved by Simon Keysmith and his Caliban friend, Pjotr. She is welcomed into the ranks of the Divinity in All, and proceeds to warn her new comrades about everything she has learned in the dungeons of the Retreat, not to mention what she knows of dread doppelganger society in Paridon.

Introduced in this Article

• New spells and magic items, including a fiendish artefact.
• Various subtypes of Imp.
• Character profiles for Ciphramir, Federlin, more of the identities of the Red Haunt, and Victor Gagné himself.