GRUNT
10-30-2005, 12:58 AM
The Story of Ravnica
(Note that I’m taking out a LOT of the story, and just abbreviating it to what I feel are the essentials :) )...but it's still DAMN LONG!
The story begins with Agrus Kos’ first day on the job as a Constable. He’s still new to the job and makes a lot of rookie mistakes. He’s tackling a case with his superior- Lieutenant Myczil Zunich. There’s lots of blood and lots of dead guys, and a mysterious figure with a chameleon hex (invisibility) tries to flee the scene.
Fast-forward to present-day Ravnica, Kos is a seasoned veteran around 110 years old. He’s been using magic to keep himself alive (he believes in his job), but the 110 years of magic is starting to affect him, his body just can’t take it anymore, and he’s nowhere near as fit as he used to be. We learn that Zunich is dead and that Kos feels responsible for it. He spends way too much time drinking to try and drown his guilt.
Kos is watching a re-enactment of the signing of the Guildpact- the pact that binds all 10 guilds together, and is what has sustained relative peace throughout Ravnica for 10,000 years. As the actor playing Szadek shows up, Kos wonders why they still have an actor playing him in the play.
The following quote pretty much sums up Kos’ opinion on Szadek and the Dimir:
The Dimir, the so-called 'Tenth Guild', is a fiction concocted to frighten children and those with the minds of children- a useful fiction.
-First Judge Azorius (47 R.C. - 98 Z.C.)
from the Guildpact Statutes of appendixes
Apparently, nobody knows of the Dimir’s continued existence yet.
Kos and his partner- Borca (Kos is a Lieutenant now, remember) go to Centerfort for some important occasion. Turns out, Kos is getting promoted, which he’s not happy with because it’ll mean he’ll get a desk job instead of being out in the field. There’s a quietman watching the procession. Quietmen are Selesnyan creatures that are completely covered in white robes. As the conclave rarely leaves Vitu-Ghazi, they send the Quietmen to record events outside the world for them. They’re pretty creepy since they don’t say a word, they just float there and watch.
Fonn is a Ledev Elf (the elves aligned with the Selesnya Conclave), she is escorting The Living Saint- Bayul, a Loxodon. He is one of the few non-dryad members of the Conclave, and he is also the one who goes out in public the most. Everyone loves him because he’s such a nice guy. There was a failed assassination attempt on Bayul, which Fonn and her wolf (Baricazir) thwarted. The team of assassins were made up of Gruul guys and Rakdos cultists. Fonn wonders what they’re doing working together.
Kos, Borca, and Feather (Feather is an angel friend of Kos who is serving some kind of punishment for some sin she commited. No one dares ask her what that sin is, but she has her wings in shackles) are being briefed on the stuff they’ll be doing (Kos doesn’t have his desk job yet), and we learn that the Selesnyans have some annual celebration called the Convocation. This one’s special because it marks the 10,000 anniversary of the Guildpact. The Wojeks are busy setting up security details to make sure the Convocation goes smoothly.
Meanwhile, in the lower parts of Ravnica, a centaur who got lost gets completely owned by Jarad, Savra’s brother, and Chief Hunter of the Golgari. He certainly knows his stuff. The elves of the Golgari are called the Devkarin. And the Devkarin have a natural attunement to insects…that’s why Jarad has a lot of pet beetles, why they ride grave shell scarabs and mortipedes, etc. After Jarad kills some giant slug for fun, Savra appears (she’s only the Matka (High Priestess) right now, and not yet queen), and tells Jarad there’s something she’d like him to do for her.
Back in the city, Kos comes across a poor girl named Luda. She stole a fruit from a fruit vendor because she was starving. Still, the law was the law. However, Kos knew this girl, and she knew him. So he gently tells her that stealing is wrong and that if she needs food, that “There are people called Golgari, and they’ll give you food if you just ask. And they have lots of it.” (remember, the Golgari are the city’s recycling guild). Luda talks about how she doesn’t like the ‘Garglies’, and Kos says that she’s right because the Golgari aren’t nice people, but they do their part- that’s how the city works. It was a very cute scene because this girl is at a disadvantage- she’s in an orphanage or something, with no guild to look after her. But Kos was nice, and sincere when he told her that she was fortunate that she’s not involved in any of the politics in the guilds. Then Luda was like: “When I grow up, I wanna be a ‘jek!”
A fair bit later, Kos and Borca hear a girl screaming, and realize it’s Luda. They run to save her, but were too late- a goblin had killed her. Kos goes crazy with anger and chases the goblin all over the place. The goblin ends up near a vegetarian loxodon restaurant and suicide-bombs the place with some magical bombs he has, killing Saint Bayul. Fonn is whisked away by Jarad with the Chameleon hex, and Agrus is knocked unconscious by the blast and Bayul’s corpse landing on him.
Meanwhile, Savra goes to a super-secret place to meet up with her ‘hidden ally’. Her hidden ally’s palace was so well disguised that even if you were to have gone there before, you could not find your way back without his direct assistance (and is even deeper underground than Golgari territory). They don’t mention Szadek by name until the very end (they just refer to him as ‘her mysterious ally’), but we of course, know it’s Szadek, so I’m going to call him that. So, Savra loves Szadek, but not a romantic love. She sees him as a god, and sees herself as his chosen prophet. Savra tells Szadek that the Loxodon and Jarad have been dealt with, Szadek tells her it is time to move on to the next phase of his plan- it is time for Savra to move against the Sisters of Stone Death.
Savra feels the Sisters are no good for the guild. Ever since they came into power 1000 years ago, they’ve only been squandering the guild’s resources on themselves and sending it into a period of decadence. Savra wants to Golgari to regain their former stature. Szadek had told Savra that Svogthir is still alive, even though everyone else believes him dead and Savra travels to the bottom of Svogthos to find (surprise surprise) Svogthir- the original guildmaster of the Golgari. He’s a very powerful necromancer, and when the 5 Sisters (there were 5 back then but Svogthir took 2 down) couldn’t get rid of him with their stone gaze. Nor could they kill him since he was an immortal zombie. So they broke every bone in his body and cast him to the bottom of Svogthir. Savra asks Svogthir what assurance she has that he wont turn on her if she re-animates him and gives him a new body. Svogthir says that after ruling the guild for 9000 years and being down here for another 1000, he’s sick of his existence. He says he’d rather spend an hour tearing those he hates with his bare hands than spending 1000 years in boredom. He says that all he wants is his revenge, and that he’ll help Savra on the condition that once he has done his part, Savra will end his torment by using her magical powers to undo the necromantic powers that Svogthir put upon himself so that he may finally rest. Savra reanimates Svogthir, giving him a body stronger than before, but makes sure that the enchantment is temporary…just as a safety measure.
Svogthir tells savra that she is a fool because once he kills the sisters, he’ll take back what’s his. But when Svogthir tries to smash Savra, he found that he had no control of his body. He learned that Savra can control his body if she wants to, and Svogthir has no choice but to go along with her plan. Svogthir makes a proposal saying (to paraphrase): “Tell you what, I’ve got a proposal to make, that if you agree with, not only will I help you, I’ll ENJOY it. Just let me do my part, and once you’re queen, make me your figurehead! Some symbol that the guild can look up to. Think about it…the guild parun by your side.” Savra knows he’s being sneaky, but agrees.
Long story short: Svogthir slaughters two of the sisters (and has tons of fun as he does so), but spares the third one, making her swear obedience to him. Savra goes up to Svogthir and asks: “so, remember what I said?” And Svogthir replies: “Yes. I think I’ll enjoy being a figurehead.” And Savra just goes: “Yes, I think you will, too.” Then she uses her control of Svogthir’s body to rip off his head and uses her own formidable powers to destroy his head and absorb all his powers. Svogthir’s skull fuses with her staff to become part of it. Savra then makes Ludmilla (the last surviving Gorgon) swear loyalty to HER and to lead her army. Ludmilla asks what she needs an army for, and Savra whispers something sneaky into her ear.
Everything was going according to Szadek’s plan.
Somewhere, Fonn wakes up. She finds out that after the blast, she’s been in a coma for 2 days. Jarad is sitting there. He threatens her not to try anything sneaky because the roof is full of flesh-eating bugs that’ll eat her in 3 minutes or less. They have an interesting talk and Jarad mentions about how she- a Selesnyan, who claims to respect all life, ignore the most numerous of all- the insects (that the Golgari love so much.). Jarad says he’d kill her, but his sister has other plans. He walks out the door, and gets attacked by 3 harpies, who he beats (oddly enough, with the help of Fonn, who was trying to save her own skin at the time). Jarad finds out his sister is trying to kill him, Fonn finds out Bayul is dead, her wolf is missing, there are people looking for her, and the two decide to work together to find out what’s going on because they believe their problems are linked.
On their way out of the cell where Jarad was keeping her, Fonn and Jarad get attacked by a shapeshifter that’s different from the others in that its natural state is a mass of worms (not to be confused with mindleech mass). But they escape. Baricazir (Fonn’s wolf, and father of Voja) finds them. They decide to go to an Orzhov Imp they know- Pivlic. Who owns some bar.
At the same time, Agrus wakes up from a 3 day coma himself, to find that his partner- Borca- died in the explosion. However, he finds that his ghost is still there. This is weird because ghosts usually only haunt an area for a while before disappearing altogether (and even then, they are incapable of talking sense…they’re usually made up of the ‘essence’ of someone just prior to their death). If someone died a particularly violent death, they might come back as a banshee, a wretched creature, confused and tormented by vengeance. Borca came back as neither. He made some dodgy insurance (that cost half his pension) with some Orzhov guy to have his memories and stuff kept intact in the event he died, and to bind them to Kos. Borca can only really ‘die’ once Kos has avenged his death. It’s actually a lot more humourous than it sounds :P. The way it’s told in the story, but I need to cut things short, so meh :P. In any case, against direct orders, Kos, Feather, and the ghost of Borca (who is bound to Kos) go to Pivlic’s as well for information (Pivlic has never let Kos down before).
In Pivlic’s they meet up with Fonn and Jarad. They also see several quietmen floating around the place. Suddenly, the Quietmen start tearing the place up and killing people with their bare hands- tossing an ogre as though it weighed nothing. Fonn had never seen the quietmen do anything besides just floating, so this really frightened her- why would the Conclave send their agents to go on such a bloody rampage? Kos and Fonn are also uncomfortable around each other because Fonn is a half elf, and Zunich’s daughter.
Kos, Fonn, Baricazir, Jarad, Feather (the angel), and Pivlic all run to his zeppelid, and they take off to flee from the quietmen. Just before they flee the bar, they get a message via falcon that Saint Bayul is in fact, still alive. They decide to flee to the Tenth Leaguehall, to meet up with the chief lab dude who’s watching over Bayul.
After a aerial chase scene (the quietmen can fly), they arrive at The Tenth and go to the Necrolab. On their way in, they notice that Bayul was clinging on to life, and couldn’t mentally contact Fonn. But now, before his death, he used her as a conduit to speak, and warned that something was wrong with the convocation that was coming up and that they needed to protect the stone. The stone was on Saint Bayul’s head. A green gem, that Fonn was able to take from him once he passed away.
While they were flying to the Tenth, they noticed a strange absence of Roc riders. There should have been tons of them around the place. As it is, they were all off defending Centerfort from a massive Golgari invasion, led by Savra’s new general- Ludmilla. This has been unheard of in the history of Ravnica- the Golgari practice dark arts, but they were content with what they had- an attack on this scale dwarfed even the most recent Rakdos rebellion. Stranger still, is the absence of Boros Angels. All of them seemed to be gone.
Meanwhile, back in the necrolab, one of the other non-major characters turned out to be a shapeshifter (of the same variety as the one that turns into worms in its natural state…they’re called ‘lurkers’). After a brief fight, two Quietmen fly in and whisk Fonn away from the rest of the party.
Feather tries to find Sunhome (which is apparently a floating citadel where the Angels of the Boros, and Razia herself, reside) but failed to find it. It was mysteriously missing. Feather takes off her cloak and gets Kos to undo the bindings on her wings and goes into full angel-of-fury mode and flies to aid the beleaguered Wojeks at Centerfort. Kos and the others go off to Vitu-Ghazi, where people from all 9 guilds (if you don’t count Dimir) were being shepherded to the City Tree, under the spell of the convocation that made them oblivious to the world outside.
In fact, it was Savra herself who was heading the Convocation. The Dryads of the Selesnya Conclave had made Savra a new member. It wasn’t difficult- the Dryads saw it as auspicious to welcome a repentant Devkarin priestess back into the Conclave on the 10,000 anniversary of the Guildpact. The fact that Vitu-Ghazi itself seemed to be infected by some strange disease, didn’t hurt, either, and they figured that Savra could help undo the damage. Little did they know that it was Savra herself who had infected the City Tree with necromantic filaments a long time ago. Savra only needed one more magical item to complete the process that will bind her to the collective of the Selesnyans- the stone that Fonn took from Bayul. Through the necromantic filaments she inserted into the City Tree, Savra had some control over it, and it was how she was able to twist the Quietmen to serve her means. She used them under the pretense of dealing with corrupt Wojeks.
Kos and crew arrive at the scene but aren’t much good as they are quickly restrained by the Lurkers.
At this point, the quietmen carrying Fonn delivered her to Savra. Fonn didn’t give the gem without a fight, and Savra ripped off Fonn’s hand to get it. Now the convocation was at it’s height. Savra was connected to the great collective of the Selesnyans and all the collective power of their chorus flowed through her. As such, when Szadek descended from out of nowhere and promptly snapped Savra’s neck, the Chorus of the Conclave died as well.
Biracazir tried to attack Szadek, but was defeated by a single punch (Biracazir was just badly wounded, though).
Szadek then got the quietmen to fuse with Vitu Ghazi, using some spell to open it up (it was already weakened by the disease that Savra wrought on it), and lo and behold- Szadek isn’t the only living legend, Mat’Selesnya herself was still alive, in the center of Vitu-Ghazi- she IS Vitu-Ghazi, without her, there would be no collective consciousness, no Selesnya, and the magic that bound the guildpact would cease to exist. For you see, the Guildpact is more than just paper, it’s a magical enchantment that affects the entire plane. However, the weakened Mat’Selesnya fell and Szadek began to feed on her.
Jarad makes a run for Savra’s corpse and grabs the gem and the staff. He throws the gem to Fonn, says to Kos: “Ok, I’ll take the Lurkers, you take the Vampire!” And Kos just repeated: “Take the Vampire. HOW!?” Anyway, using his attunement to insects coupled with the energies from Savra’s staff, Jarad gets the Lurkers to turn on Szadek, who is caught of guard and enveloped by the worms. The two of them pretty much cancel each other out, and Jarad has to use all his concentration to prevent himself from losing control of the worms.
With the vampire busy, Fonn wonders how to use the gem, and tries pressing it against her forehead- nothing happens. Then she realizes that maybe it was meant for
Biracazir, and touches the gem to his head. The effect was instantaneous, and Mat’Selesnya (who was dying, but not dead) regains some of her life, and a big shockwave of light emanates from her, destroying all the worms, but Szadek was too crippled to fight.
Now, poor Kos was feeling pretty left out at this point (Jarad was attacking Szadek with worms, Fonn was with Biracazir), but Kos was just a human- he had no mystical powers, or no wolf for that matter. But then he reminded himself that the spell of the guildpact empowered the laws that it contained within, and he, Agrus Kos was an instrument of that law. So he slaps on his badge again (he disobeyed orders a lot throughout the book, and got himself kicked out), goes to Szadek, slaps on cuffs that are bound by the magic of the guildpact- not even Szadek could break that kind of magic as long as Mat’Selesnya still lived.
Then Kos goes: “Szadek, I’m placing you under arrest for the murders of Luda, Saint Bayul, and Sergeant Bell Borca of the Tenth Leaguehall. If you try to resist, you will be beaten senseless. I’ve had a very rough week.”
So the day is saved, hooray. Kos goes on to tell Fonn what really happened to her father (the truth is quite disturbing). Basically, Kos and Zunich were chasing some Rakdos-cult elf named Palla. Palla had captured a little girl, and she was also being chased by an elf bounty hunter (turns out to be Jarad). Zunich, in a fit of zeal accidently killed the little girl instead, believing her to be Palla (Palla used her as bait). Zunich goes insane with guilt, and believes that Jarad tricked him into killing the girl. Zunich nearly kills Jarad in cold blood, but Kos stopped Zunich, inadvertedly killing him in the process (they were on high ground and the floor was slippery, Zunich fell to his death).
So, Fonn is now wolf-less since Biracazir went and became part of the Conclave (Mat’Selesnya grew new Drayds out of the now-healthy city-tree), Kos is considering retirement, and Jarad is now the Guildmaster of the Golgari. Feather’s mere presence (and the news of Savra’s death), scattered the Golgari army and Ludmilla was sent back the way she came, and was told that if she ever showed herself on the surface of Ravnica again, she’d be killed. Borca's death was finally avenged and he could finally stop being a ghost.
The story ends with the corpse of Luda in the Necrolab turning out to be a Lurker, and it kills the chief lab dude, and walks out of the Tenth Leaguehall.
So, there’s a lot of stuff missing here. Where’s Circu? Where’s Tolsimir (they only mention the name of his wolf, and even then, only once)? Where’s Razia and all the Boros Angels? What happened to feather? Have we seen the last of the Dimir? What the heck is Razia’s Purification? Nothing was purified in the story :P. What about the artwork for ‘clinging darkness’? Why does Razia look like she’s being all engulfed by darkness? We also don't see the events depicted in 'Congregation at Dawn', or 'Overwhelm'. I guess we’ll find out about all this stuff in the next 2 expansions. Like I said in another thread, I don’t think that the expansions in the Ravnica block tell the whole story in chronological order.
And remember, this is a very VERY rough outline of the story, Agrus is actually a lot more heroic than what you might get the impression of him here, even if his old body and balding head lets him down every now and then :D. And the fact that only Kos, Pivlic, and Szadek can see or hear Borca's ghost made for some very entertaining scenes where people would repeatedly ask Kos who he was talking to.
(Note that I’m taking out a LOT of the story, and just abbreviating it to what I feel are the essentials :) )...but it's still DAMN LONG!
The story begins with Agrus Kos’ first day on the job as a Constable. He’s still new to the job and makes a lot of rookie mistakes. He’s tackling a case with his superior- Lieutenant Myczil Zunich. There’s lots of blood and lots of dead guys, and a mysterious figure with a chameleon hex (invisibility) tries to flee the scene.
Fast-forward to present-day Ravnica, Kos is a seasoned veteran around 110 years old. He’s been using magic to keep himself alive (he believes in his job), but the 110 years of magic is starting to affect him, his body just can’t take it anymore, and he’s nowhere near as fit as he used to be. We learn that Zunich is dead and that Kos feels responsible for it. He spends way too much time drinking to try and drown his guilt.
Kos is watching a re-enactment of the signing of the Guildpact- the pact that binds all 10 guilds together, and is what has sustained relative peace throughout Ravnica for 10,000 years. As the actor playing Szadek shows up, Kos wonders why they still have an actor playing him in the play.
The following quote pretty much sums up Kos’ opinion on Szadek and the Dimir:
The Dimir, the so-called 'Tenth Guild', is a fiction concocted to frighten children and those with the minds of children- a useful fiction.
-First Judge Azorius (47 R.C. - 98 Z.C.)
from the Guildpact Statutes of appendixes
Apparently, nobody knows of the Dimir’s continued existence yet.
Kos and his partner- Borca (Kos is a Lieutenant now, remember) go to Centerfort for some important occasion. Turns out, Kos is getting promoted, which he’s not happy with because it’ll mean he’ll get a desk job instead of being out in the field. There’s a quietman watching the procession. Quietmen are Selesnyan creatures that are completely covered in white robes. As the conclave rarely leaves Vitu-Ghazi, they send the Quietmen to record events outside the world for them. They’re pretty creepy since they don’t say a word, they just float there and watch.
Fonn is a Ledev Elf (the elves aligned with the Selesnya Conclave), she is escorting The Living Saint- Bayul, a Loxodon. He is one of the few non-dryad members of the Conclave, and he is also the one who goes out in public the most. Everyone loves him because he’s such a nice guy. There was a failed assassination attempt on Bayul, which Fonn and her wolf (Baricazir) thwarted. The team of assassins were made up of Gruul guys and Rakdos cultists. Fonn wonders what they’re doing working together.
Kos, Borca, and Feather (Feather is an angel friend of Kos who is serving some kind of punishment for some sin she commited. No one dares ask her what that sin is, but she has her wings in shackles) are being briefed on the stuff they’ll be doing (Kos doesn’t have his desk job yet), and we learn that the Selesnyans have some annual celebration called the Convocation. This one’s special because it marks the 10,000 anniversary of the Guildpact. The Wojeks are busy setting up security details to make sure the Convocation goes smoothly.
Meanwhile, in the lower parts of Ravnica, a centaur who got lost gets completely owned by Jarad, Savra’s brother, and Chief Hunter of the Golgari. He certainly knows his stuff. The elves of the Golgari are called the Devkarin. And the Devkarin have a natural attunement to insects…that’s why Jarad has a lot of pet beetles, why they ride grave shell scarabs and mortipedes, etc. After Jarad kills some giant slug for fun, Savra appears (she’s only the Matka (High Priestess) right now, and not yet queen), and tells Jarad there’s something she’d like him to do for her.
Back in the city, Kos comes across a poor girl named Luda. She stole a fruit from a fruit vendor because she was starving. Still, the law was the law. However, Kos knew this girl, and she knew him. So he gently tells her that stealing is wrong and that if she needs food, that “There are people called Golgari, and they’ll give you food if you just ask. And they have lots of it.” (remember, the Golgari are the city’s recycling guild). Luda talks about how she doesn’t like the ‘Garglies’, and Kos says that she’s right because the Golgari aren’t nice people, but they do their part- that’s how the city works. It was a very cute scene because this girl is at a disadvantage- she’s in an orphanage or something, with no guild to look after her. But Kos was nice, and sincere when he told her that she was fortunate that she’s not involved in any of the politics in the guilds. Then Luda was like: “When I grow up, I wanna be a ‘jek!”
A fair bit later, Kos and Borca hear a girl screaming, and realize it’s Luda. They run to save her, but were too late- a goblin had killed her. Kos goes crazy with anger and chases the goblin all over the place. The goblin ends up near a vegetarian loxodon restaurant and suicide-bombs the place with some magical bombs he has, killing Saint Bayul. Fonn is whisked away by Jarad with the Chameleon hex, and Agrus is knocked unconscious by the blast and Bayul’s corpse landing on him.
Meanwhile, Savra goes to a super-secret place to meet up with her ‘hidden ally’. Her hidden ally’s palace was so well disguised that even if you were to have gone there before, you could not find your way back without his direct assistance (and is even deeper underground than Golgari territory). They don’t mention Szadek by name until the very end (they just refer to him as ‘her mysterious ally’), but we of course, know it’s Szadek, so I’m going to call him that. So, Savra loves Szadek, but not a romantic love. She sees him as a god, and sees herself as his chosen prophet. Savra tells Szadek that the Loxodon and Jarad have been dealt with, Szadek tells her it is time to move on to the next phase of his plan- it is time for Savra to move against the Sisters of Stone Death.
Savra feels the Sisters are no good for the guild. Ever since they came into power 1000 years ago, they’ve only been squandering the guild’s resources on themselves and sending it into a period of decadence. Savra wants to Golgari to regain their former stature. Szadek had told Savra that Svogthir is still alive, even though everyone else believes him dead and Savra travels to the bottom of Svogthos to find (surprise surprise) Svogthir- the original guildmaster of the Golgari. He’s a very powerful necromancer, and when the 5 Sisters (there were 5 back then but Svogthir took 2 down) couldn’t get rid of him with their stone gaze. Nor could they kill him since he was an immortal zombie. So they broke every bone in his body and cast him to the bottom of Svogthir. Savra asks Svogthir what assurance she has that he wont turn on her if she re-animates him and gives him a new body. Svogthir says that after ruling the guild for 9000 years and being down here for another 1000, he’s sick of his existence. He says he’d rather spend an hour tearing those he hates with his bare hands than spending 1000 years in boredom. He says that all he wants is his revenge, and that he’ll help Savra on the condition that once he has done his part, Savra will end his torment by using her magical powers to undo the necromantic powers that Svogthir put upon himself so that he may finally rest. Savra reanimates Svogthir, giving him a body stronger than before, but makes sure that the enchantment is temporary…just as a safety measure.
Svogthir tells savra that she is a fool because once he kills the sisters, he’ll take back what’s his. But when Svogthir tries to smash Savra, he found that he had no control of his body. He learned that Savra can control his body if she wants to, and Svogthir has no choice but to go along with her plan. Svogthir makes a proposal saying (to paraphrase): “Tell you what, I’ve got a proposal to make, that if you agree with, not only will I help you, I’ll ENJOY it. Just let me do my part, and once you’re queen, make me your figurehead! Some symbol that the guild can look up to. Think about it…the guild parun by your side.” Savra knows he’s being sneaky, but agrees.
Long story short: Svogthir slaughters two of the sisters (and has tons of fun as he does so), but spares the third one, making her swear obedience to him. Savra goes up to Svogthir and asks: “so, remember what I said?” And Svogthir replies: “Yes. I think I’ll enjoy being a figurehead.” And Savra just goes: “Yes, I think you will, too.” Then she uses her control of Svogthir’s body to rip off his head and uses her own formidable powers to destroy his head and absorb all his powers. Svogthir’s skull fuses with her staff to become part of it. Savra then makes Ludmilla (the last surviving Gorgon) swear loyalty to HER and to lead her army. Ludmilla asks what she needs an army for, and Savra whispers something sneaky into her ear.
Everything was going according to Szadek’s plan.
Somewhere, Fonn wakes up. She finds out that after the blast, she’s been in a coma for 2 days. Jarad is sitting there. He threatens her not to try anything sneaky because the roof is full of flesh-eating bugs that’ll eat her in 3 minutes or less. They have an interesting talk and Jarad mentions about how she- a Selesnyan, who claims to respect all life, ignore the most numerous of all- the insects (that the Golgari love so much.). Jarad says he’d kill her, but his sister has other plans. He walks out the door, and gets attacked by 3 harpies, who he beats (oddly enough, with the help of Fonn, who was trying to save her own skin at the time). Jarad finds out his sister is trying to kill him, Fonn finds out Bayul is dead, her wolf is missing, there are people looking for her, and the two decide to work together to find out what’s going on because they believe their problems are linked.
On their way out of the cell where Jarad was keeping her, Fonn and Jarad get attacked by a shapeshifter that’s different from the others in that its natural state is a mass of worms (not to be confused with mindleech mass). But they escape. Baricazir (Fonn’s wolf, and father of Voja) finds them. They decide to go to an Orzhov Imp they know- Pivlic. Who owns some bar.
At the same time, Agrus wakes up from a 3 day coma himself, to find that his partner- Borca- died in the explosion. However, he finds that his ghost is still there. This is weird because ghosts usually only haunt an area for a while before disappearing altogether (and even then, they are incapable of talking sense…they’re usually made up of the ‘essence’ of someone just prior to their death). If someone died a particularly violent death, they might come back as a banshee, a wretched creature, confused and tormented by vengeance. Borca came back as neither. He made some dodgy insurance (that cost half his pension) with some Orzhov guy to have his memories and stuff kept intact in the event he died, and to bind them to Kos. Borca can only really ‘die’ once Kos has avenged his death. It’s actually a lot more humourous than it sounds :P. The way it’s told in the story, but I need to cut things short, so meh :P. In any case, against direct orders, Kos, Feather, and the ghost of Borca (who is bound to Kos) go to Pivlic’s as well for information (Pivlic has never let Kos down before).
In Pivlic’s they meet up with Fonn and Jarad. They also see several quietmen floating around the place. Suddenly, the Quietmen start tearing the place up and killing people with their bare hands- tossing an ogre as though it weighed nothing. Fonn had never seen the quietmen do anything besides just floating, so this really frightened her- why would the Conclave send their agents to go on such a bloody rampage? Kos and Fonn are also uncomfortable around each other because Fonn is a half elf, and Zunich’s daughter.
Kos, Fonn, Baricazir, Jarad, Feather (the angel), and Pivlic all run to his zeppelid, and they take off to flee from the quietmen. Just before they flee the bar, they get a message via falcon that Saint Bayul is in fact, still alive. They decide to flee to the Tenth Leaguehall, to meet up with the chief lab dude who’s watching over Bayul.
After a aerial chase scene (the quietmen can fly), they arrive at The Tenth and go to the Necrolab. On their way in, they notice that Bayul was clinging on to life, and couldn’t mentally contact Fonn. But now, before his death, he used her as a conduit to speak, and warned that something was wrong with the convocation that was coming up and that they needed to protect the stone. The stone was on Saint Bayul’s head. A green gem, that Fonn was able to take from him once he passed away.
While they were flying to the Tenth, they noticed a strange absence of Roc riders. There should have been tons of them around the place. As it is, they were all off defending Centerfort from a massive Golgari invasion, led by Savra’s new general- Ludmilla. This has been unheard of in the history of Ravnica- the Golgari practice dark arts, but they were content with what they had- an attack on this scale dwarfed even the most recent Rakdos rebellion. Stranger still, is the absence of Boros Angels. All of them seemed to be gone.
Meanwhile, back in the necrolab, one of the other non-major characters turned out to be a shapeshifter (of the same variety as the one that turns into worms in its natural state…they’re called ‘lurkers’). After a brief fight, two Quietmen fly in and whisk Fonn away from the rest of the party.
Feather tries to find Sunhome (which is apparently a floating citadel where the Angels of the Boros, and Razia herself, reside) but failed to find it. It was mysteriously missing. Feather takes off her cloak and gets Kos to undo the bindings on her wings and goes into full angel-of-fury mode and flies to aid the beleaguered Wojeks at Centerfort. Kos and the others go off to Vitu-Ghazi, where people from all 9 guilds (if you don’t count Dimir) were being shepherded to the City Tree, under the spell of the convocation that made them oblivious to the world outside.
In fact, it was Savra herself who was heading the Convocation. The Dryads of the Selesnya Conclave had made Savra a new member. It wasn’t difficult- the Dryads saw it as auspicious to welcome a repentant Devkarin priestess back into the Conclave on the 10,000 anniversary of the Guildpact. The fact that Vitu-Ghazi itself seemed to be infected by some strange disease, didn’t hurt, either, and they figured that Savra could help undo the damage. Little did they know that it was Savra herself who had infected the City Tree with necromantic filaments a long time ago. Savra only needed one more magical item to complete the process that will bind her to the collective of the Selesnyans- the stone that Fonn took from Bayul. Through the necromantic filaments she inserted into the City Tree, Savra had some control over it, and it was how she was able to twist the Quietmen to serve her means. She used them under the pretense of dealing with corrupt Wojeks.
Kos and crew arrive at the scene but aren’t much good as they are quickly restrained by the Lurkers.
At this point, the quietmen carrying Fonn delivered her to Savra. Fonn didn’t give the gem without a fight, and Savra ripped off Fonn’s hand to get it. Now the convocation was at it’s height. Savra was connected to the great collective of the Selesnyans and all the collective power of their chorus flowed through her. As such, when Szadek descended from out of nowhere and promptly snapped Savra’s neck, the Chorus of the Conclave died as well.
Biracazir tried to attack Szadek, but was defeated by a single punch (Biracazir was just badly wounded, though).
Szadek then got the quietmen to fuse with Vitu Ghazi, using some spell to open it up (it was already weakened by the disease that Savra wrought on it), and lo and behold- Szadek isn’t the only living legend, Mat’Selesnya herself was still alive, in the center of Vitu-Ghazi- she IS Vitu-Ghazi, without her, there would be no collective consciousness, no Selesnya, and the magic that bound the guildpact would cease to exist. For you see, the Guildpact is more than just paper, it’s a magical enchantment that affects the entire plane. However, the weakened Mat’Selesnya fell and Szadek began to feed on her.
Jarad makes a run for Savra’s corpse and grabs the gem and the staff. He throws the gem to Fonn, says to Kos: “Ok, I’ll take the Lurkers, you take the Vampire!” And Kos just repeated: “Take the Vampire. HOW!?” Anyway, using his attunement to insects coupled with the energies from Savra’s staff, Jarad gets the Lurkers to turn on Szadek, who is caught of guard and enveloped by the worms. The two of them pretty much cancel each other out, and Jarad has to use all his concentration to prevent himself from losing control of the worms.
With the vampire busy, Fonn wonders how to use the gem, and tries pressing it against her forehead- nothing happens. Then she realizes that maybe it was meant for
Biracazir, and touches the gem to his head. The effect was instantaneous, and Mat’Selesnya (who was dying, but not dead) regains some of her life, and a big shockwave of light emanates from her, destroying all the worms, but Szadek was too crippled to fight.
Now, poor Kos was feeling pretty left out at this point (Jarad was attacking Szadek with worms, Fonn was with Biracazir), but Kos was just a human- he had no mystical powers, or no wolf for that matter. But then he reminded himself that the spell of the guildpact empowered the laws that it contained within, and he, Agrus Kos was an instrument of that law. So he slaps on his badge again (he disobeyed orders a lot throughout the book, and got himself kicked out), goes to Szadek, slaps on cuffs that are bound by the magic of the guildpact- not even Szadek could break that kind of magic as long as Mat’Selesnya still lived.
Then Kos goes: “Szadek, I’m placing you under arrest for the murders of Luda, Saint Bayul, and Sergeant Bell Borca of the Tenth Leaguehall. If you try to resist, you will be beaten senseless. I’ve had a very rough week.”
So the day is saved, hooray. Kos goes on to tell Fonn what really happened to her father (the truth is quite disturbing). Basically, Kos and Zunich were chasing some Rakdos-cult elf named Palla. Palla had captured a little girl, and she was also being chased by an elf bounty hunter (turns out to be Jarad). Zunich, in a fit of zeal accidently killed the little girl instead, believing her to be Palla (Palla used her as bait). Zunich goes insane with guilt, and believes that Jarad tricked him into killing the girl. Zunich nearly kills Jarad in cold blood, but Kos stopped Zunich, inadvertedly killing him in the process (they were on high ground and the floor was slippery, Zunich fell to his death).
So, Fonn is now wolf-less since Biracazir went and became part of the Conclave (Mat’Selesnya grew new Drayds out of the now-healthy city-tree), Kos is considering retirement, and Jarad is now the Guildmaster of the Golgari. Feather’s mere presence (and the news of Savra’s death), scattered the Golgari army and Ludmilla was sent back the way she came, and was told that if she ever showed herself on the surface of Ravnica again, she’d be killed. Borca's death was finally avenged and he could finally stop being a ghost.
The story ends with the corpse of Luda in the Necrolab turning out to be a Lurker, and it kills the chief lab dude, and walks out of the Tenth Leaguehall.
So, there’s a lot of stuff missing here. Where’s Circu? Where’s Tolsimir (they only mention the name of his wolf, and even then, only once)? Where’s Razia and all the Boros Angels? What happened to feather? Have we seen the last of the Dimir? What the heck is Razia’s Purification? Nothing was purified in the story :P. What about the artwork for ‘clinging darkness’? Why does Razia look like she’s being all engulfed by darkness? We also don't see the events depicted in 'Congregation at Dawn', or 'Overwhelm'. I guess we’ll find out about all this stuff in the next 2 expansions. Like I said in another thread, I don’t think that the expansions in the Ravnica block tell the whole story in chronological order.
And remember, this is a very VERY rough outline of the story, Agrus is actually a lot more heroic than what you might get the impression of him here, even if his old body and balding head lets him down every now and then :D. And the fact that only Kos, Pivlic, and Szadek can see or hear Borca's ghost made for some very entertaining scenes where people would repeatedly ask Kos who he was talking to.