Puppeteer's ultimatum

The Puppeteer's ultimatum was a threat made in the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign by The Puppeteer to Kemp Corvus, Sarah and Ephorus. When they returned on foot through a storm to the house of the gambler Lotus in White City, they found the Puppeteer seated at the table with Lotus and a short-haired, bearded mage, beneath a glowing blue cage that hung in the air.^{1 2}

The demand

He told them to give him two stones and to bring him a man called Uzun, who had managed to escape him. Since he could not frighten them, he said, he would hurt their acquaintances and families instead. To show what he could do, he had Lotus stab himself, and claimed he could make others do the same. He claimed that it was someone else who had made him appear in their dreams, a thing he could not do himself. Asked why they should trust him, he answered that he left them no other choice, and claimed that if they gave their word he could make them keep it. He repeated that they had three days to come to him with Uzun and the stones.^{3 4 5 6}

The companions did not bow to it. One of them swore to tear him apart with his own hands and not to let him be, even if he left Lotus and their families untouched.⁷

Spoiler: LotusGösterAçık ettiği: Sürgün Günlükleri #48 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

After a whispered word Lotus's heart stopped and he died; then a shot and breaking glass were heard, and the Puppeteer's image flickered and vanished.⁸

The answer

The meeting place was to be Osterhn, the town where the company's story had begun, and the companions made ready to reach it within the three days. Ephorus entered the town with a changed face. Believing that the Puppeteer would avoid coming in person and would set others in front of him, they planned to use his obsession with respect and humiliation to draw him out in anger, and called on their friends and allies to stand with them. They held that winning the battle was not enough: if he did not die that day, he would go on threatening the families of everyone who had seen his face.^{9 10 11 12 13}

Spoiler: The end of the threatGösterAçık ettiği: Sürgün Günlükleri #50 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

Neither the stones nor Uzun were handed over. In the final fight at Osterhn the Puppeteer fell, the structure in his chest shattered and exploded, and the struggle was won without any of the companions dying.¹⁴