Vordred the Paladin Slayer

The Paladin Slayer

As his Chaos infection worsens, King Alteon summons you, Artix, Beleen and Cysero to ask that you preserve the alliance between Good and Evil and defeat Drakath even if he falls. Keeping you behind, he privately sends you to investigate the reopened Necropolis in Doomwood, with one condition: Artix must not go there. Pain interrupts him before he can explain why.

You enter Doomwood without Artix and help defend the approach to Lightguard Keep, where the enemy includes undead paladins. A journal recovered from one of the fallen records his struggle to retain his mind.

Commander Arryd plans to attack from both sides. He sends you behind enemy lines to plant a teleportation stone and find out who commands the army. Your attempt to pass as undead falls short of Sir Coat's costume standards. He sends you in wearing a paper-bag skeleton disguise.

At the camp, a paladin attacks the commander with Light magic only to discover it cannot harm him. Naming himself Vordred, the Paladin Slayer, he turns his challenger into his seven hundred and seventy-sixth undead paladin, leaving only Artix untaken. He can see through your disguise too, capturing you before you can complete Arryd's plan.

When you refuse to reveal Artix's location, Vordred turns you undead and sends you back to activate Lightguard's teleportation stone, using the paladins' own plan to bring his army into the keep.

Arryd mistakes your condition for an excellent performance until Sir Coat realizes you really are undead and Vordred's forces begin pouring through the portal. Vayle intervenes with the last power in the Spirit Shard holding her brother Edward, restoring you on condition that you keep Artix away from Vordred. She still considers his life hers to take.

Artix arrives indignant that you went undead-slaying without him, and learning that Vordred has turned the other High Paladins only strengthens his resolve to fight. Unable to persuade him and bound by your promise to Alteon, you lock him in Lightguard's prison while you investigate Vordred's immunity to Light.

Vayle directs you to Zorbak, whose supposedly secret hideout is helpfully advertised by a sign. Posing as the bearded master Zomboda, he sends you through necromantic chores until a battle with his Creature Creation exposes the charade and you can finally get him to discuss Vordred.

Zorbak helps you pass as a Necro University student so you can reach the Necropolis. If you explore the tower above campus, you meet Sally. The young necromancer explains that a voice taught her the art and that she restored Noxus, with whom she created Vordred. He still needs to kill Artix to reach his full potential, though she refuses to explain why.

At Necro University, work buys you lessons in necromancy's connection to the Plane of Darkness and in Vordred's unusual power, including his need to kill Artix in combat to take what he wants. Noxus assumes you imprisoned the paladin for his benefit, and while he boasts of discovering Artix's secret in an ancient temple, you take the map to those ruins.

Vordred reaches Lightguard to find Artix gone, but seizes the Blinding Light of Destiny he left behind. The axe hurts him despite his immunity to Light because its radiance comes from the spirits Artix freed, not Light magic. Corrupting it into the Shadowreaper of Doom, Vordred leaves to find its owner.

Noxus's map leads you to the Temple of the Light and the Stone Paladin, who was petrified while defending its sanctuary. He remembers Lady Celestia bringing young Artix to be trained there, insisting that the boy become a paladin even though he could neither heal nor cast Light magic. The guardian still wonders how much she knew.

During Noxus's attack on the temple, the Stone Paladin found Artix protecting the orphans with a woodcutting axe, apparently speaking to empty air between strikes. Only later did he understand that the boy was thanking the spirits he freed from the undead.

The Stone Paladin lost his daughter Anora in the attack. He asks you to save Artix, and you can also look for a cure for his petrification. You find an ancient dragon tome in the crypt. Your Book of Lore offers to translate it by eating it and wants the missing pages to finish its meal.

The translated tome explains how the elemental rulers appoint Champions on Lore, but although it rules out Vordred as the Champion of Darkness, Artix tunnels into the crypt before you can learn who holds that title. He defeats a Dracolich and shows you the dragon spirits freed from Noxus's control, one of whom chooses to remain and help free the others. When Artix sets off for the Necropolis, you follow with Beleen and Cysero.

You find the Necropolis empty, its army already taken to Shadowfall by Noxus and Vordred. Claiming credit for the fortress, its legions and Sepulchure's rise, Noxus intends to replace Gravelyn with Vordred and end the truce. When she orders her soldiers to attack, he takes control of them instead.

You arrive to help Gravelyn as Sally draws Vordred away with news of ArcAttack's experiment at CastleMania. Chuckles frees his empress because, unlike the soldiers Noxus raised, she made him herself, allowing her to regain the army while you defeat the lich. Since Noxus insists that he cannot die, Gravelyn turns his skull into a mace, then gives you Sepulchure's Shadowscythe Amulet before you pursue Vordred.

At CastleMania, Vordred forces ArcAttack to amplify his power, hoping to turn all of Lore undead. You and the scientists try to overload him instead, repairing the equipment and channeling a lightning strike through it. The experiment appears to destroy him until he emerges stronger than before and leaves to confront Artix.

You find the unarmed Artix facing Vordred and send Beleen and Cysero for reinforcements, but jump to join him before Cysero can finish his Feather Fall spell. While you hold Vordred off, Artix prepares weapons from the dragon spirits he freed.

Vordred absorbs Artix's two spirit spears into his skull armor, whose enslaved souls block Light magic while his shadow regenerates his body. Artix knows that the freed dragon spirits cannot simply be enslaved again, and at his call they act from within the armor, giving you the opening to break it.

Vordred's attempt to turn Artix undead fails because the paladin is the Champion of Darkness, whose power can be taken only by killing him. Vordred says the attack on Artix's childhood village was meant to reclaim him, but Artix refuses to place that birthright above his chosen life as a paladin.

Since Artix will not wield Darkness against Vordred, you use Gravelyn's amulet to call forth his shadow and restrain the Paladin Slayer's. With the source of Vordred's regeneration pinned, you and Artix defeat him, although he still has one last attack left.

If Gravelyn answers your call, she defeats Vordred with Noxus's skull and accepts Artix's refusal to serve as her Champion. If Vayle comes instead, she saves him and hears Edward's spirit thank him without forgiving him herself. Zorbak claims the defeated enemy's bones as a throne when he intervenes. If Daimyo comes to Artix's rescue, the paladin entrusts you with the amulet and plans to restore his broken axe, while Sally receives Vordred's skull from Drakath to rebuild him.