"Luci, across from me! We'll hit it from both sides to take it down." Iomenna shifts to her right and raises her hammer high once again. The sight of the demon brings her blood to a boil, and a pure bright light begins to emanate from her hands and face.
Following Iomenna's lead, Luci shifted around the creature and swung again, using the momentum of her movement to add weight to her strike.
As Luci and Iomenna strike from either side, Darya steps forward with a roaring battlecry bringing her massive blade crashing down on the fiendish creature.
The paladins close in and face their natural enemy (a demon) and bring their weapons together in nearly-synchronized-beatdown. Though the demon is resistant to most physical damage, the massive weapons brought to bear overwhelm its abyssal defenses. The blobby creature splits open, spewing out rancid, reeking rivers of steaming fat.
Merlin and Sario manage to rush the refugees back to Defender's Heart, and this frees you up enough time to collect the various tools and raw materials .
The group reassembles and heads cautiously to the next building over -- a low, squat structure that looks like a home. It is unoccupied; you find one human skeleton on the floor inside, completely devoid of flesh, surrounded by a puddle of blood, but not animated. The house has already been ransacked; the food supplies - a large basket of bread, several wheels of cheese, and many jars of pickled vegetables - are all smeared with some kind of extremely foul substance that resembles bird poop.
The next structure over is a circular building made of stone. From outside you smell ash; either a fire swept through the inside, or it used to house some kind of fire. The doors are robust and wooden and look unburned, so whatever it was, it didn't get that far.
Once the new people are settled, Sario has checked on the children and had some healing done, she will look to Merlin.
"Ready to go? I cannot imagine they go to far a head of where we saw them last."
Kelly looks to those with divine power. "Could that food have been magically cleansed? Or was it too far gone?"
Merlin smiles.
Yes, I believe that I am!
A determined look etched upon his young face.
Sario smiles at Merlin
"Then lets go my friend, we have a world to save and food to find." With that she will go to the door and head out to find the others.
As the demon collapses into a pool of goop, Iomenna breathes a sigh of relief, but soon turns to gagging as she smells the rancid filth. Her breath is labored and heavy for a while after the short battle, but she eventually recovers herself and leads the group on to the next building.
When they arrive, Kelly looks over the despoiled food and asks whether it could be magically cleansed. Iomenna looks at the food for a moment as well and remarks, "That's a good question, Kelly. I don't know much about that sort of thing, but if it could be cleaned up, it would be great to add to our food stores." Her attention then returns to the skeleton lying on the floor. "I'd also like to know if there's some way we can make sure this poor soul's remains can be permanently put to rest, or at least given some dignity in death to protect it against necromancy."
Finally, as the group makes its way to the third building, Iomenna approaches the sturdy doors cautiously. Before drawing too close, however, she makes sure to look all around the entrance, checking for any signs of a trap set on the door.
She then turns to the young man traveling with them, "Merlin, you mentioned earlier that you know a thing or two about traps. Do you see anything that I don't?"
Merlin nods at Iomenna.
Guidance please!
He takes a good look at the area around the door, including the floor and frame.
Sario looks at the spoiled food, "I think I can fix it so that we can take it with us"
She closes her eyes can concentrates, allowing her nature magic to flow over the food and drink.
Once they reach the door, Sario readies her spear, allowing the spirit of nature to infuse her body ready to release a spell if the need arises.
Sario is able to salvage some of the food supplies - in some cases once it's purified there's very little left but crumbs.
Merlin checks over the door and does not find anything suspicious or trap-like. He does notice that the door feels warm to the touch. He can just barely hear the sounds of crackling fire from inside.
Heat and sound of crackling fire in there, he warns.
Guidance, he murmurs lifting shield and sword.
Merlin then waves his hand, creating 2 gallons of water to douse the door, before opening it.
Merlin cautiously pushes open the door after wetting it down.
The room inside looks like it was some kind of scriptorum or scribe's office - with heavy wooden desks and chairs and copious light. Now much of it lies in ash and ruin. Papers have been charred or consumed. Flame marks scorch all of the furnishings.
Among the small standing fires are dancing, flaming figures - fire with a roughly humanoid appearance, childlike and capering about the room, occasionally touching some of the charred pieces of wood or paper and re-igniting their blaze.
Kelly steps back and whips out her knife. "What are they? Are they demons?"
Iomenna stares around in shock at the scene of pure destruction. "I'm not sure, Kelly, but I don't think we should let them destroy this place. Merlin, more water!" She once again draws her hammer and stands ready for Merlin to begin dousing some of the flames engulfing the building.
Merlin nods to Iomenna.
Not understanding what these fiery creatures portend, the youth waves his hand in the direction a blaze, creating 2 gallons of water to dump on top of it.
"Fire elementals. Someone probably summoned them and left them here, either deliberately or they forgot about them in the chaos." Darya says readying her sword. "They're susceptible to cold"
Merlin creates an additional bucket-worth of water, which douses the flames on a burning wooden chair. The fire-creatures don't seem overly concerned by this, as there's still plenty of stuff to burn.
Are they evil? Can they persuaded to, perhaps, work for us?
Merlin looks to the others.
I could always use their assistance in the forge, if they are willing?
Darya's eyes begin to glow a whitish blue as she shifts her perception into the supernatural realm.
Iomenna stands in the doorway, watching the waters futilely fight the fires. She watches the fire elementals, which seem to be ignoring them entirely. She calls out to the creatures, hoping that they might understand her if she speaks in a less earthly language.
The elementals don't interrupt their reverie - either they don't speak Celestial, or they don't care.
Responding to their leader's inquiry in Celestial, the aasimar chuckles softly. "They haven't been corrupted by the evil unleashed in the city, they're just gleefully doing what fire elementals do....burn things." she says switching languages so that everyone would understand.
"Merlin's idea could work if we could somehow convince them. Anyone speak Ignan?"
Iomenna waits to hear if anyone does, in fact, speak Ignan, though she doubts anyone would possess the skill, given their recent luck. If no one is able to reason with the elementals, she will make the first move into the building and attack the nearest elemental, doing her best to dodge around the small fires around the room.
"I don't speak anything special." Kelly admits, "Maybe we can... use body language?" She shrugs and waves her hands around half-heartedly.
"What if we... if we just try to lead them out of there? We could make a trail for them to follow out."
"We do have some stores of lamp oil at the Defender's Heart," says Azura. "You could make a literal flammable trail. Not sure where you'd want to lead them, though."
"Maybe if we just lead them out into the street a little, we could isolate them so they don't have anything flammable immediately at hand and could find a way to stop them from there."
Perhaps, those others we saved would know where to find a smith's furnace to lead them into?
"There's the foundry in the inn, used for shoeing horses. I'm not sure if they'd stick around, though?"
I suggest that we clear a path back to the inn. We will need to create a trail of flammables for them to follow into the foundry.
Merlin begins working on clearing a path.
Any type of metal that I could possibly fashion into an enclosed piping for them to travel along would be helpful.
The youth laughs.
How about I just fashion something to carry them inside. We can use tinder to draw them inside.
He begins searching around for something suitable.
Merlin hurries back to the inn. He rushes into the foundry, grabs the metal bucket, empties it, and quickly tosses in a handful of coal, before running back to the others.
Merlin slowly advances into the burning room, holding the bucket in front of him.
Guidance, please
The sweating youth begins to coax a fire thingy into the bucket.
I can give you a fun new home!
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Kelly stands back, knife ready. "You know, I'd be pretty upset if someone led me away from food with a promise of better food, then failed to deliver..."
"What do you think they would eat? I am pretty sure there is enough ruined around here that they could be feed for a long long time."
Sario will look at the side of the building looking for any plants that she could save to take back to Defenders heart.
Merlin rushes off, then comes back and tries to coax one of the small fire elementals into the quenching bucket.
One of the elementals hops into the bucket and sets the coals on fire, then gives off a strange sputtering hissing noise - which you realize must be equivalent to laughter.
Sario checks around the stone building's perimeter for useful plants. Fire has already swept through much of the area, leaving small bushes and trees scorched and blackened and the ground spotted with ash. She doesn't find anything that would seem particularly tasty to a fire elemental - is that even how it works? She's not sure - but does manage to find a small patch of wild leeks and onions growing in a small shelf under stone along the outside of the building where the ground is spotted and cracked. Most likely this used to be a spot where slop-pails were dumped; the fires have evaporated much of the moisture, but the plants that sprang up there are still healthy. And at least now digging them up doesn't mean digging through wet human waste.
"I'm just saying, you better keep it happy." Kelly eyes the happily crackling elemental with distrust.
Sario will walk back around to the front of the building, cradling the leek and onion plants that she found.
"Someone help me find a bucket or something, I found some plants we can eat."
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Merlin sighs.
Unfortunately, I am not educated enough about these creatures. If there were some type of metal box big enough to contain them, perhaps, but not sure.
Merlin then laughs.
Maybe if we could dig a fire pit that can contain them. We could fill it with consumables for them to use.