"That will work." Melodie replies, taking the flask. "Go have fun, Sara. You deserve it."
She, being a married woman, returns to her wife's arms and curls in for snuggling. "You didn't read too far ahead did you?" She asks, "I want to know if Iolande is ever going to choose Roland or Gregor. Or is this one of Zil's books where she chooses both and they have a big happy orgy at the end?"
{"And no it didn't make sense. I'm just trying to look after you. I'm allowed to!"} Her mental voice has a slight pout, whose sting is entirely robbed by her curling into her wife's side with one hand on her rounding belly.
"I love you."
She, being a married woman, returns to her wife's arms and curls in for snuggling. "You didn't read too far ahead did you?" She asks, "I want to know if Iolande is ever going to choose Roland or Gregor. Or is this one of Zil's books where she chooses both and they have a big happy orgy at the end?"
"Sorry," Zhi says, casually turning a page. "You missed the orgy scene. It was a couple of pages back. I enjoyed it all .. by .. myself .." she adds with a raised eyebrow, leaving no doubt what she means by that. She brings a finger to her mouth, licking the tip as if to wet it to turn the page, but her eyes move to Melodie and the finger slips between her lips. The tip of her tongue is just visible as it circles the digit. "It was very evocative. I can read it again if you insist."
"I absolutely insist." Melodie replies, biting her lip.
Zhi grins and pulls her finger from her mouth, she flips back a few pages and then slips her hand under the blanket to trace circles on Melodie's belly before slowly moving lower.
"'I don't understand,' Iolande proclaimed to the handsome men she loved with all her heart. 'Why do I have to choose? I love you both!'" Zhi reads. Her hand under the blanket reaches its destination.
"'We've decided not to force you to choose,' Gregor declared. 'We both love you enough that we've decided that we'll share.' The strong man stepped forward and grasping her shoulders in his hands, pressed his lips to hers. Those same strong hands that could break a stallion to his will were now infinitely delicate as they began undoing her bodice.'"
Zhi grinned at her wife and continued to read as her fingers began their own performance.
"'She was startled to feel Roland at her back as his gentle lips touched her neck ...'"
A bleary-eyed Zileska in her usual nightwear answers the door. She blinks and regards the flowers with some surprise.
"Why... where did you manage to find flowers around here? Did you pick some illegally?" she says with a smirk. [b]"Come in, come in."
She sits back on the edge of the bed and says, "So what did you have in mind for a date? I'd love to get up to some kind of mischief. Or just enjoy an evening out. Of course I'm more than happy to join you."
"That is," she adds with a cheeky grin, "if you can find the time, councilwoman. Between council meetings and revolutionary restructurings you'll have to find time to... fit me in."
The next day, you meet with Lieutenant Fanalyx in her office. The axiomite nods in greeting. "I have assembled and presented your findings to my superiors, and we have reached a consensus. Taldaris appears to have been abducted and taken into Duskfathom, the god Norgorber’s subterranean realm. Terrible as this fate is, the police analysts have identified the particular area where he was likely taken: Lost Silhouette, an outpost accessible by subterranean canals and tunnels. The department has launched 27 raids or other infiltrations on the larger area over the past millennium, during each of which the troublemakers there have slipped away and inflicted considerable losses. Sayashto’s council is unwilling to sacrifice numerous inevitables to save one, but it is amenable to a smaller group like yours infiltrating this outpost, eliminating the dissidents, and rescuing any abducted citizens.
"The council has also provided a packet of tools that may help you down there." Fanalyx slides over a box full of goodies.
"We have secured several skiffs to help you navigate the sewers. The incursion may last several days, so make sure you are prepared before you depart."
"Thank you Lieutenant." Melodie offers. "We really appreciate all the help you've offered."
"Back to the sewers?" Zhi grouses as the exit the lieutenant's office. "I thought we were done with smelly places like that?" She considers the situation a little more. "And not just back to the sewers, but back to the sewers for several days," she clarifies with a shake of her head.
"I'm sorry," she continues in a different tone after a moment. "I woke up cranky and now I'm just hoping we can finish soon. Find Taldaris. Get his mantle. Go home. Get Eutropia declared Sovereign. Rest." Her hand moves to her belly.
Once you are ready, you take the skiffs down into the sewers. More than 1,000 feet below Sayashto lies a large network of sewer flows and tunnels carved out from thousands of years of compressed building foundations. At a depth of nearly 700 feet, this network crosses into Duskfathom, the divine realm of the god Norgorber. There, the maze of tunnels becomes even more maddening, with only one route leading directly to the outpost of Lost Silhouette.
Using the intelligence provided by Fanalyx, you navigate these waterways and steep portages safely, narrowly evading a patrol of hydrodaemons and fending off a pack of tumorous rats that vainly attempt to clamber onto your boats. The journey takes 3 hours.
You can feel a strong malign presence permeating the very air here, and there is no doubt that you have crossed into the domain of an evil deity.
As you near your destination, you see that the jagged sewer tunnel extends for 100 feet from the nearest branch before reaching a roughly square subterranean harbor. A stone stoop serves as the pier, from which is moored a long skiff.
Standing on the skiff is a horned, skeletal figure that clutches a wicked staff. A seething glow burns in its eye sockets.
"Greetings, travelers," a deep, telepathic voice sounds in your minds. "What business have ye in this forsaken place?"
"To locate one who does not belong here and return them." Melodie replies, aloud. "We wish you and yours no harm."
The fiend raises its staff. "Any prisoners here belong to the Reaper of Reputation now, and he does not give up his prizes. Go back from whence ye came, if ye value your lives."
Melodie gives a tired sigh... "Sara?"
Zhi gives her wife a highly-arched eyebrow as she draws her weapons.
She then turns to the being and follows Sara's lead.
Melodie reaches out to squeeze her wife's hand (and implant False Flanker while she's at it).
Despite her protestations Melodie does focus her willpower on the creature, humming a tune to herself as she does so.
A bleary-eyed Zileska in her usual nightwear answers the door. She blinks and regards the flowers with some surprise.
"Why... where did you manage to find flowers around here? Did you pick some illegally?" she says with a smirk. "Come in, come in."
"I did, in fact," Sara blushes, unusually taken. "Just out of some arbiter's garden. It was all too orderly and neat, anyhow, looks better with a few missing."
She sits back on the edge of the bed and says, "So what did you have in mind for a date? I'd love to get up to some kind of mischief. Or just enjoy an evening out. Of course I'm more than happy to join you."
"That is," she adds with a cheeky grin, "if you can find the time, councilwoman. Between council meetings and revolutionary restructurings you'll have to find time to... fit me in."
The typically bold, brash woman looks away and shyly bites her lip. "I'll always find time for you, Zileska. You're a singular and remarkable woman. I admire you, I care for you, I owe you a great deal. You've just about made a Calistrian out of me."
She smooths her dress and sits beside the half-elf at the edge of the bed, stiff-backed. "I was hoping we could go out and just find lots of small and petty ways to break the law. Vandalism, public urination, jaywalking, all the types of things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things but that drive the goody-goodys here up the wall." She smiles softly and places her hand on Zileska's thigh. "I know how cooped up you feel here, in the Plane of Absolute Law. Thought this would help cheer you up, and besides, you know what other illegal thing we could do here?"
She gracefully slides down to the floor and kisses up and down Zileska's legs. "I'd love to make Axis history as the first Councilor to be caught having public sex with a Calistrian," she winks. "I breathe for scandal."
Sara shoots Melodie a strange look, whispering, "you already tried talking, what the f!&# do you want me to do?" Nonetheless, she steps forth, opening her mouth and coming up blank. What would a creature like this want from her? Money?
"Are you a ferryman? Do you mind carrying my friends and I further down the river? We're expected, ask anyone," she nudges Melodie with her toe, inviting her to back up her lie.
"We can pay you," she adds in a final desperate attempt.
"To discuss the prisoner I mentioned a moment ago." Melodie adds. "We have... gifts to offer the appropriate personages, and powerful friends."
"Verily? Ye should have lead with that, then," the daemon intones, looking from Melodie to Sara. It takes in all of you with its burning gaze, then raps its staff on the skiff, which floats to the side seemingly of its own accord. "Ye may pass, then, but make no trouble while ye are in this place, lest ye wish death to claim ye."
Beyond the dock, wooden double doors lead into a stone corridor. Several doors provide exits from the hallway, and an open archway stands directly opposite the entry doors.
Once they've exited the boats, Zhi prepares with a couple of spells.
Keeping her weapons handy, Zhi raises her eyebrow at her wife as if asking, 'Stabby now?', before moving quietly up to the archway and peeking around. Her eyes sweep back and forth as she goes, watching for traps.
Melodie dispenses her own unique gifts and nods to her wife, giving permission for all the stabbing her bloodthirsty spouse desires.
This large room contains several metal tables with a plethora of straps for binding creatures. Arrays of torture implements and surgical tools hang from carefully ordered displays along the west wall. More than 100 maps of different worlds and cities hang from the eastern wall.
Three creatures are in this chamber. They appear to have once been axiomites, but their soulstuff has been transfomred into negative energy, leaving only a core of hateful calculus within an armored shell. They are currently tormenting a small petitioner bound to one of the tables. From her vantage point, Zhi can see the unmistakable clown makeup adorning the halfling's face. It is none other than Wyssilka the Fantabulous, although she is not looking quite so fantabulous at the moment!
Hearing Zhi's quiet footfalls, the axiomites turn to glare at her menacingly. "You should not be here," they intone in perfect unison. Twisted symbols float in the air around them as they reach for adamantine short swords!
One axiomite uses its magic to speed up the trio. A second one waves its hand in front of its eyes, which glow with red light. The third unleashes a three-dimensional grid of lawful energy which sears your flesh!
Melodie shakes her head and steps up to the doorway, "Stop that!" she orders one of the axiomites, steel in her voice.
"No," the axiomite replies sternly.
Happy to let the more socially-adept members of the group negotiate their way past the daemon, Maria started mentally going through what extracts she might be needing in the fight ahead, taking the time to start downing them as she saw Mai and Mel start casting.
Letting her alchemically-augmented health absorb the corrupted axiomite's attack, Maria concentrated on the nearest one and moved in.
Sara jumps in, grabbing a torture implement off the wall and thwacking an axiomite with it in the side of the head.
Sara rushes forward, smashing the axiomite with a chair leg. The creature seems resilient to the blow, though, and it is completely unfazed by her attempt to intimdate it! Maria follows in Sara's wake, scoring a devastating strike with her blade. Mathematical symbols pour from the wound.
Zileska calls upon Calistria to grant everybody a blessing of fervor.
Safina unloads a barrage of crossbow bolts, but only one hits, and it doesn't seem to harm the axiomite much at all!
The injured axiomite attacks Maria, corrosive acid bubbling from its fingertips and dripping down its adamantine blade. Fortunately, she is able to dodge all of its strikes. The second one conjures a devastating blast of acid in your midst, while the third tries to paralyze Safina, but the cavalier resists!
Zhi dashes to flank with Sara, stabbing at the symbol-filled foe.
Scorched by the acid burst Melodie moves into the room, trying to put some room between her and the rest of the group. With the Scion's Dagger in hand she thrusts at the orange axiomite. The blade vibrates with deadly power as she sings to it, unleashing a spectacular burst of violence.
Cursing at the acid, Maria kept up her assault.
Sara groans in annoyance and drops the torture implement, resorting to kicking the dead thing with her heels.
"I was trying, to keep these clean!" she complains in between kicks to the axiomite's face, chest and groin.
"Give it up, Sara," Zhi comments with a smirk as she stabs at the humanoid's back as Sara draws its attention. "We're bound to get dirty on this one."
Sara's heel punctures deep holes in the axiomite's body, and with the final blow it collapses, body disintegrating and leaving only its armor and sword behind.
Zileska moves up and channels healing energies to mend your wounds.
Melodie stabs a second axiomite with her dagger, and Zhi moves around to flank with her wife, scoring a good hit as well.
Safina lands three hits, one of which is a critical strike! The axiomite is badly wounded but still standing. It slashes its sword at Melodie, while the other one moves to unleash lightning at Maria and Melodie!
Zhi grins at her wife.
Melodie's face moves in response to her wife, but whether its a smile or a grimace from the acid and then the lightning is not entirely clear.
Zhi finally notices the damage her wife has sustained. "Fall back to Zil," she says, her concern taking over.
Feeling most of her false life extract being blasted away by the lightning, Maria wanted to bring this axiomite down quickly so they could focus on the other one.
Sara lights a cigarillo, steps towards the unengaged dead person and blows smoke in their face.
Seeing Melodie in a bad way, Zileska moves up to heal the mesmerist.
Sara blows smoke in the free axiomite's face, momentarily blinding it!
Melodie's attack comes up just short, but Zhi's blades punch deep holes in her foe's back, and with the final strike, it crumbles to dust, armor landing in a heap at the rogue's feet!
Maria moves to strike the blinded axiomite, landing a good hit. Safina strikes the undead thing three times, once in a critical spot!
The blinded axiomite concentrates on a spell and fills the room with another cube of searing lawful energy!
Zhi avoids the dazing effect this time and moves to strike at the single remaining foe.
Melodie, continuing her run of bad luck, is unable to cover her eyes in time and takes the full blast to her face, undoing much of Zileska's good work. She focuses on the final axiomite and screams, rending its ears or whatever organs serve that purpose on the creature.
Sara takes advantage of the axiomite's predicament and just kicks them. A lot.
Sara kicks and kicks the blinded axiomite, which is unable to dodge her brutal strikes. With the final blow, its body crumbles to dust!
Still strapped to the table, Wyssilka the Fantabulous struggles futilely and piteously. "Please... Get me out of here..." she wails.