The tiny demon cannot dodge everything and the wee beast stops chittering and loses a lot of confidence when Harada's morningstar smashes into its chest. Putrid gore falls to the earth beneath the flying monster.
Another blow lands and, despite its supernatural resilience, the creature reels again.
Once again, Johnny's care to avoid his friends throws off his aim.
With a groan, the little beast flies up into the sky above you. it is now 30ft up in the air, grotesque ichor spills from its wounds.
Even as the beast soars upward and it's supernatural healing begins to take hold, Grel's acid blast melts away a chunk of its flesh and the demons falls to the earth with a crash.
That is now one sorry looking corpse.
Grel can see from up close that Harada's wounds a full of dark, demonic ichor.
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"I'm going to the inn to get some rest. Then I'm going to see the local priest for some bandaging up and maybe an antidote to this ichor. I will see you all in the morning. Good night gentlemen. Try to find something useful here while I'm gone." Verathis says in a courteous manner, pain written in every expression. Then he walks off toward The Witches End.
When you return to the inn, there is still a quiet buzz from a few tables but the evening is clearly drawing to a close.
A few battered adventurers does not draw masses of attention, although the blood stains on Verathis and Harada raise a few eyebrows.
As you slump, exhausted, into your beds, the party quickly fall asleep.
The night passes uneventfully, at least in The Witch's End.
In the morning, grooms rise early to prepare tack and curry steeds while kitchen staff go through their morning routines. A smell of fresh bread begins to waft through the building...
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Harada, normally a sound sleeper, tosses and turns unable to find a comfortable position. Awaking early Harada tries to do his morning streches but finds them too painful, and goes back to bed.
Eventually the smell of fresh bread pulls Harada back up up out of bed and to the main room.
His normally pleasant demeanor is quite dampened by his lasting wounds and lack of good sleep.
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Grel offers the support he can for Harada before he heads off to sleep himself. The injuries are substantial but not grave and Grel needs his time to commune with the earth.
Grel dreams as he often does of all the different soils and rocks he has encountered and will encounter in his long life. Images of sand and silt passing through his fingers or his hands passing over boulders and cliff faces.
He wakes with the dawn as the sun comes to warm the land and his wrinkled face. He spends his first wakeful hour in meditation and joins the group for breakfast.
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It was hot. The air was choked with ash. The world blurred and shifted with the heat and with an ominous malice just out of sight. Just at the edge of his mind. As Verathis took this in he saw his enemy. The quasit standing six foot tall loomed in the miasma, a shadow with burning eyes and teeth.
Verathis drew his Burning blade, a blade of his hate. He saw the foul evil before him and he struck without hesitation, or mercy, or thought. Back and forth the battle raged. As it raged Verathis was Driven ever on by the chains of his Frenzied hate, Fulled by a cruel malice at every bloody stroke of his blade, and ripple of power from earthshaking spells. He was trapped endlessly fighting in this sickening rage where time had no meaning. Every muscle screamed to stop. But every Boiling drop of blood surged him on, and on, and on...
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...And then from the smoke came a shining black leg of a heroic gargantuan scorpion in one masterful stroke he Smote the foul Demon and the shining light of radiant justice snapped his dear friend out of his madness. The awestruck Verathis just stares and produces a cartoonishly large silver platter of cooked bugs. which are shared on there way out of the Abyss into a shiny new day.
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Carson does not go right to sleep. He lays there thinking about the days events.
"What kind of hell have these kids gotten themselves into? Experimenting with goo that turns vermin into giant hell-spawned creatures. I know the mayor wants to keep this quiet but if the town does not rise up against this treat they are doomed. Who has taken these kids and why? We need to find them and destroy whoever is responsible. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. Harada can barely keep the world from spinning around him. Not sure how is going to throw those hammer of his. Between his hammers and Johnny's arrows I am going to have to watch out for flying projectiles Verathis and Grel are going to have to pull off some magic miracles to keep us out of the frying pan. I am going to have to be at my best tomorrow to pull this all together.
As he ponders these thoughts and finally drifts off to sleep.
Carson walks down a busy lane in town. He is following a man in pair of yellow boots. He sees him turn a corner ahead and rushes to catch up.
He turns the corner and see several men wearing yellow boots. All of them moving away from him. All of them going just out of site.
He picks one pair and follows them into another street. He turns the corner and stare in amazement. Everyone here is wearing yellow boots.
Picking one pair from the crowd he follows them into a doorway.
Inside he finds himself in front of a judge. "You're the one we want. Seize him.". As two huge guards grab his arms, Carson looks down and sees that he is wearing yellow boots.
Carson wakes up and realizes that was just a dream. He sees light coming in from the window and can hear the sounds of city waking up. He gathers his thinks and heads down to breakfast wonder what the day will bring.
As Alcie brings you plates of scrambled egg and fresh bread, with a pot of sharp onion chutney on the table, she shakes her head, "Don't be tellin' us what troubles y've 'ad, jus' promise your more'n half way to gettin' young Morvinarr back."
Ildris look shocked at Verathis and Harada's condition.
Ildris' prayers restore all of the party to full hit points.
He also prays for Harada and Ildris' to recover from their poisoning.
He looks at you all wide-eyed, hope almost drips off him, "Tell me, what happened to you? Did you find Nolaria?"
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We are on the trail, the sooner we get patched up, the sooner we can get back out there. We encountered some strange script at the graveyard. Unfortunately we were attacked before we could take an impression. Perhaps one of us can recreate it for you. Otherwise, anything that can help us read that script would be helpful.
"Erastil protects." the slender priest acknowledges Verathis' thanks.
Ildris listens carefully to Grel's plea, "You are in luck, Old Deadeye grants just such a spell, though I must pray for it..."
After withdrawing for 15 minutes, Ildris accompanies you to the graveyard. Shocked by the strange corpses and Demon's Bile, he retains enough composure to cast a spell and read the abyssal aloud:
In the shadow of the worm
Make your dinner squirm
When yellow boots
has laid the roots
I'll eat his head
While he lays in bed
And I'll be made a Nabasu
as this hovel burns too
Turning up his nose, Ildris calls upon his god's energies once again and a wave of positive energy rolls forth, erasing every drop of Demon's Bile in a 30ft radius.
He returns to the temple.
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Carson shakes his head at Grel, "It's not Nolaria we need to find. It's Gellion and his damn yellow boots. Where do we find him? He was the apprentice at Pricknettle's Potions and Poultices. If I remember correctly he lives with his parents. Does anyone remember where that is? "
Otherwise, you could seek out Gellion, who owned a pair of yellow boots
|Mayor Trinelli is grave and deeply interested as you talk.
Her back stiffens at the mention of a demon, an actual creature of the abyss, in Saringallow.
When you ask about Gellion's parents she takes charge, "Come along then..." She leads you out of her office, picking up a member of the guard as she walks out of the town hall. "Beldonna and Altius have been friends of mine for years, I'll take you to them."
As you scurry along she stops at the entrance to a curving street and commands the guard, "Don't let anyone up Conroy's Lane until I get you, shouldn't be too long. Tell them a wagon over-turned because of a sick horse."
Then she leads you up an alley and around some winding roads before stopping at a junction, "Right, this is the other end of Conroy's Lane. The Vazarro's house is just on the bend. You head up to the house with the Fat Feedbag sign. I'll find a guard to close off this end of the street as well."
She pauses and gives a small smile, "Try not to spook the neighbours."
At the sign of the Fat Feedbag, you find the Vazarro home: a simple, well-kept, two-storey structure of bricks, wood, and plain shingles. Smoke billows from a brick chimney, and minimal light escapes from the windows, from which partially closed, thickslatted shutters hang. The front door bears a tarnished brass knocker.