"Of course I'll hug you, and protect you. You're a friend...."
"W-wait..." Pandir watches Katala's flesh melt away in the person's embrace. "You are not a friend!"
Pandir runs to the other side of Grog, to help him flank.
"Friend Katala, listen to me! This person is not our friend! They are rapidly consuming your flesh through... it's not acid. I'm not sure. But it is not healthy for you! Let go and retreat now!"
Pandir will try to appeal to Katala to help her escape.
Whether her words land or not, Pandir knows what she must do. Pummel this corruptive force!
Grog tosses aside his shield, and with his offhand, reaches to grapple Katala and yank her from the demon's grasp.
Grog pulls Katala away, rage burning into a blind frenzy, and throws her away from the center of the fight , before he grabs his pick with both hands, and swings furiously, shouting in orcish.
"Gu-thra damaan far-e baranuu!" he shouts in rage, bringing the pick down and down again. "Far-e! FAR-E! FAR-E!"
Katala cosies up even deeper into the creature’s arms. She basks in its warmth and Pandir’s words feel like cold wind and, just for a moment, she almost hates her leshy friend. This all goes away when Grog’s heavy hand grabs her by the scruff of her neck as if she were a kitten and throws her away across the room.
The creature hisses.
“How dare you? She was clearly enjoying herself! Don’t worry, my dear, I will defend you!”
Grog, Pandir, and Finch move forward with fist, pickaxe, and dagger. As their blows land on the screeching stranger, the Wayward Wonders feel their senses begin to muddle and their limbs weaken at the slightest touch of the smiling and uncommonly alluring stranger.
“What do you want from me, invaders? I can be such a good friend, if you just let me.”
Pandir fumbles with her thoughts. This person wants to be a friend. And yet they almost burned Kitala fur off. What kind of friend would do that? All of the Worms-that-Wear-Skin, and the insane worshipers attacked. Then she fumbles on something within her leaves.
"And what of this?" She pulls out the scarred symbol of Gozreh. "Nemira trusted you to be a good friend! And you sent her to die!" She shakes violently. "You are no friend! You are a poisonous vine, here to squeeze the life out of this grove!"
“What do you want from me, invaders? I can be such a good friend, if you just let me.”
The orc's rage almost fades, but is kindled again by Pandir's shouts.
The fight rages on, with the creature’s requests growing increasingly absurd in the face of them clearly draining the life energy of anyone they touch. They begin to retreat as Grog and Pandir’s blows hit their mark, and as they do so, their magic begins to falter.
It is as if a pall has been lifted and the Wayward Wonders can finally see clearly. The person waving the gigantic feather is a young woman who greatly resembles the Abberton’s mayor; a few monks are inscribe unholy symbols on the walls, whilst an older man, most likely the head of the hermitage, carefully draws a summoning circle amongst the rubble of toppled statues of Gozreh.
“Very well, you seem to have gotten me on the retreat, my friends. I offer you a choice. You care about these people around us? If you continue to hurt me, I will have no recourse but to drain their vitality—I very much do not want to die, you see. If you allow me to leave, I will do so, and never return to this boring little island. And your friends survive,” they say, motioning with their head at their enthralled subjects.
From your knowledge of how demons, undead, and their ilk drain the life force of others, direct contact is usually necessary. Though there are many exceptions to that rule, you don’t think this creature is capable of drawing enough energy from a distance.
This may be a demon or fiend, but it’s always surprising how similar they are to humans, elves, orcs, and so forth. A desperate bluff is a desperate bluff.
Grog shouts in rage, intensifying his attack, bellowing something in orcish that translated to 'Did you give Marlon the same courtesty?'
He does not stop until the creature is dead, avenged for the deaths and misery it caused.
"You should have never come here." Pandir watches this creature and notices everyone under their thrall. There she is, the woman Pandir was supposed to rescue. The head of the hermitage clearly in a trance.
The behavior reminded her of Sister Venus in her bad days. How easy it was to intoxicate friends, family, and strangers. Always dancing between laziness and desire. But watching Katala almost collapse in an instant. It was terrifying.
This kind of blight had to be stopped. They would simply infect another region, scar another grove.
Also Grog's decision made it very clear. The Wayward Wonders would either kill the blighter or die trying.
In position, Pandir began her Stumbling Stance and made a flurry of blows.
"Finch, I can take a Step back and help flank if you wish." If she did not desire the repositioning, Pandir would attempt a third swing.
Katala is sickened by the creature. She's not sure what will hurt it but figures that she can only try....
"Burn you nasty b**ch!" She levels her staff at the creature and sends a blast of fire at it.
The creature retreats further, making ever grander and desperate requests, trying to strike a bargain with the raging Wayward Wonders. They do not go down silently, their draining touch drinking generously from Grog and Pandir. They do not go down silently, embracing a comically cuddly and loving Finch and drinking deep from her vitality. But they do go down. The creature wails a last time, gives Finch one last kiss that brings the halfling within inches of death’s door, and is burned to a crisp by Katala’s fiery spell.
A few seconds pass, and every enthralled person in the room falls into a clump of exhaustion both psychic and physical. The demon who had ensorcelled the Hermitage of the Blessed Lightning, tortured Abberton, and murdered Myron is no more.
Pandir watches the creature flail about, grasping for life at every turn. When Foremother spoke of passing, she always mentioned dignity. Knowing when your time had come, and quietly accepting it.
She wonders how Myron would have handled it. Would he be aware of this creatures's deadly embrace? Maybe he was able to protect the Wayward Wonders with his final act.
This creature wandered from the Wayward Wonders into the Hermitage, or maybe they were bored of the Hermitage and went to the circus as a distraction.
Pandir flops down and plants herself for a moment. The blight is culled. The Hermitage is saved from immediately downfall.
Pandir looks to Grog. He's always thinking. But this time he didn't need to.
"Miss Finch. You may begin your spiteful kicking."
Katala watches for a couple of seconds as the creature burns, then flops down where she is. "Ow!" "Just.... Ow!"
Grog grabs his wounded side, and drops heavily next to the corpse of the fiend.
After a moment of heavy breathing, he says to the remaining living victims, “Go.”
He then gives a small smile, finally relieved at their victory.
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Once Miss Rosefinch has finished kicking the Blighted Temptation, Pandir unplants herself. "Ah, excuse me. We are looking for the mayor's daughter." She begins using Healing Plaster to heal any immediate injuries, but she suspects the people here are exhausted.
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Finch spits on the well-kicked corpse of the succubus, wobbling dangerously from the loss of vital energy. "Urgh. That mayor best be feelin' up to payin' a premium for effort, 'cause it's gonna to take at least two well-paid professionals to smooch some life back into these bones."
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Grothog gets up, munching on some weeds from Pandir's healing plaster, and hangs his pick and shield on his body, before hauling several victims over his shoulder as if they were potato sacks.
"Lez go."
Grothog marches out the hermitage, with a strange budding feeling in him now that the rage has faded. He didn't consider it yet. Perhaps they were all just a bunch of clowns, but they were all Abberton had. Abberton did not have any heroes--but the fact that the clowns did the rescuing maybe meant they became the heroes.
An orc whom not even his own people wanted, an unnammed rigger on a small traveling circus has somehow became...
Grothog emerges into the day with his comrades with the rescued victims over his shoulders.
--a hero.
"Oh! I would like to return at one point and learn more about Gozreh." She fiddles with the desecrated holy symbol she recovered long ago. "While indulgence is acceptable, it must be tempered. Otherwise you will waste away."
Foremother Meredith tried to teach Pandir about the world, especially the mortal one she was once part of. But theory can only go so far, and Pandir learned more from experience.
Worms who Wear Skin, Blighted Temptations, and Foolish Decorators. How many were there? Maybe too many to stop. Maybe it wasn't her goal to stop them but rather protect her grove. Inspire others to resist this destructive behavior. Find peace and joy from within.
There were many things to consider, and Pandir was bad at long term thinking. So first thing's first: help the Mayor's daughter return to Abberton. Then return to the circus for some closure. Then...? That's a question for later.
A few minutes later, the first of the enthralled comes into consciousness. The dark-skinned young woman with piercing amber eyes is, to the Wonders’ joy, Mayor Amber’s daughter. After a brief round of presentations, she sighs in relief.
“So I’ve got that old bugger of a father to thank for sending you…I'll never hear the end of it. But, yes, I assume you more or less pieced it all out. I came here with father's message, was met by some monks I had never seen before. Proper eerie bastards, I can tell you that much. They brought me to the guest room, knocked me out, brought me to some guy or girl I also had never seen before. They wanted me to deface some Gozreh relic, I tried to escape…and that’s all I remember. That old man over there, he’s the abbot. The others are hermits, I think.”
Slowly but surely the others wake up. Though none are hurt, many are malnourished, prompting a sharing of whatever rations and fresh water the Wonders can share. The return to Abberton is blissfully uneventful.
Their return, accompanied by the hermits and mayor Abber's daughter, quickly evolves into an impromptu feast. Grog’s tentative thoughts meet the undeniable reality. For these people, they are heroes. Not only because through their actions they saved a few people’s lives—he had heard about the old feud between Abberton’s residents and Gozreh’s hermits. And here and now, seeing the unbridled gratitude shining in the eyes of these austere and wizened men and women, he believes the rift might begin to close. Pandir sees the seeds she has sown with her friends and she does believe Mother Meredith would be satisfied.
The whole circus is invited, of course, and there is no shortage of little spectacles here and there—much to Finch's despair at the absolute waste. They could have been bleeding the townsfolk dry, but, no, apparently Ceija, Katala, and everyone else is happy to perform in exchange of smiles and rainbows.
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"And here's more plaster for you- and for you- and..." Pandir thanks Foremother Meredith for her gifts. Or maybe it is Gozreh? Pandir can figure out the details later.
The party is loud, as usual, but the hermitage spends their time reconciling what happened. The Blighted Temptation made their mark, and damaged the temple badly. They will have to rebuild.
In the mean time, the Abbot approaches Pandir and holds the scratched symbol of Gozreh. "Ah, yes... we lost too many to that... creature." He hands Pandir a similar symbol, but it is intact. "Be well, Pandir. Normally I would ask you to join us at the retreat, Gozreh already has gifted you with some abilities. Know we are always thankful for what you did."
Pandir fiddles with the holy symbol before finding some place to display it. These kinds of necklaces are not well built for bulbous heads.
"Thank you, Abbot of Hermits. I will keep both symbols, to remind me to remain strong. And to remind me of the destructive forces at play." She bows, which is difficult when you're this top heavy.
"Oh! Daughter of the Mayor mentioned some kind of sacred symbol. It must be protected. What is it, if I may ask?"
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the feast is loud and colorful as the Wayward Wonders' members lighten the mood. The sense of goodwill and happiness and dancing people and laughing children is a little alien to the large orc, who sits on the floor, marveling on how their gratitude over his aid blinded them to what he was. He smiled, the tension from before relieved.
Yes, he killed again. Perhaps, however, heroes can kill if there is a good reason to. The happiness of common folk, settling of old feuds, was surely good. It surely felt that way for him, a stranger exiled from a stranger land.
When Grothog slinked away from the festivities to visit Myron's grave, he lowered himself to touch the fresh soil, and pulled his employment contract. On the paper was his rough signature--gently invited out by the good circus manager. The orc wrapped it up into a scroll, and placed it on under a stone.
"'fanks," he said roughly. He could still hear the cheer and impromptu feast from the distance, and smiled. Perhaps the world was not so dark after all.
After all, a wise dwarf once said, "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
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Katala enjoys the accolades from the townsfolk, but deflects as many as she can pointing out the others of the team as the true heroes that had destroyed the final demon. "That succubus had me charmed and was starting to feed on me just like her other prisoners. I don't know if I'd have been able to break free."
She does her best to enhance the performances even though the props and stages were in the tents.
"She said the demon wanted a Relic of Gozreh defaced. It must be something important if something as powerful as a succubus was sent to deface it."
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While she does take a measure of cold comfort in having avenged her boss, Finch is more than ready to leave this backwater and all its small problems behind her. Free booze does wonders to placate the little clown for the remainder of her stay, though she does make it clear the feast is to be in addition to the agreed-upon monetary compensation. "This is a circus, not a charity! Unitin' disparate communities is eligible for paid overtime."
The small-town wholesomeness of the celebrations is not entirely to her tastes, but the constant flow of refreshments lightens Finch up enough to ignore the her colleagues' "freebies." She might have even partaken in some pro bono tomfoolery herself—though she would never admit to such waste after the fact...
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Once the feast is done, the Wayward Wonders take a few last days to rest and discuss how the circus would be moving forward without Myron. The debate is mostly civil and ends in surprisingly little changes to how things were working: the Professor would become the official responsible for accountancy and management—more of what he had already been doing behind the scenes, in short.
The question of the ringmaster is put to a vote. Cubby, the talking dog, wins by a small margin over other candidates. Tahala and Ceija immediately begin work on an outfit which includes a top hat and a jacket studded with shiny beads.
For some, the departure is bittersweet. They had lost Myron, yes, but they knew Abberton was a bit better now than when they arrived, and to them this was of considerable solace. “Myron would have been proud,” they say.
Just as many are happy to leave this ugly town that cost them so much behind. “Let’s go somewhere where the biggest attraction is not ‘the temple of f!@!ing bloodthirsty monks’ this time, eh?”
Everyone, however, was very happy with the reward the Mayor of Abberton offered them. Though she would never admit it to anyone, Finch was pointedly not disappointed.
With goodbyes said and tents unpitched, the Circus of Wayward Wonders rode away on an early morning. And so this chapter in the life of the Circus of Wayward Wonders came to a close—hopefully a bloody and tragic beginning that leads to a long story of joy and merriment.