"A good point, Lady Nightsong. We'll be cautious around this creature," Deregar answers. "We may well have to destroy it to keep the kingdom safe."
"Should we attempt to recruit some of the centaurs to serve as meat shields... I mean allies?" the small pink vampire asks. Being controlled, though willingly in her heart mind and soul, is not knew to Tandri so the prospect does not seem nearly as terrifying.
You head south from the Nomen campsite towards the centaurs' forbidden valley. You are camping one night about a day's travel out from the valley when a whisper of movement gets your attention. Creeping out of the undergrowth around you are four terrifying fiends! Two elongated and deathly pallid arms protrude from each creature’s smoky body as they slither silently through the air towards you!
Tandri's brow furrows as she scans through religious tomes in her head. Nothing about these creatures seem to exist in them though. "I do not know them, Mistress." she admits with more than a little irritation at herself.
Elongated arms makes her think grabbing, so she tries to make up for her ignorance by casting freedom of movement on Lady Nightsong as well as guidance.
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A kind person would spare a moment to reassure her lover, to tell her not to worry but Sariana doesn't think like that. Especially not when there are threats coming.
So as she feels the familiar thrill of Tandri's magic she lopes forwards, falling instantly into the smooth rhythm of combat as she grasps at the nearest creature and tries to break the pallid arms that reach for her.
Deregar snaps and a line of electricity connects the two creatures, while Tyr closes in and attacks.
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Tandri delivers a powerful punch, but the strange being doesn't seem to have any vital points in which to land a critical hit. Still, she manages to stun it temporarily. Deregar zaps two of the creatures while Tyr misses with his attack.
The stunned creature recovers and attacks Tandri. The other beings converge on the monk to try to take her down!
The creatures are horrifying, but leaders of Nightsong are also pretty intimidating.
Deregar weaves magic around all of the fiends, then boosts Tyr as the eidolon continues to attack.
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Tandri grasps her hands together, fretting over whether she should repair the damage to her mistress. How many battles are left before rest, she doesn't know, so she decides Lady Nightsong would want her to delay.
Instead she fires a luscious crimson beam at the nearest creature, as well as raising a shield around herself.
Finally bringing her attention to what her companions are facing, Floare directs her ever-present flames towards the nearest of the creatures.
All but one of the creatures are shaken by Deregar's fear spell. While Floare misses, the rest of you land several hits on the previously wounded creature, which evaporates upon taking the final strike.
The remaining three foes continue to mercilessly attack Sariana!
Tyr circles the attackers and tears into the back of the attacker.
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The light in her mistress's eyes as she pummels the creatures makes Tandri's own amber eyes glow in delight. The damage the horrid ones are doing to her though has grown enough to allow Tandri to magically help.
All tears of the perfect porcelain is removed, causing a small swell of prinde in Tandri.
As the creatures focus on Sariana Floare shifts position to line up as many as she's able before sending a bolt of lightning through them.
Tyr and Sariana team up to destroy a second being. Floare's lightning bolt blasts both remaining foes, wounding them badly! They attack Sariana, only managing to lightly scratch her
With the tide of battle shifting, it's only a matter of a few more short exchanges before the remaining creatures are destroyed as well.
Tyr, all too casually, puts his draconic bulk between Lady Nightsong and the young Rogarvia.
The young man, however, if utterly unaware of the threat.
"Do you suppose those were guardians? Or just fiends attracted to the power of the necromancer?" he asks Tandri, his back to Sariana.
Tandri's breath catches at the pure primal beauty of her mistress in that moment, her heart thundering inside her, making her yearn so much... but Deregar... there would be regrets. Both in her lady, and in the little pink dwarf.
Tandri does not put herself between the man and the Lady, instead she moves around the path on the edge, enough to draw gaze, nonthreating with simmering amber eyes, and a scent filling the area "Mistress... I am yours, if you wish for me to be"
Floare looks indecisively between her mistress and the intoxicating energy she's currently exuding and Deregar, who's currently oblivious to the apex predator's gaze.
Seeing Tandri attempt to attract Sariana's attention, however, seems to make her decision for her. She moves to engage the summoner.
"They could be both," she offers. "Something the necromancer attracted and then ensnared under his will. We should be wary of more such thralls."
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Sariana pounces upon Tandri with all the violence she usually carries within herself utterly unleashed. Her fangs descend towards her Sweetling's neck and there's a perceptible hitch when the vampire scent hits her.
The pause is momentary though and instead Tandri's clothes part as Sariana thrusts one hand between her legs and grasps her by the throat with the other. If she can't satisfy the lust for blood it becomes entirely clear that other lusts are going to substitute instead.
She seems utterly uncaring of her audience, intent only on taking Tandri deep into the realms of her dark passions.
Taking Deregar's arm in her own, Floare leads the conversation - both subjectively and directionally - away from the passionate duo.
Tandri cries out, not out of fear, just complete surrender and a showering of emotion. She is this for her mistress. Release and surrender, with her nature adding a heck load of sensation for Lady Nightsong's senses.
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Vampires have spectacular stamina and one of them at least has significant... issues to work through. It proves to be a very good thing that Tandri is no longer constrained by mortal stamina because if she were, she might well no longer be among the living.
It is only once the sun begins to peek above the horizon that Sariana finally slows down. At least some of her demons have been exorcised across the night, but the wildness in her eyes shows that things are not better yet...
You continue south into the Tors of Levenies, the largest (but not the tallest) of the mountain ranges within the Stolen Lands. Travel through these trackless and ragged mountains is slow-going, but the extra time gives Sariana a chance to recover from the draining touch of those extraplanar attackers.
Following the centaurs' directions, you approach the entrance to the Valley of the Dead. The six-mile wide entrance to this valley is marked by posts every fifty to sixty feet, each decorated with skulls and other bones. Beyond the warning wall of bone totems, the valley doesn’t seem much different than the surrounding foothills. Yet the further one travels toward the mountains, the more a strange feeling of oppression grows. The wind seems oddly muted as it flows through the trees and grass, the birds and insects grow quiet, and the unusually regular crags along the surrounding mountains seem almost to crouch in expectation of your approach.
A mile past the bone totems, the first of the gravestones appears. These 6- to 10-foot-tall stone pillars are badly weathered—many are partially or wholly collapsed, but each bears strange, ancient runes—names written in the Cyclops language.
At the westernmost point in the valley, where the ragged Tors of Levenies rise 300 feet above the surrounding foothills, a crack in the cliff wall allows a 15-foot-wide stone stairway to wind up into the mountains. Dark and ominous shapes loom at the throat of the stairs where the shadows gather. These are guardian creatures—six skeletal hulks raised from the bones of great cyclopes. They stand ready to defend the approach to the stairs.
The trip has been a lavender and crimson tinged fog for the Calistrian priestess. Her faith, her succubus blood, her inner nature all come together to being the perfect delight for her mistresses primal desires.
So when all settles, Tandri, while sore, is pink with pride and satisfaction, almost humming, if that is something the small dwarven tiefling was prone to.
When they get to the stairs, Tandri attempts to do her secondary tasking and identifies the six skeletal hulks as...
...exactly that. They are massive and powerful but mindless. It wouldn't be too difficult to try to bypass them without a fight with some clever plan.
Floare has also enjoyed some of her mistresses attention, but she has enjoyed even more the chance for Tandri to revel in being the focus of Lady Nightsong's hungers. The time has long passed for the tiefling to see that she's not a secondary part of their relationship and has a place and priority all her own.
When confronted by the stairs and the skeletal guardians, the witch considers for a bit before suggesting that they bypass the hulking undead by the convenience of flight.
But Mom, I don't want to fly.
"Just close your eyes, my brave boy, and it will be over in a matter of moments."
But I'll still be ... ahhhh!
"See? You're on the ground again already. There's no need for such a display."
You soar safely over the skeletons' heads, bypassing the guardians via flight before continuing on your way. The stone stairs take a circuitous route, winding back and forth through the mountains over a length of eight miles before finally opening up onto the southern bank of the Little Sellen River.
A jagged limestone cliff hems in the scene. A mighty waterfall rushes over its edge into a wide pool of black, frothing water. In the center of the pool stands a massive, hundred-foot-tall limestone pillar of weathered stone—the last, lonely sentinel marking where the cliff once stood in an age long past. At various points on the island’s top, plumes of black smoke waft upward before swiftly fading away.
As you gaze upon this site, you feel stronger from your recent experiences...
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Sariana nods her approval as Floare neatly bypasses all the skeletal cyclops and stands thoughtfully examining the rock before them.
"We go carefully." She states firmly. "Those skeletons support the idea of a necromancer. If he is reasonable then good, if not... then what is dead can die once more."
Her girls can tell that Sariana expects the second outcome rather than the first. It seems clear that the Lady of Nightsong hasn't become any more trusting.
"I agree with your appraisal of the situation, Lady," Deregar nods. "If he's not willing to pledge his loyalty to you, he's too powerful an entity to leave on our borders."
You cross the slow-flowing river to get to the island. At the foot of the cliff, where the beach meets the limestone scarp, a dark opening in the stone beckons, partially obscured by creepers and dangling foliage.
This darkened passageway is decorated to the east and west with alcoves. Midway down the hall, just before the second set of alcoves, a decorative arch is carved into the stone. Upon its lintel are various runes and symbols. The eastern alcove just past the arch holds an ancient amphora that has broken open, spilling its contents into the corridor.
The contents of the spilled amphora include 32 gp and 369 sp. Buried among the spilled coinage is another jade bracelet just like the one described in Maestro Pendrod’s notes.
There are fairly recent tracks in the thick dust. The oldest of these are human; these lead from the beach up to the fallen amphora and then retreat back toward the beach. The next oldest are from several huge skeletal creatures exiting to the beach and not returning. The most recent are hoofprints leading from the beach and down the hall to the next chamber.
Around the corner, a pile of rubble marks where a wall of stones once blocked further passage. It appears it was broken down by a powerful force from the far side--the hulking skeletons, most likely.
Deregar points at the symbols in the archway, while Tyr meticulously gathers the treasure, "I can't say what it says, but that is some sort of warding symbol. It looks as though it was recently triggered--its power is discharged."
Taking a moment to trace her finger over one of the carved runes, Floare shrugs, unable to refute or confirm Deregar's assessment of the expended magic.
"So ... someone ... stole a jade bracelet from the cache of valuables here and then the undead guardians were sent out to retrieve it?" Floare conjectures. As she ponders the possible scenarios, she picks up the bracelet that's still here for a moment before dropping it back onto the small pile of coins.
"Farther in?" she questions, indicating the newly opened passage.
"There would be more signs of violence in the town if it was attacked by those creatures, wouldn't there?" Tandri asks, peaking around the others into the darkness.
The next chamber vaults to a height of nearly thirty feet at the center of the room. The room is shaped like a diamond with squared-off corners. The western corner leads to the tomb entrance, the northern corner is a wall of mortared stone, and the eastern and southern corners have cobweb-shrouded alcoves holding stone biers.
In the eastern alcove stands a horrid fiend! The hulking human-shaped being has a horse’s skull for a head. It walks on cracked hooves and bears the rotting wings of a carrion bird. It opens its skeletal jaws, and bloated black flies buzz out of it as it prepares to attack!
Before you can react, the fiend's jaws widen more, and a cloud of fat flies engulfs you! It then moves into melee range.
There is a blast of foul black smoke from the corridor behind you as a second fiend translocates there, blocking your retreat! It draws a composite longbow as it prepares to join the fight.
Floare ducks down, avoiding the bulk of the sickening swarm.
As she rises again, she gestures towards the horse-headed fiend and vines spring up from around it, slithering and grasping.
Deregar and Tyr turn on the creature that dared to teleport behind the group, "Tyr's got our back, get the other one."
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Tandri's lips parted to make a comment on the creature in front of them. Unfortunately not the thing to do at that moment, breathing in to talk, meant breathing in to suck down a lung full of the smoke.
She spends the next moments of her life retching on her knees as the others rush into motion to destroy the dark breathers. Somehow she manages to raise her head to send a ray of hornet divinity at the thing fighting Mistress Nightsong.
Tandri blasts the lead fiend with holy energy, causing it to shriek with anger. Sariana moves in and pummels it twice, but Floare fails to grab it with her vine. Deregar sends Tyr in to attack the rear monster, hitting once with his claws.
The fiends assault Sariana and Tyr, biting and clawing at them.
Deregar continues to boost Tyr while the dragon breaths flames over the fiend and snaps at it.
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Tandri finally looks a little less green in her pink paleness, rising to cast another divine lance at the shadow.
"What are these things?" the little demon dwarf asks outloud as her wings flap and her tail swishes. Worry that every hallway is going to be filled by them
Annoyed that her precious vines failed to take hold on the vile creature, Floare looses flames upon it.
Tandri is unsure what the fiends are. She narrowly misses with her divine lance, but Floare hits with her fire and Sariana lands a stunning blow! The other fiend is only slightly scorched by Tyr's breath as it narrowly dodges his snapping jaws.
The fiends attack again, but Sariana blocks with her shield and Tyr's scales prove tough enough to resist teeth and claws!
With a furrowed brow, Tandri tells herself Studying is important to be useful. Lately she has been... occupied... so has not found time to do so.
Her magic once again fails to connect, frustrating her more. Her spite makes her request her goddess give her mistress more power to hammer the annoying creatures to the hells and back.