Quasit*'s page

"One of the farms near my monastery grows coffee. If you come visit, I could introduce you."

"Perfect!" says Quasit, as she hops up to sit on the table, kicking her feet like a toddler.

"In my experience it's lanet hai." Maka replied, flashing Quasit a toothy grin.

Quasit giggles at this.

Quasit wrote:

"Selena isn't married, is she?"

"I guess it wouldn't be that surprising if she was right? What with all the witchy nobility nonsense?"

"Hmm, do witches get married? They always kinda struck me as not the marrying kind. Like, they'd reproduce by creating a poppet in a cauldron and imbuing it with life via some dark unholy ritual. Plus if my wife is a witch, I'm always playing second fiddle to a fox or a cat or a toad. That's not great."

"Can you imagine Mr Selena when the ol' ball and chain comes home in a new halfling body?"

"Plus, I can't see any witch helping to do the dishes after dinner or making the bed in the morning. Plus anytime things get rough, she wiggles her nose and you're bewitched!"

She slurps her piping hot cup of coffee. "Mmmmmm. Not quite as good as Mametqul's, but I'll get there. He probably had more time to practice."

"No. Coffee is better than gold, and we already have a bunch of gold." Maka replied with complete seriousness.

"Well, it certainly tastes better." agrees Quasit. "You know, I was thinking of running an import/export business anyway, maybe I should see about becoming a coffee importer. How hard could it be?" She stops to smell the aroma of the pulverized beans in the grinder, and whimpers helplessly in delight. She then sets about actually making the drink. She also helps Bulvi chop up whatever vegetables are available.

"Chest Thumper is mad at Kalchine again. He doesn't like being a little statue. Can't say I blame him. But I can't really get in the middle of that, I guess. I mean... you know--not that way, I don't do three-ways with...just, um..." She stops chopping, her brain fritzing out briefly. "Anyway. I hope Kal gets me something nice for our 24 hour anniversary. If 25 years is silver and 50 years is gold, what's the 1 day anniversary? Coffee maybe?"

The drink now ready, she pours herself a steaming cup, and contemplates finding a date for Chest Thumper.

"Selena isn't married, is she?"

After getting back inside the Hut, Quasit makes her way to the 'kitchen' ostensibly to help Maka make a meal, but really to make some more coffee. As she grinds up the beans, she chuckles to herself.

"Is it weird that I'm more excited about finding coffee than I am about finding a literal ton of gold bars?" she asks.

"I don't... think I've noticed anything like that? I had the usual lessons for a young lady in etiquette, dancing, and the like"

"Ah. I mean, that's good! Makes things simpler." she says, seemingly relieved.

She looks down at the Grand Duchess, a sweet useless little aristocrat, wondering what in the world they were going to do with her.

After all of the other questions, the question about jambalaya seems like a surprise to her. "No, is that... French?"

Quasit shakes her head. "No. Gurundi. Originally anyway, but I think the Galtans snazzed it up. I don't know, I'm no chef. It's pretty good though."

Not wanting Anastasia to feel uncomfortable, she now confines herself to asking about things the little girl knows more about, asking her about foods she likes, and what sorts of dances she knows, and finer points of etiquette.

This is mostly a wellness check. Seems like the kid is doing as well as can be expected. Also giving her a chance to mention anything that might be on her mind, if she wants to share. Otherwise we can get back to the Hut and have dinner.

Quasit leads the way outside after offering Anastasia a blanket to drape around herself to help her stay warm. She takes a deep breath of the woody air then ventures down the steps and begins a wide circuit about the Hut, never letting it entirely out of her sight.

At first she mostly walks silently, giving the girl some space. She didn’t want Anastasia to always feel interrogated when they were together. ”It continually amazes me how similar Russia is to my world. We have birches and pines just like this. I love the smell. And everyone is human here, which is like a lot of places back home. It makes you wonder, it’s almost like one world is a child of the other. Or something. Same animals too. Days are the same length, more or less.”

Eventually though, she gets more personal. ”Ana, did you ever feel… different from your sisters? Like, I don’t know, strange dreams or little powers or abilities they couldn’t do? Did your parents treat you differently? Like, I *know* they probably treated Alexei differently, because he was the heir and he was sickly. But your mother knew that Rasputin was your father. Which means Baba Yaga is your grandmother. And she’s basically a magical demigod, and Rasputin was a powerful magic user. I have to wonder if you inherited any sort of talents like that?”

”I have to tell you, we’re getting pretty close to freeing her. Baba Yaga. She’s going to be interested in you. May want to use you, or give you powers you don’t currently have. We can even talk to her now, though she sounds far away. So if you have anything to ask her, or say to her, now would be a good time to do it. Or if you like, we can try and keep her away from you, and hope she doesn’t know who you are. We haven’t mentioned you to her yet. I don’t really know how much she knows. She might know Rasputin had a daughter, but may not know he resurrected you. I promise we’ll try and protect you, if that’s what you want. If nothing else, she should owe us a favor after all this is done.”

”Have you ever had jambalaya?”

After looking around the rooms you find Anastasia being entertained by the Coffin Man doing some card tricks that are rendered all the more impressive by the skeletal nature of his hands.

"Hi honey, we're home! Hoo, what a day at the office!" Quasit announces just before entering the room. She didn't know what the Coffin Man got up to when no one was around (aside from playing Patience), but she was quite sure she didn't want to know.

Seeing the skeletal horror performing card tricks for the violently orphaned princess strikes Quasit as one of the sweetest things she's ever seen, so she pauses to watch so as not to interrupt, and even gives Coffin Man a little burst of applause when he completes his performance. Then she addresses erstwhile Grand Duchess.

"Are you hungry? Maka is going to start cooking up some dinner. You could probably help her if you want. Or maybe you'd like to go for a walk outside in Russia with me? Thought I'd see what the weather was like."

this is a roleplaying walk, not a tactical walk, no game objectives, although ambushes are certainly fair game. Anyone who wants to come along is welcome, Quasit is still lamely doing her best to 'big sister' Anastasia.

Quasit blinks at her friend and wonders to herself (not for the first time) whether it was really ethical for Sakitu to have access to lethal magic.

"Because they're cute!" she persists. "And look, if you don't mess with them, they won't mess with you. Though it is sorta fun to stick your toes under their little butts and flip them into the water! But Kal is a druid-- if they bother you, we'll have him talk to them and get them to lay off. Or you could magic up some kinda anti-crab shield spell."

Clearly Quasit seems to imagine that this wouldn't be too difficult.

"Come on, let's go back to the Hut. I think that Norn is judging us. Plus I want to see how Anastasia is doing. And it'll be easier to cook dinner in there."

”Maka would you mind heating up some tub water whenever you get a free moment? Izzie needs a good soak and I think I’m gonna join him…”

"Oh yeah, and your boyfriend has a CROCODILE, but you're worried about some pinches from a little crab?" Quasit teases, giving her friend a final friendly pinch on her rear.

"... Oh wait. Crabs? Those are those things that pinch you, right? I don't know. Do they swim in the lagoon too?"

Quasit pulls back and regards her friend sternly.

"Sakitu J. Amazing, are you telling me you've never seen a CRAB before? Didn't your parents ever take you to the beach? You must be the only person on Golarian to see an ancient white dragon before her first CRAB!"

"And yes, they pinch you, but only if you're naughty!" Quasit sneaks a few little crab pinches at Sakitu's belly, her silliness once again flying free.

"Ooh, you'll like it. It's a kind of stew you serve over rice. Really spicy. Chicken, sausage, shrimp and onion, garlic, tomatoes and celery and peppery seasoning. I've never made it myself actually, and I know we don't have half those things, but I'm really craving it. Yeah, how hard can it be? If we can kill an intergalactic lich queen and her undead hordes, we can fake a good chicken stock, right?"

In a sudden rush of gourmet greed and excitement, Quasit leaps like a child onto Maka's back, throws her arms around her friend's neck and plants a smooch on her cheek before sliding off, then grabs Sakitu by the hands and reels and twirls with her for a few steps. "Ooooooh, let's hope for a nice desert island to dig up our buried treasure on! With sunshine and parrots and just a few cute little crabs and sand and palm trees and cabana boys and warm azure lagooooons to swim in! Bring your swim suit, Amazing Fox Lady!"

She catches Kalchine's eye and gives him a gleeful, slightly sultry wink.

Quasit will take the SR

Quasit listens with interest as she hears Baba Yaga's voice for the first time.

Once the next mission is fully unveiled, Quasit nods vaguely, then turns to Maka.

"I'm thinking jambalaya, do you know how to make jambalaya? Ooh, and I'd kill for something with cinnamon in it."

"Camp here, or back in the Hut? I suppose we should check on Anastasia."

Cause they were the bad guys, weren’t they? And Maka is a good guy!

Quasit explains her willingness to follow the mental directive from the doll.

”After we overcame the first trial— that…whatever-it-was in the lake, we bathed the doll in some of its nasty juices and it broke a seal on the doll. I’m guessing this submersion with the crown is going to do something similar. And of course, that’ll be followed by another mission to get the doohickey to break the next layer of seals on her prison, but we’re not touching that until we rest, no matter how much she bellyaches.”

”There’s also a small chance that breaking this seal might be the one that allows her to get free, but I doubt it. The risk of waiting is that someone or something might show up and try to steal the crown from us before we use it. I keep expecting Queen Elvanna to show up at some point, or send demons after us or something. I say it’s worth the risk to just use it now and get this step sorted out.”

"No, bathe away." answers Quasit with a shrug and a flick of the hand.

Looking to Quasit, ”What do you think?”

Quasit looks over.

”You look like the queen of the fairies.” she says unironically.

"Maybe you don't have to go back to a normal world," Kalchine suggests.

"You know quite a few powerful spell casters and will have quite a bit of wealth with which to pay more. You could create a house where every door and hallway takes you to some other wondrous place," he points out.

”Oh no, I definitely want to go back to a normal boring world with normal houses and minimal monsters. I’m tired of living in an eternal puzzle-box world. I want my chief excitement to be that the local pub has a fresh oxtail soup.”

"Do you think we need the head, too or just the crown?" he asks in an aside.

Quasit shrugs. ”The head didn’t come through to this side, so I’m assuming we just needed it attached to the crown to act as a key to get us out of there. And we’re probably about to lose that crown, which is a real shame.”

Stepping out of the cave, Quasit looks around, recognizing the strange ravine where they'd fought the drakes. She lets Selena carry the crown.

"You know, I'm not going to know what to do with myself when I'm back in the normal world. I'm going to expect every door to lead to another planet and every cave to lead to a different plane, and monsters to be lurking behind every wall." she says matter-of factly, as one might notice that the air is a bit chilly.

She goes about tying off a rope to slither down to the ravine floor, prepared to hike back to the Norn.

"Once we check in with our scavenger hunt prize, we're taking a rest, no matter what Grandmother wants. Assuming we aren't jumped by a giant newt or an eight-legged ocelot." She rubs her fatigued eyes and arches her back to stretch it.

"No," he replies, "But then I'm not on Triaxus anymore."

He eyes the big dangly piece of jewelry warily and his ears flick in agitation at the very idea of supporting that slinging weight.

"But perhaps something a bit smaller," he suggests.

Quasit giggles with childish delight then leans forward and kisses Kalchine on the nose.

"I'm only teasing."

Gathering up the rest of the jewels and silks and invigorating drinks, she takes the severed head and places the True Crown upon it. She admires the gruesome thing in her outstretched hands for a moment, then goes over to the cabinet and places the head inside, as they had been directed to do.

The furry frost giant does not truly recognize the significance of Quasit's gesture and punches her fist a bit too hard.

Quasit puts on a brave face as the giant whacks her little fist, smiling like a warrior.

Then she turns away and cradles her battered hand and closes her eyes.

"Owwwww." she moans under her breath.

"It is lovely but you do not need it," he comments as she models the earring.

"Of course not. It's for you." she says, holding the earring up to one of his wiggly ears.

"Do Triaxians pierce their ears?" she adds sweetly as she pulls a long sharp needle from her bag of lock picking tools, her face innocent as a newborn baby demon.

I don't think we can squeeze a ton of tent into our bags of holding, so unless Chest Thumper wants to drag it after us, I think we're leaving that here and taking the rest.

"Not exactly. It's the crystals I got from Zilvazaraat. If I feed enough energy into them, I can change my flames."

She lifted her fist, blue fire blooming to life around her knuckles before warping, the flames collapsing inward and reshaping into a shimmering sonic distortion that made the air vibrate.

"It doesn't last that long, though."

Quasit watches the transformation of Maka's energy with great interest. Her friend's abilities had fascinated her from the first time she'd seen them, all those many weeks ago, and she was always just a trifle jealous about all the things Maka could do.

"Wow. Amazing the things they come up with!" she says with genuine enthusiasm after the display. "That's the sort of gizmo that Nevar would have loved to study. He was always very interested in the theory and mechanics of spells and supernatural abilities. If he was here, he'd be lecturing us all now about how the micro-mana-flows would reorient the vibrations of the energy and realign its what's-a-doodle into a sleek new thing-a-ma-jig."

"I just got a cool sword from Mr. Z. Cause I'm basic." she adds with a delighted grin as she wipes off the blood on her sword onto Mametqul's coat and sheathes it.

She leaves the dismembered head for the others to fit with the crown and put into the cabinet, wherever it might be. In the meantime, she begins picking through the possessions of the dead divs, focusing especially on any tasteful costume jewelry the harem might have been wearing.

She removes a jangly earring and holds it up to one ear. "What do you think? Too much?" she asks, her eyes flicking between Maka, Sakitu and Kalchine.

Any good loot? We will of course be taking all their coffees and coffee-making gadgets.

Quasit looks over at Maka specifically.

"Did your fire glands go dry or something? You were making a funny noise, like a big hunk of tin would make when it gets dragged over rocks. Made my skin hairs stand up."

Quasit: "Mametqul--this you?"

Quasit looks down at Mametqul’s corpse, not with satisfaction, but with righteous anger.

”We could have helped you. We even believed you were a friend. But I guess Baba Yaga was right about you.” Kneeling now, she grabs his hair in one hand and starts sawing jaggedly through his neck. ”I guess once betrayal is in your blood, you never really come back from it. So thanks for the coffee. Burn in hell, creep.”

Once the head is cut off, she slumps and exhales heavily. She looks around at her companions. ”Everyone ok? That seemed to go pretty well.” She looks up at the interplanar monster summoned by her boyfriend and offers it a fist-bump. ”Thanks for the assist. Solid work.”

A hasted blur, Quasit vrooms west and circles behind Mametqul to flank him and strike.

Acrobatics to avoid AoO: 1d20 + 21 + 1 ⇒ (8) + 21 + 1 = 30
Melee: 1d20 + 22 + 2 + 1 - 3 ⇒ (17) + 22 + 2 + 1 - 3 = 39Damage: 1d6 + 10 + 8d6 ⇒ (5) + 10 + (4, 2, 5, 2, 1, 5, 3, 4) = 41
Melee (Offhand): 1d20 + 20 + 2 + 1 - 3 ⇒ (16) + 20 + 2 + 1 - 3 = 36Damage: 1d6 + 8 + 8d6 ⇒ (5) + 8 + (3, 3, 4, 4, 1, 3, 3, 1) = 35

Combat Expertise, Haste, Mobiilty--AC is 33, 37 vs AoO

Waiting on Bulvi, Sakitu and Selena.

Please, everyone should be able to check in at least once a week. Especially when everyone knows we're in combat. We are SO CLOSE to the end of this thing.

Encouraged by how much she's enraging the female div in front of her, Quasit grins at her like the cat who's caught the cream.

"Oop. Where am I going? Where am I going?" she taunts, juking left then right, then diving past the div off to her right that's busy with Bulvi, doing a little half somersault to get past her.

Acrobatics to move through enemy & through threatened square: 1d20 + 21 ⇒ (19) + 21 = 40

Once past her and into a flanking position, she begins to really start to stab with earnest enthusiasm.

Melee: 1d20 + 22 + 2 + 1 - 3 ⇒ (4) + 22 + 2 + 1 - 3 = 26Damage: 1d6 + 10 + 8d6 ⇒ (1) + 10 + (3, 4, 1, 1, 2, 5, 1, 3) = 31
Melee (offhand): 1d20 + 20 + 2 + 1 - 3 ⇒ (14) + 20 + 2 + 1 - 3 = 34Damage: 1d6 + 8 + 8d6 ⇒ (3) + 8 + (6, 2, 1, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5) = 49

Combat Expertise, Haste gives AC 33

Waiting on Bulvi and Sakitu I think.

Quasit turns and squares herself with her dance partner, drawing her blades with a delicious *sching!*.

"You know, I'm almost glad you guys decided to pull this. I liked your boss OK, but you guys were like the snottiest concubines ever. And please, you were trying to look like a human slut but that was the best you could do? The bad-built bleach-blonde butch-body? Gag. I've known penny whores back in Cassomir with more class in their pinkies."

As she taunts the div-lady, Quasit twists, evades and trades parrying blows, like she wants to draw this out.

Move Action Draw Weapons, Move Action Feint. Fighting Defensively (+3 AC)

Bluff: 1d20 + 20 ⇒ (8) + 20 = 28

In the split second before things get real, Quasit looks around at the sinister divs and their primed ambush, a slight smirk curving one corner of her mouth.

”Does this mean you’re out of coffee?” she ask charmingly.

Everyone remember their Haste!

pfft, not even gonna bother rolling vs that

Quasit holds up the burlap bag with the fake crown. "To the victors went the spoils. Looks like you may be out of a job, fella. Unless you like it here. We'll put in a good word for you once Baba Yaga is free."

She follows Maka and Bulvi into the tent.

In my mind, a rich person is someone who gets richer no matter how much they spend.

Once Saki gets a chance to cast her Mirror Image and Haste, and once Kalchine is with us again, we go in. I think Maka and Bulvi go first, since they have the best AC. Quasit will be right behind them with the fake crown in the burlap bag, slung over one shoulder.

"I can turn into an air elemental again, if we are short on transportation options," he offers.

"Perfect. We'll teleport to about 50 yards from the tent and wait for you, then walk in together."

I've still got my mage armor on. I can also cast Mirror Image but that has a target of Personal so it only helps me. I can also cast Haste on the party once we're ready.

I can cast fly a couple more times today too.

That's perfect. I don't know if Flying spells will be useful if we fight in the tent, but Mirror Image and Haste should help a lot.

I think we need the spell casters to step in and say what they're actually doing here.

"YES, I AM CASTING THESE PROTECTIVE SPELLS FOR THE PARTY" (CASTS THEM OR SAYS THEY WILL CAST THEM ON ARRIVING AT THE TENT)
"NO I DON'T HAVE ANY SPELLS THAT CAN HELP, SORRY"
"I CAST TELEPORT" OR "I DONT HAVE ANOTHER TELEPORT SPELL TODAY, SORRY"

Otherwise we are ready to go.

Quasit nods at Kalchine's advice. "Yeah, the first move will be his."

"Put the stone skin on yourself Kal, you're our healer and so we need to keep you safe. Put the Barkskin on Saki -- in the close quarters of that tent, she may need extra protection for up close fighting."

"Well, it sounds like that's all the spells for protection we've got, so it'll have to do. Let's head back and see what the div does."

All right, I think we're ready to move to the next encounter, but there's some things we should sort out.

Spellcasters, any good protective spells for the party? Also, everyone take a look at the potions and scrolls we have just now acquired and have been carrying in party treasure.

If we're teleporting back to the tent, we need to do it in such a way that whoever is left behind can get to us before we face the div. If I recall, the distance is about half a mile? Would a haste/fly/invisibility combination on one of us last long enough to cover most of that distance at least?

We have yet to identify the magic items we found in the treasury. I suppose we can wait to do that later, but we may be missing out on something pretty good that might help us.

Finally, we may have to kill Mametqul and his harem, but we have to figure out a way to save his coffee!

"Divs are genies who were corrupted by some great betrayal or conflict. As such, they like to corrupt others either before or instead of destroying them.

Quasit frowns. ”Well, that’s disappointing, I was inclined to like the guy. But now it seems more likely he’s just using us to get that crown for himself, probably so he can escape. And it seems like great betrayals are all over this story. Bremagyr betrayed Baba Yaga, Elvanna betrayed Baba Yaga, Mametqul may have betrayed Baba Yaga and/or Bremagyr. So that fits. So he’ll probably greet us with smiles, then once we’re trapped in his tent, he and his girls will ambush us.”

”We’ll definitely want to have some protective spells pre-cast before we walk into that. At least some stoneskin spells.”

”We can go in prepared. Protective spells and such. No harm in that.”

"He showed us hospitality, so we can't just kill him. But if it turns out he's evil and attacks us then yeah we'll take him out."

Quasit nods at this.

"But then why not just show us his slain body with your arrows sticking out of his chest?" says Quasit. "Why show his severed head, with the crown stuck on it, stuck in a cabinet? That seems oddly specific."

"I agree it seems like we're being told to kill him. But he may or may not be plotting against us. It might just be part of the unlocking ritual for the prison. Somehow."

She looks thoughtfully at Findurel. "You were saying you didn't trust that guy just a little bit ago. Maybe you were sensing something that I missed."

"The div... wait, you mean the coffee guy? Huh. And, like, just the head? Cut off and wearing the crown?"

Her eyebrows flash up and she gives a long thoughtful exhale.

"Doesn't sound like Grandma likes coffee guy. But then again, I don't suppose someone gets stuck with guard duty in the Hut's various apertures by being on Grandma's good side."

"If she's telling us to cut off his head, put the crown on it, and stick it in ... a cabinet in his tent?... She might be trying to warn us that he can't be trusted. Elvanna might know where the various keys to the prison are as well, and might have co-opted various agents to stop us. Which means his harem will probably be against us too."

"Anyone know anything about divs? Maka will probably want to know if they burn. What sorts of tricks can they pull in a fight?"

"Well I don't think anyone would take you for just someone's little sister now regardless of the name but if you prefer Quasit then that's what it is."

"I think I really do." she says in a frank tone. "In a weird way, it's how I think of myself now. At first I just thought the name was fun, but in a way I sorta chose it for myself. I mean, not entirely, but moreso than a name my mom gave me once."

"Harrowhark sounds like a chosen name to me. Like she chose it while trying to become a divination specialist before switching specialities. I'm fairly sure Trixie is a made up example though Maka. Though if she's not I hope they make quite the power couple."

"Trixie Wicket a made up name? The very idea! Tell that to her twin sister Mincie Wicket."

"C'mon, let's get out of here before Chest Thumper gets too bored."

"Yeah, Harrow does research for the Pathfinders. Mostly about bones and dragons. She's really into bones. Do you think Harrow and Trixie know each other?" Maka was obviously not joking.

”It’d be weird if they didn’t.”

”Personally I think Miss Mina sounds very respectable. Definitely does not suit you.” Selena gives Quasit an impish grin.

<fake smile> "Oh, ha ha."

”No need to go outside to teleport, but we may want to finish checking out the castle, or the keep at least, before we go. This is probably all the big important stuff but you never know what other clues or useful information may be found. And if there are any history books or journals in here, they might be worth bringing out to the wider world.”

Quasit visibly slumps. "I don't know Selena, she didn't seem like much of a reader to me. And at this point, I'm not sure what we'd find that would change anything. We found her and we killed her --learning that, what, she was once an innocent victim of Baba Yaga?--doesn't change the fact that she was an undead monster that nearly snuffed Bull."

"Besides, we have what we came for. Why tempt fate? All we're likely to find in this pile is more undead. We take the crown back to the norn, use it as the next key to free Baba Yaga, then I think we break for the day and rest. Kal and Saki have used a lot of their big spells for the day. You're carrying the spooky doll--is Baba Yaga telling you there's something else we need to do here before we go?"

"What do the rest of you think?"

"It seems to me that those lesbian android dragons are much worse off for not having you around, Quasit. How many of them have crossed multiple planes and travelled to numerous worlds?" he asks.

"Well, yeah, now I'm a beast. Since I kill a dozen things before breakfast every day. But at the time, I very much felt like an imposter around those people. And honestly, if an adventuring party of Pathfinders formed up even now, if people didn't know anything about the living hell these last few months have put me through, those exotic adventuring types would be like 'Who invited the chambermaid?' And honestly I wouldn't blame them. But the idea doesn't bother me any more."

"Wait, you know Harrowhark?"

This catches Quasit off-guard. "What? No, I was just trying to come up with an outlandish... you mean to tell me you know a half-dragon lesbian necromancer? Is she from outer space too? Cause I meant to say half-dragon lesbian 'SPACE' necromancer. Named Trixie. Trixie Wicket."

"She probably gets mistaken for your friend all the time."

Quasit is obviously joshing.

Fin listens to Quasit’s story. ”Cool story, Q…and cool name…think I’ll stick with Q though."

Quasit smiles. "I wouldn't have it any other way." she says with real tenderness.

"We ready to head back to that creepy horny dude? We should be wary, I don’t like him…“

"Yeah, once this is all loaded up, let's head back outside then hopefully Selena can teleport most of us back to the tent again, so we can avoid those patrols we saw buzzing around. And if not, we'll just have to brave it."

"The horned dude seemed fine, it was his harem that seemed nasty. Tell you what, let's take the fake crown with us, and if he asks to see our trophy and we're getting a bad vibe, we can show him that. I'm afraid we might need his help to get back to the norn though. Remember we kinda portalled into his tent and it seemed like kind of a one way set-up."

"I'm just hoping he still has coffee."

"Hmm," she says, standing up. "I don't smell anything. Are you sure this is real gold?"

"I mean maybe some of it's fools gold to make the horde seems bigger but even if half of it is real that's still a huge amount of gold. I'm sure there's some way to double check."

"Guys, guys, cheap alloys and adulterated precious metals are for the LITTLE people. Not for royalty. You think the tyrant queen is going to melt pyrite into ingots and hide it in a secret vault with her most precious possession? It's real all right. Once we get back to the real world, we can pop into the assayers office for confirmation."

"Well it better not be that you can actually turn into little animals!"

Quasit's eyes roll up and sideways a bit as she tilts her head. "No... not exactly."

"The short version of the story is that when I came back to Cassomir I was 16, and even littler and skinnier than I am now. Like embarrassing. At first my brothers just wanted me to look after dad and keep house for him, but Colin kept bringing me along on jobs for one reason or another. I was good at squeezing into little places and through narrow openings, and I was good at hiding and climbing. And he'd use me as a lookout on jobs too. I guess I kinda stuck out in people's memories, and they started referring to me as his 'familiar'. And once you're a familiar, you also get referred to as a cat, a raven, a rat, an imp, etc etc. Very humdrum, very cliché. Most of them knew I was his kid sister, and didn't really take me seriously, which kinda annoyed Colin actually. When you're a smuggler and running rackets, your credibility is everything. So both my brothers started spreading it around that I was some kind of ultra assassin who never got caught, with all sorts of secret training and ninja tricks, and that's where I'd been all those years I was missing from Cassomir. They'd hint darkly about me anytime someone was found floating in the river with a punctured back. The truth is I never stabbed anything bigger than a rabbit, but I have to admit my teenage mind liked the weird respect I was kinda getting. Then suddenly I was Colin's DEMON familiar, which is way cooler than his little black kitten."

"Anyway, the whole thing was just a cool bit of street rep to a handful of dumb thugs, and everyone still called me Mina. It was only after I met Nevar that the name really got coined. When I told him about the Demon Familiar thing, he immediately told me that some evil wizards actually did have demon familiars, little critters called quasits, which I thought was a really splendid word. And since Nevar was a wizard and we were hanging out all the time together, it became this thing between us. He'd 'summon' me, I'd use a funny voice, and he'd call me Quasit in front of people. I mean, it sounds so dopey now, but when we started doing missions together, I started using the name as like a work name. It's part of how I psyched myself up -- having a stage name is actually very liberating. And people took me way more seriously, especially when we signed up to train as Pathfinders. In a typical Pathfinder group, you have 400 year old gnomes and androids and half-vampires and psychics and undine clerics of obscure fish gods you never heard of, and half-dragon lesbian necromancers. And I'm gonna just be Mina the street kid with that bunch? I mean, Mina is totally a kitten name. And besides, Mina was Colin's little sister. And Colin is an a$$#$~&. And then my other brother Bernardo got caught kidnapping people with that stupid Groetus cult and the authorities got really interested in his family, so I kinda stopped being Mina full time after that. And I just kinda got used to everyone calling me Quasit because the authorities were looking for Mina McQuillen, even though I had nothing to do with that stupid cult. That's just Taldor, the authorities and lazy and dumb."

"What can I say, I still think it's a cool name."

“We might get a good bit in return for this with the Z-man…so put as much as we can in the bag?”

Quasit nods. "Yeah, nice that we get to wet our beaks with about 1 TON of gold."* says Quasit. She goes to try and lift one of the boxes and gives up after a concerted effort to shift it about an inch. "My brother would piss himself if he could see this much gold all in one place." she says with dark relish. "Nice of the old trout to die fair and square and leave it to us. Very decent of her."

"Maybe you could carve a stylised Q into the wall maybe a little forked tail flourish at the end of the tip. I amn't sure if Quasit's have forked tales though. It always seemed to me like calling cards were asking for trouble... though if had an alter ego set up maybe that could work."

"Well that's why the classy ones do it. It's brazen. It's like murderers writing to the sheriff in the blood of their victims, confessing how much they enjoyed themselves and can't wait to do it again." She pauses after hearing herself say this. "Well... not exactly like that actually. But distracting the authorities with mind games can turn a crime into a sort of higher art, in some cases. But anyway, no one living will probably be coming here anytime in the rest of our natural lifespans, considering where it is, so I suppose it'd be wasted effort. Not to mention presumptuous since this was a group effort, and not a coup de main by The Quasit alone."

Quasit holds the bag of holding open while others begin to shovel goodies into it.

"As a matter of fact, once people started calling me the Quasit, I did make an effort to look the little beastie up in a few books. Not a lot of pictures really, and mostly just comical illustrations in popular fairy tales. I do recall that quasits are shape-changers -- turning into rats and ravens and such things, and they can turn invisible while they play with mischievous magicks. So if their tails aren't naturally forked, I don't suppose it would be that hard to look that way if they wanted to. Ugly little things. First time I saw a picture of one, I was a little offended actually."

"I don't suppose I ever told you how I got the name, did I?"

* A gold ingot weighs about 25 pounds. So 80 ingots would actually come out to almost exactly 1 ton.

Quasit gives a low whistle as the full value of the thing she holds overtakes her.

"Jeepers." she says, eloquently. "Stavian himself would be proud to wear this little bauble. I mean, anyone can glom some diamonds and rubies into some gold, but look at this workmanship! ... The symmetry in the size and quality of the stones in the arrangements. And the quality of the gold itself -- that's 100% if ever I saw it, which I'm not sure I ever have. And look at the way the inner circle of the crown is rolled over and fitted -- no cushioning is necessary, this was designed to be worn comfortably on a particular head, all without compromising the perfect circle of the outer circle shape. If this is a fake, it's the best one I've ever seen."

She takes a few steps back up the stairs and hands it off to Selena. "Can you inspect this for magic? Then get down here and help us magic-test the rest of this treasury."

This done, she goes to start inventorying the contents of the various crates and coffers with Findurel.

"You know, this is one of those times when I wish I had some clever little calling card like classy cat burglars use. A little origami figure of a Quasit or a card reading - 'The Quasit was here' or something. So that in the future, if anyone ever comes here, they'll know they missed out on a big score and silently curse my nom de guerre." she observes cheerfully.