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The Arrival at Bazzoxan
The Second Round woke up after a night of rest and came down into the common room of the Ready Room, seeking out Delez Demona to ask the bartender where they might find the commander of the garrison.
"Well, that would be Verin Thelyss, he's been here some years now," the bartender said. "If you're looking for mercenary work, I can definitely tell you they'd be interested."
"All right," Elara asked. "Where can we find him."
Delez blinked and pointed out the door. "That'll be him right now. Oh no..."
The group turned around and looked to see a tall drow running alongside two guards, an orc and a goblin, heading for the gates of the Betrayer's Rise.
Immediately, the party started to rush forward, coming to a long stretch of road leading up to the gates with a number of buildings along either side. Down the far end of the road, five monstrosities were burbling and sloshing their way slowly forward. The creatures were mobile puddings of flesh, teeth, and tongues that gurgled a cacophony of jarring vocalizations that rattled skulls and thoughts.
The few citizens that had been near this end of town had barricaded themselves inside as the guards launched forward. Verin turned to see the Second Rounds and Rivals coming up behind him.
"Mercenaries?"
"I don't think we have time for that conversation."
"You're absolutely right," he nodded. "You lot, to the infirmary and protect it. The rest of you with me. Bar the way to these beasts!"
Using her magic to add speed to her step, Esoh launched forward ahead of Elara and the guards while Imvenda took to the air. Snype didn't have to hurry so much and stepped out into the street before sighting down her Whitestone musket and firing down the street into one of the beasts. Two rounds impacting the creature solidly and scattering gelatinated muscle and sinew in every direction with a fine scattering of teeth and bone shards.
 |
| To battle! |
As she came into position, Esoh redirected her magic to enchant Quoth, giving the familiar and ability to shriek out a breath of arcane force. Elara and Imvenda were still moving into position before Dermot stepped out of an alley briefly. "There's more over here! I have to get back to that fight, but Luxon guide you!"
The cleric's blessing washed over them as the Elara launched a blast of holy fire and Esoh intoned a terrifying sound over one of the beasts, tolling it's death. Unfortunately, the bizarre nature of the creatures proved to shrug off the concept of death and allowed them to slurp around the radiant cascade. Though it left the creatures open to Imvenda's cascade of eldritch power.
Which was when the manes started pouring out of the alleys and started shambling their way into the streets to lunge at the guards and mercenaries, drawing attention away from the gibbering mouthers that were still sluggishly pushing up the lane. When of the monstrosities erupted with the impact of a bullet propelled by the Hammer of God that Annaalch had built for Snype days prior. The radiant energies carried by the projectile seared the mouther to ash and vapor.
Quoth flipped down and unleashed a cascade of rippling force out over the the mouthers as the guards and Elara cut through the Manes and Esoh summoned another rippling wave of translucent, colorless force pinning down two of the mouthers and then vanished in a puff of mist up to a balcony away from the maddening sound of the creatures.
A pair of screams lilted out from one of the nearby buildings one of which was interrupted by a gurgling death cry just before a shimmering temporal echo of Verin slipped across the lane to burst into the building and slay the demon within.
"Quasits!" he called out.
Imvenda swooped down to ground between the mouthers before unleashing magic to send herself bursting back into the sky as a bolt of lightning with a ripple of thunderous sound that tore into the monsters. Further up the street, a lightly armored dwarf bundled around the corner towards the mane stumbling its way towards Snype.
"I got this one, boss!" The dwarf roared as his scimitar lashed through the demonic creature, nearly bisecting it. The scimitar remained stuck in the creature and the dwarf levered the weapon around to direct the monster away and keep its claws out of his body. Behind him, Snype fired again and unleashed another barrage of divine empowered bullets tearing into another mouther.
Quoth swooped by again and lashed the remaining mouthers as Elara pulled back a pair of guards that had pushed too far forward. She called a burst of divine energy again, which the maddening cacophony diluted the divinity away before it could touch the monsters. A moment later and the warlock summoned another thunderclap shattering the stone ground and further damaging the remaining mouthers. One of the creatures was telekinetically grabbed and pulled in by Esoh, bundling the remaining creatures together for Esoh to unleash her arcane forces destroying all but one of the mouthers.
Another scream nearby, brought attention to another threatened civilian as Verin summoned a new shimmering temporal echo to attack the remaining mouther and reduce it to shreds as Snype ran to the building the screams came from and blasted the quasit there into oblivion.
There was a few moments of peace as it became clear that the incursion had been fought off and only a few straggling fights could be heard falling silent through the city.
"Thank you for your aid, these creatures got past the gate guards..." he paused for a moment and looked at the scattering of bones and teeth. "They may have been the guards. It wouldn't be the first time the demons have turned our fallen against us. I can hope you came here looking for work, we certainly have need for anyone willing to fight that we can."
"We're willing to help, but we have a quest of our own," Elara explained. "And it's pointing us into the depths of the Betrayer's Rise."
"Ahh, well, you wouldn't be the first group asking permission to get in," the elf said. "There's a group of your order," he pointed to Imvenda and Esoh and their Cobalt Soul robes. "They went into the Rise some time ago, though one of them is in the tavern waiting for them to return."
He didn't sound particularly hopeful of the group's chances of returning.
"Aside from Question, there's a sorceress, Corenn from Tal'Dorei asking about dragon sightings or history in the area."
"Were their dragons here?"
"Hard to say," Verin commented. "Dragons are ancient and clever beings. I haven't specifically heard of dragons in the area, but that doesn't mean they haven't been."
"With demons, the last thing we need is the followers of Tiamat showing interest here."
"That's certainly the truth, but on that note, there is one other person, an elf named Aloysius who claims to represent something called the Consortium of the Vermillion Dream." He paused and frowned. "She's made several attempts to bribe my guards to accompany her into the rise."
"That's... troubling. Though as a note, besides us, there's going to be at least one more group asking you permission."
"Ahh, that would be the other group who went to protect the infirmary, well, I'm sure I'll be speaking to them soon, then. In the meantime, feel free to take sometime to recover from the battle and enjoy what the town can offer"
"We were wondering if there an artificer or something similar nearby, there is a design I'd like to present to them to help with some of the demonic flora in the area."
"Well, you'll want to speak to the arcanists in the barracks, or perhaps the Allertons, Reynard keeps the crematorium running."
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