Post-session #6: "Into the Frying Pan"

"Into the Frying Pan"

The atmosphere was brisk in General Wallace's camp as Armania walked through a group of training soldiers. As of yesterday, it seemed that the General had instituted a new type of training exercise. From what she guessed, they were preparing to assault the Black Post. They had sought out her knowledge briefly, but she was unable to tell them mmuch more than she already knew. Although she offered to help, the General himself had turned down her offer. In truth she was glad, as she had very little use on the battlefield. She was planning to follow behind the army and hopefully find her lost husband.

As she half-daydreamed about the battle, she almost ran right in to an unfortunately familiar face. She stopped short before she ran right in to the red-winged Kobold, who was standing, arms crossed, waiting for her at her tent. As a reaction, she looked behind her and saw another familiar sight: his "bodyguard" who had yet again slipped behind her unnoticed. The bodyguard's posture was more relaxed than before, which lessened Armania's tension a bit.

"So... you want something I take it?" she asked, halfway meeting his gaze, "I suppose you're not just here to say hello."
The winged Kobold smirked, something that she didn't know that race could pull off, and patted his chest. "Insightful. No, I am here to offer you a chance to travel with me. You knownow that I have dealings with other deities and it appears that I have a grand opportunity ahead of me. However, I wish to," he paused, seeming to consider his words, "share in the opportunity - especially since you've already been brought in to this through your meddling.

"Now wait a min-" she started, but the Kobold interrupted her before she could finish. "This is NOT up for debate," he snarled, the smirk quickly falling off of his face, "you have a connection to the ones I'm after by proxy and you will help me find them and contact their deity."

Armania blinked, confused. "Contact their deity? I'm no priest. What can I do?"
"The ritual you performed with them still has a trace of energy that connects you. It is weak, but it is the best I have now. I also know that they have just recently exited Pharasma's realm and she is not pleased with them. I have been offered quite a substantial reward if I return them to her." He held up a clawed hand before Armania could respond. "Do not worry, I have no plans of returning them. They are much too valuable as they are instead of some soul to fuel Pharasma's desire for 'justice'. No, there is a much larger power interested in them. One I have yet to reach."

"How did you..." Armania began before suddenly remembering when she had first encountered the winged Kobold. "You... you read my mind, didn't you? How much did you take? That wasn't yours to have!" She clenched her fists in anger momentarily before being reminded of the feeling of a dagger poking her back. "Fine," she stated crossly, "what do you need me to do?"

Pulling back his outstretched hand, the Kobold reached deep beneath his chest armor and tugged, pulling out a shriveled hand on a chain, causing Armania to recoil at the sight. The ghastly white hand was much too large to be a Kobold, perhaps something of a Human or Elf variety. It wore several shiny rings and seemed to have some sort of mind of its own, twitching a finger every few seconds.

"The Hand of Imandurel is anxious," the Kobold said, hissing in amusement at Armania's reaction, "it senses that someone has reached the battlefield where it was slain and tries to call out to them. We will return to that battlefield and there we will find them. I will require you to assist in a slight ... modification of the ritual you performed." He looked down at the hand and whispered several arcane words, causing the hand to twitch violently for several seconds.

"We are ready now." With that command, the Kobold's bodyguard stepped out in front of Armania and dug in to its pack, pulling out a large, golden scroll. Armania had never seen such care and expense taken to create a scroll of this sort and she wondered what it could contain.

Meanwhile, the winged Kobold had begun drawing arcane markings around the area. Although she was not positive, it looked as if he was drawing some sort of protective circle of warding against evil beings. She swallowed hard, wondering what they could possibly be doing that would require this type of containment. After a minute, the winged Kobold finished the circle and checked it over. Satisfied, he walked over to his bodyguard and lifted the scroll from her arms. "Thank you, Oofsh. Now, please ensure that our dear Armania does not break the circle. That would likely be the end of us if that happened.

Immediately after his statement, he grasped the scroll and pulled it open, muttering several words of arcane power as he did. Armania cried out and immediately fell to he knees as she felt an immense evil presense emerge from the scroll itself. Gaping, she looked fearfully up at the winged Kobold and for the first time she saw a slight hint of fear in his eyes, although he still maintained an unusually commanding presense. She heard sevearl fearful chirpings behind her and she looked there, seeing the usually fearsome bodybuard hunched behind her, shivering in fright.

"MEEPO! YOU HAVE RETURNED!" a sinister voice called out, "HAVE YOU RECONSIDERED JOINING WITH ME? MY POWER AWAITS! TOGETHER WE CAN ACCOMPLISH GREAT THINGS, JUST AS I DID WITH MY FORMER MASTER!" The winged Kobold's eyes narrowed as he continued to stare in to the scroll, ignoring the voice. "YOU ARE SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING IN ME, BUT YOU WILL NOT FIND IT - NOT UNTIL WE ARE JOINED!" He continued to scan the scroll, his eyes furiously darting from one part of the scroll to another before finally settling on a particular part. Grunting, he reached a claw forward and plunged it in to the scroll. It disappeared in to the scroll as if it were a hole and Armania covered her ears as she heard and unearthly mixture of screaming in her head, which seemed to come from many different voices. It seemed to last forever, until she was about to swat the scroll from the Kobold's hands, before he finally withdrew his hand. The screaming immediately stopped, leaving a loud ringing in her ears.

"AHHH, VERY CLEVER!" the voice called out, almost immediately after his hand had withdrawn, "BUT YOU WILL STILL NOT UNLOCK MY FULL POWER THROUGH YOUR CHEAP TRICKS! I WILL AWAIT YOU AGAIN!" A small burst of fire exploded out from the scroll, singling Armania slightly. She turned away to shielf herself from the blast. Hearing and feelin nothing more except a headache and a ringing in her ears, she cautiously looked back towards the scroll. It had re-rolled itself and was now resting in the Kobold's outstretched hand, who was staring at it in an expression of anger. Although his armor and clothing was singed, he appeared to be unharmed by the explosion. He slowly looked over at the two huddled figures. "Now I am prepared to leave."

He streatched out a hand towards Armania and the world around her was sucked into his clawed hand, leaving her in complete darkness for a moment before she lost conciousness.

You know, the list of people I need to kill is just growing and growing.  It also probably doesn't help that the party didn't let me delete Armania.  *shakes head sadly*  Leaving behind so many loose ends.

Ironic twist: it turns out the campaign's main protagonist was Armania all along.

The party are actually the antagonists of the story.

With Toran in our group, that might prove true. There's a possibility that a multitude of parties might end up existing. There's Pharasma, who placed a bounty on us; the possible splitting of our party; the red, winged Kobold; Armania; Ofidia's budding empire; possibly another dragon with his/her own gathering of followers, and the people who built the machines used to invade Pharasma's realm in the first place. It's like somebody took away the chess board, kept the chess pieces, and set up a game of Chinese checkers with them.

Also, remember when we seemed(Third's words, not mine) to have arrived at the urns earlier than the Heralds? I like to think it was because I made sure that sign was pointing in a different direction than the party.

There's nothing to indicate Wallace is evil, yet. An asshole, sure, but that's not a crime.

Assholery: The only crime on the books punishable by death.

Whereas tyranny gets you a slap on the wrist and a cookie, i imagine.

Awww, you guys haven't even met him yet.

Also, backstory reveal: they hadn't made it to the urns because you still had the device. Aside from mundane senses, it protected them from knowing where you were in an endless spire. There was also another power in play there too, although Evee may be able to tell you more about that.

Don't look at me, i'm the one who said not to judge him prematurely. His attitude doesn't make me think he's a nice guy, but then again, getting pushed around by higher powers is something i've become used to since almost DnD day1, so shrug.

*Random evil laugh*

I know you like that sort of thing, Zeiss. It's creepy, but i live with it.

Hmm, yeah, you're probably right about that. Still, I shudder to think how much quicker the Herald could have found us, when or before we reached the soul stairway I imagine.

Don't worry, I'm going to make sure my cat gets an extra helping of snow beetles.