Succubusekai: The Demoness Just Wanted To Stay With Her Friends! [Original-Ish] [Quest]

Your senses feel, for lack of a better word, truer, as you take your breather. A bit of music does the soul good, or something like that.

Just as importantly, however - it does the mind well. It brings lessons together. Bits of lessons from your time in the Succubus Academy slide together, and you wrap your head around a spell that is officially "too spicy for most mortals." Heat Metal, the art of turning people's steel into searing pain. For them, rather than who they're targeting. Usually, at least.

You also coalesce something a little different - the art of eloquence. Quite a few demonic bards master this lesson, to the surprise of few intelligent individuals. To be near-supernaturally good with your words… It's almost stereotypical in how common a choice of specialization it is, but that's because it's really obviously handy.

… This resolved, you glance into Helen's room… To find her praying, having taken off her armor but left her gambeson on.

"I am Captain Helen Garland, formerly of the Transmission-V, presently a least Paladin of Solaria. I speak of truth and honor, compassion and charity, light and harmony. I speak of confidence and uncertainty, held in as wise a balance as I can manage. And I pray to thee, o Solaria: Grant me the strength to face my foes, the kindness to buttress my friends, the wisdom to know the difference, and the precision to not harm the Succubus too much when she goes a little too far."

… Yeah, she's spotted you. But she's not slowing down. And you are not approaching. The window of her room… It's brighter than yours, you're sure of it. Or maybe that's some perception thing due to Solaria's more 'active' presence in the room?

You don't know how divine prayers work. Some of your 'sisters' who actively do the worship-for-power thing might. Does Solaria answer literally, or through implicit blessings, or-

"O Garland, my faithful."

That is a goddess speaking. She is, in the moment, presently here. You almost reflexively shy around the corner.

"Thou hast started well already. Shown mercy and force in reasonable measure. Good has come of thine works already. Ye be worthy of the next step. Rise, lesser Paladin of Solaria, and know that you can bring more of my might to bear."

The emphasized word… Rank up, you guess? Not that you're wholly aware of the particulars.

Helen slowly rises to standing. "I accept your offering with grace and joy. I seek forgiveness for any trespass I may commit in thy name, and foreswear to hold to my oath, may it be the rock that balances me."

"O child of the stars… You canst afford to loosen up just a little. After all, thou already hast seen that breaching the rule of consorting with demons hath brough no harm, yes?"

"I do observe, of course, that Senaz is very much not the norm."

"If there is one thing all Paladins should master, my faithful? It's that the truest norm of all is abnormal situations."

"Handled through the will of the people, and the mutual guidance of a civilization built on strong ideals that can stand up to their challenges."

"Correct. Now, go forth and make sure you can win. Oh, and, child of the stars?"

"Yes, o sun?"

You think Solaria is whispering something. You attempt to listen…

(Perception 13 + 4 = 17 vs. Solaria's ???? : ?????.
Insight: 15 + 4 = 19 vs. Solaria's Deception: Nat-1???)

Oh. Okay, she's doing some divinity trick where if she whispers, only the person she wants to hear it is gonna hear it clearly. To your well-trained ears, she's just saying "rhubarb rhubarb" a bunch.

"... R-right, my patron. I-in thy name."

"Then may I bid thee adieu."

… You can feel the difference in presence, as Helen's room goes from a place so holy you aren't sure you could step in it without catching aflame, to merely ritually sanctified and kinda uncomfortable to the evil part of your mindset.

You have to wonder if the rest of your apartment would conversely ping unholy to a divine sense. Maybe you can ask?

Eira, meanwhile, has some potato chips - okay, note to self, order a bunch of the small bags. And check if they're recyclable. She also seems… Just a spot more confident, as she toys with a small gem.

"... Crystals and gems aren't just valuable," she says. "They sometimes carry secrets. Like this one has me knowing how to better move in the water through psionics. A bit contextual here, but that context's come up enough times that I'm glad to have it."

You nod. You're… Uncertain that's how it works, but she'd certainly know better than you.

… You need to vacuum her room at some point, too. You wonder how her Vulpinae ears will react to that noise. But better that than crumbs decaying and making the room stink or worse.

After a moment or two, Helen has stepped out, back in her armor.

"So, we've got a choice to make," she observes. "We can be very confident that path leads to, at minimum, something She Who Must Be Abjured wants protected - which almost assuredly means Chaos Mountain."

You nod. "Meaning some proper scouting might go a long, long way. Me and Eira are both capable there."

"Indeed. Though I can't help but feel like there's still more going on around this region, too," Helen notes.

You consider this a bit. "Hang on. Let's sketch this out."

You quickly move to your computer in your room, both Helen and Eira following.

Open some map software, start sketching things out a ways…

(Intelligence Check to get the map right, assisted by Helen and Eira: (15,19)+1 = 20)

It takes a good twenty minutes, but you sketch out the area you know fairly thoroughly.

(Mea culpa: The QM accidentally erased the 'exploration' on the map, so I had to reconstruct it manually.)



Helen pauses. "That blob on the left… That's where we teleported to, yes?"

"Roughly," you respond.

(QM Note: She doesn't know that's the area, I'm giving that to you OOC'ly for free just so I don't have to track two different maps.)

Eira pauses. "Is that even worth listing?"

"Well, I think I saw a path there," You reply. "So, um. Maybe?"

Helen nods. "We've still got a fair bit of area entirely unexplored in the valley. And while I doubt every possible mystery connects to Echidna… Quite a few might. Or be worth pursuing anyways, more chances to do good for the people of this region is never bad."

Eira's pausing. "Question is, which way to go?"

---

[ ] (Where do you go?) Down the path you just discovered.
[ ] (Where do you go?) Go back to the Keep, spend some money maybe and hit some new rumors.
[ ] (Where do you go?) Go check on Torgo's base, and see if you can do anything useful there.
[ ] (Where do you go?) The area southeast of Torgo's current lair may be worth investigating.
[ ] (Where do you go?) Further east of Torgo's current lair - or south from the hill of Eddis' company's camp - is worth considering.
[ ] (Where do you go?) That path off in the depths of the woods you found earlier.
[ ] (Where do you go?) Try the pit again, favoring the main pit.
[ ] (Where do you go?) Try the pit again, favoring the cave.

An honestly contextually irrelevant song but I want to make the reference so HERE YOU GO

[ ] (Helen's 3rd-Level Feat) War Caster - advantage to maintain concentration, spells that require somatic components can be done while wielding, and can cast instead of attacking when provoking an Attack of Opportunity.
[ ] (Helen's 3rd-Level Feat) Resilient (Constitution) - +1 Con and Proficiency in Con saves.
[ ] (Helen's 3rd-Level Feat) Tough - Straight up +Hit Points, scaling with level. (Not recommended, see Durable below.)
[ ] (Helen's 3rd-Level Feat) Spell Sniper - gain a ranged option and be very good at using it!
[ ] (Helen's 3rd-Level Feat) Mounted Combatant - Would require gaining a mount to exploit, but permanent advantage when hitting unmounted foes from a horse is pretty sweet.
[ ] (Helen's 3rd-Level Feat) Heavy Armor Master - +1 Strength, sure - but damage reduction from nonmagic weapons is VERY handy.
[ ] (Helen's 3rd-Level Feat) Durable - +1 Con, and your HP rolls have a minimum equal to double your CON modifier - which if you gain 1 more CON later, say from the 4th level Ability Score Increase, would guarantee rolling for HP is always at worst equal to taking average (which is what I've been doing), for the record.
[ ] (Helen's 3rd-Level Feat) Write-In - I know I've missed a ton of feats, after all, not even counting the vast and myriad arrays of cool third-party options.