Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

6th of Neth 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

"Fire!" Leonta's command rings out and the snap of crossbow triggers comes with commendable speed, a rain of heavy wooded bolts meant to unhorse a knight in harness rain on the strange beasts, sending three to their knees, another two undone entirely, but all those that still live turn and bay. Warriors hold their hears in agony, though only one is so overcome with the sound as she drops her weapon entirely as the rest of you charge by. Good Luck to you and all your kith.


A roar thundering from above, so loud it seems to make the branches sway, makes mockery of human voices, and like a straight silver arrow falls the dragon upon the tent standing alone on the small rise in the center of the camp. For a moment you wonder if they fight had ended before it could even begin.

"Gots the wizard!" Cob screeches in goblin tongue, halfway between 'got' and 'gut' and borrowing a little of the meaning of both, but Loric Gavhaul is not one to be so easily ended.

As Sylestrix tears through the fabric of the tent like a cat with a much despised blanket, the wizard manages to half-crawl half-roll out of it, wild-eyed screaming.

"What are you waiting for?! Kill it! Drive it off!" The realization comes to him almost instantly. "Oh, oh, so it's brigandage is it? I've killed better men than you and broken stronger ones!"

As though to emphasize the point, he draws a crystal in a cage of gold wire from under his robes and hurls it down on the hard earth with a soundless flash that cuts not at the eye, as you had grown so used to in this past season in the lands of the sun, but the mind. Be one however light-loving, this would pain them still.


A figure stands now tall and one-eyed as any of the Ohancanus, though it is there that the similarities end. Where they wear undyed cloth and rawhide, it wears the the armor of a fallen empire, its memories at least sketched in warped silver light just as its phantom flesh-is leaden shadows. One searching eye passes from wizard to dragon... to you.

"A pity to kill a seer so summarily, but an order's an order, even if it be his last." The words are precise as they are cruel, like flaying knives running over the skin.


The next thing you know is pain. Deadly blue-white lightning arcs between you and Mina, through you both, though she manages to throw an arm around a passing tree, passing some of the lightning through it as she goes.


As though things hadn't gone far enough awry, the air rips open right in front of Gorok to a hulking muscled fiend endowed with all the worst qualities of reptile, man, and goat as it licks dried blood from its claws as long as knives. "So many souls! So much potential new and...." it smacks its lips, looking to Sirim. "Old."


"I don't know its name nor its kindred, but ware that one. We have found the master of the shadow fiends," Sirim's words ring in your mind and in the minds of all who are friends on the field.

The shadow fiends... Where? Looking around through bloodshot eyes you cannot see them, but then that's the point, isn't it?


How do you do you fight?

[] Let the dragon focus on Gavhaul while you take down the giant while who knows who the demons will attack

[] Pin the giant down before he can do that attack again

[] Set the ohancanu on the giant, you will kill the demon

[] Write in

OOC: One of the shadow demons was watching and demons are not devils, they are the kind to drop into the middle of a fight because violence and murder is their jam. SLA Teleport encourages such impulsivity.

6th of Neth 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Haste in every shadow flies and light of false dawn blooms from Mina's hands as the air is alive with the roars of the fey as they charge the demon, axes slung low to tear up through the guts of smaller foes. One is turned aside entirely on fiendish hide, adding the laughter of the demon to the din. Fortunately he'd laughed too soon as the other two grow willy, hewing at ribs and shoulders, pushing it back as a hammer drives a stubborn nail. So another sees the moment open.

"Caedite eos!" Leontas' cry isn't Mendevian, nor even Iobarian, but a crusader's call, though one that calls on no god, 'Hack em down!' Near one ton of armored horse and lance bearing rider barrels into the still befuddled demon, the point of the lance ripping clear through his upper arm, hurling a line of black bile a dozen feet onto the ground.


Warty isn't so lucky, trying to headbutt the ghost in the knees only to have pass clean through and unnoticed, though one cannot say the same for Gorok. The phantom maul in his hand holds off two blows, but the third strikes the hand upon the haft of the weapon, spilling out not blood, blue and silver light as though his veins are filled with the sky.


"You have chosen your allies poorly..." What else Gavhaul meant to say to the dragon you couldn't say as your magic grips his neck bones and twists. Or maybe it's the dragon that takes his breath away as he rips into him in the name of wyrmlings bound in far off Katapesh. You wonder if he'd understand even if it were explained.

I'll give the tongue-bitter this, he's stubborn as hell, but he's no match...

In the flash of an instant, space seems to fold in around him and he's gone from under the dragon's claws, battered and bleeding, but still standing at the end.


"Ah, still not over. A good attempt though." The cyclops' thought is a sigh as he looks dispassionately to the dragon. "I shall reward thee, young one, by removing you from the company of man who will... use you."

"No eye, no spells!" Cob shouts as he jumps up from behind the warrior and twists the enchanted eye, but only passing through it.

"I have no eye! In blindness, I see!"

The single staring eye boils over into blue-white fire that strikes Gorok in the chest, boiling away armor, skin, and flesh in an instant. But as the fire clears you hear from among the tents a scream in a familiar voice mixed with a dwarvish curse. Urgor, it seems, had found Gavhaul among the tents, and he'd found his life's end.


"No matter, I'm sure that soul is going down where it should!" the demon laughs through a bloody mouth as he snaps his claws almost lazily towards the wounded Gorok. No balefire burns nor thunder roar, but a nameless horror comes upon you. "Kill the lizard-thing first!"

A shadow moves at the edge of Mina's light and shadows it spews out black as the Pit of the Abyss to snuff it out. Another races across the now darkened camp do to its master's bidding, ripping though scorched flesh with claws of iron and ice.


The sellswords had drawn back, veterans or not this battle is beyond them, all save one. Around comes Leontas on a thunder of hooves, lance affixed at his right and shield in his left, his face a mask of fierce concentration as it strikes the same arm and rips the demon's weapon free with no war-cry save a grunt of effort.

"You, finish the job!" the demon motions at one of the fey giants surrounding it with the same manner it had shown to the shades as though all the world were his puppets, though you can hear the dread voice shake just a little. So can the intended victim.

"No, you die! You feed roots!" he roars as he and his companions continue to hack at the hemmed in demon.


What do you do?

[] Gavhaul is dead, try to make a deal with the cyclops phantom

[] Heal Gorok immediately

[] The demon is almost dead, kill it now

[] Write in

OOC: Welp, things could have gone better, but they also could have gone a lot worse. The demon could not just walk over and kill Gorok himself since he would have had to eat four AoOs, one of which is from that lance that pierces his DR like butter. Also, he is now scared for a round thanks to Cornugon Smash.