Seals of Stone
Twenty-Seventh Day of the Second Month 293 AC
You watch Amrelath vanish into the distance upon his hunt. He'd growled and grumbled when you told him to dispose of the whirlwinds of tainted bone, but without much heat to it. The damned things would have been a nightmare to try and imprison at best a small help to his hunt.
Flying on you pass over dozens of small skirmishes as sellswords and legionaries clash in the dark with patrols of guards and one unfortunate company of Unsulled that had caught Azema's eye. The Alu demon had commanded the great battle-forged servitors to abandon their enchanted bows in favor of simply wading though the spear-line, heedless of the increasingly frenzied attacks. Finally you pass the southern gate where the broken sword of the Second Sons had long since replaced Tyroshi banners, the few guards on duty having been swiftly put to the sword.
"...the dragon... the dragon... fire and blood..." you catch faint cheers over the rumble of the storm. Only as loyal as their pockets are full, but then you hardly plan to run out of gold.
The dwelling places of the poor and destitute stretch out ahead of you, shacks of beaten earth and moldy straw at best, little more than crude lean-tos at worst hugging the road beyond Tyrosh's walls. Thankfully you see no fires even here either from looters or lightning in spite of the fact that there far fewer of your men abroad here and none towards the very edge where the slums had swallowed up what must once have been outlaying villages from the arrangement of the houses.
"There!" Dany points down towards a house or shop among many others which you would not even have given a second look truth be told. Only the presence of a handful of yearlings in a sturdy paddock seem slightly strange. They sound distressed.
"Magic cows," Ser Richard declares flatly. "They will probably turn out to be some sort of fucking demon..."
"They are children... transmuted children," Dany says with dawning horror, her eyes shining cold blue with the sight of true-sight. "Garin said this place was a butcher's shop."
You curse, rounding the place to see if there is any sign of the fiends and madman responsible for this abomination. Find them you do but not as you might have thought. Garin, Maelor, Vee, and a visibly impatient Glyra stand in the midst of a strange collection of 'statues'. Irony had done good work it seems.
Most are human though about half of them are visibly misshapen. In the center, however, are a pair
creatures halfway between a spider and a mosquito though the size of a pony and covered in flowing gore.
Fiends who revel in draining their victims dry and watching the light fade from their eyes.
How the hells did these things hide in a city? Perhaps more urgently, where had Wyla gone?
Thankfully the answer to the latter question proves to be far more innocent than you had anticipated. The two fiends were sorcerers, able to take on the shape of their victims, leaving Wyla to now study their arcane paraphernalia rather than 'standing outside in the rain watching cows'.
That does remind you of a matter you will have to deal with soon. Though you had made no promise to share the spoils with the vampire as you had done with Amrelath, she would doubtless resent receiving nothing for her efforts.
What do you grant Wyla for her role in the conquest of Tyrosh?
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OOC: I rolled to see if you would make it in time but you did not. On the plus side the party crushed the poor Sorcerer Creature Sangudaemons when their ambush was foiled by vampire senses.
