YOU CAN’T SEE THE DEMON UNTIL HIM COME CALLING
Takarit sat atop a cobble of raised earth, overlooking the blasted plains of Occipitus. The Hezrou was acutely aware of a gnawing hunger, one that he had not been able to sate in many weeks since a group of Slaad had the misfortune of crossing his path. As a true outsider and native of the Abyss, Takarit had no need for food or other material sustenance of any kind. The hunger that drove the giant toad-demon was an acute need to destroy something, to taste the sweet nectar that is fresh blood.
The demon’s sharp eyes caught movement far off in the distance. Takarit licked his lips as he began to salivate. Finally, after all this time…prey had arrived.
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Tillian Wanderfar whistled nervously as the party crossed the wretched landscape of the Abyss. He tried mightily to ignore the hellish surroundings, but it was all for naught. Tillian had long since shuffled off his happy-go-lucky demeanor, and had replaced it with something far darker. Too many of his friends had died in the past year. Perhaps the foreboding plane on which they found themselves was an appropriate place. ‘Perhaps death will finally find me here, too.’ the halfling mused.
A bright flash of light signaled the instantaneous and unwarned arrival of a large green skinned toad-like beast, the promise of torment and suffering in its eyes. Kauraphon immediately recognized the creature and shouted, “Hezrou!! Destroy it quickly!!”
The beast acted first, and seeing the number of opponents decided to use its most potent ability. Summoning the power within his magical nature, Takarit uttered a single word of pure evil force. All of the companions who heard the word, save Kauraphon, reeled from the shock, and felt their strength being sapped from them. Tilly and Grimm, both frozen due to the mental trauma, disappeared.
The hezrou was furious. The Blasphemy was supposed to kill them, not banish or daze them!! His blood boiling, the hezrou lunged upon Rusty, tearing a gash in the dwarf’s thigh with its massive claw.
Kauraphon realized that without their two most effective warriors, they had no chance against a creature as powerful as the one before them. The half-fiend thought quickly, trying to determine the most effective exit strategy. ‘Of course!’ he thought. “This fight is lost!! Quickly, grab on to me and we can escape.” Seeing the danger before them, the companions ran to Kauraphon without a question or complaint. With a few words, and a flash of light similar to the one that heralded the arrival of the hezrou, the four disappeared.
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Minutes later, Grimm became aware of a change in his locale. Instead of the constant reddish gloom of Occipitus, the half-ogre had to shield his eyes from intensely bright sunlight. And the sand! As far as the warrior could see, there was nothing but sand! His eyes finally adjusting to the light, Grimm noticed Tilly standing about 10 feet away from him, looking solemly down at a sword and shield sticking out of the desert ground. Five feet away, a similar monument was visible. Too say the least, Grimm was thoroughly confused.
Tilly sighed and chuckled at the irony. If Yondalla wasn’t sending him through the Abyss, she was taunting him by returning him to the gravesite of one of his recently dead friends and the man who was supposed to save Cauldron. With a quick thought, the halfling snapped out of his mental torpor, and realized that he and the half-ogre had been returned to Faerun at the exact spot from which the Bright Axes (or whatever was left of them) had originally left it.
Making matters even worse, Tilly realized didn’t he speak any common languages with Grimm, despite their efforts to educate the warrior. It would be difficult enough to explain to people that the 8 foot tall creature with the massive spiked chain was not going to harm them. Once they learned that the only languages Grimm spoke (besides his unrecognizable Oerthian dialects) were the tongues of demons and devils, there might be serious trouble.
Another flash of light caught the attention of the unusual pair, and they were greeted by Jules, Caine’s stalwart companion. The ball of light dropped a small bag on the ground, and intoned, “Master Tilly. Please open the bag. Kauraphon may be running out of breath.” Confused, the halfling opened the bag and the half-fiend wizard climbed out of what seemed to be an impossibly small amount of space.
Kauraphon laughed. “I wish I had known that Jules had such a powerful ability to teleport. That would have made the Test of the Smoking Eye so much easier if we could have just instantaneously appeared at the Cathedral of Feathers. Oh, well. Lesson learned, I suppose. I tell you, though, I am glad that kept those scrolls with the plane shifting magicks. You two would have been in some serious trouble if I didn’t have them.”
Grimm’s mouth dropped. “What are you talking about? Where are we? Where are the others? How did you fit in that bag? What…where…nevermind.” The half-ogre paused. “What do we do now?” Grimm and Tilly looked expectedly at the half-fiend, both hoping for some definitive answers.
Kauraphon replied, “You were both the victim of a Blasphemy spell. Come to think of it, all of you were the victim of a Blasphemy spell, but that’s not important right now. What is important is that one of the results of that spell is that the two of you have been banished from the Abyss for the next 24 hours. All of the others are still safe and they are peacefully resting in an extradimensional opening that Caine has conjured. We are going to rest here until we can safely plane shift the two of you back to Occipitus, where we will then continue with the Test.”
Grimm frowned. “I have just spent the last few weeks eating fiendish buffalo and drinking fetid Abyssal water. Now that I am back on the Prime Material Plane, what is to keep me from just staying here and not returning?”
The half-fiend’s voice grew dark. “Nothing, except for the fact that you are in the middle of the largest desert on this particular planet. But the good news is that after you die of thirst, starvation, or exposure to the heat, the local vultures will be very appreciative of such a large meal made so readily available to them.”
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
