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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 4999158" data-attributes="member: 99">Somewhere, in the deepest depths of the Mist, her Demon Lord held Zanne by the throat.  She couldn't speak.  She could barely breathe.The Beseiger rectified this situation by hurling her to the ground with enough force that she needed several moments to work past the pain and recover her breath.  The Beseiger filled this time with an angry diatribe:"WHAT could you possibly have been thinking?!  You must have known that Gate served my purposes!  And yet you closed it anyway!  Know this, bitch:  I OWN your soul!  And I'll have it out of you sooner than you think if you aren't very careful.There is an artifact.  The Nexus.  You know of it?"By this point Zanne had recovered such that she could nod her head.The Besieger continued, "Well you're going to get it for me.  You have a year and a day.  A moment beyond that and I'll have your life as well as your soul!  Understood?!"  Again, Zanne nodded.He grabbed her again in his massive hand and they were suddenly back near the, now defunct, Mist Gate.  He tossed her on the ground, a bit less forcibly this time.  "A year and a day..."  He was gone again."What was that all about!?" asked Astavian."I...had a little talk with my patron," replied Zanne.Astavian let it be known, in no uncertain terms, what he thought about trafficking with Mist Demons.Zanne let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that she was starting to agree with him.They had a brief conversation in which Zanne told the rest of the group the task that she'd been assigned by her Demon Lord.  Given what they knew of the Nexus, that it gave the wielder control over the various planar gates, it was generally agreed that handing it over to a Demon Lord would be a "very bad thing".  But for now their next step was obvious:  They needed to get out of this swamp and back to civilization.They crossed the river rushing around the island and rather furtively explored the huge cave where they had slain Balethrax.  The dracolich that he had become was nowhere in sight.  Neither was the substantial pile of dragon bones that had been stacked near the back of the cave.  However they did discover a ritual, carved upon the wall in Draconic, and apparently written and revised multiple times over a long period.  It was a multi-part ritual for the creation of the "dracotaur" creatures that they had fought here and in the swamps.The first part of the ritual required the animation of some dragon bones into a sort of construct.  This was then imbued with flesh and magic using a large amount of blood combined with the enchanted blood of a dragon.  That of course explained the blood-tithe that Balethrax had imposed upon the Lizardfolk, which had eventually driven them into conflict with the Elves.  The experimental nature of the ritual also explained the misshapen dracotaurs they had encountered in the swamps.  Zanne copied the ritual into her book but they also made efforts to deface the writing on the cave wall such that the ritual would be useless to others who might find it.  That done, they left the vile cave, already full of millions of flies buzzing and drinking from the drying bood-vats.  They ascended the pathway that circled around the sinkhole and made their way back into the swamps headed East toward Enmur.</blockquote>

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