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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 6720357" data-attributes="member: 11697">A few moments of confusion passed swiftly and Tristol teleported them all up to Alex’s level, relieved to at least find someone not wishing them dismemberment, eternal slavery, or swift death. As odd as it might seem to find an apparently friendly face in the depths of Baator, the fact that the mage was smiling and stood next to the broken door of a prison cell that it seemed obviously had been his only quite recently until Taba had torn through the floor, made him all the more trustworthy.“That way! It can’t be far!” Alex pointed down the hallway where a trail of ashes, blood, and several torn apart baatezu corpses slowly burned, returning their essence to Baator itself.In the thick of it all, it seemed to go unnoticed or just overlooked that Alex himself was spattered in devil blood as well. His of course had come from the gleeful worrying of his jailor’s neck in a Tindalos hound’s phosphorescent jaws rather than incidental spatter from Taba’s rampage.Looking at Alex, their weapons remained out but not raised in anticipation of violence. A moment earlier, Toras had surreptitiously glanced at the strange wizard, glancing at his soul for the hints of any level of evil or servitude to an evil god but had found neither.“So who exactly are you?” Clueless asked as they and Alex made their way down the corridor, following the sounds of bloodshed.“My name’s Alex,” He gave a soft bow. “And until a few moments ago I was a prisoner here, or at least as my jailers called it, ‘indefinite detention as an honored, uninvited guest of his Infernal Majesty, Duke Melikaros. I’m rather glad to be out, it was getting quite boring. Baatezu aren’t very good conversationalists.”“What did you mean by you’d been waiting for us?” Florian gave the mage a suspicious, sidelong glance.Toras poked Alex on the shoulder, “Did Green Marvent send you?”Alex gave an emphatic shrug, “I can’t say that I know who that fellow is. I came here because my friends told me to come here and meet you, plus that she, it, whatever you want to call them” He motioned in Taba’s direction, “would be coming as well.”“Your friends?” Clueless asked warily. The last thing that they needed was some barmy, or some barmy with a fiend in his head. They’d had enough of those for a lifetime.“My friends?” Alex smiled warmly. “They’re the ones that talk to me all of the time. Usually in my dreams, but sometimes through other people, my shadow, or just out of the corner of my eyes. They’ve been rather chatty of late.” Looking past them at nothing they perceived, he gave a soft, erratic giggle. Unconsciously his fingers curled to stroke the head of the intangible, invisible hound as it lapped at the essence of the fiend blood on his hip.Nisha of all people looked askance, narrowed her eyes a moment and twirled a finger in the air, whistling a soft ‘coo coo!’.“Yeah, well we’re glad to have helped you escape in some small way, but I don’t think that we need any help. So yeah, if you’re glad to be out, best of luck to you and everything, but we’ll be on our way.” Clueless motioned back the way that they’d come and the unguarded exterior entrance.That would have been that with Alex dismissed and left behind to fend for himself, if not for what came next when he proved his worth and value. Consumed as they were in talking with the wizard as they turned the corner, they never noticed the barbazu turning in their direction from a blind entrance at exactly the same time.Following the slow, phlegm-filled snarl of the hound at his fingertips, Alex didn’t miss a beat as he pointed at the fiend and whispered a phrase.“Halt in the Duke’s name!” The baatezu shouted as it raised its spear before stumbling with the impact of Alex’s spell. A coruscating green beam lanced from his fingers to strike the fiend in the chest, incinerating the devil in its tracks, leaving behind only a pile of smoking ashes.“Ok…” Florian held up a hand. “Score one for the new guy.”“He does seem to be useful.” Toras shrugged. “So let’s play this out as we go. Worst that happens is we get out of here and go our separate ways then. But too soon to say. Nice shot by the way.”Tristol tilted his head to the side, measuring Alex’s skill and the particular power of the spell he’d just seen the man cast. ‘Not bad at all. Particularly good at piercing magical resistance. He has the particular flavor of a conjuration specialist, despite his using a transmutation spell. Still, if we have to pick someone to be willing to help us run through a baatezu mansion in Hell itself, we couldn’t have hoped to find a better option. Even if he’s a bit odd, even judging present company with Nisha.’“A pleasure to be of service.” The alienist smiled at the half-celestial and then turned to smile at his familiar, no longer a Tindalos hound nor a warped raven, but a twitching, softly whispering gibberling that was of course, seen by none but himself. “I aim to continue to help out.”A mixture of shrugs and smiles all around and they continued down the passage in pursuit of Taba.****So close so close so close I can smell the scent of Malagard bubbling up below the reek of your fear. The barking pretender purchased her loyalty with the blood of my sibling Xenghara. You thought yourself safe. You thought yourself free. I do not forget. I do not forgive. Not for the blood of my siblings on your hands oh no, oh no, no, no…Whispering to her prey all the while, announcing her intent and desires, the Infiltrator of the Planes clambered through the warren of elaborate hallways of the inner estate. Spinning from floor to wall to ceiling, she cart wheeled and shifted form with each tick of whatever infernal clock timed her pace. Each motion, each deft slice of razor claws, each steel-tipped arachnid leg planted upon an unshielded head, each whisper of a spell was by intent. A whirling dervish of flesh and malice, she spun through the passageways, following the scent of her desired quarry, littering her wake with dozens more butchered devils as incidental, irrelevant victims.“Bar the door! Bar the door!” A terrified shriek came from beyond the archway of one of the Duke’s guest chambers. The sound of heavy furniture being pushed into place and the adjustment of steel-shod hooves at the base of the door confirmed what Taba could sense and taste on the air and aether already.The door held intact and safe, but neither its hinges or the wall that contained them remained anchored or whole. Taba wrenched the door from its moorings and exhaled, spilling a torrent of acid from a head that now looked much like a black wyrm. The furniture that barred her way splintered from the force of the blast and its corrosive nature alike, forcing aside one of the two armored pit fiends that served as ambassadors within the Duke’s court for the guest that stood behind them.Taba’s prey was not an elf, not even a mortal, but a night hag.The gray lady’s eyes loomed wide with horror as the archfiend forced herself into the chamber. A barbed tail wrapped around the waist of one of her attendants, constricting even as blades of jagged bone grew from its length, severing the fiend in half like a doll in the jaws of a bear. A suddenly grown eye in the altraloth’s flank gazed at the second devil and then it was stone, frozen in place before an insectile leg kicked out and shattered it to pieces.Screaming as she wove defensive magic, only the hag dressed in the raiment of the Lord of the 6th remained. “Malagard! Lord of the 6th! Master of Malbolge protect your servant. Protect your coven sister!”Taba’s jaws yawned wide and her ruby eyes glittered, catching the hag’s rheumy orbs for but a moment before lunging forward and snapping shut with dagger teeth and the snap of bone.The hag’s dead, headless body slumped to the floor and Taba perched atop it, whispering like a mocking benediction while on her back, tentacles erupted forth to weave the patterns of necromantic energies necessary to ensure that her victim would never again return.“There is only one of you left now. Only your master hiding herself within the arms and chains of Hell itself. You who conspired with the pretender, the usurper of Khin-Oin, the Ebon. You who would forsake me and my siblings for scraps and favors from the wretch seated upon the Seige Malicious. I will slaughter you all.”  Licking at the hag blood, Taba smiled, content in her success even as the group which had forced her to reveal herself finally stumbled into the room with a chorus of exclamations.“Oh what the f*ck happened in here?!”“Are those pit fiends?!”“That isn’t an elf…”“Get her!”Snarling in irritation from her dragon’s mouth and two newly formed in her elongated neck, Taba began to cast. Words of a Gate spell flowed from her mouths like poetry even as her forelimbs reached out to wrench at the fabric of Hell and rip open a breach to another plane of existence. With a moment of resistance that faded beneath her personal power, the gate opened into an eerily beautiful, tranquil, twilight landscape. Taba turned back for one last glance at the assembled group and launched herself through the gate.****The party stared in shock at the carnage in the room, the twin bodies of pit fiends, and the nature of Taba’s victim. With each moment that passed, it seemed that Clueless had been right after all. There had never been an elf for them to kill. There had only been the yugoloth lord Taba, the Infiltrator of the Planes.“Marvent lied to us.” Clueless tapped the motionless hag corpse with Razor’s tip. Unlike the pit fiend bodies, it was not dissolving into its base essence, flowing back to its plane of origin or whatever power claimed it. Taba had made certain that this hag in particular was dead, and based on what the altraloth had said, it all came back to the ‘loths and their civil war.“He sent us here for a reason though. He had to have.” Toras did his best to rationalize the situation, even as they stood in Hell, surrounded by dead devils, with the sounds of more baatezu closing in.Standing off to the side, Alex glanced down at his familiar. It looked up at him, then to the gate. ‘You’re safer on that side.’ Content with the eight eyed cat’s opinion on the matter, he smiled at waited for the others to come to the same decision.Fyrehowl glanced back behind them, her ears swiveling to the approaching sound of marching boots. “I don’t think the baatezu are going to believe us if we’re here when they get here and see this. ‘A yugoloth did it!’ isn’t going to cut it with them, even if it’s the truth.”“Through the gate!” Clueless shouted.“Where does it go?” Florian shot the bladesinger a cautious look. “I don’t want to end up surrounded by more ‘loths somewhere in Gehenna.”“It isn’t going to be worse than being in Hell, surrounded by angry devils.” Clueless motioned towards the now contracting gate. “It isn’t going to stay open forever. Hurry!”“Ger her?” Nisha giggled as she was the first to tumble through the slowly closing gate, “That was your plan Toras?”Toras shook his head and shrugged as he hefted his sword and jumped in after the Xaositect, followed shortly after the others.****Passage out of Hell was swift and timeless, with a burst of cold and the rattle of chains in their ears as the gate deposited them in the middle of a grassy meadow below a starry evening sky overhead. The air of Karasuthra was cool and distantly the sound of nighttime insects chirped and called, while a few errant flickers of light emerged in the air from drifting fireflies.“We’re in the Beastlands…” Fyrehowl muttered, recognizing the plane’s unique feeling before anything else. “That’s strange.”The gate sealed shut and quickly their eyes adjusted to the sudden nighttime darkness. In one of the nearby trees a nightingale chirped.“Why would a ‘loth be in the Beastlands?” Toras mused as he held up a hand to bath the meadow in conjured daylight.“This is just a waypoint. One spot to reach another portal.” Tristol pointed to freestanding stone archway some twenty feet distant. Instinctively he could tell that it harbored a portal, and then it flickered with the first stages of a keyed opening as a creature slinked out of the gloom and passed in front of it.“Sh*t, look lively folks.” Toras called out in warning.Moving into the periphery of Toras’ light stood the lean form of a celestial wolf, or something that upon first glance seemed to be one. Unhealthy green light leaked from its open mouth and it seemed on the verge of starvation as it stood between them and the active portal, planting its paws and giving a low snarl.6 seconds.Alex narrowed his eyes, alternating his glances from the wolf to his familiar. The familiar returned his look with the ambiguous statement, ‘Taba is here.’“Everyone spread out.” Florian warned. “Get on every side and surround this thing. We can’t take it unless we get its concentration diverted from any one person.”“Something isn’t right.” Clueless muttered, staring at the wolf as it snarled even louder. Green light streamed from its mouth almost as if something were building up. Something about the wolf didn’t quite mesh with their last encounter with the archfiend. Perhaps its presence on one of the upper planes was responsible for its less twisted and artful form? In any event the artifact in Clueless’s ankle pulsed with a painful, angry warning of proximity.The nightingale chirped again behind them, singing out into the night. The portal swirled and churned, flickering with energy as it neared opening.12 seconds.Florian called out to Tempus, invoking a protective blessing. “Tristol give us some space if that thing breaths on us.”“That portal is about to open.” Alex shouted. “Don’t let it flee!”Tristol nodded and held up a hand, calling into being a glistening hemisphere of force to cage the altraloth into place not a moment too soon before the portal behind it –and most importantly behind the force wall as well– fully activated.18 seconds.High up in the branches of a elm tree, the nightingale smiled and her ruby eyes glinted with satisfaction as she stared at Clueless’s exposed back. Chirping out her avian song once more, she wove the words of a spell into place, and it was from there in her arbor perch rather than from the dominated and warped celestial wolf that the lance of energy shot out.Tristol’s eyes widened as he sensed the magical expenditure and he barely managed to turn to look into the altraloth’s glittering eyes before the bolt rocketed past him to strike its doomed target.The bladesinger’s head exploded like an overripe melon.****</blockquote>

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