as told by the cavalier Olmas Lurecia himself.

Sunday, 23 Sarenith

So the plan was to use control water to stop the flow into the well, but that was abandoned when Koya was confronted by the ghost of Onoka and chastised. Turns out that the holy water of the pond flowing into the well was the only thing stopping the whole well from instantly putrefying and going foul. So .. no, gotta deal with the noise and visual distraction of the waterfall.

However, knowing better now what were up against, we went prepared with a few different buffs. Haste and protection from acid were the two prime considerations. We got the haste, but didn’t have time for the acid protection. Kali conjured up a huge water elemental and with the extra speed, the extra attacker, and the fact that some had already been killed, it took surprisingly little time to finish off the rest of the omoxes. A new combatant appeared – a hezrou, which Kali said is another kind of demon or devil – but it was also dispatched, thanks to Ivan.

So the pool was cleared But there were shorelines on either sides of the pool, as well as a hole/cave up on the shelf. Zos and Dasi crept quietly into that hole and overheard a fragment of conversation:

“Thank you my friend. Keep me apprised of Meme’s actions.”

Sneaking a bit further in, they glimpsed an opulent throne room. Across from it was another room with swirling mists. They returned and reported this.

We concluded that we’d stumbled into a demonic turf war. The pool was likely something of a neutral zone.

Kali had the crazy idea that we walk into the throne room like we belonged there, and demand an alliance against the other. Then if/when we killed this rival, we’d have a “friend” down here.

Crazy .. but just crazy enough to work. Don’t ask me why, but it made sense at the time.

So Radella and I marched in there, and our audacity and brashness worked. He even gave us 3 hezrou to take with us. We had no doubts, of course, that if we succeeded in our mission we’d be killed, but forewarned is forearmed, right? We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

So it was that we and our three new “allies” headed over there. We’d been told that Meme had a wicked-good assassin as her BFF, and no visit like this would be complete without more demons/devils. We went invisible, at least to start, and with fly/air walk running if needed. As we silently scouted the room, one of the hezrou performed their first act of heroism by being the assassin’s first victim (having been sliced in two in one apparent blow.) Ah yes, assassin, that’s right.

The room had about 10 erines scattered about, and somewhere there was an apparently invisible assassin. I could probably make her appear, but not without dispelling the invisibilty that in our party were still using to good effect.

We were trying a new tactic with Suishen this time. Since he has inherent telepathy, he was going to act as a switchboard for our silent directions to each other. That’ wouldn’t work very well for an extended conversation, but for short, positioning statements (“Olmas will take the one on the left” we thought it might work.

Some of the erines had tangling ropes. The hezrou seemed amazingly ineffective against the erines, but we had some success at hitting and killing them. And when the assassin appeared again, this time to attack another hezrou, Kali was ready with a glitterdust. That made her no longer invisible, and not too long after that, not being invisible made her dead at the points of Ivan’s arrows.

in the end, all the hezrou died, but we ourselves weren’t too bad off. And around the corner lies the ruler of this northern beach …