Fantasy Cursed Island

[Deadwood Deer]

"You broke the contract," Adran accused.

"You violated the terms!", Asmodeus shot back, "Subsection fourteen A, a list of groups you are not to use my influence to sleep with! You slept with a lolthan!"

"No, I slept with a drider arachne, she is not a follower of Lolth, I checked. And I have a copy of the contract right here," Adran pulled out a sheaf of papers and flipped to the section Asmodeus was referring to. "By the contract you wrote, there are three groups I am not allowed to sleep with. Your partners, followers of Lolth, and other elves." He put the section up to the circle. "I followed the terms of our contract, you violated them." He crossed his arms, "You revoked my mana without warning and dumped a succubus into my lap. You wrote this contract, I revised it, we both signed it. This is how contracts work, lady Asmodei, surely as an archfiend you understand what it means to violate a contract?"

 

[Fangs9090]

Niudisa watched from around the corner. She had no use for this knowledge, but it sure was interesting to watch.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Adran and Asmodeus argued back and forth for a while, Adran using the contract and Asmodeus pulling the status card. "Look, I'm not closing this communication until either you give me back my mana priveleges, or you admit you violated the contract and give me my soul back."

"I can kill you from here, you know that," Asmodeus pointed out.

"If you wanted to kill me, you'd have done so by now." Adran was a bit confident about that to be mouthing off to an archfiend.

 

[Fangs9090]

Niudisa wished she had a snack for this show. Oddly enough, the first thing that came to mind was corn.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Back at the camp with the others, Joanne returned with a cloth wrapped bundle with legs sticking out of the bottom, throwing it to the floor and wiping off her sword before sheathing it. "She will not make any more trouble," Joanne said dismissively.

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle glanced over and flicked an ear. Almost looked like one of the body bags hanging around near where she woke up.

Emil kept his eyes on his lute, tuning it for the third time in a row.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

After some arguing with Asmodeus, Adran and the fiend came to an agreement, Adran closed the gate and broke it so it couldn't be repurposed into an open door, and dropped his shield. "You're a nose little sprite, you know that?", he commented as he walked past Niudisa.

 

[Fangs9090]

Niudisa looked at him. “I’d argue that it’s one of my charms.” She fluttered after him. “So, all fixed up now?”

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Yep," Adran nodded, "Got my soul back." That meant he still had to leach off of Emera for now, but if Asmodeus couldn't keep up a contract, the contract was void.

 

[Fangs9090]

"Well, alright then. I'm sure at least someone in the group is eager to move on."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Most of the group was actually pretty eager to move on, they'd only really stopped to catch their breath in the first place. As soon as Adran and Niudisa returned, the others were ready to move on. Joanne fished out a soggy bedroll to carry the egg so Jerry could stand back up. Emfa jerked the succubus to her wobbly feet, getting a raised eyebrow from Adran. Emfa just pointed at Joanne.

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle got up and stretched, seeing Adran looking at the walking body bag. “No more trouble from her.”

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Yeah, apparently," Adran looked at the bundle of Emera again. "What did you do?"

"I have severed the tendons of every muscle not crucial to locomotion, her vocal cords, and blinded her." Joanne did not even sound remotely phased by that. "She can walk, but she cannot speak, see, or perform any other action."

"That's just... evil." Adran shook his head, "Come on, demons have a strength hierarchy, all you had to do was kick her ass."

 

[Fangs9090]

Niudisa shrugged. "I'd say her ass is kicked pretty thoroughly." She glanced around. "Has anyone seen my thralls, by the way? I lost track of them."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Probably got fried by the turtle," Jerry shrugged, not too concerned. The goblin that still had his head was looking at her funny, anyway.

"In any case," Veo said as she offered Emil a hand, "We should keep moving. Just because we've found no feeders doesn't mean they're not here."

 

[Fangs9090]

Emil nodded as he took her hand and stood up. "Right. I for one am eager to put this area behind us."

Niudisa sighed. "Well, I guess I'll find other thralls. Just wish I'd gotten to actually use those."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Joanne booted Emera forward and started walking. Despite being crowded and dark in this section of the ruins, possibly it was once a sort of hidden passage, it wasn't hard to move through once they passed all of the twisting areas, coming out into a massive grove. Well, to the edge of one. There were wooden spikes embedded in the ground, with the heads of goblins, minotaurs, elves, humans, and more mounted on top. Someone didn't want anyone coming through here. Nailed to the spikes were signs written in several languages. Jerry could recognize and read goblin, halfling, and Common, but there were others even she couldn't read, but she could recognize they were in Draconic and Dwarvish. They all said the same thing, instructing each who would pass through this grove to leave three double-handfuls of valuables in the barrel just inside the grove, or else the master of this territory would kill them for tresspassing.

"Well, shit," Emfa muttered.

 

[Fangs9090]

Niudisa spoke up. "Well, good thing we have a mountain of treasure in a bottomless bag. Oh, wait. We don't." She looked over at Shuffle. Shuffle just looked away.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Hang on," Jerry cautioned, "Whoever put these up is smart enough to speak seven languages, they're probably smart enough to listen to reason, right?" She looked at the others for confirmation. "And Shuffle didn't do that on purpose. If I stole the egg, you'd have a case. Shuffle didn't know."

 

[Fangs9090]

"Oh, reason, of course. Let's see how many times they listened to reason." Niudisa started counting up the severed heads.

Erina crossed her arms. "I'm afraid I'm with the fairy here. The message seems pretty clear: pay, turn back, or die."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"And how many are as well equipped as we?", Joanne asked, walking forward like nothing was up.

"Look, I doubt they have True Sight, whoever they are," Jerry added, "If it comes down to a fight we can't win, we'll fall back, and Adran can whip out the demon horse and we'll move through the ethereal plane."

 

[Fangs9090]

"Mm, fair enough." Erina walked along as the group proceeded. Shuffle kept her senses alert, and Emil removed his earplugs to make sure he could hear if something came for them.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Jerry put her hood up as the group started walking. Adran and Niudisa could feel some magic occuring before a translucent purple barrier appeared behind them once the entire party was through. They'd been sensed, but there was no going back now.

"Well, someone's throrough," Veo commented.

 

[Fangs9090]

"And it has magic. Fantastic." Emil went ahead and grabbed his lute, just in case.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"This deep, I'd be surprised if they didn't," Adran agreed as he repositioned his hands for a spell if it came down to it.

"We will defend outselves if it becomes necessary," Joanne replied, taking the lead. Jerry melted into the middle of the group, out off sight of anything outside the blob. Emfa kept her hand on her axe and stayed at the back, eyes glancing around. Veo hid in the middle with Jerry, and Beri positioned himself to use the paladin as a springboard if it came down to a fight.

Once past the gate, the doom and gloom gory area of the entrance completely vanished into a warmer grove, well lit but with no apparent source of light, likely magic. It looked to be extremely well tended, too. No ancient trees choking themselves as they grew, each young sapling carefully tended to ensure it survived. Flowers and herbs growing in small plots here and there. "This is pretty," Veo commented, "I wish I had these resources."