Adaly walks in her friend’s shadow, her charcoal black skin disappearing in the shadow. She is skinny but tall, which normally makes it difficult to stand in people’s shade. However, Amara is tall as well, so this time it works. They walk towards the meeting location while they talk about their strategy.
Close to the location they see a flash of light. Adaly immediately turns invisible and goes out for investigation. On the rooftop she finds the remnants of an imp. She hears footprints nearby and starts chasing them down the block.
After a few blocks the cloaked person stops. The cloaked figure looks female, she is wearing armor but for the rest no identifiable feature on her person. Her hair looks wet, and she has weird black eyes, which makes her look demonic. Silently Adaly cast thaumaturgy and asks in a booming voice “Who are you?”
The figure startles, and looks around, not seeing the invisible Adaly. The figure doesn’t respond to her question, so Adaly tries again “Who are you working for?” still no response, but the woman holds up her 2 short swords in a defensive way. Adaly grabs her ritual dagger and stabs the figure, who notices the stab and slashes in her direction, but misses. However, Adaly successfully has taken her blood.
Through the spell thaumaturgy Adaly laughs “Just tell me who you are, darling” the figure lashes out in the generic location of the voice, but Adaly wasn’t there.
Adaly pickpockets the figure, and only finds a sending stone, and takes a step back, just observing. A few moments later a man joins them. “It is not safe, something is here.” The woman says to the man. “Okay, lets relocate, and I will let Adaly and Amara know where to go.” Shit Adaly thinks to herself, these are the paladins they were supposed to meet. She carefully backs away and informs Amara through her own sending stone what happened.
While making her way towards Amara, Adaly ditches the sending stone in a rain barrel. Attaching it to the inside rim, to make it seem intentionally positioned. She walks a bit further before she finally drops the invisibility. “So that was a bad idea” she jokes when being reunited with her friend. They walk back to the original meeting place when in their head they hear “The location has been compromised, please go two more streets north and we will await you there for walking to the new hiding place.”
They comply, walking towards the new meeting location. Before them they see the two paladins Adaly saw earlier. “What happened?” She innocently asks, while the woman answers “At least an imp was keeping an eye on you, but also something bigger that sadly got away.” “Are we save now?” Amara asks to which the man replies “Not yet but please follow me”
They follow the strangers, who enter a shady looking tavern, and climb down a ladder. They walk through a weird underground city, Adaly had read about the old dwarven settlements but had no idea they were still here. They walk into a study and another male is waiting for them at the door. This paladin is missing a leg, but for the rest easy on the eyes.
They enter the room, and a note is on the desk with Amara’s name on it “Shit this location truly is compromised. Let’s find another room” the male paladin with 2 legs says. Amara grabs the note and reads it while the one-legged paladin starts hoping around. Adaly follows the paladin, knowing Amara will share the note later.
They enter a different room, which again has a note for Amara in it. “What is the meaning of this?” the male who appears to be their leader says. “Well, the note says Amara, so it for her.” Adaly says while taking the note and handing it to Amara. Who starts laughing when reading it. Amara shows the notes to Adaly. They are shitting on ‘Sam’ but are asking to go to a place called truths unquestioned, signed by Heralan.
“So, I guess you are Sam, nice to meet you, I am Adaly.” Adaly says to the male paladin. “Yes, let me see that” but Adaly pulls the piece of paper a bit back, and quickly hands it back to Amara. “Maybe once we understand what we are doing here, we can build trust and then it is still up to Amara if she wants to share. They were addressed to her.” Adaly says firmly. Sam grunts and leaves the room trying to find another save location.
When they finally enter a room without notes they all enter, and Sam closes the door behind them. “So, we are paladins from the shadowed blade, I am Sam Escoval. As you already guessed. My female coworker is called Livia Knowenschild and the third one of our party is Jeremy. You are Adaly daughter of Ilhoketh and Amara Drogar. We have a common enemy and would like to team up for a specific mission.” Sam says while grabbing a mirror from his bag. He throws the mirror up and the mirror grows, showing a projection of a man
“Good evening, I am the patient man, leader of the shadowed blade. It is good to meet you, Adaly and Amara. We know you both want to kill the arch-devil Ilhoketh, is our intel correct?” Both of them nod their heads “Good, you know about the upcoming prince war?” Adaly once more nods her head, but Amara shakes her head. He pauses before continuing “The hells live in sort of a peace because the two devil prince’s made a pack millennia ago to keep the peace. That contract is ending soon, so a war will break out in the hells. This is of course good for the rest of the universe. So, we would like to keep that war going as long as we can.” “So what does this have to do with Ilhoketh?” Adaly asks. “I was getting to that impatient one. Your father struck a deal with one of the two, to gain arch-devil levels of power, he agreed to give up his power at the start of the prince war, so that Shai Ilar has an extra edge. During a small timeframe of 3 days, he will be weaker”
Adaly is amazed to hear this. This was everything she had been hoping for, the opportunity that she needed. The patient man continues talking “From the 11th to the 13th of Coldnight he will be weak. Now Livia and Sam will help you get to the citadel, but they have their own mission there. We hope you two will take care of Ilhoketh and in the power vacuum the war will last longer.” He points towards Sam and ends with “Sam will give you all other details, you will get some funding and other resources. I wish you good luck”
The Patient man disappears, and they are back in the room with just the 3 paladins. Sam continues the briefing immediately “So, we have funds, 9500 gold, to help us. We also have coins to get discount on teleportation’s, and finally we have 2 sets of sending stones we can distribute how you would like. Jeremy will stay here and is our research partner, he will not join us in the journey to hell. We have no means of getting to the citadel, hence us already coming forward. We hope you have one, else we will research together.”
Adaly leans against one of the walls, looks the paladins over. They look weak, Amara and her could easily overpower them, so she sees why they would need her. The funds and the information is very helpful though, so she will work with them. “Okay so lets plan. We don’t have a strategy of getting to the hells yet, but there are a few options. Traveling through the portals to the grey city, using the Leviathan, but we need more information, which we can get in Grishbalan” Adaly says, and Amara immediately continues “I do have a contact who can help us travel there… but travelling will be dangerous in Grishbalan, are you guys up for that?”
Sam looks hesitantly “I might have safer means for travelling. A friend of mine is breeding wyverns, flying is probably safer than walking”. “That is so cool, let’s do that” Adaly immediately reacts and Amara nods in agreement. “Okay you guys deserve to read the note” and Amara hands them the first note, that only contained Heralan’s name and the request to come to the truth unquestioned.
“Fascinating, Jeremy could you research this” “Of course shall I keep 2 of the sending stones so that I can give you better updates” Sam nods and grabs his 2 sending stones and put them on the table, Jeremy also puts one on the table, and Livia is stressfully feeling around her armor “I seem to have lost mine” she admits defeated and Adaly suppresses a laughter.
“Jeremy, you keep the other side of the disappeared one and let us know if someone contacts you, for the other one, you should have one and…” “I will take it” Adaly says before Sam can continue. She walks forward to grab the stone, and winks seductively to Jeremy. “Oh love we are going to have so many fun chats” she says flirty.
They round up the meeting and the 4 of them start making their way to the tavern again spending the night in one of the rooms. Adaly pretends to go to sleep, but still cast devils eye, spying on the people who’s blood she had. One of the generals she has the blood from takes hold. Es-Grenalieth being on this plane is not a good sign, but she will take it. She can see that the devil is in a fancy study but cannot gleam anything more.
Stories of my brain 