They walk into a temple for the lonely and Adaly looks at the cleric “Hey Joyce” excitedly waving, almost falling over because she stopped leaning on Sam. Sam catches her and helps her sit down “Adaly… What are you doing here? Intoxicated?” Adaly grabs her coin purse and starts collecting money “Rate is still 10 gold?” She asks trying to get the money out of her coin purse, but there is not going to be enough…
“Yes…” Joyce says looking Adaly over, but Amara already pays 20 gold. The cleric starts casting a spell on Amara and then on Adaly. Adaly feels the fog lifting, remembering everything, all insecurities, all the fears. She swallows and rubs her head, she has a massive headache. “Thank you” Adaly says to the cleric and looks at her party.
“This feeling sucks, but I think we should go to the king, and I couldn’t be drunk for that” Adaly says, and the cleric looks even more surprised, but is called away to another patron, so leaves them. “Should we go to the palace like this?” Sam asks concerned but Adaly just shakes her head “Yes, let’s just finish this stupid sidetrack so that we can get back to our actual mission.”
The party enters the palace and are let to Oliver’s office. “Good, you are here. I was already informed by Damon that it was a success. So here is your reward.” Oliver grabs a massive coin purse. Amara eagerly takes it and Adaly just looks at Oliver “Thank you, but could we talk with everybody, including the king once more. We need to discuss what we found and what happened.”
Oliver gets up and says something to one of the guards outside of his door before sitting down again. “Because of the danger the king no longer is in the palace. I just called for the others though. They should be here shortly.” Oliver explains and Adaly nods in understanding while Amara is counting their reward.
“Now another part of the reward is that we want to award you Adaly and you Amara with the title ‘Protector of the Crownlands’. This is a title that is not inheritable but does come with a small patch of uninhabited part of land. I understood you have another mission that has your focus, so the details we can discuss when you are back.” Oliver continues and Adaly nods in agreement. “Yes, we should be back after a bit more than a month. We can discuss it at that moment in time.”
Slowly the other nobles come in, and so does Damon, who looks at the party. He seems a bit surprised that the party is there in its entirety.
Once complete Adaly starts “So… I started introducing myself this morning. I am the direct daughter of Ilhoketh, arch-devil, ruler of the dawnless night, king of the citadel in the sixth hell. The reason I started this introduction that is because the elven man you met, is my father…”
The crowd starts talking to each other, a shock audible in their voices. Adaly looks at all of them before continuing “I wanted to reveal this this morning, but he threatened to kill the king, if I continued my speech. When he asked us to go into a different chamber, I took a risk and informed Damon and Livia about his true identity, hoping that small actions could already be taken to reduce the risk.” She takes a deep breath looks at Amara and Amara jumps in “I think us dealing with an arch-devil, should result in a higher reward.” But Oliver shakes his head.
Adaly slightly chuckles, before continuing “It was never about the money, but our mission is to disrupt my father as much as possible. The devil influencing your courts’ children is one of his generals, hence it was catching our attention. The temple dropped in the city was another one of his generals. Our mission now is going to take us into the hells. The fights here made them withdrawn so the country should be safe for a while. At least from Ilhoketh and his followers.”
“That doesn’t explain why he wanted to help us fight the devil in the Avario mansion…” Oliver says and Adaly nods “Apparently the thing the devil was trying to do here, was against Ilhoketh’s orders. So, he wanted to punish her. We helped him into the mansion, letting the two devils fight, and when there was only one remaining, Amara killed them. At least his avatar. Devils of this power level cannot be killed here.”
Amara goes to negotiate more coin, but Adaly shakes her head “Now, why I wanted to talk with you before we leave is two things. Firstly, I am explicitly saying you are safe from this specific devil, but your country has a bigger problem. There is a portal to the grey city at the mansion.” Damon looks up, “That is why our devil rate has always been high?” and Adaly nods.
“Now based on some history books we have been reading many generations of wizards have tried to close it, but that seems to not be possible, so the best thing to do is to guard it. But this is not the only portal in the basement and brings me to my second point. There is a portal to an ancient Isotian vault.” Adaly says and Oliver is rubbing his head “The duke is asking when he can return to his home, but this all sounds like that will block his return.”
“For the vault we can provide a bit more support. An ally of us is a researcher of the archaeologist guild in Vasovik. She has a specific specialization in Isotian ruins, she is how we know about the vault, and she could help you research it and maybe helping to reseal it.” Adaly says and Oliver immediately replies, “Okay great, let her come here and we shall let her research.”
Adaly swallows, looks at her ally paladins. “It is not that straight forward. I don’t know your country’s specific rules surrounding necromancy. Now she is not a necromancer, but we had a combined mission with her towards Grishbalan, and she got cursed by one.”
“Necromancy is highly illegal, so what kind of curse are we talking about here?” Damon asks and Adaly swallows “She was killed by a necromancer, but didn’t fully die… It makes her appear like a lich. She is not, her soul is still intact, and she is not a necromancer herself. But I will not risk letting her come here if you are going to treat her as a lich.”
Oliver rubs his head “You are not making things easy for us.” He jokes and Adaly politely smiles at him. Oliver sighs “We could get her a decree of safe parley for the 37th and let one of our clerics check her out. If she is a lich, she will be able to safely leave, but if she is not, we gladly accept her help.” Adaly smiles “Heskeni would like that. Thank you… Now I said my father is probably not a threat to this country anymore, but if you need someone to investigate, I suggest Oscar Gerardus Octavius Chevallier the third to take a look around the mansion.”
Oliver chuckles “You know some interesting people, the son of a count of a rivalling country. It sounds risky. Why him? I know he is studying at Certevilla, but he is no professor.” “He is not even a student of diabolism… But he is my ex, and he knows everything I know. I have been as forthcoming as I can be, but we have no time to investigate ourselves. So, if there is more at the mansion that you normally would like us to take a look at, Oscar can also help.” The people in the room nod in agreement and round up the meeting.
Stories of my brain 