Amara and Adaly travel back to Ingry, buy some more essentials for their trips into the hells before meeting the rest of the party at 3 at the teleportation hall.
They are stopped by a guard before he recognizes them and lets them in “Hello Amara, Hello Adaly, good that you could also join for this conversation.” Oliver says when they enter.
“This is Arnon, a cleric of Alsun, he will check your friend. Also, we have from the university Jacques here.” Oliver starts introducing the new people, but Adaly recognizes Jacques, he is Oscar’s cousin. She smiles wickedly at him, and he smiles back at her. “Darling it is so good to see you again, it has been some time” Adaly says when she embraces Jacques. Jacques hugs her back “Yes, since Oscar broke up with you… How have you been?” Adaly laughs “You really think that is what happened?” Adaly winks at Jacques and he shakes his head.
“Sorry where are my manors. Good to meet you Arnon, I am Adaly, this is Amara, Sam, Livia and Gevaudan. We traveled with Heskeni through Grishbalan when she got cursed. She is under our protection, but I do understand the need of having to check her.” Adaly shakes Arnon’s hand as he nods in acknowledgement.
Heskeni and Jeremy enter a few moments later, Heskeni eagerly goes to the party “So, do we get to go to the vault?” Adaly smiles towards her friend “Not yet, first this nice sir will check what happened to you, afterward you can go.” And signals towards Arnon that he can go ahead, but Jacques steps forward.
Jacques cast a spell “I created a zone of truth, so you can only answer truly.” Heskeni eagerly starts reacting “Well that is not true, if I was charismatic enough, I will be fine. Now I am not very charismatic, but still there are also items that prevent it from being effective. And also talking around the truth is always possible. Many options, but sure I will tell the truth.” Heskeni says with a smile and Arnon sighs. Adaly chuckles “Yes this is Heskeni, now you understand what we have dealing with. But there is no evil bone in her body.”
“I will be the judge of that.” Arnon says and sits down across from Heskeni. “So, what happened to you to become a skeleton?” Arnon asks the first question while pacing around. Heskeni looks at the cleric “Well, we first have to go to the beginning for this. See I am an archeologist, I like to go to ancient places. I have wanted to go to Grishbalan for ever, but the guild never found anybody willing to travel with me there. Now I met Amara when we were on a mission in Orodo, where we went into a very cool ancient Isotian ruin. You know like the one you have here…”
Adaly rolls her eyes and tunes Heskeni and the interrogation out while she approaches Jeremy. “How have you been?” Adaly whispers, he smiles at her “I am good, a bit tired. Heskeni has been ranting for days now. How are you?” Adaly nods in understanding “Fine… I gave Sam your note, he knows…” Adaly says a bit insecurely. Jeremy looks surprised at her “That is good.”
Jeremy and Adaly smile before Adaly takes a step back towards the others and listens into the interrogation “….On the second day in Grishbalan we saw like the city itself. Well, it is not a city anymore, just a crater. But you know the spires are still there, so we managed to see a bit of their culture….” Heskeni continues her rant. Arnon rubbing his head. “Can we please get to the point. What exactly triggered it?” “Oh simple, Amadeus tried to take over my body.” Heskeni says and smiles.
Arnon seems a bit relieved on the short answer “Okay who is Amadeus?” “Well if you hadn’t interrupted me, I would have told you. Now where was I…. Oh yeah, on the third day we reached the library. It is still there and active. They had a head curator and everything. So, we bought entry and then I started investigating as much as I could. Adaly kept forcing me to eat and sleep, but I just wanted to get all information….” Arnon rubs his head once more.
Adaly chuckles and her friends all seem amused by Heskeni’s ranting. She in the end tells almost the entire thing, Heskeni neglects to mention Adaly’s contract, her increased magical powers, and other small things which would have made negative impact on the party.
Arnon eventually nods and says “Okay, we have enough information. I declare that the status of the halfling is indeed the result of an irreversible curse. It is very sad, but she is an innocent and is allowed entry into Escia.” Oliver and Jacques nod, Oliver stepping forward “I do have to ask you to keep masking your appearance, but here is a note of the king, allowing you passage through the land. We hope you will help us with our vault” Heskeni changes back to her halfling shape, takes the note “Thank you, so now we can go to the vault?” Oliver chuckles and nods.
Adaly steps forward “We will take you to Damon, he can escort you to the vault. Let’s go” and they all leave the teleportation hall. They walk towards the paladin order while Adaly sends mentally a message to Heskeni ‘You will see when you are at the vault, we took the crest. I hope you can keep that a secret. In exchange I will let you investigate it if we make it back from our mission.’ ‘When you get back you mean’ Heskeni mentally replies, but Adaly keeps quiet. “When you get back.” Heskeni says out loud and the party stares at Adaly, and Adaly just lifts her shoulders.
