Mission 2: Sleeper in the Tomb of Dreams (Part I)

Day 13 - 14
The Cult of Bane, with Khovius as its new leader, began reorganizing in the wake of new management. Sir Klev and Lady Nelisha saw to the changes, backed by the mysterious Brothers of the Blackened Skull. What opposition still loyal to Jarynn and the strange Hand of Naraash fled into the deep wilds.

The various cult leaders who'd come for the death match returned to their covens and their cabals to spread the good word: Khovius was Lord! Nelisha was able to outfit the group with healing salves distilled from the blood of gladiators, proven to sustain even the weakest weakling as if they were fighters of the Pit.

When the cult was reordered and ready, Sir Klev would send word, and Khovius would have an interesting decision to make. Thousands were now at his command, had he time to assemble them all, a small army of loyal dedicates to The Tyrant Bane, Lord of Blood and Conquest.

As the squad set out, Dayereth was strangely missing, presumably off raping, but risking the wrath of General Duringa and his assassins.

Day 15
Two days the squad rode west, on their way to report back to the general at Dameran, before one night at camp Revil heard the sounds of a raptor. He quickly woke the others, nocking an arrow, but the presumed dinosaur turned out to be a strange, thin, towering jester with a penchant for giggling fits. After a long and awkward acquainting, in which Trisane nearly attacked, the grinning stranger produced one of the SS rings with the flip of his middle finger and introduced himself as Kemix. He was the sole survivor of Suicide Squad A, who successfully completed their first mission, but then all died due to violent, repeated shocks from the loyalty rings (as they all tried to kill Kemix, risking death by electrocution just to silence him).

He was curious about everyone's crimes and explained they'd gotten him on charges of baby eating. Very tender, very sweet, babies were, but if he was hard pressed, he'd eat just about anyone. The group wasn't very eager to welcome a cannibal into the ranks, but Kemix insisted, producing a letter from the general.

Hey Idiots,

This is important, so listen up!

In recent years, the diplomatic ties between Damera and the Amazonian nation of Lysir have suffered considerably. The Lysiri respect strength and Damera's weak state coupled with a recent neglect of its neighbors threatens to sever our last ties. We CANNOT afford to lose any friends.

As it turns out, the Lysiri have asked for our aid. This is the last chance to prove to them we deserve their loyalty. Gods help me, because of the recent incursions of the Karnaathi, all I have to send is you rejects.

Go north to Lysir and find the Sisters of the Bones, a sect dedicated to the Raven Queen, honored dead and protection of tombs and all that. A saint of theirs has been kidnapped. Help however you can and report back to me when you're done. Take chuckles there with you.

And DON'T FUCK UP, or else you might as well throw yourselves off the nearest cliff. The assassins are standing by.

Love,

General Duringa

Day 16 - 37
The next three weeks were spent riding north, Trisane forced to share her horse with the creepy, chuckling Kemix. Though Arabas was mostly an arid continent, with large deserts and dry mountains, Lysir was something quite different, a cold, snowy country with thick, sprawling forests and white mountains. It was a quiet journey, most highwaymen, goblins and wolves staying well-clear of the menacing SS.

Every night, Khovius suffered terrible nightmares, flashes of things even he found disturbing, and always a hulking, demonic silhouette loomed over him. The group often chided him for snapping out of his trance screaming, offering to hold his hand and change his swaddling as needed.

Day 38
Through various tells in the land, Revil led the squad to a fog-choked barrows in the heart of Lysir. They seemed to go on forever, pervaded with a cold no cloak could dispel, the breath of death perhaps. Some barrows were large hill made for what seemed like giants, most were fit for Amazons, and others were very small, meant for dwarves, gnomes, even babies. Kemix grinned.

Though the majority of the squad was blind, Revil's keen elven senses and noble training in the hunt afforded him a sight beyond sight. He led his companions into the soupy mist, noticing wraith-like figures occasionally cross their path. They wore billowing, black garments and were adorned in bits of bone, some more elaborate than others.

Revil attempted to hail one and in a few minute's time, four Amazons in black shrouds and bone ornaments surrounded him, pelvises sharpened into axe heads leveled with his neck. The squad produced the letter, which one of the sisters snatched up and read with disbelief. Khovius did a backflip, hoping to impress them, and Raxyn did a double backflip onto his shoulders, but the sisters just sort of stared a little and then backed away.

They escorted the group, stumbling and groping, into the center of the barrows, to a glistening black mausoleum that gave off a strange, low hum. Though dull, the structure wasn't made of stone, but of metal. Swirling runes were carved into the reliefs and pillars, resembling a night sky.

Trisane identified the mausoleum as being made entirely of starmetal, a rare ore found in fallen meteorites. They were said to fall from the alien Far Realm, ripping through realities and eventually crashing onto Arabas. Starmetal was very, very rare. No more than a few handfuls had ever been scrounged across the whole continent, but the sisters seemed to have once possessed an impossible amount, enough to have constructed this large and ancient tomb. Starmetal was rumored to have strange properties unlike any earthly metal, the ability to teleport things, for one.

Revil, in his extensive noble studies, also recalled this particular monument to be the resting place of the Amazonian Saint Olivia Femur. The Sisterhood themselves always adopted the name of a bone, and the entire order numbered the same as bones in the human body, to say 206 or so. She won many great victories for the Amazons and quelled many an undead uprising, but she met her match against a creature from the Far Realm which is only every referred to, and very rarely at that, as The Sleeper.

Emerging from the mausoleum was a graying Amazon in billowing, black robes, with a pallid complexion and an elaborate headdress made from numerous skulls. Her eyes were black and she had a cold, hard stare. She was obviously the leader of the sisters, one calling her "Lady Skull". On reading the letter, her look became a scowl.

"Damera must think very little of its alliance with Lysir," She remarked, thinking very little indeed of the squad before her.

Lysiri respected strength, so Khovius revealed himself as the Lord of the Eastern Bane Cults, the King of the Borderlands (so to speak). Word had traveled even this far north of the epic arena fight and the changing of the guard. The leader was shocked... and aroused. Her nipples visibly hardened through her shear gown. She introduced herself as Calliope Skull and stated simply they were in need.

Calliope claimed Saint Olivia Femur had been kidnapped and the squad must retrieve her. Revil was the only one overly aware Olivia was dead and thought it strange Calliope referred to her as if she were still present. The others caught on quickly, but it seemed as if, to the sisters at least, a person still mattered even after their expiration. The Lady Skull was a little put off when the saint was referred to as remains, but agreed that it was her remains that must be retrieved, and quickly.

The saint's bones were needed in a ritual to maintain the barrier between Arabas and the Far Realm. Already that barrier was weakening, enough to allow horrific, alien monsters into this world, foulspawn as it were. Tentacled, tailed, some with wings or webbed appendages, some slimy, some gelatinous, all of them born of nightmares, they were attacking out of the Warwood with terrible frequency. The sisters had already lost half their numbers to the foul incursions over the passed three weeks.

Raxyn gave a little sass, wondering why this barrier and this mission were such big deals, infuriating the Lady Skull. If a lasting breach were to form in the barrier, things beyond space and time would come crawling over the face of Arabas, beings of eldritch horror beyond the scope of even gods. All life would endure fates worse than death, things beyond our understanding of suffering.

She angrily questioned whether the SS were sent to help or not, but implied there may be more reward if that is what the squad truly desired. As it was, she offered them more healing potions, each kept in a sealed skull with a cork stuck in their tops. Kemix, of all people, smoothed things over a bit, and the group was given food and shelter for the night. Durell and the horses were stabled safely.

When thanked for what she'd given them, Calliope shook her head. "Do not thank me. I condemn you to a living nightmare should you uncover even half of what I fear..."

Day 39
The squad decided it best to start out at dawn, as the foulspawn were said to favor darkness over day. Entering the gnarled and misty Warwood, there was little comfort to be had in the weak light. The trees seemed monsters in their own right, twisted bodies and sharp claws leaning over the small trails you managed to squeeze through. The mist masked most everything, accept to the hawk eyes of Revil, who led the company, though he'd a time of it in the knee-deep snow. It proved a hamper on travel, cold and wet and miserably so, but a boon in the way of some very obvious tracks. Some were footprints and the struggle of legs, but some showed signs of dragging, crawling and slithering, as if from tails and tentacles...

About an hour into travel, the squad came upon the brittle, blue corpses of some of the sisters. Apparently you were not the first hunting party sent out after these vandals (nice word, Gabby). They looked a few days old, faces frozen in screams, limbs outstretched in horror... The squad wasted little time looting them, though most of their gear was beneath the group. Revil did take the arrows, though. Can't have too many of those.

Continuing on for another seven hours, shivering, waterlogged, blistered and chapped, with Kemix occasionally breaking out into fits of laughter, it was a trying ordeal. Ever vigilant, Revil caught faint noises up ahead, snoring of all things, and the tell-tale clatter of pans, low speaking and general clamor of a camp. He warned everyone proceed with caution, coming upon a would-be ambush of careless wildmen, heaped with wolf pelts and sleeping soundly, and tiefling casters, holding their squid-pendants and keeping warm near their small fires.

One by one, the group proved silent, slowly removing their weapons and readying their spells, using the sound-dampening snow to their utmost advantage, well, all except for Kemix. The strange-looking cannibal, in his jester's outfit with all its bells and jingles, was bad enough, made worse when he broke a particularly loud branch hidden under the white. With a fateful snap, the brutes and tieflings' heads shot up in Kemix's direction.

Ambushing the Ambushers

Khovius and Raxyn descended upon the nearest barbarian caught unawares, bending him backwards over a boulder and stabbing and strangling him mercilessly. Trisane swooped in next, landing a dark cloud over one of the tieflings and brutes, then wracking the nearest wildman with a spiteful glamour. He clawed at his eyes and swung at nightmare visions, stumbling a bit, but then recovering enough to charge!

"I'll take your head off, witch!" He roared, and nearly did so, planting his crude battleaxe deep into Trisane's shoulder. Hot blood gushed everywhere, the snow turned red around her, and what arterial spray reached the brute's lips only seemed to fuel him on.

The other tieflings and brutes, shocked by the sudden attack, scrambled for their weapons and their spellbooks. Kemix managed to launch a green, swirling orb of acid at the furthest tiefling, melting his very flesh to his robes and squid symbol and provoking such a scream of agony the sorcerer cackled...

Experience: (pending the finished battle...)
Magic: 40 Potions of Healing (8 each)
Money: n/a
Loot: n/a

NPCs:
Sisters of the Bones
Lady Calliope Skull