X Marks the Spot – Sheryl, the Fae-Touched – 26.05.2020

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After “being put through the ringer” as Baine would have called it by Red for the fourth day in a row, Sheryl was shakily gathering her things when she spotted the half-orc himself. Being observant wasn’t her forte but certain things had caught her attention whilst training with the Crimson Fist soldiers, one of them being that Varis and Baine were going on a mission.

The small woman was standing, staring rather unsubtly at the half-orc when the half-elf walked up to Baine, the two men starting a conversation. She who hesitates is lost, she reminds herself, and before she realises it Sheryl is standing in front of the two men, her feet having already brought her over to them.

“Hello Varis,” Sheryl said, greeting them with a warm smile. “Hi Baine. I’ve heard you’re going after Nimbus, that you’re going to try to find out where Milil’s Roar is. I don’t think you would know this, but I have heard from an ex-Errant Guard that Raksus wasn’t captured… he’s with the Vanguard. Like Nimbus is.” A flicker of emotion crosses her features but it’s gone too fast. “I know I don’t have to tell you both to be careful, but…” She looks between the two of them. “If you find out anything about the pipe organ, I would be grateful to hear it.”

“If we discover anything new, about the traitors or the instrument, I will make sure you are informed,” Varis says to her. “Light shield you, my friend.”

“May Summer’s light guide you both,” Sheryl responds. She looks to Varis, her smile returning. “I’ll see you when you return,” she says to the half-elf. She inclines her head slightly, then turns to go, Astra waiting for her outside the red archway.

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Back to the Plane of Shadow. Sheryl had been steeling herself for this all week with her training at the Crimson Fist Compound. The wind was howling and the monochrome greys of the dreary landscape were already playing with her mind. But she thought of light, of Summer, and felt like herself.

Tsue pointed out across the gorge where they needed to go, but prefaced that she would not be able to come with them.

“We have our own problems back home…” she said. Markas and Sheryl shared a look.

“If you need us-” the fae-bard started.

“-you’ll know where to find us,” the monk finished.

“Thanks,” Tsue said with a half smile. “Next time we meet, we’ll train together, Markas.” He nodded, worry painted across his brow but he did not say anything more. They weren’t sure if it was this place or if it was what they – at least Markas, Sheryl and Arkadius – knew was just on the horizon. But time was short and words weren’t always necessary.

Sometimes you just have to trust.

Tsue gave Markas a pin, golden leaves in the shape of a harp, just like the one the two of them wore that Joyeuse had given them all those months ago.

“When you’re ready to come home, break it. It will bring you back to the place I Plane Shifted us from.” Then it was just the five of them – Markas, Sheryl, Arkadius, Taz, and Mace – and a storm brewing on the horizon.

Sheryl did her enhancing magics for herself, Taz and Markas so they could approach the twenty by twenty-five foot opening in the gorge in silence. Not surprising to see were the corpses of the shadow elves littered around the entrance. What was bizarre were the large black birds which were picking at the corpses. One of these birds looked up at them, and Sheryl could feel something other gazing at her. The others felt it too but before it looked too long, the bird went back to its meal of eyes from the deceased elf.

The natural cave they entered had two dark metal doors which were blasted open, partially destroyed. Sheryl and Markas moved forward to see if anything in the dark corridor beyond was waiting for them. As the two entered, Sheryl was surprised to see a faint red glow from pools of liquid that could be seen through the cracks of the black-glass floor, which was uneven under their feet. Stepping carefully, she ventured farther in, Taz coming up beside her. Dipping his hand into the glowing pool, his red scales absorbing the luminosity, Taz brought his fingers to his mouth and to Sheryl’s surprise tasted the liquid.

“Hmm, it’s blood,” he says.

A creeping dread rushes through her and Sheryl feels her skin rise in gooseflesh as the realisation that so much blood in deliberate pools like this must mean there is a reservoir of it somewhere in this complex. Sheryl clenches her fists, nails digging into her palms, focusing on the warmth and light she will soon be seeing in the Summer Court when she returns in a day or two. It helps, barely. The others are casting glances at each other and she knows they all felt it at the same time.

Let this be the last time I come to this horrible place for a long time.

“Do you hear that?” Markas asks.

Sheryl listens and nods, starting to move forward. Mace follows her and they try to get a look at what sounds like a scuffle. But as they are walking forward around a particularly sharp bend, Mace over steps, his floating gemstone flashing out and Sheryl sees one of the shadar-kai notice them.

“Looks like someone’s day just got worse,” she says quickly in Sylvan with a smirk, words laced with enchantment that makes the elf wince.

Markas races forward to attack, no thought for questions. Sheryl is surprised though when the one she mocked speaks to them in Common.

“If you are here, you are my enemy,” he says in a heavily accented voice.

The group make quick work of the two shadow elves and singular mastiff that try to defend themselves. Sheryl hangs back instead of rushing in this time, wanting to give the others support instead of being in the thick of things. She throws another vicious insult to the elves which makes their swings at Markas with their lethal spiked chain whips go wide, but there was a moment where the shadow hound howled and she thought the sound might drive her into a fright. But her own inner song was strong enough to keep those feelings from overwhelming her. It’s after Taz has run forward that she notices a third shadar-kai on the ground beneath her dragonborn friend starting to stir. The mastiff and elves collapse to the ground and so she comes up, rapier drawn and pointed at the elf’s throat.

“Tell us what happened here, now,” she says, asserting an air of intimidation. She feels Taz looming behind her, greataxe rising, ready to swing it down at a moment’s notice.

“You will be dead within the hour,” they croak, a slow smile spreading across their face. “Death is the doorway…” he trails off, eyes closing. Sheryl’s brow furrows as their voice comes out again, barely a whisper. “Lady, come to me.”

Not liking the sounds of that, Sheryl slashes her rapier across their throat. She is startled when the call of one of the black birds she saw before is right behind her as it glides past her shoulder to land on the chest of the elf she had just slain.

The fae-bard takes in the bird – Is that… a raven? – when Taz’s axe unexpectedly swings in front of her face and into the feathered body, cleaving it in half.

Suddenly a gale force wind blows into the tunnel from outside chilling them all to the bone. Sheryl’s fingers go numb and she has a hard time holding onto her rapier, she has to clutch it with both hands. As the wind dies down, she thinks about what the shadar-kai said and she realises what, or rather, to whom the elf was calling to.

The Raven Queen.

BOOM.

The sound comes from farther in. They all share a look before hesitantly making their way down the hall, Sheryl pushing aside a feeling of unease as she goes.

Entering into a vast chamber that has bodies strewn everywhere, the group only stays here momentarily, seeking the next exit for them to push on through. As they look Sheryl sees shadar-kai impaled on metal toothed spikes, humanoids wrapped in dirty rags in piles everywhere. It’s a homage to death that makes the bile rise in her throat but there’s a strange purpose to it all. A shudder passes through her and when Mace calls that he has found a way down and she is glad to leave.

Sliding down the steep black glass floor of the hall, they come to a hollow, dark place. Sheryl doesn’t feel the usual panic of being in the dark trying to grip her heart – instead it’s silent, unnaturally so. That sense of unease pushes forward and she casts a light into her split cape. The dark is pushed back and they see sandstone pillars and two sarcophagi that Mace instantly goes toward, a greedy look on his face. Sheryl thinks about telling him to not do anything stupid but then from her left the silence and darkness is broken, stopping them all in their tentative tracks.

A battle between two djinn with red-maksed cultists and a handful of shadar-kai rages. Sheryl thinks it is the Vanguard fighting alongside the two beings of magic but when she takes a proper look, the red masks the cultists wear are different from the red lacquered ones she knows the Vanguard usually wears. Something about the style is off and the fae-bard tries to figure out exactly what is going on.

BOOM.

There’s another loud crash and the hallway behind them collapses. A feeling of something closing in on them passes through her when Markas says a name and suddenly throws a bead he pulled from a pouch at his side at one of the two djinn. It hits the creature, a force of thunder exploding out before solidifying into a sphere that traps him inside. The other djinn finally sees their group and his grin is impish as he locks eyes with Markas. Sheryl suddenly realises who it is and her stomach drops.

Ba’zim Savant!

“I see you, again,” Ba’zim says. Then his face morphs and there’s the promise of death in it. “Time to take you out.”

Ba’zim points to her friend and she starts to see black lines run across Markas’ skin. The gem in her circlet burns yellow-white like a midsummer sun as her face shifts, eyes glowing, ears elongating, features becoming sharper and ethereal as she Counters the necrotic energies wrapping their way around her dear friend. Markas’ face is a mask of pain for the briefest of moments and then it is wiped clean. Ba’zim looks confused and then enraged as he realised what happened, whilst Sheryl stands taller, the air shimmering around her with the heady smells of summer wafting off of her, her split cape fluttering in a breeze that wasn’t there a moment before.

“Do not try that again!” Sheryl says, her voice deeper, a residue of the arcane magics coursing through her words. She focuses that energy at a point centred on the masked cultists around a strange altar where they are trying to perform a ritual. An explosion of psychic energy takes the majority of them down whilst the others and Ba’zim momentarily clutch their heads as they feel their minds are torn apart by a laser-like heat of a thousand suns.

“Oh shit,” Markas curses beside her. Sheryl glances to the half-elf but he isn’t looking at the carnage she just did, his focus is inwards. Then his sky blue eyes clear, alarm making them bright. “This is a fake!” Markas shouts to them all. “We need to leave, now!”

But Taz is in the thick of things next to the last remaining shadar-kai, going toe-to-toe with the djinn. Seeing their friend alone, Markas runs towards Ba’zim, who just tried to kill him with necromantic magic. Sheryl sees the monk try to stun him with pointed attacks but the djinn is enraged and none of the attacks seem to take. So Markas runs back to Sheryl getting a horrible slash across his side by Ba’zim’s scimitar as he retreats.

“Taz hurry it up!”

The djinn growls, eyes only for Markas, and Sheryl once again feels necrotic magic start to ripple out towards all of them now. Markas holds his side with his one hand, the other pulling out the gold pin Tsue gave him. Then it falls into place. Someone – maybe one of the people who are with Varis – sent him a message across the planes. Her unease from before at last makes sense and the anger that follows it makes her topaz blue eyes illuminate with abjuration magic once more as she counters the spell the djinn tries to cast on them all.

“I warned you once to not do that!” she says, voice echoing across the cold stone hall.

Taz, still in front of Be’zim, raises his greataxe and brings it down, again and again and again. The djinn cries out, whilst the other one trapped in the sphere of force looks on in horror as the red dragonborn shifts his mighty weapon to one hand, pulls back his fist and punches Be’zim dead.

Stalking back to the group, looking at the monk he says, “Was that quick enough for ya Markas?” His grin is extra toothy.

Two beams of eldritch force arch over their heads and strike the shadar-kai elf that had somehow gotten to the altar where the bodies of the fake cultists lay, burning from a fireball sent their way earlier. As the two force beams hit, Sheryl sees the tablet he is holding is alight with red sigils, but they are not familiar to her. She curses under her breath as the elf collapses in a heap on the ground.

“Even if it is fake, I don’t want to see anyone taking that thing,” Arkadius intones in a flippant air. “Ready?”

They all link hands, Sheryl holding Arkadius’ in her left hand and Markas’ in her right. She nods after quickly making sure they are all linked and then Markas breaks the gold pin.

There is the familiar pulling sensation in her navel and the next moment they are back in the room at the Thirsty Dragon, a pre-dawn light giving the seaside city of Port Ffirst a blue wash. There’s a moment where they stand there in silence looking at each other, the adrenaline from the fight still coursing through them. Sheryl takes a deep breath in and she feels the potent fey magic recede as she does so.

In a voice that was calmer then she felt she asked, “How did you know it was a trap Markas?”

“BB told me. She said they found Nimbus but just before they captured him he boasted about having already broken the Third Seal,” he says, his face pale. Sheryl feels like the floor disappear from under her feet and the others go still at the same time. “This was all just a trap to get rid of us.”

“Mrow.”

They all turn to see a long haired ginger cat sitting on one of the plush chairs staring at them with a sleepy expression. Sheryl blinks, reeling from what her friend had just said. Then Taz mutters about needing a drink as he walks out and she finds herself slowly following the dragonborn down the narrow winding stairs to the ground floor. The bar room is deserted but Taz grabs a bottle of what appears to be whiskey, leaving a pile of gold coins on the counter. Sheryl lingers a little as he heads back upstairs. She looks at the bottles in front of her but doesn’t really see them.

Half heartedly, she plucks a chord on her harp, the sound loud to her ears. She softly says, “Tsue. We’re back. It was a trap. The Third Seal is broken. I… We failed. Is everything alright? What’s the situation were you are?”

There’s a long pause as she waits for a reply, not sure if her message was sent across to wherever Tsue is. To her surprise it is Joyeuse who responds back.

“That is grave news indeed. We’re dealing with them here, too, in Sigil, and it is only the beginning...”