It started with a tarot card reading.
A simple thing really, that warped into a terrible nightmare. A creature that normally seeks to corrupt and undo, just watched. Waited. Observed, taking a singular card from the tarot deck used for her frequent divinations in trade for something sinister. A ruby.
Thinking herself clever the bardess, as she waited for the call for discovery and research, moved the gifted ruby to various locations. She kept it secret.
During long nights after she tended camp near each new location, she would read aloud to the gem, an uncomfortable knowing of the stolen card and its meaning. She focused on books of various tales and wonders. Stories of love, secrets, betrayal, death, . . .hope. When reading materials turned sparce, she spoke her prayers and sang songs of her people in sweet dedication to the moon. The routine went on for nearly 8 cycles. It had become habitual, the guard of the ruby, the constant shuffle of keeping it in different locations becoming familiar, welcomed. The road provides.
Hidden: show
Eventually, something came looking.
Her heart sank as the words left Natalie's lips, the color draining from her features.
Natalie spoke clear and plain about what she saw, unknowing of the greater implications.
The woman reported what she saw in the hills, something that the whole group would eventually come to witness with their own eyes.
Strange gatherings of mist hung heavy in the air. It stung the senses as they drew closer, something disturbing the mists. The air around the place was thick with evil, hatred and chaos. As the mists shifted, red lights pierced creating a malevolent torchlight. The rattling of chains was heard. The ground was littered with holes, like someone had been stabbing the terrain like a madman with a giant set of poles. They littered the entire hillside. The beautiful landscape was in tatters, the stone remained untouched. Still hidden.
With new presence in the hillside, abyssal terrors, equally fast as they were terrible rushed the adventurers. They were clearly after the gem. Draudnu. Obyrith demons created by the False Mother. Their purpose found in the express objective of destroying all life that isn't theirs. No matter the cost.
The fight that came after left the land bloodied and burned. The group fought with every bit of effort and practiced coordination that only comes from years of serving alongside familiar bodies and blades.
The gem was smashed with an adamantine hammer, a simple antagonization. Destroy the object of their desire.
The Gem held a Primordial Draudnu.The gem hid a secret.
As the hammer moved to strike the gem, all turned to darkness.
Then, came the streams of psychedelic lights arcing through the mists.
Within the darkness, something caught hold of the hammer's head as it fell once more.
A red light beyond the hammer's head - a vastly oversized insectoid eye. Wagon-sized claw clutched unto the hammer, holding it static as it rose to full height.
Blackened pustules bulged along it's core being, the subtle leakage of acidic substance slipping through now and then to burn the ground beneath it.
After what felt like an endless torrent of battle, each striking the Primordial Demon and its underlings with everything they had, the creatures was bested. The body erupted akin to an unfortunate balloon, it's upmost side exploding forth a deluge of acid to shower it's location of death.
Acid and gore littered the landscape now, the sizzle of dissolvent seeping into the grass was heard over the now gentle breeze that worked its way through the Trielta Hillside. The air now felt less oppressive, easier to breath and the mists slowly began to dissipate.
They all looked at each other, making sure that none were severely injured. Each held an unspoken understanding of what just happened; They should not have been able to best such a creature. They should not be alive. Profound appreciation for living settled on each of their shoulders before they were faced with another wave of terror.
The Sibriex made itself seen.
Upon the topmost sections of the Hills, a great spiral of befouled arcane energies had begun to swirl. As the mists began to scatter, a building sized mass of corpulent and leaking flesh rose - a collection of massive chains dangling beneath it. As it began to hover to the side, two great pestilent and yellow eyes glaring down at the group, the cleft set into it's being that was made up of several fanged maws set into a great malevolent and unified grin.
Some of it's mouths moved, as if speaking.
The group steeled themselves for battle praying to their gods and goddesses for the fortitude to endure and the strength to overcome.
Nightmare turned dream as a vast gate erupted behind the creature and swallowed the monstrosity through to the other side. As it closed, the mists seemed to evaporate utterly - revealing a landscape pockmarked by destruction, bloodshed and acidic burns.
The straggling draudnu and associates were hunted and swiftly put down or sent back to their abyssal domain. The land was once more undisturbed, though perhaps permanently scarred for the experience. The Sibriex remains unharmed, taunting from the shadows as it schemes for demise.
