Tegan Date 2, Part 3: Time For A Kidnapping!?!?!?!?!?!?

Andromeda

Andromeda is about to walk into the card shop, halfway expecting to play some Leylines with Esme and Winter. Instead, she sees the drow walk past her like a man on a mission.

“Wait!” Andromeda requests.

Winter spins around in place, letting his skirt flutter up. It is a bit distracting to get a glimpse of his panties, showing a good amount of lilac hip. With a cocky grin, he waits. Busted.

“Where are you going?” the arcanist android manages to sputter.

“Temple. I owe The Lady a thanks of two. Given how far away the next Full Moon festival will be, I figured that I should go to her stone grove.”

Andromeda walks up. Winter spins back and walks alongside her. The walk is mostly silent. Out of the Hotel. Out of the castle. Down the same paths Skye took her last night. To the same stone tree “growing” in the middle of the Drow District.

They walk in as if it is nothing. Last night, Skye pretty quickly ushered Mineko and her towards one of the meeting rooms. Tonight, Winter is in no particular hurry. The atrium is a wide open space, ground lined in spongy moss, numerous trees carved out of rock forming a ring, the ceiling bedecked with embedded polished stones set to mimic the night sky. A large circle of silver represents the moon and is lit up to make the whole place sparkle with artificial starlight.

Acolyte Viconia comes out from behind one of the stone trees to greet them. Her nude appearance hits... differently... now that Andromeda is moderately bisexual. The arcanist android gazes along the curve of the priestess’s hips, then her breasts, then down to the space where her legs meet. It is quite distracting. So distracting, in fact, that Andromeda misses the first part of the conversation. It takes Winter nudging her in the shoulder hard enough to cause her to list slightly for her to focus.

The acolyte smiles, “Oh, don’t worry too much about it dear. Lady Silverhair is a goddess of beauty and lust, amongst other things, after all. So, are you wishing to join young Winter in his devotional or just watch?”

“Just watch?”

They follow the acolyte as she leads them to an alcove. Again, Viconia’s body is... distracting. Winter nudges Andromeda as they arrive. “You okay, Andromeda?”

The arcanist android sighs, “Just needing to adjust to the latest AEP app session with Mona.”

Winter nods and gets ready to pray. Andromeda’s eye bulge as Winter starts to strip. Okay, how do people function when they are constantly this distracted? But, damn, he has a cute butt.

Tegan

Tegan is seething with shame. That was NOT how tonight was supposed to go. How could I have said that? How could I have given Mona a good reason to toss me aside? How...

The vicious vixen is following the trail that Mona left in her escape. Even without any magical tracking skills, the wake in the snow is obvious.

The blue-skinned freak is leaning against a tree when the vicious vixen spots her. Sword on her hip, dressed no more for the frigid temperatures than she normally does, she seems to be waiting.

“Where’s Mona, you freak?”

“Kidnapped,” the freak declares, deadpan.

“Of course she’s kidnapped!” Tegan snarls, “You’re the one who kidnapped her!”

“Touché. A correction then: kidnapped from her kidnapping.”

Tegan swaps into her armor and draws an arrow, aiming it at the Host’s surely black heart. The freak doesn’t move; instead, she sighs, “I am giving you a chance to earn her respect and this is the thanks I get?”

Tegan: Weekly Task Failed! Wear Only A Collar on Your Date.

Tegan finds herself relaxing, slightly. At least the arrow is no longer fully drawn back. Eyes narrowed, she hisses, “Explain.”

“The kidnappers are currently arguing whether to sell her or keep her as a breeding slave. Nice job on selecting your date in a land where slavery is legal and widely accepted, by the way. I am giving you until they start acting on their eventual decision to rescue her. Get to it.”

Tegan growls out, “That’s it? A chop-chop, and off I go?”

“Time is a’wastin’...”

“You COULD tell me what I am dealing with? Or where she is? Or something useful?”

“I could, but you haven’t asked nicely.”

Snarling, Tegan skis to follow the obvious drag marks, kicking up a bunch of snow at the blue freak’s direction. She flings up some kind of magical barrier to block the consequences of the angry archer’s acrimonious action. Fine. I’ll show the freak that I can do it on my own. How hard could it be?

Caoimhe

They are back in a delve, so soon after the Hollow Garden, and Caoimhe is nervous. She remembers what happened “last night” and it is still hammering on her heart. She sees Tessa comfort Jenny; the dryad must also be thinking about what happened. Mineko is playing in the fake snow of the delve instance. And the demon is watching, probably trying to get a measure of all of them.

The delve itself is in the snow. On the edge of a gorge, a blackened lodge, built on stilts, sits, barely visible in the dark. The building appears abandoned: the outhouse and woodshed are half buried in snow, the wooden walkway to get into the building is iced over, the roof seems to be snagging from the overabundance of snow, and there are broken windows.

“Mineko, come over here. Anyone has any idea what we are doing here?”

The nekomata scurries over, covered in slush. She chirps, “Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow!” then hands off a note. Caoimhe unfurls it and reads aloud:

{letter}

Adventurers!

I haven’t heard from my buddy, [Generic NPC 1452], in a bit. You mind taking these provisions to his cabin and check in on him? I spent all my money on these supplies, so I can’t pay you, but, if a good deed is not its own reward, the House of the Morninglord shall offer you free healing services when you return.

Thanks,

[Generic NPC 654 – Seriously Daphne, I get that you don’t like writing “plot,” but you need to name your NPCs.]

{endletter}

“So, we act like we are delivering supplies until the plot twist comes?” Tessa asks.

“Looks like,” the demon answers, “Shall we?” Hand on the pommel of his sword, the demon starts to trudge through the snow towards the stairs on the walkway. He does have a nice ass.

The snow here is strange; Caoimhe would expect she would be freezing with her tits out, but she’s not. The only effect the cold seems to have is to pebble her nipples. The darkness also feels strange. Unnatural. She casts Guidance on herself and tries for a Religion check. The Morninglord is the most common title for Lathander, a human god of dawn, hope, and new beginnings.

“So, we got a hermit for a sun god? Anyone else think the sky is weird?”

Jenny, of all people, offers, “The night sky is mimicking a very large magical effect?”

That is disconcerting…

The walkway is twenty feet above the ground and in poor condition. Everyone had to jump over a gap before they reached the first door, which led to a workshop of some sort. Mineko pokes around, hissing at a small scurry of squirrels when they scamper out of a bookcase, then carries a collection of things. She reports, “Guy that lives here is a tinkerer of some sort. See? Tools! Tools! Tools! Tools!”

“Very good, Mineko,” Tessa states, rewarding the nekomata with a quick head pat. The artificer purrs and nuzzles into the touch. When pets are done, Mineko scrambles out of the room; she appears to be wanting to find more reasons for the party to give her pets.

When they catch up with the nekomata, she is standing on her hindpaw toes and glancing through a window. Caoimhe quickly casts Guidance on Mineko, then looks through the window herself. Is that a mermaid? Why would a mermaid be here?

Before Caoimhe could stop her, Mineko scurries towards the door on all fours. The wood of the walkway groans, then splinters. The cat-girl leaps, grabbing onto the doorknob.

“MOVE!”

Harith shoves Caoimhe out of the way and crashes through the broken window. Some of his blood sizzles on the shards that did not quite get out of his way as he went through. Caoimhe hears the demon stomp his way through the building as she pulls herself though the hole. By the time she has shimmied through the gap, both incubus and nekomata are safely inside. Tessa and Jenny also sensibly choose to carefully go through the window.

The room smells... burnt. Everything looks scorched. Some bottles, scattered around what now appears to be an extra crispy mermaid, left a burgundy stain in the wood. Again, why would a mermaid be here? Caoimhe moves to examine the corpse. Holy symbol to Lathander around her neck. This must be our NPC. What’s this orb thing?

The drow picks up the orb and it starts to glow, getting extremely hot. She drops it and scrambles away. The orb blasts out energy like a miniature sun. The corpse is turned to ash, as is the wood around where the orb dropped. It literally burned a hole through the floor and sits in the snow under the building.

“Hey, you jerks! Leave my McGuffin thingy alone!”

Caoimhe turns around to see a mermaid ghost? Fuck. Not another ghost! Jenny fires off her spell, hitting the mermaid square in the jaw and grazing her shoulder. Caoimhe casts Sacred Flame, smacking the ghost straight in the stomach.

The mermaid looks... annoyed. “Hey, fuckers, I’m acting as the NPC here. I’m not actually a ghost!”

“Oh.”

“Sorry.”

“Great,” the mermaid declares, “Let me fill you all in on what you need to do!”

Mona

Ow. My head...

When Mona comes to, she is disoriented and cold and upside down? The room is dark and so very cold. Mona’s teeth start to chatter. She tries to rub herself, only to realize she is tied up.

Okay. This must be one of those “damsel in distress” date trap things the giant naked purple lady was talking about last night. I am perfectly safe and secure. Nothing is going to happen and Tegan gets to play the hero. It’s fine...

Then she hears squeaky voices coming from a direction. The closest reference she has for the timbre were the munchkins from that super old Wizard of Oz movie.

“No! We sell human! Make much money! Buy lots of breeders for baby dragons!”

“No! We take turns! Breed human! Humans make best baby dragon breeders!”

“How we decide who goes first! Unfair to only have one breeder!”

“We smart dragons! We figure it out!”

Dragons?!?! I have been kidnapped by squeaky-voiced dragons?!?! And they want to either sell me or breed me?!?! The fuck?!?!?! No, Mona, be cool. This is a sexy little role-play thing! Tegan is going to look so sexy and dashing once she busts through this wherever I am and saves me!

Mineko

Ghost-lady explained the scenario, with a lot of curse words, nerd game complaints, and wedgie threats. She is apparently playing a holy-lady of some sun god guy and was living out here with the letter writing NPC, working on a device to bring back the sun. It isn’t working properly. Too much sun, too quickly. Ghost-lady tasked them with fixing her mistake and getting the device to work properly.

So now, Mineko is digging through the snow, looking for the device. Step 1: Find the device! There! There! There! There!

Mineko pokes the device, then scampers back. Then, she does it a couple more times to be sure. Grabbing the device and an amulet that the mermaid corpse must have been wearing, she makes her way back to the others. They found some blueprints in a laboratory and a letter in a bedroom. Mineko starts to try to read it, but it is written in a weird loopy script. Tessa is nice enough to read it aloud for everyone:

{letter}

[Generic NPC 1452]

I’ve had enough of this damned, relentless cold. I feel it creep in my bones, my head, my heart. I’m heading back to civilization for a decent meal and a warm bed. I fear this endless winter has numbed your mind, even beyond your constant drinking, and any tinkerer worth their chains can see the Summer Star is a fool’s errand. Maybe without me here to incessantly complain to, you’ll finally snap out of your obsession.

If you truly insist on dedicating your remaining days to this doomed project, might I suggest that three is better than two? I considered telling you before, but you were particularly rude about the dinner I made last night.

May the light of The Morninglord protect you,

[Generic NPC 654]

{endletter}

“Endless winter?” Jenny asks.

Ghost-lady answers, reading straight from a piece of paper, “The setting for this fucking nerd shit is an area that The Frostmaiden covered in endless night. No sun, no light, endless cold.”

Mineko doesn’t listen to the resulting conversation. She examines the blueprints and considers the “three is better than two” note in the letter. The rings on the device is supposed to hold back the burning. Two isn’t strong enough. I should fashion another ring!

“Go find me more metal! I’m going to go work the forge in the workshop!”

By the time Mineko has the mini-forge heated up, they have gathered a small pile of scrap for smelting. Good enough! Metal melted, metal purified, metal shaped and fused. Runes carefully carved. Ring assembled and put into place. Mineko smiles. “I think it’s ready!”

Mineko: +5 XP (Assembled the Delve MacGuffin)