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Ari's out collecting mushrooms on the Blood Moor.
Yes, there are demons, and zombies, and once he saw some bipedal cows with halberds for some reason, and yes, they could theoretically kill him. But he has a very sharp scythe, and he can conjure fire and lightning at his whim, and just in general, Ari can take care of himself.
Uncle Deckard told him not to go too far. Ari told him to go teach his grandmother to suck eggs.
Ari watches with interest. The other two (or three, counting Adria) don't seem interested.
Ari looks at Adria, who is writing something down in a journal. "Yeah. It's just... weird. Like, hey, you thought your mother was dead, but surprise! She actually faked her own death to get rid of you and she's been obsessively working to defeat the lords of Hell for the past fifteen years!"
"I mean, as reasons to fake your death and abandon your son go, 'stop the Prime Evils' is a pretty good one."
"Well.. her loss. I mean, maybe not in the fighting evil front, but on knowing you front."
One of sorcery's limitations is range. Magic gets much more expensive the more range it requires and rituals require prep-time.
Luckily, they do have the advantage of rituals being both: a) adaptable b) unknown to this world.
Felix casts a couple of rituals spells on both himself and Fernando...
...and they turn invisible. Fernando lifts them up and they go towards the palace to find the regent and cast the sleeping curse on him.
Conveniently, he's currently walking through the palace gardens alone.
He looks very villainous - mustache, pointed beard, the works. He also looks rather worried about something.
As long he doesn't look at their direction. Fernando will deposit Felix somewhere close to perform the ritual at super-speed.
Despite being called a curse it does not feel like anything malicious. The regent will just find himself in need of a loooong nap.
He kind of already looked like he needed one. He yawns, then stretches out on a stone bench and begins snoring.
Fernando pulls his brother away before he does anything like making the guy more comfortable. They fly back and report mission success.
Li-Ming appears to have just finished applying nail polish. There's a flash of purple light, and the paint dries instantly.
"Excellent. Off to the oasis! Adria, do you have the waypoint signature?"
"I do," the witch confirms.
"Then let's go."
Adria takes Li-Ming first, then both come back and take another participant until everyone's in the oasis.
It's a lovely place. Full of verdant plant life, pools of crystal-clear water, and ravening demons. Li-Ming casually electrocutes a nearby Fallen.
"This way," Adria says, starting northwards.
There continue to be periodic demon encounters, but Li-Ming is on top of it. Adria occasionally contributes a blast of red light, or Lorath a bone spear, or Ari some effect from his near-infinite bag of tricks. Eventually they come to a ruined temple.
"Here we are," Adria says. "The Forgotten Tomb of Iben Fahd. He carried Kulle's head with him after the mad mage's death, and they say it mocked him until the very last."
Well, there's a doorway.
Inside, there are rather a lot of heavily armed skeletons. There are also creatures made of shadows, the size of a small dog, which seem to swim through the air and attempt to savage whoever they can reach with their claws.
"The shadow vermin are no particular threat," Adria notes, tossing an explosive orb of red light to vaporize a handful of them and blast a nearby skeleton to bits. "They're creatures of pure terror, so if you don't fear them there's very little they can do to you."
"Wouldn't have been better to just tell us that they are completely harmless?"
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