Nulli Dei. Nulli Domini. [IC]

[AscendingApe]

Mildly perturbed by the distraction from his important work, Dharmesh will send a short response of "I am on the way, and will try to bring another. Hold strong," before with all haste making appointments with the keepers of the records and exiting the library, taking the time to lay protective enchantments on himself and sending a message to Shovash before vanishing with yet another expenditure of the power bestowed by the death of the primordial, appearing above the monastery, aloft on his wings, searching for this rakshasa..

Spoiler: Sending to Shovash

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"Shovash, a rakshasa lord is in Vudra, attacking monastery in Bhali which appeared just as I was making progress, suspicious. Please, help me bind it."

Spoiler: pre plane shift preparation

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Casting dust form for incorporeal
Activating wings
Casting overwhelming presence, link below
https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx...ing%20Presence

[Sepulchritude]

The guild leaders sit, terror warring with raw calmness in their eyes. Valdr turns to you, hand raised as though to cast a spell, then sees who it is and relaxes. "Ah, Shovash," he says, his crisp, clipped voice almost friendly. "It has been some time. I hear your clan is doing well, I'm glad to see that you are as well. Governance is proving somewhat tedious for me, there are so many things to balance in running a kingdom, but the work goes smoothly enough."

"They really are," she crows, happy enough with the pleasantries for the moment. "Garka—she's the potioner I took as an apprentice—well, she's really developing a cool head and a sharp eye for when one of the warriors needs a little something extra in his beer to keep the peace. I can finally step away for more than a day without utter disaster! Well, not when there's a new pack brought in, of course. The mortic tribe from last week is still closing themselves off and clinging to their own identity. "

"You know how hard it can be, working a new team in after a merger. I'm sure you do," she casually lobs at the guildmasters. There's no way she isn't teasing them, at this point. But it's an aside, and she quickly turns back to finish her point. "Unfortunately, I don't have the freedom to focus on breaking that independent streak properly. That's what brings me here in fact. Can I assume you've heard about Magnimar? Skelt at least? I've just come from Kintargo; the spider queen who nearly destroyed it was even more... productive than I am." She rests a hand on her swollen belly to clarify and arches her eyebrows, awaiting the lich's response.

[Hjolnai]

Tolben looks down on the world again, the experience slightly less moving the second time.

At first glance he sees nothing tremendously surprising, as he once more commits the image to memory. "I really must have an accurate map drawn up. But how to account for the curve of the world?"

"Wait... that smudge in Tianjing, I don't remember that from my maps or books..."

He conjures a Wall of Force and spreads his portable hole upon it, wincing as the rush of escaping air jostles his fragile equipment. From it, he pulls a telescope, its own interior fortunately not air-tight. He recovers the portable hole, and puts his eye to the heavy glassware.

At this distance, the smudge is still nearly impossible to recognize, until he realizes that the speckled black-and-white terrain consists of spent campfires and pitched tents. From there it is not far to see formations maneuvering, though the individual people cannot be made out. A battle - and one on a vast scale.

"Strange. I hadn't heard of any wars in Tian Xia. And on so large a scale - so close to the Abyssal rift..."

He sighs, the air rushing out and hissing throughout his Life Bubble.

"I suppose I should investigate. Another invasion would be just my luck."

He casts his final Greater Teleport, putting himself a few minutes flight from the battle.

[ylvathrall]

Spoiler: Shovash

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"Some people do so cling to their mediocrity," Valdr says, his tone commiserating. "As for Magnimar, yes, I heard, and I got word of something in Skelt. Something to do with giant monsters? Frankly, I assumed it was an exaggeration and figured some other band of up and comers could deal with it. Do these things really demand your personal attention?"

Spoiler: Tolben

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You land back on Golarion, looking out over the battlefield. It's night right now, locally, but the fighting still rages, lit by massive magical or alchemical floodlights. The troops on one side appear to be mostly a mix of plane-touched races, aasimars predominating, and humans. On the other...fiends. Qlippoth, primarily, but there are also some things that are unquestionably oni, as well as possibly some daemons and you think even perhaps demons - strange, to see demons and qlippoth on the same side, but then these are strange times. Less common examples of the type, sakhils and rakshasas and such, pop up every now and then.

The scale of the battle is every bit as large as it looked. The fiends are swarming against earthen embankments with mage-crafted walls atop them, the defenses all recently erected by the looks of it. Their numbers are...impressive. Almost impossible to count, even without the darkness confusing it - there are too many. At an estimate, this battle includes perhaps five thousand of them, and there were others you saw from orbit. The defenders, even with the advantage of fortifications and the support of mid-rank magic, are struggling to hold the line.

[Hjolnai]

"Oh, absolutely excellent. Another invasion." Tolben's sarcasm would be biting, if anyone were close enough to hear it. "Well, I suppose Damien will be happy. He does like destroying things." And I know I can reach him.

Tolben then casts several spells in quick succession - leaving a tsunami to disrupt the qlippoth and their allies while he disappears.

Spoiler: OOC

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Spells:
Time Stop (1d4+1)[2] rounds
Greater Scrying (to see Damien and the area close to him, for teleporting)
Quickened Dimension Door (to get in range for Tsunami)
Tsunami, which has a duration so it'll still be around for at least a few rounds after the Time Stop. Positioned to strike a large contingent of fiends.
Greater Teleport, to go talk to Damien

[Sepulchritude]

"Some people do so cling to their mediocrity," Valdr says, his tone commiserating. "As for Magnimar, yes, I heard, and I got word of something in Skelt. Something to do with giant monsters? Frankly, I assumed it was an exaggeration and figured some other band of up and comers could deal with it. Do these things really demand your personal attention?"

Shovash considers the sharp points of her nails for a bit before replying, and when she does, the answer comes with a sullen inflection. "More than just mine. Eight went to Magnimar. Could have been done with four, but that would have tripled the civilian casualties, and I am trying to offer them the carrot before the stick, after all." She shakes her head and presses her lips together tightly. Behind her, something soft and smooth and warm coils around the ankle of the nearest guildsman and fidgets with the buckle of his shoe.

"Frankly, it demands more than that. They're not quite the spawn of Rovagug, individually. But if the volume Dharmesh retrieved from the Axis central archives is accurate, their numbers and variety will overtax us before half of them have escaped their cages. No, what this situation actually demands is gods." If any of their companions were apt to suggest they relent from their ban, Shovash might have been the last. And Valdr would certainly have been the first to kill the falterer for proposing it. If it weren't for the eagerly sinister smile spreading across her features, what she'd just said would be completely unthinkable. She made no immediate offer of clarity, however. Can't set the hook before the fish bites, after all.

[TheOneHawk]

Damien, not expecting such an exuberant greeting, winds up flat on his back from Cassie's "hug" but quickly returns the embrace. Beatrice, for her part, caws disapprovingly from the arm of one of the nearby gargoyles where she perched after she effortlessly avoided being knocked to the ground like a fool. "It's good to see you, too, Cassie!" Damien says, with a soft chuckle, "Mind if I come in? I expect your chairs are rather more comfortable than your doorstep and I have some great stories to tell about what we've been up to since you left. Oh, and I bought you a new violin. I can probably get your old one repaired but I figured you'd want one in the meantime. How'd you break it anyways?"

[The Glyphstone]

Ragnar gives a small sigh, turning to the kitsune and eyeing her somewhat warily. "Naturally. It has been a while, hasn't it?" If she had gone out of the way to disguise herself as a Kintargan mage just to teleport him to Quantium, there would be at least one followup 'joke' waiting.

"Suiko! Long time no see! Well - you know what I mean. How've you been?" Greta's inexplicable like of Suiko, who at sometimes acted more fey than actual Fey, had never really made sense to Ragnar, but if she had possessed any actual control of her body the crossbow would have been vibrating with excitement.

[ylvathrall]

Spoiler: Tolben and Damien

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Cassie giggles and lets Damien up, nodding. "You can come in, of course!" she says. Right then Tolben teleports in out of nowhere, appearing right next to Damien. "I broke the violin playing too exuberantly, it was quite a silly mistake," Cassie continues, completely as though nothing just happened. "Oh, don't mind the servants, they're simple unseen servant conjurations - a feature of the mansion. Hello, Tolben, have you been well?" Her tone is entirely casual.

Spoiler: Shovash

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The guildmaster lets out a muffled but very relaxed shriek as something coils around his ankle. None of the attendees say anything, though fear is starting to war with the relaxation on their faces. Valdr ignores them completely, and nods along with what Shovash says. "Fascinating, really, that they have been attacking one at a time like this. How consistent have they been about it?"

Then, however, she gets to the part about gods, and he goes perfectly still in a way that living people can't. It looks more like he's simply inanimate than like he stopped moving. "And why would you say that any situation demands gods?" he asks, his tone so completely blank of emotion that it speaks volumes on its own.

Spoiler: Ragnar

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"Oh, you know how it goes. Things to see, people to do...really, I've been swamped," Suiko says to Greta, completely ignoring Ragnar, still grinning. "Howsabout you? Stick in the mud here let you kill anything interesting lately?"

[Sepulchritude]

The effect would probably be at least disquieting for anyone who remembered what fear felt like. For Shovash, it's just a signal. Her eyes alight with triumph, she lets the question hang in the air briefly to address the captive audience. "Do any of you have a cigar? I know you can't stand up, but toss it my way, would you? I'd say one for the lord Valdr as well, but you know... No lungs." She turns back to the skeleton and shows just enough sense to not drag it out further.

"Because their binding took the efforts of gods, and held them for as long as the gods rule Golarion." She's crowing now, decidedly. "But we found nothing to specify which gods. Valdr! This was a binding nearly on the level of the Dead Vault! Do you remember how pleased Asmodeus was to leave the world to us? I would bet my eyes he wrote the contract. And he never does that but leaves a loophole he might be able to exploit. It's entirely like him to keep open the option of defeating all his rivals and raising a new pantheon indebted to him for their divinity. Or some other nonsense, but the point is, he can't make tricks only he can use. He's too arrogant to abide that." Triumph and wicked glee, precisely. She can barely sit still for all her excitement now, and she loses the coordination to merely spook the poor guildsman—her tail slithers further around his ankle and takes to writhing, and the pincer tip grabs his shoe firmly enough to prick him through it.

"Aroden was a lucky hack who pulled it off alone. Between the three of us? It's as good as done."

[ylvathrall]

Spoiler: Shovash

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"Fascinating," Valdr says, still in that very blank tone. None of the guildspersons say a word, though one fumbles out a cigar. "If you have a plan, Shovash, do share it with the class, or else go bother someone else. I have a meeting to get back to."

[Sepulchritude]

The poor fellow she'd been antagonizing gets a reprieve when Shovash's tail snakes out to grab the cigar instead. Something in her sleeve lights it on the way to her mouth, but Valdr's poor humor has already ruined the effect and she puffs at it thoughtfully, not in celebration. "It should be obvious, really. You haven't been shy about your own..." Then suddenly she brightens, and balances the cigar against a tusk when she grins again.

"Oh! that's right. There's more you don't know than I realized. My apologies. Valdr, there are no scholars on this plane who know more about the paths to ascension, tested or not, than you. That is why I'm here. By my estimate, your principal need is for hands-on experience. Suiko has been working on that, and I don't want to entirely spoil her surprise, but I think she's nearly a demon lord by now. Nicer, of course. You know what she's like." She pauses to rub a pinch of some kind of resin onto the cigar just behind the ember before taking a hard drag and holding it. Develops a bit of a nostalgic expression, meanwhile.

"Ahh. Well, she and I have actually been working on related projects. New kinds of life, in both cases; mine is less esoteric, but not by as much as you think. And the part I forgot would be news to you, the element you both need—" She leans in now, pupils dilated from whatever that meaty smell is, but also from excitement. "I had evolved beyond my birthright three times already, last we spoke, by voiding the boundaries between this plane and others. I can feel the rifts in my soul that span these worlds, whenever I give it an ounce of attention. But now I have become a blade, and I cut whatever rifts I please. Not with spells; I'm not talking about more summoning or traveling, though those have become even easier. Just with the urge... the hunger really, for more than this. The raw power to break the laws of our mortal condition."

She's on a roll, now, eyes shining, voice rising like a—Well, like someone who probably gives a lot of inspirational speeches to her troops, really. Which makes sense. Her spells end partway through this particular speech, but the things she's saying... "Imagine, Valdr, what you could have become if all the training and preparation you put into shedding your flesh had been lain on top of the kind of power that makes flesh irrelevant in the first place. How far your reach might have been. What you could have, and could yet, become. Our old friends are treating this invasion as a problem to overcome, even with, I gather, similar rebirths of their essence. I say we overcome this problem, conveniently saving Golarion in the process, by treating it as a stepping stone to what we've been saying about gods. It's not just possible; it's within reach. I can feel it in me and I know this feeling. But I need the two of you to help make sense of it, and I want you both to partake of it. As soon as we seize divinity for ourselves, the binding is restored, the invasion ceases, and we foil Asmodeus' plan to force us to void the Adeios Pact. This is the opp—"

'Shovash, a rakshasa lord is in Vudra, attacking monastery in Bhali which appeared just as I was making progress, suspicious. Please, help me bind it.'

She scowls suddenly, though it doesn't much dampen her enthusiasm. "Well. I'll let you go back to your meeting. But catapults will repel an army, not a primordial. If this new threat comes to the River Kingdom, the preparations that will help you are the ones I'm talking about, not what these unfortunates can build. Give it some time to think through; I'm going to find Suiko and confer about our progress. And be alert, five days from now. That's when the next attack is expected... somewhere. Send for me at once if it turns out to be here. There's nothing to be gained by waiting and more of your future worshipers to lose."

Spoiler: Response to Dharmesh

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'A name, twenty minutes, I trap it until your suspicion is answered. Find me in center of town or I'll draw attention to be found.'

[Hjolnai]

Tolben recovers quickly, long since accustomed to the disorienting effects of suddenly being somewhere else.

"Good morning Cass, sorry to drop in so unceremoniously. I've been well. And you? It has been too long."

He extends a hand to shake, unsure how she will take it given her recent instability.

[ylvathrall]

Spoiler: Shovash

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"I will...consider it," Valdr says, sounding almost reluctant. "At length. And rest assured, should the next of these primordials attack here, I will let you know. And...my thanks. I am sorry I am not a better host, but the needs of the times are pressing. Whether armies and walls will repel a primordial or not, I need them for the peace of mind of my subjects. Image is everything, you know as well as I." He nods, courteous if a touch dismissive, and turns back to his meeting as you leave.

Spoiler: Tolben and Damien

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Cass takes Tolben's hand, her own feeling rather cool, and elaborately bows over it. "It has indeed," she says. "Please, do come inside, make yourselves at home. Would you like something to eat?"

[Hjolnai]

"Oh yes, certainly. Thank you. But I have news you'll want to hear first. Tianjing is being invaded by a bizarre mixture of qlippoth and fiends - an alliance which should never exist. Nonetheless, as we speak they are giving battle. That's why I came to find Damien - you're always up for some destruction, aren't you Damien?"

He pauses only briefly, taking a seat. Looking at Damien, he continues:

"More to the point, I'm out of teleports for today, so I hope you'll cast them to get the others. It wouldn't do to handle this on our own, would it?"

[Sepulchritude]

Maybe Nethys, if you like that better. You don't really seem the type to be patron of a people." With that, Shovash vanishes back out the window and the guild leadership enjoys their freedom a few seconds earlier than expected.

---

Less than half a minute later, her bat-winged form spirals lazily out of a cloud high above the city-state of Bhali, banking in the broadest possible way toward the heart of the small city that anchors it. It provides plenty of opportunity for the watch to spot her and decide on a response. As she nears the outlying buildings and angles downward for a faster approach, her smile is the sort that anticipates trouble—eagerly.

[TheOneHawk]

Damien grins at the mention of his destructive tendencies, but his expression quickly turns wry and he glances over at Cass before returning his gaze to Tolben. "Something always has to come up, doesn't it. Alright, I'm in." Turning to Cass, he continues, "How about you? We could use your help, and the faster we deal with this the quicker we can hop back here and have that lunch you promised, maybe even play some music like old times, try out the new violin I got you. It'll be great, you in?" He gives Cass his best winning smile, which prompts another derisive squawk from Beatrice on her statue, though she remains otherwise quiet.

[The Glyphstone]

"Got to put a giant hole in a giant lizard a few days ago, even though it was cheating with wind and rain and stuff in the way. Yesterday was a giant spider monster, but I only got to shoot her once, Damien stole the kill - you probably heard about that one since we just came from Kintargo. Now we're off to find some crazy ghost lady and there won't be any shooting at all and it'll be super boring."

Ragnar rolled his eyes, a small enough movement to be seen without causing him to phase. "And we'd best get to that, unless Suiko would like to share with the class the punchline that's worth all this setup?"

[ylvathrall]

Spoiler: Shovash and Dharmesh

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The city of Bhali is normally a prosperous, albeit rather small, city anchored by a large monastery of Irori. Normal features include guards on the walls, a below-average level of corruption, smug merchants wandering the streets, and monks. Normal features do not include a horde of rakshasas clamoring at the city walls, but there's a first time for everything.

It's hard to estimate their numbers, between the chaos of battle and the constant flickering of illusions being cast and dismissed by the fiends. But a fairly conservative estimate still puts it as "more than the guards" and it's pretty obvious that the defenses are not going to hold much longer.

Anyone with any particular skill at reading a battlefield can see that the rakshasas are swirling around a clump southeast of the city proper, movements starting there and rippling out. Clearly this is where the enemy commander is. Fortunately, Shovash is rather good at reading battlefields, and also knows a little about rakshasas, and thus naturally concludes that the actual command center is due west of the city, because rakshasas aren't stupid enough to be that obvious and putting it exactly opposite would be what someone who saw through it would expect.

Spoiler: Tolben and Damien

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Cass cringes at Damien's question, her hands moving in strange twisting gestures that have nothing to do with magic. "But I haven't since...since..." she starts, then closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths. "I can take care of travel," she says a moment later, entirely calm and businesslike in her tone, eyes still firmly closed. "Um. Where are we going?"

Spoiler: Ragnar

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"The punchline is I punch you," Suiko says, waiting for Ragnar to react (or not) before giggling. "No, silly, I wanted to say thanks. I'm fond of Kintargo - the music scene is really something, there's this one dance hall where I took two sisters and turned into their childhood tutor and, well, fun times were had. Anyway. Did you like the spider dancing? Pretty piece of work, if I do say so myself, which I do. So whassit about a crazy ghost lady anyway? You wouldn't believe how hard I had to work to make sure it was me you asked for the teleport, I don't want to bail now."

[Hjolnai]

"Great, glad to have you with us," Tolben says without hesitation. "We'll need to find Shovash first - she knows something about armies and mass combat. She said she'd be... um, I have a spell for that. Give me ten minutes?"

Tolben raises his hands and takes a breath, ready to begin casting Discern Location.

[TheOneHawk]

"Ten minutes? You don't even know where we're..." Damien looks momentarily exasperated, but then catches himself and turns to Cass, offering her the new violin. "Wasn't quite what I had in mind, but shall we? We even have an audience, of a sort!"

[ylvathrall]

Spoiler: Damien and Tolben

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Cass takes the violin, and begins tuning it, eyes still closed. When they open, she has a smile on her face again, a reserved sort of smile, and she begins to play.

It's beautiful. Not beautiful in the same way that it would have been the last time you played with her. No, this is beautiful in a way that would make angels weep and bards give up playing forever, knowing they could never match her. After a few moments she begins to sing as well, and her voice is rich and resonant and seems to evoke images and feelings and even physical sensations as she sings an old, sad folk song about a girl who loved a boy and thought that was enough. The whole time she still has that same smile, quiet and reserved and more than a little sad.

Spoiler: OOC

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Okay, now you're a day ahead, so have to wait for Shovash and Dharmesh to play catch up.

[Sepulchritude]

"Huh. He definitely indicated just one. So much for that binding." All in all, Shovash does not sound overly concerned. She does stay high enough to be largely out of range of archery fire, but you would too, if you suddenly arrived at a town being overrun by fiends, looking like nothing but a demon's silhouette overhead. Once she's had a chance to take the lay of the battle and sift through the most likely misdirections—somewhat easier when they were intended for viewers near ground level—she rolls into a dive.

As she passes her closest to the battlements, she releases a spell to bolster the defenders' weaponry, then uses the accumulated speed to create distance again before they turn any of it on her. Always risky, meddling when you weren't invited. The magic wouldn't turn the battle: it wasn't strong enough to ignore the protections of rakshasa hide, and she wasn't really trying to turn the battle anyway. But it would slow down the inevitable and give her time to investigate.

By the time she nears the pavilion all the troops have been so carefully not paying attention to, she's moving in a much slower glide. She doesn't have a flag, but the train of her snow-white dress flutters behind her for at least twice her height. She even lands gently, far enough from the command tent to allow for the theater of an escort.

Spoiler

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Aroden's Magic Army actually seeing first use on humans, not orcs? This is heresy. But it's +4. Meaningful, but doesn't bypass DR/good, so it's only that +4.

[QuidEst]

"Really? What's the meaning of all this, then?" Vauma grumbled, riding through the air on Mycetes. She spoke up louder, shouting in the hopes that the aboleths would pick it up where they were. "Oh, don't be a nuisance. We got rid of the gods. I thought you lot hated gods. What're you bothering me for?"

[AscendingApe]

Dharmesh takes a moment to take in the sight before him. That is... Decidedly more Rakshasas than he had been expecting. Regardless, he had given his word to help and gone to the trouble of calling Shovash, something which would probably come back around later.
Speaking of Shovash, Dharmesh notes her arrival and moves to follow in her wake. As he lands next to her in the pavillion, ashen body rippling in the breeze, he sends a telepathic message. "Hello Shovash, I apologize for the surprise of numbers, I was only informed of a single Rakshasa Lord."

[Sepulchritude]

Shovash brushes off the silent apology with a dismissive flick of one hand that smoothly becomes a touch sinking into his forearm. Her fingertips are just damp enough to stick to the dust. "For luck," she explains, as a stain whorls through what passes for flesh, like ink dripped into water.

Spoiler: mechanically

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That's a silent scroll of True Skill at CL 22 for Dharmesh, and she's going to take a moment to cast it herself for Diplomacy. I think Dharmesh gets to pick the skill when he uses the tattoo.

[ylvathrall]

Spoiler: Shovash and Dharmesh

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A quartet of rakshasas arrives after a few moments, weapons sheathed. Two of them have the heads of tigers, one a visage like a leopard, and the final one six colorful, writhing serpents in place of arms. It's the last of them that speaks, bowing deeply with the snakes twisted into an elaborate pose. "We welcome you under flag of truce and parley, in the name of Lord Javara," she says. "This one is your servant, to escort you to the Lord and provide comforts as due an honored guest."

Spoiler: Vauma

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One of the aboleths in the water, larger than the others, rears up out of the water as you approach. "I am the representative of my kin sent to commune with you," it says in Common, its voice strange and warbling, but comprehensible. "We are aware of your actions. We are aware of the repercussions. We wish to discuss them. We apologize for the necessity of damaging your home to draw your attention."

[Sepulchritude]

"Ah, there's your maharaja, Dharmesh." Judging by the tone, Shovash has decided to treat the occasion like a social call. It's almost precisely the distracted ebullience she'd approached Valdr with. Turning back to the servants—No, back to the servant. As soon as the envoy with the snakes had used the third-person, Shovash's attention observably contracted from the full group to just the Representative, as though the additional escorts had been rendered invisible by that detail. Her head dips respectfully, albeit only a fraction of what she is shown.

"Javara, you say? I don't believe we've met; let's not keep them waiting. You may send the message ahead that I am here only on personal matters; the tribes have no interests here." As though she is less of an army for having come alone. As though she and Dharmesh could not take to the field and upend it. Her smile is impossibly benign.

[ylvathrall]

Spoiler: Shovash and Dharmesh

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The serpent-armed rakshasa straightens and nods, then leads you through the field to the command center Shovash spotted. Once there, she gestures, and the rakshasa guards move aside, letting you into the pavilion.

Inside, an enormous buffet table strains under the weight of platters and platters of food, pitchers of various drinks, and bowls emitting sweet-smelling smoke. The servants look to be humanoids, all with vacant, glassy stares. There are a number of rakshasas in the pavilion, but one draws the eye immediately. He is seated at the center of the table, looking at the entrance. He is tall - seven feet, at a guess - and muscular, in a lean, lithe sort of way, more a cat than a bear. He has the head to match, a gold-and-black tiger's head with pronounced teeth and amber eyes, and four arms that end in backwards-facing paws. One is holding a glass of some dark liquid, while the others are occupied with picking at a plate of goose.

He stands as you walk in, setting his meal aside, and walks over. "Master Dharmesh, a pleasure," he says with a short bow. His voice is low and a bit husky, but not enough to be off-putting. "And the Lady Shovash, as lovely as the tales say." If she doesn't stop him, he takes her hand in two of his and bows over it, brushing his lips against the back of her hand lightly. "I am Lord Javara, the leader of this host. Please, have a seat, make yourselves comfortable. To what do we owe the honor of hosting two such distinguished guests, might I ask, if you think it not too forward?"

[QuidEst]

"Hmm." Vauma nudged Mycetes down towards the ground. "Well, that makes a lot more sense. If you're willing to go to that much trouble, I'm certainly willing to hear you out." Thinking about it, the island probably should have some easier way of contacting her. It would be a bit rude to count on Heiress to relay such matters. In the back of her mind, she was considering how to arrange things.