Very short session today, due to Mary oversleeping (I worry about that sleep schedule of hers sometimes), and having to head home early to care for her S.O. Probably a good thing, as we were shy Adam for the day because he forgot that Sunday was game day and made plans with other people for the day (and wasn't given too much choice to change his mind once he realized the conflict).
The party, having seen the devastation of the heavy logging in the area, were about to just shrug and walk away. They managed to see a trio of chained men stumbling rapidly towards the path they were walking down, and waited to see what they had to say. Screaming, they begged for safety and the like, a mysterious woman seemed to jump out from the trees to try to help the strangers out of concern. She pleaded Jon for his healer's kit to bandage them, as they had bleeding callouses on their hands and were quite exhausted (as well as the beginning of malnutrition).
Terribly confused, Jon gave the woman his kit so that she began to bandage them, and Pat noticed that four guards where marching towards them. The refugee trio begged for safety and cowered to the side of the path when they heard that the guards were coming, repeatedly lamenting that they were all dead and that 'he' would send the sharks.
Once the guards got there, they grinned happily and the lead one declared that the party's gear would sell for a good chunk of change. As they charged, Analee appeared out of the bushes and practically eviscerated the guard that was lagging behind. The rest of the party dealt with the remaining three, having suffered heavy wounds, and one of them surrendered.
Tying down the surrendered one, Mary demanded information, but failed to intimidate him sufficiently for any help. The guard quickly went unconscious from the pain when she began removing toenails, which made the strange woman from earlier leap to his defense and not wanting any unnecessary suffering to happen, even using the remains of her bandages to start fixing the damage already dealt to the guard. By this point, Jon noticed (due to his arcane training) that the woman wasn't even human, and showed signs of being a demon. He called it out on her, managing to convince her to tell him what she was.
Not terribly convinced, the woman said she was an innocence demon, a type of chaos demon that exemplifies innocence and retains such no matter what atrocity is levied upon them; be it emotional, physical, or even intellectual she will be untouched almost immediately after the deed is performed upon them. Their natural state is that of a small, happy girl that is blissfully ignorant of even the most rampant sin. For a full-grown woman who is painfully aware of such pain is...weird, to say the least.
The demon got nervous talking about what she was, and ran into the woods out of fear, where Jon simply tracked her down and found a little girl (with the same style/color dress as the woman). The girl offered a flower to him, and asked if he had any toys. Jon, confused as the tracks of the woman stopped there and the girl showed even more signs of her demon nature (to his trained eye), led her back to the camp to see if she remembered anything. As she didn't, he didn't quite know what to do.
This was all interrupted when one of the prisoners, having had the locks on their chains removed earlier, suddenly used the chain as a weapon and beat Mary into unconsciousness. Acting quickly, Pat jumped behind him and cut him down within six seconds, letting Jon work to fix Mary.
The other two prisoners were confused, as they didn't expect one to be a spy, and began to worry that 'the boss' would now send his sharks after them. This was proven to be true within half an hour, when the little girl demon was playing with some sticks to make a wreath and a 20' long shark leapt out of the ground and bit down on her.
Within seconds, it came up again and spat up a bloodied girl and began to circle the rest of the party. They tried their best to damage it, but after Mary stabbed it in the eyes, it sank back down and didn't come back up. As this shark wasn't desperate, they knew it was would likely wait a few minutes for its healing to fully repair it and then return (hit and run tactics are their preferred). The refugee/prisoners, Jon, and Pat began to climb trees and wait while Mary contemplated tying a body and 'going fishing'. When the shark never arrived, they began to talk from their arboreal hiding spots.
Analee discovered, from the refugees, that there are at least several dozen guards (if not more), and over two hundred slaves working the logging operation. The leader of the camp was a black lotus guard that was without his arcanist master, which implied he was either a rogue guild member or an imposter, as the refugees knew nothing of any superior to the camp leader. One of the early things they were forced to do was to construct a windowless, single-door tower that the leader did not ever enter and recently began to post guards to make sure none enter or leave it.
Curious, the party began to plot on how to deal with these facts, especially since Pat now wants to know what's in the tower and the refugees want their bretheren to be freed.
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