Worthy Core

"I'm sorry ma'am, could you explain again what it is we're looking for out here? You...heard something?"

Lyota Silverstar shakes her head at the kobold following her, along with his three companions. "Not heard, no. Smelled would be...closer, though that's not exactly right either. It's partly a feeling - it's hard to explain to a non-demon, sorry."

A second kobold, a green-scaled woman in scout's armor, scratches her head. "So this is a fury demon thing, then? So you're saying we're going out in the middle of the night to...punish someone? Can't it wait until daylight?"

The winged demon sighs, somewhat tired of explaining the odd senses and needs of her people. "It might not be up to me to punish them - I'm here as a bodyguard for Emissary Darktouched, not as a soldier. I'm not in the chain of command. Besides, I can't even say for certain that they've done something that we need to punish."

The guard commander, a red-scaled man in mail and leather, sighs in return. "Wait, you mean you don't even know what it is you're after them for?" He swears quietly as his boot catches on a rock in the middle of the trail - although the path had been significantly improved since the dungeon first arrived, it's still not a casual hike in the middle of the night. "Are we just going after a soldier who lied on his last report or something? No offense, ma'am."

He adds the last portion with a bit of uncertainty in his voice. As Lyota herself just admitted, she has no role in the command structure, and he's not entirely sure if she actually outranks him. All the man knows is that the demon strode out of a tent all of a sudden, found the first awake squad of soldiers within her sight, and told them to follow after her. At the time he'd assumed it was an emergency so he hadn't bothered to stop and ask questions before getting everyone on their feet. Looking at the expression on the woman's face, he's now thinking maybe he should have asked at least one or two.

"I..." Lyota pauses, almost blushing, although it's hard to be sure. "I can tell that it's multiple individuals, and that they intend to...fornicate in a public area. That they've done it a large number of times, actually. And that they feel no remorse for this repeated breach of decorum and ethics."

A yellow-scaled mage groans. "Are - are you kidding me? You're dragging us out here because a couple of soldiers want to fuck in privacy? We're gonna trip and break our damn necks trying to drag them back!"

"Shhh!" Lyota quickly shushes the woman before refocusing on the trail ahead. "If a few soldiers want to...engage in relations in one of the tents, privately during their own time, then I'd have no issue with that. But leaving the camp? What if they're meant to be on guard or patrol duty? What if they interfere with the patrols? Someone sees someone moving in the dark, next thing you know they're full of arrows and we're down another few soldiers. It may not be a large crime, but lives could be at stake."

"Fine, fine. At least maybe it might be funny to catch someone in the act." The mage elbows the grey-scaled scout next to her, a nervous-looking young man. "Hey, wanna bet who it is? My money's on Poppy. She's been staring at Jansen all week, like she wants to eat his meat right off the bone if you catch my drift, eh?"

"I'm, uh...not sure that I...oh!" The scout comes to a halt, a moment after Lyota herself. "Is something wrong, ma'am?"

The demon looks around in confusion. "I thought...well, obviously they wouldn't be on the trail itself, that would be too obvious. But it's turning away from the direction I'm sensing...they've gone quite off-road, here."

The commander furrows his brow. "How accurate can you sense them? Can you give a direction?"

Lyota points perpendicular to the trail, up the side of the mountain. "Perhaps not for first-time offenders, but these I was able to pick up from the other side of the camp. In fact, I think it's more than two of them. I can't give you any personal details at this range, but I can definitely tell you that they're...one, maybe two hundred yards that way."

The kobold looks in the direction that the demon is pointing, then back at her. "...Ma'am. That is up the side of the damn mountain. We're talking rock climbing, here."

The fury demon grimaces as she looks around. "Well, they got up there. Perhaps there's another trail we missed, a smaller one? But this seems...excessive for a bit of privacy."

The green scout nods in agreement. "Kind of goes against the 'public' part of public indecency, yeh? I mean, unless they're planning to shock the birds in the morning, or something."

The commander shakes his head, interrupting further chat before Lyota can do so. "I'll tell you right now, ma'am, I am not leading my squad up there in the middle of the night. That will definitely get at least one of us breaking our necks for sure. Maybe there's a path we could find in the daylight, but in the middle of the night with just a torch or two? Not for...public indecency, that's for sure. I'll make sure that the camp guard is on watch for anyone trying to sneak back in tonight or in the morning, and we can interrogate them then." Still uncertain as to her position, he adds on one more statement. "If that's suitable with you, ma'am?"

Lyota pauses for a moment before answering. "...I can fly."

"...And we can't. Hallily here's an arcanist, not an air mage. And I'm not authorizing you to go flying around with any of my squad in the middle of the damn night."

"...Fine." The fury thins her lips in a determined expression. "I release you back to your normal duties, guard commander. I'll take care of it from here. I doubt they'll put up a fight, and even if they do, I can handle myself."

The kobold glances back at his squad before shrugging. "As you say, ma'am. Good hunting out there."

The kobolds make their departure back up the mountain, although they do give Lyota one of the torches before leaving. Now alone, Lyota mutters to herself. "So stupid...but gods, I'm so hungry. Almost makes me wish army discipline was worse sometimes..." Immediately feeling guilty for her confession, the demon shakes her head before spreading her wings and leaping into the air. Unsurprisingly the mountain is pitch black in the middle of the night, aside from the handful of torches placed along the trail, and it occurs to Lyota that if she moves too quickly she might end up slamming into the thing and breaking her neck that way.

Slowly, cautiously, Lyota gains altitude and begins to do a bit of a sweep of the area. To be honest, she was expecting to see something once she got up here. How do the derelict soldiers expect to get back to camp if they have no light of their own? What if they slip while doing...whatever...and fall off of whatever ledge they might be resting on? Fortunately, although Lyota's senses don't give her an exact position for the small group of sinners, as she flies around it does serve to triangulate roughly where they are.

She comes in closer, still cautiously, but finds herself blinking her eyes in confusion. The torch she's carrying ought to be reflecting at least some light off of the stone below by now, right? It's not as if she's flying into some hole in the side of the mountain - if there was such a thing, the scouts would have noticed it a long time ago. A moment later she realizes that it's not just the mountain she can't see - she can no longer see her own hand in front of her face.

Just as she jerks to a halt, catching herself with her wings spread wide, a woman's voice shouts out of the darkness. "Now! Hit her!"

The fury demon jukes in a random direction, sensing the whoosh of a projectile just missing her skin, but it only saves her temporarily. Finding herself now totally encased in darkness the demon becomes completely disoriented, and she only just barely slows herself down before she does actually crash into the mountainside. Hoping that perhaps a reply might help her identify the location of her foes, Lyota shouts out a challenge as she struggles to her feet. "Identify yourself, now! I'm with the Domain army - hold your fire and I might not write you up for abandoning your post!"

"Shit, you missed her - fuck, I can't climb over these rocks! We were going to go down, not - hey!"

Now closer to her targets, Lyota can identify that there are in fact three individuals who were setting off her sin-sense, all of them practically overwhelming from this close. At the same time, however, she can tell that there's a scrabbling sound coming from someone, or something, else. Most people carry at least some weight of sin and guilt upon them, but with three brightly-burning beacons nearby it becomes impossible for her to tell where exactly her fourth foe is.

That question at least gets answered when the individual in question slams into her, knocking her onto the stone. Instinctively, Lyota's left fist swings up and slams into a jaw, and at such a close range Lyota can finally identify who it is who's attacking her.

"You! The banshee!? You're - you're from the dungeon!" Realizing her mistaken assumption, Lyota begins shouting instead to the squad of kobolds, hoping that they might not have wandered off too far already. "Help! The dungeon's sent guardians outside onto the mountain! I need assistance!"

Taly chuckles as she wipes her chin. "Not going to do you much good - no one's gonna be hearing you from very far away while I'm around. So why don't - hey, don't I know you?"

Almost stumbling on the uneven terrain, Lyota reaches for her whip. "We've met, yes. My squad and I slew you, if you recall. I suppose I could do so once again."

The Banshee Queen chuckles. "Wow, that was a while back, wasn't it? I think I remember now - that was back when I still felt bad about trying to kill people trying to hurt the dungeon. Well...that's not much of a problem for me these days. We'll see how you do without backup, shall we?"

Pulling out a pair of daggers, the banshee leaps forward as Lyota attempts to create a defense with her magically-enhanced whip. Sadly, it never even comes close to a fair fight. With her torch fallen somewhere to the ground Lyota can barely even see her own feet, even without the banshee's shadow magic cloaking the area around her. Her lash does manage to impact one of Taly's arms, but to little or no effect before both daggers dig into her chest, just barely puncturing through her armor.

Seeing no other alternative, Lyota jumps.

"Whoa! You ain't getting away from me that easily, birdie!" Although Taly does lose one of her daggers to the sudden movement, her talon-like fingers still manage to grab firm hold of one of Lyota's biceps, bringing the two of them into the air together. For a very brief moment, anyways. Unable to support the weight of two people Lyota again crashes into the mountain, although at least this time Taly does take a few of the bruises for her.

Not that bruises would ever stop an undead. Taly's recovered within moments and lands a few punches of her own onto the demon's face, solidly dazing the woman before recovering her other dagger from Lyota's chest. Raising it high, she's just about to bring it down onto the demon's neck before a shout interrupts her.

"Wait! Hold up, don't kill her!"

"Eh?" Taly looks back in confusion, glancing at the armored dwarf struggling to climb down to her. "We can't let her tell anyone about the ambush!"

"It'll be almost as bad anyways if she never comes back!" Paladin Tolla grimaces, both at the situation and her lack of good handholds. "The ambush part of the plan's blown anyways. Least the bombs are still good - and if you want, I suppose you could hang around and see if you can take anyone out, while we drag her back."

Renriel, one of the two elves trying to follow after her with marginally more success, asks a confused question of his own. "Take her back? Whatever for? She's an enemy soldier, what more is there to say?"

Tolla shakes her head. "It's a...a feeling I get. From Kahlia, I think. She feels like this lady's important."

Listening to the exchange, Lyota is just as confused as the rest of the Dungeon Fuckers. "What? Me...important?"

Taly looks back at her, a different kind of sinister grin appearing on her face. "Well, if a goddess says so. Lucky you..."