Call the Inquisition
....abominations. That was the only word that came to mind. Scattering from the light were...things...that might once had been humans, or sentient, but were now things cobbled together from body parts. Tindri and Raori saw a mass of limbs, heads, and torsos in different combinations ducking into the dark cover offered by cells lining the hallway. The two had time to make out a head mounted on two hands that acted as feet scurrying into a hideyhole, and a legless torso running away from the light on two abnormally long arms before the fire spirits got tired of the game and left.
Tindri was pale for the sight, and Raori's ears were flat against his head. He snarled that the things had to be destroyed, and the elf agreed. Perrima had not been able to catch a glance, as the hatch was too small, but was horrified about what they told her. The three marched back up together, faces set in determination. Tindri's eyes flashed with anger when she looked at the elderly gentlemen again. They had been joined by a lawtwister, who clearly had been rushing to their side, as his legal paste only covered half his face. He started by holding up a clay tablet with official seals and demanding to know what they were doing down there, as they were interfering with private matters, and that the parent of the children down there would here of this!
That just made the three even more determined, and together, they shouted him down, and fired back, asking very pointed questions about why they had kept these anti-Creationist abominations down in the basement for a century? How dared they conceal this, and why, by all the gods, had they not informed the Animist Inquisition about this long ago? Then Tindri simply stated that the three of them were going to the Inquisition's representative this moment, to which the lawtwister simply whelped about informing the family hobbling after them, with grand syntald and the key master in tow.
As the three adventurers were new in town, they didn't know where to find the local Inquisitor, so the law twister found himself in the position that he had to help out, which gave him time to send for an assistant and two porters to roll his cabinet of legal clay tablets with them. Thus equipped, the entire retinue set out.
The inquisitor was a young halfling by the name of Manada da Fanzilme, an Enki priestess. When Tindri explained their errand, and that the three of them had been involved in bringing down the Shagulites on Marjura, she gasped. She had read about those events as they unfolded, and knew that an elf sorceress had been involved. Having an entire delegation from the hospital coming to her shrine was most alarming, and she immediately set aside what she had been working on to join them.
Once more, the procession passed through the city, and now, it started attracting the attention of the general public: it was led by the city's representative of the Animist Inquisition, together with the grand syntald Piter of the largest hospital, a law twister whose legal paste was in shambles, an elf, a wolfman and a young lady dressed in the red robes of a foreign monastic order. One or two idle nobles, eager for gossip, followed them, and by the time they got back to the hospital, idle sailors, mercenaries and dilettantes joined them out of the curiosity.
The three led Manada and her assistant down the stairs, with the syntald, the law twister and the key master in tow..Someone was wielding a torch to light the way. Raori helped the halfling access the hatch when Tindri opened it. Manada leaned forward to see better, and then screamed, threw herself backwards and ran away in utter panic, while the law twister held up his tablet again. Roari just lost his patience with the man and showed him to the hatch to give him a glance, too. He shrieked and stumbled backwards, too, almost dropping his tablet.
They found Manada sitting in the lobby, white as a sheet in her face, and when she saw Tindri, she screamed "giant centipede!" and passed out. The crowd outside hard her and started muttering. Raori picked up someone saying saying "skolopod" and "rungli rebels" while Tindri opened her satchel and took out a potion. Perrima helped her tend to the unconscious halfling, who soon woke up again, shaking, but back to her senses. The crowd outside was getting rowdy, some shouting about demons, and some hospital attendants had to arm themselves with sticks to keep it calm, so Manada decided they should all retire to the lawtwister's office.
The entire group of important people assembled there, well served by staffers who produced refreshments for them. While the keymaster sat nibbling on nuts, Tindri gave him a serious dressing down, asking how he could keep feeding those things without ever saying anything about what they were to anyone. He just shrugged and looked down, mumbling something about how he didn't look that closely at them and just continued the work that the previous keymasters, all honoured and dignified people, had done. The three were not satisfied, and the scowl on Manada's face made the lawtwister excuse himself to pen a letter to the legally appointed "parent" of these creatures, a noble by the name of Gustald Ironhammer, who resided in the Hymbergonds.
Manada decided that this was, indeed, a very serious situation and invited the three adventurers to come with her back to the Enki shrine. When they came out of the building, the crowds had gotten bigger, with city guards and some mercenary patrols involved in keeping order. All sorts of people expressed concern. Some were shouting about demons invading the hospital, and "my relative is in there, is she safe", while others talked about rebels having tunneled into the basement to prepare for an attack using skolopods.
The small group had to make their way through crowds of worried citizens who wanted answers immediately. The shrine and its private meditation area, an inner yard with an oak tree and a small pool, became a welcome, peaceful respite. Manada explained that she had only just recently taken over the position as inquisitor for this region, her predecessor having been found dead in the Hymbergonds after having ventured there to investigate anti-Creationist activities. That raised some eyebrows among the adventurers, as they knew that the old Shagulite headquarters was located in that mountain range. Maybe there was a connection? While Manada conceded the possibility, she also said that she had no resources for dealing with demons in the hospital basement. She certainly could not go in alone, and her job recently had consisted of cataloging the activities of the assassin sect called RabdoRana, to find out whether they were anti-Creationists, even though they claimed to serve Inasthar. She definitely had no experience of slaying demons.
But Raori reassured her that they had, in fact, killed demons in the past and were very much willing to help her. She was very grateful for that, and happy to give them credentials as assistants of the Inquisition promptly. They decided that they would wait for a couple of weeks anyway to give her time to send for some more agents.
As they talked , they were interrupted by a messenger from the Generalissima Viripi Two-Sabres, who requested the presence of the Inquisitor immediately. For a fourth time, they made their way through the city with rising tensions, this time with a military escort. The Generalissima sat in an office in City Hall, a grumpy middle aged woman, who Raori had served with before and recognized as a skilled warrior. Her first concern was the risk of a rebel attack using skolopods, which the group could dismiss quickly. Once more, they described the entire chain of events and their previous experiences. Viripi was hardly pleased with the situation, and definitely not prepared to wait for weeks for some Animist agents to have it resolved. She wanted it done as soon as possible, and happy to provide some good troops to cleanse the basement, but was willing to wait until next morning. In the meantime, Manada was happy to offer the three the hospitality of the Shrine to get some rest.