A nabasu and two babau demons had just magically appeared beyond the shattered statue of Iomedae in the courtyard next to the chapel's living quarters. When the nabasu demanded to know where Nulkineth was, Zosta responded, "Is Nulkineth the half-demon who was here? He ran away like a coward." This prompted the demon to growl, "I'll eat him later, But now I need sacrifices." Jiro retorted, "This shrine will be restored as a holy place dedicated to Iomedae. You should leave." One of the two babau reacted to Jiro's statement by plunging the area where all of the Crusaders stood into darkness. But Jiro and Zosta had both consumed potions earlier that were still affecting them, and they and Runa could still see. Only Asami, Aron, and Sosiel were dismayed by the darkness.
Immediately after the darkness fell, the nabasu cast a spell, which only Jiro could see to recognize. Before he could shout out a warning the magic had touched all of the party members. But all of them were able to resist it with the exception of Sosiel, who was held in place and could do nothing. The babau that had caused the darkness moved toward where Runa and Zosta stood. Nurah maneuvered around to the area outside the darkness and began to sing to bolster her allies, but after her companions her the words of her song they realized that it was meant not to aid them but to help the demons! She sang of the desire to visit the Abyss and to gain revenge on those who had wrongly accused her.
When Nurah began to sing, Jiro said in his native language that only Asami could understand, "If you have it a fog could conceal us." Runa moved toward the nabasu and cast a spell that caused a burst of brilliant light to momentarily dispel the darkness and also harmed the demons with its holiness. Runa then used one of her divinely-granted abilities to make herself stronger and tougher. While she did this the second babau moved around the statue on the side that was outside the darkness, heading toward Irabeth, who was still too weak to fight.
Zosta assaulted the nabasu with her fists, and a moment later Asami cast the spell Jiro had mentioned, filling the area between herself and the statue with a dense mist. She realized that there was light behind her, so she took a step back out of the darkness and drew a wand from its sheath, preparing to grant her comrades protection against the evil demons.
The first babau stepped behind Zosta into a flanking position with the nabasu, which clawed and bit at her. Aron stopped fretting over Sosiel's immobility long enough to shout angrily at Nurah, "You bitch! I'll kill you for this!" Jiro drew a weapon, cast a spell on it, and moved to defend Irabeth from the babau, but his attack failed to penetrate its hide. The babau stepped away and Asami's mist dissipated, dispelled by the demon. Runa slashed the first babau with her enchanted sword and then cast a spell of protection on herself.
Aron drew a dagger and threw it at Nurah. It hit her but failed to disrupt her song. Zosta had triggered the flames of her gauntlets, and to her surprise the fire seemed to actually harm the nabasu, even though she knew that most demons were less vulnerable to fire. Asami, able to see Aron throw the dagger at Nurah, reacted by summoning a sphere of whirling wind full of leaves and twigs and sent it at Nurah, battering her with the flying debris.
A darkness still surrounded the babau nearest to the nabasu, which prevented Asami from seeing the babau jump away from Runa to stab Zosta from behind. A wave of energy flowed out from the nabasu toward Jiro, Runa, and Zosta. When it touched Zosta she collapsed. Asami was focused on her sphere of wind, and saw Nurah step away from it and draw out a scroll. She heard Jiro call out in her direction, "Help Zosta!" Then he moved toward the babau nearest to Irabeth, summoning a shield of stone to protect himself and swinging his mace at the demon.
Meanwhile from the darkened area Runa could still see that a single missile of force somehow struck the nabasu, though she couldn't tell where it came from. She stepped forward to attack the nabasu again. Asami saw Aron suddenly desert Sosiel and run toward the front of the shrine. Just as he did so Sosiel began to move and called out to him, asking him where he was going. Aron answered that he was going to get help from the paladins.
Asami didn't turn to look, instead directing her sphere of wind to press Nurah against the stone wall behind her and then using her wand on Sosiel. Nurah read the scroll she held and disappeared from sight. Asami realized that it was a kind of teleportation spell. Beyond Asami's view, Runa felt as if her sword had grown heavier. She felt weaker as well, and she realized that her sword had lost all of its magical properties. She dropped the blade and drew her second sword. Jiro continued to attack the second babau to keep it away from Irabeth. While he fought it he directed Bohgong to get a curative potion from his pack and administer it to the fallen Zosta. The monkey quickly grabbed the vial and ran to pour it expertly into Zosta's mouth.
The first babau suddenly vanished, while the second babau stabbed Jiro in the stomach with its spear. With Nurah gone, Asami sent her sphere at the remaining babau, but the demon resisted the magic and sphere dissipated. Asami then threw her spear at it, but though her aim was true the wooden spear failed to pierce the demon's hide. Suddenly she heard an unfamiliar voice shout, "The demon grew stronger! Jiro, do something about that!" in the Tian language. The nabasu moved toward Jiro, positioning itself so that it was directly opposite the babau and biting at Jiro as the young man moved away and drew out a scroll.
Runa cast a spell to grant her sword divine power and moved to attack the nabasu. Sosiel also moved toward it. Asami shifted her position so that none of her companions stood in line with her and called on the gods to grant her the power to cast a spell she had already used that day. A blast of lightning more powerful that she was ordinarily capable of creating shot from her toward the nabasu. The creature dodged aside but most of the bolt struck it. To Asami's disappointment, the nabasu appeared to be unaffected and she realized that the demon must be impervious to electricity.
The nabasu reacted by causing a silence to fall on the area and began to move back to the other side of the ruined statue. Jiro followed the demon, reading from the scroll he had produced. He had realized that the demon had the ability to drain away the vitality of enemies and grant that same vitality to itself. The scroll's magic stripped away that unnatural life force from the demon. At the same time Runa and Sosiel attacked it as it moved past them. The nabasu and the babau took up positions on either side of Zosta again, as she had recovered enough to get to her feet. The nabasu attacked her, leaving her once again sorely injured but still standing. While Sosiel moved to Runa's side and cast a healing spell on her, Zosta pummeled the nabasu again with her fiery gauntlets. It seemed concerned that her flames were affecting it. Asami took the chance to get behind Zosta and lay a hand on her shoulder, granting her divine fortune.
The nabasu moved again, just as the remaining babau disappeared, the magic that had summoned it depleted. Runa and Zosta both directed their attacks at the nabasu, which began to stagger under their assault. It sent out another wave of negative energy, which only Asami failed to resist. Then it spread its wings and flew straight overhead. Jiro threw the magic dagger they had found in Nulkineth's strongbox at the demon but he missed and the dagger embedded itself in a wall instead of returning to him. A missile shot at the demon from the stable roof but failed to touch it. Runa, knowing that Zosta had the ability to make prodigious leaps, gestured to Zosta that she could give her a boost. Zosta responded by bounding off Runa into the air and slashing the demon's torso open from collarbone to hip. The demon plunged to the ground in a heap and Zosta landed on top of it.
Runa sliced off the nabasu's head to ensure that it was dead. With all of their enemies gone, the party members were able to catch their breath. Sosiel granted them Shelyn's healing blessings, and they began to talk about what Nurah had done and whether she might have been under some compulsion. Jiro revealed that just before she teleported away he had overheard her say, "He's not my boss." Runa then began to shout in her powerful voice, calling for Nurah to come back, telling her that nothing she had done couldn't be forgiven, and apologizing for having accused her of attacking Asami during the night. But Nurah neither responded nor returned.
Jiro and Zosta then decided that they should go after Aron and let him know that all of the demons had been defeated. Jiro had a suspicion that Aron's departure had been due to magical compulsion. They caught up with him just as he reached the waiting army, and he confirmed Jiro's guess; somehow Nurah had been able to compel him, though he hadn't heard her cast the spell. She had attempted it more than once but on the first try he had been able to withstand the magic. Aron was furious with her and wanted revenge, but after Jiro and Zosta suggested that Nurah might also have been compelled to act as she did and that she deserved a second chance, Aron agreed that his husband Sosiel would have wanted him to forgive her. The three of them recruited a group of paladins to accompany them back to the shrine to help clean and re-consecrate it and then made their way back up the cliff stair.
The paladins were told about Nurah's betrayal and advised to give her an opportunity to explain herself if she reappeared. They confirmed that she hadn't returned to the army camp after departing the shrine. While waiting for Jiro and Zosta to return, the rest of the group had begun to remove rubbish from the shrine. Runa attempted to use her magic to restore the damaged statue in the courtyard but was unsuccessful.
The group rested overnight at the shrine and continued their efforts to cleanse it the following day. Once the chapel had been consecrated, Runa noticed that Irabeth's sword Radiance was glowing brighter than before, and Irabeth told her that she felt the sword was both pleased and more aware than it had been previously. Some of the paladins cast divination spells to learn more about what had gone on at the desecrated shrine. They discovered that Nulkineth was indeed the half-demon, and that he had been taking captives and transforming them into ghouls to create an army. It was likely that the area around the shrine had many ghouls roaming it. The paladins also performed divinations to learn more about Nurah's actions, but their efforts brought mixed and uncertain results. Until she reappeared, the Crusaders wouldn't know if the halfling bard had betrayed them of her own free will or had been forced to do so by the demon.
Next: part 26, Vermin From the Abyss
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