The Fish Town Affair

They two suspects cast sleep and then grab Vin, a street urchin asleep on a darkened step in Fish Town. One of the figures slips the child under a robe and she vanishes under the illusion. You follow at a distance, waiting to see if they will lead you to the other missing children. The couple that look human but are not, walk through the market, they are looking for a secluded spot, but you don't know that.

They, look around, and see Avin, but discount him as just a dwarf, looking at the goods in a market stall. They mutter a spell and  open a portal on the ground and drop through.

Emtakul sprints forward with a shout of warning, he leaps a couple of barrels and matrix runs along the wall of a building, launching himself into the air feet first to slide baseball like along the ground and using his legs put the one holding Vin in a neck choke hold slowing its fall through the door. He hooks his quarterstaff around a Tent pole which is secured it to the ground and uses both hands to anchor himself on this side of the portal. Avin runs on little legs shouting a dwarven curse while Kraxis flips off the rooks to land and grab it as well, using their combined weights and strength to  stop the Oni from falling through the portal. It snarls.

“Release me or the child dies”.

Vars shoots at it with an arrow, the arrow punches through its left hand which is trying to pry Emrakul’s leg from its neck. The arrow goes through its hand and pins it to Emrakul’s right leg.

The Oni releases the child, you hear a thump as the sleep cast childs body falls to a floor somewhere else. It then swipes at them with its free hand clawing Kraxis who dodges most of the damage and Emrakul who struggles to get out of the way as he is stapled to the Oni.

Miseria screams in frustration. She has cast a spell to keep a track of the child and can feel the connection slipping away, the thump of the child falling coinciding with the loss of her connection. The second Oni drops through and is gone and starts to pull on the Oni who is stuck, in moments it too will go through, probably dragging Emrakul, Kraxis and Avin with it.

Miseria screams in rage this time and casts dispel magic or counterspell, in the moment it is hard to tell.

The portal slams shut, in a swril of purple energies, cutting the Oni in half. It snarls a last breath and those close hear it say;

“..part of the job to kill…”

It’s upper half slumps on the market ground. It body swells and grows back to its original form; a large giant like figure, blue skinned, evil eyes staring sightlessly into the sky, half its body gone, its innards spilling out steaming into the street.

The heroes slump, exhausted and defeated. Their day of investigating and evening of stalking their prey coming with the loss of the fourth child. Night has closed in and with the darkness has come a feeling of lose, but something else is on the air. Also a sense of release, and perhaps a touch of thanks.

If someone had done an arcana or religious check they would have seen flitting out of the Oni at the last, hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of tiny blue motes, swirling and bursting forth, a sense of freedom and thanks to those who have released them from their prison. The souls of hundreds of those the Oni over the centuries had fed on to keep the un-naturally long lived creature strong and hunting.

The motes drifted up and away on the night like new constellations and across thousands of lives throughout Faerûn in that moment, mothers, fathers, brothers and the like felt a sense of closure and peace for the first time in many years.

Two last motes did not drift up but moved down the street. One drifted around a corner and hovered for a moment in front of Udoroth who moments ago had been running in the direction of the commotion. He slowed and stopped, sensing something long lost, someone long lost.

“Brother?”

And then the mote was gone.