ToA: Session 49

## Let the Storm Rage

As the imps scream off alarms the Squad gets into position to fight, just as the inside of the hideout comes to life with yuan-ti guards.
Neb is the first to act, launching a set of blasts at the imps, attempting to stop them from casting whatever spell they are in the middle of building up. The first hit completely kills the target, and the second manages to bloody another, stopping it from attacking. But the third imp is undisturbed and summons a Stalker to the field. It is unlike the normal ferocious wind elemental the Squad know as stalkers, and is instead some sort of demon in league with Dendar by its appearance.

The ferocious beast, with wings of utter darkness, dripping with corruption that renders the very plants around it withered, swoops to strike at Kinlek, who manages to stand against the attack and lock with the beast!
Fargus meanwhile rushes the building to fend off the yuan-ti guards before they can get out into the open and be a bigger problem and Neb fires once more at the imps, bloodying the third one as well before repositioning himself nearer the building.
Suddenly a blast of magic fires from the upper window of the building, coming from a yuan-ti mage! While Fargus engages with the guards who fight back with strange swords and shields made of energy, taken from the ancient technology of Omu. Kinlek fights off the Stalker, the mage yells at the rest in the building to get Ssassk out of there and gives Neb an idea.

## Raise the False Flag High

Whether due to their mistrust of the ghouls, or because Kinlek was wearing his ghoul mask, the Yuan-ti call to each other that mercenaries and ghouls are attacking and the squad choose to take advantage of this situation to sow chaos among the enemy. Kinlek fights off the stalker while acting as a ghoul, taunting and threatening the Yuan-ti that they will join the undead soon enough, just as he dispells the Stalker.

Neb disguises himself as one of the yuan-ti guards and misty steps into the hideout, planning to target Ssassk and his apprentice. As he stealthy rushes into the fray, hidden among the small group of Yuan-ti, he notices Fargus on the steps fighting the guards. While the guards have managed to get a couple hits on Fargus, they have never encountered a monk before and are utterly unprepared for him to simply run up the wall. But, of course, this being D-Squad things are never done simply. Fargus uses his new cloak to split himself into four mirror images before running up the wall and around the guards, heading up to the mage and her apprentice.
Neb redirects some of the others to try and help the guards, planning to clog up the stairs just as Ssassk's lover says her farewells to the yuan-ti leader. While she rushes up after Fargus, Neb pushes to Ssassk's side just as he loops his hand through a zipline to escape.

## Coup de Grace

As Fargus makes it up to the mage and her apprentice his four illusions and him fend off the guards while attacking the mage and her apprentice. The young apprentice cannot stand up to Fargus and is quickly dispatched, while the mage herself persists.
Down at the zipline Neb attempts to find out from Ssassk where the lizardmen are, but Ssassk sees through his disguise just long enough to question who he is. Acting quick, Neb puts an arm around the leader, assassinates him with a blast to the heart, and then grabs the body as it hangs from the zipline and rides it down. Just as he heads down, he looks back at the rest of the group, including Ssassk's own apprentice, and ghoulifies his face.
Kinlek attempts to cast a wall of fire into the hideout as the group of yuan-ti prepare a rope for the apprentice to rapel down. But the mage counters it! While she had stopped the wall of fire, this left her open to an attack from Fargus that she was unable to block.
Through the fire and chaos Ssassk's lover, face to face with Fargus, flanked by guards and the mage does the only thing she can to try and stop the attackers and casts Shatter.

The mage falls, but Fargus remains and approaches. The female yuan-ti grips her crystal dagger defiantly at him.

Down below, as Neb rides the line down he decides to take no chances and fires off two more eldritch blasts, destroying the rope and sending the apprentice falling to the jagged rocks below just as he rounds the corner to the escape point. With a moment of safety he collects everything of value he can off the body and starts back towards the hideout.

Fargus, face to face with Ssassk's lover, witnesses as she carves into her own body! She would rather use her own life to invoke the wretched god's power than be killed and used by the ghouls, but the simple cut into her abdomen, a crude representation of the sigil of Dendar seens ti affect her in a way she could not have expected. As the life slips away from her, her expression changes. It changes from defiant to confused and dismayed, to terrified as her soul is swallowed and that which was promised to her is absent. As Fargus witnesses it he hears the cry of a baby, witnesses in his mind the form of the entwined serpents and their malformed offspring once more, all as the nothingness bleeds into his vision, letting others in the group escape the building, running past Kinlek who taunts them further to ensure they know the ghouls did this to them.

Fargus snaps back to reality just as Kinlek hurries to the building, in time to see Fargus pushed out the window by the guards. He belches fire at them from behind, while Fargus looses an arrow as he falls, killing one of them and sending him tumbling to the ground below. The other jumps out the window after Fargus to dodge the fire and as he falls he aims his spear at Fargus and then overcharges the crystal on it with magic, making it explode!

The explosion makes the crystal from the dead guard below react and explode as well, attempting to catch Fargus between the blasts, but the nimble dwarf manages to just barely dodge out of the way as the enormous sphere of blue energy simply erases the space around it. Fargus lands to the sight of beautiful spirit birds flying free, though they appear to kinlek used of all life.

Down below among the rocks, a young yuan-ti lays broken and beaten, clinging to life but unconscious. Neb emerges from the underbrush and casts spare the dying on the apprentice, so he would not die before giving them the information they needed.

**Will the squad find the lizardmen? Will their attempts to turn their enemies against each other succeed? Will Fargus ever sleep again? Find out next time on The D-Squad: Tomb of Annihilation!**