I’ve been such an idiot.
When I first saw Arueshalae for what she truly is, my heart filled with rage and sorrow. After all, I’ve been trained and taught my whole life to destroy demons, the most hateful monsters in all the planes. So when my best friend, the woman I loved, was revealed to be one, you can imagine my reaction. I said some horribly hurtful things to her, which I regret with all my being, but in the moment I was incredibly hurt myself and lashed out at her with my words.
I turned away from her, assuming that she was evil and that she was manipulating not only Queen Galfrey but the entire crusade with some dark trickery.
When I confronted Galfrey, however, she did not seem to be under the influence of any enchantments, and she told the story of how she and Arueshalae met - that Arueshalae was imprisoned and left for dead by the demons because she was redeemed. Still, the shock I was still feeling kept me from understanding. I was angry at Galfrey for not telling me about Arueshalae from the start, and I was still furious at Arueshalae just for being what she is.
I didn’t understand until I died. I’d never admit this to her, but when that chimera took my life - just like last time when the vrocks killed me - my last thought was of Arueshalae; specifically, how horribly I’d treated her. I hadn’t been fighting a demon - I’d betrayed a friend. And she was right, the two of us aren’t so different when you really think about it, both struggling to rise above our heritage and become something greater than what we are.
When I was resurrected, however (thanks, Fay), Arueshalae didn’t seem happy that I was alive, and that hurt worst of all. My guilt almost overwhelmed me, but I masked it - as always - under my gruff demeanor and went on with our mission. Fay also delivered us our rewards for rescuing Admiral Thrune from that shadow demon; interestingly, Saggaroth’s included a suggestively-worded letter inviting him to her office anytime he wanted.
We found Inquisitor Pesch in a cage, but he seemed to be under some sort of mental magic; Saggaroth said he had “Wisdom damage”, whatever that means. Also in the room were two thrones. Saggaroth and I each sat on one, and each of them lowered into the floor. Mine revealed a small room with a chest holding a minor magical item, but Saggaroth’s lowered into a larger room filled with some kind of insect hive. A fight ensued between us and many swarms of demonic vermin, as well as a gigantic version of one of them, and several of us almost went down. My comrades fled the room while I stayed and fought… just like the chimera fight. (This is developing into an unpleasant pattern.) Thanks to Arueshalae’s timely intervention, however, the fight turned back in our favor, and we got out of the room without casualties. Arueshalae suggested taking a blood sample of the giant vermin for testing.
When we got back upstairs, Pesch had disappeared from his still-locked cage, which was somewhat distressing. But we couldn’t do anything about it at the time, so we decided simply to head back to Westcrown and get some much-needed rest. Felix cooked us a wonderful dinner, we sold some treasure to Ruta, and we got to bed.
The next morning was… interesting, to say the least. Arueshalae was still irritable towards us, and I couldn’t really blame her. I had planned on speaking to her in private to apologize for my behavior and try to get her to understand how I felt, but that plan was quickened when Fay, sensing the tension, cast a Zone of Truth at the breakfast table. Arueshalae blew up at me, shouting about how hurt she was that her best friend betrayed her like that, and she was absolutely right. I apologized, which she seemed somewhat surprised by; she said she needed some time away from me to handle her feelings, which I agreed to.
After that, and after Fay had a Zone of Truth-empowered chat with her father, and after we had received our reward for rescuing Pesch (apparently he had made it back to the city on his own), we had to get back to the mission at hand. We had some questions for Pesch, so we headed over to Admiral Thrune’s office to ask her where he might be. Since she had invited Saggaroth to her office, we sent him up to ask her. He came sprinting out a minute later, because he didn’t know what to say. I gave him a bit of coaching and sent him back in. A few minutes after that, he sprinted out again, seeming quite flushed and distressed. I don’t think I want to know what happened in there, but we got Pesch’s location - a warehouse by the docks.
We arrived at the warehouse. Inside it, Pesch was painting a quite large and intricate design on the ground. Before we could stop him, he stuck his sword into the center, summoning a group of swarms to attack us. The swarms went down immediately thanks to Saggaroth, but Pesch was another matter. He was quite a skilled combatant, and my three companions all suffered some grievous wounds, but we brought him down. After taking what useful equipment we could find from his body, we went outside.
The sky had been blotted out by swarms of locusts, and high in the sky, riding on a red fiendish dragon, was the Red Rasper.
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