#khoury

We had delved deep within Jusi, into a hidden Extra Planar Quarantine Past The Gentle One, an entity which was just entropy, death, but khoury made him his friend We found ourselves within The Lock, a place crafted by the gods of the Setonian pantheon to keep a monster, a Dead God named Xentrellis, locked away for eternity. This is where we found Mara Averina, Queen of this country, taken in bloody coup, trying to break through a magical barrier over what we later learn, is a single scale of an immortal. A Dragon, their single scale was so big, that if it were a tower shield, it would belong to a man over 8ft A piece of what is called Immortal Skin, the name is obvious, it is the skin of an immortal, but what that means in this setting is a whole other thing. 

The Immortal Skin is the focal point of the ritual of sealing Xentrellis away here. And Immortal Skin cannot be harmed by any means save a weapon created by another with immortal skin. Mara was trying to work on this. She was subtly delighted that we had gotten there before her daughter Lillith, the medusa Essentially she wanted Tala or Lillith to get there first, as she treats Tala, the party's blood hunter/werewolf as a daughter, that she will turn to her will She's trying to manipulate us to work for her, to make a deal to walk away from this and to face her in serpents head. Tala has already tried to maul her quite thoroughly, but this is only an apparition of her, we later learn through Zalrich casting a spell that this form was projected by Xentrellis for Mara to act through, but can be destroyed by targeted magic.

Theres back and forths between all the party until Thane takes the stage with her. He commends her brilliance to the fact she took this country so succinctly. But condemns how she did it, questions her choices of lover with Edmund Destreus and makes her question Xentrellis, she doesnt of course but he tries. She replies back to thane saying "I know you wish your were special" and he cut her off immediately "Oh you can stop that nonsense immediately, I am just a man, I am a man next to one of the smartest minds of our age, a child elven progeny and a damn werewolf, all while a vampire tries to bring back a dead god. I am Just A Man, and a man was all it took to behead your daughter in Falensmoore." 

"i dont care what you offer any of them, you know damn well this temple is blessed by Tenerahs, I could not leave it if I chose, never mind the fact that I damn out right refuse to. I hold no judge against my friends, they can take your offer, but I am staying, right here." Shortly after, demons break through and charge the scene, these demons are servants of Mara, guarding Lillith to get her here, she has already snuck in, but the fiends are withered by The Gentle One, who khoury had made a friend of.(edited)

Zal rushed outside and khoruy followed him, khoruy summoned a blizzard from his staff slowing them down and zal used a magic shield he had to cause a barrier of trees between the temple and the demons essentially locking thane and tala into the temple with mara Mara looked to the Scale and told tala "go on, take it from me" zal had knowledge outside of this and knew if tala took it, it would be disastrous for us Thane reiterates this to her and mara makes a statue of Tenerahs at the back of the room, animate and attack thane All the while, the amulet thane has on all of his art The Favour of Tenerahs, is thrumming with power Lillith appears in the temple Thane and Tala both have to resist the effects of petrification, being caught off guard both fail and are restrained if they fail terribly, or fail the next roll, they are turned to stone

They both barely succeed the save to not be petrified, tala covers her eyes and hunts Lillith blindly, while thane is being literally pummeled by the statue of Tenerahs Thane makes Lillith and the statue fail a save against being blinded by a Gem of Brightness, Lillith uses a once a day effect to resist being blinded Zal and khoury are holding back the demons but things are getting strained on all sides

Tala fails her saves and is turned to stone by Lillith, petrified in place. The Favour of Tenerahs thrums against Thane's chest, and Thane rolls a religion check, rolling very high And Thane feels a pressure against his shoulder A hand A hand cased in bronze armor, a face obscured, a black plated braid of hair hanging down the shoulder, spinning a spear in one hand In this religious place Tenerahs has come to Thane's aid 

"I am sorry, I have not been kind to you, let me make this right" 

She launches her spear into the statues chest, and holy light pours forth from all the cracks Thane had made in the statue She strides towards Mara as thane loudly, and happily shouts "I CALLED IN MY MOM" Tenerahs turns back to him, looking in disgust at Mara, "I dont know what she thinks that is, but I think you should have it" Thane now controlled the statue and looked the Mara with a smirk, he rushed up the dais in the middle of the room and as Mara broke the barriers on the scale Thane grabbed it And began gaining power from it The first thing that happened was a surge of energy, forcing all creatures in the room to kneel down In this time, Zal had magically blinked through the barrier of trees and khoury turned into a small animal t o dash in