KILARRA ORIGINS, PART 4

The final weeks of the ghoulish seminar tested the monstrous students with practical exercises.  The Illrigger watched as each of the attending horrors animated their own troops and engaged their fellow classmates.  The mind-flayer proved himself to be a tactical genius, while the lich clearly didn’t have the knack for using terrain and timing attacks.  The pit fiend also performed well, but would often clear the hall of animated troops in destructive tantrums after being beaten by the mind-flayer, and the erinyes.  New stocks of fodder had to be brought in, killed and animated.  The death knight wouldn’t allow the pit fiend at them, the destruction rarely left corpses intact for animation.  The fortress prisons had a plethora of hapless souls that were brought up as necessary.  The smart ones didn’t let on they were looking forward to death’s release.  The illithid volunteered to “prepare” new recruits for animation, having access to a larger menu of brains than was typical for the Underdark.

The sparring sessions with the erinyes continued.  They fought harder with each encounter.  They gradually began duelling with different weapons, spells, in different environments.  The death knight and the she-devil enjoyed occasional and brutal sexual encounters after the duels were done.  Not as good as a succubus but servicable enough, Tristan thought.  Armed foreplay was more stimulating.   

Classes continued.  The erinyes was summoned to the prime material plane a few more times with the same results:  a terrified but organized mage sensing the presence of vampires that never materialized.  As time progressed, the enrinyes grew less and less furious with each summoning.  This disappointed the pit fiend and his lich side-kick.  The relentless teasing and infernal snickering stopped.

In the final week of class, one particularly hot and dry afternoon in the blasted city of Dis, the instruction hall cracked and flashed with the now-recognizable arcane summons of Tiyru’s mortal master.  Tiyru stepped from her desk with an unsettling smile of satisfaction and deadly expectation.  She adjusted the belt over her chainmail and pulled the flanged mace from her hip.  She unsheated the glittering wavy longsword as an arcane wind swirled around her, pulling her to the realm of Faerun.

“I BRING BACK HER HEAD THIS TIME!” Tiyru screeched as she disappeared in a burst of soot and brimstone.

Telepathic waves of doubt emanated from the mind-flayer.

“This is the 13th time she’s been snatched to the material plane, what could she possibly do this time that the summoner hasn’t prepared for?”

The lich gave a breathless sigh, “Let’s get on with it.   I lived some years in Faerun, in Thaymount.  Probably a former pupil of mine.  The she-devil deludes herself, this mortal mage has covered every possibility.”

“We shall see,” the Illrigger said.