A BRIEF INTERLUDE PART 2 (published 03/27/2014)

Shemeshka shifted anxiously in her chair eying the powerful Factol seated across from her.  The blood wine should have been here by now!  What could be holding it up?  No one in Sigil would dare molest one of her shipments!  The piscodaemon guards would pay dearly for this delay.

“What troubles you my dear Shemeshka?” asked the powerful man seated across from her.

He was not a young man and despite his graying hair and beard and the terrible scar that creased his face he was not unpleasant to look at.  Perhaps it was the power this mortal exuded.  Shemeshka new well the legends that surrounded this man.  Her agents had reported that he hailed form a small prime world called Oerth where he battled giants, drow, demons, and worse.  He had reportedly brought down the resurrected Temple of Elemental Evil, defeating the servants of Tharizdun.  He then survived nearly ten years of infernal torture until the devil Amaggel became so frustrated that he could not break this mortal simply released him.  This surprising human then traveled back to his home world to find his kingdom had been overrun by the machinations of Grazz’t ‘s welp Iuz.  After inciting his countrymen to war and defeating the demigod’s forces he simply left to travel the planes, ending up in another small prime world called Faerun where he did nothing less than help some backwater paladin and his friends slay the powerful lich Zhengyi then travel to the abyss and destroy the very wand of Orcus!  No this mortal was not to be taken lightly.

“Oh it is nothing Factol Darkwood, I had hoped to surprise you with a gift of fine Damaran Blood wine, but it has not yet arrived.  I’m sure it will be here any minute.”  Replied Shemeshka, the last part through her clenched canine snout.

“There is no need for such formalities, please call me Duke Rowan.”

“Of course my Duke.”  This mortal has such nerve to speak to me this way!  I don’t care how many fiends he’s killed or artifacts he’s destroyed I am Shemeshka the Marauder, thought the daemon seething under her guise of tranquility.

Shemeshka tapped her clawed finger impatiently and contemplated the eternal tortures she would inflict upon whoever was responsible for this delay.

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News of the ambush travelled fast.  Few would ever knowingly position themselves against the powerful Arcanadaemon known as Shemeshka the Marauder, though apparently some clueless primes had done just that.

Word had spread about a group calling themselves the Reavers.  One alleged member of this band apparently bragged openly in a particularly seedy watering hole that her mistress was a drow priestess of death and she had brought death to Sigil!

Many witnesses of the event spoke in hushed awe of a half-orc warrior woman who slew a daemon with a single blow and launched arrows with the force of a ballista!  Others say they thought they saw a shadowy imp leaping from roof to roof, but quickly dismissed it as a trick of the strange Sigil lights.

In any case, all were sure that such audacity would be paid back in kind when the Marauder found these upstarts!

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The Reavers were concluding their business with Estavan at his warehouse the day after the ambush when a large graying man flanked by nearly a dozen well-armed attendants entered the Planar Trade Consortium.  The graying man looked around the room until his eyes settled on the heroes.



“You must be these Reavers I’ve been hearing so much about.  I understand you owe me some Damaran Blood wine” Said Duke Rowan Darkwood.