>>6334140A chill befitting your graveyard environs, yet ill-suiting the Southlands, falls upon you and your team. Forgetting again your ZZ-lite façade, you ask:
“H-hey, whaddaya mean by that? I thought… It was Southrons that got ya, right? Real black-skinned human guys?”
“Some of their servants were of that breed,” the Hyena Queen agrees.
“Some,” Ayla repeats, barely a whisper.
“Not all,” the Hyena Queen confirms. “Their leadership were half-breeds… Mongrels of Man and Snake. Servants, they said, of the Old Ways of the Serpent Priesthood, or those creeping servants of Darkness who dwell below the world, and who faced a dread threat which required alliance and aid to beat back for the benefit of all… Of the balance. In truth, they sought to shatter our pack, to bind our strength…”
…And to wield it against the North, and the Paladins. You look back at Ayla, whose flashing eyes crackle with conflicting emotions that her face remains empty of. Unlike you, the calm only goes skin-deep—scaly skin, up close. She, like you, has a history that involves such half-blooded reptilian people, serving just such a mission. Neither of you would exist if not for that… But neither would either of you suffered the curse of being cambion.
Your past, it seems, has slithered back to bite you… And right now, James Efron is trapped in those constricting coils.
Even as you grapple with the implications of all this, the Hyena Queen’s face begins to wobble wavily once more, fading away bit by bit. Your attention snaps to her once more, and you try to focus you <span class="mu-i">qi</span>… But it’s not enough. One can only hold a spirit so long with such a spell, especially one unwilling.
“H-hey! Wait a minute, wouldja? What about, like… Revenge or whatever?!”
“Vengeance for my clan… Blood for my blood… Payment unto death!”
“Yeah!” you encourage the flagging ghost. “All that shit!”
“Yes… You must do what I could not… You must bring low the betrayers!”
“Then give us somethin’ to help us do the job!”
And so she does. In the end, as her last act before returning to Death’s Domain, she offers you…
>The location of the nearest gnoll-pack besides her own, to join your fight>An amulet to invest in you the spirit of her rot-god’s divine charge, to transform you into a beast of vengeance>A spear tipped with the great fang of an ancient ancestor, which can pierce stone and spirit alike 