Tutoria’s hand restlessly drifted away from the rubble of debris away as the Neophyte made her way deeper and deeper into the rotting ruins of Once-Golden Katheer. Her eyes glowed boldly as she steeled herself towards her destination: the Temple of the Dawn’s Grace. The devout young girl could not abide the idle dawdling of the Desert Rangers and her now innocuous High Priestess Kamala of how they must continue to sit idly by whilst the Filth-Drinkers continue to spread their taint upon the holy city. Having taken several scrolls of Resist Acid, some of her brother’s Alchemical Supplies, and her blue raincoat to equip herself for the journey.

She passed by many Watering Wells on the way, just as she was told by her cowhearted High-Priestess, they were many that had been defiled. However, some were mysteriously being purified agnostically with filters of Coal purifying some of the waters. An unhurried means of purifying drinking water, unlike casting a hasty Purification spell of divine traditions for a Sarenite such as herself.

Already she was about to reach its terminus as Tutoria can see the brass arches and bleeding dome on the horizon. All a brisk walk across the golden walkway leading to the Temple. If one ignores the forest of the impaled and desecrated remains of fallen Sarenites such as her trying to ward off the fiery Paladin from their grim fate.

To see the Temple of the Dawn’s Grace, in such ruination, made the Aasimar’s bones chilled. To see the emblem that represents the warmth of hope upon Golarion be turned into an abyssal parody of filth and despair that threatens to devour all of what is left that is beautiful and benevolent sickened her soul. Already she can feel the test of her faith every step closer to the defiled temple. Decayed corpses, littered refuses and scavenged ruins littered the abandoned streets of once prosperous and pious Katheer.

Despite her courage, an aura of doubt began to Tutoria’s conviction. Why would Sarenrae, the Dawnflower, the Cleansing Light, the Healing Flame, the very exemplar of all that is compassionate and truth allow her own Temple to be defiled? For a Goddess who, because she is good, would not want disasters such as the cataclysmic Death of Nethys and, because she is all-powerful, could stop it? Why would Sarenrae allow suffering into this world? The loss of her parents? The loss of her home? And now she is beginning to see the twilight that beckons to the loss of her faith.

Tutoria’s heart dimmed, cursing the contemptuous Desert Rangers companions and even her own sang-froid of a brother. What did these Outworlders and her placid brother know of Faith? Sarenrae and all that she embodies every zeal, every fire, and every act of charity she had practiced from the very moment she could walk. If the desecration of her Temple were to see itself through, she shall be once more just like her brother, orphaned again. To see another of someone who had cared for you, clothed you, fed you, and taught you to wither away like the decaying bricks that befallen the Temple. The light of hope flickered for breath and the Temple falls, then all of Golarion shall become an empty shell of itself. Filled with nothing but greed, tyranny, and indifference.

“Stop following me Navideh.” The Neophyte Paladin glowered at the Sulli Bard who had quietly followed behind her.

But the azure-haired mandolin maestro silently shook her head, tugging along the Paladin’s arm to turn back on her overzealous one-man crusade. Yet Tutoria, ventures onwards, stubbornly estranging her green-feathered ears to the Spherewalker’s voiceless pleas.

The ground slowly wettened with the stench of permeated refuses and decay as the two intrepid hearts treaded deeper into Katheer’s heart of darkness. The streets were both a menagerie and a labyrinth of sensory assaults that threatened the Bard and the Paladin’s fortitude to turn over through sheer revulsion. The stench permeated from rotting septic sewage neglected to fester. The harsh buzzing of flies and scavenging insects crawled the once magnanimous tile floors of the city as they feasted on Katheer’s corpses.

It was an absolute disgrace that ‘Golden’ Katheer could allow itself to degrade in such a quandary. A vile parody of what was once a shining light to Golarion only second to great Absalom, the City at the Center of the World.

The Paladin held her hand out quietly before placing her finger on her lips and crouched down. Her lightly feathered ears fluttering. A tic of her instincts when she sensed someone or something foreboding is just nearby. Pulling out her Scimitar, the two enter an abandoned Kasbah through one of its broken walls. The old block house’s walls bellowed with the echoes of past prosperities, her leather shoes stepping on the scattered remains of dampened carpets and loose gold coins, items of once supreme value, made worthless in one day. The Aasimar sank herself deeper into her surroundings, her perceptive instincts now able to ascertain the faint granulating sound of crunching coming across the hall. There was also a small if faintly sour scent coming from the room to the left. She peeked over by the corner, discerning by the cobwebbed Pots, the termite-bitten wood, a dusty Stove, the room was a kitchen. Across the stove, Tutoria spotted a small humanoid figurine, wearing a dark olive raincoat, wet with moisture just like hers. The scrubby fellow had been helping themself to a plate of spoiled date fruits, of last harvests she can remember was five years ago. Its sweet taste faded into a vile acrid stench.

It was one of the Filth-Drinkers, fitted exactly to the High Priestess’ story to a fault. They weren’t however wielding a firearm however that she could see from behind. But it wasn’t a cause to let her guard nor her hatred for such apostates cascade.

Tutoria briefly whispers to Navideh, “Stay, there.” She ordered the Bard before furtively stepping into the chamber.

Her Scimitar was raised and ready to cut down this Filth-Drinker, the first on her Crusade to meet her blade shall be now she eagerly avowed herself to act. But for all of her zeal did not translate to having a surreptitious foot, having, unfortunately, placing her foot onto a loose tile. The tile careened only slightly but it was all the noise required to betray her presence to the Filth-Drinker.

The olive raincoat turned around, his spiritless yellow eyes meeting Tutoria’s teal pearls.

The small fellow was no taller, if unmistakably a child, a human child! A thin and malnourished bronze frame wrought with the ravages of poverty such as the scars, blistered skin, and soot littering their body. However, much to the Paladin’s dismay, the young boy had been branded on his chest, forehead, and even on his naked gut a heinous gallery of symbols dotting the Filth-Drinkers skin: a skeletal insectoid-like etching that seemed to breathe not of just evil, but Unholy malevolence.

He had been branded! The palpable evidence of Fiendish Influence, coming straight from a dreaded Demon Lords of the Abyss. Both as a boon and as emblazon of peonage to whomever of the ruinous powers that be adorned that mortal soul.

All motions of anger, suddenly eroded with the Paladin as she gazed upon the young lad. Wretched and weary as he was, this rain-coated Filth-Drinker was famished, angry, if not also… scared.

Almost just like her…

“Yiiaaagghh!” The Filth-Drinker lunged at Tutoria, pulling out his weapon, a curved hilted rifle, similar to the design of David’s own gun hidden beneath his raincoat.

For such a callow youth, this Filth-Drinker was a very sly striker, holstering his weapon by its body he began half-sword his rifle like a club. With the initiative stolen forth by the boy, the young Paladin fell flat-footed to the ground from the unbalancing blows from the tyke-sized scavenger. Her Scimitar had fallen away amidst the struggle.

“Eta ama! Eta ama!” the boy swung his rifle like a club at the Paladin, intending to clobber her to death. His foreign tongue breathed fire from his noxious throat.

But its barbaric bludgeons, dulled and rusted through months of tireless use were unable to break through Tutoria’s Lamellar Armor. The Filth-Drinker didn’t fight not like some rapacious marauder, but more of a starved animal, defending its found food from those who dare to steal it… even if it was long past its time of suitable consumption.

The Paladin covered her head with her two arms to protect herself as she struggles to escape.

When her Filth-Drinker attacker’s arm began to fall weakly, Tutoria took the opportunity to kick the boy off.

The juvenile scrounger was sent flying across the kitchen, his body crashing stiffly to the clay oven. His skull landing by its masonry shell, drawing blood and even the crack of bone shattering.

Tutoria stood back up and looked at the limp body of the boy horrified at what she has done. To see such a poor wretched soul, even if fiendishly influenced by the powers that be, be allowed to corrupt even the youngest of hearts terrified the young Paladin. Was nothing sacred anymore? To corrupt such innocence to pick up sticks against their fellow men instead of building each other up? Had she snuffed what sullen hopes away from the most ingenuous of souls? The children, the future, those whose love is needed the most with their wax-like naivete and frail bodies? Trepidations began to wrack her heart of what act she had done. She tried to reason it was self-defense, but was there any justice on attacking and killing a child for a Paladin of Sarenrae such as her?

Her fears were however alleviated, but rather much she would have preferred to live with the guilt to let of the sin of child-slaying when the boy, slowly arose. His dirtied hands gripping weakly the table wear the Clay Mason Oven was planted on. He grabbed his curved rifle and aimed it at the Paladin. Inhumanly, despite the damage protruding from his bleeding skull, the boy boldly stood up against the Paladin, even if Tutoria easily towers above him by about three feet.

“Amitya! Amitya!” the boy’s eyes ran red with blood and rage just as a soft lullaby began to played around him. “A-A-Ami… Ha—Ha—aaat---” the Filth-Drinker’s eyes began to grow heavy as he fell down to his knees limply.

The Paladin turned behind her to see Navideh had pulled out her Mandolin and had successfully played such a sweet melody that their assailant fell into the magical resonance of Sleep.

“It’s… it’s just a boy…” Tutoria gasped and palpitated as she weakly leaned over the wall. She was both relieved and yet still unnerved by what she had just witnessed.

All notions of her one-Paladin Crusade washed away as the drumming of the devilish Acid Rainfall reverberated through the derelict halls of the Casbah. Once more, the encroaching Evil brings its scourges across Golden Katheer again.

Looking down on their new captive, for lack of a better term, Tutoria sensed that the boy’s aura permeated an Evil if not Chaotic energy gripping his mind, body, and soul. It was enough to nearly make the young Paladin heave with disgust but she steeled herself. She needed to know her enemy if she is to have any chance of smiting it away from the face of Golarion.

“Navideh you can feel this… this… eh… inside of him, right?” Tutoria mentions to the Desnan Spherewalker, that the cold beating of her heart causes the Sarenite Paladin to break into a fearful sweat.

The Bard nodded, confirming to both women that they have felt the same Evil aligned so sinisterly within this Otherworlder.

Navideh placed the young boy onto her lap as one of her hands shone with green healing energies to soothe the cracked skull inflicted upon him. Knowing her esoteric knowledge of the Occultic magics used by Sulli Djin-Bloods, the Paladin discerned that the Desnan was laying her hands onto the boy with a ‘Soothe’ spell. The boy’s bleeding skull was slowly being restored as his vicious dispositions were lain to sleep, for now at least.

“How well do you know about Fiends, Bard? Demon Lords?” Tutoria asked.

Navideh shook her head with a fearful glower as she caressed the unconscious Filth Drinker with her Soothing Magic Spell.

She gently took off the boy’s olive raincoat before passing it to the Bard for the Sulli to keep. The Filth-Drinker wasn’t wearing a shirt, instead a tattered red pair of shorts with even more decrepit sandals for footwear. It did save her the trouble of trying to identify with what Demonic Lore Tutoria had learned from her time sinking herself into the pages of books back at Sunhill Monastery.

“These symbols… Insect Skeleton drawings with the Chelaxian Alphabet character ‘T’ shaped around it.” Tutoria discerned the Unholy Markings on the boy’s body.

Navideh gagged after finishing casting her ‘Soothe’ spell at their captive. The stench of all of this decaying furniture was starting to slowly fail her fortitude.

“Disgusting… Oh… Decay… maybe Decay? What Demon would be associated with Decay?” Tutoria pushed her intuition onwards as she collected all of the evidence she had discerned right at this moment.

She has recalled a few candidates based on her rudimentary knowledge of the Rulers of the Abyss.

Deskari, the Lord of Locusts and Infestations, claims tyrannical dominion over Insects. But Tutoria knew his Unholy Symbol was several Locusts wings crossed together.

Dagon, the Shadow of the Seas? He is associated with Waters. But the Paladin doubts that he isn’t the type of Demon to be purposely polluting his own dominion.

Gogunta the Song of the Swamps could be a possible candidate, but it is quite a stretch she would try to expand her influence in the driest place in Golarion when there were more bulbous inland bodies of water further into Avistan.

Just as she pondered, the crashing noise of a room’s roof nearby interrupted her train of thought. The casbah was now beginning to show signs of wear and tear from the ravages of this devilish Acid Rain.

“We need to get out of this Casbah. The whole city is falling into ruins…” then Tutoria struck an epiphany.

A working theory, that she may have to confirm from the collection of books from their Wagon back at the Visitor’s Center.

There was a Demon Lord, named Xoveron who is associated with the Ruination of Cities. She couldn’t discern the full details but if her little theory is correct, she is dealing with a powerful Demon Lord who has a callous disregard for the vibrancy of civilization. This Demon Lord only wishes to see the likes of once-vibrant cities be reduced to rubble and dust. Pollution is in a way, an alternative domain, a means to an end to such decadent destructions Xoveron desires above all else to bring forth.

Tutoria sighed as the full folly of her hot-headed charge weighed down on her. High Priestess Kamala and Ranger David were right. She alone, even with Navideh’s help is not equipped to assault the Temple and purge it of Heretics. Let alone Heretics with a Demon Lord empowering them.

“I was wrong” a humbled Tutoria lowered her head to Navideh. Her spirit was willing, yet her flesh was truly weak. Weak if alone at least. “Let’s just take this Boy back to the Mujahidin.” She picks up her fallen Scimitar from off the ground.

Navideh smiled gently, now that her new friend see’s reason. Iron needed to be tempered with method. Without it, Zeal alone is no better than folly.

Carrying the sleeping body of their captive Filth-Drinker, Navideh and Tutoria left the Casbah. But not one moment sooner that they stepped foot outside to the rain-dripped streets that the loud-metallic roar declared itself. It was both a supernaturally primal, barking call likened to feral wolves finding prey. Yet just as adversely, its roar bestowed a maniacal guffaw with the laughter of fiendish corsairs readying to gallop.

When the Acid Rain falls, Katheer’s streets belong to the Filth-Drinkers.

Frozen in fear, the two young women instinctively leaped beneath an abandoned stall to hide from what horrifying creature lurked. They held their breath, not daring to betray their cloister to what predators now emerged from their hovels.

Once more, they heard that chilling roar again. Twice it harkened its arrival with its beastly brays.

Tutoria peaked behind the boxes to see if she could discern where the monster could be lurking. Her oceanic-blue eyes beholden an Iron Stallion, atop its saddle wheeled carry two riders. It bellowed a brazen roar as black smoke ripped choking gas behind its winds. One has taken the reins of its horns, steering that Iron-Stallion’s head to wherever it wishes to belch its rivers of soot. His partner behind him wielded one of their Metal Wands that David had taught her were called ‘Firearms’. Their size may be deceptively small, no larger than a dagger but it the Paladin would be a dead fool if she allowed herself to be struck by their extremely fatal outputs of metal bullets. If her few days observing the Rangers and their exotic weapons can attest. She rather much sees the likes of the Sandstorm and the Demonic Masters these Filth Drinkers be riddled with bullets than her.

The Iron-Stallion roared thrice as it turned its gaze towards where Tutoria and Navideh hid. A blinding white light shone towards her peeking eyes slightly bedazzling her. The Filth-Drinkers know they are there.

“Get out of the stall…” Tutoria gestured Navideh.

The dual-riding Wheeled Horseman roared angrily as it charged forth towards the two Golarionite Women.

“Go! Go! Go!” Tutoria clamored as she pushed the Sulli Bard back, still carrying their sleeping captive as the Wheeled-Horseman made its frightening gallop towards them.

With the wicked grip of their Pistol-Wand, the tandem rider let loose a hail of metal missiles that tore through the wooden stalls, but the timely dodge of Navideh and Tutoria saved them from harm as they retreated to heavier cover. The metal bullets only being able to kiss the sandstone and wood harmlessly

Dowcnasted that their weapon did not taste blood, the tandem riders of the Iron-Stallion turned around to make another pass.

“You stay there!” the Paladin orders Navideh.

The Bard nodded, holding tightly their nestling ward in her arms. Tutoria held her Scimitar and angled it heavily, putting all of her weight on her palm towards the dull edge of her Scimitar. It was a technique she had learned from her Sword Fighting masters designed to dismount warriors.

Treading softly on some boxes and ensuring that the Iron-Stallion riders didn’t spot her, Tutoria reversed the grip of her curved blade whilst palming the dull end with all of her strength and athleticism with her other hand.

Her Scimitar struck true against the Iron-Stallion, severing the wheel of the metallic steed and sending both of the riders flying away.

The Filth-Drinkers violently debarked onto the muddied street floor, squirming in pain and letting out agonizing moans. One of the riders tried to crawl towards his Metal Wand that had landed a foot length away but Tutoria stopped the juvenile ruffian by stepping on top of the Metal Wand just as his hand had reached to grab hold of it.

The Filth-Drinker, much taller than his compatriot, who had held the reins of the Iron-Stallion clutched his left bleeding leg. “Amara pa bhenga…” he groaned in agony.

“Are! Amara duka!” once more, this Filth Drinker was another youthful boy. He growled murderously at Tutoria with tears and hatred upon his eyes. The rambunctious lad’s bereft ambers eyes bled puss as he attempted to tug away his wand-sized Firearm from Tutoria’s boot heel but to no avail.

The Paladin carefully picked up the gun, with a softened yet admonitory gaze she sighed before pocketing the weapon away.

“Ama bandhura tomake mere phela!” the minor of the tandem Iron-Stallion riders growled. “Hoi! Hoi! Phera-dao!”

Tutoria shook her head, rather disappointingly at these misguided youths. They may have in possession this dangerous weaponry. But they were no better an opponent than just children playing with sticks. Lethal sticks, but merely abecedarian to the intricacies of what a real Warrior must know of that separate the Squires from the Paladins. Even though she rather says she is somewhere in the middle. She wonders, how did the Mujahidin allow themselves to be defeated such amateurish foes?

She grabbed the Metal Wand, amidst the Filth-Drinker child’s protest and threw the weapon away.

“Ami eta sesa karaba!” a new voice declared their presence beneath the gaze of the Temple’s Exterior.

Tutoria turned around and spotted one, two, five, and twelve shadows emerge from the Darkness. Filth Drinker reinforcements had arrived. All as youthful if not no older than a decade born or so. All are branded with the Unholy Symbologies of Skeletal Bugs on their faces and bodies. They were armed with weapons from simple firearms, looted Sarenite Scimitars, and other rudimentary armaments. To Tutoria’s abject horror, accompanying these putrescent pups were a trio of deformed, horned, and hunchbacked humanoids with forked rat tails. Demons of the Abyss she knew they were, known as Abrikandilu, who stands four feet tall yet of stout strength.

The Demonic Ratmen rabble-roused the debased children to a frenzy.

“Oh, Sun and Fury…” Tutoria cursed. The Paladin staffed away for cover as one of the virulent youths fired his firearm wildly, barely missing the Aasimar.

Taking cover behind several rotted crates, Tutoria reached out into her satchel. Having earlier taken away some of her brother’s alchemical creations for her own use. Each of them was distinct, purposely labeled of what they do. She smiled to herself knowing that one of these alchemical creations was two vials of Smoke Bomb. Simply crash on any impactful surface to unleash its effects.

Slamming both Bombs to the ground from her cover, a thick cloud of smoke enveloped Tutoria, Navideh and their Xoveronic attackers. Submerged in concealing fog, the pernicious broods and their Abrikandilu demagogues were waylaid by its hindering cloak. Unlike them, Tutoria was much more prepared for such a scenario. Grabbing from her satchel once again, she held before her custom-modified Scroll of True Target.

“I charge through into the fray. May by strikes be true this day!” Tutoria chanted the words needed to activate her Scroll.

Unlike the standard spell of her allowing them to delve into the possible futures of the next few seconds of one foe and then casting out that vision of the future to her allies, it was modified the other way around. This imbued the Paladin to divine her assault on her opponents with definitive meticulousness.

Emerging from her cover, Tutoria first targets the Abrikandilu first, their deaths being of little consequence to her Palatine Edicts as a Sarenite. The sweep of her Scimitar brilliantly slain the flat-footed Demons without so much as trouble. For the delinquent youths, however, Tutoria took great heed to using the pommel of her sword or to strike in such a way that her opponent would only receive pulverizing yet ultimately non-fatal injuries with a few bludgeoning attacks from her fist. Yet ironically, it was those apostate stocks of corrupted boys and girls that were more Demonic than the actual Demons that accompanied them. Flanking her at all opportunities to sneak several strikes on her flanks.

Her armor stood firm, only the particularly unerring thrusts of their melee weapons able to pierce through her Lamellar Armor but the Paladin remained undaunted. Tutoria easily bested them one or two of them at a time until they lay broken down to the ground before them. She pitied these callow youths.

“Your leaders are Dead! Stop this madness!” she supplicated the children.

“Tumi kutta. Tomake!” one of the elderlies of the violent youths spat at her and defiantly roared. Using his short sword, he began to swing wildly at the Paladin.

Yet Tutoria, now in a valorous trance easily blocked and parried his insipid onslaught. He tried in vain to get even a single hit in, using the full weight of his strength but to no avail. The Paladin easily knocked him down a second time, much to her chagrin.

“Then you leave me no choice.” Tutoria swallowed her distaste. Raising her Scimitar if reluctantly to end these fiends in human form. She silently prayed to her Goddess that her justice may be swift and these children meet mercy.

“Oh no you won’t little girly!” a large rock barely missing her from above.

Gazing upwards, Tutoria spotted, adorned in gray wings and stone-like skin. The winged beast laughed at the Paladin’s battle from above as if he was watching a comedic performance.

“You are a Gargoyle!” the Paladin recalled her education of those monsters. Creatures of chaos and ruination in wings they were. Not necessarily Demons in the truest sense, but their actions alone honorously aligned them with those of the Abyss.

“You’re not as dumb as you look little girly! Do you like some of the new toy soldiers I have here!” the Gargoyle chuckled from up high.

“These… are Children you are leading you monster!” Tutoria denounced the Gargoyle.

“Monster? Oh, little Paladin, you make me laugh. These little children here? They were abandoned, forsaken and left to starve in the desolate streets they come from. Whilst folks like you grow fat while they die thin! Left to eat up what scraps you left behind.” The Gargoyle eloquently spoke in a mocking tone.

“The real ‘Monster’ here is you!” from out of the desecrated Temple, emerged a gargantuan demon.

His body was ripped with herculean muscles adorned with scales that oozed viscous poisons like a shining coat of sweat. Just as the Demon’s own muscles were equal to his repugnant frog-like visage, smiling smugly as he leads a procession of Abrikandilu, Gargoyles, and more Corrupted Children from out of the Temple of the Dawn’s Grace.

“Tally ho! May I present you, my Master! Bogros, Satrap of Spoilation! Loyal vassal of our Lord of Ruination, Xoveron!” the Gargoyle glided over the Hezrou and formally introduced the vigorous behemoth to Tutoria.

“Thanks to that black-faced dweeb's death. Demons like I can pierce through Golarion as much as I please. It’s like fun’ole Sarkoris all over again! I even got these sweet minions at my beck and call. Just a little branding… and a few generous portions of some of my… ‘food’ and I had them do everything for me. Ransack, Pollute… and look!” the Hezrou grabbed hold of the Impaled Sarenite Mujahidins that decorated the desecrated golden pathways and chewed on his corpse like a readily-cooked meat skewer. “Pretentious pansies like you make delicious snacks for me too!”

“No… no… h-h-how c-could you?!” tears streamed into Tutoria’s eyes as more of the corrupted youth emerged from the Temple. She could not believe what she is hearing. All these starving masses of lost children, and she was Helpless to do anything about it.

Afraid, Parentless, Audacious… just like them.

“Arise!” the Hezrou commanded with an infernal yet compelling inflection of his crooked tongue.

The children that Tutoria had bested earlier, including the tandem riders of the Iron-Stallion arose, their wounds washed away like water against dirt. Their eyes were emblazoned with amber greed and crimson malice. They picked up their weapons and gripped them wickedly they all smiled. Once more they will claim and take back what they were wrongfully denied to them.

Even the dozing Filth-Drinker that was on Navideh’s arms was slowly trying to wake up and claw his dirtied nails at Navideh. But the Bard quickly re-casted her Sleep Spell onto him, negating the Demon’s clarion call.

“Tell me… Orphan… what do you see in them?” the Gargoyle asked her. Those last words of theirs burrowed a wound into her soul. A wound she could not heal.

“Navideh, run!” Tutoria fought away her tears as she yelled to the Sulli Bard. There were too many of them.

The two women turned tailed and run. Dodging hailstorms of bullets, arrows, and stones as they fled northward.

“The Bunny Rabbits run. The adventurous wolf pack gives chase and… and…” Bogrus and his fellow Demons viciously mocked with eager anticipation for yet another trophy to add to their baleful collection.

Tutoria revulsed if she could at her cowardice. A humbling and enlivening ordeal for a Neophyte such as her. If she could survive the tenacious pursuit of the Filth-Drinkers hot on their heels. They seem to creep out from every dark corner lurking around ruined Katheer. Like the pernicious hunters of all things beautiful and clean, they slowly choke out any avenues of escape.

“Psst!” a tall shadow called forth from around the corner. They wore a leather brown jacket with a single pauldron on their left shoulder. On his neck adorned a red bandana on and the chin strap to a large feathered hat that concealed his pale face.

The ghostly shadow beckoned them into one of the Manholes that dotted Katheer’s streets where workers tasked with the maintenance of the underground cisterns would come and go.

“Sígueme.” He gestured his decrepit but kindly hand to follow him.

With little to no other options, the girls reluctantly followed the shadowy figure down to the manhole. Closing the sewer entrance quickly before the Filth-Drinkers descended upon the. Dumbfounded and throwing a childish tantrum at just how their prey had somehow disappeared before their very eyes.

Tutoria and Navideh held their breath as they gained some distance away from the Sewage Manhole as they entered the maze of Katheer’s cistern. But their shadowy savior didn’t even flinch, confident that their pursuers would not know any better than to search for them below. Moments passed before a comforting quiet enveloped them. Their little gambit had allowed for their escape. Everyone gave out an exhaustive sigh of relief. The Bard, Navideh panting heavily to gather her breath.

“Eso estuvo cerca, sígueme, sé dónde puedes estar segura.” The Shadow beckoned them further to follow him. The tongue was foreign, yet the Paladin could have sworn she heard of such speech before from someone already she had met.

“Hold on…” Tutoria paused as she picked up from her Scroll Cache, a Scroll of Comprehend Language. “Mother of all Tongues, may this one’s language be unstrung.” she activated the Scroll with a little trick of her words.

Magical energies enveloped the stranger in a soft, faerie blue lights. Unraveling his mind and tongue. Such as he threw away his hat as the Magic caused him to combatively unburden themself from the strange energies but to no avail as the enchantment successfully inlaid itself into the man. But not before knocking the stranger's large feathered hat away.

Tutoria and Navideh’s shrieked in fright, for behold their stranger’s desert dry red skin was broken, its connective tissue of exposed skin torn and desiccated like spoiled smoked meat. His eyes were white of cataracts and he lacked a nose, only a blood-red void left where it should be. He was a sardonic image of a living human man. An Undead Zombie in Tutoria’s recollections.

“Eesh, I save your asses and this is what I get in… what is this? What did you do to me!?” the Leper-skinned man raspily babbled as he recoiled, his back caroming to the Cistern Walls.

Fear overwhelmed her amidst those darkened halls as her hands channeled radiant magics. Her Paladin instincts and reflexes tell her to smite this Undead creature. “Begone! Return to the Realm of Souls from whence you came!”

Her healing hands, relieving to those who still drew breath and beat of heart, yet harmful to those forces of Undead, its metaphysical antithesis, lay on the Zombie-like man.

“That… oh… I can feel my bones getting young again… oh wait that’s just you. Can you put your hand over my shooting arm?” the Leper Man simpered pleasurably if not gratefully to all of that Positive Energies the Paladin had intended to ‘smite’ him with. To him, it was as if he had just received the greatest back rub in all of his unliving life.

“Eh?” Tutoria was taken aback but what she saw. Unknowing of what she should do next now that her singular countermeasure against the ‘Zombie’ had failed utterly. “How could this be?”

Before she could even lay another hand onto the Leper-skinned man once again, Navideh stopped her. Shaking her head and beseeching her with her doe-like eyes to use temper the ardent Sister.

“What did in the hell did you do to… wait… I… I can understand you?” the Zombified realized that he could understand Tutoria in his own language and so the same for her too. “Wh-a… Wh-a…”

“I used a Magic Scroll to allow me to understand you, Zombie.” Tutoria explained. “Since you are seemingly still having a working noggin o’er at your rotting head of yours, I shall give you one chance to leave or face my blade.” She recomposed herself, huffing her chest as bravely as she could. Her scimitar pointed straight at the necromanced humanoid.

“‘Zombie’? I get my rough skin can get you some bad ideas. But I am actually a pretty nice man in the inside. I mean yeah, my insides being just two-hundred-year-old rotting flesh that sometimes falls off of me. But I am all good inside! Honest.” The Leper-skinned man answered.

“The only ‘good’ undead is a dead one. So d-die… again.” Her voice cracked awkwardly.

“Oh come on, I mean I was switching the filters from those Water Wells as best I could from those punks in raincoats I saved you from. Can an old Ghoul like me at least get a ‘thank you’ for that?”

“A Ghoul! Even worse!” Tutoria admonished the stranger. “Stay behind me Navideh! I will protect you.”

But the Sulli Bard only pouted excruciatingly at the Paladin. Stepping back, she unfurled her Mandolin from her clothes and began to play a simple tune. Roots began to arise from the slightly mossy ground below them as they entangled Tutoria, stopping her rash stance from intensifying such an already nuanced social cue as it first seems. Navideh disapprovingly moued at the Paladin, only dispelling her little cantrip when Tutoria ceased her provocations.

“Look! Even your friend with the dumb hair dye thinks your being too much of an asshat.” The supposedly ‘Undead’ man placed his hands on his hips. “Maybe we should at least properly introduce ourselves better. I am Raul Alfonso Tejada, this dama-bella here with the dumb blue dye is ‘Navideh’?”

Navideh awkwardly stared at the ‘Undead’ named Raul with a slight depreciatory glare before turning back to Tutoria.

“Paladin Tutoria Toledo. And yes, the blue-haired one is Navideh.” Tutoria answered as she menaced her eyes at Raul.

“Paladin? Like the Brotherhood of Steel? What are you doing here anyway, especially without your Power Armor?” Raul asked.

“I don’t know what order you speak of or what is this ‘Power Armor’ either.” Tutoria answered. “We… I… was here to investigate the Temple, that Golden-disc Orb that you Undead are always repulsed by.”

“You mean where those mutant punks come from? I was fighting them for weeks now. And have been trying to skim off what all that Well-shitting they been doing to all of the drinking water as of late. Cleaning all the muck out and all.” Raul explained.

“You are?” Tutoria curiously browed.

“I am an open-book, lady. Granted, this book’s in Spanish and half the pages have fallen out, and is packing a Big Iron on his hip, but I am an open book.” The Leper spilled his tongue.

Navideh could only leap happily with a hopeful leap as she listened to Raul’s story. Even her little blue butterfly companion was dancing along with the Desnan. They were both doubtless in this so-called ‘Ghoul’s’ testament. The Paladin however, still held to her cautionary instincts of this leather-ragged stranger.

“We were trying to… scout the Ruins and managed to capture one of those marauders, ones you called ‘mutant-punks’. But by then we had the rest of his friends, whom we call ‘the Filth-Drinkers’ come after us. We tried to escape and now we end up down here in these filthy sewers with you Ghoul.” Tutoria briefly recounted how she and Navideh journeyed so far.

“Dios… mio!” some of the Comprehend Language slowly breaking off from Raul as he looked at the Filth Drinker held in Navideh’s arms. “He’s just a kid.”

“One of them nonetheless.” Tutoria shook her head. “We intend to take this prisoner of ours for interrogation at the Visitor’s Center north of here.

“Well, I have been running around these tunnels for weeks now and I know them all quite well. I know how to get you to the northernmost manhole I can get you out of there and you should be on your way.” Raul proposes.

Navideh counseled from her left, with a soothsayer’s nod of approval to place some of their trust in this ‘Ghoul’. At least, for now.

“You may guide us.” Tutoria still distrustingly pointed her Scimitar at Raul. “But if you lead us to a trap Ghoul, I shall smite you down with Fire and Fury.” she threatened.

“Sure ‘boss’ no problem.” Raul shrugged off Tutoria’s commination. His eyes rolled by her youthful bravado. “Now where the damn hell is my sombrero? Oh there it is!”

[-]

The ‘Living’ Ghoul Raul kept his word, much to Tutoria’s amazement. He had guided the pair (plus their little captive) through the noxious cistern and sewers of Katheer. The only complaints of the journey came from Navideh. She had to pause mid-march to eject her revulsion out of her weakened constitution. Hours of having her fortitude besieged by such sickening smells, she deserves a moment of peace for herself after all she had been through right now. They reached the manhole that was only a brief jog to the sanctuary of the golden-and-white menagerie of the Visitor’s Center.

“Here you go girls. Far north as far as I can get you.” Raul lifted the cover of the manhole. The Acid Raid had finally subsided much to their collective relief.

As the girls quickly climbed out of the Cistern, Tutoria’s ears bounced upon hearing the familiar lilt of voices that came across the corner of the next street.

“There you are Tutoria!” the Ranger, David. “And you brought a new friend… wait I recognize you.” He eyed Raul’s Feathered Sombrero.

“You were… you were right. Now was not the time. But I bring both grave and fortuitous news. We managed to scout out the Temple and even managed to capture one of these Filth-Drinkers here. However, I must report to the High-Priestess that our enemies are much stronger than we realize.”

“Desert Rangers! Well, you are a sight for these sore eyes.” Raul waved his hand and greeted amiably David and Isaiah as soon as he spotted their bronze Ranger Stars on their waist and chest respectively on their persons.

“Sarenrae’s Wings!” Tomos skin crawled upon seeing the pickled flesh of Raul Tejada’s Ghoul Skin.

“His skin… its all…” Merizi shuddered alongside the Male Aasimar.

“Relax Tommy, I know this guy.” David reassured him.

“He’s one dem’ good ‘Ghouls’ right?” Isaiah smirked. “He dresses nice.”

“You know him, David?” Tomos jittered, still frozen with apprehensive astonishment by Raul’s leper-like physique.

“Long Story back when I was in Vegas. He’s a… hero you can say. Great with a Gun and with a Wrench. I can tell the rest about it when we get back Let’s just get you girls and that prisoner of yours back to the Visitor’s Center now. You caused enough trouble for one day.” David sighed as he gave a disconcerted gaze to the Paladin.

Navideh yawned her tired arms sumptuously as she gave an emollient smile. It was indeed a fun adventure today for the Desnan but alas, she needs to rest her weary hands for the next days ahead.

“Glad to see another one of us, especially a fellow Latino like me. It’s been like how long since I met one?” Leon scratched the temples of his noggin. He gave a kindred smile to Raul of which he returned in kind.

“Compadre.” Raul tipped his sombrero to the Rangers as the group combined their numbers and returned to the Visitor’s Center.