The Siren Queen’s End!

The Siren Queen’s End!

The cult known as the Queen’s Hand, serving their enigmatic deity “The Siren Queen”, have previously pulled off two heists: one stealing an enchanted paintbrush from the Ink Rakes, and the other breaking Edlun “Sweetheart” Marroden out of Ironhook prison. Now, the Siren Queen has a new request.

The Queen needs one final ingredient for their ritual; a nightmare made manifest. They are to kidnap a specific individual, and bring him back to their sanctum. In there the Siren Queen will infest his mind with visions of her entering the world, and the crew will extract this vision from him, in physical form. Then, using the vison as an ink, Edlun will paint a portal to another realm, which the Siren Queen will use as a gateway to enter our world.

Before the heist could get underway, though, one of the crew, Cyrene the Whisper, received a letter from a friend; Lord Scurlock. Scurlock requested an urgent meeting with Cyrene, and she accepted. At this meeting, Cyrene discovered the secret behind the Siren Queen; she was no deity, she was merely a demon, and a particularly violent one at that. 140-some odd years ago, she had attempted to instigate a war between Akoros and Tycheros. In order to prevent this war, Scurlock had sealed her away in an alternate reality. In the time since, Scurlock had discovered a way to kill her permanently. Giving an enchanted knife to Cyrene, Scurlock instructed her to summon the Siren Queen, and then to drive the dagger through her heart.

Cyrene was taken aback by this, but she and Scurlock had somewhat of a history. She trusted her vampiric friend. And so she would take his advice. She would complete the ritual, and then stab the Siren Queen. But first, they still needed their victim.

Lord-Warden Elerius is somewhat of an enigmatic man. Hidden from public life, what little is known about him the crew gathered from a book he wrote detailing the daily life of a Spirit Warden. He gives very little details about himself in that book, so the information the crew had to go on was sparse. They knew the Lord-Warden would be making an appearance at a masquerade party, and that was their best opportunity to strike.

The theme for the party was exotic animals. Our crew went in; Cyrene in a costume reminiscent of a Spiritseeker Crow, Phaya as an Iruvian Pit Snake, and Zachnefain as a Deep Shark. Through narrowing down targets based on the information they had, they had found their target. A man who was light on his feet in the ballroom, dressed as a Courser Bat. Zachnefain used his charms to pull him away from the ballroom, and over to the lounge area.

In the lounge, Zach and the Lord-Warden hit it off. Zach went to get a drink and Phaya, our Leech, slipped some Trance Powder into his wine. Zach brought the drink back to Elerius, and in a few moments he was out like a light. Feigning that they were the Lord-Warden’s friend, they claimed to be bringing him back home to get some rest, and with that they were out.

The mission was not yet done, though. With them back in the lair, the Siren Queen cast her spell on Lord-Warden Elerius’ mind. Visions of the Siren Queen and her cult taking over the city entered his brain, and with some Whisper magic and Leech alchemy, a swirling silver vapor came out. They had their ‘ink’, now they just needed to let the artist do his work.

Edlun worked for three days on his masterpiece. He did not sleep, he did not eat, he didn’t even blink; such was the frenzy of artistic mania he was thrown into. When Edlun was done, the ritual was set to be finished.

Edlun’s painting was of an underwater landscape. It looked almost lifelike. In fact, viewers of the painting would swear that the fish in it moved when you looked out of the corner of their eyes. For our crew, the lifelike quality became all too real when a figure in the landscape stepped out of the canvas, and into reality.

Standing at about seven and a half feet tall, with pale blue skin and glowing yellow eyes, the Siren Queen was a sight to behold. Her teeth were like that of an angler fish; far too long to fit in her mouth. The pupils of her eyes were slits, more accustomed to the depths of the ocean than to our air. She was radiant and she was monstrous.

The first thing she noticed was Cyrene, holding a demonbane charm. The Siren Queen merely scoffed, and said that she planned to save the cult to be the last to die to her vengeance, but if this is how Cyrene wanted to repay her, then she supposed the cult would have to be the first. She lunged.

Cyrene deftly raised the dagger Lord Scurlock had bestowed upon her. With a counter-attack, she severed one of the Siren Queen’s four arms. (It was only then they noticed she had more than two.)

More enraged at this disobedience than harmed by the loss of a limb, the Siren Queen raged on, striking at all of the crew in equal measure. She managed to choke one member, Zachnefain, into unconsciousness, and nearly to death, before the other two managed to get her down.

With the Siren Queen on the ground, Cyrene took her chance. With a swift puncture, the dagger found the Queen’s heart. With a last utterance of “Insolent whelps…” the Queen was dead. The cult was left without a deity, badly injured, and one of them traumatized. But they very well may have saved the city.

What the crew will do next remains to be seen, though news has it that Lord Scurlock may be hiring some new underlings to acquire relics for him. Perhaps our crew, already indebted to the Vampiric Lord, and already experienced in asset recovery, shall find work with him.