<br/><br/>Saturnia seemed genuinely shocked by the events that had transpire don the normally quiet street, but relieved they'd already been dealt with; the expressions that crossed her face indicated that she wouldn't have wanted to face a balor or pit fiend herself, at least not unaccompanied by more than a few other eladrin.<br/><br/>She thought for a moment and nodded, "Yes, Faebion is thick with several other adventurers who reside in this quarter, and I expect they would jump at such a need. Despite what your first impression of him may have been, I know that he will not foolishly try dealing with such as a marilith again.."<br/><br/>Aria laughed lightly, "Well I suppose he must be of no small magery to've been able to bind - er, able to call and [i[theoretically[/i] able to bind - one at all!"<br/>i<br/>"Just so. I can planeshift you to whichever place you intend to go, and will use Sendings later on to keep you abreast of the other team and learn how things go for you."<br/><br/>Aria rubbed her chin. "We should speak to him directly, so we can convey details of what we saw, experienced, and fought in Mulhorand, the better to aid him...."<br/><br/>They found Faebion still studying, with the redhead still naked but now lounging back on her own cushion, licking telltale ivory-white droplets off of her lower lip and upper breasts, and dozing off lazily. Aria began explaining their recent experience and also sharing one maps.<br/><br/>Then, Saturnia spellcast...much as the first time they'd been bound for Siwa - and now, to a different continent entirely.<br/><br/>The air was at once oppressive: clothes-soaking humid, and tropically hot, and quite stifling, for the air barely moved. They were surrounded by thick, emerald-green, leafy foliage, keeping the air quite still. Sunlight blasted brightly through thick-leaved boughs overhead, but in a way the patch of jungle was quite dark, so thick was the foliage.<br/><br/>The humming of thousands of insects, and the kooky and elaborate calls of dozens of tropical birds, rendered the air as noisy as it was humid. One sound yet stood out in character and in volume, though: an ominous, deep<em>munching</em>and<em>crunching</em>.<br/><br/>Aria made an effort to use the foliage to keep bodily occluded from that direction as she stalked slowly toward it - and after only a few dozen feet, could see far enough through the continuing foliage to mark a sudden clearing only another thirty feet away. So sudden a clearing, on reflection, it was probably made so.<br/><br/>The smell became equally apparent -that of fresh, bloody death; the iron smell of blood thick in the air, and a thickening buzz of insects. The clearing appeared to be the site of a straw-hut village...or what had been, until quite recently. Several dozen human bodies littered the blood-soaked dark earth, every one with black matted air, their skin tones coppery, but with as much exposed red gore or blood-smeared skin as still-naturally-colored flesh in their present states.<br/><br/>Every straw hut had been torn down, flattened, or burned, and at the center of the otherwise-flat clearing a creature was curled up like a cat, but big as a small hill: the great wings, and long limbs, tail, and neck marked it a dragon, and its scales shimmered iridescently in the sunlight, casting colors about the clearing. It munched thoughtfully on a human corpse, the source of the sounds which'd brought Aria that way - but just then other sounds echoed: feminine but cruel giggling from high on the curled creature's back.<br/><br/>Two women perched there, bareback on the dragon; their own stark naked skin was also shining and iridescent, and draconic wings cloaked their shoulders.  They stared toward the right from Aria's point of view, pointing and laughing elsewhere in the clearing - where a third woman, more human-looking and ethnically identical to the many corpses, was writhing violently; from the ground around her, rubbery dark tentacles rose from the earth, wriggling and writhing and sliding about her copper-colored limbs. Tentacles tightly squeezed her breasts and buttocks and throat, and several others had inserted their wriggling tips into her mouth, vagina, and anus.<br/><br/>She was the obvious source of the amusement and dark giggling of the two dragonback women, who alternately pointed and laughed with their clawed fingers, and made horseplay at trying to stick samesaid claws into one another's naked orifices.<br/><br/><br/><br/>Forest is dense, with heavy undergrowth from the forest floor up to altitude 10' (4x movement cost, 30% concealment, -5 tumble and move silently) and typical-size trees (+2 AC and +1 reflex saves from cover, don't affect movement) from the forest floor to a typical altitude of 50'. Visibility from a random square in a random horizontal direction is 2d6 x 10'.<br/><br/>The clearing to the west is visible from up to 30' deep into the jungle (where Aria is at). The dragon is Gargantuan (20'x20'), and 100' west from the edge of the clearing. Kass recognizes the spell effect Black Tentacles, which occupies a 20' radius spread centered 60' north of the dragon.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>Not making a deal is different than not honoring one...just b/c a creature is the type to make deals, and honor those it makes, doesn't mean it'll necessary go for any particular deal. The fact that you've done it in 3 other games doesn't mean I DM differently than they do, it means those NPCs made deals they wanted to make (and/or that those DMs were willing to 'throw it'). In this case the creature saw little incentive in procuring a female for Kass's sake when it just go get what it wants elsewhere.<br/><br/>No, rolling Diplomacy wouldn't've made a difference (you never lose out by not rolling stuff, I just make rolls for Kass when they are called for but not yet made - usually happens with 'passive' things like Spot/Listen/SenseMotive where the knowledge of the check being made would itself convey the essential information). Sorry that Kass would've wanted to attack it otherwise, I didn't get such a vibe from your earlier posts (which is part of what Aria looking to Kass for cues was a reference for; curiosity about whether she planned to attack it instead of honoring the agreement to let it go with the orb, which is why I didn't have Aria give the orb back in that post). Also I should note for future reference that it would'n't've been able to automatically teleport first anyway if the teleport were a spell rather than spell-like ability, or physical flight, since those have visible/audible initiations...characters are only able to do such things when the nature of the action is that it can't be noticed except by the effects of is completion, and thus can't be intercepted except by an opposing action which by chance is simultaneous).