Stef isn't at the garrison today, which is fine with Venn, both because she finds Stef a little annoying (because he will not stop singing about his hot boyfriend) and because it means she's first in line for deployment when the call goes out.

She's a biiit less excited about going to help one of the Chelish forts (especially since the Four Day War - they've been called to several Chelish forts in the aftermath, and some of them been distressingly unprofessional, though not the point of Venn reporting a treaty violation), but Rowen reassures her that fort #11 is actually really well-run, Chelish or not. 

Song-sorceresses have an easy time preparing. She slides into her chain shirt, straps on her singing steel buckler, helps Marit finish putting on his fancy paladin full plate, and then they're ready to go; her, Rowen, Marit, and the (admittedly kinda hot) ranger who's too cool for names and calls herself Demonscourge. 

They appear to find the forces of #11 already locked in battle with the hezrou, a platoon of melee warriors hedging in its movement with spears and maces and swords while the archers harry it from the fortress parapets. When the teleporters emerge from the designated teleport arrival room and get a quick Fiendish Presence check from the wizard awaiting their arrival, they're ushered right out the front gate just in time to watch one of the Asmodeans land a Channel Smite on the demon.

Rowen assesses the scene. 

   "Going to pop us right in there. Prep for Dimension Door in fiv-"

Venn casts Invisibility, "three, two", slaps her buckler and harmonizes with it, starting up her inspiring song, "one", and takes Rowen's hand, "mark!"

And suddenly every soldier fighting the hezrou in melee is feeling braver, more sure of themselves, and much deadlier.

Marit smites evil and charges. Demonscourge starts unloading arrows.

The thing about strike teams is that if they are good at their jobs, which they generally are, they end things so quickly upon arrival that it feels silly to have called them, but there's no shortage of casualties on the ground belying the idea. Hezrous don't even flinch at cold iron; the holy attacks and smites are the only things doing much.

Once the hezrou is down the commander directs those of his soldiers who are still up to check for pulses on those who are down, and follows the calls to stabilize people who need it.

The song-sorceress switches to a far less commonly-heard tune, and suddenly everyone in range to hear it begins to notice their wounds stitching up. 

(It's not efficient to keep this going for long, not when they don't know if they'll be attacked again. But it's much faster than running around trying to stabilize everyone.)

- okay in that case the commander will start getting bodies that aren't waking up again dragged away to be buried appropriately. Would the visiting party like any of the demon parts, he's not sure what on a hezrou is useful but they can have first crack at it.

Demonscourge is their expert here and has several requests (at least one of which might be for trophy purposes, but she sure isn't clarifying.)

Venn stops singing once it's clear who will and who won't get up on their own and looks around.  Rowen is hanging around near the fort commander, waiting to debrief. Marit is keeping his distance from everyone at the fort, which Venn definitely understands, but - it feels a bit cruel right now.

She heads over to where Rowen and the fort commander are.

Rowen looks at the footprints and sighs. "Urdina, it's good practice to drop your invisibility after an engagement. Avoids spooking friendlies."

whoops.

She reappears next to the two of them with an embarrassed smile. "Sorry."

"I appreciate that you are not an invisible demon," says the commander, and he returns his attention to Rowen. "Do you have a replacement Sending scroll we can purchase from you?"

(She gives an exaggeratedly fancy bow.)

Yep! He carries a few (as well as other strategically relevant scrolls) on him, and will sell them at worldwound-agreed-upon prices to any fort that needs them, including #11.

Good. The strike team and Commander Artigas (it says ARTIGAS on his coat) can all migrate indoors while the rank and file bury the dead and burn whatever parts of the demon are not exciting. "Do you accept Chelish notes to exchange with the Abadarans, or shall I dig into the coinage supply?"

Rowen is a professional and avoids wrinkling his nose. ('Demonscourge' is not especially professional, and she's glaring at anyone who looks at her. Rowen sighs internally, and makes a note of it for later.) 

"Chelish notes are fine."

Artigas counts out Chelish notes for the scroll of Sending. He is remarkably mild-mannered about all the glaring.

Rowen hands over the scroll and pockets the money. "Do you need anything else, Chosen?"

If not, he'll send Urdina to grab Marit and then they can get out of here before Demonscourge starts insulting people (He kind of hates bringing her to Chelish forts, but if there had been two hezrou's they would have badly needed her. So it goes.)

Venn peers around unobtrusively. How's fort #11 doing?

The place looks a bit harried at the moment, people updating each other with lists of names of who died, the hall looking sparser than it probably usually is.

"If you could spare a channel, I believe the song helped considerably but any demon that got a look at that fight or even just the blood on the snow will be expecting us to be on the back foot, and at present they'd be right."

...He looks at Urdina. She nods at him.

"...our Paladin has one of those unusual channeling abilities that isn't very good at healing, and he likes to save it for battle, but Urdina here can sing for your people - her healing song has the same effective range as a channel."

She beams a bit. She's very proud of her healing song! (Stef can't do the healing song.)

"I'll see the injured packed in." He locks up the scroll and sweeps off to do that.

She glances at Rowen, who gestures after Chosen Artigas, and then she hurries after him.

It's a bit of a long walk, apparently. "...How do you usually handle the lack of healing?" She's heard it's a big problem at the Chelish forts.

"We can prepare it. And have devil's blood, for Infernal Healing, though that's on a tight ration at the moment."

Right, because of the war. She nods somberly.

"...Sorry about our ranger," she says, after a moment. (She is sorry about Demonscourge, but she's mostly curious to see what the Chosen has to say about it, if anything.)

"Facial expressions are not forbidden nor indeed mentioned by the Worldwound treaty."