It is some consolation that she is also tired. Not much of one, but some.

“Don’t… keep any of those… handy, in the back up equipment, sorry,” he replies, winded. He is regretting this lack of foresight now. “We can… take a breather, I… wanted to scout a bit before properly heading in, anyway.”

He’s fine, he’s fine, just give him five minutes and he’ll be good as new. He’s not even fatigued, just. That was a lot of running, and stealth kills, and shadow tricks, and. Yeah he’s earned a breather.

Nenio nods. She alters her stance, putting her hands on her thighs and sucking in deeper breaths. Once she can breathe better, she takes out a bag of salt and measures a decent spoonful into her mouth, then takes out a waterskin and drinks it in five careful gulps, separated by half a minute each.

She looks around. "It's a pity that the fountain over there has been defiled," she says ruefully. "Ray of Frost can produce a very good ice bath, which alleviates the injurious effects of overexertion on the body. But I should be able to pronounce verbal components again, and follow you to the Wardstone as long as you do not need me to move very quickly."

Veron... does not have a waterskin or canteen. Hm. Add that to the list of stuff he should acquire, at some point in the future. In his defense, the city got invaded before he had time to do his shopping, okay. For now he'll make due by leaning on a nearby wall, watching with some amusement as the wizard efficiently combats dehydration. He's glad she has some self preservation habits built in, somewhere in there.

"Mhm," he agrees, after her announcement. He takes a deep breath, unleans from the wall, and stretches, already mostly recovered. "But I'm going to scout ahead and whatnot, if any demon's got any sense it'll be guarded. Do you have an illusion to disguise yourself with while I'm gone?"

She thinks about this.

"I can use Disguise Self to make myself appear as a babau," she says, "and then Silent Image a pile of rubble to hide in. Then, if a demon sees me, they will need to pierce two illusions rather than one; and if a crusader sees me, I can dismiss the illusion and have them protect me."

“Sure, sounds good. Message or fling an obvious cantrip upwards if something goes wrong? Or just yell, I guess.”

"I can do any or all of those things," she agrees. "Out of curiosity, do you have a scroll of Invisibility? It would be convenient to be invisible rather than disguised, and I would also like to know the spell."

"Nnnnnot at the moment, but I can probably get one without too much trouble. I'll keep an eye out."

And with that, he does one of his shadow tricks that kind of is magic but definitely isn't a spell, in that he steps into the nearby darkness and seems to disappear. (It's just Hide in Plain Sight.)

Okay! What's the inside of this place look like? He imagines that the Wardstone will be straightforward to find, if not necessarily easy to get to. What with the whole, uh. Being used to slightly ruin the garrison.

Yep! From the central atrium he can see that it's pierced through the vaulted ceiling three stories above at a jaunty angle; in order to access it conveniently, he would need to either ascend through several demon-infested floors of the building, or do some acrobatic bullshit.

Definitely going to go with acrobatic bullshit, thank you, he doesn't super want to try and piece together a route through a half collapsed garrison. He'll see about clearing a proper path through it for the wizard, of course, but first he would like to find the person that seems most likely to be in charge of the demon forces present. And then he will stab them before they realize there's anything to be scared about. Boss fights go much easier that way, in his experience*!

(*Please note, results may vary with this tactic if one is not an epic level, teleporting rogue with a truly absurd number of points in stealth.)

There's this lady! She mostly looks like a very classical Sexy Lady Demon - lots of gold, elegant swooping horns, long swishy tail - with her distinguishing feature being a total lack of eyes. Her face is otherwise perfectly formed, of course. She's ordering other demons around, fortifying the place, and laying various magical wards.

Ahuh.

And unfortunately, she is in the center of a very large, well lit (by the glowing Wardstone he's here for) room. Surrounded by mostly empty space and demons scurrying about to do her bidding. Sneaking around the edges of that is straightforward (for him). Sneaking into melee range for a proper sneak attack, in these conditions? Ehhhn. That'll take a bit more finesse. That's not to say that he can't, just, he will need literal magic and his escape options after he's done will be slim. It's riskier than he'd like.

Probably he should go fetch Deekin and the wizard and maybe Terendelev and that one cranky leader guy and handle this properly as a party. But by the time that's been organized, this place will be actually fortified. Systematically fighting their way through an entrenched force will take ages. And he's pretty sure this Wardstone does, like, protection stuff? For the rest of the city? Which is currently very much on fire. So. He'd kind of like this done sooner rather than later, for the sake of less people dying.

.... He'll compromise, and slink off to a little corner to quietly buff first. Haste, at the very least. And then he'll go and stab her, with the help of just a little hint of a shadowy illusion, to make the air look like it does not contain him while he slips through a perfectly well lit, open space with at least a dozen witnesses.

She doesn't look up from her work etching a glowing rune as he approaches. Why would she? He's completely undetectable, and she doesn't even have eyes.

..... okay, yes, but....

He stops before he reaches her, because this feels...

It feels like someone else is tapping into the Plane of Shadow, and it isn't him.

"Ah, Hells," he sighs, out loud, perfectly audible.

"Aww!" the demon says, smiling at her rune and still not looking in his direction. "You completely spoiled it, you know, you were supposed to try to stab the illusion and fall straight through, and then I'd say let's talk, darling... anyway. Let's talk, darling."

(The other demons are startled and frantically grabbing for their weapons, until she speaks up. Then there's a general air of oh, more of her bullshit.)

"Will you pack up your minions and head out if I ask nicely?" wonders Veron, already rapidly retreating to a darker and more defensible corner, even as he speaks casually.

"How nicely can you ask?" she purrs, getting to her feet with a deeply unnecessary amount of slink.

Then she breaks character, laughs and says "I had to, I had to! It's such a cliché... but, seriously. I could tell these clowns to clear out, but I don't control the invasion force at large. I'm, ah, middle management."

Why do evil people always flirt with him!!!! Why is this a problem he has!!! Deekin doesn't have this problem! Admittedly that might be because many people aren't into kobolds, but still, there are other non-kobold examples of people not having this problem!! Probably! He's pretty sure Valen didn't, and he's, like, the most absurdly pretty tiefling that ever existed! Not that he asked if he had this problem, because that would be weird!!! Why does this keep happening to him!!!!!!!!!

"Ahuh. Well. Then I apologize for how this will look to your boss, but I'd really appreciate it if you and they could all shoo. The invasion's a losing battle at this point, you can call it cutting your losses."

"Alright. You lot!" She snaps her fingers at the roomful of demons. "Clear out. Go rendezvous back with Khorramzadeh, or join Darrazand, or, fuck it, go back to Alushinyrra and enjoy the Ten Thousand Delights, tell Chivarro you worked for me, she'll give you a coupon."

The demons look at each other. One of them, a babau, says "Khorramzadeh's orders were to..."

She sighs heavily and snaps her fingers again. The babau in question shreds into greasy black ash. "I have alternative offers. Fuck off while the fucking's good."

The remaining demons make themselves scarce.

Except for her, obviously. The illusion dissolves, and an identical copy steps out from behind the Wardstone, stretching her arms above her head. "Gods, minions are annoying. You forces of Good are so lucky you don't have to deal with having people on your side who you hate."

".... No, we do. I think that's just a universal problem with working with other people."

This usually doesn't work, and he therefore doesn't trust it at all. He smells a trap.

"Oh. Huh. A paladin tried to tell me something, once, about how the real strength of Good was... something... I thought she said the forces of Good all loved each other, but I'll admit I was only sort of paying attention. She had a sword, that part seemed more relevant."

The demoness crouches down and starts dismantling the runes around the Wardstone. "So. Can you guess why I'm not going to fight you to protect this dumb rock? There's a prize if you get my questions right!"

"I'd say it's more about how we all can usually trust each other, and our ways of advancing ourselves don't require us to tear each other down. We can just, you know, help each other, and no one has to lose at all."

He considers this demonic middle manager, her intelligence score, and her priorities.

"... I'd guess that it's because you have accurately surmised that I have already successfully stabbed your boss, and want absolutely no part of that nonsense? Especially after I saw through your illusion without touching it?"

She finishes fiddling with a particularly intricate rune and then applauds. "Yes! That is one of my reasons! It was a trick question, sorry, I'm evil. I did see, and hear, when you stabbed my boss's boss's boss. Wanna guess another reason?"

He raises his eyebrows.

"You're getting much more out of me by talking to me than by losing in a fight to me, and will likely be rewarded accordingly for this information? And you've probably guessed that if you do just leave I will actually let you, in an admittedly probably vain hope that one day you will actually realize that being evil sucks and you'd like to stop?"

She taps a fingernail against her lips. "Honestly I'm not sure if that's a point. Obviously I get more out of talking to you than being impaled - non-euphemistically - but if I tell anyone that this conversation happened the way it did they'll probably have me tortured? Non-euphemistically. Mm. Half-point. So, the thing I gain by this conversation in addition to not being stabbed is a way to give you information on a bunch of legitimate strategic targets you might want to non-euphemistically impale, who also just so happen to be people I want dead! Whether because they're above me in the chain of command or because they personally pissed me off. Advancing myself by tearing others down, that thing you said. It'll even weaken the forces of the Abyss on net! Which I don't care about, but you do!"

She hums to herself, scraping powdered silver off of the stone into a glass vial. "I've got one more reason that I'm going to admit to before I leave you a big pile of plausibly deniable intel. And this one's for the money; this one counts. Why, lightbringer, am I not fighting you for the Wardstone that has stood for almost a century, defending Kenabres and the world from the legions of the Pit?"

".... because by this point, after almost a century, it's probably beginning to wear down, and you don't think that's something I can fix. And it would probably be fun to watch me fail, or something?"