"Oh, I'm a lot of things. A collector. A hobbyist. Butcher, baker, nightmare maker."
-Santaura introducing herself to the
Delvers of Secrets
Santaura is a maniacal, psychopathic individual who takes immense pleasure in the suffering of others, an expert in inflicting pain both physical and psychological. She is a sadistic woman who often carries an unsettling smile on her face, an expression that rarely changes regardless of whether she's carrying on a casual conversation or raising her hatchet to end a life. She is also
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Journey Into the Underdark Arc
Mysterious Murderess
Word of Santaura first reached the adventurers of the Thaig Expedition when
an injured high elf was brought to the
Deep Spire by orogs of the
Tideborne Tribe. The man had been recovered from a sinking ship attacked by Santaura and
███████████████████████████, leaving him as a sole survivor. The only reason he or the orogs had survived was because she wanted to leave witnesses to spread the story of her atrocity and make her famous (or infamous, she wasn't picky). Telling his story, the
injured elf noted that Santaura made a point of decapitating the elves she killed with her hatchet and merely laughed when one of the orogs stuck her with a javelin before teleporting away.
A few weeks later, Santaura made an appearance in the flesh when she attacked an infirmary at the
Deep Spire. Though many of the injured persons present had been maimed in the
Light Gundam's attack on the settlement,
Fen was also in this facility and began having a panic attack when he saw Santaura had returned for him. He survived when
Leh'ct Arlathil used a thorn whip spell to pull him away from her, the young drow (and
Jake F. Statefarm, who soon appeared to assist him) grabbing her attention. Looking at
Leh'ct, she giddily commented how happy she was for the opportunity to add a child's head to her collection (something she stated she'd been meaning to do).
She grinningly mocked
Leh'ct as he attempted to retort against her, though the druid's spells and
Jake's arrows did little to slow her down.
Jake tried to bait her verbally, but she brushed off his attempts and began murdering injured patients as she did. In the brief battle that followed, she displayed several forms of magic by teleporting out of a web spell in a puff of black smoke and animating the severed head of a
Sword Dancer to fly across the room and bite onto
Jake. She also proved quite skilled with her hatchet, a missed blow leaving a sizeable hole in solid stone and a successful strike against
Jake leaving a terrible gash across his chest infused with
negative energy.
Jake retreated in an attempt to lure her outside the infirmary, which Santaura did not fall for. She cast a spell of darkness and began to slaughter the remaining patients while laughing maniacally, despite the adventurers best attempts to stop her.
Leh'ct used his druidic magic to summon giant crabs to aid him just as the screaming stopped, the last of the patients now decapitated. Santaura tsked him for being too slow on the uptake to save the people now dead.
Jake, enraged, yelled at her to fight against someone who could fight back. As he fruitlessly fired more arrows, Santaura commented it sounded like people who "knew how to fight" were coming and took her leave. She seemingly teleported away somewhere as the magical darkness she'd created vanished, revealing a grisly display of extreme violence. Several of the fresh cadavers were missing their heads, presumably taken by Santaura before her retreat.
Errands in the Underdark
The adventurers next encountered Santaura shortly after they defeated the
Light Gundam, finding her pilfering the
faerzress crystals that had powered the
Light Army drones. Santaura was just as mocking and oozing confidence in this conversation as she had been during the last one, able to tell with a glance that the adventurers were already spent from recent battles. Though for some reason, she elected to let them pass by without attacking despite expressing a continued interest in collecting
Leh'ct's head and a new one in collecting
Elycia's (which she stated she especially wanted for the unique rabbit ears). After turning the corner, they did hear her heels clicking on the stone floor behind them and her axe grinding on the walls, prompting
Leh'ct to magically seal up the tunnel with a wall of dirt. While the adventurers hoped the island's self-destruct killed Santaura shortly afterwards, they remained skeptically doubtful that that would be the case.
Santaura next appeared along the path to
Brazenthrone. Just after the adventurers and the elves of the
Silver Falcons Squad Sixteen defeated the alpha of a pack of wolf-like
OoPAs, they spotted Santaura on a nearby rock applauding their performance. The adventurers were dismayed to learn she'd survived the destruction of the
Light Gundam's base, but for the time she did them no harm as she vanished in a plume of inky black smoke along with the lesser wolves that had survived the battle.
Battle Below Brazenthrone
Later, when the adventurers were investigating the derro slums in
Brazenthrone in search of the thief
Diir,
Bogo spotted Santaura walking through alleyways. They attempted to spy on her from a distance, which didn't escape Santaura's notice as she loudly announced she was off to meet
Diir while ascending the steps to what little was left of the Old Palace. She descended down the massive hole that filled most of where the palace used to be, knowing the adventurers would follow.
By the time they made their way to Santaura, she had already set up a ritual to convert the remains of the
Light Gundam and several of its mechanical minions into a
Void Knight. The adventurers attempted to sneak up on her through the darkness at mouth of the cave, not realizing this was the sole
faerzress-free area down here because its light was covered by the
Husks she had lying in wait for them.
Santaura greeted the adventurers, stated she'd "invited" them so that she could claim
Elycia's head for her collection. She questioned
Leh'ct's absence from the group, stating she still wanted a child's head for her collection and had been saving the spot for him. The adventurers claimed he was dead in order to keep this madwoman away from him. She told them that she'd be with them in a minute and stepped towards a red crystal set on a platform adjacent to the one holding the
Light Gundam's remains.
Jake saw that as a good reason to shoot and begin the battle between the adventurers and Santaura's forces.
Though the adventurers focused their opening attacks on Santaura, they failed to prevent her from activating the crystal and transforming the
Light Gundam wreckage into a
Void Knight that quickly worked to bolster her forces. The adventurers continued to focus their efforts on her rather than her minions, all the while Santaura mocked them. She stated that even if they "killed" her here, she'd simply return to her home plane. They could kill her again and again and again and it wouldn't matter, but she only had to kill them once.
Elycia struck a particularly devastating blow during the battle, striking Santaura with the full force of her magic spear and breaking the chain on Santaura's waist that held the magic book Santaura had had
Diir steal from
Yolheimsu'um. This seemed to earn the elf a glimmer of respect from Santaura, and made the insane otherworldly woman covet her head even more. Thankfully for the adventurers, they managed to strike a fatal blow before Santaura or her minions could finish any of them off. The mortal wound sent her back to
████████, but she made sure the adventurers knew she had only been toying with them and may decide to fight them for real during their next encounter.
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