WotBS Bonus Time's Burning Sky

[VicsHacienda]

Our breath mists as the temperature drops within this sunken chamber. The sound of rattling chains is heard ahead. Osnald brings forth dancing lights. Behind bars we see frost forming on the bars in the form of handprints, as if gripped by an invisible child.

"Whoever ye are, ye can stay where ye are," I say. "Can ye speak?"

"Course I can speak!" growls Fafnir, not seeing the marks. "Want me to check it out?" He advances to the cell. Trevor slips into the room before me. Osnald peeks in.

Inside the cell we can see small manacles against the wall. They seem to twitch. The frost gathers into the shape of a kneeling child in the corner, its fingers stained with symbols reminiscent of Nuadan practices.

"Truth is light. Light is law. Law is mercy," it says.

An adult voice is heard. "Repeat."

We call Viggo and Osnald to lend their heads. We know little of ghosts and haunts. Viggo believes it to be an impression. "There is no entity here, benevolent or malicious. It's a pattern repeating, of a traumatic event."

On the lower wall is writing: Nuada is watching over me. But it is crossed out with another phrase: Nobody is watching me.

Trevor murmurs, "Nuada is watching you. You are seen." He walks out. We all feel a grinding shift in the stone, through the walls.

We exit toward the hall, and Fafnir raises his shield. A group of flaming skeletons awaits, bearing black blades. They wear armor of the god Lugh. Beyond, a large incorporeal figure floats, wearing a black iron crown. I decide it would look better with arrows in it, so I send two into it.

Trevor slides up to stand next to Fafnir, blocking the door. His whip lashes out at the first flaming skeleton, holding it while his blades go to work against its bone. Bits of it fly, and the whip yanks its head from its shoulders. It falls.

Viggo leans around the door and casts starburst, a new cantrip. Radiant light showers around the large cloaked undead.

A flaming skeleton dashes through the door toward me. Trevor, ready, catches it with a whipstroke, but it charges ahead, swinging its fiery blades at me. One connects with my chain shirt, scraping a ragged tear across my shoulder that seals immediately from the fire.

The large creature flies into the room to appear next to me. Fafnir swings at it as it passes, connecting Einherjar with its amorphous robes. It reaches at me with black claws, trying to draw life from me. Two skeletons attack the cleric, using some form of sneaky attack.

Osnald, using a bed for cover, sends five magic missiles into the big creature.

Fafnir gains a second wind and bulls' heads blossom around him, angrily goring around them. A skeleton moves into the radius and gets battered as it moves up to the cleric.

I aim point-blank at the billowing black mass and send a single arrow through it, with colossus slayer and favored foe. I gain my own second wind, hoping not to get slashed or drained. I hear Fafnir telling me to get out of there; he thinks I'm too lightly armored, and too dainty for my own good.

Viggo drops another starburst around the skeletons. Trevor brings the Aquiline Heart to wrap around the large specter, followed by the Living Blade and shortsword in blurs of steel and wood. I feel like I need to duck. Black wisps trail from the creature as it is slashed. Ash and dust spray as it dissipates.

Skeletons get beaten by bulls as they attack. One blade gets past Fafnir's massive armor. Trevor defends himself. Osnald mocks most viciously in a merry rhyme.

I stow the bow and slash wildly at a skeleton with the scimitar, missing terribly. I connect with the shortsword, hoping it looks like I know what I'm doing.

Viggo drops a third starburst. Trevor's whip cracks. The scimitar slashes, the shortsword stabs.I seriously need to train with him at some point. Another skeleton drops. Another shatters, gored from behind by an angelic bull.

Surrounded by splintered bone, we exit the barracks and into the main hall. We climb the stairs again toward the holy-runed door.

Out of the Barracks, Into the Chapel We Were Trying to Get Into Anyway​

Fafnir shoulders aside the door he'd hammered the hinges out of. A rectangular chamber awaits, with five doors leading north, east, and south. Osnald and Trevor get to work listening and looking. Osnald listens at an eastern door cracked slightly open. Religious hymns are heard. He peers in and sees a statue. Viggo smells waste at the southern doors.

 

[VicsHacienda]

The entry doors we came in through are reinforced by immovable rods, operated by buttons and the word "holdoor". We extract and take them; they'll be useful somewhere. The top door is locked, so Osnald turns invisible and slips through the main double doors.

(Osnald tells a momentary story here, since he moves pretty quietly and none of us can see him. - Hawk)

The walls of this narrow hall are lined with statues of eight familiar deities, but I notice that all the faces are scarred in creative ways, as if defaced by clawed fingers. I smell something sort of... sweet? A little sickly? I hold my breath, not trusting whatever incense this might be. I press an ear to the door at the far side. The chanting is louder: "Light is Law. Law is Mercy. Mercy is Obedience." I scurry back out into the entry hall, releasing my breath.

(I hear him come back out with an explosion of breath, like he's been swimming. - Hawk)

He explains the situation: hall, statues, chanting. He then picks the lock on the northern door, or at least I assume so because it suddenly clicks loose, and Trevor opens the door. A tight hallway leads toward the chapel, then bends left, then ends at a door. I notice a slight outline in the wall where the staggered bricks are lined up. I point it out. Three small waist-high holes seem meant for fingers. I switch hands and insert fingers, and a small latch appears: a keyhole. Why did I do that? I could have lost archery fingers. I won’t do that again.

So a secret door, but still locked. I gesture at my companions to deal with it. While Osnald goes to his invisible work, I watch the small door at the end of the hall. Tumblers click and whirr, and the secret door opens.

The place beyond smells a little of soot and smoke, a bare chamber with four glass bowls on the floor. They prove to contain some coins of recent print, via slots in the walls where coins would pour out. An odd donation delivery device, and not a lot of wealth, but then again who's traveling to this flame-wrapped place to leave donations? We leave it be.

Beards in the Kitchen with Poison​

Fafnir walks up and opens the small door, because of course he does, revealing a desk and more small bowls. Three muscular beings bearing glaives stand within: bearded devils. They appear to be actually laboring in this place, which seems like a kitchen, placing their weapons inside a large pot.

"Sarge just told me to check in on you guys. Looks like you're doing good work," Fafnir grumbles, moving to close the door.

I feel Osnald move past me. Faerie Fire blossoms in the room, and the bard appears beneath Fafnir's massive legs. All three devils shake off the effect, being devils and not prone to magical effects. I sink an arrow into the closest one's arm, and follow it with a more solid shot. I retreat back to let Trevor move forward.

That devil moves forward, sweeping his weapon against Fafnir's armor, then tries to follow with swipes of its scratchy beard. His companions follow suit, not getting past the cleric's defenses.

Suddenly a devil appears outside the secret room, having teleported. The fires of teleportation curl around it, but it pays no heed, being immune to heat. Trevor ducks the beard, but Osnald takes the glaive's toxic blade full on his torso and is thrown back against the wall.

Ahead, Fafnir's booming blade sounds, and he swings Einherjar twice against the devil I'd pierced. Infernal curses sound.

Next to me in the secret room, Viggo moves up to the door with the devil on the other side.

Trevor, with his dexterity, whips around the corner to grapple the devil, followed by the scimitar and shortsword. He moves past the hallway on Osnald's other side and delivers a blow from the whip to finish, yanking the devil to the floor. Osnald, angry at being struck, pulls forth a mighty magic, summoning a massive glowing fist that throws an obscene gesture before pounding the devil into mush. The fiend turns into a pile of ash. Osnald moves forward to the kitchen, giant hand in tow.

One of the kitchen denizens finally connects with Fafnir, swiping his face with the wiry beard.

I move past, looking wide-eyed at the mess that used to be a devil, up to the kitchen, drop one devil into ash with an arrow, and stick the last. Fafnir steps onto the pile of ash and presses the attack.

Viggo peers out of the secret room to see Osnald and Fist, Trevor and Whip, and me with Bow. He can't easily move through the tight hall, so shrugs and stays put. Trevor moves into the kitchen, whip cracking and sending an urn into the devil's face, and fells it with a sword thrust through the beard.

Fafnir bars the small door in the kitchen for a moment while we catch our breath, as Trevor figures out what the devils were doing; he feels they were creating something nasty to coat their weapons with. Osnald's giant spectral fist hovers next to my face. I collect arrows from piles of ash.

Fafnir opens the small south door, revealing another hallway. Trevor listens at the east door, hearing movement. He motions to us, and opens it. One of those armored skeletal spellcasters stands beyond, and I put an arrow through it before it does anything.

The dead caster hisses, a shaft sprouting from its ribcage, and fills the room with a ring of fire. I dance aside to avoid the flames licking at my face. Osnald shouts, caught full in the blast. Trevor grits his teeth against the heat, causing the Living Blade to erupt in flames, and attacks the sorcerer with whip and fiery blade. The creature soaks up the fire with a grin, healing itself. Trevor frowns, and snaps the whip around its neck, popping its skull from its body. The ring of fire vanishes.

The place beyond seems to be a larder, with food and dry goods. Why a dead sorcerer was standing in there I cannot guess, but then we notice that the door seems to have been barred from the kitchen side, locking the dead thing inside. I suppose the devils and the skeletons aren't friends.

We join Fafnir in the south hall. Beyond a door lies medical supplies and cabinets. We continue. Around the corner is another hallway ending at a T.

Back on the Chain Gang​

Fafnir peers around a corner to see a large chamber that might have once been a sanctuary. Scraps of burnt finery hint at former splendor. The floor is ankle-deep with ashes of pews that once stood in rows here, as well as from elaborately carved wooden archways of which a few charred bits remain. Soot-blackened stone columns line the sides of the sanctuary. The remains of a pulpit can be seen. Chains hang from the ceiling.

A helmeted creature with bloody spikes and chains turns to look at him. Two bearded devils stand next to it. Fafnir, always eager to make new fiendish friends, stomps around the corner with hammer in hand and a cloud of spirit guardians in tow. He drinks a healing potion, then blinks, for the chain-bearing devil looks like his father Kjell.

Trevor darts around out of view and starts unleashing hell in the form of leather, steel, and wood. I follow, peering into the doorway, and see only the bearded devil facing up against Fafnir, who gets clobbered by angelic bulls but hacks and sweeps its beard as best it can. Trevor and I trade glances from opposite sides of the door.

A familiar bearded devil suddenly appears through a door in the tunnel with us, the one we'd met and fought in the Innenotdar Forest: Kazyk. It grins.

The chain devil, whose face changes to a woman's, shakes off the bulls and slashes its chains at Fafnir with great peals of sound.

Osnald's giant mystical fist comes tearing around the corner and smashes into Kazyk's grinning face. Viggo leans around the corner and sends a mind sliver at the devil for emphasis.

Fafnir goes Fafnir on the devil before him, swinging twice with booming blade and divine strike. He seems to be having a good time. Trevor ducks under the fist, moving up toward Kazyk, who stabs back with its glaive. Trevor marks him and lashes and slashes, dazzling the devil, who crumples into ash. He nods and resumes his position.

I slide into the room, ignoring the dying devil before Fafnir, and aim at the chain devil. Its face suddenly becomes Leska's, which throws me off. Seeing the face of the woman who murdered my parents causes my hand to shake, but gritting my teeth in hatred I manage to send two arrows into its armor.

The devil before Fafnir dies from battle cattle. "Go back to Hell, you fake Kjell," he growls.

The chain devil turns and leaves, deeper into the darkness. We don't like that.

Osnald retrieves his hand and considers what to do. He steps into the room, looking at all the detritus.

Fafnir charges further in after the chain devil, bulls trailing. Suddenly some of the chains hanging from the ceiling writhe as if alive, snapping and cracking at the cleric. Fafnir uses his telekinetic power to yank the devil closer. Trevor runs in, leaping over burnt pews, and marks it. I step closer and fire, missing once and striking once.

The harried chain devil gets gored by radiant horns, and decides to teleport away. Its spare chains clatter on the floor. Osnald's fist smashes into the floor where it was.

"Just missed," he retorts.

"There was some other little devil thing that was here but disappeared," Fafnir says. He comes back in and examines the altar.

Viggo wanders in, looking for foes. I sweep my gaze around the room as well. He notices small tracks in the corner and focuses on it.

 

[VicsHacienda]

As Fafnir approaches he sees the altar is not ruined, but rewritten. A slab of pale stone sits at the heart of the sanctuary, its surface carved over again and again. Deep gouges form the rigid lines of the Ragesian Torch, cut hard enough into the altar to bite shadows into the stone, though unable to erase what came before: a sword and sunburst, signs of Nuada.

The stone around those older carvings is smoother, worn by years of hands that came here in faith. The newer cuts are sharp. Angry. Recent, in the way violence always feels recent.

At the base of the altar, iron rings have been bolted into the floor, one bent, one holding a length of chain that ends in a small manacle.

Ash has collected in the carved grooves of the torch; faint scoring marks can be seen beneath. Words, scratched out harshly enough so that they cannot be read.

The air remains warm here, uncomfortably so, like the ashes of a forge after it's been doused. But devils held sway here, so it isn't a surprise.

We find some remains. The room has been profaned by body parts, some animal, some not, nailed to walls and scattered.

Fafnir frowns, wondering how to contact his god and make his presence known, and somehow remove some of the desecration. With our help he begins preparing the altar. We extend our weapons, still blooded. Osnald prestidigitates the altar and rests his dagger atop. Viggo reluctantly leaves his multitool but stays near, as if worried someone will steal it. Finally, the warhammer rests, touching the others. He prays quietly, his spirit guardians still whirling around him.

The chains twitch as if reacting to being cleansed. One of them flies at Fafnir, trying to impale him; he grabs it and wrestles it aside. "My muscles are too strong for you!" he growls.

Trevor and I eye the passage to the west, a hall with eight statues, likely the one described by Osnald. We smell a sweet scent.

More Devils, But Sharp​

Suddenly Osnald jumps. Emerging from a curtain blocking the lower eastern entry is a barbed fiend. It hurls flame at the bard before ducking back around the corner. Osnald, burnt, steps forth, bringing his giant spectral hand across the room to block the entry.

Viggo snatches back his multitool, glaring at Fafnir, and moves toward the upper entry to look. He mind whips the devil.

Fafnir, still concentrating on his prayers, bunches armored muscles. He can see the altar return almost to a lustrous sheen, its taint dropping away.

"There's more!" calls Viggo from the door. Flame bursts near him.

"What the naughty word is going on?" Trevor grumbles, hurdling over the debris to get to the upper entry. I close the western door and leap after him. I enter the eastern hall and see barbed devils past Viggo.

They hurl flame directly at the wizard, lighting up the hall. He coughs and curses, absorbing it as best he can, but I can feel the heat fifteen paces away.

Osnald runs and retrieves his dagger from the altar, moving his giant hand into the hall and trying to punch the lead devil. Viggo casts a blinding ray of light, filling the hall with an eye-searing flash.

Fafnir grabs Einherjar, nodding with satisfaction at the altar, and he and his bulls walk into the hall. He swings at the lead devil with a solid impact, thunder crackling. The bulls soar and gore.

The devil, battered and blinded but standing, withdraws around a corner, thunder sounding.

Trevor curses again and disappears, appearing at the lower entry. He unleashes his whip. I run up behind Fafnir, urging Osnald to peer around the north corner to make sure we aren't being sneaked up on. In the meantime, we're all lined up in the eastern passage, unable to see around the corner where the devils are.

Rattling chains whip out at Trevor, who ducks. More flames are hurled at him, but he moves easily aside. Viggo brushes past us all, throwing another blinding ray of light down the hall. Fafnir disappears around the corner, with his guiding bolt lighting up the passage. Osnald's hand disappears, spent.

At least we've got light.

Trevor likewise vanishes around the corner. The Aquiline Heart snaps. Sulfurous smoke fills the hall. Wood and steel ring with Strathmorian rage. Chains bang against the floor.

I dash around the corner into the south corridor, drawing arrows, moving past the room where Trevor is dealing death. A chain devil lies grappled and prone, and a barbed devil hovers. I miss the unnerving gaze the chain devil gives Trevor before its chains rise up and batter at the hero. He parries them. The barbed devil gets gored by bulls before missing Trevor with claws and tail.

Osnald dislikes being left behind as much as I do, and appears at the corner.

Viggo looks up at the cobwebs near the ceiling, suspecting the imp is still around, invisible. "C'mere, boy! Want to be a familiar?" he calls. He then moves up to look into the room. He smiles at the prone chain devil and tosses a mind whip at it.

Fafnir storms into the room and lets the chain devil have it. It dissolves into sulfurous smoke, and Trevor's whip drops. He looks up at the remaining barbed devil. Trevor steps beside, weapons whirling and hunter's mark set. A single whipcrack sends the fiend back to the Hells. "Is there any more of these showers of naughty words?"

Well, I hadn’t done a feckin’ thing to help today.

It's time to rest.

 

[VicsHacienda]

Looking at the lift in Tears of the Burning Sky. It stops at each floor. What's on each floor? Can the PC's get off and explore, or is it just a stop for a trap?

 

[VicsHacienda]

Unseen Companions​

We climb down from Viggo's rope trick, refreshed and stronger for our troubles. We listen for any changes in the place. The door to the north is open.

I notice the cobwebs on the ceiling moving slightly. It must be that little invisible devil that Viggo wants to make into a pet. I hear a whispery little voice: "You're still here. You killed them all. All of them. But that wasn't the hard part."

"I suppose. You're still here too. What do ye want?" I say.

"Will they hurt me?"

"I guess not. Not if you're friendly and helpful."

Osnald looks at me quizzically, unable to hear the tiny voice. "Are you sure it's real?"

"No, now that ye say so, I'm not. Anyway, I told it about Viggo wantin' to be its friend, so it can make its own decisions," I reply.

Fafnir and Trevor go east into what seems to be a meditation chamber, and see a portrait of an unknown inquisitor in a mirror, on some other plane of existence. Some manner of scrying device. Trevor spits though he doesn't recognize the inquisitor.

Viggo explores the library and finds a secret door, which is far more interesting. Osnald checks it for traps with his wand of secrets, then scans the meditation room. It's empty of both secret doors and traps. Trevor reads a journal he found in the library.

A hallway opens through the library's secret door. Fafnir and Osnald find a rectangular room with symbols of Nuada. Mist rises from a quiet pool in the center. They inhale the mist's scent, finding themselves weakened and compelled to make an offering into the many bowls standing around the room. That's what ye get for bein' weak-minded, I reckon. They come out and admit as much.

Viggo asks if anyone with more charisma than he possesses might speak with the imp and ask if it wants to be friends. Osnald offers it food, lifting a palm everywhere, not knowing where the creature is. "Well, just follow along, keep your distance if you like."

"There's a guy here named Gorquith," says Osnald, "who knows about the place. The imp told me and it can lead us to him. But it's afraid of Fafnir."

"Tell the truth and it has nothing to fear from me," Fafnir says. "I won't smash him into dust."


We believe the imp is honest. Its name is Pilmat. "All right, Mr. P, lead on," says Osnald. We leave the chapel and descend the stairs to the hallway of the dead.

We enter the double doors beneath the balcony. A large carpet stretches across the floor. More double doors lie beyond, and doors to the north and south. The room is lined with marble statues of ancient warriors. The carpet, though burnt, shows old tracks of an elephantine creature that passed this way.

A hallway stretches north and south from the doors. Osnald listens at them, and can hear music and general merriment beyond. The doors are locked, but unlock at a touch from his thieves' tools. Something blocks the doors, keeping them closed. Fafnir gives an experimental shove; they barely move. The music stops. After a few moments it starts again, this time with lyrics that tease us: "Dumb skeletons can't get in / got no meat on their bones / got no brains in their heads / they've got no meals for us!".

We investigate the hall north of the stuck doors. Pilmat the imp follows. Beyond a small door the hall moves west and east, with three doors. Fafnir moves on through the leftmost. Charred remains of crates, boxes, a mechanical lift and a small staircase leading upward. We ignore it and move to the middle door. A kitchen. Some food survived the firestorm. Pilmat snatches some snacks, and Trevor thinks it a good idea, so joins him. The third door reveals a meeting room with a table, a map lying atop. Viggo pores over it and Osnald finds a secret door.

"So you're a Strathmore, huh?" Pilmat asks in Infernal. Trevor answers yes in the same language. "Your family is known throughout the Hells."

"I've sent a lot of you back home," he says.

"I'm just trying to survive this place," the imp says. "This fiery place feels like home, but not in a good way."

Something traplike in the map suddenly rises up to strike Viggo as he reads it. A wispy brown serpent bites at him. He waves it away irritably. He determines the map gives a misleading location for the defenses in preparation for Coaltongue's attack.

Osnald opens the secret door, which reveals a short hallway which might end at the music room. Osnald works at that one, unlocking it. This one opens. He turns invisible and moves through.

"Hey, hungries," I notify Trevor and Pilmat. "We found another secret way."

Osnald returns and whispers that the room contains undead: ghasts and a large, bloblike creature with tendrils.

"That is Lord Gorquith," Pilmat clarifies. "That large creature is what the Ragesians turned him into."

Is Pilmat leading us into a trap?