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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7815876" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 59: DEATH AND A PROPHECYPC Roster:Daleth Stormsea, elf wizard 19             Galen Thorne, human paladin 19             Kaspar Hardstrike, elf monk 19             Orion Nightsky, halfling rogue 19             Syngaard, human fighter 19Game Session Date: 18 September 2019- - -The scream came across loud and clear through the conscripts' rings of iron they each wore on their fingers.  These were the rings through which Skevros usually summoned the adventurers to the Enchanted Flagon, the de facto headquarters of the small team dedicated to performing missions for the king of Durnhill, to receive their newest orders.  But this was no normal summons, just the high-pitched scream of a woman in shock and despair: one scream, and then nothing.But it was enough to rouse the conscripts from their rooms above the tavern and rush downstairs to see what had caused the alarm, for there was only one likely candidate for the scream's originator: Dow, the homunculus familiar of Skevros himself.  And for Dow to scream like that, Skevros must be in dire straits indeed.Orion didn't bother with the back stairs like the others; she summoned her ghost-dog Carl to her, threw on her robes, leaped onto the saddle, and had Carl phase them both through the floor and into the tavern below via a quick excursion through the Ethereal Plane.  There she saw a vast collection of open books and tomes and unrolled scrolls and charts covered with equations and annotations covering every available surface of the tavern room's tables.  But of more immediate importance was Dow, nestled inside the astral golem giving her the appearance of a normal human woman, sitting on the floor and cradling the unmoving form of Skevros in her lap.  She howled in anguish, her crafted form unable to create actual tears.As Galen, Kaspar, and Daleth ran through the front door, Orion looked down at the still form of the king's adviser and noticed the symbol burned into his forehead.  It was different, the halfling was quite sure, from the mark of justice he had borne upon his brow for as long as they'd ever known him.A flapping of wings just outside the tavern announced the sudden arrival of the group's fifth member, Syngaard.  The scarred fighter had been awakened in the middle of the night just as had the others but as he slept at the cat-house down the street where he worked as a bouncer it normally took him a bit longer to arrive than the others.  "What's up?" he demanded, barging into the room and leaving his bronze griffon Dick to stand guard outside."He's dead!" wailed Dow, and even Kaspar and Syngaard, who normally found Dow to be somewhat creepy - at least in her big-eyed doll-homunculus form - felt for the poor familiar."How'd it happen?" Syngaard asked, crouching low beside the body of the king's adviser.  Skevros had a burned look about him, as if he'd spent time too close to a bonfire for his own good.  Orion touched the adviser's neck to feel for a pulse and the skin of his throat collapsed as if made of charcoal.  The halfling snapped her hand back in fright as if fearing she'd been about to get burned."I came from the back room and found him lying here, on the floor!" sobbed Dow.  The elves Daleth and Kaspar began searching through the papers scattered about the tables, looking for clues as to what Skevros might have been up to at the time of his death.  As the wizard noted many of the charts and equations were astrological and astronomical in nature, the monk lifted a sheet of parchment containing what looked to be a handwritten prophecy.  "Listen to this," he said, reading it aloud:As one, the others looked to Daleth for an explanation; he was a wizard, like Skevros had been - surely he could make some sense of all this?  "That mean anything to you, Daleth?" asked Galen.  "That sounds like another ritual to open a gate to Hell and let the devil armies march forth."  The fact he used the wizard's name instead of the nickname "Wizard-Pants" spoke of the paladin's realization of the seriousness of the situation."It said 'Ender' - that's gotta be the Hope Ender," reasoned Syngaard."Yes, that's fairly obvious," snapped Daleth, continuing to peruse the adviser's papers while he thought over the prophecy's contents.  "It looks like Skevros was attempting to pinpoint when the events of the prophecy would occur."  He scrutinized several of the parchments, recognizing Skevros's handwriting among the margins."And?" prompted Orion."And...if I'm reading this correctly...it looks like the gate will open at the end of the week.""That 'Hope shall end' better not mean what I think it means!" warned Syngaard, his hand moving instinctively to the handle of the holy morningstar hanging from his belt.  He wasn't about to let anything bad happen to his little two-year-old daughter, the girl his wife died bringing into the world."We will ensure she is kept safe," promised Galen."But who killed Skevros?" asked Orion.  "Did somebody snag him out of the kingdom and then throw him back in?""He was not slain by the mark of justice," Daleth remarked.  "He appears to have been burned from within.  It could very well be the work of the Hope Ender.""So let's go kill him!" snarled Syngaard.  "Now, before he can get to Hope!""We do not know his current whereabouts," pointed out Kaspar.  "The Nine Hells is an infinite plane.""There's that door under the castle!" argued Syngaard.  "We could storm in there, go to that library place, smash through those electrical fog-walls, and then track him down!""There's no way of knowing whether the Hope Ender would be anywhere in the vicinity," argued the monk."Well, we gotta do something!" countered Syngaard, panic rising in his voice.Dow carefully set Skevros's head down upon the floor and stood up.  "We must learn exactly what the prophecy is telling us," she reasoned.  "I will fetch the Eye of Prophecy from the back rooms.  It should hopefully make things more clear."  As she went to the extradimensional quarters Skevros kept in the back of the tavern, the others started planning courses of action."We need to alert the armies of another attempt to open a gate to Hell," advised Galen.  "My Hieronean order has served with the Ashfall forces up in the Baator's Breath Mountains - that's likely where the ritual will be performed.  We should get word to them at once.""I can pop through the fireplace and ride Dick over to the Council of Guilds in the Azure Glade," suggested Syngaard.  "They got plenty of wizards - they oughtta be able to get the word out, fast.""Do we trust the Council?" asked Kaspar."I trust Leorna.  I can go to the Illusionists Guild.  She'll know who else to contact.""Carl and I can head over to the castle and warn the king's forces," offered Orion."We should get word to Serenity, too," suggested Galen.  "She's been stationed up there in the mountains.  I'll bet she might know the most likely place for the ritual to be set up."  As the plans were being made up, Karen walked up from the back of the room with a bundle of scrolls in her hand.  Unable to speak - she was merely a permanent unseen servant spell cloaked in the illusion of a comely serving girl - she poked the stash at Daleth.  The elf looked down at the proffered scrolls with a scowl but took them from the barmaid and began unrolling them."What are they?" Orion wanted to know.Daleth scanned the contents on the parchments.  "Spells," he replied.  "A discern location spell, with notations in the margins - in Skevros's handwriting - on how to use it in conjunction with a crystal ball."  He looked about the room for Skevros's crystal ball, finding it being used as a paperweight holding open an unrolled scroll detailing astronomical features.  Returning his attention to the other scrolls in his hand, he added, "There are also four castings of the sending spell and two of greater teleport.""He leave us a checklist to follow?" Syngaard asked, only now realizing how much they had counted on Skevros in the past to give them their detailed marching orders."No," Daleth replied.  "I assume he was slain before he could write out any instructions for us.  Or perhaps he figured we'd know what to do."Syngaard looked at the others.  "Well, do we?" he asked.  Magic spells were beyond his area of expertise - but then, so was almost everything beyond inflicting harm upon enemies with various physical weapons."This will be a start," suggested Dow, returning from the extradimensional dwelling with the Eye of Prophecy in her hand."What's that one again?" asked Syngaard.  Dow explained you placed the eye-patch over your eye and the magic eyeball on the inside merged into your own eye and allowed you to see illusory representations of a given prophecy.  Orion wrinkled her face in disgust, not liking the idea of a magic eyeball going ethereally into your own skull and mucking about.  "Give it here," said the scarred fighter, holding out his hand.  "I'll wear the damn thing."Syngaard pulled the eye-patch over his head and maneuvered it into place.  "Where's the prophecy?" he demanded.  Kaspar passed over the parchment and the bald fighter looked at the intricate writing on its front face.  "I'm getting  something," he said.  An image was forming, superimposed over the written prophecy.  He described the scene being played out before him to the others."We got a bunch of guys in red robes," he said.  "They're chanting around one of them magic circles with a star in the middle of it.  And hey, there's Serenity, floating above it!  She's bleeding from cuts on her arms, which are dripping down onto the circle...it's opening up, like a mouth...and out come a bunch of devils!  Yep, it's an invasion force all right!""'Blood of redemption!'" quoted Galen from the prophecy.  "They're using Serenity's blood to open the gate--the blood of a redeemed succubus must be required for the ritual!""Can you tell the ritual's location?" demanded Daleth.  "Is it in that mithral mine?""Nah," answered Syngaard, still watching the scene only he could see.  "It's outside somewhere, in the open air.  Inside some sort of chasm, though - there are cliff walls on either side of the magic circle thingy.""Fetch me the crystal ball," demanded Daleth.  Orion passed it over without a word.  Passing his hand over it - as the elf had seen Skevros do on numerous occasions - the sphere glazed over and formed an image in its interior.  Peering into the scrying device, Daleth saw the scene Syngaard had just described - but this was an image in real time, not the illusory projection of a prophecy of the future.  "They've already got her!" he exclaimed."They're performing the ritual already?" asked Kaspar.  "I thought you said we still had days to go before they'd be ready!"Daleth studied the image in the crystal ball.  "We do," he said with a sigh of relief.  "They're still carving sigils and runes along the circle."  He had Syngaard describe the glyphs around the pentagram the fighter saw through the Eye of Prophecy and verified they were not present in the image in the crystal ball.  "They still have a lot of prep work to do before they can perform the ritual.  Days - the better part of a week, even.""We still need to rescue Serenity!" emphasized Galen.  It was no secret the paladin had a thing for the redeemed demoness."Wait a minute," cautioned Daleth as he cast a true seeing spell from his staff of divination and peered at the image in the crystal ball.  "Those cultists aren't the only ones there!  We have two invisible members of the team overseeing the work: a female tiefling - or possibly a half-fiend - and a pit fiend!""Hope Ender?" demanded Syngaard."No, I don't think so," Daleth replied.  "This one doesn't look to be as big as the Hope Ender is said to be."  The rest of the team had only seen the Hope Ender once, when defeating a different team of cultists who had summoned him to the Material Plane - but the elf recalled hearing Skevros commenting how the Hope Ender was much bigger than the one Daleth now saw through the scrying device.  He studied the group of cultists for a bit, then passed his hand back over the crystal ball and the image winked out."So what do we do?" asked Orion.  Everyone was looking over at Daleth again; he realized, with a bit of discomfort at the unusual role, they were looking to him for leadership."I think we've learned all we can about the situation for now," he decided.  Syngaard pulled the Eye of Prophecy from his head and passed it back to Dow; Orion had been right: that damned thing was pretty squicky.  He rubbed his eyeball - it felt unclean.  "We need to warn King Leornic, the Council of Guilds, Ashfall, and the Temple of Hieroneous of the situation," Daleth continued, pulling out the four scrolls containing the sending spells."And then?" prompted Syngaard, ready for immediate action."And then we get some rest," answered Daleth.  "We're going to have a couple of busy days ahead of us."- - -The conscripts had put the next several days to good use.  Daleth had pored over a few spell scrolls and learned the tricks to casting the spells contained therein; the contents had been carefully transcribed into his spellbooks for future use.  Some of the other conscripts had purchased spell scrolls of their own, but these were single-use affairs they'd have Daleth cast upon them immediately before battle.  They also stocked up on potions they were sure would come in handy, Daleth having filled them in on the specific capabilities of a pit fiend in combat.  But after spending a few days poring over the materials Skevros had been studying, Daleth announced his readiness to go take down the cultists and prevent the opening of the gate from the Nine Hells.  The group headed, as usual, to the gates of the city, so they could bypass the magic stones Skevros had placed around the city's borders to prevent anyone from being able to teleport into or out of the capital."What do we need to know?" asked Kaspar, focusing his internal chi and finding his inner calm in preparation for the upcoming battle."The area's shielded from teleportation magic," Daleth answered.  "We'll need to teleport in a ways away and approach on foot.  But in a way that's good, for it will prevent the fiends from being able to teleport out or summon other devils to come to their aid.""Them cultists human?" Syngaard asked, his hand in the hilt of his human bane scimitar.  It had served him well in defeating many Seekers of Eternity in the past."I don't think so," Daleth replied.  "They were, but no longer.  In fact, I believe them to be the missing Evokers the Council of Guilds warned us about.  They've been slain and their bodies are being 'worn' by devils controlling their movements from afar.""So, undead?" asked Galen.  He had specific ways with dealing with undead abominations."No, more along the lines of animated objects, I fear."  Galen frowned.  But then the team began their spellcasting and similar preparations.  From scrolls Daleth cast greater invisibility spells upon each of the five conscripts, then cast a resist fire spell on each as well.  Using his staff of divination, he cast true seeing spells on Galen, Kaspar, and Syngaard, settling on a see invisibility spell for himself and realizing Orion could sense living beings even if they were invisible.Kaspar passed out potions of neutralize poison he'd purchased and everyone drank down their contents; pit fiends had a poisonous bite, Daleth had warned them, and the potions would remain in their systems to combat the effects should this devil bite any of them.  Syngaard passed over the doses of consecrated silversheen they'd collected from the hellish library on an earlier excursion; everyone had four doses for their personal use and one dose each was immediately applied to Kaspar's tenryutsume, Syngaard's holy morningstar, Galen's sword of Zehkar, and Orion's nightflame short sword.  Daleth completed his personal spellcasting with magic circle against evil, fly, and spell turning spells upon himself and Todd, while Galen cast a magic circle against evil spell upon himself and a bless weapon spell upon his longsword.  Daleth cast Rary's telepathic bond and haste spells upon the group and then used one of Skevros's scrolls of greater teleport to send the conscripts into the Baator's Breath Mountains, just outside the area that was warded against such magic.The sun beat down upon the assembled group.  Just ahead, they could see the beginning of a chasm that widened as it veered down lower into the earth.  The sounds of chiseling could be heard from the area, the sounds of hammers driving metal chisels into the hard stone mountain, carving out the various hellish runes required for the ritual to open the gate to the Nine Hells.Cautiously, the conscripts approached.  Once they rounded the last corner and saw the assembled group ahead of them - including the pit fiend and a red-skinned, horned woman wearing loose robes, both of whom remained invisible but not to the heroes' magically-enhanced vision - Galen wordlessly channeled the might of his patron god Hieroneous into his blade and charged the half-fiend.  The sword of Zehkar struck true and struck deep, driving the horned fiend-woman to her knees at the suddenness and ferocity of the unexpected blow.Daleth flew forward, determined to take out the cultists working on the half-finished pentagram being carved into the hard stone.  He channeled a chain lightning spell through his maximizing metamagic rod, blasting all but two of the eight assembled around the magic circle, then followed that up with a quickened Evard's black tentacles spell engulfing the cultists in writhing, rubbery appendages.  Serenity floated unconscious in place above the magic circle, conveniently just out of range of the grappling tentacles.  The cultists struggled against their entwining bonds, to no avail.Orion sent Carl ethereally across the distance to the half-fiend, only to materialize back to the mortal world once in position.  The halfling's blade darted forth, stabbing the downed woman from behind.  Syngaard raced up and, having been warned about the pit fiend's ability to cause even the bravest of warriors to drop everything held and flee at top speed under the power of a magical fear, opted to stick close to Galen, who through the power of his god projected an aura of bravery that would help to ward off such unwanted fear effects.  He gave the half-fiend a bop on the head with his morningstar for good measure, really wanting to go after the pit fiend instead, but the force of his blow had her staggered on the ground.The devil-woman knew she had, at best, one attack in her before she was slain and determined to make the most of it.  Fueled by the power of her hatred, she channeled the energy of a quivering palm into her right hand and struck out at the paladin bearing the loathsome symbol of Hieroneous on his shield.  She missed - Galen dodged the feeble attack with hardly any effort at all - and she collapsed onto the ground, her life blood flowing freely from her accumulated wounds.Kaspar raced up alongside the others, tossing a shuriken at the pit fiend as he did so and thus striking first blow against the massive devil, although the bladed weapon bounced of the devil's tough hide without piercing the skin.  But the pit fiend's attention was on the plight of his minions, not through any concern for their well-being but rather because they had been instructed to carve the needed runes for the gate and he didn't want anything to get in the way of their progress, for the Hope Ender was depending upon their success.  He concentrated on dispelling the flailing and entangling tentacles and snarled in surprise and anger when his attempt failed - the mortal wizard's spellpower had been too great!  Unaccustomed to having to deal with wizards of this level of power, the pit fiend stepped to the side, still apparently believing he couldn't be seen, for he had failed to even notice the shuriken attack.But any belief in the power of his invisibility was immediately dispelled when Galen led the charge against him, channeling a smite evil blast of holy energy through his sword of Zehkar.  Daleth, satisfied the cultists were out of the fight for now, sent a maximized greater shout blasting at the pit fiend, deafening the devil but failing to stun him as well.  Syngaard charged the pit fiend in Galen's wake, sending his holy morningstar crashing into the red devil's side.  Orion, in the meantime, let the guys have their fun against the pit fiend while she ensured the devil-woman would never rise again, stabbing her through the back of the neck with her nightflame short sword.Kaspar used his speed to race around the pit fiend, ensuring he kept out of reach of the great beast's arm span just in case it could see him despite the protection of his greater invisibility spell, and flanked him from behind.  He brought his right hand smashing in a cobra-swift strike into the back of the pit fiend's right knee, nearly causing him to topple.The pit fiend, however, despite Kaspar's concerns, could not see his invisible attackers - but that was a problem easily remedied.  Casting a precious wish spell, he wished those attacking him were no longer invisible and just like that, they weren't.  There was a hated paladin before him wearing the gauntlet-fist symbol of Hieroneous, a scar-faced thug with a morningstar bearing Pelor's symbol, some elf behind him who reminded him of his own servant, now apparently slain by a halfling, of all things, and another elf flying beside a pseudodragon - no doubt the wizard who had engineered the attack upon the devils wearing the flesh of the eight members of the Evokers Guild.  <Ahhh, it's so much better now that I can see you pesky mortals,> he said to them telepathically, breaking out in a wide grin that exposed his horrible teeth.  Galen opted to respond with his sword but now that the pit fiend could see his foes he was able to dodge their incoming blows much better and the sword of Zehkar missed its target entirely.And then, with mounting horror, the pit fiend realized he could no longer see his foes - he couldn't, in fact, see anything at all!  Deafened as he had been by Daleth's greater shout spell, he hadn't heard the elf cast one of his newly-learned spells: power word blind.Orion sent Carl charging at the pit fiend just as he roared in fury at his sudden blindness.  The halfling's charge had been from behind, the better to flank him with those attacking the devil from the front, but from this approach Orion had also been shielded from the courage-boosting effects of the paladin's aura.  Carl, an undead creature, was unfazed by the devil's fear aura, but just when Orion was in a position to bring her short sword stabbing deep into the pit fiend's unprotected back she let her blade clatter to the floor and leaped from the saddle of her ghost-dog mount.  Then, gripped in a mind-killing terror the likes of which she'd never before know, she raced out of the chasm as fast as her little legs could take her.  (And thanks to Daleth's haste spell, that was much faster than normal for her.)Fortunately, the little halfling didn't get far, for Syngaard took the pit fiend down with a rapid-fire series of attacks from his morningstar, the recent upgrade by the clerics of Pelor's temple adding greatly to the damage the weapon did to this fiend from the lower depths.  The great devil fell forward and failed to disappear upon its death, indicating - as Daleth explained to the group - that it hadn't been summoned here but rather gated in or called in some manner.  The specifics didn't matter to Syngaard; he'd just been glad to slay the foul fiend, and hoped this was good practice for taking down the Hope Ender, the next devil on his list.  In any case, the pit fiend's fear effect vanished upon its death and Orion regained her normal sensibilities, returning shamefaced to the rest of the group.  Kaspar put a hand upon her shoulder in greeting, stating without words there had been no shame in falling sway to a magical effect.  Orion put her own hand over the elf's, grateful for the understanding.But then there was some excitement over by the floating Serenity, for one of the cultists had finally managed to wriggle out of the embrace of the engulfing tentacles.  He didn't get far, though, running face-first into a quickened wall of force Daleth brought into being directly in front of him.  Kaspar, able to see the invisible wall of force with his still-active true seeing spell, dashed around it and punched him into oblivion.  Daleth then finished off most of the cultists with another maximized chain lightning, causing a momentary gasp of surprise from Galen when the elven wizard sent the blast directly at Serenity's unmoving form, but Daleth was well aware of the succubus's immunity to electricity; she had simply been a convenient central point from which the arcs of lightning could flare out and burn the cultists to death.  The few stragglers who survived that spell were taken out by a cone of cold.All of their enemies dead, Daleth flew over to Serenity and pulled her floating form away from above the half-constructed magic pentagram.  Dropping them both back down to the ground, he gently shook her back to consciousness.  The group then filled her in on what had occurred, starting with Skevros's death and finishing up with the battle that had been fought here."So what's the next step?" she asked."Sadly, right now we need to do nothing, to let some time pass," Daleth replied, causing Syngaard's mouth to hang open in astonishment and an argument to start its way to his lips, only to trip over his tongue and leave the scarred fighter momentarily speechless.  "The Hope Ender is waiting on the other side of this unfinished gate with an army of devils, ready to spill into this world," continued Daleth.  "We need to wait long enough for him to realize his plan has been stopped and this avenue of attack is now closed to him.""And then?" prompted Orion."And then," answered Daleth with a smirk, "we open the gate ourselves when they don't expect it and we take out the Hope Ender once and for all, on his own plane."Syngaard found his voice again.  "Now you're talkin', Wizard-Pants!" he cried in jubilation.Daleth turned to the succubus.  "Of course, to do so, we'll have to complete the carvings these cultists started.  And to perform the ritual as written...""...you'll need the blood of a reformed succubus," answered Serenity, already one step ahead.  "That's all right: I volunteer."  She smiled at the group.  "Maybe that will silence any last doubts anyone has about my redemption.""I am already convinced!" announced Galen with a dashing smile.- - -Logan didn't even bother computing any experience points for this adventure, arbitrarily deciding everyone earned enough to level up to 20th for next week's session, which will be the last in this campaign.  He also made sure to use the Large pit fiend D&D Mini we have for the pit fiend we fought in this adventure, as we also have a Huge advanced pit fiend he'll be using to represent the Hope Ender next week.</blockquote>

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