Having tip-toed through the demesne of the ‘Frog God’ without disturbing anything other than a few easily pocketed emeralds, the party stood outside the door to the teleportation chamber. With a deep breath they pushed the door open to a strange site. Being familiar with teleportation circles, they were expecting a soft blue glowing arcane diagram on the floor of the chamber. Instead they saw a fiery red symbol, and beneath it the floor was like glass, showing a fiery staircase spiraling downwards to a land of endless flame and lava. Within the lava trudged countless humanoid devils wreathed in flickering white fire. Above the lava field of burning devils were two platforms connected by a narrow walkway. The stairway led to the nearest platform while on the second platform they could see an alter and laying on the altar, the daughter they were meant to rescue.
Thus was the vision they saw of the underworld beneath their feet. An umbilical of flaming spiral stairs connected the devilish realm with the wizards dungeon, and 4 burning devils climbed the stairs towards the arcane circle. Around that circle were three evil imps, known as murder guards. These imps were in charge of maintaining links between the underworld and the real world. One of them was reddish in color, and it wielded a red-bladed dagger in one hand, and a ruby scabbard on its belt. It was cutting itself with the dagger and smearing its blood over the arcane marks in the floor, turning them red. The second, bluish one, carried a white glowing hand axe, and wore an amulet with a green gem around its next, while he held a jar full of thick blood, and poured it over the lines, rubbing the blood into the lines. The third imp carried a mace in his hand with a hawks beak of black iron, while in the other hand he held a rotting severed leg from some unfortunate creature, which he pressed and dragged across the arcane circle. When the party bust through the doors, the imps all winked out of visibility.
Like a well oiled machine the party moved into the room. Those with arcane, religion, or thievery knowledge knew that by channeling the arcane energies away from the underworld, they could wrest control of the circle, cutting off the burning devik who climbed the stairs 4 at a time. The burning devils attacked with their flaming claws, but went down with a single blow, exploding into a fireball twenty feet in diameter. 4, 8, then 12 burning devils made it into the chamber all told, exploding for a grand total of 108 hit points damage.
The imps attacked, turned invisible, then attacked again, and the battle was bloody and fast paced, but the band of adventurers were able to take down the imps once the arcane circle was closed. Since Felipe, their minion-killer was indisposed at the moment (it was her aromatherapy hour, and Felipe NEVER missed aromatherapy hour, so the rest of the party thought they would get a bit of adventuring done during aromatherapy hour.) they decided to keep the circle closed while they edplored more of the dungeon. They were certain the heart they sought was down below, and would come back later. THe room to the south opened into a capacious well furnished library. Without wasting a second, Ria cast detect magic items and discovered 4 scrolls amongst the miscellany. One was a deed for a duplicate magic library, the other a deed for a magic armory. The other two scrolls were recipes for alchemists fire and frost.
To the south, they discovered a shrine to Ioun. The man held his hands out, and a bowl at his feet held a pile of gold coins. The characters each added a coin or some other valuable, and felt a feeling of contentment and good fortune. After 5 minutes, they received a fortune card. The statue had a frown instead of beatific smile, which Ria the priestess worried meant the deity was upset about something.
They turned east, deeper into the wizards dungeon, and entered through a door that was solid iron with strange copper filigree, and had a chess-like pattern of metal plates for a floor. The door slammed shut and the floor electrified, stunning Hex, but Poppy and Thokk were able to disable it before anyone suffered fatal damage.
[...] Feb 11th – Devil Games in the basement Game night Feb 18th – Exploring the enchanters dungeon Game night Feb 25th – 3 imps and an underworld uprising Game night March 5th – Storming the Infernal Underwold Game night March 11 – Tartarus the [...]