What fresh Hell is this?
The stirway led to a platform that was connected to another larger platform by a long narrow bridge. Below the platforms was a seething mass of devil spawn, wreathed in brilliant flickering white flames. They trod upon the lowest devils of all, the horned maggots, or lemure which all devils were reduced to repeatedly in their immortal lives. Four of the whitefire devils per round were allowed up out of the endless charnel pits, as per devil law, by a connecting stair, but it was the four major devils that were the true threat.
A vulture devil, or Vrock as it was know, hung flapping overhead, clutching some hapless victim in its large claws. It shrieked and dropped its prey when it saw them arrive. At the far end of the platform was Babao the bearded devil. Hie spiked beard writhed all about him, and they could see the heart of Isolda on a chain about his neck. Near him stood Barbazao the Babau, who was a hulking muscle-bound red devil who shed green acid sweat. At the far end stood a hulking huge bone devil, all horns and glaring eyes.
Felipe cast her flaming seed upon the stairway into the depths of the burning chaos, preventing any of the whitefire devils from mounting the platform after the first four were slain. Thokk charged as far across the platform as he was able. Hex and Poppy followed suit, while Ria and Felipe stood back on the stairwell leading out of the infernal plane. The Vrock swooped across Poppys path, but her attack missed. Thokk engaged thebearded devil, but was soon surrounded by the babau and the horned devil as well, who was alrge enough to pound him from above. The Vrock let out such a screech that the entire world seemed to shake with the ehchoes, stunning many of the mortals who dared trod this hellish realm. Thokk, Hex and Poppy were all knocked insensible and at the devils mercy for a few critical seconds, unable to move or act, paralyzed as it were.
Ria had to race halfway across the bridge to rescue Thokk with her divine heals, and in the process she cast a spell of peace across the Vrock, silencing it and causing it to flap in frustration while Thokk lifted himself from the edge of the platform ans struck out at the bearded devil in blind rage. The devil went down and again Poppy was their to dive for the sliuppery wet heart as it broke free of the devils imprisonment. Behind her the girl gasped and began to slip into an eternity of servitude in the burnhing chamber as her eyes dimmed.
Thokk was their to scoop her into his arms, He dashed across the bridge, giving a fist bump to Hex who tagged in as his replacement and rear guard for the tactical reverse adancement. Next dashed Poppy, fast as only a wild elf can manage, she avoided all difficult terrain and seemed to blur withj speed takin the stairs threee at a time, she burst back into the wizards teleportation like a dolphin broaching the ocean waves to shine specatcularly in the sun. But instead Poppy glowed tinged in the blue ring of an enchanted teleportation circle, bloody oozing heart in her hand. She turned to see whence came the body to whose heart she held belonged.
Thokk lagged behind as whip and sword and claw struck his back as he ran for the exit. Powerless to stop his headlong rush he slammed into Ria, squishing the girl between them like a doll, and knocking the wind out of Ria. But that did not waylat her from her duties to her chosen fellows and she laid her hands on the barely civilized stinking green brute, and sh propped him up with her deties divinity. THe half orc leapt up the stairs and through the portal to lay the girl at Poppys feet. Ria was behind.
Hex turned to make his geataway suffering the horned claws of the bony behemoth behind him as well as the still sweating babau devil, when the vulturous Vrock settled on the stairs between him and freedom. Unable to attack for the binding of peace upon it, the devil nonetheless had malevolence in its own black heart and thus attempted to add a soul to its long roster of devilish accomplishment.
I promptly left the room to let this unfortunate turn of events sink in. So I dont know what happened but I bet it somewhat followed the stages of grief. Fist their was rage. I was cheating, no way could that happen! Next it was doom, we are all dead, might as well throw ourselves into the pit. Then it was frantic searching for any way to escape the fate that was quickly approaching. At some point Hexes player was like, wait, I got this covered. And I returned to the table, as Hex struck the vulture devil in such a way hat made the creature shift into the spot the swordlock wanted it. He then dashed past and up the stairs. Somehow Thokk was able to turn the stone heiroglyphs in the proper sequence to close the infernal gate. The walls of the enchanters dungeon shook, and they looked around to see that the dungeon walls around them seemed to be dripping with blood, as if the stones themselves were slowly oozing blood.
The girl Isolda lay on the cold stones in her scant pink shift as three sets of hands were at work on her heart and her chest. Soon the work of her heroes was done and a magical fading scar was all that remained of the gaping wound in her chest. She was breathless and her eyes rolled in her head like a cows, and her ankles trembled like a newbon colt. Her brother Sfart was by her side with his arm thrown across her shoulder to hold her tight and keep her frokm falling, though he himself staggered like a drunk from his own infernal experience.
The heroes of the Amber family knew that they had little time to waste. The longer they remained in this abyssal infested place the more it would draw them in. Too long and they would turn into devils themselves, unable to leave, or working for those devils trying to leave through the enchanters basement.
Crossing the electrically floored room, they disabled a similar trap on the opposite wall, and entered the enchanters practice chamber. There were three denizens in the chamber, as well as a hypnotizing mirror. In front of the mirror was a deep spiked pit, and the mirror was such that it drew the will of those who strayed to near. Hex was nearly thrown into the pit, but only by Rias quick reaction was he able to escape the fall. Poppy and Thokk disturbed a coating of ice that covered one statue, and it turned into a large fist of ice hovering abo0ve the statue it once covered. Meanwhile, the flames that coated the other statue like a blanket slowly pulled upwards into a ball of flame that rested atop the statues head.
The party made their way through the chamber as quickly as possible, trying not to disturb or attack the strange magical infestations. Like many of the enchanters creations, these were living spells. The enchanter had been casting the spells with a type of sentience that gave them a life – and will – of their own. These were two such spells. The first was a ball of flame-fireball, and the other was a Bigby Icy grasp-blizzard storm. Hidden in one corner of the room was a silver lizard, standing on its hind legs. It held a ball of silvery energy that it formed into a large round shield of force. It wore a belt and tucked into the belt was a wand, which for the cat-sized lizard was a walking staff.
As Poppy passed the lizard she heldher arms out to it, and the lizard whispered “Save me,” and leapt into her arms and immediately crawled up to her narrow shoulder to turn around and about looking for a comfortable spot. Finally it sat on its haunches and the short thick tail curled about Poppys wrist-thin neck.
They left the chamber without more than a little burnt fingers and singed eyebrows, and pulled open the door to the final chamber of the dungeon, the enchanters laboratory. In the chamber stood a blazing angry Pit Fiend. He had only one wing, the other had been savagely hacked of, leaving an oozing stump. In one hand he held a sivler sword. Hex recognized it instantly as a fabled silver sword of the githyankee. In the pit fiends other hand he held a pair of slver chains. One ended hooked into Shalazar Shackleton who stood like a puppet on a rope, and the other chain led to the third apprentice wizard, Ismelda, whose chest was an open and gaping wound. Standing next to the pit fiend on the wizards oaken experiment table so they were eye level with each other stood the succubus they had slain earlier. She looked as healthy and alive as ever, only she had a golden cage rising from her ample bosom, and inside that gilded cage the heart of Isolda beat fluttering and frantic. The succubus let out a long and low chuckle.
[...] 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 disgraced pit fiend and his wicked love Game night Irish [...]