Descent Into Avernus

Let’s start at the beginning.

 

No. There is too much. Let’s start where our players started, in Baldur’s Gate, shortly after rumors flooded in along with thousands of refugees from the city of Elturel. Six fresh recruits into the (in)famous peacekeeping force of Baldur’s Gate were dispatched to the Basilisk Gate to help quell a growing riot among the Elturelians. The recruits’ commanding officer, Zodge, described his conundrum: the Fist were spread thin by the refugees and riots, but the chaos in the city had emboldened a cult devoted to three of the most murderous deities known: Bhaal, Bane, and Myrkul.

Under cover of an unsettled populace and a disorganized Flaming Fist reeling from the disappearance of their founder and top general, the Cult of the Dead Three had been terrorizing citizens. Kidnapping. Extortion. Murder. Zodge deputized the recruits to deal with the cult any way they could, using lethal force if necessary. To get them started, he called in a favor from a semi-reformed piratess named Tarina.

The party found Tarina at the Elfsong Tavern, but they were not the only ones looking for her. A group of Tarina’s former associates came to collect on some of her debts, forcing the fresh-faced Fist members into a bloody and brutal show of strength. Unsettled by the carnage, Tarina revealed what she knew of the Cult’s whereabouts, directing them to a bathhouse she had heard was a front for the Cult’s operations.

In the back room of the bathhouse, they found an entrance to an underground hideout and infiltrated the Cult of the Dead Three’s stronghold. Once inside, they found plenty of evidence supporting Zodge’s assertions: victims kidnapped and tortured, sometimes murdered outright. They saved whomever they could, eradicating as much of the threat as possible. At last they interrupted an ongoing skirmish between the apparent head of the Cult and a nobleman who identified himself after the party jumped to his aid as a son of one of Baldur’s Gate’s most prominent families, the Vanthampurs.

Mortlock Vanthampur spun a wild tale: his family had sent the Cult of the Dead Three to kill him. He trusted no one, and only wanted to flee the city. Part of his paranoia: his mother, Duke Thalamra Vanthampur, was one of the Council of Four: the city’s most powerful governors.

Zodge listened to the six raw recruits, but insisted that without more evidence, nothing could be done. Particularly not since the missing Flaming Fist head was also on the Council: Duke Ulder Ravengard. Without him, any accusations leveled at Duke Vanthampur might look suspicious. In secret, Zodge dispatched the small crew to investigate further. They followed up on several leads found in the Dead Three cult’s lair, eventually crossing paths with Mortlock’s brother, Amrik. While not particularly helpful, Amrik dismissed the group suggesting somewhat rhetorically that any further questions ought to be directed to his mother.

The crew then crossed paths with a young refugee from Elturel, Reya Mantlemorn, still skittish from some recent run-ins with other Flaming Fist members. She was a Hellrider, one of Elturel’s chosen protectors, and she had witnessed the fall of her city from afar. She believed Elturel’s fate was tied somehow to Baldur’s Gate and had been trying to connect the dots when she ran afoul of the law. Under the protection of the Fist contingent assigned to the Vanthampur case, they agreed to pay Duke Vanthampur a visit.

Concerned about a direct approach, the group chose to try and sneak into the Vanthampur’s Upper City estate. Once inside, they did not find the Duke, but they found her third son, Thurstwell, consorting with evil imps and trying to protect a strange locked cube. Under duress, Thurstwell Vanthampur confessed there was a secret entrance to the sewer tunnels that ran beneath the Upper City. Upon investigation, it became clear the sewers beneath Vanthampur Villa had been converted into another lair the Cult of the Dead Three. The Flaming Fist interrupted a summoning ceremony and found themselves facing down a powerful devil. Once the devil and his worshippers were dealt with, they found a prison area where they released the grateful prisoners, including a mighty mountain of a man who agreed to help in exchange for their kindness.

Shortly after, Duke Thalamra Vanthampur was found in an antechamber, along with the ruler of Elturel, Thavius Kreeg. Though circumstantial evidence was strong, it took an interrogation of Kreeg to determine what the Fist suspected: Elturel’s fate was soon to befall Baldur’s Gate as well. Duke Vanthampur’s plot involved a pact with the archduke of Avernus, a powerful devil by the name of Zariel. Zariel had promised Duke Vanthampur that ridding the city of Duke Ravengard and exchanging the cititzens’ souls would bring her absolute power. As Liara Portyr, Flaming Fist second in command and daughter of Duke Portyr, arrived from a mission to Chult to take over in Ravengard’s absence, she thanked the green recruits for their work in stopping the Vanthampur’s plot. However, she worried about the fate of Elturel and Duke Ravengard. Faced with several local crises and concerned about the implications of the supernatural elements to Duke Vanthampur’s dealings with Kreeg, she dispatched the crew to Candlekeep to meet with a scholar familiar with the Nine Hells.

After a fraught journey to Candlekeep, the Flaming Fist contingent met with Sylvira Savikas, a tiefling archmage who studied the infernal realms and their sordid histories. Sylvira examined some of the devilish artifacts recovered from the Dead Three cult and the Vanthampur’s villa. She confirmed that Thavius Kreeg had played the citizens of Elturel with a misleading pact that bound their souls. Kreeg had executed a long plot to damn the entire city, but the real cause of the suffering was the Blood War. The eternal struggle between the lawful devils and the chaotic demons had raged for eons, but while the demons were spawned directly from the abyss, the devils’ numbers could only be bolstered through corruption of mortal souls. Sylvira suggested visiting another mage she knew with the intent to travel to whatever was left of Elturel and see if any word could be found about the fate of Duke Ravengard.

Flying on griffonback to a remote tower, the Flaming Fist arrived and met the mage Traxigor… who turned out to have been polymorphed into an otter but chose to remain in that form. Traxigor introduced them to Lulu, a golden-furred hollyphant. Lulu had spent some time in Avernus, though she had suffered a bout of amnesia and wanted to join the group to see if she could jog her memories or simply be of some aid to the denizens of the fallen city. With a quick plane shift spell, they all teleported to Elturel.

Once there, the cold reality of the situation became immediately apparent. Elturel was being slowly dragged to the surface of Avernus by massive infernal iron chains. The city itself was overrun with undead as well as devils and demons battling each other for supremacy and putting innocent citizens in harm’s way. Traxigor took one look at the dire circumstances and cowardly teleported himself to safety, leaving Lulu behind with the Flaming Fist and Reya. With their route home cut off, the Fist saw no alternative but to follow Reya’s lead to High Hall, a holy fortification she said would be the fallback point for any remaining Hellriders.

Along the way they rescued a strangely capable mother of twins and her boys, plus a small girl whose family had been consumed by ghasts. Upon arriving at the Hall the found it overrun with fiends, and put Reya in charge of protecting the innocents while they stormed the Hall. After clearing out the High Hall of the most immediate threats, the Flaming Fist returned to Reya to find her wounded and near dead. She described an attack by a black-armored fiend and the Fist went in pursuit. They found the fiend, a narzugon mounted on a nightmare, tormenting the children and mother. The Fist courageously charged, but were unable to save the mother as a building collapsed on her, and the narzugon shifted planes to escape leaving no trace of the missing kids.

Angry and frustrated, the Flaming Fist returned to High Hall and met a group of survivors who told of Duke Ravengard’s efforts to rally a resistance force. He had left to search the Grand Cathedral but had not returned for some time. The Fist left Reya in the survivor’s care and pursued the Duke. They found Ravengard beneath the Cathedral, enthralled by a powerful artifact known as the Helm of Torm. They freed the Duke and brought him back to the survivors. The Duke told Lulu about a vision he had while under the influence of the Helm: a vision of the hollyphant trying to hide a powerful weapon: the Sword of Zariel. Ravengard’s vision triggered a memory in Lulu, who described Zariel as having once been her friend, a holy celestial angel who watched the Blood War from a forced position of neutrality. Detesting the chaos of the demons, Zariel had defied her superior’s orders to stay out of the conflict, and had rode to battle with Lulu and the Hellriders. But something had gone wrong.

Duke Ravengard expressed his satisfaction with the Fist’s efforts, and asked them to accept one final mission: descend to the surface of Avernus itself and find the Sword of Zariel. The Sword, he believed, might be the only thing that could truly save Elturel from Zariel’s plan. Perhaps with the Sword, Zariel could be returned to the side of goodness and light, permitting the city to be freed to return to the material plane and its remaining citizens spared. Or, failing that, perhaps the Sword could be used to defeat the archduke. The Flaming Fist members accepted their grim mission and despite a restless night plagued by horrible dreams, they descended the chains into hell itself.

Using a raging Blood War skirmish as cover, the Flaming Fist made their way to some friends Lulu remembered from her time in Avernus located at a strange fortification known as Fort Knucklebone. They met the night had Mad Maggie there, who agreed to perform a ritual that might restore Lulu’s memories. Through the magical visions, Lulu determined their next location was a place called Haruman’s Hill. Before leaving, Mad Maggie presented the group with strange vehicles called infernal war machines that she claimed would help them on their journeys across Avernus.

Despite being attacked by one of Mad Maggie’s rival warband leaders, the Flaming Fist took off on their search of Avernus. After meeting several colorful characters, they made their way to Haruman’s Hill, a grim place where the narzugon they had encountered on Elturel’s streets tormented the souls of Hellriders who had abandoned Zariel during her fateful charge. Though the Flaming Fist once again forced the narzugon to flee, Lulu was captured during the fight by several Hellwasps and brought to their nearby nest. The Fist bravely followed and ended up having to kill the Hellwasp queen in order to save the poor Hollyphant.

Lulu was distraught, however, apologizing for having put everyone in danger to rescue her, especially since it turned out Haruman’s Hill was not the place she thought it was. Instead, she revealed, they needed to find the Bleeding Citadel. Before they could pursue that any further, though, a stranger identifying himself as Ivor Bodkin appeared, offering information about the missing children Haruman had abducted. He led the crew to a secret fortification underneath Haruman’s Hill, where Haruman was busy constructing some kind of labyrinthine bunker. Hoping to finish Haruman off and get revenge for Reya and the twins’ mother, the Fist charged in and cleared the compound of conscripted devils executing Haruman’s vision. Eventually they were able to locate the twins, but in a stunning betrayal, Ivor himself abducted the children and vanished with them, leaving no trace.

Frustrated and defeated, the Flaming Fist continued their search for the Bleeding Citadel, finding most of the denizens of Avernus to be quick to strike questionable bargains but slow to provide any concrete information. After rescuing a tiefling bard from a third warband, the Fist found themselves guests at a moving bazaar named the Wandering Emporium, operated by a curious creature named Mahadi who appeared human but acted much more like a devil. There they met a pair of devil bounty hunters named Alga & Saronis and were able to replenish some of their dwindling supplies.

The prices at the Wandering Emporium were high, however, and when some in the party fell to Mahadi’s temptation, they almost tore themselves apart until they realized they had been manipulated from the start. The goddess Beshaba was revealed to be part of a scheme to weave the original six Fist members’ pasts together, but rather than scatter the group, the revealed truths only served to strengthen their bond. Determined to redouble their efforts to stop Zariel’s plan, they set out to seek the aid of someone who might help them acquire the blood of none other than Tiamat. Arkhan was preoccupied with trying to free his queen from her Avernan prison, but he presented them with a tempting offer: provide him with an innocent life to sacrifice to the Hand of Vecna he had recently acquired and in exchange he would give them some of Tiamat’s blood. The Flaming Fist had enough innocent sacrifice so they plotted to double-cross Arkhan, but their plan almost backfired until Alga & Saronis intervened.

The bounty hunters were looking for a missing box containing several soul contracts, one of them belonging to a remorseful member of the Fist. They were able to convince the pair of hunters that they had not stolen the box, and joined them as part of a deal to acquire the blood stolen from Arkhan and possibly free their companion from his contract. As they pursued the thief, they ended up back at Fort Knucklebone where they learned Mad Maggie had been kidnapped by the person responsible for stealing the box. They were led to a cavern where the culprit was rumored to spend his time in between brazen gambits for power and infamy. But instead they found a powerful demon who chased them from the cave. They fled and were approached by their target himself, a mortal elf calling himself Smiler. Smiler explained that he had stolen the box to try and recover his own soul contract, but had not meant to frame the Flaming Fist. If anything he seemed eager to ingratiate himself to the group and learn as much about them as he could. With a bit of a plan and help from the bounty hunters and Smiler, they defeated the demon and located the box.

When Alga & Saronis tried to double-cross the Flaming Fist, Smiler stepped in and incinerated the contracts, infuriating the devil bounty hunters and freeing several dozen souls. They found Mad Maggie, recently deceased, and agreed to revive her in exchange for some shelter and a chance to recuperate. During the rest, two party members decided to stay behind and protect the cavern while the others followed-up on a lead provided by Smiler to find one of Zariel’s conscripted generals in a place called the Crypt of the Hellriders.

At the Crypt, a series of meticulously kept journals in a hidden, private study revealed a conscripted knight named Olianthus wrestled with the downfall of Zariel and the deaths of his Hellriders. When Olanthius arrived to investigate the Crypt’s disturbance, the Flaming Fist convinced him they had shared aims. Olanthius confirmed that he knew the location of the Bleeding Citadel, but gaining access to it would require his direct intervention, something he could not do with Zariel keeping close watch on him. He suggested a distraction might be sufficient to divide the Archduke’s attentions and provide a window of opportunity for him to provide aid.

He suggested that releasing the demon prince Kostchtchie, whom Zariel had imprisoned and stolen from, would likely occupy Zariel for some time. In order to do so, the Flaming Fist would need to gain access to something called The Arches of Ulloch.

The Flaming Fist made their way to the Arches where a sphinx identifying herself as Ulloch demanded they pass a trial, a test of knowledge of the Nine Hells. She teleported the group to one random Hell after another, asking each time, “In what hell do you now exist?” While beset by devils and infernal hazards, they were able to correctly identify all locations and gained access to the Arches. With the path to Kostchtchie’s prison now clear, they need only free him and return to Olanthius to gain access to the Bleeding Citadel at long last.

Stepping through the arches, the Flaming Fist made their way down to the bottom of a deep chasm where they found the demon Kostchtchie trapped in a pit of tar, restrained by magical chains that dragged him downward as he called to the group to free him and grant him opportunity to have his vengeance. As the demon prince’s cries were choked off by the tar, a being emerged from the pool, a familiar face in a new form: Haruman, now merged with his nightmare steed into a twisted mockery of a winged centaur.

Despite his mocking taunts, the Flaming Fist did not hesitate to engage Haruman, and they managed to distract him enough that he lost control of Kostchtchie’s chains, releasing the demon prince who set upon the newly-forged pit fiend, sending him once again into retreat. True to his word, once Haruman was gone, Kostchtchie raced off to find Zariel and extract his vengenace.

Hurrying back to the Crypt of the Hellriders, Olanthius took advantage of Zariel’s distraction and lead the Fist to an unremarkable spot in an open Avernan plain where he manipulated an infernal device, dropping a magical ward over a massive structure covered in gory tissue: The Bleeding Citadel at long last. Bidding them good luck, Olanthius departed to attend his conscripted duties and the group climbed to the top of the Scab, searching for a way in to the Citadel proper.

A series of tunnels had been carved—chewed, really—into the bloody tissue surrounding the Citadel. As they ventured inside, they saw evidence of the holy structure underneath and navigated the maze-like chambers within. They found the Scab overrun with demons, occasionally finding evidence of devils being killed or tortured by the infesting Abyssal fiends. As they explored, the Fist uncovered evidence that the demons were trying to unearth some object or creature by the name of Croek’toeck and encountered heavy resistance once their presence was known to the uncounted hordes.

As the delve into the depths of the Scab wore on, the pressure of time weighed on the Flaming Fist even as their stamina began to wane. Searching for a means to recuperate, the demonic leadership (potentially going by the name Trantolox) sent a strike force in a pincer assault against the mortals trying to flush them out once and for all.

The Fist decided to rally against their exhaustion and found themselves face-to-face with the forces intended to pressure their flank. However, they made quick work of the gnoll forces and raced deeper into the Scab, trying to outrun the pursuing forces who had breached the wall. They snuck down to the lower levels where they found a single demon working to open a set of gilded double doors. Translating the runes inscribed on the door, “Against evil, we stand united. Only the pure of heart can part these holy gates.” They convinced the demon to let them try to open the door, and were correct in their supposition that the demon could not follow. In fact, as healing light poured from the interior of the citadel, what replenished the Fist decimated the duped demon, who perished in screams of agony.

Inside the citadel the Fist laid eyes at long last on the Sword of Zariel, encased in stone with another ominous inscription: “The hero who becomes one with this blade exists in form no longer.” Undaunted, they approached the Sword and a ghostly figure appeared, informing them that they were not quite ready to wield Zariel’s holy blade. She used some of the citadel’s stained glass scenes to tell a story of a place called Idyllglen, and a battle that took place there and proved pivotal to Zariel’s eventual fall from grace. The ghost informed the Fist that in order to assume the burden of the Sword, they must experience Idyllglen for themselves and gain a deeper understanding of the Sword’s original owner.

The Fist found themselves teleported into the past, into Idyllglen in the midst of a demon raid. They sprang into action to defend the townsfolk from attacking gnolls and demons, barely gaining the upper hand before a panicked mob of villagers filled the town square, all fleeing from a grotesque marilith-like creature, half serpent and half gnoll with six arms each wielding a deadly curved sword.

They leapt between the fleeing villagers and the menacing foe, suffering a number of grevious wounds in the process while trying to finish off the deadly creature. It teleported around the town square, targeting the most vulnerable-looking Fist members, but ultimately even its six arms were not enough to spare its life. No sooner had the creature fallen than a group of Idyllglen’s watch, fresh from battling demons in the fields north of town, approached. Their skins and teeth stained with demon ichor, they could not distinguish friend from foe and approached the Fist with mad, threatening shrieks.

A local priestess emerged from the chapel and begged the Fist not to harm the men, swearing on Lathanader’s name that she could find a way to heal their ichor-addled minds. The Fist tried to reason with the men but they would not listen. With the aid of some well-timed magic, they were subdued and the voice of the ghostly woman from the Bleeding Citadel’s chapel echoed the praise of the priestess: thanks for sparing their lives.

As night fell over Idyllglen, the priestess healed the townsfolk and told the Flaming Fist to prepare themselves for the final assault. She led them in a prayer to Lathander, telling them aid was coming, but the town had to hold out against the forces of darkness until Lathander’s light could completely consume the statue of the angel Zariel in the center of the city square. She locked the survivors into the chapel and bit the Fist good luck.

With the onset of night, hordes of gnolls began swarming the city. As the light of Lathander slowly consumed the statue, more demons joined the fray, from six-armed gnoll-marilith hybrids to vrocks and balguras. The Fist fought bravely and then, with Lathander’s light only halfway covering the statue, Yeenoghu, demon lord of the gnolls, loped into town and began wailing his massive three-headed flail against the statue.

The massive demon prince proved difficult to pin down and the Fist’s attentions were split among the remaining chaotic forces swarming the town. But they managed to defeat the lesser demons and distract Yeenoghu long enough for Lathander’s light to fully consume the statue.

Angelic Zariel swooped down from the heavens on the back of a golden winged mammoth, smiting Yeenoghu back into a portal. Flanked with her Hellriders, the reinforcements swept the town and countryside, driving back all remaining demons. When the fighting was done, she thanked the Fist for their courage and healed their wounds, introducing some of her top companions: Lulu, her mammoth mount; Yael, Hellrider general; Olanthius and Haruman.

As the dream realm froze in place, Zariel addressed the Fist members directly. She described how frustrated the encounter at Idyllglen made her feel, how being reactive to the aggression of the chaotic evil forces of the Abyss always led to losses she felt were not only regrettable but, perhaps preventable if only she was willing to make sufficient sacrifices to ensure the safety and prosperity of those she had come to love. She asked each member of the Fist in turn what they might do in her shoes? Take a great risk for the chance of a greater reward, or continue to play things safe and accept the inevitable losses as part of the price of the everlasting struggle between evil and good?

The Fist gave their thoughtful answers and Zariel thanked each in turn with a blessing from Lathander. As the dream memory of Idyllglen faded back into the hall of the Bleeding Citadel, the ghost of Yael welcomed them back. Lulu, back in her hollyphant form, revealed that the Citadel had returned the last of her memories. She told the tale of how Idyllglen had cemented in Zariel’s mind the notion that she and the Hellriders needed to take bold and decisive, if dangerous and risky, action. With the memory of Idyllglen fresh in their minds, Zariel and the Hellriders charged through a portal directly into the Nine Hells, hoping to strike a crippling blow at the forces of chaos. But the Abyss was stronger than they had anticipated. The Hellriders fought bravely, but one by one they fell to the ceaseless onslaught of Hell. Lulu recalled that as desperation fell upon Zariel, she was approached in her lowest moment by Asmodeus. The ruler of the Nine Hells offered Zariel an opportunity to put an end to the Blood War by defeating the chaotic forces of the Abyss once and for all. His price was that Zariel must swear fealty to Asmodeus and be reborn as an Archdevil, lord of Avernus. As Zariel agreed, Lulu and Yael made a final, desperate bid to offer a sole path to redemption: they retrieved Zariel’s celestial Sword. The hollyphant sacrificed her mind and her magic and the Hellrider general sacrificed her life to construct the Bleeding Citadel to protect the Sword inside the boundaries of Avernus.

Yael’s ghost informed the group that, now that they had a better perspective on what had led to Zariel’s decision to join Asmodeus in the first place, they were finally ready to accept the Sword and complete the work started by her and Lulu long before. The members of the Flaming Fist debated who among them should accept the risk implied by the inscription. At last the party’s paladin grasped the sword and was transformed into a winged angel. The holy light erupting from the transformation process destroyed the Bleeding Citadel, leaving behind a gargantuan demon who had been encased and trapped in the Scab. The massive demon, wounded from the blast, rose and attacked the party, but they responded with some clever magic that ended the threat.

Without time to process all of the events, however, they party found themselves once more teleported against their will to a new pocket dimension. In this strange stone realm, they were approached by the warlock’s adoptive father and mentor, a man claiming to be a priest of Selune. He claimed to have been using Selune’s gifts to observe the Fist’s progress and came bearing a message from the goddess of the moon: give him the Sword of Zariel and let him be the one to finish off the archdevil.

The party resisted. The priest became increasingly agitated and belligerent, trying to convince them of his need for the Sword, even if it meant the warlock betraying his friends. But they steadfastly refused until at last the priest revealed that he had been an impostor since long before the warlock could remember. He ripped through his disguise revealing a massive, multi-eyed, serpentine devil and attacked the Fist on his home turf. Despite his overwhelming size and power, though, the Fist were able to defeat the devil through determination and teamwork.

Though devastated by the betrayal, the party was ready for a rest. As they tried to do so, however, the gigantic demon they had tried to deal with via polymorph returned. It seemed skittish after its magical misadventure as a harmless bunny, but it left behind a contingent of regurgitated demons for the party to deal with. Though they dispatched the demons easily, the massive creature escaped during the fight. After a respite to recover their fighting strength, the party then turned their attention to the problem at hand: finding Zariel.

After some discussion, they chose to return to the Arches of Ulloch. At the Arches, they reunited with Olanthius, who provided them valuable information. Namely, Haruman had fled Avernus entirely after his defeat, and Zariel was so aggrieved she had issued a standing order to destroy the newly-minted pit fiend on sight. Olanthius also revealed that Elturel was less than one day from reaching the surface of Avernus, at which point it would be irrevocably lost, and that Zariel was doing everything in her power to hasten the process as word had reached her of the Bleeding Citadel’s destruction which she believed to be a sign imminent assault from the chaos forces of the Abyss. To help manage Avernus’s temporal warping effects, Olanthius gifted the party a magical timekeeping crystal and informed them Zariel was last seen preparing her airship at the Stygian Dock. He encouraged the party’s plan to use the Arches to quickly move to the Dock and vowed to destroy the Arches behind them to prevent them being used by Zariel or the demonic armies.

On the other side of the Arches’ portal, the party saw Zariel’s flagship docked and proceeded to bluff their way on board and then stealthily climb up through the ship’s interior until they reached the deck. As they blinked in the hazy Avernan sunset, Zariel herself approached them, addressing them as “Raven’s Raiders” and welcoming them as if she expected their arrival.

Zariel spoke of monitoring their progress since back in Baldur’s Gate, thinking first of them as minor annoyances but growing more intrigued the closer they got to their goals. In the end, however, she misattributed their intentions thinking them to be ambitious allies in her war against the forces of chaos. She offered them high-ranking positions in their army, but they rejected her offer. Furious, she attacked and nearly defeated them until at last they were able to remind her of her past self. With Lulu’s encouragement, Zariel finally accepted her old Sword. As she did so, she was transformed back into her celestial form. The party was elated and even Lulu was so relieved and excited that she remembered how to transform herself and grew into her battle mammoth form.

Unfortunately, without Asmodeus’s gifts, Zariel was returned to her wounded, weakened state from the end of the Hellrider’s charge into Avernus. Incapacitated, she watched as the power vacuum drew hordes of devils to the surface of her airship, now en route toward the sinking city of Elturel. Zariel asked the party to keep her safe until she had a chance to restore her health and they turned to square off against swarms of powerful devils.

Raven’s Raiders, as Zariel had dubbed them, fought valiantly against the hordes of devils, managing to keep them away from the angel long enough for her to recover her strength and take up her place on the back of Lulu to cut through the devils. But there was no time for victory celebrations. Zariel once again appealed to the Raiders. The only way to save the city of Elturel was to sever the chains that were mere minutes away from pulling the city to the surface. But cutting the massive infernal iron links would not be enough. The Companion, Zariel explained of the massive ball of holy light that had once been the most distinctive feature of Elturel but had grown black and corrupted since the city’s fall, was not a sign from the gods. The Companion was in fact part of Zariel’s long game to establish a foothold of mass bonding of human souls to her. It was, more than anything else, a prison for a powerful planetar.

Zariel explained that once the chains were severed, the planetar would need to be released shortly afterward. Only the might of the celestial being would be sufficient to lift Elturel back onto the mortal plane. But the keys to the nine locks around the circumference of the Companion were lost in a battle some time ago. In the end, they decided to divide and conquer: Zariel and Lulu would retrieve the keys and unlock the Companion while the Raiders focused on the chains.

Using Zariel’s airship, the Raiders developed a plan to test one chain. They found the necrotic deck-mounted cannon on the ship suitable for melting through the links in a reasonable period of time. However, they were beset at each winch tower by flying devils intent on stopping their progress. Additionally, the party discovered that their strategy for navigating the chains clockwise was causing the city to tilt as the winches pulled unevenly on the city, threatening to destroy the bridges dividing east and west Elturel and hampering Duke Ravengard and his rallied survivors from keeping the city streets clear of rampaging devils.

As they quickly adjusted their strategy and tried their best to save the city, Zariel and Lulu returned with the keys and began working on freeing the companion. However, what they did not know was that a member of their party had negotiated a deal with his goddess Beshaba to present an offer to the dreaded Dragon Queen herself, Tiamat. Help release the city and Avernus can be yours, the offer went.

With one final winch tower and chain and only a few more locks left to release, Tiamat swooped in, screaming curses against Zariel and claiming herself the new ruler of all Avernus. She severed the final chain and turned her attention to the Companion and the angel, her motives and intentions dangerously unclear. The Raiders’ resident wizard, at the helm of the airship, brought the rest of the party to safety and then steered the ship between the massive multi-headed dragon goddess, distracting her just enough for Zariel to release the final latch.

Tiamat tore through the airship mercilessly but found herself too late to affect the outcome. The surviving party members watched, horrified from below, but some of them thought they saw a tiny gnome standing astride the mighty dragon’s back as Tiamat cursed and fled from the city surface lest she be transported along with the survivors back into the material plane. The freed planetar flexed its wings and dutifully flew beneath the city, carrying it rapidly back to the surface, back to the mortal realm where it belonged.

Zariel and Duke Ravengard met with the remaining Raiders to congratulate them. Zariel presented them with a golden feather from her wings, vowing that if they ever needed to use the feather to call on her, she would be there. Duke Ravengard offered his deepest thanks and suggested they head back with haste to Baldur’s Gate to enjoy some well-deserved R&R. Though saddened and confused by the loss of their friend, the party took Duke Ravengard’s advice to heart and began the journey home, secure in the knowledge that they had saved the city of Elturel and done their commanding officer and their order proud in service of Faerun.

…

However, as they approached their home city of Baldur’s Gate, they began noticing disturbing Wanted signs posted along the curiously empty road. There were no likenesses featured, but the descriptions were disturbingly accurate. Someone had put a bounty on their heads. As they drew within sight of the city’s towering gates, they found themselves surrounded by unfamiliar city guards. They were placed under arrest, and the arresting officer remarked to a lackey as they were taken into custody that their commander, someone going by the name “Countess Vanthampur”, had predicted the Raiders’ presence at that spot at that time.

 

And so the tale concludes… for now.

Links

• Campaign Page (Roll20)
• Session #51 Recap
• 5e.tools
• Loot Ledger

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