Arianna closes, staying between the devil and the horn, continuing to sing. She leaves the flanking position open for Cedric, thinking that suit probably packs some punch, and makes a quick jab with her rapier.
No Levar grits his teeth as both claws connect, but barely feels himself avoid what would be a tragic wound. He retaliates with his sawtooth blade before taking a short hop back to avoid another nasty claw.
He whiffs the air as he's backpedaling away from it.
After the creature attacks No Levar any hesitation Cedric had disappears as he charges into the fight attempting to clamp down on the creature with his eidolons jaws.
Although she expects Cedric's battle prowess to be larger, Arianna's strike is very convincing indeed: she jabs through the leathery skin of the fiend, which already looks badly hurt. No and Cedric attack as well, but fail to finish off the creature.
Being hit by Arianna this badly, the devil turns his attention to her, slashing his claw across her face.
---
Cedric
Arianna
No Levar
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Halitsu (9)
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No Levar takes a sidestep in order to flank with Cedric, as his sword goes in for another swing!
He feels his sword cut across the leathery skin of the creature.
Growling at the creature, Aria taunts it in Infernal, mixing the strange words into her song.
She follows this up with another jab.
No Levar shows his prowess in combat, and brings the demon to his knees, and his sword strikes home. The devil collapses to the rocky ground, then disintegrates into a heap of - what seems - maggots, that scurry off in all directions.
The place is empty and rocky and red.
Seeing the devil fall, Arianna brings her hand to her wounded check. When it comes away with traces of blood, she pushes her hand back against the wound to staunch the flow, then mutters under her breath, "Pompous little bastard. Deserved every bit of pain he got."
Turning to No and Cedric, she speaks up. "Well, at least it isn't going to go tattle to the boss and bring a whole flock of the damned things down on our head. That said, we probably shouldn't stick around, because sooner or later his relief is going to arrive. Could one of you check out that unfortunate soul to see if they were kind enough to leave us anything useful," she gestures to the corpse the little devil pointed to earlier when asked about threats, "and then we had best get moving. Given lack of any other apparent destinations, I'm thinking visiting this witch is probably the only vaguely reasonable option we have at the moment."
Aria then turns to the pile of formerly-devil and kneels down trying to look for anything of value. She does not actually touch it (eww), but just prods it with her sword, trying to see if anything solid was left after the devil fell apart.
No Levar turns to his comrades, sheathing his sawtooth blade with the fresh blood still on the teeth. "Perhaps this witch can help us get out of Hell. After you, Lady Arianna." He turns to the direction the creature mentioned earlier, ready to meet this witch and see what kind of magic she has.
The devil had very little on him in the sense of possessions. Closer inspection reveals his spear has a cold iron tip, and he has a potion on him.
Potion of infernal healing
Marching on through the sweltering heat of Avernus, the group eventually comes upon a river of sort. Everything has this sickening red glow here, so it takes the adventurers a while to figure out that the river is, in fact, a stream of blood. In the foamy water, the bubbles form the shapes of tormented faces before they dissipate again.
The river flows fast here, and the reek of old blood is quite strong. Disgusting too.
No Levar can't figure out what the potion is, moving along and making way towards the witch's place when they come across the river of blood. He looks up and down the "river" both ways to see if there's a bridge off in the distance anywhere. "I'd rather not get my boots dirty."
Arianna grabs the spear, just in case. Still grinning, but this time a bit less malevolently, she turns back to No. "Lady Arianna - I kind of like the sound of that. Tried pulling it off a couple of times with the sons of minor noble houses, but I never got it to stick. Silly fellows kept getting scared off before we could make it official."
Aria is also completely clueless about the nature of the potion, and passes it to Cedric to investigate.
Nose wrinkling in disgust (for the first time since No and Cedric have met her wiping the perpetual grin off her face), Aria approaches the bank and crouches down, looking at the faces. "Wonder if I knew any of these guys? Oh well, too late for them now." She stands up and joins No in looking around. "Can't say I'm particularly eager to be messing with the river, either. Not just eww, but for all we know it's also diseased, poisonous, or acidic."
Cedric is still shaken up by the fight as they approach the blood river. "This is not the place I had in mind when I want to travel the different planes." Cedric looks for some way to cross the foul river.
"Guess you weren't specific enough." No Levar takes out his already-bloodied sword and pokes it into the river, testing the waters by prodding at one of the many heads floating by.
No Levar prods into the water, but the faces just dissolve as his sword make contact, and they appear to be nothing more than a layer of foam. The adventurers find no obvious passage, but the river doesn't seem to be too deep here.
No Levar gives out a sigh and moves to step into the river, but then stops for a brief second. "I don't suppose either of you can heal up wounds, can you? I'd rather this blood not mix with mine..." He gestures to the open wound from the two claws that grazed him earlier.
"Unfortunately not," Aria replies, rubbing the wound on her cheek. "Didn't get slashed up quite so bad, but the little bastard got me once."
Giving one last glance up and down the river, with no crossing in sight, Aria sighs. "Might as well just get this over with. It'll take ages to find any other crossing, assuming one exists to begin with. I know a little bit of magic, so I can at least get us cleaned up on the other side so we won't be stuck with it."
Arianna and No wade in. The blood is warm, and the river floor is quite sticky. The red goop completely soaks into any cloth that makes contact. When the adventurers reach the other side, they look like they've just come home from a day job in the slaughterhouse.
"Ugh..." No Levar gags a little and looks over at Cedric, "And I assume you're perfectly fine in there... aren't you?" he gives him a grumpy frown. Being used to having wet clothing at sea, he marches on, leaving the blood as a warning to anything they come across.
Grimacing at the sight of the bloody clothing, Aria starts speaking a few words that make no sense in any language but sound quite musical, an incantation of a spell. Once it is complete, she starts trying to use it to clean the blood off her skin and out of her clothes.
Cedric follows the other two and comments. "Is it weird that I can feel it still?" Getting to the other side the blood just drips off the eidolon suit leaving no stains. "I shudder to think what else this place has in store for us."
The smell of blood, and its stain disappear, but the feeling of filthiness remains as the adventurers trudge on through the broken wasteland. Every odd minute, a ball of fire lights up the sky, pounding itself into the soil below with a trace of black smoke. Fortunately, so far all of these have stayed far away from the party.
On the horizon, the party sees some wisps of smoke, and a brief trek later there is indeed a thatched roof cottage, smack dab in the middle of nowhere. There's a single door and some shuttered windows.
"I don't see any reason not to announce ourselves." Cedric says before stepping up to the door and knocking. "Hello? Anybody home?"
It remains quiet for a long time after Cedric raps on the door. Quite long. Just the when the party was about to turn to a different action there's a sound coming from behind the pathfinders, dark and booming Announce yourselves. Who are you?
That's clearly a ghost sound spell
"My name is Cedric and these are my fellow travelers No Levar and Arianna. We are cross dimensional travelers that have gotten a little lost."
"And ye can quit with the ghost sounds, minor trickery doesn't work on us. If we hear more magic coming out of you, we're going to assume you're hostile like everything else on this plane, so play nice, yeah?" No Levar, considering the Ghost Sound a potential bad omen, unsheaths his bloodied sword.
Quietly, Arianna admonishes No Levar, "Stop that. If the devils haven't been able to do anything to her, I doubt we could do much, and I'd rather not cause any agitation."
Turning to the door, she joins Cedric in the friendly greetings. "Look, we're not here to cause any harm or trouble. Given where we are, most of the residents aren't particularly friendly, but from what we heard you had been successful in rebuffing the devils, so we thought our interests might align a bit more than most of the local beings."
Well, if I knew you wasn't fiends, I'd invite you right inside. Let me get something to check. I promise not to do anything to hurt if you turn out to be good folks.
Sure enough, after a short while the door opens, and a short, elderly half-elven woman is on the other side, leaning on a cane. Please pass through the door one by one. she says.
Aria steps up to the door hesitantly. "Um, just for the sake of full disclosure, it should probably be noted that, while I was born, raised, and lived my whole life to this point on the material plane..." She pauses for a moment, then sheepishly continues, "I actually have little bit of fiendish blood - I'm a tiefling. Not a fiend by any measure, but I just thought you should be aware of that, since it might make a difference depending on how you're planning on checking us out."
Still a bit sheepish at her deception and needing to drop it, she avoids looking at the other members of the party and their reactions, keeping her focus on the half elf.
"If that will be an issue, I guess I can stay outside while they go in..."
Well, waddayakno. A 'lith! In 'zu-land! You must be quite the brave one. Well you know what they say: a fiend's a fiend. 'Lith or 'Zu, you collect before the job from one, and after the job from the other.
'Zu refers to 'Baatezu', or devil, while 'Lith' refers to demons, as most have a name ending in 'lith' (e.g. Marilith)
So, what's a bunch of berks like you doing in this hell-hole? Hee-hee! the witch cackles. Lost your bearings? Your marbles? You can tell old Granny Nag!
"The planar travel was intentional. Can't say the same for the destination - I think the magic that sent us here had its own ideas about where it wanted us to go. Which reminds me, the model that opened the gate was missing something..." With that aside, she bends down and gathers up a rock or a bit of dirt to place in the open slot of the model when (if?) the party returns to the material plane.
No Levar waits patiently while Arianna does her diplomatic talking with the old hag. Curious to see what device she's using to "detect" him, he takes her offer to step through the door and enter the hut.
"Interesting. It appears Zu is slang for devil and lith is a term for a demon." Cedric says as he follows No Levar through the door.
For all appearances in the model, a simple lump of rock from this plane should do to complete it.
The witch hears the story of Arianna and responds Well, it wasn't much different for me. Here I was, living my life on the outlands, my place at the centre of everything. Until I caught the chant on the rest of the planes. So I work my spells, and investigate my magics, and >poof< I finally cast my spell. Now here I thought I had been peeled by my research, as nothing seemed to have happened, just some smoke and bad air, but when I stepped outside, I turned out to be here.
"You haven't by chance figured out a way back yet have you? If not then we are happy to help in anyway we can." Cedric says as he looks about the witches home.
"If ye want our help then we may need some patching up. We weren't as lucky when we arrived and had to fight a fiesty little critter before makin' our way here." Sensing that she isn't going to be hostile, he sheaths his weapon again and puts a hand on one of his claw wounds, applying some pressure to keep it from opening up and bleeding some more.
Ah, pixie tears and four-leaf clover. I got them from close to the seelie court, but you might as well try to find a snowball here. I've been trying to change my spell, adapt it to this place, but so far... Not much.
So I doesn't know'n'exactly how to get out of here. I can tell you who would know. Or what, to be more precise, eh. The witch says, somehow deeming it necessary to throw a wink.
It's the pillar of skulls. Which is a pillar, fer sure, made of skulls. Big pile of 'em. IT's supposed to be some kind of punishment fer sages. Ones that tried to peel their customers, lousy bunch. You can be sure they know everything, but you got to ask it the right questions. You gotta be smarter than it. Ask for a portal, yes, and don't forget to ask for a key too!
That big gemstone that No Levar took from the inner planes display is gone - that must have been the key to the last portal
They says the pillar is made of skull of those who lied for a living. Here's how you get there: you follow the river, you know, that stinky stream of goop you crossed heading here. Didn't think I saw you coming, eh? she cackles on.
Follow it, and you'll get to a cul-de-sac. That's what they call a dead end in tradegate. Posh berks. You enter there, and you'll find the pillar.
Now, if you want it to give you the chant, you have to pay the music: you give some information, you get some in return, understand?
Most of all, don't trust anyone around here, she cackles, You can't even be sure if I'm telling the truth
Aria has joined the rest of the party, and looks around the hut.
"We did manage to get a few words out of the feisty little critter before we had to deal with it. It said that you've been repelling the devils - any advice you can give us toward doing the same, or at least avoiding them, while we make the trip?"
"Speaking the truth might be beneficial to ye as well, since the answer could lead to all of us leaving this terrible place." No Levar keeps his hand pressed against his wound. "But if we're to make it to this pillar of skulls, we may need some healing, or at the least some herbs to dull the pain..."
No Levar narrows his eyes at the odd hag and can't seem to get any sort of idea on her motives or plans. What choice do we have he thinks to himself.
Ah-ah-ah-ah! the witch cackles, yes, the devils are pretty scared of me, aren't they. Let me tell you the dark of it, she says as she heaves a mace off the ground that wouldn't look out of place on an ogre this little baby here. Scares the living daylights out of 'em.
Some healing? Be sure not to ask for much, eh? You're on the plane of vile evil after all. 'ere, let me serve you some tea.
No Levar hesitates for a good minute, eyeballing the tea and wishing he had Detect Poison or Detect Magic, but instead has to drink it down without knowing what it is.
He doesn't seem to figure out what it is and decides to just experiment and drink it down, accepting any help since he's under half his regular hitpoints.
No Levar smells something that is distinctly herbal, and strong too. One sip of this stuff is plenty to burn in his throat, and the gulp that comes after just seems to completely rearrange his esophagus. Strong stuff, this.
No does start to feel much better after a while, even though his eyes glow an evil red for a minute or so.
Hee-hee the witch cackles as he sees No struggle with the brew that's enough to kick your behind, innit?
It's an old family recipe, though I had to switch out the green pixie with some ingredients that I could get around here. Don't worry, nobody's ever gone permanently blind from it.
”Ugh…” he gives out a few coughs as the last bits of it trickle down his throat. ”That was almost worse than that darn demon critter….” No Levar stretches a bit as the infernal healing takes effect, feeling his vitality return as his wounds mend together, looking very demonic as the skin reconnected and turned a dark red before returning to its normal sun-tanned skin tone. He twists his body left and right, the gash on his side completely gone as he looked up at the old witch and gave her a half-smile, all that he could muster together while looking at her ugly face. ”I owe ye one, ye crazy ol’ bag.”
Cedric watches as No Levar's wounds close. "Interesting, perhaps that is what is in this bottle we found on the devil." Cedric says as he floats a bottle on his person out the the eidolons hand to be displayed.
Yea, that'd be same stuff, hee-hee. the witch says as Cecric holds up the potion though more suited to the 'Zu palate, usually. I didn't make it, mind you, but it's quite common around here. A good one of those... it'll burn ya twice, if you what I'm talking about. Hee-hee!
His strength returned by dark magic, No Levar is ready to depart and see this "pillar of skulls".
"Well let us be on our way. No use staying in this dimension any longer then we have to." Cedric will wait to see if Arianna needs some tea before heading out.
The party moves out of the house and back to the river, following the directions of the mad hag. Sure enough, the cul-de-sac dead end is there, and looming up from the red landscape is a twenty-foot high, ten feet wide pillar (). Not so much made of skulls, as of living, talking heads. As they spot the party, they erupt in a cacophony of mutters, phrases, statements, greetings and threats. High-pitched voices, deep dark voices, muffled voices from half-buried heads, until finally
a big Ogre head, decayed and ugly, rolls his eyes grotesquely in every direction to ogle the party.
Cedric looks over at No Levar then back at the Ogre head while pointing at himself. "You mean me right?"
the ogre head shouts, unable to point and his decaying stare not looking in any particular direction