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Moving on to the base of the King of Roses, the party walked up to the small wall of brambles and roses, saw the thorn snare at the entrance, saw the several Roseblood sprites hiding in the brambles, and called out to them. The CR 3 sprites wisely decided that the party of badass-looking, heavily armed and armored adventurers who had clearly seen them and their little ambush were not to be f@&#ed with, and agreed to let them come down and see the King. Particularly after the party opened with that they weren’t here for a fight, but were seeking an audience to discuss a possible alliance against the Grey Maidens invading the Vale.

Descending down the winding stair into the earth, the party stepped down into the main audience hall to find a large group of sprites waiting for them, along with two hulking troll-like fey (CR6 Darklings, essentially here as the sprites “muscle”) standing on either side of a wall of brambles blocking the way to the back chamber where the King of Roses was. A great deal of dried and not-quite dried blood formed a sticky pool in the middle of the floor that the sprites were gathered around, sampling and taking turns “opening a fresh tap” from the bound-with-brambles figure hanging by their feet from the ceiling.

To the party’s great surprise, a closer inspection of the man’s scratch-covered face revealed the victim was none other than their old random NPC fisherman buddy from Korvosa, Fishguts Jim! My party loved this guy, and I indulged them by having them bump into him to help him out of ever more outlandish situations throughout the campaign. The last time they saw him, he had been badly mangled by Marlessa in a plot at revenge-by-proxy against the party towards the end of Book Three. He survived that attack, but his new-wife Tiora (also rescued by the party from the Dead Warrens back in Book One) had not. Unfortunately, the party had left the distraught widower Fishguts back in Korvosa when they had needed to flee for their lives at the end of Book Three. Here was his Book Four appearance, after the unlucky NPC had gotten hired/drafted by the Grey Maidens to serve as a helper/porter for the road-construction efforts across the Vale.

Lucky for the sprites, the party managed to keep their murder engine shifted to “Neutral”, as I doubt the dozen CR3 spirtes nor the CR6 Darklings would have done more than die messily if the party had decided it was time for violence in the name of saving Fishguts. The sprites explained to the party that Fishguts Jim was a “prisoner of war”, as the mortals invading the Vale called it, and that they had taken several more such prisoners, mostly workmen like Fishguts but also a lone Grey Maiden (somehow). Being chaotic s&#~s as Fey tend to be, however, rather than attempting to extract useful information out of them the fey had been bleeding them and torturing them for s+!@s and giggles, and to drain out all the tasty blood to nurture themselves and the rose fort (they are called Roseblood spirtes after all).

True to the module, the sprites also said to the party that the King would not speak with them unless they could present a proper gift to him – namely, a root from their cellars over there. Only the largest and most bitter would do! Well, this didn’t prove to be much of a challenge for the eagle-eyed and Nature-loving Rholand, who marched through the nearby archway, passed through the beat-up other workmen and grey maiden that the spirtes were saving “for later”, found the roots, and picked out the correct one almost immediately.

Coming back to the group, the King of Roses wisely decided not to test the party’s patience further, and granted them an audience rather than continue with the as-written request that they now needed permission from his “mother” (the largest rose bush down in these depths, with everlasting roses and very long, sharp thorns). The party cut right to the chase with the discussion of an alliance, promising to help drive out the grey maidens in exchange for the sprites letting their prisoners go. There was some back and forth negotiation here, but getting the sense that our heroes meant business again the King of Roses wisely decided not to push things too much. He agreed to let the Grey Maiden and Fishguts Jim go into the party’s custody, and promised to let the other workmen go as well. Of course, the party never actually went back to check on whether or not the untrustworthy King kept his word, so true to form (as given in the AP), he almost certainly had the remaining workmen prisoners sucked dry and let his sprites play bowling with their skulls or something. None of the other workmen had names though, so they didn’t actually matter though, right guys?

In exchange for this magnanimous gesture of goodwill, the Rose King revealed a gem-like key, which he explained had been left in the care of his people by the great Sorceror-Empress (Sorshen), who had gifted this entire Vale to his people and other tribes of Fey in exchange for their service in protecting it – and the secrets kept within a vault located within that horrid field of bones along the Vale’s western edge. (This vault was essentially a secret laboratory that Sorshen had set up after the final battle to study the relics of Kazavon, and was Togomor’s goal here.) The gem-like key, however, was not to the vault itself, but rather a powerful last-ditch weapon that Sorshen had also hidden here, codenamed “Ragnarok”, and had the Fey swear to unleash upon their enemies should it seem as if the Vale was going to be conquered. Unfortunately, the Rosebloods only had this one-third of the key, and it would require the keys from the other two tribes (a group of Redcaps and a tribe of Boggarts) elsewhere in the Vale in order to unlock and free Ragnarok to protect the Vale. In truth, again being a chaotic evil little bugger, the King of Roses basically just wanted to unleash this weapon and see what would happen. He thought the party was his best chance at achieving this, since his Rosebloods couldn’t overpower the boggarts or the redcaps to take their keys, but maybe the party could accomplish unleashing Ragnarok in his stead.

Making vague promises about looking into this, the party took the key, their new Grey Maiden prisoner, and Fishguts Jim, and got out of there. Fishguts Jim was naturally quite happy to be saved yet again by his PC best buddies in the whole world, while the Grey Maiden – a low-level footsoldier named “Janice” wasn’t particularly happy to have traded one set of captors for another (it was debatable whether she hated the literal bloodthirsty sprites more or less than the infamous traitors who had broken the heart of her queen). But as the party went off to set up camp a little ways off from the Roseblood sprites fortress, they got to find out just how unhappy with them the Grey Maiden trooper was – in the next session!

If they had assembled the trio of keys and then went onto where Ragnarok had been kept chained, they would have discovered a rather unsettling stairway leading down into darkness. At the bottom would be a writhing black mass of shadows, swirling around a stone pedestal with three key slots in it. Putting all three keys into their respective slots would have then freed Ragnarok, a rather nasty CR13 Grimm fey, who was there as a final failsafe to keep the Vale protected . . . by killing every living thing in it, including the Fey. So, probably good for the Roseblood Sprites and their King to have his curiosity go unresolved by the party! Although I imagine since Ragnarok would have tried starting with the party who has just freed him, things would not have ended well for the Fey Killer.

I did have a somewhat unsettling musical piece selected for Ragnarok’s theme, although I think it was chosen more for the unsettling lyrics (a final warning that maybe it was better to let chained Fey lie) rather than any thematic consistencies with the character of Ragnarok, who was essentially just a big “kill everything” monster.
Ragnarok Musical Theme

So the party decided that they’d go poke at the Vale, rather than go on Oliver’s “I’m special” quest and loot the hidden vault within the old Order of the Griffon stronghold, right out from under Zarmangarof’s (for some reason his name eventually got mutated into Zarmangorf, perhaps in an inadvertent homage to Ganondorf? I dunno, my brain is like that sometimes) nose. It was at this point that Sial finally decided enough was enough, and threw up his hands and refused to go on any more adventures with the party, declaring that he would set out for Scarwall on his own. Laori was not happy about this, particularly when Sial declared that she would be coming with him, and putting his foot down here as well that as the Shadowcount and her immediate superior within the Brotherhood of Bones, she would obey his orders. Cid wasn’t particularly happy about this decision, either, especially after having worked so hard to reunite the sisters, but ultimately accepted this rather than strangle Sial and throw him off the nearby cliffs of Kaer Maga.

For her part, Abigail was going to remain in Kaer Maga to try and get used to her new body and reunite with Sergio and the rest of the Star Weavers. Vox also agreed to stay to keep an eye on things, particularly in the event some new disaster befell Kaer Maga while the party was away. With their numbers slightly diminished in terms of the NPC menagerie following them around, the party set out for the Bloodsworn Vale.

With Gwen available as a ride, the trip to the Vale from Kaer Maga would be pretty short and uneventful, although I have put my DM foot down and repeatedly told the party that while riding Gwen around is fast, it is *not* stealthy even with Invisibility magic available. The other issue with the “just fly into the Vale” plan was that Gwen was absolutely TERRIFIED of being anywhere near Togomor, because she was convinced that he would enslave her again with Geas magic. So while she would take the party *to* the Vale, they were going to be on their own once inside while Gwen stayed far away outside the Vale and awaited their return – that was her plan, anyway. Not having a Limited Wish scroll handy again to un-Geas her should Togomor somehow get his magic claws on her again, the party accepted this and proceeded on foot.

The first difficulty they found waiting right at the entrance to the Vale, in the form of a hastily constructed stone wall, gatehouse, and Grey Maiden barracks (made by Fabricate and Wall of Stone spells supplied by Togomor) that completely blocked off the primary canyon leading into the Vale from the western Korvosa side. They initially decided that they would try to slip through the gate somehow, but after they learned that the gatehouse was being commanded by the Captain Neda Droksin that they had met in Harse, they decided to try and talk their way past her.

Talking to the captain proved to be a mistake, as after Vaz’em slipped out of ninja invisibility near her and revealed himself, she bitterly called him a traitor and that she should have never trusted them – apparently, the good Captain had finally gotten the message that the PCs were officially declared traitors in Korvosa. This led to a fairly one-sided fight after Captain Droksin started shouting out an alarm to the garrison where Vaz’em ripped out the captain’s guts all over the ground, worked the lever to swing open the gates, and the party rushed through while the rest of the Grey Maiden garrison sounded the alarm and struggled to ready themselves to repel the attack. Except, of course, that the attack had already come, killed their commander, and gone in the space of about fifteen seconds – hurray D&D/Pathfinder combat in six second rounds! So the party was through the first obstacle, and hurried on into the Vale.

Stopping briefly on a cliff shortly past the canyon-blocking base, the party got a good look down into the Vale itself, discovering that the Grey Maidens were making speedy progress on getting through the Vale – there was already a (Fabricated) stone bridge across one of the two rivers running through the Vale, with a sizable Stone Fortress set up nearby, and a partially finished stone bridge across the second river. They also noticed a strangely barren region off in one corner of the otherwise very lush Vale, which certainly piqued their interest.

I don’t quite remember now how the party learned this information – likely in the brief discussion with Captain Droksin, but they had learned the Grey Maidens were facing some difficulties in crossing the Vale. A group of bloodthirsty sprites serving a Fey known as the King of Roses was evidentially giving the Grey Maidens a hard time, abducting lone Grey Maidens and a number of the workers that the Grey Maidens had brought with them to actually do the work of building the bridges and fortifications.

With the idea of maybe finding some local allies within the Vale, the party decided to go investigate this King of Roses first, and set off deeper into the Vale to locate his strange, small little kingdom. Which they did in the following session!

The party had also sneaked into the fortress through the Bebelith-infested tunnels beneath it, had a vaguely untrustworthy guide in the form of the succubus Jadith (who would be VERY untrustworthy if they hadn’t just saved her from getting eaten and discorporated possibly for forever by a Bebilith, and more importantly to her, had Laori with them who was just ITCHING for an excuse to carve some more scars into her), and Laori had her own memories of the place to guide them. So, for the aforementioned reasons for not wanting to drag this out into an extended dungeon crawl and their relatively good planning (i.e. sneak in and acquire a denizen to guide them) the party got a pretty straight line up into the fortress and over to where Abigail was being held.

Which isn’t to say that Abigail was completely unguarded – guarding the door to where she was being held was a pair of Balban demons. Laori apparently recognized one of the two, greeting him as “Phil”, although whether this was the demon’s actual name or a nickname Laori had given the creature in her years of growing up in this strange place was unclear. Regardless, Phil and his buddy were not particularly accommodating to the party’s presence here in the sanctum of their master, and quickly rushed forward to attack. Of course, at this point the CR8-ish demons were not particularly threatening to our heroes, particularly now that Cid had access to evil-be-gone AKA Smite Evil, and so were swiftly dispatched.

Kicking the set of double doors that the demons had been guarding inwards, Cid led the way into the next chamber, where a massive (i.e. mechanically Large size) crystal sat atop a dias, held upright by several thick chains hanging from the ceiling. The crystal glowed with a sickly green inner light, backlighting the silouhette of a feminine form curled up and suspended/preserved within the crystal like a bug in amber. Trusting this was indeed Abigial and not some sort of trap or *other* captured-to-be-corrupted paladin, Cid ran forward into the room and called out to the crystal while looking around for some way to open it without needing to smash the crystal and possibly harm its contents. Before he could get too far into some sort of insane PC plan to cart off the crystal or dissolve it or teleport Abigail out of it, Elzeer-Ka teleported into the room in his stylishly-dressed human guise, presumably alerted through some sort of alarm spell set up in the room (or merely telepathically alerted by Jadith the succubus/Phil the Balban door guard).

The balor lord revealed that he was not angry at Cid’s presence here, in fact he welcomed it, although he was a little annoyed that Cid was so early. Apparently, Elzeer-Ka had been planning on telling Cid himself in a little while (read probably a couple months/years in the Rift of Eons, given the time dilation here), inviting him here to be reunited with his beloved Abigail. This explained why the outside portion of the fortress had been decorated, as Elzeer-Ka was directing his minions to prepare a celebration to welcome Cid in the typical human style. Indeed, if the party had gone in through the main doors, I had planned on an encounter with several vrocks wearing paper birthday party hats, having photoshopped literal party hats onto the tokens and everything – along with, of course, the requisite succubus hiding inside a big birthday cake. But since Cid was here now, Elzeer-Ka reluctantly accepted that his preparations were clearly for naught.

Gesturing to the crystal, Elzeer-Ka confirmed that Abigail was inside, but that she was not “done” yet, as his “gift” to her of a new, more fitting body was still growing inside of the crystal. Interrupting her metamorphosis at this juncture would be potentially quite hazardous to her health, and the balor lord claimed that Abigail didn’t want to see Cid anyway, given the way he broke her heart. But when Cid was adamant that he wasn’t leaving without her, Elzeer-Ka called out to the crystal as well – “Oh Abigail! Your former lover is here! Do you have anything you wish to say to him!?” In response, the crystal cracked as the silouhette within stirred, the sickly green light giving way to a shining corona of fire from within the crystal. And then, the crystal explosively shattered, and the reborn Abigail was revealed as she leapt at Cid.

Surprisingly delicate ram’s horns curled back from Abigail’s brow now to sweep along either side of her head. A long tangled mane of familiar golden blond hair hung down in front of amethyst-colored eyes. But the biggest change, of course, were the massive bat wings that now hung from her back, flaring out to their full extent as the reborn Abigail half-lunged, half-flew at Cid. She crashed into him hard and they rolled across the floor, Abigail screaming curses and accusations at him as she pummeled him with her bare fists, gouts of magical flame bursting out of her clenched hands as she lashed out. For his part, Elzeer-Ka merely stepped aside, clearly amused by this violent reaction from his newest protégé, although presumably he would have intervened if anyone else in the party had moved to help Cid.

I had planned for this to be some sort of combat encounter, Cid and Abigail basically beating the hell out of each other until they worked out their issues and Abigail vented her initial round of demon-enhanced anger, while additional lesser demons flooded into the room to attack the rest of the party and Elzeer-Ka just watched and laughed at the carnage of his latest convoluted plan to make his enemies kill each other. In the end it worked out to be more of a roleplaying encounter between Cid and Abigail as Cid basically flat-out refused to fight back, even to defend himself as Abigail pummeled him silly, having gotten a *significant* upgrade to her strength with her new body.

I had planned out several musical numbers for this encounter, sort of representing different “phases” in the back-and-forth conversation between Abigail and Cid as the magus-turned-paladin owned up to perhaps the last of his dumb mistakes from his previous life. Unfortunately, I lost the document where I was storing the song names and Youtube links when my computer hard drive died unexpectantly on me (*always* backup your stuff folks!). Thus, the only theme music I have for this particular confrontation is the one song that I can remember, from Papa Roach (Cid’s theme band), which was to serve as sort of the “climatic ending” theme.

Theme Music – Wish You Never Met Me by Papa Roach

Eventually, Cid’s refusal to fight back and calm apologies for what he had done get through to Abigail, although not before she literally throws him *through* the stone exterior wall of the citadel, leading to the fight concluding out on a narrow cliff face overlooking the Rift of Aeons descending ever deeper out of sight into the Abyss. Laori revealing herself to be Abigail’s long-lost sister Lucinda also cut through the demonic rage haze, although it earned Cid a couple extra punches to the face for sleeping with Abigail’s literal little sister first. Eventually though, Abigail’s blows slowed and then softened, turning from bone-crunching hits intending to kill to just angry thumps on Cid’s chest, to Abigail clenching Cid in a bear hug and crying out the last of her rage and grief onto his shoulder. Elzeer-Ka was disgusted and disappointed by the display of emotion and Abigail’s pseudo-forgiveness, having promised Abigail a place by his side in the archetypical villain speech of “strike him down with all your anger, and take your rightful place at my side!” Having lost interest in the display at this point, the balor lord left with a final admonishment that there would be consequences for Abigail being released from stasis before she was “done” (and secretly smiling to himself along with the DM as Cid once again took the schmuck bait, hook-line-and-sinker).

Deciding that getting out now before the mercurial balor lord changed his mind on killing the lot of them, the group formed up in a circle with Abigail in tow and Laori cast Plane Shift again, returning them all to the material plane. Technically there should have been an added complication here with Plane Shift putting them 5-500 miles off target from where they were intending on coming back to, but with Sending and Sial having Teleport and Gwen being a dragon with supersonic jet fly speed, this forming back up with the rest of the party and their return back to Kaer Maga was largely just handwaved.

Once they were on safer ground again, Abigail still struggled to come to terms with her new body. Her experiences as a vampire and now as a half-demon had irrevocably altered her worldview, pushing her from a paladin that was at times struggling to remain a paladin due to her anger issues, into a full-fledged ex-paladin. However, while Sarenrae would no longer call Abigail Her champion, the Dawnflower nonetheless offered some hope to her rescued discipline in the form of new divine powers and spells to augment Abigail’s new bare-fists approach to combat. She also still was mad at Cid, confessing she was still mad at him for sleeping with Laori and needing time to process that the Zon-Kuthite was actually her long-lost sister as well (and thus putting a pin in Cid’s player’s “Sister Wives” plan . . . although it wasn’t a hard no, either . . .)

There was one upside to her new demonic form that Abigail discovered upon returning to Kaer Maga – she could now fly with her wings. She no longer needed to strap herself into a rickety overgrown kite and leap off the cliffs of Kaer Maga in order to experience the exhilaration of flight. And it was on that scene of Abigail giggling and shouting with mounting delight as she ran along the cliffs of Kaer Maga and then jumped skyward that we closed out the session.

While not perfect, Cid had done a good thing in rescuing Abigail, and while no longer paramours (for now *eye roll* ), their relationship at least had a chance to heal in the absence of Elzeer-Ka poisoning the wound further. With this last piece of Cid’s “I’m special” quest complete, attention returned to the remaining business that the party had in-hand prior to venturing out in search of Old Tamrivena with Sial (and Laori, technically, even though she was practically fighting Trinia and Gwen for the role of party mascot at this point). Namely, they could either fulfill the Council of Kaer Maga’s request to go investigate and disrupt whatever the Grey Maidens were doing in the Bloodsworn Vale, or complete Oliver’s “I’m special” quest by venturing to the conquered fortress of the Order of the Griffon, the organization that Parashial – Oli’s father – led before becoming a washed out drunk. Ultimately, the party made the fateful decision to follow the “main” plotline sorta-side quest of investigating the Bloodsworn Vale. And what awaited them there would have staggering repercussions for the rest of the campaign, even beyond my ominous hinting through seers that when they went to Old Tamrivena and Castle Scarwall, one of them would die.

After considering a few she-demon tokens to represent the new Abigail, I decided I would continue the tradition of characters being reincarnated to anime versions by henceforth representing Abigail with Yang Xiao Long from RWBY – they’re both blonds with flaming fists and anger management issues, so it seemed to fit nicely!

Mechanically, to represent the slowly growing influence of her demon side, I swapped Abigail from LG to NG, stripping her of paladin status. Since Cid got a free class rework, I gave her one as well, swapping her from a paladin to a sacred fist warpriest of Sarenrae. And I gave her one HELL of a stats boost by turning her from a human into a half-fiend, with the half-balor subtype template – which is one helluva CR boost template, so at least Elzeer-Ka spared no expense in creating her new body! Of course, there was always a catch when this particular balor lord was involved, and so the DM had already planned out some future complications for Cid and Abigail to deal with later on, in Book Six and Seven as a result of this transformation, Elzeer-Ka’s plans for Abigail, and Cid waking Abigail up “early” from her transformation into a demon.

With her memories restored, Laori knew how to Plane Shift the group to the Rift, and fortunately as a demi-plane within the Abyss they should appear relatively on-target despite Plane Shift’s notorious lack of accuracy (something like 5-500 miles from your intended target). The party wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about going to the Abyss on a potential rescue mission for someone who might not even want to be saved now, but Cid was adamant that he make the attempt to save her. And ultimately, after it became clear that Laori and Cid would plane shift and go without the others if they had to, the party relented and agreed to come along to help Cid on this last extra leg of his “I’m special” quest.

With Laori needing to prepare not one, but two Plane Shift spells to get the party there and back again, the party risked one more day to rest up and prepare. There was one additional complication here, in that Laori could only take six other people with her, as Plane Shift could transport a maximum of eight people at a time, including the caster, and they needed to leave an extra spot open for Abigail, assuming they could convince her to return with them (and of course, that nobody died on this little field trip to the Abyss….which would have been quite a complication, given the whole “soul is stuck in the Abyss then”). Sial, as usual, didn’t give a rat’s ass about this latest “cat stuck in a tree” (he especially found Cid grating on the nerves, particularly following his transformation into a paladin, and Cid likewise no longer found Sial’s dark edgy snarikness amusing, so no love lost between them here). So he would continue to stay beyond, along with Oliver’s henchmen Righty and Lefty, and unfortunately Gwen (the party really didn’t need a dragon flying around in the Abyss to get them any more extra attention from the locals). Vox would likewise remain behind to keep a LG watch on all the evil people and henchmen, while Cyrus (as Cid’s new cohort) and Carpenter (as Oli’s cohort) came along for the ride with Laori, Cid, Vaz’em, Oliver, and Rholand (Azizel also got to come along as Cid’s familiar since, as is typical for familiars, they don’t exist at all until someone remembers they’re around and the party needs them for something. :D )

As expected, Laori’s Plane Shift was effectively right on target, putting them in the midst of a barren purple rock-strewn plain. A shimmering aurora borealis filled the “sky” over their heads, and seemed to be the only source of eerie light here as there were no other celestial bodies up in the sky – floating islands hovering overhead in the distance, on the other hand, were plentiful. A short distance away, the rocky soil began to crack and break apart, revealing a more flesh-colored substrate that looked disturbingly alive and organic, like muscle poking up through the plane’s cracked purple skin. Like a deep wound cracked in the surface of the plane, an immense canyon had been gouged into the surface of this plane – the namesake “Rift of Eons” that decorated the 333rd layer of the Abyss. Vein-like strands of planar substrate stretched between both sides of the rift, essentially serving as the pathways that would allow foot traffic to pass back and forth between both sides of the Rift. Carved out of the far wall of the immense canyon from the party was an imposing fortress, no doubt their destination. Strangely, no demons were “frolicking” about looking for trouble, and the imposing fortress on the far side of the Rift was brightly lit up with several colorful banners awkwardly slung above what otherwise would have been an ominous-looking front entryway.

Unsure what the decorations were all about, the party decided caution was the best approach here on their first real extraplanar adventure, and so they agreed to enter the fortress through some side tunnels that wormed their way around beneath and eventually up into the main fortress – tunnels that Laori remembered for some reason, presumably from some half-hearted escape attempt during her stay as Elzeer-Ka’s guest (and definitely not implanted there by Elzeer-Ka himself as part of his various mucking about in Laori’s brain with Modify Memory spells….) Uncertain therefore about whether Laori’s memory could be trusted not to lead them into a trap (the party still trusted Laori at this point, just not her memories of a place as Chaotic as the Abyss, and when it had already been confirmed Elzeer-Ka has been messing with her memories), the party reluctantly chose to make use of the tunnels given the only other alternative was a head-on assault on the front gates of the cliff fortress.

Following the narrow ledge leading further down into the chasm, the party filed down in single file, eventually crossing the canyon itself on a narrow vein-like outcropping that stretched from one wall of the canyon to the far side where Elzeer-Ka’s fortress hung. Still finding nothing but gloom and the eerie dim glow that suffused the air of this demiplane, the party ducked into the crack in the far wall of the canyon that seemed to lead into the tunnels. Only a short distance into the fleshy rock of the Rift of Aeons, and the party arrived into a web-lined chamber. A hulking many-legged horror lurked in the back corner of this chamber, making a half-hearted attempt to hide for an ambush but a house-sized demon spider was not skilled enough to avoid detection by Rholand and Vaz’em who were on high-alert upon seeing the leading edges of the web-coated tunnel. It’s ambush foiled, the Bebilith nonetheless leapt forward to attack with an unearthly shrieking hiss.

Battle Theme – Spider Dance from Undertale OST

Unfortunately for the demon-eating spider, while it was more than a match for the lone demon that strayed too far outside of its master’s fortress, it found Cid considerably harder to hit and it had no answer for Vaz’em tearing its guts out while Cid cleaved its face in half with a smite evil. Of course, the thing was only a CR 11 advanced monster versus a hardened 12th level adventuring party (with friends/cohorts) so it was always going to be little more than a speed-bump to them regardless. After the beblith was reduced to a splatter of ichor all over the walls of its lair, the party moved on to checking out its larder in one web-packed corner of the chamber before moving onwards. They did not find any treasure, more’s the pity, but they did find a cocoon of webs confining some sort of human-sized demon (presumably the bebilith’s webs blocked teleportation or something otherwise it would find hunting demons that could teleport at-will rather difficult). Cutting into the cocoon, they discovered the bebilith’s prisoner was a maimed and heavily disfigured succubus, although the scars criss-crossing the demonness’s once-pristine face seemed to be older wounds than the missing arm that the bebilith had gnawed off.

Laori immediately recognized the succubus, spitting out her name in clear disgust and half-remembered rage – Jadith. The succubus likely would have tried to play the “oh thank you kind adventurers, is there anything I can do to repay you for saving me life, teehee *wink* “ card if not for the presence of Laori, who the succubus likewise recognized and was blatantly quite afraid of.

The basic backstory here is that while Laori was growing up here in the Rift of Aeons, Jadith had been put in charge of being the child Laori’s caretaker/nursemaid. And of course being a demon the succubus had abused her position of power and terrorized and tormented the young Laori in her care . . . at least until said child snapped and carved into the succubus’s face with a cold iron dagger, leaving her in her badly disfigured state to this day, as Elzeer-Ka found the whole thing amusing and forced Jadith to keep her scars as a punishment for harassing his guest/surrogate “daughter”. So Jadith wasn’t particularly happy to see her old protégé here, particularly as a skilled adventurer with a lot of powerful adventurer friends, even if they had just inadvertently rescued her from being slowly devoured by the bebilith.

For Laori’s part, while she still hated the succubus and wouldn’t mind seeing her dead, Jadith did have a better idea of all the secret passages and routes up into Elzeer-Ka’s fortress, making her a valuable if even less trustworthy source of information. Still, the succubus did offer to lead the party up into the fortress through a secret passage (the same one that she had followed to be down here before being jumped and captured by the bebilith) that would get them relatively close to where Elzeer-Ka was keeping his newest “guest”.

Eager to make a deal to save her own life and with the party having few options still to get into the fortress discretely so that they could find Abigail and plane shift out, Jadith and the party each reluctantly chose to work together, and we closed out the session there as the party prepared to head “upstairs” into the fortress proper.

They did not have to wait long, as more of the proto-devils came crawling up out of the ground and closed on the crumbling fortress from all directions. Shortly thereafter, they are joined by Mavrokeras teleporting in, apparently aware of the party’s presence through some innate connection to the proto-devils (they were spawned from his blood, after all). With Mavrokeras is a trio of barbed devils who introduce themselves to the party via their own sung theme song – the Yallop Bros! Mavrokeras nearly knocked his own head off, he face-palmed so hard at the brothers ‘ridiculous entrance undercutting his aura of menace. Recovering, he ordered them to attack the party while he engaged Eurydice in a spell duel, the angel finally shrugging off her cloak to reveal a set of flaming wings (revealing her to be a Peri-type angel).

For once, the party had a bit of difficulty in blundering their opposition, in part due to the fact that as special named devils, I adjusted the Yallops’ feats from the standard barbed devil list, and gave them Blind-Fight, making Vaz’em have to work for his sneak attacks for once. Still, with Hazaali’s Lawful-outsider bane effect, Vaz’em could still cut through their DR, and Cid’s newfound smite evil certainly laughed at any DR, and Oli was . . . well, Oliver. They manage to take out one of the Yallops Brothers, sending him screaming back to Belzeragna, although that still leaves two more – and now Zerix comes in stomping through the trees to join the battle, the retriever unable to just teleport wherever it wanted like its masters.

Meanwhile, the duel between Eurydice and Mavrokeras is certainly not going in Eurydice’s favors, as Peri angel tended to do a lot of fire damage, which of course Mavrokeras was immune to, and the leader of the ancient order of magi was still more skilled than his former subordinate.

I had expected the group to ultimately lose this confrontation, thus forcing Eurydice to take drastic action, but as before the dice actually gave me a convenient excuse to call the fight before PCs started dying. Shortly after entering the fight, Zerix unleashed a bout of his eye rays, including the Petrification one on Cid, and despite having Paladin saves, well a Natural one is always a failure, so . . .

The fight comes to a screeching halt after Mavrokeras boasts about planning on deleting that arrogant smirk from Cid’s face forever by shattering his head off his statue shoulders, prompting Eurydice to call out to him to stop! In exchange for sparing Cid’s life (along with the rest of the party) and vowing to leave them all alone after that (effectively abandoning his claim on the souls of the three ex-Hellknights forever), Eurydice would sign a contract with him to take their place. As “the one that got away” from damnation all those millennia ago, Mavrokeras was actually intrigued by the deal, and agreed.

As almost an after-thought, Azizel was also included in the deal, with Mavrokeras frankly glad to be rid of the rebellious devil. Azizel screamed as his soul was drawn out of Cid’s old black blade, transformed into a writhing mass of black goo that ultimately would coalesce and reshape itself into the shape of . . . a winged cat? Getting his own form of redemption and rebirth here, Azizel evolved from a black blade spirit into a silvanshee, marking his own ascension out of the darkness of Belzeragna and onto the side of good.

Once freed from the petrification, Cid was understandably upset at the idea of the angel sacrificing herself for him, but Eurydice was insistent. She revealed that her escape from damnation to Belzeragna was due to the sacrifice of her sister, who offered herself up in Eurydice’s place. Today, Eurydice would repay that debt she owed to her sister by sacrificing herself for Cid and the others. Before she did, however, her last act was to take her holy sword and stab it into the earth of the Valley, remarking that this sword was given to her by the Valley, and thus was not part of their deal – whoever was chosen by the Valley would wield it next (winks at Cid). Mavrokeras was annoyed that he wouldn’t also be getting a holy sword to corrupt, but ultimately decided that one angel in the hand was worth an entire party of PCs and upheld his end of the deal, withdrawing his forces and teleporting away with Eurydice in chains.

Going over to the sword, Cid found that he could withdraw it from the soil of the Valley easily, the sword naturally choosing him as its next wielded. And thus Cid got the big payoff item from his “I’m special” questline, Aurora, the Blade of the Redeemed. A +3 holy longsword, Aurora would serve Cid well in the battles to come, and like the other items had an intelligence and could cast a variety of buff spells on him. Mostly all spells that he enjoyed casting as a magus – once per day: Shocking Grasp or Shield, Mirror Image or Scorching Ray, Fly or Fireball. The capstone ability was that he could either turn Azizel into a celestial dire lion, *or* (and this was pretty much the one that he always ended up picking) Cid could upon dropping to/below 0 HP have a modified Deathless spell cast on him. Thus, he could not die for the next minute of combat until his hit points reached a negative value equal to his hit points (thus slightly nerfing the Deathless spell which has no limit on how much damage you can just shrug off). Thus, Cid’s days of constantly dying were pretty much behind him, although he still occasionally would find himself in trouble in the battles ahead.

As the party recovered from the battle and considered their options of where to go next, it seemed pretty obvious that there was only one place they could go – to the Abyss, and the Rift of Eons. They had their own paladin to save from damnation now! And, as it turned out, they had their own way to the Rift, as Laori knew Plane Shift and something about her time in the Valley had restored her memories from Elzeer-Ka’s mind wipe – she knew where she came from now, and remembered her time in the Abyss. As such, she knew how to navigate back there, and even had a tuning fork that would allow her to teleport them all into the Abyss (why did she have that? It’s Laori, best not to ask!)

Uh!
I said, "beat by the brothers!"
Chigga-Chigga Chigga-Chigga

Yo, yo ass is bout' ta get beat
So jus' sit back and accept yo defeat
Get ready for some horror and remarkable feats
You'll feel pain and torture, just like all the others
Mess with the brothers n' you'll git beat by da brothers!

To da bridge!

Yet again
Beat, I say
Ohhhhhhh

The brothers!
The brothers!
The brothers!

So with last session being almost entirely Cid focused, this session was primarily focused on what everyone else was doing while Cid was battling for his soul. We started with Oli and Vaz’em who were back down at the base of the spire, cooling their heels with Ignatius and Agatha while they wanted for Eurydice to cure Cid’s soul or whatever. Sensing something, Duras the hound archon teleports away, leaving the two PCs with the various other human denizens of the Valley who had come here to be redeemed. Oliver and Vaz’em aren’t particularly interested in that whole seeking redemption bit at this point, and so the conversation pretty rapidly dies out, leaving the two to wait in relative silence.

We then fast forward to Mavrokeras polluting the Valley with his own blood, prompting the ground after the base of the Spire to start splitting open and vomiting forth deformed diabolical gribblers (as mentioned, just reskinned gargolyes basically), who immediately leap to the attack. Which turned out to be a bad idea for them, as Oliver and Vaz’em did their usual melee blundering in fairly rapid order, taking out the half dozen or so proto-devils that came out to bother them. Ignatius and Agatha also did their best to contribute to the fight, revealing that they also had (low-level) paladin powers. Hearing shouts and screams from elsewhere in the Valley, it was clear that this whole devils-popping-out-of-the-ground thing wasn’t just localized to the Spire, and the pair got geared up to go find Cid when we cut to how Rholand was doing.

Cut to Rholand, Trinia, Gwen, and Oliver’s henchmen, who are flying over the rim of mountains to get into the Valley. Gwen manages to just fly her way in, as there’s no magical shield or anything besides the high stone mountains blocking entry into the Valley. Except, of course, for the aforementioned defense of the Valley that Cid’s group had discovered with Laori – evil creatures fall asleep once inside the Valley itself. And Gwen, while a little repentant for her actions now that she was no longer under Togomor’s Geas, was still presently the typical LE-aligned green dragon. Which meant it was sleepy time for her . . . while she was still in mid-air. Cue Rholand and company crashing down into the Valley from the sky, taking a boatload of falling damage as their ride falls out of the sky, fast asleep!

I believe that Carpenter managed to do something to keep himself and Oliver’s henchmen alive, although I don’t recall now what that actually was. Rholand, Trinia, and Gwen definitely had a hard landing, however, Gwen getting impaled by several tree branches and Trinia getting a nasty bump on the head. But the fall was survived by everyone, and now it was Rholand’s turn to whisper “please don’t die please don’t die” in desperation as he pumped healing spells into the comatose dragon to fix the worst of her injuries.

The hound archon Duras popped in about this time, displeased to see the Valley’s defenses being penetrated by an evil dragon, but willing to listen to reason from the Good-aligned Rholand and Trinia who were welcome here. Technically I think Carpenter should also have passed out at this point as he was a pretty shady character (more on him a lot later), but I can’t recall if he also went to sleep at this point or if he was just immune to the Valley’s effects for . . . reasons, and passed it off as being Neutral like Vaz’em, Oli, and Cid.

Rholand managed to explain that he was part of Cid’s group as well, prompting the hound archon to direct him towards the Spire . . . and it was around this time that the ground split open to vomit forth some proto-devils for Rholand to deal with. They had a bit harder time dealing with the proto-devils without the melee blender, but Rholand summoned some help and Duras certainly wasn’t a slouch against evil creatures either. Towards the end of the fight Gwen also woke up, as the Valley’s magic began to fade with its corruption. Duras teleported away to rally the rest of the Valley’s inhabitants, while Rholand and the others climbed aboard Gwen again to go fly over to the Spire and find the rest of the group assembling.

We finally cut back to Cid, who is not immediately attacked by any reanimated bits of Ragathiel’s devil flesh, but can hear the screams and shouts of battle below. First he checks that Cyrus and Vox are okay – they are – and then goes to check on Laori, who is now awake and asking what is going on and where are they. She gets, in typical Laori fashion, excited when Cid explains that they’re in the Valley and probably about to get into a fight with a bunch of devils. In preparation for that, Cid considers his new-found holy powers.

No longer a magus, Cid has undergone a full-fledged class change to paladin (a mix of the Chosen One archetype and half-orc racial Redeemer archetype). I also permitted Cid’s player to adjust his stats slightly, upping his previously terrible charisma to at least passable in exchange for getting a bit dumber (he needed the charisma boost to his saves and wouldn’t be casting too many arcane spells anymore).

Checking with the other former Hellknights, Cid learned that Vox had become a Cavalier of the Star, forsaking magic entirely (in favor of charging people to death with a lance), while Cyrus had changed to be a White Mage Arcanist (Cid’s player had picked this out for him, as Cyrus was still Cid’s cohort at this point).

In gearing up for battle, Cid realized that his Hellknight gear was no longer appropriate (afterall, he had paladin levels and heavy-armor training now!) But he was still carrying around Abigail’s +2 plate armor, shield, and weapon as a parting gift from her . . . a final gift that he would finally put to good use by wearing it into battle, as the magic armor resized to fit him perfectly.

It was around this time that Azizel, the devil-spirit that had been stuck in his magus black blade, finally reclaimed the last of his memories. It was revealed that he also knew Eurydice and Mavrokeras, as they had all been part of Sorshen’s arcane knight/magus guards millennia ago, Mavrokeras being their knight-commander. Their order was abandoned and left to die with the coming of Earthfall, and to survive Mavrokeras made a deal with a devil known as Sermignatto, damning all of them into becoming the devils of Belzeragna – all except Eurydice, who escaped this fate somehow and fled here, seeking her own redemption.

Thus equipped and coming to terms with their newfound holy powers, the ex-Hellknights (and Laori) went down the spire to join up with the rest of the party to make a final stand in defense of the Valley, as it becomes clear where Mavrokeras went – to get the rest of the devils that had been pursuing the party as a black arachnid shape scuttles up over the edge of the mountains and down into the Valley proper – Zerix the Retriever was here to complete the devils’ long chase of Cid and the others. But this time, rather than simply get on Gwen and fly off to escape, the party was going to make their stand to protect this (admittedly not especially anymore) holy place. Or at least they would try, next session!

Discussion then turns to breaking the hold that Belzeragna holds over the souls of Cid, Cyrus, and Vox. While not an expert on infernal contracts, the masked angel does have an idea of where to start – namely, summoning an infernal arbiter from the Hells itself to adjudicate the legality of said contracts. Cid already knew from his conversations with Sial (a former Asmodean infernal contract writer) that his contract, the clauses of which that consign his soul to damnation in Belzeragna via invisible ink, are considered outdated and considered obsolete by the Hells, as Asmodeus has outlawed such puerile trickery in the favor of fairly open deals – sign away your soul, in return get X, with only the minor details really getting interpreted “creatively”. Unfortunately, Sial no longer had any contacts in the Hells after switching his allegiances to Zon-Kuthon, and just being a mortal dude had no power to dissolve the contracts. Hence Eurydice’s plans to summon an infernal arbiter to flat-out confirm whether or not the Hellknights’ contracts were even valid to begin with.

Cid voices a few objections to the plan of summoning a devil into such a holy place of redemption, but Eurydice points out that the Valley has always served as a bridge between the Hells and the Heavens due to Ragathiel’s ascension, and so is sort of a “neutral ground” where both sides are welcome to come and meet in peace. And besides, the infernal envoy Eurydice would be summoning will be bound within a summoning circle and thus unable to inflict any harm to them or the Valley (something something pride before a fall). Leading the group into another room of the tree house with a sand-filled pit, Eurydice begins to trace out the necessary runes and arcane barriers of a summoning circle, revealing that the still somewhat mysterious angel has some knowledge of arcane magics . . . and said knowledge looks eerily similar to the methods employed by the Order of the Nail magi (themselves as the group learned back in Kaer Maga, a twisted offshoot of ancient arcane knights from Thassilon, which the Belzeragna devils apparently preserved and evolved into the magus techniques they passed along to the Order’s Hellknights).

Activating the circle after completing it, the room darkens for a moment before a pillar of smoke boils up from the floor, a man with hooved feet and wearing a well-tailored three-piece suit stepping out of the gloom as the smoke filled up a cylinder-sized space within the room, bound by the runic circle. Larenthon, a contract devil from Asmodeus’s infernal contracts and acquisitions, introduced himself and greeted Eurydice warmly, suggesting that this was not the first time they had spoken. The devil’s jovial mood darkens as Eurydice explains what the devil has been summoned for, and Sial’s statements on current infernal law are confirmed, straight from the devil’s mouth – binding souls using trickery such as clauses written in invisible ink are now officially forbidden by Asmodeus’ agents – the devils have no need for such things these days, as they are doing EXCELLENT business in Cheliax and elsewhere just through (vaguely) open deals. Of course, what a devil considers an “open and equal” contract is rather prone to legalistic interpretation, but blatant trickery like invisible clauses in a contract that involve the sale of a soul at least are now considered verboten.

Unfortunately, while Cid could repeat the once-hidden clauses in his contract that were revealed to him in Belzeragna, he did not have the actual signed infernal contract in hand. And after mentally checking with his subordinates back in Hell, Larenthon could confirm that neither was the contract stored properly in the archives of the Hells’, incensing the devil further. A copy of all infernal contracts was ordered to be stored in Asmodeus’ vaults so as to be at least vaguely under his purview and review – by not having a copy of these contracts stored there, whoever was making these contracts was doing so behind Asmodeus’ back.

But despite these contracts being considered illegal and void by the Hells, without the actual contract in hand Larenthon was unable or unwilling to break it’s magic. Instead he advocated getting the enforcer of these contracts – a devil known as Mavrokeras – to appear and justify the legal standing of these contracts. Cid only knew of this devil by reputation, but Eurydice again seemed to know more than she first let on as she reluctantly thanked Larenthon for his time and asked him to stay as an official representative of the Hells, which Belzeragna *should* technically have fealty to. The infernal arbiter politely allowed himself to be shunted to a secondary magic circle that Eurydice sketched out before redrawing the primary one and using it to bring forth this Mavrokeras.

Cue the appearance of a hulking (mechanically Huge) form covered in plate armor, some sort of blackish oil occasionally leaking out through the joints in the armor – Mavrokeras, Belzeragna’s enforcer. Again, Mavrokeras greeted Eurydice with some level of familiarity, implying a joint history that Eurydice seemed ashamed of (she wasn’t here in the valley of redemption for no reason, after all!) The armored hulk then turned its venomous gaze on Cid, promising him that his rebellious flight was at an end, and one way or the other he would find himself back in Belzeragna for good by nightfall. Rather than be intimidated Cid was his usual blunt, snarky self, taunting back that Mavrokeras’ hunters hadn’t gotten the job done yet, prompting the infernal warlord to remark that perhaps then it was time he got involved personally.

Eurydice managed to get the conversation back on track by bringing up Cid’s contract with Belzeragna, which Mavrokeras insisted for perfectly legal despite the invisible ink chicanery as per ancient Hellish law. Cue Larenthon speaking up here about how such laws had been since updated and changed, and Mavrokeras arguing that despite the “updates” made by Asmodeus the ancient infernal laws were still valid – i.e. get the souls through the gates of Hell by whatever means necessary. There was also some prompting from Larenthon about under whose authority Mavrokeras was operating under, which the armored monstrosity refused to answer (incensing Larenthon even further).

Cue some taunting arguments from Cid (using this song as a hilarious backdrop for) about how Mavrokeras created this problem for himself by revealing the truth to Cid upon his death. If he had never discovered that his soul had been damned using trickery in his contract, he likely never would have recanted his dark path and attempted to redeem himself in the first place. But Mavrokeras’ devils couldn’t help themselves, and had spilled the beans to Cid the instant he died the first time all the way back in Book Three during the Palin Cove Punishers fight.) This seemed to finally push the diabolical general to his breaking point, as he ominously announced that their contracts didn’t matter anyway – they were all bound to the darkness, inexorably drawn to it, and they would ultimately end up in Belzeragna anyway as they could not resist the temptations of its power. And to prove that they would forever damn themselves, all things being equal, Mavrokeras proposed a martial trial by combat to settle the matter. An ancient rite as noted by Larenthon, but one still occasionally permitted by even the Hells to settle contract disputes. After glancing at Cid and the other two Hellknights, and getting only nods of confirmation in return, Eurydice agrees to Mavrokeras’s terms – if they failed to defeat his champions, then their contracts stood and their souls would be consigned back to Belzeragna, where as if Cid and company own, then their contracts would be revoked by Mavrokeras and they were would freed from damnation – to Belzeragna, at least.

At which point Mavrokeras announced that his chosen champions were already present, and spoke a word of arcane power that despite the summoning circle’s wards seemed to trigger something within each of the Hellknights. Cid, Cyrus, and Vox all collapse convulsing to the floor as their guts writhe in sudden agony, forcing them to expel a thick vicious black goo from their mouths – not entirely dissimilar to the oil leaking out from Mavrokeras’s armor. The puked-up oil slicks grew and changed shape, becoming humanoid and solidifying into exact copies of Cid, Vox, and Cyrus in their original human forms, though clearly twisted and pure evil judging by their malevolent grins.

Here was the consequence of each of them consuming the goblet of blood from Leo Astares, the Armor of Skulls corrupted founder of their order, during their post-death dream sequences – each of them had been forced to drink his Kazavon-infused blood, further cementing the hold that Belzeragna had on them, and now that corruption was before them in the flesh, as a literal avatar of what they once were as Hellknights.

Everyone squares off against their evil twin, the two Cids tossing taunts back and forth at each other non-stop. Here was their chance to prove that they had truly risen above the evil people that they had once been. And as the rather spot-on (imo) theme music for this duel kicked in, the battle for their souls began.

Cid got off to a good start, nearly cutting his evil twin in half with a hallmark Shocking Grasp crit . . . except that the avatar for his corrupted past was not so easily overcome (in large part due to the cheatering going on by Belzeragna/Kazavon/the DM here, by giving Evil Cid something like DR 10 and basically complete immunity to his spells (both due to Kazavon’s influence giving Evil Cid immunity to electricity, and also just in general “your spells came from the Hells, and now you’re rejecting those gifts, so f+#+ you buddy they don’t work on me” – this included ignoring Cid’s own defensive spells entirely, such as the Mirror Image Cid threw up before closing in).

Cid gave it his all against his diabolical doppleganger, but things swiftly turned against him as Evil Cid got his own turn and displayed that he could ignore Cid’s illusionary doubles, which tended to spell a whole lot of trouble for the magus in the past whenever some opponent could get around them. After taking an equally nasty series of hits and heavily wounded, the redemption-seeking magus fought on, glancing around to see that Vox and Cyrus were similarly faltering against their evil doubles. In the end, the power that they had gained from Belzeragna could not save them from Belzeragna. Evil Cid’s blade bit deep into Cid’s chest yet again, and the magus collapsed to the floor in a pool of his own blood, a final strike to the back damning his soul for good. Or at least, so it seemed to those watching the duel from the sidelines. But while mortal power and strength from infernal contracts alone could not save Cid’s soul, there was still the possibility for another Power to intervene and offer a final hope for salvation. And so She did.

Rather than the fiery torture chambers of Belzeragna, Cid awoke to find himself standing in a grey empty expanse – perhaps a section of Pharsma’s Boneyard borrowed for the occasion, or perhaps simply a construct of his mind. A blindingly bright pillar of light shined down on him from above, spotlighting him in the empty gloom. But he wasn’t alone, as a figure stepping out from around behind him into his field of vision, moving up to the edge of the bright pillar of light . . . Abigail?

The being who at least looked like Abigail prior to her vampification lightly chastised Cid for getting baited into a fight to the death when it should have been obvious that Mavrokeras would cheat, and joked about what was She going to do with him when he kept getting into trouble like this. Rather guarded as he strongly suspected another trick of some sort, and a little peeved at whoever it was taking Abigail’s face, Cid was his usual snarky self in response. At least until “Abigail” apologized, stating that She had hoped by adopting a face familiar to Cid it would set him more at ease, and answered his questions of “well, who was she then” by intimating that She was the one he had been seeking aid from all this time, and who he had been referred to by Densa after his brief contact with her in the Acropolis – Sarenrae, goddess of light, mercy, and redemption!

As with Desna before her, Cid was considerably more respectful once he realized that he was talking to a goddess, especially the one that he had been turning for aid. Sarenrae explained that She was aware of Cid’s efforts to become a better person, and that he was making positive in-roads on convincing others to change from their Evil ways as well (i.e. Laori). Cue further chastisement at Cid’s choice to sleep with Laori, however, and so soon after Abigail’s death – Cid had made things considerably more complicated (and soap opera melodramatic, Cid’s player and mine’s mutual guilty pleasure!) by doing that. More than he knew, unfortunately, but Sarenrae was happy to explain the situation to him.

The goddess cautioned that he would likely find this revelation guilt-inducing, but it was necessary in order for him to understand the entire situation so that he could try to fix it. While Her vision of the Abyss was limited, the goddess was nonetheless always aware of Her ardent followers, and so one of them suddenly appearing in the depths of that dark place caught her attention. With a gesture from the goddess, the grey void around Cid shimmered and vanished, replaced by the far more disturbing fleshy wastes of the Abyss. Hurdled a short distance away in a shallow cave cut into a fleshy cliff was a bloodied and bruised figure – another Abigail, the real one this time. Victae hadn’t been bluffing when he had taunted that he had condemned Abigail’s soul to the Abyss as part of turning her into a vampire after all.

As Cid continued to watch, there was the scrape of a shoe on the fleshy stone outside the cave, and a man with long fiery red hair and wearing a well-tailored suit stepped into view of the huddled and terrified Abigail within the cave. I believe this was only the character’s second appearance “on-screen” in the entire campaign, and the first in his human guise and so Sarenrae pointed the man out to Cid and explained that man was one of the demon lord Baphomet’s most cunning and dangerous generals, the balor lord Elzeer-Ka. The same Elzeer-Ka who had attempted to invade Korvosa during the course of Book Three as a result of the planar portal being opened by the Rovagug cult. And the same Elzeer-Ka who had cast a long shadow over Abigail’s family. In terms of appearance and venomous civility displayed here by Elzeer-Ka, I like to use this scene of Ardyn from Final Fantasy Kingsglaive as an example (whose likeness I used as Elzeer-Ka’s human guise here).

Cooing over the already-injured paladin, the balor general held out his hands from his sides in a placating gesture, explaining that he was simply a potential friend who wanted to help. Given the current state poor Abigail found herself in, she could certainly use a friend right now. Particularly when her previous friends had all abandoned her to this horrid fate. Mmm, but was that simply an unfortunate turn of events that had befallen her, or had she been merely replaced? Cue Elzeer-Ka summoning his own little globe of clairvoyance, showing Cid’s bedroom after Abigail’s funeral . . . in bed . . . with Laori. Perhaps it was the lingering effects of being a vampire, the corrupting effects of the Abyss already starting their twisting of her soul, or just good old-fashioned soap opera betrayal-induced rage, but Abigial immediately went from distrustful of Elzeer-Ka’s offer to howling in rage that she was going to kill Cid for this!

Sarenrae went on to explain that while she could no longer detect Abigail’s soul after it ventured deeper into the Abyss’s many layers, but She was aware where Elzeer-Ka would take her – to his fortress in the Rift of Eons, a strange layer of the Abyss where time flowed at a greatly accelerated rate. The few days that had passed since Abigail’s death on the mortal plane would be stretched into week, months, possibly even years there – plenty of time for Elzeer-Ka to further twist Abigail’s soul with more poisonous words of betrayal and abandonment. It would be up to Cid, assuming he survived this duel, whether or not he wished to pursue an attempt at rescuing Abigail from this fate, but he was going to have to act immediately if he wanted any hope of success.

But wait! As usual, there was *more* complications to this situation! Now we come to the real roller coaster into insanity moment of the session, as Sarenrae went on to explain Elzeer-Ka’s motivations for “helping” Abigail. The balor had long cast a shadow over Abigail’s family, due to the fact that Abigail’s mother had once been a cultist of Baphomet and a loyal servant of Elzeer-Ka . . . until Sergio and the other Starweavers at that time drove his cult out of Kaer Maga and convinced Abigail’s mother to abandon her service to the Abyss. An unusually cunning and deceptive balor, rather than outright destroying his enemies Elzeer-Ka often liked to corrupt and use his enemies against each other. Which explained his interest in Abigail – ever the opportunist, he was now attempting to replace her mother with a new servant in Abigail.

But that was not the start of Elzeer-Ka’s revenge against Sergio and the Starweavers, as Sarenrae gestured and the scene around them changed again, this time from the Abyss to the streets of Kaer Maga (an only marginal improvement in order and cleanliness, it must be said). Cid saw another familiar face step into the nearby alleyway ahead of them – Nicodemus, the slaver who Abigail thought had abducted her younger sister Lucinda and sold her off (as the party had learned after dealing with him back in Kaer Maga, Nicodemus had sold her off to some place in Nidal). And slung over one of Nicodemus’s shoulders was an unconscious young girl that Sarenrae again helpfully identified as Lucinda Nightstar – Abigail’s sister. Stepping fully into the alleyway now, Nicodemus dropped the child onto the filthy cobblestone at the luxury-shoed feet of Elzeer-Ka. The two discuss business for a moment, the balor gifting Nicodemus with a hefty sack of coins and remarking that he was planning on taking the girl to see Nidal, which was absolutely dreadful this time of year.

Cue the scene shifting again, this time to a gothic manor of some sort, and Elzeer-Ka meeting with a pair of elven nobles, pushing the shy young girl out from behind his legs to them. Here was the daughter that they had requested, since they were unable to have children of their own. But no! This child was a human – they had specified an elven child! A human brat simply would not do! People would talk, and the name of House Vaus would forever be a source of mockery then!

Struggling to hide his irritation now, Elzeer-Ka took the child and left, prompting another scene shift to some dark and dismal druid’s grove. Elzeer-Ka hands a bag of money off to an unscrupulous druid, who carries the struggling Lucinda into a nearby pool of water and drowns her. Then casts reincarnate. Lucinda comes back up as a young dwarf child. Back under the water she goes, drowned again. Reincarnated again, halfling, drowned. Kobold, drowned, half-orc, drowned. Over and over again until finally a young elven girl with bluish-black hair bobs up gasping to the surface.

Again Elzeer-Ka takes the reborn Lucinda before the Vaus couple, and again they sneeringly explain that no, this won’t do either! They wanted a young lady, a daughter they could show off at all their parties, not some brat that they had to raise and educate themselves! Elzeer-Ka again leaves with the elven girl in tow, presumably going to the Rift of Eons where time (conveniently) flows much faster. The scene fades back in to show Elzeer-Ka arriving back again a third time, this time with a slightly younger but still identifiably Laori, who he presents as the new Vaus daughter.

This time, the snobby nobles accept the balor lord’s “gift” of a daughter, although it predictably doesn’t end well for them. Again some unspecified time later, the scene shifts again to show the manor in flames, the Vaus family brutally cut apart and decorating the rapidly-combusting building with their pieces. Covered in blood and numbly holding a large knife, Laori Vaus stumbles through the snow just outside the manor, collapsing at the feet of a waiting Elzeer-Ka, enjoying the show of the manor burning down. Stroking the elven girl’s hair, Elzeer-Ka compliments “his” daughter on her fine work, clearly having implanted some sort of Suggestion-magic to brainwash her into some sort of sleeper-agent time bomb to destroy the Vaus family from within (presumably another of his many enemies who had slighted him at some point or another). In an unusual display of “mercy”, Elzeer-Ka then magically commands Laori to *Forget*, implanting the memory that it was an orc attack that butchered her “family” instead. He then gets her up on her feet and sets her off down the road, where she runs afoul of another band of slavers, who take her in to ultimately sell off to the local Church of Zon-Kuthon as a sacrifice (and setting her on the path that led to her eventually becoming a cleric of Zon-Kuthon in the Brotherhood of Bones instead).

Yes indeed, it wasn’t bad enough that Cid had decided to cure his grief over Abigail’s death by jumping into bed with her rival for his affections, that same woman happened to be Abigail’s long-lost sister Lucinda, reincarnated and twisted by Elzeer-Ka into Laori Vaus (cue the dramatic soap music!) And now Elzeer-Ka was endeavoring to complete his destruction of the Nightstar family by corrupting Abigail as well. Understandably freaked out by this discovery, Cid vows to do whatever he can do to ensure that Abigail is saved – after all, her long-lost sister has finally been found!

With his time growing short indeed, Sarenrae had Cid voice a new oath to replace the one he had sworn upon becoming a Hellknight – typical Sarenrae stuff, like offering mercy to those who ask for it, endeavoring to see the potential good in people, etc. etc. And then after taking Sarenrae’s offered hand, Cid’s surroundings went from drab grey to blinding white. Cid the Hellknight magus died . . . and Cid the paladin of Sarenrae rose in his place (thus fulfilling the Fey Seer’s prophecy to Cid way back near the start of Book Four that “one shall rise, and one shall fall” (which could also, unplanned at the time by the DM, have been referring to Abigail’s own descent into the Abyss and Cid/Laori’s redemption).

Back in the cabin atop the Ascendant Spire, the mocking laughter of Evil Cid slowed to a halt as it sensed . . . something . . . shift in the dark air of the cabin. Mavrokeras likewise snarled within his imprisoning summoning circle as he felt the briefest touch of a holy presence dispel the menacing gloom. And then Cid sat up, asking if his evil doppleganger would like to try that again. Elsewhere in the room, Vox and Cyrus likewise picked themselves up and dusted the blood off their clothes, all three Hellknights miraculously healed (both of them later confirming with Cid that Sarenrae had also spoken with them and offered them an escape from their certain damnation).

Cue the power-up theme music as the duel(s) resumed, although this time with much different results. Turns out DR/Regeneration Good doesn’t work so well when your opponent has Smite Evil, as Cid slashed his opponent nearly in half with the first smite-evil powered hit. The duel didn’t last much longer past that initial clash, Evil Cid howling in pain and rage as the real Cid’s new holy powers quickly proved a match for the infernal magics available to old Cid. With a final follow-up blow, Cid cleaved his doppleganger in half completely, splattering the black ooze across the floor as the humanoid form crumpled back into a foul-smelling mess. Evil Vox and Cyrus quickly followed suit, leaving the reborn Hellknights victorious in their joint duel to spare their souls.

Seething within his summoning circle, Mavrokeras declared that while the duel might have gone in their favor (somehow, despite his cheating with the evil clones), they all still belonged to Belzeragna, and Mavrokeras would be dragging them all screaming back there personally! Guess devils are just sore losers like that, but as it turns out this wasn’t just an empty threat. Digging into his armored wrist, Marvokers clawed open his flesh with the claw-like gauntlet, turning the slow oozing drip of black oil from his armor into a torrenting spray of foulness onto the sand beneath him. That corrupting ooze sank down into the sand, staining it black, and then starting to melt down through the floor as a violent shudder passed through the Ascendent Spire as some sort of alchemical reaction occurred. Once a piece of an archfiend, the calcified flesh of Ragathiel’s torn wing reacted with the corruption in Mavrokeras’s blood, and began to awaken! The treehouse began to come apart around them as more violent tremors passed through the Spire, and the summoning circle was disrupted enough that Mavrokeras was able to teleport away. Larenthon likewise decided that this seemed like a good time to leave as well, and disappeared back off to the Hells to report to his immediate supervisor that things were not going according to Asmodesus’s plans in Varisia.

Down in the Valley, Oliver and Vaz’em are roused from this bored passing of the time as rifts began to tear themselves open in the ground around them, belching forth smoke and then hunched, misshapen figures with bat-wings (proto-devils, as I called them . . . really just reskinned gargolyes basically). It seems that the peace of the Valley had been broken, and once again our heroes would have to fight their way out of a death trap – in the next session!

Player advocates can cry foul here a bit if you wish, but Cid’s story has been angled to be a sort of cross between Faust and Final Fantasy 4’s Cecil for a long time. And so while outwitting the devil and using his own power against him to win could have been a valid story beat, the through-line I’ve always been aiming for is closer to Faust - of Cid making the mistake of selling his soul for power, realizing his mistake and attempting to redeem himself, but ultimately failing to save himself through his own strength. It’s not until after he gets essentially a merciful “hand up” through Divine Intervention that he actually can escape damnation. Which also sort of resonates with a recurring theme of the entire campaign in that no one – not even the PCs - can actually save themselves. It’s only through the help of others that each character (again, even the PCs!) can be saved and escape from the various perils they find themselves in.

Which probably makes it a good thing that my players have been going around helping every NPC they come across that has even a cat up in a tree, despite Sial’s sneering over it. :D

But I think it should be clear by now that I like wild, convoluted backstories for my NPCs, and honestly while I had wanted Lucinda to make an appearance at some point, I had no idea who she could be, so . . . I tossed Cid’s player a bone and had his wild theory be the correct one! It just required the convoluted twisted plan of a demon general, a ridiculous time dilation planar adventure, and a horrific series of reincarnations! Not a problem at all for this DM!

And, of course, having learned NOTHING from this experience, Cid’s player immediately started plotting how he could turn this into a knock-off Sister Wives episode *face palm*.

Before Vaz’em was able to make his final selection, however, he entered the Challenge Round, in which Adonis Kreed burst onto stage and challenged Vaz’em for his right to go on any date at all with anybody. With a cry of “pants off, dance off mother-er!” (a reference to another even more obscure and TERRIBLE dating show) Adonis Kreed began his challenge with an impressive break dance . . . which swiftly left Vaz’em the winner by default after Adonis got his legs caught while trying to remove his pants at the same time as spinning around on his head, resulting in him snapping his own neck and reducing him to a twitching dying mess on the game show floor. Glorio Bahor Glenn Bob quickly called for a commercial break, and as the Meow Chow – “Remember Meow is Cat for Chow!”TM commercial played, he mercy killed Adonis by pulling out a pistol from within his glitzy jacket and put two bullets into the back of Adonis’s gasping for breath head. Grumbling about the price of getting new clones for this guy onto the show, Glorio went back to his spot and resumed the show as the commercial ended and Adonis’s remains were unceremoniously swept off the stage floor.

When asked to make his final selection after having gotten to ask two, maybe three, questions to the ladies, Vaz’em sarcastically grumbled about having learned basically nothing about them, and so he was just going to pick Mittens because why not. At which point the curtain to Mittens’ booth was rolled up, and it was revealed Vaz’em, you fool! The contestant known as Mittens was a complete fabrication, not even a baby kitten at all but instead was just a digital image created and voiced by Baby Groot voiced by Vin Diesel! As the studio audience graced Baby Groot voiced by Vin Diesel’s performance as Mittens with a standing ovation, and Baby Groot gave a final “I am Mew!” before scampering off the stage, Glorio presented Vaz’em with his consolation prize - a trip to the studio’s back lot pool with Cinnabar and Trinia, along with a year’s supply of Meow Chow cat food – “Remember, Meow is Cat for Chow!”TM,

Unfortunately, things didn’t go well back there either, as Cinnabar and Trinia almost immediately got into a drunken cat fight, which spilled over and got Adonis Kreed’s latest clone, coming fresh from the cloning vats out behind the studio, to get caught up in the fight. This led to Adonis Kreed getting his neck broken and thrown into the pool, where he unceremoniously drowned while Glorio Bahor Glenn Bob once again mourned the costs of having to make yet more clones of the poor bastard for next week’s show. And with that he signed off, with a final salutation of “Remember, Meow is Cat for Chow!”TM

The channel then blurred with static like a bad parody of Robot Chicken as we switched to a new “channel”, this one featuring the grimmest dark future of Golarion that ever grimdarked, 40 million, and perhaps just 40 thousand years into the future, who can say? Here we have Cid being woken up from suspended animation to go on a ripping and tearing rampage against the demons who had overrun Golarion, armed with his trusty blunderbuss, gatling crossbow, and the Big Fricking Sword 9000. I seem to recall his crusade getting started immediately after getting equipped with his new weaponry, as a demonic bulldozer (or, “Helldozer”) smashed through the wall and ran over the scientists who woke him up. Cid quickly blasted the demonically-possessed vehicle with a barrage of attacks form his new weapons, and then advanced out into the wasteland.

Following the trail leading to an ominous fortress in the distance, Cid entered to find himself in an ampitheater where Elzeer Ka was waiting for him. The demon general welcomed him, and then announced that a demonstration of his latest horror, just for Cid, was now ready to be unveiled. Calling out to the nearby stage, Elzeer Ka sat back as the curtains rose to reveal . . . Steve Jobs! (Cid’s player had mentioned once that he found the late Apple CEO’s appearance unsettling for some reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on – so, let a good rat bastard DM, I had him make a cameo appearance here). The CEO went on a brief spiel about how happy he was to be here in the future, and unveiled his latest invention – the iPaladin! Cue the cloning tube on-stage swinging open to reveal Abigail, who mechanically stepped out to join Steve while declaring in a Siri-style voice “Hi! I’m Abby!”

Screaming in horror at the abomination before him, Cid unleashed the BFS 9000, and destroyed the entire amiptheather in a barrage of wild slashes with the massive weapon, obliterating them all as the ceiling collapsed in on their heads. Cue the static as we switched to another channel.

Now we follow Rholand caught in media res as part of some sort of musical theater production. Unfortunately for him, his latest production “Curse of the Crimson Throne” was heavily in the red, his lead actress Ileosa was a spoiled, drunken diva, and his primary source of funding, a fat-cat by the name of Togomor, was riding his ass about opening night being a smashing success – because if not, Rholand’s theater company was out of business and Rholand was out on the streets!

Fed up with Ileosa’s drunken demands, Rholand ultimately fires her, leaving him without a leading lady . . . at least until he manages to convince Togomor’s nerdy wallflower secretary, Gwen’vor’stila, to try out for the part. She is predictably horrible at the role, not being able to act her way out of a paper bag, but she’s all that Rholand has to work with. And in typical 90s high school movie fashion, once you get the glasses off her face and straighten out her hair, she’s at least charming and cute if not drop-dead gorgeous.

So opening night comes around with Rholand having to fill-in for the leading man, and in the opening act goes out on stage to meet “Queen Ileosa” for the first time (a rehash of meeting the queen in Book One), only for Gwen to trip over the hem of her dress and come tumbling head over heels down the stairs on stage to land unceremoniously at Rholand’s feet. She then ad-libs a line, offering Rholand her hand with a false chipper “Mind giving me a hand up?” The play continues from there, with Gwen continuing to give a horrible but heart-felt performance, and the crowd unexpectedly eating the performance up as they see the play as a comedy rather than the intended drama Rholand had planned after Gwen’s unintentional prat-fall to start the show off. In the end, the performance is a rousing success, and Rholand is able to pay back the seething Togomor’s investment with ease.

The channel changes one final time to the scene of a black-and-white noir flick, in the city of Kaer Maga. Ronda (Oliver’s former bard henchwoman-turned-kobold) is the star of this show rather than Oliver, as she gets her first big case with her new detective agency within the city. It was getting rather late at this point in the session, so things got a bit blurred and rushed, but basically her case involved a goofy mix of aliens and terminator as someone was infesting the city of Kaer Maga with Grey Maidens, by turning various members of the city into Grey Maidens (hence the title of this “show” being “Ronda the Kobold in – The Case of the Grey Goo Maidens”). And basically they were replicating out of control, and the only way to stop them before they converted the entire city into more Grey Maidens was to kill the original one (like some sort of vampire or werewolf curse I guess). Cue Ronda somehow tracking down Sabrina to a warehouse and blowing it up, thus causing all of the Grey Maiden “copies” to melt into goo . . . or did they all die, as horror movie ending style a grey-maiden silhouette can be seen in the distance!

And thus ended the silliness of yet another April Fools game!

These shades were essentially a security mechanism for the Valley, and the main reason why the devils were avoiding the tunnel. Good-aligned characters would be permitted passage unmolested, while neutral characters (which everyone present qualified as) would be tested and questioned by the shades to judge whether they were repentant for past wrongs and thus were here to be cleansed/redeemed. Unrepentant and Evil-aligned characters, such as Laori, however . . . well, you’ll read in a bit what happens to them.

Oliver was confronted with shades of Gaedren Lamm (of course), his old buddy Dodger, and Cressida Kroft. Oliver wasn’t particularly apologetic (and was definitely foul and rude to Lamm, as expected) to any of the shades confronting him, but he was at least conflicted enough for the shades to deem him “too unrepentant” to fail and be barred from the valley.

Vaz’em was confronted by Adonis Kreed and Marlessa, then Melyia Arkona, and finally Cinnabar. While Vaz’em was a hired killer with hands stained with blood, most of the blood recently was in defense of Korvosa and its people, and so he also got a pass . . . much like Oliver, begrudgingly by the shades.

Finally, Cid saw shades of those who he had killed with his own hands – Jostiliana, Isabelle the maid from the castle that they hunted down early in Book Three, and finally . . . Abigail. While he was most sorrowful over the still-recent mercy killing of Abigial, Cid also regretted killing Isabelle (also arguably a mercy killing given what the Grey Maidens would have done to her), and even Jostiliana got some modicum of sympathy. The shades judged him to be the best candidate for redemption in the Valley – which wasn’t unexpected given this was Cid’s redemption arc anyway, and he had been making steady efforts to go from LN (with evil tendencies given his Hellknight status) to LG. The shades gave him some supportive words and urged him to step forward into the valley to be fully repent of his sins before fading away.

As they came out of their respective spirit-generated dazes, our heroes found Vox and Cyrus similarly shaken, having been confronted with their own past mistakes. Laori, however, was . . . sound asleep? It did not seem like a particularly troubling slumber, either, as the elf cleric was relaxed and did not seem to be having any sort of troubling nightmare, she just was sound asleep, and nothing the party did could seem to rouse her. It seems that Evil creatures, upon entering this tunnel/the Valley of the Ascendant Spire, fell into a deep sleep – a magical defense for the Valley that could allow its defenders to easily deal with any malign creatures coming to attack it, killing them as mercifully as possible while they slumbered unaware.

With Laori out of commission for an unknown amount of time, Cid scooped her up into his arms and carried her the rest of the way out of the tunnel and into the sunlit exit to the passage that the party could now see awaiting for them ahead. Upon exiting the tunnel, they found themselves on the outskirts of a small valley tucked into the mountains, a serene set of well-maintained farmlands and orchards surrounding a large twisted spire of rock jutting up into the sky in the rough middle of the Valley – supposedly the fossilized remains of Ragathiel’s wing, torn off by his father Dispaster (I think it’s Dispater rather than Asmodeus in the lore?) as he renounced his evil past and became an Empyrean Lord. As they are taking in the sights, they are greeted by a pair of humans, who introduce themselves as Ignatius and Agatha and welcome them to the Valley to be cleansed of their past sins. As the pair explain that they are humans who have also found their way here to be redeemed of past sins, there is a brief flash of a teleportation spell before a tall, muscular humanoid with the head of a dog appears, a massive greatsword slung across his back.

The hound archon introduces himself as Duras, explaining that he is alerted whenever new arrivals step into the Valley (and to dispose of any evil-doers coming to cause mischief and ending up asleep on the Valley’s doorstep). He also explains to the party that Laori is merely asleep, and that it is a defense of the Valley, but she will be otherwise unharmed by the experience – so long as the party takes her with them when they leave this place.

Cid then asks to speak with Eurydice, the angel who had directed him to come here, and it directed to the top of the spire. A scaffolding walkway has been built up in a looping path around the outside of the spire, leading up to a sort of treehouse near the top of it, which is apparently where Eurydice lives and welcomes visitors. As petitioners seeking redemption and help with their devil pursuers, Cid, Vox, and Cyrus are permitted entry up to speak with her, Cid continuing to lug Laori along, while Vaz’em and Oliver, not particularly seeking redemption themselves (at least at this moment) wait down at the base of the Spire.

It's a long but not especially arduous climb up and around the spire to Eurydice’s house at the pinnacle, where the strange masked angel greets Cid and the others warmly, explaining that now that they are here, she can begin to help them free their souls from the contract that binds them to Belzeragna. And with Cid having finally successfully arrived at his destination and the focal point for his “I’m Special” personal quest in Book Four at last, we closed out the session.