Umber

With nearly half the party rabid on the subject of killing demons, the adventurers nonetheless sheath their swords and make a mad, stealthy dash for the realm of Orcus.

Dear Erenil,

I’m glad to hear that you are doing well and that your count of drow heads is coming along nicely. I suspect it will be a while before this missive reaches you, even with Thiff’s generous offer to provide courier service between the Glitterhame and the Underdark, since I’m writing from a cozy little extradimensional space Bane has conjured up for us – a pocket of relative safety in the bowels of the Abyss.

I’ve felt strangely light-hearted ever since we arrived and Magnus is, I think, in his element. The moment we set foot on the first layer the great sword I carry, a gift and responsibility from the goddess of the Nixies, extricated itself from my hand, bulged and flowed, changed color and shape, and stood before us winged and emerald-skinned: a planetar. Solar doors, planetar weapons – the life of a celestial is a strange one, and greatly beyond my comprehension. A near-eternal existence must grant one a different perspective on excitement and boredom; or perhaps it grants one a more intimate understanding of duty. Bane’s blade has taken on all the characteristics of Crusader on the Prime Material, and he has granted it to her to use while we are on the Abyss. An irony, as it happens that his blade actually contains something of her essence, so that she is now wielding a part of herself.

We’re here on, oddly enough, a mission of theft: to relieve Orcus of his infamous wand and make our escape to Bahamut, who will destroy it, depriving the demon prince of a tool of great evil and chaos. We were glad to discover that Kuhlefaran’s staff would unerringly guide us to Orcus’ domain (in search of the fire mephit friend of Klavicus) with the minimal amount of bobbing about like tiny (although well-armed) corks on the infinity of infinities that comprise the Abyss and the maze of conduits between its layers. Of course, if I had Juiblex for a neighbor I wouldn’t want a quick, reliable way for him to visit either; I doubt if these demon lords drop in on one another for cups of tea and a little light gossip.

By stealth and speed, we have for the most part avoided direct confrontation with the locals, sneaking past or outrunning the charming but deadly Graz’zt, demon gnoll prince Yeenoghu and six-armed Kali (who, since we’ve killed her pet Grandfather, we were particularly eager to avoid) and their minions. We dashed down a conduit in the back of a skull while its genius loci owner was asleep. We teleported across the river Styx to avoid both its hazardous waters and the primal elemental who swats airborne travelers from the sky like mosquitoes, and although Kuhlefaran left a generous margin of 200 yards between us and the far bank, by a trick of perspective we still found ourselves teetering on the edge of everlasting forgetfulness (although, fortunately, the correct edge).

Demogorgon and Beyond

We failed to avoid detection in what could have been the most dangerous place of all, Demogorgon’s lair. Accosted by nearly four dozen balor who offered us death or an audience with the Prince of Demons, spoiling for a fight but mindful of our ultimate goal, we chose the latter. We were blessed with several pieces of good fortune including the facts that (1) Aameul and Hethradiah hate and despise one another, (2) we were brought before Hethradiah, from whom Aameul hid the full scope of our involvement with Nurn and the Soul Totem at the Bastion, and (3) lacking this piece of crucial information, Hethradiah didn’t bother to scrutinize us or our gear with any care, absorbing himself more immediately with the facts that (1) we certainly didn’t look like we belonged in the neighborhood, (2) we had all carefully obscured our true alignments, and (3) in spite of traveling invisibly and disguising herself as a stone giant, our planetar companion didn’t escape his notice.

With his intimate knowledge of the Abyss, Magnus recalled that Demogorgon had a special loathing for Orcus, and decided to play what is for this region a deadly game: telling the truth. But as he hoped, Hethradiah was tickled pink that we were here to pilfer Orcus’ beloved wand. In fact, he said, he wanted to help us. Immediately on our guard, I don’t think any of us looked upon his offer of a wish per person with anything but grave suspicion. But how safe was it to refuse? I tried to extract more information on the exact nature of the bargain, but he cut me off and demanded, “Choose!” Thinking it would be safer to accept the offer with no intention of ever taking him up on it, I started to agree. But Enai, with her superior wisdom, divined what some of us could not, and quickly warned us telepathically, “It’s a trick! The bargain is sealed when you agree, not when you make use of the wish!” Angered at our unified refusals, he threw us into a different layer, a place of infinite nothingness. For a moment we despaired, but the Traveler’s Star did not fail us, and we teleported away.

At the exit of the last conduit, we were met by a large balor and a hundred of the three-eyed demon spawn called zovvut, who offered us only half of the “death or audience” option. Still itching for a fight but also still mindful of our purpose, we tried to outrun them, but when the balor teleported in front of us to block our path Magnus said, “Okay, that’s it,” and we drew our weapons. The balor mustered the usual tanar’ri arsenal of abilities designed to hamper individuals of our ethical and moral persuasions, to little effect. The zovvut were an unknown quantity (beyond the fact that there were a lot of them), and we were dismayed when they began teleporting to us en masse and staring at us with poisonous demonic gazes. But most of the party utterly ignored the onslaught, and Magnus and Serge were only slightly weakened.

And in spite of their efforts, Magnus wielded Tenser’s demonbane sword with such deadly skill that the balor died from the power of a single blow. Taking advantage of Kuhlefaran’s slowing dozens of the zuvvot, Crusader dispatched forty of them with a magical disk of spinning blades they were now too clumsy to escape, Bane reduced the remaining sixty to desiccated husks, and there we stood, surrounded by demon corpses, ourselves virtually unharmed. We surveyed the devastation, shrugged, and Kuhlefaran asked the Traveler’s Star to show us the next portal.

Of Mephits and Solars

Instead, the light played across a higher point, and we heard a voice shriek, “Hey! Cut that out!” We had, it seems, found Dimwold the fire mephit, friend of Klavicus the erudite demon, outcast from the castle of Orcus, ego the size of the entire Abyss but wisdom, as far as I can tell, that would fit in a quarter of a walnut shell. He was delighted that we knew Klavicus, and delightfully amused (easily amused, all of these tanar’ri seem to be) that we had so handily eliminated the balor Ter-Soth, for whom he had a particular dislike (not that I can tell one of these demons’ particular dislikes from another – they seem to roil in an endless slimy pool of hatred and loathing). Boastful, brash, cigar-puffing and dressed in clothes that would make The Bard’s parti-color jester outfit look positively subdued, he spouted volumes of nonsense with hidden kernels of fact that Kuhlefaran and Crusader managed with some distaste to pick from the dross.

That it would be difficult to penetrate Orcus’ fortress unobserved, we already suspected. But we weren’t aware of the disenchanted Zombie King also resident on the plane, seeking oblivion in the attempted annihilation of the much-despised Prince of the Undead (Orcus’ official position here in the Abyss, and the demon prince, unsurprisingly, hates the undead as much as they hate him). And we also weren’t aware of the lich city with which Orcus shares this layer, its demi-lich ruler, or his twelve visiting demi-lich friends. A good place, we unanimously agreed, to stay away from.

This excruciating conversation was briefly interrupted when I heard, from far away, an anguished wail. Questioned about its source, the mephit breezily answered, “Oh, that’s just some balor torturing Gabriel.” Questioned further and with increasing agitation by Crusader, he revealed that Gabriel was a solar, a personal agent of Bahamut, who has been held and tormented here for months. As far as I could tell, only the fact that we immediately embarked on a discussion of rescue scenarios prevented Crusader from dashing off and attempting to free him by herself that very instant. Dimwold’s description of the solar’s agony was so cheerily detailed, I had to suppress the urge to slice his foolish head off on the spot. It is a despicable business trading these evil lives that richly deserve to be ended, every last one of them, for information in service of a higher goal, and I feel not a little dirtied by the necessity. But for now we rest, and tomorrow we undertake the assault on the solar’s prison.

It is time for me to begin my nightly meditations, but first I must speak with Crusader. She has been anxious and withdrawn since we heard the cry of the captive solar, and I am loathe to disturb her, but writing to you has brought to the front of my mind what in the flurry and strain of preparing for the Abyss I had forgotten: the skull of the paladin I received from Klavicus. Crusader has the ability to converse with the dead, and if she is not too distracted perhaps she will do so now. I will rest easier knowing that we have begun the process of discovering his identity and, hopefully, restoring him to life. Whoever he is, he deserves a better fate than resting as a curio on the shelf of a demon, or even jostling next to a stuffed owl in the backpack of a warrior, however benevolent her intentions.

Take care in the midst of your enemies (we’ll try to do the same) – Psydney