4 Rhonus 1120

Plan B

The heroes had succeeded in getting two of the three spawn of Azazel to infuse the galadiir with their power. Now, to complete the task, they returned to Porphatys and sought again the underwater cave of Uriel, the stone's creator.

What they found was a shock: Uriel, the creature so powerful it had laid a 16th-level party to waste in seconds, lay dead in its own cave. The signs pointed to a combat encounter but there was nothing to indicate with whom, or with what. Beyond a vague suspicion that Kallaebri Seastar was likely involved the heroes had nothing to work from. Regardless, their plan to recharge the galadiir had hit a major obstacle. The party returned to Marhaven to consider their options.

The Uriel situation would have to be addressed eventually, but after some discussion the heroes opted for an interim objective: a visit to the Hall of the Vanquished in search of the soul of Aria's father. If Lord Tagren was there and the party could free him he could provide valuable information about their enemy, the party surmised.

With Mrs. Wilkins still unavailable, Melian went about looking for information about Stygia and the Hall in particular. His efforts yielded almost nothing, as their primary data source -- the Adventurers' Guild library and Grimaldi -- was gone and the inner working of Hell are hardly well known among the common people of Marhaven. They debated briefly heading for Nessen, where there must be several well-stocked arcane libraries, but the three-day sail each way seemed like a luxury that might be too costly with an enemy making unseen moves around them. It would cost them significant coin, but they did have a better alternative.

Strontium operated the amulet of the planes and took the party into the heart of Sigil. Soon they were standing before the sentient front gate of Yulach's villa in the Clerk's Ward. The gate seemed distinctly unenthused at their arrival but agreed to allow them onto the grounds to ask for the use of Yulach's library.

Yulach himself was more accomodating. Yes, of course he'd allow the heroes to make use of his library. He had an extensive collection of materials on the Nine Hells. Yulach's helpfulness was not surprising in view of the agreed-upon price of 2500gp (negotiated by Audas, who missed Mrs. Wilkins more than anyone at that point).

A few hours of research brought a reasonable yield of information. The party learned that the Hall of the Vanquished is a combination museum and prison, where souls condemned by a special bind to hell spell became frozen statues of their physical forms and could, with the right connections or for the right price, be temporarily reanimated for gladiatorial exercise in one of the Hall's combat chambers. Normally such souls had to be sent to the Hall by a cleric of Levistus, ruler of Stygia, but clearly a creature as ancient and powerful as Azazel would have its own means of achieving the same end.

The most troubling issue was one raised by Yulach himself: while outsiders were tolerated in the city of Tantlin, as the party themselves had experienced, throughout the rest of Stygia any non-devil would be attacked on sight without proper credentials. Those credentials, Yulach explained, take the form of a letter of transit -- a document signed by an archdevil, or by a known minion of an archdevil, powerful enough to command respect along the traveler's intended route. Obtaining a legitimate letter of transit was difficult, generally requiring the recipient to perform a service of value to the archdevil. More often than not, the service involved an evil act designed to corrupt the soul of the requester.

Condemning themselves to Hell was not an option for the party, and it seemed highly unlikely that an archdevil would settle for anything less even if it remained ignorant somehow of the party's purpose for visiting Stygia. The alternative, also suggested by Yulach, was to commission a forged letter of transit. Forgers with the necessary skill to successfully fake the hellish pass were rare, but they did exist. Yulach himself knew of just one: a gnome beguiler by the name of Garrick Mistrider.

The heroes groaned audibly at the mention of Garrick's name, recalling their common history. Still, they had to grant the gnome's intelligence and affinity for deception. Having recently lost custody of the Compass of Fharlanghn, though, how would they find him? Yulach volunteered that a bounty hunter had reason to seek Garrick in Sigil as recently as the past week, so they might well start there.

Knowing Garrick would be in hiding, the party sought out a magic shop recommended by Yulach and purchased two scrolls of discern location. Using one revealed that Garrick was "in the basement of Kestrel House, the Lady's Ward, Sigil."

A little asking around revealed that Kestrel House was the home of Gunston Kestrel, a merchant banker of considerable wealth and influence. The family consisted of Kestrel and his daughter Julianna; the original Lady Kestrel had died over 10 years before and while Gunston Kestrel never remarried in the past year he had invited a companion, Rose Magrain, to join his household along with her son Trevor.

The party sent one of Yulach's keepers to Kestrel House with a note introducing themselves and requesting a meeting with Garrick. A response came back quickly stating that there was no one by that name in the house.

Was it a lie, or was Garrick hiding himself without the Kestrels' knowledge? The party would need to gain access to the house to find out. So another note was dispatched, this time requesting a short audience with Kestrel himself. The reply said that Lady Kestrel would receive the party that afternoon.

And so the party found themselves in the Lady's Ward, the Mount Olympus of Sigil. Kestrel House was a grand stone mansion on a generous plot of land by Sigil standards, surrounded by a tall iron fence with one massive gate. The group was met at the gate and conducted inside by four well-mannered men in simple but elegant clothes -- monks, Aria guessed, as they carried no apparent weapons.

Lady Kestrel proved to be the young daughter of Gunston. She met the party in a parlor and explained that her father was not receiving visitors at the time. Strontium inquired about Garrick and was met with a polite but firm denial -- there was no such individual at the house, nor any gnome, nor was there any possibility that someone would be hiding there without her knowledge. To Aria the denials seemed a bit forced, but there was nothing to do but accept them for the moment and leave gracefully.

A bunch of adventurers hanging around the Lady's Ward would be suspicious in the extreme, so most of the party retreated to the Clerk's Ward where they could wait for nightfall. Quinn stayed behind, using her wild shape ability to take the form of a bird and flit from tree to tree across the Kestrel estate, gaining a good understanding of the layout of the place.

That evening after dark the rest of the party returned, keeping to the shadows to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Quinn briefed them on what she'd learned during the day and based on that they formed a plan. Melian picked the gate lock and slipped inside along with Quinn, now in the form of a cat, and Audas, who used his walk unseen ability to become invisible. The rest of the group waited outside under cover, ready to rush in if needed.

The cellar door in the rear of the house was an obvious entry point. Melian checked it for traps and opened the lock easily, though the door itself made an unpleasant amount of noise as it opened. They proceeded with extreme caution at first, with Melian insisting on checking every surface for traps every few feet. This grew old very quickly, prompting Quinn and Audas to press ahead.

After passing one unsecured door which led to a pantry, the trio found what looked like a promising thing: a heavy, steel-reinforced door with a very expensive lock. Melian found no traps, but as soon as he inserted his picks into the lock a jet of noxious gas sprayed outward at him. Melian fell to the floor and avoided taking the spray, which would have induced a long fit of coughing and choking, in the face. The lock opened with a little persuasion and the party looked inside to find the Kestrel's wine cellar.

Having now sprung a trap and made considerable noise, the group took on a more urgent pace. They found two stairways leading up and one more room to investigate. This one looked like a storage room converted hastily into a simple, no-frills sleeping space. Lying on the cot, snoring softly, was a male gnome -- Garrick.

Meanwhile, their presence had not gone undetected. From their vantage point outside the gate, the rest of the group saw four of the house grooms take up positions on either side of the cellar door, clearly waiting for the heroes to emerge. Strontium used a message spell to alert Melian's team that they were in danger and then moved for the gate.

Melian woke Garrick, who was not unhappy to see them, and urged a speedy retreat. They grabbed Garrick's trunk containing his gear and headed toward the back door, pausing only long enough for Garrick to cast phantom battle just outside where the enemy waited.

At that time two more monks appeared behind the party, flanking them and blocking the path further into the house. Quinn resumed elf form and cast a great thunderclap at the newcomers, knocking one to the floor but also accidentally stunning Melian.

Aria and Caenus charged through the gate and across the lawn toward the monks while Garrick cast a mass suggestion that they should make sure their mistress was safe. Two of the monks fell for the spell and sped off around the house while the other two remained distracted by the imaginary battle going on around them. Garrick followed that with a repulsion spell that compelled the two monks in the rear to flee back into the house.

Outside, one of the remaining monks took a swing at Caenus and landed a blow so feeble that neither could be certain it actually made contact. Caenus responded with a trio of devastating but deliberately nonlethal strikes that knocked the monk unconscious almost instantly. The other, facing an obviously better-trained monk in Aria and the one-man wrecking crew that was Caenus, held up his hands and asked only that they strike him hard enough to make it look as though he'd continued to fight.

The party gathered in the back yard and, before any of the house monks could regroup, used the amulet of the planes to shift back to their home plane. Strontium's accuracy was outstanding, landing them right on the dock next to the Chimera. They took Garrick aboard and asked him to explain what he was doing in a makeshift prison cell in Sigil.

Garrick explained that he had been commissioned by Julianna Kestrel to do "a slight document alteration job" -- specifically, to Gunston Kestrel's will. Kestrel, whose health was rapidly declining, had made a will leaving the bulk of his wealth and property to Rose Magrain and only a basic allowance (in her estimation) to Julianna. The altered version, carefully prepared by Garrick, reversed those terms so that Julianna would receive the bulk of the estate and Rose a limited allowance. With Kestrel's death expected to be imminent, Julianna had insisted that Garrick remain on the grounds until the forged will was validated. Garrick, knowing that there was still a bounty on his head from the elven mage he'd double-crossed in Valhalla (Heroes' Feast), agreed more or less willingly.

The heroes then explained what they needed from Garrick: a well-forged letter of transit granting them leave to visit the Hall of the Vanquished and engage in training combat with some of the imprisoned souls. Garrick knew better than to demand payment but did caution the party that it would require some expensive materials to do credibly. He prepared a list, which came to about 3500gp in materials, and said it would take him three days to complete the task. The group assigned Garrick quarters on the Chimera where they could keep an eye on him, obtained the necessary materials, and set the gnome to work.

Late on the second night after their raid on Kestrel house, the party had unwelcome visitors. Aria, patrolling the aft deck of the Chimera, spotted a shadowy figure moving along the edge of the dock. Before she could warn Quinn, the figure fired a bow and an arrow struck the druid. Quinn's body became paralyzed on contact.

Aria leapt to the dock to chase down the assailant, unwittingly clearing the way for two more figures to emerge from hiding and board the ship uncontested. Her quarry also jumped onto the main deck, but when Aria tried to follow she caught her foot on a line and splashed into the water instead.

The intruders paid no attention to the helpless Quinn. Instead, the leader and a second man went immediately below, leaving the archer and two more companions on the main deck to provide cover and deal with Aria.

Melian woke to the sound of strangers boarding the ship and grabbed his tridents, planning to bang them together and make enough noise to wake his teammates. Then he heard the soft muttering of a spellcaster just outside his door and a total silence descended over the ship. Unable to make a sound, Melian instead used gaseous form (a spell with no verbal component) to slip through his own doorway and across to Caenus's cabin. There he resumed his normal form and woke the warrior. He moved just in time, too, as the enemy leader kicked in Melian's stateroom door and found the room unoccupied.

The archer pushed Quinn out of her way, causing the druid to hit the lower deck with a silenced thud, and took up a sniping position at the lip of the deck. Aria climbed aboard but was met with an orb of sound cast by a woman in chain mail that deafened her temporarily and rattled her body. She had no time to recover from that before a huge, axe-wielding half-orc bull-rushed her over the rail and into the water again.

Down below, Melian had used another gaseous form to flow into Strontium's room and wake the wizard. Strontium and Caenus opened their doors and put up the first real resistance to the invaders. Caenus advanced, bold despite his lack of armor, and attacked the first enemy he encountered in the narrow passageway. Strontium provided support with a silenced magic missile spell against the same target.

The archer saw this, but knew better than to fire into the cramped quarters. Instead she signalled the half-orc to go support their leader, but the fighter ignored the signal to concentrate on Aria, who was boarding the ship once again. He took three swings at Aria and inflicted serious wounds but failed to knock her off the ship again.

The enemy leader tapped the front man and pulled him back from Caenus. The man retreated and cast a healing spell on himself as the leader moved forward to take his place. Caenus attacked gleefully but the cramped space interfered with his swing, causing him to injure himself.

Quinn recovered from the paralysis and clambered up to engage her enemy. The archer repositioned and took three quick shots, hitting with each one. Quinn returned the favor with a blow from her trident only to be hit with a lightning bolt from the armored mage, who had taken shelter inside a blade barrier.

Caenus, having landed a blow against the leader, suffered severe retaliation. The leader struck again and again with his glaive, pummeling Caenus so hard that the barbarian was knocked senseless in seconds. Interestingly, the party noted that the glaive had left no open wounds; Caenus was unconscious but not dying.

Melian had continued making the rounds behind the cover of Caenus, waking Garrick and then Audas. Both, however, were hamstrung by the magical silence that still enveloped most of the ship. With Caenus now down, something had to be done quickly or the invaders would have their victory. Strontium called on his emergency measure, using his Alacritous Cogitation feat to cast a silenced dispel magic targeted at the silence he knew was in the area, and suddenly all the sounds of battle returned to the ship.

The leader took that opportunity to end things quickly. Pointing to Garrick, who was huddling in his cabin door, the leader announced, "Nobody has to die here. We just want him."

Topside Quinn and Aria still had their hands full. The archer executed a tumbling maneuver and moved past Quinn, turning and firing a sneak shot that struck with telling effect. Quinn, down to her last bit of strength, rolled off the edge and onto the deck below to escape further attack and then cast heal on herself.

Strontium, speaking for the party, refused to surrender Garrick and Audas punctuated the answer with an empowered vitriolic chain that contained all of his prior frustration at being unable to act. The mage covered her boss by casting a stinking cloud in the middle of the defending group and rendering Audas and Melian nauseated and out of the fight. The cleric, who had taken the brunt of Audas's vitriolic chain, followed up with a flame strike tailored to do nonlethal damage. Strontium responded with an Isaac's Greater Missile Storm and Garrick entered the fray with a mass whelm.

That was enough. The leader reluctantly conceded and ordered his crew to withdraw. The heroes elected to let them leave rather than continue to fight.

Garrick showed his appreciation for the party's defense by completing the forged letter of transit. They now had everything they needed to enter the Hall of the Vanquished.

<MR>
12/18/2008