As
a quick recap, we’d been tasked with getting to the Midnight Isles and gaining
enough notoriety that Nocticula, Demonlord of this Abyssal realm, would want to
speak to us. So far, we’d managed to reach her capital city and Alexei had won
some significant renown within the arena there.
His
hands raised above his head, bushy beard moving in the wind, Alexei addressed
the cheering crowd as the blood from the previous champion sank into the dirt
at his feet. He spoke eloquently of his power and the choices he supported –
the ways people could live like him and the benefits that gave. Keiran looked
shocked that he was attempting to recruit followers even here, but I’ve known
him and his ego longer. He invited everyone back to the place we were staying
for a party, renaming it Alexei’s Arms and offering the owner an unspecified
recompense.
I
quickly grew bored of this gathering and eventually convinced Aaron to join me
(see? I am learning not to rush off into danger unattended). For something to
do, we sought out some bounties. The name of “Shifty Neil” caught Aaron’s eye.
He’d stolen a book from some demon called Valexia and she wanted his head.
Aaron spotted certain aspects of the crowd giving me unwanted attention so we
spent a bit of time perfecting a generically demon disguise for me – something
to keep me blended into the crowd. We found a couple of demons in a pub who’d
heard of him and were similarly unimpressed: he’d stolen a purse from one and
necklace from the other and they wanted his guts. They had an idea where we may
be able to get some more info, though: ‘The Blushing Mermaid’.
There,
it became clear that the clientele was predominantly human or at least humanoid
and our demonic appearances were going to get us nowhere. We returned a bit
later, me back as me and Aaron taking even more steps than before to hide his
Tiefling heritage. Sure enough, they were far more forthcoming and gave us an
address.
To
access his hidey-hole, we had to climb the side of the building and open a
sky-light. Inside, he could be heard sleeping so I made as careful a search of
the dusty attic as I could before determining the book was gone – probably sold
on already. A purse and necklace matching the descriptions given, however, were
easy enough to locate. Aaron, meanwhile, woke him by sitting on his chest with
blade to his throat. Neil was surprisingly calm, but confirmed the book had
been sold to “some bloke” – no idea whom. Aaron cut off his head.
I
probably should have told him sooner my plan was a bit more of a double-cross:
Neil might be a thief, but this is the Abyss and he didn’t seem to be a bad
guy. This guilty feeling was only exacerbated when I found an amulet of hide
alignment round his neck, and a few Iomedae trinkets.
Aaron
removed his guts and placed them in the purse. The demon was suitably amused
and provided a couple of cheap gems as thanks – just as well, because Valexia
refused to see us or pay us or anything (which is kinda stupid, cos why the
hell would anyone else do one of her bounties? Although I suppose she can
always trust there will be some new sap to take the risk. I think we maybe
should have done something a bit more dangerous to make her think twice in future,
but probably best we just left it, tossing the head over the wall back at her
guards as we left).
By
this point, Kieran was pretty desperate to take his turn in the ring,
suggesting to Yanielle that they go in together and take on 5 opponents.
Eventually, though, he went in alone. A dwarf was pushed in, fearsome colour
falling away as the door closed behind him, and a large battle-axe thrown
after. Kieran, shiny armour at its shiniest, quickly established that the dwarf
was good and offered him a way out: the dwarf was himself a paladin who’d been
captured to fight. Kieran gave him the emergency escape talisman Alexei had
produced for us: the dwarf – amazed to hear Drezen was free – snapped it in delight and
vanished from the arena.
The
crowd, predictably, were unimpressed by this development, but Kieran had a
plan. Teleporting himself (with his less-than-shiny helmet) to the first jeerer
to catch his eye. “You got a problem?” He menaced. Sure enough, the demon had a
problem – which Kieran dealt with by teleporting back into the ring with the
demon.
The
bout turned out to be rather tougher than Kieran anticipated – the demon
grabbed the axe that had been thrown in after the dwarf and contemptuously
kicked off the head to wield the haft as a quarterstaff. He may not have hit as
hard as Kieran, but his aim was better and the fight fierce enough that Ivan,
watching in the stands, nearly called the whole thing off – but Kieran demanded
to complete the fight and managed to win.
Not
to be outdone, Aaron took his turn. Possibly cautious following Kieran’s
decision to free one of their better fighters, they pitted Aaron up against a
foe I think even I could have dealt with. Aaron danced around him, nimbly
avoiding all blows before taking him out. He then asked for a greater
challenge, and a great beast was brought forward: a young dragon (not out of
place here, so I can say the name). He notched his lucky arrow and let fly to
pierce the creature’s eye. It breathed fire on him, but couldn’t do enough to
stop him and Aaron came from beneath, slicing through its neck to fly up
through the spurting blood as the victor.
It
was clear we were a group and there were a few shouts of “what about the
half-elf?”, but instead Mr Tiddles looked at the organiser and said “all of
them”. We backed off, to the very edges of the stands as the little cat sat
there in the centre of the arena. The combatants didn’t seem too sure of what
they were doing, faced with a purring cat, and quite a lot of the audience were
pushing their way closer as we fought our way back. Once we were clearly safe,
he unleashed his power, summoning a spirally giant comet that took out the
arena, leaving just himself and the announcer stood on little pillars of clear
ground in the decimated pit. The first few rows of the audience were missing.
I
took out my awesome little rod of weird and wibble (a rod of wonder) and
fiddled with it, managing to shrink myself down as a fireball shot over the
carnage like a celebratory firework.
Being
little is fun.
We
went back to our lodgings to celebrate and heard Nocticula’s voice whispering
through our minds. We’d impressed her enough she wanted to meet us, and gave us
the location as well as the warning that we would need to deal with the guards
as a final test. Alexei again knew roughly which way to go, so we set off. The
island was far enough from the shore we’d need to teleport if we wanted to
avoid risking a boat journey over the cursed waters, but fortunately between
Ivan and Mr Tiddles that wasn’t a problem.
We
crept through the jungle (tinged with purple like everything else in this
midnight realm) until we arrived at a domed building. Entering, 4 shadow demons
hovered before us. The last time we saw one of these bastards it was deep
beneath Fort Drezen, and it nearly killed us by possessing Alexei.
Kieran,
thinking the challenge from Nocticula may not require violence, walked towards
them and tried to continue through. Predictably, they attacked him: he fell to
the floor, spasming. As we prepared for battle, they summoned 4 more and cast
the room into darkness. In a bit of a panic, I threw off my rod of wonder again
– shrinking even smaller as a wind blew through the room before Ivan countered
the shadow demons’ spell. My one hope – that being so tiny ((fine, in fact –
about 6”)) meant they wouldn’t notice me – soon proved false as they swooped
towards me. At least being little made me hard to hit, because when they did
connect it hurt and I was grateful for my ability to suddenly be elsewhere as a
blow falls. Alexei was less impressed to find me on his shoulder.
Anyway,
between them Aaron, Ivan and Evander dealt with the damn demons. Keiran still
lay there, and I was anxious, remembering Alexei. As I moved towards him, he sat
up suddenly and flung from him the amulet of pure good that he’d acquired when
we chased after Jeska, before vanishing. A noise from
behind caused me to turn – Alexei and Ivan, who should have been there, had
vanished and Kieran was walking towards me with his sword drawn… This didn’t
feel good so I started to move towards Aaron, fast as my iddy-biddy legs would
take me, which was not fast enough as he tried to step on me. I used my mirror
dodge again, to get onto Aaron’s shoulder whilst leaving him thinking I was
still on the floor. Being little is great, but being stepped on would suck.
It
was about now Alexei reappeared with Ivan to warn us Kieran was possessed –
Alexei’s staff had triggered one of its contingency powers and whisked him away
when Kieran hit him (the noise I’d heard). Between them, they threw the demon
out and it dissipated. Kieran fell to his knees in prayer and Ivan and Mr
Tiddles, fed up with my new littleness, dispelled that also until I was my own
size again.
And because I didn’t write this up in
time (I wanted to illustrate but failed at drawing), we go straight into the next session. It’s much shorter, I promise ;-)
We
walked through the doors at the other side of the hall and found ourselves in a
corridor lined with tomes and tablets. Closer inspection revealed these to
detail the lives and eventual deaths of the heroes, solars and demons Nocticula
had killed and whose bodies made up the Midnight Isles. *Shudder.*
Two
fly-headed scribe demons met us at the end and led us into the next room – a cathedral-sized
room across two levels. The upper level had a shimmering pool, towering
bookshelves and, reclining on a throne, the most beautiful woman I have ever
seen. Large red wings shimmered with runes and her two tails flicked and waved
seductively. She wasn’t wearing much, but her lava-boots caught my eye and when
she spoke it was as though no other sound would ever satisfy.
She
knew we were there to stop Baphomet’s mining operation. She was pleased – she wanted
to stop them but wasn’t ready to openly move against her rival so our arrival
gave her the opportunity to deal with the problem whilst retaining deniability.
She told us the mining operation was being overseen by Baphomet’s daughter. She
advised us that if we could destroy the mining operations, she’d be able to
keep them from coming back. She told us we could reach the location of the
mining by stepping through the pool. She slowly walked out as we basked in her
glorious presence. She smiled slyly as the left the room – a beat of her wings,
and she was gone leaving an after-image of runes shimmering in the air.
Kieran
was first to move to the pool – her presence didn’t seem to have affected him.
It took the rest of us a moment to collect ourselves. I thought of Noleski with
a homesick pang and that helped get me back to myself.
We
stepped through and arrived on an outcrop under a waterfall. As Nocticula’s
callous, tinkling laugh echoed in our ears, I recalled how dangerous all water
was here.
And this was the point I left to
meet family for a meal whilst Ivan and Alexei reverse-gravity’ed
the water away from us and stone-shaped a bridge to safety. Climbing the cliff,
they spotted an enormous undead solar, which Aaron attempted to pull to the
ground with a grappling hook. Instead, it flew off with him dangling behind…
Between them, though, they rescued him and defeated the beast.
The party then headed off into
the jungleyness, moving upstream towards the mining operation. They came across
a trio of colossal fiendish dire crocodiles, which the paladin used his immense
handle animal skill on and… well… they ended up taking the party upstream by
towing them as they sat on floating discs. This ended as they reached massive
gates barring the river as it entered (or rather, exited) the cliff. These were
guarded by two towers, each manned by two tieflings. And this was when I got
home and re-joined the game.
Kieran
used his helmet to teleport to the top of one tower; Evander threw Aaron after
him (to Aaron’s surprise) whilst I spider’s climbed my way up the other.
Between us, it didn’t take long to clear them out and we followed the steps
down and into the gorge.
As
we followed the path, we heard a voice calling us… A bit of exploration
revealed a faecal succubus who complained about the miners. To get to them, we
would have to go through the territory that she stated was hers but had been
taken from her by a dragon. The dragon had some form of truce going with the
miners so wasn’t about to clear them out. We took the opportunity of the dragon’s
absence (out hunting) to start exploring its share of the caverns, but it
returned before we were done so we epically and dramatically slayed it.
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