- Start in combat with 3 bearded devils that were harassing a family.
- Balsam summons Bean for the first time and strongly but briefly reacts to a sigil on her face.
- Reya is stunned at seeing her city in flames.
- We defeat the devils with such combat hits as "Eldritch Blast," "Sick Wall Runs," and "Sneaky Psychic Stab."
- Balsam and Skraps suffer infernal wounds and relearn that Skraps can't be magically healed.
- One of the devils surrenders and we question him learning that they planned to sell the family. We kill him.
- We travel with the family towards High Hall where the Grand Duke might be.
- Lily TRIES to sneakily give Skraps a potion. She is too successful and he doesn't even notice.
- We come upon 2 Bulezau harassing a blacksmith. We quickly kill the demons with a 2 pronged attack.
- The blacksmith lets us search his forge for mundane weapons. He will also join our squadron to go to High Hall
- Skraps collects some demon goo.
The blacksmiths name is Ora. He is infatuated with Lily. We roll out to keep on our way. The eastern side of Elturel got hit much worse than the western side, where High Hall is. There are only 2 points we can cross to the western side both bridges. Cassandra sends Der'ik up to scout the bridges.
We decide on one that has 4 spined devils and 2 bearded devils. Cassandra recognizes some runes carved into the bridge. They could be activated to do radiant damage to fiends and undead. We take a whole bunch of time planning potential options including the runes, flinging a cart at them, teleporting someone up close to the bridge, rushing in.
We decide to have everyone but Cassandra and Balsam hide up closer as Bean rushes us up. They deff get caught. One of the Devils calls them out and then Lily pops out with a sexy "Hello~" He asks if she is a citizen of Elturel. She says she could be. He sees through it and asks how she got there. She says she was invited and he tells her to approach which she does. The bearded devils step up front to approach her. She stays on the entrance to the bridge before slowly walking up and tries to recite the prayer to activate the runes. She succeeds and as she says it they are like "No!!" but its too late. The runes alight with holy radiant energy and we roll initiative!!!
Lulu flies out and asks if it's clear at the moment. Der'ik gets sent out to scout a bit. Reya and Lulu come out from cover. We discuss Skraps sneaking things into our mouths (namely he wants our potions of healing) We head back to the pentagon (a pentagon shaped building) We get a prayer of healing from Cassandra.
We continue along our journey to High Hall. Reya leads up the pack. Cassanda and Balsam take the back (I made a sick "I like to hit it from the back" joke.) We try not to draw attention to ourselves as we make our way. We see a man on a flaming horse with a flaming lance. A Narzugon. Lulu warns us against fighting him. I very much want to joust in but choose to refrain. He seems to be patrolling and making his way towards us.
The actual horse
We hop off Bean and send her a short distance and then we hide. He stops at a close intersection and sniffs around. The horse whinnies uneasily. At this moment an arc of lightning blasts off of the companion slamming into a roof by the Narzugon. He then continues on his way.
Cassandra and I hop back onto Bean. We all breathe a sigh of relief. Lily says she never thought she'd see one in person. She then tells us that they are often corrupted paladins. Corrupted by devils in the afterlife. They are prized warriors for the battles in the Hells. They often ride Nightmares and have Hellfire lances and if you are killed by one you get shunted into the river Styx and turned into a Lemure.
We continue on our way. Nothing else really grabs our attention until we reach the High Hall. It was once the crowning jewel of Elturel. only 3 of 5 towers still stand. They seem abandoned. The gates have been shattered. The west side has been reduced to rubble. The surviving ones are blackened by soot. The center cathedral stands defiantly.
We look around to see if we see anyone. We hear a snarling sound coming from the courtyard. It almost sounds like a dog eating. We stealthily head up to the castle walls. We peek inside and see a courtyard littered with corpses. We see 2 hell hounds feasting on the bodies of the dead civilians.
Leading the hounds is a merrigon (we don't actually know what a merrigon is but still)
While we are standing there Bean starts nipping at Lily. I tell her she must smell like peaches. Bean likes peaches. Skraps links up himself, Balsam, Aurelia, and Tzon with psychic whispers. He then sneaks to get a better read of the situation. He makes his way inside. He notices a third Hell hound at a door to a tower. He's sniffing at it and pawing at it as if it knows something is in there. There is a banner of Torm above the door to a another tower. He then moves up against a wall to the main cathedral. He pulls out a short bow and attempts to shoot the banner down as a distraction. He misses the thin rope but the baddies do notice the p'tink of the arrow hitting and turn to look. The merrigon says something in infernal to the Hell hounds which starts them sniffing around looking for who shot the arrow. They don't immediately find anyone but they are deff on the hunt.
Skraps lobs a dagger into a corner to try to lure them into a corner. All of their heads snap to that direction and begin sprinting over. Skraps yells the code word in our heads. INITIATIVE
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