106. The Blasted Lands

* The party have made it to Legion, the Second Hell. After six days of tearing across the wasteland of dust, rock, and clay, in their demon grinder, fighting what little skirmishes they had to but mostly staying away from the fortified banks of the Styx and not encountering much trouble in turn, they arrived at the frontier town of Liar's Wait that rested before an Iron Bridge leading to Dis. There they met up with the Plagueman who relieved them of their horrible Minauros diseases and rewarded them with potent magic items in turn. The Plagueman had also told them that the Frozen Steps were a route up to the First Hell that would bring them out near their ultimate destination, the Flaming Gate that marked the entrance to Hell -- or, to them, the exit. 
* After a few hours of driving from Liar's Wait, the group spotted the shaytan bounty hunter known simply as the Huntman in their wake. He was astride a massive infernal motorbike, with four others manned by animated suits of armour flanking him. And so the battle commenced! 
** The accompanying riders were moving in pairs, with an apparently empty metal platform suspended between their bikes. As they got closer, one of each pair pulled a chord, a catapult arm snapped up on the platforms, and then they detached the platforms, sending them crashing to the ground. Meanwhile, something almost invisible was hurtling through the air towards them. Only Wilfred spotted the gelatinous cubes that had been flung. One pulled up short but the other smashed down right on top of their moving demon grinder. The massive jelly burned to the touch and sent those of the group clinging to the outside of the infernal vehicle in anticipation for the fight scrambling for cover. 
** Pyt managed to get the gelatinous cube off the vehicle before it seeped through the gaps in the frame of the demon grinder and started wreaking real havoc inside it through a dissonant whispers spell. 
** Wilfred tries to keep the riders away with a wall of force but two of them conjure up walls of fire on either side of it and then they simply ride their bikes through them, entering one burning wall and emerging from the other some 60 feet ahead of the first! 
** The fast moving bikes are quickly up beside the demon grinder. Clwyd blows out the bike under one of them, flinging its rider into the air as it explodes in furious fashion. . . but the rider doesn't come crashing down. These hellrider horrors, just like their more mundane helmed horror cousins, could fly. And what's more, the construct then teleported to the saddle of another of the bikes, behind its rider. 
** The Huntsman was peppering the demon grinder with crossbow bolts that exploded with concussive force after piercing the armoured hull. Zadimus and one of Pyt's unseen servants tried returning fire with the demon grinder's javelin throwing ballistae, but most of the shots were errant.
** The hellrider horrors manage to surround the demon grinder in two walls of fire, forcing Molly to slam on the breaks or risk killing herself driving through them. 
** As they wait there, surrounded by obscuring walls of flame, sitting ducks, all hell breaks loose. The hellrider horrors start driving their bikes through the fire, slamming them right into the demon grinder, causing them to blow up in gouts of fire and shrapnel, while the riders cling onto the party's vehicle and start assailing them aboard it. The Huntsman remained outside the walls of fire, circling it on his bike, raining down explosive trick bolts at them. 
** One of Pyt's unseen servants mans the wrecking ball and truly ruins a hellrider horror with it, smashing the creature to pieces. It exploded too, just as the bikes did, but the high swing of the wrecking ball took it up in the air before it did so, sparing them all the force of the blast. 
** The death of that horror got rid of one of the walls of fire and Molly slammed on the gas. 
** Zadimus and Ingvild battled furiously with the horrors on the outside of the vehicle as it tore away through the Blasted Lands once more. Wilfred joined them, using a steel wind strike and the forceful smites of his new duelling staff to great effect. Again and again, the creatures exploded as they were slain and the party were brought close to the brink. 
** Wilfred lights up his beacon of hope candle and the group make good use of the supreme healing potions he just got from the Plagueman. 
** Soon enough, it's just them and the Huntsman left. 
** The shaytan has shot out one of Pyt's two active unseen servants -- the one manning the wrecking ball. Pyt jumps into the station himself, ready for vengeance. 
** Molly shouts for them all to hold on, the whips up the handbrake, fishtails the cumbersome demon grinder into a 180, and charges straight for the pursuing bounty hunter. Pyt's ever loyal unseen servant, Jeremy, is ready and manning the chomper, the mandible-like teeth on the front of the infernal war machine. Molly slams into the Huntsman's bike, Jeremy chomps him, and then Pyt swings the devastating wrecking ball and blows up the bike in an ungodly explosion. 
** When the dust settles, Wilfred is down, Clwyd is down, and Molly is down, all burned and with pieces of shrapnel turning their bodies into pincushions. Meanwhile, the Huntsman was making a break for some rocky outcroppings in the distance. 
** One by one the party are able to rouse one another, largely through the use of Wilfred's potions. Ingvild was first to pursue the Huntsman, and it tangled her up in an ensnaring net from one of its trick bolts for her trouble. 
** Clwyd follows after, does well against the invisibility field the Huntsman liked to make use of, and hit him solidly with some eldritch blasts. 
** Wilfred then dimension doored in front of the shaytan. 
** Not slowing his stride, the Huntsman shot once with an ensnaring bolt at Wilfred in front of him, then looked over his shoulder, reached across his body, and fired a second of the bolts under his arm at Clwyd. Both were ineffective though. 
** The chase ends when Pyt, in the form of a mammoth, charged the Huntsman, knocking him to the ground, and then stomped on him. 
** Near death, the Huntsman grinned, purple ichor staining his teeth. He coughed out the words, 'Good. Hunting,' and then activated an explosive that rocked all of them and destroyed both the Huntsman's body and his equipment. 
* The party reconvened, nursed their wounds, and then opted to backtrack to all the spots where the infernal motorbikes had blown up. The demon grinder was in bad shape after the fight and they'd need the scrap metal for repairs. After that, they set off again for the Frozen Steps. Each evening, Ingvild with her smith's tools and Clwyd with her tinker's tools would set about repairing the demon grinder as best they could. 
* This leg of their journey ended after ten more days carving through the wastes of Legion. By the end of it, Ingvild and Clwyd had the demon grinder fully patched up. They'd arrived at a bluff overlooking an incredible sight: some 10 miles away, a majestic white curtain rose up from the ground and stretched all the way to the red sky above, as well as stretching to the horizon both left and right. It was a frozen waterfall of unfathomable size. A bifurcation of the River Styx emerged from the base of the frozen waterfall almost directly ahead of them, then began its snaking journey through Legion and down, down, down. Chunks of ice floated in its waters. In the distance, they saw more such snaking bifurcations of the river, but the one they were closest too drew their attention, for at its head, where the ice sheet was solid as it touched the ground of Legion, a full city-sized infernal garrison kept vigil. And from this, the steps rose. Carved out of the frozen waterfall itself was a set of steps at least a mile wide. And most foreboding of all was the sheer number of troops. They could hardly see the steps themselves for the tide of bodies that were marching up them, ascending to the front lines of the Blood War, to the place they wanted to go.
Category:Part Six