103. The Flooded City II: Beelzebub

* At the seventh temple in an ancient pilgrimage around the flooded city of Minauros, the party encountered a sibriex, an ancient demonic enemy of hell, that had been sealed in chains within this temple honouring the the great gaol of Tartarus, Seventh Hell and mightiest of prisons. After reaching out with telepathic communication and failing to convince any of the group to free it, the sibriex began its attack. It was warping Pyt's flesh, turning him into a horrible abyssal wretch piece by piece -- currently, his left eye was protruding from its socket, questing around at the end of a fleshy stalk -- and Ingvild had just been feebleminded. 
** In her enfeebled state, Ingvild knows only that the party hiding behind the corners outside the temple should be protected and that the massive sentient ball of tumours restrained in the middle of the room was an enemy. She draws her great hammer, roars a primal roar, and begins laying into the sibriex. 
** In return, the sibriex beats at her with some loose chains and splits its fleshy body in various places to form new mouths from which it then spits acidic bile at her, but the chains keeping it in the temple also prevent it from moving away from her assault. 
** Pyt's flesh continues to warp as he runs away and he falls hard on his face as his arms and legs swap places. 
** Clwyd conjures forth some pillars of earth to block the entrance of the temple, blocking the sibriex's line of sight. 
** Wilfred casts haste on Zadimus and tells him to rush around to another entrance and help Ingvild. The vampire draws his rapier and rushes in. 
** By the time Zadimus gets in, he sees that Ingvild already has the sibriex down to the wire, but curiously the powerful demon isn't devoting its full attention to taking her out. Every so often, it'll hit her with its chains again, but it's bile spitting is now focused on destroying the pillars blocking the entrance. 
** Pyt tries to counter the horrible flesh warping by polymorphing into a mammoth, giving him a hardier constitution more capable of resisting the corrupting effects. 
** When at last Ingvild slays the sibriex and its massive body begins slewing off and turning to tarry demon ichor, it laughs its wet laugh once more and speaks through its own mouth for the first time, its voice so croaky as to be nearly incomprehensible. It says only three foreboding words: "FREE. AT. LAST." Its laughs continued until it was fully rendered into caustic, black sludge and then the pilgrimage's seventh temple rang eerily silent. It had wanted them to kill it. 
* With the sibriex dead, the flesh warping ended immediately on Pyt. The group reconvened and caught their breath. Ingvild was still feebleminded but with only one Greater Restoration tattoo left among them, and with her still capable and effective in a fight, they decided they needed to hold off on restoring her mind for the time being. Clwyd went to the seventh temple's alter and placed the dimensional shackles they'd bought from Cill when they were back on Oleantis, seemingly so long ago. Immediately the offering was accepted and satisfactory, and the dimension sense in her head moved on. 
* The eighth stop:
** Getting Ingvild mounted and keeping her seated in the saddle is a true ordeal, and the group waste a lot of time in the process. Eventually they arrive at the next temple in the route, the penultimate one, near to the summit of the city's mound now. 
** The front of the temple reads Malbodge, the name they know the Eighth to still be going by now. Observing in from the entrance, they see that the mural depicts quills, scribes, books, and all the other instruments of bureaucracy, all centred on Geryon, the once great archdevil whose mysterious demotion from Lord of the Eighth to Lord of the First -- where he still reigned -- was the stuff of legends in the Hells. 
** However, approaching the alter would be no simple task. With the temples having grown in size each time, this one, the eighth, was now nearly 200 feet across from entrance to alter, and the entirely of its ceiling was covered in roosting bat-like stirges. The floor was filled will mounds of their guano that had mixed with the waters of the city and turned into a milky, ankle-deep sludge. 
** Clwyd and Wilfred work together. One of the dimension doors the pair to the alter, then Clwyd deposits the Infernal Puzzle Box they'd taken from Mephistopheles's hall of records (the contract it once held had been destroyed by Pyt back in the Umbral Market when he was figuring out the extent of his genie-granted power), along with a quill and ink. The moment she puts the things on the alter, the other of the pair dimension doors them back outside the temple again. 
** In their wake, the roosting stirges at the far side of the temple were stirring, but the group were up and away, the direction sense in Clwyd's head already moved on, pointing her towards the final, largest temple atop the hill. 
* The ninth and final stop on the pilgrimage of Minauros:
** The temple was huge, and the waters that flooded the whole city and flowed out into the rest of the swamp beyond seemed to be originating from here; there was a strong current rushing out the temple and washing over the sides of the city's hill. The temple's façade read Nessus and they knew to expect a depiction of Asmodeus, the Lord of the Nine Himself, waiting inside. But what they hadn't expected was the enormous slug that was sleeping on the temple's alter! None other than Beelzebub the Wretch, Lord of the Third. He had chosen this place as his resting ground, the final spot at the end of an effect that forced people to detour and to come to him. In his loneliness, the cursed archdevil could only wait for people to come to him. And as they looked on, the group saw what had become of some of those unfortunates who had journeyed here before them: adhering to the puss-yellow flesh of the archdevil by some viscous, sticky ooze, were the bones of a dozen or so humanoid creatures. 
** The group know that there is only one offering that would be suitable for the Lord of the Nine: a soul he doesn't already own. The soul coins would do them no good, since each was a soul damned already, and Asmodeus has claim to them all. It would have to be one of them. 
** As the group's eyes turn to one another and to their newer associates, Zadimus pipes up, saying he will gracefully save them all, much to the shock of most of those present. But Zadimus has no intention of offering himself. Instead, he was holding up the shrunken form of Ilphas, the eladrin still near-catatonic from the combo of the Longing and the cocktail of Plagueman diseases they'd put into his body. 
** Nobody's thrilled about it, but they all agree that it's their best bet of making it out. Clwyd prepares to take Ilphas to the alter, hoping to get the job done without waking up the slumbering archdevil atop it. 
** Before she goes in, Pyt sends in Jackson to trigger any traps that might be waiting for them. Sure enough, as the little construct swims into the centre of the temple, a symbol spell's glyph is triggered, extending an aura threatening to stun anything within. 
** The symbol's triggering wakes up Beelzebub, who immediately starts crawling towards the entrance. As he passes over Jackson, the construct is stuck to his body by the mucous it's secreting and then quickly burned by its acidic properties. 
** Wilfred dispels the stunning symbol and Clwyd dimension doors into the temple behind Beelzebub, taking Ilphas with her. Before she can offer the eladrin up though, a second symbol is triggered, this one putting her to sleep.
** Beelzebub makes it to the temple's entrance and starts grabbing and holding various people, pulling them in close. Pyt and Ingvild get attacked to the handsy archdevil in turn, and though he isn't trying to hurt them specifically, between the forcefulness of his grabs and the caustic nature of his mucous, they end up plenty hurt indeed. 
** The others all managed to scramble away before getting caught, disappearing around the sides of the temple. 
** Pyt teleports out of Beelzebub's grasp, appearing next to Clwyd floating in the current, still asleep, then gives her a quick poke with his sabre to wake her up. 
** Clwyd gets to the alter with Ilphas, shouts out that she devotes this elf's soul to Asmodeus, and pushes him onto the stone slab, the water aiding her disease-enfeebled strength. Clwyd suddenly feels the disruption to her direction sense that had been present since arriving in Minauros disappear, like an elastic band snapping back to its original shape. She immediately knows the way to an exit up to the Second Hell. Now they needed only to get away from this archdevil. 
** Beelzebub starts using spells, but Pyt is able to counter a few of them thanks to some more spellwought tattoos he had thought to put on his body back in the market. But when Beelzebub uses a scatter spell to teleport people about the room, the archdevil counterspells Pyt's last counter, and successfully teleports himself back atop the alter -- immediately crushing the catatonic Ilphas and sticking the ever-suffering elf to his slug body -- and Pyt atop him, all the while keeping Ingvild attached as well. Clwyd managed to resist the effect.
** Eventually Pyt teleports away, leaving only Ingvild. The shrunken fire giant manages to rip herself free of Beelzebub's sticky restraints and runs for cover. Then Wilfred rounds the corner into the temple astride his nightmare. He's hasted the creature so that it's moving at a blinding speed now, galloping in the air above the rushing water. The gnome gets Ingvild into the saddle and the pair of them flee out the building. 
** Everyone outside has saddled up in anticipation of Wilfred's rescue -- with Pyt holding the reigns of Ingvild's horse and Molly temporarily in Zadimus's saddle, in the spot Ilphas wouldn't be occupying any more. 
** The group take to the skies and ride away from the temple and out the city in haste, with the multi-voiced scream of Beelzebub chasing them all the way.
Category:Part Six