89. Charms and Chains

* The party had barely survived a harrowing fight with a horned devil and a regiment of merregons; Aerendyl only managing to do so by cutting a deal with Dispater, the Lord of the Fourth Hell himself. The four of them, still in Zadimus the vampire's cell in the subterranean prison, collect themselves in a hurry and plan their next move. The alarm was still raised among the infernal jailers and the group were far from in the clear. 
** Wilfred carefully pokes his head out the puzzle-doors of the cell and sees a bone devil standing sentry at the end of the corridor. Only the sheerest luck saved them in that moment, for the devil had turned his head to the side to address someone else in the jail proper and didn't notice the door opening a crack. Wilfred quickly retreated back within and closed the iron door softly. 
** Wilfred tells the group about the bone devil and they set about planning their next move. As they do so, Aerendyl shares with them -- in a hushed voice so that Zadimus might not hear from where he was chained in the room's centre -- that he believes he briefly died, subsequently spoke with the sourceless voice of Dispater in the dark, and made a deal for his life: Aerendyl was now tasked with betraying the location of the Umbral Market to the ever-paranoid Lord of the Fourth.
* The group form a plan! 
** Pyt stands before the doors of the cell, his magical viol ready. Aerendyl and Wilfred open the doors and Pyt casts suggestion on the bone devil, and much to the surprise of everyone, it worked! Pyt tells the bone devil to go stare at the vampire's face for 8 hours. 
** The bone devil complies, trudging to the centre of the cell to stand next to the slab of black stone Zadimus had been chained to for centuries, then arched its serpentine neck to look the vampire in the eye. 
** After a few attempts, Zadimus was able to make the bone devil his vampiric thrall.
** On the party's request, Zadimus, apparently fluent in Infernal, instructed the bone devil to answer their questions:
*** They learn that the fire giant is being kept in the prison for 'insolence,' and has had her tongue cut out as part of the same punishment. 
*** And they also learn that the devils on duty in the prisons hadn't relished the thought of telling their superior that they'd allowed intruders inside. As such, they hadn't done so yet, hoping to resolve the issue themselves first. 
*** The chain devil the group had injured, but who had ultimately got away and raised the alarm, was no longer in the prisons. It had gone upstairs to recover from its wounds. The devils remaining in the jail, other than the bone devil itself, are another chain devil and three barbed devils. 
** Zadimus instructs the bone devil to go outside and convince the other devils waiting there that the issue has been resolved by the horn devil. Said horn devil, according to Zadimus's tale, is cleaning up the room and has instructed everyone to go back about their business. After the bone devil has done that, he's to return to his own duties for 5-10 minutes, until he can safely slip away and return back to Zadimus without arousing suspicion. 
** The party sit about anxiously for 20 minutes, hoping the bone devil will return successful in its duplicity, but anticipating another fight instead. They short rest in the meantime and Zadimus shares with them again that from his point of view this day really is going so much better than he expected. 
** Blessedly, the bone devil returns alone, successful in its venture. 
* The enthralled bone devil tells the group that the chain devil has gone back to its business of supervising the fire giant's work in her prison-forge. The party decide that the giant is their best hope of getting out of this situation quickly. If they can free her, she might be able to break Zadimus's chains and then they can all flee the prison. Thus, they intended next to kill the chain devil. 
** Zadimus instructs the bone devil to act casual, approach the chain devil, and then kill it, then to return to him when it dies. 
** The bone devil leaves the cell to carry out the vampire's instructions and the party follow quietly in its wake. 
** The bone devil strikes and the party follow up with their own furious attacks. And their assault was going well until the chain devil animated numerous chains around the room, including two that wrapped around the fire giant's wrists and started puppeteering her into scooping up massive globules of molten lava and hurling them at the party. 
** To make matters worse, the racket of the fight draws the attention of the three barbed devils they'd been told about. 
** The fight is a harrowing one. 
** Wilfred successfully frees the fire giant, first wearing away one of the animated chains on her wrist with his lesser blight spell and then releasing the other animated chain on her wrist with a knock spell. The giant nods to the gnome, then takes to hurling massive, unworked ingots at the devils. 
** But for his troubles, Wilfred very nearly dies in the chaos. The chain devil loomed over his prone form as he faded in and out of consciousness, but before it could strike, Aerendyl's moonbeam, cast with his last remaining high-level spell slot, vaporised the fiend. 
** With the chain devil dead, the enthralled bone devil dutifully returned to Zadimus, leaving the party mostly alone against the barbed devils; for all the help the fire giant offered, she couldn't yet move beyond the limits of the shackles about her ankles. 
** So even with the chain devil defeated, the deadly fight dragged on. Pyt felt the loss of his super magical sword keenly. Clwyd felt the loss of her magic even more so, relegated as she was to operating the rope of entanglement to occasionally bind enemies she dared get near enough to do so. 
** Ilphas the sad-but-enthralled winter eladrin eventually joined them outside, showing himself capable of a potent charm ability. 
** Clwyd, feeling like she wasn't doing much out here, rushed back to Zadimus to get him to send the bone devil out again. She asked the vampire to tell the devil to follow their instructions but Zadimus, incredulous, had only replied, 'but it's mine...' Pushed for time, Clwyd told Zadimus to instruct it to go seek and kill barbed devils. Zadimus shook his head a little but then repeated Clwyd word-for-word, a shit-eating grin on his face as he did. 
** Meanwhile, Pyt had charmed one of the barbed devils to stand still on top of a massive anvil in the giant-sized forge, and the other two barbed devils had made to flee in different directions. 
** The party chased down and killed the one that was taking the more direct route to the oubliette's entrance. 
** Then Wilfred freed the fire giant fully with a couple more castings of knock. Pointing and gesturing, she suggested they cut off the other barbed devil before it makes it to the entrance. They did so, the giant hunching herself more than a little to fit in the corridors, but following them doggedly. 
** Eventually they came on the retreating barbed devil and successfully killed it. 
** However, back in the forge, Clwyd and the bone devil had found the barbed devil under Pyt's charm and had killed it in a drawn out little skirmish. Then the bone devil had trudged off, looking for more barbed devils. Clwyd had stayed behind and hid. 
** In the corridors, the group see the bone devil stalk past them. Pyt calls out for the giant to grab the thing and she complies, swallowing it in one meaty, coal black hand. The act of aggression broke Zadimus's charm on the creature and it began lashing out furiously, desperate to get free. But the giant held fast and together they were able to slay the thing. 
** They all returned to the forge, met up with Clwyd, learned it had been her wording that had led to the bone devil's end. Wilfred, exhausted from the fight and harrowed from his flirt with death, was snappy with the goblin. His patience for her enfeebled state was wearing very thin indeed. 
* The group consider the fire giant.
** They ask if she'd assist them in breaking Zadimus's chains and then in breaking out of Hell. She nodded and picked up a number of tools from about the forge. 
** Then the group scratched their heads for a bit and considered how to get the 15-foot-tall woman down the relatively narrow corridor that led to the vampire's cell. In normal times it would be a trivial matter with all their magics, but these were not normal times; most of them had barely any spells left in them. Pyt could get her in the room at least, but none of them would then be able to get her back out again. 
** They consult with Zadimus and he suggests they get her in here, she breaks the chains, then they hunker down in the cell, block the door, spend the night, and all try and force their way out in the morning! 
** With that decided, Pyt uses his last spell to polymorph the giant into a bear (after deciding against a spider, for propriety's sake) which allows her entry into Zadimus's cell. Pyt ends the spell, the giant returns in full -- though is forced to manoeuvre on her hands and knees in the room, and sets about breaking the first of the 20 chains that bind Zadimus to the stone block. 
** Wilfred decides it would be best to ensure they cannot be locked into the room. He spends a short while, with the aid of Clwyd, utterly destroying the puzzle mechanism on the doors that serves for a lock.
** With everyone inside, Pyt sets up his drum-yurt where it will block the doors from swinging into the room and the group readies themselves to try and find some rest while the giant, now dubbed 'Tongueless' by Zadimus, works on in her demolition duty. 
* With things as settled and sorted as they tend to get when you're trying to escape Hell, Clwyd decides now is as good a time as she's likely to get. She finds a flat patch of bedrock among the areas where various erupting earth spells cast during the fight with the horned devil had broken through the metal floor. On the rock she scratches a circle wide enough to encircle the fox skull placed on one side and her sat opposite it. Then she draws on her vital energy and, for the second time only, conducts a Weird Seance to speak with the spirit of the witch she and the others killed: Phigalia, the Mother of Trolls. 
** Clwyd begins the discussion with an apology for having drawn power from the trapped witch at numerous points, including rather spectacularly so against the horned devil. The dead witch all but scoffs at the apology. She remarks on Clwyd's arrogance, but also on her obvious aptitude and tenacity as well, all traits well suited to the court of Dusk. 
** Clwyd tries to control the conversation, saying that Phigalia has things that Clwyd wants and in turn she and the party could do things for the witch, could help her. 
** But Phigalia claims the initiative with ease. She tells Clwyd that the Weird knowledge she holds in her mind is something the goblin needs. And she would offer it to her, tempered and restrained so as to not simply break her little mortal mind, but rather to bridge the gaps in her understanding and ability. With this, Clwyd could make use of the metaphysical muscles she had so developed with House Telphousila's Hellfire and apply it to the Weird. To, perhaps, play with magics few mortals ever dared or dreamed of touching. Phigalia asks Clywd how long she'd have such knowledge for and the goblin's immediate reply is 'for the rest of my life!' Phigalia does laugh now, then shakes her head and says she'll allow a year and a day at the longest. 
** 'And in exchange?' Clwyd ventures. Phigalia smiles. 'The right to possess your body at a moment of my choosing and do with it as I wish for a period not less than ten times the period you possess the knowledge I offer.' Clwyd is incredulous, saying that ten years is a death sentence! Phigalia reminds her that the time period of a year was set by the goblin, not she. Perhaps she should revise it if she is so fearful. But Clwyd is already considering the deal a bust and she says so. Phigalia spits at her to show some backbone! To show herself worthy of the teachings and ways of the Dusk! To negotiate! 
** And so they do. First to five times Clwyd's year, then to one, and then at last settling on Phigalia's right to double the length of time Clwyd carries the Weird knowledge. 
** But there's more! In the haggling, Phigalia had conditioned that Clwyd would also answer her questions. Clwyd countered that Phigalia would do the same to hers. And then the witch had offered questions three for them both and the agreement was sealed in full. 
** Phigalia immediately asked for a full account of the fates of her coven sisters and then said she would hold onto her remaining questions for a later time. 
** Clwyd asked all hers now:
*** Firstly, she wanted to know how best to deal with a sea fury. Phigalia's answer was not particularly helpful. She said that the fury won't leave the water for anything and that the oathless metal would serve them best. They should strike fast and hard, focusing on her rather than her spirits. 
*** Second, Clwyd asked what the Kraken wants. Phigalia said she did not fight in that war herself, but she knows that it came to this world because its bountiful Wyld had drawn the eldritch beast. It seeks to reproduce, she said. Longs for it, in fact. But the process is difficult, or more precisely, its hoped-for offspring is potentially dangerous to it. Thus its actions, in many ways strange and esoteric, are perhaps best understood as ways it is preparing the world to allow it to reproduce safely. It sought to floor the world, and many of its lesser spawn surged forth to claim the lives of living creatures all about the world. 
*** Third, what does Phigalia know of the River King? The witch tells her that long ago he was a wastrel and a layabout, more apt to bathe his feet than hold court or offer aid to any. But the power he held was not insignificant, and thus, in a rare union between Titania and Queen Mab, he was slain. Phigalia had not heard whisper of him alive since then, until she encountered the party. 
** With their questions satisfied for now, Phigalia's spirit returned to the fox skull cage. And then the promised knowledge began to fill Clwyd's mind. Everyone about the room not currently in Pyt's tiny hut had only heard Clwyd's side of the conversation and now they hear little more than wracked screaming. The oily, worming knowledge of a thousand thousand grim tales of warning squirm about in Clwyd's head, forcing its way into gaps in her understanding, bludgeoning down walls of reason. The malicious practices of the worst of Faerie's creatures, those that live without pity or mercy, that prey on weakness more harshly than any wilderness predator, whose sole purpose, above all else is in fighting and besting true horrors of the unknown, all of that flooded through Clwyd's senses now. She screamed. She screamed herself hoarse. Her legs kicked and her nails clawed at rock and metal, clawed at her face, yanked at her hair. But it was there, all in her mind now, all so clear. And this only a portion of the whole that Phigalia knows. This just enough to not kill her, just enough for her to be able to make use of at this stage. 
** Clwyd's screaming stopped. She gulped for air like a dying fish, but she was whole. Her head throbbed with the pain of a dozen stubborn hangovers, but she was well. Clwyd got to her feet, and she knew how to use magic.
Category:Part Six