86. Wanted

* Aerendyl, Clwyd, Pyt, and Wilfred find themselves in the City of Dis, the Fourth Hell. Having climbed a stairway for a varying number of days each, many of the group were exhausted. They'd found succour in a dive bar of an inn by the name of Dead Cheap. Now they awake after their second sleep within the relative safety of Pyt's drum-yurt within the room they'd rented. 
* After a brief chat, Wilfred uses a seeming spell to have Aerendyl and Pyt appear as hobgoblins, himself as a goblin, and Clwyd as a different goblin. Then the strike out for the Bagrellan estate, with Clwyd's genie-bestowed sense of direction guiding them. On the way, Clwyd learns that her guide sense can be fine tuned with more specific requests after they all hope for a path to the estate that takes them off the main streets and the route in her head adjusts. 
** They pass through a weird Infernal fair, full of strange lampooning of mortal affairs. A barbershop quartet sings a mocking song about mortals bumbling around and doing nothing with the souls they carry, and devils dressed up as goodwives and farmers man stalls selling gross, insect-heavy foods.
** Beyond the fair and after several hours walking, the group reaches a lava flow. Following upstream, they come to the end of a grand bridge reaching out to the centre of a modest a lake of lava, wherein the unceremonious black block that is the Bagrellan estate rises up. 
** The far side of the bridge is guarded by a number of bone devils and their minions, the rooftop is filled with the ever-vigilant forms of stone gargoyles, Infernal creatures flap about in the skies far above, and Pyt even spots a large shark-like fin moving around in the lava flow. 
** The party wander around the neighbourhood, trying their best to not draw any attention to themselves, while Wilfred explores the estate through the use of an arcane eye spell. He finds entry through an imp hole in the rooftop and then begins the arduous process of slipping through doors as they're briefly opened or navigating the small, duct-like passages the household imps make use of. 
** Wilfred eventually manages to manoeuvre the arcane eye down and down again, passing a number of horned devils and merregons about the household. Through the imp holes, he reaches the lowest point of the estate, that which is level with the lava flow outside, the prison. He sees a lot of humanoid skeletons still shacked up; a few apparently living humanoids on their last legs, either in cells, hanging cages, or shackled to walls; and a river of lava that cuts right across the room with a chained fire giant woman slaving away in a forge by its shore. Beyond all this, Wilfred finds a heavy, sealed door that he reasons is the one to the room Zadimus is being held in. 
** Wilfred, wishing to learn the route to the prison, doesn't take the imp holes back out. He climbs a long set of spiralling stairs and finds a guard room at the top of it manned by many merregons. He's stuck here for a long while, but opts to wait it out and is eventually rewarded when the fat amnizu devil they'd seen previously through Aerendyl's scrying passed through the door and makes to go down to the prisons. Wilfred slips his arcane eye out while the door is still open. From there, he navigates some more vast, winding corridors, waits by a few more doors, bypasses one by way of the imp chutes, and eventually reaches the front entrance of the estate, seeing the heavily guarded gates at the end of the bridge just beyond.
* The walk from their inn to the estate had taken them two hours, and Wilfred had used another on his arcane eye recon of the estate. The group spent another hour and a half heading back to Piss Alley -- the street their inn was on -- by a more direct route. Before they went back to their lodgings, they decided it was worthwhile to go look at the bounties on offer after all, and so Clwyd led them to the same establishment Pyt had followed the shifty man to previously, a massive metal hive of bars and balconies called Fall from Grace. 
** The strange angelic figure still sat in its cage hanging from the high, high ceiling, its white-grey-black wings wrapped around it. 
** They cut across the busy ground floor of the place, between tables filled with all manner of unscrupulous sorts. Nobody paid them much mind; the place thrummed with the buzz of recent exciting news. 
** A massive notice board ran the length of the wall. Thousands of pieces of paper were pinned to it -- in varying states of decay or freshness -- outlining all manner of infernal happenings, from announcements of promotions and demotions, news from the front lines of the Blood War, advertisements for Infernal services, and many more besides. 
** Clwyd was able to point out untouched bounties hanging among the clutter:
*** Bitterbreath: a wingless horned devil with smoke spewing from his mouth in the illustration. Apparently he runs a sizable gang. 
*** The Students of Pan: the satyrs Piqwik and Pinwhistle were being sought by a duke of Dis, who was offering '1000 prime souls or 500,000 gold weight in gemstones of choice' for their presentation. 
*** The Petulant Marrow: the illustration depicted a small, smiling skeleton, and gave directions to a place where bounty hunters could gather further information on the job. 
*** The Mage in Amber: the notice was large and weathered. The only illustration was of a skull with gemstones for eyes, and there was no information other than to say that the archdukes Mephistopheles, Fierna, and Lucifer each seek the Mage in Amber for their own reasons. 
* As they stand by the board and talk through the options presented to them, one of the bar staff -- apparently a human with a literal halo hovering over their head -- pinned a large notice prominently on the board and scolded some nearby lesser devils to not remove it again. It was a recent declaration from Mephistopheles:
Four travellers through the Hells have bested mine defences, secreted through Mephistar's Hall of Contracts, done destruction to an infernal document pertaining to one of their persons, reneged on the payment agreed in another such document pertaining to another of their persons, and then stole away again.Their identities are thus (reading the names conjures an accurate image of the party member in their head):Pytinel, formerly of Telphousila, a half-elven maleClwyd, formerly of Telphousila, a goblin femaleWilfred Seabottom, a gnomish maleAerendyl Galanodel, an eladrin maleThe Master of Most, the Lord of the Fifth, the archduke Mephistopheles of Mephistar wishes for all four to be presented before him. To this end, he has dispatched the narzugon Faust, the death knight Morunel, the erinys Telphousila, and a full outfit up the Styx aboard the Hellfire Engine Nargalfar, for the party are known to be seeking flight up and away from the Hells in full. As of writing, they are known to have left Mephistar and entered Dis, and they seek the Iron Bridges or otherwise a path to Minauros. Let it be known! Mephistopheles recommends no contract be attempted with any of the group, for they have shown the capacity to circumvent the binds of the Pact Primeval itself.Let it be known! Those that would aid and abet any in this group do so expressly against the wishes of the Lord of the Fifth, and so paint themselves as an adversary of Mephistopheles and the quest for knowledge.Let it be known! Any that would present these four to the Spire of Mephistar or to the agents of the Lord of the Fifth aboard the Nargalfar shall be compensated, upon confirmed detainment of said party, the fee of 2000 prime souls. Information provided that proves new and useful in the hunt shall be rewarded by a fee of no less than 10 prime souls, with the specifics to be negotiated at time of offer. 
* Having read that they're now wanted in the Hells, the group quickly leave the bar. They push through the crowds in Piss Alley, following the frantic, directionless lead of Clwyd who just wishes to be away. The goblin tells them in no uncertain terms that she now thinks a hand and an eye are but a reasonable price to pay to be away from this place as soon as possible. The problem, however, is that they're very far from the river. Very far indeed. 
** The group suspect treachery from Red Rona, thinking there would be no other way for Mephistopheles to learn so much about them. 
** They make for the river as directly as they can, but the best Clwyd can tell them is that it's a long way away. 
** As they're going, Wilfred detects a number of scrying sensors around the group. Between him and Aerendyl, they dispel them. 
** They're panicking now. 
** Clwyd suggests they look for 'the nearest person that is not a fiend and can cast plane shift.' This leads them to a small, innocuous metal cottage. They knock on the door and are greeted by a wheezing, smoke mephit that seems to be working as a butler. The mephit speaks between coughs: 'Visitors are rare these days, but the group are more than welcome to come inside if they're happy to wait; the master is currently sleeping.' 
** The house is sparsely furnished and full of soot. The group are shown to a dusty living room full of furniture that's been scratched near the ground level.
** Then they wait. And they panic a bit. Wilfred dispels a couple more scrying sensors and tells the group that it shouldn't be a massive worry if they're merely seen waiting in one house among millions. 
** Eventually Pyt gets tired of waiting, casts tiny servant into Cormorant's magic opal eye (which Pyt can now see out of) and sends the seeing-eye Jackson off to snoop around. Upstairs, following some small pawed footprints, Jackson finds the master bedroom, and Pyt realises that the master is a house cat.
** The group wait some more, then Pyt starts playing music in the hopes of rousing the feline. A half hour after that, the smoke mephit pushes into the room, places a cat's toy on the floor and a saucer of milk next to it, and then retreats to the corner. The slate grey cat pads into the room, all but ignoring the party in their entirety as he starts batting at the dangling toy the mephit put down. 
** When they try to greet the cat it speaks with a deep baritone and tells them in no uncertain terms that it's busy playing. But soon enough it grows bored, has a few licks of milk, and then turns and looks at the group. 
** And so begins of the most bizarre conversations the group has ever had. At no point does the talking animal ever really stop being a cat -- it scratches at the furniture, requests the mephit put fragile things on tables so it can knock them off, plays with its tail, licks its paws, and so forth. At one point, Pyt uses prestidigitation to make a shining red dot appear in the room, which that cat bats at frantically. But for all that, the creature is also clearly knowledgeable and powerful. 
** The crux of the information they gather from the largely indifferent, distracted cat is that it won't plane shift them, but they should go to the Sylvan Embassy, wherein they should be able to learn the location of the Umbral Market, one of Dispater's only blind spots in the whole of the Hell, a collection of peoples that would surely be able to shroud them from the gaze of their pursuers. As they leave, the cat recommends they run swiftly.
* From the home of the talking cat, the group endure the nerve-shredding task of walking back towards the centre of Dis, directly towards Dispater's tower and the busier streets that surround it, for the better part of an hour. But eventually, thankfully, they arrive at the entrance of the Sylvan Embassy unmolested. A white metal fence marks out the grounds from the hellscape all around it, and within is some of the deepest, thickest, most verdant greenery any of the party have witnessed, made all the more remarkable by its stark contrast to the Infernal industrialisation all around the embassy. The only open entrance to the place is the beginning of a 10-foot-high hedge maze, and rising beyond it in the near distance, is the shining white visage of a wide building.Category:Part Six