84. Reflections

* Aerendyl, Clwyd, Pyt, and Wilfred find themselves trying to escape from Mephistar, the Fifth Hell. Having invoked the old ragdoll contract they'd found in the possession of the MacLeod cultists in the Rumidian Northern Margraviate, they were able to meet with the hell hag known as Red Rona. She agreed to shepherd the party across Mephistar inside her hut that walked on huge, spidery legs, to a place that would expedite their journey to the next hell up, Dis, the Iron City. In exchange, the party agreed to get at least one of the eyes from the vampire Zadimus, who was being held in the subterranean prison of a hellish duke known as Capo Bagrellan. The party had been in Rona's hut for nearly two days by their best estimate, and they were quickly approaching the basalt cliffs where the hell hag told them she would be dropping them off.
	+ When they ask, Rona tells them that Zadimus's crime was trying to steal from the Vault of Souls in Dis, the bank of Asmodeus Himself. For this, the vampire was sentenced to 'nine lifetimes of torture.' When Pyt asked how long a lifetime was, the hell hag nodded and remarked that the ambiguity is part of the genius and cruelty of the punishment.
	+ Rona had also made a separate deal with the group, wherein she would provide the four of them with seven days worth of food in exchange for the information they had told her about the Coven of Covens. She honours this by giving them a small wicker picnic basket that she assures them has all the food promised within. Inside, she's stocked it with lovely sandwiches with the crusts cut off, slices of apple and cherry pie, boiled eggs with their shells peeled off, and cocktail sticks with gherkins and little sausages on them. Nobody had seen her cooking while the party were with her in the hut, but when they get around to trying the food for the first time, they all find that it tastes wonderful.
	+ Rona gives the group two sealing runes -- complex rubbery ink marks that she's somehow peeled off a page. She says they're to place them on the organ to be removed before they do so, to best preserve everything about it for her.
* The hut lumbers up to the side of the basalt cliffs, where a narrow, switchbacking staircase has been carved directly into the rock.
	+ Rona informs the group that the stairway is a relic from the oldest days of the Hells, when the focus had been on redeeming mortal souls rather than the vast industrial complex necessary to keep the eternal Blood War going that it had since become. In these early days, mortal souls in the Hells were freely offered the opportunity to climb to the higher levels, towards their eventual freedom. Doing so was itself part of the redemptive process. The party were living creatures rather than suffering souls, and they also possessed far more magic that Rona could imagine any of those older souls making the trip would have; thus, she's certain the experience will be somewhat different for them than usual, but she's confident they'll manage.
	+ The hell hag tells them to ruminate aloud on their virtues as they climb. Further, she says once they reach the top, they should open all nine gates at once for the fastest passage to the heart of Dis.
	+ The group leave the small sanctuary of the creeping hut, returning to the heat and tangibly malaise atmosphere of Mephistar proper. The group take some pains to avoid the noxious odour of Red Rona's catoblepas 'cow' she keeps tethered to her hut's front porch, wave to the hell hag at her window as the hut moves away, and then the four of them begin their climb.
* The stairs are only wide enough for them to move in single file.
	+ Aerendyl takes the lead, followed by Pyt and then Clwyd, with Wilfred holding the rear.
	+ The basalt stairs are steep and the drop to their side is long and sheer, but the climb doesn't tax them overly. The height offers them a long view of the churning, infernal industry of Mephistar sprawling out below and beyond, the Styx splitting and rejoining in an incomprehensible tangle of milky-white roads that carve up the endless stream of smoke-spewing factories. Soon enough, they hit a switchback, reverse the direction they're facing in the turn, and keep heading up.
	+ As they go, the group awkwardly begin to follow Rona's advice, voicing what they think to be their virtuous merits to each other. This leads to them talking about the kraken, this mysterious creature of destruction that was being sealed by the Coven of Covens -- which they may have unleashed on the world through the machinations of the River King. Following his private conversation with Red Rona's sister, Wilfred says he's all but come around to the idea of viewing the whole thing as another change in the seasons at this point; sure, many people will die, but he thinks maybe it's more akin to a vast weather event or a blight, and that these things inevitably come and pass with the ages. Aerendyl adds that ultimately the party are insignificant, and if not them, then surely the River King would have just got others to do what they've done in time.
	+ They reach the top of the switchback stairs after an hour or so of hiking. The heat and malice weigh on all the group, but at this stage only Wilfred gains a level of exhaustion from the effort of it all. But they were not done with their climb, for the top of the cliff face stairs was not the top of the cliff. Instead, the stairs plunge into the basalt itself, into a small, dark tunnel.
* The group push into the tunnel leading into the cliff-side.
	+ The air is notably cooler, but its pitch black and somehow, despite the vastly different sizes of Aerendyl and Pyt compared with Wilfred and Clwyd, the walls and ceiling feel close and claustrophobic for all four of them, as if there were no more than two or three inches of spare space between them and the rock.
	+ The tunnel ran flat for a dozen or so paces before they started ascending stairs again. And as they hiked, the stairs gradually got larger and the angle steeper, demanding more and more of their bodies. Eventually, they were all effectively on hands and knees, testing the skin of their palms and shins, half walking and half climbing as the angle of the stairs' ascent reached 60 or even 70 degrees.
	+ After a few hours of this, they all swear they can hear whispers around them, though nothing is loud or clear enough to make out. Clwyd remarks that she's never felt judged by a set of stairs before.
	+ At some point as they climb, Aerendyl receives a reply from Poppy via sending stone. The Hin lass tells him that Rangim has no way of meeting them in the Hells but that the dwarf was confident Aerendyl could get himself out. 'Don't be reckless; think things through' was the advice he asked Poppy to pass along.
	+ The group left Rona's hut with perhaps a half dozen hours in them before they'd start feeling the call to sleep. Trapped in the dark, cramped stairway, they all agree to keep climbing, despite their fatigue, in the hopes of reaching the top soon. The hours creep by and still its nothing but stairs in front of them and darkness beyond that. Wary that they might be in some sort of loop, Pyt leaves a gold coin on a stair and they push on for another hour. It's still nothing but stairs before them after this, but they don't see the coin again.
	+ Eventually, they decide the need to sleep is too great. They arrange themselves to try and rest as best they can, despite the stairs being hard, narrow slabs of stone and the walls oppressively close. The small duo have a much easier time of this than Aerendyl or Pyt.
	+ Wilfred and Aerendyl are first to rest, with the other two waiting up and keeping a watch for them. In their slumber, the sleeping pair see a lake of burning fire and a distant figure creeping slowly closer to them, a statue of a blindfolded, agendered figure holding a sword parallel to the ground. A long, thin board rests on the sword blade.
	+ The two of them awake, tell the others of their dreams, learning that they saw the same thing in the process. Then Clwyd and Pyt try for some rest, but Pyt is unsuccessful despite his best efforts due to the discomfort of the stairs.
	+ As Clwyd sleeps, she sees the same lake of flame and statue as Wilfred and Aerendyl had, but the experience is more harrowing for her. She awakes with her thoughts aflame, as if from an unequalled headache.
	+ Words linger in her mind on waking, and though no creature had voiced them, Clwyd can't help but think of the statue's blindfolded face as she recalls them: '*Truth to judge; Pride is heavier than a mountain; Humility is lighter than a feather.*'
	+ At this point, Wilfred's rest had afforded him the recovery of his exhaustion from the switchback stairs, but Pyt's lack of sleep and Clwyd's harrowing experience of the visions that waited them in rest meant both had gained a point of exhaustion.
* Having slept in the tunnel of stairs, or at least attempted to do so, their third time needing to sleep in the Hells so far, the party continued their ascent on the dark, steep basalt stairway.
	+ Wilfred thinks that they should consider repenting for their past actions, that that's the purpose of these stairs. He believes the 'truth to judge' part of the message Clwyd heard means they can't lie to themselves no matter who else they lie to. To that end, the gnome begins to ruminate on the party's first arrival in the Pirate Republic, when he killed a ship full of men because he was tired and scared. He had since justified his actions, since those pirates were cannibals, but he now thinks that despite that, despite the fact that they were the aggressive party in the situation, wasn't it wrong to kill them? He didn't even know they were cannibals at the time, after all.
	+ Going along with Wilfred's thinking, Clwyd says that the riot they started in Dunvegan Keep might have been a very bad thing they did. Hundreds if not thousands of people would have died in it, and most of them were just regular folk, not opposing anyone in any particularly substantial way. They wouldn't be aligned with devils, or fey, or any of the other strange things the party find themselves regularly dealing with, but they were swept up in the party's plan to rescue Aerendyl.
	+ Pyt isn't buying it. He thinks the cannibals attacked first and were surely going to kill the party and he thinks the people of Dunvegan Keep were being oppressed and used by their rulers.
	+ To that, Clwyd says the way they did it all was certainly not the best way it could have been done. Wilfred agrees with the sentiment when thinking about his own example.
	+ Aerendyl thinks they've followed a lot of people with limited scruples in the past. We didn't have much choice at the time, Clwyd remarks to the elf. But then Wilfred reminds them of the words of an angel they once met, quoting Liriel: 'there's always a choice.'
	+ Wilfred adds that surely their intent matters, not just the results. Perhaps what they did might end up being a net good for Dunvegan Keep, but they didn't intend for that. They had personal motivations that when considered from a perspective outside their immediate group were nothing other than selfish: they intended to rescue Aerendyl, no matter the cost. If intent doesn't matter, then morality would simply be a matter of consequence in how things turn out. Such a world would be far too arbitrary for the scholarly gnome to accept.
	+ The conversation is frustrating Pyt. He tells the others he doesn't see how any of it helps them while they're on these dark steps. What exactly is the conclusion? he asks. Clwyd thinks that since the group grew stronger, maybe it was high time for them to accept larger portions of the responsibility for the things they were doing.
	+ Pyt thinks the group have done a lot of things to be proud of, and he thinks that morality ethics are too hazy a maze to navigate in any meaningful way. Surely what they're proud of is what's good.
* It is eventually time for the group to contemplate their second sleep on the stairs.
	+ Wilfred again sees the lake of flame in his dreams, but the statue comes closer this second time. He can see a beating heart on one side of the board balancing atop the sword, weighing against a single feather on the other side. When the gnome wakes, his mind is aflame as Clwyd's was when she awoke before. Words linger in Wilfred's mind as they did in the goblin's too, but these words are new: '*Time is weight; let the climb ease your burden.*'
	+ Pyt thinks they need to give up on the concept of time on these stairs. The idea of 'yesterdays' and body clocks aren't what this is all about. He argues they should stop sleeping and push on. We should climb and climb and climb, the bard says.
	+ Aerendyl had managed to rest again, but reeling from the visions in his dreams, Wilfred might well have not slept for all the good it did him. Clwyd and Pyt don't even try to sleep. All four of them agree on Pyt's plan.
* The group push onward, through pain and fatigue. Silence descends upon them as all effort is now focused only on the climb, on one hand in front of the other, on sparing what unskinned parts of palms and ankles they can. In this silence and focus, time becomes a funny thing. When at last they all reach the top of the stairs, the climb has been far longer for some than for others.
	+ To Pyt, the tunnel seemed to take two days to climb. He has two points of exhaustion by the end.
	+ For Aerendyl, it was four days. He has one point of exhaustion when he reaches the summit.
	+ For Wilfred, the climb took five days. He has four points of exhaustion.
	+ But for Clwyd, the climb took an exhausting nine days. Even with Aerendyl casting *greater restoration* on her twice, she is on death's door at five points of exhaustion when she reaches the top of the stairs and unceremoniously collapses in a heap.
	+ At the end of this weird, different passage of time, there is food enough left in Rona's picnic basket to last each of them two days.
* The summit of the tunnel of stairs is a domed room with smooth rock walls. An eerie, sourceless orange light permeates the place.
	+ Dominating the centre of the room is a familiar stone statue, the same as the one they'd seen in their dreams on the stairs. It is twice as tall as the tallest of them, it holds its sword out still, but it wears the brunt of time on its features. Chips and cracks run all over the sculpture, and the stone slab has fallen from atop the sword and smashed into a number of pieces on the ground at the statue's feet. The floor all around the figure has script in a 1000 languages, only some of which the party recognise, but all of it saying the same thing: 'Truth to judge; Pride is heavier than a mountain; Humility is lighter than a feather.'
	+ Beyond the statue, the far side of the chamber is dominated by series of massive, solid iron doorways nested inside each other and set in the wall. There are nine doorways in all, the first not much larger than a regular human's front door, and the last bigger than a castle gate. And raised in the surface of the iron is an incredibly intricate, inexplicably detailed depiction of the Iron City of Dis; its a tangled mass of spires, cathedrals, towers, and temples all rising up and leaning slightly towards a great twisting cylinder of a tower in the heart of it all, depicted with the doors' seam running right through it.
* The party briefly consider resting in the chamber, but conclude that the same horrifying effects that had plagued their attempts at rest on the stairs could come for them again in the room, and they might very well kill Clwyd with the state she's in, with Wilfred not doing a great deal better. Thus, they move to proceed onward.
	+ They briefly contemplate the statue. They consider using something else to serve as the balance board but eventually give it up when Pyt urges them towards the doors -- the bard worries that if they keep trying to appease the statue, they might well end up ripping their hearts out to try and weigh them.
	+ They all head to the iron doorways. This close, the absurd level of detail in the mural is all the more apparent. In a space no larger than a fingernail, the art houses more detail than a tapestry that crawls the length of a castle wall. Thousands upon thousands of individual creatures are depicted in and about the buildings.
	+ Pyt announces that he's going to try and open all nine doors aloud. The room behind him grows noticeably dimmer and the iron doorways thrum, literally thrum, with anticipation. Pyt starts to push on the metal with both hands, but the doors hold fast against his strain. The matt sheen of the iron doorways begins to warp, growing shinier. The metal under Pyt's hands begins to push back against him. He is quickly staring at a mirror reflection of himself, its hands emerging from the surface of the doorway, soon followed by the rest of it. This mirrored version of Pyt speaks the words 'false pride!' and attacks.
		- Mirror Pyt's *mass suggestion* spell catches Clwyd, Aerendyl, and Wilfred. The entity has them all lay face down on the floor and count to 1000. Pyt alone stands to face this facsimile of himself.
		- The duo exchange mocks and *dissonant whispers*, then break away from one another to furiously strum up the summoning of *tiny servants*. Pyt breaths a bastardisation of life into three coins, but Mirror Pyt does so with five. Their coin-Jacksons beset one another with tiny pummelling fists. Pyt manages to force Mirror Pyt to the brink, where the thing *polymorphs* itself into a giant ape, only for one of Pyt's Jacksons to quickly break the spell and leave the thing open for Pyt to finish off with a *vicious mockery*.
		- The others eventually finish their counting and are freed from the *mass suggestion* spell.
	+ Having defeated Mirror Pyt, the group take a short rest, Pyt casts *death ward* on himself, Aerendyl tries and fails to summon his quickings -- feeling no connection to the River King's realm while he's in the Hells -- and then the group gears up for Pyt to try the doorways once again. They don't want to have to face a mirror version of Wilfred, and they also don't want to end up further away from the centre of Dis by trying for less doors at once. Wilfred casts his *pliable summons*, intending to use it to help Pyt push. Pyt inspires the gnome, Aerendyl casts *guidance* on Pyt and then the bard says again that he's going to try and open nine doors. The room dims and the door thrums once more. Then Pyt starts pushing and Wilfred's spell pushes with him. And this time, mercifully, it's enough. The massive iron doors creek open, even as their surface starts to turn reflective again.
* Soon enough, Pyt and the pliable summons have pushed the iron doors open to the point that all of them can slip through. Wilfred hikes Clwyd onto his back -- she's unable to walk herself in her exhaustion -- and they all rush through, stepping into a black void. The 'ground' below their feet has some give to it, but there are no discernible features around, save for a single pinprick of light in the distance directly ahead. They hear the slam of doors behind them but when they look there's nothing there. They walk towards the light.
	+ Clwyd tells the group that if she ever says she's going back to Mephistar again they should kill her, because she's surely been possessed or replaced by an impostor.
	+ With each step they take in the darkness, the light rushes closer and closer. Soon enough it swallows them up entirely.
	+ When their vision clears, they stand on cracked black stone cobbles, with huge iron buildings rising all around them and the twisting spire of Dispater rising up in the distance. They're jostled by a trio of hobgoblins holding hell hounds on thick chains. Only then do they take in that they're all stood in the centre of a bustling extra-planar street. A bone devil's scorpion tail lashes out at a group of lemures its shepherding along, and it spits infernal curses at its flock as it works; gorgeous succubi and incubi stand in windows and doorways, calling to the mortal folk that rush past them; a group of tieflings carrying armfuls of scrolls and books rush down the road, heading in the opposite direction to the way the party are facing. They've arrived in the heart of the Fourth Hell, Dis, the Iron City.