59. Crypts and Cultists

* *Previously in Terca Mahres*!
	+ The crew of *the Drunken Dragon* are in the city of Dunvegan Keep on the isle of Newwe Rumidia. They've come to thwart Clan MacLeod, the leaders of the Rumidian Northern Margraviate, who are bound to the Infernal House Alekto - a rival hellfire house to Clwyd's (and Pyt's) House Telphousila. As per the contract agreed between the goblin and the Lady Telphousila, should Clwyd succeed in disrupting Alekto's plans here, Telphousila will lend Clwyd aid in her eventual fight against her quarry, Madog the Inferno.
	+ During the party's investigations into the activities of Clan MacLeod, Aerendyl went missing - having been bested by a swarm of Alekto imps in the night and taken to Dunvegan Castle to be put to the question. In order to rescue their quartermaster, *the Drunken Dragon* mobilised: they built on the riotous sentiment that they'd already started brewing in the city's Low Town, and ensured a mob would mobilise in force by making a deal with a local gangster named Siegfried. They also phoned in all the extra-planar help they could, deciding to reject Nix's terms - he wanted Wilfred to sign a contract to join his hellfire household - but agreeing to those of the River King: within a year and a day, they are now to hunt down the five members of the Coven of Covens that live among the lands of ice and snow. In exchange, the River King sent his strongest servant, Rangrim 'Frostbeard' Son-of-None, Aerendyl's former teacher in the ways of primal magic.
	+ With the city guard occupied suppressing the large-scale riots that grew steadily out of Smoke Street - and were augmented by Clwyd breaking down several of the gates from Low Town to High Town - Rangrim cast *Wind* *Walk*, allowing their whole rescue force (Clwyd, Pyt, Wilfred, the Tenpenny Twins, Taylor, Garret, and Rangrim himself) to easily fly unnoticed into the castle grounds. The grounds were on lock down, and it was clear that there had been conflict within - the MacLeods and several of their sept clans vs a few rebel septs.
	+ Rangrim was able to locate Aerendyl with relative ease through the use of a spell. The group descended into the castle crypts, where generations of Rumidian Northern Margraves and their extended families had been entombed. They found Aerendyl within some of the MacTavish tombs, accompanied by a short, stocky human man named Alric who'd helped him escape the confines of the holding cells only recently. Aerendyl looked exhausted, showing clear signs of sleep deprivation and torture. He was also wearing his Summer season, which was the first time any of the party were seeing it - it had aided him in withholding what information he could while learning as much as possible during his day and a half in captivity.
	+ Despite his efforts, Jean au Antilla MacLeod, Tormod MacLeod's wife, had been using Aerendyl's mind-reading bracelet against him, and eventually, she learned that he was with a goblin agent of Telphousila and that they were in Dunvegan Keep to thwart the ritual the MacLeods were conducting. In turn, Aerendyl learned that the MacLeods were opening a Hell Gate portal at the bottom of these crypts, that the missing people in town were being sacrificed as part of the ritual to open said gate, that at least three succubi and a chain devil had already passed through it and were in Dunvegan Castle - as well as the imps they'd been facing around town, and that the ritual was almost complete. The gate would be strong enough to allow Alekto himself to pass through very soon.
* The junior members of the crew - the twins, Garret, and Taylor - stay at the base of the stairs leading from the surface into the crypts, saying it's a good bottleneck for them to hold to ensure nobody comes in behind the party as they are fighting below. Aerendyl, too exhausted to fight well, stays with them to coordinate the effort, and his new ally, Alric, stays with him. Clwyd, Pyt, and Wilfred descend the stairs leading down deeper into the crypts, with Rangrim accompanying them.
	+ While in the stairwell, they hear the echoes of Tormod MacLeod instructing a group of castle guards from the chambers beyond. He's telling them they have more than enough captives and should now focus their efforts on pacifying the castle grounds.
	+ The castle guards eventually come stomping through the chamber just beyond the stairwell, and the group rushed in to kill them with relative ease - save for three of the ten that were able to flee down more stairs to the layers below.
	+ Down to the next subterranean floor, the group face several of the guards that had fled from above and four imps. They're able to kill three of the imps and one of the guards, with the others fleeing even further down.
	+ By this point, Rangrim has proved himself to be a very capable fighter, primarily making use of short-range teleports to close in on his foes before devastating them with strikes from his magical staff. His spellcasting, when he chose to use it, was also very strong.
	+ One of the guards who had fled was actually waiting by the archway to the next stairwell. He attempted to ambush Rangrim but quickly found himself dead.
	+ Clwyd and Wilfred investigate an annex on this floor, where they hear two imps being weird in the room beyond - they're attempting to rob the tombs of some of Cormorant MacTavish's distant ancestors. Clwyd kill them from outside the room with a *Synaptic Static* and decides not to tomb rob from her old ally's ancestors.
* Descending to the fourth subterranean level, the group are greeted while still in the stairwell. Magnus and Tormod MacLeod, Rumidian Northern Margrave and his brother respectively, await them in the room beyond, having been told they were coming by the imps and guard that had made it this far down. The two humans were each over 7-feet-tall, each wielding Infernal boons for their services as cultists of House Alekto, both in full plate armour with those big highland claymore swords in hand, and Tormod even wore Aerendyl's Brimstone Cloak. They were there to stop or slow the party so that the ritual happening beyond and below them could be finished. They shouted for the group to come out so that they might all settle this like men - Clwyd took the moment to tell them she was no man. And then the fight started.
	+ It became quickly apparent that the group might have underestimated the MacLeod brothers at least a little.
	+ They were lethal with their greatswords, and their hell magic made it worse. Just standing close to Tormod made one vulnerable to slashing damage, and Magnus proved himself to be some sort of hell paladin, with smite spells augmenting his attacks.
	+ Rangrim was able to cripple Magnus's efforts with a *Freeze Metal* spell on the margrave's armour before focusing on keeping Magnus's attention on himself such that they might square up one-on-one.
	+ This allowed the others the opportunity to take out the imps and the remaining castle guardsman with relative ease before focusing their efforts on Tormod. However, one imp did manage to get away to inform those in the chamber beyond!
	+ Wilfred found it hard to make many of his save spells stick on the two brothers - again their hell magics apparently augmenting their own impressive abilities.
	+ Clwyd did good work dashing around the crypt with goblin nimbleness, firing off shots of *Eldritch Blast* wherever she could - pushing the MacLeods away from her allies at times to aid their own free movement.
	+ Pyt earned the ire of Tormod, which nearly proved fatal more than once, with Pyt's deathward actually kicking in to save him from a deadly blow. With his health as low as it could go, Wilfred turned Pyt into a giant scorpion - the ceiling too low for their usual preference of mammoth or giant ape.
	+ As the fight dragged on, Tormod looked to escape and summon reinforcements by teleporting with the Brimstone Cloak. But Wilfred *Counterspelled* it, keeping the man where he was.
	+ The brothers seemed ready to put their lives on the line to hold the party even a little bit longer, and indeed did so. Magnus told his brother that he'd see him on the other side, and then murmured 'This isn't the end of us. Clan MacLeod rides with House Alekto,' as Clwyd's *Eldritch Blast* shattered his frozen armour and pierced through his heart.
	+ Unbelievably, Tormod was even able to cut through Pyt's giant scorpion form when he got two successive critical hits on Scorpion-Pyt - both while stood within 5ft, thus making Scorp-Pyt vulnerable to all the damage. Leaving Pyt bleeding out on the floor, Tormod made for the stairs to carry out his brother's final instructions - 'summon reinforcements!'
	+ Rangrim pursued the man with a mid-range teleport and was able to finish him off with his ice-staff shillelagh as he ran.
* With Pyt having nearly died, Clwyd out of spells, and everyone needed at least a little recovery time, the group decided to rest in the corner of the room. Rangrim wove his Faerie glamour again, obscuring the group, should passers-by come. Wilfred put on the Brimstone Cloak for the time being, even though it was useless until the next dawn after Tormod's attempt to teleport earlier - he was mostly just carrying it for Aerendyl.
* After they have recovered somewhat, the group go to the end of this subterranean level where the crypt wall has been knocked through to a natural cavern that descends even further below, down to a large open chamber and an underground river. In the centre of the cavern stood the wide, shallow cement bowl that was the Hell Gate. It was filled with blood, and MacLeod cultists dressed in robes chanted around it, slitting the throats of servants and rebel sept clan members that had been captured and bound up, the blood pouring into the bowl, adding to what was already there, strengthening the Hell Gate further.
	+ Awaiting the group is Roderick MacLeod, Magnus and Tormod's uncle - apparently the head priest of the clan in their infernal dealings. He and four imps do battle with the group, stalling them some more.
	+ After dealing with Roderick, the group ran through the cavern, Clwyd aware that the ritual was reaching its crescendo. More of the castle guard rush from the side of the room, where they'd been tending to their captives, to stall the group further.
	+ When the group kill the guards, the robed cultists grow desperate. They start rushing towards the blood bowl themselves, their chanting growing erratic, and then they start desperately sacrificing themselves and each other to complete the ritual.
	+ A big spell from Clwyd kills all but one of the cultists, roughly half of their bodies falling into the bowl as they died. But that one made all the difference - because they ran to the bowl, said the final Infernal words, spilled their lifeblood, and finished the ritual.
	+ Suddenly the cavern was quiet, save for the muffled protests of the captive servants and sept clansmen through their gags off to one side.
	+ The group finally made it to the bowl and commenced with a hasty plan to destroy it, since it seemed to have been build out of the very rock of the ground. Wilfred *Polymorphed* Pyt into a giant ape and then Ape-Pyt jumped into the air and cannonballed down onto the bowl.
	+ But instead of splashing up waves of blood and cracking the stone bowl to pieces, Ape-Pyt simply passed through the liquid with barely a sound, sending only a ripple across the surface of the Hell Gate.
	+ Ape-Pyt skidded out into the grounds of House Alekto on the Fifth Hell. The erinys Alekto and his retinue were surprised to see a giant ape arrive so suddenly, and that surprise likely saved Pyt's life. Alekto shouted for the legion of merregon guards around the portal to deal with it while he himself passed through the portal.
	+ In the cavern, the group saw Ape-Pyt pass through the Hell Gate and then watched Alekto rise out of it, taking to the air on his red feathered wings, armoured and armed for war. The erinys announced his hate for Telphousila and her constant meddling and promised no quarter for any of her agents. Then, from the air, he started unleashing poison arrows from his hellish bow with deadly precision.
	+ Ape-Pyt was able to scramble back through the Hell Gate before any devils apprehended him!
	+ And though Alekto's attacks were truly nasty, the aid of Rangrim that the group had gained with their promise to the River King proved invaluable indeed. Rangrim unleashed a mighty spell he called *Midnight Radiance*, sending a beam of burning moonlight that seared at Alekto's flesh and blinded his eyes at the same time!
	+ Even blinded as he was, Alekto still nearly killed Wilfred with his arrows, and worried most of the rest of the group as well. In the final stages of the deadly conflict, Alekto beat a retreat towards the underground river, still shooting his arrows as he went - and leaving behind his Rope of Entanglement he'd used to try and bind Ape-Pyt.
	+ Plunging into the water, Alekto looked to have gotten away. But Rangrim followed him in, and was able to teleport far enough to unleash a few strikes of his ice staff - unbelievably, Rangrim intended to take the high-ranking devil alive. They faced each other in the water, Alekto proving even more deadly with his sword than he was with the bow - and were Rangrim not a dwarf, he would surely have fallen. But as it was, Rangrim was able to resist the poisons of Alekto's hellish weapons, and thanks to a bit of bardic inspiration from Pyt, he dealt the final blow that was necessary to knock the erinys out just as Alekto made to get away for good!
* Rangrim emerges from the river without ceremony, dragging the unconscious body of Alekto out behind him. The group decide to rest and recoup after such a harrowing fight. Even then, Rangrim needs to cast *Lesser Restoration* a couple times to cure himself and Wilfred of the lingering effects of Alekto's poison, which didn't seem to be going away on its own. Clwyd bundled up Alekto's Red Rope of Entanglement to take for the party's benefit, and the group freed the captives, hoping to learn some of what had been going on in the castle from them - as well as hopefully learning the location of their portable hole, which Aerendyl had been carrying when he was taken, and which had so much of the party's wealth and accumulated items within.
* Wilfred manages to dispel the Hell Gate by unravelling its magic, turning it into just another mundane bowl of several hundred people's worth of blood.
* The group then takes the time to rest.