RECAP: BDC, 2-21-25
After much discussion, we decide to go through the portal en masse, due to the potential for any one individual being separated and unable to get back. After a night’s rest, and Simon acquiring some supplies, the party re-entered the hobgoblin town intending to enter the portal.
We’re escorted to Grazzel and inform him of our plan to enter the portal to collect the sixth part. In response, he says that now that we’re committed to go through the portal, heh can share the intelligence he’s been given – what he knows about the history of this place, that he and his people have been guarding for a generation.
- The ruined temple/cemetery was once dedicated to a deity of death. The worshippers and priests were not well liked, but the people complied as it was thought wise to keep the diety happy.
- Eighty years ago, “spiders” (clearly the demons that have plagued us) appeared (not from out of the portal, however) and destroyed the temple and surrounding village. After that, the mighty “Ulfhut” (assumed to be a hobgoblin general of some sort?) made a compact with Grazzel’s ancestors, which they honor to this day.
After this preliminary meeting, we make our way through the detritus of the broken temple to the center of what would have been the dark nave. Reacting to the presence of the Rod a bright doorway, with an opaque interior and stone borders lined with raw bone, emerged for the desiccated stones.
After some investigation and consultation with arcane forces (and at least one of Jarlebank’s several books that he carried wherever he went), they decided to enter.
- A brief flash of light behind the eyelids;
- A short, sharp sense of disorientation; and
- A wave of nerve-tingling energy as we pass through.
On the other side, it’s dark but lit by a large, ferally bright full moon. Looming towers and banks of windows seem to surround us but it’s quickly apparent that it’s the same church building, albeit complete. Perhaps we have gone back in time?
We’re outside the church, near where the cemetery is in the hobgoblin village. The grass here is neatly trimmed, the cobbles good and sharply carved, but no headstones where the cemetery stood. No people or creatures, either, just a fence surrounding the area, then nothing beyond.
Jarlebank, mistrustful as always, used the True Seeing gem to look into the distance beyond the fence… and let out a shriek that pierced the air. Everyone’s head snapped to look at the mage, who dropped to the ground, tossed the gem away and began weeping. Sonja comes to stand guard of the mage, while Peach retrieved the True Seeing gem, pocketed it for safe keeping, and attempted to calm Jarlebank down or, failing that, slap him back into coherence.
Shepard noticed he had no access to his 5th level spells, rousing suspicions that the we have left the Prime Material and, considering Jarlebank’s condition, possibly the Hells. Sonja goes to help Jarlebank to his feet, but this only elicits more screaming. Shepard tries to figure out what’s wrong with him, and it only take a moment: he’s Feeblemind-ed.
Caladar has some skill at planar detection, and learns that we’re on both the Prime Material plane and within the Hells – somewhere in between, in a pocket plane into which both planar regions have effects. He then tried to summon Thrax, and was successful, albeit with a tremendous amount of difficulty, sweating and shaking. Thrax eventually appeared, but the creature was smaller and Calidar nearly collapsed once the spell was complete.
With Caladar exhausted, Jarlebank afflicted, and Shepard cut off from his most powerful spells, Simon (now bearing the Rod) decided we ought to return back through the portal. We return, and Shepard declared that he was Teleporting Jarlebank to Sternhaven to acquire a Heal spell, one of the few things that will be effective for Jarlebank’s condition.
“How do you feel?”
Jarlebank sighed heavily. “Idiotic,” he said finally. “I am a scholar, and should be able to remain detached, dispassionate. Instead, I collapsed like a marionette with my strings cut, at the first sight of…” He shuddered visibly.
“The Hells, you saw the unvarnished evil of the Hells through a True Seeing gem,” said the priest of Atroa gently. “It’s good to name it.”
Jarlebank wiped a line of sweat from above his brow and frowned. “Fine then – the Hells,” he said. He paused to take a small drink of pale wine from a nearby goblet, then: “When will it end?”
Now it was the priest’s turn to sigh. “I cannot give you a day upon which the physical aspects of what you’ve experienced will end,” he said carefully. “You are reasonably strong, and understand well what has happened to you, so I am confident the lingering issues you are experiencing will pass. It will not be as quick as you would like, that I can assure you. You have suffered a significant trauma, and you should not discount it. You will have trouble sleeping; you will have trouble concentrating…”
“Surely you are aware the ramifications such things can have on my vocation?”
“Of course,” said the priest. “Nevertheless, they will continue for a time. You will have difficulty being in the presence of devils, and you may act in ways you’ll find difficult to control – you may freeze, you may flee, you may become enraged.”
“Again,” growled Jarlebank, “… this is inimical to my duties.”
“I understand, but nevertheless, it is something you must acknowledge,” said the priest evenly.
“I acknowledge it,” said Jarlebank. “What I want to know is, how do I counteract it?”
The priest looked at Jarlebank searchingly, then leaned back in his chair. “I won’t pretend to believe that you won’t be throwing yourself back into whatever environment brought you to me in the first place,” the priest said. “And, that could be helpful, frankly. Repeated inoculation to the circumstances which caused the issues may help to lessen the symptoms. We simply don’t know.”
Jarlebank rose, thanks the priest, and departed to his meeting with Shepard, who awaited hm outside to Teleport them both back to the hobgoblin village.
At the portal again, the mood was somber… but also better prepared. Jarlebank had a grim look on his face as they left the hobgoblin cortege behind… but underneath, his eyes flicked here and there, as if looking for an exit. The Stoneskin cast upon him did nothing to allay the hesitation that threatened to halt Jarlebank’s feet as he slowly approached the Gate.
Through the Gate, the oddly colored church stood as it had the previous time, but now the previous emptiness was newly filled: a mob of human-like creatures, hairless and bestial. At our entrance, they turned and began shuffling toward us.
“They’re undead,” Shep observed. “Ghouls, unless I miss my guess.” The mob was larger than expected, and came toward us from both sides of the church… but slowed when they smelt the Protection From Evil field that surrounded the party. They snuffled and slavered but came no closer and did not follow as we entered the church.
The inside of the church is strangely beautiful, offputtingly so. Moonlight filtered into the interior through tall stained-glass windows, showing baroque scenes of death by water – drownings, shark attacks, humanoid figures inverted over barrels filled with dark liquid. In the foyer, a round chamber, sat an octagonal pool lined with copper and black tiles, and sporting about six inches of water in the bottom.
The Rod pointed toward the back of the church, so we circumvented the pool and headed towards the back of the church. It opened up into a cavernous room, with enormous 40’ vaulted ceilings, reaching to twice that at the peak. The walls were covered with motifs showing mortals who had somehow pleased the god of death.
“There,” said Simon, pointing into the rear of the room. “Did you see it? Not undead – tall, horns, wings like a bat.”
Jarlebank shivered at the image, but had no time to fight down the thought, for an unsettling magical Darkness emerged over the entire group. Several things happened next:
- Jarlebank tried, but failed, to Dispel Magic the Darkness
- Calidar caste Haste
- Shepherd cast Bless
Jarlebank backed away from the multiple devils that appeared and began attacking the party, but his effort to stay away from the devils made him vulnerable to attack from behind: a water weird, that struck Jarlebank and dragged him into the pool and under the surface. Bubbles and blood poured from Jarlebank’s head into the water.
In the meantime, everyone else in the party fought a series of devils, all of whom seemed to be fighting less aggressively than expected. At one point, one yelled out:
“Release me from these bonds, so that this fight may be fair!” And then: “Thank you.”
Shepherd, seeing Jarlebank’s distress, sped over to help, but was himself dragged into the pool. He did manage to keep Jarlebank from drowning, but the mage also posted another unconsciousness “three-fer.”
After the devils were defeated, the creature that Simon had seen in the rear of a the chapel – a Balor, as it turned out – had much to say. As suspected, the creature was keeper of the 6th piece – but, he said, he wasn’t going to give it us. We’d gathered the previous pieces much too quickly, he observed. Our power, tested by his cadre of devils, wasn’t sufficient to deal with the forces that would be arrayed against us once the 6th piece was connected. Go, said the Balor, and return when you are more powerful. Then, he said, we would discuss the dispensation of the 6th piece.
