I technically missed a session but there was only some fighting on the road in Elturel on route to High Hall. And that's where we started now: at the entrance to the ruined fort, ambushed by giant crabs and a bearded devil riding one of them.
One fireball later half the crabs were dead. The devil cast darkness on us, but even so the crabs died in melee. Then, it was a couple rounds of messing around with the devil, until I decided to try something. With Slobberchops pointing and hissing at the darkness, I shot in a sorcerous burst with a luck point. A crit and several exploding D8's later, the devil's innards splashed across my companions.
We continued the exploration of the ground floor, finding an altar of offering dedicated to Torm. Daramin and Barbosa each offered up the parts of defeated devils, and received healing in return.
We met a frightened druid called Sylvanus who was pretty useless at this point, but he confirmed the presence of refugees and fighters in the catacombs.
The stairs were blocked, but we passed the time by re-consecrating an altar of Torm, which revealed a hidden trap door.
In the catacombs, the first thing we discovered was the enshrined body of the Unknown Hero, said to have fallen in battle against a red dragon. Obviously we took a look at her sword placed beside her body, although Rheia objected to touching this holy relic of her city. It took some convincing for her to relent, but the sword was just an ordinary weapon.
Finally, we descended some more and met the survivors in question, led by none other than our Duke Ravenguard. He and his aid, a priestess named Jinx, took us in for debriefing. We spilled the beans on everything. Also Jinx was clutching the holy ledger of the Creed Resolute, containing all the signatures of the citizenry. She was unwilling to give up the relic or believe our story, even though we tried our best to convince her and toyed with the idea of destroying the book.
Soon we heard warcries and rushed out to help. The garrison was under attack by cultists and devils. We joined the Flaming Fists and Hellriders.
My suped up chromatic orb merely wounded the devils above, and the hellhounds doused the human defenders in flames. Duke Ravenguard ordered the Hellriders back, unwilling to let them fall and become enemies to fight. On the lower corridor, the two Fists held back the cultists for quite a while.
More cultists and devils appeared on the upper corridor, so I let loose my signature thunderball[1] to no particular effect. Silka shot down the advancing merregon, while Barbosa rushed forward to confront the attackers with spirit guardians. Daramin did an admirable job of protecting me with silvery barbs and pushing attacks. The cultists used foul spells to resurrect fallen devils, but in the end most died, a couple ran away, and there were no casualties on our end - Daramin even saved two Fists that fell unconscious.
With that little issue taken care of, we went back to the Duke's war room to plan our next moves on this fancy map. While the regular soldiers took care of foraging and looking for survivors[2], we had two jobs to take care of. On the left, a huge cemetery was said to house the Helm of Torm. This artifact could help us contact Torm directly and ask for aid. On the right, another clutch of survivors is isolated due to the bridges swarming with devils. We picked the cemetery duty.
After a well deserved long rest, we were on our merry way towards the cemetery. Rolling on the random encounter table, we met a friendly devil bedecked in keys and chains. We exchanged two keys from a previous dungeon for two random keys of unknown purpose. I also made a deal with the devil[3], written in blood on the back of a lesser creature, signed with a sharp quill and then ripped off. In exchange for the location of the place warded against fiends, the devil asked for a special intervention: at some moment when I really need to cast a spell, I will hear a voice instructing me otherwise. I either don't cast, or immediately fall unconscious.
Seems legit.
[1] Fireball + transmute spell into thunder damage
[2] Basically what they were currently doing, hence the unprotected keep
[3] Huehuehue
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