A devil’s foiled ritual, an ant army and a crazy leap of faith into orbital mechanics…
Our group
- Brus Reckoner
- Male half-orc Inquisitor of Yog-Sothoth.
- John “Angel Eyes” Wilmarth
- Male Aasimar Cleric of the mad idiot god Azathoth.
- Fág an Bealach (Faugh)
- Male svirfneblin Brawler of archetype Mutagenic Mauler.
- Bill the Bard
- A lost male human bard with his donkey Bottom.
- Picklick
- Male hobgoblin rogue.
Previously…
The PCs had rescued the limenologist Wu-Chi from his ancestor ghost, an execution and the dragon that has been pursuing them all campaign. They escaped onto a world at the nexus point of some impressive destruction. Devils had built a civilization but had been attacked by the intergalactic invaders, The Formians. Meanwhile, the devils were preparing for the long-expected collision course of the planet’s moon Aydrade into the planet itself! And not only that, but it appeared that some mind-boggingly brobdingnagian Elder God was devouring the stars and planets nearby.
This might be considered really bad luck, but then again they have acolytes to Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth in their party. Something like the inversion of “when in Rome…”
The devils had constructed a tall tower to celebrate the crash of Aydrade, reaching up to a similar tower on the moon. At the right point, the de-orbits and rotations would be just right for the towers to touch. Unfortunately it appeared that the PC’s only portal off this disaster was on the moon itself. Great.
Turns out the Formians were attempting to carry an asteroid up the tower. When the PCs rumbled them and rushed into the tower, this kicked off a vertical chase sequence as they tried to out-run the swarm of ant-people. They dodged javelins, larval bombs, hive mind tactics and the hungry maw of an astral leviathan. Eventually they fought their way to the law library and handily defeated a Formian ambush. They jumped in the elevator for the final ascent.
The Ritual
The PCs rode an elevator upwards, healing up and preparing themselves for whatever they might encounter. Reserves were low. Faugh was almost all our of fighting spirit and John had only a little store of healing left. They did have a new ally in Bottom, the donkey-faced monk.
The elevator stopped with a chunk and an oddly-placed bell fell off the elevator and jangled. There was no more tower, just a soul-chilling dark sky above. Ahead of them was a tall spike surrounded by a gang of devils. A huge one was chanting and placing a large flurry hat on the head of a younger acolyte. The ritual stopped and the huge devil spat a curse along the lines of “What is this infernal interruption?”
As the moon Aydrade loomed on the horizon, combat erupted.
The head priest devil opened the fight with a sweep of his arm, turning the ritual candle flames into a large, sweeping Burning Hands. He followed it up with the unholy might of devil law (Order’s Wrath), which scared the PCs a little.
The Erinyes were raven-haired beautiful women with hideous black birds’ wings. They took to the sky and shot flaming arrows at the PCs, and more importantly, Picklick and Wu-Chi.
While Brus, the Inquisitor of Yog-Sothoth, had no particular quarry with these devils’ faith, in the darkness beyond the tower he could feel the too-close presence of his god. The devils were ignorant of the teaching of the darkness between stars and were sorely in need of a lesson. So Brus opened up on them, screaming “BLOOD WAR!”
The fight was a bit of a mess. The chaos of Yog-Sothoth had cursed the determination of the PCs.
Bill had neatly shot the ritual hat off the top of the acolyte’s head, and when he tried to pull it back on, Greased it so it popped straight off!
They were wearing down the devils bit by bit. But Aydrade loomed closer. And closer. Their stomachs felt queasy as gravity loosened its grip.
Just as the towers were about to align, a wave of Formians spilled over the top! It was a crazy three-way battle. The Barbed Devil shot lasers from his eyes, trying to beat back the invaders.
The goddamn tower clusterfuck
Apologies for the language, but this is where it got REALLY crazy. Whilst avoiding the incoming Formians and the devils they were battling, they all tried to leap to the tower from Aydrade. The donkey jumped awkwardly, Faugh raced up nimbly, John ran up and down the spire… And the person they were trying to rescue had tried to pull off a last-minute distraction.
During the fight, Wu-Chi had been fighting with Picklick over the Bag of Holding. He had messed with the interdimensional portal of the bag and used it to open up to Picklick’s catwoman admirer. She had previously gifted Picklick a bomb made out of a goblin. This time she gifted them… puppies!
Even if they weren’t cartwheeling through low gravity on the very top of a vertiginous tower, their stomachs would have dropped. A cute wave of puppies bounded out of the bag towards the advancing Formian army. A Formian Myrmarch was almost upon them… Then FOOOM… FOOM… FOOMFOOMFOOM… all the puppies exploded in cute shockwaves of light, dazzling everyone except the PCs.
Then Wu-Chi was mortally wounded.
The tower was sweeping past, so most of the PCs had leapt from the tower towards Aydrade. Brus, Inquisitor of Travel and Yog-Sothoth, pulled off his most heroic and insane moment yet. He bounded towards Wu-Chi and the party’s only Bag of Holding. With one arm he threw Wu-Chi up towards the others, and with the other, the loot bag. Using Formians as stepping stones, he ran directly off the edge of the tower.
If he had messed up, it was a long, long fall down.
Instead, he rode the wave of exploding puppies upwards. He had a long, long fall… up?
Brus wasn’t happy enough with saving Wu-Chi, but drew his bow and started firing at the Barbed Devil. Meanwhile John gave the Barbed Devil a parting gift of spite… a Blindness spell that exploded his eyeballs. The head priest found himself inverted far above Aydrade, plummeting towards the tower, eyeless and utterly without power. Brus wanted the last word, but the tower got that opportunity.
Meanwhile there was a complex aerial snatch and grab with Wu-Chi, Bill, Bottom and Faugh. Using their best wits, snapleaves and Rings of Featherfall, they plunged safely off the spire towards the tower top. Unfortunately the asteroid was following them down, so they made a heroic leap off the tower…
When the PCs gathered together, they found they were all in one piece, not smeared across the moon’s landscape, but still hadn’t escaped the catastrophic collision of planet and moon. They rushed into the tower and found a dusty crater with the Formian asteroid in the middle of it. Formians spilled out and tried to attack the PCs who just wanted to get to the door on the other side.
An awkward combat broke out, but they managed to push through by the skin of their teeth. They opened the door, saw the tesseract realm that Coin lived in… and jumped.
As they shut the door they could see the gravity on Aydrade slipping. It grew very dark and was gone.