Broken

Participants

• Elgon Kitmus
• Tingle
• Kaladan of Norixius
• Arden Rook
• Iria

Recap

The room was quiet, considering how many of the group sat within. Only the lazy scratch of a quill teased the silence away from overstaying its welcome.

I was there when the fire came from below, the hells spilled to the streets and both the brave and the fearful died. A day that’s remembrance makes me hollow, when we couldn’t save our own, had we even tried.

• Arden Rook, “Day of Ahtos”

The foamy ale leapt over the side of his mug before he could react, wetting his parchment enough to make the ink run almost illegible. “Forget it” he said as his frustrations boiled over, crushing the piece of paper in his leather-clad hands. “It’s shit anyways. It’s all...shit”. He stared at the beer stain, still slowly soaking into the page.

“Zeek agrees”, he concluded.

Just then, the low thud of a distant explosion trembled across the floors of his home, the novi-lamps flicker briefly. No one in the room paid any real attention. Arden took a long drink from his mug, sat back, and let himself recall the events of earlier that day.

It all really went to hell after the group met with those few Escher members and Chrome to set out to battle back the Kuo Toa welling up from the underhive. In our first skirmish, the fish-men started chanting in reaction to streets suddenly beginning to shake beneath our feet, and I knew something was going wrong.

After the street burst open in an explosive burst of pavers and mortar, there was a momentary lull, wherein some of the rubble slowly started falling back into the new gaping hole in the roadway.

Some of the Kuo-Toa immediately around the area seemed to regain a small amount of focus, trying to stand at full height to gain a vantage point to peer downward, while not daring to step closer. They were the first to be incinerated.

The fiery blast erupted with no warning, high into the darkness of the upper reaches of section 6. A column of fire lashing upward and outward, expanding upon the already excessive damage to the streets, and sending hairline cracks shooting out hundreds of feet in all directions.

We could feel the searing heat even from our position of relative safe distance, instinctively shielding our faces from the light and heat. Then, the column of flame began to shrink down upon itself, gathering mass into a wider orb of hellfire.

From between the whirling fury of cycling flames, the Demon lord of Desire himself stepped forward, Ahtos.

With the wave of his hand, the nearest Kuo-Toa were incinerated in a blast of flame. To my horror, I watched Ahtos gesture again in the same direction, and a visage of the burnt creatures’ souls pulled from their bodies into his palm, and he appeared to consume them. A brief look of appeasement passed over his grim features, before his gaze fell upon me and my friends, and his eyes narrowed.

I froze, Iria next to me, in awe. I never had time to react to the fiery blast which knocked me unconscious. I woke soon after amidst the noise and chaos at the gentle touch of Chrome who wore a look of terror across her gleaming silver face. I grabbed her hand, and we fled, not far behind the others.

Iria shrouded the area in darkness and we began to make our way south down the street, fumbling over debris, dodging errant spears and arrows of panicked Kuo Toa and Sahuagin, running all the while.

As a last effort to help, I attempted my hand at a hypnotic pattern near the giant demon’s face, in a desperate attempt to distract it. With a breathless gasp, I noticed it worked! The mighty demon stopped in his tracks, mesmerized by my creation. We might be able to get away, or so I thought.

We continued to move down the street in a harried retreat. The spawn of the underhive are all around us, hurling their nets on civilians, piecing them with savage spears. We fought back what small groups we could, running and fighting. Elgon dropped from above near me, and cast out his long arm to slow our advance, as deep crevasses had split the road, smoke and fire leaping up from below.

Athos had begun hurling his fire in all directions, slowly working his way down the long avenue, wading among the chaos he created. Iria’s orb of magical darkness silhouetted the demon’s fire close behind in an eclipse-like viel until the flames lashed at the dark elf, ending her spell. The blast diverted Tingle’s path from the group, but Kal lurched backward for his small friend, taking care to avoid the large field of caltrops his gnomish ally had left in his wake.

As those of us at the front quickly decided which way to go, we saw an exchange of fiery magics from back up the street Tingle had run just around a nearby corner, and Kal was headed. The whistling whine of meteors echoed across the alley as they flew across the square and struck the demon, dissipating into his chest. With a roar, the Lord of Desire responded with a massive fireball of his own, the explosion visible over the short shop rooftops, lighting up the darkened rave. Debris and smoke quickly rained into the area, obscuring everything.

Several breathless moments later, Kal emerged from the smoke, his labored breathing obvious even from considerable distance between us. As his golden scaled legs churned through the rubble of the decimated block, I could only wait so long before I asked him:

“Tingle!? Where is he? Did you see him?”

Approaching, the dragonborn’s face hardened and he slowed his pace, allowing himself to catch his breath. Kal looked up “From a distance...” he said, his gaze lingering for a moment. Kals flat stare only broke off from mine after a nearby scream caught his attention. Unable to refocus, I was vaguely aware of my friend sprinting away down the street as it took the blast of another explosion to will myself forward amongst the panicked ravers around me, feeling more alone than ever.

I ran, spotting Elgon on a nearby roof, nimbly avoiding flames while directing our group and other survivors forward, calling out raiding parties and debris. Elgon did his best to try to stay out of sight of the advancing demon, whose imposing form loomed high over the flames and carnage he caused in the streets below. Iria started to clear the way forward from the ground, as the group neared the largest crevasse in the road ahead.

I never thought Chrome would take a misstep, her form and composure always so sure, but her silvery scales slipping out of sight towards the inferno below us was unmistakable. Kal was already just steps behind, having reacted to her initial tumble he sprinted forward at breakneck speed.

Perhaps it was the fact he had already launched himself into the air towards the opening of the gaping cliff, or the sheer surprise that Chrome was pulling herself out of danger as he leapt to save her from it. Either way, Kal lost control of his momentum, and tumbled out of sight into fire and smoke. Chrome screamed.

It must have been Iria and Elgon that guided me those last steps where the streets took us far out of Ahtos’s eventual path. I don’t know, I never asked, but at that point, I was truly broken. The only other detail I recall was hearing a thunderous noise before everything went black.

...Now we’re here, home, drunk, and I find myself writing because of... posterity? I can’t say, but it’s distracting. We scrapped ourselves off the streets as the damned demon moved on and we walked home. Kal’s alive, shy his second arm. He’s still telling the kids over there about how he climbed out of the hellfire like some kind of nellulon golem from the future. Chrome seems into it. Good for Kal.

I’m fairly sure Elgon had said Becky ordered us to prep defenses, but we haven’t done a fucking thing since Iria kicked open the last cask of Zap Ale when Lief had asked about Tingle. I’m not sure Iria has even moved from that spot since then.

It sounds like a war outside though, and it even sounds like it’s getting closer. Bingle waking up is maybe the bright spot for today, he seems ready to fight.

It truly is getting loud out there, I think some guilders are on edge ~~~

Note to Codex reader: At this point, the parchment becomes damaged, with signs of burning and what appear to be streaks of blood. The writing that follows is all that remains of the passage, and appears to be written in a substance other than ink:

“THIS IS OUR HOUSE”.

Live Notes

So anyway, the street exploded. Ahtos has come

Initiative!

• A bunch of fish are immediately roasted
• Ahtos gestures towards the Kuo Toa priestess. A visage of the creatures soul pulls from her body into his palm, and he eats it as the corpse falls lifeless
• Hesitation from Arden and Iria
• Elgon extinguishes some nearby flames as he promptly books out
• Ahtos casually fireballs the place and roasts Arden. Chrome thankfully staves off his death with a quick healing potion
• Iria reacts to this by enveloping the area in magical darkness
• Kal fumbles through the dark trying to get a healing potion to Chrome
• Arden comes to, and casts a hypnotic pattern, successfully charming Ahtos and rendering him incapacitated before promptly skeedaddling
• Iria snags the potion from Kal's hand, moves to where Chrome really is, and offering it to her on Kal's behalf
• The part starts to try to make our way through the darkness down the alley away from the demon. Bumps and some minor contact heals ensue. Tingle drops a set of caltrops behind him on the way
• Ahtos astonishingly remains motionless and unfocused
• The Kuo Toa savage innocents in all directions. One of them, in his haste, runs into the darkness and slams right into Kal's back. Kal makes him regret this action with a hearty swing of the axe, followed by another, before hoofing it to join the group.
• Arden bravely runs further away
• Elgon rushes to help the citizens ahead of him, making a theatrical jump and landing. But on the way down, a thunderous crack and the street splits, and he barely nimbly avoids falling into the newly opened chasm
• Ahtos, now on the move towards us, hurls another fireball down the street into the magical darkness. Kal, Iria, and Tingle get hit, and the magical darkness dissipates
• Kal books down the alley to help Tingle
• Arden steps and faces Ahtos, casting another hypnotic pattern. This one isn't so successful, so Arden hops around a corner off the main street
• Elgn hops on to a roof, throwing out some helpful suggestions and scouting party locations, trying to stay out of sight of the advancing demon
• Ahtos rises into the air and hurls fire. Kal miraculously avoids, Tingle does not and goes down in his hiding spot.
• Kal runs and the party, now separated from the downed Tingle by a wall, the party tries to find a way to safety
• Chrome tries to jump the gap, but slips and falls in. Kal bolts to save her, but himself slips and tumbles deep into the crevasse, hopelessly out of sight into the inferno
• The party scrambles out, escaping the area, one man short. Just before they do, a sudden arm grasp of Kal reaches out, clawing himself from the pit. The other arm never follows.
• The (remains of the) party escape, or at least at first, until a massive explosion knocks them all against the wall and unconscious

Escape!

Long rest

🕰 3d 13h 30m remain...

• The ragged bunch limps back to squadquarters
• Some break into the ale, trying to curb the weight of the day's events
• Elgon heads to update Becky, rebuffing some of the jr enforcers on his way
• Becky doesn't look so hot, doesn't have much to offer to help
• The group congregates in the main room, discussing what to do next
• A guild member, Bingle, joins them

🕰 3d 12h 30m remain...

• Arden has had a few too many and starts to sloppily bitch and moan about surrender
• It's getting pretty demoralizing in here
• Iria hears the concussive sounds of destruction in the distance, but not far

🕰 3d 11h 30m remain...

🕰 3d 11h remain...

Initiative!

• Crashing attacking sounds from outside the room on all sides
• Iria and Elgon start to move out a door, in time for some devils to start to encroach from outside
• Kal starts to get really pissed about the day he's having, and is ready to take some lives.
• Arden runs out the door and hurls some insults at one of the invading devils
• Elgon steps up and double-cold-stabs a devil, for a ton. The devil retorts with a decent hit, though not as debilitating as it might have been
• Arden gets sliced up pretty bad by his opponent
• Kal joins the party and lays waste into the enemy, a fearsome stand
• Bingle throwing spells to help Arden out
• Arden casts more spells, but the devils are good at saving
• Elgon sinks his frost-brand into a devil, the flesh freezing around the wound as it saps the last of the life from the foe. Elgon wastes no time delivering additional damage to another
• One the devils takes a couple swings at Lief that miss, but a tail stab gets him good
• A devil hurls some flame at Arden, but thanks to the disadvantage imposted by Bingle it is to no effect
• Kal bursts through the door, and in one fell swoop cuts a devil down
• Bingle makes another good hit that takes the devil off his game
• Arden prepares to stab and fails to stab. Elgon steps in and also fails to stab, but gets another stab and this time stabs well
• Everyone notices the additional foe coming through the main room, except drunk Arden
• Kal angrily bursts through the door and axes for days, just obliterating this enemy for more than half his strength
• Arden strolls by and looses an arrow for absolutely no good whatsoever
• Elgon does what Arden tried but much better, just passing by with the frost brand and

🕰 3d 10h 30m remain...

Loot