The party prepares to set off while the redcaps clear the wreckage from the gates.
Eliseo gets behind the wheel of the Tormentor with the rest of the group boarding the Demon Grinder. Soul Coins are fed into the vehicles and they erupt into life and clouds of smoke. From the Tormentor, a blue fog tasting of hydrogen sulphide encompasses the vehicle and the Demon Grinder has a brown haze with a hint of mustard.
Leaving the camp they head ‘East?’ towards the river, struggling to use the ever twisting map to navigate.
- Eliseo looks around for landmarks to measure speed, distance, territory etc., but things don’t seem right, the markers he is using don’t seem correct, the terrain all wrong
- Then suddenly the land rises up sharply and they realise they are approaching the river
- Seem to be on the wrong side, or the right, depending on your point of view
- Somehow they have arrived on the east bank of the river
- Can’t see Elturel from here, behind them there is a huge volcano
They slow down to consult the map
- It appears they are approaching Haruman’s Hill
- Hayate is pleased (“Tente has guided us”), Vigil annoyed (“I hate Hell”), and Marco just goal oriented (“are we on the right side”)
- They decide to press on, heading up the hill
- The hill gets steeper and steeper and as they scale it there’s a copse with a route marked ‘Coward’s Way’
They kill the engines (although the soul coin keeps burning)
- With the engine subdued a low droning hum is heard from all around
- A path heads heads up the hill, curving around to the river side
- A cliff edge drops away to the Styx below, the colour of blood, with strong currents
- The humming grows as they climb and the track cuts back around the east side
Along the edge of the track there is a tree, made of metal, with trunk, branches and twigs
- The twigs comes to a metallic point and a body is impaled on one of the branches
- Pierced through the chest and arms, body seems to be twitching
- As they approach they can see large mosquito-creatures are clinging to parts of the body, and they are pulsing – not breath, but sucking blood from the impaled person
- Can see the final path up to the summit 100ft away
- Either side of the path is very steep with loose scree
- Realise there are 20-30 trees in the rock either side and on each and every one is a body, with creatures feeding off them
- The nearest body is a human male
- A sign below the tree declares them to be a traitor
- Hayate wonders who they betrayed, casts spirit guardians to remove the insect
- They rip at the insects, who screech, detach themselves from the body, blood spilling out and move away
- Vigil asks if we can get this one off the pointy tree, and Marco shimmies up a little to see if he can lift the body off
- Marco lifts the body off the tree and feather falls down to earth, but when he hits the ground, the body turns to ash and floats away.
- Marco heard the body saying ‘end it’ as he fell
- They move up to the summit where there are 3 trees standing
- The bodies have various condemnations (mutineer, coward, insubordinate)
- One of the three is an elf with dirty blonde hair
- Vigil goes up to the elf, who raises an arm as if reaching for them
- His mouth is moving to loosen the jaw and form words
- “Please, I’m sorry…” as he reaches towards Vigil, and explains Haruman ‘has turned executioner’, and apologises again a few times
- Marco gains consent to euthanise, but Vigil wants information first
- Behind them there’s a confused “Nononono” and Nuriel is holding his head
- He doesn’t believe this is something Haruman would do, “He’s an honourable man, a Paladin, not this grim retributive… He wouldn’t”
- Vigil asks the elf about the sword, and the elf says, “I don’t know, I died” and Vigil establishes the elf died in Elturel after fleeing then woke up impaled on this tree
- Vigil asks the angel, “Are we in the right place, is this the hill?” and Nuriel thought Haruman meant he’d be protecting the hill
- “When I put myself in the sword a palace grew, a beautiful palace but it was quickly swallowed by this land. I thought if Haruman was here he’d be protecting it and it’d be this hill, but I may have thought wrong.”
- “If Zariel has fallen, maybe Haruman has too.”
- There is a heavy footstep behind them and a deep voice proclaims, “Deserters!”
- Turning around they can see a huge armoured man with a greatsword
- Haruman
Haruman brandishes his sword and booms, “Earn your redemption” and the bodies from the trees start removing themselves from the spikes and the mosquitos fly up angrily
- The party are surrounded and swarmed by the insects (Scourges) and zombies
- The Scourges attaching themselves to party members
- Eliseo, Reya and Vigil step up to block the path to Haruman as the others start flinging spells
- Marco gets horrifically frightened by Haruman, who conjures visions of horrible stuff (defeated in battle, choking to death eating a baby fed to him by a hag)
- Surrounded, Marco attempts to escape between the zombies but is hit and brought down before being swarmed and eviscerated
- Haruman advances to attack Vigil while Hayate attempts to turn undead
- The spirit guardians do their thing, and the turned zombies flee
- Those unturned by being hit by the spirit guardians now flock to Hayate
- Reya recites a prayer, and her and Vigil rush Haruman
- Vigil’s divine smite on Haruman cause him to rock back and snarl, and a metal spike pierces the ground near the scree and a new spikey metal tree bursts through the ground
- At its base is a placard saying “striking a commanding officer” and Vigil realises this tree is marked for him
- Haruman loses his mojo, misses a swing and fittingly, with Vigil’s final stroke, he fells the 9ft armoured monstrosity, ducking the initial sword swing and uses the axe to topple Haruman, and Reya and Vigil dive on his chest and head, chopping into the former great lieutenant of the Hellriders
Marco is dead
- In Marco’s darkness, there’s nothing…
- Then there isn’t
- He hears a sniffing
- Although Marco is nothing, he feels something nuzzling his soul and a voice says “I have a use for you!”