As the teleportation spell activates and the floor seems to give way beneath them, the party are floating and spinning around with no sense of up or down before suddenly gravity kicks back in and they find themselves falling to the ground
- Strum hits the ground hard but the rest manage to land on their feet
- The teleportation leaves them disorientated
- Hayate, who has done this before, recovers first
Looking around they realise they are on a city street, the buildings crumbling into ruins
- The sky above is red and hazy and the air is filled with grit
- Directly above the city is a huge sphere of darkness, surrounded by a blue corona of light from which lightning flashes down towards the city
- In the distance rising above street level they can see the ruined remains of a fortress
- Vigil and Reya recognise this as Elturel and the sphere as what was once the companion
As they get their bearings Strum hears running footsteps on the cobbled streets and urges the party to get into a building
- They hesitate and a woman rushes around the corner carrying a toddler on her hip
- Has a dagger in one hand
- Face is covered with soot and she is bleeding from a scalp wound
- She trips and stumbles before getting to her feet and continuing to run
Following behind her are 4 bearded devils
- Two with swords and shields and two with bows
- The party rushes to intercept them, telling the woman to hide in the building Strum entered
- Inside she hides the child in a closet and follows Strum out on top of the porch roof
- He questions her
- She’s been hiding but ran out of food and water
- Down in the street the party gangs up on the melee devils
- Marco creates a cloud of daggers around one of the archers
- Hayate casts bless followed by spiritual weapon, summoning a writhing blue dragon to attack
- Vigil smites one
- Strum attempts to leap to another building but falls and hurts himself, coming over to try and help with gust
- They finish them off and charge after the archers, chopping them down
The fallen devils don’t disappear like they had in the natural plane instead their skin turns black and they start to liquify into a black sludge
- Eliseo comments that maybe they stay dead when killed in hell
Heading back to the woman
- Her name is Martina
- Strum hands her his waterskin and Marco gives them some rations
- She’s shocked that we’ve come from outside the city
- Doesn’t know whats happened, the Companion turned black and attacked them
- She’s not seen any other people
- Seen a knight on a flaming flying horse overhead
- Vigil offers her some reassurance and heals some of her wounds
Looking over the buildings Hayate sees that some have been damaged by impacts from above whilst others have been shaken by seismic activity
- He can feel the ground is very slightly swaying
Vigil suggests that they head to high-hall (the palace cathedral) as it might be defensible
- They agree to try
- Martina will come with us
- He recognises this as the eastern part of the city and lets them know that the city once had a river passing through it bisecting it with 3 bridges across
- The southern one is closest
The party heads to Heol’s Reach, the southern bridge, with Eliseo scouting ahead
- He sees a fiery thing flying across the sky in the distance
- Reaching the riverside, he can see no water
- Going up to the bank and looking down there is a huge chasm dropping several hundred feet
- Far below he can see a desolate wasteland with a huge river cutting through it
- Slightly to the north he can see the bridge has collapsed
Looking along the river to the edge of the city, Hayate spots a gigantic iron pillar coming out of the city wall with huge black iron chains stretching down towards the ground
They head north to see the state of the remaining bridges
- As they travel along the riverbank the ground starts to shake and a nearby building starts to collapse
- Hearing cries from inside they rush towards it
- Vigil rushes through the door and clears the way up the stairs
- Eliseo parkours up the outside of the building and crashes through a window
- Upstairs they find 3 people, one elderly
- Marco exhorts them to start moving and get out
- As they rush down the stairs the building starts to fall in on itself and they are unable to stop it collapsing
- It gives way
- Strum and Hayate are able to dive out to safety
- Vigil attempts to protect the civilians with his shield and gets hit
- The old man is killed by falling rubble
The surviving two, a human male (Antonio) and a female elf (Carlotta) grieve over the dead man but Strum persuades them that they have to move
- They inform the party that the middle bridge is gone and that the northern one is intact but guarded by devils
- They’ve been hiding but heard people being killed or hunted down and taken prisoner
- They have also seen the flying horseman
- They mention that initially there were a lot more devils after the city moved but shortly after portals started to appear in the streets and other creatures appeared from them and attacked the devils
- Hayate thinks these might be demons
- Apparently there is no day/night cycle here
They continue on towards the northern bridge
- Eliseo spots the flaming horseman above and rushes back to alert the group
- They manage to hide as it passes overhead and does not see them
Reaching the northern bridge (Heol’s Blade) they can see that it is guarded by 4 bearded devils and 4 spined devils
- The occupiers have put up two barricades across the bridge
- The party moves into a nearby house, hides the refugees in the cellar and discusses their plan of action
- Decide to try and lure the devils into an ambush
Strum is to act as bait to lead them into the building with Eliseo using the mask’s invisibility to come up behind them runs
- Strum runs out after casting skywrite, to get their attention, and casts thunderclap
- The devils spot him and the bearded ones order the spined devils to attack him
- They launch into the air and fly over as he runs back into the house
- The spined devils follow and are cut down inside by the rest of the party
The party rushes out to charge the remaining devils
- Strum is leading the way and takes an arrow to the chest before casting shatter, blasting the first barricade to pieces
- Vigil and Reya charge towards the bearded devils as Hayate engages the remaining spined devils
- Eliseo uses his invisibility to run along the bridge parapet and get behind the archers
- Activating his rapier, Marco blurs forwards and engages an archer
- Vigil blasts two of them with his Lightning Javelin as Eliseo gets behind one and guts it like a fish
- Strum casts sleep on the remaining flying devils and they plummet down the chasm to oblivion
Hayate, Reya, and Vigil struggle with the melee bearded devils as Marco and Eliseo fight the archers
- Marco casts cloud of daggers on one of the melee devils and Hayate uses his lightning lure to keep it in the cloud
- Reya has to retreat after taking several hits
- Marco takes a hit from one of the archers and almost drops but is saved by Reya yelling at him like a parade ground sergeant
- Finally the last devil is killed and the party is left exhausted but victorious