Fort Knucklebone
The Saturday game, recapping 2/20/21 – We review the spirit journey our Wizard went on while wearing the Helm of Torm’s Sight. In short, Zariel lost her sword. If we find it, we may be able to use it as a bargaining chip to free the city of Elturel. Our main clue is a vision of the sword being plunged into the ground and an alabaster palace arising from it. A scar grows over the palace obscuring it from view while a woman, two kenku and our own Lulu look on. Since these events took place some ten miles from Fort Knucklebone, it becomes imperative we descend to Avernus and travel to there. With a couple of dimension door spells and some wild shaping, we successfully land the team on the plains, but several miles from our destination.
We are about eight long hours away from Fort Knucklehead, and, because this is hell, we need to make exhaustion checks along the way. About halfway through our march, a patch of red dust on the horizon appears heading our way. At two-hundred-feet away, we see an infernal war machine heading towards us. Someone named Pete, an enemy from the past, is shouting unpleasantries about the Archer. Pete and his crew of werebears and wererats are about to attack! Before they even get in close range, the Archer kills Pete and runs over to loot the body, leaving the rest of the party to deal with the remaining attackers. We defeat them, collect loot and are now the proud owners of a rundown war machine that the Wizard nicknames “Large Marge the War Barge”.
We arrive at Fort Knucklebone in our sweet new ride. The gate guards are some very annoying redcaps, but they open the gate, and we park our vehicle inside. This area is filled with an assortment of redcaps and other fey. A horned devil named Bitter Breath stands with a crowd of hobgoblins wearing matching vests, apparently some sort of gang. Businesses within the Fort include a bar and hotel, bank, garage and repair shop, and potion store all owned by a night hag named Mad Maggie.
We enter the bar and are approached by an elderly gentleman named Dante who tells us a sob story and pleads with us to play a card game to win back money he lost. Sorry, Dante, we are not easy marks. However, he is a useful source of information as he tells us about the garage and confirms that kenku have always been among the Fort’s inhabitants.
At the garage’s service desk, two imp brothers named Needles and Pins agree to work up an estimate for repairs while we look around. One of the brothers asks us to assassinate a redcap named Wazzik. Because of a prank gone wrong, the redcap plans on killing them. If we do this favor, the brothers will put in a good word for us with Maggie.
Handing over the vehicle for repairs, we notice two kenku working on another machine. Seeing Lulu, they become quite excited and repeat the word, “Friend!” many times. One of the kenku, Clonk, points to a war machine they are repairing. The Wizard figures out the problem is with a gear and fixes it with a mending spell. The kenku are grateful for the help and come back with Maggie herself accompanied by a fiendish creature named Mickey. We notice that the redcaps ridicule Mickey as he walks.
Maggie tells us she is fascinated with Lulu. She is an art collector and one of her tapestries shows Zariel’s fall from grace with a hollyphant like Lulu featured. She offers to perform a ritual that will help Lulu regain some of her lost memories but will need time to prepare. We agree, get our repair estimate and, with our business concluded, pass the night uneventfully in the hotel.
The next day, a human named Natasha the Dark helps us open an account at the bank. In the potion shop, an identical Natasha the Dark sells us two flasks of demon ichor which can used in engines to speed war machines.
We head up a ramp to Maggie’s cave-like abode. She says she is ready to lead the ritual. We assemble around a circle with Lulu in the middle. As a telepathic link forms, we see increasingly bleak dreams. Lulu and an angel fall prone and damaged. Devils offering to serve if their lives are spared. A pit fiend cuts off the hand of the angel as her sword flies away. And finally, a red skinned devil offers contracts to the angel and two paladins. The angel signs. The first paladin signs and is transformed into a fiend. The last paladin defiantly slices his own throat only to be reanimated by the fallen angel. We know Zariel had three trusted lieutenants. Haruman becomes the fiend; Olanthius becomes the undead. The third, Yael, must be the woman who, while Lulu watched, plunged the sword into the ground to create the Bleeding Citadel.
After the ritual, Mad Maggie says she does not know how to locate these people, but refers us to Red Ruth, a diviner in the Bone Brambles. One of the Natashas also mentions the Archwizard Mordenkainen in the Tower of Urm as a source. Before we leave the Fort in search of more information, the Archer kills Wazzik for the imp brothers. They are grateful and mark an area on our map as the Mirror of Mephistar, a location where you can speak with the Archdukes of Hell. We defer and instead head out on Large Marge to the Tower of Urm.
Most of the day passes in a long rest until our arrival. As we arrive, a voice calling itself The Cartographer offers a brief description of the area. Outside an iron tower, dozens of fiends await the wizard. Our party chats some up. The fiends say that the wizard comes out everyday to announce a list of items he needs and that the tower moves to a different area about every ten days. Mordenkainen appears on a balcony and recites his list. Noticing an unusual group of adventurers, he opens a door into the tower and asks us in. Before he will help us, he tasks us with getting one pint of blood from a pit fiend or balor.
Continuing to Bone Brambles, we stop at a structure named the Demon Zapper on the map and The Cartographer describes it. Within, an unconscious unicorn is trapped in infernal magic. When a demon approaches, it is zapped with disintegrate. The party takes pity on the unicorn and banishes it back to its home plane of existence and the device shuts down.
As we continue traveling, we are accosted by a hobgoblin named Smiler the Defiler. He states that Bitter Breath is his enemy and, if we help him in his revenge, he will point us in a direction towards a balor. We sign a contract with him to create a distraction for him.