Good!Party: Demonic Carnage

We are currently standing in the throne room that Duke Lamont has claimed in his attempt to become the king in the North. There’s an alarm going off at the doors to the rest of the keep, but Martini kills it. We emerge silent behind a pair of liveried servants. Ruin and Mercy assassinate them, then drag the bodies back through the curtains. Marshall just waits in silence. 

We decide to turn right and head for the barracks. Martini and Ruin sneak over to the baracks door, checks it for traps and locks; it has neither. Martini listens at the door, and hears four voices inside. Martini applies Improved Invisibility to us, which doesn’t work out in the hall; we open the door and stroll silently in, where the magic immediately takes effect and they don’ t even notice us. “You see that? The door just blew open.”

Martini takes a minute to study one of them, while Ruin positions himself nearby. Martini takes one out silently, then perforates another. Ruin is standing there with sword upraised, prepared to end whoever survives, and promptly does. They stroll over to the sleeping man, and Martini attempts to assassinate him but fails, so she just lays into him like a Nazghul attacking a pillowcase. 

We make a quick search of chests and footloockers, which have no traps and very poor locks; we clear out about 20,000 GP of stuff. The weapon racks have their extra weapons, some magical; our total goes up to about 82,000. There is a little closet with a pretty decent lock; it isn’t trapped. Martini opens it, and inside is a teleporter, probably leading to somewhere outside. Some sort of escape hatch, probably. 

We decide against trapping the barracks door, and head back to collect Marshall. 

We alert Marshall and head the other way, and find another door that’s… maybe a guest quarter? We can hear dwarvish voices inside. We block the door closed and move on. There’s another at the end of the passage; this one is locked. Martini goes ahead and opens it, and Ruin puts the keyring away again. Martini motions for Ruin to go first. There’s a bit of light coming from under of the doors ahead. Ruin hears some guards talking through one of the doors. 

There’s a door on the right, barred, which leads into some sort of prison. Through the left door, we hear Ricburt, Silvo, and Rudy. “Get your lazy ass up, you gotta feed them sons of bitches.” One of them goes and throws a pan of something. “Go ahead and lick it up off the floor, you dirty elf.”

Martini and Ruin exchange a glance. Murder? Murder. Martini slips the lock and we move into the prison. Marshall moves partway down the hall. Apparently Ricburt is the one in charge. Silvo is also clearly drunk. Rudy is dealing cards, either some kind of solitaire of just as something to do. 

Martini slips this lock too and walks into the room invisibly. Ruin sashays in behind her. Ricburt comes over and starts giving Silvo shit about forgetting to lock the door. She assassinates Ricburt, murders Silvo, and then throws her dagger at Rudy, who also promptly dies. Ruin just watches appreciatively. 

Ruin takes another key ring off Ricburt, and we start unlocking doors. Behind Martini’s first door there’s an elderly elven woman, who’s been badly used. She looks a little familiar. Martini calls for Marshall. The woman has been tortured, and as far as Ruin’s concerned the competition is over. 

The woman is Mylathera Antithian – Amaranth’s mother. She tries the next cell, and it’s… Joseph R. Pious, paladin and general of the Elvish forces; he is naked and scarred and his manhood has been removed. “Beauregard, Why? Why did you do this to me?”

Marshall walks over to him. “Howdy, Joe. How’re you doing?” There’s something ominous in his tone. Marshall, apparently, consider Joe a competitor for the faith of the elves. 

Martini’s little brother is in the last cell. He’s been whipped, but not mutilated. “Fartathren! You saved me!”

Martini: “Ruin? I found my brother.” 

Ruin walks over. “Well, if we weren’t going to murder Lamont before, we definitely are now.”

We lie shamelessly to the child, explaining that Azrael married a demon chick and went to settle on an otherworldly farm. Apparently they were questioning him fairly gently by their standard; they were keeping him to as bait for Martini. 

This is not going to end well for them.We’ve found Lamont’s cache of high-value prisoners. Grand elder Daealla. She is very pleased to see us. Martini sends her down to the others. She’s putting on a brave face, but she’s the least-tortured prisoner, the one with the nicest clothes, a mattress, food… she’s was obviously cooperating with her captors. 

Martini asks her what they questioned her about. “Nothing.” Martini: “What did they ask you about?” “Nothing.” Martini pulls out her daggers. “That was two.”

Daealla finally catches on and drops to her knees. “They tortured me! Look! They took my fingertips!” 

Martini: “So what did you tell them?” 

Daealla: “I made a deal. I’d be Lamont’s puppet, and they wouldn’t hurt me.”

Martini slits her thoat. Then she memory-wipes her brother. We go open the last cell; Grand Elder Nelaeryn. “Martini! Martini! They gave me papers, and I signed them.” She has been beaten black and blue, and might actually be dying. The papers were mostly for land rights. 

We now have Baby Joe, Foot Joe, Nelaeryn, and Mylathera. We could reunite her with Mythrandril at some point. 

Marshall blows Regeneration to get Mylathera functional again, and we send the two women on their way with young Joe. Foot Joe, on the other hand, comes with us since he’s a paladin and also because he can absorb damage from Martini. 

We cross back to the metal door and Martini opens it. We have found the torture chamber. Martini checks the door to the chamber proper, and in we go. 

The room is foul. There have been efforts to clean it, but… not very well. A lifeless elven body is strapped to the chair; it’s another of the grand elders, the one we rescued from Welfort a while back. We drop her in the bag; we’ll bring her back later. There are pre-written confessions, some already signed, many conceding hereditary rights and lands to Lamont. 

Ruin swipes a blank confession and puts it in his pouch. We move on, a pair of portcullises, each with two guards on the other side. Apparently they can pull a chain and collapse the ceiling. We are… unimpressed. We point out that the collapse is very likely to kill them too. 

After a bit of back-and-forth, they yank on the chains and an alarm goes off. 

Martini turns invisible and walks onto the ceiling cackling; Marshall uses Stone Shape to close off the hall behind us. Ruin tries to see if he can Dimension Door past the bars, but transport magics are still blocked. Martini takes her bow out and murders one of the guards; the other one starts cranking on the winch and then tries to run past us; he finds Marshall’s new wall and stops. 

We leave the other two guards in their room, and go into the first room and open the ice door. The door was made of Mythril but permanently covered in ice. The magic key, however, causes the front to move back and not damage us. 

Beyond it is a portal, and the biggest ice devil we’ve ever see strolls out. “What now, Cylus? Need you more of my blood already?”

Ruin and Martini consider bluffing, but Marshall immediately starts casting Firestorm. 

First, though, Martini looks around the corner. “I was just wondering… would you like to sell us some of your blood?”

He’s willing to, in exchange for Cylas’ body and us dispelling the damned portal. Unfortunately, Marshall bumbles the Greater Dispel Magic. The devil gets impatient and attacks. 

Martini moves first, though, and stabs him. 

Devil: “I am Rebelgar, Baron of Baator! How dare you attack me?” He replies with a quickened cone of cold. Martini avoids it reflexively, and Marshall avoids the worst of it. He follows it up with a quickened Ice Storm. Ruin’s spell resistance allows him to ignore it, but the other two take damage. Joe R. Pious: “Oh, it hurts! It hurts!”

Despite the ice storm, we can hear dwarves smashing through our stone wall out in the corridor. 

Inside, Marshall drops Firestorm. He gets past its spell resistance, but the thing is immune to fire. He drops quickened Divine Favor and a quickened Spell Immunity to make himself immune to Cone of Cold. 

Martini buries a dagger in the devil’s eye and it… dies. Ruin lunges forward and catches the vial of blood on the way down. Marshall adds Righteous Might and dispels the Slow effect from Ruin. 

The dwarves bust through the wall, and Marshall steps out into the hallway. “Y’all want to change sides?” 

The dwarves exchange speculative glances. “Do we get to keep the money Lamont gave us?” 

Us: “Of course!”

Them: “And you’re paying us? How much?” 

Marshall: “How much did Lamont pay you?” 

Them: “Fifty Thousand apiece.” 

We come out to find that Marshall has ridiculously overpaid for the services of what appears to be a fairly powerful group of dwarven mercenaries. 

Ruin: “Gentlemen, the portcullis if you please.”

The two guards look at us. 

One of the dwarves says, “You should. We’re the only cavalry left.”

They open the portcullis. The one guard ran off to try to get help, but Martini put a dagger in the back of his skull; these two just walk away quietly, discussing job opportunities they’ve heard from the town cryer. We move through the fire door, and into the fire room… with a pit fiend. 

“I will have your eternal soul for this, Cylas!” 

Martini holds up Cylas’ head. “Oh, really?” 

Ruin tries to get him to trade for some of his blood, but he really wants to go on a vengeful killing spree here in the mortal realm. So, the Fiend opens with a quickened fireball, which fails to affect Martini and Ruin, but catches the dwarves; one of them, and Marshall, duck away from the worst of it. He then tries Mass Hold Monster. Three of the dwarves are held. The Pit Fiend remains flying over his circle of lava. 

The dwarf charges, getting hit with a claw on the way in, and hits the pit fiend. Marshall moves in and hits him. Ruin charges in but stops at the last minute, and coats his blade with Silversheen. The dwarf attacks. One of the other dwarves tears loose of the Hold effect. 

Marshall wallops the demon again. 

The demon drops a meteor shower on Marshall and Ruin, and gets past Ruin’s spell resistance. Marshall takes the full damage, but he has some temporary hit points and is still in decent shape. Ruin takes less damage and also is fire resistant, so he’s basically okay.

Martini tumbles past the Pit Fiend on the ceiling and stabs the back of the fiend’s head. Martini: “You know, guys, it would be really nice if I didn’t have to do all the work myself.” 

Then Ruin steps in and attacks. He hits, but his weapon is only silvered, not Good; he doesn’t get much past the fiend’s damage resistance. The beast Power attacks Martini, hitting three times: two wings and a bite. Joe R. Pious is still taking damage for Martini, and thus screaming out in the hallway. The bite fails to poison her, or give her a disease. The thing then drops a quickened fireball. 

The other two dwarves break free, and the one that broke free last round charges in, taking a claw attack on the way in. Marshall aligns his weapon and Ruin’s, and Heals himself. Martini attacks, flanking and also annoyed. She hits three times and does a ton of damage, relatively speaking, most of it from Sneak Attack. Ruin, now suitably imbued, attacks and does a decent amount of damage. The Pit Fiend is still attacking Martini, hitting with two claws, bite, and tail – and the bite will try to poison her and inflict a disease. Martini has spent a considerable amount of time building up an immunity to iocane powder, so she isn’t poisoned; she is, however, afflicted with a disease. Joe R. Pious has stopped making noise in the next room; he’s dead. 

The Fiend adds another quickened fireball, and does a little damage to Marshall and the dwarves. The last two dwarves charge in, taking claw attacks on the way. Marshall attacks with his scythe, hitting once. 

Martini begins her assassination attempt. 

The pit fiend dies. 

Ruin gapes. “Fucking really!?”

We take some Pit Fiend blood.