Chapter Twenty-Eight: The End...

I'd always hoped the campaign would end like these fantastic pieces of art by Leo Hao

The sky above them had turned red, fireballs were arcing through the firmament, and the roar of demonic monsters rent the air. The glacier had turned to water, leaving the Stellarium of The Vinteralf isolated on an outcropping of rock, flanked by torrents of boiling water.

Cobblethwaite's Companions decided to take a moment to explore the underground complex, beneath the stellarium, that they had found previously but hadn't really looked around propely.

Their explorations unearthed a strange, alien, complex of indescribable machinery, bizarre globes, metallic statues, and dismantled "golems" - all of which reminded them of their expedition to the "storehouse of the gods" out in the Badlands.

They were drawn into a scrappy fight with some small, feral, grey humanoids, where Marigold used the last charge of her Wand Of The Marrow Squid to pull the skeleton out of one; a sight that still sickened some of her comrades, even though they had seen her use this power before.

Then, as the roof was shaking and rubble falling down around their ears, they heard a booming demonic voice calling Kirchin by name.

It was Yuzaru The Barbed Devil that Kirchin has disrespected during the party's trip to Avernus Ridge. He had tracked Kirchin down and wanted his pound of flesh.

The battle against the heroes was brutal, with the devil's animated spikes causing damage whenever our heroes struck the monster, but eventually - although a lot of blood was spilled on both sides - the devil was slain.

Emerging back in the main dome room of the stellarium, where the enormous brass orrery bisected the room, they discovered more of the roof had been torn off and both the colossal Yellow King - his cape now sweeping the peaks of The Gargoyle Mountains and holding the dead corpse of the yellow dragon in one hand - and the terrasaque, a force of nature moving over the mountains towards the stellarium, were visible.

Enormous demonic creatures were swarming the sides of the building, and winged monkey creatures were swooping in and around the brass armatures of the clockwork orrery.

Inspired by the engraved wooden book they had found, which appeared to show the fate of the wielder of The Gauntlet Of Angelus, Harry headed for the ladder up to the mechanical structure, feeling that he needed to be elevated to activate the artefact... although still not 100 per cent sure what it did.

One of the flying monkeys went for Harry, jabbing with his trident, while the others attacked the rest of the party - some jabbing with tridents while others hovered further away and peppered our heroes (Kirchin in particular) with arrows.

[It was kind of at this moment that had this been a film Samuel Barber's Adagio For Strings would have swelled up, and the action would have gone into slo-mo, cluing the audience in to what was coming next.]

Harry, singing a final rousing tune to bring a tear to the eye of his heroic comrades, valiantly thrust his gauntleted hand into the air. He could feel the flames engulf him, but still he sung on as a pillar of light erupted from the gauntlet, fuelled by the fire of his body, and tearing a hole in the fabric of reality.

Harry's singing momentarily transformed into screams, then his angelic voice was silenced forever.

Davian, fallen to one knee, found his final thoughts were memories of his beloved dog (Spot) and he hoped they would soon be reunited.

There was a clatter from the gantry where the Gauntlet of Angelus had dropped to the ground, next to the pile of ashes that had been The Chosen One, Harry Cobblethwaite.

The hole in space and time opened into a white tunnel of light. Rather unexpectedly in the light was a red haired woman, gesturing to them to follow. It was Imogen! And Marigold realised that this was also what Imogen herself had seen in The Nexus Of All Realities, inside the hut of The Witch Of The Woods, some kind of 'future echo' of herself!

[Davian's player, Kevin, played his Plot Twist: Flashbacks card, acquired a looooong time ago (possibly more than two years ago in 'real time') from an encounter with the "memory mist", which served to accelerate the opening of the portal and signal the return of Imogen]

Marigold, battered and blooded, had evaded the flying monkeys and ran towards the tunnel of light as it sank towards the floor of the room.

Davian had died in a heroic final stand with two of the trident-wielding flying creatures.

The brothers Kirchin and Dirkin both ran for the tunnel of light but were cruelly cut down by arrow fire, dropping dead mere feet away from salvation.

Only Marigold made it into the light.

The portal closed behind her.

And Cidri was no more.

THE END OF EVERYTHING!

CAST:

• Davian (Kevin)
• Harry (Simon)
• Holly (Erica)
• Kirchin (Pete)
• Marigold (Clare)
• Dirkin (Erica)
• Imogen - special 'ghostly' guest appearance

Chapter Twenty-Two: Strange Times At Avernus Ridge...

Avernus Ridge

Fleeing the earthquake zone, Cobblethwaite's Companions and Tristriam's family headed towards the village of Bowes.

This took a couple of days and they arrived to find the small community in the grip of a terrifying "chattering disease", which eventually - after several days of uncontrollable teeth chattering and spouting nonsense - caused its victims' heads to explode.

The village priest, Martin, unable to leave his flock, told Kirchin and the others about a wise woman called Halal, who lived a day or so outside the village, just over the Avernus Ridge. Martin believed she was in possession of a magical periapt that could cure all diseases.

Yuzaru

He pleaded with the adventurers to petition the wise woman for the use of her magical talisman to drive away the illness.

However, once the party reached the ridge, they realised something "wasn't quite right".

A row of crucifixes lined the brow of the ridge, decorated with old human remains, and as the party camped that night, at the foot of the ridge, their sleep was troubled by inhuman wailing from beyond.

Time was also acting strangely, moving too fast, up near the ridge, but thanks to Harry singing them to sleep, they all managed to get a decent night's rest anyway.

Unfortunately, by this stage, it was clear that Kirchin was showing the first signs of the chattering disease.

Cresting the ridge the next day, the heroes were met with the hellish sight of small, globular creatures (which Holly identified as "lemures" - souls being processed for their transit to Hell) throwing body parts into a lake, under the supervision of a huge, barbed devil (again, Holly identified him for what he was).

The devil - whose name they later learned was Yuzaru - called them forth, knowing them by name, and staring down Davian who was, at least at first, itching for a fight.

Halal

Halal emerged from a nearby cottage, but wasn't the wise woman they were expecting, instead Holly recognised her a kind of " demonic night hag".

The crone told the adventurers she would loan them her periapt for a day if they would get Martin to resurrect a moneylender - Sebastian Crow - who had died in the village a week before the disease began, and then bring Crow back to her (unharmed).

She gave them a scroll, the necessary spell tattooed on a roll of fresh human skin.

Returning to Bowes, Martin was reluctant at first to agree to raise Crow from the dead, and couldn't believe that this revolting scroll - or the wicked demand - was from the Halal he knew (she certainly didn't match the description he would later share with Holly).

But he realised that time was of the essence and cast the spell over Crow's grave.

The zombie moneylender clawed his way out of the ground and started to head to the village, shaking off the restraints of Marigold's magical web, but was eventually hog-tied by Davian and the aching Kirchin.

Sebastian Crow

Crow was returned to Halal, who kept her end of the bargain and loaned the periapt to The Companions.

They first used it to cure Kirchin, before racing back to the village, curing the sick and hurrying the amulet back to Halal.

Kirchin, riding his noble steed, Gryphon, returned the periapt to Hala, but couldn't resist trading insults with Yuzaru, who - thankfully - seemed unable, or unwilling at this time - to cross the line of crucifixes.

But the devil indicated that he "knew Kirchin's name" and there would be a reckoning.

That evening the villagers of Bowes threw their saviours an almighty celebration. Unfortunately, in the early hours of the morning this was interrupted by another violent earthquake.

Come morning, a new mountain range was visible to the west, and when The Companions went to investigate not only did they spy plumes of yellow gas bursting from fissures in the ground (the scent of which reminded Marigold of the brief time she had spent being dead), but Davian realised that some of these new "peaks" looked more like buildings with strange-shaped windows and portals in them.

As they drew closer, they realised their way was barred by an enormous canyon, stretching as far as the eye could see north and south, that had swallowed up the land where the Welcome Back Inn had once stood.

Croatoa

Holly once again demonstrated her depth of knowledge by realising that the strange mountains resembled old images she had seen in rare religious tomes, depicting the demi-plane of Purgatory known as Croatoa... the home of The Yellow King!

Peculiar shadows and unidentifiable flying creatures were noted in this new mountain range, and the adventurers decided it was probably a good time to head back towards civilization.

Marigold was quite vocal about this and strongly suggested that they needed to call upon Peter Entwhistle's old compadres in the Wizards' Conclave for assistance.

By the time they returned to Bowes, the villagers had decided they wanted to leave, and so our heroes organised them into a rag-tag caravan to head east with them to Bendwyn.

[It's worth pointing out that the party correctly deduced that Halal (or whoever the creature really was) had released the chattering disease on the village herself, to blackmail the villagers into returning Sebastian Crow to her... for her own twisted ends]

CAST:

• Davian (Kevin)
• Harry (Simon)
• Holly (Erica)
• Kirchin (Pete)
• Marigold/Dirkin (Clare)