Device Engineered for Avernus Descent - D.E.A.D
General Summary
Days 15 - 18 since arriving in Avernus
Avernus, First Layer of the Nine Hells
It took nearly a tenday for Grand Duke Ravengard to recover from his harrowing ordeal after donning the Helm of Torm's Sight.
After he awoke, he told the adventurers about a vision he experienced.
In it, Ravengard saw a bloodied woman in armor- a soldier wearing the colors and crest of Elturel - grasping a longsword fit for an angel. Fresh blood streamed from a nasty cut on the woman's cheek. Flying next to the woman was a small, golden elephant with rapidly fluttering wings.
Ravengard turned to Lulu and identified her as the creature he saw in his vision.
In his vision, Ravergard said he saw an enormous, loping demon threatening to devour the woman. She then plunged the sword into the ground while the winged elephant made a trumpet sound with its trunk. The demon was hurled back as an alabaster palace rose up around the sword. Lulu fled and took to the red sky of Avernus, where she watched as a bloody scab grew up from the ground to engulf the palace and the enormous demon.
Lulu, after having fled, wandered in a delirium before corning upon two odd, birdlike humanoids dressed in patchwork armor and standing next to a strange infernal vehicle. The bird creatures were equipped with odd weapons and tools.
Lulu said she remembered helping one of the Hellriders.
"Zariel's most loyal Hellrider, Yael, took the sword and plunged it into a rock," Lulu said as if recalling a forgotten memory. "I called on every ounce of goodness in my heart to raise a shield around it a fortress against evil."
Both Ravengard and the Lulu were convinced that the Sword of Zariel is the key to saving Elturel but were unsure of where to find it in the barren and infinite plane of Avernus.
Lulu suddenly started flapping her wings in excitement as she remembered meeting a pair of "bird folk" named Chukka and Clonk. The others deduced the bird folks were, in fact, kenkus.
Lulu remembered that the kenkus took her to a junkyard called Fort Knucklebone. where they built and repaired infernal vehicles designed to move quickly across the blasted wastelands of Avernus. Lulu doesn't remember who ran the fort or what other creatures she met there.
Lulu then quickly flew to the top of the cathedral and looked out over the blasted landscape of Avernus below Elturel. After trumpeting loudly, she returned to report that she can see Fort Knucklebone and estimated it to be no
more than ten miles away.
Ulder Ravengard said he will remain in Elturel, along with all of the others, to help organize survivors to fight off the devils, demons, and undead scouring the city. Though he'd be willing to die fighting in Elturel's defense, he said it's up to the brave adventurers to help Lulu find the Sword of Zariel.
But how were the adventurers going to get off Elturel which was floating some five hundred feet above the River Styx? And how were they going to get past the hundreds of demons and devils flying and fighting beneath the floating city?
Fortunately, Khabhoom Jonloc from the gnomish world of Falbehklin, had an idea...
**
As the adventurers traveled on foot across the barren landscape of Avernus, they still couldn't believe Khaboom's invention, he called D.E.A.D., which stood for Device Engineered for Avernus Descent, had worked.
The devices were constructed to resemble wings made from scrap pieces of wood, bones, linen wrappings, and anything else the gnome could get his hands on and would enable a person wearing it to drop like a rock to four hundred feet then automatically deploy, allowing the wearer to glide the remaining one hundred feet to the surface.
Although some were at first reluctant to try out the strange contraptions, they felt there weren't many other options of leaving Elturel without encountering the demons and devils below the floating city.
It took some three days to walk the distance of ten miles. No one could understand how, despite seeing Fort Knucklebones in the near distance, it still took three days to reach it when it should have taken perhaps three hours.
When they finally reached Fort Knucklebones, they saw a fortified compound that sat atop a low plateau that rose out of a crater-pocked landscape. At the center of the compound is a hill of rust-colored stone that resembled a hand clawing out of the ground, with gaps between the fingers. A jagged wall made of rock, bones, and metal debris surrounded the hand-shaped hill. Other highlights visible from this distance included a gatehouse, atop which stood a half-dozen small figures on watch.
Tired and weary from their trek to the fort, everyone in Wink's Warriors hoped they would find the answers they were seeking in Fort Knucklebones.Rewards Granted
XP
Report Date
14 Jan 2022
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