Session 34 Recap

• After a quick breakfast, the party teleported back to Ellinda’s tower in the Grey Citadel. It was early in the morning when they left the tower, but the city was in total chaos. D’haran patrols ran through the streets, slashing at people. There were dead bodies of children, elderly and civilians all over the streets.
• Doors and windows were shuttered. Occasionally, a shutter was opened a crack, as a scared townsperson watched the street. As the party passed by, there were warnings about “getting off the streets” and ”A dragon is coming!”
• The Town Watch occasionally ran by to engage with the Dharan patrols.  Shouts and screams were heard across the city, buildings were on fire, and the city was basically going to hell.
• Four Mord Sith rushed by with a robed figure – they reached out with their agiels, striking down a rebel dead in the street.
• Using invisibility, the party hurried to the merchant’s shop to return his son’s heart.
• Entering under invisibility and laying the heart on the counter terrified the merchant, who cowered and screamed for the party to get out!
• The party tried to calm him, but their invisibility scared him and he accused them of being demons. Kiervasan broke invisibility and placed the heart in the teen. The heart was beating and the body was still breathing, but a cure wounds spell didn’t fuse the heart back into the body.
• The merchant continued to scream at the top of his lunges for them to get out!
• Kiervasan recast invisibility and the party headed to the sewers, and eventually ended up at the Bone King’s Crypt.
• They find a gnome, with a black goat, black asp and black turkey in the Bone King’s crypt. The Bone King was present and he said that he had been waiting.

• Zordan, the gnome, was introduced and he explained that he had agreed to help the Bone King get his soul back because he wanted to retrieve the Box of Orden that the Bone King was guarding and open it.
• The Bone King said only that his master had asked him to guard the Box of Orden. He refused to name his master under the premise that “names are powerful.”
• The Bone King did report that he had made a bargain with the Demon Lord Orcus, which he acknowledged was foolish for the Demon breached the contract.
• The Bone King stated that because Orcus did not deliver on his promise, Orcus is not entitled to his soul. Thus, sending you to retrieve his soul back is “legal” under the bargain with Orcus. Once he has his soul returned, he believes that he can cross through the Necropolis into the afterlife with the Builders.
• He described the Planes and the Underworld in three word-pictures as reflected below. The party gleaned that there is a “Void” between the planes, and that some believe this “void” is also called the Astral Sea. The party also recalled that there are “crossings” between the planes at times as they orbit around each other like planets.
• Finally, the party recalled that the Dimension of Dreams, the World Tree and the Abyss are planes.

• Zordan and his undead ghoul servants (who look normal because of an “As You Were” spell that Zordan had cast) started the ritual. Zordan danced with the black asp and then killed it. The ghouls plucked the turkey and dug a trench. The goat was milked and the turkey feathers, the blood of the black asp, and the milk of the goat was poured into the trench. There was some discussion regarding whether the goat had been milked the “correct” way.
• The Bone King started to cast a spell, although noting that dancing with the black asp had not been necessary. The spell resulted in the opening of three portals. The party examined the three portals and selected the one with the many faces appearing in the red smoke.
• Zordan ran and jumped into the red smoke, tucking his legs like a “cannonball,” while the rest of the party cautiously stepped in and found stairs going down.
• Because Zordan jumped, he fell 40 feet, taking falling damage and nearly rolling off the edge of the stairs down into the unknown freezing darkness.

• The party proceeded slowly down in total darkness. Finally, their light sources started to work and they found that they were on a narrow set of stairs that descended deep into the Underworld. The sounds were haunting and eerie. The smells were of death and decay. The place was freezing.
• The black goat started talking and provided some ominous descriptions of what was happening. Oddly, no one questioned how a goat could talk.

• The “cycle” involved those that served a deity or demon waiting in the Necropolis to be “retrieved” by their deity or demon.
• Those that did not serve waited as long as they could in the Necropolis, hoping that loved ones would resurrect them or that some deity would claim them, but in reality, they were at the mercy of the master of the necropolis. Those that could escape the Necropolis without being called by a deity did so by taking a ride on the River Styx (if they could get a boat ride, which costs “life”), which led to Acheron, the river of sorrow and pain, black and deep.
• After that they would take a ride on the River Cocytus–the river of lamentation and wailing.
• Then came the Phlegethon – the river of fire, to punish the souls.
• Finally, if the soul had survived, it would travel on the Lethe — the river of oblivion and forgetfulness, out of which the dead souls were obliged to drink so that they could forget their earthly lives in preparation for a possible reincarnation.

• As the party finished its descent, they arrived a dock guarded by some fiends, including an Ink Devil.
• The Ink Devil explained that the dock was for the “living” visitors but there was a price to travel in the underworld — “life.”
• Zordan tried to pretend that he was “dead’ and the Ink Devil told him to get off the dock and roll into the River Styx like all the rest of the dead souls.
• The Ink Devil, in a very bureaucratic manner, tried to sell the party “tickets” to the Underworld in exchange for years of their life. He asked for their names and checked them against scrolls he carried.
• Some of the party members were on the list and were informed of their fee (see the table below). Those who gave fake names or were otherwise not on the list were assessed a higher fee.

Character Name	Assessment	Notes
Kiervasan	10-years	Not Expected
Kriick	1-year	Expected
Jon Marston	1-year	Expected
Levethix	5-years Plus 10 years for the dragon	Not expected
Sun Feng	No fee Lord Deskari giving a free pass	Expected
Zordan (i.e., John Cena)	5-years	Not Expected

• The party haggled with the Ink Devil over the assessed value of “life” for each person. (DM note: the “negotiation” with the Ink Devil was supposed to feel very much like buying a used car).
• When Sun Feng was offered the “free pass,” there was a discussion regarding the conditions of the pass, and if the pass would extend to the entire party. The Ink Devil stepped back to confer with someone on the back to dock, who was out of the party’s sight (DM note: the Ink Devil’s manager).
• The Ink Devil returned with the following conditions for the “free pass.”
  • Duration of the pass was to be 1-week.
  • At the end of the week, the agreement would automatically renew, but with a fee. The fee was contingent on the length of the renewal terms. The Devil would not say what the price was for renewal.
  • All “life found” in the Underworld, would be forfeited to the Ink Demon upon departure.
  • One party member must remain in the Underworld, forever.
• The party members were not pleased with the terms.
• Kiervasan cast Protection From Evil And Good on himself, and this triggered combat. The party quickly found that casting spells in the Underworld had random effects, some good and some bad. For example, Zordan became wiser for 1 day (+2 WIS). Kiervasan was almost turned into a raven. Feng emitted a gust of wind which everyone could feel. Etc.