After the attack on the forward encampment of the Crusaders of the Order, Crucible, outside the Outpost for extracurricular missions. It was clear to me that my voyage into the Avernian Hellscape was long overdue.
A fortnight before the raid on our camp, visages of the past hunted me through my dreams. Surrounded by fiends with Hellrider brothers beside me, Zariel, the gleaming Solar leading the vanguard on her golden furred, winged mammoth. The mortal line held fast against devils and demons for the first segments of The Ride. Soon, my brothers faltered and waivered, the time in Avernus took its toll on the mortal souls. Perhaps too much faith was placed on us. The rear broke cohesion and began to retreat into the material plane, in the confusion; consciousness robbed of me by stampeding riderless mounts, seeking refuge from the infernal three-way battle.
The next mornings my dreams replayed the same scenario, i grew distant in the wake of these visions. The last events in the guildhall left me mentally dazed, a fiend showing up, vowing to have slayed tens of holy warriors and seemingly seeking redemption. Citizens of the Outpost surrendering body parts for unholy rituals, offering shelter and solace to the fiend, accepting objects. Have these people lost their way? has the sun seized to shine upon their faces? left to mult in the darkest of shadows and turn from order and law. My name and title are cursed on the streets, do i seek absolution from them sacrificing my oaths? no, i will stand by my words to banish the vile from my neighbours.
Lady Weisberg has offered me a ticket to Avernus, the objective of returning tired bones from the crypt of the hellriders can be a reality. I will take this opportunity and brave the nine hells to gift their souls salvation. However her goals remain vague, to restore another's soul who still breathes...every fiber in my body yells at me of a diabolical act, but too much will be at a loss if acting now.
Lady Weisberg has offered for me to travel by a demiplane, i refused. i prefer to meet my end with a defiant stare. Not to mention my trust on the wizard lacks foundations. We arrived nonetheless, a roaring volcano shouldering a much bigger mountain points at our backs like a infernal phalanx. In front of us however, A deep rift slashes across the surface of Avernus for as far as the eye can see. The canyon is over a mile deep and filled with a lake of green slime that undulates as though breathing. From a nearby cliff, a tributary of the River Styx cascades down into the slime. Dangling from a bent iron crane that leans out over the chasm is an iron cage containing a hairless, green-skinned humanoid wearing shackles on its ankles. The crane lowers the cage by a chain into the slime, immersing the creature in the goo for a minute before hoisting it back out. This dunking continues again and again, and the trapped creature seems helpless to stop it. We approach and querry the creature, surely the River Styx has robbed the individual of his memory, leaving behind a crazed green skinned husk, repeating the same phrase over and over again.
"Must be set free, and i will have my revenge"
Brother Jean jammed the crane's mechanism, He was a good man; formerly cursed to undeath and recently reinvigorated, my only loyal friend. We needed directions after all and thankfully, Weisberg held a map of the hellscape to guide us. The creature was held by magical shackles, which I mention the order could benefit from such item, he listened and stored it. The creature claims its name was Shummrath, punished by a pit fiend named Bel for stealing soul coins, truly this place is devoid of goodness. Shummrath pointed two locations on the map. The Crypt of the Hellriders and the Stygian Docks, with that we could continue our voyage....only for my honour to constrict me to attack a retreating, injured infernal assault lance; for with the lance, comprised of nine bearded devils and one ice devil, carried with them a chest with the crest of Elturel.
I wasted no time to gauge the situation, myself and Windstrider charged forward to deal with the lieutenant, the rest of our party engaging behind my initiative. The wavering surviving devils sought escape, only to be cut down by their lieutenant. In under a minute the fight was over, a few devils evaded their undoing and the chest was reclaimed, ornate magical weapons of the Hellriders, for now, tools for our cause, we pressed on to the Crypt.
On the way, we met a strange human standing atop a blackened boulder. Lady Weisberg conversed with him and soon told the rest of us a vile miasma blanket would encase the hellscape within hours, we hoped to reach our destination before our lingering doom, Avernian weather was no light gale to be caught without shelter.
Atlast, we arrived at the crypt. Acrid smog swirls around the barren hill, rising from which like giant tombstones were a pair of leaning monoliths, each soaring more than fifty feet into the smoky red sky. Dozens of armored knights kneel in motionless reverence before the monoliths, between which a set of onyx steps led down under the hill.
I ordered the clerics and Brother Jean to retrieve their bones, weapons and armours; I moved to the sealed gates. A pair of basalt doors blocked the passage ahead, their surfaces engraved with a relief of a knight locked in combat with a devil. Both wield burning swords. The password is uttered and the gates are open, the party reconvenes as we leave our mounts outside to fulfill our objective. The crypt is strangely cold, and wreathed in ankle-deep mist; as we course down from the stairs, large iron burial urns are positioned reverently throughout the hall from each flank, each engraved with a noble coats-of-arms from the city of Elturel. Polished swords, lances, and shields hang from racks on the walls. After asking for consent a cleric opened the urn, and four phantasmal ghosts funneled out of the iron urns. Ghosts of the past, Hellrider knight begged for their eternal tranquility, claiming to be cursed to server Zariel by oath after death. The ghosts also mentioned a general of Zariel, Olanthius; killed himself rather then to fall to evil, Zariel raised him as a death knight, he hates the Archdevil now but is bound to serve her.We continued to explore the crypt.
Another section of the crypt, Recessed in the walls hold iron burial caskets. Each casket had a single, healthy red rose resting on its lid. Odd; Weisberg suggested the rose was abjuring entities within the casket, and are best left undisturbed. On the next room mummified creatures sought to assail us, the clerics turned their souls from us, forcing them to retreat, the scuffled was at our advantage, until Weisberg mistepped and disturbed the rose, which withered instantly, releasing wraith like undead to join the fray, thankfully the clerics turned them again, leaving us to smite them to the afterlife. Until a third party joined the fray; four Narzugons wielding longswords charged us, they assaulted the weakest link, targeting old man Hellagur, which left left his wheelchair obliterated. Strange....the Narzugons and ghosts, claim Weisberg was a familiar face, i deceptively used my divine sense, which told me her fiendish aura, i dabbled smashing her skull in a moment of opportunity, however i refrained from doing so, afterall the she-devil they bestow a spell which improved my combat effectiveness. A suspicion to iron out another time. After the combat was done, we continued to move to the next room.
More iron urns heaped with human bones squats in an alcove at one end of this hall. On the wall nearby, a carved relief showed a column of mounted knights charging through a portal into a fiery hellscape. Truly these depictions are epic, i only hope to adorn the guild with such imagery.
Atlast! our object found in the next room, four memorial steles stand in the hall, each engraved with hundreds of names. A legend etched at the top of each stele read, “Here lie the fallen. May their souls echo here until the end of time.”. A surge of joy coursed through my body. Also adorning the wall across from the steles was a carved relief showing a solemn, blindfolded angel....Zariel on the back of a mammoth with feathered wings. How i longed to revere the Solar in her celestial form, the change into devilhood tore me asunder. The mammoth is reared up on its hind legs, and the angel held her sword high. All around them are the broken bodies of fallen knights and devils. The aftermath of her crusade. Before the steeles could be investigated; the keen eyed wizard mentioned of a hidden passage, which ultimately led to Olanthius's retreat room, his journal scattered which i took my time to read. Meanwhile the others identified the chest, seemingly possessing magical hellrider equipments. The steeles resonated a strong necromancer aura, the wizards did what they did best and soon dispelled the magic to bounded the ghosts of this crypt.
Olanthius had returned, luckily the passages of his journal had made appealing to his humanity a plausible approach, and pushed violent confrontation.