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The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny

Last week, the party began their epic1 quest to dive into the volcanic core of Mount Derenor to find the mysterious being who may know the true name of the pit fiend wielding the Soulstone. They found out that the dwarves of Undermountain had magical suits designed for mining in and around the magma layer, but the suits were currently in territory occupied by the Abyssal Legion. Fortunately, Garrun Ironforger granted the party the service of Leothain, a loyal gnome with a talent for teleportation magic. The party devised a plan and sent Lester, Cayosin, and Shanky to stealthily retrieve the suits while the rest of the party made their way to the magma tunnels. When the rogues2 teleported into the vault holding the suits, they found it guarded by hundreds of abyssal legion members. Fortunately, Lester's augmented invisibility prevented them from being noticed immediately, and they snuck up to the suits to being stealing them. Shanky and Cayosin began stuffing suits into their Bags of Holding, and when the guards started to notice suits disappearing, Lester quickly created an illusion of additional suits elsewhere in the room, This only bought them another few seconds, and the Legion still blasted the general area with an immense barrage of magic, but it was enough time for them to teleport away with eight suits. The party reunited and, aided by Leothain, teleported directly to the magma tunnels.

Faced with the red-hot embers of magma, the party had some second thoughts about the wisdom of their decisions, but decided to don their magic suits and continue the plan. Craggles led the way through the magma. With the help of blessings from Ione and Azoreas, the molten rock posed little resistance to his titanic strength, and hthe party made good time through the tunnels. Seven hours later, as they drew ever closer to the end of the tunnels, Aedan noticed two humanoid figures floating in the magma. They were bulky, as if they were wearing dwarven suits, and the party decided to greet them. Azoreas blasted a radius around the party that Brand froze into a solid shell, allowing the party to see the figures properly. They were not wearing dwarven magma suits, however - instead, they had some sort of strange suit that seemed to be made of many different metallic compartments. The compartments covered their bodies, making it hard to notice any distinguishing features, but there were hints of beards poking out. As the party fell to the ground of the hollow shell, the creatures shouted a threat in Abyssal and denotated their suits, creating a massive burst of extremely potent acid that enveloped the party and burned away the surrounding magma3. As the party reeled from the explosion and Brand reforged the shell of rock, the pit fiend appeared with a horde of devils.

When finally presented with their ultimate foe, the party's reaction was immediate: kill it quickly. Its reaction was essentially the same, albeit with less incredulity and more gloating. The party focused their fire on the pit fiend, but their attacks seemed to have surprisingly little effect. It responded by imploding Azoreas, killing him instantly. All that remained was a tiny, dense rock containing his body, which Craggles immediately grabbed for safekeeping4. The fight briefly continued in a similar vein, and Lester saved Craggles from certain death with a timely spell, but the party could tell that they were making little progress - and more and more devils kept teleporting in. Before they were completely overwhelmed, they decided to flee with their Friendstones, which they had cleverly attuned to Leothain before he left. They knew this would only buy a little time, since the pit fiend would be able to trace their teleportation with ease, but at least they could choose a more favorable battleground than the inside of a volcano. In addition, Aedan's immense knowledge of spells allowed him to realize that Azoreas could be revived quickly to rejoin the fight - but only if they returned instantly.

Back in Undermountain, Leothain was helping prepare a small civilian enclave in relative peace when he was suddenly surrounded by eight steaming hot magma suits full of people all shouting about devils immediately attacking to kill everyone5. After suffering a minor heart attack, Leothain lept into action at the party's command. He teleported half the party to a cleric camp located in a large Undermountain army defending a city from devilish incursion. The clerics there were similarly shocked by the sudden intrusion into their peaceful prayers. At the party's encouragement6, they swiftly prepared for the attack, and the head cleric cast a powerful spell to revive Azoreas before his soul fully passed on. Meanwhile, Leothain teleported back to the other half of the party and brought them all together.

Azoreas returned from beyond the grave with a message from Bahamut: fight in a holy temple of Bahamut, and the pit fiend's power would be weakened. The party was running out of options, and needed little convincing, so they teleported to the nearest temple and set up and ambush. The party's continued retreat had left the pit fiend overconfident in his victory and irritated at his failure to stop them from escaping, so it made the fatal mistake of arriving exactly on schedule. When it materialized in the temple, flanked by its lieutenants, the holy power of Bahamut stripped away its defenses and left it vulnerable as the entire party delivered a brutal combined assault7. It was killed before it could even react, and Ione's disintegration cleaned up the mess - and revealed a suspicious-looking orb buried in its chest. As one, everyone in the room lept on the Soulstone, and when the dust settled Aedan was left holding it in his hands. The devil lieutenants tried to escape, but were instead trapped and butchered as the dwarven army arrived to help.

The pit fiend was slain, and the Soulstone lay in the hands of the party8. They knew they needed to destroy it to send the devils back to the Abyss, but they were unsure how to do that. According to Azoreas and Lester, the surest path would lie in the creation of a custom ritual designed to destroy artifacts, but creating such a ritual would be difficult and time-consuming. King Garrun Ironforger appeared, brought by the faithful and increasingly frazzled Leothain, and expressed his sincere gratitude to the party for defeating the pit fiend. However, the war was not over, and the Abyssal Legion was still on its way. He asked them for a boon: to use the Soulstone's power to stop the Legion and end the war before destroying it. The party refused in the moment, claiming it was too dangerous to risk, and the king relented. He promised the service of his mages to research a ritual to destroy the Soulstone, and asked instead that the party would help defend Undermountain one last time and stop the Abyssal Legion from overrunning everything. The party readily agreed, and Taito promised to guard the orb during the research so the party could focus on defending Undermountain. The end is in sight, but the influence of the Abyss is not gone yet...

  1. -ly absurd...
  2. Either in class or in spirit.
  3. Only a heroic and unanimous burst of legendary fortune prevented the party from having all of their magma suits destroyed.
  4. Or possibly just because it was a rock.
  5. If he had not specialized in Willpower, the day may have gone very differently...
  6. "Encouragement" is perhaps less accurate than "supernaturally persuasive shouting, cleric-shaking, aggressive outranking, and seemingly irrelevant rock smashing", but is more concise.
  7. Notably, everyone who worshipped a draconic deity rolled a 20 in that fateful moment. It has been said that the gods do not play dice, and perhaps that is true, but they don't seem to mind helping their followers...
  8. Specifically, in the hands of the party member most difficult to ambush and steal it from. This would be useful in case anyone who happened to be missing some eyes wanted to steal it.
Cayosin Ione Taito Craggles Azoreas Shanky Lester Aedan Leothain Everyone
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