Mission 14 - The Bleeding Citadel

[!abstract] The Job
Get into The Bleeding Citadel.

The Scab

With our freshly marked map leading the way, we head for the Bleeding Citadel. A few hours later we arrive. A great, disgusting scab the size of a hill rises from a stinking swamp of blood. The domed top of an alabaster temple pokes up through it. Black iron chains converge on it from every direction.

We try to scale the chains. Thomus - Thomas and I make it. Baktha Tassup - Ryan, Iliran Tilorri - Mike and Zaleria Grimwood - Hannah fall into the clotted moat and have to swim out. We help them up. Inside is a cavernous system of fleshy tunnels.

On one side, the scab has been stripped from the passage, revealing a stained glass window of a contemplative angel in opaque blues and yellows. We can't open it, so we go on, up the rope and down the fleshy tunnel.

The Tunnels

A junction leads down to a room with five goat-headed demons around a pool of blood. Mike hits two with a lightning bolt and I rush in screaming. Four swings and one lies at my feet. Four more and another. I kick them into the blood pool. Thomas throws some lightning, and Zaleria crits one with a guiding bolt and steals one of my kills. We finish the rest. In the pool floats a corpse with a flask of water from the river Styx and a diamond worth 5,000 gp.

Further on is a 40-foot-wide chamber with a weeping wound: a gash in the ceiling leaks blood into a pool where a scab floats. Baktha walks in and is ambushed by four invisible barlguras, each popping into view as it drops down. Baktha and Mike land some damage. I step in and kill two, then another, then the last. Baktha points out the barlguras were ripping the wound open, so Thomas casts healing on it and the bleeding stems.

We drop down another level into a big empty chamber with a lake of blood. At the far tunnel, two frog-like aberrations fight over a corpse. We try to sneak in, quite ungracefully, and provoke them into a battle, which we win handily with haste. The corpse has a +1 glaive. We take it.

Heading back east under the stained glass window, we find a chamber of treasure that looks like a night hag's hoard.

Deeper: ten small, snarling demons clawing at the rock floor, with a cloud of flies shaped like a demon barking orders at them. I drop in with a plunging attack on two. The fly-cloud demon disappears into the wall. Zaleria, Mike and Thomas fire spells down at them. Baktha eventually drops in and kills two. They swarm me and fail to land a hit. I kill four. Zaleria drops more guiding bolts, Thomas follows suit, Mike drops a starry wisp, Baktha bashes another. I slice the last two into ribbons.

Another tunnel opens into a massive chamber where horse-sized flies are eating a spiny devil hung by chains from the ceiling. I charge in and fire a lightning bolt from my sword. They fly at me and wound me grievously. Thomas runs in and heals me. The rest filter in. One drops Baktha with its droning hum. I slay it with four blows, drop another a few seconds later, and Thomas drops the last after I weaken it.

The devil hanging from the chains is Alazub, a barbed devil. He trusts Lulu. Trantolox, a nalfeshnee, caught him sneaking around the scab and wanted to know whether he knew anything that would help the demons break in. Trantolox runs a crew tunneling into the citadel, trying to free a demon named Crokek'toeck, and Alazub wants to stop them. We free him since our goals line up, and he's grateful.

Back in the chamber where Trantolox's goons dug a week ago, we glimpse demons heading the same way. They notice us and run. We give chase and lose them.

The Doors

We drop down and take the left path to a massive chamber with brass double doors bearing a relief of Zariel, with gold runes inlaid in the frame. Three barb-headed demons are bashing the door while another shouts at them in Abyssal. Mike casts feather fall on us all and we drop in.

I turn one into a cloud of blood mist, 16 pieces in an instant. Baktha and Zaleria press. Thomas and Mike send balls of holy energy. After a few rounds we stand surveying the wounds among their corpses. Baktha is hurt badly. Then Zaleria pushes the door they couldn't break, and it swings open with a slight push.

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#session #mission