Mission 15 - Idyllglen

[!abstract] The Job
Step into Lulu's memory of Idyllglen and claim Zariel's sword.

The Cathedral

A bright white light burns the blood and grit from our clothes. Restorative energy wakes numb muscles as the glow softens to reveal a sun-kissed cathedral. How light passes through the scab and into the stained glass is a mystery only magic can answer. Pillars line a path to a raised dais carved with celestial runes. Zariel's sword is embedded in the dais.

When we step in, the room vanishes and we stand in Idyllglen with a 30-foot statue of Zariel on a dais. Gnolls surround us. We kill them, judiciously. Then dretches. We kill them extra judiciously. A bloodied woman crawls out from under a toppled cart, grateful. A mastiff and a giant hyena fight ahead; we kill the hyena and the mastiff is grateful. A serpent-and-gnoll demon chases a group of people. We hurt it, the people flee, it flees. Five human guards splattered with black ichor advance on us.

I slip around the statue and attack the demon bashing at the door of a ruined building. A group cowers behind it. Behind me I hear the others fighting the guards. A bright flash and a blast of heat is punctuated by a deadly scream. I don't recognize the voice.

Baktha finishes the demon and we call to the people inside. They let us in. After some convincing, the priest, Jhessa Brightstar, steps outside to restore the guards. I follow her out to stand guard. She restores them, lifting whatever curse controlled them. Our minds fill with an unfamiliar woman's voice: we have one hour before the really bad stuff begins. We use it to rest.

A noise wakes us. We step outside, telling the survivors to bar the door. Six demonic dog-like figures jog behind a large gorilla-like demon and an even bigger dog-like demon. A long, vicious battle ensues and just as we're about to finish it, Yeenoghu charges out of the fog.

We trade blows with the demon lord for a few rounds. Then Zariel and Lulu, in their former, pre-fallen forms, arrive and shove Yeenoghu through a portal. Zariel asks each of us the same question: would you save everyone if it meant sacrificing yourself? Only Baktha says yes. She gives him a charm of vitality, and gives Thomas and Zaleria a charm of restoration. Mike and I answered no. We get nothing. I'd say it stung, but I'm too busy not caring.

They disappear through the portal, and we're pulled into the pure white void of the sword chamber. Lulu, in her current form, is here, along with one of Zariel's riders, Yael. Lulu says Zariel had to give her soul, which turned her into a demon. They've kept her sword in the hope that it could restore her.

Yael asks which of us will take the sword and cease to be. Thomas volunteers and grabs it. As he pulls it out, a burst explodes from where we stand, destroying everything near. The shield on my back screeches, trying to overthrow my will, and fails.

Thomas is transformed into a lawful good, goody two-shoes.

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