Descent into Avernus (session 21 or 34)

Dear Nori,
I’m sorry I had to leave you again. I mean, I know Clove Ikaya and Ravenguard were still negotiating, but everyone was getting restless. And that last earthquake made us feel like we have to hurry. You know, so there is an Elturel left to be saved. And not at the bottom of the Styx. I'm glad I got to say goodbye to you. I'm sure I'll be back, but it feels kinda nice to have said a proper goodbye. Once Elturel is saved I'll stay at your side, assuming you still want me to.
While walking to the edge of the city I realised none of the others said goodbye. I'm not sure how to describe it, but it kinda felt like they didn't realise we would go into actual Avernus. And that we have no clue for how long, or where we actually have to go. I mean, the demon shield tried to manipulate us into bringing it to the Bells forge ("if you happen to pass Bells forge you can just leave me there." As if it wouldn't lead us directly to it) but Fenrir denied the request.
Anyway, once we reached the edge, we could have (our) first look at the metal towers holding Elturel in place. Originally we wanted to climb down over them, but since they are covered in spikes we decided we would jump down. Usually, Ron has feather fall prepared, but he already used it on me with the cannon, so unfortunately that was off the table. But we made a new plan. Lulu could fly one person down so paired up with Leo who would turn into a cat to make sure the weight wouldn't be too much for her. Fenrir would team up with Ron and use his flying booties to not get crushed at the ground. I would pair up with Bertha and she would take us to safety with her dimension door once we were close enough. It seemed like a solid plan. There were just a few things we didn't expect. Like the administration building, just floating around below Elturel. Lulu passed it just fine. Fenrir and Ron managed to land on it safely, before continuing their way down. But me and Bertha had a bit of a problem. We panicked, and Bertha used dimension door to get to the other side of the building (which must have looked pretty cool) but that left us without a safe means of landing. Then all of us got attacked by Varguls. I've seen them before but hadn't realised how deadly those damn heads are. I got to slip Bertha my potion of gaseous form, which meant she could land safely while I tried to fight the things. I killed one. Ron managed to make me fall a bit more controlled, but I think I've never been this fast. Actually, I did kinda enjoy it, until the landing. I tried to focus on my magic, hoping I would teleport myself to safety, but unfortunately my magic is too chaotic and didn't work. I did manage to make a perfect hero landing for a second, but my knees didn't like it (especially after those vicious Vargul attacks) and broke a few seconds afterwards. But Leo, who was already downstairs, healed me up just fine.
While we were waiting for Bertha (I didn't realise that potion would make our usually fast tabaxi quite slow) we saw we landed in a deserted harbour. We have a map of Avernus, which marked it as the dock of fallen cities (that map is really cool. Apparently, whenever we visit a named place in Avernus it just burns a little bit to show where we are and adds the name. I would love a map like this for every place we visit). We could see some remnants of those fallen cities in the Styx underneath the souls which were floating in it. When Bertha landed we decided to explore one of the buildings. The door didn't like it when we pushed it open, but it couldn't do anything but whine about it since it wasn't locked. Turns out the building was an administrative building, and had ledgers full of different “products” which had come through it in some other time. It wasn't as interesting as we expected it to be, although I think it's important to note that some “products” had names and that everything was human-sized. I wonder if that means all devil's are human sized, or if there aren't any important devils working in the dock.
The only living thing in the dock was an imp, who had stayed invisible most of the time. Once it showed itself it wanted us to pay it. We tried to get it to give us some directions, or other help, but it was inclined to get paid without doing anything. When it started threatening to get its superior we left.
Anyway, we weren't too sure where to go next (the demon shield doesn't know where Fort Knucklebone is), but during our jump down Ron had seen a piece of hellmetal the size of a building flying from another dock. So we decided to go there and hopefully get some directions. Next to the dock was a lot of open space and a road which seemed to go kinda the right way. So we decided to follow it for what seemed like forever. Avernus isn’t a beautiful place. Not that I expected it to be beautiful, but I did expect it to be less dull. It’s just an endless wasteland filled with toenails. The only exciting thing to happen was that Fenrir summoned a horse which turned out to be a hell horse. When Leo turned into a mouse (I’ll come to that later) he was also fire-y, so I assume the hell horse is because of Avernus and not because of Fenrir. I still like the horse though. The horse seems to be fine with Fenrir, but doesn’t really like me. However, it is obsessed with Leo for some reason. Maybe it feels his druidic energies?
After walking for an eternity we finally saw the new dock, which also has a watchtower. Our map marked it as the Styxian docks, but we didn’t enter until we had a night's rest. Leo turned into a mouse and scouted into it. Although he couldn’t get very far, he did see there were too many devils inside to fight our way through. We walked into it, hoping to talk. We were taken in by Bumbo, a bearded devil. He offered us food and a bottle of whiskey from his personal stash (the Abyssal chicken was okay, the whiskey was the best I ever had. And yes, I checked, it was actually free. He just “ hoped you will think of me when you die” . So I guess he thinks our damned souls will give him a promotion or something). He didn’t know where Fort Knucklebones is, although he did mention some place called the Purple city, where are supposed to be a lot of humanoids. He didn’t advise us to go there though, since most or all of them are necromancers. The demon shield does want us to go there. I think everyone trusts that shield way too much. Then again, we have no clue where else to go.
That’s where we are now. Not sure where to go. Not being able to trust anyone. It’s kinda depressing actually. But we will find a way out. We were able to find Elturel, which is ridiculous if you think about it (it was in a different plane of existence) so why wouldn’t we be able to work this out?
I hope you are safe, and the deal between Ikaya and Ravenguard will work out. I don’t know about Ikaya, but Ravenguard seemed to want to make a deal and actually trust the vampire. I hope that when we return we won’t find a city full of vampires…
Stay strong, and keep an eye on Trystane for me, I’m afraid I might do something stupid, like asking the vampire for “ a way out” .
Your loving sister,
Caja