Descenders: Descent into Avernus

Tinta and Traxigor the wizard are practicing chronal teleportation circles while waiting for a friend, Lulu. Lulu arrives with a friend of her own, Rek. They ready the spell and arrive into Elturel, in Avernus! Traxigor leaves and they immediately find a mysterious figure wearing a robe and carrying swords. AAAAH HELP PLEASE ANYONE! A scream! a frail woman is running away with her 2 young children while being chased by 3 bearded devils. She runs and one of her children gets speared, mysteriously time rewinds to that child alone and he makes it out following his mother. Suddenly the sheriff of Elturel appears riding a horse. The 4 of them save the day but almost to their demise, they talk to the woman and she says she needs to head to high hall and begs for them to help, they decline and leave. The black sun in the sky suddenly hits them with lightning, so they run to shelter, they discuss for a few moments when suddenly the earth rumbles and the sheriff gets hit in the head with a rock and fall unconscious. They decide to keep moving and find a halfling selling his soul for food. They finally arrive at the nearest medical area and get hit a bit then get ambushed by 2 humans. They ask the humans for help and they receive it but in return they take them to High Hall. Tinta keeps watch and after a leading a few demons away with a scroll of fake names and the blood of the sheriff, they take their rest then leave. They keep walking and they encounter a demon on a nightmare horse but they avoid it then they reach a bridge. Negotiating and disguising as demons gets them through a bridge, they encounter zombies and a few demons on their way to High Hall. Finally in High Hall they solve a language puzzle unlocking the Crypts of High Hall.     But with the darkness that lies ahead of them and with groups of Devils initiating an attack on High Hall, what will this group of misfits do, and will they have each others backs when push comes to shove?!

After defeating the Merregon, Ko creates a soul coin from the body of the dead man, and Rek mysteriously changes his magic item into a vial of blood. Approaching the cemetery, the characters are attacked by 3 i mean 2 skeleton Minotaurs, Ukler and Tinta decide to flee and Rek soon follows, but Ko decides that he can create a distraction and come out alive. He doesn't. Requiring the help of Rek to cast silvery barbs on the minotaur causing it to miss its attack and Tinta rewinding time to save him. They enter the cemetery and approach the chapel, after seeing 8 statues of heroes, specters and shadows exit the statues and attack!   Ko decides to enter the chapel and is attacked by 6 of the monsters, the rest of the party clear the exit and enter behind him. After clearing the specters and shadows, Tinta decides to pray to Lathander while Rek exits the chapel to explore a small house after seeing someone leave it. Tinta blesses her weapon and now has a +2 to her quarter staff. Rek finds the "Testemant of Gideon" and finds a deep hole that appears to convert dead bodies into undead minions. The testemant reads that Gideon is working with Zariel to stop the demons, Rek also has an immense hatred for demons now and is cursed. Tinta, Ko and Ukler enter a room in the chapel and find 2 undead demon minions fighting 2 demons. Ukler goes past them and then sneaks into the basement. They try to work with the demons until Gideon enters and wonders why they're working with the demons. One of the demons attacks with a 5th level fireball but Tinta clutchly counterspells it.   Entering the basement, Rek quickly solves a puzzle to open the door. After exploring most of the basement they enter a room with a shallow pool, and they find Ulder screeaming for his life and begging for his life to be ended while struggling to pull a helmet off his head. Ukler searches for his wife and pulls her out of the water, she is unconscious and dying. Tinta saves her by giving her a healing potion then Rek patched her up. Ko touched the helmet and fell, entering the vision Ulder is in. Demons led by Baphomet and Celestials led by Torm are battling while Ulder is struggling in the middle of the battlefield. Ko enters and leaves the vision a few times and understands that Ulder is cursed and that there is no way to remove the helmet. They start to escape but the portal starts unleashing demonic pulses, Ko protects his wife as they are escaping. Gideon stops them and forces them to give back his testament. He then aids in teleporting them to the high hall. They reach the High hall and Pherria tells them she can remove the helm but it will attract devils. They fight while swapping the blade between Ko and Ukler to complete the ritual. By the end of the fight Ko is knocked unconscious, Rek is on 1HP, Ukler is almost dead and Tinta is low and covered in ooze. Ulder tells the characters of a vision he saw, and Lulu remembers 2 kenku tinkerers with a mysterious vehicle and tools. Ukler speaks with his wife and comforts her for the night. The next day Pherria tracks Betty (Uklers daughter) and says that she in Avernus, with a familiar pet and that shes riding a fast horse. Lulu flies high into the sky and says that she sees the place the two kenku are from but it will take around a day, and that the ground is covered in battlefields between demons and devils.   As the characters take off to Avernus, will they be able to find a way down and avoid the battles? And as they have separate goals for where to go, will they be able to find a way to succeed in all their objectives?  

Exiting Mordenkainens tower, the party argues on where Ubbalux could be located As they leave the island, they decide to drive towards the Obelisk. When Ko drives, they get runover by a giant group of migrating Yuan-ti abominations. As Ukler drives, he finds a giant table with a coven of giant night hags, sewing. He talks to them and buys a Poppet from them, with the understanding that it can act as a horcrux and with the possibility to contain the soul of a living being. The characters go on and they find a large caravan of people parked on the road and trading freely. They decide to park and roam around. Mahadi, the leader of the Wandering Emporium greets them, and he explains how this a peaceful place where people come here to trade.   The party shops around, Ko and Ukler trade bracers and guantlets for better armor, Tinta trades some magical items for rod of alertness, while Rek trades some magic items for his soul coins. The party then waits in line to trade gold for soul coins, they see recognizable skeleton hands and after investigating them, the hands leave. They wait for their turn and then individually they go in, meeting Kanta. Kanta inspects each player and based on their exoticness and how much he would like to pay them, only going to 50 gold if Tinta gives him her entire trunk, everyone changes their mind as it costs too much. So, Ukler decides to turn into a celestial female, and waits his turn again. As Ukler goes in, Kanta is fascinated, and with Ukler CelestialFemaleForm flirting with him, how could he deny her a sale, especially since shes willing to go all the way with him. So the characters walk around and they meet a biker gang, The Infernal trackers guild; Juju, tutu, pipi, and momo. Ukler tries to convice them to join his gang, but they ask for payment, he says 100 gold per week sounds good but he says he'll come back to them later.   Ko and Rek go and gamble for a bit, with Rek using a lot of magic to cheat, which gets the guards suspicious. The party then trades for a bit, and then they decide to buy a few more weapons and other stuff. After that, they decide to scam some more, and so they enter the casino. Tinta enter as a dwarf, and she sees Mahadi, he explains that he hasn't seen this dwarf before, so he would like to give him a tour, TintaDwarfForm says she wants to gamble, then Rek enters. Mahadi is surprised to see Rek here and tells him to be careful of scammers, Rek says he's not here to gamble, just to learn from people and that he enjoys watching gambling. Suddenly, UklerCelestialForm enters the casino. Mahadi is confused, as now 2 new people have entered the Wandering Emporium without his knowledge, and that he heard how Kanta enjoyed this celestial. TintaDwarfForm decides to hit the ass of UklerCelestialForm, and so Ukler slaps Tinta, Mahadi is appalled! He orders guards to escort these too hooligans out as they are causing a ruckus. Mahadi tells Rek that they can watch gambling now. Tinta and Ukler go away then come back as a Tiefling couple, so Mahadi senses newcomers and leaves Rek. Mahadi escorts the newcomers into the emporium, but they explain that they are tired, so he takes them to his personal tent so they can rest. Meanwhile, Ko has cooked all the Abyssal Chickens and has an escape plan if things go awry. Rek decides that since the two hooligans ruined his plans, he will just go and gamble for himself, and after winning a few times, he cheats, which makes the guard take him to Mahadi. Mahadi tells him that the casino has closed, and that he will get Rek of his debt but he and his friends will have to leave in the morning. Mahadi, Rek and Ko talk for a bit, Mahadi tells them of Mephistars Mirror and shows them the way to the Obelisk if that is where they should go. The characters group up and leave in the "morning". As they're driving, Ko sees a demon and a devil fighting, he keeps going and gets hit before turning back. The axel is broken, and so he wakes everyone up to fix it. They restart the rest. They keep going when they see so many stuff a long the way and every time they decide to go around as to not cancel their rests. By the end of it, they have added 27 hours to their entire trip. They finally get close to the Obelisk but theres a heat storm. Tinta freezes everyones water to help them against the heat, and after 9 hours driving in the heat, the party is exhausted, especially Ukler. Reaching the Obelisk, they find a wizard (Ubbalux) studying and cursing trying to get the pillar stones to work. The characters approach and he explains that he has a theory, and if the characters help them, he would lead them to Olanthius (Zariels left hand), who would lead them directly to the bleeding citadel. Zariels Sword. After completing the ritual, Tinta is blue, Ko has a swarm of illusory stirges hovering around him, Rek has a monodrone and Ukler can cast his first spell, confusion. Ubbalux explains that a Bel the archdevil has trapped him here, and that a devil could get him out of here. Ko explains that he knows Mephistopheles, and Rek backs him up saying that they know of the mirror of Mephistar. Ukler also gains temporary true seeing, and he sees that Ubbalux is actually a Barlgura, a giant ape demon. Ubbalux shows his true self and promises that what he was saying was true, he can help the characters but only if they help him first.   And so, as the characters head towards the mirror of Mephistar, will they be able to strike a bargain with the Archdevil. And can they trust Ubbalux in this matter? Especially that Elturel doesn't have much left, knowing that Mahadi is heading towards it to profit off of its destruction.

The party farms up the beholder, collecting it's eyes, but they are unable to get the main eye. Hopefully they will create magical items with it. While continuing their drive to the pit of Shummrath, Tinta works on studying the beholders eyes while Rek gets the assistance of Betty to deploy a harpoon on the front of their infernal machine. While driving Ko finds a bag belonging to Elturel residents. Rek stops in a ravine full of dretches, but it seems they have a moon touched blade and soul coins, so after fighting for a few rounds, Ko decides to sky dive with featherfall, and retrieve the sword by teleporting back to his clone. He dives, surviving with 3HP and escaping with the sword and 17 soul coins, which he shares with Tinta. Meanwhile... Ukler is sleeping and reading his book of dreams while he takes care of his two new Abyssal chickens.   Arriving at the pit, the party meets a trapped Ultroloth named Baazit, he begs for help, Tinta forces it into her iron flask. Upon releasing it, it teaches the characters to create Honmucluli, then it thanks the players and leaves. The party then discusses how to create a dam for around 1 hour of real time. They finally decide to use 5 shatter sticks on each side, then blowing them up. The ground begins to shake dropping half of the party, Ko hides in the car and Ukler runs away with betty the daughter and lulu and becky the horse and his homonculus. As the ground rumbles, the party see A flying fortress, and from it, Lucille the pit fiend and commander of Zariel descends, accompanied by an earth elemental and a fire elemental.   The earth elemental jumps down and starts hitting Rek, then as Lucille arrives, she says that she didn't expect the characters to survive their escape of Elturel. She explains that she knows they want to find Zariels sword and that there is no point as they can't save or defeat Zariel, and that they should be weary of that yellow little elephant.   Fighting the elementals takes a long time, Ko dies burning in the car then drowning in Lava, Rek gets smashed multiple times, and Tinta gets hit by lava and fire, meanwhile Ukler is shooting safely from a distance. The characters notice that its time for the shattersticks to explode, however, their car is covered in lava, which Bigbys Hand and Ukler carefully clear. Rek turns into a Quetzalcoatlus, and carries the car flying away. After the dust settles, the party walks towards the pit and see that the ooze is RECIPROCATING itself to the center of the pit. The party takes a long rest to wait for the ooze. They wake up and find that Shummrath is reforming, he thanks them and says he would take them to Mephistars mirror. They arrive and Shummrath leaves to fight his rival Bel.   The Party talk to Rigorath the Cambion and she completes the deal, Mephisto frees Ubbalux and the cambion freezes Reks ring. Rek breaks the ring to find out that the prisoner was the Archdevil Gargauth, which Ko recognizes as the previous ruler of the nine hells, though his reasons of leaving that position were unknown. He thanks Rek and says he will grant him a wish, however he is unable to affect the nine hells as that would get the other devils attention, so Rek asks for a simple wish. "I wish for my friends back" Gargauth laughs menacingly, "Well, you already have your friends right there" Rek cries and begs that its not what he meant, he wants his dead friends to come back, Gargauth says that isn't what he asked for. So Gargauth opens a portal, it appears that he is heading to the first layer of the Abyss, Pazunia, The Plain of Infinite Portals. Gargauth also gives Rek a chest with a magic item.   The party then see Ubbalux opening a portal to his location. He informs the characters that Olanthius (The left hand of Zariel) is in the Crypt of the hell riders. He explains that its important to understand that the hell riders live for glory, and that Olanthius never really liked Zariel. So, will the party be able to convince Olanthius to show them the way to Zariels Sword, or will the party face a dead end? And with Lucille keeping an eye on the party, Zariel will surely be ready for whats to come.