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Hellbound is the thirteenth episode of Fantasy High: Sophomore Year.
Recap[]
"Last we left off, our intrepid heroes were in Arborly. The village of Arborly which borders the Forest of the Nightmare King. The Bad Kids, a group of teen heroes from the Aguefort Adventuring Academy in the nation of Solace in the world of Spyre are doing their high school for heroes spring break big project which is retrieving the lost crown of the Nightmare King which was stolen from Principal Arthur Aguefort's office previous year, freshman year. The quest has brought them to the pirate city of Leviathan, the Elven nation of Fallinel, and now they are in the lee of the forest of the Nightmare King in the small Gnomish and Wood Elf community of Arborly hidden in tall and tangled misty trees in the wake of a massive wall of briars."
"Our wonderful Bad Kids had a crustacean themed impromptu rager in the summer home of gnomish music executive Grover Tillythatch. Crab King, shrimp tub. Lil' shrimp. They also met Mira Silverbow, a leader of the wood elf rangers here, and the leader of Arborly, an ancient fox named Nuathera. Gorgug, Rog, and Fabian rushed off to the Tinkerer's Hall to investigate there along with the Hangman. Hoot growl, hoot growl. The jocks all went there. Adaine and Riz, Nerd Squad headed over to The Owl and the Harp to bumble through an interaction with, with a bartender and then get up to an arcane crimes scene in the room of Arianwen Abernant. And Sandra Lynn on her griffin dropped off Kristen, Tracker, and Fig over the Shrine of Thorns where they discovered a mural of an ancient unnamed goddess, and a portal to hell was opened. And Fig was served a subpoena."
"Gilear was trapped in the well wheel of the Hangvan. Also, a tender romance blossomed between Figueroth Faeth and the Mistress of the Compass Points, Ayda Aguefort who revealed their feelings for one another in the shadow of the briar wall."
Synopsis[]
Gorgug, Fabian and Ragh are at the tinkerer's hall, Gorgug asks them if they can improve his boots. Crumpkin offers his log book for inspection as magnesium, antimony, mercury all bought by Killian and dusk moss incense, which is a hallucinatory drug that puts people into a state of being awake while also lucid dream. Gorgug asks if he can buy all the same ingredients. They are happy to sell them, but they're really expensive. As they buy them the Gnomes warn that once the incense is set alight it can't be extinguished.
The Gnomes are very impressed with Gorgug's crystal. In discussing what would be needed in order to get the communications functions working, Gorgug looks through the photos saved to his crystal and realises that the van was used as a launch platform for his parents satellite. He thinks there might still be plans in the van.
At the inn, Adaine and Riz inspect the crime scene. There are non-detection runes to mask her mother's presence and there were at least two rituals, one for the killing of Killian and one for implanting the gem. Riz discovers that the ritual is about the shadow cat subverting the will of the devil trapped in the gem by integrating the gem with the body via "petrosmos". There are a lot of old medical imagery and text, which Adaine can understand with the comprehend languages ritual. There is an old illustration of a dissected centaur with cat symbols in various areas indicating sites of infection the eyes, mouth and tongue, but none on the brain. They think that the message spell would be immune to Kalina and that the haven seems to be keeping her out as she only seems to be visible to one person at a time.
Adaine spots paper with an impression on it: "Aelwyn is with me. You are betrayed. You have no other choice darling. Come join us". In the trash they find ashes of burned papers. She is able to cast mending on the ash revealing the same letter. The packing list indicates that they were planning on going a lot further than the temple in Sylvair.
At the shrine the devil woman with the porcelain face, Vraz the Mean, disappears back into the portal after being mean. The subpoena says that they are being called as witness in a tribunal against Gorthalax for neglecting his infernal domain. Tracker can't approach the mural on the wall. Kristen takes a picture of the mural on her crystal, Tracker doesn't want to try looking at it. They realise that the portal is not through the briar wall, but to somewhere with a fiery sky.
Gorgug finds the necessary plans in the Hangvan to turn his crystal into one that can talk directly to the satellite. The local gnomes think they can do the necessary modifications to Gorgug's crystal in a day or two.
When the party reforms Sandra Lynn points out that Gilear has lots of experience in international law although he protests that he was just a glorified paralegal for the elves at one point. He is not pleased when they tell him that the subpoena is not from the local town but is actually from hell. he says that there's nothing in there that pertains to their souls or establishes a contract, they just have to turn up as witnesses.
When the group reunites it's established that for Gilear not to have the ability to see Kalina despite Sandra Lynn seeing her Sandra Lynn must have been infected in the last 3 years. After much discussion they all resolve to go to hell. As Tracker can't enter the shrine she will stay in the van.
Fig (with Riz in her backpack) holds the gate open while Gilear goes through, the Hangman also manages to go through before the portal but the briars close excluding the rest of the group including Fabian who is forcefully swept off his seat. A rain of fire from the sky kills Gilear but he is resurrected by Riz's medkit. The Hangman casts a protective shield on Gilear to protect him from the fire rain. In the red plains there is a bottomless pit that is Gorthalax's domain. Endless souls fall from the sky into the pit. Fig lets them into the gates of the pit. Gilear reveals that Sandra Lynn broke up with Jawbone and made a pass at him, which he declined. They are met by Vraz the Mean who leads them into the tribunal room. In the room there is a vaguely humanoid pile of chains and a pale naked person impaled on a spike, who will form a jury with Vraz the Mean as lead. She calls Fig as first witness. She tells them that Gorthalax is trapped in a gem and can't be there. Vraz asked who did this and Fig says it was trapped by a proxy puppeted by Kalina. Vraz buys that this is extenuating circumstances, so he will not be punished, but his territory might be reassigned and calls a recess. Fig cuts herself to prove her heritage and accidentally creates a small servant from a drop of blood that falls on the ground. They are all confined to the bottomless pit until the tribunal is resolved.
In Arborly the remaining members of the party think that Adaine's mother is travelling an indirect route to wherever they're going. Adaine decides to rest. Gorgug goes to the gnome's hall to help them with his crystal and they manage to get his phone connected to the satellite receiving a flood of old messages. He calls Zelda. She's amazed that he put that much effort into contacting her and says that she loves him, he reciprocates. The Gnomes break open the Gnome Wine to celebrate the successful call. When Adaine emerges from her trance she sends messages to Ayda asking about the spell they need and the symbol. Ayda immediately responds to rebuff the sweary salutation and tells Adaine to check her jacket pocket. Adaine finds a glowing key which illuminates a previously non-existent keyhole. Travelling through the new door she finds herself in an artificial glass and crystal realm. Ayda emerges form another door and gives her a simple spell to access this new place, the Synod of Spire. Ayda recognises the rune as an abjurative rune that involves masking powerful curses and spells and hide other spells within another curse. Adaine recognises it as the rune that was on Kalvaxus's coin. It would be used as a curse that was a say of concealing a wealth of other spellwork. The bigger and more stable the larger curse the better the spell would work. Ayda is immediately worried that Fig is now in hell and wants to rescue her because of their romantic connection which Adaine immediately asks for more details about. Ayda asks Adaine as oracle how many potential futures are successful for her and Fig, Adaine says that that's not how being Oracle works. She says that she doesn't think Fig would have kissed Ayda for manipulative reasons.
Locations[]
- Arborly
- The Nine Hells
- The Bottomless Pit
- The Synod of Spire
Featured Characters[]
The Bad Kids[]
New[]
Returning[]
- Gnomish Tinkerers
- Ragh Barkrock
- Vraz the Mean
- Tracker O'Shaughnessey
- Sandra Lynn Faeth
- Gilear Faeth
- The Hangman
- The Hangvan
- Boggy the Froggy
- Zelda Donovan
- Ayda Aguefort