That's So Raven

You walked the night road back toward Leilon with the Mere of Deadmen on your right and the Sword Mountains on your left.

Halfway there, you saw the beam.

A pillar of light, running straight up from the dark earth into the sky. Far ahead. Where Leilon should be.

KeYs knew the shape of it. She'd dreamed a beam like this before — the one that had led her, before the campaign began, to Falkor's egg.

This one was rising from the middle of Leilon. From the central tower the Knights of Vindictus had taken over.

Moist became a war horse. The cart accelerated.

You arrived in town at four or five in the morning. No one was on the streets. No bakers. No drunks. No watch. The tower glowed at the heart of an empty city.

You crept through.

On the stairs of the tower lay a pitchfork-like weapon, glowing red.

AC knew what it was. Mizora had told him. Avernus war gear. He reached for it — and pain blew through him like a memory he hadn't asked for.

He picked it up anyway.

The Searing Fork of the Cursed Baron is now AC's.

Past the steps, at the foot of the tower —

Sir Titus. Face down. Pinned to the tower with his own sword. The same paladin you'd left on the cliff hours ago.

Standing nearby: a nine-foot devil with red skin and a long sunken face and a horned spiked hide and a leather skirt. The summoning was already done. The devil was just standing there.

Hanging from a timber not far away — eviscerated, the way you remember Runs with Bitches hanging —

The Knights of Vindictus' scribe.

AC crouched at Sir Titus and checked his pulse. Ubys reached for Decompose.

Sir Titus was alive.

Ubys stood aside. He did not help.

Moist tended the paladin's wounds. Sir Titus came to, gurgling blood. AC leaned over him. "All great things work through Tyr," AC said.

Through the blood, the paladin managed two pieces of news: "Destroy the circle." And: the scribe was responsible.

Inside the tower — a summoning circle on the floor.

Ubys tried to read it.

AC read it for him. This circle was meant to summon Mazros the Cursed Baron.

Outside, the devil roared at his own name.

Moist cast Shape Water and scrubbed the circle off the floor.

(Maybe a bit too quickly.)

Ubys found the book the scribe had been using. It started as a Knights of Vindictus journal. Marginalia. Then darker marginalia. Then "How to Summon Devils." Deals. Contracts.

A voice slid into your heads from outside the tower.

"Preacher, I hear you…"

The same word Mizora uses for Ubys.

The same voice was asking for AC.

The party pushed AC out into the dawn-light to talk to it.

AC opened the conversation in Infernal before switching to Common.

You learned: Sir Titus refuses to free the devil.

You learned: as the sun rises, the devil is being tortured by the dawn.

KeYs crouched beside the bleeding paladin and asked him the only question that mattered.

"What can destroy it?"

The session ended on the question.

The empty town was around you. The beam was still rising. The Cursed Baron was still standing in the dust, in the light, in pain.

The scribe's journal was open in Ubys's hand.

Next session: the journal cover-to-cover, Mizora's name in the margins, and the answer to whether Tyr still has anyone in this town.