Ballad of Torrun: Hades, There and Back Again
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Most Holy Pontiff, please share this with Elyth, my sister, the Queen, dearest Mary, and the whole of Palladium,
WE HAVE OSIRIS’ SKULL!
To the peoples of the world, please begin to make your way to the ancient Holy City known as: Khemennu. I am Prince Torrun Ithanson, God of Valor, Bearer of the “Justice” and “Retribution” of Ra the Mighty, Member of CrIsis, Prince or High Thane of the Dwarves, and Grandmaster Warrior Monk of the Way of the Iron Wind. I beseech thyself to find and acquire one of the following items: A wall to lean upon, a stool/chair/box/barrel to sit upon, or the ground if nothing else is available to assist in preventing one from falling over! With haste upon thee make thy way to Khemennu and watch the LAWGIVER RETURN TO THE WORLDS OF THE PANTHEON OF LIGHT & DARK!
Today is the 22nd day of the month of Selestra, and I am writing this not more than an hour past our return from the realm of Demons, Hades. We are currently within the abode of Sulyott the All-Knowing within the city of Mishala. Jidian Kulder was called back to the North before the quest was done, however, it can be stated for facts of tomorrow’s history that we have always benefited from his aid and friendship, hail to the Warden of the Light! As he has likely shared his tale of Hades with the gracious and wise Rod Rambler, whom we learn is Merkl’s great grandfather!
I am in possession of the Lawgiver’s Skull now let me share with you a tale of the Champions of Light so that the Ballad of Torrun, Dwarf Prince, may draw to its conclusion and await the beginning of the Ballad of the God of Valor! So we had made our way through the lava infested catacomb dungeons of the Tower of Modeus, Demon-King of Hades. Where are “currently” three smallest members: shrunken Grignak, Sky Captain Willy, and our Kankoran turned Goblin – Silent Dream. Once they said it was safe to come through I told them to stand back, and I began carving a new doorway with the Rune Axes around the hole they had used to get through. Once all of us were through to the new area we heard someone screaming to death and I could make out demons talking about sacrifices to power Lord Modeus. I didn’t even wait for anyone to offer a word of caution, by running into the room and cutting one of the foul beasts in half! As the rest of CrIsis spilled inside with me I tossed two silver axes at another demon trying to sacrifice another mortal to lava river in Modeus’ name. Something grabbed the next victim as the demon lost their grip when my axes hit. Since it wasn’t me doing it I must lay the accolade for the save at Dream’s feet.
Mid-fight we were joined by a four armed Giantess with two huge staffs that looked to be made of the same wood one of Dream’s staffs were crafted from. It turns out a branch of the Rahu-man giants lived farther north than Terosh and led a very shamanic lifestyle. They had a group of warriors that would hunt down Mythic Beasts to coax their powers from them allowing them to take the form of the beasts and their magic. Apparently, she was down to her final beast in the Gorgon Serpent. I had to admit that the path may have some merit in developing different styles of combat for other Warrior Monks. It bears further study indeed. After we saved this group of victims we were able to explain the powerful glamors the rings provided so we could move about Hades. Seeing Willy hop off his Eagle steed did make me giggle quite a bit. Omen (Sumara Udir Ravanos was her given name to us but asked that we call her Omen – edit this out please during the general release), the giantess (whom Ursus decided to call Handy) explained she had met a group smuggling mortals out of Hades in a form of underground wagon trail, metaphorically speaking. I never saw a single wagon but otherwise the activities were accurate.
They are lead by the Seraph angel, Sahliah, and she wishes Elyth to know she is still fighting the good fight. Once we convinced them we were not demons. Remind me to tell you about her shooting Ursus with a silver arrows because Demons, Silver, get it, HA! They told us they would handle getting CrIsis back to Allvice where we arrived so we could leave once more via the prescribe route. Plans for taking in any mortals we saved also worked out we head back into the lower levels of the Tower of Modeus via Omen’s guidance. A parting warning from the Angel, Sahliah, “Don’t attack Modeus until you destroy the stones.” It will make sense later as all good cryptic messages must.
Once we were all back inside our members with the great auditory perception prowess gave warning of a herd of something approaching! Dream got his psychic hiding power up around us just as ten Baal-Rog demons came into the room and failed to notice us! A while after they left we had our buddy drop the obfuscating power and progress forward. We had passed the furtherest point Omen had been to so we were now on our own devices to move forward. It was not long before in the upper dungeons we found seven demons scholars would classify as Brek-Shall. Rod Rambler’s Grandson, Merkl the Magnificent, let fly with his daggers and scored mighty blows against the demonic creatures sacrificing more souls to Modeus! I start cutting through the group thanks the “combined” double axe of Justice and Retribution alongside my silver, indestructible throwing axes. Omen was quick to lay her opponents out prone and vulnerable, while Willy began to freeze them from the inside out! This gave Grignak and Brilliant idea and he reached out to Sensuous Bast with all his heart and soul! She responded with freezing FIVE FULL LEVELS of the Tower of Modues! For the next few hours we destroyed a little over a thousand demons and saved about 400 mortals sending them to Sahliah’s group below!
Once we reached the fifth frozen levels end magic detections placed Modeus, the Demon King of Hades roughly two more floors above us. We decided we needed to rest, meditate, as were spent using a lot of our magic just to make it this far! READER’S NOTE: This is where you reading this praise Bast and the Gods of Light for bringing her back into the fold when they did! Praise Bast for freezing some of Hades over! I imagine that cat familiars with cold enchanted jewelry/collars will be all the rage soon in the various lands. We spent a day and a half in a hallway leading to the staircase to the next level. It was the eighth day of the month of Set when we began to rest and almost half way through the tenth when we all looked at each other and began the final push. History will judge us based upon what I write now. I cannot confirm this suspicion but I suspect the reason we were left alone for a day and a half was two-fold: A) – We had permanently killed about a thousand demons in the frozen levels. B) – Those left were still sacrificing mortal we had not encountered in an effort to bolster Modeus, the Demon King! I will always feel a piece of my heart broke over realizing this, but the general in me knows in war you cannot save everyone despite how hard you try.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention the architecture of the tower clearly predates the New Kingdom of the Elves and I strongly suspect the Time of a Thousand Magicks! I am mentioning this because of legends about how one deals with shapeshifters. Many a king in ancient days decided to ward archways leading into sensitive areas (like throne rooms) forcing the shapeshifter to take on its natural form! Well, Apis’ Luminary and I had dropped our disguises earlier and this archway may have been responsible with breaking the curse of the former Goblin-King! He was returned to his fox-like Kankoran form upon stepping through and I suspect any other malady regarding that should fall away in due time! Those magics were of equal power and age, finally it has been laid low by a twist of fate! Huzzah!
For every boon one might find in the realm of Hades it will always come with a bane. Such that Ursus, the actual intended target of such warded archways, was forced back into his full bear form and then came the demon version of talking with Ratel, Devil something working for Anubis. Oh wait, I remember his Ursus tribal name, Little-Bitch! Many of us were just fed up with hearing the same damn lines over and over:
You’re going to be punished if you don’t turn back!
It is time that you all pay for your defiance!
REALLY? REALLY?!
It’s like he has never read a single one of the Books of CrIsis! He might as well have said, “Hey I made milk and cookies, but you only get some if you destroy my keep, ego, and self worth.” Well, with those lines we don’t have to worry about his self worth, that he killed himself! With the ward-enchanted archway we should not have been surprised when we came across a hall that defied the size limits of the tower upon his castle. We are after all, wandering around an otherworldly realm of demons attacking their god-like ruler! The hall must have been 3000 square feet in size and sure enough came the self-deprecating jest, “Now CrIsis you will pay!” We all groaned vowing to kill the demons we met just so we could shut up Modeus from horribly talking us to sleep. Blessings unto Merkl’s the magnificent for his return jests:
I will forget my army is less effective than a group of Panath assassins, see!!!!!!!!
I’ll get you and your little bear Ursus too, see!!!
So forty Alu-Demons began to rush us after the group made a few attacks at distance to distract them from murdering more innocent souls. But after Merkl’s replies we all just stopped and laughed for a few seconds! What can I say about the battle, hmmm:
We end tyrants, civil wars, church disputes, dragon attacks, whoops sorry those are creditable accomplishments see!!!
40 Alu Demons permanently dead,
A 100 goblins mostly knocked out and a few dead,
Saved about 200 innocents from eternal damnation see!!!
I know I am not as good as Merkl but I try, okay back to the day job! It was Merkl the magnificent and Sky Captain Willy that would detect and disable over 20 traps in the hallways of this level of the tower. I would like to point out I could not have done this alone, so many of the situations that were traps alone might have whittled me down, but I am among the greatest heroes of the Age of Rebuilt – Osiris’ Rising! Among this layer we came upon two Dwarven longbeards, and an ancient, Elven, Prince: Famath of the line of Thandenore. Willy kept trying to poke the prince with iron to see if it was an illusion but kinder heads prevailed and all were determined to be what they appeared. The two Dwarves apparently were wizards kept alive and tortured since the War of the Fair and the Strong. Prince Famath was thought lost in the battles raging in the far off northern mountains some 8,000 years ago! I made him a promise to take him home to Koris Gwaisol. He was relieved to find out the war betwixt our peoples is over, having such a ragtag group with me did not hurt that statement. We healed the three of them in a group effort and they offered to stand guard as we made the final ascent to face the Demon King.
I will apologize that the three images below are more like a small battle maps than good quality but I refused to rest until I gave my account of how we brought level fairness and law with mercy back to the worlds that are cared for by the Gods of Light. So now it is context to the three images Sulyott was able to retrieve from my memories and through amazing magic affix to parchment. I then quickly scrawled my commentary in bright colors to help with the explanations forthcoming.
Among hearing more of his ghostly voice whining we continued and entered the final room and confrontation. The larger, brown, rectangles and the smaller, black, circles on the right hand side of each pannel represent 20 foot tall Demon Lords statues and 10 foot tall demonic lieutenants. Go back up and the “…Don’t attack Modeus until you destroy the stones…” statement now has clarity. The six huge statues of Modeus were each 40 feet tall. In the center was the mythical Gorgon Serpent that Omen had been witnessing, and she made a break to subdue it and garner its power. We were thrilled because it frankly left us one less thing to fight. Ursus and I moved into destroying the Statues of the Demon Lords and lieutenants, with me moving to use vibrating palm on three of the small one at the same time. By standing at small statue #2 both #1 and #3 were within range of my monk trained ability that actually mimics the power of the legendary rune sword, Castlerake! Merkl moved in to take on the huge Modeus #1 statue which came to life/motion! Willy tried to tried douse the circular lava pit on the right side of each panel and Dream used his powers to grab the blood in the rectangular pool in the center but that only fed Modeus more souls to absorb! We all agreed that was a whoops for certain and moved forward. The Modeus #2 statue tried to wrestle Omen from her goal and was even bearing the resemblance of a real person. However, she crushed the opponent! It changed back to stone and CRUMBLED!
Our second whoops came when we learned the statues had either avatars of Modeus bound to them, or were vessels containing other demons WHICH COULD BE SACRIFICED TO MODUES FOR A POWER BOOST! Lesson: Don’t throw anything into the fire pit of lava! Merkl continued his verbal insults of the Demon King and began to taunt him into revealing his true presence! It was then the true Modeus revealed himself as his fourth copy statue, and he was wearing the Skull of Osiris! He had grown to almost 60 feet and could reach any of us in the room he wished to with but a wave of his arm! Ursus had destroyed two of the 20 foot tall Demon Lords statues when two came life at the top of each panel:
Abrasax the Insatiable
Without waiting long Grignak engages Abrasax while Ursus faced Charun directly! I, however, stay on task and I can feel the three statues beginning to shatter under the force of my will bending their physical nature to chosen paradigm, not the paradigm of Hades! While I broke up some grotesque, soul bound art to prevent the souls from being added to the fire. Willy and Merkl were whittling down the two large Modeus statues in the bottom half of each panel after the real Modeus was being held up by Willy’s hurricane! Repeated dagger strikes leaving gaps in the stone made Willy’s coming sonic boom a death sentence for their two statue giants facing them. When my stone statues were destroyed all together we saw Modeus’ true form shrink down. Grignak at that moment risked another miracle and I prayed to Ra for an “Ace In The Hole” as it were, to stop time long enough for him to destroy many of the other statues!
Dream said the magic phrase and summoned Elanu the Starmage, and the resemblance between him and Merkl was amazing! As Merkl had been tossing magical pies at the evil in the room. Elanu joined him tossing a ball of radiant energy that nearly rocked Modeus to a third of his power! Modeus tried to offer us the skull if we would leave and we sneered back in abject disdain for him as a threat and Dream hurled me through the air as a catapult stone, THROUGH THE HURRICANE! I drew forth Mary’s Cleaver I had enchanted to ignore any form of armor! Together with my combined double axe and my newly acquired Godly strength I was the one to finally take down Modeus, Demon King of Hades!
To say the dimension would be thrown into chaos is an understatement. Willy stole some other item of power from Modeus and I have the skull. Sahliah, and the free folk joined us and we made for Allvice to return home. The dimension is in full blown civil war since Modeus, Abrasax, and Charun are all dead! The leftover power tore the entire tower in the Zalgore Bog down! With this enormous hole in the abyssal monarchy there are plenty of power hungry demons are trying to claim it! Famath & Elanu join us directly on the way home!
CrIsis has returned!
Grandmaster of the Way of the Iron Wind
High Thane of the Dwarves
Brother of the Queen
Admirer of the brave mother Mary of the Redbeard
God of Valor
Scion of Ra the Mighty
Member of CrIsis
Sent upon the evening of the 22nd of Selestra, in the 3rd year of Koris Gwaisol.
Pictures from our own AZ Rune
Amazing, doubly sorry I missed it. Great log as always.
“Alas, poor Modeus, I knew him well….!
Epic encounter of an epic end to an epic campaign.
Hail Osiris!
Hail CrIsis!
I’ll get you Torrun, and your little bear Ursus too!
Great log!
I think there are a bit too many “Bear” puns amongst your musings, but whom am I to bear witness.