Here’s the write up from our last Scarlet Citadel session in which the adventurers paid their debt to Vuxarix the chort devil and made their way down to Level 6, the Howling Halls.
You can read earlier posts here. This post contains spoilers for Scarlet Citadel.
Before heading to the Skull Chamber to summon Vuxarix the devil, Tricksy sneaks up to the purple crystal chamber and peers in. As before, the room appears empty, so the rogue drinks a potion of augmented reality, and looks again. Now Tricksy can see two crystalline devils standing on top of the two crystal platforms; he realises the column of blue light flowing through the middle of the platforms is ley energy.
Tricksy rejoins the others. The characters head into the Skull Chamber and light the two braziers at the top of the skull. This causes the eyes and teeth of the skull to glow deep, dark red, and glowing red runes to appear around the circle.
The devil Vuxarix arrives in the middle of the skull. “Do you have the payment?”, he asks. “Am I claiming one of your immortal souls?”
The adventurers offer him all the Void coins and other treasure they found in Xymargshra’s hoard, plus 400 gp in normal gold coins to top the amount up to the 10,000 gp owed.
Vuxarix looks annoyed at first, then his face forms into a grin. “Very clever,” he says. “There is nothing in the contract that prohibits this, but my superiors would be very disappointed if I brought these home and gave the Void a foothold in the Eleven Hells. We go to a lot of trouble keeping the Void out of our affairs.”
The chort devil takes the 400 gp, telling the characters the debt is paid, and he is giving them the Void coins as a gift. He vanishes in a puff of brimstone. The adventurers put the Void coins back in their bag of holding, light the two braziers at the base of the skull, and teleport back to Redtower where Clairmont, Maya, and Tunde level up to 10th.
A few days later Dugan Lovay and Barrett return to Redtower with new magic items for sale. The characters spilt up the party treasure and buy everything they’ve got.
Clairmont casts commune and tries to find out about the Howling Halls, asking if all four elements are present and the inhabitants of the level are resistant to fire. Next, he attempts to scry Gellert the Gruesome but all he sees is an empty fisherman’s cave on the banks of the Black River.
The party return to the Scarlet Citadel, with Maya carrying Llagfel’s phylactery which is attached to the ghoul lantern.
They go to the dock in the Clacking Caverns and Tricksy blows the silver whistle they found in Archimandrite’s Font. The Boatman appears!
The characters pay the ferryman’s fee and ask him to take them to the fate eater’s crystal garden. The rocks in the river still block the waterway, so the adventurers have to scramble over them. Once in the garden, they don their cold weather clothing and head down the stairs.
The party enter an icy chamber where everyone gets a bad feeling, as if there is something very unnatural here. Tricksy activates his cloak of the bat and his boots turn into cheddar cheese! He lands on the ledge where there is a frozen campsite and puts a spare pair of boots on. Searching the camp, he finds a spellbook, four potions, some gear, and the diary of one the explorers. Tricksy climbs back down to the cavern floor using a rope and grappling hook.
Meanwhile, the others have been looking around the chamber. There is a frozen portcullis to the north, but the room beyond is very dark. Professor Yaffle flies through the bars, passes through the dark chamber, and enters a narrow opening. When he arrives in another cavern where it is snowing heavily, he returns to Tricksy.
Maya and Tunde head west, but soon feel an overwhelming sense of wrongness which frightens them. They realise the tunnel ahead leading deeper into the earth is not the way they need to go and return to the others.
Deciding to go north, Maya bends bars of portcullis to allow everyone to squeeze through. As they start to cross the room a rime worm and its four grubs emerge from beneath the icy floor and attack…
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Main image by David Auden Nash
Richard Green | Game Designer 