---

Wandering back to the Holy Terror II and Mak’s bike, Spider turned to Bili. “I really didn’t think that was going to work Bill. Good work!”

“That’s true,” Mak agreed.

“You’re a good boy, Bili,” Madam Portenica said, sealing the deal. Bili grinned, feeling inspired.

Madam Portencia suggested a rest and tea might be in order after eight hours of wearing travel, but was outvoted by the youngsters.

“Importantly - how much fuel do we have?” Togrun wondered.

“How long’s a piece of string, Torgrun?” Spider replied. “We gotta find some devils quick though, and hope they have some coins.”

“You can tell by the tone of the-”

“Screaming,” Torgrun interrupted.

“-engine,” Morad finished sternly.

“We’ve blown about a day in travel time,” Spider guessed.

“And at medium speed - three to four days total.” Morad estimated.

“Well the crypt is bound to have devils, am I right?” Madam Portencia said hopefully.

“Sure,” Torgrun laughed.

“Well we’ll keep an eye out. If we don’t fine some warlords to roll, worst-comes-to-worst we can get back to Fort Knucklebone and score some gas,” Spider said. “Or maybe at that Mahadi’s bizarre?”

“Oh yes, where is that then?” Madam Portencia asked archly.

“Well you were supposed to find that out,” Spider teased.

“Oh fuck off,” Madam P waved him away.

Morad studied the map to plot a course, fired up the screams, and headed toward the next stop: the (alleged) Crypt of the Hellriders.

---

Several hours later, Morad and Mak slowed their vehicles as the huge monoliths became visible in the distance. Reaching fifty feet into the sky atop a barren hill, they were an imposing sight. Acrid smoke swirled around the base of the hill, shrouding the dozens kneeling armoured knights.

Madam Portencia pulled our her scope, carefully looking at the figures. They were all stock still, and she picked up what looked like Avernian red-dust on their shoulders, indicating they hadn’t moved for some time. All had their heads resting on the pommel of their swords, as if in prayer before the looming monoliths.

“Let’s send Bili and Mak in on the bike,” she suggested. She sent a mind-message to Bili: “Tell Mak to ride in.”

Bili turned to her and nodded, slightly confused by the double order - but Madam knew best. “Let’s go Mak.”

Mak slowly approached the small gathering, estimating there were to thirty to forty total spread in a semi-circle around a set of onyx steps that dropped into the ground below the hill. Nothing moved, even when the bike drew close, only tattered remnants of cloaks fluttering in the wind. The armour looked real, not stone, not statues, but unmoving.

“No movement,” Bili messaged back to Madam Portencia. Torgrun reached for the telescope and looked closely, trying to pick up any sign of the Hellrider insignia. He couldn’t see anything clear, but he did note the armour was an older style, lacking many of the improvements of modern protective-wear. He guessed centuries old.

“That dust settled on their shoulders,” Spider pondered, “Means they’re either dead bodies in suits, undead bodies in suits, or just propped up pieces of armour.”

Morad drove in closer on Madam Portencia’s instruction, then everyone dismounted. She looked at the deathly-still knights with trepidation.

Morad, noticing her discomfort, held his had up for her to stop. “Madam, just stay there,” he said, striding toward the nearest figure, followed closely by Torgrun.

“Bless you, Morad,” Madam Portencia said gratefully, before turning to Spider. “Spider, can drive this, right?” she whispered, indicating the Holy Terror II.

“I can give it a crack - I’ve seen Morad do it enough,” he nodded. He watched as Torgrun and Morad approached the kneeling knights, pulling out his crossbow and drawing a bead on the figures they were approaching. Never hurts to be prepared for the worst, he thought to himself.

Torgrun knelt down next to the closest knight and took a close look at the armour. On the shoulderplate he saw what he was looking for: the insignia of an ancient Elturen order, an order that served the Hellriders. He rested his hand gently on the shoulder of the figure, the hair on the back of his neck rising. Were these the Hellriders? Those that had charged into Hell to save Elturel, and the mortal realms, from the devil scourge? He whispered a prayer to Torm, awed.

Morad moved to face another knight, seeing a closed face-plate on a full head helm that resting on the pommel of its sword. He muttered a prayer to Al’Akbar and pulled the helmet off. Inside was an aged skull, long-stripped of flesh, yellowed with the age of centuries. Its hollowed eyes stared blankly. Morad nodded respectfully, and gently lowered the figure to the ground, flat. He knelt down and prayed to Al’Akbar to deliver rest for this soul.

“This place is clean,” Madam Portencia breathed with relief. “Let’s go Spider.” Togrun and Morad walked the rows of knights, praying to their respective gods. Torgrun felt a chill run down his spine. These are the remains of those that embody the need for redemption. The souls that have been lost, representing the decline of Elturel, metaphorically and physically. Thousands lost in the charge, and here they lay.

Morad turned to Torgrun, worried. “If these guys out here… who down there?” he said, pointing down the stairs.

“That’s something we’re about to find out,” Torgrun nodded, gripping his mace firmly.

---

Spider stood at the top of the stairs, looking into the darkness below. “You guys all know that if we fuck up down the stairs, all these fuckers are going to get up and start attacking us, right? You know that?”

“We could take all their heads off before we go in? Torgrun?” Madam Portencia asked.

Torgrun grimaced. “I’m a little hesitant to desecrate.”

“There’s no need to do that,” Morad protested.

“I agree there’s no need, I’m just saying it would make it easier,” Madam Portencia suggested.

“We have prayed over them. They are ok now.”

Spider sighed. “Bili we might need that half a key that you’ve got.” Bili pulled out the flaming bauble Red Ruth had given him. He could feel the heat still pulsing inside.

Spider took extra care checking and studying the steps for traps, surprised but relieved to find them clean. He descended slowly, carefully until he reached the foot of the stairs.

Two massive basalt doors blocked the entrance to the crypt. Engraved on the doors were two figures engaged in battle. On the left, a knight wielded an ice-covered sword, and on the opposite door a devil swung a sword ablaze with flame. At the base of the pommel of each sword there was a hollow: round for the knight, and oval for the devil.

Spider measured the size of the round hollow and compared it to Bili’s key. It was a perfect fit. “Red Ruth was right - we only have one half of the key,” he sighed.

Madam Portencia pondered. Bili’s key contained Torgrun’s blood - Hellrider blood. And that fit the knight’s sword. So the other half must require - devil blood? “So we need some devil’s blood. How hard can that be?”

“Well it’s not just the blood, you’ve got to turn it into a key,” Spider protested.

“Well we’ll get her to do it?” Madam Portencia said. “If we give her some devil’s blood, surely she can make a key out of it? You’d like to go back there, wouldn’t you Bili?” she grinned.

“No.” Bili said, surprisingly. “I got what I wanted. I don’t need any more.”

Spider studied the doors again. The knights sword was frozen, covered in ice, but the key was the flaming sphere created by Ruth. Whereas the devil’s blade was fire. He has a sudden insight. “It’s an ice key,” he realised. “Maybe the devil in the mirror wasn’t bullshitting and he can give us the key.”

“Ohh no,” Madam Portencia said. “It’s like you said Mak - we gotta go and kill him.”

Mak grunted.

“Well lucky we have a Titan,” Morad suggested.

“Let’s not call that in too soon,” Madam Portencia warned. “At some point we’ve got to kill a god.”

“Not a god,” Torgrun warned. “Here’s the situation. We have what that ice creature wants. And he has offered us the key. It’s a deal - and we can close that deal to get what we want.”

Madam Portencia walked over to Torgrun and ran her hands along the adamantine rods strapped to his back. “This prize you wish to give to the ice-devil. Is it really worth it? Surely there’s another way?”

“What are we going to do with them? We need to find the sword.”

“Yes we do need to find the sword,” Spider agreed, “But there might me multiple ways to skin the same cat.”

Slobberchops yowled in protest.

“There was this guy we used to have in the circus,” Madam Portencia started before reconsidering. “You probably don’t want to hear this story.”

Spider laughed. “Has it got anything to do with the topic at hand or is it just a segue?”

“It’s about cats and how many ways you can skin it, but it’s not important right now,” she said, glancing at Slobberchops who was giving her a very evil eye.

“I understand,” Torgrun said, bringing the discussion back on track, “But it seems to me that what we’ve achieved by gaining these rods is the means by which we can get into this crypt.”

“I feel like you feel like you have a rod on your back,” Madam Portencia quipped.

Torgrun stared at her. “There is a rod on my back, yes. I must admit my path to redemption has been well supported by that rod.”

Spider tore out a page from his recipe book and started making a tracing and rubbing of the shape of the ice-sword pommel. “We’re not expecting the sword to be here, or are we?” he said as he worked.

“Jander Sunstar sent us here, but not necessarily because this is where it lay,” Torgrun recalled. “Lulu - do you remember if this is the place?”

Lulu shook her head. “This is not where Yael and I sealed it away, from my memories. I do not understand how this place exists - a crypt for Zariel’s Hellriders? Why would she leave it standing if she is who you say she is? It scares me.”

Spider and Torgrun nodded. It was passing strange, not she mentioned it.

Mak wandered down and stood next to Spider in front of the diorama. He leaned in to study the oval hollow on the devils sword. There was something familiar, something on the tip of his tongue. But he couldn’t place it. He scratched his big head.

“What are you thinking there, big guy?” Madam Portencia asked.

Mak pointed to the pommel. “This shape. It’s ringing a bell, but I don’t know what it is.”

“The gem that goes in the end?” Spider prompted. “It’s probably ice related.”

Bili perked up at that. “I can make ice - I’ll make something that fits.” He carefully shaped some frozen conjured water in an oval shape. He handed it to Mak, and holding the shape in his hand again roused the vague memory of something. “Stand back,” he cautioned, and placed the frozen block into the pommel slot. It melted slight to fit and he pressed it home.

Nothing.

Mak took his hand away and the ice chunk fell to the ground and shattered.

“What’s going on Mak?” Madam Portencia asked again. Mak shrugged, still drawing a blank. What was it?

“Are you thinking that we already have half the key?”

Mak grunted. He considered everything he carried. The fire-protection ring? No. The gem from the circlet carried by the Warlord? Nope. Nothing he carried from home looked right.

“Come on Mak, what’s reminding you of it? The ice? The shape? The sword?” Spider prompted.

“It’s the shape. Something from here, or your city?”

“I’m going to hypnotise you,” Madam Portencia announced. “Turn to me. Look into the eyes, not around the eyes.” Mak turned and immediately noticed her make-up was a little caked on, looking anywhere but the eyes.

Spider groaned. “From the devil in the mirror? That was ice. Or Haruman?”

Mak shook his head forlornly.

“Come on, big fella. The Mage? The Fortress? Mad Maggie?”

Mak looked like he was going to cry. “No, no, it was…it was back at the…”

“Come on Mak, use that mighty brain of yours,” Spider encouraged.

“Knucklebone! It was Knucklebone! That was so long ago,” he groaned, throwing his hands in the air.

Morad sprung to his feet. “The bauble! Maggie gave you the ball full of snow and ice , that kept you cold, and reminded you of home!” he cried excitedly.

Mak’s eyes widened and a huge smile drew across his face. He plunged his hand into his belt pouch, rustled around, and pulled out the glass dome that Maggie had gifted him after the vision quest. He held it aloft triumphantly, nodding to Morad gratefully.

“Oh my gods, Mak!” Spider laughed.

Mak turned and held the dome near to the devil’s sword. It looked to be a perfect fit. He looked wistfully at the dome he had so fondly forgotten. Easy come, easy go he figured. Bili stood by the knight and held his own globe ready, while everyone else retreated to the top of the steps.

Bili counted. “One. Two. Three…”

The keys slotted into the pommels and the barbarians felt them lock into place. Ice from Mak’s dome shot up the blade of the devil’s flaming sword, and fire coated the Knight’s icy-blade.

A hairline crack split the two doors, which slowly ground open. A blanket of ankle deep mist rolled out from the dim passage beyond. The crypt was finally open.

---

Mak and Bili led the way inside. The crypt was terribly cold, a refreshing surprise after the beating heat outside, but one that quickly became uncomfortable for everyone else. The walls were solid stone, and unlike the Vanthampur catacombs, the crypt was clean and well-kept, as if frozen in time. A dim light glowed diffusely, a solemn light, seemingly from the walls and ceiling themselves. Madam Portencia figured it was magic.

The corridor split left and right. Spider listened carefully, hearing nothing, then positioned one barbarian at east corner and crept silently ahead. As he did he smelt the air carefully - it reminded him of the meat-chambers Ma Bett’s kept in Baldur’s Gate. Without the meat smell, he was relieved to note.

In the first room he found, large iron burial urns were positioned reverently throughout, each engraved with a noble coats-of-arms. Polished swords, lances, and shields hang from racks on the walls. Spider unconsciously noted the value, thinking of the antique market back home. The room at the opposite end was the same.

“Burial rooms,” he reported back. “Cremated remains.”

Madam Portencia rolled her pink twenty-sided dice on the misty floor, revealing a ‘12’. She pointed confidently to the East. “That way.”

Torgrun felt his soul shaken when he entered the room. Here lay the Hellriders. For so long he had studied their story, modelled himself on their glory, and now he stood amongst them. The funereal sigils and coats-of-arms were all from families who has sacrificed their best and bravest to follow Zariel on her quest to free Elturel.

Madam Portencia, in contrast, felt uncomfortable. She couldn’t see her house’s imprint, but fuck those guys. Not that she had issues with her human family she considered. But fuck ‘em.

Torgrun knelt before one of the urns and started a quiet prayer to Torm. As he finished, three ghost-like Knights emerged from the urns. Each wore ancient armour, much like the figures arrayed outside.

“Don’t mutter prayers!” Madam Portencia scolded nervously, backing away quickly.

The ghosts shimmered in the dim-light and turned to Torgrun. “Who awakes us from our troubled rest?” one intoned solemnly.

“A Hellrider,” Torgrun said simply.

“A Hellrider? A living Hellrider?”

“Living. I am from Elturel, which has been cast down, and I am here to save it.”

“Elturel survives, despite our failure?” one of the Knight’s asked.

“Elturel has survives. But it has been cast down,” Torgrun repeated. “Here. To this plane.”

The Knights looked at each other, shaking their heads. “It cannot be. We gave our all. And yet Elturel has fallen.”

“Yes. And we have come to see what we may do to save it. It seems that Zariel has made a pact, which has led to Elturel’s fall.”

“Zariel led us in glory to Avernus, she led us to fight the devil armies. But we failed. We waged war and her crusade ended in abject failure. We were abandoned, left to an impossible task, and annihilated.”

“Zariel survives still,” Torgrun told them.

“Olanthius tells us she has fallen. The great betrayer.”

“Torgrun,” Madam Portencia whispered in his ear, “Tell them - you are here to redeem them.”

Torgrun nodded. “Our quest is one of redemption,” he said with conviction.

“For whom?”

“For those who have fallen. For you.”

“We would be free. We cannot rest. Zariel has entombed us for eternity. Olanthius died for us, and he now guards us, protects us, but cannot free us. He haunts these chambers.”

Morad recalled Olanthius from Lulu’s dream, one of the generals who stood by Zariel’s side. And Bili remembered Mad Maggie had told him Olanthius knew something of his quest to find the Ice Witch.

“We hope that we might be able to help you,” Torgrun continued. “We know that in seeking the return of Elturel to the plane of men, that we will have to face Zariel. She who has fallen. This is the path of redemption that we are on. And with Torm’s aid, we hope that we may somehow be able to redeem that which has cast you down. That which has kept you from your rest.”

The ghosts bowed their heads to Torgrun. “We do not seek redemption. But save Eltruel if you can. Seek Olanthius, he keeps to these halls on occasion, for he has…opinions on Zariel. And on whether she can be redeemed.”

“I thank you for your service in life, and in death,” Torgrun bowed.

“And you for yours. If you truly don the mantle of Hellrider - may you have more success that we.” The ghosts faded to wisps.

“Well done, big guy,” Madam Portencia said pointedly to Torgrun, relieved to have avoided a fight.

Morad scratched his head. “They say Olanthius comes and goes, but those doors hadn’t been opened for hundreds of years?”

“Oh Morad, don’t worry your pretty head about that,” Madam Portencia said.

“Who know what happens down here,” Spider shrugged. Do devils die of old age? Everyone we see pinned up or crucified, they were all hundreds of years old."

“They implied he here sometimes, sometimes not. But door not open?”

“He might not be physical, Morad,” Madam Portencia said, thumbing toward the ghosts. Morad nodded, still unsure.

---

Two corridors led from the room, one South, one South-West. Spider headed South, finding several small alcoves leading off the corridor. Recesses in the walls held iron burial caskets, and each casket had a single, healthy red rose resting on its lid.

Spider moved past the caskets to quickly check the room beyond. There were more burial containers here, and a large iron urn heaped with human bones squatted in an alcove at one end of the hall. On the wall nearby a carved relief showed a column of mounted knights charging through a portal into a fiery hellscape - a familiar scene now.

Torgrun moved into the corridor of caskets, noting more Elturen crests adorning each. He lay his hand on each and said a few quiet words of blessing. There were no ghosts this time, not that he expected such. He noted the rose on each was fresh - the caretaker is here, he thought.

Madam Portencia followed closely behind. She looked closely at one of the roses, then reached over and touched it, seeing if she could bruise the petals. The moment she touched it it die more than bruise - it immediately withered and died and a wraith-like figure emerged from the casket below.

Madam Portencia recoiled in horror, also hoping that Torgrun hadn’t noticed her foolishness after her scolding from only moments ago. The wraith loomed over her and throttled her neck with its ice-cold hands. She felt the life-force being wrung from her body.

Morad, seeing Madam Portencia being flung from the alcove, cried out and drew his sword and sliced into the incorporeal creature. Mak spun at Morad’s yell and flung his hand axe over Torgrun’s ducking head.

Torgrun turned to attack, hesitating slightly when he saw the wraith wore Elturen armour too, but he knew this one had turned. “Be at rest!” he cried as he crunched his mace into its side.

Madam Portenia reacted to her foe with aplomb, a ball of thunder exploding from her hand and destroying the undead creature. The caskets rocked in the blast, but the roses stayed attached as if by magic. Madam Portencia sucked in a breath of frozen air as Torgrun evoked a prayer of Torm. “No touching,” he smiled.

Bili waved his hand over the wilted flower, and the rose remade itself as new. He turned to Madam Portencia. “Don’t touch things,” he repeated, reinforcing Torgrun’s message.

Madam Portencia gave each of them a hairy eyeball. “Whatever,” she mumbled, massaging her throat gingerly.

---

“Before we move on, do a quick check of that other corridor,” Spider called back to Bili, who nodded and turned back to the South-West, emerging into a large room at the end of the short corridor.

Four memorial steles stood in the hall, each engraved with hundreds and hundreds of names. A legend etched at the top of each stele read, in Common:

“Here lie the fallen. May their souls echo here until the end of time”

Adorning the wall across from the steles was a carved relief showing a solemn, blindfolded angel on the back of an enormous mammoth with feathered wings. The mammoth charged into a host of devils surrounded by an army of Knights, the angel holding her sword high.

---

Bili summoned the team to the room. Torgrun looked in awe at the mural depicting the glory of Zariel’s crusade before the terrible fall. He thought again of how the legend of the Hellriders was built on lies, terrible lies. Those that had returned triumphant to Elturel claiming victory had instead been cowards and traitors.

And yet after the return of the Hellriders the devil threat had indeed disappeared. Was it any wonder they were treated as heroes? And now it was finally revealed the reason for that was the larger prize of Elturel being delivered on a plate two hundred years later, given up without a whimper or devil’s talon raised in anger. So many souls lost.

“Lulu that’s obviously you,” Torgrun said quietly, looking at the golden mammoth.

Lulu fluttered in front of the painting, eyes wide. “I was enormous! I remember that day, that glorious day. How it turned from glory to disaster in the blink of an eye.”

“Tell us more,” Torgrun encouraged.

“Don’t make her that big in here!” Madam Portencia whispered.

“We fought, and fought, and fought,” Lulu recounted, “Cutting our way through the devil hordes, a path of holy cleansing. Then Jander turned his back on us. Fear overtook so many of them and they ran. We were left surrounded. You know what happened next.”

“Was it just fear?” Madam Portencia asked.

“It must have been, why else would-”

“Or was it betrayal?” Madam Portencia mused.

Lulu paused. “Betrayal? Who could have caused them to turn like that, after so much planning and on the verge of triumph?”

“Or who could have caused Jander to cause them to turn like that?”

“I do not know. I thought we were all commited to the cause. But Jander clearly wasn’t. Or it was fear, simple and pure. It was a terrifying thing to step through that portal.” Even now the difficulty of that moment was obvious in Lulu’s voice.

“Jander played it pretty straight when we questioned him,” Morad said. “If there was ever an opportunity to pass the blame to a devil’s contract or something similar, that was it, and he didn’t take the chance.”

“What about Thavius?” Lulu suggested. “He was the one who traded Elturel’s soul. Maybe he… how could he sacrifice so many?” Lulu shook her head, struggling to make sense of how one man could do such evil.

“He is the cause of it all,” Torgrun nodded, “He sold Elturel to the devils twice: once now, and once then. Left Zariel here as sacrifice that ensured that he received power in return.”

“But Kreeg’s legend was forged on saving the city from undead, not devils,” Madam Portencia countered. “His ‘creation’ of the second sun that drove the vampires away.”

“That second sun was the result of his selling Zariel, selling the souls of men, of Hellriders, cursing them to live here as sacrifices to fuel his power in the realms of men,” Torgrun said pressing his theory.

“The original contract was every soul that was in the city, in the book, given to Zariel,” Spider nodded.

“And that is where the second sale occurred. A deferred sale that has come home to roost. For two-hundred years of rule he sold us all,” Torgrun spat.

“He couldn’t have made that bargain until Zariel was down here,” Spider added. “The contract was with Kreeg and Zariel. It’s possible he was playing some kind of long game and intended to leave Zariel here the whole time, but follow this plan all the way through: He rides here with the plan to deliver Zariel, somehow knowing where she would end up, then making the second bargain with the Zariel as ruler of Avernus, Zariel who he had earlier betrayed? He doesn’t come across as that smart to me. Not many can play an angel for a patsy. Unless he made a deal with a different devil for Zariel, and then Zariel unexpectedly won.”

“That’s right. I think Zariel - and by extension Lulu - are an unexpected turn of events for Kreeg. Because he made the deal to sacrifice them. So the first deal was with another. Zariel has risen - and you know what? I am still unsure of Zariel’s role in all of this,” Torgrun emphasised. “She has imprisoned Kreeg here on his return. Limited his power. But when we first found him he gratefully embraced his own death, thinking he would ascend here. Things didn’t work out for him.”

“Because he had made a deal with a devil,” Madam Portencia said simply. When would people learn that never worked out how you expected it, she wondered. “It does seem rather fortuitous that Kreeg unveiled an insidiator just when an undead horde emerged as a threat.”

“He revealed the threat, then saved the city - almost like he planned it,” Torgrun nodded. “But to deploy that second sun, he had to have an existing relationship with this realm. Which we now know because of the not-so-cryptic letter pattern on the rods we carry.”

“Now that we’ve had this cryptic epiphany, that is an epiphany in a crypt…” Madam Portencia paused for acknowledgement, pleased to Spider scribbling down the wordplay in his receipe book, before continuing, “…are we or are we not sorry that we killed that motherfucker?”

“I was happy to kill him the first time,” Spider snarled.

“He was the one that embraced death to reach his full potential,” Torgrun agreed. “It wasn’t the killing, it was the manner of the killing,” Morad added.

“I just worry there were more questions we could have asked given our new insight,” Madam Portencia shrugged.

“His deception was more than two centuries long. I don’t think there was must trusting him,” Torgrun said.

“And you couldn’t trust his answers,” Morad agreed.

“No, he was a lying sack of shit. We could have asked about motivation, but in the end it really doesn’t matter, does it?” Spider added.

“Power,” Torgrun said bluntly.

Spider had a thought. “Sam, who was the boss down here before Zariel?”

“Bel,” Sam answered, to everyone’s surprise.

“Of course!” Torgrun exclaimed. “Look at what we’re carrying - the product of Bel’s forge. The key to the insidiator.”

“But Zariel was already down here when the insidiator was made,” Madam Portencia said.

“The insidiator was made for the purpose of sealing the contract that bought Elturel to it’s knees. That bought Elturel to here.”

“Which is a contract with Zariel, not Bel,” Madam Portencia explained. “How did Zariel get these things from Bel in order to enact her plan? I guess we can ask her when we find her.”

“Or we can ask Bel,” Spider suggested, immediately feeling dread creep over Sam. “Sorry Sam, just thinking out loud.”

“If Zariel asks, you don’t disobey - even Bel,” Sam explained.

“We should also remember that this means Bel’s not going to be a big fan,” Spider figured.

“Is there a battle going on between Zariel and Bel?” Torgrun addressed Sam.

“Not obviously. Bel is no fool. He is not in a position of enough strength.”

“Ah right - and how long has that been the case?” Madam Portencia asked.

“Too long, if you ask Bel.”

“Is Bel imprisoned?”

“No.”

“Everything works like the Guild down here,” Spider said patiently. “Everyone obeys or the whole system falls apart. And the big guy, way further down than this, he’s the one that maintains it al. So if anyone gets uppity and bucks the system, four-horns comes and squashes them like a bug. Is that how it works, Sam?”

“That’s basically how it works, Spider,” Sam grinned.

“So what we’re saying: the original deal was with Bel. Zariel has risen above her station. Bel is subservient to Zariel, but I wouldn’t say in a willing manner,” Torgrun said, thinking aloud.

“I am still confused of Zariel’s motivations,” Torgrun said again.

“The part we don’t know,” Spider said, “Is what happened to Zariel after everyone left. We don’t know how she got made boss of Avernus. One of the visions showed us four-horns, saying ‘don’t kill her, she’s interesting to me’, but we don’t know the exact circumstances. If I was Bel, and I used to be the boss down here and then then big boss came and said ‘You know what, I’m passing you over, I’m going to put this one in charge because I like the cut of her jib’? If you’re Bel, you’re not a very happy camper now. In fact he’d be a very unhappy camper because his position was taken away and replaced by an angel.”

“Oh I don’t know, there’s not a lot of difference between angels and devils, right?” Madam Portencia said casually.

“Pretty sure if you talk to a devil they’ll disagree,” Spider smirked.

“It doesn’t look that way to me,” Madam Portencia said wearily. “It’s just about which way your bread’s buttered, or who’s flipping your pancakes. Sorry, I’m hungry.”

Spider shrugged and turned to Lulu. “Anything else you can remember?”

“Nothing that is helpful. I always thought the retreat was driven by fear, but your discoveries cast a different light on events.”

“And what happened to you, that is another big question,” Torgrun said kindly.

“Why I changed, and when, it had something to do with the sword. But that moment is gone.”

“Should we find the sword, we hope your memory will return.”

“The sword is a spark of Zariel. It contains some of her essence, the old Zariel. If it is still pure, if it is still safe, it is a spark of her Celestial self. And if it is - perhaps it can be used.”

Morad raised his eyebrows at this. “At home we have a legend of the Ultimafore. A sword that appears to be one thing, but is another. Maybe Zariel’s sword is such a mystery.”

“Just like your shield eh, Morad,” Torgrun winked.

Morad frowned.

---

Philosophical speculation concluded, attention turned to the steles. Madam Portencia started reading the names etched on the nearest. Hundreds of names, hundreds of lives given, a few vaguely familiar. About two-thirds of the way down she suddenly stopped and her eyebrows shot up: “High Marshall Albertus ‘Yeti’ Carnegie”

Madam Portencia had thought none of hers were in here, but here was the evidence otherwise. She didn’t know the name, the closest she could recall was Albert ‘Owlbear’ Carnegie. This must have been his grandfather? Or great-grandfather? At least two-hundred years ago. She was surprised - not something that happened often.

Bili scanned the names on another tablet, but all were meaningless to him. He found most of the names very peculiar - too simple, quite dull. No Bili ‘Bear’ Tengervaald or Taramak Riverfist Egena-Vutha here.

Torgrun recognised some family names, well known in the annals of the Hellriders. He found several of dwarvish heritage, nothing them down in case he should encounter some of their spirits.

Morad and Spider waited impatiently by the door, leading everyone back to the room with the bone-filled urn once the stele’s were scanned.

Spider quietly checked the exits from the room, finding another funery chamber to the North, and a corridor heading East bending away to the South.

Bili wandered into the room while Spider was scouting and approached the large urn. He peered inside trying to identify the bones. As he did he heard a sound like something unravelling, and rising out of the urn came three moaning, bandage-wrapped creatures.

---

“Get back!” Bili yelled. Three more shambled into the room from the Eastern corridor, and two from the North. The mummy nearest Bili clutched a web-covered wand in its hand, while one of the Northern mummies wore a necklace of flame-red baubles.

“These are nothing that a big dose of fire can’t fix!” Madam Portencia cried out.

“Shall we negotiate?” Torgrun called quickly, sense of humour intact.

“You can, I’m going to burn them!” She grabbed Morad and shoved him forward “Kill them!”

Morad didn’t need to be asked, sprinting to the North and slashing twice at the nearest foe. As his blade sliced the flimsy bandages, a horrible stench emerged from whatever lay within.

Torgrun knew what to do, calling down the power of Torm to dispel the undead, much like Kreeg had with the insidiator. “Stand down, fiends! You know not what you do, you are in the presence of the Redeemer!”

None of the mummies reacted, though they did all turn to face Torgrun. Torgrun was shocked - did they not fear Torm’s wrath? He struck Morad’s victim with this spiritual weapons as he tried to work out what he’d done wrong.

Mak thundered into the same mummy, his huge axe exploding it into chunks of rotting flesh that coated him and Morad. Mak didn’t care, and charged toward the necklace-wearing mummy on his follow-through. Unfortunately it dodged out of the way.

Spider stepped into the corner of the room and flung a shuriken into the mummy nearest Bili.

The mummies from the Eastern corridor shambled into the room, attacking Bili and Madam Portencia. The room was now full of the foul-smelling creatures. The wand-wielding mummy targetted Madam Portencia with its wand, but she ignored any intended consequence.

Mak, Torgrun, Bili, and Morad all felt a their limbs start to slow in a moment of lurching horror, before they all shrugged it off. Mak also shrugged off two swings of the mummies fist, moving out of the slow swings with ease.

Madam Portencia wasn’t so lucky, as the rotting fists connected hard with her mid-riff. She felt a necrotic pain start to spread up her neck, but she forced it away. “Do you mind!” she cried.

Madam Portencia saw filling the room with fire was now off the table. Fortuitously three of the mummies had arranged themselves in a nice straight line to the South of her. She grinned, spoke a few simple words, and a streak of lightning shot out of her hands and neatly collected all three of the undead creatures. She cackled with delight.

Bili was pounded by the three surrounded him, feeling affronted by the unnatural rot they tried to infect him with. He followed Madam Portencia’s lead and bathed the same three mummies in a pool of radiant light. They cowered under the brilliance of the horrible rays but remained on their club-like feet - barely.

Morad spun when he heard Madam Portencia’s cries, surgically slicing the stiches of the mummy attacking her. As he attacked, there was a shimmer around him and the gobs of mummy-flesh seemed to drop off him. Al’Akbar was not going to tolerate one of his champions being defiled by such filth.

Torgrun searched his mind and admitted his failings and wayward thoughts. He concentrated and called on Torm once again. “I say again - you shall be redeemed!!” he yelled with fervour.

This time Torm listened. The mummies all suddenly recoiled as if struck and started to move as quickly (so not particularly fast - but with a definite purpose) as they could away from Torgrun.

Mak took advantage of this turn of events to pound his foe, hitting it easily. As it ran from him he swung a second time, finishing it off. He lent down and recovered the necklace, feeling they were slightly warm and glowing with flame from within.

Spider meanwhile sliced Madam Portencia’s mummy, his main-hand almost killing it, his off-hand definitely killing it. The bandages unravelled into a pile on the ground. “Good boy,” Madam Portencia praised.

Bili murdered those running from him, burying his weapons into their fleeing backs. Even Madam Portencia joined in the fun, pulling her dagger and stabbing it at one of the lightning-struck undead. It too unravelled onto the stone floor in a pile of muck. Another killing dagger blow, she thought with satisfaction, slotting the knife back into her garter. “Good girl,” Spider grinned.

Madam Portencia followed up with a bolt of fire into the remaining mummies, both of who were trying to claw their way through the solid-stone wall to get away from the Redeemer. They went up in a ball of flame, writhing as they died under the barrage. The stench from the dead and burning mummies was horrible, but all were now dead.

Spider used his mage-hand to sift through the bone cauldron, finding nothing useful. Bili picked up the rod and handed it to Madam Portencia. The shaft had a motif of knots, and the effect she felt when it was cast on her suggested to her that it could perhaps be used to hold victims still. She studied Mak’s gold necklace too. They baubles appeared to contain captured fire - maybe useful for throwing at things?

“They look like balls, Spider. Why don’t you put them in your sack,” Madam Portencia deadpanned.

---

Bili, wanting to use his moonbeam for as long as possible, headed down the Eastern corridor. It leaned South and opened into another urn room. A large rack of weapons and armour rested on one wall, and Bili summoned the group to join him.

Spider quickly scanned the weapons. They were old, but in good condition, and most had obviously been used in battle - nicks and scars adorned the blades and handles. He toyed with the idea of taking a particularly ornate dagger, before placing it back in the rack.

Madam Portencia raised a eyebrow - since when did Spider leave loot? She lent in to study the abandoned weapon. It was nice, an antique, of some value not doubt.

“We’ve still gotta talk to Olanthius,” Spider explained, “He might get pissed if we’re graver robbing. The mummies had it coming but I don’t know about these guys.”

Torgrun wasn’t so cautious, figuring that as a Hellrider he had a claim on this history, to carry one of the great houses’ weapons. He found a mace of dwarven make - the Stoneboard clan - all business with good heft, and slotted it into his belt.

The next rooms were all more-or-less the same. Several urn and weapon rooms, joined by corridors and two more arrays of the rose-covered caskets - left untouched this time. Soon the paths led back to the entrance doors.

“That’s it then,” Spider said, “No Olanthius.”

“Not so far,” Madam Portencia mumbled.

“There must be a secret room, made by the priests,” Morad suggested.

“So the next step is checking all the walls.” Spider didn’t look thrilled at the idea.

“Or the urns,” Torgrun suggested.

“He’s not going to be in an urn,” Madam Portencia sighed.

“We could check the urns, the walls, everything. We’re not getting attacked by anything down here, so we could give the place a good going over,” Spider said. “It’ll take a while.”

Torgrun had an idea. “Let me try and talk to the ghosts again.” He went back to the first room and stood in front of the urns. “Oh spirits of fallen Hellriders. If you are here, I would commune with you once more.”

To Torgrun’s relief, the three ghosts rematerialised. “Olanthius does not reside here permanently? We have searched and cannot find him.”

“He travels Avernus. But this is his home.”

“He rests here and protects this place?”

“He does.”

“Can you feel whether he is here?”

“We cannot.”

Morad whispered to Torgrun. “Is there a lower level to this crypt?” Torgrun passed the question onto the ghosts.

“There is but what you see.”

“There are no secrets? Nothing hidden?”

“There is but what you see.”

“The stories in the murals?”

“Yes. Our stories.”

“Do they provide any further knowledge of this place?”

“The knowledge they evoke of our story, the emotion, that is what is important. Not of this place.”

“We have seen visions. This here,” Torgrun pointed to Lulu, “This small familiar. Perhaps you recognise?”

“This is Zariel’s mighty mount.”

The ghosts frowned, shaking their heads. “No. Zariel rode a mammoth.”

“And this is that mammoth, in another form. We are aware of your story, from a vision. We recognise these moments in your heroic battle.”

“How can…Lulu, for it is Lulu…It saddens us to see her reduced thus.”

“It is part of the puzzle. We hope for he to return to her true form. But only when we have the sword. And for this we need to speak with Olanthius.”

“Then you must seek him. He travels Avernus.”

“How might we find him?”

“Here. You will find him here.”

“Can we call to him?”

“We cannot call him. He defends us. He protects us.”

Torgrun and Madam Portencia perked up at this. Perhaps there was a way of alerting and summoning Olanthius after all. Though the idea of defiling the crypt was an anathema to Torgrun.

Spider looked to the ghosts. “Who built this crypt?”

“We do not know. We awoke here, and here we stay.”

“So you don’t know who buried you?”

“We do not. Olanthius tells us it was Zariel.”

“Zariel?!” Spider was taken aback.

Torgrun nodded slowly. “This is the confusion that I have about Zariel’s motivations. Zariel has a conflicting personality.”

“Olanthius tells us Zariel rules over Hell. He despises her. And yet…”

“And yet.” Torgrun agreed.

“We are trapped here. We will never leave. Nor will Olanthius.”

“Why?” Bili asked.

“We cannot. We know not why, but we cannot.”

“Is it your bodies that need to be destroyed?”

“Our bodies are no longer.”

“Their souls are trapped here, Bili,” Spider explained, “They can’t go to heaven, or whereever it is these guys go.”

“We are cursed to stay here. For eternity.”

“So it’s not really to honour them, it’s more of a prison,” Spider declared.

Spider’s words made some sense to Torgrun, though it didn’t change his suspicions surrounding Zariel. A crypt to honour her companions, but also curse them.

---

Bili walked back to the steles. He had a growing suspicion they held some secret. He studied them closely, drawing on his arcane knowledge, and sensed that there was some unnatural magic embedded in the stonework.

He called the group together. “If all the souls are bound…I’m thinking ancestor magic…” he said, thinking aloud.

“So you think these are like binding pillars?” Spider prompted. Bili nodded, sitting down and concentrating hard on the steles. Spider stood guard as Bili pulled out a collection of bones and trinkets from his pouch. He entered a shamanistic trance, calling on his gods to answer his augury.

He spoke softly, deep in his trance. “If we remove whatever holds these souls here, will it be a good outcome for our quest?”

After a few moments, the answer slowly formed in his mind: “Weal and woe”. The answer was flipping in his mind, from one to the others. As if the gods themselves were unsure.

Bili frowned. Typical gods, he thought to himself, always equivocating. He shook himself awake and sighed at Spider. “No good.”

Madam Portencia followed Bili’s lead, taking a more pragmatic approach. She called on her magics to determine that Bili was right: there was a strong, very strong, aura of necromantic magic, emanating from the names. Each pulsed in her vision, power flowing along the letters. This was no passive effect, it was empowered.

Madam Portencia explained what she had found. Morad said he knew of such powers, creatures bound to objects or locations. Similar to binding a soul into a golem. The means for doing so, and undoing, were many and varied. But it was dark magic, he did not know of it being used for good.

Morad, still clinging to the thought there had to be a secret location down here, had an idea. “Madam Portencia, can you use your magic sense to traverse the crypt? Maybe you find more magic, they might have used engineer to hide?”

Madam Portencia like this idea a lot. “Good boy, Morad,” she said, setting out with Morad and Torgrun in tow. There was nothing in the first few rooms, other than the magical roses, but the South-Eastern room revealed what Morad has suspected: a strong magical presence, also necrotic, echoed from one of the walls. Torgrun noted the location as the group moved on. A full lap of the crypt led to the discovery of two further possibilities.

Madam Portencia summoned everyone to the first secret locations. “Spider, check this wall. Find the secret door,” she said in Goblin. Spider glared, knowing the sound of the language if not the words. But he got the idea. He found the door within moments, a hairline around a block of stonework.

Madam Portencia glanced at Torgrun. “And he says he doesn’t speak Goblin.” Torgrun grinned.

Mak hauled the door open. A layer of mist obscured the floor of the small chamber within. The room was empty, so Mak took a cautious step inside. The mist roiled as his feet disturbed it, revealing a ritual circle in the centre of the room, daubed with blood. Inside the circle were hundreds of slivers of parchment. Mak waved the mist clear until the entire circle was revealed. Nothing needed hitting, so he called the brains-trust inside.

“Each one has a name, I bet,” Bili deduced quickly.

Madam Portencia crouched down, careful not to cross the threshold of the runic circle, and peered closely at one of the scraps. Bili was right. Scratched in blood on the ancient parchment was a single name:

“High Marshall Albertus ‘Yeti’ Carnegie”

“This looks quite concerning to me,” Madam Portencia said with characteristic understatement.

“Should we check the other two spots you found before trying anything here?” Moard asked.

“No,” Torgrun responded firmly, “What could go wrong?”

“This is some sort of binding that is quite sophisticated, and I want to have more information before we do anything,” Madam Portencia answered.

“Let me just try this,” Spider said. He crouched down low to the ground and blew softly into the circle of papers. They wafted in the ‘breeze’ created by this, but didn’t shift. “So they’re real paper,” he concluded. “We could try pullin' one of the pieces of paper out?”

“No!” Madam Portencia replied quickly.

“No! Don’t get into the magic circle,” Morad agreed.

“So tell me what’s going to happen if we do?” Spider said. He was sceptical there would be any ill effect.

“Well - we may either damn their souls, or bring them back in some abhorrent way, or bring a curse upon ourselves?” Madam Portencia explained.

“How about the option that they’re imprisoned here by these names?”

“They are,” Bili nodded.

“But it might not be as simple as just scooping them out,” Madam Portencia argued.

“Well you’re the wizard, so you’re the only person who’s got a chance of finding out,” Spider said.

“And that’s why we’re going to look at the other two magical spaces, Spider” Madam Portencia snapped, exasperated.

“I could gust of wind them if you want them out without touching,” Bili offered.

“NO!” Madam Portencia stormed out of the room. “Stop it! All of you - out of the room!” she called over her shoulder.

Everyone meekly obeyed, though Morad did take a moment to see if he could see any familiar names on the parchment. Given Madam Portencia had found someone, perhaps everyone would? But no - the names were all strange to him.

---

Spider moved ahead to the spot behind the weapon racks, quickly finding a second near identical hidden door, held closed by a simple latching mechanism.

“Spider it’s a mechanical latch, correct?” Madam Portencia asked, and Spider nodded. “So the door’s not magical, something behind the door is magical.”

“How would I know?”

“Trust me. My point here is there might be any number of doors here that don’t have anything magical behind them that I can’t detect.”

“Let’s just start with what we can see,” Morad suggested.

“It’s just a comment,” Madam Portencia said defensively.

“Fine,” Spider nodded, showing the mechanism to Mak who hauled it open. A narrow corridor bent South and opened into another small room. A stack of six leather-bound journals rested atop a writing table in the cramped chamber. Against the walls were a number of small alcoves, each containing several roses - but no caskets. Mak counted 13 in total.

Mak called his more erudite companions inside. Spider had a careful look at the books - dark-leather with nothing on the front or spine. He flipped it open with his mage-hand and scanned a few pages. It was clearly a diary, hand-written in Common, speaking of the dread wastelands of Avernus, the emptiness, how this is now the home of the writer.

“This looks like it’s the personal desk of the crypt-keeper,” Torgrun suggested. Spider agreed: “These are Olanthius’s journals. Zariel, there’s Haruman,” he said as the names appeared.

“But they’re physical,” Madam Portencia said surprised.

“There’s nothing to say Olanthius is a ghost,” Spider said. “He could be just a guy.”

“Or he could have written these and then something happened,” Morad guessed.

“And he can obviously come and go, because whatever is binding these souls here doesn’t apply to him,” Spider added.

“Looks like several hours of reading,” Torgrun guessed as he leafed through one of the books.

“If somebody wants to scan them, I can go ‘round and check the walls of this place,” Spider suggested.

“Good plan,” Torgrun agreed. “It behooves us to study these.”

Torgrun, Morad, and Madam Portencia set about studying the journals, while Spider and the Barbarians begun a methodical survey of the walls of the crypt, looking for any other hidden rooms.

---

Several hours later Spider and his bodyguards returned. “Nothing new,” Spider muttered, “But your other magical room, Madam Portencia, contained another circle full of names. There’s nothing else. What have you found?”

Torgrun laid his book down on the table and rested his arms on the table. “Much of it we already know. But what is here is a clear account of the fall of Zariel, and how the riders were tricked into following the angel, who subsequently fell.

“He talks of Haruman, of Haruman’s fall, he talks of Jander Sunstar being a traitor, and then Haruman - as we saw - crucifying him at the hill. He talks fo Lulu as the mighty steed that we’ve seen in our visions, now reduced to a Hollyphant.

He talks of Yael. Yael is the keeper of the sword, who keeps it safe. He does not know where - his wanderings have not allowed him to find where Yael hides the sword. But it is Yael that is protecting it.

“He has come and gone from this chamber, and that time has come to hate his existence, as an undead keeper of this crypt, cursed by Zariel to remain here.

From his writings, I think that when we find him, there will be no reasoning with him, that he will demand that we best him so that he may be released from this curse.” Torgrun looked grim as he finished his summary.

“I don’t know if you agree Torgrun,” Morad added, “But it is implied that Yael seems to be the only one that is uncorrupted.”

“Yes,” Torgrun agreed. He thumbed a passage in his journel and read: “‘The great general Yael, hero of Elturel, led us into battle at my urging. Had I stayed silent she would have remained to guard the city. Instead, because of me, she is trapped in Avernus with us.'”

As Torgrun read this passage, Lulu started fluttering in agitation, spinning in the air. “Yael and I took the sword. We took the sword. Zariel gave it to us, before…”

“The writings here indicate that may have been the last act of goodness before the angel fell,” Torgrun encouraged. “And Yael appears to be holding true to it.”

“Yes,” Lulu nodded slowly. “Yael and I hid the sword, but something happened when we did, that I cannot recall. But if Yael kept it safe, then there is a chance.”

“‘She told me the sword is safe, buried in a fortress erected from her very soul,'” Torgrun read.

Lulu got very excited as Torgrun read. “The sword is safe! Yael had protected it - we must find it!”

“Yael may not yet be here, but is embodied in the protection of the sword,” Torgrun nodded. “Is this what you know?”

“I did not know that Yael had succeeded, but this journal says that she did. The sword must be found, your quest must continued!” Lulu trumpeted.

“But where, Lulu?” Morad questioned.

Lulu looked slightly crestfallen “I do not know. That moment is lost, perhaps to hide the secret from those that would discover it.”

“Do you have any more to add from the reading, Morad?” Spider asked.

“The main thing was Lulu was kept safe by this transformation, Yael stayed uncorrupted, yet - Olanthius writes it like Yael was a person, at least for a little while. Because he speaks of not being judged by her, but later it like he dissolved herself to be this ‘place’ for the sword.

“The other thing is he goes through - you can read later - but he goes through Bel being the main competitor for this place, but Zariel became the archduchess of Hell. And that just before she signed the contract, she gave the sword to Yael and to Lulu because she knew what would happen.

That you know how we always joke about the green pit, Shummrath? Shummrath was a person and tried to usurp Bel, and Bel Shummrathed him into lake.”

“Bel doesn’t sound like someone we need to pursue,” Torgrun interjected wryly.

“No, no. And in the book Olanthius he knows everyone. He knows Bel, Mad Maggie, Mahadi. And a few more names we do not know.”

“Princeps Koviks, an ‘insane and reckless warlord that seeks to raise her own army’. And Hedrun, ‘chosen of Auril’,” Togrun summarised.

“Auril’s a good god-” Spider started before interrupting himself, “-oh no! Is Auril the Frostmaiden? Hedrun is the ice-witch!”

“How do you know this?” Madam Portencia asked.

“Because there’s a temple to her down near the docks in Baldur’s Gate!”

“Bili?” Torgrun asked, remembering this was Bili’s obsession.

Bili looked surprisingly nonplussed. He pulled out some paper and started taking down notes from the journal, and intent look on his face.

“You can ask Olanthius when he comes back,” Spider suggested. “Back to the journal - Yael and Olanthius were a thing? Or at least he had something for her?”

“Whether it’s unrequited or not is another question,” Torgrun observed.

“Well it speaks to him, not to her.”

“She has, it appears, given herself in a final act.”

“So basically what happened this is four-horns came and made Zariel a deal that she couldn’t pass up. But Zariel knew it was a bit dodgy so she gave the sword away to Lulu and Yael at the time and said ‘take this because I’m not going to need it now’.”

“No,” Morad corrected, “Implied was she got to give it up so she doesn’t use it for evil. Like it was her last good act.”

“Right. Before she cut a deal with Asmodeus-oh shit,” Spider suddenly stopped. The air went very still and seemed to drop several more degrees toward freezing. Sam slapped Spider over the back of the head, “Tsk!”

“You not supposed to say this!” Morad scolded, furious, glaring at Spider who stood stock still. Morad was normally pretty unflappable, but he was flapped. Spider’s face was pale and he smiled weakly. “You don’t have to tell me.”

---

Madam Portencia led everyone to the second binding room. She and Morad checked the names in the new circle. Morad tried and failed again to recognise any names, but Madam Portencia found more family names she knew.

Spider had recovered himself enough to issue orders. “Get the shit out of the circles,” he demanded. “Based on the scan of your pages, I think Olanthius is going to be pretty happy if all of his men get to be free.”

“I think absolutely,” Torgrun agreed. “This is part of our righteous actions to redeem the souls of the Hellriders.”

“And these circles look to be the key to that, so Madam Portencia use your brain.”

Madam Portencia glared at Spider, then cast magic detection on the circle and papers. Necromantic energy surged from everything, the circle and papers both. And it was clear binding magic was involved. Destroying or doing something to those parchments would have some effect on the stone steles covered with carved names. Morad agreed, souls bound to objects, the objects being these papers.

Madam Portencia lent down and read a name. “Does anyone know an ‘F. Howard McGillicuddy? No-one? Right - someone go to the steles.”

Morad, Spider, and Torgrun jogged off to the steles and started scanning the names. Torgrun found the name before long, so Spider trotted back to say as much to Madam Portencia.

“All right, Spider, why don’t you use your special hand to pluck that paper out,” Madam Portencia instructed.

“And do what with it?”

“Just place it down outside the circle to being with.”

Spider obeyed, carefully moving his hand to the solitary paper and carefully moving it to the border of the circle. As it passed the circumference, the paper crumbled into dust.

Torgrun, back in the stele room, watched as the energy pulsing on the name etched on the stele faded, leaving just a simple name with no power behind it. Morad sprinted back. “The name went to grey!”

“But was it a good thing?” Madam Portencia questioned.

“So something happened. What we should do is spread out, have someone in each room, and see if anything is happening to the urns or ghosts,” Spider ordered.

This seemed like a good plan, and everyone split to different burial rooms. Spider waited, then started plucking names out at random from the circle. Torgrun saw more and more names greying out on the steles, but those in urn-rooms didn’t see or hear anything.

Everyone regathered in the binding room. “So Torgrun, as our resident holy-man,” Madam Portencia deadpanned, “What do you think is happening to these souls?”

“I think the binding has been released, I think the next stage is for us to release the souls,” Torgrun said confidently. “We could hallow this place, and set them to rest.”

Spider thought this would take too long. “Why don’t we go talk to those three ghost, and ask ‘em what their names are, and ask ‘em if they want us to get ‘em out?”

“Oh that’s a good plan,” Madam Portencia said approvingly, pleased to be back in agreement with her little goblin friend. “Torgrun! Run along!”

“We might see somethin’ happen to them. We might see a golden pillar of light take them away. Or they might be slightly happy,” Spider grinned.

“Or scream in flaming agony,” Madam Portencia said, cooling the air.

Torgrun backtracked to the ghosts. “Friends, are you still here? We call on you once more.” The ghosts shimmered back into sight.

“We have found a way to release you, tell us but your names, and I shall pass it on to those who are releasing your brethren, releasing your souls, allowing you to be laid to rest.”

“How are you doing this?” the ghosts asked, incredulous.

“We have found the binding,” Torgrun answered proudly.

“Show us.”

Torgrun led them back to Madam Portencia’s room and stood aside for them to step through. The ghosts stopped. “There is nothing here.”

“There is,” Torgrun pointed.

“You lie. There is nothing. Why do you tempt us this way?”

Torgrun understood what might be happening. “We who are not dead have found the way into this room,” he explained. “This is where the binding of your souls occurs.”

“There is no room here,” the ghosts said.

“Just ask them their names, Torgrun,” Madam Portencia called.

“How do we know you are not here to destroy us?” the ghosts answered.

“Why don’t you go check the steles,” Spider suggested impatiently.

The ghosts followed Torgrun back to the steles. “The names are still here,” they muttered. “Our names, their names, every name. None have been removed.”

“We can see that the names no longer are bound,” Torgrun explained.

“There is no change. We trust you in faith as a Hellrider, and let you lead us astray.”

“No, good friends, I can see with my living eyes what you cannot see,” Torgrun said pleadingly.

“We are all still trapped.”

“What is your name,” Bili asked. The ghosts paused, staring at Bili, then answered shortly: “Proteus Longsong. Violet Dawnsmile. Jenyfyr Thornbond.”

“We have two rooms to check, and lots of pieces of paper that are binding you, so it will take a bit,” Spider explained. “So you three work out which one of you wants to go first.” He ran off to one room, Madam Portencia shuffled back to the other, to find the names, as Torgrun and Morad searched the steles.

Bili, having got the names, thought he’d try another question. The journals had said Hedrun was bound by Zariel in one of her pits. “Where is the Maw of Kostchtchie?”

The ghosts looked angry. “We have been interred here since the charge of the Hellriders, we have not left here for centuries. We are not your guides!”

Torgrun sensed the ghosts upset. “We are here to help you, to lay you to rest from this cursed place.”

“Then do it.”

Bili shrugged and left the room to join Spider, watching as the thief searched. Bili was tired of the slow pace, so muttered a quick cantrip and a small breeze was whipped up in the tiny room. Spider stepped back - this was one way to find out, he figured. The papers started dancing in the wind as Bili increased the intensity, until suddenly they were all flung outside the circle, popping into nothingness as they crossed the circle’s boundary. For good measure Bili scuffed the circle’s edge, breaking the seal of the magic.

Back in the stele room, the names started fading to grey in rapid succession, including that of Thornbond who Morad had found. Yet her ghost remained.

“It is my belief now that you are free,” Torgrun said confidently.

“And yet we are not, as you can see.”

Torgrun dropped to one knee and prayed to Torm, to release the spirit of this heretofore cursed rider, a rider who has been led astray, held here in perpetuity, released now from the binding curse.

The ghost dropped it’s head as Torgrun prayed, but still the ghost stayed present.

Torgrun stood. “Walk with me,” and he led the ghost to the front entrance. “We cannot pass,” they intoned. Torgrun stepped over the threshold. “In the name of Torm, follow me.”

The ghost tried, but was stopped by a force he could not see. “I cannot. I am bound here.”

Torgrun was disappointed. “I don’t know what’s happening here, friend. We have removed at least one layer of the binding that holds you. But there must be more.”

Bili returned to the stele room. “Try chiselling off the name,” he suggested. “Obliterate it.”

“Torgrun, you’re the dwarf,” Madam Portencia nodded. Torgrun stepped up and placed his hand on the stone of the stele, using his Dwarven stone-cunning to gain what insight he could. He could sense the names no longer had energy, holding them to the stonework, but nothing more.

Bili had another idea. “Why don’t we remove one of the urns from the crypt? The one who’s names is grey now?”

“I fear now we are getting into desecration,” Torgrun warned.

“Not if we ask permission,” Spider countered.

“And I haven’t eaten anything,” Bili reminded everyone.

Torgrun turned to the ghost. “With permission, we seek to take your remains outside.”

“We do not grant this. You have not shown us you have done anything,” the ghosts replied.

“Ugh,” Spider spat, fed up. “It’s just because you can’t see it, you eedjit, because you’re cursed!”

“No.”

“No, no no,” Spider groaned. “You got a lot of other great offers have you, to try to get you out of here? So you’re just going to sit here and accept your fate that you’re stuck here for all eternity, like some sad-sack, and just accept that nobody’s going to help you, and we’re the first who’re willing to do it, with even a whiff or sniff of something other that ‘oh we’re trapped here forever’ might be going on?! We killed Haruman! We killed him - he’s in your bosses journals. He’s gone!” Spider ranted.

The ghosts turned to Torgrun. “A true Hellrider would not ride with such as these,” and they vanished.

Madam Portencia looked to Bili. “Now’s your chance,” pointing to the urn. Bili went to grab it from under Torgrun, but the Dwarf was having none of it.

“No! No, Bili. Don’t desecrate!” Torgrun yelled.

“How can you desecrate a grave that’s a prison, Togrun,” Spider cried. “It’s a prison in Hell!”

“In good faith I have been discussing the possibility of releasing these souls. They have just forbidden our right!”

Morad had moved to another room. He knelt in front of one of the urns, and prayed to Al’Akbar, channelling the divinity of his god. “What is the right thing to do here,” he asked, knowing that Al’Akbar may turn him away from souls not his, but He may also say all souls should be saved.

As he prayed, Morad found an answer swirling in his mind, getting the strong sense that Al’Akbar would approve of the release of these - or any - trapped souls. No soul should be trapped unwillingly. This is an affront to all gods - or all gods aligned with Al’Akbar.

Morad pushed further, seeking guidance - how could these souls be saved? Again a clear purpose appeared, to unbind, then free. Morad understood, or tried to. It was the right path being followed, but it was incomplete.

Morad repeated his findings back. “I have spoken to Al’Akbar, and he has said we have to do these two things: unbind, and free.”

Madam Portencia had a thought that perhaps the names were twice-bound. She searched for Albert Carnegie in the second room, where the majority of the papers still stood. But she couldn’t find his name again. She cursed, and called for Bili. “Get rid of these too Bili, this is getting tiresome.”

Bili summonsed a dust devil, swirling the names into a vortex. They too disintegrated as they passed the circumference of the circle, and now all the names on the steles had faded to uniform grey.

“Now there are no glowing names - let’s fuck those stele’s up.”

---

Everyone stood in front of the steles. Mak studied them, trying to understand if there was something in the core of the stones. “I am tempted by trying to remove the names,” he mused.

“There is a power in names,” Torgrun agreed.

“But I want to see what’s inside one of the caskets first.” Mak explained his thinking: it should be safe, given the spectre had been defeated, and maybe freeing whatever lay within that casket would give some answer.

“Or we could try another, and if nothing happens when we take the rose off, then perhaps they are gone?” Spider added to Mak’s musing. Mak wanted to try his idea first, and walked to stand in front of the casket.

“Wait,” Morad held his hand up. “I want to try something first.” He laid a hand on another casket, careful not to touch the rose, and used his power to remove any curse that was laid upon it. There was no reaction - the rose remained pristine, and he could sense nothing change from within the enclosure.

“Before you do it Mak, there is a spell I have know that might remove one name,” Bili said, worried about the caskets. “Do you want to try that on one name? What was it?”

“Proteus something,” Spider muttered.

Everyone followed Bili back to the steles, Spider dawdling in protest at the delay to Mak’s plan. “Or we could try your relative, Madam Portencia?”

“Let’s go with Proteus,” Madam Portencia smiled wanly.

Bili found the name. He muttered a few words, and carefully drew his finger over the name. The magic in his finger softened the stone until it was like clay, and he slowly erased the name from the monument.

As it vanished, Spider, who was trailing behind in the room of the ghosts’ urns, heard a sigh of relief. “Shit!” he cried. “It worked! Bili - try Jenyfyr Thornbond!!”

“Let me talk to them first,” Torgrun said, excited. “Friends! Return to us one last time, we have found the answer!”

There was no response. “They’re in a huff,” Spider grinned. Torgrun nodded sadly, but he knew that at the very least these Hellriders would be put to rest.

Torgrun walked back to the stele room, and he and Bili set about clearing every name from the steles. Bili continued to mould the stone, and Torgrun used his rock mending to return the stone to its native state.

As they cleansed the rock, gasps and sighs of relief started to fill the chambers. All could sense the change in the atmosphere of the crypt, the release of centuries of tension and fear as the cursed souls were freed from their torment. A sense of wonder filled everyone as the realisation and great import of what was happening sunk home.

Spider was curious as to the roses, to see if they too were gone. Mak followed, still wanting to test his theory, but they found the roses intact. As they turned to return to the steles, Spider sensed movement from up toward the entrance of the crypt. He stopped and listened closely. Steel dragging on rock. “Shit,” he thought, for a second time.

Spider padded back to the room. “I think daddy’s home,” he whispered urgently. “You need to finish quick, he’s at the door!”

“I don’t understand,” Morad said.

“Morad, I can hear footsteps, someone’s coming in from outside, it might be Olanthius,” Spider hissed.

Morad nodded, drawing his sword.

Mak, left behind be Spider, readied his axe and walked cautiously toward the crypt entrance, staying out of sight as best he could. The sound of steel on rock grew louder by the second. Mak started retreating down the corridor leading to the steles, and Torgrun joined him, Lulu close behind.

Advancing through the ghost room was a huge skeletal warrior in matt-black plate armour, red flames flickering in the sockets of its eyes. It was dragging a massive two-handed sword along the ground behind it, almost sparking as it jumped over the cobbled stones.

“Oh dear,” Torgrun and Mak said together.

---

Spider grabbed Torgrun by the shoulder. “I think you’re probably up for this one,” he whispered urgently. “Word of advice? Tone back the righteous redeemer thing. Maybe go in a little bit conciliatory? This guy’s got a bigger swinging dick than you do, pal!”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Torgrun replied apprehensively, watching the knight.

Madam Portencia positioned herself behind the front markers, making sure she had a clear line of sight to launch a bolt of fiery death at the creature should it be required.

The death knight moved inexorably closer. “Where are my chargesss,” it said in a sibilant, hissing voice that struck fear in everyone. “What have you done with my riderssss??”

“Go Torgrun!” Madam Portencia cried, “Tell him you’ve released them!” Spider shoved Togrun forward.

“Brave Olanthius,” Torgrun offered, standing tall in the face of the incoming creature. “Hold! We have released your charges from their binding!”

“You have ssstolen themmmm,” Olanthius hissed. “You have taken thosssse I ssserve!”

Madam Portencia started waving her hands.

“We have released them! Can you remember - Lulu!”

Olanthius walked relentlessly forward. “They are miiine to protecttt, where are theyyy?”

“They were yours to protect, and now they have been released,” Torgrun said, holding steadfast.

“They cannot be releasssed, Zariel has cursssed them, and I will care for themmm until thisss placccce is no more, until Avernussss issss no more, until I am no more. You have defiled my chargesss!” Olanthius raised his sword to his ghastly shoulder blade.

“Remember Lulu! And Yael!” Torgrun cried desperately.

Olanthius hesitated, the fire in his eyes cooling slightly.

Madam Portencia fired.

---

The lightning bolt cracked over Torgrun’s shoulder, ripping past Mak, and crashed into Olanthius. He swept the bolt aside, but staggered slightly.

“That’s close enough!” Madam Portencia cried.

“Defilerssss!” Olanthius yelled as he swung his huge blade into Torgrun, bringing it down with a mighty heave that clove Torgrun’s chest asunder. Torgrun watched with detached admiration at the strike: this was a Hellrider. Blood spewed out of the wound as Torgrun parried the second blow, but the third was unavoidable.

Or it was until he heard Madam Portencia cry out “No!” and somehow the swing skimmed past Torgrun, just missing where it had once been a sure strike.

Before Torgrun could rejoice, his mind exploded with pain from the first strike. He clutched his head as shooting flames enveloped his mind. He screamed in pain.

Mak, shocked, spun to see Spider summoning his shadow blade, and took that as a cue - there was to be no paray here. He growled with rage, striking Olanthius once true, his axe burying into the undead creature’s remaining flesh.

Bili had no path to Olanthius, so he summoned his plant-whip and tried to haul Olanthius into the bigger room. He struck true, but there was no getting through the massive body of Mak and Torgrun, his yank succeeding only in pulling Olanthius closer.

Spider vanished into thin air and reappeared with a puff directly behind Olanthius. He shoved his blade deep into the undead creatures shedding flesh, drawing a satisfying growl of anger. Spider grimaced with determination and stepped away from Olanthius’s reach.

Morad watched in horror at what was happening. He realised Olanthius had been about to turn to good, to listen to Torgrun’s appeal. And Madam Portencia, Madam Portencia who Morad looked up to and respected, had instead attacked. Why? Instead of drawing his weapon, the holy warrior dropped to one kneed and begged forgiveness from Al’Akbar. Forgiveness for taking the wrong path, for turning on Olanthius, a soul to be saved, not further cursed.

Madam Portencia glanced at Morad in horror. What was he doing?! This was no time for Al’Aks-his-name. “We’re releasing his soul!” Madam Portencia yelled to Morad in frustration. She pulled her arm back and shoved it forward, a sphere of thunder barrelling into Olanthius, causing him to reel back.

Olanthius held his sword behind his head and held his hand in front of his face. A writhing ball of hellfire formed in his palm and he flung it to the floor in the room of steles. “Defilersss, join usss in deathhhh!”

The ball exploded into flame, scorching every corner of the room and those within, shooting up the corridor to catch Mak and Torgrun. The fierce heat scorched flesh, and everyone clutched their heads as the same wave of pain pierced their skulls. Only Spider escaped unharmed.

Madam Portencia was caught in the centre of the blast, and she fell screaming in pain as the inferno ripped the life from her, a crumpled bundle of fine silk on the ground. Torgrun cried out in agony as the flames bit, collapsing to his knees and toppling over dead onto the cold stone floor. Lulu trumpeted in terror as Torgrun fell.

Mak pulled his axe back to swing, enraged.

“Mak, no! Stop! It’s a mistake!!” Spider yelled at the top of his lungs.

“Thissss is no missstake,” Olanthius countered, eyes ablaze with fury.

Mak glanced at Spider, and would normally listen, but then he caught the sight of Torgrun dead at his feet, and swung with all his might, no care for his own survival. The axe bit twice into Olanthius, the first striking true but the second parried with a lightning fast reaction from the undead Knight.

Bili raged and leapt over the fallen Torgrun, plunging both axes into Olanthius, finding the gap where Mak’s had been parried.

Spider saw there was no hope of stopping now. He wanted Olanthius alive, or at least alive in undeath, but given the choice of Olanthius or his companions, he had no choice. The shadow dagger struck again, slicing through the armour. “Olanthius, check the steles! There’s no names now!!”

“You have desssstroyed them!” Olanthius hissed.

Morad, batting out flames, sprinted over to the fallen Madam Portencia. Tears ran down his face as he reached her side and he placed his hands on her, calling on Al’Akbar to save his friend.

---

Madam Portencia was confused. This hadn’t been in her cards. Nor her dice. Nor the less obvious methods she sometimes employed. She couldn’t explain it.

Then she heard a voice: dark, husky, dangerous.

“You see the future, but did you foresee this? Death comes with no warning. Not everything is predictable, much though you wish it. Perhaps now you will understand, but in case not, I will leave you with a reminder.”

Madam Portencia felt a strange, unfamiliar surge of energy, something wild and uncontrolled. Whatever it was, she hated it.

There was a pinprick of light…

---

Madam Portencia gasped into life, sucking in desperate lungful’s of air. Her vision faded back and she saw the ashen face of Morad hovering over her, glowing with light. “Al’Akbar,” she whispered weakly.

Olanthius spoke a few unintelligible words, then Spider saw six Spectres advancing from the rose-covered coffers, hurtling into the room. Three attacked Spider, one hitting and piercing Spider with necrotic pain. Olanthius raised his sword in both hands above his head and plunged it into the ground, hissing: “Begone!!”

The sword struck the ground with an almighty crash and the ground rolled as the earth quaked under the blow. A wave of destruction thundered across the rooms crashing into tired and weakened bodies, and another necrotic explosion roiled in everyone’s heads.

As everyone reeled, Lulu fluttered up from Torgrun’s fallen body to face Olanthius, her tiny form dwarfed by the monstrosity that was the fallen knight. But she was not to be deterred.

“Olanthius! It is me, it is Lulu! You know this to be true. Stop this! These are here to help!!” Lulu begged, her eyes welling with tears.

The flame in Olanthius’s eyes flickered, dimming slightly, as he faced the diminutive Hollyphant. Time seemed to stand still for a moment, then the death knight’s croaked out a whisper:

“Lulu.”

---

“Dear Olanthius,” Lulu wept, “What has she done to you?”

Flames flared again in Olanthius’s eyes. “Zariel! She has cursssed me; and cursed my Hellridersss.”

Lulu held her tiny legs together as if in prayer. “They are free, released from their burden. These men and women have done what you could not.”

Olanthius stared at Lulu, then dropped his head. “It is true,” he whispered. “They are…gone.”

“Let them speak,” Lulu begged, fluttering down to Togrun’s fallen body. “Let them raise the fallen.”

Everyone waited, tense, for Olanthius response, which was likely the difference between life and death.

The Hellrider lifted his head wearily: “So be it. Speak.”

Mak immediately dropped to his knees next to Torgrun. He could feel the Death Knight looming overhead, but Olanthius didn’t interfere. Mak pulled a vial from his pouch and salved Togrun’s burnt skin with the lotion.

---

Togrun knew he was dying. Again. This time at the blade of an original Hellrider, a hero of Elturel. He felt the darkness looming, was tempted for a moment to reach for it.

Then he heard that voice, the voice that had spoken to him in the crashed fortress. It whispered to him from blackness.

“This is your third death, Hellrider. Do you wish it to be your last? I suspect not.”

Togrun tried desperately to speak, to respond, to beg for life, but he had no voice, just the choking void.

“You deserve more - your willingness to…compromise…proves that. Embrace your thirst, do what you must, take what will help you. Begin your transformation.”

The voice faded away. Togrun knew he had to live.

---

Torgrun revived with a groan - everything hurt. Mak reached behind Torgrun’s back to gently help him to his feet - but as he did he felt something there, something that wasn’t meant to be there.

Mak lent over and looked. Sprouting from Torgrun’s back were two leathery black wings. Mak reeled back in shock, pressing himself into the wall. “What the fuck?” he swore.

“Oh! Al’Akbar!” Morad blurted in surprise.

Torgrun looked over at Mak with surprise, then realised there was something on his back. He felt behind with his hand, eyes widening as he felt the leathery appendages. “Nooo!” Torgrun cried, dropping down to one knee. The wings spread wide, and Torgrun rose up to his feet.

“A gift from Torm!” Torgrun cried with passion, looking Olanthius in the eye.

Olanthius returned the stare, impassive.

“Torm has sent me back! Torm, the god of the Hellriders, has sent me back,” Torgrun cried.

“Torm has no placcce here,” Olanthius hissed.

“That is not true. We are here, we have saved your Hellrider’s souls. My Hellrider’s souls. You have fallen into despair. Turn and look upon Torm: He is still present here,” Torgrun said passionionately.

“I shall never look upon the face of a god again. I am forever curssed. This is my lot - she has made sure of it.”

“Then your choices are simple. You are no longer ward of these souls. Join us in casting Zariel down. Or now submit to us, and we will rid you of this curse once and for all,” Torgrun said.

Olanthius’s frowned. “Your purpose is to destroy Zariel? That is why you are here?”

“Our purpose is to raise Elturel. And it was Zariel who brought Elturel here.”

“Zariel must pay. Zariel must die. Is that your purpose?” Olanthius asked angrily.

“If that be the root we need cut to return Elturel to the world of men, and we believe it is, then so be it. We walk the same path.”

“If that be your path, I will fight with you. But not if you seek to redeem the devil, for she is beyond redemption.”

“We have not faced Zariel, we do not know.”

Morad lent over Madam Portencia, slapping her gently to bring her to full consciousness. “Madam! You must wake! Torgrun turn to devil, he talking for us. Wake up. Wake up!”

Madam Portencia drowsily tried to pull herself together.

Spider coughed to draw Olanthius’s attention. “We’ve been told by various denizens that you might happen to know, or lead us to where Zariel’s sword is.”

Olanthius stilled. “Why would you sssseek that?” he asked quietly. “To return it to her? To give her back her powers?”

“I want to get Elturel back up top. And I want to stop her from doin’ it to another city. I don’t give a shit if she lives or dies. If we can use the sword to kill her, that’s fine by me. But what we’ve been told,” Spider nodded to Lulu, “The sword’s kind of key to it.”

“I too have sought the sword, these many centuriesss,” Olanthius begun. “But never found it. It is safe from her,” his eyes flared, “Yael has kept it that way. And Lulu played some part in that. It is for her that you still live.”

“And we hope finding the sword will return Lulu to her true self,” Torgrun added.

Olanthius looked solemnly at Torgrun. “Swear to me that you will not use it to redeem her, and I will tell you what you need.”

Torgrun drew himself up. “I swear that I will not take part in the redemption of Zariel. I seek the sword, and I am the tool of Torm, god of the Hellriders.”

Lulu side-eyed Torgrun, doubt and worry in her eyes.

“You have sworn,” Olanthius acknowledged. “I have sought the sword, and in my travels I have found where it lies, though I cannot travel there. The Bleeding Citadel, it is called. But none of this plane may approach it.”

“We are not of this plane,” Torgrun reminded Olanthius.

“The Dark Lord has hidden the Citadel, hidden it from those that would take the sword and all the power it represents. Even he fears the power, such is the threat it brings.”

Olanthius paused, letting the words sink in, before continuing. “There is but one way to get to the Citadel - the Arches of Ulloch. The Supreme Master has locked that gate, and very few can open it. I believe only an archdevil, or… Bel. Bel built the Arches, so likely knows a way to activate them.”

Spider’s eyes widened at the mention of Bel, but he kept his peace.

“We don’t know any archdevils, do we?” Madam Portencia whispered to Morad.

“We might know one - through the mirror,” Morad reminded her, thinking of the ruler of the ice-plane that had offered the contract for the rods.

“Bel sounds like a mighty foe,” Torgrun suggested, “But Shummrath? Maybe he is our path?”

Olanthius shook his head. “Shummrath is nothing now, Bel made sure of that. His mind is gone, there is nothing left. Just fury. One of the others could get you through, but you would need sssomething to offer them.”

“Maybe Bel would want those rods back?” Morad suggested.

“Bel turned Shummrath into a giant simmering lake,” Mak said doubtfully. “Very bad.”

“You’re looking at it the wrong way,” Spider said. “He’s exactly the guy we need to talk to.” Spider knew Samael wouldn’t enjoy this news, and as if on cue felt a rustling in his hood as he spoke.

“If we need an audience with…Bel, I can arrange it” Samael said to Spider with a shudder.

“Right. But what’s it gonna cost you?”

“It matters not,” Samael sighed.

“It does matter! I’m not going to hang you out to dry, pal,” Spider said intensely.

“I do not know what the price would be. There may be none! He is an pit fiend, he does what he pleases.”

“I mean the price for you to get us an audience,” Spider explained.

“I know. And the answer is nothing. Or everything.”

“Well you know I’ve got your back.”

“I know you do, and I yours.”

“Thanks pal.” Spider felt Samael curl his eight legs around Spider’s torso, almost a hug.

“Will you cross the Arches should we find a way?” Torgrun asked Olanthius.

“It is impossible for me,” Olanthius said.

“Will you be there for us when we face her?”

“If you intend to finish her, you may call me, and I will join you. I am bound to her, I have no choice but I will fight to bring her down after what she has done. Betrayed us all, turned her back on us all.”

“If she calls upon you, will you stand for us?” Torgrun said, wanting assurance.

“I will stand for me,” Olanthius said firmly. “You have take from me my purpose, there isss nothing left for me now but thisss.”

Torgrun nodded.

Olanthis dropped his sword to the ground again, turned his back and started slowly walking toward his hidden chamber.

Spider had one more piece of information he wanted. “In your travels, did you ever find the Maw of Kostchtchie?” he called.

“Why would you ssseek that? The maw is a most unholy place.”

“One of us has business there.”

Olanthius shrugged. “It is East of Bel’s forge, a dark place, deep in the earth.” He moved away, disappearing to the South.

---

Torgrun slumped to the ground, exhaustion suddenly overwhelming him. Spider caught sight of the wings for the first time and grunted a muffled “Shit.”

“Sam - what’s the deal there?” Spider asked.

“I have no idea, but they sure look real.”

Lulu flew down to Torgrun and stared, concern in her large eyes. “Are you following in her footsteps?”

“I have been brought back by Torm,” Torgrun asserted. “For the purpose we have been sent to achieve.”

“But you are changing.”

“If this is how I have manifest - so be it. But Torm has spoken to me.”

“How do you know it was Torm?” Lulu asked gently. “You are changing like she did.”

“I have heard his voice before, when I have spoken to him in need as a Hellrider. His voice came to me and he has brought me back for this purpose.”

Madam Portencia listened to this exchange intently. She pushed herself up on her elbows. “Lulu, when you say he’s changing like she did - did she get leathery wings at some point?”

“Yes. As she is now.”

“But did she change bit-by-bit?”

“No. Though her lust, her single-mindedness, her willingness to compromise-” Lulu looked back to Torgrun, “-for her cause. That is what changed in her.”

Torgrun looked affronted. “I have no lust for power over this dominion. We are here for a purpose, it is true, and we will raise Avernus back to its rightful plane! You, me, together! We will all rise as one!!”

Madam Portencia and Spider picked up the slip immediately, glancing at each other with concern. “Avernus?”

“Lulu! You have seen the vision,” Torgrun continued, “You know what we must achieve! We are together!”

Lulu withdrew slowly from Torgrun as he continued his speech. She hovered by Morad. “Do you believe him?” she asked softly.

“I believe Torgrun a good fellow,” Morad shrugged.

“He said Avernus?”

“He just died, he may be a little confused.”

“Elturel!” Torgrun yelled passionately. “Did I say Avernus?? No - Elturel!” His wings spread wide, as he spoke.

Madam Portencia leant in to Lulu. “I don’t know that we can trust him, but I think we can take him,” she whispered.

Lulu looked deeply concerned.

Torgrun looked wildly around, then dropped to one knee. He prayed, hard, for Torm to bring healing, and everyone felt health welling up inside. Torgrun looked around. “How do you feel?”

“Better,” Morad nodded to Lulu. “The link to Torm is still there.”

Lulu flew back to Torgrun and landed gently on his shoulder. “Be careful.”

“Thank you Lulu,” Torgrun said gratefully.

Spider wandered over to Torgrun and pointed at the wings. “I can get those off for you if you like.”

“These are a gift from Torm, there is no need.”

Spider raised an eyebrow. “If you say so.”

“And I do,” Torgrun said slowly.

“That’s what I just said,” Spider said equally slowly.

“If you are not one that follows religion, you would not understand, my young man. I bathe in the light of Torm,” Torgrun said condescendingly, turning his winged back to Spider.

“That’s ok - I understand,” Spider grunted with disgust.

Madam Portencia grabbed Morad’s shoulder and pulled herself to her feet. “Morad, we’ve got to go now.” Morad nodded.

“Suits me, this place gives me the creeps,” Spider said. Mak nodded in strong agreement.

“This place has been absolved. This place has been redeemed,” Torgrun continued preaching.

Morad had heard enough. He made a silent appeal to check Torgrun’s moral compass, and was relieved to find the dwarf unchanged. Whatever was happening to him, it was still Torgrun inside.

“We have to keep an eye on him now,” Spider whispered to Mak as they walked out together. Mak nodded. This was getting far too complicated, he reflected, but then when was it not? He settled his shoulders and walked out of the crypt, ready for whatever happened next.

---

---

Session played: 6, 13, 20, 28 July 2021