After a moment, the blinding flash of white light dissipated. Everyone one the group began to blink repeatedly until their sight came back. Slowly, as their vison returned, the remaining light began to seep into Dido. There was no sign of Des'e'geth anywhere. Just a charred path of dirt at Tidal's hooves. Looking around, Rachel was the first to notice the light on Dido. She pointed to her, as a faint glow now emanated from her body. It looked as if her skin had cracks of light coming from within her. They glowed in a steady throb like the beat of a heart.
Dido quickly went to examine herself. The cracks were superficial, her skin was not even broken. They were more like tattoos on her form rather then actually breaks in her flesh. Testing to see what impact this new affliction might have on her, she knelt down to the ground and began to invoke a Devine sense. Calming her mind, she could sense the lingering essence of Des'e'geth leaving the plain.
As Dido stood back up, she could feel something vibrate in her satchel. Flipping it open to investigate, she saw the Cherrywood pipe of Flewid shacking and glowing. She pulled it out to examine it, but as she did it shook right out of her hand and floated a short distance from her. The glow grew and in the blink of an eye, Flewid was standing before her.
Flewid seemed a little dazed. The group looked at him in bewilderment. Across his face as a faint line of light, similar to the crack that was on his pipe. A faint ethereal glow came from it, similar to what had happened to Dido, but less bright. It resembled more closely a starry night.
"Wha...what happened? Where did all the ice and snow go?" Flewid asked puzzled.
"You disappeared after our bout with the ice beasts back in Cania." Tidal offered.
"All that remained was your pipe." Dido added. "I've been carrying it around with us."
Flewid blinked his eyes and looked around at where they were. Then he noticed Dido's glowing skin.
"What happened to you?" He asked gesturing towards Dido's arm and face.
"I'm not sure." Dido replied while examining her skin some more. "We were just questioning this Imp that Tidal had captured for information on how to find the Styx. Then Tidal killed it and I got these marks on me."
Caravaggio walked over to Flewid, towering over him. He bent down and examined the scar of light on his face, then he walked over to Dido and looked at hers. He pondered for a moment and then addresses the group;
"I don't think these scars are due to the same effect."
Caravaggio walked back over to Flewid and looked at the pipe that he had been holding in his hand since he reappeared. He pointed to the pipe and then Flewids face.
"The mark on the pipe seems to match the mark on your face." Caravaggio mused.
He then walked back over to Dido.
"Your marks don't match anything else on your person. Didn't that Imp say you made a deal?"
Dido thought about that.
"I did feel weird just before he died. He must have used some kind of dark magic that I'm not familiar with."
Rachel stepped towards them also trying to get a better look at Dido's new marks of light.
"I have heard about demon deals in passing during my time alive." Rachel said before continuing.
"I don't know much about them. But I didn't see him cast anything while we were talking."
"Well let us have a proper rest, and then we will try to find the Styx." Dido said.
The group reentered the hut and each of them sat on the ground. The air inside felt more relaxing and inviting than the much hotter and oppressive air that was outside. They sat equidistant from each other and began to tend to their own gear.
Flewid began to cast a spell. He spoke a few words as he pulled something from a satchel on his side. As he finished speaking, what looked like a piece of mistletoe in the palm of his hand vanished and was replaced with some small berries. He looked up at the group and offered them saying;
"Have a berry. They should help sustain us for lack of any other food."
Each party member took one of the offered berries and eat them. They all made a little grimace as they at it. Even Flewid was surprised at the taste. Normally his Good Berries tasted really sweet, like ripe berries from the vine. These however, tasted like soot and ash. He could feel the usual effects as his hunger was gone, but the experience was not pleasant.
After each member of the party was done with their minor tasks, They took the time to catch Flewid up on al he had missed. The fight with the Gelugons, the tunnel to Maladomini, and the Path that was present that required a promise to take people where they wanted to go. Then they organized the watch shifts for the rest period. Then the others went to sleep. It was difficult for everyone to get a proper sleep. The ever present light in the sky and the eerie noises and somewhat constant screams that filled the air were no good substitute for a night sky and peaceful tranquility that came with a normal night in the living world.
***
As their period of rest came to an end, the magical walls of the hut dissipated. The group, now left exposed to the environment of Maladomini once again. While sleeping in Baator was unsettling, the party members felt refreshed from their rest.
Flewid grabbed up his gear and began to walk to the edge of the shire. Caravaggio joined him and the two stood at it's edge and looked out into the wasteland of Maladomini. They could see more blasted out ruins dotting the landscape, broken up by patches of nothingness between them.
Flewid closed his eyes and though about the brick path. As he opened his eyes again, a sole brick rose out of the ground like flotsam out of the water. It was blank. He bent down to examine it. The brick was smooth and a slightly different color of red than the ground around it. Despite it seeming to come from under the ground, none of the dirt around it had been disturbed.
The rest of the group now gathered with Flewid and Caravaggio as they had packed up their gear and were ready to press forward.
"So, we just have to make it a promise?" Flewid inquired.
"I would be careful with what deal you make with this road." Dido cautioned with the cracks of light still on her skin.
Flewid took out a small blade from his belt and began to carve a message into the brick. In the primordial language he wrote: The toll has been paid. Lead us to the Styx. The writing stayed on the brick for a moment. Then a red glow filed the carving and it vanished leaving the brick blank once again.
"Well, it would seem that saying our toll has been paid was not enough to summon the path." Flewid said to the group.
Caravaggio knelt down to the ground and another blank brick rose to the surface. Taking out his own dagger, he carved a message onto the bricks surface. This message glowed orange almost immediately. Then, in very quick succession, the other bricks of the path started to surface from under the ground and join together to form a long brick path. The path stretched beyond where Caravaggio stood and went in a westerly direction, assuming they had been travelling "north" the previous day. Caravaggio stood up and holstered his dagger.
"The path leads before us. Let us move." Caravaggio said in a neutral tone.
The group began to walk along the path. At first, nothing seemed remarkable about the path or their journey upon it. However, as they journeyed, it became more difficult to tell how quickly they were moving. Land marks they passed seem to come and go in a blur. After what seemed like only an hours travel, they found the end of the path leading to a large dark river. On the river's bank, a boat rested there with a robbed figure standing with in it. The boat looked like a gondola. It was long and slender. It was hard to tell until the group drew closer, but it looked like the gondola was made out of various bones. And these bones were somehow animated. Various skeletal arms and hands were constantly reaching out in different directions.
As the group came to a stop a few paces from the boat, they now noticed that the dark colored river was in fact filled with blood and not water. The river did not seem to flow like one would expect a river to do. The surface was calm from bank to bank, only disturbed by the souls how appeared now and then across it's surface. Ghostly colored figures could be seen periodically surfacing in the river, letting out chilling moans and screams before submerging once again. The skeletal hands on the boat now actively tried to reach for the group.
Dido addressed the lone figure standing abort the gondola;
"Are you Syllucraff?"
The robe figure remains motionless for a moment. The figure was gaunt though still had flesh upon it's form. Slowly, with exaggerated movements, it reached within it's robe and produced a dagger. The dagger was of exquisite craftsmanship. The blade reflected Caravaggio's face because it was so well polished. An intricated design of gold ran down it's hilt. The figure offered the dagger to Caravaggio and he took it. It's balance was perfect in his hand.
Syllucraff then produced an ornament bowl from another pocket in his robe and held it out towards the group.
"I think he's looking for an offering." Flewid said, breaking the relative silence.
Caravaggio turned and handed Flewid the dagger. Flewid took it and walked up to the figure and slowly cut a straight line down his palm. He then closed his fist and squeezed out a few drops of blood. They fell into the bowl. The bowl glowed for a moment and then stopped. Nothing seemed to happen. Flewid then offered the knife back to Caravaggio. Each member of the group took it in turn to add a few drops of blood into the bowl. Once the last drops of blood fell into the bowl, the gaunt figure lifted it up to it's mouth and drank the blood. The offering satisfied, Syllucraff took back the dagger and placed both it and the bowl back in it's robe.
Then, in a far more animated way than anyone in the group expected, Syllucraff addressed them;
"Right! Sorry about all that Chaps!" Syllucraff started. "Rituals and Process are very important in Baator after all!" he said in a tone mocking of how one might address royal codes.
The group was stunned. Not moments before, Syllucraff had been a slow moving husk of a figure. A Grim reaper of sorts. Now he seemed more alive than ever. Syllucraff eyed each member of the group through his glowing amber colored eyes. The rest of his face was obscured by the shadow cast from his robe's hood. He pulled a scroll out from another unseen pocket on his robe and unfurled it. Seemingly reading it over, he continued;
"Jolly! Looks here like all your fees have all been paid for this roader." Syllucraff paused, seeming bemused by what he was reading. "And by quite a well to do benefactor I must say! Good to have a power like that in your corner eh!" Syllucraff then leaned towards the group and in a mock whisper, like he was telling them a secret, he said; "We're not a fan a bilkers if you catch my meaning!"
The group looked at each other a little puzzled. Syllucraff continued in a chipper demeanor that seemed uncharacteristic to the group based on what they'd experienced so far by the inhabitants in these parts to date.
"Right! I have been hired to be your ferryman on your journey though the realms of Baator on the river Styx!" He then rolled up the scroll he had been reading and exchanged it for another one from under his robe.
"So there are a few guidelines before you embark upon my lovely sherbet here." Syllucraff said in a mock professional tone as he unfurled the new scroll before continuing. "The first, and most important rule - Do not touch the Styx!" He paused a moment to regard the party over the top of the scroll before continuing with a slightly more serious tone. "If you touch it, your soul becomes trapped in it and I can't do anything for you!"
Syllucraff's tone went back to being more chipper as he resumed reading the scroll;
"Second, it goes without saying that I'll need you to keep you arms and legs inside the vessel at all time while we travel the Styx. Thirdly, there will be no muckin' about while we journey from port to port. And finally, I will be your pusser on this voyage. Should you need anything, I will make the journey to acquire it. It will take me an average of half a tenday to complete this task."
With his rules read, Syllucraff rolled the scroll back up and, in one fluid motion, placed it back in his robe.
"Now then," he addressed the group, "are there any questions?"
The group stood there for a moment absorbing the information they had just been told. Then Dido spoke up.
"Do you have any leads on how we should handle our mission?" inquired Dido.
Syllucraff's gaze turned directly towards her.
"Well my dear," Syllucraff started with his hands folded together as if in prayer, "I don't know if I have much about your task regarding Fraz-Urb'luu, but you will have to take care of your situation before we as a group can proceed from this layer of Baator." Syllucraff replied gesturing to the glowing cracks on her skin before continuing. "You must have been a bit daft to break a promise in these lands."
"Well how do we go about fixing it?" Dido asked, a hint of irritation creeping into her voice. She did not like the lack of a straight answer or being talked down to.
"Well, the thing is, you'll need to find someone to take your place. A soul. Have you lot got any soul coins on you?"
The party looked back and forth at each other with questioning looks. Syllucraff sighed and carried on.
"So you lot are skint eh? No matter. You can remedy that situation." Syllucraff paused for a moment, as if to look up and down the river bank before gesturing towards the brick path that was still behind them.
"You can take that lovely path there to a couple of spots. The first," He pointed to the north, "and a fairly dangerous option is Malagaard. I'm sure there's a chance you might find something long forgotten there. The second, " and he pointed back in roughly the direction the party had travelled, "and possibly the more dangerous option, is to head to the carnival eternal. But you'll need to find a way in without a soul coin. There are also magical defenses to prevent cheeky gits from getting in."
Flewid nudged Dido and asked for the journal of Hupperdink. He started thumbing the pages looking for something. The rest of the group continued their discussion with the ferrymen.
"So, what are these soul coins?" Rachel inquired.
"Well..." Syllucraff held his hands out to show a circle that was about a foot in diameter. "...they're these metal discs, yea? And they're usually kept in locked containers. Which is kinda funny when you think about it because the coins themselves are locked containers holding a soul."
Before anyone else was able to ask another question, a shout came from Flewid as he had found what he was looking for in the journal. Holding the page out to the group, he tapped his finger on the part of the entry he wanted to share.
"The journal says that Hupperdink found a passage into the palace. It also has a map!"
"Well then I guess that settles it." said Dido. "We'll do a little treasure hunt at the palace. Get your selves ready and we'll head out."
Caravaggio walked over to Tidal and stood in front of him. After sizing him up, he put out a hand towards the minotaur.
"I offer a truce. It will do us no good to head into further peril if we are expecting a hit in the back from each other."
Tidal chuckled in a deep tone before responding and shaking Caravaggio's offered hand;
"You are a worthy foe. One day after we are done this, I shall defeat you in combat. I will look you in the eye when that moment comes. You need not fear a strike from behind."
After a firm hand shake, Caravaggio asked for one of Tidal's daggers. Confused, Tidal hesitantly offered one to him. Caravaggio looked up to Tidal and said;
"I must fulfill my promise. My I have some of your blood?"
Tidal looked puzzled at him, but offered his hand.
"What was your promise anyways?" inquired Rachel.
Caravaggio ran the blade along Tidal's palm as he replied.
"I promised to paint. It was my signature when I was alive. I would use parts of my slain enemies to paint a portrait of their demise."
Caravaggio drew some blood from Tidal's hand. He then turned and walked over to the gondola looking up at Syllucraff.
"May I?" he asked, gesturing to the boat's hull. Syllucraff simply nodded and Caravaggio knelt down beside it and using the blood on the dagger, wrote a word - VENGENCE. In response to this, the skeletal arms on the hull of the boat started to reach out for him, but Caravaggio stepped back out of their reach. The blood slowly faded into the hull. With a look of satisfaction, Caravaggio walked back over to Tidal and handed him back his dagger. Once Tidal took back possession of his dagger, Caravaggio went back over to Syllucraff.
"What do devils fear the most?" Caravaggio inquired in a neutral tone.
"What a question!" Syllucraff replied before mulling the question over. After a moment he replied;
"I guess they would fear loosing their souls the most. That and Asmodeus. Watch out when he throws a wobbly!"
Caravaggio seemed satisfied with the answer and walked back over to rejoin the group. He then summoned the path and the party prepared to walk along it to their destination - Malagaard.
"Better get a crack on then eh?" Syllucraff said as he waved to the group. "I'll be here when you're ready to set sail!"
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