Due to the interruption the previous night, the rest we had could scarcely be called long. To make up for it, we ended up sleeping in well into the late morning, the fire still going as I woke up for what had to have been the 9th time, recasting Unseen Servant. Two entire brown bears' worth of meat had steadily been cooked over the course of the night, and the whole campsite, and likely a surrounding mile of forest, smelled utterly terrible. Whatever these bears had been eating, it most definitely hadn't been good food.
My entire Bag of Holding was full, too. I had a good 100 or so pounds of gear, but the amount of meat on these bears, even after being gutted, still left us with more than I could fit in my bag. We were forced to cram the remainder into Bucket's bag, although neither of us was very happy about it, since this much meat was essentially inedible. Sure, we could use her Alchemy Jug to get wine, mayonnaise, or honey to help eat it, but that would really only go so far.
I wanted to do something with the pelts and bones. The bones realistically couldn't be turned into anything super helpful, but I was sure two bear pelts, even with the damage, could be made into some decent warm clothing.
We rolled them and stowed them before tearing down camp and setting off again. Bucket's injury had healed fine, especially with a 2nd-level casting of Healing Word to help it along. My injuries, either due to prayer or the rest itself, had healed almost overnight. I checked under my shirt as I had woken that morning, and the scars were gnarly to say the least. Thankfully, no significant organ damage remained, especially after my own casting of healing.
The trek continued.
The forest felt somber today. Clouds had rolled in the previous night, and the gray of the sky contrasted rather starkly with the lush green of our surroundings. I felt as though it was threatening rain, which we most certainly didn't need. I was grateful for my enduring spellbook, water damage be damned.
Walk, walk, walk, walk. Avoid roads due to bandit concerns; check a map here and there and keep walking. It wasn't without conversation, though I personally just wanted to get our miles in for the day and call it. We were moving quickly, preferring speed over the immediate safety of going slower. The idea was that if we spent less time in the woods, we'd have fewer opportunities to encounter danger.
It was still humid, the ground was still muddy and soft, and all manner of plants still got in our way. I cut through them, Bucket ducked here and there, and we kept ourselves going with periodic sips of honey for an energy boost, or munched on roasted bear every short break.
I hadn't been hit with the weird dream last night. Perhaps it was due to the inconsistent sleep and waking up every hour to recast Unseen Servant, but I didn't have to go into that abyss again, thank God. It was too eerie there, even if I had grown more accustomed to it and spent too long there the last few other nights.
Bucket was humming something as we moved. It made me curious what the music was like in cities and towns. What songs did they have? I looked back in Chagrin's memories, and I could recall symphonies and tunes played by hired bands and bards during meals when he was younger. Bucket was an artificer; she could make boxes that could repeat or even record sounds, could she not? Made me curious about what she used her trinkets for.
"You spend a lot of time in your head, you know that? I get we have similar intellect, but you sure are way more caught up in your thoughts." She said from behind me as we pushed through another fern. Our armor and clothes were soaked again from both sweat and the dew on every leaf and vine we passed.
"There's a lot to think about. I feel my upbringing has made me so sheltered that it's hard not to ponder everything I see."
"At least you know how to take action- I was worried you'd be like one of those grunts who doesn't do anything OTHER than think." She scoffed.
"No, I'm not that terrible. I know how much I need to learn."
She only nodded, and we continued.
...
It had been a few hours of walking when we stumbled upon what looked to be some old shrine. It was a stone structure with four pillars about 10ft tall, with a stone rooftop carved to look almost like a mushroom cap. In the middle was a small pedestal and an oxidized copper plaque beneath it, with two stone steps leading up to the platform it stood on, one in each cardinal direction. The entire thing was coated in moss and vines that had overgrown it, and the tiles had split apart or cracked with the growth of grass, water damage, or roots sprouting upwards.
We couldn't see anyone or any other creatures nearby, so we stepped forward with less caution than usual. It was centered in a small clearing, so the nearest tree was about 30 feet away from the platform, allowing the scarce sunlight from the cloudy day to peek down.
"What do you think it's for?" Bucket asked.
I stopped, as she had so funnily pointed out earlier, to ponder.
I thought for a few seconds. One thing convenient about having the maximum amount of intelligence a mortal body could hold was that, ironically, your speed of thought was stupidly fast.
A stone structure in the middle of the woods, two days' journey from the nearest town or village, implied age. This was reinforced further, given the unbelievable amount of plantlife riddling the structure. I wasn't good with stone, but given there were no reasonable quarries nearby, it was safe to assume it had been constructed by magic. The surface was too uniform, implying no use of chisels, hammers, or other tools. The ground nearby was also remarkably flat, suggesting there hadn't been anything dragged from far away, which, as far as I would say, the stone pillars and roof would need to be, save for some monstrously strong being, doing so.
Pair that with its distance from the trees, and the amount of time that had passed- this was a magical structure. I'd estimate it to be over a century old, at least, and in that time, at least one tree should have grown closer to it. I circled the structure some before going up to read the plaque, Bucket following shortly behind. I didn't notice anything particularly special about the plants that had actually managed to grow on it, but my nature skills weren't exceptional.
It was faded, the copper heavily worn down, likely by rain and age. It was heavily oxidized as well, and more challenging to read, thanks to the moss over it.
"Offerings for appeasement. Expect nothing in return, and be forgiven." I said, reading out the words written in infernal, oddly enough.
"Ooh... Ok, that changes what I thought this was..." Bucket said, the forest suddenly felt far more shrill.
Being written in infernal, it implied the existence of some manner of devilish influence on the area. This made little sense to me- an offering to a devil of some kind to keep it happy? Perhaps it was sealed in here? What sort of Devil could it turn out to be? Would it be possible to slay it after determining what type?
I had no clue. All I knew was that I wanted to figure out how this thing worked.
I looked at the pedestal. It had a bowl atop it, with a minimal drain at the bottom that led down into the stone pedestal itself, suggesting that liquid could be poured into it. What other liquid, aside from blood, a devil could want, I had no idea.
"It contains a devil of some kind, either in this pedestal or somewhere underneath it. We could challenge it, as certainly killing something like that could prove useful, although I am unsure how long it could take to do so, especially if finding this dwarf is a pressing matter requiring haste."
"Chagrin, you use too many big words. Yes, we can try and take on whatever this is. Speak normally."
I only nodded before taking out my dagger and lifting it to my hand over the bowl. Slicing open my palm with a shallow cut, I let the blood flow out and into the bowl, staining the stone before it was almost supernaturally drained into it.
Was this a good idea? Maybe? Devils felt way beyond my current challenge rating, but in all honesty, I had a reasonably decent build so far. Both of us have good capabilities and stats, so this could work, couldn't it?
As the blood spiralled down, the stone tiles began to shift and lower, shoving into the ground around it before revealing a spiral staircase down into cold darkness. The air around us dropped by a good 30 degrees, from a humid, hot 80 or so to an almost brisk 50, and the water drenching us felt far, far colder.
Bucket shivered. "Are you sure this is a good idea? We could encounter almost anything down there." She said, clutching her arms.
"I'm sure. You said so yourself, anything could be down there. What's the harm?" I said, a smile creeping on my face. My first proper dungeon was a step away.
Infernal influence? This was an opportunity for EXP. You had an artificer and a cleric/wizard multiclass. Realistically, there wasn't much that could stop us.
I turned to Bucket, clutching my bleeding palm, hoping it wouldn't leave another scar.
"Bucket, we should get some things out of the way before we head inside."
"Like what?" She asked.
"Plans, for how we'll clear this place out. We can't fully anticipate what is down there, but we should set some basic rules on how we deal with things."
"Sure, what did you have in mind? I tend to go guns blazing when it comes to stuff like this, usually the fastest way to go about it."
"That is an option, although I would prefer we take it just slightly slower. We should clear the rooms methodically, remain as quiet as possible, and address any threats promptly. Disarm or avoid any traps we can find, and make sure the other things inside don't know we're in there until we decide to confront them. We can leave looting for when we intend to leave. Focus fire on important targets like ranged attackers, clerics, or mages. Use our area attacks when they're clumped together. Finish fights as quickly as we can."
"So you want to turn this into a sort of assassination mission? Seems a bit boring, if you ask me." She seemed to relish the violence, based on her tone of voice.
"Yes. I understand it's almost cheap, but it's our best way to conserve resources and actually make it through with minimal injury."
"I mean, couldn't we just skip it altogether? Sure, whatever valuables inside would be nice to have, but wouldn't it be safer to keep moving?"
"It would be," I admitted. "But it would be good to take what we can, especially after already opening it. It's infernal- whatever is inside can't be good for anyone nearby. If you don't want to deal with it, I can go alone."
"Don't be dramatic, I need you for that anvil. I'm coming with you."
Even if it was for her own gain, it was reassuring to have her join me.
We descended.
The stairs were slick with thin layers of transparent, frigid ice. We clutched the walls to avoid slipping, and I used Produce Flame to provide some light as we went down. Stone brick, smooth and almost untouched, every surface we could see. We went down what had to be about four stories before finding ourselves in a square room.
It was filled with piles of humanoid bones, scattered in corners and about the floor. A tapestry hung on the far wall, tattered and with a few holes, which seemed to depict an Ice Devil ripping a man in half atop a pile of bodies, with a dark green sky as a backdrop—a terrifying thing to look at. In a corner of the room lay a pile of shattered weapons and equipment, much of it rusted, but there could be value in it.
As we stepped into the room, the skeletons began to spring to unnatural undeath- but not before I had something to do about it. My Alert Feat had my hair already on end, and I had already gotten a spell set for the group of bodies lumped together.
Speaking the infernal equivalent of 'crush', I pushed out my hand and cast Amplify Gravity, causing them to be squashed in a matter of moments, as the magic trying to force them to life brought them to their knees, then their ribs, before finally being ground into dust. The room was about to spring into combat, but it was over in a moment.
I looked to Bucket before putting a finger to my lips, signifying we should be as quiet as possible. Placing a hand on her shoulder, I did two things: I used my Emboldening Bond on us both, as well as giving her a Gift of Alacrity, so we could both be sure to go first whenever entering the future rooms of this place. I obviously didn't want to be unprepared.
We looked over the items in the weapon pile in the corner, as well as the weapons the skeletons had. It came out to four shortbows, 80 arrows, four shortswords, as well as about 8 longswords, two greatswords, a glaive, four halberds, three warhammers, and a lance. We shoved the items into our bag of holding so we could repair them and sell them later The stone door to exit the room and enter the next was practically coated in ice- after spending some time to melt the ice around the lock and the edges of the door, Bucket picked the lock before we entered the next room, careful to peek through the crack and see if we could spot more enemies inside.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Seeing it to be a branching hallway, we carefully snuck down one of the corridors. The dungeon itself was pitch black- our darkvision lent us some much-needed view of the place, showing the same stone craftsmanship consistent with the staircase down. It was cold here- comparable to that of an industrial meat freezer back on Earth. I was worried our positions would be revealed to the inhabitants by how much our teeth chattered, but thankfully, we were able to stay quiet enough. Our breath was clouds of mist every time we exhaled, and every inhale felt like daggers in our lungs.
Inside the next room, we spotted a Druegar-, which was an odd sight, especially in a place like this. Druegar were a dwarven subrace, commonly found inside the Underdark, a subterranean realm neighboring the material plane. Known for their generally evil alignment, slave trading, and general hatred of... well, everything, they rarely meant good news. This was clear from the room's current state.
Kneeling in front of an infernal summoning circle, he had hung three human corpses on chains around it, with the corpse of a child in the center of the circle, candles placed around the room, and lit by supernaturally blue flames. He was humming something with a book in his hand, the other waving over the corpse again and again with various hand signs.
Bucket clutched at my arm, tugging me to look. Turning my head to her, she had a pained expression, one clearly intending to end the man's life the instant she recognized what he was doing. I felt nothing wrong with the plan, and quickly prepared another spell.
She had her Turret and another acid flask in her hand, and I was preparing a Firebolt. Our aim was true, and the man with his back turned was quickly dealt with. Burnt, melted, blasted, and essentially dismembered, he fell over, and the summoning circle was shortly interrupted. The sounds of our attacks echoed down the rest of the corridor, and we just hoped it wasn't so loud that it alerted any other enemies.
From the walls, squeaking sounds riddled up before three giant rats, easily the size of cats, squeezed from crevices and underneath the doorway to another room. We had no surprise round here, and needed to deal with them before they made any more noise.
Gratefully, the rats were so weak that just another volley of our attacks was enough to deal with them as well. My firebolt demolished one, and her acid splash managed to take another and partially damage the third, before her Turret got the last one. We wanted to loot the room shortly after, but from the circle, it was uninterrupted; it must've failed, as it rapidly began to emit a massive amount of blue light from the runes on the floor.
I whispered to Bucket-
"That doesn't look good..."
"No shit!" She hushed back, urging me towards the archway we came through to enter the room, both of us hiding around the corner now, peeking in.
Rising out of the summoning circle must've been a lesser demon, as the circle and offerings seemed ample enough for something much larger- that isn't to say the creature rising out wasn't terrifying to look at. It was just less threatening than I had expected.
It was a Spined Devil- its purple skin blistered and festered across its roughly humanoid body- almost mangled limbs, rotted bat wings across its back furled around its torso, and a mouth much like that of some rapid dog, its eyes a glowing yellow. It murmured as it stepped to the floor, seemingly confused by the lack of its summoner being present. It looked around for a moment or two, trying to spot whoever had killed its master, but neither of us wanted to give it the chance to make any noise.
Spined devils had resistance to cold damage, so Ray of Frost was out of the question- Fire Bolt was off the table as they were completely immune to fire. Bucket had her Turret and her Acid Splash ready, whereas my hand began to crackle with lightning as I got my Shocking Grasp set up. I rushed forward, ducking my head beneath the ranged attacks from Bucket, zipping over my head and pelting the Devil in the chest. A hole appeared where the force blast from her Turret had hit, and the acid landed on its wing, melting away at the thin flesh. I thrust my hand to the creature's throat as it turned, grabbing hold and sending a massive current of lightning through the Devil. Its body spasmed and rocked in my grasp, and although my grip was weak, the static electricity almost kept it in my hand as it shook violently. It dropped to the floor, dead, its body vanishing into ash just a few seconds later.
The abuse of surprise rounds, stealth, and nova damage was on our side, and so far, we were doing well. My mind was racing- just how much more was here? This place couldn't have been very big, but as a whole, the purpose of these rooms and the place's overall theme was strange. Any blood spilled to the ground was quickly frozen, before seeming to seep into the crevices between the stone as if it were being drunk.
I looked to the door to the North of us now, motioning for Bucket to lock-pick it again. This time it was made of solid iron, and the lock was bulkier too- but thanks to the Emboldening Bond I had placed on us both, she was able to get it undone in a matter of seconds. Now, we creaked open this door, peeking again into the room ahead of us.
Inside, we saw an Imp- another type of Devil, one that could change shapes and even turn invisible, munching away at the corpse of what looked to be a paladin. On the wall past it was another tapestry, this time depicting what looked to be the ruin of a castle- thousands of devils in all shapes and sizes were flying in the burning black sky above it, with hundreds of others climbing over its walls or murdering soldiers outside the front gate. The buildings inside were ablaze, with the castle's towers crumbling apart. The art piece was in better condition than the other one, but due to the frigid air, it looked brittle, as if it would fall apart the moment we touched it.
The paladin's gear was strewn about the room- a huge explorer's pack, stuffed to the brim, had its contents littered about the floor. A few corpses of what looked like slain skeletons and zombies were also lying about, not animating as we looked inside.
The knight's armor was rusted beyond anything I thought even we would be able to reasonably repair, and based on what the Imp was actually eating, it seemed the most it was getting out of it was licking bones and rarely getting at some rotted bone marrow. All I really saw out of it was what we could scrounge from the bag and the armor, as well as some free exp from the Imp.
Another set of blasts and attacks dropped the Imp quickly, and its corpse disintegrated into ash.
We left the room for now, heading back through the room with the summoning circle, and down the corridor again to the next room, which was again locked. This time, the lock didn't budge after the first attempt, and not even after the second.
We were at an impasse. I could heat the door with something like Heat Metal and have my Unseen Servant try to pry it open, but I didn't want whatever was on the other side to find out about us. It was either that or find another way to open the door.
I had nothing, and neither did she- we had already used the Alchemy Jug today for some honey as snacks, and we didn't necessarily want to wait today for it to change to a different fluid, so we just kept trying at the lock again and again. I did my best to assist, listening carefully with my ear pressed to the door and bending or mending the tools she broke back into shape. It took much longer than I would have liked, and the Emboldening Bond I had made eventually ran out.
After almost 10 minutes, we got the door open and peered inside. We spotted well-armed goblinoids- two Hobgoblins, a Bugbear, as well as what looked like one of their mounts, being a Worg. Well-equipped with chain mail and shields, it would be difficult to attack them normally. The door provided little means of actually attacking through it, so using spells would be a challenge in this instance. Amplify Gravity would help slow their movement, and maybe Bucket's Grease could keep them pinned down enough for us to deal more damage. A surprise round would do us good as well. The dungeon couldn't be too much larger, as far as I could deduce, but I also didn't want to burn all of my resources here.
I was so worried about this next room, because of the number and apparent toughness of the foes. Heavy armor and shields shut down the likelihood of hitting with Bucket's Turret, and although the flamethrower option would be perfect in a room like this, with the grease, it could deal some ample damage. I believed that, with a surprise round, we would have enough of an upper hand to limit the damage aimed at us.
SLAM
We burst open the door with a kick, starting with a blast of grease from Bucket. Fluid burst from a valve, shooting it all across the floor.
"Graaah!!" the goblins shouted in surprise as they all slipped and fell onto their backs. Immediately following this, her flamethrower turret let loose a blast of fire-
FFFFWOOOOOOSHHH, igniting the grease as well as the goblins, unable to avoid the blast!
I shot a Fire Bolt at the downed Bugbear, the ball of sparks spinning through the air, who miraculously rolled away as he was actively trying to put out the oil-fueled flames on his fur.
Bucket let loose an Acid Splash and another torrential blast-PWWEEN!- from her Turret, again the two goblins were unable to do anything as they were still prone on the ground, trying to douse the flames. It completely melted and burnt the Worg to a crisp, letting out a howl as it did, but the Bugbear could still move even with its injuries. Not wanting to let it go on any longer, I quickly rushed to it with my palm crackling with a Shocking Grasp, slamming my palm down on the thing's shoulder.
BzZzZzZzZtT!
The Bugbear limped with electricity running through its veins, before finally falling on its face.
We finally got the opportunity to look around the room for a moment. It was mainly featureless- no furniture or tapestries to speak of, just small pedestals with bowls on them, to again, make offerings to the Devil this shrine was intended to worship. We'd gather the weapons and equipment from the goblins; later, we still needed to find the last room of the place. There was no way that the summoning circle was the Devil- it was far too weak a creature. The pedestals themselves were imp statues holding up offering bowls, their stone eyes squinting as their mouths smiled wide. There were three of them, lined up against the wall opposite the door we came in.
We further examined the bowls, not hearing any further sounds from the remaining rooms. Each of them had slots for fluids to pour into, but I doubted they would all need blood. An offering like that felt too simple, but it was worth the shot.
I took the Bugbear's blood and drained it into each slot of the pedestals, and the stone eyes inside the statues they stood upon shifted, revealing sapphires.
This startled Bucket, who was still examining the corpses for loot we'd come back later for. She just shrugged and stood up, beginning to feel along the walls for any secret doors or possible traps. Her hand actually landed on a button, which she pressed, revealing a compartment in the wall with a small stone chest. Said chest quickly vanished into her Bag of Holding.
Meanwhile, the eyes of the squinting imp statues flipped in their skulls as the blood soaked the offering bowls, falling down the drainage holes. Sapphires, bright blue, took the place of their eyes, and the room got another dozen degrees colder. Our breath solidified in midair, and I knew something was horribly, horribly wrong.
The moisture in the air froze, and it became ruthlessly dry. All along the wall, in just a couple of seconds, frost began to creep everywhere. I could feel it almost getting harder to blink, as my eyes grew colder and my eyelids started turning a light blue.
I turned to Bucket, who instinctively began shivering even harder.
The dungeon had been cold so far, but not nearly this cold. I had to assume it was around -60 degrees Fahrenheit, or possibly even worse. We would get hypothermia in just minutes, and could die from this amount of cold in less than an hour.
The wall behind the imp statues began to shift, grinding loudly as stone on stone moved aside. It revealed another passage down, a staircase into blue light. The walls and stairs were coated in thick layers of blue ice, with icicles hanging from the passage ceiling. A brutally freezing gust of wind shot out and up towards us, forcing us both to the sides of the room just to avoid having it remove our noses and ears in the process.
"rrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
A booming echo sounded out from the end of the staircase, and Bucket and I looked to one another in fear. Not necessarily the frightened condition, just with the understanding that I had not only completely ruined out opportunity for stealth, but now whatever we had just woken up was insanely angry.
"Bucket, lock the door! Bolt it as tight as you can. Then get over here and follow me up this rope!" I shouted, throwing my bag down and digging around for said rope.
Rope Trick. It was a spell you could use to create an interdimensional pocket- small, but out of range of most attackers on the ground. Based on the temperature, the infernal nature of the shrine, the blood offerings, and ritual summoning, I was convinced both the Druegar and the Goblins had been here for this exact thing, same went for the paladin- whatever this creature was had been sealed away, but was unreasonably strong for this area. I didn't know the history, but it had to have been involved in some old war, based off the dead guards at the front of the shrine, the tapestries, and again, the paladin. Devilish incursion on some neighboring kingdom, humanoids likely won the war, and whatever devils they couldn't kill probably got sealed away, far from one another all across the kingdom.
Anyways, that door was the only exit out of here, and it was easily the sturdiest door in the entire dungeon. I knew what devil this could be, and I knew it didn't have ranged attacks to speak of. Even with the defenses it could produce, we would be able to outlast it so long as we could stay out of its melee range. If I put the space as close to the ceiling as possible, and we kept up with keeping its movement speed down, it wouldn't be able to jump up and get us. We'd climb the rope, keep it trapped in here, and it would be forced to fight us, freeze us, or give up and speak with us. Fighting and speaking were our best bets.
Bucket only nodded, and as quickly as her freezing body could move, rushed to the door, slammed it shut, and bolted it tight before smashing off the locking mechanism from our side with her turret.
"GRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Another ear-sundering shout from below, followed by the rapid, heavy footsteps of cortex smashing into ice. It was approaching, and quickly.
I mumbled through chittering teeth the incantation for the spell, before throwing it into the air, the end of the rope smacking into the ceiling maybe 20ft up. The opening split like a cut in paper, before we both quickly scrambled up the rope.
The thudding of footsteps grew louder, as though the ice the devil was running on was directly over our heads.
"VRAD BLUTHAAAR!! INDEKEDON BOLLL!!!" It shouted in infernal.
"What the fuck is it saying?!" Bucket screamed as she made it into the hole, reaching her hand out for me. I grabbed hold, and she hauled me inside before we both rapidly started yanking the rope into the pocket.
"It was screaming something about not enough offerings- it's been starved. It isn't going to speak with us." I said, tearing through sheet after sheet of my spellbook, hoping to remember I had some sort of answer other than 'lock us in the room with the devil that had a dungeon built on top of it'.
"So then what should we do?!" She yelled, her face filled with anger and fear. Not angry for bringing her in here, but mainly for not running. Which, in hindsight, maybe we should have done.
Realistically, with our damage output, we would be stuck in here with the thing for at least two minutes, assuming it didn't somehow avoid damage from us.
"Listen to me. Prep Faerie Fire, a blast from your turret, and I'll make sure it doesn't prolong the fight by going back down where it came from- it's smart enough to realize it won't be able to reach us up here- I'll trick it into feeling stuck in here. Best-case scenario, it tries breaking down the door. Got it?!" I quickly yelled, focusing on the temporal magic I had accumulated. Chronal Shift was going to make or break how quickly we could deal with this thing. That, and the illusion I'd be setting up.
Clasping my hands over my holy symbol, I tucked my head and began praying in our cubby-sized pocket of space.
"Eldath, please, if you can hear this- guide our hands in the death of this abomination. If you can find greatness in one of vile blood such as I, then help cleanse our sins as we rid the world of this monster." I prayed, casting Bless on both me and Bucket.
After that came the short few seconds before it arrived.
