Hell of a Party

Having bested the Breaching Festival and overcome the contract devil Chyvvom, the Crimson Blades emerge from the Hall of Wards to cheers from the crowd—but the hells have come with them!

Devils of all kinds flood out of the Hall of Wards, swooping or skittering out across the campus to menace the gathered throngs. Nox rushes off in search of Cressida, with Ashla tagging along to watch his back.

Arlynn sends Chammady to rally the Sworn Swords and the Guard, while also calling for Irabeth. Egan sends an animal messenger to the druid circle.

Flint tries to protect civilians, drawing the ire of an ice devil and two frost devils. A lengthy battle ensues. The archer is slowed by their attacks. The devils concentrate on Flint until Egan shield him with wall of stone. Then the fiends focus on Arlynn. The frost devils rely on melee, while the ice devil stays back and throws spells.

Laori arrives, calling for Arlynn, and is jumped by her own shadow. The shadow stuns her and attempts to take her away, but Egan blinds it with a sunbeam. Together, Irabeth and the druid bring the monster down.

Nox catches up with Cressida, who is protecting Ramara. The Pharasman cleric warns Nox about Azeret and says that Bishop Keppira D’Bear is coming with relics of St. Alika. Nox sends Cressida to protect the bishop and rally the Guard. Cressida kisses him for luck.

The field marshal urges them to find the headmaster, who may know what’s going on.

Let’s Split Up to Cover More Ground

Nox and Ashla link back up with the others. After healing up, Laori explains the true purpose of the Brotherhood of Bones and reveals that she’s broken up with ZK. She reveals that the Kuthites are gathering the relics of Kazavon in hopes of resurrecting him.

Egan begins the ten minute elemental swarm spell, while Nox realizes they must find Remmy. Arlynn is given the location of the Book of Golgothus and they both head there.

They are confronted by Headmaster Toff Ornelos, who denies any knowledge of Lorthact and insists that they must activate a device in his office to protect the Acadamae. But the building is overrun with Bekyars and devils.

The party decides to split three ways—Nox goes after Remmy in Barbazu Hall, Arlynn and Laori go after the book in Lemure Hall, and the rest accompany the headmaster to his office.

Nox finds Remmy fighting three barbed devils. He kills one and the other two flee. He asks the Gray Maiden about her armor. She is very satisfied by it. The two head for Lemure Hall.

No Book for You

In Lemure Hall, Arlynn spots waves of heat coming off the floor. She tries to fly herself and Laori over it, but the floor erupts with a pillar of fire in which skeletal shapes writhe and shriek. The shapes grasp at the two of them, but they are able to escape and keep moving.

Arriving at room 212, they find a three-way battle going on between the Bekyars, the devils and a group of students that includes a tiefling and Seska. Arlynn notices that the tiefling seems to be surreptitiously edging his way towards the devils.

The devils use magic to panic a halfling student, but Arlynn and Laori block his escape.

Arlynn is unable to sway the bekyars not to attack the students, and so rushes up to fight a devil instead. Laori keeps watch on the halfling.

The tiefling Maketh casts invisibility on himself, while Seska divides the room with a wall of fire.

Several Bekyars go charging through the blaze. As she fights the devil, Arlynn calls out to Maketh, urging him to turn over the book. Seska agrees and says that he should “stop” and “don’t do this.”

Arlynn slays the devil and the remaining bekyars jump through the fire. There are shouts, screams, the sound of magic, and then silence. Arlynn crosses through the flames to find the bekyars slaughtered, save for the leader who lies mangled on the floor. Maketh, Seska, and the two remaining devils are gone.

An ice devil’s body crashes through the stone wall, followed by the Master of Whips, who demands to know where the book is. He magically interrogates his surviving minion, then kills him.

The Enemey of My Enemy

Arlynn searches the room for articles of Maketh’s that the Master can use for a scrying spell. The paladin also finds documents indicating that Maketh was coordinating a ritual to wall off Korvosa from the rest of Golarion and drag it into Belzeragna. The ritual, however, was supposed to climax tomorrow. Arlynn also finds another document associated with the ritual, a formula for valuing souls, which seems to be trying to reach a target number.

Nox and Remmy arrive and learn that the book is gone. The decide to return to the headmaster’s office, where the Master can call off his remaining bekyars.

“Perhaps we can get some use out of the B Team,” he says.

“This was your A Team?” Nox asks incredulously.

Familiar Face

Despite still casting the summoning, Egan uses his foresight to guide Ashla, Flint, Irabeth, and the headmaster through Ornelos Hall safely. They arrive at the headmaster’s office in time to see a barbed devil destroyed by an eldritch blast of magic coming from within.

The headmaster insists on entering first to “take care of something.” Ashla and Flint follow stealthily.

Ornelos quietly calls out to whoever is there and tells them they need to hide. He has company. Ashla’s keen half-elven eyes spy someone hiding behind the desk, as well as Freya lurking behind a bookshelf at the back of the room.

Headmaster Ornelos spies Flint and is incensed that he was followed. But he asks the hidden figure to reveal themselves. The figure, wearing a hooded shapeless cloak, rises and comes down to where Flint can see her. She has the face of Sorshen.

The woman recognizes Flint as Nox’s friend and demands to know where the other fighter has gotten to. The headmaster is amused that no one seems able to identify the woman, who insists she is not Sorshen.

At Ashla’s prodding, the headmaster reveals a device that will shield the Acadamae grounds from the hellscape and repel the lesser devils. It is powered by the arcane energy of wizards, however, and it will take the entire Acadamae to keep it going.

Flint asks about the strange woman, who says that the last time they met, Egan had struck her with a finger of death. Ashla and Flint note that they kill lots of people.

Chuckling, the headmaster introduces the woman as “His Excellency, the Ambassador Plenipotentiary of Cheliax, Darvayne Gios Amprei.”

Ashla starts cackling.

The Unfortunate Ambassador

Amprei explains that after Egan killed her, she woke up in the sarcophagus bound to Sorshen’s body due to some sort of magical mishap with the siphoning process.

It is at this point that Arlynn, Nox, Remmy, Laori, and the Master of Whips arrive.

“Sorshen!” Arlynn and Nox say, reaching for their swords.

“No, it’s actually Amprei,” Flint assures them.

“Amprei!” Nox says, reaching again for his sword.

“You son of a bitch!” Amprei retorts. She blames Nox for tampering with the spell and betraying her, leaving her trapped in this body without a coin to her name and no way to reconnect with her network of contacts. She had to turn to Headmaster Ornelos, her old instructor, for refuge. No easy task, since the two clearly hate each other. Arlynn says that Amprei has a chance to repent for her past misdeeds and help save the city.

The Gathering Evil

This reunion is disrupted by gathering storm clouds which swirl around Castle Korvosa and take the form of a giant humanoid. A voice thunders out across the city, informing the residents that Korvosa’;s search for a new monarch is over—they are now subjects of Lorthact the Unraveler, duke of Belzeragna. Those who resist his rule will be destroyed, while those who submit will find their place in a perfect new order. The tempest invites those who would like to leave to come to the Castle and “negotiate” their emigration with his servants.

The adventurers agree that they need to evacuate as many civilians as possible into the Acadamae. They’ve already sent calls out to rally the Guard, the Sworn Swords, and the druids, and Nox says they should call on the Hellknights as well.

In addition, they agree that the teleport circles could be useful for transporting people across the city,. Amprei volunteers to help there, given here knowledge of the teleport network.

Arlynn calls on the Master of Whips to help use smuggling tunnels to transport people. The Master won’t work for free, so the party ultimately agrees to trade him Maganrad’s spellbook in exchange for assistance.

The Devil You Didn’t Know You Knew

Using a magical book, Headmaster Ornelos and Amprei look up what scant information the Acadamae has on Lorthact. He was an infernal duke who once served at the right hand of Eiseth, Whore-Queen of the Erinyes. But now Eiseth wants his head and has been scouring the planes searching for him.

Nox asks them to research Azeret. He learns that she is no angel but rather an erinyes general in service to Eiseth, one who has not been heard from for several centuries.

While Flint, Ashla, and Amprei look over a map of the city to discuss evacuation routes, Nox takes Arlynn into the Headmaster’s scry-proof bathroom. The fighter explains his deal with Azeret. Despite learning of her true nature, he still thinks the erinyes can be helpful. Arlynn reminds him that Iomedae warned about drawing in Lorthact’s infernal enemies. Nox insists it’s just one devil, not an army, and the danger is too great not to chance it.

Unable to reconcile their perspectives, the two return to the rest of the party.

The Immortal Lord Does Not Rest in Peace

Headmaster Ornelos asks the party to evacuate his family from Ornelos Manor, as he believes they are in grave danger. The Headmaster reveals that his ancestor, Volshyenek Ornelos the Immortal Lord, did not perish 101 years ago, as everyone had believed. Instead, he faked his own death and has been running family in secret ever since.

The Headmaster explains it was the Immortal Lord who kept pushing for greater participation in the Breaching Festival. Given what the party discovered, he fears that his ancestor is a powerful servant of Lorthact and may not even be human. He wants the party to rescue his family and kill the Immortal Lord for good.

Arlynn, however, wants to get the Book of Golgothus first. The Master of Whips has scried the tiefling’s location—he and the book are at Ornelos Manor.