Welcome to Hell

The party steps into the courtyard. Orcs surround them and begin to close in. The orcs' shaman is a moon priest and summons the moon during the daytime, causing Garrett to convulse and fall to the ground, struggling with his Lycanthropy.

Whosis jumps up on the castle wall and begins taking out the archers who fire poisoned arrows down on them. Iggy attacks the moon priest. Kodrus attacks several axe wielding wild orcs in the courtyard.

Thantiskorlweir, a huge red dragon, and chief general in the dark sixes armies on Gladomain, emerges from inside the keep. Iggy immobilizes the dragon before it can take to the air and breath fire on them, but it does immolate Kodrus. Iggy kills the moonpriest and Garrett begins to recover from his wolf-form. While in his weakened state, the hand of Vecna charges toward the red dragon as it is impaled on some of the magical spikes Iggy summoned.

Whosis Kid opens the front gate of the castle wall and sets one of the battlements on fire by lighting up its armaments and greek fire. The tower explodes violently as he leaps off the castle wall to join the battle. He leaps from the roof of a structure near the dragon, but fails to grab onto it's neck. He falls to the ground and is stomped on by the beast.

Kodrus blinds the dragon and hauls Garrett along with him into the castle's inner keep. He calls on the other two to retreat with him as a legion of devils comes charging through the front gates toward Thantiskorlweir, surrounding the red dragon. A furious battle continues and Thantiskorlweir destroys the first wave of devils then retreats by taking to the sky as Zirakas, the Rakshasa prince and the bulk of his army arrives.

They find the inner keep has been burned thoroughly. Garrett uses the signet ring given to him by Lord Shadowmarsh in Shubgottia and opens the vault. They find that the treasure has been significantly depleted by the plunder of Lady Xyrlynn when she paid off the mercenary army to conquer Marshgate. Still there is some treasure.

Also in the vault is a giant Astralgate, inscribed with the emblem of Nidhogg the world serpet. The Rod of Acererak dials the gates runes and opens a portal of swirling rainbow colored mist, though they notice that the mist seems to fade along with the fading auroras in the sky, as though the gates power is linked to the world serpent and will be gone when they world serpent departs from Gladomain.

They boldly step through the gate and are transported through the rainbow mists to a vast broken plane with rivers of lava and craters everywhere. In the distance they see high mountains topped with iron towers and humanoid creatures with bat wings fly off in the horizon. Great fireballs fall from the sky randomly hitting the earth and exploding violently.

As they rush towards the nearest cluster of towers, six large winged red devils land in front of them. The largest introduces himself as General Malenbranche, commander of the armies of Darkspire. Whosis tries to convince him that they are working for Zirakas and wise to continue on their journey, but Malenbranche insists that they come back with him to Darkspire to be questioned by the Osyluth Thought Police there to confirm their story.

A battle ensues and the party is victorious, though several of the devils try to fly off, they dispatch them with ranged attacks before they can escape and warn their allies. They also find boots that allow them to safely walk on fire and lava and they find a map of the 9 hells of Baator. They realize that they are on the first layer of Baator called Avernus. The rod points them towards the Bronze Citadel of Bel the Pit Fiend, but to reach it they must first cross the River Styx (a river of blood that steals the souls of any who imbibe its waters or drown in it).

On the other side of the river styx is darkspire, a great walled city with a central tower with a burning magical eye that illuminates beings like a searchlight, reads their thoughts, and freezes them until the police can collect them if it is displeased with them. They find a Githyanki boatman who offers to smuggle them across the river in exchange for a powerful magical item. At one point in their journey the searchlight is shined on them and they need to crawl beneath the ship and hold onto the underside, holding their breaths a while.

The panopticon suspects something and draws them in toward the docks where several undead extraplanar being guards inspect the ship along with an angry devil captain of the guard. As the party sneaks away from the ship and comes ashore, Kodrus' loud plate mail summons the guards. The searchlight shines on him and he freezes in place. Iggy hides, Garrett becomes invisible, and Whosis takes a small rodent form and runs off.

Iggy does some recon work and finds the Kodrus is being held in the prison below the panopticon. He learns that the citizens of the city all live in fear of the Osyluth thought police, hug skeletal devils with poisonous scorpion-like tails. The various families of Darkspire all inform on one another to stay on the good side of the authorities.

When Iggy arrives in the dungeon of blood he finds that the devil captain from the docks and an Osyluth bone devil are interrogating Kodrus. Kodrus is weakened from days of torture when they strapped a great helmet to his head (with room for the horns) and electrocuted repeated during questioning. Still he has not broken.

As the Osyluth steps forward to try a mild meld again to learn his true intentions, Iggy lets lose with several magical spike attacks. Thinking these magical attacks are the work of Kodrus, the undead tiefling soliders take no notice of Iggy.

Kodrus is enveloped in a great metal sarcaphogus construct full of poisonous gas. He beats on the inside with his horns and a crowbar he still had in his equipment. Meanwhile Iggy whips up a great tempest and takes out the minions in the hall. Kodrus breaks out of the iron maiden and takes out the Osyluth. A half dozen legion devil guards flood the hall and close in on Kodrus. As he is about to die, Iggy's tempest kills the minions and the devil captain is quickly destroyed. They find Kodrus' equipment and Garrett and Whosis, drawn by the commotion as they searched the dungeon themselves, both arrive.

They free the Githyanki boatmen who helps them escape from the sewers and they travel down the river to the Bronze Citadel of Bel the Pitfiend. The city of Bel is actually a fairly diverse and pleasant city, and Bel himself is rumored to be very hospitable. The party rests for several weeks until they can be granted an audience (there's a very long waiting list).