Cunning looks around. "So, we were right that the last one was the most dangerous, and apparently there's only one way to stop him."

He goes quiet for a moment, "I'm clutching at straws here, but..... is there any way to remove the blood but leave the writing? Maybe something magical or alchemical?"

"Perhaps the court mages & alchemists can try whilst we take a look outside."

His body is taken inside in a side room (never put a corpse in the dining area). Upon investigation, it looks like he fell from the sky. His wings are covered in slash and pierce marks.

"I've heard of restoration magic, but I don't know where to find it. Oh, and speaking of blood, you'll be pleased to hear the tests from the blood on the scimitar came through. The blood seemed human enough, but with a tint of ichor. We found traces of magic corruption in it, which is found from contact with Fiends. Nothing you don't already know. As for removing this blood, it can be done because it contains ichor. Ichor can be purified and removed from stains. But I don't know who can do it."

Thrudor, still seated sipping his soup, speaks up "If he is dead, dead, truly lifeless then only a few spells that I am aware of could bring him back but it needs to happen within minutes of the death....If he is currently near death but seems lifeless, I could restore some of his lifeforce back."

"This body is dead, but a Celestial won't truly die from just an injury. Either his soul is in the upper planes of the celestials or the lower planes of the Fiends. But then again, we don't know what weapon was used, it could have taken his life force."

Thrudor takes some vegetables and eats them dunking them into the soup "Well I could try a little healing if you would like..."

"And whatever attacked him saw no need to take his flail." grunts Phait, "Hubris or ignorance?"

"Give it a try if you want, Thrudor." he shrugs. "It's your magic. But even if it works, and I'm not confident it would, he still killed a guard. We'd playing with fire, letter aside."

About the blood he muses, "Human blood. Humanoid. If that's the case for him, then might we be so lucky that it's the case for Crrecht? Humanoids open up more spell opportunities."

Of the possibility of removing the blood he asks, "How long is such a process? It seems time is of the essence at this pace. The TelVin gave us a day. It seems this Crrechit is more hasty. It might be best for us to get a move on and for you to send your faster riders after us with news of what the letter says."

The queen turns to her messenger. "There is a forbidden section in the Castle library that may hold the secrets of Crrethil. Go there and see what you can find." "On it." The messenger replies, leaving. "Perhaps the TelVin's last dying act was to transport to this place, but with ruined wings, he fell. Crrethil does not know we have the flail."

A woman runs into the room. "A messenger said you might need me." "How do you slay a demon or devil?" "Well... I'm sorry, they can only truly die when slayed on their home plane. If Crrethil is a Demon, the party must travel to the Abyss. If Crrethil is a Devil, then the Demogorgon would have to meet him in Hades, where the Demons and Devils meet. I know only one way to get there without dying, and that's plane shifting. But how? I cannot answer that."

"Hades? The Abyss?!" said Titus, trying his best not to scoff. He discretely glanced at his magic-wielding associates, hoping that they were equipped to deal with the dangers that were beginning to present themselves--he was definitely beginning to feel out of his element.

He cleared his throat. "Well, we have the flail now, but without some means of traveling to one of these places ourselves... maybe we can find this Crrethil and convince HIM to take us to his home plane?"

You hear a low whistle that seems strangely warped coming from outside, followed by several screams. A strange voice mutters this phrase as someone enters the castle, "Xsyxill hystiti skakys rakri. Jahscry tyskri haxmira aedel qirex dyrsidaka. Girtehelle srykonsia voru kashys raxled zovruth. Xryste seret thi haxinsti aderiki." The temperature seems to drop several degrees and someone walks down the hall. The voice seems to be muttering to its self, but the voice is naturally loud and can be barely heard from the side room.

Simple map here, the party is in the side room, the dining room is now empty. "0" marks a door to the side room. The voice is coming from position X. Hopefully it works for you; mobile might not work.

•                                  ______________________________
•                                  |                                                     |              |
• __________________|                                                     |              |
• |                               |                   Dining area              |               |
• |        side room    0                                                    0              0
• |                               |                                                     |               |
• _______________________________________________| hallway |
•                                                                                      |       X      |

Cunning,

Cunning hefts his maul and gets ready. "I don't know who or what that is, but it's looking for the flail and it's not happy." He moves to take position in the dining room on the left of the door to the side room (X marks the spot)

Thrudor sucks in thirough his teeth "Well now that won't do" he drops his spoon agitated that his soup is now cold "I did not understand what they were saying....but if what Cunning says is true, someone needs to take the flail and hide if there's no way out of here. This could be the one who killed the Vindicator. If that is the case we can try to talk our way out of this but to fight ......well I will do what I can to keep you alive." 

Titus turned to the queen. "Your majesty," he said, "I'd highly recommend that you flee while we attempt to stop this... thing." Drawing his greatsword, he continued, "Whoever wants to handle the flail, you'll probably want to hide it, but staying close to us is likely the better option. We might even wind up needing to use it ourselves."

The fighter tried to think quickly. He could handle a flail well enough, although just going by damage it wouldn't be as effective as his blade... but he had no idea if he could wield it. Was it enchanted?  Would it reject mortal hands? Did it have some magic attached that made it stronger than a normal flail? Probably not. "If it did," he thought, "it couldn't be that strong, else the Vindicator would still be here to take care of this himself!"

Finally shaking his head as he gave up the pointless analysis, he reiterated, "We'll do our best to stop this while you make your escape!" He then rushed into the dining area on an intercept course with the entity.

(( Titus will run to the east (far) side of the dining area, and stand just to the south side of the entrance, hugging the wall, readying an attack with his sword. ))

Thrudor gets up from his seat as Titus runs to the door to attack. He does his best to provide an alternative...coughing to get everyone's attention "As I previously said if this is the one who struck down the Vindicator do we think it wise to attack before we try to parlay? There's no where to run, this being is rightoutside...where do you run to your majesty? Someone should take the flail and hide in the storage room in a barrel or find some other place to stash it.....If you all wish to attack, so be it, I will do my best to keep you alive"

Fuego:

Following along beside Cunning, Fuego says, “I know not what use we may be in the presence of such powerful creatures, but I will stand with you.”

The door to the dining room shatters as an Ice Devil enters the room (looks just like the image, same weapon, except his weapon is silvery blue. He's 13 feet tall). "Shyxri kyris sykredda orins jauhou veqne aderiki." 

You can roll arcana on the weapon. On a 14 or higher,

Cunning,

Arcana: 1+1 = 2
//Phait ain't got no idea what that weapon is besides a stabby pointy thing

Phait looks at the Ice Devil. Thrudor was right, he thinks, we're not fighting that right now. Parlay it is. He waits for Cunning to translate. 

(( Arcana Roll from Character Sheet: 18 ))

Titus' eyes widened as the creature entered the room. He quickly lowered his weapon and stepped back; he'd thought a sneak attack might take out their opponent without needing to parlay, but this thing?!!

Hearing it speak, he decided to take a different approach. Plastering a smile on his face, he slowly, without making any sudden or aggressive movements, moved just into the creature's field of view, trying to casually distract the being from whatever was going on in the other room--mainly hiding, he hoped.

Thrudor bows to the creature "I am Thrudor, do you speak our language?"

Arc Roll 10

The creature's voice sounds dry as he replies, "A can understand common, but at as hard to produce the sounds. Have you seen a fallen celestal? He as a dangerous raval. All spare you an exchange for all you know."

 Cunning bows slightly and speaks to the creature in infernal. "Wy vory qfywzw ao zmy qfyyl. Wma ip xe ivvrywwulq?"