"Would that fancy gem in the well help with any of this." He wondered aloud. "I need to find Janet. Go and do what you do best, my friend; throw a wrench into this machine and watch the parts fly!" Tuu'Saayn then asked more.of his body, commanding his rubbery legs to move with haste once again. As he neared the tavern he slowed and attempted to remain unseen.
The Tavern was nearer the middle of the Market, a couple of hundred feet from the South Gates - as Tuu'Saayn ran, his way was illuminated by the wall of flame still burning behind him.
As he neared the site of the Tavern, Janet was busily helping injured people to their feet, handing out water and directing stretcher bearers for those unable to move.
Her face lit up upon seeing Tuu'Saayn "Praise the Gods, there's a friendly face! What's happening out there? I'm trying to move the wounded to the WatchHouse, but there's Five Hundred people in the Night Market on a quiet night, and we won't all fit."
Looking about, Gryn is also nearby, looking confused.
"With Tymora's blessing, we will be alive long enough to discuss that very question. For now, trust that my companions and I are on your side. Time is short, we need to be ready to get people out of here. The Fiend is looking for you, so keep low and out of sight. Be ready for a sign, when you hear or see it move with all haste to the South Gate, we aren't subtle, so you will know. If we get out we live, if we remain we will all burn with the Market. I'll explain more when we are on the safe side of the gate. If you see a streak of flame going up, not down, abort and hide." His words flew out like a foreign language, his pace of speech matching his racing mind and pounding heart.
Tuu'Saayn then flew with all haste back to the South Gate to check on the progress with the crossbar.
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“Let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.” — Elrond
Tuu'Saayn skidded to a halt two steps removed from his brief conversation, if his rapid speech and shortness of breath constitutes a conversation. Glancing back, he asks, "You don't have any mages laying around, do you? Nothing big, basic illusion magic will do. If we get the gate open it would be helpful for it to not look open."
When the information has been shared, he offers her a half hearted smile. "Be alert for trouble from within. Not all devils are fourteen feet tall and wreathed in hellfire. The weak of character may take advantage of this chaos. Watch your back."
And with that, he was off; enroute to the South Gate.
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“Let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.” — Elrond
Sorry Guys: I think I made this adventure too difficult for you when I included consequences and an NPC that can think. I did drop hints & clues, but I can't make you all read them.
Tuu'Saayn's doing his best, but the rest of you have given up - and he's not going to be able to effect a daring rescue by himself.
Maybe we just let your characters slip away and vanish into the sunset, and call it good?
As the wall of fire erupted from the ground, Torm held his back against the newly unbarred gate expecting the worse. Feeling no heat broiling his flesh, he gives a prayer of gratitude to Helm and works his way along the city wall to get around the barricade of flames.
Looking for Tuu'Saayn and Gus, Torm is disheartened to see only one of them.
Running over to Gus, he asks, "Where is Tuu'Saayn? The gate is unbarred and we can seek out and deal with that disgrace of a Lieutenant."
Running over to Gus, he asks, "Where is Tuu'Saayn? The gate is unbarred and we can seek out and deal with that disgrace of a Lieutenant."
Sorry Slayter: I realise it's hard for you to keep up, but that's not the scene you're in:
The gate is still barred until someone does something about that: All Gus did was remove that padlock that was holding the bar in place.
There's still a wall of fire right up to the gate - luckily for Torm, that spell is only hot on one side, but he's pinned against the gate by literal hellfire - he's not running anywhere: "Torm attempts to move around to Gus's location as Torm watches him struggle to get any leverage with the crossbar." - that's what you posted, and that's what happened.
That's the South Gate - it connects to a tunnel leading away from the Citadel
There were going to be subsequent chapters of this, if you managed to escape from the Night Market, with or without rescuing some of the people - and vengeance on the treacherous lieutenant was going to be one of the possible plot points - but I can see my attempt at a plot isn't holding people's interest, I can't seem to write scene descriptions you'll understand and this would be as good a point as any to pretend the Fiend from Hell was actually kinda dumb, and missed you all running off into the Sunset.
***OoC: from the PC side, here is what I have been able to piece together: chancellor Keen summoned the market council, pulled the watch, locked the gates, and sent a pit fiend (I think) to "restructure" the market, the well was also double locked so the intent was for everyone in here to burn (although council was priority). The beast wants to corrupt a lawful PC, but possibly foolishly, Tuu has resisted. Gryn saw the same dude at the primary blast site and then again at the N Gate, so Big Red already has someone working from the inside. The Fiend is unbeatable, unless I missed something, so escape is our only option. Torm has mentioned the Lt. A few times, but we assume he is on the safe side of the N Gate. Janet is the only one left in charge so Tuu is trying to get her to give the orders once the S Gate is open. I can appreciate the frustration, having DM'd a few IRL games, the best laid plans don't always work, or a critical clue was missed that makes it all 10x harder to work thru.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I have found the challenges to be quite interesting, and have enjoyed trying to play thru it as the morally struggling Tiefling. I would like to keep going, but also understand that campaigns die daily for many different reasons, so no hard feelings if you feel the need to pull the plug.***
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“Let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.” — Elrond
That's most of it: It is indeed a Pit Fiend, and while there's no way you could fight it, it's only trying to kill everybody as something to do to pass the time! It's bound by whatever rules its summoner has placed on it, and they've told it to stay in the market 'till the summoning expires because even they're frightened of it. You've already managed to send it on a wild goose chase, but it's not going to fall for the same trick twice - now you've turned down its offer, it won't bother with you, except to burn you with the rest of the people.
It's got telepathy and Truesight - so it's been lurking up near the ceiling, trying to track down all the council members before making its move. It used the time to personally collect the souls of those bound for Hell anyway.
It wants out of its current contract, but can't do or say anything to harm its summoner directly: Pointing a bunch of trigger-happy adventurers in his direction would have been a cunning workaround - but Tuu'Saayn wouldn't take the deal (which would have bound his soul to completing the task of destroying the crystal used to summon it - and it could only bind someone lawful that way.)
Getting through the gate would be really difficult now you've drawn its attention there - but one of the first things you guys did was to find the entrance to the sewers and then loose interest and wander off! You might have smuggled some of the people in the market out via the sewers from the Well and the WatchHouse, but it would have been more difficult than an unwatched gate.
Next step for the Fiend is to fly back to the Gate and start levelling the entire market, one fireball-radius at a time - the fires will spread faster than that, survivors will turn on each other, a few crowding into the only two shelters.
The party were the only ones who might have understood what was happening, and maybe gotten some people out.
With the Market Council destroyed, Chancellor Keen would have expanded his control of the Middle Council to include the lower levels - and then made a play for the upper (Sunlit) levels, and total control of the Radiant Citadel - all the great and powerful are up on the Sunlight levels, but with control of the lower levels, he'd probably manage it in the end, maybe not even needing to call on the Fiend again.
Next Chapter would have been finding a way into the rest of the Citadel, and possibly defeating the Chancellor and the Evil Lieutenant.
I'm the perpetual DM irl, so decided to try and get some player experience through PbP. This was my first foray into the medium. Figured it would be slow enough my schedule would allow it, but perhaps not. I apologize if my PbP inexperience limited anyone else's enjoyment.
Parkway, appreciate you taking the helm of what would have been a dead in the water adventure otherwise.
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The Tavern was nearer the middle of the Market, a couple of hundred feet from the South Gates - as Tuu'Saayn ran, his way was illuminated by the wall of flame still burning behind him.
As he neared the site of the Tavern, Janet was busily helping injured people to their feet, handing out water and directing stretcher bearers for those unable to move.
Her face lit up upon seeing Tuu'Saayn "Praise the Gods, there's a friendly face! What's happening out there? I'm trying to move the wounded to the WatchHouse, but there's Five Hundred people in the Night Market on a quiet night, and we won't all fit."
Looking about, Gryn is also nearby, looking confused.
"With Tymora's blessing, we will be alive long enough to discuss that very question. For now, trust that my companions and I are on your side. Time is short, we need to be ready to get people out of here. The Fiend is looking for you, so keep low and out of sight. Be ready for a sign, when you hear or see it move with all haste to the South Gate, we aren't subtle, so you will know. If we get out we live, if we remain we will all burn with the Market. I'll explain more when we are on the safe side of the gate. If you see a streak of flame going up, not down, abort and hide." His words flew out like a foreign language, his pace of speech matching his racing mind and pounding heart.
Tuu'Saayn then flew with all haste back to the South Gate to check on the progress with the crossbar.
“Let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.” — Elrond
Tuu'Saayn skidded to a halt two steps removed from his brief conversation, if his rapid speech and shortness of breath constitutes a conversation. Glancing back, he asks, "You don't have any mages laying around, do you? Nothing big, basic illusion magic will do. If we get the gate open it would be helpful for it to not look open."
When the information has been shared, he offers her a half hearted smile. "Be alert for trouble from within. Not all devils are fourteen feet tall and wreathed in hellfire. The weak of character may take advantage of this chaos. Watch your back."
And with that, he was off; enroute to the South Gate.
“Let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.” — Elrond
Sorry Guys: I think I made this adventure too difficult for you when I included consequences and an NPC that can think. I did drop hints & clues, but I can't make you all read them.
Tuu'Saayn's doing his best, but the rest of you have given up - and he's not going to be able to effect a daring rescue by himself.
Maybe we just let your characters slip away and vanish into the sunset, and call it good?
As the wall of fire erupted from the ground, Torm held his back against the newly unbarred gate expecting the worse. Feeling no heat broiling his flesh, he gives a prayer of gratitude to Helm and works his way along the city wall to get around the barricade of flames.
Looking for Tuu'Saayn and Gus, Torm is disheartened to see only one of them.
Running over to Gus, he asks, "Where is Tuu'Saayn? The gate is unbarred and we can seek out and deal with that disgrace of a Lieutenant."
Sorry Slayter: I realise it's hard for you to keep up, but that's not the scene you're in:
"Torm attempts to move around to Gus's location as Torm watches him struggle to get any leverage with the crossbar." - that's what you posted, and that's what happened.
There were going to be subsequent chapters of this, if you managed to escape from the Night Market, with or without rescuing some of the people - and vengeance on the treacherous lieutenant was going to be one of the possible plot points - but I can see my attempt at a plot isn't holding people's interest, I can't seem to write scene descriptions you'll understand and this would be as good a point as any to pretend the Fiend from Hell was actually kinda dumb, and missed you all running off into the Sunset.
***OoC: from the PC side, here is what I have been able to piece together: chancellor Keen summoned the market council, pulled the watch, locked the gates, and sent a pit fiend (I think) to "restructure" the market, the well was also double locked so the intent was for everyone in here to burn (although council was priority). The beast wants to corrupt a lawful PC, but possibly foolishly, Tuu has resisted. Gryn saw the same dude at the primary blast site and then again at the N Gate, so Big Red already has someone working from the inside. The Fiend is unbeatable, unless I missed something, so escape is our only option. Torm has mentioned the Lt. A few times, but we assume he is on the safe side of the N Gate. Janet is the only one left in charge so Tuu is trying to get her to give the orders once the S Gate is open. I can appreciate the frustration, having DM'd a few IRL games, the best laid plans don't always work, or a critical clue was missed that makes it all 10x harder to work thru.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I have found the challenges to be quite interesting, and have enjoyed trying to play thru it as the morally struggling Tiefling. I would like to keep going, but also understand that campaigns die daily for many different reasons, so no hard feelings if you feel the need to pull the plug.***
“Let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.” — Elrond
That's most of it:
It is indeed a Pit Fiend, and while there's no way you could fight it, it's only trying to kill everybody as something to do to pass the time! It's bound by whatever rules its summoner has placed on it, and they've told it to stay in the market 'till the summoning expires because even they're frightened of it. You've already managed to send it on a wild goose chase, but it's not going to fall for the same trick twice - now you've turned down its offer, it won't bother with you, except to burn you with the rest of the people.
It's got telepathy and Truesight - so it's been lurking up near the ceiling, trying to track down all the council members before making its move. It used the time to personally collect the souls of those bound for Hell anyway.
It wants out of its current contract, but can't do or say anything to harm its summoner directly: Pointing a bunch of trigger-happy adventurers in his direction would have been a cunning workaround - but Tuu'Saayn wouldn't take the deal (which would have bound his soul to completing the task of destroying the crystal used to summon it - and it could only bind someone lawful that way.)
Getting through the gate would be really difficult now you've drawn its attention there - but one of the first things you guys did was to find the entrance to the sewers and then loose interest and wander off! You might have smuggled some of the people in the market out via the sewers from the Well and the WatchHouse, but it would have been more difficult than an unwatched gate.
Next step for the Fiend is to fly back to the Gate and start levelling the entire market, one fireball-radius at a time - the fires will spread faster than that, survivors will turn on each other, a few crowding into the only two shelters.
The party were the only ones who might have understood what was happening, and maybe gotten some people out.
With the Market Council destroyed, Chancellor Keen would have expanded his control of the Middle Council to include the lower levels - and then made a play for the upper (Sunlit) levels, and total control of the Radiant Citadel - all the great and powerful are up on the Sunlight levels, but with control of the lower levels, he'd probably manage it in the end, maybe not even needing to call on the Fiend again.
Next Chapter would have been finding a way into the rest of the Citadel, and possibly defeating the Chancellor and the Evil Lieutenant.
I'm the perpetual DM irl, so decided to try and get some player experience through PbP. This was my first foray into the medium. Figured it would be slow enough my schedule would allow it, but perhaps not. I apologize if my PbP inexperience limited anyone else's enjoyment.
Parkway, appreciate you taking the helm of what would have been a dead in the water adventure otherwise.