Into Hestavar

The Astral Sea was amazing. I didn’t get tired of looking at the stars no matter how long I gazed off toward the horizon. The blissful serenity of the Astral Sea didn’t last long though, unfortunately. A vessel appeared on our starboard side. The quick actions of the crew and their relentless pursuit of our ship told me that they were more likely to be pirates than an escort from Hestavar.

“Can we shift in the plane?” Kalena called out to Tierro.

“No, no. T’would be useless to try. They are closing on the ship too fast. Tierro would never finish the spell in time.”

“To the railing, then,” cried Rhegar, “We’ll take out as many as we can before they try to board.”

My sword would be useless at that distance and I was a dreadful shot with a crossbow, so I pulled out the wand Sigfrida had made for me. I smirked as a few ideas of what I could do at this distance popped into my mind.

As the ship closed, we could see that it was crewed by Githyanki. The Gith were a sad race. They had been imprisoned by the Illithid, otherwise known as mindflayers, for many hundreds of years. When they finally escaped, there was a split among the refugees about how to use their mental prowess developed over the many years of their imprisonment. The ones who thought their mental gifts should be used for learning and peace became the Githzerai. Those who thought they should use their mental gifts should be used to fight a world that had done nothing to free them from the Illithed became the Githyanki.

“Ah. That it should be Githyanki that attack so close to the Bright City!” moaned Tierro. “You must be careful when you fight for it is well known that they manipulate probabilities.”

“Surely you have something in your cart that can help us,” said Vixi.

“No, no. Tierro would join you at the rail, but he must protect his goods should they board us. Remember the probabilities,” he said as he retreated to the shadow of his steel predators.

Coward, I thought as I watching him. Tierro was driven from my mind, however, by the rousing roar of the pirates as they closed in. The distance between the two ships gave Kyri a chance to show off. Arrows from her longbow tore through the githyanki pirates with deadly accuracy. I swear I saw one slice a githyanki’s chest wide open. As the ships closed a bit more Yvala and Kalena were able to get some good shots in as well. A favorite of mine was when Kalena blew her stinking cloud across the deck, causing the githyanki to scatter just as they were about to board. After that, it was easy for Vixi, Rhegar, and myself to jump aboard and dispatch the remaining crew.

The ship had a tidy sum of gold aboard and some minor trifles as well. Tierro seemed quite pleased about adding some of the items to his inventory, but an “Excuse me, those were captured through our fight,” from Yvala and the sight of her pulling a dagger to merely tidy her nails had him paying us for what he wanted.

As we closed in to Hestavar, we could tell that all was not right with the city. Though it still glowed in its ethereal way, we could see that the glow was hiding much damage. Indeed, whole buildings looked like they were on the verge of collapse. Window glass was blown out everywhere and there was an occasional boom that indicated an explosion in the inner city. Debris cluttered the space in between the earth motes that made up the land masses of the city. Tierro stood at the helm next to Captain Raccan, carefully guiding us to the main earth mote of the city, Aurosion. The great cathedral was on Aurosion and that was where we would meet Erathis.

“This is bad. Very bad. When Tierro was last in Hestavar, the demons had only taken the outermost motes. Of course, Tierro has not been in the Bright City for some time. Inventory must be kept up,” he twittered nervously as we came into the docks of the main mote of the city.

Indeed, as we neared the dock, we could see that there had been a fight recently. Flames gushed out of several of the buildings and I could see bodies lying in the street. Several lower level demons were still milling about the area and our ship had attracted their interest.

“You’re sure there isn’t another way to get to the Great Cathedral?” Rhegar asked the merchant.

“Not expediently. Travel between the motes was roundabout in the best of times. It is probably far worse now. Dropping you here will be the quickest. The Great Cathedral is at the highest point of the mote, so as long as you are headed up, you can not get lost. Trust me. Tierro will care for your ship.”

“All right. Weapons at ready, then everyone,” commanded Rhegar to the rest of us.

Captain Raccan maneuvered as close to the dock as he dared. Fearing to take the time to put down a plank, we jumped directly from the ship to the dock. The demons milling about the harbor rushed down the dock when they saw us disembark. Two were ape-like creatures that burned with flame instead of fur. Three more looked a bit like dogs, if dogs had a huge gaping hole instead of a muzzle. At the end of the dock, blocking our path was a tower of flaming skeletons. Kalena identified the demons as Balgura, Canoloth and an Immolith, respectively. She mentioned that the Canoloth are also known as Dogs of the Abyss and have wicked tongues that whip out to grab you if you get too close.

“Why do the skeletons move as if they are being burned alive?” asked Vixi with horrid fascination.

“On some plane, they probably are burning alive. Legends say that Immolith’s are composed of the souls of people who died committing a heinous act at the same time,” I replied. “Don’t get too close. The bodies are known to try and grab bystanders and drag them inside the flames, much like a drowning victim will latch onto a rescuer,” I warned the party.

The hounds bayed, screaming out their rage for the living as they ran down the dock. Blades clashed against claw as we stood our ground. Rhegar, naturally, led the charge. He fought nearly back to back with Vixi. When she cleaved neatly through a Balgura with her greatsword he exclaimed, “I much approve of this new fighting style you have adopted.”

“Thank my father,” she replied.

The Immolith had stayed on the land and fired balls of flame at us. Kyri and Kalena fired back. Yvala wasn’t able to sneak around on the narrow dock, so she had been firing her crossbow at open targets and taking time to check out the harbor. “Tavia,” she hissed at me, “I think some of the demons have gone to gather more.”

“I don’t doubt that,” I replied as my sword struck down a Canoloth that had made it past our two defenders. “And we’re perfect targets as long as we are stuck on this dock.” I noticed Vixi and Rhegar striking down the last of the mobile demons in the corner of my eye and shouted “Charge through the Immolith. Yvala says we’re going to have another wave of demons soon.”

We hit the Immolith all at once, scattering chunks of burning bone into the empty space that served as the harbor waters. Yvala was grabbed by one of the skeletons, but Rhegar broke its grasp before the flames could singe her tiefling skin. We broke into a run as soon as the demon had been thoroughly broken up. We tucked into one of the narrow alleyways leading away from the harbor to avoid the demons that would inevitably be coming after us.

The alley was cramped and winding. Garbage was strewn everywhere along with pieces broken off the surrounding buildings and the occasional body. The alley branched so many times, it was hard to tell if we were merely circling the mote. We didn’t dare think of navigating the streets though. After an hour, we came to a dead end. Frustrated, we took some time to catch our breaths and grab a pie from our magic pie box.

We backtracked out to a deserted street. There were a trio of ugly looking demons at one end but they soon caught a glimpse of something down a side street and ambled after it. I breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t us. More than likely they had caught sight of one of the angels of the gods that kept court in the Great Cathedral, an Inevitable, a Solar, or a Planetar. We’d seen them ourselves on the few occasions we had been forced to cross a street to get to the next alley.

We took the opposite direction of the demon and crept along the street. Things were going well until the street we were on dumped into a small plaza. In the center of the plaza was a Balor. It was crouched over the body of a Solar, happily eating the angel’s organs. Its head snapped up as we tried in vain to back out of the plaza and it gave an unearthly roar before leaping up to chase us.

I was so terrified by the Balor that I didn’t notice that Kyri, who had been running out in front of the rest of the party, had been jerked into an alley instead of ducking into it. I almost screamed out when I came face to face with the Githzerai who had pulled her aside.

“I am Davir. I have a tunnel,” he said quickly before starting down the alley. When we hesitated he turned and beckoned to us, “Follow me if you feel like living this day.” The alley twisted then crossed a street. The Githzerai whistled as we spilled onto the street and we swerved left rather than taking the obvious alley across the way. He touched a panel on the brickwork that moved aside to reveal a tunnel that dropped under the street. Quickly we ducked inside and collapsed in a breathless heap as the doorway dropped back into place.