40: The Book of Exalted Deeds

The False Lich, Rerak

Bracing for a lethal opening volley, the group was met instead with a chilling stillness. The lich remained anchored to its throne, its unblinking gaze fixed on the far wall as if the adventurers were beneath notice. Joe, ever the opportunist, began a cautious circumnavigation of the room to gain the flank, while Morthwyl and Bessok took up defensive positions flanking the entrance. Vinthanamel held back, utilizing the doorway as cover. Even when Joe attempted to snare the lich's staff with a length of rope, the creature remained an inanimate monument of bone and silk.

The silence shattered the moment Joe drew too close. The lich drifted upward with a spectral grace, unleashing a psychic scream so potent it stripped the consciousness from Joe’s mind, leaving him crumpled on the floor. With predatory speed, the undead horror descended upon the fallen rogue. It began to rend his flesh, each strike accompanied by a sickening intake of breath as it siphoned Joe’s life essence to mend its own ancient frame.

A desperate blast of fire from Vinthanamel drew the creature's ire, and it vanished in a flicker of shadow, reappearing instantly to strike at the wizard. Morthwyl was a heartbeat behind, her weapons thundering against the lich's ribs in a relentless assault. However, the monster’s obsession with the rogue remained; it teleported back to the unconscious Joe, delivering a final, arcane strike that caused the rogue’s physical form to dissolve into pure radiance. The light was drawn into the lich's hollow eye socket, leaving Joe vanished and the party in a state of sudden, blinding panic.

Driven by desperation, the group unleashed an overwhelming barrage that eventually brought the creature to its knees. Morthwyl delivered a final, crushing blow that reduced the lich to a heap of dust and tattered finery. As the remains settled, several small gems spilled onto the floor, pulsing with a faint, trapped light. Bessok, sensing the rogue's essence within the stones, brought his armoured boot down with decisive force. The gems shattered, releasing a brilliant flash of light as Joe’s body materialized once more, unconscious but alive at the cleric's feet.

With Joe’s breathing steadying, Bessok knelt to channel a restorative miracle into the rogue’s battered frame. As Joe’s eyes flickered open and he began to regain his bearings, the dwarf moved on without waiting for gratitude, his attention turning to the six pedestals. At first glance, the items appeared identical to relics they had encountered before, but the moment Bessok reached out, a sharp necrotic chill lashed his hand. The treasures were yet another layer of deception - vicious fakes designed to punish the greedy.

While shaking off the sting of the trap, Joe noticed a glint of metal amidst the lich’s discarded, tattered robes. It was a key, its craftsmanship mirroring the heavy, platinum-plated door at the rear of the chamber. Tipping back a healing potion to dull the lingering ache in his limbs, Joe crossed the room and fit the key into the lock. The mechanism gave way with a smooth click, and he pushed the doors open to reveal the heart of the complex.

They had found the main vault. The floor vanished beneath a sea of gold, silver, and platinum coins that shimmered in their torchlight. Amidst the wealth stood pedestals displaying legitimate spoils: an elegantly woven robe humming with power and, resting in the centre, the object of their long and perilous journey. Morthwyl stepped forward to claim the fragment of the Rod of Seven Parts, its cold metal clicking into place with the others before she secured the growing artifact within her bag of holding.

While Bessok and Joe worked with practiced efficiency to gather the most portable riches, they located the only exit - a narrow, rough-hewn tunnel that wound through the earth. They emerged into the salt air of the beach, nearly a mile from where their trek into the limestone tomb had begun. With the mission a success and their pockets heavy, Vinthanamel gathered the weary group in a tight circle. With a few resonant words and a final surge of arcane power, the tropical heat of the Isle of Serpents vanished, replaced by the familiar, high-magic atmosphere of Alustriel’s Sanctum in Sigil.

Lady Alustriel Silverhand

The usual tranquillity of Alustriel’s Sanctum had been replaced by a storm of high-stakes tension. The group stepped through the portal directly into a heated confrontation, where Alustriel’s fury was directed squarely at Mordenkainen. The cause of her ire was leaning casually against the shimmering walls of a force cage: Kas the Betrayer. Mordenkainen’s defence - that the vampire was the only soul to have ever bested Vecna - did little to soothe her outrage over such a dangerous guest being brought into her home without warning. For his part, Kas seemed to relish the chaos, offering mocking agreements to Alustriel’s points just to stoke the fires of her frustration.

The party’s casual greeting only added to Alustriel's shock; discovering that the adventurers had been aware of Kas’s involvement before she was only deepened the rift of the argument. However, the group was far too exhausted and focused to mediate a dispute among legends. With the fourth fragment secured, they had more pressing priorities: finding a strong ale, tending to their gear, and preparing for a journey into the most hostile territory they had yet faced. Everyone knew the final piece of the Rod of Seven Parts lay within Avernus, the first plane of Hell, a realm where even Tiamat herself might be the one holding the prize.

Kas the Betrayer

By the time they returned to the sanctum, the fire of the argument had settled into a brittle, uneasy silence. Kas remained in his cage, a seated figure of quiet malice already contemplating his next betrayal. Under the guidance of the wizards and Vinthanamel, the final ritual began. The magical scrying swept across the war-torn, jagged landscapes of Avernus until it settled on an anomaly: the Red Belvedere. It was a structure of impossible cleanliness, a palatial casino of silver and gold that Tasha recognized as a relic destroyed millennia ago during the first breach of the River Styx. Seeing it rebuilt in such splendour was a riddle in itself.

With their destination fixed upon this infernal palace, the group said their brief goodbyes. They stepped through a portal to the Sword Coast just long enough for Bessok to call upon his divine connection to the planes. With a heavy word and a surge of power, he tore open a rift to the first plane of Hell.

The group materialized halfway up a jagged mountain slope, the vantage point offering a grim introduction to the first plane of Hell. Below them, Avernus stretched out in an endless expanse of blood-red sand dunes, shimmering under a heat that felt like a physical weight against their skin. The landscape was a graveyard of titanic proportions; the skeletal remains of gargantuan demons and shattered war machines lay half-buried in the shifting grit. In the distance, the River Styx snaked through the wastes like a vein of dark, sluggish wine. True to the nature of the plane, the horizon was a fickle thing - monuments and obsidian towers seemed to pulse in and out of focus, shifting miles in a single heartbeat as if the land itself refused to be measured.

The descent was a gruelling ordeal that sapped their vitality. Even Morthwyl, whose endurance was legendary, found herself drenched in sweat by the time they reached the valley floor. It became immediately clear that traversing this realm on foot was a slow death sentence; they needed speed and iron. As if the Hells were listening, a massive plume of dust signalled the approach of a monstrous infernal war machine. The vehicle, emblazoned with the name Venatrix, ground to a halt before them, its engine fuelled by the tormented shrieks of a trapped soul - a sound that made Bessok’s jaw tighten in silent revulsion.

The Venatrix

An Erinyes

Three Erinyes emerged from the iron beast: a manic gunner manned a fixed harpoon, a goggled driver peered out from the cabin, and a captain in a sharp officer’s uniform glided down to negotiate. The deal was straightforward - if the group helped them take down a treasure-laden Goristro, the Venatrix would serve as their transport across the wastes. With a mutual agreement struck, the party climbed aboard. The driver throttled the engine, the soul-screams intensified, and the machine surged forward, sparing the group from the blistering trek.

The hunt was short and violent. The Venatrix skidded to a halt a hundred feet from a massive, minotaur-like Goristro. Before the demon could charge, Vinthanamel wove a powerful enchantment that forced the behemoth into a grotesque, involuntary dance. As the demon shuffled its heavy hooves, the Erinyes cackled with psychotic glee, taking to the air to slaughter the troops huddled in the Goristro's palanquin. Two Vrock demons circled overhead, their initial arrogance turning to panic as the party unleashed a focused barrage on the defenceless giant. Even when the Goristro briefly regained its senses, Vinthanamel’s magic clamped down again, paralyzing both the beast and one of its avian escorts.

A Goristro

A Unicorn

Morthwyl led the final assault, her strikes so heavy they buckled the demon's knees. With the Goristro pinned and its Vrock allies fleeing in terror, she delivered a thunderous final blow, plunging her blade through the monster’s eye. As the giant fell silent, the blood-spattered Erinyes dragged a massive, protesting crate from the wreckage. They expected a nightmare steed, but as the lid was wrenched open, a radiant white Unicorn was revealed. Its coat was a stark, pure contrast to the filth of Avernus, and its panicked psychic plea echoed in the minds of the group, begging for a protection that the devils were unlikely to provide.

The fate of the Erinyes was sealed the moment they weighed the value of a celestial horn against their own lives. For Bessok, there was no room for dialogue or infernal contracts; the sight of such a pure creature in the clutches of devils was an affront to his very soul. He struck with a righteous fury that left no room for retreat, and the group followed his lead without a second thought. The Erinyes, despite their cunning, were no match for the combined might of the party, especially with the Unicorn itself contributing to the defense. It wove a shimmering mantle of light around Bessok, a divine ward that turned the devils' desperate strikes into harmless flickers of shadow. Within moments, the three sisters were dead, their blood staining the red sands of Avernus.

Bessok approached the trembling creature, his mind meeting its own in a quiet, telepathic embrace. The Unicorn’s plea was simple and heartbreaking: it wanted only to be free of the heat and the screams. Without hesitation, Bessok channeled his divine power to tear open a rift to a peaceful, verdant plane. The creature stepped through, pausing for a single, silent moment of gratitude before vanishing into the greenery. As the portal closed, the desert of Avernus seemed just a little darker.

A Blue Abishai

The victory was immediately overshadowed by a jarring shift in reality. Bessok’s consciousness was suddenly ripped from his physical form, catapulted high above the rust-colored mountains and dragged across the distorted horizon. Below him, he saw a war-band of infernal machines churning through the dust, led by a gargantuan fortress on wheels equipped with crushing jaws and a massive, spiked wrecking ball. His vision dived into the heart of the lead vehicle, coming to rest before a Blue Abishai who stood watch over a hovering, cage-bound volume. It was the Book of Exalted Deeds - the ultimate repository of divine goodness. If the devils succeeded in casting it into the River Styx, its holy wisdom would be erased from the multiverse forever.

The voice of his deity, Marthammor Duin, resonated through his mind with absolute clarity: "You know what needs to be done."

The Book of Exalted Deeds

With a sudden, breath-stealing rush, Bessok slammed back into his body, standing beside the Venatrix and his companions. Though his ears still rang with the echoes of the divine command, he could feel a persistent, psychic tether pulling him toward the war-band he had just seen. He quickly relayed the vision to the others, explaining that a legendary artifact was at stake. Without a word of dissent, the group boarded the captured machine. Morthwyl took the pilot’s seat, her hands steady on the controls as she tested the weight of the massive vehicle. With the engine’s soul-trapped wails rising to a crescendo, she throttled forward, following Bessok’s direction into the heart of the wasteland to intercept the book before the Hells could claim it.

A Barbed Devil

In the shifting, non-linear geography of Avernus, the miles melted away with unnerving speed. What should have been a gruelling trek was compressed into thirty minutes of high-speed pursuit, the Venatrix roaring through the red haze until the tail end of the convoy came into view. Over a dozen Barbed Devils on two-wheeled infernal cycles straddled the wake of the dust storm, while heavier Tormentor vehicles, flanked by Horned Devils, paced the massive lead fortress. The rhythmic, destructive arc of the lead vehicle’s wrecking ball served as the only beacon through the choking grit.

Morthwyl gunned the engine, pulling the Venatrix parallel to the line of devil-riders. Small orbs of hellfire splashed against their armoured hull like rain as the Barbed Devils reacted, but the party was already executing a plan of surgical chaos. Vinthanamel leaned out, his eyes fixed on the path ahead of the primary juggernaut. With a sharp, resonant command, he slammed a Wall of Force into existence directly in the convoy's path.

The Lead Vehicle, A Demon Grinder

The impact was catastrophic. The lead vehicle’s massive front crushers crumpled like parchment against the invisible barrier, the sudden deceleration sending the Abishai crew tumbling like dice inside the hull. The flanking Tormentors, unable to pivot in time, slammed into the wall or each other in a cacophony of shrieking metal. Only the furthest outriders managed to swerve, their tires kicking up plumes of red sand as they fought to stay upright.

As the convoy recoiled from the impact, Joe unleashed his prepared volley. He loosed a single, magically-charged arrow into the sulphurous sky, which shattered mid-flight into a torrential rain of steel. The arrows found every vulnerable gap in the infernal machinery; engines sparked and detonated, sending plumes of oily smoke into the air. The delicate undercarriages of the remaining Tormentors were shredded, leaving them limping and sparking across the wastes. The Barbed Devils on their cycles fared the worst, the iron rain unhorsing them at high speeds. Those few who survived the initial tumble and tried to claw their way back to their feet were unceremoniously crushed by the chaotic, careening remains of their own support vehicles.

A Black Abishai

Placing a hand on Morthwyl's shoulder, Bessok set his gaze upon the lead vehicle and the pair instantly vanished from the Venatrix, materializing in the heart of the wreckage. The lead vehicle’s interior was a labyrinth of twisted iron, instantly plunged into a suffocating, magical darkness by a Black Abishai. The two dwarves were momentarily blinded, the shadows clinging to their eyes like oil, while the snarling White Abishai moved in for the kill, confident in their superior senses.

Back on the Venatrix, the situation was deteriorating into a frantic chase. With Morthwyl gone from the pilot's seat, the war machine began to drift, its trajectory corrected only by the momentum of its previous speed. Joe and Vinthanamel found themselves surrounded; Horned Devils descended from the sky like leathery vultures, landing heavily on the roof, while the surviving cycle riders swarmed the sides. In the distance, the skeleton of a gargantuan beast arched over a river of molten lava - the "Bone Bridge." Without a driver, the Venatrix was hurtling toward the fiery chasm rather than the crossing.

Bessok, sensing the ticking clock of their survival, didn't hesitate. He raised his holy symbol and channelled a burst of solar brilliance so intense it seared through the magical gloom, effectively bleaching the darkness from the room. With their sight restored, the dwarves became a whirlwind of steel. Morthwyl locked onto the Black Abishai, her blade a blur of silver, while Bessok hammered through the White Abishai as if they were mere glass. Clearing a path to the lower deck, the cleric locked eyes with the Blue Abishai. The devil stood guard over the caged Book of Exalted Deeds, its claws crackling with lightning, but it stood between a determined priest and his god’s mandate.

A Horned Devil

On the runaway Venatrix, Vinthanamel orchestrated a masterclass in arcane defence. Seeing the riders closing in for a boarding action, he dropped his previous wall and snapped a new, curved Wall of Force into existence directly around the cycles. The riders were pulverized against the invisible barrier in a spray of ichor and scrap metal. Joe, realizing the vehicle was a death-trap, leaped into the red sands, rolling to his feet and loosing a relentless stream of arrows into the remaining devils. Above him, Vinthanamel turned his focus to the Horned Devils on the roof. With a few rhythmic syllables, he froze them in mid-stride, their bodies turning to paralyzed statues of meat. One by one, he calmly shoved the stiffened devils off the roof, watching them tumble into the dust of Avernus.

Back on the lead vehicle, Morthwyl removed the head of the Blue Abishai with a single swing, Bessok stepping forward over its remains to gather up the now unguarded Book of Exalted Deeds. The moment his fingers brushed the cover of the Book, the cacophony of the Hells was replaced by a silence so profound it felt like a physical weight. Time itself stalled, freezing Morthwyl in mid-motion and silencing the roaring engines of the war-band. Reality dissolved, the scorched sands of Avernus giving way to the dappled sunlight of an ancient, emerald forest. In a quiet clearing, Marthammor Duin sat beside a crackling campfire, his presence a grounding anchor of warmth and wisdom. He explained that by choosing to read the book here, Bessok would fulfil its purpose, allowing its holy knowledge to pass through him before the artifact vanished to find another worthy soul elsewhere in the multiverse.

In this pocket of existence, the constraints of the mortal world ceased to apply. While his friends remained suspended in a single heartbeat of combat, Bessok spent a week in the company of his god. He pored over the sacred texts, his spirit absorbing centuries of accumulated wisdom and divine insight. Between the long hours of study, he shared meals with the deity, hunted through the celestial woods, and received counsel that reshaped his very understanding of his path. When the final page was turned, Marthammor Duin offered a respectful bow to his champion, and the forest began to blur. The tranquillity shattered, replaced by the sudden, violent return of Avernus’s heat and the scream of the wind.

To Morthwyl, the transition was instantaneous and baffling. One moment Bessok reached for the book; the next, the artifact vanished into thin air. Bessok stood before her looking fundamentally changed - his beard was noticeably longer, and his eyes held a depth of peace that seemed entirely foreign to the Nine Hells. He offered her a serene smile, gripped her shoulder, and teleported them back to the Venatrix just as the vehicle’s front wheels began to race toward the precipice of the lava-filled canyon.

Bessok dove into the driver's seat with a speed that belied his newfound calm. He wrenched the wheel with all his might, the Venatrix screaming as it performed a violent, skidding turn that sent a cascade of red dust tumbling into the molten river below. With a heavy foot on the accelerator, he sent the machine roaring back into the wastes, the soul-engine’s wails acting as a grim siren as they scooped up Joe from the dunes. Leaving the wreckage of the Abishai's convoy behind to be reclaimed by the sands, the group surged forward once more toward the Red Belvedere.