Dramatis Personae

• He Bohai aka Eleven (NPC): TBA. Tagline: TBA.
• He Donghai aka Twelve (NPC): TBA. Tagline: TBA.
• Ko Lenfan aka Four (NPC): TBA. Tagline: TBA.
• Laoshu aka Mouse aka Three (NPC): TBA. Tagline: TBA.
• Meiyou Ren aka Six (NPC): TBA. Tagline: TBA.
• Rang Baozhai aka Ten (NPC): TBA. Tagline: TBA.

Previously . . .

Last left off, the group had discovered a portal to hell and informed the Undercity Prince about what has happened and they’re now clearing the corridor while they’re at The Order’s HQ. It’s been decided that they should bring everyone with them while Sheng Yi stays outside the portal to act as an anchor. From the portal, looking through, they see an underground room with stairs. Nongmin is more than happy to walk through the portal first with the rest trailing behind. Inside the portal, it’s harder to breathe and looking back it looks like a ragged tear in reality with threads flapping.

Portal to Hell

Jian Wu, Jiao Ting, Liang Jing Min, Nongmin Chushi, and Zhiyu Zhige
North of the Undercity
Ninth Month 17th day, 1006 Zao Dynasty, 4th hour
Jiangzihua, Ketuso Province

They don’t see any opponents or any kind of anchor, though there are bones floating in the air etched with runes. There’s some discussion before Zhiyu determines that there’s one bone missing, a skull, that needs to be placed with the other bones before everything can be destroyed. Zhiyu’s attempt at divining where the skull is with her fortune-telling skills, but the bones fail her beyond just telling her to head downwards. They go down multiple stories of stairs where they find several demons have jumped out of the lava, covered with spines.

Jing Min moves to Ren starts the combat by running down the stairs and slices at the demon at the forefront while Zhiyu moves forwards summoning her foxfires. Wu charges down the stairs and slashes multiple times at a demon, with the demon dodging both blows. Mouse and the He Bros charge forwards while the demons move to attack back, starting with two swiping at Wu only to get parried. An attack against Ren ends up with the demon losing its balance and falling down. Ting, seeing everyone else being occupied with their foes, turns away from the stairs and jumps across the lake of fire and lava onto a narrow ledge opposite the fight. Nongmin moves to strike a demon twice with TK punch. Lanfen moves down the stairs and prepares to fight alongside the He Bros. Rang fires a bolt at one of the demons only to have it dodged.

Jing Min does a flying leap across and behind a demon, striking at it twice hitting it in the torso. Ren strikes again several times, managing to decapitate the demon. Zhiyu moves her foxfires at the demon that is attacking Mouse, taking full damage but still standing. Wu moves to strike the demons by evading behind them, with the first dodging away from the strike and the second taking the blow from behind, splitting it in half with a single blow. Mouse stabs repeatedly, hitting the demon once for quite a bit of damage while one of the He Bros moves forwards and strikes at the face. Jing Min barely manages to parry off a blow while a He Bro and Wu get struck at, the one stumbles and falls from overreaching. Ting continues moving along the wall. Nongmin keeps striking at the demon, hitting it twice with his telekinesis. The He Bro and Lanfen keep moving while Rang manages to barely hit and damage one of the demons.

Jing Min manages to slash twice at a demon, killing it. Ren moves and decapitates yet another demon as Zhiyu lights up the demon prone at Wu’s feet before healing the He Bro that got hit by a demon. Wu slices the last one in half as Ting climbs off the wall while Nongmin flies across the lake of fire past Ting and to the other side of a broken bridge alongside Wu and Jing Min. Ting, not seeing any more enemies and knowing he doesn’t know enough to do anything useful, sits back against the wall while Zhiyu and Ren investigate further. They all find sarcophaguses, finding bones wrapped in silk and other things. There’s holy runes glowing all around on the lid and on the inside and outside. He puts the lid back on the sarcophagus and the runes stop glowing. The sarcophagus that Zhiyu investigates doesn’t have glowing runes and the skeleton is missing its skull, the writing is there to protect the bodies from demonic influences. There’s also an ornate sheathe that is missing a sword that Ren moves to touch. The runes protecting the sarcophagus was scraped away by claws. Ren, already having touched the sheathe decides that he wants to keep it much to Zhiyu’s dismay.

Jing Min investigates the statue at the end of the hall, which looks like a demon and seemingly ornamental. He decides that it shouldn’t be anything important and continues not to touch anything while Nongmin investigates the sarcophaguses finding more bones and silk and a few fancy looking weapons which attracts Jing Min’s attention. It doesn’t look like it’s from any material that Jing Min has ever seen, almost like it’s made from swirling clouds. Nongmin moves to touch the spear and speaks with it, being told that he’s not worthy in exchange and gets a nosebleed. Nongmin tries to get the spear to come with them by convincing it that Jing Min is potentially worthy. It comes with Jing Min while Nongmin tries to interrogate it as to what has happened, though it falls silent.

Nongmin moves to identify other weapons, figuring out that they’re shenshou that haven’t been seen in years. He moves to speak and rescue each one of them, and while they’re fine with it they need worthy wielders. Zhiyu investigates a door, seeing a mural that tells a story. About seventeen warriors that were part of the vanguard of heaven that went to Hell during the last days before Heaven and Hell were shut away. They knew of this and made tombs for protection, using the area as a defensive keep to fight against the forces of Hell until death, being laid to rest by the caretaker who when he was the final one, they laid down in their sarcophagus and died. Nongmin keeps going speaking with each Shenshou while Jing Min examines the spear and gets the feeling that the spear is examining him in return. There’s a bow with quiver, a pair of cestus, some jewelry, other things.

Upon going to the final door, they find a sword inside along with the skull impaled upon it. Ren steps forwards and pulls the sword from the skull whereupon Ren places the sword into the sheathe he had while the skull floats screaming towards Zhiyu as it has been desecrated. She moves and places the skull back with the bones in the sarcophagus and blesses them only for it to feel like the entire realm starts shaking. Rocks start to fall from the ceiling, closing off the passage to the tombs. The portal starts looking like it’s starting to knit itself back together while the full skeleton follows behind until it moves and sacrifices itself to break the bones holding the portal together. As they leave the realm, the portal closes. Nongmin watches the portal and investigates the area around it.

Aftermath

They have the Shenshou, a fortune therein where kingdoms have gone to war for less. They’d apparently wrapped them up at some point to avoid people from seeing them. Wu takes the old spear from Jing Min to keep it from looking too suspicious as well. Zhiyu is already thinking about whether or not there’s a potential spell to see if there’s a compatible person with the items, a willingness to do something. They head back towards the Prince of the Undercity to inform them of what happened while Zhiyu shares the story and illustrations with Rang and Nongmin so they can work on it together. The Prince is quite happy to see Jing Min, though curious what happened to all the demons as there was only seven demons inside the portal. They recommend that they just fill in the cave again, which the Prince agrees is a good idea. And though they have to leave, there’s a suggestion that they may come back in time while gesturing to Jing Min who deflects it in favour of the spear.

They head back upwards towards The Order’s HQ, by way of the foxes who Zhiyu tells the story to. Ni Tu is rather gobsmacked that they’re back and with so many shenshou in tow.

After Action Report (GM)

We were missing Calvin J. today so his character Sheng Yi was kept with the PCs by mystically holding the door to hell. This was a straight up exposition excursion. I gave the PCs information and then set them up so the ones who had been saving points to be magical artifacts could buy them and have a reason to have them (rescued from the Lost Tomb of the Seventeen Heroes). Chris D.’s character didn’t get to do much and that frustrated us both a bit. I need to make sure that when I build monsters I need to not totally screw over the PCs (unless that’s the point – sometimes you need that). In this case it wasn’t. Adding spines to monsters is very effective against someone that slams and grapples all the time. Ah well, live you learn. Overall, a decent session.

Other Notes

Bonus report here.

Soundtrack

None.