Portals and a Giant T-Rex!

Campaign name: The Aftermath, Session #1

Months after we destroyed Dorthelos, Helja came to me while I was on duty at my post and informed me she received a cryptic letter from Mephisto to come to the spot where we killed Dorthelos. She seemed quite a bit different from the last time I saw her. She no longer carried her prized great axe, which was very odd. Nonetheless, I jumped at the opportunity to adventure again.


We joined up with Zorrakos, who was even more depressed and angry than usual. As we approached the crater, we saw a village of little bird people called Kenku. Zorrakos tried to pick a fight with one of them for no reason but we were able to avoid a major issue. He must still be bitter about our decision with Dorthelos and the unfortunate aftermath of magic and all... The birds brought us over to Mephisto who was by the crater and looks disheveled and unkempt. He told us he thought something bad was brewing in the crater. He had noticed a Hell hound attach the Kenku and was worried a portal had opened up. He had a bad feeling about it and had studied it for the last 5 months. We investigated and saw a glass area at the base of the crater. Since it was evening, we decided to rest for the night.

That night, all of the Kenku died. We thought it was from an evil smelling wind but it appeared that they were poisoned/caught diseases from the well, which had black tar-like liquid in it. Poor birds... It would appear that they weren't very smart. We gathered them all up and burned them. I wish I could have given them a proper burial but time was of the essence.

We went back over the crater and broke open the glass at the center. It went very far down. After testing some objects and Zorrakos' owl, Zorrakos decided to leap down and sent his bird up to let us know it was ok. We fell for a good 6 seconds before reaching the base, unharmed. It opened up to a large cavern. We went down the cavern for a good 5 hours before reaching a large opening we led to a pillar with glowing blue light. Pure evil was emanating from this crack.

As we approached, two Hell hounds emerged from the portal. The blasted us pretty hard with fire at first but they were no match. My trusty longsword knew what to do. We slashed away at the hell hounds and took them out. Helja didn't look so hot until Zorrokas turned her into a giant T-Rex. She looked pretty awesome as a T-Rex.

The portal pulsed again and a Barbed Devil came out. We also made short work of him and Helja bit both of his arms off. Zorrakos couldn't resist and decided to torture him a bit to get some answers. He told us that Hell already released 2 legions of scouts to our realm and was planning for a war. After he had no more useful information to provide, I put him out of his misery and laid him to rest.

We then decided to bash the main pillar down to collapse the portal. the pillars gave way though the portal remained. the cavern started to crumble so we ran out. Helja got knocked unconscious by a boulder for a moment but we pulled her out and revived her. As we went back to the entrance, we noticed there were no other ways out. We rested at the base until Zorrakos was able to fly us all out. This meant one very grave thing, however. If there was no easy way out of the caves we were in, there must have been a secondary portal. While it makes me ill to think about just how many people are in danger, I revel in the thrill of another world saving adventure. Let the hunt begin!

- Drake