A Deal With The Devil

“We need to put these back!” Nat said urgently as he struggled to put the two scrolls they’d found back into the hidden pocket in the dead man’s sleeve. His hands were trembling so badly that it took him several tries; ultimately, he just wadded the papers into a ball and shoved them in. The others watched him in shock – they’d never seen Nat pass up the opportunity to grab some magical loot. The wizard saw their looks. “The Lictor! He told us not to take anything! We don’t want to leave any trace we were here!”

“What’s taking you guys so long? Did you find it yet?” The voice behind them shocked them all, and Nat let out a small shriek as he scooted away. They spun and saw Tomas standing behind them, looking concerned.

“What are you talking about?” Wren said angrily. “We just got here.”

“Just got here?” Tomas snorted. “You’ve been here for hours! What have …”

Erin sudden appeared beside Tomas, giving everyone another start. “What’s taking so long?” she asked, echoing Tomas.

It took a few minutes of comparing notes to realize that time seemed to pass differently for those on this side of the portal than on the other. “We don’t have any time to lose,” Jax said worriedly. Nat was still explaining his hypothesis that the portal in the Hall of Wards led into some demi-plane of Hell, while Tomas and Erin were searching the bare walls for any sign of a passage back to where they’d come from. Jax went to the only exit they could see, a large iron door, and pulled it open.

He found himself looking into a long hallway. More iron doors identical to this one lined both sides of the hall, with a set of double doors at the far end. Tomas crossed the hall to the door opposite theirs and pressed his ear against it. Hearing nothing, he pushed it open. The room inside looked like the office of an extremely messy academic. Tattered books and broken furniture lay strewn across the floor. Some long-congealed dark liquid pooled on the floor beneath a solid cascade of the same substance oozing out of the far wall. What appeared to be bone spurs protruded from the inside walls all around the door where Jax stood. The wall to his left was lined with shelves, and bones from dozens of creatures rested in neat piles on them, a skull resting atop each stack, staring into the room with vacant, hollow eyes.

Jax left the room untouched, but Nat stepped inside, casting Detect Magic as usual. Some aura glowed from the back of the shelves farther into the room, but he uncharacteristically didn’t rush to investigate. Instead, he was looking closely at the neat piles of bones. He didn’t know much anatomy, and couldn’t recognize what race the bones belonged to, but each pile had a small iron plaque engraved in Infernal. He squinted to read them, but from what he could make out, each simply described their subject in vague, whimsical poetry. Wren was also looking at the bones. She could see that while most were human, there were other races represented: dwarves, halflings, at least one orc, and other races she couldn’t identify. One of the long bones, a femur, was engraved with tiny writing in Common, swirling around its length. ‘This is no Hall of Wards, but a Hell of Magic. Flee, if you can, before the whispers drive you mad.’ She shuddered, and carefully replaced the bone on its shelf.

They didn’t see anything in the room that looked like the scroll Lictor DiViri had sent them after, and Jax was already listening at the next door down the hall. When everyone was ready, he pushed it open. The room inside looked like a lecture hall, with even rows of desks on tiered risers lining the sides, facing the far wall. A woman hung from that wall on thick iron chains, and the air of the room was rank with the smell of sweat, and fear. The woman was dressed in simple clothing, but Jax could see a pile of gear stacked tantalizingly just out of her reach: black leather armor, a short sword, a rod of some sort, and other equipment. The woman looked up as the door opened, her face a mask of terror, but then her eyes widened in surprise and confusion. “Are you devils?” she whispered.

Jax put a finger to his lips. “Shhh … We’ll be back.” Then he pulled the door closed. “Don’t leave me!” the woman screamed as the door closed. “Please! I’m begging you! Don’t leave me here! I’ll do anything! Help me! Help me!” The closed iron door muffled her screaming, but the others could still hear her, and they looked at Jax with questioning eyes. Jax just shook his head. “It’s a trap,” she said confidently.

They accepted Jax’s assessment without quibble, and shifted their focus to the door across the hall. Jax could hear sounds through this door: muffled thumps, the sound of running feet, a voice muttering and occasionally calling out. He warned the others, and they prepared for danger, then Jax pushed open the door. They found themselves looking into a large library, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the walls. Shorter stacks created dividers in the room’s interior, and a large reading table stood by the near wall, next to an overturned chair. Books flew through the air, moving quickly from one shelf to another, while other books rearranged themselves on their shelves. A man in long robes dashed back and forth around the room, his eyes wild. He seemed to be chasing the books, talking to himself as he ran. “There it is!” he cried, snatching at one of the flying books, but once he caught it, he quickly discarded it. “No, not that one. There! That might be it!” He raced across the room and tore several volumes off their shelf, grabbing one and opening it eagerly. But again, he angrily threw it aside, and the books on the floor returned to their shelves. He didn’t seem to notice his new audience, and Jax quietly pulled the door shut. “I don’t think that’s what we’re looking for,” he said hopefully.

Once again they shifted their focus to the next door on the other side of the hall. Jax heard nothing, so he opened the door. The overpowering stench of potent alchemical and arcane reagents hit him like a fist, watering his eyes. Shelves lined the walls and a pair of large tables stood on the floor, their cluttered surfaces piled with half-full beakers, alembics, and retorts, each holding what appeared to be different bodily fluids. A beautiful woman stood behind one of the tables, her features delicate. She looked up as Jax opened the door, and cocked her head to one side, regarding him with curiosity. “Why shouldn’t I just kill you?” she asked with what seemed to be genuine interest.

Jax quickly pulled the door closed again. “Nope – don’t want to go in there.” The only door left was the double door at the end of the hall, and he turned to move towards it. But he’d only taken one step when the woman suddenly appeared in front of him. “That was quite rude of you,” she chided gently. “I only asked a simple question – don’t you think I deserve an answer?”

This didn’t sound like a discussion that was likely to lead anywhere good, so Jax decided to just ignore her. He didn’t respond, and tried to push past her, still headed for the far door. She frowned. “I think you need to learn some manners,” she scolded, and then transformed. She was still feminine, but clearly no longer a woman. A pair of thick tentacles hung from her head like heavy braids, and the lower half of her body was a gown of writhing tentacles. One of her tentacles lashed out a Jax, but he managed to duck away from it. But the thing had lightning-fast reflexes, and even as Jax dodged, it struck again. Its claws raked him, leaving deep wounds. One of its tentacles lashed out at Jax, the other at Erin. Both hit, and wrapped around them with barb-tipped suckers. With a jerk, it pulled Jax inside itself, trapping him in the cage of tentacles below her body.

Nat recognized the creature in its new form – it was a Gylou – a Handmaiden Devil. With a yelp, he fired off a Force Missile, then made a belated attempt at reconciliation. “We didn’t mean to be rude,” he pleaded. “We’d really just like to talk about this.” But it seemed that ship had sailed.

Tomas feathered the devil with a volley of arrows, but despite his dead-eye aim, his arrows did less damage than they should against this hellspawn. Erin ignored the tentacle wrapped around her, and stepped forward to stab the thing with her sword. She called on the power of Iomedae to Smite the evil creature, and cursed that she hadn’t had time to use her Divine Bond to imbue her blade with Holy power. Wren cast Bless, hoping to give her friends a little extra edge.

Shadow chose to ignore the fight in the hallway, and instead ducked back into the laboratory that the creature had come from. He suspected she might be protecting the scroll they were searching for, and as he scanned the room, he could in fact see several scrolls lying about the room. But it would take some time to examine them all.

Inside the tentacle cage, Jax could feel the coils starting to crush him. He fumbled in his pocket and drew out his Wand of Enervation. From this vantage point, inside the devil’s body, it was almost impossible to miss, and the ray blasted the thing from the  inside, draining its lifeforce. But it was too little, too late. The handmaiden from Hell continued to squeeze, as Jax’s ribs snapped and his breath was forced from his body. He fell unconscious, and as his body went limp the devil ejected him from her cage, and yanked Erin inside her in his place.

Nat realized it was going to take a lot more than a puny Force Missile to take down a devil, so he blasted her with a volley of Empowered Magic Missiles, to far greater effect. Tomas fired another volley of arrows, and one pierced her breast where her heart should have been. The creature emitted a deafening shriek of pain, but refused to die. Erin, inside the coils of its tentacles, could feel them starting to close around her. In desperation, she lashed out at the tentacles surrounding her, slicing through them with her blade. Black ichor spewed from the severed tendrils, and a shudder ran through the devil’s body. The tentacles loosened their grip, and the handmaiden devil collapsed, dead.

Wren rushed to Jax’s side to revive him, then spent several minutes doling out healing to both Jax and Erin (and to Tomas, who’d never healed the burns he’d suffered passing through the Wall of Fire back in the Hall of Wards. While she worked, Shadow kept searching the lab. He found several scrolls, but all were mundane alchemical formulae; none were the Lictor’s Infernal contract. However, he did find a heavy leather-bound book that appeared to be someone’s spellbook. “Let me see that!” Nat said eagerly, then thumbed through its pages with growing excitement. Then his shoulders drooped, and he sadly closed the book. “We need to leave this here,” he moaned. “We can’t leave any sign that we were here.”

“I think it’s a little late for that,” Tomas said, prodding the body of the dead devil with the toe of his boot. Nat went pale. “Shit!” he cried. “Ummm … let’s drag her in here, where they won’t see her!” He grabbed a tentacle, trying to wrestle the dead handmaiden back into the lab.

“I don’t think that’s going to make a difference,” Wren offered. “Dead is dead, wherever she is. Besides – I don’t remember the Lictor saying we shouldn’t touch anything.” Nat looked up at her with confusion. “He said we shouldn’t take anything from the Headmaster’s tower,” she explained. “That’s where he said we should leave everything just as we found it. And he said that when we found his contract there’d be others there like it, and that we shouldn’t take any of those. He didn’t say anything about stuff in between.” Nat considered this for a moment, then his expression brightened. He stuffed the spellbook into his Handy Haversack, then headed back down the hall. “Be back in a sec,” he called over his shoulder. When he returned, he had the scroll of Break Enchantment they’d found on the dead body earlier.

With Jax restored to health, and Nat in a better mood, Jax returned his attention to the double doors at the end of the hallway. He listened carefully, and his expression darkened. “Somebody’s inside,” he whispered to the others. “At least a couple. Sounds like they’re arguing about something, but I don’t recognize what they’re saying.” There didn’t appear to be anywhere else to go, so people quickly began casting protective spells. When everyone was ready, Jax quietly opened the doors.

They saw a high-ceilinged room with a pair of huge, ornately embossed iron doors on the curved far wall. A pair of stairways flanked the doors, each leading up to a balustraded balcony overlooking the floor below, where two summoning circles glowed. A pair of creatures stood before the doors, caught up in a heated argument. One was human-sized, and bristled with barbs from the tip of its lashing tail to the serrated end of its nose. The other was easily twice its size, and hovered just above the surface of the floor. It looked like a giant desiccated corpse, and inside its jagged ribcage, a ghostly face could be seen, screaming silently. With a shock, they recognized the face – it was the same face as the mutilated corpse they’d found in the room where they’d entered this hellish plane.

The two were so embroiled in argument that they didn’t notice the door open. They were arguing in Infernal, and Nat could just make out the gist of the debate. “I have a contract!” the barbed creature shouted, waving a piece of paper over his head. “It binds that soul to me, and you must honor its terms. Hand him over!”

The larger creature shrugged. “Possession is nine points of the law,” it said in a surprisingly refined and resonant voice. “I snatched his soul, and that makes him mine. Your paper means nothing.”

Barbed Devil

Nat shuddered. He recognized both creatures, and his knowledge terrified him. The smaller creature was a Barbed Devil, nasty enough in its own right, but the larger thing was a frightening creature known as a Devourer. It was actually undead, not a native to this plane, but it had the ability to suck the life out of a person and actually devour their soul. He quietly cast Haste on his friends, knowing they’d need all the help they could get.

The argument between the two creatures didn’t seem like it was likely to come to blows, and Tomas didn’t want to lose the temporary advantage of surprise. He fired off an arrow that caught the barbed devil between the shoulder blades. Shadow followed up with a Fireball, but figuring that down here in Hell things might be used to a little fire, he twisted its energy into electricity, zapping them both. That was Jax’s cue to charge, and he rushed the barbed devil as it was still turning to see what the hell was going on, catching it by surprise. Erin rushed in right beside him; she’d used their prep time to activate her Divine Bond, and slashed at the Devourer with her now-Holy sword.

Devourer

The Devourer spun with a snarl, and swiped his claw at Erin, slashing her breastplate open, then continued on in an attempt to Cleave Jax, but the rogue ducked under the swing. But the barbed devil lashed out with his own claws, and both opened gaping wounds. Jax was terrified for an instant, but Erin’s stalwart presence by his side eased his fear. But one of the barbed devil’s claws was embedded deep in his flesh, and with a sudden jerk the thing pulled him close, impaling him on its barbs. For the second time in a few minutes, Jax was near death.

Nat knew that the Devourer was undead, and he knew he needed to use that knowledge to save his friends. He summoned a brilliant Empowered Orb of Light and flung it at the huge Devourer. It exploded in a blinding flash, its light searing at the Devourer’s unliving flesh. The creature’s body fell to the floor, and as it did, the ghostly figure imprisoned in its chest was released. It floated up into the air, its terrified screaming now audible. It hung suspended between worlds for a moment then faded away, its screams lingering even after its face had vanished. A look of triumph appeared on the barbed devil’s face.

But not for long. Tomas sent arrow after arrow winging into the devil’s body, the last piercing its evil heart. Shadow rushed into the room, maneuvering for an angle that would give him a clear shot at the devil without hitting Jax, impaled on its barbs. He found it, then opened his mouth and breathed out a Lightning Bolt that crackled through the devil’s body. It collapsed, and Jax rolled off of the spears that were piercing him.

Wren once again was consumed with trying to keep Jax on the side of the living. “Just once can we try not just rushing into the room?” Shadow asked. Jax spat out a mouthful of blood and grinned at him. “What fun would that be?”

Nat was searching the bodies (as usual). The Devourer had a small bag tied to his belt, and Nat determined it was a Bag of Holding full of interesting stuff, likely the possessions of the dead guy whose soul the Devourer had consumed. The barbed devil had only one thing: a copy of the same contract as they’d found on the unlucky body, the person whose name he assumed was ‘Maganrad’.

“Why are there two copies?” Shadow asked, as Nat discarded the Infernal contract.

“As I understand how these things work, the person who sold their soul gets a copy, and whatever devil they sold it to gets their own copy,” Nat explained.

“Since we killed that devil, does that mean this guy’s contract is void?” Shadow asked hopefully, but Nat shook his head. “All these devils report up to other devils, and the contract is not just with one devil, but with all his bosses as well. About the only way I’ve heard of to break one of these is to destroy both copies.”

Wren did a double-take. “But we’ve got both copies!”

Nat shook his head again. “Naw … I left it on the body.”

Wren stared at him open-mouthed. “But … but that’s just down the hall!” Nat didn’t seem to get the point, so Wren ran back down the hall, and returned less than a minute later with Maganrad’s copy of his contract. “Now – if we destroy both of these, will his soul be free?” Nat thought for a moment, his brow knitted. “I don’t know. I mean – I’m assuming he’s already in Hell.”

“We’re already in Hell!” Wren retorted. “Burn these!”

Nat took both contracts, snapped his fingers, and a flame appeared. He held it to the paper, not entirely sure it would burn, but the flame caught. As the two contracts crumbled to ash, there was a sound like rushing wind. A small light grew, and the spirit of the hapless Maganrad reappeared. His face held the expression of someone who had suffered ages of torment but had suddenly been set free. He nodded in gratitude to the party, then his spirit sped upwards, off on its journey to the Boneyard and Pharasma’s judgement.

The feeling of victory that the group felt was short-lived. They still hadn’t accomplished what they’d come here for, and they had found no way out of this corner of Hell and back to Korvosa. The pair of engraved iron doors stood before them. Above, on the balconies, they could see two smaller doors. “I’m guessing all three doors lead into the same room,” Tomas suggested. “Those doors up there might lead out onto another balcony. I say we cover all three doors, come at whatever’s inside from all angles.” This sounded like a surprisingly sound tactical plan, and everyone moved to implement it. Tomas and Nat went up the stairs to the left, Jax, Shadow, and Wren up the stairs to the right, leaving Erin on the ground floor in front of the double doors. “On the count of three,” Tomas whispered. “One … two …”

Before he could say ‘three’, all three doors swung open on their own. They opened into a grand, domed rotunda, ringed around its edge by a parapeted balcony. On the spanning dome, some eighty feet overhead, was the image of an aged, bearded man signing a contract held by a massive, flaming devil. The image seemed to glow with light and move as if alive: The flames flickered, the man’s hand moved as he signed, and a slow smile spread across the devil’s lips. On the floor beneath the dome was a massive, luminescent summoning circle, undulating and crackling with trapped arcane energy.

Chyvvom

In the center of the circle stood a towering rust-skinned devil. A crown of small horns encircled its head, while nearly a dozen massive, curving horns sprouted from its back and shoulders. These horns were draped with innumerable long flowing scrolls of paper, glowing with Infernal writing. The creature smiled as the doors opened. “My name is Chyvvom,” a melodious voice echoed through their minds. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Time seemed to stand still. The crackling, arcane energy of the summoning circle froze in place and they felt their own breathing and even heartbeats pause. The devil in front of them was unaffected, however, and strode slowly forward, walking around the group, considering each one of them carefully. He stopped in front of each of them, leaning forward intently, and each heard his voice ringing in their head.

Erin

“Ah, my poor Erin Nelsson. Always such a good girl, doing what’s right, following the rules. Yet what has it earned you? Love? Family? Children of your own? All those could have been yours, if not for that one, fateful day. That day when Brigitte was taken from you, stolen away to be tortured, and raped, turned into a thief, and ultimately murdered. Your parents, dead from grief, you left to be raised among strangers. All because you made one little mistake.

“But what if I told you that you could live that day again? That you could go back and hold tight to Brigitte’s hand in the market square, make sure that Yargin didn’t steal her away from you? You see, the greatest secret that the gods withhold from mortals is the malleability of Time. You live out your short lives as slaves to the past, but it does not need to be so. The past can be changed. I can change it for you.” A long scroll unfurled itself from the tangle of papers on his horns, and floated into his hand – it was written in a glowing script Erin could not read, but her name was writ large at the top. “If you sign this, I will send you back, and you will live your life as it should have been. You will protect your sister, and your family will be whole. My price is not high – I do not demand your immortal soul. All I ask is that one day in the future, I or my almighty master may demand a service of you, and when we do, you will comply with absolute obedience.” A quill pen appeared in his other hand, and he offered both to her.

Wren

“My poor little Winifred.” It had been so long since Wren heard her real name that she had almost forgotten it. “Such a hard life – so much pain and abuse. What you suffered at Yargin’s hands was unspeakable, even by our standards. Your life could have been so different. If only your parents and brother hadn’t died – you could have continued to live surrounded by love. Who knows? By now you might even have children of your own for your parents to dote on. Instead …

“But what if I told you it still could be that way? What if you could go back, and have the fever pass your home by, live a life where your parents and brother didn’t get sick and die? You see, the greatest secret that the gods withhold from mortals is the malleability of Time. You live out your short lives as slaves to the past, but it does not need to be so. The past can be changed. I can change it for you.” A long scroll unfurled itself from the tangle of papers on his horns, and floated into his hand – it was written in a glowing script Wren could not read, but her name was writ large at the top. “If you sign this, I will send you back, and you will live your life as it should have been. Your parents and brother will not fall ill, and your family will be whole. My price is not high – I do not demand your immortal soul. All I ask is that one day in the future, I or my almighty master may demand a service of you, and when we do, you will comply with absolute obedience.” A quill pen appeared in his other hand, and he offered both to her.

Nat

“Natan Dorré – such a promising lad. And such a dutiful son. Your mother loved you more than all the world. Indeed, she suffered such pain in her final days, writhing on her deathbed, all so that you could live a few weeks longer. If only she had spent that money on a healer – you’ve seen what a simple matter it is to cure a disease like cancer using magic. Why did she have to die like that?

“But what if I told you it didn’t have to be that way? What if you could go back, to that day in the market when you interfered with Yargin’s attempt to murder Slipshong Barkley? The man was going to die anyway; indeed, you were framed for his murder. Had you simply stayed your hand, let Yargin drive the dagger home, you would not have drawn the ire of Gaedren Lamm. You’d never have been falsely accused of Barkley’s murder, and your mother wouldn’t have had to spend her savings to bribe the guards to save you. You see, the greatest secret that the gods withhold from mortals is the malleability of Time. You live out your short lives as slaves to the past, but it does not need to be so. The past can be changed. I can change it for you.” A long scroll unfurled itself from the tangle of papers on his horns, and floated into his hand – it was written in glowing Infernal script with Nat’s name writ large at the top. He could make out the outline of the bargain Chyvvom was offering: to amend the past, to send him back to one specific day and place, to restart his life from that point. “If you sign this, I will send you back to the market. You can let Yargin do as he intended, and you will go on to live your life as it should have been. My price is not high – I do not demand your immortal soul. All I ask is that one day in the future, I or my almighty master may demand a service of you, and when we do, you will comply with absolute obedience.” A quill pen appeared in his other hand, and he offered both to him.

Tomas

“Young Master Jentaine. How badly fortune has treated you and your family. Such a blissful childhood of wealth and ease, with parents who loved you and an older brother whom you adored. But now? Jarent murdered, you mother mad, your father a broken shell of a man. All because your poor brother fell victim to the drug, shiver, and Gaedren Lamm, the fiend who sold it to him.

“But what if I told you it didn’t have to be that way? What if Jarent had never tasted the poison of shiver? You would not have become ensnared in Lamm’s scheming, would not have been drummed out of the Sable Company in disgrace. Your brother would still be alive, your family whole. You see, the greatest secret that the gods withhold from mortals is the malleability of Time. You live out your short lives as slaves to the past, but it does not need to be so. The past can be changed. I can change it for you.” A long scroll unfurled itself from the tangle of papers on his horns, and floated into his hand – it was written in a glowing script Tomas could not read, but his name was writ large at the top. “If you sign this, I will send you back; Jarent will not become addicted to shiver and you will live your life as it should have been. My price is not high – I do not demand your immortal soul. All I ask is that one day in the future, I or my almighty master may demand a service of you, and when we do, you will comply with absolute obedience.” A quill pen appeared in his other hand, and he offered both to him.

Shadow

“Shalynaeratharidul.” The devil’s elvish accent and pronunciation were flawless. “Or Shadow, as you prefer to be called. Such a study in contrasts. Happy go lucky on the outside, tortured and guilt-ridden on the inside. Never loved by your mother – she couldn’t look at you without seeing the face of the man who’d raped her. A failure in your studies. A burden on your friends. And then – those poor children. Butch, and Cubby, and little Mary. Not to mention poor brave Jit. They died as you watched, standing by doing nothing to protect them. All because you were so desperate for your next fix that you’d do anything, allow anything to be done, just to make sure you could get high one more time.

“But what if I told you it didn’t have to be that way? What if you had never tasted the poison of shiver? You would not have become ensnared in Lamm’s scheming. You see, the greatest secret that the gods withhold from mortals is the malleability of Time. You live out your short lives as slaves to the past, but it does not need to be so. The past can be changed. I can change it for you.” A long scroll unfurled itself from the tangle of papers on his horns, and floated into his hand – it was written in a glowing script Shadow could not read, but his name was writ large at the top. “If you sign this, I will send you back; you will not become addicted to shiver and you will live your life as it should have been. My price is not high – I do not demand your immortal soul. All I ask is that one day in the future, I or my almighty master may demand a service of you, and when we do, you will comply with absolute obedience.” A quill pen appeared in his other hand, and he offered both to him.

Jax

“Jax, Jax, Jax. Of all your friends, I find that you are perhaps the most challenging to find the right offer for. You see, you’ve lived your life with few regrets. Fate has dealt you a difficult hand, but you’ve always tried to make the best of the situation before you. And a man with no regrets is a man who’s difficult to barter with. But we can’t say you have no regrets, can we? Not with what happened to poor Jit. That was all your fault, you know. Had you not run, had you not convinced the Cerulean Society to twist Lamm’s arm into protecting Jit, his anger would not have festered for all those years, and would not have focused on Jit as the means to extract his revenge on you. Did you know that she was still alive when Yargin pried her eyeball out of its socket?

“But what if I told you it didn’t have to be that way? What if Jit had been able to escape with you, if you had both been brought into the Cerulean Society? She might still be alive today. She could be your partner, perhaps your lover. Perhaps the mother of your children. You see, the greatest secret that the gods withhold from mortals is the malleability of Time. You live out your short lives as slaves to the past, but it does not need to be so. The past can be changed. I can change it for you.” A long scroll unfurled itself from the tangle of papers on his horns, and floated into his hand – it was written in a glowing script Jax could not read, but his name was writ large at the top. “If you sign this, I will send you back; you and Jit will escape Lamm together, and you will live your life as it should have been. My price is not high – I do not demand your immortal soul. All I ask is that one day in the future, I or my almighty master may demand a service of you, and when we do, you will comply with absolute obedience.” A quill pen appeared in his other hand, and he offered both to him.

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The PCs earned 12,267 XP, putting them at 144,310 XP, with 145,000 required for Level 12. You’ll certainly get there when (if) you escape from this demi-plane of Hell, so prepare your 12^th level characters.