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Session 3.8 Index Session 3.10
Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
Etienne, with Minos' tail wrapped nine times around her, is carried down into Hell, which is hell. Down and down she goes. It gets colder and colder, and a huge three-headed figure appears out of the gloom - Lucifer. He is sunk chest-deep in the ice of Judecca (the ninth circle of Hell) and appears as foul as he once was fair. The part of him projecting above the ice is more than a mile tall. He has huge bat-like wings projecting behind him. Not a great looker. He has three faces, one red, one yellow, and one black, from which he is weeping tears mixed with bloody slaver.
Minos' tail places Etienne neatly on the ice next to Lucifer. It is a bit cold here. Etienne notices that there is a gap about a yard wide all around Lucifer, as if he is placed in a hole rather than frozen into the ice.
She knows that the way out of Hell is down, and so Etienne decides this must be down the gap around Lucifer. He is furry, so it should be possible to climb down around him.
On the stairs down from Minos' palace, Caitlin and Skyrie decide to go back up and kill Minos. They start to climb but it quite quickly becomes clear that no matter how much they climb they are not getting any closer to the top.
Shifting shadow using the Pattern doesn't seem to work either. If fact they cannot feel the Pattern inside themselves at all. They feel weak and physically slow too. Also, Skyrie cannot do any magic here. Skyrie decides that as we could Trump Godofos previously, but Trumps don't seem to be working here, they should try lower down.
They proceed further down, reaching the end of the steps where the wall of Minos' palace meets a forty-five degree slope of rough rock. They climb down. A wind begins and increases as they go lower. Skyrie tries the Trumps periodically but they still do not appear to work.
After a while the slope turns into a flat ledge of rock with the wind howling above them - the second circle of Hell. They have to hold on, but do not get blown away. People are being blown along in the wind above them. There are also some people are on the ground here and appear to be running and jumping to try to take to the air, but failing to do so.
The two of them creep across the ledge to where it drops away to the third circle. A stench rises from below, and it looks like there are clouds below. A rocky slope leads down, and the pair proceeds further down.
In the seventh circle of Hell, Jihx runs around hysterically on the burning sands with fire-flakes constantly falling onto him. He realises that he cannot use Trumps (they were stripped away along with everything else he had on him as he was dropping this region), and cannot summon his creatures. He also feels slow and weak.
Other people are visible around him. Some are lying naked on the ground being 'snowed' on; many of them are shouting and cursing. Some are naked and run around or squat with their arms about themselves. Others, dressed in the remains of all kinds of fine clothing, crouch peering into what seem to be heavy moneybags they have about their necks.
Jihx tries to talk to the people around him, but they do not seem particularly helpful. The sins they claim range from 'keeping creative control of the project' and 'overriding the wishes of the artist' from a man peering into a moneybag, to 'loving other women', to 'cursing god when all our children died of the plague'.
Jihx is suffering great pain, and can feel the first faint hints of madness beginning in the back of his mind.
"We should get out of here," he tells one of the other sinners. They do not seem particularly enthusiastic at the prospect, so he leaves and moves on across the burning sands.
As he goes he sees two figures off in the distance who look familiar. As he comes closer he sees that they are Connor and Nemain. They converge. Connor and Nemain are not in a great mood and blame Jihx for bringing them back to Hell.
Jihx is not very sympathetic and tries to get them to go towards the edge of this circle of Hell. They hit him and start to beat him up. Ouch.
He turns to leave. His children follow, still shouting abuse at him.
Etienne climbs down Lucifer. And down. And down.
After a while she starts to feel that she is getting lighter, then as if she is climbing upwards, upside down - she has passed the centre of the Earth. She turns around and continues to climb.
Eventually she reaches an echoing grotto of dimly lit grey rock, with Lucifer's hooves projecting upwards from holes in the floor (as Lucifer is upside-down from this perspective). A stream runs through the grotto too. A tunnel, at the end of which a light which looks like sunlight is visible, goes up out of the grotto.
Etienne continues to climb.
Eventually she arrives in an area which looks like a tomb on a stone cut island - not very far from the shore a much large island which seems to mostly consist of a single mountain with seven terraces which going up and up - Mount Purgatory.
An angel comes with a boat which skips lightly over the waves. Etienne climbs aboard and is conveyed to the shore.
She begins to climb, up off the beach and up the mount. Angels clean her of the stains of Hell as she goes. The presence of God is very strong here. She climbs through Ante-Purgatory, where the excommunicate, the lethargic, the un-absolved and the negligent rulers away their purgation, then into Purgatory proper, up through the terraces where the sins of the proud, the envious, the wrathful, the slothful, the avaricious, the gluttonous and the lascivious are purged until she reaches the flat top of Mount Purgatory - the Earthly Paradise, the Garden of Eden.
She kneels and begins to pray, and quickly feels the presence of God come upon her. She tells god she wishes to go back to the Enchanted Earth to continue her work. God grants her request, and a white archway, not dissimilar in design to the one leading into Hell, appears. St Marks Square in Rome is visible on the other side. She thanks God and steps through, back into the Enchanted Earth.
She summons a carriage and returns to the Palace of Rome.
When she arrives she questions her squire, who tells her that she has been away for about a day and that the bodies of the others who went with her have been taken from the cupboard and burned to ashes, as per her orders. Their possessions are being prayed over in the Chapel.
Etienne tells him to assemble three wizards, the Pope (Pius X), and a dozen Swiss Guards and to send some porters to her Chapel. He goes off to do so.
Then she goes to her private chapel. On the altar inside sits everybody else's equipment - Trumps, magic items, the works. Three priests are praying over it all. Etienne takes all the Trumps, and when the porters arrive has everything else loaded into bags. At this point the priests stops praying over the items.
Back in Hell, Caitlin and Skyrie continue on.
The slope down to the next circle is very steep, and a lot harder to climb than they would normally find it. As they go down they come into a rain of foul and putrefying garbage mixed in with stinking snow and freezing rain. They continue down into this rain of foulness and eventually reach the level of the third circle. The ground is a vile slush - it is like walking in a cold slushy offal pit.
Lumps are visible under the horrid slush, which closer examination shows are actually people. They search a hideously obese man. As they do so a loud growling, as if from a vast dog, is heard off somewhere in the distance, followed by screams and shouts.
Skyrie shoots one of the people lying in the slush to see if his crossbow works. It does (though it does not automatically reload). The person complains bitterly, though in a hopeless kind of voice. "It's bad enough being chewed on by Cerberus but also to get shot!"
Skyrie and Caitlin cannot convince the person Skyrie shot to come with them, so they leave.
As they make their way through the filthy slush towards to drop-off to the next circle down, they encounter a vast three-headed dog, presumably Cerberus. It chases them. They run for the edge of the circle. A narrow path down is visible off to one side but they don't have time to get to it, so they just scramble on down. Caitlin gets a tooth shaped dent in her helmet as Cerberus takes a last bite at them.
Elsewhere, Connor and Nemain ask Jihx why he is on this plane of Hell. He tells them that it is because he is a blasphemer.
Connor and Nemain say that the ledge down from here is too steep to climb, and that apparently a river of blood flows over it in one place. They never tried to go upwards from here. Jihx tells Connor and Nemain that the plan appears to have gone wrong. No shit.
Eventually they reach the edge of this circle. The fire-flakes stop falling a couple of metres out from the edge, and vanish in mid-air when they reach what is ground level for this ledge. A hundred metres or so down is the next plane of Hell, which seems to be made up of concentric ditches (each perhaps fifty metres wide and twenty-five metres deep, with occasional three metre wide stone arches crossing them every so often) going down and in. Ten-foot tall demons with jet-black-skinned and horns are visible below whipping the people in the first ditch, but no such demons are visible around the second and third ditches.
Jihx continues to accost the damned people all around him, wanting to know their sins. He finds one that he thinks is bad and tries to throw him over the cliff. However, the man is of a similar strength to him, and does not want to be thrown over the edge! A struggle ensues, and with the help of Connor they grab the poor guy and heave him over the edge.
The man tumbles down the cliff face and lands on the rock beside this edge of the first ditch. Jihx watches, half expecting the man to get up. Which, after a while, he does.
At this point Jihx notices that a creature of some kind is rising up the cliff towards them...
In the Enchanted Earth, Etienne's packing is complete and her entourage has assembled. She leads them off through shadow from here to the slow Enchanted Earth and then Trumps to the Amber arrival courtyard.
Etienne, twenty Swiss Guards, several porters, three magicians and Pope Pius X arrive in the Amber Castle courtyard. The guards there sound a little concerned at this large number of people, but relax when they see Etienne.
Etienne leads them all into the palace and arranges accommodation for them. They then go to see Vialle.
En route to Vialle's office, Etienne casts a GodSeed spell (!!!). She knows it will not have much effect in Amber, but it will have some minor effect.
Upon arrival at Vialle's office, Etienne knocks and enters with two guards and Pope Pius X. Vialle asks her who her guests are.
"They are people from Enchanted Earth," says Etienne. "The news is - God has won in the battle between us and the Enchanted Earth. Amber's only chance it to submit, to embrace this new God. I have been to the places where God rules - and they are ruled by justice."
"You traitorous bitch!" says Vialle venomously.
"Seize them!" Shouts Etienne. Her Swiss Guards advance.
Vialle's secretary, with impressive swiftness, shoots one Swiss Guard with a pistol crossbow she pulls from about her person, then sticks a dagger into the other. On Etienne's orders the Pope summons assistance.
Etienne approaches the secretary, following her as she moves around the desk. As Swiss Guards pour into the room, Vialle stands up, presses a button on the wall behind her and a panel opens. Etienne jumps over the desk at Vialle and stabs her in the throat, abruptly cutting short her escape attempt.
"Help! Murder, Murder!" screams the secretary, despite being coshed about the head by Swiss Guards. The secretary seems both stronger and faster than the Swiss Guardsmen. Etienne attacks the secretary instead, and is held off for an impressive amount of time, but in the end her slight advantage and the troop of Swiss Guards tells, and the secretary is shot dead.
Etienne orders the office door shut and Trumps the Enchanted Earth. The Pope is ordered to heal Vialle when they arrive, attempt to convert her to Christianity, and then burn her at the stake (regardless of the success of the conversion!).
Etienne and her entourage (plus Vialle) leave to the Enchanted Earth as Amber Castle Guards begin to break down the door.
Upon arrival in the Enchanted Earth Vialle is magically healed (though she remains unconscious), and preparations for burning her at the stake are made.
In Hell, Caitlin and Skyrie are making slow progress (slower than they are used to at least) down the cliff face into the fourth circle of Hell. As they near the bottom they hear a rumbling sound coming from left and right, and the sound of people shouting. A loud noise, as of two hard things smacking together comes from far off.
They decide to wait at that level and observe a while.
Before long they see two groups of people, thirty of forty in each, each group pushing along a large round boulder which perhaps has faint traces of facetting on its surface. One group wears tattered rags, the other the tattered remnants of what was once rich clothing.
People on the rich side repeatedly scream, "Why hoard?"
Those on the poor side repeatedly scream, "Why waste?"
The groups roll the two boulders towards one another, and before long the two boulders finally crash together with a great smacking sound, bouncing off each other and wounding several people from each side. Each group then reassembles, even those apparently mortally wounded by the clash eventually pick themselves up, and they start the process over again.
Skyrie describes a process he has seen performed in the Fourteen Empires which Caitlin recognises as a form of hang gliding. He suggests that it would be an easier method for them to get down to the bottom of Hell than all this climbing. They have rope, and Caitlin believes that she can put together a needle and thread from the contents of her bag of things and lo - lots of people below are wearing clothes!
Meanwhile the two boulders have been smashed together again.
They agree on a plan and descend the last part of the cliff. Skyrie searches his bag and finds a selection of random but mostly useless objects (a carriage clock, a porcelain figurine, some tins of baked beans, a pair of mirrored sunglasses, a Holy Bible, and so on). They decide to sprint across the hard baked clay surface of this circle of Hell to the drop-off to the next level.
This circle is some miles across (larger than the previous ones) and they have to change course occasionally to avoid the boulder rolling lunatics. As said lunatics pass close by it appears that the boulders are in fact huge diamonds, worn down to near spheres by the clashing.
At the edge of the fourth circle they peer down into a swamp, with gnarled, low-hanging trees and bushes sticking out of swathes of fog. Further into the fifth circle they can just about make out that the swamp turns into river, but the far edge of this is hidden in fog. In the swamp people can be seen either curled up in the sludge or wandering around attacking each other.
Caitlin looks in her bag, wanting to find an axe so that they can make a raft, but does not find one. They start to climb down the cliff.
Back at the edge of the seventh circle of Hell, the creature is rising towards Jihx, Connor and Nemain. It looks like a snake with an honest mans face and arms, floating through the air towards them with no sign of wings or any such thing.
It stops at their level, just outside the fire-snow, and looks at them. "Greetings, Travellers," it says in a deep voice with a peculiar buzzing quality to it. He introduces himself as Geryon, the guardian of the eighth circle of Hell.
Jihx attempts to negotiate with Geryon for passage down to the eighth circle. Unfortunately he doesn't have very much to bargain with. Geryon is smarmy and generally not at all helpful. It suggests that it could have Nemain of payment. "Just for a little while," it says, running its forked tongue over its lips. She looks scared and hides behind Connor. Jihx refuses.
Annoyed, Jihx leaps onto Geryon, almost missing him (due to the lack of strength and agility he is suffering from here), but catching him by surprise. Jihx demands that he and Connor and Nemain are taken down to the next level. Geryon refuses, and twists and rolls in mid-air. Jihx does it some facial damage, but eventually is thrown from the creature's back and off into the air...
Jihx falls a hundred metres down and hits the hard, rocky ground at the bottom. This hurts. This hurts a lot. Broken bones stick out everywhere - what a mess. Jihx does not feel like moving until all his bones stick back together, as they seem to be doing - bones crawl back in through his skin, and knit, and the skin closes itself after them. There is no gushing of blood, though.
After a painful and long-seeming while everything is mended and he stands up. He waves up at Connor and Nemain, who are peering over the edge of the seventh circle. There is no sign of Geryon.
Connor and Nemain jump over the edge. Jihx attempts to catch Nemain and does break her fall slightly, but still, there is lots of pain for everyone involved. Bones splinter everywhere - very gross and horrible.
They all lie still while their bones knit together.
In the Enchanted Earth, Etienne commands that her most persuasive preachers be summoned to convert the people of Amber to Christianity, and that the army be prepared to take Amber.
While this is being done, Etienne takes the two porters and she walks through shadow with them to a gingerbread cottage in a forest clearing, in which lives an old woman. Etienne knocks and introduces them, following which the porters take the bags of everyone else's magical equipment down into the old woman's cellar.
The old woman offers tea and gingerbread and after a cup of tea and some gingerbread Etienne leaves and makes her way back to a different Enchanted Earth.
There is an army assembled there, too, fully supplied and ready to go. She leads them through shadow to the original Enchanted Earth where, by now, a small army and a group of preachers have been assembled. Etienne begins to shift through shadow with them, marching towards Amber.
Caitlin and Skyrie climb the cliff down into the fifth circle of Hell.
This circle seems to consist of different but equally smelly black gunk forming the floor of a stinking, foggy swamp with low-hanging trees and bushes dotted about. People can be heard shouting and arguing all around about whose land this is, why are you on my land, and so on. Bubbles seem to be rising to the surface in places; when those places are stood on it can be felt that they seem to be coming from people who are lying under the slime.
They continue on in a straight line across the circle, inwards.
As they go across a slightly higher area a big, burly, very angry-seeming man steps in front of them and blocks their path. Negotiation with him proves fruitless, and violence is quickly resorted to. However, the two of them quickly discover that they are not significantly faster or stronger than the man they are fighting. This does not stop them from subduing him, though not without their sustaining some injuries themselves, and moving on. Their injuries fade away quite quickly as they go.
As they carry on various other angry people try to stop them, but they are also subdued and the pair continue on.
The swamp gets deeper and deeper as they go on. There are still people under the slimy water, sending streams of bubbles up to the surface. As the water gets up to about waist level a black tower looms up out of the fog ahead, with red flames visible at the top. Another one becomes faintly visible further off in the other direction.
The swamp continues to get deeper as it turns into the river they saw from higher up. And eventually they have to swim.
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They slowly swim across the river, hindered both by how weak and slow they seem now and by the armour they do not relinquish. They are, however, helped by the fact that they do not seem to get tired, nor do they seem to need to breathe. As they swim they see the occasional punt crossing the water at high speed, propelled by a man standing in the stern. After a while it begins to get hot, then hotter and hotter as they proceed, burning the fog away, and they see a shoreline ahead.
They eventually struggle out onto hard-baked mud flats which stretch for a quarter of mile in front of them to what looks like a huge castle curtain wall, stretching off as far as they can see in either direction. The wall appears to be made of iron, and heat roils off it; in places it is just hot; in other places it glows red-hot. Demonic figures can be seem patrolling the crenellations of the towers and walls. Harpy-like creatures are visible flying overhead.
Caitlin and Skyrie wave them down three of these creatures. They fly down and land. When asked, they say they are the Furies. The pair ask them how to travel beyond this place, which the Furies tell them is the city of Dis. They ask what we have to trade in return for their help. They say they like shiny things.
Skyrie offers them some of the things in his bag - the carriage clock, the china figurine, the tins of baked beans, the sunglasses and so on. The Furies want payment in advance before they will do anything. Caitlin and Skyrie want to pay them after they have helped them.
One of the harpies grabs the carriage clock. Skyrie attempts to shoot it with one of his crossbows, but it dodges the bolt. Skyrie leaps at it and grabs it. It seems stronger and faster than he is.
The harpies call for Medusa to come and turn Skyrie and Caitlin into stone so they will have to stay here forever. Caitlin puts on the sunglasses to avoid their being stolen too.
The harpies continue to argue and call for Medusa. They want the stuff now.
Caitlin swings her sword at the harpies, but they dodge. Skyrie chops at the harpy too, but is thrown free by it.
One of the harpies flies off with the carriage clock. Another one rips the backpack from Caitlin and flies off with it. They circle overhead, laughing at Skyrie and Caitlin, and pointing to a large snake-bodied, snake-haired creature approaching from one of the towers - Medusa.
Skyrie and Caitlin decide to leave.
At the bottom of the cliff between the seventh and eighth circles of Hell, Jihx, Connor and Nemain recover from jumping down the cliff, their flesh and bones knitting slowly and excruciatingly.
Eventually they are healed, so they get up and head for the nearest bridge across the first ditch. As they head for the bridge they hear the demons shouting abuse at the people in the pit that they are whipping. They reach the bridge and start to cross. They can see that the people below are all naked, and that the ditch is sub-divided down the middle, with the people in one half all going one way and those in the other half going the other way.
Halfway across someone from the ditch calls out to Connor. It is a woman, young and looking like she was beautiful before she ended up here in Hell. She claims that she was one of his previous lovers, and was abandoned by him. She encourages Connor to join her. Assisted by Jihx, Connor turns down this tempting offer and they carry on.
Connor does not explain what all that was about.
The bridge leads down to a lower level, between the first and second ditches. The stench of the second ditch wafts towards them as they approach and head for the nearest bridge over it. As they travel they can see the people in the second ditch, sunk in shit up to their waists, and covered in it. They reach the bridge and begin to cross, past the terrible smell from below.
"Who are you people?" Connor shouts down to them.
"Down to this have the flatteries I sold the living sunk me here among the dead," one of them shouts back up, his reply muffled by the fact that he seems to be spewing shit as he speaks. Yuk.
"Oh," says Connor.
They move on.
The next ditch, the third, is far less crowded. It contains pits, each with a pair of feet sticking out, all that is visible of the occupant. The feet are all on fire and are twitching frenziedly.
Meanwhile, Etienne and her small army arrive at the gates of Amber in the wall which rings the harbour, at the bottom of the plateau on which the city proper stands. She finds the gates closed against her, and lots of guards at the ready on the walls.
"I wish to negotiate," Etienne shouts up to them.
The guards seem less than impressed with this offer, and accuse her, not entirely unreasonably, of being a traitor.
However, after a short while an envoy, in the shape of a Captain of the Guards, is sent out (through a small postern gate in the large main gates) to talk with Etienne under a flag of truce. She claims that she does not want to rule Amber, and asks who is ruling Amber now.
The Captain tells her that the Council of Nobles is ruling the city for now, headed by the Mayor, until they decide on a successor.
Etienne states that the Golden Circle is being taken over by God, that God is a benign Source, brought by the sword but a good thing once established, and that Amber should submit to the Holy Will now. With the permission of the defenders a priest is sent inside Amber to try and convince them.
Etienne finishes by claiming that God would approve of the Council of Nobles who are currently running Amber. She sees no reason to depose them as long as they are willing to convert to Christianity.
The Captain does not seems convinced by Etienne's words, and asks her why, if her intentions are so noble, she killed the Regent Vialle.
Etienne tells him that Vialle is not dead but being converted to Christianity.
The Captain obviously does not believe a word of this. "However, we will consider your words," he says, clearly not at all convinced, but humouring her. He goes back in through the gate.
Etienne sets her army to preparing assault the city of Amber, building siege engines and so on.
Back in Hell. Caitlin and Skyrie run away from Medusa towards the city of Dis. They run parallel with the red-hot iron walls for a bit, and as they come around the gentle curve of the walls they see a huge pair of torn-down gates in the wall. There are also a number of what seem to be little information windows set into the wall. The opening where the gates were appears to be heavily guarded by demons.
Caitlin goes up to one of the windows. Behind it is a thin, pallid-skinned man in a Victorian-style suit with high-collared shirt. She asks him how they might get through the city of Dis.
He tells her that they each need to complete the necessary form, number AG1265/JJK8/Q87420-ZD/11221H, in twenty-fold copies, before they can come in. When Caitlin asks for them he gives her and Skyrie a copy of form AG1265/JJK8/Q87420-ZD/11221H and a tiny little stub of pencil.
Skyrie and Caitlin peruse the forms. There are indeed twenty sheets, all asking for the same information, but each sheet is arranged differently, all of them seem designed to be as hard and nauseating to fill in as possible, and some of the sheets are marked 'FOR DESTRUCTION'. It does not look like the stub of pencil each of them has will be at all sufficient to fill out all the forms.
Caitlin is not happy. She gets out their copy of the Bible, opens it at random, and starts to read aloud from it. Nothing happens.
They try to get the man to come close enough to the window that they can mug him and get in that way, but he will not.
Skyrie tries to leap in through the window, but as he gets close the metal there goes white hot. Skyrie screeches to a stop before he runs into the white-hot metal and his forms burst into flames. He beats them out, but there is not much of them left.
The man behind the window will not supply replacement forms.
They give up on him and go on to the next window. The man behind this window appears identical to the man they just left, and he won't supply replacement forms either. However, he does mention, when asked, that once they fill out form AG1265/JJK8/Q87420-ZD/11221H to get into Dis, will need to fill out further forms to obtain visa's to travel, then a third set of forms to actually leave the city on the other side.
They wander on, looking for further ways through Dis.
Jihx, Connor and Nemain continue on, across the bridge over the third ditch of the eighth circle. As they cross they see a figure wandering about in the ditch - it is Arun!
He climbs up out of the ditch and joins them. His shoulder blades appear to be on fire. When asked Arun tells them that his feet were on fire but he has morphed them onto his back so that he can walk more easily. But still, ouch!
They walk on to the next bridge over the fourth ditch. Arun asks where Jihx ended up. Jihx tells him. Arun says he doesn't know why he ended upside down in a pit full of oil with his feet on fire.
They all curse God roundly, but no extra bad things happen to them.
They pass over the fourth ditch. Below they see lots of people walking along, backwards, but also with their heads twisted around on their neck so that they also face backwards. Many of them are women, often ugly and hag-like, and many of them are crying.
Arun looks down and sees a figure who looks like Etienne, apart from the fact that her hair is blond (and her head is on backwards).
Jihx calls down to her but gets no response, so he climbs down into the ditch before approaching the woman. He speaks to her, and she says her name is Elaine. Jihx tries to get her to leave the ditch, but Elaine she says she belongs there.
Jihx gives up and climbs out of the ditch again. Arun says that it is obviously a shadow of the real Etienne (having met and talked to shadows of himself in the past).
They keep going down. A dozen or so devils are visible ahead, on the rim of the fifth ditch. They are about ten feet tall, with dead black skin, horns, tails, cloven hooves, black iron pitchforks, the works. They are watching something down below, in the ditch.
A hand covered in tar comes over the edge of the ditch, and a person climbs out. He does not see the demons until he is out, when they surround him. "Oh, shit," he says.
The demons make tut-tutting noises and stab at the man with their pitchforks. He screams and moans.
Connor, Nemain, Jihx and Arun walk quietly by, trying not to be noticed as they head for the bridge across.
A demon turns, and asks them where they are going. Rather than stopping to chat they run off towards the bridge. The demons follow. Arun is stabbed through the torso by a pitchfork, and the demon lifts him and throws him into the ditch below. This slows the demons enough that the others can reach the bridge and run across. As they do so the devils stop chasing them.
As he falls into the ditch, Arun discovers that it is full of boiling pitch, with many people immersed in it. Demons are prodding them with pitchforks to keep them under the pitch as much as possible.
Etienne leaves her army preparing to assault Amber and Trumps out to shadow Vitesse.
Upon arrival, she racks some spells, then goes and collects more troops and supplies, moving them through shadow back to Amber. They make camp inside the edge of Forest Arden. Etienne provides them with information on the layout of Amber City and Castle Amber, and on the location of supplies and other essentials which Amber requires.
Then she returns to the army outside the city gates, and demands an answer of the defenders.
The same captain she spoke to before comes out again and talks to her. He tells her that the answer is that Amber will not worship and bow down to God. They revere the Unicorn, and will give it up in favour of this other deity; the Unicorn lives and breathes, he says, and that is good enough for them. The captain does not seem particularly happy about the answer but tells Etienne that they fight for honour, and loyalty, and will fight for all their lives.
Etienne insults the family of Amber, saying that they are all dead and even when they where alive they were a bunch of insane, war-happy lunatics. Fair point.
"Perhaps so, but they are the Royal Family, and sooner or later they will return, and then they will show Etienne a thing or two."
The truce over, the captain goes back into the city. Etienne rejoins her army.
She commands her troops to attack. They are to attack without worrying about casualties. They have all be absolved of their sins prior to this, so they are guaranteed a place in heaven if they die during this assault.
With the attack on the gate well underway, Etienne returns to her other army and leads them off through shadow, using her advanced Pattern abilities to slip past the Amber City walls and into position to torch the place, and all of its supplies.
She drops people off in the harbour area (to burn the warehouses there), then in the upper city (to torch it) as she heads in towards the Castle. She herself leads a force into the supply caves below and behind the castle to burn them, and, if possible, the castle itself.
Skyrie and Caitlin continue on. They find lots of windows all manned by same person, who still will not help them or give Skyrie another copy of form AG1265/JJK8/Q87420-ZD/11221H. Eventually they give up on this method of getting through the city of Dis, and decide to try something else.
They make their way back across the river into the swampy part of the fifth circle of Hell. Upon arrival they begin to mug the damned souls for their clothes. When they have enough they use this supply of cloth to begin constructing parawings for themselves, to carry them over Dis and down into Hell as far as possible.
This takes quite a long time, but eventually they have constructed some fairly functional parawings. They climb back up to the fourth circle of Hell to check that they work. They try a small jump, which works. Then they experiment some more. A few problems arise, which result in painful injuries, but they heal. This is all boring in the extreme, but time doesn't seem to be a problem. And eventually they are ready.
They go up to the top of the cliff down from the fourth to the fifth circle, unfurl their parawings, and jump.
They float down and along, over the swamp, over the river, over the red hot walls of Dis. Here they circle up and up, gaining height from the thermals over the walls before turning away and heading off further down.
Beyond Dis, in the sixth circle, the land seems to be divided into two areas. One, a plain of flinty ground, is dotted with the iron tombs, all of which seem to be hot and some of which glow red-hot. Large vat-like pits full of fire are distributed between the tombs, with, next to each one, a large iron lid, just big enough to cover the pit. The air is hot and dry. The other parts of this circle seem to consist of white marble tomb complexes, like huge white marble mausoleums.
They circle down, away from the sixth circle and out over the seventh, over the river of boiling blood, the Phlegethon. Centaurs armed with bows, and people in a variety of uniforms patrol the banks of the Phlegethon, apparently keeping those in the river - and there are a great many of them - submerged in the boiling blood. In a few places islands are visible, and elsewhere what appear to be several sunken ships.
The landscape changes below them as they go out of the first ring of the seventh circle and into the second. There are woodlands, dark, deathly forests of tangled thorny trees with black leaves. Harpies are visible circling through the forest and occasionally diving down into the foliage. People can be glimpsed running through the trees, pursued by some kind of animal. Dotted through these woodlands are what seem to be areas of high-technology wasteland, dotted with pits of toxic waste, smoke-belching factories, pools of oil and so on. People can be seen immersed in the oil and waster, or pursued by cars, bulldozers and other vehicles.
They pass out of the second ring of the seventh circle and out over the third, the burning sands with the falling fire-flakes. Fortunately they are still sufficiently high to be above the falling fire. People are visible below, laying supine on the ground, or peering to moneybags, or crouching, or wandering about.
They continue to circle down. As they reach the edge of the seventh circle, Caitlin's feet drop into the fire-flakes. Fortunately she is still wearing her armour, and through its leg-pieces are tarnished and pitted she herself avoids any serious injury.
They carry on circling down, past the same ditches of the eighth circle as have been traversed by the others...
On the inner edge of the fifth ditch, Jihx looks up and sees two parachutes going over above them - he can make out Caitlin and Skyrie hanging underneath them.
They can see Jihx and the others too. However, they do not stop, and continue drifting onwards and downwards.
Jihx shouts down into the ditch, giving Arun sixty seconds to get out of the tar, otherwise they are going to leave him there.
Arun can be seen climbing out of the boiling pitch, but quite slowly. As he sees this Jihx and others also notice some demons approaching on this side of the ditch. Jihx climbs down a little and helps Arun out, then they run onwards.
The next ditch, the sixth, has no immediately accessible bridge over it; instead rubble below appears to be the remains of a bridge.
There is no time to climb down safely, so Jihx and Arun fling themselves over the edge into the sixth ditch. They fall hard onto the rubble below, breaking most of their bones in the process.
As they lie there healing, Jihx and Arun can see people wearing what look like solid gold robes shaped like monk's habits with hoods pulled low to cover the eyes, moving very slowly along the length of the ditch. Neither of them has fallen so as to be in the way of these people.
Connor and Nemain (who did have time to climb down safely) climb out of the ditch on the other side. Eventually Arun and Jihx recover and follow them. As they move across the bottom of the ditch they can see that the expression in the eyes of the people in the robes is one of weariness and defeat. But Arun and Jihx climb up and out, and carry on down.
The seventh ditch is next. This one is much wider than any of the others they have gone over so far, and the bridges arching out over it seem too small and fragile to support their own weight.
They carry on down over the bridge across the seventh ditch. Below are visible a great number of damned souls, and lots of snakes. The snakes are attacking the people. Sometimes when they are bitten the person bursts into flames and falls into a heap of ashes, after a few seconds reforming into human shape, clearly confused and in torment. At other times the snakes seem to steal the human form of the person, becoming human themselves while the person is turned into a snake.
It is in the area between the seventh and eighth ditches that Caitlin and Skyrie finally have to land, with three ditches left to go. They pack up their parachutes and just as they have done this the others rendezvous with them.
Quick greetings are exchanged, during which it becomes clear that no-one has seen any of the others we entered Hell with.
We all run on past and over the next bridge, over the eighth ditch. This ditch is brightly lit from below by a large number of flames which burn all about. We all get the impression that each flame is actually a person.
We run on down to the ninth ditch. Below us in this ditch are a great many people all cut into pieces, some of them just horribly injured or disembowelled, others carrying their severed heads or other parts of their bodies. As we come up to the bridge over this ditch we can see below is a huge demon, perhaps ten metres tall, with a hugely long and sharp fingernail on his middle finger cutting up the people below as they approach him.
As we move to cross the bridge he moves so that this sword-like nail blocks our way...
Back at the siege of Amber, Etienne's forces are being decimated (as her people seem vastly inferior in strength, speed and fitness to the soldiers of Amber), but they have managed to destroy many of the city's supplies, in the harbour area, the upper city, and the castle.
As the castle guards close in on her and her remaining troops, Etienne Trumps to the slow Enchanted Earth, passing what she can of her forces back through the link before going through herself.
When she appears returns to the Palace of Rome.
Upon arrival there, she is met by Pope Pius. He tells her that Vialle refused to be converted and has been burned at the stake (as she would have been even had she been converted, of course).
"However, she has lain the curse of the Rebman line on you, sister, and on all of your followers. She cursed you such that everything you love may turn to dust," he tells Etienne.
He continues to say that she did not scream or otherwise show signs of pain as she burned.
This news does not make Etienne happy.
The second army of one hundred thousand men has been made ready, so Etienne marches off with it, back towards Amber.
Session 3.8 Index Session 3.10
Skyrie's Diary for This Session
