The next ‘morning’ the party prepares to leave Elturel, they will descend the chain below the cathedral
- The party is being accompanied by Reya, Satomi, and Anri
The chain consists of 30 x 20ft x 5ft thick infernal iron loops and extends 500ft to the surface
- Below them they can see the huge battle covering the plains around the river
The party ties themselves together to maintain a maximum distance from Marco, in case he needs to cast feather fall, then descends in order:
- Eliseo
- Vigil
- Reya
- Marco
- Satomi
- Hayate
- Strum
There are some stumbles as they go but no one falls
- As Eliseo heads down, he looks up at the underside of the city and spots leathery, bat winged shapes amongst the roots and rubble
- The spined devils have spotted them, they drop into the sky and begin flying towards the party
- As they approach, one peels off and flies up towards the city and the rest begin to attack
The devils shoot spines at the party and one of them charges into Marco, knocking him from the chain and leaving him hanging from the rope
- Another attempts the same with Reya, but bounces off the Hellrider
- Hayate and Satomi return fire as Marco swings himself back to the chain
More waves of spined devils emerge from below the city and swoop towards the party as they continue their descent
- Marco is knocked off again by a charging devil but swings back to the chain once more
- Strum uses an illusion to disguise himself as part of the chain
- Eliseo keeps descending, and pops on his creepy mask
- Marco slashes a devil from the air as Satomi blasts another
- Some of the devils descend lower and Eliseo is able to start attacking them with his throwing sword
As the fight continues and the party gets lower the fiery horseman appears over the city wall and starts to plummet towards the party
- They decide their best hope is to keep going and get down as fast as possible
- Several of the devils are picked off and another is put to sleep by Strum, dropping to the Styx below
- Delayed by the fighting, the back end of the group bunches up and those ahead cannot drop further
- Strum leaps away from the chain and starts to levitate
- The horseman is approaching fast
- As he gets closer he laughs at their attempt to flee the city and commands them to give up and pledge their souls to Zariel
- Strum shakes off this intimidating command but Satomi, Marco and Hayate succumb to terror
- The rider then lances Strum with a fiery blow and Strum drops out of the sky, unconscious, dangling on the rope
Marco decides that it is time to jump and tells everyone to leap from the chain
- He is charged by the horseman as he jumps off but is able to cast feather fall on the now free-falling party
- Strum’s condition looks dire but Hayate intervenes to heal his wounds and get him awake again
- He starts to levitate again
- Satomi blasts the horseman with frost as she falls
The horseman flies his nightmare down to the huge iron stake which anchors the chain to the floor and awaits their arrival
- Eliseo gets there first and swings to the top of the stake before attacking the horseman
- Vigil cuts the rope and launches himself off the chain straight at the devil, smashing his axe into him
- As he smites him he notices that there is a faded Hellrider logo on the rider’s chestplate
- He hammers the axe blade into him again
- Marco lands on the chain, still afraid of the enemy and starts to climb upwards before shaking off his fear
- Strum flies over and uses the rope to pull Satomi and Hayate over the stake
- Reya reaches the stake and joins the fight
- The rider once again tries to scare the party, but Reya, Vigil and Eliseo shrug off the effect
The party are all engaged in combat on the top of the stake with the rider and the nightmare
- They land multiple blows and Hayate uses lightning lure to drag the rider from his mount
- Reya deals the final blow stabbing them straight through the breastplate, and as he falls she circles round and lops off his head
The party dismounts the peg and surveys the hellscape around them