The Gang of Five

Siobhan

“Heyo! Look who’s late to the party, eh?” Rolling my eyes furiously, I got out of the car and hurried up the steps to where Dugan, Poppy, and Annabel stood; Arabella was likely hiding somewhere nearby.

“C’mon, Esti, we’re gonna be late. Did you hear what happened yesterday?” At my confused and slightly worried look, Annabel patted my shoulder with a shake of her head as Poppy’s rambunctious mood continued into the school.

“Apparently, some other party fuckin’ killed the lunchlady. She was possessed, or something? Dugan?” The wizard shrugged, tapping his staff lightly on the ground in tune with his stride.

“Unknown, as of yet. There was some kind of construct made out of creamed corn that their rogue climbed into, I think.” Melting from a gap between two rows of lockers, Arabella snorted and gave her two coppers before disappearing again.

“Won’t catch me jumping into a corn-thing’s asshole any time soon.” All four of us snickered, coming to a stop at the split-off point as a taller half-elf walked up to us, eyes on Poppy.

“Seacaster. Want me to go easy on you today?” The boy scoffed eloquently, waving a hand to dismiss the notion and replying.

“Coach Daybreak asked me to invite you out to try for the Owlbears. Said that ‘anyone who can flatten you deserves a try-out too.’” Poppy shrugged a shoulder, then shook her head and smiled.

“Not my speed. You have fun, though.” A little surprised, this Seacaster guy walked off, and we circled up before diverging to our classes.

“Meet back up at lunch? Arabella already passed her year, so she’ll shadow you, Esti.” To combat the shock (and outrage), Arabella herself appeared over Poppy’s shoulder and explained the situation—both Dugan and Annabel were impressed that she’d figured out such an easy solution—and with a nod to the rogue, I made my exit. Class itself was fairly boring, moving mostly through bardic history and textbook-oriented learning; by the time lunch rolled around, I was grateful for an excuse to do something other than read. Though I couldn’t detect her, I could almost sense a shadow nearby me that signified Arabella’s presence; she must be an incredibly gifted rogue. Meeting up with Dugan and Poppy, we decided to wait out on the lawn for Annabel, as her paladin class was running a bit later than usual.

“I bet you they’ll already have a new person serving lunch. Aguefort moves very quickly when it comes to hiring people, from what I’ve heard.” I was watching the bloodrush field, some distance away, as a few older students did training exercises; thusly, I didn’t notice Annabel stepping outside until she came to a stop about twenty feet from us, staring intently at the ground around her.

“Forget something?” A slow shake of her head preceded a scream as, before my eyes, hissing jets of steam and bursting dirt emitted several sets of hands that wrapped themselves around her legs, yanking Annabel down into a quickly-forming hole.

“What the—” Poppy was already advancing, sword out, and stared down at what I saw was an old, weathered and cracked stone staircase that led infinitely far down into darkness that culminated in a point of red, fiery light.

“What just happened? Dugan, can you tell what kind of magic this is?” He was already casting a spell, frowning down at the edge of the hole as a few other students shot us confused glances from nearby.

“Evil. And… fiendish. Did you see anything, Poppy?” Her sword was still out, and after testing the step, she moved down one and turned to face us.

“Desiccated corpses dragged her down. Ones we’d recognize. Think this goes to the Nine Hells?” We shared looks, Arabella coming out of hiding to stand next to me.

“You aren’t suggesting we go down there, are you?” Poppy raised an eyebrow at her, then glanced at me.

“Mad Bill Seacaster killed his first man at nine. When Aguefort helped seal Kalvaxus, he was a secretary. Legends aren’t made by the old; they start young. I need a healer; Esti?” Arabella glanced at me, while Dugan made to put a hand on my shoulder but stopped at a slight nod from me.

“Fine. What’ll these two do?” A half-grin opened on her face, and she held out a hand as though to help me graciously down the stairs.

“They’ll buy us time. And, d’you think we can do assignments by crystal? Will be fun to find out, if we have to.” Steeling my resolve (and slightly emboldened by her words) I took a few steps down and turned to Arabella.

“Keep an eye on Dugan, will you?” She nodded once, faded into a shadow—I didn’t know how there was one on the open lawn, but she did it—and as the two of us descended, the steps began to crumble behind us even as the ground reformed over our heads.

“No going back now. Let’s go get our paladin, eh?” 

“Do you think these stairs end? Maybe this is one of the Hells.” Poppy shook her head, peering down at the light, which had grown steadily larger with each step we took.

“It isn’t. This is a fairly complicated version of a planeshift—you can’t just get to Hell by digging down.” I nodded a few times, glancing at the darkness that surrounded us. It was almost like it was solid, and I contemplated reaching a hand into it before deciding against it—who knows what lurked in the shadow.

“How are you so calm about this? We’re literally truants, by my guess.” She fully laughed, balancing her sword on her shoulder with one hand and putting her other to her mouth primly.

“Are you kidding? Aguefort loves this kind of shit. We’re going to Aguefort Academy to become traveling murders, essentially. Add on adventure and a different plane, and this is right up his wheelhouse. We’ll probably get extra credit once we bring Annabel back.” I rolled my eyes, looking further down at the light again before stopping.

“Poppy.” She paused, looking back before following my gaze down at the light.

“Is it… getting closer? Like, faster than the rate we’re walking to it.” She peered down, then held her blade out towards the fast-approaching red light that became almost blinding as it reached us; after my eyes adjusted, I nearly fell over upon realizing we were some four-hundred feet in the air, suspended over a fiery, sandy hellscape by only the cracked stone we stood on.

“Scared?” The exasperated look only made her laugh again, picking up our pace in order to make it to the ground safely.

“You can cast heroism? Dunno if you had it prepared.” In fact, I did, alongside cure wounds, silvery barbs, Tasha’s hideous laughter, and comprehend languages, which I outlined to her as we reached the sandy, rock terrain of the ground. The sky was red, pulsing with flame-like light and filled with smoggy black clouds that cast long shadows where the ground wasn’t aflame; stunted and dead trees and underbrush littered the landscape, and as we oriented ourselves using a map of Avernus, the first level of the Hells, which Dugan had taken a picture of in Aguefort’s library.

“If only someone could cast locate creature, eh? Oh!” She tapped a few times on her crystal, before grinning and holding it out to me; half of a mile away, a signal was coming from Annabel’s crystal.

“I memorized everyone’s phone numbers. There’s a neat way that magical signals operate between crystals, so as long as it isn’t too far, I can ping it.” I nodded, impressed, and we set out in the direction of the crystal. It was heading downhill, towards a far-off cliff face, and as we found a small footpath worn into the ground, I raised a point I thought was fairly important.

“We don’t have any food. Or water.” Poppy shot a grin over her shoulder, pulling open one of the sides of her long coat to reveal pockets stuffed with jerky, water bottles, and even a small box with medical supplies in it.

“My grandfather taught me to be prepared. Why, need a snack?” I shook my head, slightly disgruntled, and we continued down the path. The air was hot with a sort-of dry heat, and I fanned myself as we passed a row of crucified humans that lined the road like some sort of guardrail; dried blood was subsumed by fresh blood as, presumably, they eternally bled and wept in agony. The signal from the crystal pushed us further, though it stopped and began to come back towards us about a hundred yards from the cliff.

“Might want to cast heroism now.” I nodded, reaching out and placing a hand on Poppy’s shoulder; a cold white light emanated from my palm, and she stood up a bit straighter with a hand on her now-sheathed blade as, lo and behold, three of the four-person adventuring party walked up over a rise; Annabel was nowhere to be found. Their leader, the barbarian, had a gash in her throat that was dried and cracked at the edges; their skin had decayed rapidly due to whatever magic pervaded this place, aged almost to comedy with deeply-sunken-in eyes, bone-thin limbs, and bloodily-cracked lips drawn back over bright teeth—the barbarian smiled.

“Back for more, eh? Don’t worry, your paladin is in good hands—” Her words lasted until they were within thirty feet, at which point Poppy lunged, appearing from a blur on the other side of the barbarian as her head hit the ground, sword at the throat of the monk, who had one hand seemingly permanently holding his intestines in.

“I don’t know where you go after this. Want to find out?” From the ground, the barbarian’s head spoke even as her body crumpled down.

“Kill them!” Blindingly fast, the monk’s free hand struck Poppy’s jaw, followed swiftly by a casting of Tasha’s hideous laughter that sent the undead cleric to his knees—the barbarian mostly just berated her party members as Poppy raised her blade, set her jaw, and beheaded the monk before turning to the cleric.

“Where’d you take her?” Through his laughter, he mostly just swore at her until the blade of her sword flayed half the skin from his face, spraying blood on the sword and Poppy herself; the laughs were mixed with screams, then, words.

“Ha-hah-ha… hah...To… ha, to her deity—hahaa-ah. It’s a lovely city.” The blood drained from Poppy’s face, whereas I didn’t have much of a clue as to what he meant. In a quick blow, his head fell off, and Poppy began digging a small hole in the ground.

“What does that mean?” The cleric’s head spoke even as I patted them down, finding a knife and Annabel’s crystal (and gold) which I pocketed to give back to her.

“You don’t know? She’s quite the talk of Dis—a paladin drawing her power from Dispater of all people.” By Poppy’s grim expression, he was telling the truth, and I finished patting them down as Poppy was kicking sand back into place, having buried something out of my sight.

“I’ll handle the disposal.” Very quickly, I was horrified to see her dig another hole, burying the monk’s head; then, she drop-kicked the cleric’s head off of the edge of the cliff, before taking a nearby unoccupied crucifix and nailing the head of the barbarian to it, overlooking the path we’d come down. The bodies were lit aflame simply by laying fully on the hot ground, and she beckoned me onward, closer to the cliff. I let Dugan know we’d found her crystal, and that we knew where she was—when I said her deity’s name, he began rapid-firing information about Dispater, who ruled over the second level of the Hells. 

“Poppy, how do you know so much about the Nine Hells? And how exactly are you this good with a sword?” The pair of us, having found that the massive, endless pit had a ramp cut into the side of it, had walked down for a decent amount of time before stopping to rest. There was no need for a fire, so we just sat shoulder-to-shoulder against the wall and ate jerky.

“My family are monster hunters--were, then are, I guess. Have been for, like, centuries. Legend has it that even early humans knew the Protts—direwolf pack after your livestock? Call the Protts; dragon burning your town? Protts. My dad… didn’t want to continue the family line, but that’s okay. I learned as much as I could from my grandfather, Cowl.” I nodded a few times, then narrowed my eyes as I realized what she’d done.

“And, the second question?” Her eyes moved out over the pit, chewing on jerky for a full minute before responding.

“You take this to your grave, okay? I’m only telling you this because it may be important for combat situations.” When I nodded, she continued.

“The Prott family, being monster hunters for so long, were at the cutting edge of martial tactics, magic, you name it. My great-grandmother was supposedly able to cast a timestop that lasts over a week long—Cowl says that she’s not dead, just got stuck in an infinite timestop, but I don’t believe that—and the pride of all Protts has been skill with a blade. There are certain… techniques that have been discovered over time and passed down from parent to child. Cowl taught me a few before… well, before his last quest.” She didn’t exactly choke up, but rather set her jaw, gaze steely at the infinite emptiness before us.

“Could you use prestidigitation to put my hair up? Would save me time if I need to. I’ll just tap you once when I need you to.” I certainly could, demonstrating until she was satisfied and passed me the bottle of water.

“You’re a good mage.” We slept in shifts, my need for only a four-hour trance made it fairly easy for her to get a good night’s rest (only needing about five hours of sleep as a half-elf), and after a quick breakfast we resumed our travel.

“Theoretically, there will be a tunnel or some sort of entrance to Dis. The pit itself is actually bottomless, so be careful.” The ramp was wide enough that I wasn’t as worried as the stairs, even then straying closer to the wall instinctively as I’d been taught until I found a way to access the fly spell.

“I don’t want to be pessimistic, but—”

“You’re going to? Don’t worry, I can guess what you’re asking. Dispater isn’t going to bring us into the city itself, he’s too much of a tactician. This’ll likely be a bit of combat, then a negotiation. Once he sees that another Prott knows the techniques, it’ll be over.” I nodded, still not entirely convinced, and examined some of the rough-hewn stone wall that we were walking past. “What do your parents do? Mine are with the Council of Chosen over in Bastion City.” I cringed slightly, which wasn’t noticed, and replied casually.

“My father is a composer, from Fallinel. Most of the time, he stays in Fallinel for that, but he’s been around recently, which is nice. Mother is… well. She used to live on Leviathan, but married my father and settled down in Elmville. She’s a foreman at the steel mill.” Poppy’s eyebrows rose, attention moving more to me even as I kept my gaze fixed on the wall, searching for a tunnel.

“Your mother was a pirate?! That’s awesome. What was her name? Like, nickname.” I paused my scrutiny to roll my eyes at her, then explained as we kept walking.

“Delo the Red. Not her full elven name, obviously, but she goes by Delo.” Poppy nodded, seeming more excited than before. Dugan texted me, opening it to see a video of him walking up to Arabella, who, despite being on camera, had a hood obscuring her face and was sitting in the library. He proceeded to grab the entire book she was referencing and run off, holding the camera over his shoulder so I could see her angrily chase him in complete silence—showing it to Poppy got laughter out of both of us, and she dug her crystal out to make a group chat with all of us.

“We should do one of those adventuring party accounts that people make. Like, each of us can post to it and manage it, y’know? Could be good publicity.” I shrugged, then grinned as an idea popped into my head.

“Poppy, do you think you’re strong enough to, say, hold me by a rope?” In less than a minute, I had a line of hemp rope tied around my waist, knotted securely and with the end held by Poppy, who was bracing herself against the wall while I stood by the edge, trying to convince myself I could do it.

“Do you need to cast heroism on yourself?” I held up a rude hand gesture, cheeks blushing even as I (a little angrily) got into position on the edge and scowled at her. Once my crystal was recording, though, I was all smiles.

“Hey, everybody, welcome to the—wait, what are we calling our adventuring party?” She shrugged, thought for a moment, and replied.

“We could be the Gang of Five. Five adventurers, kind of like a posse.” I nodded, then restarted the recording.

“Hi, everyone. This is the official adventuring page for the Gang of Five,” As I spoke into the camera, Poppy was slowly lowering me backwards, so that I rotated on my feet from standing a bit leaned off the edge to now fully horizontal in midair over the bottomless pit, “Consisting of some of the best and brightest adventurers Aguefort has to offer. Come check out our adventures as Dugan, Annabel, Poppy, our mysterious rogue, and yours truly kick some ass, make some gold, and have a good time.” She pulled me back up, having to slightly help me to a sitting position by the wall as my legs were shaking.

“I thought that was cool as hell.” I snickered, uploading it to a new account and giving it a few tags. “I bet Arabella will think it’s funny. How much further does this ramp go?” Poppy shrugged, glancing up and down the ramp before groaning and beginning to walk back up.

“How did we miss it the first time? I see something up here.” A minute of walking landed us in front of another part of the nondescript rock wall, and I frowned at her.

“I don’t see anything.” Shooting me an ‘are-you-stupid’ look, Poppy took a step, then another, walking through the wall and leaving me wondering if I was in Hell with a ghost until her hand reached out, snagged mine, and dragged me through as well. 

Arabella

“How viable is it?” Dugan, sitting across from me in a secluded corner of the library, frowned down at the table.

“Not very. Magical protections are much more complicated than you’re presuming, here. I heard some places even curse their gold while it’s in storage.” I scowled, standing and leaning against a wall next to where a pane of sunlight came through a window.

“I’ll shelf it for now. Have you figured out Annabel’s situation?” The wizard scratched his head, grabbing a book from the several stacks around us and thumbing through it.

“It’s rare to hear of a paladin to an archdevil, that’s for sure. But it does make some sense; if her faith is fiendish, then her deity is, too. Dispater is certainly an interesting choice, as well.” 

Siobhan

As Poppy had predicted, a large group of hellish soldiers, fiends and a few tieflings, were waiting for us as the tunnel opened up into a rainy, cold highway headed towards a smog-choked city.

“Let me do the talking. Got another heroism in you?” Considering I’d only used one spell slot, yes, and I recast it on her before she stepped out ahead of me, towards the waiting soldiers as I put her hair up.

“Where is Annabel Hollyfrost?” A few of them exchanged looks, then marched out to presumably apprehend us; when the first line of them entered within thirty feet of Poppy, she lunged, blade flashing out impossibly fast—I could almost see six lines of light momentarily in the air before the first six fell, split in half from shoulder to opposing hip. The others stopped, shock and fear crossing many faces until, with a booming crack of thunder, a hooded figure appeared in the space between her and the now-dead soldiers. Armored, with a staff that radiated an absurd amount of magical power and a polished shield that caught what little light there was and seemed to redirect it directly at my face. When he spoke, the words were quiet, but carried even though the patter of rain.

“Another Prott, it seems. Come to collect your grandfather?” Poppy’s snarl was audible, and a horrifying realization dawned on me even as I subconsciously prepared a spell.

“Just Hollyfrost. Paladin, about yeay-high… seen her?” The tone made it clear that the question was more of a demand, and the hooded man snorted, reaching into the void and withdrawing a sword of a similar style to hers, but far older and adorned with intricate carvings up and down some sort of white-steel blade, grip made from worn leather and a simple bronze crossguard; when Poppy saw this, she kicked sand into the man’s face and ducked back, coming to a stop next to me.

“That’s the Saint Sitre. That’s my family’s sword.” Face dark, she faced Dispater himself, withdrew a small knife, and muttered a phrase I couldn’t hear before slicing a line into her hand, letting the blood drip down her sword where it inexplicably began to sizzle. Seeing this, the hood lifted enough to show an eye fresh with fear, sword lowering slightly in his hand.

“If you’d like your friend, she can be retrieved.” Poppy fully growled, stalking forward a few steps and planting her back food in the ground.

“Blade, too. That’s mine by birthright.” The face hardened slightly, and the archdevil raised the blade, held in his left hand, again.

“Humans. Always so gree—” In a flash, Poppy moved the fastest I’d ever seen her move, almost vanishing from one point and reappearing directly in front of Dispater, blade having severed the arm holding the sword even as it struck in a graceful upwards motion, removing her left arm from the shoulder. Twin sprays of blood mixed with the rain, before she reappeared in front of me, holding both the sword and the archdevil’s arm, the latter of which she thrust at me as her face turned white.

“Cure wounds it onto my shoulder. Quickly.” Not stopping to argue, I simply jammed the arm onto the stump and used three spell slots mending her new arm, which was disconcertingly both longer and a pale white, not to mention clawed. Flexing it a few times (and no longer losing catastrophic amounts of blood), Poppy turned back to Dispater, Saint Sitre in hand.

“Either you give me Annabel, or I butcher this entire plane.” Despite the slight sway in her balance, her words were steely-calm, and as Dispater regrew his lost arm through some sort of magic, I sensed all eyes on her. With a snap of his fingers, our paladin, slightly bruised and scratched, appeared with her staff and belongings in the space between them, bewildered and wincing even at the murky light above the clouds.

“Do not come back, hunter. Return, and the entirety of the Hells will be waiting.” Snorting, Poppy said nothing as I used my last spell slot healing her, in time for Annabel to make it to us and add more magic to the equation. We backed away, Poppy not sheathing her sword or turning around until we were near the top of the ramp in the side of the bottomless pit. Annabel had been silent for the entire trek, while I’d updated Dugan and Arabella on the situation as brief-yet-descriptively as I could. The fact that we’d just waltzed into the Hells and dragged one of our party members back while gaining the arm of an archdevil, not to mention a family heirloom, had better get us some extra credit. I couldn’t help myself from glancing at Poppy as the flesh in her arm slowly acclimated to the human blood, turning into just a slightly longer, slightly clawed human arm; the armor it had been wearing was stowed into her bag, and when she finally turned around, I spoke.

"Aren't you worried? Your arm is... noticeably different now." A snort rattled off of the wall and into the massive pit beside us; Annabel was slightly using her staff to walk, I noticed.

"Hard to notice from the office. Don't worry about me, Esti--this is just a good story to tell later." I rolled my eyes, stepping out to gracefully walk backwards up the stairs after a few stumbling starts.

"In any case, we've kicked off the year with a very noteworthy adventure, wouldn't you think? Taking an afternoon to rescue a party member from Dispater is pretty impressive." Annabel laughed weakly in tune with Poppy's responding eye-roll.

"Sure, but don't act like that. It's just another day--that's were they really think you're cool." Contemplating her words, I failed to notice the pair of them stop walking, but I did notice the look of abject horror on Poppy's face that made me react on pure instinct as I backed into something humanoid-shaped near the top of the ramp. With a jerky spin, I jammed the knife straight into the head of whatever was behind me, deep enough that the hilt struck the side of a...

"Holy shit." Standing in front of me, clad in simple-yet-expensive-looking leather armor, sword and shield on, was a human with a knife through the side of his head. There was some sort of logo emblazoned on his shirt, and after a single gasp and stuttering step, the man fell sideways, falling off of the ramp and down into the pit, knife and all. Blood thundered in my ears, driving me down to a kneeling position as I realized that I had just killed somebody, had never before--

"Oh, it's her first time." The sheer amount of discombobulation that Poppy's words did to me sent me out of a spiral and upright again, eyes narrowed.

"What does that mean?" Poppy and Annabel shared a look, latter shrugging to the former's smirk.

"We're traveling mercenaries who kill people. That's what adventuring is. I wasn't scared of you killing someone, moreso who you killed. That was a member of the Council of Chosen." My eyes bulged out of my head, words coming out almost faster than I could say them.

"I just killed a government official?!" Poppy shrugged, glancing down into the pit.

"I don't see any body." Chiming in while fiddling with her crystal, Annabel shook her head.

"Don't see any murder weapon, either. Unless you'd like to stick around and look?" 

We returned via a planeshift Dugan had convinced the warlock teacher to cast, emerging dustily and bloody into a blissful chorus of sighs at the much lower temperature of her office, prestidigitating off the sand and blood, nodding to the teacher, and making an exit. I had to call my driver, watching as the various other members were either picked up or walked into the neighborhood; once I was settling into the seat of the car, I knew I needed to give an explanation.

"Pardon my lateness; I was attending to some business with my adventuring party." The eyes in the mirror lingered on my face for a long while, before a nod preceded our departure. My clothes were still wrinkled and in some places burned, skin dried out and nearly to the point of cracking, but I sat primly until we'd returned home. Foregoing dinner, I returned to my rooms to change and collapse onto my bed with a sigh. If it was just all adventuring was, then part of the classwork at Aguefort was seemingly overcoming the feeling I'd felt in Avernus. The chill of the room was still slightly painful to my skin, and I debated trancing the entire night before a boop-blip on my crystal caught my attention. Poppy and Annabel were video-chatting in the group, Dugan joining after a moment. When Arabella joined, I figured I was obligated to, joining the call and squinting at the cameras presented. Arabella was in a completely black room (obviously), eating something from a bowl; Annabel was in a messy room, panes of light illuminating columns of dust that swirled in a small cloud; Dugan was sitting at a desk, having propped his phone up to participate while working; and Poppy was doing some sort of rooftop yoga, standing on the shingling of her house with Saint Sitre in reach.

"What are you doing?" She narrowed her eyes in an 'isn't it obvious' look, gesturing to the elaborate pose she was doing to add emphasis.

"I'm doing yoga. Balancing on this is good practice. What are you doing?" I moved my crystal around to indicate I was half-on, half-off my bed.

"Relaxing, like any normal person after an adventure. Where are you, Arabella?" The single eye illuminated by the phone raised it's eyebrow, her low voice coming through after a moment.

"That's classified. More importantly, what is Dugan working on?" The wizard snorted, setting down the pencil and looking at the camera.

"Too complicated. Even more importantly, how do you have a messy room when prestidigitation exists, Annabel?" The tiefling blushed, casting it a few times and showing a rude gesture to her crystal, making us all laugh.

"Can we agree not to get into any more trouble for at least a day? I'd like to see what a normal day at Aguefort is like." While the other three suddenly found it hard to hide a smile, I nodded at Annabel in agreement.

"It's very tiring."