That Sinking Feeling
Karlach was fidgeting excitedly when Dammon stepped through the gateway from Baldur's Gate. Raphane stepped through a moment later. Each of them had a pack on their shoulders, full of Dammon's instruments.
"Gods," uttered Karlach. "It's really happening, isn't it?" Her golden eyes flitted between Dammon and Raphane.
"Today's the day," said Dammon with a smile.
"We'll transfuse the old coolant from your engine with the new mixture. Then you'll be able to return safely to the material plane."
"Let's go!" said Karlach eagerly.
"I couldn't help but notice you already threw our packs through the gate," said Raphane. "Dammon and I had to move them out of the way before we could come through.
"Yeah, figured I'd get a headstart," explained Karlach with a sheepish grin. "Once this thing is done, I'm not spending another second longer down here than I absolutely must."
"We'll be dining together in Baldur's Gate tonight," said Raphane, her eyes gleaming brightly as she stepped toward Karlach. "Elfsong, Blade and Stars, I'm in such a good mood I'd even agree to the Blushing Mermaid."
"It's like a dream," said Karlach. "And we're not going anywhere that's listed on a travel parchment. I know some good hole in the wall places you haven't seen yet."
"Oh, I've talked to Isobel and the Gondians," Raphane continued, "Everything will be in place when we get to the Selûnite enclave."
"I just need somewhere to set up my instruments for the transfusion," said Dammon.
"The great hall has plenty of space," said Karlach. "The Hellriders don't have an outing today so they won't need it."
Karlach had an extra spring in her step as she took the packs from both Dammon and Raphane and led the way to the great hall. The berserker was buzzing with excitement, gabbing nearly nonstop as they walked: "Once I'm out of here, I'm never coming back. Now I know I've said that before, but I have a really good feeling about it this time! And also an actual plan and people smarter than me to see it through, not just my own bloody minded determination. Gods, I wonder what the Gate looks like now. Don't tell me! I'll see for myself soon enough."
The three of them passed by Zevlor on the way, who quickly took stock of the situation before smiling at Karlach, "So does this mean we're losing you, Karlach?" he asked.
"I'm not too sorry to say that it does," said Karlach, smiling broadly. "Thank you, so much, for letting me help you and the Hellriders, Zevlor," she said, her expression turning serious for a moment. "It felt good to help people again. Even save some people from this place. Did more good in six months with you and the Hellriders than I did by myself in ten years."
"And now you have the chance to save yourself," said Zevlor. "No one deserves it more. It was an honor to fight alongside you, Karlach and I wish you the very best fortune." He saluted Karlach and Raphane. Karlach returned the salute. Raphane fumbled an awkward approximation of the gesture. Zevlor and Dammon only briefly made eye contact and exchanged the smallest of nods, polite but curt, before they all parted ways.
In the great hall, the tieflings pulled together some tables for Dammon to set up his instruments and a chair for Karlach to sit on. Dammon did some final preparation of the coolant mix, and one final test, then started the transfusion.
"How long will this take?" asked Raphane.
"About half an hour," said Dammon, monitoring the instruments.
Karlach tapped a claw tip against the bottle from which the new coolant was being transfused, as if that might speed up the process.
"Please don't do that," said Dammon.
Karlach crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently.
Raphane let out a chuckle. "I'll leave you two to it. I'm going to say some farewells."
Most of those farewells were brief but courteous. Raphane had a nagging feeling that some of the Hellriders were less than thrilled that she and Karlach were leaving their fight.
She happened to encounter Zevlor in the hallway. "Making your final rounds I see," he observed aloud. The sincere smile on Zevlor's face remained a welcome surprise to Raphane. As focused as Zevlor was on his campaign, he was the last one Raphane expected to see happy the Hellriders were losing two allies in their fight.
"I still need to say my goodbye to Hope," said Raphane. "Do you know where she is?"
"I was on my way to see her myself," said Zevlor. "I passed her just a moment ago on her way down to the grotto."
Raphane hadn't been down to the grotto since the day of the battle against Raphael. The lower reaches of the House of Hope were more or less as Raphane remembered, mostly consisting of the rock that served as the foundation for the rest of the House with some iron platforms suspended in the empty spaces.
The House hovered thousands of feet above Avernus' craggy surface, and nowhere in the House was that more clear than it was here in the grotto, where one could see the distant surface through the gaps in the rock floor, as well as the massive engines that kept the House aloft.
Hope and the Hellriders had made some alterations. Raphane quite appreciated the bridges and railings they had added between the metal platforms as she and Zevlor walked out onto the central platform, the one to which Hope had once been chained.
A music box set on a table at the platform's center chimed restful notes which echoed off the rocks.
"This place is a point of convergence for all the souls trapped here in the House," said Zevlor, "Hope keeps this music box wound in order to ease their pain."
"It plays beautifully," said Raphane. She swept her eyes across the grotto. "I don't see Hope. You're certain she came down here?"
"Yes," said Zevlor, blinking, "had she left she would certainly have passed us as she came back up."
The music box slowed, its final notes chiming one by one until it at last fell silent. Then even the echo faded and left the grotto with only the whistling sound of the wind coursing amongst the rocks.
Raphane and Zevlor exchanged a tense look. A cold feeling crept up Raphane's spine despite the heat.
"Aww. Sad."
Raphane and Zevlor both had weapons bared as they whirled toward the voice. Florenta, the bone white-skinned, bloody-eyed cambion, appraised them with mocking carefreeness as she descended toward them from one of the upper platforms.
"Where's Hope?" Raphane demanded.
"Did you know," started Florenta, utterly dismissive of the dire tone in Raphane's voice, "That there is a nest of advespa just below where this House of Hope hovers? Nasty creatures. Like wasps but the size of imps. They come up from maggots that feed on the bodies of victims brought home to their nests."
"Where. Is. Hope?" Zevlor repeated Raphane's question with a growl as his fingers clenched the hilt of his sword tightly.
"She just told us," said Raphane, her voice icily calm despite her rising anger.
"Hope is with the maggots now," said Florenta, the corners of her lips twisting into a malicious grin that split her face from one ear to the other.
Zevlor swung his sword at Florenta with both hands. His blade radiated righteous fury but the cambion sprang away from the attack and up onto the nearby railing with an accompanying beat of her wings.
"Clumsy," she said with a chuckle.
"Quickly, Raphane," encouraged Zevlor as he readied his sword for another strike, "we can take her together!" His eyes blazed angrily at the druid's hesitation. "Raphane!"
The green tiefling had her weapon at the ready but wasn't moving to attack the cambion.
Florenta's lips twisted into a bemused smirk as she walked along the railing with casual, preternatural grace. "But she's right. My dirty deed is already done. I just stuck around for a little chin wag. Now I know, paladin, that you must want so desperately to smite me but believe me when I say you don't have the time. You don't really realize how Hopeless your predicament is. Not yet."
"My orders were to infiltrate the House of Hope, dismantle its defenses and prevent it escaping." Florenta peered down into the precipice on the other side of the railing on which she strode, "Done, done and done. I also received inviolable orders not to warn Karlie that I was here or what I was doing," she turned her head back toward Raphane and Zevlor and flashed a sharp-toothed grin, "That said, my orders didn't mention anything about Karlie's pet," she paused to give Raphane a finger wave. "So here's my advice to you: run. I've heard tell that three champions have been diverted from the Blood War and that the one who brings back Karlie's head will have the chance to ascend to pit fiend. There's no stronger motivation for a devil looking to climb the ranks. I don't intend to be here when they arrive and I suggest you do the same." She sighed wistfully. "Raphael always was so proud of this house, stupid pretentious fop that he was. It will be a shame to miss seeing it turned to rubble. Oh, well. Keep my Karlie warm, little tart. I'll be along for her in time."
"Enough prattle!" barked Zevlor as he took another swing at Florenta. The cambion cackled and let herself fall backward off the railing and down toward the surface of Avernus, before spreading her batlike wings and taking flight.
"Forget her!" Raphane yelled at Zevlor before grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around to face herself. "Is it true? Was Hope the only one who could raise the defenses and move the House?"
Zevlor looked suddenly pale. "It is true," he answered.
"Then we need to get our people out of here now. Find your Hellriders and tell them. I'll get Karlach and Dammon."
"But the campaign. We can do so much more! Our work here–"
"Is finished!" Raphane shouted over Zevlor. She took a breath. When she spoke again, her tone was softer but held no less conviction. "Tell your people we are leaving."
Raphane didn't allow herself so much as a sigh of relief when she returned to the great hall to find Karlach and Dammon still there.
"Dammon, can Karlach return to the material plane now. As in right now?" the druid asked with a raised voice when she was still half the room's length away.
Dammon's gaze shifted between the other two tieflings before he looked at the transfusion vessel. Only about a quarter of the fluid was left. "I suppose enough of the new coolant has cycled in," he said uncertainty, "but this cycle needs to complete otherwise we'll have to do it again and I don't have the ingredients for a fresh batch."
"Can the transfusion finish on the move?" Raphane asked.
"I suppose so," said Dammon, "But we'll be done in five minutes. Why risk it?"
"Raphane, what's wrong?" asked Karlach.
"Flo says hi."
"Shit. We need to go," said Karlach, standing to her feet and couching the incoming and outgoing transfusion vessels in each arm. "Leave anything you don't absolutely need," she told Dammon.
The blacksmith was an old hand at leaving places in a hurry and grabbed a couple bags before turning toward the other two tieflings. "Keep those steady as you can," he said, motioning with his eyes toward the two vessels couched in Karlach's arms, still connected by tubes to her left and right side.
They were turning toward the door when it felt as though all of the air in the room was shoved about a foot toward the center of the House. The feeling of displacement was one Raphane recognized from before and her fears were confirmed when she looked toward the tall windows at the end of the great hall to see a massive black dagger shaped shadow blocking out Avernus' red light.
"On the ground, now!" yelled Karlach. She shifted her grip to hold both transfusion vessels with one arm before tackling Dammon to the ground.
Raphane dropped to the floor in the moment before a ringing noise coming from outside rose in pitch to a scream. Then the tall windows shattered as beams of white-hot incandescent fire scythed through the great hall, decapitating statuesque busts and slicing through masonry.
The roof overhead groaned and sagged as the fiery beams cut off, dripping liquified stone. Raphane risked a backward glance. The flying fortress was now clearly visible through the broken windows, as was the swarm of imps rising from it and the barrage of rockets arcing toward the House.
Karlach grabbed Raphane by her hand and hauled her roughly to her feet. "No time to gawk, darling, move!"
They ran. Dammon shut the doors behind the tieflings as they passed out of the great hall and onto the short bridge connecting the great hall and feast hall.
Off either side of the bridge one could only see a short way before everything disappeared into black-green mists, out of which swirled the spirits that circulated through the House. Normally there was a quiet constancy to the movements of these spirits, but now they writhed chaotically, disturbed, and Hope was no longer here to calm their passage.
Successive detonations shook the house as rockets impacted it. Raphane stumbled and caught herself on the bannister as a queasy feeling hit her stomach. Then she backed away as that very bannister split down the middle. The part upon which she had leaned broke off and careened off into the precipice.
Cracks were forming in the floor under the tieflings' feet when they made it to the feast hall. Columns and walls were splintering as well, casting down chunks of stone.
"It's not just the attack," Dammon said. "This place is tearing itself apart!" Suddenly he cried out as the ground gave out beneath his feet. He scrambled with his arms for something to grab onto as he slid down into the yawning chasm.
Karlach dropped the vessels couched in her arms in order to grab Dammon's hands and pull him back up.
As wide as Dammon's eyes had gone when he fell, they went wider still when he heard the shatter, and, once back on his feet, his eyes scanned frantically for the transfusion vessels attached to Karlach, who was looking back at him, confused, until she heard his sigh of relief and followed his eyes to the shattered vessel, the one into which the outgoing coolant was being transfused.
"If you had to break one of them, you chose the right one," said Dammon.
"You don't need that?" asked Raphane, in order to be sure.
"I only wanted the spent coolant for study," Dammon answered, before he used a knife to cut the end of the tube attached to the broken vessel and discarded it. What remained of the tube now spilled the discarded coolant directly onto the floor.
"And now I'm dripping," remarked Karlach, "Bit unladylike, isn't it?"
"Keep an eye on the incoming transfusion vessel," said Dammon. "Once it's empty we need to seal both ends before you leak too much good coolant. Looks like it just has a few minutes left."
The cracking, quaking and rumbling intensified. Red light shone through splits in the tall walls and ceiling of the feast hall as chandeliers fell.
"Shit, let's move!" said Karlach.
"Too late!" yelled Raphane. The walls and ceiling were caving in toward them.
At the words to the spell Raphane uttered, one of the sides of the large stone table at the feast hall's center arched upward and the tieflings rushed underneath the shield it provided. In the space of a panicked breath, they could hear debris crashing down against its surface.
Raphane's lips continued to move with the words to the spell. Karlach and Dammon found themselves shifting where they sat in alarm as floor tiles split, making way for spurs of rock that rose to reinforce the improvised defense. The druid placed the palm of her hand against the underside of the table even as debris continued to impact it. "It's holding for now," she announced.
"I don't get it," Karlach started, now that it seemed she could talk without distracting Raphane, "The arcane barrier should have taken at least a couple hits before… shit. It was Florenta wasn't it? She killed Hope didn't she? That's why the House is defenseless."
Raphane met Karlach's intense gaze and nodded regretfully.
"That fucking psychopath," said Karlach. Her voice held a low, cold fury. "This is my damned fault."
"You are not responsible for what Florenta does," said Raphane.
"Aren't I?" asked Karlach, "I had two chances to put an end to her and missed them both."
"Then blame me too!" said Raphane sharply.
Karlach met Raphane's gaze before shaking her head in a gesture of futility. "Dammit. Wish I could have convinced Hope to leave this place. She didn't deserve to die here."
"She made her choice," said Raphane, "Even if none of us understood it, this is where she wanted to be."
When the impacts let up, the tieflings emerged from their place of shelter to find the House utterly changed. The walls and ceiling of the feast hall had been rent asunder. With those walls gone, the tieflings could see other parts of the house: rooms, halls and corridors. Some looked nearly whole, others were turned into scattered, disintegrating islands. Some were more or less stationary, others spun and tumbled. The feast hall seemed to be the eye of the storm, with all the disparate collapsing parts of the house revolving around it.
Swirls of green energy danced chaotically through the air, carrying with them chunks of foundational stone, masonry and other debris. Swarms of Imps were flying amidst the rubble. Occasionally one, or several, would collide with debris tumbling through the air and get crushed by the impact. Small mercies.
Then there were the two flying fortresses. The blade shaped vessels hovered menacingly off the sides of the House, bearing down on it and intermittently firing rockets or beams of incandescent fire.
"Best keep low," Raphane urged Karlach and Dammon.
Raphane also now recognized the source of that queasy feeling in her stomach, although Karlach was the first to say it aloud: "Shit, and now we're falling too! This day only gets more fantastic by the minute."
The berserker was looking off the edge of the disc that was all that was left of the feast hall. Enough of the House had come apart that she could see all the way down now. Only one of the House's engines that kept it aloft was still firing, and that wasn't enough to maintain altitude. The House was sinking.
Dammon looked as well, and made a quick estimate of how quickly the ground seemed to be coming up to greet them.. "We have maybe fifteen minutes at this rate."
Karlach pushed him away from the edge, "No risks, you. Well, no more than necessary given this shit storm Zariel's dumped in our laps."
"Could you possibly have used a more disgusting metaphor?" asked Raphane as she took stock of their situation. She saw a section of the house turned island floating some distance from the remnants of the feast hall. The island still had a solid-looking amount of rock foundation beneath it, although that looked to be slowly crumbling. Green energies swirled around it more intensely than was the case for most of the other islands and, as it revolved, one could glimpse the portal hall through a broken wall.
More than just damned spirits circled the island. So did a thick swarm of imps. "Well that's where we need to get to," said Raphane, pointing, "The portal hall. But I think the devils know it's our only way out."
"There must be a hundred of them," said Dammon.
"At least," said Karlach. "The commanders will be telepathically linked to them from their flying fortresses. The lot of them will be on anyone who gets close." She looked at Raphane, "Please tell me you've got a spell or something to deal with that mass of imps."
"I do," said Raphane. The green tiefling took a long look at one of the flying fortresses before summoning a fire myrmidon, a fiery, two-armed serpentine figure armored in black obsidian.
Karlach looked skeptical, "What's one elemental going to do against all those imps?"
Raphane shook her head, "Not the imps," she motioned with her eyes toward one of the flying fortresses as a grin spread across her face.
Karlach shook her head, "You're not thinking of-"
Raphane grabbed Karlach by her breastplate's gorget and pulled the berserker toward herself before planting a kiss on her lips. Karlach closed her eyes as she kissed Raphane back then suddenly opened them as a blast of cool air buffeted her face in the instant after her and Raphane's lips parted. A vapor trail marked Raphane's passage in the wake of her sudden transformation into the form of a water myrmidon before she had taken flight, accompanied by the fire myrmidon she had summoned moments earlier; both of them now arcing toward one of the flying fortresses.
"Gods damn it," muttered Karlach before she looked over at Dammon. "If she dies, I'll kill her."