The Gates of Wrath

“The Gates of Wrath”
Rise of the Runelords episode
Episode no.	Episode 88
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Honeypot Nathaniel Nell Velicia
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "The Illusion of Pride" "Lackeys of Lust"
Rise of the Runelords chapter list

In this chapter continuing through the sins the heroes enter the halls of wrath.

The Gates of Wrath

Highlady Athroxis.

We discussed where to go next. Velicia suggested that we should go to wrath to make sure we had a clear way out if we needed one. Even thought I really didn't look forward to go to wrath as I thought that they would be very violent, I agreed that it would be good to have a way out.

We did as before. The one with the right sword went ahead and the others followed. There was a magical maze-effect in the corridor where we lost each others and we got out on the other side after finding our way. Nathaniel walked straight through and Velicia followed shortly after. I soon joined them looking into an enormous room. It only had a raised platform on the other side in front of the entrance. On the platform stood a giant iron statue of an archer. Nathaniel entered but we others waited for Honeypot to come through the maze.

When Velicia followed Nathaniel into the room, the statue in the other end of the room moved as we expected. What we didn't expect was that there suddenly appeared a large devil, a big air elemental and eight other creatures around the room. I felt angry at them and threw my dagger into the throat of the closest creature killing it instantly. Honeypot used some magic I would think she learned from Dorothea to kill another. The rest of them stormed Velicia and Honeypot, one passing too close to Nathaniel who killed it quickly. The huge iron statue stomped hard in the ground making the complex resonate with echoes. It was probably some sort of alarm. Then it took to the air and flew towards us. Velicia killed four of the creatures close to her using her magic and I killed the last one with a throw of my dagger.

Honeypot used her magic to grow wings and flew up to the demon, distracting it enough, making it fall to the ground. Velicia stood over the fallen demon and struck it. She had it between herself and Nathaniel and they struck it from both sides. I moved a closer and threw my dagger, using that the bull-like fiery demon was distracted by Nathaniel and Honeypot. I missed, screaming "No!" from the disappointment. Honeypot joined them fighting the demon when it breathed out cold and made a zone of frost around it. Feeling how hate overcame the hesitancy I felt from it's scary appearance, I tumbled out of the zone and threw my dagger. This time it flew true, hitting it in the head. It gave out a loud roar and fell to the ground defeated. Honeypot who was still flying, engaged the flying iron statue of an archer. She didn't succeed in bringing it down so I leaped across the battlefield and threw my magic dagger again and again, as soon as it reappeared, making swift sweeping attacks, forcing the statue down. The others all engaged it. I hit it especially hard leaving it crippled. Honeypot distracted it enough so Velicia could finally fell the huge statue. All of the monsters was destroyed and we were left standing in the enormous room. There was nothing in it at all except for the big platform in the other end. Honeypot flew up on it and confirmed that there was a corridor leading further in, that we only caught a glimpse of from the ground. I climbed up using a rope that Honeypot held. The corridor was empty and nothing was stirring beyond so we settled down for a short rest. I sat on the edge and dangled my legs. Velicia teleported up and Nathaniel followed climbing.

Together we all went down the corridor into another room. It had two magical circles, one in red and the other in blue. Nathaniel tried throwing a coin into one of the circles. Nothing happened. I was a little surprised that he would risk a coin in that way. We decided to try the circles ourself and stepped into the red one. I just managed to pick up the coin before we were teleported to another room. It was shaped like a T. There were more of the red and blue circles.

We stepped into one of the circles and were once more teleported to another room. It was some kind of training room with wooden targets to practice on. We noticed that somebody had recently been there. It also had two circles in red and blue. When we stepped into one we were teleported to to a new T-shaped room. This had one circle of each color in the end of each of the three ends of the room. There was also doors leading out of there. I went into a room with lots of stuff in. There were papers and stuff but also other things that I guessed they just stored there. There were twelve rooms to sleep in. They all had three bunk beds but only one was used in each room. We returned to the T-shaped room and tried yet another circle.

Sinspawn Axeman.

We appeared in another huge room, with one wall almost entirely open into another very big room. I sneaked up to the opening and hid. Peeking in I could see twelve statues along the walls and a big circle on the floor. The circle was a big rune inscribed in a circle. There were many, many creatures in there. A woman with white hair in a long plait and some strange red metal armor wielding a burning ranceur was commanding about ten humans each heading as many armored sinspawns each, the same kind of monster we met before below Sandpoint. They stood in ordered groups almost as if on parade.

Nathaniel walked into the room and started talking to the woman with the big weapon. She turned out to be called High Lady Athrixia. Nice title. Maybe I should call myself High Lady Baroness Nell. It turned out he challenged her to a duel. We all stepped into the room and all the wrath people stood around the circle. Nathaniel stepped into it joining Athrixia. As they stood there preparing to fight, I slipped away and hid behind a statue. The fight started and I couldn't see anything. I climbed the statue to get a better view. Sitting on the shoulders of the twenty feet tall statue I watched them fight below. Nathaniel did good. Athrixia's fighting style reminded me of Velicia. When she teleported it was obvious, but it also showed some strange magical effect on the circle. Velicia told us, using the telepathy, that teleport magic in the circle could be used to get out of Runeforge. Sitting there watching Nathaniel defeat Athrixia, I opened my bag of holding and took out some nice ham, honey and bread that I enjoyed eating. I think duels make me hungry. I really liked to eat while watching them anyway. As Nathaniel was standing over Athrixias unconscious body he was greeted as the winner and as such was their new High Lady. They even gave him a magical dress. Honeypot helped Athrixia but apparently they thought the duel had been to the death. With a little help from us others Nathaniel could convince them that he needed every trustworthy fighter there was in the upcoming war against Karzoug and she agreed to live on as his lieutenant.

We left them and returned to the central T-shaped room. Through the use of another circle we came to a laboratory where Velicia started looking through everything. She told us that from what she could understand, when the warriors reached the age of 35 they were turned into the sinspawn monsters, that didn't age. Now the experiments had been altered to try to turn them back. So far they hadn't succeeded. Still they knew something that made them gather all forces they could get.