![[Publish/Assets/Session Headers/2026-07-08 — The Devil's Bargain at the War-Slough Gate.png]] # 2026-07-08 — The Devil's Bargain at the War-Slough Gate > [!quote] Session Hook > The goristros fall, the prisoners go free, and a long rest on the River Styx gives way to a devil's handshake — the party trades a favor for safe passage into the War-Slough. --- ## Overview The session opened mid-battle, resuming last week's cliffhanger: two goristros guarding the prisoner cage at Baphomet's abandoned war camp. Both demons went down hard — one to a flanking crit, the other to a Guiding Bolt that burned it to the ground — with [[The Party|Unit-NULL]] surviving a brutal gore charge only because of a pre-cast Death Ward. The party broke the prisoners' cage, discovered the monks and red-robed mages they expected were nowhere to be found, and ferried everyone back to [[Koh Tam]]'s barge. A long rest on the River Styx let the party identify potions, armor, and a cursed weapon (wisely declined), and Casanova's artificer infusions turned Celeste into a giant-grappling threat. Koh Tam delivered a grim history of the War-Slough, and at its border the party struck a bargain with a devil calling himself **Rex** — a stolen horn, in exchange for soul coins, safe passage, and a marked map. The session ended with the party finding Rex's secret path and stepping up to the Slough's edge, ready to go in. --- ## Key Events ### 1. The Goristros Fall Combat resumed on [[The Party|Tahara Rahma]]'s turn. She'd already given [[The Party|Unit-NULL]] Death Ward at the top of the fight and opened this turn with **Toll the Dead** on a flanking goristro after a Shadow Step slide behind Unit-NULL. The first goristro charged [[The Party|Lilly Pallywally]] with its gore attack, but between opportunity attacks and a follow-up strike, [[The Party|Lilly Pallywally]] landed a **critical hit** that dropped it — the DM narrating the two goristros as a devoted pair, one now silent forever. The second, enraged, charged [[The Party|Unit-NULL]] instead: a gore hit for roughly **83 combined damage**, flinging her twenty feet and dropping her prone. Only the Death Ward Tahara had cast kept her alive. [[The Party|Ara-Ara Avannatto]] answered with a 6th-level **Heal**, restoring roughly 70 HP and topping Unit-NULL back up thanks to Blessed Healer and Disciple of Life. [[The Party|Lilly Pallywally]] followed with a second crit, then popped Hexblade's Curse and unloaded three Eldritch Blasts — one triggering the curse, one repelling the goristro five feet toward Tahara, the third finishing at 26 damage, roughly 37 for the turn. [[The Party|Casanova Frankenstein]] chipped in a Fire Bolt around a corner. [[The Party|Celeste Valentin]] dismounted (forgetting for a beat she'd been riding her own steed) and went in swinging — a charge, a kick, and a punch combo that tallied somewhere around 44 damage. [[The Party|Dr. Herbert Who]] followed with **Blight** for 23 necrotic on a failed save. Tahara then topped off [[The Party|Lilly Pallywally]] with another 70-point heal. The wounded goristro multiattacked Celeste — no longer at disadvantage since she'd dismounted — but Celeste-the-steed's Interception cut one hit down to almost nothing, and Celeste failed her save for only a bruising prone. [[The Party|Ara-Ara Avannatto]] closed it out with a **Guiding Bolt** for 21 radiant, the bolt catching the goristro's face and burning it down. *"Good kill, man. Good kill."* ### 2. Freeing the Prisoners With the goristros down, the party turned to the cage — bound in heavy infernal iron chain. [[The Party|Tahara Rahma]] pried the lock with a crowbar and advantage on the Strength check, snapping the chain before Celeste could try flipping the whole cage by hand. Inside: two grieving knights who'd just watched a comrade swept away, plus a handful of commoners — including the party's own missing cook. **The monks and red-robed mages the party expected to find were not among them**, their whereabouts still unexplained. The party carried the two slowest captives to the boat while [[The Party|Dr. Herbert Who]] took a last look around the command tent. ### 3. The Inscribed Box Under a chair in the otherwise-empty tent, [[The Party|Dr. Herbert Who]] found a small, **inscribed box that would not open**. He chose to work on identifying his unknown potion during the coming rest instead, leaving the box's trick — and its contents — for another day. ### 4. Back to the Barge A bird-call signal brought [[Koh Tam]] and [[Tiax]] alongside to help load the rescued prisoners. Koh Tam took in the demon-devil battle still raging over the hill — *"Holy shit! You see that fighting over there? That's crazy. You don't see that every day."* — then got down to business: *"So where to, still heading towards the War-Slough? And who are all these people, and who's paying for them and their passage?"* The rescued captives were put to work — Tiax sent them "downstairs" to scrub the lower decks, with the cook reassigned to the galley. Koh Tam estimated **eight hours to two days** to reach the War-Slough, "time is funny in the hells." Six rescued knights agreed to help stand watch during the coming rest. ### 5. The Long Rest The party took a long rest aboard the barge. [[The Party|Unit-NULL]], [[The Party|Ara-Ara Avannatto]], and [[The Party|Dr. Herbert Who]] failed their Constitution saves against the trip's cumulative exhaustion (DC 17, after roughly six hours of travel and combat) and each picked up a level of exhaustion. During the rest, potions and items came out for identification (see [[Random Potion Table]]): - A **Potion of Diminution** (reduces the drinker for 1d4 hours) went to [[The Party|Lilly Pallywally]]. - A **Potion of Growth** (enlarges the drinker for 1d4 hours) was identified. - A **Potion of Mind Reading** was identified — casts Detect Thoughts, but also broadcasts the drinker's own surface thoughts for an hour, a DM homebrew twist on the usual effect. - [[The Party|Dr. Herbert Who]] identified a **Potion of Fire Breath** (15-ft cone, DC 13 Dex save). - [[The Party|Ara-Ara Avannatto]]'s smuggled plate armor turned out to be **Armor of Resistance** — a random roll landed on **radiant** rather than the fire or poison the party had hoped for, still useful against angelic foes. - [[The Party|Unit-NULL]] identified the [[Claw of the Abysal Tide|Claw of the Abyssal Tide]]'s recharging "crushing tide" ability, but will need a future rest to actually attune to it. - A cursed **infernal fork** turned up on the loot table — +3 to attack and damage with a bonus extra attack, but vulnerability to radiant damage, a Constitution save to let magical healing work at all, and a binding curse that only *remove curse* can break. The party talked [[The Party|Dr. Herbert Who]] out of taking it — a bad fit for a squishy caster — and it was left unclaimed. - [[The Party|Tahara Rahma]] still carries an unidentified arcane scroll and an unidentified one-spell spellbook, meant eventually for [[The Party|Dr. Herbert Who]] — not identified this session. A harder moment cut through the rest-management banter: while going through Lilly's saddle bag of holding, the party found the preserved body of [[The Party|Ara-Ara Avannatto]]'s brother tucked inside — a discovery that visibly rattled her before it was quietly put away again. [[The Party|Casanova Frankenstein]] spent the rest on infusions — **+2 Enhanced Defense** to [[The Party|Dr. Herbert Who]], [[The Party|Unit-NULL]], and [[The Party|Celeste Valentin]], plus an Enhanced Arcane Focus for himself. He also stored **Enlarge/Reduce** into Celeste's Goggles of Night, giving her the ability to self-enlarge to grapple much larger demons. [[The Party|Ara-Ara Avannatto]] cast Death Ward on the party's tanks, and [[The Party|Celeste Valentin]] rest-cast Gift of Alacrity for +8 to initiative for eight hours. ### 6. Koh Tam's Warning As the barge closed in on the War-Slough, [[Koh Tam]] laid out what the party was walking into: devils are banned from entering by Zariel's own decree, sentry towers ring the perimeter facing inward against demons, and getting in is the easy part — *"getting out of the War-Slough can be a lot harder. The Slough does not like to lose anyone back beyond its borders."* He described its origin as **the Great Fray** — a battle that outlasted empires, where Avernus tore open and demons poured through in numbers the Nine Hells' armies couldn't stem. *"It's the chaos that did it, of course... some way, the abyss won that particular engagement, because the War-Slough is what's left."* The ground is so soaked in demonic ichor that Zariel sealed the whole region off — as much to keep her own devils from being corrupted as to contain what's inside. Time and space warp inside its borders; a two-day journey might take an hour, or a week. Koh Tam's advice: find a devil at the border looking to make a deal, rather than force a way in — *"the devil army ready for the next abyss opening may be a little more than you can handle."* ### 7. Rex's Bargain Near the first sentry tower, a devil approached the party alone: *"Hello, adventurers. What brings you to this part of the Nine Hells?"* He introduced himself, stumbling briefly over his own name before settling on the short version — *"You'll call me Rex."* Rex wanted a specific item lost somewhere in the Slough: a horn built to let a devil listen in on the thoughts of any demon in Avernus, "worthless to mortal adventurers, but of supreme value to an arch devil such as Zariel." He couldn't retrieve it himself — entering was forbidden to devils on pain of death — so he offered a bargain: a secret path past the sentries, **ten soul coins**, a vial of **condensed order** for each party member (an eight-hour immunity to the Slough's flesh-warping corruption), and information on other treasures inside. [[The Party|Tahara Rahma]] tested him, asking flatly what stopped the party from just killing him and taking everything. Rex didn't flinch: *"If you can — I mean if that's the type of party you are, then absolutely, let's fight. But I don't think that's who you are."* Pushed a second time, he drew a line: *"I found that somewhat threatening, and so I think that we must stop here. Do we have an agreement?"* [[The Party|Celeste Valentin]] shook on it. Rex marked the party's infernal map with three locations: **W3**, the Demon Nest, where a phylactery — likely [[The Party|Ara-Ara Avannatto]]'s brother's — is rumored to lie beneath an ichor lake; **W2**, the Ruined Tower, another possible source of power or phylactery; and **W4**, the Canyon Trove, the horn's last known location and, by his account, a treasure vault where the Blood War's fighting was thickest. He directed the party west and counterclockwise around the sentry ring, to a path left lightly guarded by recent demon activity — *"I would not let them see you... work your way right around the edge and just move right on in."* His parting line: *"I'll be waiting in this area when you return."* ### 8. Into the War-Slough Following Rex's directions, the party found the path he'd described — scarred by recent fighting, ichor-stained, unmistakable. They reached the edge of the War-Slough and rolled initiative to step across the border, ending the session on the threshold. --- ## Notable NPCs | NPC | Type | Notes | |-----|------|-------| | Goristro ×2 | Enemy — defeated | Prisoner-cage guards; both killed this session (crit, then Guiding Bolt) | | [[Koh Tam]] | Ally — guide | Delivered the War-Slough's history and border-crossing advice | | **Tiax** | Ally — barge crew | Put the rescued prisoners to work below decks | | **Rescued prisoners** | NPCs | Two knights, several commoners, and the party's cook; monks and red-robed mages notably absent | | **Rex** | Devil — new contact | Struck a deal for the party to retrieve a demon-thought-listening horn from the Slough; ten soul coins, condensed order, and a marked map in exchange | --- ## Locations - **Baphomet's War Camp** — Site of the goristro fight and prisoner cage; now cleared - **The Barge** — [[Koh Tam]] and Tiax's vessel; site of the long rest - **River Styx** — Traveled south toward the War-Slough - **War-Slough border (Sentry Tower W1)** — Where Rex approached the party; the session's final location --- ## Decisions & Consequences | Decision | Consequence | |----------|-------------| | Tahara pre-cast Death Ward on Unit-NULL before the goristro's charge | Unit-NULL survived an ~83-damage gore hit that would otherwise have killed her | | Dr. Herbert Who deferred the inscribed box to identify his potion instead | Box remains unopened; open thread | | Party declined the cursed infernal fork | Avoided the curse and the "infernal item corruption" mechanic; passed on a strong weapon | | Tahara tested Rex with a threat of violence | Rex held firm and drew a hard line, but the deal still closed | | Party accepted Rex's bargain | Gained safe passage, condensed order vials, and a marked map — now owes him the horn and ten soul coins on delivery | --- ## Open Threads > [!warning] Unresolved > - [ ] **The monks and red-robed mages** — expected among the rescued prisoners, never found; unexplained > - [ ] **The inscribed box** — found in the command tent, still unopened > - [ ] **The unidentified arcane scroll and spellbook** — carried by Tahara, meant for Dr. Herbert Who > - [ ] **The cursed infernal fork** — declined; left behind > - [ ] **Damon Charles** — still missing since being swept down the River Styx; no news this session > - [ ] **The Horn** — must be retrieved from the Canyon Trove (W4) and delivered to Rex for ten soul coins > - [ ] **W3's phylactery** — believed to be [[The Party|Ara-Ara Avannatto]]'s brother's, beneath the ichor lake; unconfirmed by Rex directly > - [ ] **W2's "second source of power"** — unidentified, possibly another phylactery > - [ ] **Paladin of Bahamut's undisclosed news** — still never delivered --- ## Combat Summary ``` Encounter: 2x Goristro (prisoner cage guards, Baphomet's war camp) Status: RESOLVED — both goristros killed; picked up from last session's cliffhanger on Tahara Rahma's turn Notable mechanics: - Tahara: pre-cast Death Ward on Unit-NULL, then Toll the Dead - Goristro #1: killed by a Lilly Pallywally critical hit - Goristro #2: gore-charged Unit-NULL for ~83 damage — survived only via Death Ward; finished off by Ara-Ara's Guiding Bolt (21 radiant) - Ara-Ara: 6th-level Heal restored ~70 HP to Unit-NULL - Lilly: crit + Hexblade's Curse + 3x Eldritch Blast (~37 dmg turn) - Celeste: charge + kick + punch combo (~44 dmg turn); Interception softened the goristro's return attack - Dr. Herbert Who: Blight for 23 necrotic - Tahara: follow-up ~70-point heal on Lilly End state: Both goristros dead; prisoners freed ``` --- ## Loot & Acquisitions | Item | Who | Notes | |------|-----|-------| | Inscribed box | [[The Party\|Dr. Herbert Who]] | Found under a chair in the command tent; won't open, unidentified | | Plate armor (Armor of Resistance — radiant) | [[The Party\|Ara-Ara Avannatto]] | Smuggled from the tent, identified during the long rest | | Potion of Diminution | [[The Party\|Lilly Pallywally]] | Identified, unused | | Potion of Growth | Party | Identified, unused | | Potion of Mind Reading | Party | Identified, unused | | Potion of Fire Breath | [[The Party\|Dr. Herbert Who]] | Identified, unused | | Infernal map (Rex's marks) | Party | Marked with W2, W3, W4 by Rex | | Condensed order (×party) | Party | Grants 8-hr immunity to the War-Slough's flesh-warping corruption | > For a full loot breakdown see [[Session Loot]]. --- ## Party This Session | Character | Highlights | |-----------|-----------| | [[The Party\|Tahara Rahma]] | Pre-cast Death Ward that saved Unit-NULL; pried the cage lock with a crowbar; tested Rex's nerve during the bargain | | [[The Party\|Ara-Ara Avannatto]] | Clutch 6th-level Heal on Unit-NULL; finished the fight with a burning Guiding Bolt; the bag-of-holding moment with her brother's body | | [[The Party\|Casanova Frankenstein]] | Sniped a Fire Bolt in the fight; spent the rest on Enhanced Defense infusions and stored Enlarge/Reduce in Celeste's goggles | | [[The Party\|Celeste Valentin]] | Charge-kick-punch combo for ~44 damage; tanked the goristro's return swing via Interception; shook on the deal with Rex | | [[The Party\|Unit-NULL]] | Took the fight's biggest hit (~83) and survived on Death Ward; healed back to full by Ara-Ara | | [[The Party\|Lilly Pallywally]] | Two crits; Hexblade's Curse into a triple Eldritch Blast for ~37 damage | | [[The Party\|Dr. Herbert Who]] | Blight for 23 necrotic; found the inscribed box; identified his own Potion of Fire Breath | --- ## Table Notes - Sessions confirmed continuing on **Wednesdays**. - Roll20's new initiative-tracker UI drew running complaints from the table all session — not narratively relevant. --- *Session recorded on Plaud · File ID: `35f9162a9ed305f233019b7907584db9` · Duration ~2h 30m*