2019-10-22 & 29 - Into the fire – Taffeta

1496 DR, 21 Marpenoth


Hide by day, travel by night. That’s how Taffeta has lived for the last three months. So tonight she’s picking her way carefully through the tangled darkness of the Feythorn Forest looking (or more like feeling) for a new secluded place to spend the next day.

Hide by day, travel by night. Except sometimes you can’t, because sometimes you spend the day in the first circle of Hell, because sometimes you’ve agree to help a high-handed, arrogant prick to find and destroy a devil, because you need him and his private army to help you stop a different devil from hunting down and killing you and your family, because apparently trading favours with people you can’t stand and agreeing to kill each other’s enemies is the closest thing this wretched continent has to a real community.

And that’s why she met Varis and the others yesterday morning at the Crimson Fist barracks. Baine was going because Varis was going. Daisy was going because she’s too generous with her friendship – Cyrrollalee bless her. Sunday was going because of her newfound desire to fight evil and defend the land – Arvoreen save and protect her. A friend of Baine’s called Ghesh was going, presumably because Baine asked. Traavor was going… she hadn’t recognized him at first. The mysterious archer she and Aila had met in Port Ffirst during the plague. The one who went off and attacked the blockade while she and the others were still discussing whether it was the right thing to do. She didn’t ask why he was there but it didn’t make her feel any better about the whole affair.

Oriloki was going too, but only – as he scrupulously explained – to transport the rest of the group to Avernus, after which he would (and, in due course, did) promptly return to Daring Heights and leave the rest of them to it.

Taffeta pauses under a dense cluster of trees where very little moonlight falls. Peering and fumbling in the darkness she finds a hollow tree that will make a good place to stop and rest for a while. She isn’t trying to get anywhere tonight, just to pass the time and avoid staying in one place for more than an hour or two. Keep moving, hide your tracks, be unpredictable. That’s how she’s lived. How she lives.

Squeezed inside the tree-trunk, cool and damp and dirty, she remembers the scorching heat of Avernus’ endless red plains. The roiling clouds above, flashing red lightning. The wide red river ahead, its banks the scene of distant skirmishes of demons and devils. Behind them on the far horizon, the outline of a tower on fire – their destination, the place Varis said his enemy would be found.

She remembers feeling exposed and fearful as Oriloki vanished again and the group set off across the blood-coloured earth with nothing to conceal them except the hope that all the locals were occupied with other things. And then of course one local turned out to be occupied with piloting a strange metal horseless carriage at incredible speed straight towards them, chasing a screeching vulture-like creature.

She remembers the uneasy but strangely polite and casual conversation that Daisy, Sunday, and Baine had with the pilot. She was a tiefling mercenary, apparently, scraping a living on the war-scarred plains doing jobs for whoever would pay with soul coins or demon ichor, most of which she used to keep her vehicle running. She told them the tower, the ‘Burning Keep’, was the headquarters of Ire, a legate of the ruler Zariel, and home to about a thousand devil soldiers. ‘I think the Keep supplies troops for the war,’ she said.

Taffeta doesn’t remember who asked ‘what war?’ but the image flashes vividly into her mind of the tiefling turning her dusty face toward the river, raising a pointing finger, and saying ‘That w–’

And then the blur of motion and the horrible sound of Sunday’s hammer smacking into the back of the woman’s head, followed by the other hammer before the body even hit the ground. The moment of shock from everybody before Ghesh shrugged and swung his morning star at the groaning figure on the ground. Daisy looking away as she conjured fire to dispose of the body. Sunday calmly explaining that the mercenary of course had to be silenced or she’d have sold the story of her encounter with the group and their presence might have come to their enemies’ attention.

In her mind Taffeta hears the insistent, whispered pleading and screaming and cursing of the two soul coins in her bag. The one she got from Ka’sam and the one she picked up from the dead tiefling’s metal wagon. Over the last two tendays she’s got used to Ka’sam’s coin. As long as she keeps it in the bag, she can ignore it most of the time. It’s harder with two in there.

She remembers being surprised at the strong reactions of Varis and Sunday when she suggested picking the coin up. She almost said, ‘What’s the problem? I’ve got one already, it’s fine.’ But something stopped her. There was something… judgmental about the way they both responded when she reached for it. Varis especially – he said he was just ‘advising’ her not to, but it was clear to her that he thought there was something wicked about taking it. And Sunday, too… Taffeta did believe that Sunday, unlike Varis, was genuinely concerned for the effect the coin might have on her. But there was still that Varis-like hint of righteousness in her voice, the one she’s had ever since she came back from the feywild, that moral certainty and superiority. Well, Taffeta wasn’t going to give the two of them any more reason to stand in judgment over her. That lump of metal could help her protect her family and she was going to take it and she didn’t need to justify that to anybody.

After some discussion, and after some unasked advice from a couple of imps who appeared from nowhere and told Baine and Ghesh (who they seemed to know) to ‘get out or make some deals, make some friends’ before vanishing again, the group decided to try to get help from someone in Avernus opposed to Zariel’s rule. So they headed toward the river to try to fall in with one of the groups of devils battling demons along its banks.

The river, though, gave them a new problem. After Baine curiously dipped a broken bone into the red liquid, Daisy reached out and touched it with her finger – and instantly became dull and witless like the simplest of animals. When all their efforts to restore her failed, they had no choice but to keep going with the plan. Except now they needed help not only getting safely into the Burning Keep but also getting Daisy back to normal.

So they found a handful of devils skirmishing with some more of the huge vulture-demons and joined the fight, pretending that Sunday was a native of Avernus and the rest of the group were her servants. Taffeta remembers her astonishment when, once the battle was over, the leader of the devils revealed themself to be no devil at all but an elf, like the ones she’s met in the feywild. This elf – Lorelas – took the party to meet their mistress, ‘the Sanguine Rose’.

A fey court was absolutely the last thing Taffeta had expected to find in the first circle of Hell but that was what the Sanguine Rose seemed to preside over. It was a place overflowing with flowers and climbing plants, trained into arches and walls and tunnels, all deep dark greens and reds and purples. Some of the courtiers were fey, some devils. The Sanguine Rose herself was a very tall handsome woman with black bird-like wings, a crown of red roses on her head, and a constant trickle of blood running from each red eye.

Taffeta recalls the conversation with deep discomfort. The smooth, polite carelessness of the Sanguine Rose, knowing that she had could set whatever price she pleased for what the group badly needed. Sunday opening the dialogue with all her knowledge of courtly speech, trying to convince the fey-devil that it was in her interests to help the party but quickly finding there was no alliance of equals to be had here, only a brutally one-sided negotiation. Varis then taking the lead, tense and formal, offering his services – his servitude – and trying to get as much as he could in exchange. Was he really willing to join a devil’s army just for the sake of killing another one? Taffeta wouldn’t exactly be sorry to see the back of him but still… the idea made her very uneasy.

Then, of course, Baine put himself forward to save Varis, and Varis made another offer to protect Baine, and the two of them were suddenly in a horrifying bidding war where each tried to give away more and more of himself so the other could stay free. Taffeta remembers her helpless sadness at seeing the young half-orc trying to sacrifice years, decades of his life for his undeserving commander. Eventually she couldn’t bear it, tried to persuade Baine not to do it. For a moment she even thought she might have convinced him – or was he just hesitating because he didn’t know how to explain to her that he felt he had to do it? She never found out, because Varis’ voice cut through the pause: ‘We accept.’ Making decisions about other people’s lives again, like he’d tried to do to her. But Baine made no protest, and the deal was done. Each of them would have five more years free, then they’d be bound to serve the Sanguine Rose in Avernus for ten years. If they died before the five years were past, their souls would go and serve out the contract anyway. And, before any of that, they’d go now to kill an enemy of the Rose’s named L’zeth, or ‘the Bitter Breath’. In exchange, the Sanguine Rose put Daisy back to normal and promised to transport the group directly to where they needed to go inside the Burning Keep once they’d dealt with L’zeth. And that was that.




Taffeta jolts awake. Damn it! She hadn’t meant to sleep. Spending two days awake during day-time for the Avernus trip has thrown her out of her rhythm. How much of the night has passed?

She didn’t sleep so easily in the Ethereal Respite – that was what the Sanguine Rose called her strange hell-based slice of feywild when she invited them to stay for the night. They accepted, but Taffeta took a long time to relax enough to sleep, and her rest was troubled.

Now, as she carefully extracts herself from the hollow tree and starts feeling her way through the forest again, she remembers the news that awaited the party when they woke the next morning – or whenever it was, for there seemed to be no real days or nights in Avernus. The mystifying offer to reduce Baine’s and Varis’ servitude to five years. Why? The Sanguine Rose refused to say. With some hesitation, the two of them accepted the offer, and the party set off to find the Bitter Breath.

Arriving within sight of the ruined cathedral that they’d been told to look for, they hid for a while so Baine could carefully observe the hobgoblin warriors wandering around the ruins and small buildings. Taffeta remembers the young man’s serious face as he studied the enemy. She wonders sadly whether that’s his future: roaming those dusty battlefields year after year, waging war against this or that fiend on behalf of his new mistress.

There were too many enemies to fight, so the group agreed a plan: Taffeta and Sunday would draw the guards’ attention to one side of the area while the others would slip into the temple ruins from the other side.

Taffeta’s main memory of carrying out this plan is the feeling of fear and panic as she sat behind Sunday (who was disguised as a hobgoblin) on the back of her elk steed (disguised as a hellish flame-headed horse) and the two of them rode in plain sight toward the fortified ruins, with Varis’ stag trailing behind them. The towering hobgoblins looking down at her from the walls with their orange eyes as Sunday convinced them that the halfling was a captive to be delivered to L’zeth. She remembers being so worried about what would happen if the conversation went wrong that for a while she completely forgot what she was meant to do. But then she recovered herself and things moved quickly: Taffeta slipping to the ground and triggering the magical stone she’d taken from Castle Dawnsend; the earth elemental appearing among the archers up on the wall and laying about itself with huge gravelled fists; Sunday jumping down and ‘recapturing’ the escaped prisoner; the elk and the stag galloping into the hobgoblin forces at ground level and trying to cause as much chaos as they could while Sunday teleported herself and Taffeta to a gap between two buildings some distance away, out of sight of the guards.

From there it was quite easy to catch up with the others as they entered the temple through a hole in the crumbling wall. Inside, the main features were a raised platform at one end and a gaping hole in the middle of the floor with a green glow and smoke rising from it. Only a few guards around. Made invisible by Sunday, Traavor went off to investigate.

But then things started getting worrying. First, with a great groan, the large main doors were thrown open and dozens of hobgoblins rushed in shouting. Raising the alarm, Taffeta assumed, about the strange attack by two animals, an elemental, and a small halfling. Then, just as the building was suddenly full of soldiers on high alert, she heard a noise from the apparently empty dais – and so did the hobgoblins. Several of them began to run towards it.

Then everything happened. Thinking back on it (as she gropes her way through a dense and lightless cluster of pines) she thinks she may have been the first to act – sliding between the planes, planting crossbow bolts in several of the soldiers who were rushing toward what she guessed must be Traavor. Or maybe it was Sunday shouting “L’zeth, show yourself!” Then of course there were hobgoblins everywhere, charging at them, firing arrows at them, and Baine and Ghesh swinging their weapons wide, Varis shouting something, Daisy throwing flames. And a huge armoured devil, glowing with green light, rising up from the pit in the middle of the floor wielding a polearm as tall as a house.

All of them overrun by enemies. The fiend’s bladed staff slashing at Sunday. Sunday down; up again. Baine and Ghesh surrounded. Varis trying to push through to Sunday. Daisy summoning a fence of vicious thorns to cut off some of the hobgoblins, though they start forcing their way through. Taffeta herself throwing a curtain of wind up to shield them all from the archers on the far side of the hole. Baine down. Sunday down again, but striking upward and making the devil cry out in pain as its helmet cracked and fell away. Daisy growing into an earth elemental and surging toward the Bitter Breath. The fiend growling and thrusting its glaive vindictively into Sunday as she lay on the ground.

Taffeta remembers having a bolt in her hand ready to load into her crossbow when she saw the blade flash toward her friend. Forgetting what she was doing, she simply flung the bolt toward the devil, spitting curses at it, and the power of her rage split the bolt into hundreds of shafts that stuck L’zeth and its soldiers like pincushions. Next thing a hobgoblin’s heavy shield crashed into her and knocked her to the ground, and its sword followed quickly after, biting into her leg. But she didn’t care about that. As her attacker loomed over her, ready to swing again, she quickly pulled two faintly glowing bolts from a pouch and loaded one into her crossbow. She could see Varis hacking at the Bitter Breath, his longsword clanging harmlessly off its armour, before the fiend smacked him to the ground with the butt of its glaive and then swung it round and stabbed the blade into his side, using the force to push itself up into the air. Trying to escape, fly away. “No!” she screamed, firing the first bolt and then the second. The first buried itself in the cheek of the rising devil. Cracks were just starting to spread from the wound, like dried mud breaking, when the second bolt struck it in the eye and the massive creature exploded into dust.

She doesn’t remember very clearly what happened after that. From dazed fragments of memory and from what Daisy told her afterwards, she knows that the hobgoblins stopped fighting as soon as their commander was destroyed. Varis somehow pulled Sunday back to consciousness, then did the same for Baine when Ghesh carried his body over from where it had fallen, and finally exchanged soldierly acknowledgements with the captain of the hobgoblins before joining the rest of the battered group to trudge back to the Ethereal Respite.




Under the dense forest ceiling Taffeta can’t yet see the sky starting to lighten, but the birds can, and their scattered calls tell her it’s time to bed down for the day.

She knows roughly where she is. A little way south of the clearing where the three standing stones will take you to other planes at certain moods of the moon. In five or six days it will become a door to the feywild – ah, how she wishes she could go there now. Away from everything, lost in intense colours, untamed magic, raw freedom...

How did a patch of that profusion of life and energy come to exist in the war-shattered desert of Avernus? Did the Sanguine Rose create it or find it there? Or did it create her? What is she: fey, fiend, both, neither?

Whatever the Ethereal Respite was, however Taffeta feared and distrusted it, she was glad to reach it after L’zeth’s temple and the long limping walk back across the plains. The mistress of the place laughed and said she hadn’t been expecting the group to come back. None of them was in the mood to tell her how near they’d come to matching her expectations. Then, without giving them any chance to rest, she waved her hand and the whole party, including their hostess, were somewhere else. Somewhere even more oppressively hot than the open wastes, a sweaty red-lit corridor full of vats of green liquid, like smaller copies of the thing Taffeta had glimpsed at the bottom of the pit in the ruined temple. After a moment or two they heard sounds of horns and bells from elsewhere in whatever building this was – the Burning Keep, it must have been – and the Sanguine Rose didn’t wait for the guards who were surely on their way now. Her black wings unfolded, the trickles of blood from her eyes turned to streams, and she was gone, flying down the corridor and out through a doorway. In her wake red flower-petals drifted to the floor and wilted where they lay.

Varis was moving quickly from one vat to another, then stopped next to one of them and drew his sword. “You shall trouble Daring no longer,” he said, and thrust the blade into the container and into whatever was inside it. And in another moment the group were all joining hands and Daisy was ringing her tuning-fork and muttering an incantation.

And then they were back in Daring Heights.

As she settles into a slight hollow in the ground and starts to pile leaves and small branches on top of herself, Taffeta lingers on the memory of Varis and Baine walking away from Portal Plaza with hardly a word. Each of them with only five years until they must go back to that place and spend half a decade serving their new mistress. She thinks of Baine especially. Hardly older than Aila. So lost, so desperate for something to belong to, someone to believe in. Does he think it was worth it? Or does he, like so many young people, not really believe that his actions will have consequences? Does he think that before his five years have passed he’ll have found some way to break his contract or do away with the fey-devil who holds it?

And as she has that thought, she finally acknowledges another that’s been lurking in her mind as well. Not a decision, really. More like accepting something you know is true. She must help him. She will help him. That contract will have to be broken.

One more task for the list. Rescue Paw. Kill the rakshasa. Free Baine.

Won’t this ever end?