Krynn's Vanguard had their toughest obstacle yet. Not only did they find the pit in the center of Thorbardin to be an opening to the Abyss, and some powerful beings in their way. Baphomet, the Horned King, a 20-foot tall minotaur with six horns was slowly patrolling the area accompanied by a fiendish Empyrean and two Pit Fiends. This was not a group of foes to be trifled with.
The battle was intense and pushed the party to their limits. Armantaro and Kyan Covverre ended up being killed during the fight, but were somehow miraculously saved and revived during the fight itself. In the end, Krynn's Vanguard overpowered the demon lord and his convoy, finishing off the last abyssal remants within Thorbardin. All that was left was to close the pit into the other world.
Their triumph was short lived however, as a familiar face appeared. They succubus they met before emerged from the shadows.
A soft, deliberate clap echoed through the chamber.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
"Exquisite."
"Truly, I had high hopes for you, and you’ve exceeded them… by a margin that’s almost insulting."
She smiled, amused but somehow predatory. Her voice, honeyed silk, but with the subtle bite of something ancient beneath it.
"To cast down the Horned King and his slaves—do you realize what a rare little constellation you are? So bright. So brave."
She steps closer, and for a moment, the light catches her skin just so—and you see it.
Beneath the illusion, just under the curve of her cheek, down the edge of her shoulder: a shimmer of fine, lustrous scales—black, red, blue, green, and white, glinting like oil-slick gemstones. They vanish just as quickly as they appeared.
She sees your eyes catch the shimmer.
She smiles wider.
"Careful. The Abyss is not kind to those who gaze too closely at the truth. Or at queens who walk among mortals in borrowed skin."
There is a flicker—the air warps, shadows ripple—and for a fleeting breath, you see it:
A massive dragon with two wings and five heads, each one bearing the color and fury of a different chromatic tyrant. Five voices, roaring in silence. Five mouths curled in contempt. One mind—ancient, divine, and impossibly cunning.
Then the illusion snaps back into place.
"But I’m getting ahead of myself."
She steps backward, the pit now at her heels. The wind rises, cold and sulfurous. Her voice drops, no longer mocking, but reverent.
"I look forward to seeing what you become."
"When you’re ready... come find me."
She leans back—and with open arms—lets herself fall into the chasm.
No scream.
No resistance.
Just silence as she vanishes into the Abyss, swallowed whole by the dark from which she never feared to fall.
The stillness returns.
But her scent lingers.
And her presence... has only just begun.
The moment she disappears into the pit, the air ruptures.
A howling vortex surges from the chasm, thick with sulfur, blood, and fury. You stagger as the temperature plummets and a hostile pressure slams into your chest like a divine mallet. This isn’t mere wind—it is the breath of the Abyss, exhaled through the ragged veil of the world, touching your very soul.
The sensation is familiar—a cousin to the dark miasma that once plagued Nightlund and Dargaard Keep. But this… this is worse. Hungrier.
Something has seen you. And it doesn’t like what it saw.
With that, debating what to do, Krynn's Vanguard decided to try and close the rift. In doing so, by way of Kyan's Divine Intervention, the swirling rift to the Abyss begins to close—its screaming winds howling less with fury and more with desperation—a sudden shockwave of infernal pressure bursts outward from within. The ground shudders. The stone beneath your feet buckles and cracks as the chasm pulses like a dying heart given new life.
Then—silence.
A single, massive clawed tentacle slams against the edge of the rift, curling and digging into the stone.
Another follows.
The rift, shrinking to a pinpoint, screeches open once more as if in agony, torn wider by the will of something older than fear.
A pair of monstrous heads—one snarling with burning fury, the other grinning with lunatic glee—rise slowly from the pit, connected by serpentine necks to a towering, reptilian body wreathed in shadow and dread. The Demogorgon, Prince of Demons, ascends from the black gulf, dragging his impossible form into the world with maddening, unnatural grace.
The air splits with the sound of two voices, overlapping and contradictory—one commands annihilation, the other whispers doom. Your vision swims as his twin gazes fix upon you—eyes of molten hate and glacial madness tearing into your soul.
Stone melts around his feet. Light flees from his form. Your heartbeat feels stolen by the gravity of his presence. With a single step, he places himself between you and the rift, his many limbs outstretched—not to flee, but to conquer.
"You would seal the wound of chaos? You would deny me?
We are not finished... not while breath still dares linger in you."
The rift behind him stops closing. It begins to grow.
And you realize—the battle in Thorbardin was not the end.
It was the summoning bell.