by: Nixon "Jasper" Showalter
Hello friends, foes, and otherwise,
There is a strong argument to be made that the Feast of the Leviathan is one of my favorite events I have got to partake in since coming to these lands. The snow is fresh and still one of my favorite weather conditions, the temperature is cold making it great for warm food, and I get to see all of my friends as the year starts to bloom. While it is a feast, and the food was delicious, I have a story to tell about something slightly off topic.
Avandar asked us to go into Hell and into Hell we went. A few of our friends had dreams and visions about shadows taking a blacksmith into a portal, and it seemed it was in our best interest to go rescue him (or at least figure out what was going on). So we were off to the portal to Hell!
Our first mission was to get some runes. I believe these runes also formed a key which would help us get to our next destination. Once at the portal, a permanent sacrifice had to be made to get us into Hell. Someone sacrificed a totem that represented their connection with their mother, a very noble sacrifice which allowed us all to enter Hell. There was one further stipulation. If we were to leave Hell, we each needed a bone that we would imbue with a curse. Anyone was capable of doing so, and we later learned that we were able to personalize them (how cute!).
As you can imagine, the demons we encountered both wanted us to leave and also wanted us to take them with us. One demon claimed to be a past follower of Garm who was sent to Hell by Asmodius when Garm was stapled. Now it is important to note, for some reason so many of my recent adventures have taken me to Hell, taken me to get stabbed by demons, so I am generally over going to Hell and fighting demons and have come to realize that they mostly just lie, so I was not buying it. However, other adventurers disagreed and took the demon along with us, eventually letting them out of Hell. A second demon we ran into claimed to have “only done tax fraud in Ashenmark”, which as this day progressed I came to agree with them moreso. However, upon being asked if they would commit more crimes if brought back to the Realms, they refused to even lie and say no. They were also trying to trick a child into a demon deal, lots of not good stuff, and I believe they were left in Hell at the end of the day.
While we were fighting and talking to demons, we ended up in a factory of sorts, creating new demons with different powers. There were cow twins, exploding demons, and the works. The head demons running the show were looking for our feedback on how to improve. They were also somewhat upset that we barged in and started to destroy their creations but that's how the cookie crumbles. To get the aforementioned bones we needed, we had to search and render the creatures to get the bones off them. This was surprisingly easy and resulted in us having a bunch of bones to get all of us out!
We were able to get the runes off one of the two demons who ran the show and all of us began to leave. As we left, we had to invent a curse to put into the bones and surely this won’t come back up later. I heard some people’s curses were to lose one’s legs, be unable to lie, have terribly bad luck, act against your will, etc etc. But we all did as we must and were able to leave Hell.
We were then summoned back to Hell once again. For starters, once we got to the portal to Hell, N called out to anyone listening to help us get in. Conveniently, the door opened right up. Suspicious. We fight a few demons and end up in the home of a demon called Mel having a tea party with another demon called Yumi (Nightmare). Now Yumi and I have unfortunately had many dealings, and while I should have imagined that all demons are connected, I did not expect to see them there. Standing behind Yumi was Leo, a good friend of mine. What I did not expect was for Yumi to command Leo to present a gift of babies as a house warming gift for Mel to eat. Mel then laughs and removes a table cloth covering their meal, which happened to be an extremely gruesome sight.
On the table was a baby which they apparently made undead so that they could eat it while it was “alive”, terrible stuff. While I did not know our main objective (classic Jasper), I now had a side objective to get this baby out of Hell. I ask if I can approach the table, and have a quick chat. Someone informs me we are looking for a key, so I ask Mel if they would be able to help us find it. Mel tells me that we could bargain for it. They first offer me a snack of the baby on the table which I decline. They then offer me a drink, a mixture of blood and souls they were drinking. This I could stomach better. In an attempt to be polite, I took a swig.
This drink made me feel slightly strange, though nothing that was out of the usual. Much later, Ryu came up to me very sure that I was a thrall, but nothing really came of this, and I’m probably fine (you know me). However, Mel then asked that I get ten other people to drink as well, five for Mel and five for Yumi. We have an audience at this time and I call over some people and I believe there were eight of us total who drank this mixture. With this, they give us pieces of the key that we need and we all begin to leave.
This is where the plan kicks in. I very casually ask if Mel would like the baby to be brought with us, to ensure the meal does not get cold. Mel thinks this is a great idea and I immediately swaddle the child in my arms. I blend in to the crowd as much as I can and eventually we are commanded to leave the demons home and I do not wait to be told twice. I head for the exit and I am able to rescue the baby from the silver platter. It is still… very messed up… but no matter for Jasper Sherwood (speaking of Sherwood, did you know that was one of the answers to Feast of the Mind? I have peaked in the Realms), causer and fixer of problems. I started sourcing magics, and between some raises, a soul being called, and some more healing magic, the baby was returned to life. I did the smart thing and had it identified as well and it turns out to be a human child.
I always knew I was ready for parenthood, and what better than to open the year with a new responsibility to keep me on track. I still have not named the child, nor do I know the gender of the child, so if anyone has any good gender neutral name recommendations, I would be all ears.
Once the child was returned to life, people immediately tried to start taking my baby from me which is terrible. Laika told me he would ask Aurora who the parents were and then rushed away to do so. Believe it or not, I did not hear from Laika again on the matter. I am sure Aurora answered and said that I would be the best guardian for the child. Thanks Aurora, you’re a real one.
Now to be quite honest, I don’t remember how I got to this next situation. It might have been prophetic quite honestly. But for starters, Sir Elizah was an incredible help with saving the baby. She may try to be humble and say it was all me, but there is no I in team and we were a baby saving team. But we soon realized it was likely that this baby’s parents were citizens of Ashenmark and that this baby was sold to the demons to afford more Ashenmarken cheese. This led us to understand that the Ashenmark 100% tax rate was to fund this racket to afford all of the cheese.
Elizah and I simply could not stand for this and immediately went to High Lord Temorse to discuss this possibility. Temorse was of course extremely dismissive of these “rumors” we were attempting to inform him of, but we finally had realized the truth.
Some time later, Caleal approached me to inform me that I was being sued by none other than High Lord Temorse of Ashenmark, and that I would have to turn over my child immediately. Now with the fact that it may probably be 100% true that it is a possibility that some citizens of Ashenmark may or may not possibly be selling their babies to demons, I was absolutely not letting my baby go back to Hell. I refused, and asked Caleal for some time to find legal counsel. He allotted me 3 minutes, or else he would take my baby’s legs as High Lord Temorse wanted a baby leg meat pie. To say I was shocked is an understatement. I simply could not let this happen.
I entered the feast hall in a frenzy looking for anyone who could stand in as a lawyer. Caleal would call down the hall, counting down as time passed like sand slipping through my fingers. However, my luck quickly turned around. I stumbled upon Evitta Jainrose, Esquire, and this is where things changed for the better.
Evie was able to negotiate on my behalf. This is where I quickly learned that apparently in Ashenmark, if you are sued your options are to give the High Lord your baby or pay the High Lord your money. There is no winning, there is just losing less. So Evie ensured we lost as little as possible and I was fined one gold (plus an additional gold for Rhiassan taxes) to High Lord Temorse, and I was able to go on my way.
Finally, I had fought demons, staged a rescue, made friends, hired lawyers, and successfully “beat” High Lord Temorse in a legal battle (I lost). There was a third trip into Hell, and I was even there, but honestly had no idea what was going on. There were shadows which needed magic to kill them, Elizah was extremely clutch with a mystic forge enchanting people’s weapons, and Sir Aelias did something really cool with a really cool sword, and he would also be able to tell you in a much more questing focused way what was going on (I blame the baby, my focuses were rightfully elsewhere).
Until the sun touches the sea,
Jasper Sherwood
