Whether by lift or by magic, the Levellers find themselves at the lip of the caldera of a volcano. Behind them, from within the mountain, dozens of tiny flying Modrons evacuate their base and take to the skies. Satisfied with the prize they’ve claimed, the battle-bloodied adventurers come over the lip of the crater and look down into the Avernian wasteland.
Hell changes slowly, so the view is for the most part exactly as they saw it yesterday. The Styx snakes its way across a desert of black rocks and red sands, winding its way through a canyon of immeasurable age and somehow, far away, connecting this place to the rest of the lower planes.
Here and there towers dot the landscape, especially around the mighty span of Zariel’s Bridge, contra-Abyss from where the party crossed the channel aboard the Mirror’s Edge. Similarly, still visible are the plains of fire and the enormous blister-shaped hill behind them.
But there’s one significant change.
Floating slowly across the sky, graceful except that the sandy air itself whips around as if it resents its presence, crawls an impossibly large vessel of infernal iron. Shaped like the fang of some fierce beast, its tip narrowly avoids grazing the tops of the taller hills as its broad head reaches up far above the whirling sands. Conduits of magical red fire blaze upwards along its length, and bolts of electrical energy arc out along its lower surfaces.
This war machine is unlike any the party have seen before, but – thanks to Historian’s knowledge – Tunwéya recognises it as a flying fortress. The Modron observers believe that Zariel constructed nine of these gargantuan battleships: eight are still in operation, of which one acts as Zariel’s own flagship. Four flying fortresses operate from this side of Hades and routinely return to Avernus on to refuel, repair, and re-arm.
The machine is unsettling: both in the impossibly graceful way its enormous mass moves through the air, but also in the sensation it imposes upon those who see it. It’s almost as if a loud and angry growl, so deep it cannot be heard, is emitted from the battleship, invoking mild feelings of nausea and dread.
Safely back at ‘Erno, their car, The Levellers are able to watch this harbinger of Hells’ might creep its way across the landscape. It seems to be following the course of the river towards the bridge or to the towers beyond.
Breathing a collective sigh of relief that this terrifying leviathan wasn’t heading in their direction, The Levellers rest and discuss what they plan to do next…
The Levellers 