¶ 👹 Session 026: Treachery in the Pit
The countdown ticked. The last civilians cleared out. The air above Mertlinger Sanitarium thrummed with dread. Nitro issued commands, scattering the crowd with axe raised high, and paused to scribble in her journal:
“Last Will and Testament of Nitro: I was awesome. Always and forever.”
Then, the street erupted.
A rift tore through the cobblestone, spewing green gas and psychic pressure. From the pit, a voice called out—Larissa Shadowtune, Snax’ former bandmate, begging for help. Otto secured a rope. Nitro braced. Snax descended—and fell.
His Snapleaf activated midair, cloaking him in invisibility and slowing his fall. He landed safely and healed Larissa with a scroll of Heal—only to watch her skin melt away. In her place stood a Treachery Demon, seething with corruption and clad in countless twitching eyes.
“Come to me,” it whispered, seizing Snax’ will and leading him toward a freshly torn portal to the Abyss.
Above, Otto launched a pinpoint bolt at the demon—intercepted midair by an eye-tail. Nitro hurled bottled sunlight into the pit, burning both demon and goblin. She then leapt in, striking hard—but her axe was parried. The demon took a few steps into the portal, grinning to itself with glee of it's impending victory.
But Nitro had other plans. With brute strength, she bravely raced into the portal and tore Snax from the demon’s grasp, throwing him up out of the pit with her double-fudget throw technique. Otto caught him. Snax, unconscious, was healed on the spot with battle medicine.
Then—Clutch arrived.
Sprinting around the street corner, the sweat-slicked tengu dove into the pit and stood beside Nitro. But before they could regroup, the demon teleported out of the pit, reappearing next to Otto and Snax. Clutch launched upward in a burst of feathers and fury, grappled the demon, and hurled it back into the pit, landing it in front of Nitro with a sickening crunch.
Acid vials flew from Otto’s hands. He shouted tactics and warnings, doing everything he could to pin the demon down.
Snax stirred. Otto’s healing had done the trick. But before anyone could stop him, Snax jumped back into the pit.
He landed hard. Nitro looked up, exasperated. Together, they tried to push the demon into the rift. But the creature was fast—dangerously so. It struck again, knocking Snax unconscious once more. Cradling him, it stepped back into the portal.
Otto, determined, followed—anchoring the rope and descending into the Abyss. As he reached the bottom and joined his companions inside the rift, the demon raised the unconscious Snax before them like a trophy.
“All of you are meddling with forces you cannot comprehend. I must give penance to my master”
it declared.
“And this”—it gestured to Snax—“will gain me so much favor.”
With a final shimmer of voidlight, the demon vanished into the Abyss with Snax in its grasp.
The party stood stunned.
The rift shuddered. Crumbled. Closed.
The silence was deafening. No fanfare. No final blow. Just the reality of loss. Otto, Nitro, and Clutch climbed out, battered and bloodied.
Nitro turned to the stranger who had leapt into hell beside them.
“Who the fudge are you?”
