Stairway to Hell

Stairway to Hell is the 42nd Chapter in the SKT Saga.

Short Summary
The group has some what heated moment between Ben and HD. Vaasha and Sigrún says their farewells to the Wayfarers. Everyone flies up 5000 steps in half an hour while an invisible Almond spends an hour running up it. Yen gets mad for a brief second. Chapter ends with the party being tossed into one of their most challenging situations.

Long Summary
(to be added)

Characters

 * The Wayfarer's Guild
 * Almond
 * Benedikt
 * Lox
 * HD
 * Yenedril
 * Vaasha
 * Sigrún
 * Chimera "The Guardian"
 * Yakfolk
 * Kartha Kaya

Timestamps from Recording
00:00:06 - Recap of the last episode: Gang is on the back of a Roc, gathered around the rat box which HD opened with her rat coin.

00:01:50 - The box is opened, the torn pieces of paper in the box are fixed. HD takes a folded sheet from the pile.

00:03:48 - The papers contain details about safe houses, treasure caches, financial receipts, details of various accounts, profiles of different people, letters. The folded sheet HD took has 'Mil' written in the corner.

00:05:44 - Inside the box is a smaller box containing a poisoner's kit. There is a short sword in the box. And everyone finds out that the box is three feet long, not the size of a small cube.

00:07:14 - Ben tries to take HD's birthright and almost fights everyone in the gang.

00:08:37 - Ben tries to blackmail a young woman into taking off her mask.

00:12:20 - Ben rolls a nat 20 on strength to grab the sword, so he is now canonically the strongest person in TWG.

00:14:00 - HD tells the party that the sword belonged to someone important to her.

00:18:05 - HD promises the party she will tell them about the sword and her past when they are done with getting the conch.

00:22:45 - Vaasha drops off the gang at the staircases carved into the mountain.

00:33:14 - The gang uses pixie dust. Al turns invisible (for one hour). Nothing happens to Lox. Yen and HD gain the ability to fly. Yen gives Lox a piggyback ride (fly?) up the mountain. Al declines Ben's offer to make him un-invisible and has to run up the mountain while everyone flies almost all the way up the mountain. They can see the floating castle and the gates of the village.

00:44:41 - The party realized that steps are missing for 50 feet. Meanwhile, Al has a bad day running up Hammerhaast.

00:50:30 - Al finally reaches the gang, still invisible. He takes one point of exhaustion. Yen tries to give the invisible Al some water. Yen is now canonically the most mature person in the party. The party takes a break.

00:58:47 - Yen teleports to the other side of the missing stairs. Al creates stairs so that the rest of the party can walk to the village. Yen looks down and notices that the area he is in has less snow. He notices bones in the area he is in.

01:03:28 - Party hears a loud roar/scream coming from the direction of the floating castle (twice).

01:08:54 - A chimera attacks Al, Ben, Lox and HD. Everyone manages to hurt it pretty badly, and the creature uses cone of cold on the party. HD manages to kill it by attacking all three heads of the beast in one go.

01:38:51 - The party tries to figure out how to get into the village. Ben and Al suggest HD using her boots to walk over the gate and open it from the inside. Yen suggests knocking on the gates instead. Ben is prophetic and suggests the village being hostile. Al knocks and yells hello and gets no response. He then yells out that the creature is dead and that it was safe to come out. A yakfolk person pokes his head out and is informed by the party that they come in peace.

01:45:12 - The gang is greeted by the leader of the village. He asks if the party is friendly, to which HD replies in their dialect that they are friends. TWG is let into the nice looking village. The village has wooden houses made for the ten feet tall yaks, various fields, farm animals (including some normal yaks), some young yakfolk. There doesn't seem to be that many yakfolk in the village.

01:50:13 - The village chief introduces himself as Kartha Kaya. TWG informs them they are travellers. Yen (falsely) informs Kartha Kaya that a chimera told TWG that it would join it's brother in harming the yakfolk village, and that they were here to kill it. Kartha Kaya is not familiar with the word "chimera". Yen says it is a beast with three heads.

01:51:30 - "Oh, like village guardian chimera?" Yen promptly lies and says that Kartha Kaya's chimera has headed off to fight the evil chimera, and the village chief is pleased that his chimera is making friends. Party is dying in the inside.

01:55:28 - Yen continues to lie and claims that he is a cleric of the Faceless God. Kartha Kaya invites them over to his house, and informs the party that no one else speaks common, and that they worship the Forgotten God. Yen transforms his bow into a stick with three heads.

01:59:42 - As they are being led through the village, the party notices the village is in two sections. They cross to the other section of the village and go into the largest hut. There is a field to the side with grain, with several yakfolk working in the field alongside some halflings. Unlike the yakfolk, the halflings don't wave at the party as they walk through.

02:03:00 - Al asks Kartha Kaya about his people. He informs that they are known as the forgotten race, and speak a language that only they know. He states that they are a very isolated community. Ben asks how the halflings came to be in the village, and Kartha Kaya responds that they came there as foundlings because they were being persecuted where ever they went. The village gives them safe harbor. He tells the party they can talk to the halflings about their experiences after they have some food. Al is very affected due to killing the village guardian.

02:06:13 - Al tells Kartha Kaya he would like to rest. Yen, Ben and HD are instructed by Kartha Kaya to sit down and have some food while he takes Al to a place where he can rest. Lox accompanies Al to make sure he doesn't tell anyone the truth about the chimera. The both of them are taken to another hut with a cot and a smoking pipe, and tells them they can help themselves to anything in the hut. Lox tries the smoking pipe, but inhales a lot of smoke and throws up. It is also now canon that "Lox has spent a lot of time sucking".

02:13:15 - Lox and Al are brought food by one of the Yakfolk. They don't eat the meat due to their Kalika trauma and eat some bread instead. In the other tent, Ben inquires about the Faceless God to Yen, who is still keeping up his act as a cleric. Kartha Kaya brings them food, and tells them to eat. HD feeds some of the meat to Butter (who was there all along), while Yen asks about the Forgotten God. Kartha Kaya tells him that the name of their god has been forgotten for thousands of years. All they know is that they were made in His image. One story that remains about him is that he journeyed to the elemental plane, and defeated the great khan of the Dao. The Dao were then made to serve Him and His minions and forbidden to attack them for a thousand years and one. However, this was many thousands of years ago, and the sentence has now expired. Kartha Kaya further states that followers of the Forgotten God were now unable to summon the Dao to their will, and that the Forgotten God has been busy preventing the Dao from seeking revenge on the Yakfolk. Ben informs Kartha Kaya that Al's people fought the Dao as well.

02:20:20 - Kartha Kaya tells Yen, Ben and HD to partake in the meal that he prepared. Ben disguises himself as Warforged to explain why he does not need to eat. Yen tells the chief that HD is an acolyte of the Faceless God, and HD backs up this claim and says that she is fasting and thus cannot eat. Yen says that he will eat on her behalf, and eats her share of the food as well. Kartha Kaya leaves the hut to bring them a smoking pipe.

02:23:28 - In the other tent, Al asks if killing the chimera was justified, and Lox reassures him that it was. Al says that he can't afford to be upset about this as he has greater things to worry about. Al buried himself up to his head in the stone and immediately passes out. Lox heads out for the other tent. HD notices that Butter has fallen asleep in his food bowl. Yen suddenly passes out, and Lox seems like he would pass out at the same time, but manages to stay conscious. The tent door opens, and three Yakfolk along with Kartha Kaya walk in.

"Oh, hello. I see you are still awake. It's time for the after party".

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