Act 2 - Hellturel
&larr Act 1.5 - Intermission & The Road to Candlekeep
Back on Familiar Ground... Sort Of
Slowly, the pleasant spring sky faded to an ominous crimson red; the breeze became a hot, dry, stinging wind. The grassy hill outside Candlekeep was replaced with the cracked city streets of the dock district Elturel, once familiar but now broken by small quakes, one of which immediately struck. Buildings around the party were crumbling and breaking, if they hadn't already fallen in; large parts of the city seemed to be on fire, though the High Hall -- visible on the horizon atop a high ridge -- seemed to have weathered the majority of it just fine. Above it all hung the Companion -- still blackened and still radiating lightning, but now much lower in the sky and hanging level with the top of the High Hall, ominously closer than it had ever been.
And as if on cue, in order to remind everyone where they were, three bearded devils arrived, chasing down a woman and her infant, fleeing in panic. After being saved, she led them to a nearby clock tower that was still standing, perhaps a remnant of a church, and the party got their first good luck at the full situation: Elturel was in fact in Avernus, floating high in midair over top of the River Styx, connected by enormous chains to some sort of structure on each bank of the river.
