Recap 2025-11-06

Dreri calls out, “All right, everyone - hold onto something and say a prayer. We’re crossing the threshold!”
You don’t see the edge of the plane. There is no waterfall, no rapids. The river seems to stretch on ahead of you into the distance, into the darkness. The whole of the river is an ashen red, and the dim light that has surrounded you the whole time you have been on this godsforsaken plane gives the river an eerie pall, reflected up onto the sides of your boat.
You glance back at Dreri, and see her clutching the steering oar with both hands and keeping it tucked under her arm, held as tightly as a woman drowning. Her intensity seems at stark odds to the calm, almost apathetic surroundings around you.
Then the boat leaps into the sky, following the river that bubbles and boils beneath you. The river, now, suddenly, is shooting into the sky - not a geyser, but a reverse waterfall, the pouring water an elevator, dragging your boat with it. And as it rises, it shifts in hue from the dull tones to a bright, almost lava red, its temperature shifting from lukewarm to burbling hot, steam hovering over its surface.
Dreri lets out a bellow, half rage, half excitement, and drags hard on the oar as a cliffside looms above you. You shoot past it, skittering against smaller rocks, the impact rattling your teeth. Then, suddenly, the boat inverts - you feel the shift in your stomach, it drops up and away as if you had gone over a loop in a rollercoaster, and you realize you’re now facing out into the dark expanse between the planes. There are no stars, no lights, nothing but a swirling vast emptiness. The ride smooths, and then – you’re back upright. The ride is calm.
But your surroundings have changed. No longer are you surrounded by the flat and colorless expanse of the Grey Wastes. Instead, you see a landscape pockmarked by volcanoes of immense size. Everything is steep angles and burning rock. Even the Styx itself is still at an incline, though Dreri seems to be moving the boat upstream through some magics you don’t fully understand.
She grins and wipes sweat from her forehead. “And THAT is why you need me.”
The wind carries on it a heavy note of sulfur, and you can see winged fiends circling in the sky in the distance. The riverbanks are sharp obsidian, and as you watch, a large section of a distance volcanic mountain collapses, causing molten and igneous rock to tumble thousands of feet to the ground below.
You realize, as you look around, there isn’t a single fully level surface in view. You hear the quiet voice of Tabi behind you, back in his humanoid form, bluish blobby feet dangling over the edge of the boat, the sphere of fire resistance bobbing in his head, and it bounces slightly with each word. “Gehenna. What a place. They say if you trip and fall here, you keep falling until you fall out of the plane itself.” He points off into the distance, at the peak of one of the volcanic mountains, and says, “That’s our destination. The Crawling City.” He pulls a spyglass out of his bag and puts it to his head. “Good news is, looks like they plan to meet us halfway.” He hands Angelus the spyglass he was looking through, and Angelus looks through it inverted, dismayed at how far away the city is. Tabi then hands it to Gobbie, who sights the city.
As you watch, what you thought was an enormous boulder stuck to the side of a steep slope resolves into a gigantic slab of rock with hundreds of enormous, clawed legs jutting from the bottom. The legs begin to twist and move, and the rock, covered in tall buildings, begins making its way down the mountain, coming your way. “Probably take a few days for them to reach us,” Tabi says, “But that’s our destination, boyos.”
“Maybe this leg of the journey won’t be as bad as the first?” Tabi offers up, crossing his little blobby hands. “I say we get off here.”
Dreri shrugs, and says, “So is this where I drop you off?”

The party debated whether to…

• Stay on the boat

• Disembark and hike

• Camp and wait for the city

Though Tabi pressed to stop and camp, and Dreri reminded them walking Gehenna was suicide, the group ultimately voted to remain aboard the Styx.

Angelus-determined not to leave Dreri-was a major deciding voice.

As canyon walls closed in, Kor spotted shadowy figures; six finely dressed frog-headed Hydroloths.

They halted the boat with booming bureaucratic demands:

“Do you have a license to transit a Class-C vessel with this many occupants on the River Styx?”

Dreri admitted she did not have a license, and that she never signs anything on the Outer Planes. Tabi whispered to Tag that he knows of bureaucrats like these guys, and has some unpaid loitering tickets.

Angelus tried to reason with the Hydroloths, but things rapidly devolved.

The Hydroloths had their hidden golem grab the boat, proclaiming they were: “impounding the boat until such a time as you can provide evidence of the license in triplicate and approved by the Secretary of Naval Affairs in the Crawling City, or until a fine of 10000 GP has been paid, or one of your crew handed over as collateral.”

• Gobbie insisted the boat was a Class ‘B’ boat due to having multiple oars, as he used Spiritual Weapon to fake a second oar.
• Angelus attempted to forge documents mid-conversation and impersonate a river marshal. He was surprisingly convincing, leading the leader of the Hydroloths, Pythagius Sandoris Witterstein Eragon Cybasix the Third, to teleport Angelus up to negotiate privately.

There, Pythagius admitted:

“There is no Secretary of Naval Affairs in the Crawling City.”
and offered to hire Angelus into their corruption-based ‘organization’, offering gold.

Angelus declined.
They pressed him to sign a binding agreement.
He tried to fake a name, but the magical contract rejected his made-up name.

Angelus stalled long enough for Josiah (prompted by Chibro) to teleport him back to the boat.
Negotiations went south pretty quick after that, and all hell broke loose.

• The stone golem grabbed the back of the boat, trying to tear it apart
• The Hydroloths unleashed their magics, managing to warp Chibro’s and Gobbie’s minds.
• The golem cast Slow on the boat, catching most of the crew, but the group still managed to rally.
• Tag laid down massive ranged fire.
• Josiah dropped Fireball, Storm Sphere, and lightning into the canyon
• Chibro unloaded gunfire into the golem.
• Kor delivered a decisive maelstrom hammer strike killing one Hydroloth mid-duel, stealing Tag’s finishing blow.
• Gobbie’s Mace of Smiting critically shattered the golem’s hand, breaking its grip on the boat.
• Once the golem released, Dreri began rowing the party away.
• Seeing things go badly, the Hydroloths teleported and fled, but not before Pythagius spat his final promise at Angelus:

“I will learn your true name. I will find you. I will slit your throat in your sleep.”

The golem’s assault left the boat nearly destroyed. One more hit would have sunk everyone into the Styx.

Dreri was furious with Angelus and physically grappled him, intent on dunking him in the river to teach him what memory-loss truly means.

Angelus attempted to smooth things over, with… mixed effect.

The party pulled to shore.
There, Dreri revealed:

The boat is made of memories taken or willingly given to the Styx.

To repair damage, someone must give a memory to the hull.

Tag volunteered.

The two sat together; Tag placed a hand on the boat.
He recalled and surrendered a memory, one of utterly profound beauty:
a celestial he once hunted, whom he found too beautiful to destroy.
That memory flowed from him into the wood, and the hull knit itself whole.

Tag was left drained, mentally and spiritually.

Dreri was deeply moved by the sacrifice and thanked him with rare sincerity.
They shared a quiet bonding moment while Angelus drank heavily nearby, jealous and confused.

The group rested on unstable Gehenna stone, preparing to continue upriver. In the early hours of the morning, as Gobbie was on watch, a small figure scrambled up onto a rock. It waved its little Kobold hand at Gobbie, and he realized: He knew this figure. He saw its dead body back in Gauntlgrym. Greebo, his scales literally radiant, grinned.

Song of the Session

Yakety Axe by Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler

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