The dark figure approaches and in the dim light the players see a slight, humanoid form, maybe female. She is slender, long limbed and small at under five feet in height. She might be confused for an elvish descendant, excepting several jarring differences. Her silken robes brush the tops of her sharply cloven hooves. Smooth and pale, her almond shaped eyes are solid orange set into smooth, lavender skin.
Her slight smile reveals needle shaped teeth. “Welcome to my corner of Hell,” she purrs, “I am called Selene.”
The party quietly climb from their vehicle and, one at a time, introduce themselves to her.
Selene nods. “My brothers always forget that power without patience is just noise. They crash and burn—quite literally, in Phlegethos.” Her disturbing and unreadable eyes focus upon Thunk. “That is where you sent him, is it not? Oh, how he’ll hate that. Well done!”
Thunk shifts uncomfortably. “I’m not really sure where I banished him to.
“Humility. How refreshing,” she says, her voice carrying harmonics that make the ice walls resonate. Selene trails her clawed fingers through the air, and frost follows in delicate patterns.
“I, however, endure. I guard that which you seek.” Again, the disconcerting orange eyes fix upon Thunk.
“You guard Clunk?” Thunk is enervated: he senses that his dear friend is close by.
Selene circles the party slowly, appraising each member with the calculating gaze of a merchant examining merchandise. “You’ve come for the lost one. Yes, I guard him. You have come for him so therefore he is no longer lost. And I know what it takes to return him. I must have a tribute of other lost things to replace the found bugbear, Clunk.”
She wheels on them and demands savagely, “Give me something that costs you, something that you will find painful to part with. I don’t mean material things. I would accept memories, emotions, something….that you would feel keenly to lose.”
She stops before the first party member. Reklaw returns the woman’s stare defiantly. “You, monk. You’ve trained your body into a weapon, your mind into armor. Such dedication. Show me your hands.”
Reklaw studies the woman closely before finally complying. He holds his hands up before his chest and Selene peers at them closely.
“Yes… I can see the years in those calluses, the countless hours of practice. Tell me: what move did you perfect first? Not the strongest, not the flashiest—the first one that felt like it was truly yours. That technique, that achievement…” Her eyes glitter. “Give it to me. Let it become lost, just another forgotten form in an endless library of martial techniques. You’ll remember the movements, but you’ll never feel that pride again, never recall what it meant when it finally worked.”
Reklaw begins to rummage through his pack, fishing for something to offer her else.
“Things?” Her laugh sounds like ice cracking. “This is the Cavern of Lost Things, darling. Objects mean nothing here—we’re drowning in them. I want what makes you, you. I want the memories that would hurt to lose. Try again, or step aside. I can return to you when you have a tribute worth offering.”
Reklaw looks stricken, then says quietly, “I recall one that means lots to me. During my training to become a monk, my first successful jump of any distance. I was very proud of what I’d accomplished. Does that work?”
Selene’s eyes narrow, and she smiles slightly, showing the tops of her needle teeth. She nods, “Very good, Mr Reklaw. Who has something else to offer?”
One by one, the comrades give the devil memories. She requires seven commitments before drafting the contract, and the adventurers, reluctantly, comply. Borark releases the memory of elation, of feeling absolute power, as he killed his own mother. The others gasp at the tale. Vali contributes the emotional experience during his bardic training.
Thunk offers the memory of his first handshake with Clunk. He wonders if this is enough, but the devil very readily accepts his fond memory of meeting his dear friend.
Selene smiles her very tooth smile and slowly raises one elegant, purple finger. Its blood red nail curves into the frigid air, and begins to glow. A pale green aura glows from it, and without warning, seven thin rays shoot out from the digit, striking each adventurer in the center of their forehead.
A feeling of being drained, of overwhelming loss, engulfs them. It lasts but a moment, but the deep feeling of irrevocable change rises from within each person in a different, keenly felt manner.
Reklaw’s loss leaves him feeling as if he no longer has the close control of his body he is used to, while Vali feels his true weapon, his voice, feels slightly less sweet than it did mere moments ago. Each of the party members experience this type of loss, subtle and pervading, and each is unsure of the long term effects upon themselves.
“Our contract is fulfilled, travelers. I bid you farewell,” Selene, stepping backward two paces, snaps her fingers and vanishes. Behind where she was just standing, a figure staggers forth from the darkness. It is a skeletal bugbear, limbs crooked as if broken bones had healed unset. His claws, nose and toes show signs of frostbite. His rheumy eyes are dull, but glitter as he spies Thunk in the group of his rescuers.
They load back into the truck and slowly make their way back up the very narrow tunnel. After much time, the vehicle finally reaches the larger cavern. As headlights swing toward its back wall, a small cache of some of the many lost things stored within the cave appear to the travelers. They get out to explore the seven disparate lay shaped packages.
Arman opens the purple velvet box to find a delicate, and likely quite valuable, necklace. The changeling holds it up to admire the glittering jewel nested in a filigree of silver before snapping its box closed and tucking it away.
Reklaw selects one of the small leather pouches. It is stained and a bit tattered. The rattle tells him the contents are neither coins nor gems. He spills a pair of ivory cubes into his hand, quickly recognizing them as Grifter’s Dice. Notorious in the world of thieves and cheats that Reklaw inhabited before coming to the Nine Hells, these uncommon gaming pieces possess a difficult-to-detect glamour of magic that allows the user to roll whatever number he whispers before the dice are cast.
Borak draws out an oddly shaped package to unwrap. A set of pan pipes made from small bones…child-sized bones…lays within. “Children…I hate children!” Borark mutters, but his heart doesn’t really seem into it as in earlier, more savage times of his life. Reflexively, almost bored, he dashes the instrument to the cold ground and grinds it to powder beneath his boot.
“A pity and a waste,” calls Vali as he selects his own treasure. “Those might have been Pipes of Friendship.” Borark snarls at him in response, but without true aggression.
Vali pulls from his own leather pouch a gold rimmed monocle. He screws it into to his eye and can see nothing different. He removes it, and examines it closely. A pair of arcane symbols for invisibility and for sight are etched in the frame, nearly hidden in the ornate scrolling. The bard smiles, happy with his treasure, which will allow him to see the unseen.
Thunk picks open the strings of the final small leather pouch, spilling out six large quartz stones, each cut exquisitely to throw the light. As he tucks the pouch into his pack, he wonders yet again why all the fuss for the stranger, Clunk, who has joined the party and is uncomfortably, strangely friendly to Thunk since he was found.
