02/18/2026: The Trip to Tantlin

The trip to Tantlin, the main city of the fifth ring of the Nine Hells, has been sidelined by an attack of ice mephits. Five of these knee-high tall creatures, seemingly made entirely of ice and fury, have beset the group with claws and fangs. 

Newt, the only fighter in the group, is utterly charmed by the creatures and has found a way to befriend them: food. He travels with a bottle of syrup, even he does not know why. Cleverly, he scoped snow and poured the syrup on, and first one mephit, then another, grew less savage.

The creature stops. It sniffs. One clawed hand reaches out with surprising delicacy and takes the offering.

Then another mephit shoulders its way forward.

Then another.

One by one, the fury goes out of them. They crouch in the snow, tiny and terrible and briefly, improbably content, licking syrup from their clawed fingers while Newt watches with the quiet satisfaction of a man who has always known, deep down, that the bottle would come in useful someday. The mephit climbs to his shoulder. Tick also carries a mephit, calmed by sweet snow provided by Newt.

Tall Glumbo, however, is not appeased. He has turned to strike at another mephit, releasing the one that tore his offered playing card in half. Now both mephits have vanished into the snow. The vandal has escaped his wrath, but not his memory. Glumbo crouches and retrieves the two ruined halves from where they lay on the grey ice, his jaw tight. He tucks them carefully into his pack. The mephit is gone and the snow gives nothing away. But Stygia is not so very large, and Tall Glumbo is not a man who forgets.

The group moves on.

Sergeant Blade had gestured vaguely in this direction, and vague is all they have to go on. The wind drives needles of ice against any exposed skin, and the sky above is the color of an bruise. But on the horizon the swirling snow thins. 

Spires.

As they grow closer, and a vast city resolves itself from the murk. Sprawling, frost-encrusted and built entirely upon a gigantic ice floe, it floats upon a river so enormous it can only be the Styx. 

Between the travelers and the city lies a bridge — a long pontooned span of black iron and rotting timber, its far end misted in fog. At the end closest to them, lift gate blocks the entrance, its arm down. Beside it squats a guardhouse, dark and seemingly abandoned.

The group approaches with caution.

Inside the guardhouse, a figure sits so perfectly still it might be a statue. It is tall — seven feet at least — with no discernible neck, its massive shoulders rising straight to a head encased in a heavy brass mask. The mask is expressionless by design: flat, featureless except for two narrow horizontal slits where eyes should be, and a faint suggestion of a grim mouth.

A window slides open. Red eyes glows down at them through the mask’s slits.

“A merregon,” Lynx whispers, taking a half-step back. “A faceless devil-soldier.”

The mask sweeps the group with the patient indifference before intoning, “State your business.”

The voice is not loud, exactly. It is hollow, and fills every available space between the nine travelers efficiently.

Freda steps forward, chin up, doing her best to project a confidence she does not entirely feel. They have business in Tantlin. They need to earn back their souls. They wish to cross the bridge.

The merregon opens a book — vast, leather-bound, its pages dense with script in a language none of them can read — and draws one armored finger down the page in a slow, deliberate zigzag before tapping at a particular entry.

“Yes,” the echoing voice says. “Sergeant Blade’s Intake Unit. Recent processing.” A pause. The window slams shut.

The merregon steps out of the guardhouse, moving without hurry. It crosses to a tarp-covered mound of snow and tugs the covering aside, revealing a banded iron chest. From within, the merragon removes several objects and sets them on the chest’s lid.

A steel collar, wide and heavy.

A brand, its handle long, its head already beginning to glow orange as the merregon snaps a small brazier to life with two fingers.

A quill — black, cruel-looking — and a small bottle of ink that pulses with cold green light.

“You will be Bonded,” the merregon announces. “Each of you will select one method. The Bond will track your debt, in scrip, to the Lord Levistus.” The red eyes move slowly across the group. “Pay your debt, and your soul will be returned. Fail to pay, and you become one of the Condemned. A permanent resident of Stygia.”

“Scrip?” Zardok demands. “What is scrip?”

“Scrip is the currency of the Bonded — those who may yet redeem their immortal souls. It is the currency of those such as yourselves.”

“How is scrip different from soul coins?” Nesquo presses. “We gave Sergeant Blade ours.”

The sound from behind the brass mask might be laughter. “You mean Sergeant Blade took your soul coin for the ruler of this Circle of Hell. Soul coins are the currency of the Infernal — the Established, those native to Hell. Not for the Bonded. Not for the Condemned. Your Bond — collar, brand, or tattoo — tracks what you owe to Lord Levistus. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

Lynx swallows carefully and gestures to the collar, the brand and the quill. “What’s the difference between them?”

The red eyes find the dragonborn and hold there, unblinking, long enough that Lynx shifts uncomfortably. Then the merregon lifts the collar in one gloved hand. “The collar is the least painful. It is also the most expensive, and the most visible. Those who wear it are known immediately for what they are: Bonded. Low-caste. In debt to the Hells. There are those in Tantlin who will treat the collared accordingly.”

It sets the collar down and takes up the brand, now glowing a deep, molten orange. Strangely, no heat radiates from either it nor the brazier. “The brand is most painful but least expensive. It can be hidden beneath a sleeve, which affords some discretion.” A beat. “Discretion has value, here.”

The merragon sets the brand aside and lifts the quill, turning it slowly. The green ink in the bottle pulses like a heartbeat. “The tattoo is also painful, for the arcane ink does not flow gently. But it can be hidden entirely — beneath hair, beneath helm, beneath collar or cloak. Of the three methods, it is the most easily concealed.”

The merregon turns to Freda. When it speaks, its voice drops just slightly, almost a threat.

“For those whose flesh is covered with fur or feathers,” it says, “the collar is the only option.”

Freda holds very still. Then she bends her head.

The merregon clicks the thick steel band into place around her neck and spins it until a number blazes red against the metal just below her beak. “The collar will show your original debt to Lord Levistus.”

The number “50” glows brightly on the arched steel surface.

“You are also responsible for the toll that permits crossing of the bridge into Tantlin.” The number ticks upward.

53.

“Further, you must pay for bridge maintenance and associated fees, added to your account.” Another tick.

55.

“The cost of the collar itself, and Tabulation Account membership.” The number settles, flashing.

65.

Freda stares down at it. Fifteen scrip added to her original debt of 50, in the time it takes to draw breath. The collar is cold against her feathers and will not, she suspects, grow warmer over time.

The merregon turns to face the rest of them, the brand reheating in the brazier, the bottle of green ink pulsing its slow cold pulse.

“Who is next?”

The bridge stretches out behind it into the fog, and Tantlin waits beyond, and the number on Freda’s collar glows like embers in the gathering darkness. Repaying their debt to Hell, it is becoming clear, may be considerably more difficult than any of them had imagined.