The friends are able to evade the pursuing devils, hiding among the cooling magma at the foot of the Mount of Hate. They are able to quiet Lula from moaning, his pain and misery written on his blistering face. Time passes, allowing for their pursuers to have given up. “Please, can we try to hurry?” rasps Lula through cracked lips, “I don’t know how much more of this infernal place that I can take.
Concerned, the group watch the angel, now unsteady on his feet, trudging behind them. They follow the rutted road running through the steaming sand. After an hour, Vali points at a banded metal box, turquoise in color, laying upside down on the track. Knowing if the protection offered from the his lemure form Vali flips it over and unlatches the lid. Within, a pair of long tridents are fitted into its depths. As the group cluster around to look at the slender weapons, they observe the infernal glow of fire flicker up the handles and tines.
“These are Flame Tongue tridents,” whispers Vali, “Powerful magic is bonded to these weapons!” He takes one for himself and tosses the other to Five.
Continuing onward, they come to the foot of stone bridge that glows an ominous orange. At the apex of the arch, a bone devil strides down toward them, swinging its tail to flare against the parapets of the bridge. It wears a grimacing smile on its gaunt, insectile face.
“Password?” it hisses at the group.
Unable to restrain himself, Five squeals, “Password? Isn’t it just ‘password?’”
Reklaw, rolling his eyes, casts Suggestion at the creature. “They want you up at the Tower of Pain.” The devil’s eye become unfocused momentarily, and when he again looks at the group through narrowed eyes, he spits, “And you will remain here!”
The group, nodding, wait until the devil is out of sight then cross the bridge. Here, they find several small, golden red creatures loitering against the bridge’s abutment. One grins, its long probosis-like nose twitching as it says, “We want something from you to allow you to pass!”
”And we want a cookie!” Five snaps at him.
The creature locks its beady eyes upon Five, “Where is this key?”
Five hesitates, then tries to correct the creature, “Not a key….a cookie!”
The pair glare at one another until Reklaw volunteers, “I have a key!” he helpfully pulls one from his pack, showing it to the creature.
“You would give us a KEY demands the creature, “Only a key can allow you to leave the fiery domain of Phlegethos! With this Key, my brother Mephits and I will leave. Gift it to us and you will be trapped in Plegethos!”
Reklaw quickly changes his mind about gifting his key to the magma mephits, and the fight is as quick as it is surprising. As the mephits die, they explode into their component droplets of lava, scalding the heroes. Their lemure forms, as ugly and inconvenient as they might be, offer much protection from the flaming liquid rock.
As the last mephit departs in terror, a ringing female voice cuts through the stultifying heat of the river of lava running quite hear them. “Did I hear you say you have a Key?” she demands. An erinyes, bedecked with six sword-wielding arms, slithers up to the group. She is flanked by several imps, each of whom has the end of a chain connected to a shackled goblin. The creature looks miserably at the group.
The erinyes’s voice rings through the foul-smelling air, “I shall let you keep your precious key if you do me a service!”
Not shaken, Vali responds, “If we can.”
The shedevil points at Lula, who moans gently at the rear of their group. “You transport your prisoner to the Courts of Infernal Justice. You will take mine, as well. I and my associates have more…pressing…obligations than transporting worthless prisoners to their eternal punishment.” Two of the erinyes’s arms point at a shivering goblin, pointed ears drooping, who is held in chains by the imps.
Reklaw notices that the goblin’s hand seem to be backward. He recognizes it as a rakshasa. He quickly produces his key.
The erinyes peers at the small key in Reklaw’s hand. “That is a key, but not the Key,” she sneers. “But you shall take my prisoner anyway. Keep him chained. He is a rakshasa, forced into manacles that will fit goblin wrists, but should he transform into his rakshasa form, the green iron will not give. He will lose his hands.” She smiles cruelly as the imps shake the goblin’s chains.
The group agree to relieve the erinyes of her charge.
After they have gone, Reklaw stares at the creature, “Are you the creature we met in Dis?”
The goblin, eyes shining, nods. “You also wear different faces from our last meeting. Are you going to bring me to the Courts of Infernal Justice?” whispers the rakshasa, in a piping goblin voice.
”I think not,” says Vali.
