Lasts night Dungeon World was pretty sweet. It having been months since we last played, we started in the midst of the endgame for one of the fronts. Hamshire was now overrun by a voracious swarm goblins. The cast included both old and new characters. From previous sessions, Gregor the Fighter and Piotr the Cleric of Torbath; new to the scene, Ssor the warforged Fighter, Regulus the Paladin of Torbath, and Dagolear the elf Wizard. After two disparate goblin swarm encounters, the new folks managed to handily undo the binding of Azathoth that the old guard had previously spent so many resources putting in place. The doorway to hell was opened. Regulus, after burning his sword hand to a stump trying to close the portal, opted for a noble sacrifice and stepped into the burning void. Everyone else followed him through. Thereafter saw a Perilous Journey undertaken across the plains of hell, searching for Cadeus, the man who had originally sacrificed himself to close Azathoth's portal, and been bound in hell in the bargain. Ssor set a brutal pace, his warforged-ness having no pity on his fleshy companions. Piotr maintained his connection to Torbath even in the depths of hell, and provided temporarily sanctified ground in which his companions could rest. Their travels were briefly interrupted when the devil lord Blix confronted the group, trying to figure out how and why a group of heroes had found their way into the nether realm. He was convinced to leave by Regulus, but only barely. Finally making their way to where Cadeus had been bound, on a platform above a lake of fire, they woke him from within his broken binding circle. Cadeus outlined how they could sacrifice an item of great power to both close the now open portal and return the group to the mortal plane. Piotr, having rescued the Shield of Torbath from the goblin swarm, briefly conferred with Torbath to assess whether its sacrifice would do the job. Torbath answered in the affirmative but also returned a warning not to trust the man before them. Regulus quickly grabbed the shield of Torbath and slammed it into Cadeus, who was thrown aside in a blast of holy light and revealed to be the devil lord Blix. Commanded by the word of law, the devil lord was forced to retreat. As he disappeared the crumpled form of Cadeus was revealed within the broken circle. The woke the old priest and enacted the ritual, Gregor and Ssor holding off the devil swarm that Blix brought down on them for ruining his deception. There was a tense moment when Ssor was almost carried off by the devils, but in the end our heroes sacrificed the artifact, closed the portal to hell, and found themselves back home. Unfortunately Blix and five other devils followed them through, escaping them and scattering out into the world. Shortly thereafter they took stock of their surroundings and realized that they were back home, but some three years in the past.
