How Mialee Windseeker became the Angel of Death

This story comes from the Ebonvarld Annals of History (from my homebrew world of Ebonvarld): Mialee Windseeker began as a carefree and free spirited Aellar(winged elf). She left home in the Stonewood Mts as many do to seek adventure and find her place in the world. As a sorcerer/ranger, she was certain she could handle herself. She did after all, have her trusted companions in the form of Maxwell, her golden eagle companion, and Watson, her forest owl familiar. During her travels she flies over the elven forest of Boswood and notices the coastal village of Bayhome being attacked by a digester. Something inside her compels her to intervene and she rushes to their aid. She would soon realize the limits of her power as Maxwell was shot from the sky by the digester's acid jet, dissolving before he hit the ground. Though the fight was rough, she did fend off the digester and the village showed her gratitude. While meeting with the village elder, Mialee meets Nialondel(DMPC), a scout for the village. During the ensuing feast in her honor, a group of adventurers arrive bearing grim tidings. They had encountered a goblin and kobold scouting party outside the village. Of this party of adventures was Flarebrass, a red dragon bound in service to good by a magic amulet that kept him in human form though he did not know it, he was also a cleric of Pelor. Next was Mr. J(John Silver), as he preferred to be called, who was Flarebrass's handler and a warmage.  There was also Onahan, a greenfolk barbarian; Cardinal, aka Carie, a piper bard; Valhan, a human monk; and finally Freya, an houri with a dark past. Collectively they came to be known as the Bayhome Fellowship. They laid out a plan to help the village guard itself from attack while the fellowship took the fight to their foes. In the morning they were to strike out, they spotted a massive enemy armada heading south along the coast. This would not bode well and only strengthened their need to deal with the enemy leaders quickly so as to scatter their forces. Upon approaching the enemy encampment, Flarebrass and Onahan accidentally set off perimeter traps and so Mr. J decides to blast a hole through the perimeter using scorching rays. This sets off all the traps in the spell's path and alerts the whole camp to their presence. Mr. J had planned for this though. He, Onahan, Nialondel and Flarebrass were the decoys. Meanwhile, Carie, Freya, and Mialee went around the flank to get to the leaders. However, this is where the plan went south. As soon as Carie, Freya, and Mialee entered the camp, they ran into a group of goblin worg riders who were just as surprised to see them. The fighting was now in full swing on both fronts and the two camp commanders decided to enter the fray. The first commander was Kur-kra, a kobold barbarian, an oddity for his race but he was unable to use magic so he trained in the use of a spear to guard his sister from the frontlines. The other commander was his sister, Sra-kra. She was a sorcerer/cleric of Kurtulmaak(kobold god) and the tactician. The fight began to turn against the fellowship as Freya went down. Flarebrass had been unleashed  and he was burning down the camp and all in it. Kur-kra managed to land a critical blow to Flarebrass and so it became a stand off. Sra-kra was bleeding and offered a truce to break the stand off. Both would fall back to aid their ailing allies. Flarebrass was against this but in his distraction he was bound again by the amulet and forced back into human form. So they ordered a retreat as Mialee carried a bloody Freya to safety. The others had also sustained injuries and so they fell back from the kobold's camp to regroup. Fortunately, they did cause severe damage to the kobold/goblin force and forced Sra-kra and Kur-kra to retreat as well. The kobolds would continue to hound the fellowship as they gained reinforcements. Mr J, Freya, and Flarebrass would fall victim to the attacks. Their heads thrown at the fellowship's feet. New members would arrive to aid the fellowship in time. The large amount of fighting and magic use around the village had awoken a nest of spellgaunts which began to attack. The kobolds/goblins fell back to their camp as the party had to stop the spellgaunts from taking objects, and people, with magic back to their lair to feed upon. Carie had nearly been carried off. The spellgaunts did manage to raid a merchant's wares however and he pleaded with the party to bring back his merchandise. So the fellowship headed into the belly of the beast and found many more spellgaunts and their queen. After their victory, they notice a magically sealed door that had likely caused the spellgaunts to gather. They open it to discover a mysterious underground stone complex that was made by humans. Rows of portraits of humans in strange black suits in one hall showed proof of the former inhabitants. As they went deeper, they discovered why humans no longer inhabited the complex. Demons and devils had found a way onto the material plane from somewhere deeper in. The fellowship battles the fiends and push deeper in. In the main chamber, they observe that large stone and glass buildings had been erected as an underground city. A city now overrun by the undead and fiends of the lower planes. A necropolis beneath the elven forest. They try to explore some of the ruins to learn what had transpired, but one building nearby stuck out. It was an underground mansion but it appeared to be well maintained. As the other party members held back the dark denizens, Mialee, Valhan and one other entered the mansion. Inside was as clean and maintained as the outside. It was as if the place had never been unoccupied. As the three entered the main hall, they are graced by the elegance of the room with its high ceiling, crystal chandelier, and gilded trim. The beauty was offset by what sat in a throne atop the balcony stairs. A glabrezu demon with two succubi draped across his lap. He offers the party greetings and says that he may empower such bold adventurers. In order to receive such power, they need only sell their souls. 10 years of power, wealth, or prestige would be theirs and at the end, he would claim them. Valhan, while he sought to perfect his monk arts, could not do so in such a corrupt way. Mialee was unsure, she thought about the friends she had lost, the tough odds they kept facing, and she wondered… could my sacrifice be worth it? Could I end this problem by accepting this contract? As she pondered these questions, the third party member ran from the hall knowing that they could neither accept a contract nor fight this demon and his cohorts. The third party member was set upon by a squad of hezrou demons. Valhan was ready to leave but Mialee was not. She wanted to try to take her fate in her hands for once to help her friends. Valhan wouldn't let her make that choice so the glabrezu said that if no one took his deal he would simply kill them both. As it was becoming obvious that Mialee wanted to, the demon said that she and Valhan should fight and the winner would be granted either leave of his presence or the contract at their choosing. Valhan was forced to fight Mialee and he ultimately killed her with a flurry of blows. The rest of the fellowship would seek to fight their way out of the necropolis.  No one else knew what Valhan had done. It would not be the end for Mialee though. With her mind made up to accept the contract, she had become the blood sacrifice for it. She would spend the next 10 years in the nine layers of hell being tortured and tormented. Shown how even though she was willing to sacrifice herself for her friends, they betrayed her. Killed her and left her to rot in hell. She would be fused with a horned devil and granted powerful magic items to take out her revenge. When she returned to the material plane, only a day had passed.(time dialation along the wheel of planes 1 day on the material plane equals 10 years on the outerplanes) She would seek to exact her revenge, but first she would need to seek out the Black Wizard, the dark master of the forces she had so often fought. This story is yet to be finished…

DM note*: Aside from my wife and I, I have had 6 other players playing one or more characters throughout this setting. There are many other characters not mentioned in this fellowship but they were not relevant to Mialee's fall. My wife put in her a desire to help those she cared about, but that is what got her killed. The Black Wizard is the original BBEG but Mialee became a second. Whether or not there is an alliance or rivalry between the BBEGs is yet to be decided.

[zombify_post]