Siege of Helm's Shieldhall

The forces inside the Shieldhall were led by Kaiden Miursa, the eldest son of Alcor Miursa, who had taken a strike force of Hellriders into Avernus proper to try and find a way to save the city. Kaiden was aided by Onthar Frume, and together they focused their defenses on the shieldhall's walls. The various civilians and non-combatants of the Shieldhall were moved into its underground basement, which was accessible only from the shieldhall's top floor, allowing the defenders to fight room by room should their defenses break.   The attackers were led by Janfire Mistmore and surrounded the Shieldhall on all four sides, allowing them to strike from any angle. While predominately Hell Knights, the attackers also included non-Elturian devils and were later reinforced with undead from Elturel's cemetary and an infernal warmachine.

For the first tenday of the siege, the Hell Knights launched attack after attack against the shieldhall, slowing wearing away at the defenders, who strained but did not break. As Hellriders were killed in the defense, their bodies were doused in holy water blessed by Helm to prevent their rising as a devil in their midst. While the dead still did become devils, they instead spawned from the River Styx, preventing Janfire from taking advantage of the confusion of a friend's corpse becoming an enemy.   Growing increasingly frustrated, Janfire requested more aid from Zariel to end the siege. Through Zariel's instruction, Janfire requisitioned undead from Gideon Lightward, a Zarielite cultist based in Elturel's cemetary that had been raising an undead army. Zariel also sent Janfire an infernal warmachine to break through the walls surrounding Helm's Shieldhall.   With these reinforcements, the Hell Knights successfully smashed through the sheildhall's defenses on the 3rd of Elient, swarming inside and overtaking the defenders, who led a panicked retreat to prepare for a last stand in the underground basement, the last line of defense between the devils and the civilians they were protecting. However, shortly after breaking through the defenses, Alesine Zadava, Arcus Miursa, Katya Sinaran, and Lulu, four members of the Lost Star Detectives, arrived to try and save who they could. The four of them fought on the heels of the devils in front of them, crippling the warmachine outside, clearing the ground floor of undead, whose members included the corpse of Katya's wife Emmeryn, and fighting through the upper levels, struggling greatly against a chain devil that had taken to torturing a few Hellriders over a makeshift inferno before killing them.   Meanwhile, Kinsey Eridanus and Xifira Mistmore, Janfire's daughter, had gotten seperated from the group before they arrived at the shieldhall, finding and rescuing Nadia Whitecreek, a Hellrider that tried to escape from the siege to fetch reinforcements but had been hunted by Hell Knights. After rescuing Nadia, the three were suddenly joined by the githyanki Dzarya, the final member of the Detectives who had been kidnapped by abishai days before and had only just escaped. After the four managed to slay a small group of Zarielite cultists and an infernal owlbear, they rushed to the shieldhall, where they finished off the warmachine that the attackers had just gotten operational again, and rejoined the others. Nadia chose to remain outside to try and hold off any further reinforcements.   The Detectives all reunited, the adventurers rushed downstairs and caught the tailend of the battle, as Janfire Mistmore and other Hell Knights were engaged in a fight against Hellriders and Onthar Frume. Frume was killed by an errant acid ball from Alesine, but the Detectives held their own against Janfire. Tragically, Xifira was killed by her own father, run through by his bone tail, as he desired to reunite their family in infernal service. Grief striken, the Detectives killed Janfire and doused Xifira's body with holy water, ending the siege and the threat of the Hell Knights, but at great personal cost.

Following Janfire's defeat, the large metal doors securing the sheildhall's civilians and last defenders were opened, and the remaining defenders quickly secured the grounds to prevent any more devils from taking advantage of their weakened state.   With Onthar killed, Kaiden became the main commander of the Helm's Shieldhall, and he was able to briefly reunite with his brother Arcus, though the two had a heated argument after Arcus encouraged Kaiden to leave the shieldhall and journey with them into Avernus proper to save the city, something Kaiden had already seen their father do and considered a suicide mission.

The Siege of Helm's Shieldhall marked the last pitched battle of the Elturel's damnation before the final Battle of Elturel in early 1498. While the city still contained plenty of devils, Hell Knights, and demons, the prior efforts of the Lost Star Detectives to stablize the situation meant that most of the following conflicts were small scale skirmishes.   Janfire's death was the final nail in the coffin for the Hell Knights' operation as an entity outside of the typical hierarchy of the Blood Legions, and following the end of the siege, most of the surviving Hell Knights were absorbed into pre-established infernal cohorts or were made a subdivision of a Blood Legion.   Following the battle, Helm's Shieldhall would serve as one of the four primary refuges for the duration of the Damnation of Elturel, alongside High Hall, Shiarra's Market, and later Maiden's Leap. Its walls were rebuilt using material and rubble from nearby buildings, which also served to give the defenders more visibaility and room to strike against attackers from a distance. These choices would prove vital during the Battle of Elturel, where the shieldhall again suffered another brutal siege by the demons of the Abyss.

Though worship of Helm was eclipsed in Elturel after its salvation by worship of Lathander and a strenghtened devotion to Torm, the city's Hellriders never forgot the aid Helm brought them in keeping them and their families safe during the Siege.   Today, a monument stands in the center of the shieldhall's courtyard, detailing the battle and listing the names of each defender that fell during the siege.